__________________________________________________________________

        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 53: 1907
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cheer From Grace Received

   (No. 3020)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE. NEWINGTON.

   "And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve
   years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment: for she
   said within herself, If Imay but touch His garment, I shall be whole.
   But Jesus turned Him about, and when He saw her, He said, Daughter, be
   of good comfort; your faith has made you whole. And the woman was made
   whole from that hour." Matthew 9:20-22.

   "But as He went the people thronged Him. And a woman having an issue
   ofblood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians,
   neither could be healed ofany, came behind Him, and touched the border
   of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus
   said, Who touched Me? When all denied, Peter and they that were Him
   said, Master, the multitude throng You and press You, and You say, Who
   touched Me? And Jesus said, Somebody has touched Me: for I perceive
   that virtue is gone out of Me. And when the woman saw that she was not
   hid, she came

   trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared unto Him before
   all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was
   healed immediately. And He said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort:
   your faith has made you whole: go in peace."

   Luke 8:42-48

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon this Miracle, published in the
   Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, are as follows--No. 1809, Volume 30--
   MAY I?; No. 2018, Volume 34--CURED AT LAST and No. 2019, Volume 34--SHE
   WAS NOT HID.]

   THE words of good cheer which our Savior spoke to this woman were not
   given to her while she was coming to Him, for that would have been
   premature. She had not avowed her desire to be healed. She had uttered
   no prayer. She had actually as yet sought nothing at the Savior's hands
   and, therefore, she had not reached the stage at which comfort is
   fitting. She does not appear to have required comfort in taking her
   first step--she was resolved upon that and she took it without fail. It
   is one of the most unwise things under Heaven to comfort people who do
   not require it. When we are dealing with enquirers, our love may bring
   them loss if we offer them words of cheer when they need admonition or
   rebuke. Any comfort which keeps a soul short of Christ is dangerous. A
   sinner's main business is to get to Jesus, to exercise personal faith
   in the personal Savior--and we have no right to a gleam of comfort
   until we have heartily and honestly trusted in Christ. If
   encouragements to believe are used as a sort of halfway house to rest
   in before actually believing, they are mischievously used and may ruin
   our souls!

   This afflicted woman did not require to be cheered so soon, for she had
   such confidence in Christ and such a resolve to put her confidence to
   the test, that difficulties could not hinder her, nor crowds keep her
   back. The Savior was in the press--she joined the throng and with a
   holy boldness mixed with a sacred modesty she came behind Him, only
   wishing to touch His garment, or even the fringe of it--feeling
   persuaded that if she did but come into contact with the Lord, no
   matter how, she would be healed. According to her faith so was it done
   to her! And it was after she had been healed that our Lord spoke
   comfortingly to her He brought not forth the cup of cordial till the
   need for it had fully come. After she had touched Him and her faith had
   made her whole, a trial awaited her and her spirit was ready to
   faint--and then the tender One cheered her by saying, "Your faith has
   made you whole: go in peace."

   It happens to many and many a heart that after it has obtained the
   blessing of salvation and has been healed of the disease of sin, a time
   of fear occurs. After it has made its confession of faith, a season of
   trembling follows occurring, perhaps, as a reaction from the joy of
   salvation, a rebound of the spirit from excessive delight. We eat the
   heavenly provision eagerly and it is sweet to our taste and yet,
   afterwards, our long hunger having weakened us, we do not digest the
   food with ease--and pains ensue for which medicine is required. We fear
   and tremble because of the greatness of the mercy received and then
   this word is needed--"Be of good comfort: your faith has made you
   whole."

   We will meditate, first, upon this woman's need of comfort Secondly,
   upon the comfort which Jesus gave her And then, in the third place we
   will enter a little further into that comfort and think of the faith
   which Jesus Christ declared had made her whole--the faith to which He
   pointed her for comfort.

   I. Come, then, dear Friend, and attentively consider THIS WOMAN'S NEED
   OF GOOD CHEER. She felt in her body that she was made whole and yet she
   stood in urgent need of comfort. This necessity arose from several
   causes.

   First, she had hoped to obtain the blessing secretly, but she was found
   out She thought that by coming behind the Lord Jesus in the press, she
   would not be observed. And she anxiously desired secrecy because the
   peculiarity of her bodily disorder caused her to dread publicity. She
   aimed at gaining her end and retreating unnoticed into the multitude.
   Truth to tell, she stole the cure! Her touch was given in stealth, no
   eye resting upon her. No disciple seems to have spied her out, nor had
   anyone in the throng perceived the deed, or else when the Master said,
   "Who touched Me?" one or other of them would have pointed her out. So
   far she had shunned observation and even the Savior, Himself, had not
   seen her with His bodily eyes. But faith such as hers could not be
   hidden. It was not meet that such a flower should bloom unseen. She is
   called for and she stands discovered, the center of all eyes.

   You, perhaps, dear Friend, have hoped to find salvation and to keep it
   a secret. You entered the House of Prayer a stranger to the things of
   God, but very anxious--there you sat and wept--but you tried to conceal
   your feelings from those who sat near you. You have gone in and out of
   the place of worship, seeking the Savior, but fearing to be suspected
   of doing so. Nobody spoke to you or, if anyone did, you evaded all the
   questions that were put to you, for you were as jealous of your secret
   as if you carried diamonds and were afraid of thieves!

   Now you have believed in the Savior, or at least you hope so, but you
   court secrecy just as much. You have found honey and you have tried to
   eat it all alone--not because you grudge others eating it with you, but
   because you are afraid of them. You did not wish mother or father,
   kinsfolk or acquaintance to suspect you of being a Christian. You
   shrank from the blessed charge and desired to be a secret friend of
   Jesus--a Nicodemus, or a Joseph of Arimathea. To your great amazement
   you have been found out. Like Saul, you hid among the stuff, but the
   people have called you forth. Your love to Jesus has oozed out and is
   spoken of by many! Do you wonder? How can fire be hidden? Your speech
   has betrayed you. Your manner and spirit have revealed you as odors
   betray sweet flowers. And now that it is out, you feel a sinking of
   spirit at the notice you have attracted. Your modesty cries, "They take
   me for a Christian. Can I live like a Christian? Shall I be able to
   adorn my profession? They have discovered me in the family--my brothers
   and sisters see that there is a change in me. Is it a real change? Or
   shall I turn out to be one of those deceivers who have a name to live,
   and yet are dead?" Your heart fails you for fear of future backsliding
   and apostasy. And well it may be, for flesh is weak and the world is
   bewitching--and Satan is subtle and deceitful. Whatever comfort there
   is in our present meditation will be meant for you since it is intended
   for persons embarrassed by being forced out of the shade of solitude
   into the glare of observation--troubled because they fear that they
   shall not honor the holy name which is named upon them. To you who are
   in that condition, Jesus says, at this moment, "Be of good comfort:
   your faith has made you whole."

   This poor woman, in addition to being found out, had been constrained
   to make a public personal testimony. As we have already noticed, her
   case was a very special one in which privacy would naturally be
   courted. But that privacy had been invaded--the Savior had looked for
   her and had demanded, "Who touched Me?" And she, all trembling and
   afraid, had been constrained to fall down before Him and to tell Him
   all the truth! Do you wonder that the excitement was too much for her?
   The people had been astonished as they heard of the wondrous power
   which had emanated from the Person of Christ, even through the fringe
   of His garment--and that astonishment, in a great measure, referred to
   her. She was the observed of all observers! Of her cure she had to make
   a public acknowledgment. She was equal to the task. Being brought to
   bay, she did her work bravely and bore full and telling testimony. Take
   careful note that our Lord did not

   bid her be of good cheer till she had done so! She trembled before she
   confessed the Lord's deed of Grace which had been worked upon her, but,
   as soon as she had made a public avowal, her Lord said to her,
   "Daughter, be of good comfort."

   I have known certain timid ones who have wished to unite with the
   Church on the sly and to make no open confession either by word of
   mouth or by Baptism. I have refused to be a party to the breeding of
   cowards, and they have lived to thank me for what seemed a harsh
   demand! Yet, when the confession has been made, once and for all, many
   brave hearts have been full of anxiety. They have confessed Christ
   before men--they have proclaimed what the Lord has done for their
   souls--and after it has been all over, they have been overwhelmed with
   a sense of responsibility and have said within themselves, "What great
   things will now be expected of me? What have I had the courage to say?
   Shall I be able to live up to it all?" After the bold, open confession,
   comes the inward shrinking! Though they are not sorry that they made
   the admission for, on the contrary, they would make it a thousand times
   over if they could glorify Christ thereby, yet they know their weakness
   and tremble lest they should ever behave themselves so as to prove
   unworthy of the cause of their Beloved Redeemer! If you, dear Friend,
   have just come out from the world and have newly said, "I am on the
   Lord's side," do not be surprised if what you have just done should,
   upon calm consideration, look almost like presumption. A sense of fear
   is natural when you see to what a service your dedication vows have
   bound you. At such a time Jesus will give you the comfort of the text,
   "Be of good cheer: your faith has made you whole." May you have Grace
   to receive it by faith and to drink in all its consolation!

   This, however, is not quite all the reason for the woman's needing
   encouragement at the moment the Lord bestowed it. This woman, no doubt,
   had a very deep reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ She had such an
   esteem for Him that even His garments were thought by her to be
   saturated with healing energy! And now, when she found herself
   immediately in His Presence, she trembled and was afraid. She had come
   behind Him, no doubt, to a great extent out of modesty and humility as
   well as out of timidity. But now she finds herself face to face with
   the glorious Lord and He is asking her questions--and in full view of
   all the people she has to acknowledge her faith in Him. I hardly think
   that she was afraid of the people, but I do think that her faith was so
   reverential that she felt an awe at being found immediately in the
   Presence of the Lord.

   Beloved Friend, you have been singing lately--

   "Happy day, happy day, When Jesus washed my sins away," and you have
   joined in meetings where all have been filled with a sacred delight
   because they have met with Jesus. And I should not wonder if when you
   have been alone at home afterwards, and you have thought the matter
   over, it has seemed too gracious a thing to be really true that the
   Lord of Glory had lovingly communed with you! As your thoughts of Him
   have risen in reverential love, you have said, "Is it possible? Is it
   true? Am I dreaming? Has the Son of God really looked on me in love?
   Can it be true that He who wears the majesty of Heaven, has set His
   heart upon me and has come to tabernacle in my breast? This is a
   miracle of miracles! Is it, indeed, a fact?" You have felt pressed down
   by the weight of the Divine Goodness. I remember well, not only the joy
   I had when I found the Savior, but the horror of great darkness which
   fell upon me within a very short time after I had rejoiced with
   unspeakable joy. It was on this account I knew that I had found the
   Lord--I was fully assured of my salvation and full ofjoy as to my
   possession of His love. But then I asked, "Is it not too good to be
   true? Is salvation altogether of Free Grace? Is there an everlasting
   love of God and is it fixed on me? Am I, indeed, an heir of God and a
   joint-heir with Jesus Christ?" The brightness of the Glory blinded my
   weak eyes--by floods of amazing love I was carried off my feet! Are you
   in such a condition? Then it is time for the Savior's gentle words to
   sound in your heart, "Be of good comfort: your faith has made you
   whole." When a reverent sense of the Lord's amazing condescension
   causes us to swoon at heart, He will stay us with flagons and comfort
   us with apples. This is a sweet melancholy which Infinite Love can soon
   relieve.

   Perhaps the greatest reason for the trembling of the woman in the
   narrative lay in a sense of her faulty coming. When she looked back at
   the way in which she had approached the Lord, she saw a mass of faults
   in it--as we may well do in ours. When she had been made whole, her
   faith would say to her, "The blessed Lord did not deserve that you
   should come behind Him and touch His garment in that unbelieving
   fashion. See what a Savior He is! What love, what tenderness shines in
   His face! Why did you not openly come to Him? You crouched in the
   rear--why did you not look Him full in the face and crave His mercy? He
   would have received you freely--why did you suspect His Grace? You may
   have wounded Him by doubting His willingness to bless you. You should
   not have indulged such unbelief." After a seeker has found the Lord and
   has experienced salvation, he is sometimes tempted to question whether
   he is really a Believer in Jesus. He reasons within himself thus--"My
   faith is so mixed with unbelief that I am ashamed of it. Why did I come
   to Jesus in such a way as I did? It was well to come, but oh that I had
   come in a more childlike spirit and that I had done Him the justice to
   have a greater confidence in Him!" Do you, dear Friend, know this
   experience? If so, to you and to all others who are thus exercised, the
   comfort of our text is addressed!

   Very likely conscience would charge the trembling woman with dishonest
   stealth in her way of getting her cure. "You felt, at the time, that
   you had no right to the blessing, but you snatched at it and did not
   ask the Savior's leave to take it! You thought that you would be healed
   and then run away--and none would be any the wiser--thus you robbed the
   Lord of His Glory. Can a blessing rest on such a way of acting?"
   Conscience made her tremble and, therefore, the Savior as good as said,
   "Daughter, do not suspect your faith, for it has made you whole and,
   therefore, it is good faith. However it acted, it has brought you
   healing--therefore do not distress yourself about its imperfections,
   but go in peace." He pointed her for comfort to the fact that however
   faulty might be the way of her coming, it had healed her and,
   therefore, she might well be content. Is there not also a word of cheer
   in this for us? If we have been renewed in heart and life, the faith by
   which this change was worked cannot but be good!

   Perhaps, too, she might have felt that it was sadly too bold of her, a
   woman unclean according to the Law, to push among the throng and dare
   to touch the Lord, Himself. Many and many a time my heart has whispered
   to itself, "How could you be so bold as to trust Christ?" The devil has
   called it presumption and my trembling heart has feared that it might
   be so. One thing I know--I am certain that I am healed, even as the
   woman knew that the cure was worked in her! This I know, that I am not
   what I once was, but I am made a new creature in Christ Jesus! Yet the
   question will propose itself, "How can it be that you dared to dash in
   and seize on mercy, being such a sinner and so utterly unworthy?"

   For my own part, I confess that I acted toward the Lord Jesus somewhat
   like a poor starving dog who saw meat in the butcher's shop and could
   not restrain himself from laying hold of it and running away with it!
   Many a butcher would chase the wretched creature and take the meat from
   him, but our Savior is of a nobler temper. If our Lord Jesus sees us
   grasp His mercy, He will never take it away from us! He says, "Him that
   comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." O you who are quite unfit to
   come to Christ and altogether unworthy of His favor, you are the very
   people who may come and welcome! O you who say that you have no warrant
   to come to Jesus, He would have you come without any warrant but His
   own Word which says, "Whoever will, let him come." Let your lack of
   inward warrant be your warrant! You are needy and sinful--let that be
   your passport! Come along with you and boldly grasp the covenanted
   mercy! It will not be theft, for Jesus has already given over Himself
   and all that He has to all who are willing to have Him! Have courage to
   take freely what the Lord freely gives--

   "To sinners poor, like me and you, He says Hell 'freely give.' Come,
   thirsty souls, and prove it's true-- Drink, and forever live!"

   Yet it may be that after you have done so--and have obtained the
   blessing--you will fall into a fainting fit and swoon with fear because
   you question your right to it. Listen to a word of comfort. "Possession
   is nine tenths of the law," and it is all the ten tenths of the Gospel!
   So long as you have Christ, there is no need to ask how you got Him.
   Yet the trembling conscience whispers, "You had no right to believe.
   You are not the man who should have ventured trust in Jesus." Then you
   will need a cheering word and then you will have it, even as our dear
   Master said, "Daughter, be of good comfort: your faith has made you
   whole." Let what Divine Grace has done for you plead your justification
   for having believed in Jesus! If you are, indeed, changed and renewed,
   question not your faith, but believe yet more--and you shall see
   greater things than these!

   Thus I set forth the woman's need of comfort. And if anyone else is in
   a similar case to hers, let him look up and be of good cheer, for her
   feet have trodden the way of fear before him. Let him say, as Augustus
   Toplady did--

   "If my Lord Himself reveals No other good I need! Only Christ my wounds
   can heal, Or silence my complaint.

   He that suffered in my place Shall my Physician be-- I will not be
   comforted Till Jesus comforts me."

   II. May the Holy Spirit rest upon us while we notice THE COMFORT WHICH
   JESUS GAVE HER. He said to her, "Daughter, be of good comfort: your
   faith has made you whole."

   There was comfort in the loving title. To call her "Daughter" was most
   kind and tender. I suppose that she must have been of much the same age
   as our Lord and, therefore, He did not call her, "Daughter," because of
   her youth. When our Lord said, "Daughter," He expressed His tender
   consideration for her which made Him feel towards her as tenderly as a
   father to a child. "Sister" would have been the word if He had only
   meant human relationship, but, "Daughter," meant careful affection.
   While Jesus is our Brother, there is a sense in which He is also our
   Father--and He exercises towards His poor, downcast children, a
   father's pity and care.

   Such a title must have dispelled her fears. To be so near of kin to Him
   who had worked a matchless cure upon her was consolation enough. Let
   our tried and cast-down friends rest with us concerning this
   matter--you have believed in Jesus and you have confessed His name and
   you are made whole--go your way in peace! From now on you belong to
   Christ and you are related to Christ as His daughter or son. Do not,
   therefore, question your right, since the Grace of adoption has
   confirmed it. If the Lord calls you His daughter, you did no wrong when
   you touched your Father's garment. If He avows you as His child, be not
   so unwise as to question the Divine declaration! Your rights and
   privileges are almost boundless. You may do much more than touch His
   garment's hem--you may lean on His breast! He gives you greater
   privileges than those which you have yet enjoyed, yes, favors beyond
   what you ask or even think! To those who believe on Him, He gives the
   right and privilege to become the sons of God, even to as many as
   believe on His name, so that all question about your right to do this
   or that may be ended, for He calls you His own beloved child and says,
   "Be of good comfort."

   The main point of consolation was that she was cured. Jesus said to
   her, "Your faith has made you whole," which would bring her comfort in
   several ways, for, first, it was a great consolation that her impurity
   was gone. So, my Brothers and Sisters, if you have believed in Jesus,
   you are no longer regarded as unclean before the Lord. The blood of the
   Lord Jesus has removed your defilement. You are, "accepted in the
   Beloved." His blood, like the hyssop of which David sang, has purged
   you and you are clean. Do not look upon yourself as being what you are
   not, but know yourself to be whiter than snow in Christ Jesus. In the
   removal of your guilt and the renewal of your nature, the source of
   your defilement is destroyed! Do not, therefore, hide your face and
   stand afar off from God, but come boldly to the Throne of Grace, since
   Grace has made you meet to come. When my anxious Brother or Sister, you
   come before the Lord with the recollection of all your past
   transgressions, you may well be ashamed and confounded and feel as if
   you should never open your mouth any more--but know of a surety that
   your sins have ceased to be--they shall not be mentioned against you
   any more forever! God, even the God of Judgment, has blotted out the
   record! Humble yourself for having been a transgressor, but let a sense
   of perfect forgiveness embolden you in coming to your Savior!

   Whatever you once were, God views you not as you were in yourself, but
   as what you are in Christ Jesus. When you come to His Table and feast
   among His family, do not hesitate to feel at home, although it cannot
   be denied that you once stood at the swine-trough and hungered after
   husks. Say within your believing heart, "Whatever I was, my Father has
   kissed me and put a ring on my hand and shoes on my feet. Therefore I
   will eat and drink as He bids me and I will not mar the music and the
   merriment by unbelieving lamentations. My Father rejoiced over me
   because He had received me safe and sound, and shall I not be glad at
   being thus received?" God be thanked that though you were the servants
   of sin, you have obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine which was
   delivered unto you--and you are now brought into the glorious liberty
   of the children of God! Though you were once unclean, polluted and
   polluting, it may be said of you, "But you are washed, but you are
   sanctified." Perhaps your old name will stick to you as it did to Rahab
   the harlot and to Simon the leper--but do not feel degraded since the
   Lord has turned away your reproach. Hear Jesus Christ Himself say to
   you, "Daughter, be of good comfort: your faith has made you whole."

   Remember that and rejoice in His Presence. You have a right to be among
   His people, for your faith has made you whole--and this is the mark
   which all His people wear. You are a sinner, it is true, but you are a
   sinner saved from wrath

   through Infinite Love! You are no longer a miserable sinner, so why
   should you call yourself so? You are a happy, blessed, forgiven child
   whom the Lord has taken from the dunghill and set among His princely
   children. Rejoice, therefore, because your faith has made you whole! Is
   not this a theme for boundless gratitude? Come boldly into the Church!
   Come boldly to the Throne of Grace for you are so cleansed by the blood
   of Atonement that you may come unquestioned even into the Holy of
   Holies! Has not Jesus said, "He that is washed is clean every whit?"

   The woman was comforted by being made to see in her cure that Jesus was
   not angry with her Our Lord in effect said to the saved woman, "Have
   you been afraid that you did wrong in touching Me? Are you fearful lest
   I should be grieved because you did not believe enough in Me to come
   and face Me, but must steal behind Me? Do you suspect that I shall
   blame you because of the littleness of your faith? Now"--He puts it so
   sweetly--"do not think so, but be of good comfort: for your faith has
   made you whole." Though her faith dared only to touch the hem of His
   garment, it was evidently acceptable faith, for because of it the Lord
   had made her whole! It is clear that the Lord has not rejected our
   faith when He acknowledges and honors it. He cannot be vexed at a
   confidence which He has evidently rewarded!

   Beloved Friend, has your faith been such that it has made you abhor
   sin? Has it been such that the things you once loved you now hate--and
   the things you once hated you now love? Has your faith made a complete
   change in you? Are you a new man or woman in Christ Jesus? Have you
   been made morally and spiritually whole? Then be sure that no wrong
   faith could have worked this good work in you! A faith that produces
   wholeness or holiness of life cannot have been a mistake! Whether in
   your coming to Jesus you came behind Him or before Him. Whether you
   touched His gracious hand or touched His garment's hem. Whether you did
   it secretly or did it publicly--all these enquiries are interesting,
   but not essential--for if a change of heart has been worked in you and
   you are saved, then the Lord Jesus must be pleased with you! He could
   not have worked a great work in you and yet be angry with you and,
   therefore, you need not be troubled as to the way in which you came to
   Him. "Be of good comfort: your faith has made you whole," is a most
   sweet and effectual way of lulling fears to rest!

   Possibly the poor woman may have been haunted by the fear that she
   would suffer a relapse, but our Lord consoles her by the assurance that
   her faith had effectually made her whole. She had not obtained a little
   time of deliverance from the evil, so that it would recur again, but
   she was made whole. The Lord gives her a medical certificate! He sends
   her forth with a clean bill of health! Oh, how sweet it is when Jesus
   Christ gives to any of us a full assurance of complete salvation so
   that we are delivered from all fear of the malady's return and can walk
   abroad free from fear! I know that some Christians think that after
   Christ has fed us and given us new hearts, the old hearts may come
   back--and though His Grace in us is a well of water which He promises
   shall spring up to everlasting life, yet they think that it may dry up
   to the last drop. Beloved, I do not thus read the Word of God--the very
   opposite is clear to me in Sacred Writ! The work of God in the soul is
   a lasting and an everlasting work! If you are once healed by Christ, He
   has worked in you an effectual cure which will hold good throughout
   time and throughout eternity! Solomon truly said, "I know that whatever
   God does, it shall be forever." He who has made you whole will keep you
   whole, for His gifts and calling are without repentance!

   The comfort to the woman in the narrative was meant, as we have seen,
   to meet the trial occasioned by her open confession. She had been
   driven to reveal her secret and this, to a large extent, caused her
   trembling. She would rather have hidden in the crowd, but she was
   called to the front and made to confess Jesus before all. The Savior,
   in effect, says, "You need not be ashamed to tell your story for it
   ends well, since you are made whole. You need not be ashamed to let
   everybody know that your faith has healed you. What does it matter what
   your sickness was, if you are now recovered from it?" It will be no
   disgrace to us to confess our guilt if, at the same moment, we are
   assured of full forgiveness! It is annoying to hear persons talk
   flippantly of their sins before conversion as though they were proud of
   them. They seem to glory in them as a Greenwich pensioner might boast
   of his battles and his broken bones. Such things are to be mentioned
   with blushes and tears. Say as little as you can about those things of
   which you are now ashamed, and let what you say be spoken in lowliest
   penitence. Still, there are times when you are bound to tell out your
   case to the praise of the Glory of the Grace which so abounded where
   your sin abounded! And then you need not be afraid to tell your story,
   for Grace has made it end so well. Let the world know that though
   foully defiled, you came into contact with the Savior by simply, humbly
   believing in Him--and that by this simple means you are saved.

   Once more, if anyone is conscious that faith has saved him, he may take
   to himself the good cheer of the text and use it wherever he goes, for
   nothing can happen to him so bad as that which has been removed.' 'Your
   faith has saved you," is an antidote for many ills. "I am very poor,"
   says one. So was this woman, for she had spent all that she had upon
   physicians. But Jesus said to her, "Your faith has made you whole." "I
   am very sick," cries a friend, "I feel low and ill." But "your faith
   has saved you"--is not this joy enough? Oh, what a blessing it is to be
   saved! That you are saved is enough to set all your being ablaze with
   joy! I am sure that the healed woman felt rich, though she had not two
   pence to chink together in her pocket! She was made whole by faith and
   that was wealth enough for her! To be one of the Lord's saved ones is
   joy enough to bear up the heart under every affliction!

   Do you not see that if your faith has changed your character and
   delivered you from the desperate plague of sin, there remains no longer
   any impossibility or even difficulty in the way of duty? You have been
   half afraid to try to teach the children in the Sunday school but,
   surely, since your faith has made you whole, you can teach a few little
   children! You have been afraid to address a score of people in a
   village chapel. But you need not be afraid to try if God has called
   you--for the faith which has made you whole can give you "a word in
   season." What is there that faith cannot do? Why, if my faith has had
   the power to drop the burden of my sin into the sepulcher of my Lord,
   what is there that it cannot accomplish? If, by that faith, my soul has
   risen from among the dead and taken her seat at the right hand of the
   Father in the heavenly places in Christ, what shall stand in its way?
   If we have to force a passage through a throng of devils, we need not
   hesitate! And though all the world combined and stood against us, we
   need not fear! Our faith has made us whole--who can undo the miracle? A
   faith which, by Divine Grace, saves us from Hell and secures us for
   Heaven--what is there that it cannot accomplish? It laughs at
   impossibilities and marches from strength to strength in majestic
   serenity! Holy confidence shall win victory upon victory till, at last
   it shall cry, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I
   have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
   righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at
   that day!" I cannot imagine a sweeter consolation than this--"Your
   faith has made you whole: go in peace." Endeavor to suck the honey out
   of it!

   III. We will close this meditation by considering THE FAITH WHICH OUR
   LORD COMMENDED.

   It made her whole. That is its best certificate of excellence! There is
   much to note in reference to that faith, but a few brief hints may
   suffice. Her faith is to be commended because it outlived a long season
   of discouragement She had been afflicted 12 years --think of that!
   Patience had indeed had its perfect work in her. But she believed in
   Christ for a cure and the cure came to her! So will it be with everyone
   who will believe in Jesus. If there could be a soul found which had
   been living in sin 1,200 years--if it had faith in Jesus He would make
   it whole! After half a century of impenitence, he that believes in
   Christ Jesus is saved at once. Eighty years of sin vanish in a moment
   when a man trusts in the great Atonement! Come, dear unconverted
   Friend, and cast yourself at Christ's feet at this quiet hour, for He
   will not cast you

   out!

   The faith which healed this poor woman had survived many failures. She
   had been deceived by all sorts of quacks and medicine-men--and yet she
   had not lost the capacity for faith. It is said that she had "suffered
   many things of many physicians," and I can well believe it, for if you
   read the prescriptions of the old doctors, you will quite agree that
   poor humanity has suffered many things from "the faculty." The way in
   which the ancient doctors went to work to cure their patients much
   resembled that which a man would follow who was eager to kill them! Dr.
   Sangrado, by his bleeding and drenching, has sent many into a premature
   grave and, in Christ's time, if you needed to be well, the first rule
   was to avoid all physicians!

   I will tell you the names of a few spiritual doctors to whom I beseech
   you not to go, for if you do, you will suffer a great deal from them,
   but get no good. There is one whose name is Dr. Self-Confidence, who is
   in partnership with a relative called Dr. Self-Righteousness. Dr.
   Legality and his son, Mr. Civility, are another popular pair of cheats.
   You will find them at home whenever you call--and they will give you
   bitter doses or silver-coated pills as they see fit--but you will never
   a be whit the better. There is a doctor about just now who was educated
   by the Jesuits and practices the Romeopathic system--wafers and wine
   and water are his specialties--to this school belong Mr. Ceremonies and
   Doctor Sacraments. None of these can heal a sick soul! Have nothing to
   do with them, but apply to the Beloved Physician, even the Lord Jesus
   Christ! Some of us went to most of these pretenders and gave them a
   long trial--and though we were disappointed in them all--yet we still
   were enabled to believe in Jesus Christ! Dear Friend, do the same!
   Though you have been disappointed everywhere else, yet go and knock at
   Christ's door and that faith of yours which leaps over discouragement
   will make you whole!

   Her faith believed in simple touching. She used no ceremonies--she only
   believed. It was a faith which believed that she would be healed
   without payment She took the cure, gratis--she offered no fee. That is
   Gospel faith which takes Christ's forgiveness without money and without
   price, just as He presents it in the Gospel! Hers was a great faith,
   for she believed that Christ could heal her when He was occupied with
   healing another He was hastening to the house of Jarius to work a
   miracle there, and yet she believed that He could heal her on the way!
   Can you, dear Reader, believe in this fashion? Do you know, of a
   surety, that however Jesus may be now occupied, He can without
   difficulty at this moment pardon and save you? If you have reached so
   great a confidence, then give the saving touch and trust Him once and
   for

   all!

   The poor sick soul had a faith which assured her that Christ could
   bless her when His back was turned. Can you also reach this point? Some
   of God's own children can hardly trust Him when they see the Light of
   His Countenance, but this woman could trust Him when His back was
   turned to her. I would to God that we had, each of us, such confidence
   in Jesus that we would not doubt, under any circumstances, His power
   and willingness to save all who trust Him! He must save these who rely
   upon Him! It is a necessity of His Nature that those who touch Him
   should receive healing from Him!

   Trusting in Jesus is a man's best evidence that he is saved, for it is
   written, "He that believes in Him is not condemned." Faith has made its
   possessor whole, whoever he may be! And if you are resting alone in
   Jesus and His finished work, the life of the holy has begun in you and
   you may, therefore, "be of good comfort."

   --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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Landlord and Tenant

   (No. 3021)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1907,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live." Isaiah
   38:1.

   NOTWITHSTANDING that a thousand voices proclaim our mortality, we are
   all to apt to put aside the contemplation of it. Since we cannot escape
   from death, we endeavor to shut our eyes to it, although there is no
   subject whose consideration would be more beneficial to us. Altering
   one word of the poet's line, I may say--

   "'Tis greatly wise to talk with our last hours." To be familiar with
   the grave is prudence. To prepare for death it is well to commune with
   death. A thoughtful walk in the cemetery is good for our soul's health.
   As Jeremy Taylor well observes, "Since a man stands perpetually at the
   door of eternity and, as did John the Almoner, every day is building
   his sepulcher, and every night one day of our life is gone and passed
   into the possession of death, it will concern us to take care that the
   door leading to Hell does not open upon us, that we are not crushed to
   ruin by the stones of our grave and that our death become not a
   consignation of us to a sad eternity." The most of men prefer to
   cultivate less fruitful fields and turn their thoughts and meditations
   to subjects trivial for the present--and useless for the future. "O
   that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would
   consider their latter end!"

   Knowing this general aversion to my theme, I shall not treat it in a
   gloomy and heavy manner, but shall try to allure you to it by the use
   of pleasant and interesting similitudes. The subject shall supply the
   solemnity and I hope the metaphor will secure your interest. Forgive
   me, you spiritual, if I seem too flippant--my words are not for you,
   but for a class whose souls I trust you love--who cannot, as yet, bear
   the more serious thoughts of wisdom unless they are clothed in parable
   and picture.

   OUR BODY, OUR PROPERTY, OUR FAMILY, THIS PRESENT LIFE AND ALL ITS
   SURROUNDINGS ARE, IN THE TEXT, DESCRIBED AS A HOUSE. This simile is not
   at all unusual either in the Old or the new Testaments. The Apostle
   Paul tells us that "Moses was faithful in all his house," that is to
   say, in his lifelong charge and duty. Our Lord said of the Pharisees
   that they devoured widow's houses, meaning their estates. And Paul,
   referring to his body, said, "We know that if our earthly house of this
   tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
   with hands, eternal in the heavens." We will see what instruction we
   can find in this most simple but comprehensive comparison.

   I. This mortal life and its surroundings are likened to a house and the
   first point of the similitude will be seen if we enquire, WHO IS THE
   LANDLORD?

   The first answer is that certainly we are not To all men, it may be
   truthfully said, "You are not your own." We are tenants, but not
   freeholders. We are mere tenants at will without a lease. The earthly
   house of this tabernacle belongs to Him who built it. He who sustains
   it keeps the title deeds in His own possession. Our house belongs to
   God. Dear Friend, do you ever think of this? Do you remember, as a
   matter of fact, that you and yours are God's property?. He created you
   and created you for His own Glory. Your soul was spoken into existence
   by Him. Your bodily powers were all bestowed by His hand. You are the
   creature of the Almighty! In every vein, sinew and nerve of your body
   there are traces of the Divine Embroiderer's skill. You are God's in
   all the most secret goings and issues of your life, for you owe the
   continued possession of your existence every day to Him. Your breath is
   in your nostrils, but He keeps it there. He has but to will it and the
   atoms composing your body, which He now keeps apart from their fellows,
   would return to the bosom of the earth. You are but a walking heap of
   dust and the cohesion of the various particles is maintained by the
   hand of Omnipo-

   tence. Let the sustaining power of God be withdrawn and your bodily
   house would fall in the ruin of death and the utterly dissolution of
   corruption! All that you have around you is in the same predicament,
   for food and clothes, house and goods, are God's gifts to you. The
   strength of hand or the nimbleness of brain that has enabled you to
   accumulate wealth, or to live in comfort has all come from Him! Day by
   day you are a commoner at the table of Divine bounty, a pensioner, hour
   by hour, upon the Infinite Mercy of God. You have nothing and are
   nothing but as God pleases! You owe all you have and all you are to
   Him.

   It is most useful for each of us to know what are the rights of God
   towards us. Even if we do not acknowledge them, yet candor demands that
   at least we hear them defined. Sad is the reflection, however, that
   when we learn these rights, if we resist them, we become willful
   robbers and so increase our guilt! If we will not have God to reign
   over us. If, in our spirits we say, like Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord,
   that we should obey His voice?" it will go harder with us at the last
   than if we had never heard the claims of God proclaimed. Men and women,
   how is it that God has made you and yet so many of you never think of
   Him? Shall I bring against you the accusation which the Prophet of old
   brought against his people? "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth:
   for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and
   they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his
   master's crib: but Israel does not know, My people do not consider."
   Who among you would retain in your house a tool or a piece of furniture
   which was of no use or value to you? Who among you would keep so much
   as an ox or an ass if it rendered you no service? How much less would
   you nurture it if, instead thereof, it did you harm--if it had a spite
   against you and lifted up its heels against you?

   And yet, are there not some here who have been forgetful of their
   obligations to their Maker, who have never been of any service to Him,
   have never praised Him, have never desired to advance His Glory? And
   who, on the contrary, have even spoken high and haughty thingy things
   against Him and it may be words of profanity and blasphemy? O God, how
   are You ill treated in the very world which is full of Your goodness!
   How do the creatures of Your hand render unto You evil for good! Your
   house, which You have let out to man, is made into a castle for Your
   foes, a temple for idols, a den of thieves, a nest of unclean birds!
   You are ill requited at the hands of Your unworthy tenants! You Best of
   beings, you Fountain of love and mercy, what do You receive from many
   of Your creatures but forgetfulness and disdain?

   Bear this in mind, therefore, that the house in which we dwell, in this
   life, has God for its Landlord, and that we are only tenants.

   II. The simile runs further. WHAT IS MAN'S LEASE?

   One would imagine, from the way in which some men talk, that we were
   freeholders, or at least had a lease for 999 years! The truth is, we
   are but tenants at will We may possess the tenement in which our soul
   now finds a house for itself, together with its appurtenances and
   outhouses, for the term of 70 years and the tenure may even be
   prolonged to 80 years, or even to a longer period in rare cases, but,
   at no one time is the tenure altered! We always occupy from moment to
   moment. Our lease is not for three, seven, 14, or 21 years, nor is it
   even from day to day, or from hour to hour--but from second to second
   we hold precarious possession! We are tenants at the absolute will of
   God. The commencement of a day never secures the ending of it to us
   alive and the striking of the clock, as the commencement of the hour,
   is no guarantee that we shall hear it strike again. Every second we
   hold our lives, and goods, and chattels upon the sole tenure of the
   Divine Will of God! God has but to say to us, "Return, you children of
   men," and we return to the dust. Flowers are not more frail, moths more
   fragile, bubbles more unsubstantial, or meteors more fleeting than
   man's life! What transient things we are! I said, We are, but I made a
   mistake-- we are not. We but begin to be and before we are, we are not!
   It is God alone who can say, "I AM." None of the human race should dare
   to pronounce those words!

   Yet how many live as if their tenant rights of this mortal life, and
   all its goods, were a fixed tenure and entailed upon themselves,
   irrespective of assigns, or heirs, or superior lord of the manor or
   freeholder of the soil! "Their inward thought is that their houses
   shall continue forever and their dwelling places to all generations.
   They call their lands after their own names." To such people as these,
   the words of the Apostle James are very applicable, "Come now, you who
   say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such-and-such a city, and
   continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas you know
   not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a
   vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."

   Yet how often we fall into the same error! Have not some of you, my
   Friends, been laying out your plans for months and even years to come?
   You have considered where you will spend the summer and where you will
   live when you retire

   from your business. Ah, boast not yourselves of tomorrow, much less of
   summer or of autumn, for you know not what a day, or even an hour may
   bring forth! O man born of dying woman, ask of God to give you, day by
   day, your daily bread and let your living and your planning be after
   the fashion of day by day, for when you begin to reckon for far-off
   time, it looks as if you had never prayed, "So teach me to number my
   days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom." O you young ones, say not,
   "We will give the first and best of our days to the flesh, and offer
   God the rest." You may have no remaining years to offer! You may be
   consumed in the morning of your lives! Say not, you men who are in the
   midst of the world's business, "We will retire soon and in the cool of
   our age we will think upon the things of God." You may have no evening
   of old age! Your sun may go down at noon! You may be called from the
   counting house while yet the ink upon the pages of the ledger is wet
   and the Bible, as yet unstudied!

   Set your house in order, for your Great Landlord may serve an ejection
   notice upon you and there will be no hope of resisting it, though the
   wisest of physicians should seek to bar the door! Here is the writ and
   these are the express words--"You shall die, and not live." Even the
   most aged presume that they shall live yet longer and the traditions of
   Jenkyns and of Old Parr, I doubt not, have tempted hundreds to imagine,
   even when they have been verging upon 80 or 90 that they may still live
   a few years longer in quiet possession of their tottering tenement
   whose pillars are shaken, whose windows are darkened and whose very
   foundations are decaying! We cling with dreadful tenacity to this poor
   life and the little which we foolishly call our all! It were well if we
   could cling with such fast hold to the life that is to come-- for that,
   alone, is worth clinging to since it is forever--whereas this life is
   to be but for a little time even at the longest!

   What a reflection it is that within a hundred years everyone in our
   most crowded audiences (unless the Lord shall come), will be soundly
   sleeping amid the clods of the valley--and not one of all the present
   armies of men that populate our cities will be in possession of his
   house and lands, or will know of anything that is done under the sun!
   We shall have gone over to "the great majority." We shall be, perhaps,
   remembered, perhaps forgotten, but, at any rate, we ourselves shall
   mingle no more with our fellows in the market, the street, the places
   of worship or the haunts of pleasure. We shall depart from sea and
   land, from city and village, from earth and all that is thereon. Where
   will our immortal natures be? Where will our spirits be? Shall we be
   communing among the blessed harpers whose every note is bliss, or shall
   we be forever gnashing our teeth in remorse among the castaways who
   would not receive the mercy of God? We hold our house, then, on no time
   or tenure than from moment to moment! Remember this, you dwellers in
   these houses of clay!

   There is this clause in the lease, which I am afraid some have never
   observed, namely, that the Landlord has at all times the right to enter
   and leave His own property. I thank God that some of us have yielded to
   the Lord this right and now our prayer often is that He would come into
   our house, search us, try us, know our ways and see if there is any
   evil way in us--and lead us in the way everlasting. Time was when the
   last thing we wished for was the Presence of God, when we said to Him,
   "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Your ways." But
   now, being renewed by His Spirit, we say to Him, "Abide with us."
   Beloved Friend, are you always ready to open the doors of your heart to
   God's inspection? Do you delight in heavenly communion? Do you
   constantly invite the Lord Jesus to come in and sup with you, and you
   with Him? If not, you are forgetting one great clause in your lease
   and, let me also say, you are forgetting the greatest privilege that
   men can enjoy beneath the stars!

   It is well for me to recall to your memories that, according to our
   tenure, our Great Landlord permits us to call upon Him to execute all
   repairs. Our circumstances are apt to grow straitened and He it is who
   gives us power to get wealth. He daily loads us with benefits. When our
   bodily tabernacle is shaken, He it is who heals all our diseases. When
   our sorrows and needs multiply, He it is who satisfies our mouth with
   good things, so that our youth is renewed like the eagle's. It is well,
   no doubt, when we are sick, to seek direction from the physician, but
   it is a Christian action to resort first to Jehovah-Rophi, The Lord
   That Heals Us. "Is any sick among you?" What said the Apostle? Does he
   say, "Let him use no medicine," as some "Peculiar People" say? No! Does
   he say, "Use medicine and nothing else," as the most of professors do?
   No such thing! Does he say, "Let him lie in bed and expect his minister
   to come and see him," as though ministers, elders and deacons were
   Omniscient? No such thing!

   "Is any sick among you? Let him call"--that is his duty--let him call
   for the elders of the church." And then, as the form of medicine then
   in vogue was that of anointing the body with oil, "let them pray over
   him," and let them use the ordinary means, "anointing him with oil in
   the name of the Lord." Have your medicine by all means, or whatever may
   seem best, but, beside that, make prayeryour main confidence, for it is
   the Lord that heals us! Jesus is the Beloved Physi-

   cian. If we had more faith in God and resorted more often to Him by
   prayer and faith, the prescriptions of the pharmacist might be more
   often wise and his medicines more frequently useful. The Lord, who made
   our house, best knows how to repair the tenement and He permits us to
   resort to Him! When you are sick, my Friend, remember this, and
   practice it.

   III. Thus have we spoken of the Landlord and the lease. Now, thirdly,
   we come to THE RENT THAT IS TO BE PAID.

   We occupy a house which is evidently not our own and, therefore, there
   must be some rent to pay. What is it? The rent that God asks of His
   tenants is that they should praise Him as long as they live. "Oh!" you
   say, "that is but little." I grant you that it is. It is but a
   peppercorn, a mere acknowledgment, but yet there are millions who never
   pay even that! They offer the Lord no thanks, no love, no service. For
   the benefits they receive, they make no return, or, rather, they make
   an evil recompense. The breath that He gives them is never turned to
   song. The food they eat is not sanctified with gratitude. The goods
   that He bestows are not tithed, nor are the first fruits of their
   increase offered to the Lord. Their hearts do not love Him. Their faith
   does not trust in His dear Son--their lips do not speak of Him and
   magnify His glorious name. This is most unrighteous and ungenerous. For
   us to praise God is not a costly or painful business. The heart that
   praises God finds a sweet return in the exercise, itself. In Heaven, it
   is the Heaven of perfect spirits to praise the Lord. And on earth we
   are nearest Heaven when we are fullest of the praises of Jehovah! But
   how ungrateful are those who are tenants in God's house and yet refuse
   the little tribute which He asks of them!

   The question is raised, how often ought the rent to be paid? You know,
   in law, the time when the rent of a house is due always bears a
   relation to the tenure upon which it is held. If a man takes a house by
   the year, he pays his rent by the year. If he takes it by the quarter,
   he pays by the quarter. And if we hold our house by the moment, we are
   bound to pay by the moment.

   So, then, it was but simple justice when David said, "I will bless the
   Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth." To
   live in the perpetual exercise of praise to God is, at once, the
   Christian's duty and delight. "No," says one, "but we cannot do that,
   we have other things to think of." But remember, when the praises of
   God are not on our lips, they should be in our hearts. The incense was
   in the censer even when it was not smoking--our praise should abide
   with us till opportunity permits the holy fire to be applied. Besides,
   I believe that our God is best praised in common things. He who mends a
   shoe with a right motive is praising God as much as the seraph who
   pours forth his celestial sonnet. You in your workshops, you in your
   families, you on your sickbeds, you anywhere according to your
   avocations--if you offer, through Jesus the Mediator, the love of your
   hearts--you are paying the rent of praise unto God Most High! Oh, to be
   continually doing this!

   But, Brothers and Sisters, I am afraid that we are in arrears. Those of
   us who have paid the most rent are still far behind! Yes, you were
   grumbling this morning--that was not rendering a worthy recompense for
   benefits received. Shall a living man complain? There are some who do
   little else but complain. They complain of the times, of the weather,
   of the government, of their families, of their trade. If, for once,
   they would complain of themselves, they might have a more deserving
   subject for fault-finding! The Lord is good and does good--let His name
   be blessed! Let us, as His people, avow that, though He slays us, yet
   we will trust in Him. And if He make us groan under His heavy hand, we
   will even weep out His praises and our expiring sigh shall be but a
   note of our life's Psalm which we hope to exchange full soon for the
   song of the celestial host above! Praising and blessing God in life,
   practically by obedience, and heartily with gratitude--this is the rent
   which is due for the house in which we dwell.

   Are there not some of you who have not even recognized that you belong
   to God at all and who, up till now, have been paying rent and rendering
   service to another master? I am often amazed in my soul at what men
   will do for that black master, the devil! Why, Sirs, the devil will
   sometimes summon men to one of his meetings at the street corner where
   the gas is flaming, and they will cheerfully obey the summons. They
   will meet in such places with companions who are rude, boisterous,
   selfish, vulgar and everything else that is undesirable and call them
   "jolly good fellows." If the devil would pick out some fine brave
   spirits for them to meet--men of wit, genius and information--one would
   not wonder so much at the readiness with which the dupes assemble, but
   the congregations of Satan are usually made up of men and women of the
   lowest and most degraded kind and you people know it! When they are
   beckoned off to the assembly of the scorners, they go with the greatest
   readiness. And what is done at this gathering of the foolish? Well,
   they commune together in stupidities at which it must be hard to laugh
   and, meanwhile, they pass round the cup of liquid fire out of which

   they cheerfully drink and drink, and drink again, though each
   successive goblet is filled with deeper damnation! These willing slaves
   drink at their master's bidding though the cup makes their brain reel,
   sets their heart on flame and makes them unable to keep their feet!
   Yes, and when he still cries, "Drink, yes, drink abundantly," these
   faithful servants swallow down the poison till they lie down like logs,
   or roar like demons! They will keep putting the cup of death to their
   lips till delirium tremens comes upon them and possesses them as with
   Hell itself! Thousands obediently render homage to Satan by drinking
   away their lives and ruining their souls.

   How much further they go in serving their master than we do in
   following ours! Into Hell itself they follow their accursed leader!
   They pay him his revenues without arrears and yet his taxes are heavy
   and his exactions are most oppressive. Why, we have seen great lords
   hand all their estates over to Beelzebub! And when he has set up before
   them an image in the shape of a horse with a blue ribbon, they have
   bowed down and worshipped it and offered their all at his shrine! I
   wish we could meet with some who would do as much for Christ as these
   have done for the devil. Any kind of fashion which may rule the hour
   draws a mad crowd after it. No matter how absurd or ridiculous the
   mania, the worshippers of fashion cry, "These are your gods, O Israel."
   Yes, Satan is marvelously well obeyed by his servants. His rent is
   regularly paid and yet he is not the rightful owner and has no title to
   the house of manhood! Yes, men will even run after him to offer their
   homage. They will throw down their lives before his Juggernaut car of
   profligacy and cast themselves beneath its wheels, while the golden
   chariot of Christ, paved with love for men traverses their streets! And
   they have not a word of acclamation or of praise for that Prince of
   Peace. O come, you servants of Jesus, and be ashamed of this! Come and
   render to your Lord your full service! Throw your hearts' enthusiasm
   into your religion! Be at least as earnest for God as others are for
   the devil! Be at least as self-denying and self-sacrificing as they are
   who run the mad career of sin! Pay your rent to the great Landlord and
   let the arrears be made up!

   IV. But I must not linger. The next point to be considered is MAN'S
   DUTY WITH REGARD TO THIS HOUSE OF WHICH HE IS THE TENANT.

   The text says, "Set your house in order." This shows that we are not to
   destroy it, nor to injure it Our body should be the temple of the Holy
   Spirit. Nothing should be done by us that may injure our body, for, in
   the case of the Believer, it is a precious thing, ordained to rise,
   again, at the Last Day, since Chris Jesus has bought it, as well as the
   soul which it contains, with His own blood! Nor are we to waste our
   substance, for this is the accusation which, of old, was brought
   against the unjust steward, that he had wasted his master's goods.

   We are to set our house in order, that is, our own house. Some persons
   are very busy setting other people's houses in order and oh, how fast
   their tongues will go when they are sweeping out their neighbor's
   kitchen, or dusting his cupboard! Set your own houses in order, Sirs,
   before you attempt to arrange the affairs of other people!

   Again, the tenant himself must do it ' 'Set your house in order." You
   must not leave it to a priest. You must not ask your fellow man to
   become responsible for you. You mast make personal application to Him
   who can set all in order for you, even to Him who came into the world
   and died for this very purpose. If you need oil for your lamps, you
   must go to them that sell and buy for yourselves, for your fellow
   virgins can give you none of their oil. Set your own house in order.
   This is the chief business of every living man as a tenant under God.

   What kind of order is my house to be set in? My conscience will help to
   tell me that. An enlightened conscience tells us in what kind of order
   our heart, our family and our business should be. By its teachings, we
   may learn how all the departments of the house should be ordered. It
   cannot be right that the body should be master over the
   soul--conscience tells us that. It cannot be right that the memory
   should retain only that which is evil. It cannot be right that the
   affections should grovel in the mire. It cannot be right that the
   judgment should put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Conscience
   says that the heart is never right till the whole man is in
   Christ--till, by a living faith, we have embraced Jesus as our full
   salvation and have received the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier. We are
   never right till we are right with conscience and conscience tells us
   that we are never right till we are right with God! "Set your house in
   order." Obey the inward monitor, listen to the still small voice and
   prepare to meet your God!

   Do you ask, "Whatis God's order?"You can see by reading the 20th
   chapter of the Book of Exodus what His thought of order was when He
   wrote the Ten Commandments. You can learn what His order is under the
   Gospel, for we read that a new Commandment has Christ given to us, that
   we love one another. And yet again, "This is His commandment, that we
   should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ." Dear Friend, is
   your house, in this sense, right with God? If, at

   this moment, you had to surrender possession, is everything ordered as
   you would wish it to be? If the arrow of death should now fly through
   this sanctuary and find a target in your heart at this moment, is it
   all right, is it all right, IS IT ALL RIGHT, as you would wish to have
   it when God's eyes shall look upon you in the Day of Judgment? What if
   in a single moment we should see the heavens on a blaze and the earth
   should rock beneath our feet, and the dead should rise from their
   sepulchers? What if, instead of this Tabernacle and its gathered crowd,
   we should now suddenly see the King, Himself, upon the Great White
   Throne and hear the archangel's trumpet ringing out the notes, "Awake,
   you dead, and come to judgment!" Is everything with us as we should
   like to have it for the blaze of that tremendous day and the inspection
   of that awful Judge? Happy is that man who can say, "I have committed
   all to Christ--my body, soul and spirit-- all my powers and all my
   affections! I have committed all to Him by faith and prayer, so, come,
   Lord Jesus, come quickly for it is all right even now." "Set your house
   in order." Then conscience and God's Word will be your guides as to
   what is needed.

   But I am afraid that in you, my Friend, very many things need careful
   attention and rearrangement Oh, that every day each of us lived a
   Christ-filled life, for then we should not need to be told to set our
   house in order! I, as pastor of this Church, though I trust I am not an
   idler, have never been able to look upon my own work with any sort of
   satisfaction. I am obliged to stand where the publican stood with the
   prayer, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," upon my lips, for my work is
   too vast and I am too feeble! Is there any man here who can say that he
   fills his sphere to the full without an omission or transgression? If
   you can say so, my Brother, I envy you, for it is not long before you
   will be in Heaven! If that is not a self-righteous estimate, or a
   vainglorious opinion of yourself, inasmuch as you are so meet for
   Heaven, you will soon be there--depend upon that!

   But, whatever there may be about us now, dear Friends, which is not
   what we feel it ought to be, let the call come to each one of us at
   this moment, "Set your house in order." The vain regrets in which we
   sometimes indulge, we often mistake for true repentance, but let us
   remember that--

   "Repentance is to leave The sins we loved before, And show that we in
   earnest grieve By doing so no more."

   As believers in Jesus Christ, if there is anything deficient in us, if
   there is anything excessive in us, if there is anything that is
   contrary to the Lord's mind and will, may the Holy Spirit come and
   correct it all, so that our house may be set in order!

   Thus have I shown you in what manner our houses should be kept. But I
   am afraid that many of your houses need a great deal of setting in
   order. Some of your houses need sweeping. The dust and filth of sin are
   lying all over the floors! You need the precious blood to be sprinkled,
   or else if the Lord begins to sweep with the bosom of the Law of God,
   it will happen, as Bunyan tells us, that the dust will be enough to
   choke your prayers, or blind the eyes of your faith! May the Gospel
   come and sprinkle the water of Divine Grace and then may Christ come in
   and sweep your house! But you need more than sweeping--your house needs
   washing. Every floor needs cleansing and there is no one but the Lord
   Jesus Christ who can do this. Nothing can make you clean but His blood!
   In many of your houses the windows are very filthy and the light of the
   glorious Gospel cannot enter so as to bring with it an intelligent
   conception of the things of God. Oh, that this may be set right! The
   very drainage in some men's houses is neglected. Many a foul thing
   stagnates, ferments and pollutes their souls. Ah, what is there that is
   in order in the unregenerate man? To everyone in that state, the text
   calls loudly, "Set your house in order." But, Sirs, unless Christ comes
   to help you, it is a hopeless task! Unless Christ and His Holy Spirit
   come to the rescue, your houses will remain out of order--everything
   filthy and everything disarranged--and when the great King shall come
   and find it so, woe unto you, woe unto you, in the day of His
   appearing!

   V. We shall close with the last thought, which is this, WE ARE BID TO
   SET OUR HOUSE IN ORDER BECAUSE WE ARE SERVED WITH A NOTICE TO QUIT.
   "Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live."

   This is not a reason for setting a house in order which bad tenants
   would care to consider--they wish to leave the house in as dilapidated
   a state as possible. But a just tenant desires to restore to his
   landlord his property unhurt. So is it with the man who is right with
   God. He wishes that when he dies, he may leave here on earth no trace
   of injury done to God, but many memorials of service rendered. He does
   not wish to leave the house as Satan left the poor possessed demoniac,
   rending and tearing him because he was coming out of him, having great
   wrath because his time was short. No, the

   honest man who loves his God desires to leave everything behind him
   that shall honor God and nothing that shall dishonor Him. Whitefield
   used to tell a story of a young man who could not live in the house
   where his old father had dwelt, because, he said, "every chair in it
   smelt of piety." He was a wicked, godless, rebellious man without
   Christ and he could not stay where his father's holiness would force
   itself upon his memory and rebuke him. Oh, I would like to make every
   chair in my house like that, so that when my boy comes into possession
   of it, he will think, "Why, there my father sat to study God's Word.
   And there he used to kneel in prayer. And now I have his house, I must
   imitate his ways."

   A dear man of God, who has now gone to Heaven, took me into his study,
   one day, and said to me, "You see that spot?" "Yes." "Well, that is the
   place where my dear wife used to kneel to pray and that is where, one
   morning, when I came to look for her, as she did not come down to
   breakfast, I found her dead." "Oh," he said, "that is holy ground!" And
   so it was, for she was a very gracious woman. Oh, that we may so live
   that everything we leave behind us may be like Abel's blood that cried
   from the ground! May our habits and manners be such that, after our
   death, everything associated with us may be perfumed with holy
   memories! God make it so! God make it so! Are you sure it will be so? I
   must appeal to some of you Christian people--are you not too negligent?
   Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?
   Might there not be much amiss with you if you were now called away? I
   beseech you, set your house in order!

   Beloved Friend in Christ, do try that everything may be in order for
   your dying, and everything now prepared for your departure if it should
   happen tonight. Do it for the Church's sake. So live that when the
   church misses you, there shall be left behind you your gracious memory
   and your holy example to inspire those who will mourn your departure.
   So live that the world may miss your zealous efforts for its good. May
   all be so ordered in your life that you may never lead others astray by
   your example, but bequeath it as a legacy of encouragement to your
   successors! Order all things well for your children's sake. They will
   be pretty much what their parents were. Sovereign Grace may interpose,
   but, ordinarily, the mother shapes the child's life. May your life be
   such that it shall be a fair mold for your child's future existence!

   Set your house in order, my dear Brothers and Sisters, even though you
   are leaving it, because you are going to a better one if you are a
   Believer in Christ The old clay shed will be taken down and you shall
   dwell in marble halls! You shall leave the hovel for the mansion! The
   traveler's tent shall be rolled up and put away in the tomb to be
   exchanged for "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
   Oh, let it not be said that you were so bad a tenant, in the first
   house, that you could not be trusted with a second, but may Divine
   Grace cause you so to set this house in order that you may leave it
   without reluctance, and enter into the next with joy, leaving your
   first house behind you without shame, in sure and certain hope of a
   blessed resurrection! May you cheerfully leave the first house and
   joyfully surrender the key to the Great Landlord because you know that,
   go where He will in all its rooms, He will see the remembrances of His
   own Grace, the marks of His own workmanship, the beauties and
   adornments of His own Holy Spirit! Then, conveyed by ministering
   spirits to a better country, you shall become possessors of a heritage
   undefiled which fades not away!

   I desire, in closing, that all of us may offer the key of our house to
   the Great Landlord and acknowledge that we live on sufferance as His
   tenants. A dear Brother told us, the other day, when he was speaking of
   his being over 70 years of age, that his lease had run out and that he
   was now living by the day. Let us each, in all things, carry out his
   remark and live by the day! Let us remember that "now is our salvation
   nearer than when we believed." Let us not act as if we expected to
   remain long in these lowlands. It is a dreadful thing to see men who
   profess to be Christians, unwilling to die! Should it be so that when
   we feel ourselves ill, and likely to die, we should have a host of
   matters to arrange and many regrets to express? Dear Brothers and
   Sisters, begin your regrets earlier, while there is time to retrieve
   the past! Regret now, and ask for Grace, now, to do all that is in you
   for Him who loved you and bought you with His blood!

   As for you who have no redeeming blood upon you, I do not marvel that
   you live to yourselves. O you who despise Christ, I do not wonder if
   you despise yourselves so much as to be the slaves of pleasure! But you
   who are the elect of God, who are bought by the blood of Jesus, who are
   called by His Spirit, who profess to be His people--you have nobler
   things to live for! I pray you, make us not to be ashamed of you by
   living as if you were mere worldlings who have their portion in this
   life. Live for eternity! Live for Christ's Glory! Live to win souls!
   Behave as occupiers under a Royal Owner should behave. With such a
   Landlord, the best in the whole universe, be also the best of tenants
   and always be mindful of the time of your removal to another land! Let
   my last words remain with you, and that they may, I will quote them
   from a book in which wisdom is set forth in goodly sentences.

   "Gird up your mind to contemplation, trembling inhabitant of the earth.
   Tenant of a hovel for a day, you are heir of the universe forever! For
   neither congealing of the grave, nor gushing waters of the firmament,
   Nor expansive airs of Heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, Nor
   rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change
   Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of soul within you! "Look
   to your soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother: Behold,
   for Heaven--or for Hell--you cannot escape from Immortality!"

   Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Ages Software,
   1.800.297.4307

   PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
   KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Innumerable Mercies

   (No. 3022)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   22, 1868.

   "I know not the numbers thereof." Psalm 71:15.

   THE writer of this Psalm describes all the dealings of God with him
   under the head, "righteousness" and, "salvation." That description is
   perfectly accurate, for all that God does for His people is, first of
   all, in faithfulness to His promise. As He has spoken, so He does.
   Never, even in the sharpest trial, can the heir of Heaven accuse God of
   being unfaithful to what He has promised. He told His disciples that
   they would have to endure tribulation--and when it came, they proved
   the truth of His prophecy--and everything that God does to us, whether
   little or great, whether sharp or kind, will prove to have been done in
   accordance with His faithful Word.

   And then the Psalmist calls the dispensations of God's Providence by
   the name of salvation. And this term is also the right one, for
   everything that He does for us who are His people tends to our ultimate
   salvation. He is working out our deliverance from inbred sin as well as
   from outward temptation and trial. Very often the darkest days that we
   have are bright with Divine Mercy, even though we cannot discern the
   brightness. There is a good reason, a necessity, for all that He sends
   to us and that reason is to be found in the fact that He intends to
   present us "faultless before the presence of His Glory with exceeding
   joy." Open your diaries, Beloved, and write across the record of your
   daily experiences, "All this is being done to us in righteousness and
   all this is working out our full salvation." Never read the book of
   your life's history without putting that headline upon every page!
   Emblazon that motto as an illuminated picture at the beginning of every
   distinct chapter of your life--and believe that it is all righteousness
   and all salvation from first to last!

   Having thus comprehended all God's mercies under these two heads, the
   Psalmist adds, "I know not the numbers

   thereof."

   I. In considering these words, let us think, first, of THIS THING WHICH
   WE DO NOT KNOW, NAMELY, THE NUMBER OF GOD'S MERCIES.

   Have you ever tried to count them? Probably you never did that for even
   any dayin your life. I would like you to undertake that task and to jot
   down every mercy you receive from God in a single day--from the moment
   when the eyelids of the morning are opened till the moment when the
   curtains of the night are drawn. If your judgment were sufficiently
   enlightened to discern all the items, you would find that your
   arithmetic would fail to tell the total of them. But, Brothers and
   Sisters, the days of most of us have been many and there are some here
   who are approaching the longest period of human life. If the mercies of
   one da/would surpass their computation, what shall we say of the
   mercies of all these days in which they have been living as
   gentlemen-commoners upon the bounty of God, pensioners upon the loving
   kindness and faithfulness of the Most High? Truly, they may say, in the
   retrospect of all the loving kindness of the Lord, "We know not the
   numbers thereof."

   Let me now--not by way of attempting to help you to count the mercies
   of God, but by way of showing you the utter impossibility of even
   numbering them--just remind you, first, of the Divine Promises which
   have been fulfilled to you. They are very many. As you turn over the
   pages of Sacred Writ, you see them sparkling like grains of gold in the
   bed of some African or Australian river. God's Words of promise are
   there in great abundance, each of them as mighty as those Words of
   power which built the skies and, in your experience, from first to
   last, these Words of promise have been fulfilled. It would be a
   colossal task for you to write out all God's promises that have been
   fulfilled to you. Take your Bible and put a pencil mark in the margin
   for each one that has been proved true to you. Your task will be
   blessed to

   your memory and will move you to gratitude. And the most of God's
   promises have been fulfilled to us over, and over, and over again! We
   have taken these promissory notes into the great Bank of Heaven and we
   have received what was promised in them. But we have taken them to the
   bank, again, for, strange to say, after the Lord has fulfilled His
   promise today, that promise still stands good for tomorrow and right on
   until the end of time! Reckon up the multitude of God's promises and
   think of the many times in which those promises have been fulfilled to
   you and others of His children, for this will help you to realize how
   innumerable are the mercies of God!

   Think of the mercies of God in another form, namely, the many
   deliverances which have been vouchsafed to you. You have had
   deliverances when you knew nothing of your danger, when the Lord--

   " Watched over your path

   When, Satan's blind slave, you sported with death."

   You have had deliverances from sickness when, had death come to you,
   you would have died unforgiven. You had deliverances, perhaps, in
   childhood, from many temptations which would have been your lot had you
   been born under less happy auspices. Then came the great deliverance
   when your soul was released from the bondage of sin and Satan-- and how
   many deliverances are wrapped up in that one? David says that God
   delivered him from all his fears--and that day when He delivered us
   from all our sins, He emancipated us from every yoke of bondage that
   had rested on us. O happy day of glorious liberty when Christ made us
   free indeed! Well may, each one of us, sing--

   "Oh happy day, that fixed my choice

   On You, my Savor and my God!

   Well may this glowing heart rejoice,

   And tell its raptures all abroad.

   'Tis done! The great transaction's done!

   I am my Lord's and He is mine--

   He drew me and I followed on,

   Charmed to confess the voice Divine.

   High Heaven that heard the solemn vow,

   That vow renewed shall daily hear

   Till in life's latest hour I bow

   And bless in death a bond so dear." From that day onward, our march
   through the wilderness has been a series of remarkable deliverances and
   salvations! You have been delivered, dear Friends, from pride--you have
   been brought low when you were exalted above measure. You have been
   delivered from depression of spirits--your eyes have been delivered
   from weeping and your heart from fainting. You have been delivered in
   your seasons of bereavement. You have been succored in your times of
   pain and sickness. You have been delivered during the rush of business
   and you have been delivered in the time of solitary temptations. You
   have been delivered from self, from sin, from Satan, from the evil that
   alarmed you and from the more insidious mischief that sought to
   fascinate you! Until now the Lord has held you up and you have been
   kept in safety even while passing by the dens of lions, or fighting
   with Apollyon down in the Valley of Humiliation. Can you count all your
   deliverances? I feel sure that you must say with the Psalmist, "I know
   not the numbers thereof."

   Let us think for a minute or two, just to stir up our gratitude to God,
   of the innumerable mercies attending our very existence. Any physician
   can tell you what a wonderful thing our life is. Dr. Watts truly
   wrote--

   "Our life contains a thousand springs,

   And dies if one is gone!

   Strange, that a harp of thousand strings

   Should keep in tune so long!'

   The operations of Nature are conducted in a most intricate manner. The
   continuation of our life depends upon the slenderest thread--yes,
   often, upon particles of matter which are so minute as scarcely to be
   perceived by the eyes! As the blood circulates through our system,
   there is a risk of death at every beat of our pulse. As the air is
   inhaled by us, there is a further risk every time our lungs are
   inflated. I am not an anatomist, neither is it a part of my duty to
   dissect the fabric of the human body--but those who have searched into
   it have told us that life is a continued miracle from the cradle to the
   grave. We cannot even imagine what innumerable mercies, from the crown
   of our head to the souls of our feet, are concerned in our continuing
   to still be in the land of the living!

   Think, again, of the numberless mercies connected with happy
   existence--any one of which taken away would make life sadder--many of
   which removed would make life an intolerable torture. Can you ever pass
   a lunatic asylum without thanking God that your reason has not left her
   throne? Can you pass by a place where idiots are dwelling without
   thanking God that your mind has not become lowered till it has almost
   ceased to be? Can you go by our great hospitals without blessing God
   that you are not tossing on a bed that grows hard through unceasing
   pain? Can you look upon the many diseased folk whom we see in our
   streets and not thank God for the health you enjoy? I like to feel
   grateful for every minute that my teeth do not ache, or that my head
   does not ache, for some of these lesser pains do so distract us that we
   can scarcely attend to our daily duties! When we have to endure these
   pains, we think how grateful we should be if they were gone--but when
   they are gone, we are apt to forget the mercy which has removed them!

   Think, dear Friends, of the mercies which have made life happy for you
   in your domestic circle. "Ah," say some of you, "but we now have sore
   sorrows there." Yes, it may be so, but you ought to think how long you
   had almost unalloyed happiness! If a man lends you something and after
   a long while takes it back, you ought not to mourn because he takes it,
   but to thank him for letting you have it so long! Think of the ten
   thousand mercies that cluster around a happy fireside. What music there
   is in that blessed word, "home!" Yes, and with all the troubles that a
   family may bring, those dear little prattlers bring a world of
   happiness with them and you ought to be thankful if they are still
   spared to you--and not only spared, but in robust health, firm of limb,
   clear in intellect and many of them hopeful and promising in moral and
   spiritual things! Truly, if I were to attempt to record the mercies
   that make life happy here below, I would need a vast volume written
   within and without with thanksgiving! And even then I should have to
   make the Psalmist's confession, "I know not the numbers thereof."

   Take another measuring line. Beloved Friends, think of the preventing
   Providences of God and you have quite another vista opened before you.
   Walking in the street yesterday, you might have fallen and injured
   yourselves, for another did so. Sitting even in your house, the deadly
   fever might have entered--it did go in at a neighbor's door or window.
   In travelling, you might have been killed as many others have been, or
   have been mangled and scarcely escaped with life. We talk of
   Providences when we have hairbreadth escapes--but are they not quite as
   much Providences when we are preserved from danger? I have told you
   before what the old Puritan said to his son who had ridden several
   miles to meet him. "Father," said the son, "I have had a remarkable
   Providence! My horse stumbled badly three times, yet did not throw me."
   "Ah, my Son," said the father, "I have had a still more remarkable
   Providence than that, for my horse did not stumble once." We do not
   think, as we should, of the preventing Providences of God which keep
   off evil from us. It is a mercy that so many of you are not brought to
   poverty--that when so many others are out of work, you workingmen are
   not among the unemployed, but are able to provide for your families. We
   could probably all make a long list of trials from which we have been
   preserved and, after making out the list, we would still have to say,
   "We know not the numbers

   thereof."

   But when I turn to a still wider field, the best arithmetician must
   find his powers in vain. Think of the bounties of God's Grace. Your
   sins, though many, are all forgiven and every forgiveness a mercy--do
   any of you know the numbers thereof? The evils which sin has worked in
   you, all remedied by the Great Physician, or to be ultimately removed
   by His gracious hand--do you know the numbers thereof? Think now, you
   are the elect of God--trace the streams of His love up to that Eternal
   Council in which He planned your redemption and then say, with David,
   "How precious, also, are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the
   sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the
   sand." Besides that, you have been redeemed by the precious blood of
   Christ! Do you know the number of mercies included in that one word,
   "redeemed"? It includes that mercy of mercies--God descending to take
   our Human Nature into union with Himself! It includes the whole life of
   Christ and His death upon the Cross--yes, and His Resurrection, and
   Ascension, and the Glory of His Second Coming--for all this has to do
   with your redemption! Truly, you know not the numbers thereof! You have
   also been called by Grace. You resisted God' s calls, perhaps hundreds
   of times, yet were the sweet persuasions of the Holy Spirit continued
   until you were at last constrained to yield! And repentance was given
   to you, faith was worked in you--you were made to pray and your prayers
   were heard and answered. Do you know the numbers of all these mercies?

   Further, the work of sanctification has gone on in you by the power of
   the Holy Spirit. Every good thought you have ever had, every right word
   you have ever spoken, every holy action you have ever done has been a
   mercy from God to you! He gave these blessings to you, or else you
   would never have had them--and I challenge you to try to count this
   great budget of mercies! Besides all that, you are this day an heir of
   God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ! You have Heaven in reversion,
   assured to you by the faithful promise of God who cannot lie! Sit down
   and take your pen and count your mercies if you can. Even as you count
   them, your mercies multiply--and every beating pulse increases the
   innumerable multitude of them so that you must utterly despair of
   counting them! To what shall I liken them? To the countless odors that
   rise from the garden when the summer's sun is smiling on the
   innumerable beauties that are gathered there? Shall I liken them to the
   drops of dew that sparkle on ten thousand times ten thousand blades of
   grass? Shall I liken them to the innumerable birds and insects that fly
   in the air, or to the fishes without number that swim in the seas, or
   to the beasts untold that wander on the mountains or range the woods
   and forests? Shall I liken them to the innumerable leaves of autumn
   that fall when the frost comes, or to the shells or sands upon the
   seashore, or to the stars of Heaven which no man can number? I know not
   whereunto to liken God's mercies to you, for all comparisons fail me--
   and I can only wonderingly say with the Psalmist--"I know not the
   numbers thereof."

   II. Now, turning from that to another point--as we know not the numbers
   of God's mercies, we need not be surprised that THERE ARE OTHER MATTERS
   WHICH ARE ALSO BEYOND OUR KNOWLEDGE.

   To know the numbers of certain things would not be so difficult as to
   know their value. My God, I know not the numbers of Your mercies and I
   do not even know the value of any one of them! If I were to take one of
   them and try to estimate its worth, I would find that it would exceed
   all my powers of computation. I have never been able to weigh one of
   them in the scales and especially Your loving kindness in working by
   Your Grace in my soul. To have been washed in the precious blood of
   Jesus--angels, can you tell what a priceless gift this is? Devils, call
   you tell--for you are still covered with sin! Lost spirit in Hell, can
   you even imagine what it must be to be a forgiven soul? Bright spirits
   before the Throne of God who have washed your robes and made them white
   in the blood of the Lamb--do not even you, who have experienced this
   wonderful bliss, continue to marvel at the greatness of it? Then, dear
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we need not be surprised that we do not
   know the value of the mercies which our God has so abundantly bestowed
   upon us!

   It is even more to be regretted that we have never felt due gratitude
   for the mercies of God to us. We might be forgiven for not being able
   to number that which reaches almost to the infinite. That would be an
   imperfection rather than a sin, but alas, we have been so ungrateful
   that we have not been thankful to God for the favors which He has so
   liberally showered upon us. They have been buried in forgetfulness and
   yes, have gone on, from year to year, as if we owed nothing to the
   Lord, but had received all His good gifts by mere chance! How many men
   are like the swine that eat the acorns which fall from the oak, but
   never thank the tree on which they grew, or the God who made it grow?
   They receive the benisons of Heaven, but thank not the God of Heaven
   for them as they should. The mercies of God are uncountable--the
   ingratitude of man is unaccountable! We, Christian men and women,
   cannot tell how it is that we can be so stolidly indifferent when we
   ought to be so devoutly thankful to God for all His goodness to us.

   And, Beloved, as our gratitude has never kept pace with God's goodness,
   I am also sure that our praises have not How many tongues there are
   that are blistered through their murmuring and complaining because of
   the hard lot which God has given them? There are some of us who have
   learned too well how to make discord, yet who know little about
   harmonious praise. Yet our God is a good God. Let us say so and stand
   to it--and repent that we have not said it more often and proclaimed it
   more publicly among the sons of men! God has been so gracious to us
   that we cannot count His mercies! May we be pardoned for our past
   silence concerning them--and henceforth may our mouth be filled with
   His praise and with His honor all day.

   And, my dear Brothers and Sisters, as we have fallen short in our
   praise, I am sure that we have fallen much more short of anything like
   a proper return for God's goodness in our conduct and conversation. If
   we had been His slaves, we could not have served Him worse than we have
   done though we are His children. If He had been a tyrant to us, we
   could scarcely have done less for Him than we have done although He is
   our Father! I have often felt that I could blot my diary with tears
   again and again, and again, as I have said to myself--

   " What have I done for Him who died To save my guilty soul?

   How are my follies multiplied

   Fast as my minutes roll!

   Much of my time has run to waste,

   My sins how great their sum!

   Lord, give me pardon for the past,

   And strength for days to come!' Let these practical reflections abide
   in your memories, dear Friends. You do not know the number, or the
   value, or the weight of God's mercies. You do not feel the gratitude
   for them that is due. You do not give to God the praise that is
   fitting, nor live the life that is consistent with His goodness to you.
   Here are reasons for deep humiliation and for seeking the Grace that
   will enable us to mend our ways.

   III. Now, lastly, while there are these things which we do not know,
   THERE ARE SOME THINGS WHICH WE DO KNOW, which ought to increase our
   thankfulness.

   First, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you and I know very well
   the source from which all these mercies come to us. We cannot count
   them, but we know that they all spring from the eternal love of God in
   Christ Jesus our Lord towards His own people. We can trace every one of
   these sacred drops of mercy to the Fountain of God's discriminating,
   distinguishing Love. He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and
   He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. It was
   according to the greatness of His loving kindness to us, before the
   earth was, that He chose us to be a people to show forth His praise--a
   people to be "filled with all the fullness of God." Let us trace even
   our common mercies up to this source and let us especially see the love
   of God in every spiritual gift that we receive, for so shall we be
   moved to praise and bless Him more than we have ever yet done!

   Further, we know the channel through which every mercy comes to us. It
   comes through our blessed Lord and Mediator, Jesus Christ. And--

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

   I like to see the mark of my Master's sufferings upon every jewel with
   which He adorns my spirit--to know that if I am righteous, it is in His
   righteousness! If I am washed, it is in His blood! If I am saved, He is
   my Savior! If I am fed, He is my food. If I am glad, He is my crown
   ofjoy and if I ever enter Heaven, He will be my bliss forever!
   All-in-All is He to His people--everything comes to us through Him--so
   that we have a reason for gratitude in the way in which the mercy comes
   to us as well as in the mercy itself! We do not know the numbers of
   God's mercies to us, but we do know that every one of them comes to us
   by way of the Cross and bears the mark of the Redeemer's blood upon it!

   We do not know the number of God's mercies, but we do know the rule of
   them. That is to say, we know that they are always sent in love. If
   they seem to be stinted, it is love that stints them. And if they are
   increased, it is love that increases them. The whole of the day God's
   Love is shining upon us and when the natural sun has gone to its rest,
   there is no harmful moon to smite, us, but the same Love of God makes
   it light within our soul. If the Lord chastens me, it is because He
   loves me. If He takes away your child, your husband, or yourself,
   Believer, it is because He loves you! The rule of every mercy is the
   great rule of our Father's wisdom, our Father's faithfulness, our
   Father's affection!

   We know, also, with regard to all God' s mercies, the design of them.
   We know that they are all sent to us to be tokens of His Love and helps
   in our journey to Heaven. In addition to the mercy and the love that
   gives it, and the way by which it comes, there is a blessed end that
   sanctifies it all. The Lord said to Israel, concerning the Angel whom
   He promised to send with them, "He shall bless your bread and your
   water." Oh, to have the common mercies of life so blessed that they
   become spiritual helps to us! It can be so, for it is the design of
   God--in all that He sends to us--to bring us nearer to Him.

   Then, we know, over and above all this, the grand climax of it all. I
   know not the numbers thereof, but I know, my God, that when I shall
   have received my last mercy on earth, I shall receive my first
   enjoyment in Heaven! When I shall have had the last blessing of this
   mortal life, I shall have the first blessing of the life everlasting!
   When the goodness and the mercy that have followed me to the brink of
   Jordan shall cease, I shall have angels there to escort me up to the
   celestial hills, and to admit me to my Savior's Presence where there
   are pleasures forevermore! It is an endless chain, Beloved! When it has
   seemed to conclude in one place, it begins in another. David said,
   "Surely goodness and mercy shall

   follow me all the days of my life." And what did he say next?--"And I
   will dwell in the House of the Lord forever." Forever to behold the
   face of their Father, in His House above, is the portion of all the
   children of God!

   After all that I have said, I hope you will all say that a Christian's
   life is a happy one. It is! It is! We have our cross to carry. We have
   our daily sorrows, losses and trials--but each one of us can say, with
   Dr. Watts--

   "I would not change my blest estate, For all that earth calls good or
   great!" We enter our Master's service and accept the cross and all He
   gives us. We take the road to Heaven with all its thorns and briers.
   Yes, let what will come, He is so good and blessed a God who has made
   Himself to be His people's portion that if the rod is a part of the
   Covenant, then blessed be the rod and the hand that wields it--and let
   the Lord be praised from the rising of the sun even unto the going down
   of the same!

   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, since God is never wearied in giving,
   let us never be wearied in serving Him! Let us be steadfast, immovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord! Since He never stays His hand
   in bestowing mercies upon us, let us never stay our patient endurance
   of any of the ills of life that He is pleased to send us. And since His
   mercy will continue with us as long as we are here, let us never cast
   away our confidence in Him! Let us stay ourselves upon Him and fall
   back into His arms when we are weary. If we faint, let us faint on His
   bosom.

   I wish that all of us here, constantly receiving, as we do, so many
   mercies, had more thought of the hands and heart from which they come.
   Alas! Alas! With many, "the ox knows his owner, and the ass his
   master's crib," but these people do not know God! Feed a dog and he
   will get to know you. But there are men and women who know not the God
   who made them and in whose hands their breath is! Let this text abide
   with you--"The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations
   that forget God." You have not done anything amiss, you say. You do not
   drink, or swear, or lie, but, "all the nations that forget God" are to
   have the same portion as "the wicked" will have. Beware, you that
   forget God! And if you would remember Him, the easier way to do that is
   to see His love in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ! Think of Jesus
   bleeding for sinners. Trust yourself to Jesus and so you shall be
   saved, for, "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life."

   May God bless you all, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 71.

   This Psalm, written by an old man, is especially suitable for an old
   man. It is numbered seventy-one and it may suit those who have reached
   that age--but it is also appropriate to us all in prospect of the days
   of feebleness that will come to us, sooner or later, if we are spared
   to grow old.

   Verse 1. In You, O Lord, do I put my trust let me never be put to
   confusion. "Stand by me, O Lord, for I only stand as You uphold me--and
   if You should leave me, after I have trusted in You--what could I say
   or do? Therefore, O Jehovah, since I put my trust in You, 'let me never
   be put to confusion.'"

   2. Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape. "I am like
   a poor dove taken in a net--I cannot get away. Stretch out Your hand, O
   Lord, and tear the net and so deliver me, and cause me to escape. I
   cannot do anything for myself, except pray to You to deliver me."

   2. Incline Your ear unto me, and save me. "My prayer is weak.
   Therefore, O Lord, bend Your ear down to my lips, that You may catch my
   faintest words. Listen to my lisping, O Lord, and save me."

   3. Be You my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort You
   have given commandment to save me; for You are my rock and my fortress.
   If David wrote this Psalm after the rebellion of his wicked son,
   Absalom, I think there is an instructive illustration here. You
   remember that when the troops went out from Mahanaim to fight with
   Absalom, David commanded the three captains of the host--Joab, Abishai
   and Ittai--"Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with
   Absalom." They might slay his followers, but he commanded them to spare
   him. Alas, David's command was ineffectual, for Joab slew Absalom! But
   God's command was certain to be obeyed, so the Psalmist wrote, "You
   have given commandment to save me," with the full assurance that he
   would be saved. And all God's people can say to Him,

   "You have commanded angels and men, 'Touch not My anointed, and do My
   Prophets no harm.'" And each Believer can say to Him, "You have given
   commandment to save me; for You are my rock and my fortress."

   4, 5. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hands of the wicked, out of the
   hands of the unrighteous and cruel man. For You are my hope, O Lord
   GOD: You are my trust from my youth Happy is the man who can truthfully
   say that, "You are my trust from my youth." God does not cast off His
   old servants, as men often do. Those who give Him the best of their
   days will not find that He will desert them when the feebleness of age
   creeps over them.

   6. By You have I been held up from the womb: You are He that took me
   out of my mother's womb: my praise shall be continually of You. We do
   not think, as often as we should, of what we owe to God for His care
   over us at the time of our birth. Our mothers returned thanks on their
   own behalf and ours, but, as we look back, we are bound to return
   thanks, too, for that kindly care of God in our most extreme
   weakness--when the little candle of life was scarcely lighted and might
   have been so easily blown out. Then, as God took care of us in our
   first infancy, do You not think that He will take care of us when we
   get into our second childhood? We are never likely to be quite as weak
   as we were then, but, as the Lord guarded us at that time, will He not
   guard us in those dark days which are already looming before some of
   us? Of course He will! Therefore, be of good courage, for He shall
   strengthen your heart and your praise shall be continually of Him.

   7. I am as a wonder unto many. A prodigy to some, a monster to others,
   a marvel, a mystery, a riddle to all, but here is the solution to the
   problem that puzzles so many.

   7. But You are my strong refuge. Even the weak are strong when God is
   their refuge! The most defenseless are safe when God is their defense.
   Wonder not at the mysterious life of a Christian, for this Truth of God
   explains the mystery-- "You are my strong refuge."

   8. Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your honor all day.
   What a blessed mouthful, and what a sweet mouthful this is--and what a
   blessed means of keeping the mouth from saying unkind, slanderous, or
   murmuring words!

   9. 10. Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my
   strength fails. For my enemies speak against me and they that lay wait
   for my soul take counsel together When the lion is sick, every cur is
   bold enough to bark at him. Men were afraid of David when he was
   strong, but when he grew feeble, they began to howl at him and gather
   round him like a pack of hounds around a wounded stag. Worst of all,
   they uttered this monstrous lie, which was most grievous to David's
   heart.

   11. Saying, God has forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is
   none to deliver him. If they had possessed even ordinary compassion,
   they would have said, "Since there is none to deliver him, let us not
   attack him. If God has forsaken him, he is in misery enough, so let us
   try to comfort him." But, instead of doing this, they acted after the
   fashion of their father, the devil, who has no tenderness and nothing
   of a compassionate spirit within him.

   12. O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help. Notice
   the still more intense grip of faith in the second clause. The Psalmist
   first says, ' 'O God," then He says, "O myGod." It is grand pleading
   when we so grasp God with the personal grip of faith that we cry, "O my
   God, make haste for my help."

   13. 14. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my
   soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt.
   But I will hope continually, and still yet praise You more and more.
   Hoping and praising are among the very best styles of living. Hoping
   honors God in secret--and praising honors Him in public. Oh, for more
   of these two good things!

   15. My mouth shall show forth Your righteousness and Your salvation all
   the day; for I know not the numbers thereof When David spoke of those
   who hated him without a cause, he said that they were more than the
   hairs of his head. He could not count them, but he went as near to
   doing so as he could. But when he began to speak of God's mercies as
   displayed in His righteousness and His salvation, he did not draw any
   comparison, or attempt to number them. This is a calculation in which
   we are utterly lost--our system of numeration fails us altogether when
   we come to deal with the loving kindness of the Lord!

   16. I will go in the strength of the LORD GOD: I will make mention of
   Your righteousness, even of Yours only. He did not reckon that any
   other righteousness was worth mentioning--and certainly not his own.
   The best of men, those who have been the most noted for their good
   works, have always been the first to feel that they had no works in
   which they could put any trust! One godly man, when he was dying, said
   to a friend, I have been trying to separate my good

   Volume 53 www.spurgeongems.org 7

   works and my evil works from one another, but I have found the task too
   great for me--so I have thrown them all overboard and now I will float
   to Heaven upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone."

   17. O God, You have taught me from my youth: and until now have I
   declared Your wondrous works. [Mr. Spurgeon delivered a remarkable
   discourse upon this text, illustrating the theme from his own early
   experience. See Sermon No. 2318, Volume 39-- GOD'S PUPIL, GOD'S
   PREACHER--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY--Read/download the entire sermon, free of
   charge, at http://www.spurgeongems.org. ] I pray very earnestly for you
   young people, and I beg you to pray for yourselves, that you may have
   the great privilege of being able to say with the Psalmist, "O God, You
   have taught me from my youth." They make good scholars who go to school
   early and keep at school long--and have such a blessed Schoolmaster as
   the Psalmist had--"O God, You have taught me." David's mother taught
   him much that was good, but it was still better for him to have God as
   his Teacher. Then, after being a scholar, he became a pupil-teacher. He
   still went on learning, but he also began to teach--"Until now have I
   declared Your wondrous works." All God's scholars ought to be
   pupil-teachers, always learning more and more from Him, and then
   teaching others all that they learn.

   18. Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not;
   until I have shown Your strength unto this generation, and Your power
   to everyone that is to come. Old men ought to tell younger men what God
   has done for them. There is great weight in the testimony of a godly
   man of ripe experience. Full of years, he speaks of what he knows, and
   testifies of what he has seen, tasted and handled of the Truth of God.
   We need many a Nestor in the camp of Christ, whose valor in former
   times and whose experience in days of battling for the right may
   inspire with valor the younger men to whom he speaks!

   19. Your righteousness, also, O God, is very high, who has done great
   things: O God, who is like unto You?The more we know of God, the less
   we think of all others. We sink ourselves out of sight and all other
   creatures seem to be as nothing in comparison with our God.

   20. You, which have shown me great and sore troubles, shall quicken me
   again, and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth.This we
   shall experience in part even in our present lifetime, but we shall
   much more fully experience it on the Resurrection Morning--

   " When Christ His risen saints shall bring From beds of dust, and
   silent clay, To realms of everlasting day."

   21. You shall increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side.
   Think of poor old David talking like this when he was driven into exile
   and many of his former friends had forsaken him--"'You shall increase
   my greatness.' I shall get good out of this evil. I shall rise by this
   fall. I shall be a gainer by these losses."

   22. I will also praise You with the psaltery, even Your Truth, O my
   God. "When I have proved Your Truth. When my joyful experience has
   proved that every promise of Yours is true to Your servant, then I will
   praise both yourself and Your Truth, O my God."

   22, 23. Unto You will I sing with the harp, O You Holy One of Israel My
   lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto You.That is the best kind
   of praise to God when our very lips are happy in singing--when we do
   not merely speak the sound, but when the meaning wells up from our
   heart and our lips are glad to sing it out.

   23, 24. And my soul, which You have redeemed. My tongue also shall talk
   of Your righteousness all daylong: for they are confounded, for they
   are brought unto shame that seek my hurt
     __________________________________________________________________

John Mark--or, Haste in Religion

   (No. 3023)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "And they all forsook Him, and fled. And there followed Him a certain
   young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the
   young men laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from
   them naked." Mark 14:50-52.

   THIS little episode in the narrative of the Evangelist is very
   singular. One wonders why it is introduced, but a moment's reflection
   will, I think, suggest a plausible reason. It strikes me that this
   "certain young man" was none other than Mark, himself. He was probably
   asleep and, awakened by a great clamor, he asked what it was about. The
   information was speedily given, "The guards have come to arrest Jesus
   of Nazareth." Moved by sudden impulse, not thinking of what he was
   doing, he rises from his bed, rushes down, pursues the troopers, dashes
   into the midst of their ranks as though he, alone, would attempt the
   rescue when all the disciples had fled. The moment the young men lay
   hold upon him, his heroic spasm is over--his enthusiasm evaporates, he
   runs away, leaves behind the linen cloth that was loosely wrapped about
   his body--and makes his escape. There have been many, since then, who
   have acted as Mark did. And it seems to me that this digression from
   the main narrative is intended to point a moral.

   First, however, you will ask me, "Why do you suppose that this certain
   young man was Mark?" I grant you that it is merely a supposition, yet
   it is supported by the strongest chain of probabilities and will
   sufficiently account for the manner in which he has inserted it.
   Calvin, following Ambrose and Chrysostom, thinks it was John, albeit
   few modern critics attach much weight to that conjecture. I find that
   the more perplexing critics of the modern school ascribe this
   transaction to Mark for these reasons--it was usual, among the
   Evangelists, to relate transactions in which they themselves took part
   without mentioning their names. This commonly occurs in the case of
   John, for instance. He bashfully keeps back his name when there is
   anything to his credit and he does the same when it is to the reverse.
   I could quote one or two instances of this practice in the Gospel of
   Luke and it is not at all remarkable that such a thing should have
   occurred in the case of Mark. Whoever it was, the only person likely to
   know it, was the man himself! I cannot think that anyone else would
   have been likely to tell it to Mark and, therefore, I conceive it to
   have been he--for he might scarcely have thought it worthy of recording
   if it had been told him by someone else! And it is not likely that
   anyone to whom it had occurred would have felt it was much to his
   credit--and been likely to relate it to Mark with a view to its being
   recorded!

   Again, we know that such a transaction as this was quite in keeping
   with Mark's general character. We gather his character partly from the
   Book which he has written--the Gospel of Mark is the most impulsive of
   all the Gospels. You are aware and I have frequently mentioned it to
   you, that the word eutheos, translated, "straightway," "forthwith,"
   "immediately," is used a very great number of times by this evangelist
   in his Book. He is a man who does everything straightway--he is full of
   impulse, dash, fire, flash--the thing must be done and done at once.
   His Gospel is of that description. You do not find many of Christ's
   sermons in Mark. He gives you just a sketch, an outline. He had not
   perseverance enough to take the whole down and he scarcely finishes the
   narration of the death of Christ. His Book seems to break off abruptly,
   yet he is the most picturesque of all the Evangelists. There are pieces
   of imagination and there are Hogarthian touches in the sacred Biography
   he writes, that are not to be found in Matthew, or Luke, or John. The
   man is a man of fire! He is all enthusiasm. Poetry has filled his soul
   and, therefore, he dashes at the thing. He lacks perseverance and will
   hardly finish what he takes in hand, yet there is a genius about him
   not altogether uncommon to Christian men in this age--and there are
   faults in him exceedingly common at the present time.

   Once more, the known life of John Mark tends to make it very probable
   that he would do such a thing as is referred to in our text. When Paul
   and Barnabas set out on their missionary enterprise, they were attended
   by Mark. As long as they were sailing across the blue waters and as
   long as they were on the island of Cyprus, Mark stuck to them. No,
   while they traveled along the coast of Asia Minor, we find they had
   John Mark to be their minister--but the moment they went up into the
   inland countries, among the robbers and the mountain streams--as soon
   as ever the road began to be a little too rough, John Mark left them!
   His missionary zeal had oozed out. At a later period, Mark was the
   cause of a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas. Paul would not
   have Mark with him any longer. He could not tame him-- he did not
   believe in these impulsive people who could not hold on under
   difficulties. But Barnabas, knowing him better--for Mark was his
   sister's son--and feeling a kinsman's lenity to his faults, insisted
   upon it that they should take John Mark. The altercation grew so
   violent between Paul and Barnabas that they separated on this account
   and would not proceed together on their Divine mission! Yet Barnabas
   was right, but I think that Paul was not wrong. Barnabas was right in
   his mild judgment of Mark, for he was a sound Believer at bottom and,
   notwithstanding this fault, he was a real, true-hearted disciple. We
   find him afterwards reconciled entirely to the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote
   to Timothy, "Take Mark, and bring him with you, for he is profitable to
   me for the ministry." And we find Paul affectionately mentioning,
   "Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas," which shows, on the one hand, the
   Apostle's Christian candor and kindness and, on the other hand, that
   Mark had retrieved his character by perseverance.

   Tradition says that Mark became the Bishop of Alexandria. We do not
   know whether that was correct or not, but it is likely enough that he
   was. Certainly he was with Paul at Rome and the latter part of his life
   was spent with Peter at Babylon. See what a man he is. He goes to Rome,
   but he cannot stay there long. He has done his work in Rome. He is one
   of your fidgety people who do things all of a sudden, so away he goes
   to Alexandria! But I think he must have found a very congenial friend
   in Peter. He would be a blessing to Peter and Peter would be a blessing
   to him, for Peter's disposition was cast in something of the same mold
   as his own. You may have noticed that Mark gives the most explicit
   account of Peter's fall. He enters very fully into it. I believe that
   he received it from Peter viva voce, and that Peter bade him write it
   down. And I think the modest spirit of Mark seemed to say, "Friend
   Peter, while the Holy Spirit moves me to tell of your fault and let it
   stand on record, He also constrains me to write my own as a sort of
   preface to it, for I, too, in my mad, hare-brained folly, would have
   run, unclothed as I was, upon the guard to rescue my Lord and Master,
   yet, at the first sight of the rough legionaries--at the first gleam of
   their swords--away I fled, timid, faint-hearted and afraid that I
   should be too roughly handled." For these reasons the supposition that
   this "certain young man" was John Mark appears to me not to be utterly
   baseless. There is no hypothesis in favor of any other man that is
   supported by equal probabilities. Very well, then. We will assume that
   he was the man and use the incident as the groundwork of our discourse.
   We have some counterparts of him, here, and we shall try to expose them
   and make use of Mark's blunder for their correction, in respect both to
   hasty following and hasty running away.

   I. First, here is HASTY FOLLOWING.

   John Mark does not wait to robe himself, but, just as he is, he dashes
   out for the defense of his Lord. Without a moment's thought, taking no
   sort of consideration, down he goes into the cold night air to try and
   deliver his Master! Fervent zeal waited not for chary prudence. There
   was something good and something bad in this--something to admire as
   well as something to censure.

   Beloved, it is a good and right thing for us to follow Christ and to
   follow Him at once. And it is a brave thing to follow Him when His
   other disciples forsake Him and flee. It is a bold and worthy courage
   to take deadly odds for Christ and to rush, one against a thousand, for
   the honor of His dear hallowed name. Would that all professors of
   religion had the intrepidity of Mark! Would that all who have been
   careless about religion might emulate his haste and be as precipitate
   in flying to Christ by faith as he was in running to the rescue in that
   hour of assault! The most of men are too slow--fast enough in the
   world, but, ah, how slow in the things of God! I declare that if
   corporations and companies were half as concerned about worldly things
   as the Church of God is about spiritual things, instead of a railway
   accident every three or four months, we would have one every hour! And
   instead of a revolution every one or two centuries, it would be well if
   we did not have one every year, for, of all the lazy things in the
   world, the Church of Christ is the most sluggish! Of all people that
   dilly-dally in this world, I think the professed servants of God are
   the most guilty.

   How slothful are the ungodly, too, in Divine things! Tell them they are
   sick and they hasten to a surgeon. Tell them that their title-deeds are
   about to be attacked and they will defend them with legal power--but
   tell them, in God's name, that their soul is in danger--and they think
   it matters so little and is of so small import that they will wait on,
   and wait on, and wait on, and doubtless continue to wait on till they
   find themselves lost forever! Let me stir up those who have not
   believed on the Lord Jesus Christ to look diligently to their eternal
   state. You have tarried long enough. The time that you have been out of
   Christ is surely long enough for the lusts of the flesh. What fruit
   have you gathered in your impenitence and sin? How much have you been
   bettered by neglecting Christ and minding worldly things? Has it not
   been all a dreary toil? It may have been decked out with a few
   transient pleasures, but, putting the ungodly life into the scale, what
   does it come to? "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Do you not
   confess this? Why, then, tarry any longer? Have you got any happiness
   in being an enemy to God? Then why not be reconciled to Him? Oh, that
   the Spirit of God would make you see that the time past has sufficed
   you to have worked the will of the flesh!

   Besides, how little time you have to spare! Even if you have much,
   Jesus demands that you repent now. "The Holy Spirit says, Today if you
   will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." The Gospel invitation is
   not for tomorrow, but for today. The warnings of the Gospel all bid you
   shun procrastination. Is not this Satan's great net in which men, like
   the silly fishes of the deep, are taken to their eternal destruction? O
   you dove, pursued by the hawk, tarry not, but fly at once to the
   dovecote--to the wounds of Jesus and find shelter there! Jesus calls
   you. Come to Him while He calls you. Why will you delay? His cause
   needs you. Young men, there are some of you who will spend the best of
   your days in Satan's cause--and when we get you, as we hope we
   shall--we shall have to baptize into Christ your shriveled ego, your
   palsied weakness! Let it not be so, I pray you. In these days of error
   and sin, Christ needs for His Kingdom men who are strong and vigorous,
   young men who are strong, as John says, and "have overcome the Wicked
   One." Gladly would I turn recruiting sergeant and enlist you for my
   Master! Oh, that you were on His side now! You cannot be too hasty
   here. If now the weapons of your rebellion are thrown down. If now you
   "kiss the Son, lest He be angry," you will have waited already too
   long! You will not--you cannot come to Christ too soon. Hark! Hark! I
   hear the chariot wheels of Death! He comes! He comes! And the axles of
   his chariot are hot with speed. He stands aloft, driving his white
   horse. The skeleton rider brandishes his awful spear and you are the
   victim! God has spared you up till now, but He may not bid you spend
   another Sabbath here. I hear the mowers scythe everywhere, as I pass
   along, making ready to cut down the grass and the flowers thereof.
   Death's scythe is being sharpened! He reaps his harvest every day and,
   whether you are prepared or not, you must be cut down when God's time
   shall come!

   Fly, then, I pray you! And though you are, like John Mark, unfit and
   unprepared, remember that you may come to Christ naked, for He can
   clothe you! You may come to Christ filthy, for He can wash you! You may
   come all unholy and defiled to Jesus, for He can put away your sin!
   Come! The Spirit of God seems to me to say to you, "Come." I pray that
   He may bid you to come and "lay hold on eternal life." I do not know
   how it is, I sometimes feel for many of my Hearers--especially for
   those of you whose faces I have seen for years--an awful earnestness
   even when I am not in this pulpit. And I think then that if I could get
   at your ear, I would plead with you. Think how many like you I have
   buried! How often do I stand at the grave's mouth, till sometimes,
   when, week after week and twice each week, I stand there, I fancy
   myself talking to dying men, and not to living men at all--talking to a
   company of shadows that come and go before me--and I stand still,
   myself a shadow, soon to flit like the rest. Oh, that I could talk to
   you as I then feel, and pour out my soul to you! We need a Baxter to
   bring men to immediate decision--Baxter with weeping eyes and burning
   heart--Baxter who says, "I will go down on my knees to entreat you to
   think upon eternal things." Baxter, who cries and groans for men till
   they cry and groan for themselves! Why will you die? Why will you let
   that fatal procrastination kill you? Why will you put off seeking the
   Savior until your day is over? Why will you still waste the candle
   which is so short? Why will you let the day go when the sun already
   dips beneath the horizon? By the shortness of time, by the sureness of
   death, by the certainty of eternal judgment, I beseech you to fly to
   Jesus and to fly to Jesus now, even though it should be in the hurry of
   John Mark!

   Now I change my note, for there is a haste that we must reprove. The
   precipitate running of Mark suggests an admonition that should put you
   on your guard. He came all of a sudden by his religion and there are
   some people who do this who might as well have no religion at all.
   That, however, was not the case with Mark. He was a genuine Christian
   character, yet, with nine out of ten of these people, I am afraid it is
   far otherwise. Let me address some here who have all of a sudden come
   to Christ. I do not want to throw doubts in their way as to their
   sincerity, but I do want to incite them to examine themselves.

   I am afraid some people make a hasty profession through the persuasion
   of friends. You walk with your friend and he says, "I have joined the
   church--why don't you do so?" He is not wise enough to put to you
   pointed questions which would let him see whether you are converted or
   not, but he unwisely presses you to make a profession when there is no
   Grace in your heart. I pray you, as soon as you know Christ, speak out
   for Him and come out and show your colors. But I also beseech you never
   profess to follow Christ merely through the persuasion of friends! I
   trust no pious mother would ever recommend you to do so. I am sure no
   wise father would ever urge it upon you. They would bid you fly to
   Christ at once, but, as to making a profession of faith, they would
   have you see first whether the root of the matter is in you--and when
   they are persuaded and you are persuaded that it is--they will throw no
   stumbling blocks in your way.

   Young people, I pray you, do not be deceived in this matter. How many
   have we seen, in revival times, who have been induced to come forward
   to "the penitent form," as it is called. That night, oh, how much they
   felt because their natural sensibilities were strongly worked upon! But
   the next morning, oh, how little have they felt! When the agencies that
   stimulated them have been withdrawn--when the meetings that stirred the
   embers, and the preacher that fanned the flame no longer exert any
   transient spell over them--their disenchanted souls sink down into a
   profound stupor! In many churches there are so few making profession of
   religion that there is not much danger of this evil--but here, where we
   receive so many every week, there is need for wise discrimination! I do
   beseech you never to sit down with a religion that comes to you merely
   through your being talked to by your acquaintances--

   "True religion's more than notion-- Something must be known and felt."

   Nor are there a mere few who get their religion through excitement.
   This furnishes another example of injudicious haste. They hear religion
   painted as being very beautiful. They see the beauty of it. They admire
   it--they think what a lovely thing it must be to be a Christian.
   Feeling this and misled by a sort of excitement in their minds, they
   conclude that this is repentance. A false confidence they write down as
   faith! They eagerly infer that they are the children of God, whereas,
   alas, they are but the dupes of their own emotion--and still "the
   children of wrath, even as others." Beware, I pray you, of a religion
   which lives upon excitement! We ought to be filled with enthusiasm. A
   fervent love should make our hearts always glow. The zeal of God's
   House should be our master-passion. Men never do much in politics till
   they grow warm upon a question and, in religion, the very highest
   degree of excitement is not only pardonable, but praiseworthy. What,
   then, is it, which we deprecate? Not the emotions of spiritual life,
   but an exclusive dependence upon impulse! If you try to live upon the
   spell of a man's words, upon the imposing grandeur of a multitude
   assembled together, upon the fascination of congregational singing, or
   even upon the heart-thrilling fervor of Prayer Meetings, you will find
   the lack of substantial food and the danger of an intoxicated brain! As
   it was with the quails which the children of Israel ate in the
   wilderness, God's bounties may be fed upon to your injury. No, dear
   Friends, there must be the real work of the Holy Spirit in the soul or
   else the repentance we get will be a repentance which needs to be
   repented

   of!

   I well know a town where there was a certain eminent revivalist whom I
   greatly respect. It was said that half the population had been
   converted under his ministry, but I do not think that if the numbers
   were counted at the present moment, there would be found a dozen of his
   converts. This revival work, where it is real and good, is God's best
   blessing, but where it is flimsy and unreal, it is Satan's worse curse!
   Revivalists are often like the locusts. Before them, it may not be
   quite an Eden, but certainly, behind them, it is a desert when the
   excitement is over. I like rather to see the Word so preached that men
   are brought under its power by the force of the Truth, itself, and not
   by excitement--by the Truth of God being laid down in so clear a manner
   as to enlighten the judgment, rather than by perpetual appeals to the
   passions, which ultimately wear out the sinews of mental vigor and make
   men more dull in religion than they were before.

   Beware, I pray you, of getting the mere religion of poetry, enthusiasm
   and rhapsody. Many profess Christ and think to follow Him without
   counting the cost They fancy the road to Heaven is all smooth,
   forgetting that the way is rough and that there are many foes. They set
   out, like Mr. Pliable, for the Celestial City, but they stumble into
   the first bog and then they say that if they can but get out on the
   side nearest to their own house, Christian may have the brave country
   all

   to himself for them! Oh, the many we have seen, at divers times, that
   seemed to run well, but they ran in the strength of the flesh and in
   the mists of ignorance! They had never sought God's strength. They had
   never been emptied of their own works and their own conceits and,
   consequently, in their best estate they were vanity! They were like the
   snail that melts as it crawls--not like the snowflake upon the Alps
   which gathers strength in its descent till it becomes a ponderous
   avalanche! God make you to be not meteors, but stars fixed in their
   place! I want you to resemble not the ignis fatuus of the morass, but
   the steady beacon on the rock! There is a phosphorescence that creeps
   over the summer sea, but who is ever lighted by it to the port of
   peace? And there is a phosphorescence which comes over some men's
   minds--very bright, it seems, but it is of no value--it brings no man
   to Heaven.

   Be as hasty as John Mark, if it is a sound haste, but take care that it
   is not a spasm of excitement--a mere fit-- otherwise, when the fit is
   over, you will go back to your old haunts and your old habits with
   shame. You will be like Saul among the Prophets one day and hating the
   anointed king the next! So much, so earnestly would I warn you against
   hasty followings of Christ!

   II. It only remains for me to notice briefly THE HASTY RUNNING AWAY.

   I do not know that the persons who are readiest to run away are always
   those who were the fastest to make their profession. I am inclined to
   think not. But some who do run well at first, have hardly breath enough
   to keep the pace up and so turn aside for a little comfortable
   ease--and do not get into the road again. Such are not genuine
   Christians-- they are only men-made, self-made Christians--and these
   self-made Christians never hold on, and never can hold on because time
   wears them out and they turn back to their formed state.

   There are two kinds ofdesertion which we denounce as hasty running
   away--the one temporary, the other final To the members of the Church,
   let me speak upon the former. My dear Brothers and Sisters, especially
   you who are young in years and have lately been added to our number, I
   pray you watch against temporary running away from the Truth of Christ.
   Think what a fool Mark made of himself. Here he comes. Here is your
   hero. What wonders he is going to do! Here is a Samson for you. Perhaps
   he will slay his thousand men. But no, he runs away before he strikes a
   single blow. He has not even courage enough to be taken prisoner and to
   be dragged away with Christ to the judgment seat and bear a patient
   witness there! He turns tail at once and away he flies! How simple he
   looked! How everybody in the crowd must have laughed at the venturesome
   coward--the dastardly bravo! And what a fool will you seem if, after
   uniting yourself with the Church and seeming to be a servant of God,
   you shall give way under temptation! Some young man in the same shop
   laughs at you and says, "Aha, aha, you are baptized, I hear!" And you
   tremble, like Peter, under the questioning of the little maid, or your
   employer sees something wrong and he makes some rough remark to you,
   "Well, this is a fine thing for a Christian soldier!" Cannot you face
   the enemy for the first time? "If you have run with the footmen and
   they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in
   the land of peace, wherein you trusted, they wearied you, then how will
   you do in the swelling of Jordan?"

   A religion that cannot stand a little laughter must be a very rotten
   one. We know some people whose religion is on so unsound a basis--whose
   profession is so hollow and whose position is so shaky--that they make
   a great noise when we touch them! Their system is of human construction
   and rotten--and they know it--therefore are they angry if we do but
   allude to it! Were it sound and good, then whatever we might say would
   never frighten them. But, Sirs, how many who have made a fair show in
   the flesh have been personally and individually tried and found
   wanting? "Tekel" has been written on the wall concerning them! Their
   first setting out was hasty and they have been turned aside through a
   little laughter.

   Do you not see, dear Friends, that this will always render you very
   untrustworthy? If you shrink in this way, the Church will never trust
   you. I hope you will be a leader in God's Israel one day, young man. We
   are looking to you, if not to be a preacher, yet to be a Church officer
   one day. But who will ever ask you to do anything when you cannot keep
   steadfast and hold your own position? He who has not Grace enough to
   prevent his running away in the time of tribulation is not at all
   likely to be made a leader of God's host. The Church will retain you,
   as it retained Mark, but it will always look upon you with a sort of
   suspicion. We shall always say, "Where is So-and-So? We know where he
   was yesterday, but where is he today?" Therefore, abstain from these
   inconsistencies for your own character's sake.

   Besides, how much damage you do the church with which you are
   connected! All the persecutors and infidels outside the church's walls
   can never harm us so much as inconsistent people inside. "Ah," they
   say, "there is one of the people who go to the Prayer Meeting," when
   they see a man in the pot-house who sits at the Communion Table. "Ah,
   there is one of your religious people! He can cheat as well as anybody
   else. He knows how to thumb the yard measure. He knows how to give
   short weight! He knows how to promise to pay on a certain day and then
   get into the Bankruptcy Court! The servants of Christ are no better
   than other people. They make a great fuss about their purity, but see
   what they will do!"

   And then see what harm this will do to Christ's Church, itself. How
   many who love God will sit down and weep when they see such
   inconsistencies in you! Good captains can endure wounds--they can even
   bear defeat--but they cannot bear to see cowardice on the part of their
   troops. They cannot bear to see their men running away. If "the men of
   Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turn back in the day of
   battle," then their leader weeps, for the glorious Cross of Christ is
   dishonored, the escutcheon is sullied and the banner is trailed in the
   mud! May the Lord so keep us that our garments shall be always white.
   That though before God we may have many sins to confess, we may stand
   like Job and say, "Lord, You know that I am not wicked." May your
   testimony be so clear concerning the religion of Christ that those who
   watch for your stumbling and who hate you with a perfect hatred may,
   nevertheless, find nothing against you, but may be constrained to say,
   "These are the servants of the living God and they serve Him, indeed,
   and of a truth."

   I urge you not to flee or to flinch. Some of us have had much lying and
   slander to bear in our time, but are we a whit the worse? No, and if we
   had to choose whether we would bear it again, would we not do so? We
   may have had to be laughed at and caricatured, but all that breaks no
   bones and should not make a brave man wince! Who can be afraid or
   alarmed when his war cry is, "The Lord of Hosts," and when the banner
   of God's own Truth waves over his head? Be of good courage, my Brothers
   and Sisters, and you shall yet win the victory! In the world you shall
   have tribulation, but in Christ you shall have peace! Value the Holy
   Spirit above all things. Realize your entire dependence upon Him. Pray
   for fresh Grace. Venture not into the world without a fresh store of
   His hallowed influence. Live in the Divine Love. Seek to be filled with
   that blessed Spirit and then, my Brothers and Sisters, even if the
   strong man armed shall lay hold of you, you will not flee away--shame
   shall not overtake you, dismay shall not frighten your souls--and you
   shall stand in unblemished integrity to the end as the true servants of
   Jesus Christ!

   And now, in concluding, what am I to say of a final apostasy?None of
   God's people ever pursue their wanderings to this terrible issue! No
   vessel of mercy was ever finally wrecked! No elect souls can run to
   this fatal length of wickedness! But there are many in the visible
   church who do draw back to Perdition. Many who profess to belong to
   Christ are branches that bear no fruit and, therefore, are cut off and
   cast into the fire! That may be the condition of some here present. It
   may be the lot of some of you who "have a name to live, and are dead."
   Let me plead with you. Oh, what a dreadful thing it will be if you
   apostatize after all! Shall I live to see you go back into the world? I
   would sooner bury you! Shall I live to see some of you who have
   professed to find the Lord under my ministry, at last sinning with a
   high hand and an outstretched arm--and living worse than you did
   before? God spare us this evil thing! Let Him chastise His servant in
   any way He thinks fit but, O Lord, if possible, let not this be the
   rod--to see professors become false!

   Remember that if you do apostatize, you have increased your guilt by
   the profession you have made--and impressed your character with a more
   terrible defilement! When the unclean spirit went out of the man and
   afterwards returned, he brought with him seven other spirits more
   wicked than himself. And they entered in and dwelt there--and the last
   state of that man was worse than the first! It would have been better
   for you never to have known the way of righteousness than having known
   it, to turn aside to those crooked paths. Think what the dying bed of
   an apostate must be. Did you ever read "The Groans of Spira?" That was
   a book, circulated about the time of the Reformation--a book so
   terrible that even a man of iron could scarcely read it. Spira knew the
   Gospel, but yet went back to the Church of Rome. His conscience awoke
   on his dying bed and his cries and shrieks were too terrible to be
   endured by his nurses! And as to his language--it was despair written
   out at full length in capital letters! My eminent predecessor, Mr.
   Benjamin Keach, published a like narrative of the death of John Child,
   who became a minister of the Gospel, but afterwards went back to the
   church from which he had seceded--and died in the most frightful
   despair. May God keep you from the deathbed of any man who has lived as
   a professing Christian, yet who dies an apostate from the faith!

   But what must be the apostate's doom when his naked soul goes before
   God? How can he bear that awful sentence, "Depart, you cursed one; you
   have rejected Me, and I reject you; you have departed from Me--I also
   have cast you away forever and will not have mercy upon you"? What will
   be this poor wretch's shame at the Last Great Day when, before the
   assembled multitudes, the apostate shall be unmasked? I think I see the
   profane and open sinners who never professed

   religion, lifting themselves up from their beds of fire to point at
   him. "There he is," says one, "will he preach the Gospel in Hell?"
   "There he is," says another, "he rebuked me for cursing, yet he was a
   hypocrite himself." "Aha," says another, "here comes a Psalm-singing
   Methodist, one who was always at his meetings! He is the man who
   boasted of his religion, yet here he is!" No greater eagerness will
   ever be seen among Satanic tormentors than in that day when devils drag
   the hypocrite's soul and the apostate's spirit down to Hell! Bunyan
   pictures this with massive but awful grandeur of poetry when he speaks
   of the back way to Hell. The devils were binding a man with nine cords
   and were taking him from the road to Heaven--in which he had professed
   to walk--and thrust him through the back door of Hell. Mind that back
   way to Hell, professors! You professors of religion who have been in
   the church for years, "examine yourselves, whether you are in the
   faith." Examine yourselves, whether you are deceived. Look well to your
   state. See whether you are really in Christ, or not. It is the easiest
   thing in the world to give a lenient verdict when you, yourself, are to
   be tried! But oh, I implore you, be just and true here! Be just to all,
   but be especially rigorous in judging yourself. Remember, if it is not
   a rock on which you build, your house will fall and great will be the
   fall of it! Oh, may the Lord give you sincerity, constancy and
   firmness--and in no day, however evil, may you be tempted to turn
   aside! Rather, may you hold fast by God and His Truth--by Christ and
   His Cross, come what may!

   My soul longs, however many years God may spare me to walk in and out
   among you, to find you as earnest for God, and as loving towards Christ
   as you are this day. I glory in you among all the churches. God has
   given you the spirit of faith and prayer, of earnest zeal and a sound
   mind. Unto Him be the Glory! But, as a Church, do not backslide. Let
   not our fervor diminish! Let not our zeal die out! Let us love one
   another more tenderly than ever. Let us cling fast to one another. Let
   us not be divided! Let no root of bitterness springing up trouble us.
   Firm and steadfast, shoulder to shoulder, like a phalanx of old, let us
   stand fast and so repel the foe and win the kingdom for Jesus Christ
   our Lord! "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to
   present you faultless before the Presence of His Glory with exceeding
   joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be Glory and majesty, dominion
   and power, both now and ever. Amen."

   PUBLISHERS' NOTE: No Exposition of the passage of Scripture read by Mr.
   Spurgeon before he preached the foregoing Sermon appears to have been
   preserved and the subject on which he spoke was so unusual that no
   other Exposition would have been appropriate to accompany it. As the
   preacher, in his introduction, referred to various portions of the New
   Testament where allusion is made to Mark or Marcus, it has been deemed
   advisable to reprint all the references to John Mark, so that readers
   may examine them in the light of Mr. Spurgeon's message. Under the
   circumstances, they are printed without note or comment--

   Acts 12:11-25. And when Peter was come to himself he said, Now I know
   of a surety, that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me out
   of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the
   Jews. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of
   Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark; where many were
   gathered together praying. And as Peter knocked at the door of the
   gate, a damsel came to hearken, named Rhoda. And when she knew Peter's
   voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in and told how
   Peter stood before the gate. And they said unto her, You are mad. But
   she constantly affirmed that it was even so. Then said they, It is his
   angel. But Peter continued knocking: and when they had opened the door,
   and saw him, they were astonished. But he, beckoning unto them with the
   hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought
   him out of the prison. And he said, Go show these things unto James and
   the brethren. And he departed, and went into another place. Now as soon
   as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was
   become of Peter. And when Herod had sought for him, and found him not,
   he examined the keepers, and commanded that they should be put to
   death. And he went down from Judaea to Caesarea, and there abode. And
   Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came
   with one accord to him and, having made Blastus, the kings chamberlain,
   their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the
   king's country. And upon a set day Herod arrayed in royal apparel, sat
   upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a
   shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man! And
   immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God
   the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost But the
   Word of God grew and multiplied. And Barnabus and Saul returned from
   Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them
   John, whose surname was Mark

   Acts 13:5. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the Word of God
   in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John as their
   minister.

   Acts 13:13. Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came
   to Perga in Pamphilia: and John departing from them returned to
   Jerusalem.

   Acts 15:35-41. Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching
   and preaching the Word of the Lord, with many others also. And some
   days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our
   brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and
   see how they do. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose
   surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who
   departed from them from Parmphylia, and went not with them to the work.
   And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed
   asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto
   Cyprus; and Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the
   brethren unto the Grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia,
   confirming the churches.

   Colossians 4:10-11. Aristarchus my fellow prisoner salutes you, and
   Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas, (touching whom you received
   commandments: if he come unto you, receive him) and Jesus, which is
   called Justus, who are of the circumcision. These only are my fellow
   workers unto the Kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto me.

   2 Timothy 4:11. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with
   you: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

   Philemon 23, 24. There salute you Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in
   Christ Jesus; Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers.

   1 Peter 5:13. The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you,
   salutes you; and so does Marcus my son.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Death And Ours

   (No. 3024)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 14, 1869.

   "And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man
   should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of
   wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but fit dies, it
   brings forth much fruit." John 12:23-24.

   CERTAIN Greeks desired to "see Jesus." They informed Philip of their
   desire, Philip consulted with Andrew and the two disciples together
   informed their Master of what seemed to them to be a very important
   matter. As wise men from the East once came to see Jesus, so now would
   these Gentiles from the West do the same! Probably Philip and Andrew
   expected that Christ would display His miraculous power before the eyes
   of these enquirers, but our Lord, instead of going on from His
   triumphal procession and the hosannas of the multitude to something
   outwardly grander, began at once to speak about a glorification far
   other than either His disciples or these Greeks desired--a
   glorification which was to follow upon death and burial!

   Is it not very noteworthy how our Lord's mind was always dominated by
   the anticipation of that Baptism of His, that immersion in grief and
   suffering, that decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem? This
   was the main thought of His whole life and nothing could make Him
   forget it. In His heaviest moments of trial and in His brightest
   moments of joy, His heart was equally at the Cross--He was longing to
   complete His atoning Sacrifice for the salvation of His people. O
   brave, loving heart of Christ, so firmly fixed in love, so resolute to
   be pierced for the Beloved--we admire and love You in return!

   Surely we make too little of our Redeemer's death. I fear that even we,
   who preach most concerning it, dwell too little upon it. That we who
   pray, plead it too little. That we who sing, praise our Lord too little
   for His wondrous death and that we who live upon His Grace, yet think
   too little of the channel by which it flows to us! Christ's death is
   His Glory and it ought also to be ours. All other topics in Holy
   Scripture are important and none of them are to be cast into the shade,
   but the death of the Son of God is the central sun of all these minor
   luminaries! It is the great Alpha and Omega, the first and the last! It
   is not only eminent, it is preeminent with us. I could almost wish that
   we had broken every other string of our soul's harp but that which
   resounds the music of His Love. Silence, you other voices, and let the
   voice of His blood be heard in our souls! If we were bound down to this
   one subject--chained to it and never allowed to take another, but
   compelled simply to stand and incessantly cry, "Behold the Lamb of God,
   which takes away the sin of the world"--it would be an enlargement,
   rather than a narrowing of our ministry! Here is a theme fit for
   seraphs! Yes, "Michael the archangel" might find this subject too vast
   even for his exalted intellect. While we are musing on this text, no
   other topic shall intrude. Our mottoes shall be, "All for Jesus," and,
   "None but Jesus." May the blessed Comforter, whose work it is to
   glorify Christ and to take of that which belongs to Him and apply it to
   us, give us the power of Christ's death in our hearts!

   The verses on which we are to meditate speak of two things--first,
   Christ's view of His death and, s econdly, Christ's view of the
   necessity and the results of that death.

   I. First, we are to consider CHRIST'S VIEW OF HIS DEATH. He says, "The
   hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified."

   Now, I freely grant that this passage may refer to Christ's
   glorification in His Resurrection, in His Ascension and in all His
   triumph beyond the skies, but, from its connection with the allusion to
   the grain of wheat, which is cast into the

   ground to die, it is clear that our Lord was mainly thinking of His
   death and that He spoke of it as being, in a certain sense, the hour of
   His Glory. Certainly, to spiritual eyes, the Christ of God was never
   more glorious than when He was nailed to the Cross of Calvary--not even
   yonder where the lamps of Heaven glow with supernal splendor, where the
   harps of angels pour forth matchless music and where Christ, Himself,
   sits upon the Throne of the Highest, "King of kings, and Lord of
   lords." A Glory never equaled shone around the Conqueror of death and
   Hell when He bowed His head and said, "It is finished," and gave up the
   ghost!

   Mark well that Christ said that, "the Son of Man should be
   glorified"--not the Son of God--for He was speaking here concerning His
   human nature. This teaches us that Christ, as Man, was glorified by
   enduring bravely, patiently and to the end, what no other man has ever
   borne. Without a murmur, He willingly endured all the agony and
   ignominy that were heaped upon Him. He marched boldly through the
   tremendous deeps of physical, mental and spiritual suffering which the
   Atonement demanded. It may be that in some of His bodily pangs, our
   Lord's anguish has been equaled by that endured by some of the martyrs,
   yet I greatly question whether that has ever been the case. Rather do I
   believe that His peculiarly sensitive body which had never lost any of
   its delicacy of tone through indulgence or impurity, and which was
   originally of the finest mold, seeing that He was "that Holy Thing"
   which was born of Mary through the overshadowing power of the
   Highest--for these reasons it appears to me that Christ may have borne
   physical pains such as, in their intensity, have not been known by any
   other son of man! But as for His mental and spiritual griefs, they were
   an unknown abyss--who can measure or conceive what His holy soul
   endured? Hart's lines, though very strong in expression, do not go
   beyond the Truth of God even when he says that Christ, in Gethsemane--

   "Bore all Incarnate God could bear, With strength enough, and none to
   spare." Yet how gloriously He endured it all even to the bitter end!
   The gold was tried in the furnace, but no dross was discovered.
   Mightier than Atlas, Christ bore a world of grief upon His shoulders
   and yet He neither staggered under it, nor cast off the lead. He went
   to prison and to death--and all through His way of woe, His mighty soul
   was strong within Him. And He died triumphing over all! He was
   unconquered and unconquerable unto the last! Crown Him, O you daughters
   of Jerusalem, as the King of Sufferers, most mighty to suffer and to
   save! With His garments all red from the winepress, adore Him as having
   alone sustained the fury of His adversaries!

   Remember, too, that Christ won, on the Cross, the glory of being the
   fully obedient One.''Being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled
   Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross."
   It is a great glory to a servant of God to be, through Divine Grace,
   sincerely obedient to His Lord. But it would be a greater honor if he
   could be perfectlyobedient. Upon our Lord, who had voluntarily taken
   the place of a Servant for us, the petition of His service casts the
   highest honor. After having, in all points, kept the Law perfectly by
   His active obedience, He crowned His life's service by His passive
   obedience and was glorious, indeed, when He went to "the end of the Law
   for righteousness." First-born of many brethren are You, O You glorious
   Son of Man, made perfect in Your obedience in order that You might be
   the Captain of our salvation and bring many sons unto Glory!

   Further, Christ was glorified on the Cross by achieving what no one
   else could have achieved. How often do we set forth the Truth of God,
   which is always fresh and delightful to Believers, that Christ Jesus,
   on the tree, took all the sins of all who believe in Him--took them to
   Himself, literally, and carried them as though they had been His
   own--and suffered for those sins upon the Cross, all that ought to have
   been suffered by us on account of those sins, enduring that which His
   Father accepted as an equivalent for all the agony which ought to have
   been endured by us because of those iniquities? We believe, Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, in the literal Substitution of Christ for His
   people. Christ stood in the Sinner's place and suffered what was due to
   the Sinner--even the curse of God and the wrath of God! And now He has
   so suffered for sinners that those for whom He died can have no sin
   laid to their charge so as to involve them in punishment, since it is a
   maxim of all courts of justice that the law cannot first punish the
   substitute--and then punish those in whose place he stood. Every honest
   man admits that a debt, once paid, is settled forever. So, as Christ
   paid the debt that His people owed to Infinite Justice, it is forever
   blotted out and our obligations to Divine Justice are obliterated! This
   is the joy of joys! This is the Doctrine that makes the Gospel to be
   God's good news to guilty sinners! This is the glorious Truth of God
   that sets the bells of Heaven ringing with their loudest and their
   sweetest music--that Christ has made the sin of His people to cease to
   be! Thus is fulfilled that ancient prophecy, "In those days, and in
   that

   time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and
   there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be
   found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve."

   The work of Messiah the Prince is "to finish the transgression, and to
   make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to
   bring in everlasting righteousness." And this work was fully
   accomplished when "this Man, after He had offered one Sacrifice for
   sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God." O Beloved, herein is
   bliss, indeed, for us if He did really die for us! Your question and
   mine must be this, "Did Christ die for me?" To answer that, I must ask,
   "Am I trusting in Him?" If I am, then He did die for me and all my sins
   are gone because He was punished in my place. My demerit was imputed to
   Him and He died to put it away. And now His merit is reckoned as my
   merit! A wonderful transfer has been made by means of the death of
   Christ--He has taken all the consequences of our guilt and borne them
   all--and ended them forever! So was He not, indeed, glorified in His
   death? And you, Believer, may sing this sweet song, on earth and in
   Heaven, too--

   "In my Surety I am free,

   His dear hands were pierced for me!

   With His spotless vesture on

   Holy as the Holy One.

   Oh the heights and depths of Grace!

   Shining with meridian blaze--

   Here the sacred records show

   Sinners black, but comely too." But we must not forgot that Christ was
   glorified in His death, officially, as our great High Priest He stood
   alone in that dark hour as the true High Priest presenting the one
   perfect Sacrifice unto God. All other high priests had been but types
   of Christ, the great Anti-type. They had, once a year, though "not
   without blood," passed under the embroidered veil which hid the Holy of
   Holies from other eyes. But in that dread hour of darkness on Calvary,
   Christ, the true High Priest, offered up Himself as the Propitiatory
   Sacrifice which alone could put away His people's sins. And then,
   through the torn veil, that is to say, His body--His soul passed up
   into the Presence of God and there His blood still pleads for His
   people, speaking better things than that of Abel! Begone all you
   gorgeous ceremonies of Aaron and his sons, like stars that hide their
   light when the sun itself appears! Christ, the Great High Priest, is
   the only one that His Church needs! You may banish your many-colored
   robes. You may put away your precious miters. You may lay aside your
   bespangled breastplate, for Christ alone wears the robe, the miter and
   the breastplate of the true High Priest before God! And He stands
   gloriously accepted through His unique Sacrifice. From now on let it be
   known, throughout the whole earth, that there is no other sacrificing
   priest but the living Christ, and there is no other sacrifice but the
   Sacrifice which He has once and for all offered--and which still avails
   for all who trust in it! His precious blood--

   "Shall never lose its power,

   Till all the ransomed Church of God

   Is saved to sin no more."

   Thus have I shown you that even on the Cross, Christ was glorified. Yet
   this declaration of His may also refer to that which followed His
   death. It is indeed so closely linked and intertwisted with His passion
   and Crucifixion that it would be wrong to separate it from them--yet we
   must never forgot that He who died and was put into the grave--also
   rose again! It was His Glory that by His own almighty power, He arose,
   "the first-born from the dead." After forty days He ascended unto the
   Father and angels welcomed Him as He returned triumphantly to Heaven.
   Our faith can almost hear the lingering notes of that wonderful song of
   His angelic escort, "Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be lift up,
   you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in." Glorious
   was His welcome by the spirits bought with blood who were already
   before the Throne of God! And truly glorious was He as He sat down at
   the right hand of the Father. See the Son of Mary exalted to sit at the
   right hand of the Father! Man like ourselves, yet glorified in Being
   made to reign there with His Father! He had always been there as God,
   but now He is there, also, as Man, crowned with glory and honor, and
   made to have dominion over all the works of God's hands! The very Man
   who was once the Baby in Bethlehem and then the Carpenter of Nazareth
   and afterwards the Murdered One of Calvary, is now so highly exalted

   that at His name, which is above every name, every knee shall bow, "of
   things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and
   that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory
   of God the Father!"

   It strikes me that our Lord also meant, by making this statement in
   connection with the visit of these Greeks to Him, to teach us that
   after His death He would be glorified among all the nations of mankind.
   That although in His earthly ministry, He was not sent except to the
   lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet, after His death the Gospel
   should be preached in His name to all nations--and out of all nations a
   people should be gathered who would praise His name forever and ever!
   Even at the present time it is no small Glory to Christ, who was nailed
   to the Cross of Calvary, that His name is reverenced over a great part
   of the earth--even by nations whose ancestors were strangers to it--and
   that His name is the foundation of every true morning prayer and every
   holy evening song! "His name shall endure forever" and His Gospel shall
   extend its saving and sanctifying power from realm to realm till He
   comes again, "in His Glory, and all the holy angels with Him," to
   glorify His saints with Himself forever and ever!

   I have spoken at this length upon what our Lord said concerning His
   death as the means of glorifying Him, for I am anxious that we should
   not think lightly of that of which He thought so highly!

   II. The few minutes that remain must be devoted to the second part of
   the text which concerns THE NECESSITY AND RESULTS OF CHRIST'S DEATH.

   Our Lord seems to say that it was absolutely necessary that He should
   die--that even His perfect life would have been of no use to us if He
   had not died. He says, "Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground
   and dies, it abides alone." So you see, Brothers and Sisters, that if
   Christ, after having come to this earth as He did, had not died, He
   would, as far as mankind is concerned, have had to abide in Heaven
   alone. As God, the word, "alone," would have had no reference, for the
   holy angels, as well as His Father and the ever-blessed Spirit would
   always have been near Him. But if our Lord could have come here and
   then have gone back to Heaven without dying, it would not have been
   possible for any other man to ever have gone to Heaven--and Christ
   would have been the only Man in the whole of that land of joy! It is
   dreadful even to think of such a thing as that! If that could have
   happened, where must all the saints of God and all mankind have gone?
   There is but one other region--the land of darkness and of death, the
   land of pain, of horror and of unutterable woe. And we must all have
   gone there if Christ had not died upon the Cross--not only the thief on
   the left hand of Christ, but the thief on His right hand, too--not only
   Judas, but Peter, John and all the Apostles--not only Demas, but Paul,
   Silas and all the early Christians--not only Ahithophel, but David,
   also--not only the unrighteous, but the righteous, too--all! All! ALL,
   having sinned, would have been condemned to eternal wrath if Jesus had
   not died! Ah, but it was not possible for the Son of Man, who was also
   the Son of God, to be alone in Heaven! He could not be content to be
   there alone. He left His Father's side in Glory, in order that He might
   become the Son of Man! And then, after He had once taken our human
   Nature into union with His Divine Nature, He could not go back to
   Heaven to live there in solitude, without another man to bear Him
   company! We cannot conceive of the First-Born without a brotherhood,
   the Head without a body, the Savior with no saved ones to sing His
   praises, the Shepherd without sheep, the King without subjects! No,
   this could not be and, therefore, it was absolutely necessary that
   Christ should die!

   It was a most suggestive and suitable figure which Christ used--that a
   corn of wheat must be put into the ground and die, or it cannot produce
   its like. Our language and all languages, when they speak of such lofty
   themes as life and death, become very much like a skein of silk that is
   all in a tangle--and we must never talk lightly concerning these
   supreme Truths of God. I believe that half the disputes about that very
   important matter of eternal punishment-- concerning which some think
   that the Scriptures favor the view of a limited period to the
   punishment--arise because those who hold that view do not observe that
   there is a vast difference between mere existence and life and, an even
   greater difference between death and annihilation. If a grain of wheat
   were really to die, it would not bring forth any fruit. When the
   maltster has passed the corn through the various processes which end
   with kiln-drying, it is really dead. And if you were to plant it, it
   would never bring forth fruit. That is a very different kind of death
   from that which takes place when the seed is cast into the
   ground--there it dies in quite another sense, that is to say, it
   rots--the matter of the corn dissolves and furnishes the first soil for
   the little minute of life to feed upon, for the grain of wheat is not
   all life, there is a life-germ inside it. The grain of "corn or wheat"
   must be broken up and be resolved into its primary elements or else it
   cannot bring forth fruit. [In C H Spurgeon's Autobiography, Vol. III,
   pages 194-6, there are further explanations of this

   subject, including the definition of death given by Mr. Spurgeon to Mr.
   Ruskin, who said, "That is the most extraordinary definition of death
   that I ever heard, but it is true."]

   So, our Lord Jesus Christ had to die and to be buried in the grave, as
   the seed-corn is put into the ground, and there He had to be resolved,
   as it were, into His primary elements--the soul to be for a while
   separated from the body, and the Deity from the Humanity. Without this
   death there could have been no fruit-bearing to spring out of Him. But
   when He had passed through this experience of death, then there sprang
   up out of the dead Christ--dead after that fashion-- abundant fruit!
   Nobody can tell you why it is that if a single grain of wheat is put
   into the ground, it may bring forth a hundredfold. Why should it so
   multiply itself? That is a great mystery, but it is a solid fact--and
   it is a blessed mystery of faith that, as Jesus Christ died, all who
   put their trust in Him are the "much fruit" springing up from His
   death! It is because He died on the tree that Believers are to live
   with Him forever. I have not time to go fully into that subject now,
   but you all know that if Christ had not died, we would all still be
   under the curse. If Jesus had not died, we would have been condemned at
   the bar of God. If Jesus had not died, there would have been no way of
   approach for us to God. We could not, as Believers, have had any
   existence at all except through His death! And now, through the
   preaching of His death, and the hearing of the message by the ear of
   faith through the effectual working of the Holy Spirit, we are made
   alive unto God and so become "fruit" to the praise of the Savior who
   died on the Cross of Calvary!

   Brothers, if we want to have fruit in our ministry--if we want to see
   sinners converted--we must preach up Christ's death! As the blacksmith
   strikes the hot iron upon the anvil, we must keep the hammer of the
   Gospel at work upon this great foundation Truth of God, "Christ died
   for our sins according to the Scriptures." It is no talking to men upon
   other topics in the hope that it will lead to their conversion. The
   great soul-quickening agency is, "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
   Whoever will come and trust in the God-appointed Substitute for sinners
   shall be eternally saved, for life comes only through His death! The
   salvation of sinners is not even by preaching the great and glorious
   Truth of Christ's Second Advent, nor by preaching about Christ's
   millennial and eternal Glory, but by incessantly pointing to Christ
   lifted up upon the Cross! There is the grain of wheat that put into the
   ground brings forth much fruit--and we must keep to that theme beyond
   all others! You who try to talk to the unconverted must do this if you
   wish to see them find real, lasting peace, and enter into true
   Christian liberty. You must say, with Charles Wesley--

   "His only righteousness I show,

   His saving Truth proclaim!

   'Tis all my business here below

   To cry, 'Behold the Lamb!'"

   I must close, Brothers and Sisters, with this reflection. You and I
   want to bring forth fruit unto God. We want to save souls. Then we must
   do what Christ did, though in another sense. That is to say, we must
   fall into the ground and die. Did you ever see a minister who was such
   a gentleman that he did not know his people, and never shook hands with
   them in his life--one who was only anxious to show them what a
   dignified individual an ordained minister is? Well, such a man as that
   is like a grain of wheat put into a golden shrine to be admired. But,
   possibly, you know another man--he may be a city missionary--and he
   goes right down into the midst of the sin and misery of those whom he
   seeks to win for Christ, looking at everything from their point of
   view. And often it is a difficult task for him, yet he will do it. He
   lays aside everything in which he is their superior, speaks so that
   they can understand him, and brings the Gospel right down to their
   level. That man will win souls for the Savior because he is not a grain
   of wheat laid on a marble shelf, but he is dropped into the ground! And
   the more that man will spend himself for his Master--work himself to
   death, break up his constitution--kill himself, as it were, in his
   Master's service--the more likely is he to bring forth "much fruit"
   unto God. I do not believe you can do much good without having a great
   deal taken out of yourselves. And when men are so very particular and
   careful about themselves and will only serve God if it does not cost
   them anything, I believe that no earthly good can come of that. The man
   whom God will greatly bless must be willing, in this sense, to fall
   into the ground and die!

   In persecuting times, the Christian has often had to literally give
   himself up to die, but, instead of the cause of Christ being injured by
   his death, he has, in that way, brought forth the "much fruit." There
   have been no other such fruitful preachers of the Gospel as those who
   suffered at the stakes of Smithfield or died upon the rack. If you
   would be the means of saving others, you must make no reserve for
   yourself, but imitate your Master, of whom His enemies tauntingly but

   truly said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." I ask you,
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, to resolve, by God's strength, that
   there is nothing you will not do and nothing you will not give for Him
   who loved you so well that He gave all He had to save you! Seek, by
   every means that you can use, to win souls for Christ! The man who must
   have conversions, or he will die, will have them! The woman who feels
   that she must bring her class to Christ and will never rest till she
   does, will bring them to Christ! The Lord help us so to preach Christ
   and so to live for Christ and, if necessary, so to die for Christ, that
   we may bring forth fruit unto God--"some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold,
   some thirtyfold." Amen.

   PUBLISHERS' NOTE:

   A very considerable portion of this Sermon was revised by Mr. Spurgeon
   in readiness for publication. The topic-- "Christ's Death and Ours"--is
   peculiarly appropriate to the 155th anniversary of the beloved
   preacher's last days upon earth.[He died January 31, 1892.] But the
   subject of the next Sermon, which is to be published on January
   31st--the exact anniversary of the date of his Home-going--is still
   more suitable. The text is, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken
   away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And the title of the Sermon is
   to be, "Fifteen Years After!" to remind all readers that although the
   preacher's voice has not been heard in this world for the past 15
   years, yet, like the martyred Abel, "He being dead yet speaks," and, as
   Dr. Newman Hall truly said, "as he yet speaks, he is not dead."

   It is also a somewhat remarkable fact that the Sermon to be issued next
   week was preached on Thursday evening, February 11th, 1869, exactly 23
   years to the very day before the funeral service at the Tabernacle, the
   long procession from Newington to Norwood, and the interment in the
   cemetery there in the presence of an enormous concourse of sympathizing
   spectators.

   Regular readers of the Sermons will remember that similar coincidences
   were pointed out at the time of Mr. Spurgeon's Home-going, when,
   without any human pre-arrangement, the Sermons intended for reading on
   the four Sabbaths in February, 1892, were as follows--No. 2242, Volume
   38--GOD'S WILL ABOUT THE FUTURE; No. 2243, Volume 38-- HIS OWN FUNERAL
   SERMON; No. 2244, Volume 38--MEMBERS OF CHRIST and No. 2245, Volume
   38--"LIVING, LOVING, LASTING UNION'--the four discourses concerning the
   Home-going of Deacon

   William Olney].

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN12:12-36.

   Verses 12-15. On the next day much people that were come to the feast,
   when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of
   palm trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is
   the King of Israel that comes in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when
   He had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not,
   daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes, sitting on an ass's colt
   Even in the little glory of a temporal kind, which was given to the
   Lord Jesus Christ when He was "here among men" as Mrs. Luke's hymn puts
   it, His humility and meekness were very manifest, thus fulfilling the
   prophecy recorded in Zechariah 9:9--"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
   Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you;
   He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
   upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Oh, that all His people would always
   be of such a lowly spirit, not seeking great things for themselves, but
   condescending to men of low estate, remembering that it was their
   Master who said to His disciples, "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."

   16. These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when
   Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were
   written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.I wonder
   whether, when Christ comes back to earth, in the Glory of His Father
   with the holy angels, we also shall not understand a great many things
   which are complete mysteries to us now. Perhaps it will be said of us,
   then, "These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when
   Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were
   written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him." That
   first Glory of His Ascension to Heaven shed a flood of light upon the
   life of Christ, as

   doubtless the greater Glory of His Second Advent will shed a yet
   brighter light upon our understanding of the things of Christ which
   quite surpass our comprehension now.

   17-19. The people therefore that were with Him when He called Lazarus
   out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this
   cause the people also met Him, for that they heard that He had done
   this miracle. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive
   you how we prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after Him. No
   doubt many of His disciples thought so, too, yet how mistaken were both
   the friends and the foes of Christ, for you recollect, Brothers and
   Sisters, that Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem was followed,
   within less than a week, by a far different scene--when the same crowd
   that cried, "Hosanna!" shouted, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify
   Him!" The world that was supposed to have gone after Him, nailed Him to
   the Cross, so short-lived is human popularity. So short-lived, also, is
   the admiration of Christ by carnal minds, for they do admire Him after
   a fashion, they cannot help doing so! There have been written lives of
   Christ which have been full of admiration of Him, yet equally full of
   opposition to His Deity. We must not always regard it as an encouraging
   sign when men praise Christ for very soon, if the root of the matter is
   not in them and they do not accept Him as their Lord and Master, they
   will change their note and instead of, "Hosanna!" it will be, "Away
   with Him, crucify Him!"

   20, 21. And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to
   worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was of
   Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired Him, saying, Sir we would see Jesus.I
   do not know why these Greeks went to Philip, who was of Bethsaida of
   Galilee, unless it was because he had a Greek name. Yet Andrew and
   Peter also had Greek names. If I went to Paris and wanted to see the
   President, and knew that there was somebody in the cabinet who had an
   English name, I would probably say, "Well, either he is an Englishman,
   or he comes of English parentage, so he may take an interest in me and
   get me the introduction I want." Perhaps that was the reason why these
   Greeks came to Philip. I cannot think of any other, but I know that if
   you want to get to Christ, you will always find some way of doing
   it--and that the reason why so many people do not get to Him is because
   they do not want to! You may all come to Jesus Christ if you will. But,
   alas, until His Grace controls it and changes it, your will inclines
   you to go still further away from Christ rather than to come to Him.

   22, Philip came and told Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip told
   Jesus. Andrew and Philip appear to have been staunch friends and fellow
   laborers--and it is always well when Christian men can work for Christ
   with congenial companions. My poor perplexed Brother, if you cannot get
   to Jesus Christ by yourself, it will be a good thing for you to say to
   some Philip, "Sir, I would see Jesus." Perhaps Philip will tell his
   friend, Andrew, and then Philip and Andrew will go together and tell
   Jesus, and so you will get to Him! It is a great help in prayer, when
   you are yourself unable to pray, to get someone whom you know to be a
   Christian, and who has sympathy with you, to come and pray with you.

   23, 24. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son
   of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily "Amen, amen."

   24, 25. I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground
   and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit
   He that loves His life shall lose it Or, as it should be rendered, "He
   that loves his life loses it." That is not the true way to live--and in
   his selfish attempt to live to himself, he is losing his life.

   25, 26. And he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto
   life eternal If any man serves Me, let him follow Me. The best service
   you can render to Christ is to imitate Him. If you want to do what will
   please Him--do as He did!

   26, And where I am, there shall also My servant be. You cannot expect
   better lodgings than that! So, as Christ had to live here amid sorrow,
   sin and shame, you must be willing to do the same. But, as Christ was
   afterwards exalted to indescribable honor, so shall it be with you if
   you are His true servant!

   26. If any man serves Me, My Father will honor him. For such is the
   Father's love to His Son, that He delights to honor all those who
   become His Son's faithful servants!

   27. Now is My soul troubled; and what shall Isay?Father, save Me from
   this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour There was a
   conflict in the Savior's heart--the weakness of His true
   Manhood--striving with the strength of His Infinite affection to His
   people, and also to His Father. We must never forget that "He was in
   all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." If it had been no
   pain to Him to die as the Substitute for sinners, there would have been
   no atoning Sacrifice in His death. And if no dread had overtaken Him at
   the thought of death, it would have proved that He did not die as we do
   and, therefore, He would not have been able to take our place as He
   did. Notice how the Savior speaks of the struggle that was going on in
   His soul. "What shall I say?" Do you ever have to ask that question
   when you are trying to pray? If so, do not be astonished, for even your
   Lord and Master said the same. "What shall I say?"--as if He paused to
   consider what form His prayer should take--"shall I say, Father save Me
   from this hour? No, but I will say, For this cause came I unto this
   hour."

   28. Father, glorify Your name. That is a grand answer to the Savior's
   question, "What shall I say?" And when you do not know how to pray, you
   may always present that petition, "Father, glorify Your name." You have
   some dear one at home very ill--you would be glad if the precious life
   might be spared, yet you are not sure whether you may ask for it. Well
   then, say, "Father, glorify Your name." Possibly you are passing
   through a great trial and you would be glad to escape from it--yet you
   do not know whether it is the Divine will that you should do so. Well
   then, you may, at any rate, put up this prayer, "Father, glorify Your
   name. Whatever is most for Your Glory, let that be my will as it is
   Your will."

   28 Then came there a voice from Heaven. An audible voice, for those who
   stood by could hear it--"There came a voice from Heaven."

   28-30. Saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The
   people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered.
   Others said, An angel spoke to Him. Jesus answered and said, This Voice
   came not because of Me, but for your sakes. "You needed to be
   strengthened as to the Divine Character and authority of My mission.
   You required to be comforted with the full assurance that I shall,
   indeed, be glorifying My Father even when I die upon the Cross of
   Calvary."

   31. Now is the judgment of this world. This is a wonderful sentence--as
   if, in Christ's death, the world was judged and condemned! And so it
   was. Nothing ever so convicted the world of high treason against God as
   when men said of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's well-beloved Son, "This
   is the Heir. Come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours."
   The shedding of the blood of Christ upon the Cross is the crimson
   evidence of the deep transgression of human nature! "Now is the
   judgment of this world." There is another rendering of this text,
   retaining the Greek word, "Now is the crisis of this world." [See
   Sermon No. 2338, Volume 39--THE CRISIS OF THIS WORLD.]

   31. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out Thank God for that!
   His throne was shaken to its fall when Christ died on Calvary. All the
   powers of darkness suffered eternal defeat in the hour that men and
   devils fancied they had gained the victory.

   32, 33. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
   Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die. Yet they did not
   understand it, even then, clear as it now appears to us that He spoke
   concerning His lifting up upon the Cross.

   34-36. The people answered Him, We have heard out of the Law that
   Christ abides forever: and how say You, The Son of Man must be lifted
   up? Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little
   while is the light with you.

   Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that
   walks in darkness knows not where he goes. While you have light,
   believe in the light, that you may be the children of light These
   things spoke Jesus, and departed,

   and did hide Himself from them
     __________________________________________________________________

Fifteen Years After!

   (No. 3025)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY FIRST, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 11, 1869.

   "Thee LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of
   the LORD." Job 1:21.

   [This title has been selected in order to call special attention to the
   fact that the Sermon is published exactly 15 years after the beloved
   preacher was "called Home" on January 31st, 1892. The subject is as
   singularly appropriate to the anniversary of that never-to-be-forgotten
   period as the Sermons which were issued at the time of Mr. Spurgeon's
   death and funeral--Sermons No. 2242, (All Volume 38)--GOD'S WILL ABOUT
   THE FUTURE; No. 2243, HIS OWN FUNERAL SERMON; No. 2244, MEMBERS OF
   CHRIST and No. 2245, "LIVING, LOVING, LASTING UNION".]

   OR, as some read it, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed
   be the name of the Lord." So that the text is not only concerning the
   past, but it may rightly be considered as relating also to the present.
   Some of the rarest pearls have been found in the deepest waters and
   some of the choicest utterances of Believers have come from them when
   God's waves and billows have been made to roll over them. The fire
   consumes nothing but the dross and leaves the gold all the purer. In
   Job's case, I may truly say with regard to his position before God, he
   had lost nothing by all his losses, for what could be purer and
   brighter gold than this which gleams before us from our text, revealing
   his triumphant patience, his complete resignation and his cheerful
   acquiescence in the Divine will? "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes
   away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

   There are two points to which I ask your earnest attention while we
   meditate upon this subject. The first is the exhortation drawn from the
   text--learn to see the Lord's hand in everything--in giving and in
   taking. And, secondly--and this is a harder lesson--learn to bless the
   Lord's name in everything--in giving and in taking.

   I. First, LET US LEARN TO SEE THE LORD'S HAND IN EVERYTHING.

   Our whole history seems to be divided, as our text divides itself, into
   a beholding of God's hand in giving and then a beholding of it in
   taking.

   We are then, first of all, to behold God's hand as a giving hand. If we
   are Believers, all the comforts and mercies that we have are to be
   viewed by us as coming from the hands of our gracious Heavenly Father.
   Job confessed that the Lord had given him the camels, the sheep, the
   oxen and that the Lord had given him his seven sons and three
   daughters. Everything which he had ever possessed he looked upon as
   having been the gift of God. Job did not say, "I worked hard to obtain
   all that stock that I have now lost." He did not complain, "I spent
   many weary days and many anxious nights in accumulating all those
   flocks and herds that have been stolen from me." He did not ascribe any
   of his wealth either to his own wit, or to his own industry, but he
   said of it all--"The Lord gave it to me." In his mind's eye, he took an
   inventory of all that he once had and of all that he had lost--and he
   said of the whole, "It was all the Lord's gift to me."

   Now, Beloved, whatever may be the possessions which you have at the
   present time. Whatever may be the number of those who are the comfort
   of your life--husband or wife, parents or children, kinsfolk of any
   sort--say of all of them, "The Lord gave them to me." And, as a
   Christian, learn the wisdom of never ascribing any earthly comfort to
   any earthly source. The worldling may not always be able to say what
   Job said concerning his possessions. Some of what he has may not have
   been obtained honestly--the Lord did not give any of that to him. Some
   of what he has may turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing, but
   the Believer in Christ may say with the utmost truthfulness, with
   regard to all that he has, "It is all the gift of my loving and tender
   Heavenly Father."

   And, Brothers and Sisters, there is associated with this fact that all
   our possessions are God's gifts, the remembrance that they are all
   undeserved gifts. They are gifts in the fullest sense of the word--the
   gifts of God's Grace. They are not given to us because we have merited
   them, for we have never deserved even the least of all the mercies
   which the Lord has so bountifully bestowed upon us. We may say of the
   whole river of His favor which continually flows side by side with us
   as we journey along the pathway of our pilgrimage, that there is not a
   drop of it which comes to us of debt or by law, but all comes through
   the free gift of God's Grace! All that we have, over and above what
   would have been our portion in the pit of Hell, is the gift of God's
   mercy towards us. It is of the Lord's mercy and because His compassions
   fail not, that we are not consumed. Every Believer can truly say with
   Job, "'The Lord gave,' yes, the Lord gave even to me, an unworthy one
   who sat as a beggar at His gate and received from His own hand
   countless tokens of His Infinite loving kindness."

   And I may add, with regard to those gifts, that they have been given to
   us with wondrous kindness and thoughtfulnes on Gods part. Some here, I
   think, will have to say that they have found themselves provided for by
   God's forestalling their needs. He has gone before them in the way of
   His Providence and mysteriously cleared a path for them. Before they
   have felt the pinch of poverty, the pinch has been averted. There are
   others of God's servants here who have sometimes been brought very low,
   yet they can bear witness that up to now their bread has always been
   given to them and their waters have been sure. And while God's mercy
   comes to us very sweetly when forestalling our needs, there is equal
   sweetness if it comes when the need has been felt. No food is so
   palatable as that which has hunger for its sauce! To know what it is to
   be poor will make us more grateful if God ever gives us abundance. But
   time would fail me to tell you the love and care of God towards each
   one of us, every day of our lives, and to recount how He not only
   continues but even multiplies His favors. It is impossible for us to
   count them, for they are more in number than the hairs of our head, or
   the sand on the seashore, or the stars in the midnight sky! [See Sermon
   No. 3022, Volume 53--GOD'S INNUMERABLE MERCIES.]

   Now, as everything we have is freely and graciously given to us by God,
   this should make us feel, in the first place, that this Truth sweetens
   all that we have. I daresay there is many a little thing in your house
   that is of no great value in itself, but it was given to you by someone
   who was very dear to you. How much a child values that Bible that was
   given to her by her mother who wrote her name in it! Many a man has, in
   his house, things which an auctioneer would appraise at a very small
   amount, but which the owner prizes very highly because they were given
   to him by someone whom he intimately esteemed and who gave them to him
   as a token of his love. In like manner, look at the bread on the table
   of a Believer as a love token from God. The Lord gave it to him--and if
   there were upon his table nothing but that bread, it would be a token
   of God's gracious condescension in providing for his needs! Let us
   learn to look thus at everything that we receive in this life, for such
   a view of it will sweeten it all. We shall not then begin to calculate
   whether we have as much as others have, or as much as our own whims or
   wishes might crave, but we shall recognize that all we have comes from
   the hand and heart of our Heavenly Father--and that it all comes to us
   as a token of our Father's love and with our Father's blessing resting
   upon it!

   This fact should also prevent any Believer from acting dishonestly in
   his daily avocations, or even from wishing to obtain anything that is
   not his own by right. All of you who belong to God have what God has
   given you--so mind that you do not mix with it anything that the devil
   has given you! Do not go into any worldly enterprise and seek to gain
   something concerning which you could not say, "The Lord my God gave it
   to me." Men of the world will engage in such transactions and they will
   say that you are not as sharp as you might be because you will not do
   the same. But you have a good reason for refusing to gain even a
   shilling upon which you cannot ask God's blessing. A sovereign,
   dishonestly procured, though it might gladden your eyes for a little
   while and help to fill your purse, would certainly bring a curse with
   it--and you do not want that. You would not like to have to confess to
   yourself, concerning anything you possessed, "I dare not tell my
   Heavenly Father how I got it, though He knows. And I dare not ask His
   blessing upon it, nor do I think He would ever give it to me. He will
   probably turn it into a rod and sharply scourge me for having dared to
   use such unholy means to get what I ought not to have even wished to
   possess." Some of God's people might have been very happy if they had
   not been greedy and grasping. He that hurries to be rich will soon find
   that he will fall into many snares and abundant temptations. It is an
   evil thing when people cannot be content although they have enough for
   all their necessities, for even the world's proverb says that, "enough
   is as good as a feast." Yet many stretch out their arms,

   like wide-encircling seas, and try to grasp in them all the shore! Such
   people, sooner or later, begin to rob others right and left, and very
   many of them come down to poverty and the Bankruptcy Court, disgraced
   and dishonored. Let it not be so with you, Beloved, but be content with
   such things as you have, whether God gives you little or much and,
   above all things, pray that you may have nothing but what He gives you,
   nothing in your house or shop but what comes in at the front door in
   the light of day, nothing but what may be seen coming in if any eyes
   should be watching. That man is truly happy who can say of all his
   substances, be it little or be it much, "The Lord gave it to me."

   Further, as it is the Lord who gives us all the wealth that we possess,
   how very foolish are those people who are proud of possessing a little
   more of this worlds wealth than others have! There are some who seem to
   be thoroughly intoxicated by the possession of a larger income than
   their neighbors enjoy. They even seem to fancy that they were made of
   better material than was used in the creation of ordinary mortals. Did
   not a broad grin appear on the faces of many aristocrats when someone
   said, in Parliament, that we were all made of the same flesh and blood?
   Of course all those who were in their right senses knew that it was
   true--but insanity in high places seemed to be moved to utter contempt
   at the bare mention of such a thing! When a man is poor, unless he has
   brought his poverty upon himself by extravagance, or idleness, or his
   own wrongdoing, the man is a man for all that, and none the worse man
   for being poor! Indeed, some of the best of men have been as poor as
   their Lord was. I have known many who have been very poor, yes, who
   have been the excellent of the earth, in whom a true saint of God might
   well take delight! There always will be various ranks and conditions
   among man and there is a certain respect which is due from one to
   another which should never be withheld where it is rightly due, but, at
   the same time, whenever a man begins to say that because God has given
   him more than He has given to another, therefore he will despise his
   poorer brother and look down upon him, it must be dishonoring and
   displeasing to God and it is extremely likely that He will turn round
   and make the proud man bite the dust! How often those who have held
   their heads so very high have been rolled in the mud--and how easily
   that might be made to come to pass with others!

   A further inference arising out of this Truth that God gives us all
   that we have, is that it ought never to be dificult for us to give back
   to God as much as we can. As He has given us all that we have, it is
   but right that we should use it to His Glory and if, under the rule of
   His Grace, and under the Gospel, He does not so much claim a return
   from us as a matter of right, but leaves our liberality to be awakened
   by the love which constrains us, rather than by the Law which compels
   us, yet let us not give God less because He gives us more! Under the
   Mosaic dispensation, the Jew gave his tenth by compulsion, but let us
   willingly give to God more than that and not need to be forced to do it
   except by the sweet constraint of love. Do I owe every penny that I
   have in this world to the bounty of God's hand? Then, when God's cause
   and God's poor are in need, let no one have to beg of me to give to
   them! I always feel ashamed when I hear people say that we are "begging
   for God's cause." God's cause has no need to be a beggar from those who
   would be beggars if it were not for God's Grace! Oh, no, no! It must
   never be so! We ought to be like the children of Israel in the
   wilderness who gave so generously towards the building and furnishing
   of the Tabernacle that Moses had to restrain their liberality, for they
   had already given "much more than enough for the service of the work
   which the Lord commanded to make." Let us try to imitate the liberality
   which God has manifested toward us in the gift of His well-beloved Son
   and in all the Covenant blessings which come to us through Him. All
   those who have received so much from God should count it their
   privilege and delight to give back to Him all that they can!

   These reflections might suffice for this part of the subject, but I
   shall add one more. "The Lord gave"--then we must worship the Giver and
   not His gifts. How can we so degrade ourselves as to worship that which
   God has given to us? Yet you know that many make idols of their gold,
   their lands, their husbands, their wives, their children, or their
   friends! It is no unusual thing for a little child to be the god of the
   family--and wherever that is the case, there is a rod laid up in store
   in that house. You cannot make idols of your children without finding
   out, sooner or later, that God makes them into rods with which He will
   punish you for your idolatry! "Little children, keep yourselves from
   idols," was the injunction of the loving Apostle John. And he wrote
   thus in love because he knew that if God sees us making idols of
   anything, He will either break our idols or break us. If we really are
   His people, He will, in some way or other, wean us from our idols, for
   He wants our love to be given wholly to Himself. So it is best for us
   to keep the creature in its right place and never to let the joys or
   comforts of this life usurp God's rightful position in our hearts! God
   has been pleased so to fashion the world that it should always be under
   our feet and, as Christians, we should always keep it there. The
   dearest thing we have on earth should always be estimated by us at its
   proper value as a gift from God but as nothing more than that--and
   never be allowed to occupy our heart's throne which should always be
   reserved for the Lord alone.

   But now we are to think, for a while, of the Lord's hand taking away
   from us as well as giving to us. Job said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord
   has taken away." Some of you have come to this service very sad and
   heavy of heart because that dear child of yours is dead. Well, I do not
   blame you for sorrowing over your loss, but I pray you also to remember
   that it is the Lord who has taken your child away from you. You say
   that it was the fever that took away your dear one--and perhaps that
   was the immediate cause of your child's death--but if you can realize
   that the fever was only the instrument in God's hands to remove the
   dear little one from your care to His own, surely you will dry your
   tears. And as for that substance of yours, which has almost melted away
   under the fiery trial to which it has been subjected, so that poverty
   seems, now, to stare you in the face, you will be able to bear even
   that when you remember that it is the Lord's hand that has taken away
   what His hand had first given!

   As long as we look at the secondary causes of our trouble, we see
   reasons for sorrow. But when our faith can pierce the veil and see the
   Great First Cause, then our comfort begins! If you strike a dog with a
   stick, he will try to bite the stick because he is a dog. But if he
   knew better, he would try to bite you--not the stick! Yet that is the
   way that we often act with the troubles that come to us--we fly at the
   second causes and so are angry and petulant with them! But if we would
   always remember that it is God who takes away, as well as God who
   gives--that He is at the back of all our trials and troubles--that His
   hand weighs out our shame of grief and measures our portion of
   pain--then we would not dare to rebel and bewail, but, like David, we
   would say, "I was dumb. I opened not my mouth because You did it." Even
   if we could not get up higher, and say with Job, "The Lord gives, and
   the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

   Further, when once we know that God has done anything, that fact
   forbids any question concerning it I t must be right because He did it.
   I may not be able to tell why, but God knows why He did it. He may not
   tell me the reason, but He has a reason, for the Lord never acted
   unreasonably. There never was any action of His, however sovereign or
   autocratic it might appear to be, but was done "after the counsel of
   His own will." Infinite Wisdom dictates what absolute Sovereignty
   decrees. God is never arbitrary, or tyrannical. He does as He wills,
   but He always wills to do that which is not only most for His own
   glory, but also most for our real good. How dare we question anything
   that God does!

   My dear Sister, rest assured that it is better that you should be a
   widow and seek to glorify God in your widowhood. My dear young Friend,
   believe that it is better that you should be an orphan--otherwise God
   would not have taken away your parents. It is better that you, dear
   Friends, should lose your eyes. It is better that you should be poor,
   or diseased, or else the Lord would not let you be so, for, "no good
   thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." If health and
   wealth were good things for you, God would let you have them. If it
   were a good thing for saints to never die, they would never die. If it
   were a good thing for them to go to Heaven at once, they would go there
   at once. If you are walking uprightly, you may know that you have all
   things, which, all things considered, would be good for you. Some
   things which might be good in themselves, or good for others, might not
   be good for you and, therefore, the Lord, in love, withholds them from
   you. But, whatever He gives, or takes away, or withholds, raise no
   questions concerning it, but let it be sufficient for you that the Lord
   has done it!

   Besides, when we know that the Lord takes away our possessions, the
   knowledge that they are His effectually prevents us from complaining.
   Suppose you are a steward to a certain nobleman and that his lordship
   has been pleased to entrust you with ten thousand pounds of his money?
   By-and-by he withdraws it from your charge and invests it somewhere
   else. Well, it never was your money--you might have complained if it
   had been. But you are only a steward and if your lord pleases to
   withdraw his own money, are you going to be out of temper with your
   master because he does what he wills with his own? Suppose you have a
   banker--and we are, as it were, the Lord's bankers--and suppose that a
   week or two ago you paid into the bank a thousand pounds, or more, and
   the clerks or those in authority were pleased to take charge of your
   money. But suppose that you went to the bank, today, and drew it all
   out? They did not get angry with you, did they? You would not like to
   trust a banker who was only civil to you when you were paying in money!
   And if we are God's bankers, He sometimes puts His treasure into our
   keeping and sometimes takes it out--but it is not our treasure any more
   than our money is the banker's when we entrust it to his care! It is on
   deposit with us and we ought to be paying God good interest upon it!
   Whatever God has given to us, He never gave it as our own freehold. It
   was always

   on a lease--a lease, too, that had to be renewed every moment, for if
   God chose to cancel it, He could do so whenever He pleased. How dare
   we, then, complain?

   To use another figure, our position is like that of a nurse into whose
   care a mother placed her baby and the nurse dandled the child, and was
   glad to have charge of it. But when she had to return it to its mother,
   she cried over the loss of the little darling! Yet it was not the
   nurse' s child, given to her to keep--it was only hers to nurse. So it
   was with your children whom God has taken Home to Himself--they were
   not yours to keep. The Lord put each one of them, for a while, into
   your charge and said to you, "Christian mother, take this child and
   nurse it for Me, and I will pay you your wages." So, when He called the
   child back to Himself, why should you complain as though He had wronged
   you? Or, to use another illustration, which has been frequently
   employed in this connection--a gardener had been especially careful in
   tending one particular rose which was very fair to look upon. But, when
   he went, one morning, to his favorite rosebush, he found that the
   flower of which he had taken such care, was gone! He was very vexed,
   for he thought that some bad boy had stolen into the garden and taken
   away his best flower. He was complaining very bitterly of his loss when
   someone said, "The master has been down in the garden this morning, and
   he has been admiring this rosebush, and he has taken away that fine bud
   of which you were so proud." Then the gardener was delighted that he
   had been able to grow a flower that had attracted his master's notice
   and, instead of mourning any longer, he began to rejoice! So should it
   be with anything upon which we have set our hearts! Let each one of us
   say to our Master, "My Lord, if it pleases You to take it, it pleases
   me to lose it! Why should I complain because You have taken from me
   what is really Your own?--

   'If You should call me to resign What most Iprize--it never was nine! I
   only yield You what was Yours-- Your will be done!'"

   II. The second part of my discourse must be briefer than the first
   part, yet it is equally important. It is this, LEARN TO BLESS THE
   LORD'S NAME IN EVERYTHING. Learn to ring the bells of His praise all
   day long and, for that matter, all night long, too!

   First, bless the name of the Lord when He reveals His hand in giving.'
   'Ah," you say, "that is an easy thing to do." So it ought to be, my
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and it is a neglect of our duty when we
   do not do it. We come down to our breakfast in the morning rejoicing in
   health and strength, and we go out to our day's engagements but, I hope
   not without thankfulness that we are in health and that we have food to
   eat, and raiment to put on! We are out all day and things prosper with
   us, but I trust that we do not accept all this as a matter of
   course--but that we praise the Lord for it all day long--and then when
   we go home again at night, and God is still with us, I hope we do not
   fall asleep before we again praise Him. John Bunyan used to say that
   the very chickens shame us if we are ungrateful, for they do not take a
   drink of water without lifting up their heads, as if in thankfulness,
   for the refreshing draught. If we, who are the Lord's children, do not
   bless Him for the mercies which so constantly come to us from Him, we
   are, of all people, the most ungrateful! Oh, for a grateful frame of
   mind, for I am sure that is a happy frame of mind. Those who are
   determined to murmur and to complain of God's dealings with them, are
   sure to find plenty of things to complain of--while those who are of a
   thankful spirit will see reasons and occasions for gratitude in
   everything that happens!

   Do you remember a touching story, told some years ago, of a poor mother
   with her two little fatherless children? On a cold winter's night they
   discovered an empty house into which they went for shelter. There was
   an old door standing by itself, and the mother took it, placed it
   across a corner of the room, and told the children to creep behind it
   so as to get a little protection from the cold wind. One of the
   children said, "Oh Mother, what will those poor children do that
   haven't got any door to set up to keep out the wind?" That child was
   grateful even for such a poor shelter as that! Yet there are some who
   have thousands of greater blessings than that, and yet do not see God's
   hand in them--and do not praise Him for them. If that has been the case
   with any of us, let us turn over a new leaf and ask God to rule it with
   music lines and then let us put on them notes of thanksgiving, and say
   to the Lord, with David, "Every day will I bless You; and I will praise
   Your name forever and ever." Or say with one of our old poets--

   "My God, I'll praise You while I live, And praise You when I die, And
   praise You when I rise again,

   And to eternity."

   Praising God is one of the best ways of keeping away murmuring!
   Praising God is like paying a peppercorn rent for our occupation of our
   earthly tenement. [See Sermon No. 3021, Volume 53--LANDLORD AND
   TENANT.] When the rent is not paid, the owners generally turn the
   tenants out--and God might well do so with us if He were like earthly
   landlords. If we are not grateful to Him for all the bounties which we
   constantly receive from Him, He may make the stream stop--and then what
   would we do? Ungrateful mind, beware of this great danger! Thankfulness
   is one of the easiest virtues for anyone to practice and certainly it
   is one of the cheapest! So let all Christians especially comply with
   the Apostolic injunction, "Be you thankful." It is a soul-enriching
   thing to be thankful. I am sure that a Christian, with gratitude for a
   small income, is really richer than the man who lives a graceless life
   and is plentifully endowed with worldly wealth. David spoke truly when
   he said, "A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches
   of many wicked." So, let others do as they will, we say, "Give us,
   Lord, whatever You will, whether it is little or much, so long as You
   give with it the light of Your Countenance, our souls shall be
   abundantly content!"

   Thus are we to bless the name of the Lord for all that He gives us.

   But, it is a much more difficult thing to bless the name of the Lord
   for what He takes away from us. Yet, difficult as it is, I venture to
   say that many Believers who have forgotten to praise God while He was
   giving to them, have not forgotten to praise Him when He was taking
   away from them! I do not know how thankful Job had been before this
   trying period in his history, but I do know that his trials brought out
   this expression of his thankfulness. It is his first recorded praise to
   God. Some of us need to lie a little while upon a sickbed in order to
   make us thankful for having had good health for so long. And we need to
   be brought low and to have our spirits depressed in order to make us
   grateful that we have had such cheerful spirits and been blessed with
   so many comforts. It is not natural or easy for flesh and blood to
   praise God for what He takes away, yet this painful experience often
   wakes up the gratitude of the Christian and he who forgot to praise the
   Lord, before, makes up for it now!

   Brothers and Sisters, praise is God's due when He takes as well as when
   He gives, for there is as much love in His taking as in His giving! The
   kindness of God is quite as great when He smites us with His rod as
   when He kisses us with the kisses of His mouth. If we could see
   everything as He sees it, we would often perceive that the kindest
   possible thing He can do to us is that which appears to us to be
   unkind. A child came home from the common with her lap full of brightly
   shining berries. She seemed very pleased with what she had found, but
   her father looked frightened when he saw what she had and anxiously
   asked her, "Have you eaten any of those berries?" "No, Father," replied
   the child, to his great relief. And then he said to her, "Come with me
   into the garden." And there he dug a hole, put the berries in, stamped
   on them and crushed them, and then covered them with earth. All this
   while, the little one thought, "How unkind Father is to take away these
   things which pleased me so much!" But she understood the reason for it
   when he told her that the berries were so poisonous that if she had
   eaten even one of them, she would in all probability have died in
   consequence! In like manner, sometimes, our comforts turn to
   poison--especially when we begin to make idols of them--and it is kind
   on the part of God to stamp on them and put them right away from us so
   that no mischief may come to our souls. Surely that child said, "Thank
   you, Father, for what you have done. It was love that made you do it."
   And you, also, Believer, can say, "Thank God for my sickness, for my
   poverty, for that dead child of mine, for my widowhood, for my
   orphanhood--thank God for it all! It would have been ruinous to me to
   have left me unchastened. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but
   now have I kept His Word. Blessed be His name for all that He has done,
   both in giving and in taking away."

   It is a grand thing when we do not judge God' s dealings with us simply
   by the rules of reason. From the first moment when the love of God is
   revealed to us, right on to the hour when we shall be in the Presence
   of the Father in Glory, we may depend upon it that there is Infinite
   Love in every act of God in taking from us, just as much as in giving
   to us! Jesus said to His disciples, "As the Father has loved Me, so
   have I loved you." The Father always loved Jesus with Infinite Love--He
   loved Him as much when He was on the Cross as He did when He was on His
   Throne. And, in like manner, Jesus always loves us with an unchanging
   love--a love which can never fail us. He loves us as much in the
   furnace of affliction as He will love us when we shall be with Him in
   Glory, so let us bless His name whether He gives or takes away! I
   invite every mourning soul here to bless God' s name at this moment.

   "Ah," says one, "I wish I could get a little more happiness to sustain
   me under my many trials." Well, let me just remind you of the poor
   widow woman who went out to gather a few sticks to make a fire, that
   she might bake some cakes for herself and her son. When the Prophet
   Elijah met her, what did he say to her? He told her to make hima little
   cake, first, and afterwards he added, "make for you and for your son.
   For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not
   waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail until the day that the Lord
   sends rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying
   of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house did eat many days. And the
   barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according
   to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah." Notice that he said
   to the woman, "Make me a little cake first." And God seems to say to
   you, "Praise Me first, and then I will bless you." Say, as Job did a
   little later in his history, "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in
   Him." I believe it marks the turn of the tide, with a saint, when he or
   she can say to the Lord, with good old John Ryland--

   "You, at all times, will I bless!

   Having You, I all possess!

   The sky soon begins to clear when the Christian begins to say, "The
   Lord's will be done." "Not as I will, but as You will." This is a sign
   that the chastisement has had its due effect--the rod will now probably
   be put away. You mourning souls, take down your harps from the willows
   and sound forth at least a note or two to the praise of the Lord your
   God! Praise Him with such notes as these--"Truly God is good to Israel,
   even to such as are of a clean heart...I will not fret myself because
   of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked
   devices to pass...O my God, I believe that all things are working
   together for my good and that You are my gracious Heavenly Father, full
   of compassion and overflowing with love." If you talk like this,
   Christian, and mean what you say, it will be a blessing to you, a
   comfort to others and an honor to your God!

   As I speak thus, I am reminded that these comforting Truths of God
   belong only to true Believers. And as I send you away, I dare not put
   the words of my text into all your mouths, for, alas, some of you
   cannot see our Father's hand in anything that happens to you! You are
   without a parent, except that wicked one of whom Christ said to the
   Jews, "You are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father
   you will do." Yet, remember, you who cannot claim God as your Father,
   that the door of His Grace is not yet shut. He is still willing to
   receive you! If you will come to Him, confessing your sins and seeking
   mercy through the precious blood of Jesus, He is both able and willing
   to give you a new heart and a right spirit--to save you here and
   now--and to adopt you at once into His family! Then will you also be
   able to see His hand both in giving and in taking away--and you will
   also learn to bless His name at all times!

   If God the Lord shall deal thus graciously with you, His shall be the
   praise forever and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Vanity Deprecated

   (No. 3026)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN THE
   YEAR 1864.

   "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken me in Your way."
   Psalm 119:37.

   THERE are divers kinds of vanity. In the play of the frivolous and the
   sport of the idle, we see but one sort of vanity--light, open and
   undisguised. The cap and bells of the fool, the motley of the jester,
   the mirth of the world, the dance, the lyre and the cup of the
   dissolute-- men know these to be vanities--they wear upon their
   forefront their proper name and title. Yet another species of vanity,
   and more deceitful, can be discovered in the cares of this world and
   the deceitfulness of riches. A man may follow vanity as truly in the
   counting-house as in the theater. If he is spending his life in
   amassing wealth, he is heaping vanity to himself quite as much as
   though he openly passed his days in vain show or empty pageant. All the
   fools do not dance or drink. All the fools do not make jests--full many
   there are of somber mood who spend money for that which is not bread,
   and their labor for that which satisfies not!

   Moreover, there is such a thing as solemn vanity--the vanity that may
   be seen among those who observe the empty ceremonials of religion,
   invest themselves with strange garments and affect the odor of
   sanctity. Or, turning from the gorgeous meetings to the lowly
   conventicle, vanity may even be discovered beneath the broad brim of
   the Friend who, seeking after the world rather than after Christ,
   thinks that he rebukes the world's vanity when the world may well
   rebuke his! Vanity, I say, is quite as certainly to be found among the
   sober as among the frivolous. Unless we follow Christ, and make God the
   great Object of our life, we only differ from the most frivolous in
   degree--and possibly the degree may not be as great as we suppose!

   You will all understand my text, as you hear it, to mean, first, "Turn
   away my eyes from looking upon the levities of men, the tomfoolery of
   the world." But it means more than this. "Turn away my eyes from
   looking at the world's pride, at the world's wealth, at the world's
   substantial temptations." These, as the royal preacher has said, are
   vanity. "Vanity of vanities," said Solomon, "all is vanity," as he
   looked at everything beneath the sun! And we may say of everything
   short of Christ, "Turn away my eyes from beholding it, less my heart
   should love it."

   The Psalmist goes on to couple with this another petition--"Quicken me
   in Your way." Beholding vanity is sure to bring deadness into the soul.
   You all know that this is true, not only of that which is frothy, but
   of all that, however specious, is not sterling. If you let the cares of
   this world enter into your mind too much, do they not destroy your
   spirituality? If honor is your game, or even if you are hunting after
   an honest livelihood without casting the care of it upon God, you know
   that your Grace declines, your faith grows weak and your love becomes
   ready to expire. No high degree of Divine Grace can be attained when
   the eyes are fixed upon debasing things. We must have our eyes where we
   profess that our hearts already are--beyond the skies. We must be
   looking for Christ to reveal the exceeding riches of His Grace and
   Glory--not after vanities to display the pleasure of this present evil
   world--or else our souls will soon lose the force and strength of piety
   and we shall have good reason to cry, "Quicken me in Your way."

   Beloved, I hope you all know what the Psalmist means by being quickened
   in God's way. Often your spirits get lethargic and dull when, suddenly,
   the Spirit of God comes upon you and once, more your former vigor
   returns. And, instead of creeping, you begin to run in the way of God's
   Commandments. Pray, then, this prayer as well as the former one,
   "Quicken me in Your way," for, as the looking at vanity will make us
   dull, so our souls being quickened will be sure to turn our eyes away
   from vanity! As the first part of the text acts upon the second, so the
   second will act also upon the first. Put the two together and may they
   be graciously fulfilled in the experience of every one of us!

   To amplify the teaching of the text, I shall now call your attention to
   four things--a tacit confession; a silent profession; a vehement desire
   and a confident hope.

   I. First, then, I observe here A TACIT CONFESSION. It is not stated in
   so many words, but it is really meant.

   The Psalmist seems to impeach himself and unburden his breast before
   God, deploring, indeed, a natural tendency towards vanity. What? Is it
   so, after all, that David has known of fellowship with the world? Does
   the vain still attract him? What? When God' s Covenant has been
   peculiarly delightful to the shepherd-king, do the mirth and revelry of
   this world and the gewgaws of earth still attract him? He seems to
   confess it. He would not need to have his eyes turned off from vanity
   if there were not a something in his heart that went after it! He would
   not ask God to turn them off unless he felt that he needed a stronger
   arm than his own to keep him in fitting restraints! It is very easy for
   you and me to stand up and play the wise man--yes, and in the closet to
   pray like wise men. We may feel, in our own souls, that we have
   experience, now, and shall never again be intoxicated by the world's
   draughts, never more be deceived by its lies. But no sooner does Madam
   Bubble show her face than her strange fascinations draw our eyes! Let
   the world ring the bell and straightway we start up and our heart
   wanders, too often before we are aware of it! We know they are vain
   things-- know it thoroughly--but yet, knowing it, we do not in our own
   nature therefore avoid them! Reckless of the snares, the birds are
   foolish enough to fly into them! Though we know that the draught is
   poisoned, yet is it so sweet that unless prevented by God's Grace, you
   and I would soon be drunk with it! Every child of God knows that he is
   a fool or he is a great fool, indeed, if he does not know it! Every
   heir of Heaven understands that there is within himself a very sink of
   vanities--his vicious tastes respond to the vile compounds of earth as
   "deep calls unto deep." It is clear enough, I think, if you turn over
   the prayer, that the Psalmist confesses that his heart goes after
   vanity.

   He confesses, yet again, that his eyes are on it now. He says, "Turn
   them off." What does he mean but that they are on it? And some of us,
   in coming up to the House of God, tonight, and, perhaps, while sitting
   here, have had to confess that our eyes are on vanity. Why, some of you
   Believers may have been thinking of some silly snatch of a song that
   you heard before you were converted, or some idle tale that was told
   you the other day. You would gladly forget it, but it has followed you
   in here--yes, and may even follow you to the Communion Table. Or,
   possibly, your worldly cares have come up with you and my poor talk has
   scarcely had power to lift you up from your families, from your shops,
   or from all the anxious thoughts that burden you! Your heart is on
   these things now. When you stood up to sing about Christ and asked Him
   to set you as a seal upon His heart, where were your flighty
   imaginations roaming? We tried to pray just now, but while the
   preacher' s words went up to Heaven, did not your hearts wander, I know
   not where?

   The confession assumes another character as it seems to hint that, no
   sooner are our eyes on vanity, than our heart goes after it. What? Can
   we not manage our own eyes? What? Are we such vain creatures that the
   mere sight of vanity is a temptation to us? Surely to see vanity ought
   to be sufficient to make us avoid it! Some men say that they will look
   at evil and, knowing that it is evil, they will be safe from the danger
   of being betrayed by it. Ah, how many have proved the hollowness of
   that pretense? Brothers and Sisters, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
   Evil has brought little benefit to mankind--it has certainly brought a
   curse! Beware of the hope to be as gods through eating again of that
   tree! We are more likely to be as devils than to be as gods through
   feeding upon it! Oh, no! I know enough of sin without looking at it!
   There is enough knowledge of my sinfulness forced upon me by my daily
   temptations and failures, without my going to this place or to the
   other, that I may look upon sin! Do not tell me that you went into bad
   company just to ascertain its character! Do not tell me, young man,
   that having heard a certain thing condemned, you thought you ought to
   see it for yourself! That will not do! That is not a Believer's desire,
   nor a godly man's wish! He cries, "Turn away my eyes. Lord, let me
   speak to You humbly. Am I so sinful and so weak that I have only to see
   a ditch to fall into it--only to see a fire to put my finger into it? I
   am not like that in other things--how is it that I am so besotted in
   the carnality of my mind? Yet so it is, Lord. You know and Your servant
   feels that it is so." Therefore, let the confession stand, "Turn away
   my eyes from beholding vanity."

   The Psalmist's confession seems to go a little deeper, for he seems to
   say that he cannot keep his own eyes off vanity. "Turn away my eyes."
   What, Lord? Have I not an optic nerve? Is there not a power in my head
   to turn which way it wills? Am I compelled to look at vanity? No, not
   compelled by physical necessity, but still, so compelled by the
   disposition of this vile nature of mine that unless You keep Your hands
   on my head and turn my eyes from beholding vanity, I shall surely be
   looking at it! We will go anywhere to see vanity! It is strange what
   mountains men will climb-- into what depths they will dive--what
   leagues they will travel--what wealth they will spend to see vanity!
   And when

   they have seen all they can see, what does it come to but the sight of
   so much smoke, after all? And yet, Brothers and Sisters, we cannot keep
   our eyes off it! If anybody tells you that there is a lewd or unseemly
   thing, a juggle, or some witchcraft, do you not feel an inward craving,
   an unholy desire to see it? Is not that a well-known principle of human
   nature? There is a little tract, I think, entitled, "Don't Read
   It"--and why, do you think, was it so entitled? Because, whatever tract
   might remain unread, that one is certain to be read! "Don't Read
   It"--the prohibition provokes appetite, and the moment you and I hear,
   "don't," said, inclination begins to be astir! Thank God that this
   morbid propensity is restrained and subdued by Sovereign Grace through
   the love of Jesus! But still, the natural bias is toward evil and only
   toward evil. Therefore, Lord, "Turn away my eyes from beholding
   vanity." The confession goes very deep, you see.

   But there is even more in the next clause. "Quicken me in Your way." He
   seems to confess that he is dull, heavy, lumpy, all but dead. Do not
   you feel the same? I hope you do not, but I often do, and I am afraid
   you often do, even the best of you. And when we think of how fast our
   spirits ought to move along the heavenly road, constrained and moved by
   love like that of Jesus, I think we all must cry--

   "Dear Lord! And shall we always lie

   At this poor dying rate?

   Our love so faint, so cold to You,

   And Yours to us so great?'

   Yes, we are dull if God leaves us for a moment--so dull and so doting
   that the best motives cannot quicken us! Otherwise the Psalmist would
   not have needed to appeal to the Almighty to effect that of which he
   was himself capable. What? Will not the thought of Hell quicken me? Can
   I think of sinners perishing and yet not be awakened? Will not the
   thought of Heaven quicken me? Can I think of the reward that awaits the
   righteous and yet be dull and stupid? Will not the thought of death
   quicken me? Can I think of dying and standing before my God--and yet be
   slothful in my Master's service? Will not Christ's love quicken me? Can
   I think of His dear wounds, can I sit at the foot of His Cross and
   think of Him, and yet not be stirred to something like fervency and
   zeal? Yet it seems that no such consideration can quicken to zeal, but
   that God Himself must do it or else there had been no need to cry,
   "Quicken me." It struck me, as I turned this text over, that it was
   amazing how poverty-stricken the Psalmist felt himself. What does a
   beggar ask for? The poorest beggar that I ever met never asked me, so
   far as I remember, for anything less than a drink of water and a bite
   of bread--but here is a man who does not ask God for anything so little
   as that--he asks for life itself! "Quicken me." The beggar has life--he
   only asks me for means to sustain it. But here is a poor beggar,
   knocking at Mercy's door, who has to ask for life itself! And that
   beggar represents me--represents you--represents, I am sure, every
   Christian who knows himself. You may well ask, every day, for spiritual
   existence! It is not, "Enlarge me, Lord. Enrich me in heavenly things,"
   but, "Oh, do keep me alive! Quicken me, O Lord!" You see that the
   confession thus takes us into the most secret places of man's need. I
   pray God to teach us all so to feel what our true state is that, with
   humble, sincere and devout hearts, we may pray the prayer, "Turn away
   my eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken me in Your way."

   II. The text likewise involves A SILENT PROFESSION. Do you observe it?
   It is not all confession of sin--there is a profession of something.

   There is a profession at least of this, "Lord, I know it is vanity."
   That is something. "O my God, how I bless You that I know the
   hollowness of the world and the plague of my own heart! It was always
   so, but I did not always think so." There are some of you who do not
   think that even worldly amusements are vanity. You love them--there is
   a sweetness and a substance in them to you. Perhaps you are like the
   lady who said to the minister that she loved to go to the play,
   because, first of all, there was the pleasure of thinking of it before
   she went--and then there was the pleasure of being there, then there
   was the pleasure of thinking of it afterwards--and the pleasure of
   telling it to one's friends. "Ah," said the man of God, "and there is
   another pleasure you have forgotten." "What is that, Sir?" asked the
   lady. "It is the pleasure of thinking of it on a dying bed, Madam."
   Small pleasure that! Some of you have never thought of that last
   pleasure and, therefore, the world's vanity is very satisfactory to
   you. I know what a pig would say if he were to talk. As he munched his
   husks, he would say, "I cannot tell what to think of those stupid
   men--they call these husks empty--and throw them away. I think them
   very luscious and substantial." You would, then, attribute the quality
   of the taste to the nature of the beast. It is after the manner of a
   pig and so, sinners say, "We cannot make out why these strict people,
   these Puritans, find fault with worldly amusements--we find them very
   sweet." Yes, but you see that it is only a sinner who says so--it is
   only a sinner who feels so. The true child of God knows that both the
   pleasures of this world and its cares are, alike, vanity!

   I know how some of you have often felt when you were busy. Encumbered
   with many things, more than you could manage, a friend has complimented
   you and said, "I am glad you are getting on so well. Appearances
   bespeak a thriving trade." "Well," you reply, "I think I am. I am
   grateful for business." But, as your friend turned his head, you
   thought to yourself, "Ah, but I should be more grateful if I had more
   Divine Grace, for I feel that much business needs much Grace to balance
   it, or else the more I get, the poorer I shall be." You felt that it
   was vanity unless you could have God's blessing and the Presence of
   Christ with it.

   It is a feature of this profession that, seeing this vanity, you do not
   want to love it and would avoid being ensnared by it. If I say, "Turn
   away my eyes from it," I do, in effect, confess before God that I do
   notlove it. I hope there are many of us here who can say, "Lord, our
   evil heart sometimes goes after it, but we do not really love it--in
   the bottom of our souls there is a hatred of sin so deeply rooted that
   if the loss of our eyes would take away temptation and prevent us from
   sinning, we would thank You to never allow us to see a ray of light,
   again, for sin is so terrible an evil to us that even blindness would
   be a blessing if it enabled us to escape from sin."

   The second clause of the text has in it, likewise, the nature of
   profession--"Quicken me in Your way." The man who can pray thus is
   already in God's ways! He professes that he loves them--that he desires
   to be obedient to God's will and to continue to make greater progress
   in God's ways. What do you say, dear Brothers and Sisters? Some of you
   find the ways of righteousness very rough, yet, would you leave them?
   Some of you are reproached and persecuted for Christ's sake, yet, would
   you like to go back to the ways of sin? The devil has put a horse at
   your door and there is a golden bridle on it--and it ambles so softly!
   "Now mount," he says, "and come back and serve your old master! Nobody
   will laugh at you then! Everyone will call you a good
   fellow--charitable, kind and liberal. Come back," he says, "and I will
   treat you better than before!" Will you mount and ride? "No," the very
   least of us would say if we had the highest offer for the renunciation
   of Christ--we would not leave Him--

   "Go you that boast in all your stores,

   And tell how bright they shine--

   Your heaps of glittering dust are yours,

   But my Redeemer's mine!

   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." No, Lord, I may be weary in Your way,
   but, by Your Grace I will never weary of Your way.

   III. And now, in the third place, there is before us here A VEHEMENT
   DESIRE--how vehement, those only experience who know the bitterness of
   vanity and the disappointment which it brings! How vehement those only
   can describe who know the excellence and sweetness of Divine
   Quickening! The Psalmist breathes his whole soul out in this prayer. He
   seems to plead most vehemently, his body and his soul seem to pray
   together. "Turn away my eyes," says the body. "Quicken me," says the
   soul!

   This is a most reasonable and a most practical desire.

   How reasonable it is! When a Christian is not quickened in God's way,
   he is very uncomfortable. The happiest state of a Christian is the
   holiest state. As there is the most heat nearest the sun, so is there
   the most happiness nearest to Christ. I am persuaded that no Christian
   ever finds any comfort when his eyes are fixed on vanity--no, that he
   never finds any satisfaction unless his soul is quickened in the ways
   of God. The world may find happiness elsewhere, but he cannot. I do not
   blame ungodly men for going to their pleasures. Why should I blame
   them? Let them have their fill-- that is all they have to enjoy. I
   heard of a converted wife who despaired of her husband's salvation, but
   she used to be always very kind to him. She said, "I am afraid he will
   never be converted." But whatever he wished for, she always got for
   him, and she would do anything for him, "for," she said, "I fear that
   this is the only world in which he will be happy and, therefore, I have
   made up my mind to make him as happy as I can in it." But you
   Christians must seek your delights in a higher sphere because you
   cannot be happy in the insipid frivolities of the world, or in the
   sinful enjoyments of it!

   Besides being uncomfortable, it is very dangerous. A Christian is
   always in danger when he is looking after vanity. We heard of a
   philosopher who looked up to the stars and fell into a pit. But if they
   fall deeply who look up, how deeply

   do they fall who look down! No Christian is ever safe when his soul is
   so slothful or drowsy that it needs quickening. Of course you do not
   understand me to mean that his soul is in danger of being lost. Every
   Christian is always safe as to the great matter of his standing in
   Christ, but he is not safe as regards to his standing and happiness in
   this life. Satan does not often attack a Christian who is living near
   to God--at least, I think not. It is when the Christian gets away from
   God and gets half-starved and begins to feed on vanities, that the
   devil says, "Now I will have him!" He may sometimes stand foot to foot
   with the child of God who is active in his Master's service, but the
   battle is generally short. He that slips as he goes down into the
   Valley of Humiliation invites Apollyon to come and fight with him!

   Again, for a Christian to have his eyes fixed on vanity is injurious to
   his usefulness. No, more--it does positive damage to others. When a
   Christian is found setting his affection upon worldly things, what do
   worldlings say? "Why, he is one of our own kith and kin! He is just
   like us! See, he loves what we love, where is the difference between us
   and him?" Thus the cause of Christ gets serious injury. How can you, my
   dear Brother, from the pulpit, for instance, preach concerning a
   certain sin when you are, yourself, guilty of it? I should like, for
   instance, to hear a man who swears that Baptism regenerates when he
   knows it does not, rebuke a countess for saying that she is "not at
   home" when she is! I should like to hear him rebuke a draper for "a
   white lie" across the counter. I should like to hear him rebuke the
   devil, for, I think he could scarcely venture to do it! Unfaithfulness
   to the Spirit of God is as great a sin as ever Satan committed! No, my
   Brothers and Sisters, we must keep ourselves clear of these sins, or
   else, for practical purposes, the tendon of Achilles has been cut and
   we cannot serve God with might and main! We can only do some trifling
   service for Him when our garments are spotted and our souls are set on
   vanity.

   For all these reasons, then, let the Christian pray this reasonable
   prayer that he may be kept from vanity.

   Did I say that this is a very practical prayer? So, in truth, it is.
   You will observe that the former pain is practical, though the latter
   may seem spiritual. The Psalmist says, "Turn away my eyes." Now, the
   man who prays after this fashion will not fail in the directness of his
   aim. He who is diligent in praying this prayer will not be negligent in
   his life. He will not pray, "Turn away my eyes from vanity," and then
   go and drink death-draughts of carnal pleasures. He will not pray,
   "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity," and then go and turn his
   eyes on the very evil that he deprecated! No, Brothers and Sisters,
   there is something so practical in the text that I commend it to your
   earnest observation. Make it your prayer tonight, each one of you!

   IV. Lastly, there is in the text an expression of CONFIDENT HOPE.

   The Psalmist does not pray like a waverer who will receive nothing of
   the Lord. It seems to me that he has an unmoved confidence that God
   will turn his eyes away from vanity and that God can quicken him. Have
   any of you backslidden? Let this sentence comfort you tonight! Do not
   lose the belief that Divine Love can restore you. Have you sunk very
   low? Do not, I pray you, doubt the efficacy of the right hand of the
   Most High to bring you back again! Satan will get a great advantage
   over you if you begin to think that God cannot quicken you. No, be
   assured that He can. And let me tell you that He can do so readily. It
   may cost you many pains, but it will cost Him none. He the made the
   world out of nothing can certainly restore to you the joy which you
   have lost!

   And may I tell you what I think is the means which God often uses with
   his people to restore and quicken them, and take their eyes from
   vanity? I think it is a sight of Christ! At any rate, my personal
   witness is that I never know the vanity of this world so well as when I
   see the beauties and the perfections of the Lord, my Master. That true
   man of God, Dr. Hawker--I am told by a friend of mine who visited him
   one morning--was asked to go and see a military review that was then
   taking place at Plymouth. The doctor said, "No." My friend pressed him
   and said, "I know you are a loyal subject and you like to see your
   country's fleets--it is a noble spectacle." The doctor said, no, he
   could not go and, being pressed until he was ashamed, he made this
   remarkable answer, "There are times when I could go and enjoy it, but
   my eyes have seen the King in His beauty this morning, and I have had
   so sweet a sense of fellowship with the Lord Jesus that I dare not go
   to look upon any spectacle lest I should lose the present enjoyment
   which now engrosses my soul." I think you and I will have felt the same
   thing, in our measure, when Christ has manifested Himself to us. What?
   Look on vanity, my Lord, when Your pierced hand has touched my heart?
   What are the grandest buildings of this world, with all their pomp of
   architecture, compared with You, You Great Foundation Stone, you Chief
   Cornerstone, elect and precious? What is the music of this world, with
   all its swell and roll, compared with Your name, Immanuel, God With
   Us--

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows Charm me in Immanuel's name-- All her
   hopes my spirit owes

   To His birth, and Cross, and shame."

   What are the world's feasts compared with You, O Christ? Its dainties
   are not sweet, for I have tasted of Your flesh. Its wines are no longer
   luscious, for I have sipped from the cup of Your blood. What are the
   world's choicest offers that she can make me of honor or of wealth?
   Have You not raised me up and made me to sit together in heavenly
   places with Yourself, and have You not made me a king and a priest unto
   God and shall I not reign with You forever and ever? Christian, you may
   carry on such musing as this by the hour together! You may boast
   yourself in God and your leviathan faith may swim in this boundless
   deep of Jesus' love! You surely, after this, can never wish to go back
   to the pool wherein the minnow of this world disports itself. Here you
   can bask yourself in the rays of a meridian sun--and will you
   afterwards cry for a farthing candle because you have lost its beams?

   Shame on you, Christian, if your soul is taken up with vanities! Let
   those love them find their all in them, but you cannot! The sight of
   Him who is white as the lily for perfection and red as the rose for
   sacrificial suffering must have taken away the beauty of this world for
   us! Says Rutherford, "Ever since I ate the Bread of Heaven, the brown
   bread of this world has not been to my palate. And since I have feasted
   on the food of angels, I cannot eat the ashes that satisfy the men
   whose portion is in this life." And truly it is so! Arise, Sun of
   Righteousness, and our love of darkness shall be dispelled while we are
   charmed with Your light! We hear of some who worship the sun at its
   rising--that is sad idolatry--but rise, Sun of Righteousness, and we
   will worship You and there shall be no idolatry in that! You are not
   like the sun that burns out human eyes when they look upon it. We will
   look into Your face until Your transporting light shall only burn out
   our sight for this world--to help us to gaze upon Yourself without a
   veil between.

   Oh, that I were talking thus for you all, but I am conscious that I am
   not. I do pray, however, that you who love vanity may find out how vain
   it is before you come to die. The other night I lay awake and tossed to
   and fro many hours before I fell asleep. I realized then, more than at
   any other time in my life, what it was to die. My every bone seemed to
   tremble. I lay, as I thought, upon a bed of sickness--the room seemed
   hushed around me. The ticking of my clock sounded like the ticking of
   the death-watch. I thought I heard them whisper, "He must die." And
   then my soul seemed to fling itself back upon the realities of God in
   Christ and I asked myself, "Have I preached or have I prayed for this?
   But now is Christ able to save me. He is my only hope and my only plea.
   Is it true that Christ came into the world to save sinners?" And I
   recalled those cogent and blessed arguments which prove that Christ is
   the Sent One of God and my soul rejoiced that it could die in peace!
   And then I could but think of that sweet rest which Jesus brings when
   you can throw yourself on Him.

   And now, tonight, in the recollection of that strange vision of the
   shadow of death through which I passed, I can but ask others, "What
   will you do when you really come to die, if you have no Savior?" Men
   and women, if you have no Christ to trust to, what will you do? You
   must soon have the death-sweat wiped from your clammy brows. You must
   soon have the needed drop of water administered to your parched lips.
   What will you do when Death shakes the bones within the strong man and
   makes each nerve thrill with the dread music of pain? What will you do
   when death, and Hell, and judgment, and eternity, and the Great White
   Throne have become real things to you and your business, and even your
   children and your wife seem banished from your eyes? Let a brother's
   love beseech you to flee from the wrath to come and to fly to Christ
   for salvation! God knows how I love your soul! It is for the sake of
   men's souls that I suffer contempt and scorn and will gladly bear
   it--yes, and will provoke it more than I have ever done--provoke it
   because this dull, dead age needs provocation--needs to be stirred up!
   Even its ministers need to be stirred up to something like honesty and
   zeal for the souls of men! I say that I will gladly bear reproach for
   your souls' sake--will not you?

   Oh, will not you be persuaded to think on those things that make for
   your eternal peace? The gates of Heaven are up there! The gates of Hell
   are down yonder! The Cross of Christ points you to Heaven--follow its
   guidance! Look to the wounds of Jesus! These are the gates of pearl
   through which you must enter Heaven. But if you will turn to your
   vanities and to your sins and follow them--and delight yourself in
   worldly pleasures--then Hell is your portion as surely as you sin! May
   the Lord give faith to those who have none and help us who have
   believed through Grace, to walk in His ways--and unto His name shall be
   the Glory, world without, end! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:81-88.

   Verse 81. My soul faints for Your salvation: but I hope in Your word.
   The Psalmist was so full of longing, hungering, thirsting, for God's
   salvation that he had come even to faintness through the strength of
   his desire. Yet, in his faintness, he was not too far gone to hope--and
   we, also, have good ground for hoping and believing that God, who gave
   us His Word, will stand to it, for He is both able and willing to
   fulfill all that He has promised!

   82. My eyes fail from searching Your word, saying, When will You
   comfort me?He looked out for a message from God as the watchers of the
   night looked for the breaking of the morning. His eyes ached to behold
   the comforts of his God. Oh, blessed state of strong desire! I pray God
   that we may all experience it!

   83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget
   Your statutes. When an empty skin bottle was hung up in one of the
   smoky dwellings of the East, it became withered, cracked, useless. And
   the Psalmist says, "'I am become like a bottle in the smoke,'--I seem
   to be good for nothing, withered, dried up--'yet do I not forget Your
   statutes.'" A good memory is one of the best of things for us to
   possess, but a good memory for that which is good is better still.

   84. Howmany are the days of Your servant? When will You execute
   judgment on them that persecute me?"I am not going to live here
   forever, Lord. Let me not have to wait to be vindicated until I am in
   my grave. O my God, hasten the day of my deliverance!"

   85. 86. The proud have dug pits for me, which are not after Your Law.
   All Your commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help
   You me. God's Word is all true--the longer we test and try it, the more
   shall we find it to be worthy of our fullest confidence. Those who
   doubt its Truth have never really proved its power. Those who mistrust
   it in any degree are as yet like inexperienced mariners who are
   constantly doubting and fearing what is going to happen. But those who
   have long done business on the great waters of the ocean of Divine
   Inspiration and who have seen the wonders of the Lord there, will tell
   you that though Heaven and earth shall pass away, God s Word shall
   endure forever! We have seen a thousand things in the course of our
   earthly pilgrimage, but there is one thing that we have never seen, and
   that we never shall see, namely, God proving unfaithful to His promise
   and deserting His people in their time of need!

   What a short yet comprehensive prayer the Psalmist prayed when he
   uttered those three words, "Help You me!" "' Help You me --that I may
   never be frightened by those who wrongfully persecute me--that I may
   never do anything to deserve their persecution--that I may be able to
   behave myself wisely while they are plotting against me." If you are in
   business, write this prayer on your shops, your offices, and your
   ledgers! If you are sick, have this petition hanging before your eyes,
   that you may be constantly reminded to cry to the Lord, "Help You me."

   87. They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not Your
   precepts. Therefore his enemies could not consume him. As long as the
   Believer holds fast to God s precepts, he is indigestible even to the
   old dragon, himself! And no adversary shall ever be able to devour him
   as long as the Word of God is in his heart!

   88. Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the
   testimony of Your mouth "Give me more true spiritual life, inspirit me,
   revive me, 'quicken me.' At this very moment, good Lord, if I am cold,
   and half frozen, and almost dead, yet since I am like the trees whose
   life is in them even when they have lost their leaves, give me a new
   springtime--'Quicken me after Your loving kindness .'" We all need this
   quickening if we are to hold on and hold out to the end and, blessed be
   the name of the Lord--

   "New supplies each hour we meet While pressing on to God."
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Time for Comforting

   (No. 3027)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   21, 1867.

   "My eyes fail from searching Your Word, saying, When will You comfort
   me?" Psalm 119:82.

   DAVID, in his troubles, knew where to turn for consolation--and that is
   no small piece of wisdom. When a man is ill, he may not know to which
   physician he had better send, but if he knows of one who has had much
   experience with the disease from which he is suffering, he sends for
   him at once if he is a wise patient. David knew that the best place for
   a true Believer to find consolation was in God's Word, so he did not
   look in a thousand places, but his eyes were turned to God's Word--and
   though he did not immediately find the comfort that he sought, yet he
   continued to look even till his eyes seemed to fail him, till they
   ached with looking, till they wearied with watching, till his
   disappointed expectation made his heart sick! Yet the idea never
   entered into his mind that he had better knock at another door, or seek
   another friend, or try another fountain! He still continued in the
   attitude of expectancy and desire, his eyes still searching the Word of
   God to find the comfort that he so greatly needed.

   Christian, learn this piece of heavenly wisdom from the Psalmist's
   experience--there is no other comfort for you beneath the skies like
   that with which the Word of the Lord will furnish you. If God's
   promises cannot comfort you, rest assured that no speech from the lips
   of man can do it. If your God shall not yield you the consolation that
   you need, you will go in vain to the giddy world and its pleasures and
   follies in the hope of finding it. If that overflowing well could ever
   dry up, you would indeed be the subject of despair. Resolve in your
   mind never to expect any good thing apart from God. Say with Toplady--

   "I will not be comforted Till Jesus comforts me."

   Refuse all consolation but that which comes from the Most High, for it
   will be fictitious, delusive, dangerous, perhaps fatal--but cling to
   your God whatever happens! Though He smite you, still cling to Him.
   Though He slay you, still trust Him. If His Word should seem to be like
   thunder and lightning to you, though every page of it should seem to
   bristle as with bayonets and not a single thought of consolation should
   be found in a thousand verses, yet still cling to your father's Bible,
   hold fast to the good old Book which made glad your mother's heart,
   for, before long, comfort shall shine forth from it upon you like the
   sun in the fullness of its strength--and the day shall break and the
   shadows flee away. Go not elsewhere to look for consolation! Seek out
   no strange doctrines! Weary not yourself in searching for other
   comfort, but let your eyes, even if they fail, still look to the Word
   of God for the consolation that your soul needs!

   David, however, besides looking to the Book of the Lord, looked to the
   Lord of the Book, saying, "When will You comfort me?" He did not expect
   the Word in itself to be a sufficient consolation to him, so he looked
   to the Word as applied by God, the Holy Spirit, the Word as spoken over
   again by the mouth of God into the silent soul of the waiting Believer.
   Paul tells us that "the letter kills, but the spirit gives life." And
   the Psalmist so far anticipates that Truth of God as to cry to the
   Lord, "When will You comfort me?"

   Christian, I again exhort you to imitate the Psalmist's example by
   going to your God for comfort. You are still far too apt to lean upon
   an arm of flesh, but have you not yet learned what disappointments are
   always to be met with there? Will you still go to the broken cisterns
   that can hold no water when they have already only mocked your thirst?
   When will you give up running to your neighbors and going to your
   brother's house in the day of your adversity? You will do far better if
   you will go to your Father's house and to your Elder Brother! Even our
   common proverb says, "Straightforward makes the best runner," so, run
   straight to your God! Do not beat around the bush in the hope of
   getting at God through second causes, but go to the great Fountainhead
   of all consolation at once. Depend upon it, that

   the more absolutely you hang upon the bare arm of God, the better will
   it be for you and the more will you learn to live independently of
   those poor creatures of earth whose breath is in their nostrils! The
   more you depend upon the great, invisible, Omnipotent, eternal Jehovah,
   the stronger and happier will you become! Then shall your head be
   lifted high above your enemies and you shall sing praises unto God for
   very gladness of heart.

   Troubled ones, I urge you to resolve that if you cannot have comfort
   from God, at any rate you will not have it from the devil--determine
   that if you cannot do business with Heaven, you will not trade with
   Hell! And say that you would rather live in a dungeon with God than
   dwell in tents of ease with Satan. If your life must always be one of
   sorrow, be content that it shall be so if the Lord so wills it, but be
   resolved that you never will dally with sin or Satan for the sake of
   any present consolation. You cannot afford to buy your gold so dearly
   as that, nor to part with Heaven for the sake of the richest comforts
   of earth!

   It is worthy of note that the Psalmist, even in his worst condition,
   always expected to be comforted. Our text was probably uttered by the
   same man who more than once asked himself, "Why are you cast down, O my
   Soul? And why are you disquieted within me?" Some men readily fall into
   a state of despair, but the Psalmist was not a man of that sort. When
   all God' s waves and billows had gone over him, he still said, "Yet the
   Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night
   His song shall be with me." And where deep called unto deep at the
   noise of Jehovah's waterspouts, he could still hear the still small
   voice of hope, so that he said to his soul, "Hope in God: for I shall
   yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

   Beloved, let none of us give way to despair! No doubt Satan will tell
   us that it is humble to despair, but it is not so. The pride of despair
   is truly terrible. I believe that when a man altogether doubts the
   power of God to save him and gives himself up to sin because he thinks
   he cannot be saved, so far from there being any humility in it, it is
   the proudest action that depraved flesh and blood can perform! Man, how
   dare you say that there is no hope for you? If the iron gates of Hell
   were shut upon you and God had hurled the key of the Pit into the
   infinite abyss, then you might say that there was no hope for you. But
   as long as there trembles in the air that blessed invitation of Christ,
   "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
   you rest," it is only a lying voice that tells you that there is no
   hope for you! No hope, Man? Why, if you were in the very jaws of death
   and the grim monster's teeth were about to close upon you, there would
   still be hope for you! The dying thief on the Cross did but trust to
   the expiring Savior by his side--and that very day he was with his Lord
   in Paradise! Never despair, Sinner, but trust in Jesus when at your
   worst!

   And as for you, Christian, what have you to do with despairing? Be of
   good cheer, for your sins are forgiven you. [See Sermon No. 3016,
   Volume 52--GOOD CHEER FROM FORGIVEN SIN.] Even though your eyes fail,
   God's eyes do not fail, nor His arm, either. And though you grow weary
   with your long waiting, yet when He comes to you, He will make amends
   for that and your weary waiting shall be well repaid. Wait at the posts
   of His doors, for--

   "He never is before His time, He never is too late."

   If you will but play the man and let patience have her perfect work,
   you shall be well rewarded before long. Therefore wipe away your tears
   and "wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your
   heart: wait, I say, on the

   Lord."

   Now, although the Psalmist expected to receive comfort from the Lord,
   whatever his trouble might be, yet he was careful to do what he could
   in order to obtain it. He looked into God's Word for comfort and he
   asked the Lord, "When will You comfort me?"--as if he meant to say, "If
   there is anything on my part which prevents my receiving the comfort,
   let me know and, Lord, I will put it away from me. Should You be
   withholding Your consolation from me because of any sin which I am
   harboring, only say the word, Lord, and my sin shall be taken out to
   execution! Quick shall be my hand and sudden shall be the stroke, for I
   must have Your comfort to sustain my soul--I cannot longer live in this
   state of sadness."

   I trust that this will be the language of anyone here who is seeking
   the forgiveness of his sins. Perhaps I may be addressing someone who
   has been seeking mercy for months and he has not yet found it. I hope
   he is not satisfied to go without it--I trust that he will hunger and
   thirst until he gets it and that he will, at this moment, put up these
   requests to God, "Show me, Lord, why You contend with me. When will You
   comfort me? What is there which parts me from You and hides the light
   of Your face from my poor, guilty, dying spirit?"

   Perhaps the words which I am about to utter, in answer to the question
   in my text, may be the means of bringing comfort to some who are
   groping for it in the dark like blind man trying to feel the way marks
   which they cannot see. I shall first address myself to Christians and
   then to seekers after salvation.

   I. First of all, I SPEAK TO YOU, BELOVED BELIEVERS--to you who are
   saying with the Psalmist that your eyes are failing from searching the
   Word of God--to you whose hearts are saying to Him, "When will You
   comfort us?"

   God will answer your question in His own good time and way, but it is
   certain that God will comfort you one day He cannot leave His people
   without comfort. You know that He said, in olden times, by the mouth of
   the Prophet Isaiah, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she
   should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may
   forget, yet will I not forget you." The mother ought not to be able to
   forget her child when it is in that specially dependent stage of its
   existence--when it is a sucking child not only her love, but the very
   force of Nature ought to compel her to remember it! Yet, though she may
   forget her child, God cannot and will not forget you who are His
   children! That is impossible--the whole force of His Divine Nature
   constrains Him in loving kindness to remember you and to say to you,
   "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." His message
   to His servants is still, "Comfort you, comfort you My people, says
   your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her
   warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." Now, how can
   comfort be withheld from those whose sins are pardoned? Christian, you
   must have comfort from your God sooner or later!

   To help you to answer your question as to why you do not have that
   comfort now, consider, in the first place, that God may, of His own
   Sovereign will and pleasure, withhold from you the comforting light of
   His Countenance. He has His reason for doing so, but He may not give
   you that reason. And surely, if He does not tell you the reason, you
   will submit to His will. Remember the good advice of the Prophet
   Isaiah, "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 do but at last get
   to Heaven--if the Lord should take away His candle from you on earth
   for a little time, you may cheerfully submit to that privation! You may
   cry out to Him, for "His own elect" do that--they "cry day and night
   unto Him," yet you must not be impatient if He does not at once grant
   your request. With ardent desire you may long for Him to comfort you in
   the night seasons, but, amid the darkest shades, you may still say to
   Him, "I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right and that You in
   faithfulness have afflicted me." It may be because of Divine
   Sovereignty that comfort is, for a while, being withheld from you. If
   so, then the same Sovereignty which shuts you up in the dark room will,
   in due season, open the door and set you at liberty!

   But more likely, dear Friends, you will get comfort when you have cast
   away your present unbelief. Most of us owe a great part of our sadness
   to our lack of faith in God. Is it any wonder that you are sad when you
   will not believe your Heavenly Father's promises? Child of God, is it a
   surprising thing that your mind should be ill at ease when you mistrust
   the veracity of your Father? Would you expect your own children to be
   happy if they were always doubting the truth of their father' s
   promises to them? What a wretched household such dark suspicions would
   soon make! Away, then, with all suspicion of the truth of your Heavenly
   Father's promises! It is utterly groundless! It is unworthy of yourself
   and it is dishonorable to God! Testify against Him now if you can. When
   did He ever fail you? Has He been a wilderness to you? Has He ever
   forsaken you? He has chastened you, it is true, but has He ever
   deserted you? "Come now, testify, O My people; bear witness against Me
   if you can!" says the Lord. "Have I wearied you with labor? Have I
   borne you down with burdens and not given you help?" Oh, no! We all
   bear witness that He is a good and gracious God--and we pray for the
   Holy Spirit's power to rest upon us that we may have done with our
   cruel, wicked, disgraceful unbelief! Come, child of God, take down your
   Bible, look up some precious promise, grasp it, believe it and expect
   to see it fulfilled to yourself! You will not then have long to ask,
   "When will You comfort me?" You will be comforted as soon as you have
   cast away your sinful unbelief from your soul. Ask the Holy Spirit to
   help you to do so at once!

   Possibly the answer to your question may take another form--The Lord
   will comfort you as soon as you have done with complaining. There are
   certain people in the world whom God will never comfort until He has
   taken their present murmuring spirit out of them. I know some such
   people, to my sorrow. If they prosper very much, if they get on a great
   deal in their business, they say, "Oh, yes, we have had a tolerably
   good year!" They never admit that they have had anything beyond "a
   tolerably good year." That is all that they will say even when their
   money is rolling in, in floods! Many a farmer, when his ground is
   bearing as much corn as it possibly can, says, "Yes, I shall do pretty
   middling this year." He calls the very best that he can possibly have,
   "pretty middling!" And if he should happen to have a little loss, or a
   little trouble, or some little vexation, then straightway his mouth is
   filled with murmuring against God. And though

   he would not like to have it called by that name, yet it is a sort of
   minor blasphemy against the Most High--envying others, speaking of them
   as though they had all the sweets of life and talking of himself as
   though he had to drink all the bitters and all the dregs of the cup.
   Some of you know people of that kind, who seem to be "cut on the
   cross"--a strange sort of people who can always see clouds on the
   finest day and who will say that the grass is all dried up even when
   all can see that it is beautifully green!

   Ah, my dear Friends, you must get rid of all this if you want God to
   comfort you! There is something expressive in that word, murmur--I have
   often wondered at the wisdom of the man who gave it the meaning that it
   has, though I do not know who he was. "Mur-mur"--two ugly little
   syllables such as any cross child could easily sound! But it is a
   childish, foolish, wicked habit for any of us to fall into--to be
   murmuring against God--for, after all, our mercies far outnumber our
   sorrows! As long as we are out of Hell, we have no right to complain,
   for, if we had received our just desserts, we would have been there.
   Dear Friends, may God help you to shake off this murmuring spirit as
   Paul shook the viper off his hand into the fire! And when you have done
   that, then you will probably find that the Lord will speedily appear to
   comfort your heart!

   Again, in some persons there is an absence of Divine Consolation
   because there is some sin which is tolerated within them. There might
   be very startling discoveries made here, this very hour, if every
   professing Christian were compelled, by his accusing conscience, to
   stand up and tell the congregation what his secret, besetting sin is. I
   fear that at least some of you would never dare to show your faces in
   the Tabernacle again--you would be ashamed to be seen among those who
   knew such things about you! Yet the smoke of these burning sins rises
   in clouds and shuts the face of God away from such inconsistent
   Christians. God loves His people, but He does not love their sins. Sin
   is hateful anywhere, but it is most hateful in the Lord's own people.
   You are, none of you, fond of loathsome diseases such as fevers, but I
   am sure that you loathe the fever most of all when it attacks your own
   dear child. So, sin is a disease which God hates everywhere, but He
   hates it most of all when He sees it upon one of His own children and,
   for this reason, He takes His rod into His hand and causes His sinning
   child to smart and to cry out with Job, "Show me why You contend with
   me." When the Lord's people are really in earnest about this matter, He
   points to their idol-gods, or to some other evil thing which they have
   harbored in their hearts and so awakened His anger. Then, if they arise
   and cast out these abominations, the rod is put away and God once more
   gives them the comforts of His Grace. Therefore, my Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ, if you lack comfort, search and see where the fault
   lies, for it is my firm conviction that in nine cases out of ten, it is
   owing to some sin that has been indulged! I quoted Job's question just
   now, and Eliphaz asked him, "Are the consolations of God small with
   you? Is there any secret thing with you? Why does your heart carry you
   away? And what do your eyes wink at, that you turn your spirit against
   God and let such words go out of your mouth?" I pass those searching
   questions on to anyone here to whom they may apply. And I trust that as
   the result of doing so, such a soul will be able to present the poet's
   petition with the poet's confidence--

   "The dearest idol I have known,

   Whatever that idol be,

   Help me to tear it from Your Throne,

   And worship only Thee!

   So shall my walk be close with God,

   Calm and serene my frame,

   So purer light shall mark the road

   That leads me to the Lamb."

   Possibly the lack of comfort is owing to some other cause. Dear
   Christian Brother or Sister, you may be at this moment without comfort
   because you have neglected some duty. I believe that many of God's
   people who know their Lord's will, yet do it not, do get beaten with
   many stripes. They say that they do not understand why they are thus
   chastised and they do not know what it is that causes them to be so
   frequently and so sorely afflicted. It is because there is some
   precept, which they know to be their Lord's precept, yet they wink
   their eye at it and leave it neglected. Learn a lesson from Jonah's
   experience. If the Lord should bid any of us go to Nineveh and cry
   against it and, instead of doing so, we go down to Joppa and find a
   ship going to Tarshish, and get in it, we must not reckon upon having a
   smooth passage! Before long there will be "a mighty tempest in the
   sea." If we had not been God's servant, there might have been fair
   weather--but when a child of God runs away from his plain duty, God
   will send a tempest after him--and he may be very thankful if God also
   sends a whale--for although the whale may swallow him, yet it may bring
   him safely to

   land--but he will be sure to rue the day on which he turned away from
   his clear duty and sought out a more comfortable path.

   Master John Bunyan, whom I cannot help quoting, tells us the result of
   Christian and Hopeful going over the stile into By-Path Meadow. They
   thought it would be much smother walking just on the other side of the
   fence and Christian tried to assure his companion that the path ran
   along by the way-side. No doubt they thought that they could keep so
   close to the King' s Highway that they would see, in a minute, when the
   path began to turn away from the right road-- and then they would just
   jump over the fence and get into the right way again. They felt sure it
   would be all right. At least Christian did, for Hopeful was doubtful
   all the while, though he gave way to his older companion. But when
   Giant Despair found them sleeping in his grounds, he drove them off
   into his dungeon and came, the next morning, with a great crab-tree
   cudgel and gave them not a mouthful of bread, nor a drink of water, but
   plenty of crab tree! And when, the day after, he counseled them to
   destroy themselves, and left them lying, day after day, pining in their
   filthy prison-- then they understood that smooth walking is not always
   safe walking, and that it is best to walk in the right road even though
   it may be a rough one! Let us be careful where we walk, for we may lose
   our comfort very speedily unless we keep strictly to the path of
   obedience. Let us, at all times, with a cheerful and willing spirit,
   wear our Master's yoke, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

   I will speak very plainly to some of you who get downhearted and
   desponding, for I am rather glad that you do get into such a state of
   mind. There are some who think that the blame rests with the preacher
   if they become despondent. They say that he ought to comfort them more
   than he does. Ah, but lazy professors must remember what Paul wrote to
   the Thessalonians, "This we commanded you, that if any would not work,
   neither should he eat." As for you busy preachers, Sunday school
   teachers, tract-distributors and other earnest workers for Christ, when
   you do get to a sermon, how sweet it is to you! You have been hard at
   work for the Lord and it has sharpened your spiritual appetites! But
   lazy Christians who never fail to win souls for the Savior and who only
   want to be spiritually fed without doing a stroke of work in the
   Master' s service get to be very dainty. No matter how good the fare
   may be, nor however much others enjoy it, they are sure to say, "That
   is not the food that we like." They want it spiced up to a wonderful
   degree and it must be carved so daintily or they will not touch it!
   Whereas if they had been hard at work, they would have gained a healthy
   appetite which would have turned even the bitters into sweets!

   I pray God that those professors who do nothing for Him may be
   miserable! "That is a very unkind prayer," say some of you. No, it is
   not, for it is meant for your good. See, if you get to be happy in your
   idleness, you will stay in that sinful state. But if you are unhappy
   while you are doing nothing for the Master, I think you will be the
   more likely to say to Him, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" Then I
   hope you will soon get to work and I believe that comfort will be sure
   to come to you when, in an evangelical spirit, depending upon the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, you go out to do
   what you can for the Lord! Some of you, perhaps, have a great heap of
   money stored up and you cannot make out why there is such a bad smell
   of canker all over the house--I could tell you! Some of you who have
   not been doing anything for your Master for a long while, think that
   surely your blood must be congealed in your veins, for it does not seem
   to move! I think I could tell you why that is. If you would again
   exercise yourself in God's work, as you used to do, you would soon find
   that the blood would again course through your veins and that the dew
   of your spiritual youth would come back to you. Our sorrows are often
   manufactured by our sins--our sins of omission, or of commission. May
   we all have Grace, then, to search within ourselves to see if we can
   discover the answer to the question, "When will You comfort me?"

   II. Now I am going, for a few minutes, to deal with THE CASE OF
   ANXIOUS, SEEKING SINNERS.

   Where are you, anxious one? Never mind where you my happen to be at
   this moment--let the Word of the Lord come straight to you as though
   nobody else were here! You are sorrowfully saying, "I have been praying
   for pardon for months. I am in the House of God whenever it is open. I
   search the Bible as diligently as I can, yet I cannot find comfort. Oh,
   that I could get my sins forgiven! I must get that blessing, or I shall
   die. Tell me, Sir, when will God comfort me?"

   My dear Hearer, it may be that comfort is withheld from you because you
   have not fully confessed your sin. We have God's Word for it that "if
   we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."
   Then if we do not make a complete confession to our God, we must not
   expect to receive pardon. "Oh," you say, "I have said, 'Lord, I am a
   sinner.'" That is right, but you must do more than that. Tonight,
   before you go to bed, think over your past life. Recapitulate your
   faults and confess the whole of them to God--and do not keep anything
   back. I have heard of a professor who was guilty of backsliding for a
   time and, therefore, was suspended from church membership. He prayed

   about the matter, but he used to pray thus, "Lord, you know that I have
   indulged a little--have mercy upon me!" Of course no comfort came to
   him. Then a Christian Brother said to him, "Tell the Lord the whole
   truth--He knows just what it is." The man was wise enough to follow
   this good advice, so he prayed, "Lord, you know that I was drunk, will
   you not forgive me, for Jesus Christ's sake?" Then the comfort came to
   him and you, also, must call your sin just what it is when you go
   before God, for you are not truly humbled and penitent as long as you
   try to put a gloss upon your sin. David could get no peace till he
   prayed, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God." And, my dear Hearer,
   you must confess the worst aspect of your case before God. "Make a
   clean breast of it," as we commonly say--tell the Lord all about your
   sin. Perhaps it is the lack of this that keeps you from being
   comforted--the lack of an explicit, plain, full confession of your
   sins.

   Again, if you ask me why you do not have comfort, although you do try
   to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I answer, Perhaps there is some
   sin that you have not given up and, depend upon it, if that is the
   case, although salvation is all by the Grace of God and we are not
   saved by our own works, yet, Sinner, you can never have peace with God
   till you have made a clean sweep of every known sin! There may be a man
   here who has attended the Tabernacle for a long time, and who says that
   he cannot get peace. Now, where was he last night? His conscience knows
   and I will ask him whether he expects to get peace with God while he
   can be found in such society? There is another man here who says that
   he cannot get comfort--but where is he to be found the greater part of
   the week? Does he not regularly go to the gin-palace? And can he expect
   that the Lord Jesus Christ will go there with him? No, that cannot be!
   There was no room for Christ in the inn when He was born and there is
   certainly no room for Him in the gin-palace of the present day. There
   are some men who can cheat in their business--they know very well that
   they do not deal fairly with their customers. Their goods are
   adulterated and they give short weight--yet they expect to have peace
   with God while this is the case? How can it be? Do you suppose that God
   will patch up a truce with your sins and give you His forgiveness while
   you are harboring such evil things in your house? No, that cannot be!
   Though you cannot be perfect, yet you must wantto be perfect and there
   must not be any sin which you knowingly spare. Cut them in pieces,
   every one of them! As soon as you know that anything is wrong, I pray
   you to have such a tender conscience that you will seek to escape from
   it, for, as long as you harbor even one of them, comfort will never
   come to you.

   "But this is such a little sin," says one. Yes, and those little errors
   are like the little boys that the big thieves take with them to crawl
   through the little windows--and then they open the door and let the big
   thieves in! Those little sins will be your ruin unless you forsake them
   and get them forgiven! One of our proverbs says, "Take care of the
   pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves." Turn that proverb
   round and it will teach you that if you look sharply after your little
   sins, you will not fall into great ones. It is these so-called little
   sins--mixing with worldly society, going into bad company and so
   on--that keep so many of you from getting peace with God! Some of you
   young women get to walking with ungodly young men. And some of you
   young men form acquaintances that are no good to you. And then you come
   here and your consciences are somewhat touched, and you ask that you
   may be found "accepted in the Beloved." How can that be when you will
   walk straight away from this service and talk in such a way as would be
   impossible if the Holy Spirit were really in you? The Holy Dove would
   fly away from such talk as that! A defiled heart is no nest wherein He
   can take His rest.

   Once again, is it not very likely that the reason why you do not get
   peace with God is this--that you have not trusted to the Lord Jesus
   Christ wholly and entirely? There is the root of the mischief! You
   still hope to save yourself in some measure and, as long as you cling
   to a rag of self-righteousness, you cannot get peace or comfort! If
   ever a Sinner is to be saved, it must be entirely by the mercy of God
   shown to him solely because of the merit of Jesus Christ and, as long
   as a man puts so much as a shadow of a trust in himself beside his
   trust in Christ, his comfort will be marred! You must be to yourself as
   though you were dead, so far as any confidence in yourself is
   concerned--and you must rest alone in Jesus. The finished work of the
   exalted Redeemer must be your only confidence!

   "How was it, Sam," asked a Christian master of his servant, "that when
   you and I were both under conviction of sin, you got comfort so much
   sooner than I did? As far as I know, Sam, my life seemed to be as good
   as yours before conviction came to me, yet I could not get comfort,
   though you did." "Ah," said Sam, "you see, Master, I was a great deal
   worse than you were. And when God the Holy Spirit showed me what I was,
   I looked at my rags and I said, 'Ah, they are nothing but a lot of
   filthy rags, they will never patch up.' So I took them off at once and
   I put on the robe of Jesus Christ's righteousness, for I knew my rags
   would never match that spotless garment of His. But, Master, when you
   got a little light, you looked at yourself and you had been so
   good--you had lived such a decent life that you said--'Ah, my coat
   needs mending. There is a hole in the elbow and a tear here and there,
   but it can be patched up and it shall do a

   little longer.' And so, Master, you did not got the robe of Christ's
   righteousness as quickly as I did." And some of you moral people will
   have hard work in fighting against your self-righteousness. When good
   Mr. Hervey questioned a godly farmer as to what was the greatest
   hindrance to a sinner's coming to Christ, he thought the farmer would
   say, "Sinful self," but he said, "Righteous self," and so it is.
   Righteous self-confidence in our prayers. Self-confidence in our
   repentance, self-confidence in something we mean to do, or something we
   feel that we already have--all this keeps us back from true peace and
   comfort!

   All the candles in the world will not enable us to do without the sun.
   Some of you light your poor little candles and try to get comfort that
   way. Put the extinguisher on every one of them and go and stand in the
   sunshine, for then you will have light indeed! Give up all your carnal
   hopes, your earthly confidences, your good works, your own
   righteousnesses--away with them all--and come as poor, guilty,
   condemned sinners and trust in Jesus Christ, and you shall get comfort
   this very instant, for, the moment a sinner trusts in Jesus Christ, he
   is saved! Peace and pardon immediately follow trust in Jesus! Only come
   to Him with your sins and miseries, your burdens and your unworthiness,
   your hardness of heart and your coldness of spirit--come to Him just as
   you are, for, "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto
   God by Him." The Lord Jesus is a Physician who heals the sick when
   their disease is at its worst--He does not want you to try to make
   yourselves better, but to come to Him just as you are--and then He will
   heal you as you are.

   That was a beautiful act on the part of the Good Samaritan who found
   the poor wounded man half dead by the roadside. He did not stand and
   gaze at his injuries, and say to him, "My dear fellow, when your wounds
   are less painful to you, I will come back and bind them up." He did not
   say to him, "My dear man, when you are more conscious of your need of
   my services, and can sit up and ask me to help you, I will do what I
   can for you." He did not say, "My dear man, when you are very sorry
   that you ever came down this dangerous road where you have been waylaid
   and injured, I will come and heal you." Oh, no! There the poor man lay,
   half dead, and the Good Samaritan went just where he was, stooped over
   him and looked at his wounds. Probably the man did not feel anything
   just then, for most likely he had been stunned, but the Good Samaritan
   felt for him. The man could not plead for himself, but the heart of the
   Good Samaritan pleaded for him--and he tenderly bound up his gaping
   wounds, pouring in oil and wine--and lifted him up, set him on his own
   beast, carried him to the inn and there did all he could to ensure the
   completion of his cure. As the Good Samaritan went to the wounded man
   where he was, so Jesus Christ, "the Good Samaritan" in the highest
   sense of the term, comes to the sinner where he or she is!

   But, Sinners, though you are trying to make your hearts ready for
   Christ, you will never succeed in doing it! You are wasting your
   strength upon a task that must end in failure. Remember that if you
   cannot come to Christ with a broken heart, you can come to Him for a
   broken heart! If you cannot come as you ought, come just as you are!
   And if you have no good thing to plead as a reason for your acceptance,
   so much the better will it be for you.

   I have tried to put this matter of finding comfort plainly and in as
   simple language as I could. O Sacred Spirit, come now, and bring
   sinners to Jesus, for His dear name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Glory Our Rereward

   (No. 3028)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The glory of the LORRD shall be your rereward." Isaiah 58:8.

   THE Church of God is an army marching through an enemy's territory. She
   can never reckon upon a moment's peace. If she were of the world, the
   world would love its own, but because true saints are not of the world,
   but Christ has chosen them out of the world, therefore the world hates
   them. As the Amalekites suddenly fell upon the children of Israel,
   unprovoked and without giving any warning of their hostile intention,
   so, not only in times of persecution, but in these apparently softer
   days when the world does not use the stake and the sword, at all
   seasons the world is ready to pounce upon the Church of God and to call
   in its grand ally, the devil, to overthrow and destroy, as far as
   possible, the militant hosts of Israel!

   Every Christian, then, must be a soldier and take his share in the
   battles of the Cross. We must not look upon our life as being a
   pleasure-journey through a friendly land, but as a march--a march
   through the very midst of foes who will dispute every foot of our way!

   Now, if we thus view the Church of God as an army, it is consolatory to
   know that we have a vanguard--My righteousness shall go before you." We
   take our Lord Jesus Christ to be "the Lord our righteousness." He is
   the Forerunner and He has gone before us, even through the River of
   Death and up to the skies, that He may prepare a place for all those
   who have enlisted under His standard.

   Our text, however, speaks not of the vanguard, but of the "rereward."
   There is always danger there, and it is comforting to the saints to
   behold so glorious a shield borne in their rear by so mighty an
   arm--"The Glory of the Lord shall be your rereward."

   It is but little I have to say to you this evening, but may God make
   that little profitable to you! We will, first of all, dwell upon the
   rereward and enquire what it is which is here intended. And, secondly,
   we will try to show how the Glory of the Lord brings up the rear
   andprotects the saints on every side.

   I. In the first place, WHAT MAY WE UNDERSTAND BY THE REREWARD?

   Taking the text to refer to the Church of God as a body, we remark that
   there are always some who bring up the rear. God has never left His
   Church without men to stand in the front. A few choice men have always
   been raised up by God and they have led the way, both in testimony and
   in suffering. The race of the Prophets will never be extinct. "The
   scepter," in this sense, will not depart from the members of the Church
   until Christ shall come a second time. The teacher shall not be taken
   out of his place, nor the candlestick be removed, nor the Bread of Life
   be taken away. But the mass of the Church are rather like the body of
   the army marching on and fighting well--but not attaining unto the
   first three mighties.

   We have, moreover, in the Church of Christ, a considerable proportion
   of those who are always behind. Some of those are here tonight. You
   feel yourselves to belong to the rear because you are so weak in faith.
   It is a blessed thing to enjoy full assurance of faith and yet, no
   doubt, there are thousands in the fold of Jesus who never reach this
   attainment. It is a great pity that they should not reach it, for they
   miss much happiness and much usefulness. But still--

   "Thousands in the fold of Jesus,

   This attainment never could boast.

   To His name eternal praises,

   None of these shall ever be lost.

   Deeply engraved

   On His hands, their names remain."

   There are some who, from their natural constitution and other
   circumstances, are very apt to despond. Like Mr. Fearing, they not only
   go through the Slough of Despond, but, as Bunyan says, they carry a
   slough of despond about with them! They are little in faith, but they
   are great at foreseeing evil. They are always expecting some dreadful
   ill and they cower down before a shadow. I thank God that those of you
   who have faith but as a grain of mustard seed, shall not be left to
   fall away--the Glory of the Lord shall gather you up with the rest of
   the saints! The stragglers, the wounded, the halt, the lame--though
   these cannot march with the rest as we desire, though, like Mr.
   Ready-to-Halt, they have to go on crutches--yet the Glory of the Lord
   shall be their shelter and protection.

   Then there are some of you who are not exactly weak in the faith but,
   in your humble estimate of yourselves, you put yourselves in the rear.
   "I am very poor," says one, "it is but little that I can ever give.
   Even if I gave two mites, as the widow did, I might almost give all my
   substance in so doing. I am obscure, too, for I have no talent. I
   cannot preach. I can scarcely pray in the Prayer Meeting to
   edification. I hope I love the Lord and that I am one of the stones in
   the walls of His Church, but I am quite a hidden one." Ah, well! Poor
   though you are, despised and forgotten, the Glory of the Lord shall
   secure your safety! It was said of the tribe of Dan, "They shall go
   hindmost with their standards," and there must be some to be in the
   rear! So, while the rich may rejoice in what God has given to them, yet
   you, in your contentment with your lot, may be thankful for your
   poverty and bless the name of the Lord that though you may be in the
   rear, you are yet in the army--and you shall soon--as much as those in
   the van, have your full share of the spoil!

   Possibly there are some who get into the rear from a much more painful
   cause, namely, from backsliding. I would not say a word to excuse
   backsliding, for it is a dreadful thing that we should depart from our
   first love, or lose the vigor of our piety. It is dangerous to get even
   half a yard from the Savior's side! To live in the sun, like Milton's
   angel--that is blessed living! No lack of light or warmth there! But to
   turn our backs on the sun, as the descendants of Cain did of old, and
   to go journeying away from Christ--this is dangerous in the extreme.
   "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." Many men
   talk of David's sin--it were well if they would remember David's
   repentance and David's broken bones after he had received pardon. He
   never was the same man afterwards that he was before. His voice was
   hoarse and cracked. You can tell the Psalms that he wrote after his
   fall, for his pen quivered as he wrote them, and yet, blessed be God,
   he could say, "Although my house is not so with God; yet He has made
   with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure." Even
   to these falling ones, Christ is kind! Though they have wandered from
   Him, His voice is not that of condemnation, but of consolation. Return,
   you backsliding ones! He still acknowledges the marriage bonds. "I am
   married unto you, says the Lord." Backslider, let this be some comfort
   to you, if you are bewailing your backslidings. But oh, if you are not
   conscious of them, or are conscious of them, but are not mourning them,
   tremble, tremble, lest backsliding should become apostasy and you
   should prove beyond question that you never had a sound work of Grace
   in your heart!

   Now, whoever it may be, in the militant host of the Lord, who is in the
   rear, here is our comfort--that the Glory of the Lord shall be the
   rereward! Only one or two of you can guess, in any adequate measure,
   what the care of such a large Church as this is. I have sometimes felt
   as Moses did when he said to the Lord, "Have I conceived all this
   people? Have I begotten them, that You should say unto me, Carry them
   in your bosom, as a nursing father bears the sucking child?" But here
   is my consolation, "the Lord knows them that are His." And those of you
   who do not always show due faith and courage--who do not advance to the
   front, as we would wish in Christian service, we nevertheless commend
   you to the care of our God, praying that the rear may be Divinely
   preserved. We wish that you would quicken your pace, that you would
   grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
   but we know that even as it is, you shall be found of Him in peace in
   the day of His appearing, since your righteousness is found in Him and
   you are not trusting in yourselves.

   But, now, supposing the text to refer to the individual Christian--how
   shall we translate it?

   We will translate it in three ways. First, as relating to our
   past--that which is behind us. We need a protection from the past. Now,
   what is that which is behind us? There is something to rejoice in, for
   God has been gracious to us, but there is very much to mourn over, for
   we remember our former lusts in our ignorance, things of which we are
   now ashamed. Christian, look back awhile upon those sins of yours, the
   sins of your youth and your former transgressions--

   sins against Law and against Gospel, sins against light and against
   love, sins of omission and sins of commission. What about them? Suppose
   that, like a pack of hungry wolves, they should pursue you? Suppose
   they should come after you, as Pharaoh and his chariots and his
   horsemen went after the children of Israel when they escaped out of
   Egypt? Ah, then the Glory of the Lord shall be your rereward! Christ
   and His Atonement shall come between us and our sins and He shall drown
   our enemies in the Red Sea of His blood, even as he drowned Pharaoh and
   all his raging hosts who pursued the chosen people! Fear not your past
   sin, Christian! Tremble at the thought of it, by way of repentance, but
   thank God that you shall not be called to account for it, for all your
   sins were numbered on the Scapegoat's head of old and He took them and
   made an end of them and carried them away forever! "Who shall lay
   anything to the charge of God's elect?" As to past sin, the glorious
   Atonement shall bring up the rear!

   Then there are our past habits. How much of injury we still suffer from
   these! A man who has been accustomed to witness scenes of vice will
   frequently have most fearful pictures painted upon his eyeballs, even
   when they are closed for prayer! Yes, and when the sacred hymn is going
   up to Heaven, a word in it may suggest a snatch of a profane song, or
   bring to the recollection even blasphemy itself! It is a sad thing to
   have learned the arts of sin, to have acquired habits of passionate
   temper, of pride, or covetousness, or of falsehood. We may well tremble
   lest these old enemies should at last prove too much for us. We have
   left them behind us--they do not lead and guide us as once they
   did--but they dog our steps. The dominion of sin has been broken, but
   the law of sin is still there to vex us. The tree is cut down, but the
   sprouts still spring from the root and are all too vigorous, especially
   at times when they have been watered by circumstances, for at the scent
   of water they will bud and grow. Ah, then, we must take our bad habits
   to the Lord Jesus! We must ask Him to manifest His Glory by helping us
   to conquer them and we shall yet break these bonds which had become
   like fetters of iron! We shall snap them as Samson of old did his green
   straps and we shall be free! But, the Glory of the Lord must do it, and
   we shall have to give Him all the praise!

   So, the whole of the past, if you take it in any of its aspects, need
   not cause the Christian tormenting sorrow, for he can believe that all
   his sinful past is left with God, so that, as neither things present,
   nor things to come shall be able to separate him from the love of God,
   so not even things past shall be able to do it!

   But again, understanding the text as referring to the individual
   Believer, we may speak of the rear as signifying that part of our
   nature which is most backward in yielding to the power of Divine Grace.
   Brothers and Sisters, often, to will is present with us, but how to
   perform that which we would, we find not! The understanding is
   convinced and that leads the van. Firm affections are awakened and they
   follow after. But there is a weaker passion which would, if it dared,
   consent to sin--and that is this flesh of ours in which there dwells no
   good thing! It is this dangerous rear, this weakest part of our nature,
   which we have most cause to dread. O Friends, you know but little of
   yourselves if you do not know this, that there are such weak points
   about you that you might be overthrown in a moment if almighty Grace
   did not preserve you! Peter is laughed at by a silly maid and he falls.
   "How are the mighty fallen!" How little a thing brings an Apostle to
   the level of a blasphemer! As for this rear part of our army, what
   shall we do with it? It is here that God's Glory will be seen in
   conquering and overcoming! "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
   through our Lord Jesus Christ," and gives us victory in the very place
   where we were accustomed to say, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall
   deliver me from the body of this death?" Those straggling passions
   which we cannot marshal as we would, into regular order. Those
   wandering thoughts. Those downward desires. That cold heart which will
   not grow warm, as we would have it, but will lose its holy glow--all
   these powers of ours shall be brought into subjection and sanctified by
   Grace! God shall gather up the stragglers and bring the whole man safe
   to perfection by the sanctifying power of the Spirit!

   Once again, still understanding the individual Christian, may we not
   speak of our rear as signifying the end of our days? The Glory of the
   Lord shall be the rereward of our mortal history. The van was blessed,
   when we looked to Christ and were lightened, and our faces were not
   ashamed--

   "Many days have passed since then, Many changes have we seen Yet have
   been upheld till now-- Who could hold us up but Thou?" But the rear of
   the march of life is coming. We shall soon be up to our necks in the
   cold river--the waves and billows must soon roll over us! We may desire
   to be with Christ, but death, itself, never can be desirable--

   "We shrink back again to life, Fond of our prison and our clay."

   We long to be with Christ, for it shall be "far better" there, but that
   last pinch, when soul and body shall be separated, cannot be looked
   forward to without solemn awe. Oh, how sweet to think that Christ shall
   bring up the rear of our life! If ever we have had His Presence, we
   shall have it then! We shall--

   "Sing when the death-dew lies cold on our brow, If ever we loved You,
   our Jesus, 'tis now." Perhaps our last day will be our best and
   brightest day and we shall be surprised to find what floods of Glory
   there are around and above the floods of death! I see before me many,
   very many veterans. Your gray hairs tell of your nearness to Heaven. I
   trust your locks are whitened with the sunlight of Glory! Oh, be not
   afraid! You shall find it a blessed thing to sleep in Jesus--and even
   as you go to that last bed, you shall not tremble, for He shall be so
   manifestly with you that you shall not be afraid! The Glory of the Lord
   shall be your rereward and what that Glory shall be, what heart can
   imagine, what tongue can tell? The Glory that excels the glory of
   perfection! The Glory of being made like unto the First-Born among many
   brethren! The Glory of the Well-Beloved which He had with His Father
   before the world was! "The glory which you gave Me, I have given them."
   Behold, then, your latter end! Oh, that our last days might be with the
   righteous and our last end be like theirs! The Glory of the Lord shall
   be the Christian's rereward.

   II. But now, only for a minute or two, let me show you HOW THE GLORY OF
   THE LORD thus, both in the case

   of the whole Church of Christ and of each separate Christian, BECOMES
   THE MEANS OF GRACIOUS PRESERVATION.

   What is this "Glory of the Lord" which shelters the weak and preserves
   the saints? May we not understand it to mean, first of all, the
   glorious attributes of God? God's mercy is one of His glories. It is
   His great glory, you know, that He is a God passing by iniquity,
   transgression, sin and remembering not the guilt of His people. Now,
   Brothers and Sisters, as to our past sins, our weaknesses and all those
   other senses in which we understand the rear of our spiritual host--as
   to all these, the mercy of God will glorify itself in them all!
   Notwithstanding our weakness, Mercy shall find a platform for the
   display of itself and where sin abounded, there shall Grace much more
   abound. When you think of the greatness of your sin, think also of the
   greatness of God's mercy at the same time. As Master Wilcox says, "If
   you cannot keep your eye on the Cross when you are repenting, away with
   your repenting!" A sense of sin which is not also attended with a
   belief in God's mercy, is not an evangelical sense of sin. Oh, to know
   the super abounding mercy of the loving God who delights in mercy, His
   last-born, but His best-beloved attribute! He will glorify Himself by
   His mercy in delivering you when you most need it.

   So will He also use the glorious attribute of His Wisdom. It takes a
   wise captain to conduct the rear of the army. To lead the van needs
   courage and prudence, but to protect the rear often needs more wisdom
   and even more courage! And God will show the wisdom of His Providence
   and the fidelity of His Grace in taking care of the weakest of the host
   and in preserving you, Believer, in that place where you are most in
   need of preservation.

   So will He also show His Power. Oh, what power it will be that will be
   needed to bring any of us to Heaven! We need a God to get us there.
   Nothing short of Divine strength will ever be able to preserve any of
   us. So crushed and hardened, and sometimes so stung with the venom of
   the old serpent, how shall we who are in the rear be kept unless the
   bare arm of God is revealed? The Glory of the Lord in Mercy, Wisdom and
   Power shall shine transcendently in our case!

   And here, too, shall be conspicuous the Immutability of God. Beloved,
   of all the attributes of God next to His Love, this is, perhaps, the
   sweetest to the tried Christian, namely, His Immutability--

   "Immutable His will Though dark may be my frame." You are not trusting
   in a Savior who was yours yesterday, but is not faithful today, or who
   will fail you tomorrow! Every word of His promise stands sure and He,
   Himself, stands fast to it. How the Immutability of God will be
   illustrated in those who have had a long life and borne trials all
   through it, but who find, at the last, that Christ, who loved His own
   which were in the world, did love them even unto the end! Yes, the
   weakness, which you now discover and mourn over shall only afford an
   opportunity for the faithfulness of God to reveal itself in your case!
   The Glory of the Lord, in all its attributes, shall bring up the rear!

   May we not also understand, besides His attributes, His Providence? The
   Providence of God is part of His Glory. Thus He shows the skirts of His
   royal robes among the sons of men, as He has dominion over all the
   events of time. Ah, yes, you may rest assured that in all those points
   in the Christian Church which are the most weak, and the most behind,
   the Providence of God will be seen in bringing the entire army of God
   home, safely home, victoriously home! Looking at the history of the
   whole Church, it is cheering to us to see that God has never sustained
   a defeat. And when His army seems to have been repulsed for a time, it
   has only been drawn back to take a more wondrous leap to a yet greater
   victory! One wave may recede, but the main ocean advances, the great
   tide of our holy faith is coming up and as we watch wave after wave
   dying upon the shore, we must not weep, or think that God is sustaining
   a disappointment, for the main flood must advance and it shall, till
   all the mud of idolatry and human sin, and all the sand of human
   rebellion shall be covered with the silver tide of Truth and Love, and
   against the rocks of eternity, the great waves of Gospel Truth shall
   forever beat! Courage, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord will bring up
   the rear by His Providence, ruling and overruling, making evil produce
   good and good something better--and better still in infinite
   progression! Not only to the whole Church, but to you, also,
   individually, shall it be so! And in due time, if you will but wait,
   you shall not be disappointed, but your light shall rise in obscurity
   and the days of your mourning shall be ended! The Glory of the Lord
   shall thus be our rereward.

   But may we not believe that the Glory of the Lord, which brings up the
   rear, is the Lord Himself? After all, we cannot dissociate the Glory
   from the Glorious One! God Himself we must have if we would see His
   Glory! Ah, Brothers and Sisters, the wine of communion with our Father
   and His Son, Jesus Christ, is the surest preservative against fear! And
   especially ought we to cultivate this communion when we feel that we
   are most in danger. Near to the Savior's bosom it does not matter what
   we suffer! Close to God, He who is full of infirmities will overcome
   them all. Whatever your besetting sin may have been, put your head upon
   the Savior's bosom and that besetting sin shall not overthrow you!
   Close to the Master and since His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes,
   and cassia, you shall never want for perfume. Have Christ with you and
   you cannot walk in darkness, however dark your way may be! Get to your
   chambers. Wait upon Him in prayer. In coming down from those chambers
   with your souls refreshed, say to Him, "Abide with us from morn to
   eve," for you may rest assured that in this holy communion you shall
   find the true protection, while they who neglect this are most apt to
   slip!

   And so, let me close these few words of address by entreating you
   always to fly to the Glory of the Lord whenever you feel your danger
   and even when you do not feel it, for it is well to be there. "Trust in
   the Lord and do good--so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you
   shall be fed." Trust not in man, nor put any confidence in the glory of
   man. Rest not in your circumstances, nor your wealth, nor your health,
   for the glory of all these shall pass away as the beauty of the flower
   in the field which is soon cut down beneath the mower's scythe. Trust
   in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength!
   You sons of men, trust in your God and you shall be secure beneath the
   shadow of His wings. You sinners, fly to the Savior! "Seek you the Lord
   while He may be found." Look to the Cross of Jesus and put all your
   dependence in His suffering and His merits--and you who have done so
   already, trust more than ever to your God and to your God, alone, in
   every hour of ill, and every night of grief!

   The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 12:1-44.

   In this chapter our Savior dispels the fears of His disciples
   concerning temporal things, and especially their fear of persecution
   and their fear of need.

   Verses 1, 2. In the meantime, when there were gathered together an
   innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trampled upon one
   another, He began to say unto His disciples, first of all, Beware you
   of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is
   nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not
   be known. What, therefore, can be the use of hypocrisy? Hypocrisy leads
   a man to pretend to be what he is not. His only hope lies in not being
   discovered. But, as Christ declares that "there is nothing covered that
   shall not be revealed; neither

   hid, that shall not be known," hypocrisy becomes insanity as well as
   iniquity! Therefore, keep clear of it in every shape and form.

   3-5. Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in
   the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall
   be proclaimed upon the housetops. And I say unto you, My friends, Be
   not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that
   they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear Him,
   which after He has killed, haspower to cast into Hell; yes, I say unto
   you, Fear Him. There is nothing, comparatively, to fear in death
   considered by itself. If that were the end of man, he need have little
   or no fear even of God, Himself. But inasmuch as after death there is
   another state which is everlasting and unchangeable, there is grave
   cause for the ungodly to fear Him who, "after He has killed, has power
   to cast into Hell."

   6, 7. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them
   is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all
   numbered. So particular is the care of Divine Providence.

   7, Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. And
   if He counts the sparrows, and cares for them, He certainly will not
   forget you!

   8, 9. Also I say unto you, Whoever shall confess Me before men, Him
   shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of Go : but he that
   denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.Mind what
   you are doing, then, you who never confess Christ before men, because,
   according to the context of this passage, you are set down as having
   denied Him. Christ first speaks of those who confess Him and then of
   those who do not confess Him--and He describes them as virtually
   denying Him. On another occasion, Christ said, "He that is not with Me
   is against Me. And he that gathers not with Me scatters abroad."
   Examine that attitude of yours, which you suppose to be neutral, and
   see how Christ regards it--and then ask yourself whether you can be
   satisfied to remain in it any longer.

   10. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be
   forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Spirit it
   shall not be forgiven. What is the sin against the Holy Spirit? We do
   not know and I think it is a great mercy that we do not know. I will
   tell you one reason why I think it is a great mercy, and that is
   because the devil is continually tempting poor distracted souls to
   commit that sin. I have, within the past week, seen several persons who
   have been frequently tempted to commit it. Only, happily, they did not
   know what the sin against the Holy Spirit was! And, therefore, they
   could not persuade themselves into the belief that they had committed
   it. I have seen many people who have told me that they have committed
   the unpardonable sin, and I have asked them to sit down and tell me
   what that sin was, for if they could do so, I would find out something
   that I did not know! In every instance I have very soon been able to
   say to them, "Though I do not know what the unpardonable sin is, I am
   quite certain that what you mention is not that sin, for such sin as
   yours has frequently been forgiven." It is a blessing that we are left
   in the dark concerning that matter! Only as I have often said to you,
   do not presume upon your ignorance. This warning is something like the
   notice you see put up on certain great men's estates, "Man-traps and
   spring guns set here." If you go round the mansion, and say to the
   owner, "If you please, Sir, will you tell me where the man-traps and
   spring guns are?" He will say, "No. Why should you want to know where
   they are? You keep from trespassing and then it will not matter to you
   where they are." That very indistinctness about the warning is a part
   of the preventive power which surrounds it! You have no right to go
   trespassing there at all, so keep away from the place! And you are not
   told what the unpardonable sin is, though there is a sin which is unto
   death and there is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which shall not
   be forgiven.

   11, 12. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto
   magistrates, and powers, take you no thought how or what thing you
   shall answer, or what you shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach
   you in the same hour what you ought to say. He has often done this. If
   you will read in Foxe'sBook of Martyrs, the answers given even by
   unlearned, illiterate men and women who were taken quite at unawares,
   and assailed by subtle questions, you will see that they often answered
   in a remarkably wise way. They could not have answered better if the
   questions had been before them for months! They frequently baffled
   their cunning adversaries by their wisdom and sometimes by their wit,
   for the Holy Spirit taught them in the same hour what they ought to
   speak.

   13. And one of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother,
   that he divide the inheritance with me. He rudely broke in upon
   Christ's discourse when He was preaching upon these important matters
   because he wanted the Savior to act the part of a judge in his dispute
   with his brother!

   14. And He said unto him, Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over
   you? Some present-day minister, if this request had been made to him,
   would probably have said, "Well, I may save some litigation, perhaps,
   if I attend to this matter." As a general rule, Brother, you had better
   mind your own business! Your Master, who was far wiser than you are,
   would not entangle Himself with the affairs of this life and, usually,
   true wisdom suggests that we, also, should keep ourselves apart from
   them.

   15-17. And He said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness: for
   a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he
   possesses. And He spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a
   certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within
   himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to
   bestow my fruits? This was his dialogue within himself. He might have
   answered at once, "As I have more than I can use, I will give some to
   the poor! Why should I need to lay up my fruits, to let them get moldy
   and corrupt? There are many poor people starving at my very gates--I
   will let them share in what God has so bountifully given to me." This
   might have been his answer to the question, "What shall I do, because I
   have no room where to bestow my fruits?" His reply, however, was a very
   different one.

   18, 19. And he said, This will I do: I willpull down my barns and build
   greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will
   say to my soul It is, "my," all through--my fruits, mybarns, my goods.
   The man was eaten up with selfishness and did not recognize the fact of
   his stewardship. He did not know that even his own soul did not belong
   to him--he thought it did--"I will say to mysoul."

   19, 20. Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your
   ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, You fool, this
   night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things
   be which you have provided?"You fool." That is God's opinion of the man
   who means to build bigger barns in order that he may, himself, enjoy
   what is about to be taken away from him! He was a fool to be laying up
   in store for others to scatter. Many a miser's heirs have lived to
   ridicule him. He was the rake that gathered up a heap of gold--and they
   are the shovel and fork that scatter it! They drink the old man's
   health and are much obliged to him for stinting himself that they may
   drink so deeply.

   21, 22. So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich
   toward God. And He said unto His disciples, Therefore I say unto you,
   Take no thought It really means, "Make it not a matter of anxious care.
   Take no inordinate thought."

   22, 23. For your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body, what
   you shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than
   raiment.Everybody admits the truth of this saying of the Savior, though
   all do not see everything that is involved in it. Therefore, as the
   soul is more important than all else, look well to your soul, look more
   to your life than to your food!

   24. Consider the ravens.It is quite possible that some of them were
   flying overhead just at that time, and that Christ pointed to them and
   said, "Consider the ravens."

   24, 25. For they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse
   nor barn; and God feeds them: how much more are you better than the
   fowls? And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one
   cubit? "You cannot lengthen your body." Or perhaps the Savior meant,
   "You cannot lengthen out your life."

   26. If you then are not able to do that thing which is least It really
   is a matter of very slight consequence whether you are a little shorter
   or taller.

   26-29. Why take you thought for the rest? Consider the lilies how they
   grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that
   Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God
   so clothes the grass, which is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast
   into the oven; how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?
   And seek not you what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, neither
   be you of doubtful mind. Full of carking care and anxiety about little
   things or, indeed, about anything!

   30. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and
   your Father knows that you have need of these things. Therefore He
   would have you so live--industriously, prudently, thriftily--that you
   shall get these things and shall not waste them when you have them. But
   He would not have you live in an anxious, worrying, depressed spirit,
   as if you had no God, no Heavenly Father, no all-sufficient Friend--and
   as if there were no all-wise Providence, and you

   were left to drift about uncared for and alone. It is not so. O God of
   the lilies and God of the ravens, You will be the God of Your people,
   too!

   31, 32. But rather seek you the Kingdom of God; and all these things
   shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your
   Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. He may not give you
   much here, but, in due time He will give you the Kingdom! He may give
   to worldlings more of these secondary things--these husks, these mere
   illusions, these mirages of the desert--than He gives to you--but for
   you there is prepared a city that has foundations and a Kingdom that
   shall never pass away! Therefore patiently wait until the appointed
   time and fear not, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
   the Kingdom."

   33, 34. Sell that you have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags
   which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no
   thief approaches, neither moth corrupts. For where your treasure is,
   there will your heart also be. It is not only important to lay up that
   which can truly be called treasure, but also to lay it up in the right
   place--"a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no thief
   approaches, neither moth corrupts." Such treasure as that will not harm
   us if we set our heart upon it and, by-and-by, in God's good time, we
   and our treasure shall both be in Heaven!

   35-37. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. And you
   yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return
   from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open unto him
   immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he comes
   shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself
   and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.
   This always seems to me to be one of the most remarkable of our Lord's
   utterances while He was here upon the earth. His whole life was one of
   condescension, which was never more clearly manifested than it was when
   He, the Lord and Master of All, took the position of Servant of all,
   and washed His disciples' feet! Yet He here tells us that, if He finds
   us watching when He comes again, He will once more take His place as
   our servitor!

   38-44. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third
   watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know,
   that if the good man of the house had known what hour the thief would
   come, he would have watched, and not have allowed his house to be
   broken into. Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of Man comes at
   an hour when you think not Then Peter said unto Him, Lord, do You speak
   this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who, then, is
   that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his
   household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is
   that servant, whom his lord when he comes shall find so doing. Of a
   truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he has.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Tender Mercy

   (No. 3029)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   23, 1869.

   "The tender mercy of our God." Luke 1:78.

   IT was a proof of great tenderness, on God's part, to think of His
   sinful creature, man, at all. When the created one had willfully set
   himself in opposition to his Creator, that Creator might at once have
   destroyed him, or have left him to himself--to work out his own
   destruction. It was Divine tenderness that looked on such an
   insignificant creature impudently engaging in so gross a revolt! It was
   also infinite tenderness which had, long before that, considered man so
   carefully as, practically, to frame a plan by which the fallen might be
   restored. It was a wonder of mercy that Infallible Wisdom should unite
   with almighty power to prepare a method by which rebellious man might
   be reconciled to his Maker. It was the highest possible degree of
   tenderness that God should give up His own Son, His only-begotten Son,
   that He might bleed and die in order to accomplish the great work of
   our redemption. It is also indescribable tenderness that God should, in
   addition to the gift of His Son, take such pity upon our weakness and
   our wickedness as to send the Holy Spirit to lead us to accept that
   "unspeakable Gift." It is Divine tenderness which bears with our
   obstinacy in rejecting Christ--Divine tenderness which plies us with
   incessant expostulation and invitation--all to induce us to be merciful
   to ourselves by accepting the immeasurable Gift which God's tender
   mercy so freely presents to us.

   It was wonderful tenderness on God's part that when He thought of
   saving man, He was not content with lifting him up to the place which
   he had occupied before he fell, but he must lift him far higher them he
   was before, for, before the Fall, there was no man who could truly call
   himself the equal of the Eternal--but now, in the Person of Christ
   Jesus, manhood is united with Deity! And of all the creatures that God
   has made, man is the only one whom He has taken into union with Himself
   and set over all the works of His hands. There was infinite tenderness
   in God's first thoughts of love toward us and it has been Divine
   tenderness right through up till now! And that same tenderness will
   bring our souls into Heaven where we shall say with David, "Your
   gentleness has made me great."

   I am going to speak of the tenderness of God's mercy towards sinners,
   in the fond hope that, perhaps, some of you who have never yet loved
   our God, may see how great has been His love to you and so may be
   enamored of Him--and trust in His dear Son, Jesus Christ--and so be
   saved!

   I. And, first, I will try to show you that in the mercy of God THERE IS
   GREAT TENDERNESS IN ITS GREAT PROVISIONS.

   There is a wounded soldier bleeding out his life upon the battlefield
   and here comes a friend, merciful and tender, who has brought him a
   refreshing draught which will help to bring him back to consciousness
   and open his half-glazed eyes again. He is covered with a clammy sweat,
   but there is cold water with which to wipe his fevered brow. His wounds
   are gaping wide and his very life is oozing forth from him, but his
   friend has brought the salve and bandages with which to strap up every
   wound. Is this all that he has provided for the wounded warrior? No,
   for there is a stretcher, carried by men who choose their steps with
   care, so that they do not jolt the poor invalid. Where will they carry
   him? The hospital is prepared. The bed--so soft, just fit to bear such
   a mass of weakness and pain--is waiting for him and the nurse stands
   there in readiness to render such service as may be required. The man
   soon sleeps the sleep that brings with it restoration--and when he
   opens his eyes, what does he see? Just such food as is suited to his
   circumstances and needs! A bunch of flowers is also placed near him, to
   gladden and cheer him with their beauty and fragrance. And a friend
   comes stepping softly up, and asks whether he has a wife, or a mother,
   or any friend to whom a letter may be written for him.

   Before he thinks of anything that he needs, it is there beside him and,
   almost before he can express a wish, it is supplied! This is one
   instance of the tenderness of human sympathy, but infinitely greater is
   the tenderness of God towards guilty sinners! He has thought of all
   that a sinner can possibly need and he has provided in abundance all
   that the guilty soul can require to bring him safe into Heaven itself!

   For every individual case, God, in the Covenant ofHis Grace, seems to
   have prepared some separate good thing. For great sinners, whose
   iniquities are many and gross, there are gracious words like these,
   "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
   though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." If the man
   has not fallen into such depths of open sin, the Lord says to him, as
   the tender-hearted Savior said to one who was in that condition, "One
   thing you lack"--and that one thing the Grace of God is prepared to
   supply! There is as much in the Word of God to encourage the moral to
   come to Christ as there is to woo the immoral to forsake their sins and
   accept "the tender mercy of our God." If there are children or young
   people who desire to find the Lord, there is this special promise for
   them, "Those that seek Me early shall find Me." Yes, even for the
   little ones there are such tender words as these, "Suffer the little
   children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
   Kingdom of God." Then, if the sinner is an aged man, he is reminded
   that some were brought to labor in the vineyard even at the 11th hour!
   And if he is actually dying, there is encouragement for him in the
   narrative of the dying thief who trusted in the dying Savior and who,
   when he closed his eyes on earth, opened them with Christ in Paradise!
   So again I say that in the Covenant of His Grace, God has seemed to
   meet the peculiar case of every sinner who really desires to be saved.
   If you are very sad and depressed, desponding and almost dismayed,
   there are Divine declarations and promises that are exactly suited to
   your case! Here are a few of them--"He heals the broken in heart, and
   binds up their wounds." "The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear Him,
   in those that hope in His mercy." "A bruised reed shall He not break,
   and the smoking flax shall He not quench." Everything seems to be done
   on purpose that into whatever condition a man may have fallen through
   the grievous malady of sin, God may come to him, not roughly, but most
   tenderly, and give to him just what he most needs! I rejoice to be able
   to say that all that a sinner can need between here and Heaven is
   provided in the Gospel of Christ--all for pardon, all for the new
   nature, all for preservation, all for perfecting and all for glorifying
   is treasured up in Christ Jesus, in whom it pleased the Father that all
   fullness should dwell!

   Let us, then, before we go any further, bless that tender
   thoughtfulness of God which, foreseeing the greatness of our sins and
   our sorrows, our needs and our weaknesses, has provided for our vast
   necessities a boundless store of Grace and mercy!

   II. But, secondly, the tenderness of God is seen IN THE METHODS BY
   WHICH HE BRINGS SINNERS TO HIMSELF.

   The old system of surgery may have been useful in its time, but it
   certainly was not very tender. On board a man-of-war after action, what
   rough methods were adopted by those who were trying to save the lives
   of the wounded! Some of the remedies that we read of in the old
   doctors' books must have been a great deal more horrible than the
   diseases they were intended to cure, and I do not doubt that many of
   the patients died through the use of these rough remedies. But God's
   method of showing mercy to man is always Divinely tender. It is always
   powerful but, while masculine in its force, it is feminine in its
   tenderness.

   See now, my dear Hearer, God has sent the Gospel to you, but how has He
   sent it? He might have sent it to you by an angel--a bright seraph
   might have stood here to tell you, in flaming sentences, of the mercy
   of God. But you would have been alarmed if you could have seen him and
   you would have fled from his presence! You would have been altogether
   out of order for the reception of the angelic message. Instead of
   sending an angel to you, the Lord has sent the Gospel to you by a man
   of like passions with yourself--one who can sympathize with you in your
   waywardness and who will affectionately try to deliver his message to
   you in such a form as will best meet your weakness. Some of you first
   heard the Gospel from your dear mother's lips--who else could tell the
   sweet story as well as she could? Or you have listened to it from a
   friend whose tearful eyes and heaving bosom proved how intensely she
   loved your soul. Be thankful that God has not thundered out the Gospel
   from Sinai with sound of trumpet, waxing loud and long, reminding you
   of the terrific blast of the last tremendous day, but that the blessed
   message of salvation, "Believe and live," comes to you from a fellow
   creature's tongue in melting tones that plead for its reception!

   See also the tenderness of God's mercy in another respect, in that the
   Gospel is not sent to you in an unknown tongue. You have not to go to
   school to learn the Greek, or Hebrew, or Latin language in order that
   you may read about the way of salvation. It is sent to you in your
   homely Saxon mother tongue. I can honestly say that I have never sought
   after the beauties of eloquence and the refinements of rhetoric, but if
   there has been a word, more rough and ready than another, which I
   thought would favor my purpose of making plain the message of the
   Gospel, I have always chosen that word. Though I might have spoken in
   another fashion had I chosen to do so, I have thought it right and
   best, as the Apostle Paul did, to "use great plainness of speech," that
   no one of my hearers might be able to truthfully say, "I could not
   understand the plan of salvation as it was set forth by my minister."
   Well, then, since you have heard the Gospel so plainly preached that
   you have no need of a dictionary in order to understand it, see in this
   fact the tender mercy of God and His desire to win your soul unto
   Himself!

   Remember, too, that the Gospel comes to men not only by the most
   suitable form of ministry, and in the simplest style of language, but
   it also comes to men just as they are. Whatever your condition may be,
   the Gospel is suitable to you. If you have lived a life of vice, the
   Gospel comes to you and says, "Repent you therefore and be converted,
   that your sins may be blotted out." You may, on the other hand, have
   lived a life of self-righteousness. If so, the Gospel bids you lay
   aside this worthless righteousness of your own, which is as filthy
   rags, and bids you put on the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness!
   You may be very tender-hearted, or you may be quite the reverse. Your
   tears may readily flow, or you may be hard as the neither millstone,
   but, in either case, God's Gospel is exactly suited to you! Yes,
   blessed be the name of the Lord, if a sinner is at the very gates of
   Hell, the Gospel is adapted to his desperate condition and can lift him
   up even out of the depths of despair!

   One other thing I want you to particularly notice, and that is that the
   mercy of God is so tender because it comes to you now. If you are able
   to relieve a poor sufferer at once, and yet you keep him waiting, your
   treatment is as cruel as it is tardy. But God's Gospel says, "Behold,
   now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!" If any
   sinner stands outside Mercy's gate for even half an hour, he must put
   the blame for his exclusion down to his own account, for, if he would
   but obey the Gospel message and trust to the finished work of Christ,
   the door would be opened at once! Such delays as this are not God's
   delays, but ours! And if we postpone our acceptance of His mercy, we
   have ourselves to blame!

   III. Now I must pass on to notice, thirdly, THE TENDERNESS OF GOD'S
   MERCY IN THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE GOSPEL.

   What does the Gospel ask of us? It certainly asks nothing of us but
   what it gives to us. It never asks of any man a sum of money in order
   that he may redeem his soul with gold. The poorest are as heartily
   welcomed by Christ as the richest! And the beggar who could count all
   his money on his fingers is as gladly received as the millionaire who
   has his stocks and his shares, his lands and his ships! Poor men are
   bid to come to Jesus "without money and without price."

   Neither does the Lord ask of us any severe penances and punishments in
   order to make us acceptable to Him. He does not require you to put your
   bodies to torture, or to pass through a long series of outward and
   visible mortification of the flesh. You may trust Christ while you are
   sitting in your pew--and if you do so, you shall be at once forgiven
   and accepted!

   No great depth of learning is asked as a condition of salvation. In
   order to be a Christian, one need not be a philosopher. Do you know
   yourself to be a sinner--guilty, lost, condemned--and Christ to be a
   Savior? Do you trust Christ to be yourSavior? Then you are saved,
   however ignorant you may be about other matters!

   Nor is any great measure of spiritual depression asked as a
   qualification for coming to Christ. I know that some preachers seem to
   teach that you must not come to Christ till you have first been to the
   devil--I mean that you must not believe that Christ is able and willing
   to save you until you have been, as it were, right up to Hell's gates
   in terror of conscience and awful depression of spirits! Jesus Christ
   asks not anything like this of you--but if you truly repent and forsake
   your sins, give up the evils which are destroying you and put your
   trust in the griefs and pains which He endured upon the Cross, you are
   saved!

   Nor does the Gospel even ask a great amount of faith of you. To be
   saved does not require Abraham's faith, nor the faith of Paul or Peter.
   It requires a like precious faith--faith similar in substance and in
   essence, but not in degree. If you can but touch the hem of Christ's
   garment, you shall be made whole! If your view of Christ is such a poor
   trembling glance that you seem to yourself scarcely to have seen Him,
   yet that look will be the means of salvation to you! If you can but
   believe, all things are possible to him that believes! And though your
   belief is but as a grain of mustard seed, yet shall it ensure your
   entrance into Heaven! What a precious Savior Christ is! If you have
   sincere trust in Him, even though it is but very faint and feeble, you
   shall be accepted. If you can, from your heart, say to Christ, "Lord,
   remember me when You come into Your Kingdom," you shall soon have His
   gracious assurance, "You shall be with Me in Paradise." Do not delude
   yourself with the idea that there is a great deal for you to do and to
   feel in order to fit yourself for coming to Christ. All such fitness is
   nothing but unfitness! All that you can do to make yourself ready for
   Christ to save you is to make yourself more unready! The fitness for
   washing is to be filthy--the fitness for being relieved is to be poor
   and needy. The fitness for being healed is to be sick--and the fitness
   for being pardoned is to be a sinner! If you are a sinner--and I
   guarantee you that you are--here is the Inspired Apostolic declaration,
   "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
   Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And to that declaration we
   may add our Lord's own words, "He that believes on Him is not
   condemned." "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Oh that
   God would give all of you the Grace to receive this gracious Gospel,
   whose requirements are so tenderly and so mercifully brought down to
   your low estate!

   IV. The fourth point which illustrates God's tender mercy is
   this--THERE IS GREAT TENDERNESS ABOUT ALL THE ARGUMENTS OF THE GOSPEL.

   How does the Gospel speak to men? It tells them, first, of the Father's
   love. You never can forget, if you have once heard or read it, the
   story of the prodigal son who wasted his substance with riotous living.
   You remember how he said, when he was feeding the swine, "I will arise
   and go to my father." That was a Divine touch and showed the Savior's
   master hand when He put it in and again when He added this affecting
   description, "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and
   had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Sinner,
   that is God's way of coming to meet you! If you want to meet Him, He
   sees that yearning desire and that trembling wish of yours and He will
   come more than half way to meet you! Yes, it is because He comes all
   the waythat you are able to go any part of the way!

   How else does the Gospel talk to men? Why, it tells them of the great
   Shepherd's love. He lost one sheep from His flock and He left the 99 in
   the wilderness while He went to seek the one which had gone astray. And
   when He had found it, He laid it on His shoulders, rejoicing, and when
   He came home, He said to His friends and neighbors, "Rejoice with Me;
   for I have found My sheep which was lost." That lost sheep was the type
   of an unconverted sinner, and that Shepherd is the bleeding Savior who
   came to seek and to save that which was lost!

   Ought not such arguments as these prevail with you? When the Gospel
   seeks to win a sinner's heart--its master plea comes from the heart,
   the blood, the wounds, the death of the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ,
   the compassionate Savior! The thunders of Sinai might drive you away
   from God, but the groans of Calvary ought to draw you to Him! God's
   tender mercy appeals even to man's self-interest and says to him, "Why
   will you die? Your sins will kill you. Why do you cling to them?" It
   says to him, "The pains of Hell are terrible." And it only mentions
   them in love, so that the sinner may never have to feel them, but may
   escape from them. Mercy also adds, "The Grace of God is boundless, so
   your sin may be pardoned. The Heaven of God is wide and large, so there
   is room for you there." Mercy thus pleads with the Sinner, "God will be
   glorified in your salvation, for He delight in mercy, and He says that
   as He lives, He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that
   the wicked turn from his way and live."

   I cannot enlarge upon this point, but must be content with saying that
   all Scripture proves God's love to sinners. Almost every page of
   Scripture speaks to you, Sinner, with a message of love! And even when
   God speaks in terrible language, warning men to flee from the wrath to
   come, there is always this gracious purpose in it--that men may be
   persuaded not to ruin themselves and may, through the abounding mercy
   of God, accept the free gift of eternal life instead of willfully
   choosing the wages of sin which must assuredly be death!

   O my dear Hearers, as I think of some of you who are unconverted, I can
   hardly tell you how sad I feel when I recollect against what tenderness
   you have sinned! God has been very good to many of you. You have been
   kept from the depths of poverty, you have even been dandled on the knee
   of prosperity. Yet you have forgotten God! Others of you have had many
   Providential helps in fighting the battle of life. You have been often
   Divinely assisted when you were sick, or when your poor wife and
   children were all but in need. God very graciously stepped in to supply
   your needs, yet now you talk to your friends about how "lucky" you have
   been, whereas the truth is that God has been tenderly merciful towards

   you! Yet you have not even seen His hand in your prosperity and,
   instead of giving God the glory for it, you have ascribed it to that
   heathen goddess, "Luck." God has been patient and gentle with you as a
   nurse might be toward a wayward child, yet you altogether ignore Him or
   turn away from Him! You were sick, a little while ago, and God raised
   you up again to health and strength--is there still no burning of your
   heart towards God? I pray that God's Grace may work in you the change
   that no pleading of mine can ever produce, and that you may say, "I
   will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have
   sinned." If you heartily make that confession to your Heavenly Father,
   He will forgive you and welcome you as freely as the father in the
   parable welcomed the returning prodigal!

   V. The last point of the tenderness of God's mercy that I can now speak
   of is this, THE TENDERNESS OF ITS APPLICATIONS AND OF ITS
   ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

   What does God do for sinners? Well, when they trust in Jesus, He
   forgives all their sins, without any upbraiding or drawbacks. I have
   sometimes thought that if I had been the father of a prodigal son, I
   could have forgiven him when he came home and I hope I should have very
   freely done so. But I do not think I could ever have treated him in
   quite the same way that I treated his elder brother. I mean this--I
   would have had them sit at the same table, and feast on the same
   food--but I think that when market-day came round, I would have said to
   my younger son, "I shall not trust you with the money. I must send your
   elder brother to the market with that, for you might run away with it."
   Perhaps I would not go so far as to say this, but I think I would feel
   it, for such a son as that one would be rather suspicious for a long
   time. Yet see how differently God deals with us! After some of us have
   been great sinners and He has forgiven us, He puts us in trust with the
   Gospel and bids us go and preach it to our follow sinners! Look at John
   Bunyan--a swearing, drinking profligate playing at "tip-cat" on
   Sundays--yet, when the Lord had forgiven him, He did not say to him,
   "Now, Master John, you will have to sit in the back seats all your
   life. You shall go to Heaven, I will provide you a place there, but I
   cannot make as much use of you as I can of some who have been kept from
   such sins as you have committed." Oh, no! He is put in the front rank
   of the Lord's servants, an angel's pen is given to him that he may
   write The Pilgrim's Progress, and he has the high honor of lying for
   nearly 13 years in prison for the Truth's sake! And among all the
   saints there is scarcely one who is greater than John Bunyan! Look at
   the Apostle Paul, too. He called himself the chief of sinners, yet his
   Lord and Father made him, after his conversion, such an eminent servant
   of Christ that he could truly write, "In nothing am I behind the very
   chief of Apostles, though I am nothing."

   It is a proof of great tenderness on God's part that He gives liberally
   and upbraids not. He not only forgives, but He also forgets! He says,
   "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." And although
   we may have been the vilest of the vile, He makes no drawbacks on that
   account. I have known a father who has said to his bankrupt son, "Now,
   you young scapegrace, I will set you up in business again, but I have
   already lost so much money through you that I shall have to make a
   difference in my will, for I cannot give all this to you and then treat
   you as I treat your brother." But, blessed be God, He makes no
   difference in His will! He has not said that He will give the front
   seats in Heaven to those who have sinned less than others have done,
   and put the greater sinners somewhere in the background. Oh no! They
   shall all be with Jesus where He is and shall behold and participate in
   His Glory! There is not one Heaven for the great sinners and another
   for the little ones--but there is the same Heaven for those who have
   been the greatest sinners, but who have repented and trusted in Jesus,
   as there is for those who have been kept from running into the same
   excess of riot. Let us admire the wondrous tenderness of Divine Grace
   in its dealings with the very chief of sinners! When God deigns to
   cleanse a sinner, He does not partly wash him, but He takes away all
   his sin! He does not partly comfort him, but He loads him with loving
   kindness and gives him all that his heart could wish! Oh, that sinners
   could be persuaded to come unto Him for His full and free forgiveness!

   Possibly somebody here says, "If God is so tender in mercy towards
   those who come to Him through Christ, I should be glad if you could
   explain why His mercy has not been extended to me. I have been seeking
   the Lord for months! I am at His House as often as I can be. I delight
   to hear the Gospel preached and I long for it to be blessed to me. I
   have been reading the Scriptures and searching for precious promises to
   suit my case, but I cannot find them. I have been praying for a long
   while, but my prayers still remain unanswered. I cannot get any peace!
   I wish I could. I have been trying to believe, but I cannot." Well, my
   Friend, let me tell you a story that I heard the other day. I cannot
   vouch for its truth, but it will serve for an illustration for me.
   There were two drunken sailors who wanted to go across a narrow inlet.
   They got into a boat and began to row, in their wild drunken way, but
   they did not appear to make any headway. It was not far across, so they
   ought to have been on the other side in a quarter of an hour, but they
   were not across in an hour, nor yet in several hours! One of them said,
   "I believe the boat is bewitched." The other one said he thought they
   were and I suppose they were, through the liquor they had been
   drinking! At last, the morning light came and one of them, who had
   become sober by that time, looked over the side of the boat and then
   called out to his mate, "Why, Sandy, you never pulled up the anchor!"
   They had been tugging at the oars all night long, but had not pulled up
   the anchor! You smile at their folly and I do not regret that you do
   because you can now catch the meaning of what I am saying. There is
   many a man who is, as it were, tugging away at the oars with his
   prayers, and his Bible reading, and his going to Chapel, and his trying
   to believe. But, like those drunken sailors, he has not pulled up the
   anchor! That is to say, he is either holding fast to his own supposed
   righteousness, or else he is clinging to some old sin of his which he
   cannot give up. Ah, my dear Friend! You must pull up the anchor whether
   it holds you to your sins or to your self-righteousness! That anchor,
   still down out of sight, fully accounts for all your lost labor and
   fruitless anxiety. Pull up that anchor and there will soon be a happy
   end of all your troubles--and you will find God to be full of tender
   mercy and abundant Grace even to you! May it be so, for our Lord Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH54.

   The precious promises contained in this chapter belong in the first
   place to the Church of God, but, as that which belongs to the Church
   really belongs to every member of it, we shall not be acting
   dishonestly with the Scripture if we who are Believers, personally take
   home to ourselves every drop of comfort that we can find here!

   Verse 1. Sing, O barren, you that did not bear; break forth into
   singing, and cry aloud, you that did not travail with child.Sing, even
   though you are barren! Do not postpone your song until God's promise is
   fulfilled unto you, but sing even while you are desolate and
   forlorn--and let faith pitch the key-note. Let me, therefore, entreat
   any of you who are disconsolate and sad, to give heed to the words of
   the Prophet and even nowbegin to sing! Give to God songs in the
   night--imitate the nightingale and sing though not a star is to be
   seen!

   1. For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the
   married wife, says the LORD. After all, we who have the deepest sorrow
   have the highest joy, and if we are sometimes desolate, we need not
   wish to change with those who always keep the even tenor of their way.
   If we have great downs, we also have great ups! If the valleys are
   deep, blessed be God, the hills are high and the view from their
   summits is glorious! Let us be thankful even if our lot is a hard one,
   if we are the Lord's, "for more are the children of the desolate than
   the children of the married wife, says the Lord."

   2, 3. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch forth the
   curtains of your habitations: spare not, lengthen your cords, and
   strengthen your stakes; for you shall break forth on the right hand and
   on the left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the
   desolate cities to be inhabited. This is another act of faith--not only
   singing before the mercy comes, but getting ready to receive it before
   it is in sight, stretching the curtains and the cords in order to have
   room to house the blessing which has not yet arrived! Carnal reason
   says, "When we have the children, we will enlarge the tent. When we
   have gathered the congregation, we will build a House of Prayer." But
   faith says, "I will enlarge my heart that it may be able to take in the
   blessing which is sure to come. I will be big with expectation. I will
   open my mouth wide--not when I see the blessing, but before I see it,
   that God may place the blessing in my open, empty mouth." May the Lord
   graciously give us enlarged expectations, for, according to our faith,
   so shall it be unto us!

   4. Fear not; for you shall not be ashamed: neither be you confounded;
   for you shall not be put to shame: for you shall forget the shame of
   your youth, and shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood any
   more. Here is a third line for faith to run upon, namely, that of
   courage. Before you are strong, before you have been lifted up out of
   your weakness, be of good courage and fear not, for if you walk by
   faith and trust in the Lord with all your heart, you shall never have
   any cause to be ashamed of having done so. The Lord will always honor
   your faith because your faith honors Him. Be of good cheer, for you
   shall yet have good reason to rejoice and all those days that you are
   now ashamed to think of, in which you lived without God, and without
   Christ--your days of sad and terrible widowhood--shall be so completely
   surpassed by the abundance of mercy which you shall receive from the
   Lord that you shall not remember them anymore!

   5. For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of Hosts is His name; and
   your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel The God of the whole earth shall
   He be called.Oh, how blessed it is that Jehovah, Israel's God, the Lord
   of Hosts, is the God of the whole earth--so that we poor Gentiles may
   come and hide under the shadow of His wings! And what a joy it is to
   all Believers that this great God has united us in the sacred bonds of
   marriage with Himself! "Your Maker is your husband." Oh, what bountiful
   provision will such a Husband make for us! How well will He comfort us!
   How abundantly will He bless us! So let our hearts be glad in Him.

   6. For the LORD has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in
   spirit, and a wife of youth, when you were refused, says your God. Some
   of you know what it is to have had your affections betrayed and your
   hearts broken by unfaithful friends. Now the Lord calls you to come
   close to Himself that you may prove His faithfulness and so forget your
   past sorrows in your present and future joy.

   7. 8. For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies
   will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a
   moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says
   the LORD, your Redeemer. These choice words do not need any
   explanation! This blessed plaster only needs to be applied to the
   wounded heart and it will heal it at once. If the Lord will but speak
   these sentences into our souls, so that we may know that they are
   really meant for us, our rapture will be complete! Let me read these
   verses again--"For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great
   mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid My face from you for
   a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says
   Jehovah, your Redeemer"--your God--your next of kin--your Advocate and
   Champion! What a blessed name is this and what a wonderful combination
   is this--Jehovah, your next of kin!

   9. 10. For this is as the waters of Noah unto Me: for as I have sworn
   that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have
   Isworn that I wouldnot be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the
   mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed. There is nothing
   really stable about them--all things that are visible must melt and
   flow away.

   10. But My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the
   Covenant of My peace be removed, says the LORD that has mercy on
   you.What gracious words are these! What majesty there is in such
   consoling sentences as these! They remind us of Mr. Paxton Hood's
   lines--

   "All His words are music, though they make me weep, Infinitely tender,
   infinitely deep."

   11. O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted. Where are
   you? Have you come in here to seek the consolation you cannot find
   anywhere else? Then see how God lays Himself out to comfort you! He has
   put into human language the true sympathy for you that He feels in His
   heart. And again He says to you, "O you afflicted, tossed with tempest,
   and not comforted."

   11. Behold, I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your
   foundations with sapphires. You shall have done with the rough tossing
   of the troubled sea and you shall come to land--to a royal city which
   has foundations of sapphire--to a king's palace where even the stones
   shall be stained with rich vermilion such as only princes use in their
   costly buildings--"I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay
   your foundations with sapphires."

   12. And I will make your windows of agates, and your gates of
   carbuncles, and all your borders ofpleasant stones. See what riches
   belong to the Church of the living God! And, as I have already reminded
   you, everything that belongs to the Church belongs to every member of
   it. So we expect to see our Lord's face through a window of agate and
   to go through a gate of carbuncle to meet Him in the place of communion
   which shall itself be enriched with all manner of precious stones. Yes,
   and everything that has to do with us--even the very "borders" of our
   life shall be laid with "pleasant stones." Happy are all you who are
   the favorites of Heaven, the Beloved of the Lord! Blessed are you even
   in your shop and your store--blessed in the common things of your life,
   as well as in the choicest parts of your Christian experience!

   13. And all your children shall be taught of the LORD. Our children are
   often our greatest care. We ask, "How shall they be educated? Where
   shall we place our boys and our girls?" Put them under the care of God,
   for, as Elihu said to Job, "Who teaches like Him?"

   13, 14. And great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness
   shall you be established: you shall be far from oppression; for you
   shall not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near you. The
   man who has the fear of God within his heart need have no fear of
   anybody else--

   "Fear Him you saints, and you will then Have nothing else to fear! Make
   His service your delight-- He'll make your needs His care."

   15. Behold, they shall surely gather together You will have enemies,
   even if you lead the most blameless life that can be lived, for the
   absolutely Blameless One had many cruel enemies who hounded Him to
   death. 15. But not by Me. God is not with them, for He is on your side.

   15. Whoever shall gather together against you shall fall for your sake.
   Oh, how often, and how mysteriously, and how terribly God has smitten
   the enemies of His people! The hand of the Lord has gone out against
   them as it went out against Sennacherib and his host in the days of
   good King Hezekiah.

   16. Behold, I have created the smith that blows the coals in the fire,
   and that brings forth an instrument for his work; and I have created
   the spoiler to destroy. Even over the most wicked and the most powerful
   of men there is the supremacy of God! And deep and mysterious though
   the Doctrine is, yet Divine Predestination applies even to such sinners
   as Judas Iscariot and the vilest of the vile in all times. And herein
   is our confidence--that God is greater than death, and the devil, and
   Hell! He is supreme above all the malice and craft and cruelty of the
   worst and the greatest of men.

   17. No weapon that is formed against you shallprosper--

   "Neither two-edged sword nor falchion bright, Nor barbed arrow that
   flies by night"--

   "No weapon" of any kind--however cunningly made, or however deftly
   handled--"no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper."

   17. And every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment, you shall
   condemn. The tongue--that worst of weapons, whose wicked words are
   sharper than swords--is like a condemned criminal.

   17. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. Did I not rightly
   say that these precious promises belong not only to the whole Church of
   God as a body, but also to each individual member of that Church?

   17. And their righteousness is of Me, says the LORD. If, then, your
   righteousness is found in God, in God you shall find everything else
   that you need for time and for eternity! God grant this unto each one
   of us for His dear name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Consistent Walk for Time to Come

   (No. 3030)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, DURING THE YEAR 1864.

   "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him."
   Colossians 2:6.

   THOUGH the shepherd cares for the lambs and carries them in his arms,
   he does not cease his care when they become sheep. But, as long as they
   shall need to be tended, so long will he watch over them. Hence it is
   that our Apostle, though always quick of eye after newborn souls and
   abundantly anxious to bring sinners to a knowledge of the Truth of God
   as it is in Jesus, is equally in a conflict of soul for the spiritual
   healthfulness of those who have been born-again. Our text contains one
   of those loving admonitions. It is addressed, not to the ungodly, not
   to those who are strangers to our Lord and Master, but to those who
   have "received Christ Jesus the Lord." Longing for their spiritual good
   and anxious that they should be established in the faith, he admonishes
   them thus, "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in
   Him."

   In endeavoring, by God's help, to speak upon this subject, we shall
   have three points. There is here, first, a fact stated concerning
   Believers--they have "received Christ Jesus the Lord." Then there is an
   exhortation, or a counsel, offered to such--"walk in Him." Besides
   which we have a model held up for our imitation. How are we to walk in
   Him? Why, just in the same way as we at first received Him! Let our
   first coming to Christ be to us the mirror of how we shall walk in Him
   all our days.

   I. All true Christians are here described in the text as HAVING
   RECEIVED CHRIST JESUS THE LORD.

   The first point to which I would particularly direct your attention is
   the personality of this reception. Believers have, it is true, received
   Christ's words. They prize every precept, they value every Doctrine,
   but this is not all. They have received Christ Himself. While they have
   received Christ's ordinances and are not slow to walk in obedience to
   the things which He has commanded, they do not stay here. They have
   received Christ Himself--His Person, His Godhead and His Humanity. They
   have "received Christ Jesus the Lord." And, mark you, there is a very
   great distinction here--and also a great mystery. A great distinction,
   I say, for there are some who do, I think, wholly believe the doctrines
   which Christ has taught, and are profoundly orthodox, full of an
   earnest controversial spirit for the faith once delivered to the saints
   and yet, for all that, they do not seem to have received Him, the very
   Christ of God! And, truly, there are many who have received both
   Baptism and the Lord's Supper, yet, despite what any may say, we
   believe that they have not received Christ, but are still as great
   strangers to Him as though they had only passed through the rites
   common to mankind, or the rites in which heathens indulge! There is a
   vast difference between the outward reception of the Doctrine, or the
   ordinance, and the inward reception of Christ.

   We also said that herein is a mystery--such a mystery that only he who
   has received Christ can understand. The preacher cannot tell you what
   it is to receive Christ. Human language is not adapted to convey to the
   mind this deep enigma, this matchless secret. We know what it is, for
   "truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus
   Christ." We can describe it in such a measure that our friends who have
   also received Christ will know that we understand the mystery--but to
   the carnal mind it will always remain a puzzle how Christ can be "in us
   the hope of glory"--how we can eat His flesh and drink His blood. They
   run away to some carnal interpretation and suppose that the bread is
   turned into flesh at the Eucharist or that the wine is transformed into
   blood. That is carnal talk and this they talk because they know not
   what is the mystery of this receiving Christ and this walking in
   Christ.

   This much, however, we may affirm. The Believer has received Christ
   into his knowledge. He knows Him to be God and to be Man. He knows Him
   to be set forth of the Father as the Redeemer, but, he also knows Him
   by a personal acquaintance. His eyes have not seen Him and yet he has
   looked to Him and has, by faith, seen the King in His beauty! His hands
   have not handled Him and yet there has been a secret touch by which the
   virtue has come out of Christ and has flowed into him! He has never sat
   down at a Communion Table when Christ has been physically present and
   yet full often he could say, "He brought me to the banqueting house and
   His banner over me was love." He has talked with me as a man talks with
   his friend and the strongest sense that can be attached to that sweet
   word, "communion," is tame in reference to the Believer's connection
   with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ! And in that sense of knowing
   Him, intimately knowing Him, the Believer has received Christ!

   Not only has he received Christ into his cognizance, but into his
   understanding. He understands, with all saints, the love of Jesus in
   its height, depth, length and breadth. He has so seen Christ as to
   understand of Him that He was before all time as the Ancient of Days
   and then had His delights with the sons of men in the great Covenant
   decree of electing love. He understands how He became made flesh with
   us--married to us--when He came on earth, the Son of Mary, "bone of our
   bone, and flesh of our flesh." He knows by experience what is the
   meaning of the Atonement. He can understand how Justice is satisfied
   and Grace magnified. Without confounding or making mistakes, he knows
   how God was always gracious and full of love and yet how Christ Jesus
   came that the love of God might be shed abroad in our hearts and we
   were reconciled unto God by His death. Hence the Christian does not
   read of Christ as though He were a mere historical personage, nor of
   His work as a great mystery which he cannot comprehend, but he has
   received Christ into his understanding!

   Ah, Beloved! This is a very poor and shallow sense compared with the
   next. I have received but one ounce of Christ into my understanding,
   but, bless His name, I have received the whole of Him into my
   affections. Good Rutherford used to pray for a larger heart, that he
   might hold more of Christ and, perhaps, you remember that strange
   extravaganza of prayer in which he says, "Oh, that I had a heart as
   deep, and wide, and high as Heaven, that I might hold Christ in it!"
   And then he said, "Since the Heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, oh,
   that I had a heart as vast as seven heavens, that I might get the whole
   of Christ into me and hold Him in my arms!" And truly, Christian, in
   one sense you have taken all of Christ into your soul, have you not? Do
   you not love Him--not a part of Him, but the whole of Him? I hope you
   can truly say to Christ--

   "Have You a lamb in all Your flock

   I would disdain to feed?

   Have You a foe, before whose face

   I fear Your cause to plead?

   You know I love You, dearest Lord

   But oh, I long to soar

   Far from the sphere of mortal joys--

   And learn to love You more!" We must not leave this part of the subject
   without adding that the Believer has received Christ into his trust,
   and this he did at his spiritual birth. He received Christ into the
   arms of his faith. He took Jesus Christ to be, henceforth, the
   unbuttressed pillar of his confidence, the one Rock of his salvation,
   his strong castle and high tower. And, in this sense, every soul that
   is saved has "received Christ Jesus the Lord."

   Our text seems to point to a threefold character in which we have
   received Christ. We have received Him as the Christ. My Soul, have you
   ever seen Him as the Father's Anointed One--as the Chosen and Sent One,
   ordained of old-- as One that is mighty, upon whom help should be laid?
   Have you seen Him as God's great High Priest, ordained as was Aaron,
   chosen of God from among men? Have you looked upon Him as David did, as
   One chosen out of the people? We must accept Christ as the Anointed One
   and the right way to thus receive Him is to receive Him as the garments
   of Aaron received the oil that flowed from his head. Christ is the
   Anointed One and then you and I become anointed ones through the Holy
   Spirit which distils from Him to us--and so we receive Him as Christ.

   And then He is called, "Jesus," and we must receive Him as the Savior.
   ' 'You shall call His name, Jesus, for He shall save His people from
   their sins." Justification is receiving Christ as Jesus. So is
   sanctification! Only I think I must say

   justification and pardon receive Christ as Jesus--and sanctification
   receives Him as Christ Jesus, both as the Anointed One and the Savior.
   May you and I be daily delivered from sin--the guilt and power of
   it--and so receive Him as Jesus!

   There is a peculiar emphasis about the next expression. The article is
   emphatic here, "Christ Jesus the Lord." To me, if I receive Christ, He
   must be Lord--not one of the lords that may have dominion over me, but
   the Lord, peculiarly and specially. And though hitherto other lords
   have had dominion over me, now I am to obey Him and only Him. What do
   you say, professor? Have you received Christ Jesus the Lord?Is your
   will subject to His will? Do you desire only to act according to His
   bidding? Are His commands your desire? Is His will your will? Is He
   your Lord? For, mark you, you can never truly receive Him as Christ, or
   as Jesus, unless you receive Him as the Lord! Thus, another sense in
   which we receive Him is by subjecting ourselves entirely to Him,
   sitting at His feet, wearing His yoke, taking up His Cross and bearing
   His reproach.

   You will note that there is also, in this description of a Christian,
   the thought of his entire dependence. The Apostle does not say, "As you
   have therefore fought for and won or earned Christ Jesus," but, "as you
   have therefore received Him." It is a humbling word which divests the
   creature of everything like boasting! What is there to glory in if I am
   a receiver? The Apostle in another place says, "If you did receive it,
   why do you glory, as if you had not received it?" The vessel that is
   filled under the flowing stream cannot boast, though it is ever so
   full, for it was naturally empty and owes its fullness to the stream.
   The beggar in the street, let him receive gold, yet cannot boast of the
   gold because he is a receiver. He who gave must have the honor of the
   benefaction--not the person who received! So let your faith be ever so
   strong, let your confidence in Christ be ever so glorious, you have
   nothing to boast of in it, for you have "received Christ Jesus."
   Beloved, here is a test for us--is our religion a receiving religion,
   or is it a working and an earning religion? An earning religion sends
   souls to Hell! It is only a receivingreligion that will take you to
   Heaven! You may tug and toil, and do your best and make yourselves, as
   you think, as holy as the best of the Apostles--but when you have done
   your utmost, you have done nothing whatever! You have built a house of
   cards which shall soon fall down. But when you come as an empty-handed
   sinner, having nothing of your own--and receive Christ Jesus--then you
   have bowed your will to God's will. Or rather, Divine Grace has bowed
   it and you are saved according to the Lord's own word, "He that
   believes on Me is not condemned." Thus you have dependence connected
   with the personality of the Christian's faith!

   We also have here certainty--"As you have received Christ Jesus the
   Lord." Oh, how many Christians--I hope they are Christians--talk as if
   they really thought it was impossible to attain to any assurance of
   faith whatever! It is the fashion with some Christians to say, "Well, I
   hope," and, "I trust"--and they have a notion that this is being very
   humble-minded. But to say, "I know whom I have believed, and am
   persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto
   Him," is thought to be pride! The declaration of Job, "I know that my
   Redeemer lives," or of the spouse in the Canticles, "My Beloved is
   mine, and I am His; He feeds among the lilies," is thought to be vain
   presumption and boasting. But indeed, Beloved, it is no such thing!
   Doubting is pride, but believing is humility! Let me prove it.

   I think I used this illustration among you some little time ago. There
   are two children of one parent and the father says to the two children,
   "On such a day I intend to give you both a toy which has been the
   object of your ambition for many a day." Well, the older boy of the two
   sits down and calculates that the present will be expensive--and he
   begins to doubt whether his father can afford to purchase it. He
   remembers many times in which he has offended his parent, or broken his
   parent's commands and, therefore, he doubts whether he shall ever have
   it. He feels that he is unworthy-- therefore he goes about the house
   without any joy, without any confidence. If anybody asks him whether
   his father will give him this present or not, he says, "Well, I--I hope
   so. I trust so."

   Now, there is his little brother and the moment he heard that he was to
   have this present, he clapped his hands and ran out to his companions
   and said, "I am to have such-and-such a thing given me!" His brother
   checked him, "You are too presumptuous to say that." "No," said the
   little one, "for Father said he would give these toys to us." "Oh,
   but," said the other, "remember that you and I have often broken his
   commands!" "But he said he would." "Oh, but the thing is expensive!"
   "Ah, but Father said he would and unless you can prove that my father
   tells lies, I shall go and rejoice in the bright hope that he will keep
   his promise!" Now, I think that the younger of the two is less
   presumptuous than his brother, for certainly it is a high presumption
   for a child to doubt the veracity of his parent! No matter how
   excellent your reasoning may seem to be, and how clear it may be to the
   eyes of the flesh, it is always pride to doubt God! And to

   believe God--though, to the carnal mind which can never understand the
   bravery of faith, it may look like presumption--is always a badge of
   the truest and most reverent humility!

   Beloved, you mayknow whether you are Christ's or not! I exhort you not
   to give sleep to your eyes till you know it! What? Can you rest when
   you do not know whether you are saved or not? O Sirs, can you sit down
   at your tables and feast--can you go about your daily business with
   this thought in your mind, "If I should drop dead, I do not know
   whether I should be found in Heaven or in Hell"? I tell you nothing but
   certainties will suit my soul! I hope I never shall rest comfortable
   while under a doubt of my interest in Christ. Doubts may come--these we
   can understand--but to be comfortable under doubts, we hope we never
   shall comprehend! No, nothing but to--

   "Read my title clear To mansions in the skies"

   can give me joy and peace through believing! "You have received Christ
   the Lord." Just pass the question around the gallery there, and ask
   yourselves down below, "Have I received Christ Jesus the Lord?" Say,
   "Yes," or, "No," and God help you to give the answer solemnly as in His
   sight!

   II. As briefly as possible we turn to notice THE COUNSEL GIVEN--"As you
   have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." There
   are three things suggested by the word, "walk"--continuance, progress,
   activity.

   To walk in a certain way means continuing in it. Now, Christian, you
   took Christ to be your All-in-All, did you not? Well, then, continueto
   take Him as your All-in-All. The true way for a Christian to live is to
   live entirely upon Christ. Living by frames and feelings is a dying
   form of life. "He lived by a feeling experience," said one--and a poor
   method of living, too! Christians have experiences and they have
   feelings, but, if they are wise, they never feed upon these things, but
   upon Christ, Himself. You took Christ to be your All-in-All at first.
   You did not, then, mix up your frames and feelings with Him--you looked
   entirely out of self to Him. Well now, continue in the same frame of
   mind! You sat down at the foot of the Cross and you said--

   "Now free from sin, I'll walk at large My Savior's blood's my full
   discharge! At His dear feet myself I lay-- A sinner saved, and homage
   pay."

   Well, then stay there! Stay there! Never get an inch beyond that
   position. When you get sanctified, still look to Christ as if you were
   unsanctified! When you are on the verge of being glorified, look to Him
   as if you were just newly come out of the hole of the Pit. Hang upon
   Christ, you who are the best, just as though you were the worst! The
   same faith which saved Mary Magdalene, which saved Saul of Tarsus--must
   save you in the moment when you shall be the nearest to the perfect
   image of Christ Jesus! It is "none but Jesus" now to your soul--let it
   be "none but Jesus--none but Jesus," as long as you live!

   In walking, there is not only continuance, but also progress. After a
   man becomes a Christian, he has not to lay again the foundation, but he
   has to go on and to advance in the Divine Life. Still, wherever he
   shall advance, he is always to say, "None but Christ! Christ is all!"
   Depend upon it, every inch of progress that you make beyond a simple
   reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ will entail the painful necessity
   of your going back. If you begin to patch Christ's robe of
   righteousness with the very best rags of your own, no matter how
   cleanly you may have washed them, every rag will have to be unraveled,
   and every stitch will have to be cut! There is the Rock, Christ Jesus.
   Some Christians begin building their own stages on the Rock. How
   carefully they tie the timbers together. How neatly they plane and
   smooth them. And then they get high up upon these stages that they have
   built and they feel so happy--they have such frames! Such feelings!
   Such graces! Such fullness! And they are inclined to look down upon
   those poor souls who are crying, "None but Jesus!" By-and-by there
   comes a storm and the edifice they have built begins to creak, and
   crack, and rock to and fro--and they begin to cry, "Ah, where are we
   now? Now we shall perish! Now Christ's love begins to dry up! Now He
   will fail us!" No--no such thing! It is not Christ who is failing you!
   It is not the Rock that is shaking, but what you have built upon the
   Rock! Come down from the stage which you have built and, as Job says,
   "embrace the Rock for want of a shelter." I believe those souls have
   the most safety and comfort who simply trust to Christ. Was it not
   Irving who said that he believed his good works had done him more harm
   than his bad works had done him, for his bad ones drove him to Christ,
   but his good ones led him to rely upon them? And, after all, are not
   our good works, bad works, for is there not something in all of them to
   make us fly to the fountain of the Savior's blood for cleansing?

   "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,"
   also implies activity. Christians are not to be lie-a-beds, nor forever
   to sit still. There is an activityin religion without which it is of
   little worth. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Help the poor. Teach
   the ignorant. Comfort the miserable. But take care that when you do all
   this, you do it in Christ, and for Christ--and let no thought of merit
   stain the act! Let no reflection of getting salvation for yourself come
   in to mar it all, but in Christ Jesus walk day by day. Ah, Brothers and
   Sisters, if a thunderstorm were to come on just now while we are
   sitting here, and if the lightning should come flashing in at these
   windows and run with its blue flame down these columns, you and I might
   begin to feel some alarm! And if one were struck dead in our presence,
   in what kind of state would you and I likely to be amidst such
   confusion and alarm? If I were to choose the words which I would like
   to say at such a moment, they would be these--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring--

   Simply to Your Cross I cling." You are on board ship in a storm just
   now. There goes a mast into the water! The lifeboats have all drifted
   away. The ship is pretty sure to be dashed on yonder rock! Pallor is on
   every cheek and turmoil every side. What is your prayer as you kneel
   down? What are your thoughts? Do you think, now, about your sermons,
   about your visiting the sick, about your prayers and your experiences?
   No! I tell you that they will seem to you to be nothing better than
   dross and dung when you are in such a state of apprehension! But you
   will cling to Christ's Cross and be conveyed to Heaven, let the stormy
   winds blow as they will! And if everything were silent, tonight--could
   we hear nothing but the ticking of the clock were we, ourselves,
   reclining on our death pillow? While loving friends wiped the clammy
   sweat from our brow, surely we would, each one, wish to say--

   "My hope is built on nothing less

   Than Jesus' blood and righteousness!

   I dare not trust the sweetest frame

   But wholly lean on Jesus' name.

   On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand!

   All other ground is sinking sand." Well, walk in Him just as you would
   walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but walk on the mountaintops
   of life's activities!

   III. Let us now say a few words on our third point--THE MODEL WHICH IS
   PRESENTED TO US HERE. We are to walk in Him as we received Him.

   And how did we receive Him? Let us remember. You will not have to
   strain your memories much, for, I think, though other days have mingled
   with their fellows and, like coins worn in the circulation, have lost
   their impression, yet the day when you first received Christ will be as
   fresh as though it were newly minted in time. Oh, that first day!--

   "Do mind the place, the spot of ground Where Jesus did you meet?" Some
   of us can never forget either that place or that time. Well, how did we
   receive Christ?'

   We received Him very gratefully, having no claim whatever to His Grace.
   We felt that we had done everything to deserve God's wrath. We
   confessed that there was no merit in us, but we perceived that there
   was mercy in Him--

   "We saw One hanging on a tree In agonies and blood"

   and as He told us to look at Him and assured us that there was life in
   a look, we did--and we were lightened, and we found life in Him! Surely
   we had shaken our hands of all merit, as Paul shook off the viper into
   the fire at Melita. We had no confidence, then, in any resolutions of
   our own, in any performances yet to come, much less in anything past.
   Well, then, we are to come now as empty-handed as we came then! Our
   song is to be--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring-- Simply to Your Cross I cling." How did
   we receive Christ? Well, we received Him very humbly. Whatever pride
   may be in our heart--and there is much of it--and, I suppose we shall
   never get rid of it till we are wrapped in our winding-sheets--there
   was as little that day as we ever had at any other time. Oh, how humbly
   did we creep to the foot of the Cross! We were then broken in heart and
   contrite in spirit. Ah, Christian, can you remember what humble views
   you had of yourself--what a sink of

   depravity you felt your heart to be? Do you not recollect Augustine's
   expression when he compares himself to a walking dunghill? And did you
   not feel yourself to be something of that kind--so base, so loathsome
   that you could only stand afar off and cry, ' 'God be merciful to me, a
   sinner"? And you cried to Christ just as Peter did, "Lord, save me!"
   And just as the sea seemed about to swallow you up, you laid hold upon
   His outstretched hand and you were saved! Now, tonight, do the same.
   Your danger is as great as ever out of Christ. Your sin is as great as
   ever out of Him. Come then, casting away all the pride which your
   experiences and graces may have worked in you--come to Him and take Him
   for your All-

   in-All!

   How did we receive Christ? If I recollect rightly--and I think I do--we
   received Him very joyfully. Oh, what joy my soul had when first I knew
   the Lord! It was holy day in my soul that day. Perhaps we have never
   had such joyous days since then, and the reason has been, most likely,
   because we have been thinking about other things and have not thought
   so much about Christ Jesus the Lord. Come, let us again take Him! The
   wine is as sweet--let us drink as deeply as ever. Christ, the Bread of
   Heaven, is as nourishing. Come, let us eat as heartily as ever. Fill
   your omers, O you poor and weak ones! Gather much, for you shall have
   nothing left over. This Manna is very sweet--it tastes like wafers made
   of honey. Come to my Master as you came at first and He will give you
   to drink of the living waters once again!

   How did we receive Christ? I am sure we received Him very graciously.
   He stood at the door and knocked, and we said, "Come in." Your Savior,
   my dear Friends, was long a stranger to your hearts. "Come in," we
   said. We knew that He meant to take the best seat at the table. We
   understood that He came as Master and Lord, but we said, "Come in." We
   did not quite know all that the Cross might mean, but whatever it might
   mean, we meant to take it! Surely that day, when He asked us, "Can you
   drink of My cup, and can you be baptized with My Baptism?" our soul
   said, "We are able." And though we have been unfaithful to Him, yet I
   hope tonight we can take Christ as unreservedly as ever. Had I dreamed,
   when first I preached His Gospel, that the way of the ministry would be
   so rough and thorny, my flesh would have shunned it! But, despite all,
   let it be what it is and ten thousand times worse, come in, my Master!
   Come and take Your servant--let me lie like a consecrated bull upon the
   altar, to be wholly burned, and not an atom left! Brothers, do you not
   feel the same? On this platform I have sometimes prayed that if the
   crushing of us might lift Christ one inch higher, it might be so! And
   if the dragging of our names through mire and dirt could make Christ's
   Church more pure, we have prayed that it might be so! We have prayed
   that if any shame, if any dishonor, if any pain might put one more
   jewel in His crown than could be there in any other way, we might have
   the honor of suffering and being made ashamed for His sake!

   And I think, Brothers and Sisters, though the flesh struggles, we may
   pray tonight, "Lord, bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to
   the horns of the altar." We have received Christ and in that same
   way--unreservedly, we desire to walk in Him--

   "Have you counted the cost? Have you counted the cost

   You followers of the Cross?

   And are you prepared, for your Master's sake,

   To suffer all worldly loss?

   And can you endure with that virgin band,

   The lowly and pure in heart

   Who, where ever the Lamb does lead,

   From His footsteps never depart?

   Do you answer, 'We can'? Do you answer, 'We can,

   Through His love's constraining power'?

   But do you remember the flesh is weak,

   And will shrink in the trial-hour?

   Yet yield to His love who around you now

   The bands of a man would cast.

   The cords of His love who was given for you

   To His altar binding you fast

   You may count the cost, you may count the cost

   Of all Egypt's treasure,

   But the riches of Christ you can never count--

   His love you can never measure."

   "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him."

   But oh, some of you have never received Him, so my last word is to
   them. Do you ask, "What is the way of salvation?" It is by receiving
   Christ. Oh, then come and receive Him! May the Holy Spirit's power lead
   sinners to Christ! You need not bring anything to Him. You need not
   bring a soft heart to Him. You need not bring tears of repentance to
   Him. But just come and take Christ. Remember, it is not what you are,
   but it is what Christ is that saves you! Never look at yourself, but
   look at the wounds of Jesus! There is life there. God help you to
   look--to look tonight! And if you shall find Him, our prayer shall be
   that from this day forth, you shall walk in Him and He shall have the
   glory!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM90.

   A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.

   It may help us to understand this Psalm if we recollect the
   circumstances which surrounded Moses when he was in the desert. For
   forty years he had to see a whole generation of people die in the
   wilderness. In addition to the deaths which might occur among those who
   were born in the wilderness, the whole of that great host which came
   out of Egypt, numbering, probably, between two and three million
   persons, must lie in their graves in the desert so that there must have
   been constant funerals--and the march of the children of Israel could
   be perceived along the desert track by the graves which they left
   behind them. You do not wonder, therefore, at this expression of the
   awe of "Moses, the man of God" as he was so continually reminded of the
   mortality of mankind. And note how reverently and trustfully he turns
   to the ever-living and eternal God and rests in Him.

   Verse 1. LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
   "Did not Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all our fathers dwell in
   You? And though we are now weary-footed pilgrims who have no fixed
   dwelling place on earth, we do dwell in You. You, Lord, are the true
   home of all the generations of Your people."

   2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or before You had formed
   the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are
   God. God is the only Being who has had eternal and essential Existence
   independently of all others--and all others have owed their existence
   to Him.

   3. You turn man to destruction and say, Return, you children of men. He
   sends us forth into life, and He calls us back again in death.

   4. For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is
   past, and as a watch in the night Yesterday, while it was with us, was
   a short period of 24 hours. But when it is past, it seems like nothing
   at all. A thousand years, all big with events which we consider to be
   full of weight and importance, make up a long period in which myriads
   of men come and go--yet those thousand years, in God's sight, "are but
   as yesterday when it is past," or but as the few hours in the night
   during which the mariner keeps watch at sea and then is relieved by
   another. A thousand years are but "as a watch in the night" to the
   Eternal--and He needs no one to relieve Him, for "He that keeps Israel
   shall neither slumber nor sleep."

   5. You carry them away as with a flood. They have no power to stem the
   torrent.

   5. They are as a sleep. Our earthly existence is but "as a sleep." Many
   things are not what they seem to us to be in our fevered dreams. The
   time of awaking is coming and then things will appear very different to
   us from what they seem to be now.

   5. They are like grass which grows up. Fresh, green, vigorous, lovely,
   restful to the eyes.

   6. In the morning it flourishes, and grows up; in the evening it is cut
   down and withers. It needs no long period, ages upon ages, to destroy
   its beauty. Only let the swiftly-passing day come to its waning and the
   grass "is cut down and withers."

   7. For we are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we
   troubled. If we had to endure the flames of God's anger, we would be
   consumed by it. But I think that Christians should not read this
   passage as though it applied to them. They are not under the Divine
   anger, nor need they fear being troubled by the Divine wrath, for His
   anger is turned away from them through the great atoning Sacrifice of
   His Son, Jesus Christ. But the children of Israel in the wilderness
   were

   being consumed by God's anger and by His wrath they were being
   troubled, so that the words of Moses did apply to them.

   8, 9. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the
   light of Your Countenance. For all our days are passed away in Your
   wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. Like a romance, with
   which the Orientals still delight to beguile the passing hours. Such is
   the life of man--"as a tale that is told."

   10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. This was a
   gloomy fact to Moses, who lived to be 120 years of age and who probably
   remembered other men who had been far older than himself. Yet it is
   well that the ordinary period of human life has been shortened. It is
   still far too long for those who do evil, though it may not be too long
   for those who do good. Yet there are, even now, some who outlive their
   usefulness, and who might have been happier if they had finished their
   course sooner. "The days of our years are threescore years and ten."

   10. And if by reason of strength they are fourscore years, yet is their
   strength labor and sorrow: for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
   Where do we fly? That is the all-important point! The cutting of the
   string that holds the bird by the foot is a blessing or a curse
   according to the way in which it takes its flight. If we fly up to
   build our nest on yonder trees of God that are full of sap, then,
   indeed, we do well when we fly away. And we may even long for the wings
   of a dove, that we may fly away and be at rest.

   11, 12. Who knows the power of Your anger? Even according to Your fear,
   so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our
   hearts unto wisdom. It has been well said that many men will number
   their cows, and number their coins, but forget to number their days!
   Yet that is a kind of arithmetic that would be exceedingly profitable
   to those who practiced it aright. Counting our days and finding them
   but few, we should seek to use them discreetly--we should not reckon
   that we could afford to lose so much as one of them! Who would be a
   spendthrift with so small a store as that which belongs to us?

   13, 14. Return, O LORD, how long? And let it repent You concerning Your
   servants. O satisfy us early with Your mercy that we may rejoice and be
   glad all our days. "If they are but few, yet let them be happy. Give us
   an abundance of Your mercy, O Lord, and let us have it at once, so that
   however few our days may be, every one of them may be spent in the ways
   of wisdom and, consequently, in the ways of peace and happiness."

   15. Make us glad according to the days wherein You have afflicted us,
   and the years wherein we have seen evil "Balance our sorrows with an
   equal weight of joys. Give us Grace equivalent to our griefs and if You
   have given us a bitter cup of woe, now let us drink from the golden
   chalice of Your love, and so let our fainting spirits be refreshed."

   16. Let Your work appear unto Your servants. May we have Grace to
   devote ourselves entirely to God's service and do the work which He has
   appointed us to do!

   16. And Your glory unto their children. If we may not live to see the
   success of our efforts, may our children see it! If the glory of that
   bright millennial age, which is certain to come in due time, shall not
   gladden our eyes before we fall asleep in Jesus, let us do the Lord's
   work as far as we can that our children may see His Glory.

   17. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish
   You the work of our hands upon us. Even if we die, let our work live.
   May there be something permanent remaining after we are gone--not wood,
   hay, and stubble, which the fire will consume, but a building of gold,
   silver, and precious stones which will endure the fire that, sooner or
   later, will "try every man's work of what sort it is."

   17. Yes, the work of our hands establish You it
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Shadow of a Great Rock"

   (No. 3031)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   18, 1869.

   "A man shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Isaiah
   32:2.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon on previous portions of this verse, are
   as follows--No. 2856, Volume 49--OUR HIDING PLACE and No. 1243, Volume
   21--RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE.]

   EVEN in our usually temperate climate, we sometimes complain of the
   great heat, which is coolness itself compared with the terrible burning
   of Oriental lands. A journey through the Sahara Desert might make us
   long for even the heat of our hottest summer, unbearable though it
   seems to us to be. With the hot sand beneath his feet from day to day,
   with not a tree and scarcely so much as a bush within sight. With the
   sun pouring down torrents of heat as though he were full of wrath
   against the wayfarer, with water exceedingly scarce and what is to be
   obtained about as nauseous as one can conceive, the traveler through
   the wilderness finds it to be a "weary land," indeed, and longs for the
   time when he shall once again see the cultivated fields and the lands
   that flow with brooks and rivers!

   Travelers tell us that when the heat has become so intense that every
   living creature seems to be exhausted--when birds, if there are any,
   droop their wings, and beasts lie down and pant out their very life--at
   such times they have been glad to see great rocks right in the center
   of the barren plain. And, creeping under their shadow, they have left
   it on record that they have found most refreshing coolness and have
   lifted up their hands in gratitude to God for the blessing of "the
   shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Though I have never
   experienced to the same degree what these travelers report, I remember
   one hot day in Northern Italy, when riding over a dry plain where the
   only living creatures seemed to be the lizards and the abundant flies
   which they were pursuing, and the myriads of mosquitoes that stung one
   almost to madness--a great rock was really a source of solid comfort.
   Though we could afford time to rest only for a little while beneath its
   shadow, we gratefully remembered it all day long and wished that we
   could have stayed until nightfall beneath the shadow of that "great
   rock in a weary land."

   Writing under Divine Inspiration, the Prophet Isaiah describes the Lord
   Jesus Christ, in His Manhood, as being comparable to this great rock.
   In this wilderness life of ours, this wretched life apart from Him--to
   us pilgrims through this desert to the better land beyond--Christ is a
   great Rock and He casts a blessed shadow across our path in which we
   refresh ourselves and renew our strength to go on our way rejoicing.

   I shall try to bring out the meaning of the text by noticing, first,
   why our Lord may thus be compared to the shadow of a great rock.
   Secondly, I shall show when He is especially refreshing to us and,
   thirdly, and practically, I shall ask, what is our business with regard
   to Him?

   I. First, then, WHY MAY OUR LORD BE SAID TO BE A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY
   LAND CASTING A REFRESHING SHADOW?

   We may remember concerning Him, in the first place, that, like a rock,
   He is always in the same place. There are some shadows which you can
   create artificially and carry with you. There have been shadows which
   have been cast by great trees, but those trees have been removed. And
   if the traveler, in passing over the same route, should expect to enjoy
   their cooling shade, he would be disappointed. But, the great rock
   remains just where it was when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sheltered
   beneath it--and the traveler, today, may do the same. It is just so
   with our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name, He has not shifted His
   position! If any poor soul here wants to find Him, He is just where He
   used to be--that

   is, He is waiting at the Mercy Seat to receive every soul that will
   come and trust Him. Jesus Christ is not far away from any of you--He is
   so near that a prayer will reach Him, a sigh will find Him and a tear
   will get at His heart! Only turn your desires towards Him! Only say to
   Him, now, in the silence of your spirit, "Jesus, Master, cast Your
   shadow over my sin-burdened head. Protect my soul from the wrath of God
   and from the fierce heat of Hell!" Only ask this and it shall be given
   you, for Jesus is still waiting to be gracious and ready to bless you
   even now!

   He is like a rock, too, because His shadow is always there as well as
   Himself Wherever the sun and a rock are, there is sure to be a shadow.
   So, whenever God pours out the fierce beams of His wrath upon a sinner,
   let that sinner fly to Christ and he shall find a shelter from that
   wrath! Whenever conscience oppresses you and reminds you of your guilt,
   depend upon it that Christ has not lost His power to quiet conscience
   and to calm your fears. Sometimes a sinner fears that it is too late
   for him to find peace in Christ, or, possibly, he thinks it is too
   soon, or that he has sinned away his day of grace. Ah, poor Soul, all
   these suggestions are Satan's lies! If you really desire to have
   Christ's love shed abroad in your heart, that is a proof that Christ
   has already fixed His love upon you! If your head is now beaten upon by
   the fierce sunlight of God's wrath, you may come and find a shelter in
   the great rock of Christ's atoning Sacrifice! If you will trust in
   Jesus, you shall have the peace which only He can give--the peace which
   passes understanding. We rightly sing--

   "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood

   Shall never lose its power

   Till all the ransomed Church of God

   Is saved to sin no more"--

   and they are not all saved yet--there are still some to be gathered
   and, therefore, Christ's blood has not yet lost its power to cleanse
   from sin! And Christ, as a rock, casts His welcome shade over all who
   come to Him to be thus refreshed!

   Our Lord may also be compared to the shadow of a great rock because the
   shadow of a great rock is broad. I remember the time when, after a
   long, hot and dusty walk, I found myself at the top of a considerable
   elevation where there is neither shrub nor tree--but a huge cross which
   someone has erected there. And I remember well how my friend and I
   tried to get under the shelter of that cross, but there was only room
   enough in the shadow for one of us. We both tried to get under the
   shadow, for it was terribly hot in the sunshine, but the cross could
   not give shelter to the two of us, so we had to take turns as long as
   we waited on the hillside. But it is not so in the case of a great
   rock! The shadow there is sometimes so wide that if a whole caravan
   shall wish to rest there free from the sun's heat, they may all come
   and shelter under it--travelers, camels and all! So is it with my
   Master. He is no little Savior! He has already saved millions, but He
   is just as able to save unnumbered millions more! If the shadow of His
   Cross could only screen one sinner, what a scramble many of you would
   make in order to be that one. Yet I fear that the very freeness of the
   Divine Mercy makes many despise it, though it should not do so. If the
   whole of us felt the heat of the sun of God's wrath in our conscience
   and we were all to come crowding to Jesus, we would not hear Him say,
   "I cannot receive you all. I have not room for you all." If there were
   room in Christ for all but one, I should hear a cry from somewhere in
   this place, "O God, shut me not out, but receive me, even me!" Yet many
   of you are content not to get under the shadow of Christ though there
   is room there for you! There is room in Christ for the biggest sinner
   out of Hell! There is room for ten thousand times ten thousand sinners!
   There will be room for all of Adam's race who are ever led to come and
   put their trust in Him! It is the shadow of a Great Rock and,
   therefore, it is a broad shadow!

   Further, the shadow of a rock is free to all Nobody thinks of paying
   for a seat in the shadow of a rock, and nobody would wait to be asked
   to come under that shadow. No one would dream of needing preparation
   before sitting on the shady side of a great rock. Everybody who is
   weary seeks the shelter--every man who is wiping the hot sweat from his
   brow comes and stretches himself to rest beneath that genial shade even
   without an invitation! In like manner, Jesus Christ is as free as the
   air to all who will trust in Him! You do not need to make any
   preparation for coming to Him and although many invitations are given
   to you to come to Christ, this is because of your unwillingness to come
   to Him--not because there are any hindrances on His part! When a soul
   is once brought to long for Christ, that soul may at once have Christ.
   The great difficulty is to make sinners feel their need of a
   Savior--they think that they do not need Him. They stand in the blazing
   sunshine and imagine that they will never faint beneath that fierce
   heat. But when their strength begins to depart, they are willing to
   come under the shadow of the Great Rock and there it stands, just as it
   always did, and they are invited to come to it, after all their neglect
   of it, and find a refreshing shelter there. Does not this Truth of God
   comfort some poor soul in my audience? Are there not some of you who
   have made the great mistake of supposing

   that you had to grow better, or to do some good thing in order to get
   to Christ? Well, then, let me assure you that as free as is the water
   in the drinking-fountain at the street corner, as free as is the air
   which enters into your lungs, so free is the ever-gracious Savior to
   every guilty sinner who will but come and seek a shelter beneath this
   "shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land!"

   Once again, our Lord is like a rock because His shadow is most
   refreshing. I do not know how true they are, but there are some old
   country notions that certain trees give an unhealthy shade. I have been
   sometimes warned not to sit under such-and-such a tree--if I did so, I
   would have a headache and I know not what evil besides! But this I do
   know-- the shadow of Christ never hurts anyone, but uniformly blesses
   in a thousand ways! When a man does but come and rest in Jesus,
   headaches and heartaches, as far as they have to do with moral and
   spiritual disorders, pass away. The believing man realizes that he is
   forgiven and, oh, what a blessed realization is that! Hear him sing--

   "Now, oh joy! My sins are pardoned, Now I can, and do believe!"

   And with that sense of pardoned sin comes a sense of perfect peace with
   God! The forgiven man feels a joy which he never knew before--not the
   wild joy in which he once delighted, which first intoxicated him and
   then left him depressed and heart-broken, but a joy like the course of
   a great river, increasing as it flows, widening and deepening as months
   and years roll on!

   It is a blessed thing to get under the shadow of Christ. I cannot tell
   you all the happiness I have personally felt since I first believed in
   Jesus, many years ago. Amidst many struggles, and wars, and fights, I
   can bear my testimony that there is no life like the life of one who
   trusts in Jesus! There is no happiness this side the grave that is
   comparable with the happiness of living by faith upon the Crucified
   Redeemer! I do but speak what I know to be true when I recommend all
   young people to come beneath the shadow of this Great Rock in the early
   part of their lives, that ever afterwards, even until life's latest
   hour, they may have the shelter which that Rock will surely bring!
   Never did I meet a Christian who repented of having trusted in Christ!
   And never have I heard of one who, in his old age, said that he had
   made a mistake in relying upon Christ as his Savior. Never have I sat
   by the bedside of the dying to receive the recantation of a saint who
   told me that salvation by Grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, was all a deception, all a delusion! But often have these ears
   of mine heard expiring songs as full of melody as the songs of angels,
   and heard declarations of peace and joy from departing Believers that
   have made my heart leap and my eyes flash with joy at the very hearing!
   So much more deep and profound have been the joy of those who uttered
   such words of holy exultation and delight!

   I have just one more observation to make upon this part of our
   subject--our Lord is like "a great rock in a weary land" because,
   though it gives shade to others, that is because it bears the heat of
   the sun itself The rock is the interposing medium between the burning
   sunbeams and the weary traveler. Here is a delightful picture of the
   mediatorial work of Christ. He puts Himself between the wrath of God
   and us. The awful beams that streamed from the meridian sunshine of
   inflexible Justice concentrated all their fierce heat upon Christ and
   because they fell upon Him and were absorbed by Him, He now presents a
   cool and refreshing shade to all who come and trust in Him! Jesus
   suffered that we may not suffer. Jesus died that we may live. He was
   punished in order that we may be forgiven. He was crushed to death
   beneath the heel of Divine Vengeance against sin in order that we may
   be lifted up to Heaven by the hands of Infinite Mercy. Here, then, is
   the Gospel in miniature set before you! You can, in your mind's eye,
   see the Great Rock and its welcome shadow, the sun shining on the rock
   and the traveler protected by the rock. Oh, that all of you who know
   not the Lord Jesus Christ would come to Him now! As you seek a shade
   from the sun when his beams are too hot for you to bear, so seek a
   shelter from the fierce rays of the sun of God's wrath! There is no
   shelter but in Christ, but there is perfect protection in Him. To come
   to Him needs no long pilgrimage, no elaborate ceremonies--you can sit
   in your pew and trust in Jesus. There is life in a single look at Him!
   As soon as you trust in Him--

   "The great transaction's done!" And beneath the shadow of that Rock
   your spirit is secure forever!

   II. But we must now pass on to notice that THERE ARE CERTAIN TIMES WHEN
   OUR LORD, LIKE THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK, IS PECULIARLY REFRESHING.

   Unto them that believe, Jesus is always precious, but there are times
   when He is peculiarly so. This was the case with them when they were
   under conviction of sin. What memories that expression awakens in some
   of us--"conviction of

   sin!" Why, it was to some of us a very martyrdom! I think it would have
   been less painful to have been burned alive at the stake than to have
   passed through those horrors and depressions of spirit which some of us
   passed through while we were seeking pardon, but seeking it in the
   wrong way. When God makes the conscience a target for His sharp arrows.
   When the ten great guns of the Law are all fired at the sinner's soul.
   When shot after shot goes tearing through the man's false peace,
   blowing his self-confidence to pieces and leaving him wounded, mangled
   and maimed. When the man cries out in his agony, "What shal1 I do to
   find salvation? How shall I get rid of sin? God is righteously angry
   with me, how shall I appease His wrath? I fear that Hell will be my
   everlasting portion, how can I escape that awful doom?"--it is then
   that Christ becomes "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
   Sinners will never come to Jesus while they have anything of their own
   to rely upon--so may the lord strip us and bring us down to absolute
   bankruptcy and beggary as far as everything of our own is concerned!
   For then we shall look to Jesus and find everything in Him! So, in the
   time of conviction of sin, when the ten-thonged whip of the Law falls
   upon a man's conscience, Christ is indeed precious!

   So too, dear Friends, in times of trial Believers find the shadow of
   this Great Rock to be most delightful and refreshing. I suppose that
   most of us, if not all, have had our trials. The dear child whom we
   loved so fondly has sickened and died. The husband or the wife, the
   delight of our eyes, has been borne away to the silent tomb. Possibly
   we were slandered by a cruel enemy, or forsaken by a false friend in
   whom we had implicitly trusted. It may be that our house was burned, or
   our business proved a failure and that losses followed on the heels of
   losses like Job's messengers with evil tidings. Yes, but, beloved
   Believer, in all these times of trial you have found Christ to be a
   blessed Comforter! And I will venture to say that the sharper your
   affliction has been, the sweeter has Christ been to you. I wonder how
   some people who have many troubles can get on without Christ? I marvel
   at you, consumptive young woman, and you, hard-working man with a
   growing family, trying to do without the consolations of our blessed
   Savior! I know that some people have the notion that religion is not
   meant for the poorest of the poor, but if there are any people whom it
   suits best, surely it is these! If it does not fill the cupboard, it
   makes the heart content with what it has! If it does not put broadcloth
   on the back, it makes the wearer satisfied with fustian! There is no
   one like Christ for the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the
   sorrowing. He is, indeed, as "the shadow of a great rock in a weary
   land" to all such poor tried souls.

   Let me also remind you that we shall know more about the refreshing
   shade of Christ when we come to die. Not many weeks hence some of us
   must die. When there is such a large number of people gathered
   together, some of them must soon die. But all of us must, before long,
   gather up our feet in the bed and die--

   "Our fathers' God to meet."

   What must it be to die without a Savior? A shiver runs through my frame
   as I think of it. To die without a hope, how sad! But to die trusting
   in Christ, how blessed! I remember standing in the pulpit one sultry
   summer's afternoon, preaching of the joys of Heaven and there was one
   woman's eyes that specially caught mine as I was preaching. I knew not
   why it was, but it seemed to fascinate me. And as I spoke of Heaven,
   she seemed to drink in every word, and her eyes flashed back again the
   thoughts I uttered. She seemed to lead me on to speak more and more of
   the streets of gold and the gates of pearl till, suddenly, her eyes
   appeared to me to be too fixed--and at last it struck me that while I
   had been talking of Heaven, she had gone there. I paused and asked if
   someone in the pew would kindly see whether the friend sitting there
   was not dead and, in a moment, her husband said, "She is dead, Sir." I
   had known her long as a consistent Christian woman and, as I stood
   there, I half wished that I could have changed places with her! There
   was not a sigh, nor a tear. She seemed to drink in the thoughts of
   Heaven and then straightway to go and enjoy it! If such a sudden
   departure is not ours, it will be much like it--we shall close our eyes
   on earth and open them in Heaven beneath the shadow of that Great Rock!
   In Heaven, they sit beneath Christ's shadow, and on earth we will do
   the same. So we will still sing--

   "Where is the shadow of that Rock

   That from the sun defends Your flock?

   Gladly would I feed among Your sheep,

   Among them rest, among them sleep." But, my dear Hearers, what will it
   be to have the shelter of Christ in the Day of Judgment?We can never
   form right ideas of what that Day of Judgment will be--

   "That day of wrath, that dreadful day

   When Heaven and earth shallpass away"--

   and weeping and wailing shall be the prelude to the sitting of the
   Judge upon the Great White Throne! Then, when every eye shall see Him
   and they, also, who pierced Him, it will be a blessed thing to have Him
   as the Rock of Ages to hide us from the wrath of that tremendous day--

   "Day of judgment, day of wonders!

   Hark, the trumpet's awful sound,

   Louder than a thousand thunders,

   Shakes the vast creation round!

   How the summons

   Will the sinner's heart confound!

   See the Judge our nature wearing,

   Clothed in majesty Divine!

   You who long for His appearing,

   Then shall say, 'This God is mine!'

   Gracious Savor!

   Own me in that day for Thine!" III. Now lastly, if these things are so,
   and they are so, WHAT IS OUR BUSINESS?

   Our business is to get under this shadow if we are not already under it
   What is the use of a shadow to those who stand in the blazing sunshine?
   There is many a soul that stands in the sunshine longer than it needs
   and so feels faint and weary. And there are some who have thus got such
   a sunstroke as they will never lose this side of Heaven. I mean that
   they have to go doubting and fearing all their spiritual life because
   they were so long before they trusted in Christ. I know that only the
   Holy Spirit can bring a sinner under this blessed shadow, but how base
   must be the human heart when it will not come and take what Christ so
   freely provides! Why will you die? Why will you perish when you need
   not? There is a shadow--why will you stand in the fierce light of the
   sun? All the bells of Heaven are ringing out, "Come and welcome!" All
   the angels of God are singing, "Come and welcome! Come and welcome!"
   From this open Book, from the Gospel preached by one of God's ministers
   tonight, there sounds this message, "Come and trust in the Incarnate
   Son of God!" I wish I knew how to put it in more melting tones, but it
   needs the Holy Spirit to bring it home to your hearts. Dear trembler,
   waverer, halting between two opinions, you who have so long put off
   coming to Christ, come now! I ask again, why do you continue to stand
   beneath the wrath of God when you need not linger there a moment
   longer?

   "Come to Jesus,

   Come to Jesus, Sinner, come!" And when you have come, take care to tell
   others what you have discovered. Do not let any poor soul be without
   the knowledge of the way of salvation so far as you can tell it. Tell
   to those who are round about you, your experience of the comforts of
   true religion! This is the way to gather jewels for the Redeemer's
   crown. If you find that Christ deceives you, let us know, for, as
   honest men, we would not like to go on telling an idle tale. But if you
   find Him true. If He comforts you, and blesses you, do bear your
   testimony to others, for then, perhaps your child, your wife, your
   brother, your neighbor may come and trust Him too! I will be bound for
   Him that He will reject none of you who come to Him and I will be a
   bondsman for Him for another thing, that if you once have Him as your
   Savior, you will never grow weary of Him! You will say that it was the
   best day that ever dawned upon you when you gave your heart to the
   Crucified Christ, who, on Calvary's Cross, made the one Sacrifice for
   sin forever! Oh, yield your heart to Him! I see Him standing there with
   those pierced hands of His! He knocks softly at your heart's door--

   "Admit Him, for the human breast

   Never entertained so kind a guest

   Admit Him, before His anger burns,

   His feet depart, and never returns!

   Admit Him, or the hour's at hand

   When at His door denied you'll stand." By the love of God in Christ
   Jesus, hold out no longer! Young man, I beseech you by the precious
   blood of Christ, give yourself to Him! Have you done it? Do you trust
   Him wholly? Then, rejoice and sing, you seraphs, and let Heaven be

   glad, for Christ sees the reward of His soul-travail, for a child is
   born in His House tonight that shall live to praise Him, both here and
   throughout eternity!

   May the Lord bless everyone here, and His shall be the glory forever.
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:17-48.

   Verse 17. Think not that I am came to destroy the Law, or the Prophets:
   I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill The life-work and words of
   Christ are not an improvement of the Old Testament, or a doing away of
   it. It stands fast and firm, fulfilled, carried to perfection, filled
   to the fullest in Christ!

   18, 19. For verily Isay unto you, TillHeaven and earth pass away, one
   jot or one tittle shallin no wise pass away from the Law till all is
   fulfilled. Whoever, therefore, shall break one of these least
   commandments, and shall teach men so, he 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. It is vain to teach the
   commandments without first doing them. The doing must always precede
   the teaching. If a man's example cannot be safely followed, it will be
   unsafe to trust his words.

   20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
   righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
   into the Kingdom of Heaven. The scribes and Pharisees were supposed to
   be righteous beyond all others. "No," says Christ, "you must go beyond
   them." They were, after all, superficial, flimsy, pretentious, unreal
   in their righteousness--and we must have a far nobler character than
   they ever attained, or we "shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of
   Heaven."

   21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
   kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.This is
   a proof that Christ did not come to abolish the Law, or to abate its
   demands in any degree whatever.

   22. But I say unto you. Oh, what Divine dignity there is in this
   majestic Person whose ipse dixit i s to shift all the sayings of the
   ages! He claims authority to speak, even though He should contradict
   all the Rabbis and all the learned men that went before Him--"I say
   unto you."

   22. That whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
   danger of the judgment: and whoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
   shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
   shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ here shows us that the
   commandment, "You shall not kill," deals with anger, with angry words,
   with words of cursing, with words of derision--for all these are
   killing things, hurting and wounding things--and the passion of anger
   is forbidden under the command, "You shall not kill." Men have not
   thought so, but it really is so, for he who is angry with his brother
   is a murderer! There is the spirit, the essence of that which leads to
   murder in the passion which breeds malice and revenge. The Law of God
   is spiritual--it touches the emotions, the thoughts, the desires as
   well as the words and actions of men. If I desire ill for a man, I have
   within me that which would desire his death--and what is that, after
   all, but murder in the heart? How strict is this Law, and yet how just
   and right!

   23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
   remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
   gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
   brother, and then come and offer your gift.It is said that in India
   there is a complete divorce of religion from morality, so that a man
   may be supposed to be eminently religious even while living in the
   utmost filthiness and vice. But it must never be so among us. We must
   never imagine that God can accept an offering from us while we harbor
   any enmity in our hearts. Perhaps, after reading this passage, you say,
   "If I had anything against my brother, I would go to him at once, and
   seek to be reconciled to him." That would be quite right, but you must
   go further than that, for Christ says, "If you bring your gift to the
   altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you."
   It is much more easy to go to the man who has wronged you than to the
   one whom you have wronged. Yet the second is evidently the clearer
   duty, and should be attended to at once--neither can we expect the Lord
   to attend to us unless we attend to this duty.

   25, 26. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way
   with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and
   the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison.
   Verily Isay unto you, You shall by no means come out till you have paid
   the uttermost farthing. There is nothing like ending disputes at once,
   before the

   rancor grows and your adversary becomes determined to push you to
   extremes. Oh, for more of that spirit of yielding! You know how people
   say, "If you tread on a worm: it will turn." But, Brothers and Sisters,
   a worm is not an example for a Christian, even if the poor wounded
   creature does turn toward you in its agony. If you turn, turn to kiss
   the hand that smites you, and to do good to them that evilly treat you!

   27, 28. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall
   not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whoever looks on a woman
   to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart
   So that the unholy desire, the lascivious glance, everything that
   approximates towards licentiousness is here condemned--and Christ is
   proved to be not the Destroyer of the Law, but the Confirmer of it! See
   how He shows that the commandment is exceedingly broad, wide as the
   canopy of Heaven, all-embracing. How sternly it condemns us all and how
   well it becomes us to fall down at the feet of the God of Infinite
   Mercy and seek His forgiveness--

   "'Tis mercy--mercy we implore,

   We would Your pity move--

   Your Grace is an exhaustless store,

   And You, Yourself, are Love." 29, 30. And if your right eye offends
   you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you
   that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body
   should be cast into Hell And if your right hand offends you, cut it
   off, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of
   your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast
   into Hell Give up the dearest, choicest and apparently most necessary
   thing if it leads you into sin. The same rule that bids you avoid sin,
   bids you also avoid all that leads to sin. If adultery is forbidden, so
   also is that glance with which the sin usually begins. We are to turn
   away our eyes from beholding that which leads towards sin and we are
   not to touch or taste that which would readily lead us into iniquity.
   Oh, that we had sufficient decision of character to make short work of
   everything which tends towards evil! Many persons, when their right eye
   offends them, put a green shade over it. And when their right hand
   offends them, they tie it up in a sling. But that is not obeying the
   command of Christ. He charges you to get rid of everything that would
   lead you wrong--make a clean sweep of it. You are wrong enough at your
   best, so do not permit anything to appertain to you which would lead
   you still further astray,

   31, 32. It has been said, Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give
   her a writing of divorcement: but Isay unto you, That whoever shall put
   away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication. Which is a
   sufficient and justifiable reason for divorce.

   32. Causes her to commit adultery: and whoever shall marry her that is
   divorced. That is to say, who is divorced without sufficient cause.

   32. Commits adultery.Among the Jews, divorce was the easiest thing in
   the world. A man might, in a pet, utter words which would divorce his
   wife. The Savior abolished that evil once and for all and made divorce
   a crime, as it always is "saving for the cause of fornication."

   33, 34. Again, you have heard that it has been said by them of old
   time, You shall not forswear yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord
   your oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all Christ thus abolishes
   the whole system of swearing, as it ought to be abolished in every
   place. And He goes on to show that He did not mean merely unclean,
   false oaths, or oaths taken as some men take them blasphemously, but
   every form and kind of oath, for He says, "Swear not at

   all."

   34-37. Neither by Heaven; for it is God's Throne: nor by the earth; for
   it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the
   great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, because you cannot
   make one hair white or black But let your communication be, Yes, yes.
   No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil If words mean
   anything, this command of Christ is an utter abolishment of oaths taken
   before magistrates as well as everywhere else. I can make nothing else
   out of it--indeed, it must mean that because Christ contrasts His
   teaching with that of former ages--"It has been said by them of old
   time, You shall not forswear yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord
   your oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all." A man who cannot be
   believed upon his word, certainly cannot be believed upon his oath and,
   usually, when a man tells a lie, the next thing he does is swear to it.
   When Peter denied his Master, the next thing he did was to curse and to
   swear, because he thought it likely that they would not imagine that he
   was a follower of Christ if

   he did curse and swear. So he gave that as a pretty clear proof that he
   had not been with Christ and was not one of His disciples. Alas, that
   we should need anything beside "Yes, yes," and, "No, no!"

   38-43. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a
   tooth for a tooth: but Isay unto you, That you resist not evil: but
   whoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other
   also. And ifany man will sue you at the Law, and take away your coat,
   let him have your cloak also. And whoever shall compel you to go a
   mile, go with him two. Give to him that asks you, and from him that
   would borrow of you turn not you away. You have heard that it has been
   said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. There are many
   who do the second of those two things, but not the first.

   44, 45. But Isay unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse
   you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
   despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children
   of your Father which is in Heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the
   evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust God
   constantly does that which many people regard almost as a crime,
   namely, doing good to the undeserving. It is the very genius of
   Christianity to help those who are utterly unworthy--to be kind and
   generous even to those who are pretty certain to repay us with
   ingratitude and malice.

   46-48. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do
   not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only,
   what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be you
   therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect
   Stretch towards the highest conceivable standard and be not satisfied
   till you reach it.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--708, 808.
     __________________________________________________________________

Why Christ Is Not Esteemed

   (No. 3033)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT MAZE POND CHAPEL, LONDON

   "We esteemed Him not." Isaiah 53:3.

   This must be the universal confession of the human race. From the
   highest monarch to the meanest peasant, from the loftiest intellect to
   the most degraded mind, from the admired of all men to the unknown and
   insignificant, this one confession must come--"We esteemed Him not."
   Whether we examine the sensualist rioting in the delights of the flesh
   or the formalist starving his body to fatten his pride, the merchant
   laboring to acquire wealth or the spendthrift recklessly scattering
   gold with both his hands, the profligate black with profanity, the
   moralist rejoicing in his goodness, or even the devoted Christian, we
   shall make them all acknowledge that either now or at some past period,
   they esteemed not Jesus! We make no exception, for even the holiest of
   God's saints, those who now are--

   "Foremost of the sons of light, Nearest the eternal Throne"-- those who
   have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
   Lamb--even they once "esteemed Him not." And the brightest saints still
   upon the earth, those who are most earnestly and faithfully serving the
   Savior, at one time "esteemed Him not." I am going, first, to prove
   that this was true. Next, to dive deeper and try to find out the
   reasons why we esteemednot Jesus. And, afterwards, I want to remind you
   ofthe emotions which this fact ought to create in our minds--the fact
   that at one time--and in the case of many of us it was true not many
   years ago that "we esteemed Him

   not."

   I. First, then, I have TO PROVE THAT THIS WAS TRUE.

   Look, then, my Friends, first, at the overt acts of your transgression
   against the Lord Jesus Christ Go back in imagination to the scenes of
   your youth and recollect your former transgressions. Some of you have
   your heads covered with the snows of many a winter and you have been
   for 40 or 50 years wearing the harness of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.
   You have fought the good fight ever since you enlisted under the
   blood-stained banner of the Cross, yet you can never forget some things
   that happened before that happy day when you first sang from your
   heart--

   "'Tis done! The great transaction's done-- I am my Lord's, and He is
   mine." It might not be profitable to mention in detail those sins of
   long ago, yet some of you have a very vivid remembrance of them and,
   although the Lord has graciously forgiven them and blotted them out of
   His Book of Remembrance, your own conscience will not let you forget
   them.

   There are others of you who were, either by your early associations, or
   by the restraints of Sovereign Grace, kept from openly sinning against
   God as many others did, yet you know that your lives were not in
   accordance with the Law of God. You were, in comparison with many of
   your fellows, moral, upright, amiable, yet, as far as Christ was
   concerned, you "esteemed Him not." Your friends and companions could
   find no fault with your character, but you know, now, that all the
   while there was a fatal flaw which was plainly manifest to the eyes of
   God. In the case of some, the apparent excellence was all on the
   surface, but, underneath there was a mass of rottenness and sin of
   which they can only think now with shame and sorrow. That, too, has all
   been forgiven and forgotten by God--yet it lingers in their own
   remembrance in a most salutary fashion, for it makes them hate all
   forms of iniquity and turn from them with utter loathing.

   Besides the overt acts of sin which some of you committed--and the less
   public but none the less deadly evils of which others of you were
   guilty--there was further evidence that you did not esteem Christ in
   the fact that you did not esteem His Word as you should have done.
   Possible, just to quiet your conscience, you read a chapter from it in
   the morning and another in the evening, or you listened to it while
   your parents read it at family prayer. But how dull and dry it seemed
   to you! You could revel in a novel and be completely fascinated with
   fiction, but the Inspired Truth of God was a weariness and a burden to
   you. I must honestly confess that before I knew the Lord, or was
   seriously seeking Him, although I found the historical parts of the
   Bible interesting, a great portion of the Scriptures appeared to me to
   be dull and meaningless. As for anyone reading the Word as a treat, I
   could no more understand how that could be done than a blind man could
   appreciate the beauties of the scenery that could be discerned by
   sightseers on the top of a mountain! I might perhaps be mentally
   charmed by some beautiful passages in the Bible, but as to its hidden
   spiritual meaning, I had no true perception. If I were sick and in fear
   lest I was about to die, down would come my Bible and I would read it
   diligently for a while! But as for taking it as my everyday
   companion--that idea never occurred to me until the Holy Spirit began
   to work conviction in my heart. And then I was glad enough to turn to
   the neglected Book to find an answer to the all-important question,
   "What must I do to be saved?" If you, my Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, could each one relate your own experience, I expect you would,
   many of you, have to join with me in saying, "We esteemed Him not, for
   we did not hold in proper esteem the Sacred Scriptures in which He had
   been revealed to us."

   many privileges, in this enlightened age--and some of whom even profess
   and call themselves Christians! Instead of bowing down to blocks of
   wood and stone, or worshipping the sun, moon and all the host of
   heavenly bodies, they are worse heathens than even you are, for they
   prostrate themselves before themselvesand adore their own merits, their
   own good deeds, their own charity, and so on! Christian, was not this
   the reason why you did not esteem Christ--because self was everything
   to you in the days of your unregeneracy? If anyone had then told you
   that your heart was corrupt to its very core, what would you have
   replied? You would have answered, "I feel that I am as good as anyone
   else whom I know and better than most of those I see around me." If you
   had been informed that all your good works were but varnished sins and
   that the very best of them were foul and full of faults, would not your
   blood have boiled with indignation? Or if someone had told you that
   your best righteousness was only like a heap of filthy rags, fit for
   nothing but to be burned, you would surely have replied, "I have a
   righteousness of which I have no reason to be ashamed. And although I
   do not say that it is perfect, yet I hope I shall have as good a chance
   of standing before God's Throne as anybody else will have."

   "Such were some of you" and, as long as you thus highly esteemed
   yourselves, of course you did not esteem the Lord Jesus Christ! Does
   the man who is in perfect health esteem the physician? If all were
   always well, who would care for the doctors? Would they not laugh them
   to scorn? Does the man who is rich hold in high esteem the one who
   would give him alms? "No," he says, "give your alms to those who need
   them. I do not require them." Will a man who has the proper use of his
   limbs care for crutches? "No," he says, "hand them over to the lame. I
   have no need of them." In like manner, we did not esteem Christ because
   we felt that we had no need of Him. We thought that we could do very
   well without Him, at least for the present. There might come a time
   when He might be able to give us a lift over a fence, or if we came to
   a muddy place in the road, He might be willing to lay His cloak down
   for us to step on so that we might not soil our feet. But as for the
   rest of our journey, we thought we could get on very well by ourselves,
   though we might be glad for Christ to help us into Heaven at the last.
   Perhaps no one of us would have put the matter quite so plainly as I
   have done, but that would have been the practical effect of our
   self-esteem--and that is why we did not esteem Christ, for self-love
   had completely engrossed our hearts. Self and the Savior can never live
   in one heart. He will have all, or none. So, where self is on the
   throne, it cannot be expected that Christ should meekly come and sit
   upon the footstool.

   Another reason why we esteemed not Jesus was because we esteemed the
   world so highly. We were like the man of whom John Bunyan tells us, who
   was quite willing that others should have the joys of the world to come
   so long as he could have all that he wanted in the present life. The
   worldling still says, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,"
   and to him this present evil world is the bird in the hand--and he
   thinks of all the bliss of Heaven as though it were but a bird in the
   bush. "Let me live while I live," he says, "and have all the happiness
   that I can here. And let them have the next world who can win it." With
   some of us, it is not very long ago since we also talked like that--and
   scorned the glories that are everlasting! And we put far away from us
   Jesus Christ and His great salvation. "We esteemed Him not" because we
   loved the earth and all its follies, because we were so busy gathering
   its poisoned dust into heaps, or delighting ourselves in its
   unsatisfying pleasures. It is not until the rope is cast loose that the
   balloon can soar above the clouds--and it is not until the cord that
   binds us to the things of this earth has been cut that our soul can
   hope to mount towards the things which are unseen and eternal! Until we
   have been weaned from the world, we shall never esteem Jesus as the
   chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One in whom is all our
   delight!

   A third reason why we did not esteem Christ was because we did not know
   Him. It is true that we knew a great deal aboutHim, but we did not know
   HIM. We had read what the Evangelists had recorded concerning Him. We
   knew much concerning His doctrines. Perhaps we had even tried to keep
   some of His precepts, yet we did not personally and savingly know Him.
   There is a great distinction between knowing about Christ and knowing
   Christ Himself--between knowing what He did and knowing Who and what He
   is--really knowing Him in the sense in which He used that expression
   when He said, in His great intercessory prayer to His Father, "This is
   life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus
   Christ whom You have sent." Yet it is only through Him, by the
   Infallible instruction of His ever-blessed Spirit, that we can thus
   know Him! As the Apostle John writes, "We know that the Son of God is
   come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is
   true, and we are in Him who is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This
   is the true God and eternal life." The poet was right when he wrote--

   "His worth, if all the nations knew, Surely the whole world would love
   Him too."

   And Rutherford said, "Surely, my Lord, if the whole world could see
   You, the whole world must love You. If You would but open only one of
   Your eyes and look upon them, they must run unto You, ravished with
   delight, for You are so fair, my precious Jesus, that You only need to
   be seen to be loved." But the worldling has never seen Christ, so he
   does not know Christ and does not love Christ! Ah, poor worldling! If
   you had but seen my lord as I saw Him in the hour when He said to me,
   "I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake,
   and I will not remember your sins"--if you could, with the ear of
   faith, have heard that Divine declaration, sweeter even than the music
   of the harps of Heaven--in a single moment you would have loved the
   Lord Jesus with such an ardent passion that the bonds of life would
   scarcely have been strong enough to keep you in this clay tenement, but
   you would have longed to fly away and be with your beloved Lord
   forever! And, Worldling, could you have such a visit from Jesus as, now
   and then, the Believer is privileged to have--if you could experience
   but five minutes of the bliss that a Christian has, "Whether in the
   body, I cannot tell. Or whether out of the body, I cannot tell. God
   knows"--if you could thus be "caught up to the third Heaven" and hear
   unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter. If you
   could once behold our blessed Savior, you would be compelled to love
   Him, for He is so lovely, so gracious, so glorious that you could not
   any longer think unkindly of Him! Those who think wrongly of Christ
   have never known Him. And we who do know Him, confess with shame that
   the reason why, for so long "we esteemed Him not," was because we then
   knew Him not.

   The last reason I will mention is the very core of all the other
   reasons. There need be no surprise that we did not esteem Christ, for
   we were spiritually dead. I will suppose that there sits, away yonder,
   a man over whom I want to exert a certain influence. I will further
   imagine that I am a skillful musician and that I touch the strings of
   my harp in such a manner as to bring forth the most delightful melody,
   yet the man takes no notice whatever of it. Then I turn to an
   instrument of quite another sort--a cornet or a bugle--and blow a blast
   that startles all of you--yet that one man still gives no heed to the
   sound! Why is it that, charm we ever so wisely, he is like the deaf
   adder and regards neither the sweetest nor the shrillest or loudest
   noise? I try to attract his attention in another way. I place before
   him the daintiest dish that the cleverest cook in all England can
   prepare, or I bring some rare delicacy from a distant land--but he
   regards the food no more than he did the music. I will try another plan
   to reach his senses. I will bring Him--

   "The choicest flowers that were ever grown Since Eden's joys were
   blasted." I will hold them close to his face and let their fragrance
   ascend to his nostrils. Yet he heeds not! What will awake him? Let
   Heaven's thunder peals roll like the drums in the march of some mighty
   war-lord, but the man moves not. Let the lightning flash all around us
   till it seems as though the end of the world had come, but the man
   stirs not. What shall I do to awake him? Shall I beat him with a whip,
   or strike him with a sword? All is in vain and, at last, I perceive
   that the man is dead and that all my efforts have been wasted! Now the
   riddle is solved, the secret revealed, the knot untied--the man is
   dead. And so I wonder no longer that he esteemed not music, or food, or
   flowers. Or that he feared not thunder, lightning, or the sword. And,
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, though the Holy Spirit has quickened
   us, there was a time when we were "dead in trespasses and sins" and,
   like Lazarus in his grave, we were becoming more and more corrupt as
   every moment passed!

   III. Now, having proved the Truth of the text, and given you various
   reasons why we did not esteem Christ, let me, in conclusion, ask WHAT
   EMOTIONS OUGHT THIS FACT TO CREATE WITHIN OUR SOULS?

   First, I think that the recollection of this Truth of God, that "we
   esteemed Him not," ought to produce in us the deepest penitence. I
   cannot understand that Christian who can look back upon his past life
   without a tear. If he can turn to the black pages of his history, which
   not only have no record of goodness, but are full of entries concerning
   his sins against his present Lord and Master, and yet not weep at the
   remembrance of them, surely he can never have learned the true nature
   of sin! O Christian, it would be becoming on your part to catch the
   spirit, if not literally to imitate the action of that "woman in the
   city, who was a sinner," of whom we read that, "when she knew that
   Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house," she, "brought an alabaster
   box of ointment and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to
   wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head,
   and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment." Our Lord's
   explanation of her conduct was that "she loved much." Is it because you
   love your Lord so little that you do not manifest your grief over your
   past sin as that poor woman did? Recollect that although you did not
   esteem Him, He had loved you with an everlasting love and He had
   purchased your soul's redemption at the great price of

   His own most precious blood! He stood before you, holding in His
   pierced hands the roll of the Eternal Covenant which set your soul at
   liberty and gave you a full discharge! Yet you did not esteem Him. O
   Christian, will you not weep even at the remembrance of the way in
   which you did treat the best Friend you have ever had? Recollect that
   you did virtually nail Him to the tree and pierce Him to the heart. Dr.
   Watts spoke for all Believers when he wrote the self-condemning words--

   "'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins, His chief tormentors were! Each of
   my crimes became a nail, And unbelief the spear. 'Twasyou that pulled
   the vengeance down Upon His guiltless head-- Break, break, my heart, oh
   burst my eyes! And let my sorrows bleed."

   And now, beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, having for a while
   allowed our penitential sorrow thus to find suitable expression, let us
   strike a higher note and, remembering that there was a time when we did
   not esteem Christ, let us now rejoice in the great salvation which He
   has procured for us. It is true that we have great reason for sorrow
   that we should ever have been so vile as not to esteem Him to whom we
   owe everything for time and for eternity. Yet we have much more reason
   to adore the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of that love of
   Christ which passes knowledge and which carried out to completion the
   wondrous plan whereby all our iniquities have been blotted out and we
   have become "accepted in the Beloved!" It was right that we should weep
   at the remembrance that we were numbered among the fallen, yet it is
   equally right that we should rejoice over the fact that we have been
   reclaimed! And what should be the very key-note of our song of
   rejoicing? Should it not be the Sovereign Grace of God? The reason why
   the Lord chose us unto salvation was certainly not because we esteemed
   His Son, Jesus Christ, more than others did, for, "we esteemed Him
   not." If you ask me why God chose His people, I can only answer that it
   is for the same reason that Christ gave concerning the things that were
   hidden from the wise and prudent, but revealed unto babes, "Even so,
   Father: for so it seemed good in Your sight."

   There is one other emotion which every true Christian should feel--that
   is hope for his fellows. If I feel sorrow for my sin and joy for my
   deliverance, I ought also to have hope for other people! Perhaps
   someone here is saying, "I have brought my son to the House of Prayer
   time after time and I used to hope that God would have mercy upon him,
   but now I have given up all hope." Stop, my Brother! Do not talk like
   that! Do you not remember the time when it might have been said,
   concerning you and me, that we did not esteem Christ and, although your
   son does not now esteem Him, is that any reason why he should not yet
   do so? On the contrary, is not the manifestation of Divine Grace in
   your own case an encouragement to you in hoping for your son's
   conversion?

   "Oh," says another venerable father, "I have long prayed in vain for
   one of my children. These hands, which are now palsied with age, have
   been lifted up year after year to the God of Grace, but I have lost all
   hope of my child's salvation." But, my hoary-headed Friend, think not
   that your prayers have failed, even though they still remain
   unanswered! They are all filed in Heaven and when the required number
   shall be complete, when that petition which God has determined shall be
   the "effectual" one shall be presented, your child shall be saved! But
   why should you despair concerning your dear one? You know that for many
   years you did not esteem Christ, yet He is "altogether lovely" to you
   now! Then why should not your experience be repeated in the case of
   your child?

   "Ah," says another, "I live in such-and-such a district among many of
   the worst people in London. I have tried to bring them under the sound
   of the Word of God, but cannot induce even one of them to come! I feel
   as if I must give up even hoping for their salvation. They seem to me
   to be too bad to ever be saved." But, my dear Friend, you and I at one
   time did not esteem Christ--and if we really know what was in our own
   hearts, we shall say that these people are not much worse than we were!
   Yet suppose they areas bad as you think they are--remember that
   striking saying of Whitefield's--"Jesus Christ is willing to receive
   the devil's castaways." A very fastidious lady who heard that he said
   that, complained to the Countess of Huntingdon and said how sad it was
   that he should talk in such a vulgar way! The Countess said, "Mr.
   Whitefield is downstairs. I will send for him and let him answer for
   himself." When he came up and

   heard the lady's remark, he simply replied, "I had just been talking to
   a poor, sinful woman who had been to hear me preach, and the one thing
   that comforted her was the sentence to which this lady objects, 'Jesus
   Christ is willing to receive the devil's castaways.'" "Ah," said Lady
   Huntingdon and others who agreed with her, "That is quite sufficient
   justification for you."

   I can testify from my own experience that God often blesses some of our
   rough expressions more than our highly-polished ones. I have seen so
   many souls saved through some of the odd and singular sayings that I
   have felt moved to utter that I intend, God helping me, to go on in the
   same style, even though some people may continue to find fault with me
   for doing so. I can certainly endorse Mr. Whitefield's remark, "Jesus
   Christ is willing to receive the devil's castaways." However vile and
   foul a sinner may be, I always feel, "That is just what I would have
   been but for the Grace of God." Therefore, instead of imitating the
   priest and the Levite who left the poor wounded traveler to die so far
   as they cared, I feel anxious to go to the very worst of my fellow men
   and to say to them, "Why, my dear Brother, there was a time when I did
   not esteem Christ, so I will not be angry with you because you say that
   you are not religious. I will not scold you because you do not read the
   Bible, or pray to God, or go to a place of worship. But I will try to
   win your esteem for my Master by telling you of His great love to
   sinners just like you. Though He was reigning with His Father in
   Heaven, He gave up all His Glory and came down to earth to live just as
   any other poor man might have lived, only that He was without sin. He
   went about doing good, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising
   the dead and, at last, He willingly gave Himself up into the hands of
   wicked men and died, 'the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us
   to

   God.'"

   So I would try to make the Gospel very plain to my poor friend and tell
   him what the Lord had done for mysoul-- and assure him that, having
   saved me, there was no limit to His Grace and mercy! I always admire
   the argument of Charles Wesley in those familiar lines--

   "His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me."

   That was the same kind of argument that Paul used when he wrote, "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. Howbeit for
   this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show
   forth all long-suffering, for the pattern to them which should
   hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." Christian men and women,
   as you retire from this building, I leave these thoughts with you. At
   one time you did not esteem Christ, so now you have no right to be
   proud of your position as His followers, but should give to Him all the
   glory for your salvation! And you should hope for the salvation of
   others, even the very worst of your fellow creatures--

   "While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."

   You may go to the very worst haunts of sin and vice in this city or
   anywhere else and, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit, you may
   proclaim the Gospel of Christ to be the most abandoned men and women
   whom you can find, knowing that He is able "to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make
   intercession for

   them."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW26:14-45.

   Verse 14, 15. Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went unto
   the chief priests and said unto them, What will you give me, and I will
   deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of
   silver At what a price did the traitor sell our blessed Master! O you
   who have been redeemed with His precious blood, set a high value upon
   Him! Think much of Him, say much in praise of Him! Remember these
   thirty pieces of silver and never be guilty of despising the Lord of
   Glory, as these chief priests did when they paid the price of a slave
   for Him.

   16-19. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him. Now the
   first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus,
   saying unto Him, Where will You that we prepare for You to eat the
   Passover? And He said, go into the city to such a man, and say unto
   him, The Master says, My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at
   your house with My disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had
   appointed them; and they made ready the Passover. See the

   absolute control which Jesus has over the minds of men! He can have any
   man's house that He wants and He knows who will be glad to welcome Him.
   Yet this same Jesus was about to die--and this shows how perfectly
   voluntary was His Sacrifice. He was not forced to stand in our place,
   nor was He compelled to suffer except by the constraint of His own
   great love. All was free, as became the freedom of His Grace. Then
   shall not our heart's love flow out freely to Him? Shall we need to be
   scourged to obedience? Oh, no, Beloved! So let us think what we can
   voluntarily do in honor of our Divine Lord who gave His all for us.

   20-22. Now when the evening was come, He sat down with the twelve. And
   as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall
   betray Me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, And well might they be
   sad.

   22. And began, every one of them, to say unto Him, Lord, is it I?What
   anguish does that question always stir within the heart and mind of
   every true Believer! "Shall I ever betray my Lord and Master? Shall I
   ever deny or forsake Him?" God grant that none of us may ever do as
   Judas did!

   23. And He answered and said, He that dips His hand with Me in the
   dish, the same shall betray Me. He who had been entrusted with the
   charge of the finances of the little band of Christ's immediate
   disciples--he who carried the bag--was the one who was about to betray
   his Lord. Since then, Christ has often been betrayed by those who have
   been in positions of trust, those who have led the way among the
   disciples of Christ, those who have, as it were, been so familiar with
   Christ as to dip their hand with Him in the dish!

   24. 25. 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 hadnot been born. Then Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said,
   Master, is it I? He said unto him, You have said.Judas seems to have
   been the last to ask the question, "Master, is it I?" Yet he was the
   guilty one--the one who had already covenanted with the chief priests
   to sell His Lord.

   26-31. And as they were eating, 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 give it to them,
   saying, Drink you all of it; for this is My blood of the new testament,
   which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I
   will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when
   I drink it new with you in My Father's Kingdom. And when they had sung
   a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then said Jesus unto
   them, All you shall be made to stumble because of Me this night for it
   is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall
   be scattered abroad. Observe our blessed Lord's habit of quoting
   Scripture. He was able to utter words of Infallible Truth which had
   never before been used, yet He constantly quoted from the Inspired
   Scriptures! Those who nowadays quibble at the Word of God and yet
   profess to be followers of Christ, find no excuse for their conduct in
   the example that He has left us, for He sometimes quoted Scripture when
   it might not have seemed to be necessary to do so! Brothers and Sisters
   in Christ, have your Bible first in your hearts, then at the tip of
   your tongue. I was going to say at your fingertips, so that you may
   always be able to give a good reason--a solid and
   divinely-authoritative reason--for any statement that you may make!

   32, 33. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.
   Peter answered and said unto Him, Though all men shall be made to
   stumble because of You, yet will I never be made to stumble.No doubt
   Peter said this from his heart, but "the heart is deceitful above all
   things." Peter may have thought that he was stronger than his brethren,
   yet he was the very one who proved to be the weakest of the whole
   Apostolic band! "Though all men shall be made to stumble because of
   You, yet will I never be made to stumble."

   34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, That this night, before
   the cock crow. That is to say, before that period of time which was
   called the cock-crowing.

   34. You shall deny Me thrice. According to Mrk'srecord, the cock was to
   crow once before Peter had denied his Lord thrice, and this it did. And
   when he had given his third denial, it crowed a second time. And then
   his slumbering conscience was awakened and, "He went out and wept
   bitterly." Some persons who are well acquainted with the religious
   ceremonies of the Jews, say that the period called the cock-crowing was
   the time for the sacrifice of the morning lamb, and that it was about
   that time that Peter denied his Lord.

   35. Peter said unto Him, Though I should die with You, yet will I not
   deny You. It is a great pity that Peter said this after he had received
   so plain a warning from his Master, yet he was not alone in his
   boasting.

   35. Likewise also said all the disciples. They all felt quite sure that
   under no circumstances could they be so base as to forsake their Lord.
   And if you think of the washing of their feet by their Lord and Master,
   the wonderful words of Christ to which they had listened and that
   solemn Communion Service in the large upper room, you may not be
   surprised that they felt themselves bound to Christ forever--felt that
   they could never leave Him, nor forsake Him! Yet they all did.

   36-39. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said
   to His disciples, Sit you here, while I go and pray yonder. And He took
   with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful
   and very heavy. Then said He unto them, My soul is exceedingly
   sorrowful, even unto death; tarry you here, and watch with Me. And He
   went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My
   Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not
   as I will, but as You will. Christ had to tread the winepress alone,
   yet He showed how complete was His Humanity by wishing to have a few
   choice friends near at hand. Yet even the chosen three failed Him in
   His hour of greatest need.

   40. And He came unto the disciples, and found them asleep, and said
   unto Peter, What? Could you not watch with Me one hour? Peter had
   constituted himself the spokesman of the Apostolic company, so the
   Master addressed the question to him, though it also applied to his
   companions--"What? Could you not watch with Me one hour?" They had all
   declared their devotion to Him, yet they had fallen asleep while He had
   bid them watch.

   41-45. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit
   indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second
   time, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away
   from Me, except I drink it, Your will be done. And He came and found
   them asleep again; for their eyes were heavy. And He left them, and
   went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then
   He came to His disciples, and said unto them, Sleep on now, and take
   your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed
   into the hands of sinners.
     __________________________________________________________________

Reasons for Seeking God

   (No. 3034)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Seek Him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of
   death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls
   for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the
   earth: The Lord is His name." Amos 5:8.

   IDOLATRY has been, in every age, the besetting sin of mankind. In some
   form or another, the unregenerate are all given to it and even in God's
   people there remains in their old nature, a tendency towards it.

   In its grosser manifestation, idolatry is the desire of man to see God
   with his eyes, to have outward representation of Him who cannot be
   represented, who is too great, too spiritual to ever be described by
   human language, much less to be set forth by images of wood and stone,
   however elaborately carved and cunningly overlaid with gold! There is a
   great God who fills all space and yet is greater than space--whose
   existence is without beginning and without end, who is everywhere
   present and universally self-existent! But man is so unspiritual that
   he will not worship this Invisible One in spirit and in truth, but
   craves after outward similitudes, symbols and signs. If Aaron makes a
   calf, Israel forgets the Divine Jehovah's Glory and says of the image
   of an ox that eats grass, "These are your gods, O Israel, which brought
   you up out of the land of Egypt."

   We are apt to imagine that it is a very strange freak of human
   depravity when men are led to worship visible objects and signs, but it
   is not at all unusual or singular! It is the general sin of all
   mankind. I suppose no man has been entirely free from it and every
   Believer has to contend against it in its subtler forms, for idolatry
   takes insinuating shapes, less gross in appearance than the worship of
   Dagon or Ashtaroth, but quite as sinful.

   Take, for instance, the common religious idolatry of our own country
   which consists, in part, of reverence to holy places, as if under the
   Christian dispensation, which is not one of type, but of fact, holiness
   could dwell in stone, lime, wood, slate, iron and brass when
   architecturally arranged! English idolatry further reveals itself in
   reverence to an order of men, not because of their superior character,
   but because of certain mystic rites performed upon them, by virtue of
   which they are supposed to become the representatives of Heaven and the
   reservoirs of Divine Grace. How trustful are our English idolaters in
   these men when they behold them appareled in vestments which the tailor
   has cut into fashions remarkably helpful to devotion! Without these
   priests and their sumptuous adorning and grotesque disfigurements, our
   modern idolaters cannot publicly worship--but in these they have as
   much as the Ephesians had in their great goddess Diana!

   They can only worship their god by objects which appeal to the senses.
   An outward altar, an outward priest, an outward ritual, outward
   rites--all these are nothing but another form of the old idolatry of
   Babel and of Bethel! Man still turns from the unseen God. The unseen
   Priest who has passed within the veil, man still ignores. The
   spiritualfeast upon the body and blood of Jesus Christ which is the joy
   of the saints, they know not! But the outward emblems are adored by
   some and held in great reverence by others. Bread and wine, which are
   but created and common things, even when placed on the table to assist
   us in Communion, are made into deities by the blind idolaters of this
   age! Could Egypt or Assyria do worse? Bread used at the ordinance is
   but bread and nothing other than ordinary bread. Its emblematic use
   imparts to it no measure or degree of sanctity, much less of Divinity!
   It is idolatry--flat, groveling idolatry--and nothing less, which on
   all sides is spreading its mantle of darkness over this land under the
   pretense of profoundly reverent piety!

   Where Ritualism does not reign, how easy it is for men to be idolaters
   of themselves! What is self-reliance, understood as too many understand
   it, but idolatry of self? It is the opposite of dependence upon the
   living God, the

   great Source of power and wisdom. Reliance upon my own wisdom, upon my
   own resolution, upon my own strength of mind--these are idolatries in a
   subtle and attractive shape. What is much of our overweening affection
   to our children and to our relatives? What is our unsubmissive repining
   but idolatry? How is it that we rebel against God if our friends are
   suddenly taken from us? O man, why is it that your God has so little of
   your love and the creature so much? There is a lawful affection--up to
   that point you should go. There is an unlawful affection when, by any
   means, the creature comes before the Creator--to this you may not
   descend! Unlawful love, love which idolizes its object, is to be
   avoided with all our might!

   Then, again, perhaps a less excusable form of idolatry, though no
   excuse is to be offered for any, is that in which men idolize their
   estates and their confidence in their accumulations--living only to
   acquire wealth and position-- struggling in the race--not to win the
   crown which is immortal--but that poor wreath with which men crown the
   wealthy merchant, the diligent student, the eloquent barrister, the
   valiant men of arms! This is idolatry, again, for it is setting up an
   earthly object in the place of the Creator. To God is due all my love,
   my trust, my fear. He made me and, therefore, I am bound to serve
   Him--and whenever I lay down at the feet of any person or object,
   dominion over my powers, apart from God, I am at once guilty of
   idolatry!

   I cannot stay to tell you all the various form which this idolatry
   assumes, but may God give us Grace to strive against them. And you who
   are still held captive by these idolatries, may He deliver! May He save
   you from leaning upon an arm of flesh, from trusting in what may be
   seen and handled, and bring you to rely upon the Invisible God to whom
   alone belongs power and strength, and who has a right to our confidence
   and our service!

   The text is addressed to those who have been guilty, either in word, or
   thought, or deed, of idolatry against God. It gives arguments to
   persuade them to turn away from everything else and to seek the true
   God. We shall read the text, first, in its natural sense and then,
   diving into its meaning a little more deeply, we shall find spiritual
   reasons in it for seeking Jehovah, and Jehovah alone.

   I. First, then, IN THE NATURAL SENSE OF THE TEXT, we find a Truth of
   God which is plain enough, but which we need to constantly be reminded
   of, namely, that Jehovah is really God. If Jehovah were not really the
   Creator of the world, if He did not in very deed make "the seven stars
   and Orion," if He did not actually work in the operations of
   Providence, changing the night into day, and day again into night, we
   might be excused for not rendering Him service since homage might be
   safely withheld from an imaginary deity.

   But, as God is real and exists as truly as we do, as our existence is
   dependent upon His Sovereign will and He is All-in-All, it is due to
   Him that we should "seek His face." And simple as that utterance is, I
   have need to push it home to you. I am afraid, dear Friends, that many
   of you think of religion in its bearing towards God as being a very
   proper, but at the same time, imaginative, matter. You do not
   practically grasp the thought that God Is and that He is the Rewarder
   of them that diligently seek Him. You do not lay hold upon the fact
   that as surely as there are fellow creatures round about you, there is
   a God close to you in whom you live, and move, and have your being. The
   worldly man puts his foot down on the earth and he says, "This is the
   main chance. I believe in this." He takes up certain fragments of that
   earth, yellow and glittering, and he says, "Ah, I believe in this. Here
   is something solid and I feel it." Just so, the created earth is real
   to him and God, who created all things, is to him but a shadowy being!
   He may not rudely deny His existence, but practically, he reduces his
   thought of God to a mere fancy and says in his heart, "No God." My
   attentive Hearer, I trust that you are not so unwise! You know that God
   Is, that He Is even if we are not, that He fills all things and that He
   dwells everywhere--and since He is the Creator, the First and Chief of
   all things, I trust you are anxious to seek Him and to yield your
   obedience to Him!

   Note from the text that God is not only the true God, but He is the
   glorious God. I cannot understand how the heathen, supposing their gods
   had been gods, could worship such little, mean, base and contemptible
   beings! Think of Jove, for instance, the great god of Rome and
   Greece--what a disgusting animal he was! What a monster of sensuality,
   selfishness and folly! I should feel it hard, as a creature, to worship
   such a god as that, if he could be a god. But when I think of Him who
   made "the seven stars and Orion," who stretched out the heavens like a
   curtain and made the sky as a molten mirror--who is magnificent in the
   acts of Creation, marvelous in the wonders of Grace and unsearchable in
   all the attributes of His Nature, my soul feels it to be her honor and
   delight to adore Him! It is an elevation to the soul to stoop to the
   dust before such a God! The more we reverence Him and the less we
   become in our own sight, the more

   sublime are our emotions. Well did even a heathen say, "To serve God is
   to reign." To serve such a God as ours is to be made kings and priests!
   Oh, were not our hearts perverted and depraved, it would be our
   greatest happiness, our highest rapture to sound forth the praises of a
   God so glorious! And our hearts would be always enquiring of Him,
   "Lord, what will You have me do? Your will is wiser and better than my
   own will. I ask no greater liberty than to be bound with Your bands of
   love! I ask no greater ease than to bear Your blessed yoke."

   Since, then, the Lord is real and, moreover, so glorious as to be
   infinitely worthy of worship, we should seek Him and live.

   Again, Jehovah the true God, is most powerful for He "makes the seven
   stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and
   makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea,
   and pours them out upon the face of the earth: Jehovah is His name."
   Think reverently of Him, for He is not like the gods of the heathen, of
   whom the Psalmist said in satire, "Their idols are silver and gold, the
   work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have
   they, but they see not: they have ears, but they hear not; noses have
   they, but they smell not: they have hands, but they handle not: feet
   have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat."
   Contempt and ridicule are poured upon these wooden gods by the Prophet
   Isaiah when he tells of the workman who takes one end of a log and
   makes a god of it--and with the other part kindles a fire and warms his
   hands and cooks his food. Such a god as this it is indeed a degradation
   for the human mind to worship! But the true God, who has displayed His
   power in the glittering firmament and in the foaming sea, who is
   revealed with wonder to the eyes of the astronomer in the innumerable
   worlds revolving in boundless space--such a God we must reverence. In
   the hour of storm and tempest, when the Lord is abroad, riding in His
   chariot of thunder-cloud upon wings of the wind, casting forth His
   hailstones and coals of fire, making the earth shake at the sound of
   His voice and breaking the cedars of Lebanon with the flash of His
   spear, we feel we must adore Him! And as we bow before Him, reason
   endorses the worship which Grace suggests. Is not His power a cogent
   argument for seeking Him? Will not you who have hitherto lived without
   Him, now adore Him? A real God, so glorious and so powerful, should
   surely command your reverent adoration!

   Further, He is a God who works great marvels, achieving wonders every
   moment which would astonish us if we were not so used to beholding
   them! They tell the story--'tis but a legend of the days of Solomon the
   Wise, that the king astonished all beholders by taking a seed and
   producing from it in a few moments, a full-grown plant. They cried,
   "How wonderful! How astonishing!" But the wise man said, "This is only
   what the Lord does every day. This is what He is performing everywhere
   in His own time, and you see it, and yet you never say, 'How
   wonderful!'" When we have watched those who practice sleight-of-hand
   perform their feats, we have marveled greatly, but what are a few poor
   elicit tricks when compared with the ordinary, but yet matchless
   processes of Nature? Our fields and hedgerows teem with marvels never
   equaled by all the wisdom and skill of man! Walk into the grass field
   and you tread on miracles. Listen to the birds as they sing in the
   trees and you hear marvelous speech. If one little mechanical bird,
   with a few clockwork movements, were warbling out something like music
   in an exhibition, everybody would gather round it and some would even
   pay to hear it sing--and yet thousands of birds sing infinitely more
   sweetly than anything man can make--and men had rather kill them than
   admire them! Men fail to see the miracle which God is working in each
   living thing.

   Turn your eyes above you to the starry firmament and watch the Pleiades
   and Arcturus with his sons, for though we know but little of them, they
   have won from many an observer an awestruck acknowledgment of the
   greatness of God, insomuch that it has been said that--

   "An undevout astronomer is mad." The order, the regularity, the
   manifest calculation and design which appear in every one of the
   constellations, in every single planet, in every fixed star and in
   every part of the great multitude of worlds which God has created are
   such decisive evidences that if men do not see something of God in
   them, they must be weak in their minds or wicked in their hearts!
   Surely, what is seen of God in this way has tended to make us worship
   Him. Many of you may know but little of astronomy, but still, you see
   every day that God is working everywhere around us and that Heaven and
   earth, and land and sea are teeming with the products of His marvelous
   skill. The revolutions of day and night and the formation and fall of
   rain are indisputable proofs of the Presence of eternal power and
   Godhead! Let us, therefore, seek the Lord.

   How is it that a man can go up and down in God's world and yet forget
   the God who made the whole? I do not suppose that a man could have
   walked through the Exhibition at Paris without thinking of the emperor
   whose influence gathered all those treasures together and who attracted
   the kings and princes of the earth to visit it. And yet men will go
   through this world, compared with which the Paris "Exposition" was a
   box of children's toys, and will not recognize God therein! Oh, strange
   blindness! Mad infatuation that with God everywhere present and such a
   God--the God whom to know is life eternal, whom to delight in is
   present happiness and future bliss--man is willingly ignorant, blind to
   His own best interests, senseless to the sweetest and the most
   ennobling emotions and an enemy to his best Friend!

   The surface of the text supplies us with motives for seeking GOD. Oh,
   that the Holy Spirit might supply us with Grace that we might feel the
   motivesand be obedient to them!

   II. We will now regard the text with a more spiritual eye.

   We speak to those who are sensible of their departure from the living
   God and are anxious to be reconciled to Him by the forgiveness of their
   sins for Jesus' sake. But our text also has a word for the stubborn and
   unawakened. In many parts of Scripture the Lord has been pleased to
   invite the penitent to come to Him, but in this passage, in order that
   the invitation my miss none, it is made exceedingly wide in its
   character. Our text will appear to be very wonderful if we notice the
   context in which it stands--"You who turn judgment to worm word, and
   leave off righteousness in the earth, seek Him." There is no mention of
   those who thirst for Him, who are humbled and confess their faults!
   This exhortation is given to those who have no good points about them,
   but many of the most pernicious traits of character! Those who turn
   judgment into wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth--even
   theyare bid to seek God! Marvelous mercy! Who after this shall dare
   despair? If my hearer has, up to this day, lived a stranger to God, the
   text does not exclude him from seeking God, but, as with an angel's
   voice, it whispers, "Seek Him." If sin has perverted your judgments,
   yet seek the great Creator and Preserver! Seek Him, for you shall find
   Him! You are not bid to seek His face in vain--the command to seek Him
   implies the certainty of His being found of you!

   The reasons given for seeking the Lord are, spiritually, these. The
   Lord "makes the seven stars." That is to say, the Pleiades. And He also
   "makes Orion." Now, the Pleiades were regarded as being the
   constellation of the spring, harbinger of the coming summer. We read of
   "the sweet influences of Pleiades." They are most conspicuous at the
   vernal period of the year. On the other hand, the Oriental herdsman,
   such as Amos was, when he saw Orion flaming aloft, knew the wintry sign
   right well. Both the Pleiades and Orion are ordained of the Lord--He
   makes our joys and our troubles. See, then, the reason why we should
   seek God, because if Orion should just now be in the ascendant and we
   should be visited with a winter of despondency, chilled by howling
   winds of fear and sharp frosts of dismay--if we seek God, He can
   withdraw Orion and place us under the gentle sway of the Pleiades of
   promise, so that a springtime of hope and comfort shall cheer our
   souls, to be succeeded by a summer of rare delights and fruitful joys!
   Do you hear this, poor troubled one? [See Sermon No. 818, Volume
   14--THE PLEIADES AND ORION.] Whatever your sorrow may be, the God who
   made Heaven and earth can suddenly change it into the brighter joy! By
   the dispensations of His Providence, He can do it! Your circumstances,
   which are now so desperate, can be changed by a touch of His hand
   within an hour. To whom can you better apply for succor? And if your
   heart is sick and sad with a sense of sin, and you are pining with
   remorse, His Grace can find a balm and cordial for your wounded
   conscience which shall give you peace at once! Before the clock ticks
   again, God can grant you perfect salvation, blot out your sins like a
   cloud and like a thick cloud your iniquities. Seek you the pardoning
   God! Seek Him, I say, for to whom else could you go? Where else could
   you look for strength but to the Strong? Where else for mercy but to
   the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

   The Lord, moreover, turns grief into joy. In the text it is added, "He
   turns the shadow of death into the morning." The long dark night of
   sorrow, blacker than darkness, itself, because it presages everlasting
   wrath. The night created by the grim shadow of death--cold, chill,
   terrible--may have fallen upon your soul, but the living God can at
   once turn this darkness into the brightness of the morning! When the
   sun arises with healing beneath his wings, the whole earth is made to
   smile, and even thus can the Lord at once make your whole nature glad
   with the light of His Countenance. Though you are ready to lie down in
   despair. Though you suppose that Hell yawns for you and will soon
   receive your guilty soul--He can turn this shadow of death into the
   morning of peace and joy! To whom, then, should you go but to this God?
   He has already given His dear Son to be the way of life for us sinners.
   Have you ever heard of another who gave His son to die for His enemies?
   Gad not about after other helpers, but come at once to your Heavenly
   Father's arms, and say with the prodigal, "I will arise and go to my
   Father." If you are willing to come to God, the way is open, for Jesus

   died. You must not come arrayed in the supposed fitness of your own
   good works or good feelings, but you must come resting on the finished
   work of the appointed Savior. If you look to Him, you shall be
   lightened. If you come with His name upon your lips, you shall ask what
   you will and it shall be done unto you. Should not this be a reason for
   coming-- that He can turn your night into day, your winter into summer?

   But the text bears another aspect, namely, that God can also turn your
   present joy into grief and, therefore, you should seek Him. He makes
   the seven stars give way to Orion. "'He makes day dark with night." At
   this moment it may be that you are at ease--but how long will you be
   so? Though you have no God, you are content with what you possess in
   this world, satisfied with your daily earnings, or charmed with your
   yearly income. You are with your wife, your children, your estate. But
   remember how soon your joys may be taken from you! Have you not heard
   how often God's Providence has stripped the house, stripped the family,
   stripped the man's very soul of every comfort? Remember you not the
   story of Job who, in one day descended from riches to poverty? Know you
   not that although the wicked spread themselves abroad like a green bay
   tree, they shall suddenly wither? And though they are exceedingly proud
   and strong, they shall come to their appointed end like the ox fattened
   for the slaughter?

   All our joys on earth are dependent on the Sovereign will of Heaven.
   Some of you know this by bitter experience, for you have seen the
   delight of your eyes taken away in a stroke and the comfort of your
   heart carried to the grave. Now, to whom should you fly for succor, but
   to Him upon whom all your present comfort depends and who can so soon
   take it all away? How prudent to be at peace with Him! How wise, above
   all wisdom, to be reconciled to the mighty God! But, alas for those who
   have often been warned but who will not heed the warning! They have
   hardened their necks and will be suddenly destroyed. Their day will
   blacken into everlasting night! The proud sinner will die as others
   do--his eyes will pale and his brow grow cold, for he must face
   inexorable Death. And then, when he comes into the land to which the
   wicked are banished, he will enter into the outer darkness, darkness
   which shall be felt, in the land of confusion, where there is no
   beginning of hope, or end of misery--who would then desire to stand in
   his soul's place? Escape, then, before the darkness gathers! Seek Him,
   O man, who makes the day dark with night!--

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

   The last clause of the text suggests a fourth reason for seeking the
   Lord, namely, God may make that which is a blessing to some a curse to
   others. Did you observe it? Seek Him "that calls for the waters of the
   sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth." This may allude to
   the deluge, when the waters of the ocean covered the very tops of the
   mountains. But it may be equally well explained by reference to the
   clouds which yield refreshing rain. The sun draws up the waters of the
   sea, leaving the salt behind and when these exaltations have floated
   their appointed time in the air, they descend upon the thirsty earth to
   make glad the soil. Now, since the clause bears two readings, it were
   well to note how the actions of God oftentimes bear two renderings.
   There is, for instance, the gift of His dear Son, an unexampled act of
   love--and yet to some of you it will prove "a savor of death unto
   death." To the unbeliever, it will prove a terrible thing that Jesus
   ever came into the world! He is a precious Cornerstone to those who
   build upon Him, but those who stumble upon Him shall be broken--and if
   this Stone shall fall upon any man, it shall grind him to powder! That
   which is Heaven's greatest joy is Hell's greatest horror. When Christ
   shall come, the sight of Him shall draw forth the acclamations of His
   people, but it will also cause the utmost anguish to His enemies. They
   shall weep and wail because of Him. They shall call upon the rocks and
   mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of Him who
   sits upon the Throne of God and from the wrath of the Lamb! Since you
   who so constantly hear the Gospel must have it made to you either a
   savor of death unto death or of life unto life, I pray that the Eternal
   Spirit may show you the wisdom of seeking God by Jesus Christ--and of
   seeking Him now!

   It will be a dreadful thing, at the Last Great Day, to find the gentle
   Lamb become a Lion to you, to tear you in pieces when there shall be
   none to deliver! Why should that which is the meat of humble souls,
   become your poison? Why should the blood of that Savior in Whom so many
   have washed their robes, and made them white, be your condemnation?
   Remember that the blood of Jesus will be either upon you to cleanse you
   or upon you to condemn you! That dreadful cry of the Jews in the
   streets of Jerusalem, "His blood be on us, and on our children"--what a
   curse it

   brought upon their race in the massacres within the city walls and in
   the bitter exile and suffering which they have so long endured! Take
   care that the same curse does not bring upon you an eternal exile from
   God! Seek His face, I beseech you! You may not long have the
   opportunity to seek it. The day of His mercy may close as closes this
   day with the setting sun. You may not survive to enjoy another day of
   Gospel invitation! May God the blessed Spirit, who alone can do it,
   make you seekers--and then make you finders--and His shall be the
   praise!

   Thus much to the unconverted. The people of God can think over the text
   in relation to themselves. It is rich in priceless instruction to them,
   but time forbids me to direct their meditations. Farewell.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Psalm 139.

   In this Psalm David praises God by specially dwelling upon the one
   attribute of Omniscience. If we really wish to praise God, we must
   think of Him as He is--and it is the best praise that we can render to
   God to describe Him as He is. And any one of His many attributes is so
   full of His Glory that if we give due honor to it, we shall have much
   to say upon it.

   Verse 1. O LORD, You have searched me, and known me. It is true that
   God knows everything, but that is not what David says here. He makes a
   personal application of the universal Truth of God--"O Lord, You have
   searched me, and known me." He does not talk about God's knowledge of
   other men, but he speaks to God concerning himself--"O Lord, You have
   searched me, and known me." "You have searched me as if You were
   looking for contraband goods. You have ransacked me, You have gone down
   into my very heart and have spread out every secret part of my
   being--'You have searched me, and known me.'"--

   "Lord, You have searched and seen me through. Your eyes command with
   piercing view My rising and my resting hours, My heart and flesh, with
   all their powers."

   2. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my
   thoughts afar off "What I do, and what I do not do--my sitting down for
   rest, and my rising up for action--You know me altogether, my most
   trivial deeds and my most important movements. My thoughts are so well
   known to You that even before I think them, You know what they will be.
   You need not come near to me in order to know me, so strong are Your
   eyes that if You only look at me from a vast distance, as a man looks
   at a star in the midnight air, 'You understand my thoughts afar off.'
   What I think and why I think it, whether it is sorrowful or hopeful,
   You understand my thoughts. Sometimes I cannot understand it myself,
   but You always understand it."

   3. You comprehend my path andmylyingdown, andareacquainted with allmy
   ways. "You have put a ring around me both in my staying and my going. I
   go to sleep, but You do not sleep. I cannot think of You while I
   slumber, but You think of me and You 'are acquainted with all my
   ways.'"--

   "Great God, Your penetrating eyes

   Pervade my inmost powers.

   With awe profound my wondering soul

   Falls prostrate and adores.

   To be encompassed around with God,

   The Holy and the Just.

   Armed with Omnipotence to save,

   Or crush me into dust!

   Oh, how tremendous is the thought!

   Deep may it be impressed!

   And may the Spirit firmly engrave,

   This Truth within my breast!"

   4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, You know it
   altogether "You not only know what it is, but You know all about
   it--even the word which I have not yet spoken, the word that is on my
   tongue, as well as the

   word that is not on my tongue--those seeds of speech that have as yet
   not grown into words, You know them altogether."

   5. You have beset me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon
   me."Like men lying in ambush, 'You have beset me behind and before.'
   All that I have ever done and all that I shall ever do, You know it
   all. I am like one under arrest, upon whom the officer lays his hand so
   that he may have no opportunity of escaping. I am in Your grip. You
   have taken such a firm hold upon me that I cannot get away from You. In
   another sense, I am like a child enfolded in His mother's arms, for You
   have 'laid Your hand upon me.'"

   6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot
   attain unto it "I cannot climb up to Your glorious Throne--the very
   lowest step of it is far higher than my feet can reach! 'I cannot
   attain unto it.'"

   7. Where shall I go from Your spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your
   Presence?'"I do not want to do so, but it would be quite impossible for
   me to flee from Your Presence even if I wished to do so. Neither by
   steady marching, nor by rapid flight can I get away from You."

   8. If I ascend up into Heaven, You are there. The Hebrew is, "You
   there," as if there was nothing else there but God.

   8. If I make my bed in Hell, behold You are there. This seemed even
   more amazing to the Psalmist than that God was in Heaven, so He put in
   a, "behold"--"Behold, You."

   9. IfI take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
   of the sea. "If I fly on the wings of light, which travels with
   inconceivable rapidity."

   10. Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold
   me."I cannot go there except by Your leading and I shall not be there
   except by Your uplifting. There is no way by which I can keep away from
   God even if I try to do so. If, instead of living in the light, I seek
   to hide myself in the darkness, what then?"

   11. IfIsay, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be
   light about me. "The very night shall change its nature and turn from
   darkness into light!"

   12. Yes, the darkness hides not from You, but the night shines as the
   day: the darkness and the light are both alike to You. See, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters, how we dwell continually under the inspection of
   God? You have seen bees in a glass hive and watched all their
   movements, or you have put an insect under a powerful microscope and
   examined every part of it. Even so does the Omniscient God watch and
   examine you! Nothing is done by you that He does not observe. The poet
   speaks of the fierce light that beats about the throne of man, but you
   dwell in that far fiercer light which beats about the Throne of God!

   13. For You have possessed my reins. "Those secret organs of my body
   which I cannot see, and whose working I can only imperfectly
   comprehend."

   13. You have covered me in my mother's womb. "Even before I came on the
   stage of action, You were exercising wondrous care over me."

   14. I will praise You. That is a good resolution for each one of us, as
   well as the Psalmist, to make! As God sees me, let me praise Him--it
   will be pleasing to Him to hear me praising Him. "I will praise You."

   14. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Nobody can rightly study
   the anatomy of the human body and see the beautiful arrangement of the
   various veins, nerves, sinews, muscles and bones without saying with
   the Psalmist, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

   14. Marvelous are Your works; and that my soul knows right well To
   study God's marvelous works, you need not go abroad, for they can be
   plainly seen in your own body. This earthly house of your tabernacle,
   in which you dwell so long as you are in this world, is a masterpiece
   of Divine wisdom and skill!

   15. My substance was not hid from You, when I was made in secret, and
   curiously worked in the lowest parts of the earth. God made us in His
   secret workshop by a marvelous method of Divine Power.

   16. Your eyes did see my substance, yet being not perfect; and in Your
   book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
   when as yet there was none of them. God's wonderful foreknowledge
   enabled Him to know us even before we knew ourselves, or anyone else
   knew us! And in the very making of us, the creation of our body and
   mind and spirit, God was beforehand with us.

   17. How precious also are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is
   the sum of them!"I love to remember that You, my God, are thinking of
   me. I am not distressed or alarmed by that recollection. I do not say,
   ' How terrible are Your thoughts unto me, O God!' But, 'How
   precious'--how consoling, how full of promises of blessing to me--'are
   Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!'"

   18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when
   I awake, I am still with You. "You lull me to sleep and You awake me in
   the morning. And when I open my eyes, You are still there." Happy
   Believer, who is always with God! Why should not You and I, dear
   Friends, always be consciously in the Presence of God? We are never
   right unless we are in that condition--and if we ever begin to forget
   God, we are in a wrong state of heart. If we can live from day to day
   without realizing that God is near us, we are falling into a sad and
   dangerous condition!

   19. Surely You will slay the wicked, O God. It cannot be that God has
   seen all their wicked acts and read their evil thoughts, and yet will
   spare them! When men offend in the very presence of the judge, it is
   easy work for him to try them.

   19. Depart from me, therefore, you bloody men. "You men of blood. You
   men stained with the blood of your fellows. Get away from me, for I do
   not want to be harboring criminals. God sees my company as well as
   myself, so depart from me!

   20. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your
   name in vain. David could not bear even the thought that men should
   insult such a God--a lack of reverence to the All-Seeing One was
   altogether unbearable to him, so he bade those who were guilty of such
   wickedness to take themselves away from him.

   21. 22. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate You? And am not I grieved
   with those that rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred: I
   count them my enemies.We are to love our own enemies, but we are not to
   love God's enemies, nor willingly to mix with them! How can Christians
   associate with the lewd and irreverent without becoming partakers of
   their evil deeds? Let us take note of what David says and realize that
   we cannot be the friends of God if we are the friends of God's enemies.
   Now the Psalmist comes back to his key-note. He began the Psalm with
   the declaration, "O Lord, You have searched me." Now he prays.

   23. Search me, O God, and know my heart "You have searched me, O God,
   but I pray You to do it again, and to keep on doing it--never take Your
   great searchlight away from me."

   23. Try me, and know my thoughts. "I cannot hide them from You, and
   would not if I could."

   24. And see if there is any wicked way in me. "Lord, l ook for the
   dross, to consume it! Look for the spots, to wash them away."

   24. And lead me in the way everlasting. "Amen." Our hearts say,
   "Amen--so let it be."
     __________________________________________________________________

Enquiring the Way to Zion

   (No. 3035)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 9, 1870.

   "They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces toward it." Jeremiah
   50:5.

   I am going to take these words out of their context and use them as I
   believe they may very properly be used--as a description of those whom
   God is about to save. This is one of the signs and tokens of a coming
   salvation, "They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces toward it."

   You remember that Zion of old was the place, above all others, where
   God manifested Himself. To ask the way to Zion means, therefore, to
   seek after God, to desire to be reconciled to God, to long to be
   pardoned and accepted by God.

   Zion was also the only place where the offering of sacrifices was
   permitted. Though the disobedient and idolatrous Jews offered
   sacrifices on the high places which they had profaned by their
   abominations, they did so contrary to God's commands. The only place
   where the sacrificial victims could be acceptably offered was in the
   Temple on Mount Zion. To come to Zion, today, means to come to the one
   Sacrifice which God has provided for the sin of man, namely, to Jesus
   Christ, His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, who is the one
   Propitiation for human sin and who has, by His death upon the Cross,
   made a full Atonement for the guilt of all who believe in Him.

   Zion was also, in the olden time, the appointed place of public worship
   where the tribes went up on their solemn feast days, to join in the
   joyous Psalms that arose with thundering acclaim from ten thousand
   voices. There the multitude bowed in solemn prayer and there they heard
   the Word of the Lord. In a somewhat different form from that which we
   now observe, yet in a similar spirit to that in which we now meet, they
   worshipped God. So to ask the way to Zion means to desire to worship
   the Most High, to seek to become true and acceptable servants of the
   ever living God.

   Zion of old was also the place of delightful fellowship. There friends
   met friends from the farthest ends of the land. He that dwelt at Dan
   gave the right hand of fellowship to him that dwelt at Beersheba when
   they came to their great general gatherings at Jerusalem. To ask the
   way to Zion, then, means to seek to come to Christian fellowship, to
   desire to be united in Christian bonds with Brothers and Sisters who
   love each other because they love one common Lord and Master, Jesus
   Christ, their blessed Savior!

   Zion was, besides, a place of rest. It was looked upon as the abode of
   peace. Those who dwelt there were under the special protection of
   Heaven. To desire, therefore, to find the way to Zion is to desire to
   find peace, lasting peace, conscious peace with God, even "the peace of
   God which passes all understanding."

   Zion, too, has been regarded as a picture of Heaven. To desire to know
   the way to Zion is, therefore, to desire to know the way to Heaven. To
   say, "Tell us the way to Zion," is the same thing as to say, "Tell us
   how we may reach that blessed state of salvation which shall secure for
   us a joyful entrance into everlasting bliss." There are two things
   stated in our text concerning the enquirers as to the way to Zion.
   First, we have their enquiry and, secondly, we are told the direction
   in which their faces were turned--"They shall ask the way to Zion with
   their faces toward it."

   I. First, then, we HAVE THEIR ENQUIRY--"They shall ask the way to
   Zion."

   Who will do this? We will try to find out who they are who ask the way
   to Zion and, first, they are evidently those who are weary of other
   ways. They have been treading the way that leads to Hell. They have
   known and walked in the ways of pleasure and folly. They are familiar
   with the way of worldliness. Many of them have tramped along the miry
   way of self-righteousness and they have all run in the road of willful
   wickedness. Yet they are willing to leave all these ways, for a man
   cannot go in two opposite directions at the same time! He must go only
   in one or the other of them and, in

   asking the way to Zion, it is taken for granted that the truthful
   enquirer is weary of all other ways. Is it so with you, my Hearer? You
   are not yet saved, but are you discontent with all that you have ever
   known as yet? It is a blessed thing when God makes a man discontented
   with all but HIMSELF--when the way of sin is no longer so smooth and
   pleasant as it once was and the enjoyments of the world are no longer
   so delicious and alluring as they used to be. Surely, if this is your
   case, my Hearer, you are being weaned from the breasts of your vain
   delights that you may come to your Father who can make you truly blest!

   I can only praise God from the depths of my heart if any of you who are
   not yet in the way to Zion, have had your way hedged up of late, for it
   may be that the thorns which have scratched and torn you, have only
   kept you from going yet further astray from the right road. I hope that
   even the wretchedness which arises through treading the paths of sin
   may drive many to find relief from it in the Savior who is, Himself,
   the way to God! Am I addressing any who are in such a condition at this
   moment? Surely there must be someone here who is saying, "I need to
   find something real, for I have tried the sham and found it useless. I
   want to get peace of conscience if I can, for I am distracted by the
   thought of my guilt. Wealth cannot satisfy me. I have abundance of this
   world's goods, yet I am not happy. Worldly ambition cannot satisfy my
   soul. I have gained the position for which I strove, but I am not
   content. My mind is driven to and fro as by a whirlwind. I am like a
   cockle-shell boat at the mercy of the stormy waves, or like the chaff
   from the threshing floor that is driven before the wind. I have no
   rest, no peace, no satisfaction." Well, my dear Hearer, if you are in
   that state of mind and heart, I earnestly recommend you to ask the way
   to Zion--for that is the place of rest and contentment--and if you are
   sincerely asking the way, I am quite sure that it is because you are
   weary of all other ways.

   Those who ask the way to Zion also thereby confess that they are not
   yet saved. It is a great work, a Divine work, to bring His people to
   confess that they are not yet saved, for the most of mankind have the
   notion that, somehow or other, all is well with them in the sight of
   God. This is especially the case with those who have been brought up
   religiously. If you have, from your childhood, been regular attendants
   at a place of worship. If you have been kept strictly moral and
   outwardly religious, it is exceedingly probable that you will slide
   into the idea which perhaps you would not express in so many words,
   but, still the idea is there--that you have, after all, very fair
   prospects with regard to the world to come. In Jeremiah's day there
   were some to whom the Lord said, "Trust you not in lying words, saying,
   The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord,
   are these." And today the children of godly parents, the people who
   attend places of worship regularly and live an outwardly moral life,
   are very apt to say, "The people of the Lord, the people of the lord,
   the people of the Lord are we."

   Perhaps some of you fancy that because you have been baptized, although
   you never were converted, or because you have dared to profane the
   Lord's Table by your presence, although you are quite unfit to be
   there, you are therefore saved. If that is the case with you, it will
   be a happy thing for you if you are led to enquire the way to Christ
   because you feel that you have not yet accepted Christ as your Savior.
   It will be a mercy for you if you are led to see that your natural
   condition, instead of making you a citizen of Zion, makes you a citizen
   of Sodom or of Babylon! Certainly you cannot become a child of God by
   birth, by blood, by Baptism, or by any ceremonial process--but only by
   the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit! If you are not yet saved, I
   pray that you may be made to know that you are not. It is only God's
   gracious Spirit who can convict a man who thought all was well with
   him, that he is lost. Only the Holy Spirit can prove to him that he is
   not a Christian, though he thinks he is one! And when he is made to
   realize this, he will probably soon be transformed into that which he
   now fancies he is--a true child of the living God!

   So those who ask the way to Zion are those who are weary of other ways
   and who feel that they are not yet in the way of salvation, the way of
   holiness.

   Further, to ask the way to Zion proves that the enquirer is not
   presumptuous--that he does not think that he shall get to Zion, blunder
   on as he may. I believe that many men cherish the erroneous notion that
   if they are really sincere, and distinctly and decidedly moral, they
   will, somehow or other, by hook or by crook, get through the gate of
   pearl into Heaven. They say, "If we do not, who will? If it will not be
   well with us, then it must be far worse with a great many others who
   are worse than we are." That is the kind of talk in which many indulge,
   but it is sheer presumption! O Sirs, believe me that being saved is not
   child's play! It is not a matter to be dreamed over. No man ever hit
   this mark by chance! No man's soul was ever saved by mere chance. Many
   a soul has gone to Hell through neglect, but never has even one soul
   gone to Heaven in that way! Remember that solemn unanswered question of
   the Apostle Peter, "If the righteous

   are scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" If
   it is only after stern fighting and struggling--and often a long and
   wearisome pilgrimage--that the Christian gets into Heaven and if even
   he is sometimes "saved, yet so as by fire," how shall they escape who
   neglect this great salvation? If they who serve God most diligently
   have nothing to glory in, what will be the portion of those who rebel
   against the Lord, or who simply "neglect" His great salvation? O Sirs,
   if the best of saints sometimes fear that they will be castaways at
   last, though that fear is needless if they are the Lord's--what will
   become of godless Sabbath-breakers, or of you who never read the Bible
   and never bow your knees in prayer, but who live as if there were no
   God, or as if it mattered not whether you served your Maker or abhorred
   Him? This fatal presumption will never do--and I hope there are some of
   you who have now done with it forever, who are no longer hoping to
   stumble into eternal life, but who are asking the way to Zion, knowing
   that there is but one way--and sincerely desiring to find it!

   This enquiry, if it is honestly made, also proves that those who make
   it are not conceited. They ask the way to Zion for they do not think
   they know everything and they are willing to learn what they do not
   know. If a child should offer to tell them the way to Heaven, they
   would be glad to hear it. Or though the person who might deliver to
   them the message of salvation should be clothed in the garb of poverty,
   and although his language might be incorrect and ungrammatical, yet if
   he should tell them plainly what they must do to be saved, they would
   be willing to take the treasure even out of an earthen vessel and to
   find the priceless jewel in the mire! But when men boastfully say, "We
   know all that we need to know, so we have no need of any teacher. As
   for the Bible, we look upon it as an antiquated, worn-out old book and
   we, men of thought and intelligence, can do without it. Can we not
   study the rocks or the starry heavens, or the wide fields of Nature?
   What need have we of a voice from God to guide us?"--we can only reply,
   "Ah, Sirs, your boasting is that of fools! You must excuse the
   harshness of the word, but it is true, for wise men know their
   ignorance-- and only fools boast as you have been doing. May you be
   emptied of all your pride--turned upside down as a man turns a dish
   bottom upwards and pours out all its contents. And when you find that
   there is nothing in you, go and ask the way to Zion with true humility!
   You will never be truly wise till you find out that you are not wise.
   And you will never really know till you are willing to admit that you
   know nothing except what God teaches you by His Word, His Spirit, or
   His servants.

   There is another thing about this asking the way to Zion--it shows
   anxiety on the part of the enquirers. Sometimes when one wants to find
   a certain spot in the intricate streets of London, one stops and asks a
   policeman, or someone else, which is the way to such-and-such a place.
   And an answer is given, with more or less clearness. But having gone in
   the direction indicated and not having found the place, one naturally
   asks again and, perhaps again! If you are afraid of missing the spot
   you want to find, there is seldom anything lost by asking--and it is
   always better to spend one minute in asking the way than to waste ten
   minutes in going wrong! He who is the most anxious to find the right
   way is the man who will ask the most often--and I trust there are some
   here who are willing to ask of the Word of God and to ask of God's
   servants--"Tell me, is this the road to Heaven, or am I mistaken? Is
   this the plan of salvation by which alone sinners can be delivered from
   the wrath to come? O Sirs, I cannot afford to be mistaken here, for my
   soul's eternal welfare depends upon it! A mistake here would involve
   everlasting misery! So, as before the living God, tell me the truth,
   even though it should hurt my feelings and make me angry, yet be
   faithful with me, O men of God! I ask you again and yet again, the way
   to Zion."

   I think, too, dear Friends, we may say with regard to this enquiry,
   that the man who makes it is not a skeptic. He would not ask the way to
   Zion if he did not believe that there is such a place. There are some
   people who are continually trying to amuse themselves by pretending to
   be doubters. I speak what I really feel about this matter, for I do not
   believe in the honesty of nine out of ten of the doubts of which I
   hear, or of the new ideas that are constantly being brought forth
   concerning one Truth of God or another. I am sometimes asked why I do
   not preach more often against these heresies. What? Am I to tell
   everybody what any fool likes to say against God? Not I! If anybody
   else wants to propagate infidelity in that way, let him do it. I shall
   not blow a trumpet to call attention to the lies that men keep on
   inventing. If I answered everything that they have said up till now,
   they would say something else that was false next week. I have better
   employment than that of shining the devil's boots in this way! And
   besides that, I have the satisfaction of knowing that the most of you
   are not troubled by these heresies. You know, in your inmost souls,
   that His Book is true, that there is a God and that, before long, you
   will have to stand before Him to give an account of the deeds done in
   the body. If any of you do not believe the Bible, that does not affect
   the fact that it is true. And what I have to say to you is to charge
   you, as you love your never-dying souls, to escape from Hell and flee
   to Heaven--to point out to you which is the right road and to beseech
   you not to miss the overwhelming Glory of eternal life for the sake of
   indulging your foolish and fatal pride. There isa heavenly Zion--ask
   the way to it, press forward and find it!

   I will make only one other remark upon this part of my subject. Those
   who sincerely ask the way to Zion are evidently not asking out of mere
   curiosity, for if they were, they would ask where Zion is and what sort
   of a place it is. And they would probably ask some very foolish
   questions concerning it. Instead of doing so, they simply say, "Show us
   the way." That is practical--they ask the way to Zion. I often fear
   that the questions which are asked by many people concerning various
   mysterious or difficult Doctrines in the Bible are only asked in order
   to try to lull their consciences to sleep while they are living in
   rebellion against God. A man says to me, "Can you explain the seven
   trumpets of the Revelation?" No, but I can blow one in your ear and
   warn you to escape from the wrath to come! Another says, "Can you tell
   me when the end of the world will come?" No, but I can tell you how to
   be so prepared for it that you need not be afraid if it were to come
   tonight! I can urge you to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior,
   so that, let the end of the world come when it may, you can await it
   with holy joy and enter into eternal bliss! We want more, especially
   among sinners, of practical questions and not mere captious and curious
   enquiries. There will be time enough for you to ask all proper and
   right questions and to have them answered--when you have sought and
   found the Savior. But meanwhile, my dear Hearer, your immortal soul is
   in jeopardy, so attend to that first of all. A man who is sinking in
   the sea is mad if he says, "I won't lay hold of that rope until I
   understand all about astronomy." A man in a burning house need not
   trouble his head about geology--his first business is to get to the
   fire escape--he can leave his study of geology till tomorrow. So you
   unconverted ones should "seek first the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness,"and all other things you need shall be added unto you.

   This must suffice concerning the sincere enquirers who ask the way to
   Zion.

   II. Now we will consider the direction in which these enquirer's faces
   are turned--"They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces toward
   it."

   If a man should ask you the way to a certain part of the town which
   lies toward the North, and his face should be turned toward the South,
   you would say, "Sir, that place is in the very direction from which you
   have come. You must turn your face the other way if you mean to get
   there." But suppose that he kept on walking in the same way in which he
   was going before he spoke to you? And suppose that he still asked the
   way, yet persisted in doing the very opposite to what he should do? You
   would at once know that he was merely mocking you and you would very
   likely pass on and say to yourself, "I will answer the civil enquiry of
   anyone who really needs directions, but I will not continue to answer
   the enquiry of a man who asks the way and when he is told, deliberately
   turns his face in the opposite direction!"

   I hope I am addressing many who are saying, "We do want to be saved. We
   are in real earnest about it. We would do anything in our power to be
   true Christians and to have our sins forgiven." Shall I tell you how we
   can know whether your faces are turned in the right direction? A man
   who has his face towards Zion is earnest about Divine things. He used
   to trifle concerning eternal realities, or to assume the appearance of
   earnestness on certain occasions. When he heard an earnest preacher
   deliver an impressive discourse, he felt his spirit somewhat stirred,
   but he soon cooled down and was as careless as before. A man who has
   his face Zionward is constantly in earnest. He feels that the chief
   business of his life is to get salvation and I believe that a man in
   real earnest about eternal life, sooner or later obtains it. I do not
   think there will be one lost sinner in Hell who will be able to say, "I
   honestly and earnestly sought the Savior, but I sought Him in vain." A
   man may be in earnest and yet, through lack of knowledge, he may miss
   the mark for a while. But I believe that sooner or later, the Light of
   God, by God's Grace, will come to him. If God continues to cherish the
   earnest desire within his heart, it will be a sign that He means to
   ultimately open the prison door and set the bound spirit at liberty! So
   earnestness is a good sign of the face being set Zionward.

   Another sign that a man's face is towards Zion is seen when he hears
   the Word attentively. There is great hope for the man who constantly
   attends the preaching of the Gospel--that is to say if it is really the
   Gospel that he hears, and if it is honestly and earnestly preached--and
   if, while attending the House of Prayer, the man does not merely come
   in and go out, as a mere formal worshipper, but anxiously listens and
   watches to hear whether there is a message that is especially suitable
   for him. I know that I have some hearers who seem to go fishing in my
   sermons to see if there is

   something in it suited to their case that they can catch and
   appropriate to themselves. Like the little boy who used to listen so
   attentively that his mother asked him why he did so. He replied, "I
   heard a minister say once that if there was a word in the sermon that
   might be blessed to us, Satan would be pretty sure to try to distract
   your attention so that we might not hear it. So I want to hear it all
   and see if there is something that may be useful to me." I am satisfied
   that your face is set Zionward when you can honestly say, "I come to
   the House of Prayer and sit there not merely because it is the
   Lord's-Day and we must go somewhere to worship Him--not because I like
   to see the crowded congregation and to join in the joyous songs of
   praise, but because I hope that one of these days the minister will be
   guided by the Holy Spirit to let fall a handful on purpose for me--and
   that even I may know what it means to be saved in the Lord with an
   everlasting salvation."

   Perhaps a better sign is when a man not only continually hears the
   Gospel preached, but frequently and as often as he can, reads the Word
   of God with a view of finding something that may meet his case. In some
   respects the preached Word has a very powerful influence over those who
   hear it because it comes with a living power from living lips--and God
   has ordained that by the preaching of His Word men shall believe and be
   saved. But in other respects, this Divinely-Inspired Word is far
   superior to anything that we can ever say, for it is the Infallible
   Word of God which lives and endures forever! Here is God's own Truth in
   God's own words--and when I find that any of you get up a quarter of an
   hour earlier in the morning so that you may be able to read a chapter
   before you go to work, or when I hear that you carry your little pocket
   Testament with you, so that in your dinner hour you may read a few
   verses with the prayer--"O God, save my soul while I read this, Your
   Holy Word!"--I feel that if you have not already found Christ, you soon
   will do so! At any rate, I am satisfied that you are enquiring the way
   to Zion and that your face is turned towards Heaven! And I do not
   believe, my dear Friend, that you will long be in the habit off
   attentively reading the Word without finding some precious promise that
   shall come home to your spirit and bring you into the light!

   There is still one better sign and that is this--I am so glad to know
   that some of you have begun to really pray. I expect that most of you
   used to pray, after a fashion, even when you were children. Your mother
   taught you to say a little prayer at her knee before she put you to
   bed. And many of you did not give up that habit until you went away
   from home. Perhaps you were apprenticed and possibly there was another
   apprentice in the room where you slept--and you had not the moral
   courage to kneel down while he was there. Well, I am sorry if it was
   so, yet I fear that where you did observe that form, you did not really
   pray! But now you do truly pray and from your heart you do really speak
   to God. It may be that there are others of you who have always used a
   printed or written form of prayer, yet till lately you never prayed in
   the true sense of that word. You used to read or recite the words just
   as the followers of Mohammed repeat their stereotyped form, but your
   heart was not in them and you were often half asleep even while you
   were uttering those meaningless words. But now you cannot help
   praying--you groan out poor broken sentences to God that you would not
   like to see in print. I recollect the time when I used to pray after
   this fashion, "O God, save me! I hear the Gospel preached whenever I
   can, but it does not bring peace to my heart. I am still without God,
   without Christ and without hope in the world! O Lord, do save me! Save,
   me, I beseech You. And save me now!" If that is the spirit in which you
   have prayed, never mind what your words may have been--if this has been
   your desire, your face is set Heavenward and I do not believe that the
   Lord will long let you cry thus unto Him without sending you a distinct
   answer of peace! You remember that the Lord said to Ananias, concerning
   Saul of Tarsus, as one of the evidences of the great change that had
   been worked in him, "Behold, he prays." And if that can also be said of
   you, there is good reason to hope concerning you! Surely the Holy
   Spirit has already been at work within you if you have begun to pray
   continually and to pour out your heart's supplication in secret before
   the living God!

   Another good sign of sincerity is when a man begins to forsake his old
   companions and shows that he likes the people of God far better In my
   early ministry in London, there was a certain friend--if he is not here
   tonight, he is usefully engaged elsewhere--who came to the service one
   Lord's-Day evening with no objective beyond a vain curiosity. But that
   night the Word of the Lord stung him to the quick and made him very
   angry. He wrote me a letter, the next morning, to tell me that I had
   insulted him--and I do not know what he was not going to do! He came
   again to see if I would do the same as before and the Word of the Lord
   cut him up far worse! But it was a very different letter that he wrote
   to me the next morning. He said that he had been in the habit of
   meeting, on Sunday nights, with half a dozen friends--most of whom are
   now members of this Church--and they used to, on Saturday, draw at the
   top of a sheet of notepaper a little sketch signifying, "Drop in on
   Sunday night--pipes and tobacco at seven." Then the man went on to tell
   me that if these former friends of his would not come with him to the
   House of Prayer, they would be friends of his no longer, for that old
   mode of spending the Lord's-Day evening would never suit him again!
   That is one of the sure signs of the working of God's Grace, when a man
   says to his old companions, "Now, Sirs, I cannot be your friend if you
   are not God's friends. As far as worldly matters are concerned, I will
   help you when I can. I will not break my friendship with you in that
   respect. But as to spending my leisure hours in the places of sin where
   you find your delights, I cannot do it. I fear I am not yet converted.
   I am afraid I am not a Christian, but this much I know--I cannot find
   my pleasure any longer where I used to find it."

   Ah, my Friend! When you talk like that, you have your face set
   Heavenward! Even if you are not actually on the road there, you are
   certainly in a hopeful condition and I trust that, before long, there
   will be something better even than that to be said concerning you! You
   will go to the houses where the name of Christ is like ointment poured
   forth and though you may sit still and hold your tongue, you will be
   thinking, "I wish I had a share in these precious things, and I do
   delight to hear these people talk about them." I know some learned men
   who have been delighted to listen to a very poor woman as she was
   talking of the joy of the Lord only a little while before she passed
   into the spirit-land. It is usually a sure sign that we are in love
   with the Master when we are in love with His servants and when we find
   delight in the company of His people. It is surely because there is a
   secret drawing of our hearts towards Him. It indicates to me, my
   Friend, that your face is set Zionward when you begin to hate the
   company of the loose, the frivolous, the wicked--and to choose the
   company of the earnest, the truthful, the godly, the prayerful, the
   lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ!

   I shall only detain you while I mention the best sign of all--a sign,
   dear Friends, which I believe is present in many of you--namely, that
   you are beginning to repent of sin and beginning, though you hardly
   dare to think that you are, to believe in Jesus! Only a few days ago
   you did really think that you had believed in Jesus, though you are
   afraid to think so tonight, and you would not like to be deceived about
   so important a matter. Yet at times there is a most blessed brokenness
   of heart about you. You cannot look back on your past history without
   feeling that your tears must flow as you mourn that you should ever
   have lived as you have lived--that you should have had so many
   privileges and should have slighted them--that you should have had so
   many warnings and should have despised them. You do not imagine that
   this feeling is true repentance, but I believe that a truly repentant
   soul scarcely ever thinks that it does repent as it ought to do. When a
   man is most tender in heart he generally says, "I grieve that I feel so
   hardened and that I am not as tender as I ought to be." Remember
   this--there never was a saint who repented as much as he should have,
   for repentance should be perfect and no Christian has ever attained to
   that height.

   As for believing in Jesus, I know that there are some of you who--when
   you have just been reading the very sweet promise in the Scriptures and
   your heart has been enabled to rest upon it--have had thoughts like
   these, "I cannot say that I really do believe in Jesus, but I do desire
   to believe in Him. And one thing I know, if He is not yet mine, I will
   never be fully at rest with anyone but Himself--

   "'Other refuge have Inone.

   "If I cannot nestle under His blessed wings, I will never try to hide
   under any others." You sometimes hope that you really have trusted in
   Jesus--and I think that you have done so, although your faith is very
   feeble. Remember, however, that even a feeble faith is a saving faith!
   Though your faith is no bigger than a mustard seed, so that you can
   hardly see it, it will bring salvation to you! Even if you cannot see
   it, God can. If you do but touch the hem of Christ's garment, virtue
   will flow out of Him to the saving of your soul!

   There are some who go to Heaven rejoicing all the way. I hope you may
   be of that happy number. But there are others, like those who are
   mentioned in the fourth verse of this very chapter, who go "weeping."
   There are tears at every step--"going and weeping." Yet, when they get
   to Heaven, they will not be asked whether they came weeping or
   laughing. It is better to go weeping to Heaven than to go laughing to
   Hell! There are some who go weeping to Heaven-- they seem every day as
   if they must surely perish on the road, yet they get there at
   last--and, dear Friend, if your face is set Zionward--if you can truly
   say, "There is none but Jesus for me. He is all my hope and all my
   trust," you may rest content that you also will get to Heaven at last!
   If you are really trusting in Christ, you are sure of Heaven, even if
   you have but one single grain of living faith in the Crucified Savior--

   "The feeblest saint shall win the day,

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM32.

   In this Psalm we have the Gospel of the peace of God as David knew it
   for himself and wrote it for the benefit of others.

   Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered. Hear this Inspired declaration, you who have transgressed the
   Law of your God! You who cannot plead a righteousness of your own, you
   who are conscious that you are sinners in the sight of God--here is a
   door of hope for you! Here is a possibility of blessing even for those
   whose lives have been full of sin and transgression! This is not a
   blessing of the Law, but a blessing of the Gospel--"Blessed is he whose
   transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

   2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity. Even God
   does not keep it recorded against him. The man has committed iniquity,
   but it is no longer laid to his charge, even by Him whose all-seeing
   eyes have witnessed it! "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes
   not iniquity."

   2. And in whose spirit there is no guile. No shuffling, no deceit. He
   deals honestly with God and with himself--and with his fellows--and God
   deals righteously with him, and yet covers his sin, forgives his
   transgression and imputes not to him his iniquity!

   3, 4. When Ikept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the
   day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is
   turned into the drought of summer Selah. While under a sense of sin,
   David could not pray. Or his prayer, if he did offer one at all, turned
   into a kind of roaring, like the cry of a wounded beast. He was so
   heavy in heart, his whole being was so scorched and parched by the fire
   of God's righteous anger because of his sin, that the very ducts of his
   tears refused to supply him with any further streams and he had to cry,
   "My moisture is turned into the drought of summer." Oh, what a burden
   sin always brings with it! And what a dreadful thing it is to be
   crushed under the almighty hand of God when He convinces us of our
   guilt by the effectual working of His Holy Spirit! When David was in
   that condition, what did he do in order to get peace with God and to
   find rest for his soul? Listen--

   5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I
   said I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
   the iniquity of my sin. Selah He made to the Lord a full, childlike
   confession of his sin, iniquity and transgressions--evidently putting
   his heart's trust in the mercy of God. And soon all the burden that
   oppressed him was removed and the fierce burnings of Divine Vengeance
   within his spirit were quenched--and his storm-tossed heart was at rest
   in his God! "You forgave the iniquity of my sin."

   6. 7. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto You in a time
   when You may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall
   not come near unto him. You are my hiding place. See where a sinner can
   find a safe shelter-- only in his God. Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is
   the appointed Judge of all mankind, yet it is to Him that we fly for
   refuge, crying--

   "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!"

   It is strange that He from whose lips the storm of wrath against sin
   comes, is the hiding place of His people! He draws the sword of
   infinite and Infallible Justice against all iniquity and then He
   furnishes, in His own great heart of love, the sheath into which that
   sword of justice is plunged! So today the Believer says to Him in a
   fuller sense even than David understood the term, "You are my hiding
   place."

   7. You shall preserve me from trouble: You shall compass me about with
   songs of deliverance. Selah The once heavy heart shall dance for joy!
   The spirit that was so grievously burdened shall take up the note of
   glad thanksgiving when the Lord's free Sovereign mercy brings
   forgiveness to His repenting children.

   8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I
   will guide you with My eyes. A good servant frequently does not need
   even a word from her mistress to guide her as to some duty to be
   performed, or some fault to be avoided--a look is all that is
   necessary, just a glance of the eyes gives the necessary guidance. So
   the Lord says to His

   watchful servant, "I will guide you with My eyes." But, like the
   attentive servant, we must be keenly on the watch for this indication
   of our Lord's guiding eyes.

   9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
   understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
   they come near unto you.If you will be like a horse or a mule, do not
   be surprised when you are made to feel the bit and bridle which are
   appropriate for such creatures! And if a whip and spur are added,
   remember that you brought such treatment upon yourself! No, do not be
   so foolish, but give heed to the Divine Injunction--"Be you not as the
   horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be
   held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto you."

   10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. The backsliding child of God
   will smart under the strokes of his Father's chastising rod, but still
   sterner treatment will fall to the lot of "the wicked." On another
   occasion, David wrote, "The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all
   the nations that forget God."

   10. But he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about. What
   a number of blessed fences there are around a Believer! Just now David
   wrote, "You shall compass me about with songs of deliverance." And now
   he says of himself or his fellow Believer, "He that trusts in the Lord,
   mercy shall compass him about." What more can he need?

   11. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy,
   all you that are upright in heart The Psalm began with blessedness and
   it ends with holy gladness! It was necessary to go down into the Valley
   of Humiliation for a while, but the Lord brought the Psalmist up to the
   mountaintop again, so that he felt that he must have others join him in
   his gladsome song--"Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you righteous;
   and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart." May all of us be
   fitted, by God's Grace, to join that singing and shouting company, for
   Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Proving God

   (No. 3036)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER
   19, 1856.

   "Prove Me now." Malachi 3:10.

   IT was my pleasure and my privilege, some time ago, to address you from
   the whole of this verse--"Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse,
   that there may be meat in your house, and prove 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."

   If I rightly remember, we had at that time enough room, but very soon
   afterwards, when we strove to serve our God more, He did really pour us
   out such a blessing that we had not room to receive it! Then we
   enlarged this house--still the blessing flowed so copiously that there
   was no room to receive it and I might have preached again from the same
   text, to remind you again of the promise. This morning, feeling that we
   are about to enter on a new enterprise to God's honor and Glory, I
   thought I would endeavor to stir up your pure minds by way of
   remembrance, for which purpose I select such a text as this, "Prove Me
   now."

   According to the laws of our country, no man can be condemned until his
   guilt is proved. It were well if we all carried out the same justice
   toward God which we expect from our fellow men, but how frequently will
   men condemn the acts of their God as being hard and unkind! They do not
   say so--they dare not--they scarcely admit that they thinkso, but there
   is a kind of lurking imagination hardly amounting to a deliberate
   thought which leads them to fear that God has forgotten to be gracious
   and will no longer be mindful of them. Let us never, my Friends, think
   harshly of our God till we can prove something against Him. He says to
   all His unbelieving children who are doubtful of His goodness and His
   Grace, "Prove Me now. Have you anything against Me? Can you prove
   anything that will be dishonorable to Me? Wherein have I ever broken My
   promise? In what have I ever failed to fulfill My word? Ah, you cannot
   say that. Prove Me now, if you have anything against Me--if you can say
   anything against My honor--if you have hitherto not received answers to
   prayer and blessings according to promise. Set me down as false, I
   beseech you, until you have so proved Me."

   Moreover, not only is it unjust to think ill of anyone until we can
   prove something against him, but it is extremely unwise to be always
   suspicious of our fellow creatures. Though there is much folly in being
   over credulous, I question if there is not far more in being over
   suspicious. He who believes every man will soon be bitten, but he who
   suspects every man will not only be bitten, but devoured! He who lives
   in perpetual distrust of his fellow creatures cannot be happy--he has
   defrauded himself of peace and happiness--and assumed a position in
   which he cannot enjoy the sweets of friendship or affection. I would
   rather be too credulous towards my fellow creatures than too
   suspicious. I had rather they should impose upon me by making me
   believe them better than they are, than that I should impose upon them
   by thinking them worse than they are. It is better to be sometimes
   cheated than that we should cheat others--and it is cheating others to
   suspect those on whose characters there rests no suspicion. We
   acknowledge such morality among men, but we act not so towards God--we
   believe any liar sooner than we believe Him! When we are in trial and
   trouble, we believe the devil when he says God will forsake us. The
   devil, who has been a liar from the beginning, we credit--but if our
   God promises anything, we say, "Surely this is too good to be true."
   And we doubt the fulfillment because it is not brought to pass exactly
   at the time and in the way we anticipate! Let us never harbor such
   suspicions of our God. If we say in our haste, "All men are liars," let
   us preserve this one Truth of God, "God cannot lie." His counsel is
   immutable and He has confirmed it by an oath, "that we might have a
   strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope
   set

   before us" in Christ Jesus. Let not our faith, then, dally with fear.
   Let us rather seek Grace--that we may confidently believe and assuredly
   rely on the words which the lips of God speak. "'Prove Me now,' if any
   of you are suspicious of My Word. If you think My Grace is not sweet,
   taste and see that the Lord is gracious. If you think that I am not a
   rock and that My work is not perfect, come now, tread upon the rock and
   see if it is not firm--build on the rock and see if it is not solid. If
   you think My arm shortened that I cannot save, come and ask and I will
   stretch it out to defend you. If you think that My ear is heavy that I
   cannot hear, come and try it--call upon Me and I will answer you. If
   you are suspicious, make proof of My promises, so shall your suspicions
   be removed. But, oh, doubt Me not until you have found Me unworthy of
   trust! 'Prove Me now.'"

   In these words I find a fact couched, a challenge given, a time
   mentioned, and an argument suggested. Such are the four points I
   propose to consider this morning.

   I. First, then, we have THE FACT that God allows Himself to be
   proved--"Prove Me now."

   In meditating on this subject, it has occurred to me that all the works
   of Creation are proofs of God--they evidence His eternal power and
   Godhead. But inasmuch as He is not only the Creator, but the Sustainer
   of them all, they make continual proof of Him, His goodness, His
   faithfulness and His care. I think when God launched the sun from His
   hand and sent it on its course, He said, "Prove Me now; see, O sun, if
   I do not uphold you till you have done your work and finished your
   career. You may rejoice 'as a strong man to run a race,' but while you
   fulfill your circuits, and nothing is hid from your heat, you shall
   prove My Glory and shed light upon My handiwork." When the Almighty
   whirled the earth in space, I think He said, "Prove Me now, O 'seedtime
   and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,'
   refreshing you with incessant Providences." And to each creature He
   made, I can almost think the Almighty said, "Prove Me now. Tiny gnat,
   you are about to dance in the sunshine--you shall prove My goodness.
   Huge leviathan, you shall stir up the deep and make it frothy--go forth
   and prove My power. You creatures whom I have endowed with various
   instincts, wait on Me--I will give you your meat in due season. And
   you, you mighty thunder and you swift lightning, go teach the world
   reverence and show forth My Omnipotence." Thus, I think, all God's
   creatures are not merely proofs of His existence, but proofs of His
   manifold wisdom, His loving kindness and His Grace! The meanest and the
   mightiest of His created works, each and all, in some degree prove His
   love and teach us how marvelous is His Nature. But He has given to man
   this high prerogative above all the works of His hands, that he alone
   should make designed and intelligent proof. The things of earth prove
   God--the cattle on a thousand hills low forth His honor and the very
   lions roar His praise! Yet they do it not with intent, judgment and
   will--and although the sun proves the majesty and the might of its
   Master, yet the sun has neither mind nor thought and it is not its
   intention to glorify God. They do but prove Him unintentionally. But
   the saint does it intentionally.

   It is a great fact, Beloved, that God will have all His children to be
   proofs of the various attributes of His Nature. I do not think any one
   of the children of God proves all of God, but that they are all proving
   different parts of His one grand Character so that when the whole
   history of Providence shall be written and the lives of all the saints
   shall be recorded, the title of this book will be, "Proofs of God."
   There will be one compendious proof that He is God and changes
   not--that with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of
   turning." You will remember how one saint peculiarly proved the
   long-suffering of God in that he was permitted to pursue his career to
   the utmost verge of destruction--and while he hung on a cross, the
   patience that had borne with him so long, brought salvation to him at
   last! He was "in the article of death," falling into the Pit, when
   Sovereign Grace broke the fall, everlasting arms caught his soul and
   Jesus Himself conducted him to Paradise! Then again, you will remember
   another saint who plunged into a thousand sins and indulged in the
   foulest lust--but she was brought to Christ! Out of her did He cast
   seven evil spirits and Mary Magdalene was made to prove the richness of
   our Savior's pardoning Grace as well as the sweetness of a pardoned
   sinner's gratitude! It is a fact that the Lord is ready to forgive--and
   this woman is a great proof of it. There was Job who was tortured with
   ulcers and made to scrape himself with a potsherd. He proved "that the
   Lord is full of pity and of tender mercy." From him we get evidence
   that God is able to sustain us amidst unparalleled sufferings.

   Let me note how Solomon proved the bounty of God. When he asked for
   wisdom and knowledge, the Lord not only granted his request, but added
   riches and wealth and honor to his store. And how did Solomon magnify
   this proof of Divine bounty as he translates the experience of his
   dream into the counsel of his Proverbs? While he advises us to get
   wisdom, he assures us that "length of days is in her right hand, and in
   her left hand riches and honor." And then, once

   more, how great a proof of God's special Providence in maintaining in
   this world "a remnant according to the election of Grace" we derive
   from the history of Elijah. There sat the venerable Seer beneath a
   juniper tree in the lonely desert--a great but sorrowful man--an
   honored but a dejected Prophet of the Most High. Do you mark him as he
   comes to Horeb, takes up his lodging in a cave and complains in the
   awful solitude of his soul, "I, even I only, am left; and they seek my
   life, to take it away"? Oh, had his fears been realized, what a blank
   would earth have been without a saint! But Elijah proved from the mouth
   of God the impossibility! He learned for our sakes, as well as his own,
   what a reservation God has made in reasons of direst persecution! It is
   proved that there shall always be a Church in the world while earth's
   old pillars stand!

   Nor need we suppose that the testimony of the witnesses is closed. Each
   of God's saints is sent into the world to prove some part of the Divine
   Character. Perhaps I may be one of those who shall live in the valley
   of ease, having much rest, and hearing sweet birds of promise singing
   in my ears. The air is calm and balmy, the sheep are feeding round
   about me and all is still and quiet. Well, then, I shall prove the love
   of God in sweet communing. Or, perhaps I may be called to stand where
   the thunderclouds brew, where the lightning plays and tempestuous winds
   are howling on the mountaintop. Well, then, I am born to prove the
   power and majesty of our God amidst dangers! He will inspire me with
   courage! Amidst toils He will make me strong! Perhaps it shall be mine
   to preserve an unblemished character and so prove the power of
   sanctifying Grace in not being allowed to backslide from my professed
   dedication to God. I shall then be a proof of the Omnipotent power of
   Grace which alone can save from the power as well as the guilt of sin!
   The divers cases of all the Lord's family are intended to illustrate
   different parts of His ways--and in Heaven I think one part of our
   blest employ will be to read the great book of the experience of all
   the saints and gather from that book the whole of the Divine Character
   as having been proved and illustrated! Each Christian is a
   manifestation and display of some attribute or other of God--a
   different part may belong to each of us, but when the whole shall be
   combined, when all the rays of evidence shall be brought, as it were,
   into one great sun and shine forth with meridian splendor--we shall see
   in Christian experience a beautiful Revelation of our God!

   Let us remember, then, as an important fact, that God intends us to
   live in this world to prove Him. And let us seek to do so, always
   endeavoring as much as we can to be finding out and proving the
   attributes of God. Remember, we have all the promises to prove in our
   lifetime--and it shall be found, in the Last Great Day, that every one
   of them has been fulfilled! As the promises are read through now, it
   may be asked, "Who is a proof of such a promise?" Perhaps the question
   relates to some promises of almost universal application--and millions
   of saints will rise and say, "We proved the truth of that." Or there
   may be a promise in the Bible that it will seldom fall to the lot of
   one of God's children to prove--it is so peculiar and few shall have
   been able to understand it. But mark, there will be some witnesses to
   attest it, and all the promises shall be fulfilled in the united
   experience of the Church. Such, then is the fact--God allows His
   children to prove Him.

   II. And now, secondly, we have here A CHALLENGE GIVEN TO US--"Prove Me
   now." "You who have doubted Me, prove Me. You who mistrust Me, prove
   Me. You who tremble at the enemy, prove Me. You who are afraid you
   cannot accomplish your work, believe My promise and come and prove Me."

   Now, I must explain this challenge to you, as to the way in which it
   has to be carried out. There are different sorts of promises given in
   God's Word which have to be proved in different ways. In the Bible
   there are three kinds of promises. In the first class I will place the
   conditional promises, such as are intended for certain
   characters--given only to them and then only on certain conditions.
   There is a second class, referring exclusively to the future--the
   fulfillment of which does not relate to us at the present time. Then
   there is a third and most glorious class called absolute promises,
   which have no conditions whatever, but which graciously supply the
   requirements that the conditional promises demand.

   To begin with conditional promises--we cannot prove a conditional
   promise in the same way as an absolute one. The manner of proving must
   accord with the character of the promise to be proved. Let me mention,
   for example, "Ask, and you shall receive." Here it is quite obvious
   that I must ask in order to verify the promise. I have a condition to
   fulfill in order to obtain a benefit. The way to test the faithfulness
   of the Promiser and the truth of the promise is plainly this-- comply
   with the stipulation. Very different is the promise and equally
   different the proof, when God says, "I will put My spirit within you
   and cause you to walk in My statutes." Here we have the simple will of
   the Almighty. Such a promise is to be proved in a very different manner
   from the fulfillment on our part of a condition--but more of this soon.
   In order to prove conditional promises, then, it is necessary for us to
   fulfill the condition that God has annexed to them. He says, "Bring you
   all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in My house,
   and prove Me now herewith." No man can prove God, with reference to
   this promise, till he has brought all the tithes into the storehouse--
   for it is, "herewith," this promise has to be proved. Suppose the Lord
   says, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you
   shall glorify Me." The only way of proving Him is by calling upon Him
   in the time of trouble. We may stand as long as we like and say, "God
   will fulfill that promise." Yes, that He will, but we must fulfill the
   condition! And it behooves us to seek Grace of Him to enable us to do
   so, for we cannot prove such promises unless we fulfill the conditions
   appended to them. There are many very sweet conditional promises--one
   of them helped to save my soul at rest, it was this, "Look unto Me, and
   be you saved, all the ends of the earth." The condition there is, "Look
   unto Me." But you cannot prove it unless you look unto Christ! Here is
   another, "Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
   What a blessed promise that is! But then you cannot prove the promise
   unless you call on the name of the Lord. So that whenever we see the
   promise to which a condition is attached, if we wish to prove it in our
   own experience, we must ask of God to give us Grace to fulfill the
   condition! That is one way of proving God.

   But some will say, "Do not these conditions restrict the liberality and
   graciousness of God's promises?" Oh, no, Beloved, for first, the
   conditions are often put to describe the persons to whom the promises
   are made. Hence, my Brother, when it is written, "He forgets not the
   cry of the humble," the promise fits your chastened soul. When the Lord
   says, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a
   contrite spirit and trembles at My Word." And when He says, "I will
   satisfy her poor with bread," you can, some of you, take comfort that
   the promise finds you in the fit condition to receive the blessing! But
   again, if the condition is not a state, but a duty, then let it be
   prayer--He gives the spirit of prayer! Let it be faith--He is the Giver
   of faith! Let it be meekness--He it is who clothes you with meekness!
   Thus the conditions serve to commend the promises to God's own children
   and to show the bounty of Him who gives "Grace for Grace."

   But then there is the absolute promise and that is the largest and best
   promise of all, for if they were all conditional promises and the
   conditions rested with us to fulfill, we would all be damned! If there
   were no absolute promises, there would not be a soul saved! If they
   were all made to characters and no absolute promise were made that the
   characters should be given, we would perish, notwithstanding all God's
   promises. If He had simply said, "He that believes shall be saved," we
   should all be lost, for we could not believe without His Grace. Now,
   the absolute promise is not to be proved by doinganything, but by
   believing in it. All I can do with an absolute promise is to believe
   it. If I were to try to fulfill a condition, it would not be accepted
   by God because no condition is appended to that kind of promise. He
   might well say to me, "If you have fulfilled the condition of another
   promise, you shall have it, but I have put no condition to this one. I
   have said, 'I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in
   My ways; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.' That is a
   promise without any condition." Although the child of God may have
   sinned, yet the promise stands good that he shall be brought to know
   his error, to repent, and be wholly forgiven! Such a promise we can
   only believe--we cannot fulfill any condition relating to it. We must
   take it to God and say, "Have You said that Christ 'shall see of the
   travail of His soul'? Lord, we believe it. Let Him see of the travail
   of His soul. Do you say, 'My Word shall not return unto Me void"? Lord,
   do as You have said. You have said it, Lord--do it." Has He said, "Him
   that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out"? Then go and say, "Lord, I
   come now. Do as you said." On an absolute promise, I can tell you,
   faith gets good foothold! Conditional promises often cheer the soul,
   but it is the absolute promise which is the rock that faith delights to
   stand upon!

   Now, beloved Friends, what promise has been laid this day to your
   hearts? Many of you have one that God gave you when you arose from your
   beds. I am always sure to have the most happy day when I get a good
   text in the morning from my Master. When I have had to preach two or
   three sermons in a day, I have asked Him for a morning portion, and
   preached from it. And I have asked Him for an evening portion, and
   preached from it, after meditating on it for my own soul's comfort--not
   in the professional style of a regular sermon-maker, but meditating
   upon it for myself. Such simple food has done more good than if I had
   been a week in manufacturing a sermon, for it has come warm from my
   heart just after it has been received in my own conscience and,
   therefore, it has been well spoken, because well known, well tasted,
   and well felt! What is your promise, then? Is it a conditional one?
   Then say, "Lord, I beseech You, enable me to fulfill the condition."
   And if the promise is applied to your soul with a condition, He will
   give you both the condition and the

   promise, for He never gives by halves. Has He put into your soul, "Let
   the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts"? Then
   He will give you Grace to forsake your ways and your thoughts too! He
   will not give you the conditional promise without, in due time, giving
   you the condition, too.

   But have you got an absolute promise laid to your soul? Then you are a
   happy man! Has God laid to your inmost spirit some of those great and
   precious promises, such as this, "The mountains shall depart, and the
   hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither
   shall the Covenant of My peace be removed"? Pause not to ask for
   conditions--take the promise just as it is! Go on your knees and say,
   "Lord, You have said it." Again, has the Lord promised, "I will never
   leave you, nor forsake you"? Plead it! Or are you in trouble? Search
   out the suitable promise and say, "You have said, 'When you pass
   through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they
   shall not overflow you.' I believe you, Lord! I am tried, but you have
   said I shall have no trial that I am not able to bear. Lord, give me
   all-sufficient Grace, and make me more than conqueror!" Go and prove
   God! Be not afraid with any amazement. If He gives you a single word,
   He means that you should bring it to Him and tell it to Him again--for
   you know He has said, "I will yet for this be enquired of by the house
   of Israel, to do it for them." Do, I beseech you, put the Lord in mind
   of His own promises and He will most assuredly fulfill them! Here is a
   challenge to all the redeemed, "Prove Me now."

   III. In the third place, there is A SEASON MENTIONED--"Prove Me now."

   Do you know what is the most perilous time in a Christian's life? I
   think I could hit upon it in a moment--"now." Many persons--I might
   well near say all Christians--are always most apprehensive of the
   present hour. Suppose they are in trouble? Though they may have had ten
   times worse troubles before, they forget all about them and, "now," is
   the most critical day they ever knew! Or, if they are at ease, they
   say--

   "Far more the treacherous calm I dread Than tempests rolling over my
   head"-- and they think no position in life more dangerous than "now."
   The lions are before them--how great their danger! And when, a little
   while ago, they lost their roll in the arbor of ease, how dreadful it
   was then! And when they got to the slippery ground, going downhill,
   "now" seemed their greatest danger! When they get a little further and
   Apollyon meets them, "Here," they say, "is the worst trial of all."
   Then comes the Valley of the Shadow of Death and they say, "Now this is
   the most serious period of my life!" In fact, it is right that we
   should feel in some degree that "now" is just the time we ought to be
   guarded. Yesterdays and tomorrows we may leave, but "now" is the time
   we must be watchful. God never lays tomorrow's promise on my heart
   today, because I am not in immediate need of it. The promises are given
   in the time, in the place and in the manner He has designed and
   intended they should be fulfilled. But no doubt some of you will
   sympathize with me when I say that "now" is the time when the Christian
   thinks he can trust God the least. "Oh," he says, "if I were in the
   same state as I was before, I would be happy. I believe that I could
   have trusted my Master better then, but just now I cannot lay my head
   so confidently on the Savior's breast. I remember, when I was sick, how
   sweet the promises were. I could then say--

   "'Sweet to lie passive in His hands, And know no will but His.'

   But now I am altered. Somehow or other, a languor has come over me. I
   cannot believe that I am a Christian." You compare yourself with some
   Brother and feel quite sure that if you were only like he, you would
   have faith. Go and speak to that Brother and he will say, "If I were
   like you, I would be better off." And so they would change experiences,
   each failing to trust God under his own circumstances. But the Lord is
   pleased to always give us a word that suits the particular position we
   may be in--"Prove Me now."

   To allegorize a moment. There is a ship upon the sea. It is the ship
   which the Lord has launched and which He has said shall come to its
   desire haven. The sea is smooth. The waves ripple gently and bear the
   ship steadily along. "Prove Me now," says the Lord. The mariner stands
   on the deck and says, "Lord, I thank You that You have given me such
   smooth sailing as this. But ah, my Master, perhaps this very ease and
   comfort may destroy my Grace." And a Voice says, "Prove Me now, and see
   if I cannot keep you amidst the storm." Soon the heavens have gathered
   blackness, the winds have begun to bluster and the waves lift up their
   voices while the poor ship is tossed to and fro on the yawning winds. I
   hear a Voice which says, "Prove Me now." Look, the ship has been dashed
   upon the rocks--she has been broken well near in sunder and the mariner
   sees her hold filling with water, while all his pumps cannot keep her
   empty! The Voice

   still cries, "Prove Me now." Alas, the ship well-near sinks--another
   wave will be enough to swamp her! It seems as if one more drop will
   submerge her. Still the Voice cries, "Prove Me now." And the mariner
   does prove God--and he is delivered safely from all his distresses.
   "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their
   wit's end," but, "so He brings them unto their desired haven." Now the
   ship is scudding merrily along before the winds and, lo, she comes to
   the verge of the horizon. The mists have gathered round her. Strange
   phantoms dance to the waves of night--a lurid light flits through the
   shades and soon the darkness come again. Something broods about the
   ship that the mariner has never seen before. The water is black beneath
   his vessel's prow. The air hangs damp and thick above him. The very
   sweat is clammy on his face. Fresh fear has got a hold of him that he
   never felt before. Just then, when he knows not what to do, a Voice
   cries, "Prove Me now." And so he does! He cries unto the Lord and is
   saved!

   Ah, dear Friends, I might give you a hundred illustrations. I think
   this old Bible speaks to me today. I have wielded it in your midst as
   God's soldier. This sword of the Spirit has been thrust into many of
   your hearts and though they were hard as adamant, it has split them in
   sunder! Some of you have had sturdy spirits broken in pieces by this
   good old Jerusalem blade. But we shall be gathered together tonight
   where an unprecedented mass of people will assemble, perhaps, from idle
   curiosity, to hear God's Word--and the Voice cries in my ears, "Prove
   Me now." Many a man has come, during my ministrations, armed to his
   very teeth and having on a coat of mail--yet has this tried weapon cut
   him in two and pierced to the dividing asunder of the joints and
   marrow! "Prove Me now," says God, "go and prove Me before blasphemers!
   Go and prove Me before reprobates, before the vilest of the vile and
   the filthiest of the filthy! Go and prove Me now." Lift up that
   life-giving Cross and let it again be exhibited! Into the regions of
   death go and proclaim the Word of Life! Into the most plague-smitten
   parts of the city, go and carry the waving censer of the incense of a
   Savior's merits and prove, now, whether He is not able to stop the
   plague and remove the disease!

   But what does God say to the Church? "You have proved Me before. You
   have attempted great things, though some of you were faint-hearted and
   said, 'We should not have ventured.' Others of you had faith and proved
   Me. I say again, 'Prove Me now.'" See what God can do just when a cloud
   is falling on the head of him whom God has raised up to preach to you!
   Go and prove Him now--see if He will not pour you out such a blessing
   as you had not even dreamed of--see if He will not give you a
   Pentecostal blessing! "Prove Me now." Why should we be unbelieving?
   Have we one thing to make us so? We are weak--what of that? Are we not
   strongest in our God when we are weakest in ourselves? We are fools, it
   is said--so we are, and we know it--but He makes fools to confound the
   wise. We are base, but God has chosen the base things of the world. We
   are unlearned--

   "We know no schoolman's subtle art"-- yet we glory in infirmity when
   Christ's power rests upon us. Let them represent us as worse than we
   are! Let them give us the most odious character that has ever been
   given to man--we will bless them and wish them good. What though the
   weapon are a stone, or even the jaw-bone of an ass, if the Lord directs
   it? "Do you not know," say some, "what wise men say?" Yes, we do, but
   we can read their oracles backwards. Their words are the offspring of
   their wishes. We know who has instructed them and do you shrink from
   the Truth of God, or do you shrink from His Grace? In either case, you
   have not the love to your Master that you should have. If you are brave
   men and true, go on and conquer! Fear not, you shall yet win the day!
   God's holy Gospel shall yet shake the earth once more! The banner is
   lifted up and multitudes are flocking to it--the Pharisees have taken
   counsel together--the learned stand confounded--the sages are baffled.
   They know not what to do! The little ones God has made great and he
   that was despised is exalted. Let us trust Him, then. He will be with
   us even to the end, for He has said, "Lo, I am with you always, even
   unto the end of the world."

   IV. The last division of my subject is AN ARGUMENT and I have already
   preached on that--"Prove Me now."

   Why should we prove God? Because, Beloved, it will glorify Him if we
   do. Nothing glorifies God more than proving Him. When a poor hungry
   child of God, without a crust in the cupboard, says, "Lord, You have
   said that bread shall be given me and water shall be sure. I will prove
   You"--more Glory is given to God by that simple proof of Him than by
   the hallelujahs of the archangels! When some poor despairing sinner who
   has been fluttering round the Word, in hopes that he may--

   "Light on some sweet promise there, Some sure defense against
   despair"--

   when such an one gives credence to God's promise in the very teeth of
   evidence against him, staggering not at the promise through unbelief,
   then he glorifies God! If you are, this morning, in your own
   apprehension an almost damned sinner, and you feel yourself to be the
   vilest of all--if you will believe this, that Christ loves you and that
   Christ came to save you, sinner as you are--you will glorify God as
   much by doing that as you will be able to do when your fingers shall
   sweep across the string of the golden harps of Paradise! We glorify God
   by proving Him. Try God. This is the way to bring out the glorious
   points of the Christian character. It is in being singularly qualified
   for the duties of our holy Christian warfare, in being singularly
   courageous and singularly ready with the martyr-spirit, to imperil
   ourselves for His service, that we may bring glory to God! God says,
   "Prove Me now." Saint, will you rob Him of His honor? Will you not do
   that which shall crown Him, in the estimation of the world, with many
   more crowns? Oh, prove Him, for by so doing you will glorify His name!

   Prove Him again, for you have proved Him before. Can you not remember
   that you were brought very low and yet you can say, "This poor man
   cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles"?
   What? Will you not prove Him again? Mind you not the goodness you have
   proved? When you said, "My feet were almost gone; my steps had well
   near slipped," did He not support you so that you could say with the
   Psalmist, "Nevertheless I am continually with you: you have held me by
   my right hand"? Has your foot slipped? Can you not thus far witness to
   His mercy? Then trust in it to still hold you up!

   Again, accept this challenge! Prove God's Word, as He has called you to
   do, and how much blessing it will give to yourself! Beloved Brothers
   and Sisters, we endure 10 times as much anxiety in this world as we
   need because we confide not in Divine promises half as much as we
   might. If we were to live more on God's promises, and less on creature
   feelings, we would be happier men and women, all of us! Could we live
   always in faith on the promises, the shafts of the enemy could never
   reach us. Let us constantly, then, seek to prove Him! How much good Mr.
   Muller has done by proving God! He is called by God to a special work.
   What does he do? He builds an orphan asylum and trusts to God. He has
   no regular income, but he says, "I will prove to the world that God
   hears prayer." So he lives in the exercise of prayer and though he may,
   at times be brought to his last shilling, yet there is never a meal
   that his children sit down to without sufficient bread. Our work may be
   different from his, but let us seek, whatever our work is, to do it so
   that when anyone reads of it, he will say, "He tried God in
   such-and-such a promise and his life was a standing proof that that
   promise did not fail." Whatever your promise is, let your life be seen
   to be the working out of the problem which has to be proved, and like
   any proposition of Euclid, which is stated at the beginning and proved
   at the end, so may we find a text put at the beginning of our lives as
   a promise to be fulfilled--and seen at the close, demonstrated, proved,
   and carried out!

   But, dear Friends, let me just conclude by asking those here who have
   been brought to know their lost and ruined state, to remember this
   message, "Prove Me now." Thus says my God unto you, O Sinner, "Whoever
   shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." My dear Hearer, are
   you lost and ruined? Prove God now! He says, "Call unto Me, and I will
   answer you." Come now, and call unto Him. "Knock," He says, "and it
   shall be opened unto you." Lift up the knocker of Heaven's door and
   sound it with all your might! Or, suppose you are too weak to
   knock--let the knocker fall down of itself. He has said, "Ask, and you
   shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
   unto you." Go and prove the promise now! Try to prove it. Are you a
   poor, sick and wounded sinner? You are told that Jesus Christ is able
   and willing to heal your wounds and extract the poison from your veins.
   Prove Him, prove Him, poor Soul! You think yourself to be a lost
   one--therefore I urge you, in Christ's name, to prove this promise--"I,
   even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and
   will not remember your sins." Take this to Him and say, "O God, I need
   faith to trust Your Word! I know You mean what You have said. You have
   said, this morning, by the mouth of your minister, 'Prove Me now.'
   Lord, I will prove You now, this very day, even till nightfall if You
   do not answer me! I will still keep fast by Your promise."

   Do this, my Beloved, and you will not be gone long before you will be
   able to sing--

   "I'm forgiven, I'm forgiven! I'm a miracle of Grace."

   Now, do not stand still and say, "God will not hear such an one as I
   am. My disease is too bad for Him to cure." Go and see, put your hand
   on the hem of His garment and then if the blood is not staunched, go
   and tell the world that you have proved God wrong. Go and tell it, if
   you dare. But oh, you cannot. If you touch the hem of His garment, I
   know what you will say--"I have tasted that the Lord is gracious. He
   said, 'Trust in Me, and I will deliver you.' I have trusted in Him and
   He has delivered me!" For the promise will always have its fulfillment.
   "Prove Me now," says God.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christians Kept From Sin

   (No. 3037)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
   13, 1870.

   "And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which
   sent you this day to meet me: and blessed be your advice, and blessed
   be you, which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from
   avenging myself with my own hand." 1 Samuel 25:32,33.

   THESE verses are taken from the story of David's coming into contact
   with Nabal the churl. Nabal was a great sheep-master and David and his
   600 men had been especially careful not to injure his flocks, but had
   protected them from any pilfering that might have been practiced by
   wandering bands of desert rangers. At that time Nabal was shearing his
   sheep and David, who was in some measure of need, thought it a suitable
   time to ask something from him, according to Eastern custom, in return
   for the services which he had rendered to his shepherds. So he sent 10
   of his young men to ask Nabal for the backsheesh, but, instead thereof,
   they received an insulting message to take back to their master.
   Thereupon, David--who seems to have been always of a quick spirit,
   whether for right or for wrong--who made haste to obey God's
   commandments, but who made equal haste to obey his own impulses--girded
   on his sword and bade every man do the same and declared that they
   would march to the house of this churl, Nabal, fall upon him at once
   and destroy him and all that appertained to him, root and branch. While
   he was marching in haste to carry out his stern determination--as God's
   Infinite Goodness would have it, Abigail, the wise wife of the foolish
   Nabal, met him and confessed that her husband was a man of Belial. She
   pleaded that she had not seen the messengers whom David had sent,
   besought him to accept the provisions she had brought and urged David
   to leave the avenging of himself to God, so that when he came to be
   king, it would be no grief of heart to him that he had shed blood
   needlessly, or had acted as his own avenger. David who had Divine Grace
   in his spirit, although he was on his way to do wrong, felt the force
   of Abigail's rebuke, sheathed his sword, thanked her and thanked the
   Lord, too, that he had thus been preserved from committing a great sin
   which might have left a great stain upon his character and been a
   source of trouble to him for the rest of his life.

   Learn from this, dear Brothers and Sisters, that the best of men need
   to be always on the watch, lest, in some sudden temptation, they should
   be carried off their feet. You may fancy that you have no occasion to
   fear certain forms of temptation, but you do not know what you may do.
   The wall of resolution may be strong in one particular wind, but let
   the wind only blow from another quarter and the wall may speedily fall.
   You may think yourself to be strong simply because, as yet, you have
   not been tested and tried as you will be sooner or later--and then, in
   a single moment, when you are least prepared for it, you may be
   overthrown. Remember our Lord's words to His disciples, "What I say
   unto you I say unto all, Watch," for, in such an hour as you think not,
   temptation may come upon you and woe be unto you if you are not found
   watching! Therefore, commit yourselves unto the Lord and, "watch and
   pray that you enter not into temptation."

   Here, too, we may observe what a blessed thing it is when, in hours of
   crisis, the God of all Grace is pleased to interpose to preserve us
   from committing a certain sin into which we had almost fallen. Our
   steps had well-near slipped, but, just then the Lord sent some angelic
   messenger to us, even as Abigail came to David. For that Almighty Love
   which has manifested itself in restraining Grace, let us render
   grateful songs of thanksgiving as we look back upon our past lives, for
   we can scarcely tell how often we should have dishonored our character
   and our profession if it had not been that God came to our rescue and
   kept back His servants from presumptuous sins.

   The subject upon which I am to talk to you, as the Holy Spirit shall
   graciously guide me, is the great blessing of being prevented or
   preserved from sin. I shall speak first upon the blessing itself Then,
   for a few minutes, upon the means which God employs to secure it And
   then, thirdly, upon the great blessedness of which we may be partakers
   if we endeavor, like Abigail, to prevail with others so as to prevent
   them from going into sin.

   I. First then, we are to consider THE GREAT BLESSEDNESS OF BEING
   PREVENTED FROM SIN.

   It is an unspeakable blessing to have sin forgiven. We cannot measure
   the heaped-up blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven
   and whose sin is covered. But surely there is a very special favor
   rendered by God's Grace to those who are kept from the grosser sins
   into which so many others fall and who are converted early in life
   after having been hedged about by Divine Grace and not allowed to
   plunge into the foul kennels of iniquity in which others riot and
   revel. Those who are thus preserved not only have to sing of repenting
   Grace, as they must do however purely they may have lived, but they can
   also tell of the restraining Grace of God which would not let them
   wander into the paths of the destroyer as others did!

   To be kept from sin is to be kept from many evils for, in the first
   place, sin has such a hardening effect upon the conscience. There is no
   man who ever sins without having some trace of it left upon his mind
   and heart. For one thing, it is more easy for him to sin the next time.
   An impulse has been given and a habit begun which will make it almost
   inevitable that he shall fall into that particular sin again. He who
   has served Satan once will be likely to serve him ten times and, on
   each succeeding occasion, he will serve him more vigorously and
   readily. He will not need nearly as much temptation, but will go
   greedily after evil when the habit of sinning has taken firm hold upon
   him. But there are some who have been kept from overt acts of evil and
   so, when they hear the Gospel, they receive it like good ground into
   which the seed falls and brings forth abundant fruit. But there are
   others who, because of iniquity, are like the highway trodden hard by
   the feet of many--and when the good seed falls there, the birds of the
   air find it an easy task to steal away the grain because it has not
   penetrated below the surface. Do not imagine that you can live for
   twenty, thirty, or forty years in sin and yet be just as likely to be
   converted as anybody else is! I know that God can, if He pleases to do
   so, call you at the 11th hour as easily as at the first, but, as far as
   you are concerned, if you harden your neck, you have no right to expect
   that He will do so, but rather to expect that you shall suddenly be
   destroyed, and that without remedy. So that it is a mercy to be kept
   from sin in order that this hardening process may not even begin within
   our mind and heart!

   Besides, he who sins in a little way makes that sin, as it were, a
   steppingstone to something worse. David wisely prayed, "Who can
   understand his errors? Cleanse You me from secret faults. Keep back
   Your servant, also, from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion
   over me: then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great
   transgression." He seemed to feel that he would not go on to the great
   transgression if he was restrained from presumptuous sins--and he was
   right in thinking so. You dear young people who through the Lord's
   loving kindness and tender mercy, have been brought up among gracious
   influences, know that you have sinned and that your sin has done your
   soul such evil as only God's Grace can remedy--yet you may thank the
   Lord that you have not been permitted to learn to sing the song of the
   drunkard, or to live an unchaste life, or to forsake the assembly of
   God's people--and so put yourselves out of the reach of the usual means
   of Grace, as perhaps you would have done by this time if you had not
   been checked while you were children. A gentle stream, if it is allowed
   to flow unhindered, becomes at last, a foaming torrent that sweeps away
   its own banks and causes loss and damage far and wide! Thank God that
   the current of your life was checked and guided while it was but a
   stream! May the torrent of sin never overflow your character and
   career.

   There is this blessing about being restrained from sin, namely, that it
   saves us from much sorrow in later life. It should be no grief or
   offense of heart unto David, said Abigail, to think that he had shed
   blood causelessly, or had avenged himself. No sinner, when converted,
   although God has forgiven him, can ever forgive himself--and no child
   of God, although God has blotted out his sin, can ever blot it out of
   his own memory as long as he is here on earth. You can see that David
   was a different man, after his great sin, from what he had been before.
   He still sang Psalms to God, but there was a hoarseness about his voice
   which was not there before his great transgression. His Psalms were
   Psalms of sorrow, whereas before they were glad and joyful Psalms that
   tripped to lightsome music. I remember once hearing a strange sort of
   preacher say that sin did a Believer no harm--a more terrible Doctrine
   than that could drop from no man's lips, but then he added--"except
   that it destroys his peace of mind." And it seemed to me that such a
   result as that was harm enough even if there was nothing else. "He that
   wears the herb called 'heart's-ease' in his bosom," says Bunyan,

   "is a happy man even though he sings in rags." But he whose heart
   smites him, as David's heart did, need want no harder blow! May those
   of you who are unconverted be preserved from gross sin--and may those
   of us who are saved be preserved from falling by temptation into any
   evil, lest we have to wring our hands in anguish and go with broken
   bones to our graves.

   Further, he who is kept from sinning has to bless God that the
   consequences of his sin upon others are averted. It is a dreadful thing
   to know that there will be some in Heaven who were the means of sending
   others to Hell. I have sometimes wondered what must be the emotions of
   those who have sinned--especially in the foulest sense--when they are
   converted, but find themselves quite unable to induce their fellow
   sinners to even listen to the Gospel. Mr. Whitefield tells us that as
   soon as he had tasted that the Lord was gracious, he tried to think of
   all the companions with whom he had been accustomed to play cards, or
   to indulge in any kind of sinful sport. And he thanked God, he said,
   that he never gave himself any rest until he had done all that was in
   his power to bring them to the Savior. You, my Friend, were once an
   infidel and you are now a Believer--but you cannot recall the words
   that you spoke in those past days. You may refute, to your own
   satisfaction, the arguments you then used, but you cannot so readily
   make others see the force of your refutation. You, my Brother, were
   known, at one time, to use language which was unclean. You abhor it now
   and you rebuke it when you hear it from another--but you cannot make
   others forsake the habit which they learned from you. You cannot get
   out of your boy's memory that song which you used to sing in his
   hearing--you cannot get out of your daughter's heart that evil word
   which she heard you utter. It must go on rankling forever in her spirit
   and doing everlasting mischief unless the Sovereign Grace of God shall
   intervene to prevent such a calamity. What a blessing it is to begin
   with God in our youth before we have helped to pull down the walls of
   Zion, or even cast a stone against them! It is an unspeakable blessing
   to be saved in old age and to be able to sing of triumphant Grace which
   has blotted out innumerable iniquities. But it must be--at least on
   this side of Heaven--a cause of constant regret to such a late penitent
   that he should have worked so much evil which it is not possible for
   him to repair.

   Besides, dear Brothers and Sisters, it is always a blessing to the
   Christian--to whom I speak now--to be kept from sin, for thus his
   character is preserved and much of his influence for good will depend
   upon his character. When backsliders are restored, we cannot help
   standing in some doubt concerning them--and let them afterwards live as
   carefully as they may, it will be very difficult for them to ever honor
   the Church as much as they have dishonored it. If there is but one
   waterfall in a river--only one in a thousand miles--everybody hears
   about it and it is marked on the map. But if another river should flow
   on smoothly, gladdening the meadows on either side, and bearing navies
   out to sea, it would not cause such a noise as that one waterfall would
   make! In like manner a holy life is not talked of, by an ungodly world,
   one half as much as one unholy act of an inconsistent professor! How
   they delight to speak of that! How they roll the story of the sins of
   God's people under their tongues as sweet morsels! You may repent of
   your backsliding, you may become even more zealous afterwards, as you
   should do, but my dear Brothers and Sisters, after having once stained
   your reputation, it is not easy to wipe out the blot. It is infinitely
   better to be kept true to our first profession until we enter into
   Heaven, upheld and preserved by the love and Grace of God.

   And, only once more upon this part of the subject, you may rest assured
   that even if sin is forgiven and Divine Grace enters the heart, never
   is it better to sin than not to sin. There is a house on fire. Well, we
   are grateful if the fire engine comes rattling up almost immediately,
   if the water supply is abundant and if, by great exertions, every life
   is saved and much of the property is preserved from destruction. Yet it
   would have been a greater blessing if there had not been any fire at
   all. There is serious sickness in the home, but the physician is
   skillful, the nurse is wise and watchful, the disease takes a favorable
   turn, the man's life is preserved--he is restored to health and is
   thankful for his recovery. Yet he would rather not have been sick.
   There is a wounded soldier. He is carried on an ambulance to the
   hospital, the surgeons extract the bullet that injured him and bind up
   his wounds. The man is ultimately restored to the ranks, but he will
   carry to his grave the scars of the wounds that he has suffered. It
   would have been a great deal better for him if he had not been wounded
   at all. So is it with the wounds that sin has made. Let the results of
   evil be ever so well removed, it can never be better for any of us to
   fall into sin than to be kept out of it! It if were otherwise, it would
   look as if sin were not that damning a thing that God's Word tells us
   it is--it would seem as though it were but a trifle and that there was
   no need for Calvary's Cross, or of all the wondrous arrangements of
   Everlasting Wisdom and Love for the saving of men from sin and its
   awful consequences! Let us cry to God, my Brothers and Sisters, that we
   may be kept from sin! May this be our prayer night and day, "Lord keep
   us even from vain thoughts, but, above all, keep us from any acts that
   would be dishonoring to Your holy name!" We do not want to sin in order
   that we may know what sin is like. We do not want to plunge into evil
   for the sake of being washed from it. We do not want to go into this
   horrible pit and this miry clay for the sake of being drawn out of it.
   Our earnest desire is that we may be kept from the grosser forms of sin
   till we are saved by Sovereign Grace and receive the new nature which
   is the portion of the children of God--and that after that, we may walk
   in all well-pleasing to the glory of God our Savior!

   II. Now, secondly, let me remind you of SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH GOD
   KEEPS US FROM SINNING.

   He does this, of course, in the grandest way by the work of His Grace
   within our soul There is no protection against sin like the indwelling
   of the Holy Spirit! If the evil spirit goes out of the heart of man and
   it is swept and garnished--if the good Spirit does not come and dwell
   there, seven other spirits, yet more wicked than the first, will return
   to take possession. There is no way of keeping out the fire of sin
   except by having the fire of Grace blazing within the spirit. We must
   fight fire with fire! Let your soul be filled with all the fullness of
   God and then when the prince of this world comes to you, he shall not
   be able to overcome you. The Grace of God is the great antidote to sin.

   But God also uses other means, even before their conversion, to keep
   some from the grosser sins and vices in which others indulge. Among
   these, there is, first, early education. There are some who, happily,
   have never known the sins which others have forever to regret. They
   have been like plants kept in the greenhouse--they have never been
   tried by the frosts of this vile world. Be very thankful for this if it
   is true concerning you, but do not regard it as a substitute for being
   born-again. Remember that you who are the most amiable, the most
   excellent, the most zealous, the most honorable must be born-again just
   as surely as the most abandoned, the most dissolute and the most
   profane. Regeneration is an absolute necessity before any soul can
   enter Heaven--and you must not be satisfied with anything short of
   that! Yet you may be grateful if, like Timothy, from a child you have
   known the Scriptures, or if, like Samuel, you have been brought up in
   the house of the Lord from your very early years. Be thankful that you
   have been kept from much sin into which others have fallen.

   Christian association, too, is of the utmost value in helping to keep
   us from sin. There may be here a young man who has just come to London.
   After leaving that quiet country town where he was accustomed to attend
   the services at the little Meeting House, it may be that there is a
   strong temptation upon him to throw off all the restraints of his past
   life and to hide himself among the thick trees of this great forest of
   London and to indulge himself in sin from which he has been hitherto
   preserved. My dear Friend, if you desire everlasting ruin, this may be
   your fatal choice! But that you may not even wish to make such a
   choice, I strongly urge you to endeavor to form associations with
   Christian young men before you have been laid hold of by the active
   servants of Satan who are lying in wait for you. Come and join one of
   our Bible classes, or the Young Men's Christian Association, or find
   some Christian friends somewhere or other. Form associations and
   acquaintanceships which, if they do not actually bring you to Christ,
   may at least keep you from going far astray from the path which your
   godly parents have always desired you to tread. May the Lord grant that
   instead of your deciding for Satan, now that you are left to yourself,
   a sense of responsibility may so press upon you that you may decide,
   through the Holy Spirit's power, for the Lord Jesus Christ! If, this
   very night, you, as a newcomer into this great city, should surrender
   yourself to the Savior, what an eternal blessing it would be to you!
   The Lord grant that it may be so, and He shall have all the praise!
   Still, if you are not at once converted, Christian association will be
   very helpful in keeping you from outward sin.

   And you, my Brothers and Sisters who have Grace in your hearts, will
   often find that association with warm-hearted Christians is one of the
   very best ways of keeping you from evil. Some of our Church members
   have gone to live in the country where they have been only able to
   worship with a cold and indifferent congregation where the minister has
   not been more than half awake--and I have observed very serious
   declension in their spiritual life. When I have met them afterwards,
   and have ventured to speak to them about it, they have told me that it
   seemed like going from a hothouse into an ice well--and they confessed
   that they did not feel as earnest as once they did. O Christians, do
   prize any association with God's people that is possible! If any of you
   are in positions where you can enjoy Christian fellowship and you have
   the opportunity of earning ten times as much money in another position
   where you must give up that fellowship, do not do it! It is always a
   loss to Christians to lose the communion of saints. No amount of
   worldly prosperity can ever make up for the loss they will sustain by
   leaving an earnest Gospel ministry and an affectionate

   people. Thank God that He makes use of other Believers to help you in
   the road to Heaven--and often to restrain you from sin!

   The Lord, too, is pleased very frequently to make use of our position
   in society to keep us out of evil. I mean this-- some men have always
   been poor, although they have tried again and again to rise above the
   level of their poverty. Once or twice they have almost succeeded, yet,
   not from lack of ambition nor lack of industry, but as though God's
   Providence were at cross-purposes with them, they have always had to
   come back to that same sparse diet and tiny cottage! My dear Friends,
   the Lord knew that you could not bear to be rich. Had He permitted you
   to possess more than you now have, you might have become proud and
   worldly. It was better for you to live near to God in poverty than to
   be a backslider and be rich. I believe that many of the reverses which
   God's people suffer in trade are preventives from sin--when the Lord
   sees them beginning to launch out and to speculate--and perhaps to
   become associated with some rich man who has no Grace in his heart, the
   Lord says, "My servant is going on very dangerous ground. I must stop
   him before he is lost." And He soon does it. The man's substance takes
   to itself wings and flies away--and thus he is rescued from the
   threatening danger.

   Some are preserved from sin by physical infirmities. "Well," said one
   who was lame, "I believe I would never have run in the way of God's
   commandments if it had not been for my lame leg." "Ah," said another,
   "and I sometimes think that I would never have seen Christ if I had not
   been blind." Just because their infirmities incapacitated them for
   enjoyment of the world, they were made to look for higher enjoyments
   and to seek that spiritual health which is everlasting. Blessed are the
   lame and the blind who enter into Heaven--and blessed are they who have
   but one eye, yet who enter there, while some who have two eyes are cast
   into Hell!

   Others, doubtless, have been kept from sin by severe sicknesses. These
   come to us, I believe, not by chance, but by Divine ordination. We say
   to one another, "I cannot think where I caught that disease." Or, "I
   cannot imagine why such-and-such a sickness should have come to me."
   Perhaps you were more out of danger on your bed than you would have
   been anywhere else just then. Had you been out of that bedroom, you
   might have been in a position of very serious trial which you could not
   have been able to endure. I can bear my witness that at least in some
   of my many sicknesses I have been able to see the reason for them as
   plainly as I can see that twice two are four. Even when we cannot see
   the reason, God knows that there is a reason for it and if we cannot
   see it, it may be all the deeper and may lie all the nearer to the very
   heart of our Christian life. Your sicknesses, pains, griefs, depression
   of spirits and all sorts of trials are often sent to you to prevent you
   from sinning. They tether you, like the horse that was in a meadow with
   a clog on him, and a friend said to the owner, "I wonder that you clog
   such a fine horse as that. It seems such a pity." "Well," replied the
   owner, "I would rather clog him than lose him. And if I did not clog
   him, I would lose him. He has a habit ofjumping hedges and ditches--and
   we cannot keep him unless we clog him." So, my Brother, my Sister, you
   have a clog because the Lord would rather clog you than lose you! He
   would sooner make you suffer here than permit you to suffer forever in
   Hell.

   Once again, God's people have very often been kept from sin by
   remarkable Providences. And some, who are not yet the Lord's people,
   have been kept from certain forms of sins by very remarkable
   interpositions of Divine Providence. You probably all remember the
   story of the Quaker who, one night, felt an irresistible impulse to
   rise from his bed and ride to a neighboring town. When he got there, he
   stopped at a house where he saw a light in an upper room. He knocked,
   and knocked, and knocked again and, at last a man came to the door to
   ask what he wanted at that time of night. The Quaker replied, "Perhaps,
   Friend, you can tell me, for the Lord has sent me to you, but I do not
   know why He has done so." "Come upstairs," said the man, "and I think I
   can tell you." There he had fixed a rope with which he was about to put
   an end to his life, but God had sent His servant to him just in time to
   prevent the contemplated crime. Such striking Providences as that may
   not happen to all or any of us, for we may not require them. But they
   do happen to some people to prevent them from sinning against God. It
   may be also that the Providences which do not appear striking to us, do
   appear striking to those holy angels who minister to God's people and
   who bear them up in their hands lest they should dash their feet
   against a stone--and who constantly adore the wisdom and goodness of
   God in interposing to keep His servants from going aside into sin. The
   wheels of Providence, which are full of eyes, have those eyes
   continually fixed upon us--and those wheels are always revolving on our
   behalf to God's Glory.

   No doubt many have been kept from sin by a message to their conscience,
   either through a minister, or through a tract, or through a text which
   they read in the Bible, or a kind remark from a friend. There are
   members of this Church who, in the Lord's gracious Providence, owe
   their salvation to a word spoken to them in the street. There is
   especially one who was tapped on the shoulder just as he was going into
   a theater, and who was entreated--by one who did not know him
   personally, but who had mistaken him for somebody else--not to go into
   such a place as that, but to come with him that Thursday night and
   listen to the preaching of the Word of God. It was remarkable that such
   a mistake as that should have been made, but it was a blessed mistake
   for him and he rejoices this night that he finds himself in God's
   House, numbered among the Lord's people!

   III. This brings me to the last point which is that IT WOULD BE A VERY
   BLESSED THING IF CHRISTIAN PEOPLE WERE MORE EARNEST TO PREVENT SIN.

   This matter was put very plainly under the Old Testament command, "You
   shall not hate your brother in your heart: you shall in anywise rebuke
   your neighbor and not suffer sin upon him." Yet, under the Christian
   dispensation, I am afraid that we are very negligent in our endeavors
   to prevent sin. Some of us, it may be, think a great deal too much of
   our dignity. No doubt we are very respectable people, though everybody
   does not know it and does not treat us with the respect we feel is due
   to us. Perhaps we suspect others of not being all they ought to be and,
   therefore, our attitude towards them is not what it used to be. Then
   they begin to have harsh thoughts concerning us--and in that way Satan
   has reason to rejoice because Christian people are weaned from each
   other--and very grievous sin is caused by the roots of bitterness that
   are thus planted in the soil of the church! Now, my Brother, suppose
   that somebody did treat you very disrespectfully? Instead of your
   saying, "I will be avenged on him," suppose that you say to yourself,
   "If he were to treat me as I really deserve to be treated, God knows
   that it is very little respect I should receive from him. The man has
   slandered me this time, but if he knew what my faults really are, he
   could hit me in a much more tender part"? It is sometimes said that
   when a boy is wrongfully flogged, "If he does not deserve it now, he
   probably has deserved it at some other time when he has not had it, or
   he will deserve it in the future." So, if a rebuke should come to me
   wrongfully, I will lay it by in case I need it at another time! A
   Christian sometimes says, "If you tread on a worm, it will turn." Yes,
   I know it will, but I hope you do not consider a worm an example for a
   Christian--especially when you have the Lord Jesus Christ to be your
   Exemplar! If you tread on a worm, it will turn because of the pain you
   have needlessly caused it. But if you are trodden on by another
   person--and you are a Christian--you will forgive him and try to do him
   good. "Do my lord of Canterbury an ill turn," it was once said, "and he
   will be your friend as long as he lives." Happy are they who kill their
   enemies by heaping coals of fire upon their heads! Do so, my Brothers
   and Sisters, whenever it is possible, and do not sin by standing up for
   that foolish dignity of yours! Be willing to be a doormat, if it is
   necessary, as well as a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord and, in
   that way, you will be all the more honored, for "he that humbles
   himself shall be exalted."

   It may be that in certain company we may hear talk that is not what it
   ought to be. And there may be some wit or merriment connected with that
   talk. But if so, we must not laugh at it, because though we might laugh
   at the wit, others might suppose that we were enjoying the evil that
   was mingled with it. It is well for a Christian to put his foot down
   firmly in such a case as that and to say very emphatically, "As far as
   your mirth is proper and there is nothing in it that is defiling, I am
   willing to join with you, for I, also, am a man, and am of a cheerful
   disposition. But you are going too far, now, and I must enter my
   protest, for I cannot, by my silence, give my consent to such talk as
   that." You ought to do that, my Brothers and Sisters, and you would
   often find that there would be some who would thank you for doing it.
   Have you ever heard how Mr. Wesley once stopped a man from swearing? He
   was riding on the top of a coach and there was an officer in the army
   there who kept swearing, so Mr. Wesley, at last, very gently said to
   him, "My dear Sir, I want you to do me a great favor." "What is that,
   Sir?" asked the officer. "Why," he said, "if you should hear me using
   profane language during this journey, I wish you would kindly tell me
   of it." "I see," said the officer, "what you mean, and I appreciate
   your kindness." You might, perhaps, if you did that, receive a stormy
   reply and make the swearing person worse. Still, you would have done
   your duty by rebuking the sin gently and affectionately.

   How often we might prevent sin if we could come in just when some are
   on the very verge of doing wrong. Perhaps you say that you have a
   pastor to do this work, but I have often told you that in such a Church
   as this, you must all be pastors. With 4,200 members in one Church,
   what can even two pastors do? What can all the elders and deacons do?
   The only hope for the Church is that God will watch over you all and
   that you will all watch over one another. You who are elderly, you who
   have long been kept faithful, you who have the respect of your fellow
   members--you, perhaps, know of

   inconsistencies springing up. If so, do not go and talk about them,
   especially to those outside the Church. "It is an ill bird that fouls
   its own nest," so, instead of talking to others, go and speak to the
   offending one! You may thus, perhaps, be the means of saving a soul
   from death and hiding a multitude of sins. May God grant you wisdom,
   Divine Grace, discernment and affection to deal rightly with such
   cases! Let it be the resolve of every Christian man and woman to
   imitate Abigail's wise way of turning David from his evil purpose! You
   Christian women, do not be backward in this matter, but use to this end
   that winning way you have. I expect Abigail pleaded far better with
   David for Nabal than any man could have done, for she was a woman of
   understanding and her beaming countenance caught the eyes of the hasty
   and angry warrior. And he paused awhile to listen to her wise
   words--and so she won what she set out to gain. I pray that you may all
   use the powers which God has given you, not to lead others into sin,
   nor to confirm them in it, but to hold back, as far as you can, all who
   are about to commit any act of transgression. May God add His blessing
   to this message, for the Redeemer's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Colossians 3 and 4:1-4.

   Verses 1, 2. Ifyou then are risen with Christ, seek those things which
   are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your
   affection on things above, not on things on the earth. This is the best
   proof that we are really "risen with Christ"--that we set our affection
   on things above!

   3-15. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When
   Christ who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with
   Him in Glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the
   earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil
   concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things'
   sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience: in which
   you also walked some time, when you lived in them. But now you also put
   off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication
   out of your mouth. Lie not to another, seeing that you have put off the
   old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed
   in knowledge after the image of Him that created him: where there is
   neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian,
   Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is All, and in all. Put on
   therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, heart of mercies,
   kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one
   another, and forgiving one another. If any man has a quarrel against
   any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. And above all these
   things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the
   peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you are called in one
   body; and be you thankful You notice that the Apostle again and again
   speaks of what we have put off and what we have put on, or of what we
   are to put off and to put on--"You have put off the old man with his
   deeds; and have put on the new man." "Put on, therefore, as the elect
   of God, holy and beloved, heart of mercies, kindness, humbleness of
   mind, meekness, long-suffering. . .And above all these things put on
   charity, which is the bond of perfectness." Let the blessed girdle of
   love bind upon you all these choice adornments of a true Christian's
   character!

   16, 17. Let the word of Christ dwellin you richly in all wisdom;
   teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual
   songs, singing with Grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you
   do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
   to God and the Father by Him. Now the Apostle, guided by the Holy
   Spirit, gives injunctions concerning various family and domestic
   relationships.

   18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as it is fit in the
   Lord. It is seemly according to nature. And it is still more "fit in
   the Lord."

   19. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Never
   say a bitter word against them and especially never dishonor them in
   the household, before children or servants, as some have done, but do
   all that you can to manifest love and tenderness toward them.

   20. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is
   well-pleasing unto the Lord. Nowadays, there are some children who seem
   to be the head of the family and the parents obey them in all things.
   This is very foolish and wrong! And when their children grow up and
   become their plague and curse, they will bitterly lament their folly in
   putting things out ofjoint and not keeping the house as God would have
   it kept, the children in their place, and the father in his.

   21. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be
   discouraged. Some fathers do. They expect more of children than they
   will ever get--and more than they ought to expect. And they lay heavy
   burdens upon them which are grievous to be borne and for little faults
   there are severe chastisements. This also is wrong.

   22-24. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the
   flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of
   heart, fearing God: and whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the
   Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the
   reward of the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ. If you do all
   your work in that spirit, how noble it becomes and how cheerfully you
   will get through it! You may have a master who is unworthy of your
   service, yet, if you "do it heartily, as to the Lord," you will have
   rest of heart even in serving those who are froward and perverse--and
   in due time the Lord will reward your service.

   25. But he that does wrong shall receive for the wrong which he has
   done: and there is no respect of persons.

   Colossians 4:1. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and
   equal I sometimes think that the good men who chopped the Bible up into
   chapters--for it is not in chapters in the original--must have hoped
   that we would not read this message to the masters, as he had put it in
   another chapter. But I never like to read about the servants without
   also reading about the masters. There is six for one, and half-a-dozen
   for the other and, as is usual, in the Scriptures there are balanced
   duties. If there is an exhortation to the children, there is generally
   one to the parents close by. And if there is a word to wives, there is
   one for husbands, too. So let us read that verse, "Masters, give unto
   your servants that which is just and equal."

   1-4. Knowing that you also have a Master in Heaven. Continue in prayer,
   and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us,
   that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery
   of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: that I may make it manifest,
   as I ought to speak
     __________________________________________________________________

Justice Vindicated And Righteousness Exemplified

   (No. 3038)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, EARLY IN THE YEAR 1865.

   "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 who believes in Jesus." Romans 3:24-26.

   THE death of our Lord Jesus Christ answered many valuable purposes. It
   manifested the manifold Wisdom of God. To angels in Heaven and to
   saints on earth, God never appeared so infinitely wise as in the
   ordaining of the plan of salvation by the substitution of His Son for
   guilty sinners. That death also revealed God's amazing love. It
   proclaimed to astonished worlds how "God so loved the world, that He
   gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not
   perish, but have everlasting life." The Atonement of Christ answered
   the purpose, moreover, of purifying His people. That He might sanctify
   the people by His own blood, He suffered outside the camp. He loved His
   Church and gave Himself for it, we know, "that He might present it to
   Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such
   thing." The Cross has also been the great battering-ram for breaking
   down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. It is by
   Christ's blood that we are made one. "Now therefore you are no more
   strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of
   the household of God." Caste is abolished and invidious distinctions
   are set aside. There is no longer in Christ Jesus barbarian, Scythian,
   bond or free, circumcised or uncircumcised, but Christ is All-in-All.
   That same atoning Sacrifice also broke down the wall which separated
   both Jew and Gentile from God--"that He might reconcile both unto God
   in one body by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby." The
   alienation prevailed till the reconciliation was effected by the
   precious blood of Jesus. We remain enemies in our minds by wicked works
   until we see the great love with which He loved us, and then that love
   melts our heart and makes us friends ofGod.

   Time would fail me did I attempt to enter into anything like an
   enumeration of the blessed purposes which the blood of Christ serves
   before God and among men. Try, if you can, to calculate the inestimable
   value of the air you breathe, how every plant feeds upon it, or upon
   some portion of it--how every creature, whether on the loftiest
   mountains, or in the deepest mines, must have a portion of it or else
   he can no longer exist. Think of the force with which it operates upon
   the world in wind and tempest. Need I do more than suggest to you the
   infinite number of ways in which the air becomes valuable, not merely
   as an accessory to our comfort, but as a necessity of our life? Yet,
   how infinitely more precious is the blood of Jesus Christ which in
   every way and in every place becomes efficacious to the everlasting
   salvation of all Believers! That water which sustains the life of
   leviathan, and of an infinite multitude of fishes, is your drink and
   mine. It makes glad the meadows, it fertilizes every field and gives to
   the farmer his harvest, but while it does this, it has other uses which
   we cannot stop here to discuss. See how it bears today upon its bosom
   the commerce of the world and becomes the highway of nations? When you
   shall have recalled all the excellencies of the water with which God
   has girdled the globe, you shall then have but opened a parable
   thoroughly inadequate to represent the immeasurable benefits which come
   to us through Christ--and the innumerable forms which those benefits
   assume! We know that it has an operation in the highest
   Heaven--certainly it has saved us from the deepest Hell.

   Do you see that Cross on which Jesus died? What is it more than a
   simple piece of transverse wood? I see it in vision. I see it growing
   till its top reaches the most excellent glory, lifting up the elect to
   the very Throne of the Most High! I see its base sinking deep as our
   helpless miseries could plunge us in hopeless ruin, going down till it
   reaches even the depths of the vengeance of God. I see its arms spread
   till all whom God has chosen are sheltered beneath them and all mankind
   receive some favors which never would have come to them if it had not
   been that there the Savior of sinners offered the one availing
   Sacrifice for sin. As when the servant of Elijah saw a little cloud,
   the size of a man's hand, and the Prophet marked in that the sign of
   abundance of rain--so, when I see the Cross of Calvary, it is as a
   little cloud, but faith beholds it spread all over Heaven and then drop
   down in mighty showers of mercy to fructify the earth and bless the
   children of men! If you would count the drops that fall from that
   cloud, you must grasp "infinity" in your comprehension!

   According to our text it appears that one main purpose of the Sacrifice
   of Christ was the manifestation of the righteousness of God. The
   Apostle twice over assures us that this was the case, "Whom God has set
   forth to be a propitiation . . .to declare His righteousness." And as
   if this were not enough, "to declare, I say, at this time His
   righteousness." What a grand thought! The death of Jesus Christ is a
   resplendent manifestation of Divine Righteousness! When we have mused
   upon that, we will proceed to notice that Divine Righteousness--the
   moral government of the Almighty--is, by the death of Christ, cleared
   of two difficulties to which reference is made. Then we shall close by
   noting the lessons which this great Doctrine teaches.

   I have nothing new to say this evening--I would be ashamed of myself if
   I had. This is the old Doctrine, this is the soul-saving Truth of God.
   It is blessedly simple and we thank God that it is and that, therefore,
   the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. It is plain to
   him that understands and if the Lord gives us understanding in this
   thing, we certainly have here the beginning--and we shall soon have in
   it the end of wisdom!

   I. Jesus' DEATH, THEN, MANIFESTED DIVINE JUSTICE IN THE VERY HIGHEST
   DEGREE.

   The expulsion of our first parents from the Garden of Eden manifested
   the Justice of God, but not fully. They were only expelled from
   Paradise, but their lives were spared. In strict justice they would
   have died. "In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die."
   Though that curse was not confined to natural death, it certainly
   included it. Had Justice there been fully vindicated, the human race
   would have been utterly destroyed. The expulsion of the sinner does not
   so fully set forth God's Righteousness as does the Expiation of the
   Savior.

   The Justice of God was exhibited in dreadful forms when the deluge came
   and swept the race of man from the earth. Yet why was yonder ark
   freighted with the chosen eight? Were they not sinners? If Justice is
   come out in its full strength, why does it permit so many as eight to
   escape? The number may be few, but the principle is infringed. In
   strict, severe justice, apart from the Atonement, not even Noah could
   have escaped, and certainly not his unrighteous son Ham. The eight, as
   they are floating yonder, indicate the exercise of some other
   prerogative than that of absolute and naked justice.

   Then comes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. See them, with the
   other cities of the plain, licked up by tongues of fire! Behold the
   light smoke as it ascends and clouds the heavens! But here was only
   Divine Justice upon one atrocious sin--a sin which will forever bear
   the name of the place in which it came to its worst height. It was not
   the declaration of God's Justice against sin as sin, so much as against
   sin in a certain form when the virus of evil had been most banefully
   developed!

   Hark to the shriek that goes up from the midst of the Red Sea, when the
   waters that stood upright as a heap, suddenly descend and lock in their
   death-wooing arms the multitudes of Egyptian chivalry! Do you not see
   here the Justice of God? You do, but you do not see it so completely,
   because a multitude of sinners, in front, have escaped by this very
   destruction! I grant you that, here, a most blessed type of our Lord
   Jesus Christ is conspicuous, but there is not a complete declaration of
   Divine Justice, for had Divine Justice slaughtered all sinners on that
   occasion, Israel would have been drowned as well as Egypt! There rather
   the pride of Pharaoh was subdued than the sin of Egypt. That judgment
   fell only upon the chief of Egypt, the chief of all her strength was
   smitten there--but judgment must come upon the little as well as upon
   the great when it comes from the hand of the Most High in its absolute
   force!

   Of all the other judgments which we find mentioned in Holy Scripture,
   it is enough to say that they were manifestations of Divine Justice,
   but they were not such manifestations of it as we have in Christ. If I
   might use such a metaphor, Divine Vengeance slept and all those
   judgments were but its startings in its sleep. God had not yet laid
   bare His terrible right arm--judgment was then His strange work. He did
   not put both His hands to the tremendous work of

   punishment as He did afterwards, when His only-begotten Son stood
   before Him--the Just in the place of the unjust, and the Guiltless with
   the guilt of man upon His shoulders!

   The death of Christ did more clearly set forth the righteousness of God
   than all these put together. In some respects, even Hell itself cannot
   so exhaust the vindication of Infinite Justice. Do you object to this
   last assertion? You may well do so till I explain my meaning. It needs
   a whole eternity to set forth, in Hell, all the Justice of God in the
   punishment of sin. To manifest to those who suffer, being impenitent,
   all the vengeance of incensed Deity demands an ageless age of years,
   countless and endless. Behold the Lamb of God! In Christ you have set
   forth at once all the fullness of the vengeance of God against the sins
   of men. See the cup of trembling drained to its utmost dregs. See the
   baptism accomplished. He sank beneath the swelling waves of vindictive
   wrath, but, lo, He rises again! He has finished the endurance and paid
   the debt that none could reckon. There is more of the vindication of
   Justice on the Cross than can be seen at any one time, or at any one
   point, in the lowest depths of Hell!

   The death of Christ gloriously set forth Divine Justice because it
   taught manifestly this Truth of God, that sin can never go without
   punishment I t is a law of God's moral universe that sin must be
   punished. He has made that as necessary as the law of gravitation. The
   law of gravitation He may suspend--the law of justice, never. He will
   by no means spare the guilty. "The soul that sins, it shall die."
   "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written
   in the Book of the Law to do them." As the Lord had appointed the
   salvation of His people, even this, the dearest desire of His soul,
   does not lead Him to tamper with His inviolable Law. No, a Substitute
   shall be provided, who shall to the utmost farthing pay whatever His
   people owe. Upon His head the fire-cloud shall discharge itself, and
   into His bosom shall be emptied out the coals of fire. No pardon
   without punishment! If the question is asked, "Why not?" It is enough
   to say that as long as God rules the universe, He rules it in wisdom,
   and His Wisdom knows that it would be unsafe if sin were at any time
   permitted to be blotted out apart from satisfaction received. Christ,
   therefore, must Himself give a satisfaction for sin, that this rule may
   be declared and written upon the forefront of the skies--God will not
   pardon sin by overlooking it--there must be redemption before there can
   be remission!

   This was also shown very clearly in what the Savior had to endure. A
   part of the penalty of sin is shame. The wicked will rise "to shame and
   everlasting contempt." Rebellion against God is the most contemptible
   thing that angels ever heard of. The devil will be recognized, at last,
   as the worst of fools and become the object of intense mockery. But see
   our Savior! When He takes the sinner's place, "He is despised and
   rejected of men." His own disciples, as it were, hid their faces from
   Him! "He was despised and we esteemed Him not." He is the song of the
   drunk! Reproach has broken His heart. They that sit in the gate speak
   against Him. They spit in His face! They bow the knee and hail Him with
   mock homage. They put Him to the death of a slave--they give Him the
   pre-eminent place of shame as center of the three crucified ones. Never
   was shame more shameful than in the experience of our Lord. Here God
   seemed to declare, once and for all, how shameful in His sight sin was.
   When sin lay but by imputation upon His own dear Son, His Son must be
   an object of scorn to the universe!

   Transcendent was His sorrow as well as His shame. We cannot comprehend
   His meaning when He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto
   death." Your sympathies can never interpret those pangs of heart which
   forced the blood to stream from every pore.

   His physical sufferings alone are enough to make us faint if we would
   but think of them aright. As for His soul's sufferings, which were the
   soul of His sufferings, here is enough to melt our hearts away in grief
   that we should ever have caused Him thus to die. When the Lord thus
   emptied out all His quivers, and shot every arrow into the heart of His
   dear Son--when all His waves and His billows went over Him--when deep
   called unto deep and there was the noise of God's waterspouts, and
   Christ was made to sink in deep mire where there was no standing--then
   God declared most loudly what an intolerable evil sin is, how supremely
   just He is and how jealous of His Justice.

   In the Savior's sufferings, shame and sorrow were deepened, both of
   them, by Divine desertion. ' 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken
   Me?" has the grief of ages in it! Here you have tremendous pangs
   distilled and given to Christ in quintessence. "Eloi, Eloi, lama
   Sabachthani?" is a more desperate cry than ever came from lost souls.
   Every word of it was emphatic, every syllable needs to be pronounced
   with the awful force of one who is in the pangs of death and in the
   pangs of Hell, for the Savior could truly say, "The sorrows of death
   compassed Me, and the pains of Hell got hold upon Me. I found trouble
   and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech
   You, deliver My soul." No answer came, for God had forsaken Him! His
   enemies persecuted and took Him, and there was none to deliver Him.
   Herein, in the leaving of His own Son, His only-begotten Son, His
   ever-obedient Son, God showed His intense Righteousness and hatred of
   sin!

   Nor was Christ spared the last pinch--one would have thought that He
   might have been spared that--He died. Here shame, sorrow and desertion
   reached the culminating point--the Savior dies. The holy soul is parted
   from the pure and blessed body. He suffers the very pangs of death. He
   yields up the ghost. Though Immortal, He dies! Brightness of the
   Father's Glory, He slumbers in the tomb! See Him, Believer, as the
   disciples take Him down, drawing out the nails, one by one, so
   tenderly! See Him as they lay Him in the sheet which the holy women had
   prepared, and wrap Him up in the spices which Nicodemus in his love,
   and Joseph of Arimathaea in his bounty, had brought! See the Savior, as
   they put Him in the tomb and go away sorrowing, for the stone is laid
   and the seal is set upon Him! See Him, I say! See Him, whom angels
   worship, "over all God, blessed forever," sleeping thus a captive in
   the grave! Does not Jehovah here reveal how He hates sin in that He
   spared not His own Son? The Christ must die when sin and expiation come
   into contact, even though that contact is but by imputation!

   To one more point I must call your attention. The excellency of the
   Person who suffered all this is the great platform upon which God
   displays His Righteousness. He who suffered this was the Just One--of
   spotless nature--a King. "The King of the Jews." He was the Messiah,
   the Shiloh whom God had foreordained to be the Mediator of the
   Covenant. No, more than that--He was the Son of the Highest, being
   begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary! Mounting
   higher still, He was, Himself, "very God of very God." It is a great
   mystery, one which, however, we receive with reverence.

   The hand that was stretched out to the nail is the very hand that
   wields the scepter of universal empire! The heart that was pierced is
   the very heart which will beat on throughout eternity in love to His
   people! Yet more, the very Being who thus became capable of suffering,
   was He who built the heavens and scattered the stars like dust along
   the sky! Who bespoke the light and said, "Light be," and sent forth the
   Spirit to brood over chaos, and brought order out of its confusion!
   "Without Him was not anything made that was made." He is the express
   image of His Father's Glory and Person--"in Him dwells all the fullness
   of the Godhead bodily." I merely talk--this theme demands an angel's
   tongue to sing! Sing of Him, spirits before the Throne of God, in your
   rapturous song--sing of Him in wonder that He should ever leave your
   happy choirs and forsake the Throne of His eternal Glory to become a
   man! Sing of Him when He stripped Himself of His azure mantle and did
   hang it on the sky--and took away His golden rings and hung them up
   like stars--and laid aside the vestments of His glorious reign and came
   to dwell in humble garments of clay! Oh, mysterious love! He came to
   suffer, bleed and die! Oh, mystery of Righteousness, that such an One
   as this should have to bleed, should have to smart, even to the
   uttermost, and be obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross!
   Never, then, did Righteousness receive such vindication as when God,
   the mighty Maker, having assumed flesh, in that flesh died for man, the
   creature's sin!

   II. THIS GREAT MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE PERSON OF
   CHRIST, as I

   understand the text, INTELLIGIBLY CLEARS GOD'S MORAL GOVERNMENT OF TWO
   GREAT DIFFICULTIES.

   When Christ became a Propitiation, He declared God's Righteousness for
   the remission of sin. We are pardoned through the forbearance of God.
   For thousands of years men lived and sinned, and yet were
   justified--rebelled, and yet were forgiven--wandered, yet were
   restored. I say, for thousands of years poor fallible men claimed
   complete righteousness and entered into the rewards which belong
   exclusively to those who are justified before God. There they go,
   streaming up to Heaven, a long bright line of patriarchs, Prophets,
   warriors for the holy cause, kings, priests and saintly men and women
   who believed in God--and this was imputed to them for righteousness.
   Now here we are in a difficulty. A just God is saving all these sinners
   and taking them to Heaven without any sort of vindication of His
   Justice! But Christ comes in and declares the Righteousness of God,
   "for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of
   God," and all the difficulties of the antediluvian, Patriarchal, and
   Mosaic times are cleared up at once.

   Another difficulty, with which you and I are far more concerned, is how
   God can be just, and yet the Justifier. The Apostle says that this was
   cleared up, "To declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness; that
   He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believes in Jesus."
   This is the great problem which the world has been trying to solve. I
   know of no religion except Unitarianism--which is not a religion, but a
   philosophy--which ever pretends to do without a sacrifice.

   It is remarkable that no religion can be popular except that which
   deals with a sacrifice for sin. And where this is left out in any man's
   ministry, you very soon find there are more spiders than hearers, and
   very soon the place which might have been crowded under an Evangelical
   ministry, grows empty. It is a happy circumstance that it is so, but it
   is a very significant one. If a man were to open a shop for the sale of
   bread and were to sell nothing but stones, it is certain that he would
   have but few customers. The baker's shop is the last that is shut up in
   the parish. When all other trades die out, his will live, for men must
   have bread. And so if every other good thing should pass away, the
   Gospel, because it meets the needs of common humanity, is quite certain
   to survive them all. Dr. Patten, the other Sabbath morning, said to me
   after service, "I am often asked why so many people come to the
   Tabernacle and, my dear Friend," he said, "I cannot give any answer
   except this one, that you try to preach that which the soul needs, the
   essential and vital point of how men are saved and justified before God
   through Jesus Christ. And so," he said, "if you keep to that old theme,
   there is no fear but what there will be enough hungry souls to come and
   feed upon that bread." And so I think it is. This I know, if a man
   would have a subject that will never grow stale and never wear out, let
   him preach Christ Crucified! You need not go to philosophies, nor turn
   over the books in your libraries to find some novelty--the old story is
   more novel than the new! There is nothing so new as Christ! We may say
   of Him, "You have the dew of Your youth," for Christ Jesus and His
   Sacrifice exactly meet the common needs of our humanity!

   Well, there is a Sacrifice provided and that Sacrifice, dear Friends, I
   say, answers the question which God has put into every man's mind--"How
   can I be saved, and yet God be just?" Man has the conviction, though he
   may not express it, that God is just. Every sinner knows that sin must
   be punished! He may trifle with that knowledge, but he cannot destroy
   it and he never can get any peace of mind, when his conscience is
   really awakened, till he learns this great Truth--God punished Christ
   instead of you! Christ has so honored the Law of God that, without God
   being unjust, or being thought to be so, He can forgive you! There has
   been such a satisfaction offered to God's violated purity that He can
   be discovered to be infinitely pure--no, severely just and yet, at the
   same time, infinitely gracious and merciful! O Soul, have you ever
   caught a glimpse of this matter? My heart remembers when I first
   understood that. Though those words, "Look unto Me, and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth," were the channel of my comfort, yet the
   ground of it was this--I did see that Christ suffered for me, that
   Christ stood as a Substitute for Believers and that precious Doctrine
   of Substitution was the window of light to my dark soul!

   Hear, you Sinners, hear this! God demands of you two things--first,
   that you should keep His Law. You cannot do this, for you have already
   broken it! If you never sinned again, you have put yourselves out of
   court. On Sinai's mountain there is no safety for you. Even Moses said,
   "I do exceedingly fear and quake," when Sinai was altogether on a
   smoke. But God demands more than this. He demands punishmentfor the
   sins that are past, as well as a perfect obedience for the years to
   come. Can you bear this? Can you endure the flames of Hell and the
   terrors of His vengeance? Your heart quails at the thought! Well, as
   Christ has come into the world, He has provided for both. He knows your
   need. Christ has kept the Law of God for you and Christ has suffered
   the penalty of that Law, too. You have two answers to the Most High--
   and when conscience says, "You must be punished, for you are guilty,"
   you can say, "No, not I! Christ was punished for my sins. God will
   never punish two for one offense--first the Substitute, and then the
   sinner for whom He was a Substitute." And when conscience says, "Ah,
   but you cannot bring in a perfect righteousness," you can answer, "Yes,
   I can, for Christ has worked out and brought in a perfect
   Righteousness. And He gives this to me, according to His own name and
   title, 'JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU,' The Lord Our Righteousness."

   Oh, that we might have Grace, dear Friends, to understand that all that
   God wants of us is found in Christ! You think there is something for
   you to do in order to save yourself, but Christ has saved all who will
   be saved--saved them already, virtually! And you shall be saved
   actually when, by humble faith, you receive the salvation which Christ
   has worked out. To add to Christ anything of your own would be to tack
   on your own filthy rags to His gold and silver-threaded garments! To
   bring your filthy lucre to eke out the golden payment which He has laid
   down at God's Throne. Do not do this, Sinner! God is content with
   Christ--be you content with Him and as you see how God is just, see
   also how you may be happy and at peace!

   III. And now I conclude by drawing TWO PRACTICAL LESSONS.

   First, let us see what an evil thing sin is and how God hates it
   Christian, do you hate it too? Loathe it! Never endure it. If I had to
   pass the place where some dear friend of mine was murdered, I should
   dread the very spot. But if there lived

   on earth the man who had stabbed my dearest friend in the heart, I
   think I could never bear him affection, but I should feel moved to stir
   the officers of justice to pursue him. Now, your sins have murdered
   your Savior. Revenge here is holy. In other places it must be very
   doubtful, but here it is sacred. Seize your sins! Where are they? Seize
   yourselves and you have them. If you feel any anger against the
   murderer of Christ, turn to your mirror and see his face. There stands
   the man who slew his Friend. There stands he who killed his Friend who
   died to save him! Yes, in the very act and suffering of murder that
   Friend gave Himself up to bleed and die for the good of His murderers!
   Shall I spare the sins, then, that nailed my Savior to the tree? O
   Christian, how you ought to hate the very thought of sin! Sometimes we
   are very severe upon the sins of others--how much more severe ought we
   to be upon our own! Truly, a man's foes are they of his own household!
   The very thought of sin, the word of sin, the very garments spotted
   with the flesh should be hated by the Christian. The Lord give us to
   feel more and more of this! We shall only get it, however, by living
   more where the groans of Calvary can meet our ears and the sight of the
   Savior's wounds can melt our hearts!

   Then, let us see our sad condition if we are not delivered from sin. If
   Christ became the Object of His Father's wrath when sin was only
   imputed to Him, how angry must God be, everyday, with the wicked whose
   own sins lie upon them! There can be no more dreadful thought to a
   sinner than this--if we will look at it in that light--that God spared
   not His own Son! Surely, if the Judge smites His own Son so severely,
   He will not spare you, His enemy! Ah, you who have no Savior and who
   have never looked to Christ to take away your sins, what will you do
   when you have to stand before the bar of God? Christ needed to be
   Omnipotent to endure the stroke of His Father's sword--what will you do
   when God's dreadful voice cries, "Awake, O sword, against My foe;
   against the man that despised My Son and trampled on His blood"? The
   wrath of the Lamb is the worst thing a sinner can ever feel. "The wrath
   of the Lamb!" Think of that! When love turns to anger, it is cruel as
   the grave. To despise Incarnate Love is to entail upon yourself
   infinite misery! They who perish without the knowledge of Christ,
   perish happily compared with you! It shall be more tolerable for Sodom
   and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for you if you have despised
   Christ!

   My Hearers, I have tried as best I can to preach Christ to you and to
   lift Him up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. But some
   of you will not look at Him. I fear you will never and that you will
   die in your sins. It was but the other day that I heard of one of your
   number who, after listening to this voice, suddenly went into eternity
   in a moment! And the same is happening to very many. You will not be
   able to say, at the last, that you never heard of Christ, or that I
   covered Him up amidst a multitude of gaudy periods and high-sounding
   words! I have set forth Christ Jesus in all the naked beauty of His
   mysterious Sacrifice. Look to Him, Souls! If I have never been able to
   move your heart before, may God move it now! Look to Jesus! Is
   salvation such a thing to be trifled with, that you can live without
   it? Are the joys of being reconciled to God such trifles that you will
   not have them? If you had to die like dogs, it would be worthwhile to
   prove the happiness of being reconciled to God in this life. But, oh,
   remember the world to come! You shall soon pass through the gates of
   the grave--the death-sweat will settle on your brows--the night of
   death shall seal your eyes. What will you do, in those few solemn
   moments when the last sands are trickling from the hourglass, without a
   Savior?

   Say not that these are things not to be talked of because they are too
   distant! Men and women, they will come to you. Tomorrow, before next
   Sabbath bells shall toll, you may be hurried to the land where the
   sound of the church-going bell is never heard. May God lead you to lay
   hold of Christ, now, for if not, there remains for you nothing but the
   fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation! The trumpet
   sounds, the dead awake, Jesus sits upon the Great White Throne, the
   heavens are opened, the angels come to gather God's harvest and it is
   gathered into the garner. But now they come to reap the vintage--and
   with their sickles they cut down cluster after cluster of the wild
   vines of sin. Oh, if you are there, you must be gathered with the rest,
   cast into the winepress of the wrath of God and, oh, how tremendous
   will that be, when He who once tread the winepress for His people,
   shall come to tread the winepress of His wrath for the last time! How
   dreadful when, to use the prophetic words of the Revelation, the blood
   flows forth even unto the horses' bridles! Oh, tremendous vengeance of
   an incensed God, whose mercy has been despised and whose Grace has been
   put away!

   I am not in the habit of often using such strong words. I rather love
   to plead the love of Jesus Christ to souls, but strong words must
   sometimes be used, or slumbering souls will never awake. Why will you
   perish? Do you choose your own destruction? Why do you choose it? Come,
   let a Brother lead you back! Here, in these seats, cover your eyes, and
   let the silent confession go up to Heaven. Look to Jesus Crucified! Fly
   to those dear wounds of His. A Substitute for sinners! There He hangs,
   and bleeds, and dies--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
   moment for you"--

   if you believe in Him. God give you the Grace to believe, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 3:19-31; 4:1-21.

   Romans 3:19, 20. 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. Therefore by the deeds
   of the La w there shall no flesh be justified in His sight for by the
   Law is the knowledge of sin. The Law can convict and condemn, but it
   can never justify the guilty. Its special work is to prove that they
   are not justified in sinning and to stop their mouths from uttering any
   excuse for their sin.

   21-24. But now 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. Now there comes in a new
   principle--the principle of Grace which accomplishes what the Law never
   could accomplish--that is, the free justification of all the guilty
   ones who believe in Jesus! And this justification is a righteous one,
   seeing that it is based upon "the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

   25-27. 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 Justifier of him
   which believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By
   what law? Of works? No, but by the Law of faith. Faith's empty hand
   receives the free gift of Grace--that very fact excludes all boasting!

   28-31. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without
   the deeds of the Law. Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He yet also of
   the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, which
   shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through
   faith. Do we then make void the Law through faith? God forbid: yes, we
   establish the Law.

   Romans 4:1-8. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as
   pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if

   Abraham were justified by works, he had something to boast about, but
   not before God. For what says the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and
   it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that works is the
   reward not reckoned of Grace, but of debt. But to him that works not,
   but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted
   for righteousness. Even as David also describes the blessedness of the
   man unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed
   are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
   Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. There is a
   special blessedness, therefore, which comes to those who, by faith, are
   under the dispensation of Grace. It came to Abraham and it came to
   David--yet both Abraham and David were circumcised men belonging to a
   special race. So the question naturally arises.

   9-12. Comes this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon
   the uncircumcision also?For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham
   for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? When he was in
   circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in
   uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
   righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that
   he might be the father of all them that believe, though they were not
   circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also: and
   the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision
   only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father
   Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. The historical argument
   is a very forcible one. The blessing was not given to Abraham as a
   circumcised man, but as a believingman. And hence it also comes to all
   of us who believe. What a mercy it is that there is, in this sense, no
   distinction between Jew and Gentile! I hate that plan of reading the
   Scriptures in which we are told, when we lay hold of a gracious
   promise, "Oh, that is for the Jews." "Then I also am a Jew, for it is
   given to me!" Every promise of God's Word belongs to all those who have
   the faith to grasp it. We who have faith are all in the Covenant and

   are thus the children of faithful Abraham--so be not afraid, you who
   are the true seed, to take every blessing that belongs to your father
   Abraham and to all the seed!

   13, 14. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was
   not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the

   Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of
   the Law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of no
   effect. But that would also make void circumcision and the whole of the
   ancient Covenant, seeing that the blessing was given to a man whom God
   had chosen before his circumcision, and before the Ceremonial Law had
   even been made known.

   15-17. Because the Law works wrath: for where no Law is, there is no
   transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by Grace; to
   the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only
   which is of the Law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham;
   who is the father of us all, (as it is written, I have made you a
   father of many nations). Not a father of one select race of people,
   only, but a father of all who, in any land, and speaking any language,
   are believers in the glorious Jehovah, who is the God of Abraham, and
   of Isaac, and of Jacob!

   17. Before Him whom he believed, even God, who quickens the dead, and
   calls those things which are not as though they were. Abraham was a
   believer in the God of Resurrection, expecting to see Isaac raised up
   from the dead if he did actually offer him as a sacrifice to God. He
   was a believer in things that were not yet apparent to him, looking
   forward to them and expecting to see them in due time--believing in
   them because he believed in God, who "calls those things which are not
   as though they were."

   18-21. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the
   father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall
   your seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own
   body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the
   deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God
   through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and
   being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to
   perform.
     __________________________________________________________________

The King's Sharp Arrows

   (No. 3039)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 16, 1870.

   "Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; whereby the
   people fall under You." Psalm 45:5.

   WHEN our Lord Jesus Christ is represented as a King, we delight to
   think of Him as the Prince of Peace whose dominion shall put an end to
   all war and make it unnecessary for the nations of the earth to learn
   the arts of war any longer. Meanwhile, however, in this present state,
   evil is in the world, sin is all around us and thus sin is the curse of
   mankind. Christ, therefore, for our good, is a fighting King, combating
   evil and contending against sin in every shape and form and, in that
   aspect, we regard Him as standing in His glorious war chariot, riding
   through the world in the power of His Gospel, smiting right and left
   with the great sword of the Spirit and, at the same time, shooting His
   sharp arrows of Gospel Truth to the very ends of the earth! The Truth
   of God is the weapon that Christ uses. The weapons of His warfare are
   not carnal any more than are ours. The Truth of God is His sword and
   the Truth of God is His arrow!

   There are some Truths which Jesus Christ proclaims in the Gospel and
   which He bids us also proclaim, which are like sharp arrows--wounding,
   piercing, killing--and of these I am about to speak, hoping and
   trusting that those arrows may, in all their sharpness, pierce all
   hearts that have not felt them yet! And that where they go, they may
   kill sin and that He may then come in to heal who has wounded them and
   to give life to those whom He has slain.

   First, we shall ask and answer the question, what are those Truths
   which are like sharp arrows?Secondly, why are they arrows? And thirdly,
   how come they stick fast in human hearts?

   I. First, then, WHAT ARE THOSE TRUTHS WHICH ARE SHARP AS ARROWS IN THE
   HEARTS OF MEN?

   There are many of them, but I shall only mention such as are most
   usually felt when men are convinced of sin. One arrow that is always
   sharp is this--the spirituality and holiness of the Law of God. Many
   men read the Law of the Ten Commandments, or hear it read in their
   churches on the Sabbath, but they do not know that that Law means a
   great deal more than the mere words seem to convey. For instance, it is
   written, "You shall not commit adultery," but Christ tells us that even
   though no act of unchastity is committed, the very thought of it is
   condemned and he who indulges an unclean look has already broken the
   command. The Law of God not only deals with the overt acts, but also
   with desires--and even with those imaginations which scarcely amount to
   desires, in which a man pictures the sin and feels a pleasure in the
   picture, though he has not actually committed the sin. Now, when a man
   comes to understand in his heart, as well as to hear with his ears that
   God looks thus at his thoughts, imaginations, desires and words as well
   as at his actions, then he stands in awe and amazement of the Law and
   says, "I cannot keep this Law of God, for I am already condemned by
   it--and being condemned, what way of escape is there for me? How can I
   get my sins forgiven? By what means can I be reconciled to God?"

   This Truth of God is, indeed, a sharp arrow, and well do I remember
   when first it pierced my heart and conscience. I felt that I could not
   stand the test of such a Law for a single moment and that if called to
   stand before God's bar to be tried on such grounds, I would not require
   a trial, but must plead guilty at once, or stand there in silence to
   hear His righteous sentence of condemnation--

   "How long beneath the Law I lay In bondage and distress! I toiled the
   precepts to obey, But toiled without success.

   Then, to abstain from outward sin, Was more than I could do. Now, ifI
   feel its power within, I feel I hate it too."

   Another of the Truths connected with Christ's Gospel that is like a
   sharp arrow is this--the utter impossibility of self-justification.
   This is one of the Truths of the Gospel that we must never fail to
   proclaim--"By the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in
   His sight." Having offended against God, you cannot expiate the past by
   any actions of yours. If you should henceforth keep the Law without a
   single breach or slip, the fact remains that the sentence of
   condemnation has already gone forth against you! It is often said that
   this life is a life of probation, but that is not true. We have passed
   our probation! We have been proved guilty and we are already condemned!
   And we shall abide under that sentence of condemnation unless we have
   help outside of ourselves to rescue us from it. Lost, lost,
   lost--utterly lost is the entire human race apart from the Divine and
   supreme power which has been put forth in the Person of Jesus Christ!
   Well do I remember when I first learned that no works of mine--no
   repentance, no prayers, and no tears could deliver me from the horrible
   pit into which I was cast through sin! Then was I pierced, indeed, as
   with a barbed shaft that went right through my soul to the killing of
   all my proud hopes and boasts! May such an arrow from the King now
   pierce to the heart anyone here who still cherishes any hope of
   self-justification!

   A third shaft from the King's bow is this--the certainty of the
   judgment If there is any one Truth that Christ proclaimed more often
   than another, it seems to me to be this--that there shall be a
   resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. And that
   the actions of this life will be reviewed in another life, and that
   rewards and punishments will be meted out by the Great Judge who cannot
   err. Kind and gracious as the mighty Prophet of Nazareth was, who has
   described in more graphic words than He did, the separation of the
   sheep from the goats--and the blessing of those on the right hand and
   the cursing of those on the left? What words could there be more
   terrible than His when He spoke of the worm that dies not and of the
   fire that never shall be quenched? O Sinner, your sin is immortal! And
   there is only One who can kill it and put it away--even Christ Jesus!
   You shall live again, Sir! It shall not be the end of you when you are
   carried to your grave and green grass grows above you. You shall live
   again and your thoughts, words and actions shall also live! Let them
   now live in your conscience. Let the recollection of them alarm you
   even before they arise and accuse you before Him who shall sit on the
   Great White Throne at the last tremendous Judgment Day! I know
   this--let a man be thoroughly convinced that he has sinned against God,
   that he cannot deliver himself from his sin and that as surely as he
   lives, there is a Day of Judgment awaiting him--he has an arrow
   sticking fast in his heart which he will be compelled to say is sharp
   as long as he is one of the King's enemies!

   Another sharp arrow is the sense of the need of an entire renewal of
   our nature if we are not to be condemned at that Judgment--

   "Not all the outward forms on earth, Nor rites that God has given, Nor
   will of man, nor blood, nor birth, Can raise a soul to Heaven! The
   Sovereign will of God alone Creates us heirs of Grace-- Born in the
   image of His Son, A new peculiar race."

   Christ's words are clear and positive, "You must be born-again." Some
   perhaps ask, "But Master, may we not reform and amend?" Yes, you may as
   far as you can, but that will not suffice. "But, Master, may we not
   observe certain ceremonies which You have ordained, may we not attend
   to Your precepts and so modify our present nature, and make ourselves
   fit for Heaven?" Jesus says to them, as He said to Nicodemus, "Verily,
   verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born from above," (for so
   stands the original), "he cannot see the Kingdom of God." The Holy
   Spirit must come upon you and create in you new hearts and right
   spirits. There must be as total a change in you as though you actually
   became new creatures! Otherwise from Hell you can never escape and into
   Heaven you can never enter--and this is true not only of the debauched,
   the dissolute and the depraved, but also of the most moral, amiable and
   honorable of the whole human race! "You must be born-again," or you
   cannot enter into Heaven. I remember how this sharp arrow stuck in my
   heart

   and how I wandered to and fro, hoping that I might yet be
   born-again--and sighing and crying in my soul because I lacked the one
   thing necessary--which I could not give to myself, but for which I must
   look up to that great God whom I had offended and who, I feared, would
   never deign to grant so great a gift to so unworthy a rebel! May that
   sharp arrow pierce other hearts just now!

   Another arrow from the bow of King Jesus is the Sovereignty of God. God
   has the right to bestow His mercy where He wills, or to withhold it if
   He so pleases. His Grace is in no sense the discharge of a debt which
   He owes to us. If He had determined to destroy the whole race of men,
   we must admit that they had deserved such a doom. As He has chosen to
   save some, it is His Grace that has done it, so let Him be forever
   adored for it! The Apostle Paul, writing under Inspiration, quotes
   God's words to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
   I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion," and adds, "So
   then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that
   shows mercy." What humbling words are these! They make the sinner lie
   all broken and helpless at the feet of the God whom he has offended.
   They tell him that he cannot save himself, and that now his only hope
   lies absolutely in the Sovereign will of that God who can destroy him
   in a moment if He so wills! Men do not like this sharp arrow and will
   do anything to get rid of it. They will try to deny the truth of it if
   they can, but let the Lord once drive this arrow right home through the
   heart and conscience and I do not know any shaft out of the Divine
   quiver that is more killing to human pride and more deadly to
   self-righteousness than this eternal Truth of God which has already
   brought many to Christ and will bring many more, God blessing it--

   "Praise the God of all creation,

   Praise the Father's boundless love!

   Praise the Lamb, our expiation,

   Priest and King enthroned above!

   Praise the Fountain of salvation,

   Him by whom our spirits live--

   Undivided adoration

   To the one Jehovah give."

   Further, the Lord Jesus Christ often drives the arrow of conviction
   home in this form--the aggravation of the sin of men when they sin
   against light and against love. It is no little evil to break God's Law
   at all, but to do it knowingly is far worse than to do it ignorantly.
   To do it after many admonitions to the contrary, to continue to offend
   God after being frequently rebuked, to refuse all the invitations of
   His mercy, to resist the strivings of His Spirit, to be resolved to be
   lost, to be resolute upon damnation--this is the very worst form of
   sin! There are some of you in whose hearts this arrow might well find a
   place, for you were brought up by godly parents, you were dandled upon
   the knees of piety, you heard the name of Jesus among the first sounds
   that saluted your infant ears. You were carried to the House of God
   before you were old enough to walk there--and your mother's tears have
   fallen upon your infant brow as she has wept out her prayers to God
   that the soul of her child might be precious in His sight.

   Some of you remember when the Word used to prick your conscience as you
   heard it preached--you would go home and shut your bedroom door and
   kneel down and pray--and there was a time when, for weeks or months
   together, you could not sin as you used to, but felt obliged to give up
   one evil and another. Yet you resisted the conviction that was then
   upon you. You struggled against it, you overcame it and you went back
   into sin. You have never had so severe a contest with Grace since
   then--still, you have had some struggles and by dint of awful
   perseverance--oh, that we had half the perseverance to be saved that
   some have to be lost! By dint, I say, of awful perseverance, you have
   managed to remain a servant of Satan until now! Nor can we bring you to
   accept the Gospel of Christ. If you remain as you are, the Lord Jesus
   tells you, as He told the people of Capernaum and Bethsaida of old,
   that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah at the Day of
   Judgment than for you! It would have been better for you if you had
   never been born. It would have been better for you, Sir, if, when you
   were yet a babe, unconscious of right and wrong, a millstone had been
   hung about your neck and you had been cast into the depths of the sea!
   O man, I pray that this sharp arrow may strike you, now, and wound you
   and that God may bless it to you! If you and I should be lost after
   having such mothers and fathers as we had. If you and I should perish
   after such Christian training as we have had--when we meet each other
   in the lowest depths of Hell, our miserable salutation would surely be
   something of this kind, "What fools we were, with so

   much light to prefer the darkness, with so much love from God to
   resolve to hate Him! Knowing so well as we did our duty, what arrant
   fools we were to have neglected it! Knowing that sin was folly, how
   could we choose it? And knowing that holiness was happiness, for we saw
   it reflected in the faces of our dearest relatives and friends, how was
   it that we did not seek it for ourselves?" How we shall wring our hands
   in unutterable anguish if this should ever be our portion! The Lord
   prevent it, by His Grace!

   The last sharp arrow that I shall mention is one which Christ Himself
   has often shot, it is this--that condemnation for sin is a matter of
   this present time. Dear Hearers, if you have never heard this Truth of
   God before, hear it now and tremble at it! You have not to wait until
   you rise from the dead to receive your condemnation--"He that believes
   not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of
   the only-begotten Son of God." And as "there is, therefore, now no
   condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," so we may solemnly
   say, "There is, therefore, now a most weighty condemnation upon you who
   are not in Christ Jesus, who are walking not after the Spirit, but
   after the flesh." Your sentence is already passed, like that of the
   poor wretch who is now lying in the condemned cell, tomorrow to suffer
   the extreme penalty of the law! Such is your lot--"condemned already."

   All these Truths of God are the sharp arrows from the bow of King
   Jesus!

   II. Now, secondly, let us inquire, WHY ARE THEY CALLED ARROWS?

   First, they are called arrows because they are far-reaching. Some
   people who have never heard the Gospel have, nevertheless, unexpectedly
   found one or other of these arrows rankling in their hearts. We have
   known men who have been at their ordinary work when one of these arrows
   has suddenly struck them. Where the voice of the minister could not go,
   there the arrow of Christ could find its mark! Never give up hope for
   the world, even in its darkest days. The world was once in a very
   midnight and there was a monk, named Luther, on his knees, going up the
   so-called staircase of Pilate at Rome--and repeating a prayer on every
   step in order to try to win his way to Heaven. And there came to him,
   while on those very stairs, an arrow from the King that pierced him
   right to his heart! The arrow bore this inscription, "The just shall
   live by faith"--a sentence which had previously been discovered by
   Luther in a Bible in the monastery at Erfurt. He was attempting to
   justify himself by works like that of climbing the so-called holy
   stairs. But he found that it was of no use and, through faith in Jesus,
   he became the great leader of the Reformers of his day! Perhaps at this
   very moment, while we are assembled here worshipping God, there may be
   men, similarly deluded, in places where an idolatrous system has
   usurped the name and place of Christianity, yet the Gospel may reach
   them even amidst the mummeries of the "mass"! Yes, and at the
   ale-bench, and in still worse places, if God so wills it, the arrow
   from the Prince's bow may find its target and reach the human heart!
   Pray, my Brothers and Sisters, that the King may be profuse with His
   sharp arrows, so that many may fall under His power!

   They are called arrows, again, because they are penetrating. These
   Truths of God enter a man's heart whether he likes them or not. There
   are some of these arrows that are aimed at a man, but he seems to be
   clad in steel and they cannot gain an entrance for a time. But,
   by-and-by, they pierce him to the heart and cut him to the very quick.
   We have known some sinners to be very angry when this has been the case
   with them. That is of very little consequence so long as they do but
   get wounded by the arrows of King Jesus! Because these Truths wound
   people, penetrating their hearts, they are rightly called arrows.

   They are also called arrows because if they once get in, they rankle,
   and you cannot get them out Often have I heard something like this said
   by those who have come here to make a profession of their faith in
   Christ, "I was utterly godless and never went to any place of worship.
   But one evening I stole in here and listened to a sermon. I was angry
   to the last degree at what I heard--I could have cursed the preacher to
   his face! Yet, I do not know how it was, I soon found myself in this
   place again, wanting to know more about this religion that I detested
   all the time." I have often heard a man say, "I could not help thinking
   of it, Sir. It haunted my dreams. It stayed with me at my work. I
   loathed it, yet there it was always near me! Certain questions arose
   within me that I could not answer and difficulties came up which I
   could not solve. So I was obliged to let this strange new influence
   which had got hold of me, still rankle within my heart." I have
   sometimes likened an unconverted man to a wild giraffe in an African
   forest--and Christ's Gospel, like a mighty lion, leaps upon him from
   the thicket, fastens its powerful fangs in his flesh and begins to tear
   away his very life. He strives and struggles, dashes here and there,
   and tries to rid himself of the awful load that he bears upon his back,
   but all his efforts are in vain. The poor giraffe in the grip of the
   lion is distracted--and the man under conviction of sin cannot imagine

   what is to become of him. He thinks that he is lost and that he must
   feel the full force of Divine Wrath against sin--yet this is the way of
   Mercy--it is thus that men are saved! At last the man falls down and
   then He who seemed to be his enemy stoops down and nobly gives back the
   life that appeared to have gone from him. Or, rather, gives him an
   infinitely nobler life and so the forgiven sinner lives forever! Oh,
   that the power of the Gospel may thus be exerted upon some wild,
   untamable spirit that may be here just now!

   The Gospel message is especially called an arrow because it kills. What
   does it kill? It kills many things. Gospel preaching, when applied by
   the Holy Spirit, kills carnal ease in men. A man, when he first hears
   the Gospel, may perhaps say, "What is the need to bother oneself about
   that? It will all come right, I have no doubt." Ah, but let one of
   these Truths that I have mentioned--that Truth of God, for instance,
   about the Judgment to come--get into his heart and rankle there--the
   man will not talk any longer about not bothering himself! He must care.
   "Why," he says, "tomorrow I may be before God's Judgment Throne and I
   am unprepared to meet Him! My brother died only last week and my sister
   was taken away only a fortnight ago--and I may be called away at any
   moment. I cannot bear the thought of being in Hell forever! I must
   begin to think. I must begin to care about my soul." Carnal ease is one
   of the first things that is killed by the arrows of Christ!

   I will tell you another thing that is killed by these sharp arrows, and
   that is the foolish skepticism which some people think we ought to
   nurse and cuddle up in our places of worship. I do not believe that the
   skepticism of this age has so much to do with people's heads as with
   their hearts. If they were not wicked, they would not doubt, but
   because they will not be holy, they will not believe. To answer many of
   their questions would be as foolish as to do what a boy did, according
   to a fable which I read in an old book the other day. A boy, in a
   scavenger's cart, was so badly disposed that he said he would throw
   dirt in the face of the moon. And another boy, who, I suppose, was a
   great deal better, but certainly not any wiser, fetched a basin of
   water and a piece of sponge to wash the moon's face. When I read that
   story, I thought of those who are always finding out some reason to
   doubt the authenticity of the Bible, or who throw dirt in the face of
   the Gospel in some other way. And then there is some well-meaning but
   foolish Divine who leaves off preaching the Truth of God and runs with
   his sponge and his basin of water to wash the face of the blessed
   Gospel which is as clean as the sun or the moon and needs none of his
   washing, for it is not defiled with the dirt that any fool may choose
   to fling at it! I believe that at the bottom of your hearts, you do not
   really doubt, for you know that God will bring you before His Judgment
   bar to give an account of your actions! And when the King's sharp
   arrows pierce your hearts, all your whimsies die, your idle fancies
   flee away and your cry is, "Do I not believe? Indeed I do! Oh, that I
   could but doubt in order to get a little rest to my troubled spirit,
   or, rather, Blessed Spirit, come and teach me if there is not something
   to be believed by which a lost and condemned spirit may find peace with
   God!"

   The arrows of Christ, wherever they come, always kill
   self-righteousness. There was never a shaft shot from Christ's bow that
   was not fatal to all trust in our own goodness! Christ abhors that
   abomination and kills it wherever He finds it. Hardness of heart, lack
   of feeling--this is also slain wherever Christ's sharp arrows come. So
   also is procrastination, that great ruiner of the souls of men. Oh,
   that some sharp arrow might fly from Christ's bow into the heart of any
   sinner here who is saying, "There is time enough yet!" Instead of
   talking like that, he would say, "I want to be forgiven tonight! I
   cannot bear this terrible burden of guilt any longer. If there were no
   future, my present agony is so great that I long for immediate
   deliverance from it." Jesus, You blessed Divine Archer, shoot forth
   Your arrows now into men's hearts, that all these ills that they
   have--unbelief, hardness of heart, love of sin and delay, may fall down
   slain at Your glorious feet. And then come and save the sinners, by
   Your Grace, and Your head shall wear the crown forever and ever!

   How gladly would I, if I could, say anything that might encourage any
   of you to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I know that my feeble
   voice is not sufficient to help you. It is the almighty Spirit who
   alone can do this--and I earnestly pray that He may. My grief is not so
   much concerning you who are seeking the Savior, as concerning you who
   are not seeking Him. You may think that it is a trifling matter to
   preach the Gospel, or to listen to preaching. But the hour comes--and
   every moment brings it nearer--when you will know that the Truths of
   which I have been speaking are the only real things this side of Heaven
   and Hell! When you lie dying and are brought face to face with the
   mysteries of the next world, you will count all your money, your
   amusements and all else to be but foolery. Oh, do not trifle any longer
   with your eternal interests! If any of you must play the fool, do it
   with your money, or your estates, or your bodies, but do not do it with
   your immortal souls, for these, if once lost, can never be recovered!
   Once let the Divine sentence go forth, "Depart, you cursed," and it can
   never be reversed and changed into a benediction! Once let the iron bar
   that shuts up lost spirits in Hell be driven home by the hand of
   Infinite Justice, and there is no hand in Heaven, or earth, or Hell,
   that can ever slide that iron bar back! Once done, 'tis done forever!
   So, Sirs, I beseech you, escape to the Cross while you may! Look to Him
   who died upon it! Trust yourselves wholly to Him. Forsake your sins,
   walk in His ways and live as His followers should--for then, but not
   till then will you be safe!

   III. And now, to conclude, having examined the King's sharp arrows and
   seen why they are called by that name, let us inquire, HOW DO THEY GET
   INTO MEN'S HEARTS?

   Many are the times that I have handled these arrows of the King. And
   many are the times that from this, my watch-tower, I have shot them
   from my bow. And the Lord knows with what intense desire I have longed
   that they might enter the hearts of those at whom I have aimed them! I
   could, with my finger--but I shall not--indicate some of the targets at
   which I have aimed. I will mention no names--there is no need for me to
   do that--you know very well to whom these personal messages have been
   addressed. I suppose I cannot have been a good shot, for, with many of
   you, I have not yet found the joint in your harness through which I
   could reach your heart. Oh, that I might speedily be able to do so!

   But, according to my text, the arrows which are there spoken of and
   which are shot by the King, do get right into the hearts of His
   enemies--and I suppose this is for two reasons--first, because the Lord
   Jesus Christ always takes good aim. We cannot do this except as He puts
   His hands on our hands, for then the aim will be His rather than ours,
   like the shots of certain eminent people in great public occasions who
   have the sighting done for them by experts. It is only when the Lord
   Jesus Christ does this for us that the arrow of the Truth of God goes
   home to the heart and conscience of the hearer! Christ's aim is always
   true. If the Truth of God should come home to any of you, believe that
   it was meant for you! Do not be vexed, or think that there has been a
   mistake. It was meant for you and although it may pain you, bless God
   for the pain! It will be better for you thus to be pained and
   afterwards be fitted to enter into Heaven, than to be left to get a
   seared and hardened conscience--and to be cast into Hell.

   The other reason why these arrows of the King get into the hearts of
   his enemies is that together with the good aim, there is always
   almighty strength at the back of the bow. It is said that the bow of
   William the Conqueror was so strong that no man in England, except
   himself, could bend it. And the great bow of King Jesus is such as none
   of us can bend! It has the power of the Holy Spirit in it--it is the
   Holy Spirit, Himself, who gives force and power to the Word so that it
   pierces through all the sinner's armor, the most vital part of his
   being and smites him even in the heart. Bearing this last thought in
   mind, I say to you who love the Lord, do you not see how dependent we
   are upon the Holy Spirit? There lie the arrows, but they will kill
   nobody till the Holy Spirit gets them into the hearts of sinners! There
   is much precious Truth in this blessed Book, but there it will lie till
   the Holy Spirit takes it and shoots it right into the hearts of men.
   So, what is our duty as Christian men and women? Why, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, let us never grieve the Holy Spirit! You know that we can do
   it by neglecting to honor Him, by falling out among ourselves, by
   cherishing unlovely dispositions, by being unholy. As church members,
   we can easily drive the Holy Spirit away from us, but, instead of
   grieving Him, let us honor Him and let us entreat Him to work with us.

   Brothers and Sisters, pray for us. I believe I am the constant subject
   of the prayers of the different members of this Church--to whom I feel
   the deepest gratitude. But I also beg you to pray for all the ministers
   of Christ and for one another, and for all work that is being done for
   Christ. Remember the Sunday school teachers. Think of those good men
   who, all week, are doing the hard work of City Missionaries--and those
   good women who are working as Bible women--pray for all such laborers
   and for all who are doing anything for Christ--ask that the Holy Spirit
   may be with them to make their labors a means of blessing to the
   people. Whenever you seek to do anything for Christ--as you begin and
   as you go on, and when you conclude--let it all be done in real
   dependence upon the Holy Spirit! Blessed be God, the Holy Spirit is not
   far away from us, nor is He hard to find, for He dwells within the true
   Church of Christ. We are not to think of Him as if He were some
   mysterious Being, very far distant from us and not easily to be brought
   to us, to whom we need to cry as Baal's priests cried to their idol
   god, "O Baal, hear us!" The Holy Spirit is always at work in the Church
   and it is a wonder that He does so much while the Church often does so
   little. Oh, if we were but all awake, all alive, all full of zeal, all
   full of love, all full of self-sacrifice, then, depending upon Him, we
   might expect to see the King's sharp arrows flying from His bow to the
   right and to the left, behind and in the front, while tens of thousands
   would fall

   down before Him! And London, and Great Britain, and the world at large
   would behold the King riding in triumph in His glorious chariot of
   salvation!

   The Lord send it! The Lord send it! I know your hearts say, "Amen!" But
   you must work for it and watch for it and pray for it--and then it will
   come! And unto Christ shall be the Glory forever. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM45.

   To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, (or, upon the lilies,) for the
   sons of Korah, Maschil, A Song of Loves. We may look upon the 45th
   Psalm as being a sort of compendium of the Song of Solomon. It is
   written, too, upon the same subject. And that is not the marriage of
   Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter--only the strangest and most whimsical
   fancy could ever have found Pharaoh's daughter either in this Psalm or
   in the Book of the Canticles! It is a description of Christ and His
   Church! A song of love between that pair forever affianced and soon to
   sit down together at the marriage supper in Glory!

   Verse 1. My heart is inditing a good matter Or, as the margin has it,
   "My heart boils or bubbles up with good matter." It is said of Origen,
   one of the ancient fathers of the Church, that whenever he preached, he
   preached with great earnestness and fervor--but that when he spoke of
   Christ, he seemed to be all on fire. So, whenever our hearts speak of
   the good matter which concerns Christ, our souls should be all on
   fire--we should be boiling over with love to Him!

   1. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king. A man can
   never speak so well of the things which he has learned, or heard, as of
   the things which he has made, that is, the things which he has
   experienced. Indeed, this is your life-work and mine, Beloved, to tell
   others the things which we have made our own touching the King!

   1. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer A ready writer writes what he
   has thought of beforehand, what he has well meditated upon and
   digested. So the Psalmist declares that this rapturous song is as
   certainly true as the verba scripta of a thoughtful accomplished
   penman.

   2. You are fairer than the children of men. The Hebrew word here is
   doubled, as much as to say, "You are doubly fair. You are fair, fair.
   Twice fairer than the children of men." Both in outward
   appearance--although His visage was so sadly marred while He was
   here--and in personal Character, our Lord Jesus Christ is "fairer than
   the children of men."

   2. Grace is poured into Your lips. Grace has, in the most copious
   manner, been poured upon Christ and now there pours from His lips a
   very cataract of Grace--floods of love, tenderness and holy eloquence
   stream from His lips.

   2, 3. Therefore God has blessed You forever Gird Your sword upon Your
   thigh, O most mighty, with Your glory and Your majesty. Put Your sword
   where it will be ready for use. Come forth and let us see You appear in
   Your strength, O most Mighty! For this is one of the names of
   Christ--"I have laid help upon One That Is Mighty--I have exalted One
   Chosen Out of the people."

   4, 5. And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth and
   meekness and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You
   terrible things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's
   enemies; whereby the people fall under You. You may see, on some of the
   ancient slabs, representations of Oriental monarchs riding in their
   chariots, perhaps engaged in hunting, or pursuing their enemies, with
   their bow and arrow in their hands, and their sword upon their thigh.
   So is our Savior thus graphically described. His Word is His sword, and
   the testimony of His ministers He makes to be like sharp arrows
   sticking in the hearts of His enemies. May it be so this day and every
   day. May Christ thus ride prosperously!

   6. Your Throne, O God, is forever and ever: the scepter of Your Kingdom
   is a right scepter This could not have been said of Solomon, for He was
   never called God. It refers to none other than Christ the King, whose
   Throne is forever and ever!

   7-9. You love righteousness, and hate wickedness: therefore God, Your
   God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows. All
   Your garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory
   palaces, whereby they have made You glad. Kings' daughters were among
   Your honorable women. Your maids of honor, for all those who truly wait
   on Christ become at once the King's daughters. It is more noble to
   serve God than to sit as king upon a

   throne. The day shall come when all the honor of earthly kings'
   daughters will have passed away, but the glory of those who are in
   Christ's court as honorable women shall abide forever.

   9. At Your right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.In the best
   and purest gold. Every member of the Church of Christ may well say,
   with Dr. Watts--

   "Strangely, my Soul, are You arrayed By the great Sacred Three!"

   10, 11. Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget
   also your own people, and your father's house; so shall the King
   greatly desire your beauty: for He is your Lord; and worship you Him.
   Though the Church has been brought up in the world, she is to be
   separated from it. The more distinction there can be between Christians
   and worldlings, the better will it be for both. Christ greatly admires
   the beauty of His Church when she is separated from the world, and it
   is nothing but an adulterous alliance when the church becomes united to
   the State. We never can expect any great and permanent blessing to any
   church which thus degrades and dishonors itself. If a church cannot
   stand without the support of the civil power, let it fall! But happy is
   that Church which relies alone upon the King, Himself, and is content
   with the dowry which He gives her.

   12. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich
   among the people shall entreat your favor. The day is coming when the
   Church of Christ shall be honored by all men. The merchant princes, who
   now esteem her as a thing of naught, shall come with their tribute to
   her--and those who once despised her shall entreat her favor.

   13, 14. The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of
   worked gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of
   needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought
   unto You. Happy was John the Baptist to be "the friend of the
   Bridegroom" to Christ, and happy are the hearts of those who are the
   bridesmaids to His Church--"the virgins her companions that follow
   her"--you, whose pure hearts are set upon the Lord alone, and who
   follow wherever He leads. You, too, "shall be brought unto the King in
   raiment of needlework" with His Church.

   15, 16. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall
   enter into the King's palace. Instead of Your fathers shall be Your
   children, whom You may make princes in all the earth. There is such a
   thing as an Apostolic succession, though not the fiction which usually
   goes by that name. The Lord is constantly raising up fresh disciples,
   fresh preachers and fresh teachers whom He makes to be princes in His
   earthly courts, and who shall be princes in His heavenly courts forever
   and ever.

   17. I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations:
   therefore shall the people praise You forever and ever--

   "Jesus shall reign wherever the sun Does its successive journeys run.
   His Kingdom stretches from shore to shore Till moons shall wax and wane
   no more."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Happy Beggar

   (No. 3040)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me." Psalm 40:17.

   THERE is no crime and there is no credit in being poor. Everything
   depends upon the occasion of the poverty. Some men are poor and are
   greatly to be pitied, for their poverty has come upon them without any
   fault of their own. God has been pleased to lay this burden upon them
   and, therefore, they may expect to experience Divine help and ought to
   be tenderly considered by their Brothers and Sisters in Christ.
   Occasionally poverty has been the result of integrity or religion--and
   here the poor man is to be admired and honored. At the same time, it
   will be observed by all who watch with an impartial eye that very much
   of the poverty about us is the direct result of idleness, intemperance,
   improvidence and sin. There would probably not be one-tenth of the
   poverty there now is upon the face of the earth if the drinking shops
   were less frequented, if debauchery were less common, if idleness were
   banished and extravagance abandoned. Lovers of pleasure, (alas, that
   such a word should be so degraded), are great impoverishers of
   themselves. It is clear that there is not, of necessity, either vice or
   virtue in being poor and a man's poverty cannot be judged of by
   itself--its causes and circumstances must be taken into consideration.

   The poverty, however, to which the text relates is a poverty which I
   desire to cultivate in my own heart! And it is one upon which our
   Divine Lord has pronounced a blessing. When He sat down upon the
   mountain and poured forth His famous series of beatitudes, He said,
   "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
   The poor in pocket may be blessed, or may not be blessed, as the case
   may be, but the poor in spiritare always blessed and we have Christ's
   authority for so saying! Theirs is a poverty which is better than
   wealth! In fact, it is a poverty which indicates the possession of the
   truest of all riches.

   It was mainly in this sense that David said, "I am poor and needy; yet
   the Lord thinks upon me." Certainly, in any other sense, there are vast
   multitudes who are "poor and needy," but who neither think upon God,
   nor rejoice that God thinks upon them. Those who are spiritually "poor
   and needy"--the sacred beggars at Mercy's gate, the elect mendicants of
   Heaven--these are the people who may say, with humble confidence, as
   David did, "Yet the Lord thinks upon me."

   Two things are noteworthy in the text. First, here, is a frank
   acknowledgment--"I am poor and needy." But, secondly, here is a
   comfortable confidence--"yet the Lord thinks upon me."

   I. First, here is A FRANK ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

   Some men do not object to confess that they are poor in worldly goods.
   In fact, they are rather fond of pleading poverty when there is a
   collection coming, or a subscription list in dangerous proximity. Men
   have even gloried in history in the name of, "The Beggars." And,
   "silver and gold have I none," has been exalted into a boast! But
   spiritually, it is little less than a miracle to bring men to feel,
   first, and then to confess their poverty, for naked, and poor, and
   miserable as we are by nature, we are all apt enough to say, "I am rich
   and increased with goods." We cannot dig and to beg we are ashamed. If
   we did not inherit a penny of virtue from father Adam, we certainly
   inherited plenty of pride! Poor and proud we all are. We will not, if
   we can help it, take our seat in the lowest room, though that is our
   proper place. Grace alone can bring us to see ourselves in the glass of
   truth. To have nothing is natural to us, but to confessthat we have
   nothing is more than we will come to until the Holy Spirit has worked
   self-abasement in us. The emptiers must come up upon us for, though
   naturally as empty as Hagar's bottle, yet we boast ourselves to be as
   full as a fountain! The Spirit of God must take from us our goodly
   Babylonian garment, or we shall never consent to be dressed in the fair
   white

   linen of the righteousness of saints. What Paul flung away as dross and
   dung, we poor rag-collectors prize and hoard up as long as ever we can!

   "I am poor and needy," is a confession which only He who is the Truth
   of God can teach us to offer. If you are saying it, my Brother, you
   need not be afraid that you are under a desponding delusion. But, true
   as it is, and plain to every Grace-taught child of God, yet only Grace
   will make a man confess the obnoxious fact. It is not in public that we
   can or should confess our soul-poverty as we do in the chamber when we
   bow our knees secretly before God. But many of us, in secret, have been
   compelled, with many tears and sighs, to feel as well as to say, "I am
   poor and needy." We have searched through and through, looked from the
   top to the bottom of our humanity and we could not find a single piece
   of good money in the house, so greatly reduced were we. We had not a
   shekel of merit, nor a penny of hope in ourselves! And we were
   constrained to fall flat on our face before God and confess our
   inability to meet His claims. And we found no comfort till, by faith,
   we learned to present our Lord Jesus as the Surety for His servants for
   good. We could not pay even the poorest composition and, therefore,
   cast ourselves upon the forbearance of God.

   The Psalmist is doubly humble, for first he says he is poor, and then
   adds that he is needy--and there is a difference between these two
   things.

   He acknowledges that he is poor, and you and I, if taught of God, will
   say the same. We may well be poor, for we came of a poor father Our
   father Adam had at first a great estate, but he soon lost it. He
   violated the trust on which he held his property and he was cast out of
   the inheritance and turned adrift into the world to earn his bread as a
   day-laborer by tilling the ground from which he was taken. His eldest
   son was a vagabond. The first-born of our race was a convict on parole.
   If any suppose that we have inherited some good thing by natural
   descent, they go very contrary to what David tells us when he declares,
   "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive
   me." Our first parents were utter bankrupts. They left us nothing but a
   heritage of old debts and a propensity to accumulate yet more personal
   obligations. Well may we be poor who come into this world heirs of
   wrath with a decayed estate and tainted

   blood!

   Moreover, since the time when we came into the world, we have followed
   a very miserable trade. I recollect when I was a spinner and weaver of
   the poorest sort. I dreamed that I would be able, by my own spinning,
   to make a garment to cover myself with. This was the trade of father
   Adam and mother Eve when they first lost their innocence--they sewed
   fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. It is a very laborious
   business and has worn out the lives of many with bitter bondage. But
   its worst feature is that the Lord has declared concerning all who
   followed this self-righteous craft, "their webs shall not become
   garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works." Even
   those who have best attired themselves and have, for awhile gloried in
   their fair apparel, have had to feel the Truth of the Lord's words by
   Isaiah, "I will take away the changeable suits of apparel, and the
   mantles.. .and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils... and
   instead of a girdle there shall be a rent; and instead of a stomacher a
   girding of sackcloth." Vain is it to spend our labor on that which
   profits not, yet to this business are we early put apprentice and we
   work at it with mighty pains!

   We are miserably poor, for we have become bankrupt even in our wretched
   trade. Some of us had, once, a comfortable competence laid by in the
   Bank of Self-Righteousness, and we meant to draw it out when we came to
   die-- and thought we should even have a little spending money for our
   old age out of the interest which was paid us in the coin of
   Self-Conceit. But the Bank failed long ago and now we have not so much
   as a farthing of our own merits left us, no, nor a chance of ever
   having any! And, what is worse, we are deeply in debt and we have
   "nothing to pay." Instead of having anything like a balance on our
   account, we are insolvent debtors to the Justice of God, without a
   single farthing of assets! And unless we are freely forgiven, we must
   be cast into prison and lie there forever. Job described us well when
   he said, "for want and famine they are solitary; fleeing into the
   wilderness in former time desolate and waste. They have no covering in
   the cold.and embrace the rock for want of a shelter."

   See, then, what poverty-stricken creatures we are--of a poor stock,
   following a starving trade and made bankrupts even in that!

   What is still worse, poor human nature has no power left to retrieve
   itself As long as a man has a stout pair of arms, he is not without a
   hope of rising from the dunghill. We once thought that we were equal to
   any task, but now Paul's description suits us well--"without strength."
   Our Lord's words, too, are deeply true, "Without Me you can do
   nothing." Unable so much as to thinka good thought, or to lift our
   hearts heavenward of ourselves--this is poverty,

   indeed! We are wrecked and the whole vessel has gone to pieces. We have
   destroyed ourselves. Ah, my fellow man, may God make you feel this!
   Many know nothing about it and would be very angry if we were to say
   that this is their condition--and yet this is the condition of every
   man born into the world until the Spirit of God brings him into
   communion with Christ and endows him with the riches of the Covenant of
   Grace!

   "I am poor," this is my confession! Is it yours? Is it a confession
   extorted from you by a clear perception that it is really so? I will
   recommend you, if it is so, to take to a trade which is the best trade
   in the world to live by--not for the body, but for the soul--and that
   is the profession of a beggar, certainly a suitable one for you and me!
   I took to it long ago and began to beg for mercy from God. I have been
   constrained to continue begging every day of the same kind Benefactor
   and I hope to die begging! Many of the saints have grown rich upon this
   holy mendicancy--they have indeed spoken of being daily loaded with
   benefits! The noblest of the peers of Heaven were here below daily
   pensioners upon God's love--they were fed, and clothed, and housed by
   the charity of the Lord--and they delighted to have it so. How clear is
   it from all this that none of us can have anything of which to glory!
   Boasting is excluded, for, let the beggar get what he may, he is but a
   beggar still--and the child of God, notwithstanding the bounty of his
   Heavenly Father, is still in himself a penniless vagrant!

   The Psalmist also said, "I am needy." There are poor people who are not
   needy. Diogenes was very poor, but he was not needy. He had made up his
   mind that he would not need anything, so he lived in a tub. He had but
   one drinking vessel and when he saw a boy drinking out of his hand, he
   broke his vessel, for he said he would not possess anything
   superfluous. He was poor enough, but he was not needy, for when
   Alexander said, "What can I do for you?" he answered, "Stand out of my
   sunshine." So it is clear that a man may be very poor and yet he may
   not be burdened with need. But David was conscious of extreme need--and
   in this many of us can join him.

   Brothers and Sisters, we confess that we need ten thousand things, in
   fact, we need everything. By nature, the sinner needs healing, for he
   is sick unto death. He needs washing, for he is foul with sin. He needs
   clothing, for he is naked before God. He needs preserving after he is
   saved, he needs the Bread of Heaven, he needs the water out of the
   Rock. He is all needs and nothing but needs. Not one thing that his
   soul needs can he, of himself, supply. He needs to be kept from even
   the most common sins. He needs to be instructed as to even the first
   elements of the faith. He needs to be taught to walk in the ways of
   God's most plain commandments. Our needs are so great that they
   comprise the whole range of Covenant supplies and all the fullness
   treasured up in Christ Jesus.

   We are needy in every condition. We are soldiers and we need that Grace
   should find us both shield and sword. We are pilgrims and we need that
   love should give us both a staff and a Guide. We are sailing over the
   sea of life and we need that the wind of the Spirit shall fill our
   sails and that Christ shall be our Pilot. There is no figure under
   which the Christian life can be represented in which our need is not a
   very conspicuous part of the image! In all aspects we are poor and
   needy.

   We are needy in every exercise. If we are called to preach, we have to
   cry, "Lord, open You my lips." If we pray, we are needy at the Mercy
   Seat, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. If we go out
   into the world to wrestle with temptation, we need supernatural help
   lest we fall before the enemy! If we are alone in meditation, we need
   the Holy Spirit to quicken our devotion. We are needy in suffering and
   laboring, in watching and in fighting. Every spiritual engagement does
   but discover another phase of our need!

   And, Brothers and Sisters, we are needy at all times. We never wake up
   in the morning but we need strength for the day--and we never go to bed
   at night without needing Grace to cover the sins of the past. We are
   needy at all periods of life. When we begin with Christ, in our young
   days, we need to be kept from the follies and passions which are so
   strong in giddy youth. In middle age our needs are still greater, lest
   the cares of this world should eat as does a canker. And in old age we
   are still needy and need Preserving Grace to bear us onward to the end.
   So needy are we that even in lying down to die, we need our last bed to
   be made for us by Mercy and our last hour to be cheered by Grace. So
   needy are we that if Jesus had not prepared a mansion for us in
   eternity, we would have no place to dwell! We are as full of needs as
   the sea is full of water! We cannot stay at home and say, "I have much
   goods laid up for many years," for the wolf is at the door and we must
   go out a-begging again! Our clamorous necessities follow us every
   moment and dog our heels in every place. We must take the two
   adjectives and keep them close together in our confession--"I am poor
   and needy."

   II. The second part of the subject is much more cheering. It is A
   COMFORTABLE CONFIDENCE--"yet the Lord thinks upon me."

   A poor man is always pleased to remember that he has a rich relative,
   especially if that rich relative is very thoughtful towards him, finds
   out his distress and cheerfully and abundantly relieves his needs!

   Observe that the Christian does not find comfort in himself ' 'I am
   poor and needy." That is the top and bottom of my case. I have searched
   myself through and through and have found in my flesh no good thing.
   Notwithstanding the Grace which the Believer possesses and the hope
   which he cherishes, he still sees a sentence of death written upon the
   creature and he cries, "I am poor and needy." His joy is found in
   Another! He looks away from self to the consolations which the eternal
   purpose has prepared for him.

   Note well who it is that gives the comfort--"The Lord thinks upon me."
   By the term, "the Lord," we are accustomed to understand the glorious
   Trinity. "The Lord thinks upon me," i.e., Jehovah, the Father, the Son
   and the Holy Spirit. O beloved Believer in Christ, if you have rested
   in Jesus, then the Father thinks upon you! Your person was in His
   thoughts--

   "Long before the sun's refulgent ray Primeval shades of darkness
   drove."

   He regarded you with thoughts of boundless love before He had fashioned
   the world, or wrapped it up in swaddling bands of ocean and of clouds.
   Eternal thoughts of love went forth of old towards all the chosen--and
   these have never changed. Not for a single instant has the Father ever
   ceased to love His people! As our Lord said to His disciples, "The
   Father Himself loves you." Never has He grown cold in His affections
   towards you, O poor and needy one! He has seen you in His Son. He has
   loved you in the Beloved. He has seen you--

   "Not as you stood in Adam's fall, When sin and ruin covered all, But as
   you'll stand another day, Brighter than sun's meridian ray." He saw you
   in the glass of His eternal purpose, saw you as united to His dear Son
   and, therefore, looked upon you with eyes of complacency. He thought
   upon you and He still thinks upon you. When the Father thinks of His
   children, He thinks of you. When the great Judge of All thinks of the
   justified ones, He thinks of you. O Christian, can you grasp the
   thought? The Eternal Father thinks of you! You are so inconsiderable
   that if the mind of God were not Infinite, it would not be possible
   that He should remember your existence! Yet He thinks upon you! How
   precious ought His thoughts be to you! The sum of them is great, let
   your gratitude for them be great, too!

   Forget not that the great Son of God, to whom you owe your hope, also
   thinks of you. It was for you that He entered into suretyship
   engagements before the earth was. It was for you, O heir of Heaven,
   that He took upon Himself a mortal body and was born of the virgin! It
   was for you that He lived those 30 years of immaculate purity that He
   might weave for you a robe of spotless righteousness! For you poured
   down His bloody sweat in the garden! He thought of you, He prayed for
   you in Gethsemane. For you were the flagellations in Pilate's Hall, the
   mockeries before Herod and the blasphemous accusations at the judgment
   seat of Caiaphas! For you the nails, the spear, the vinegar and the,
   "Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?"'Jesus thought of you and died for you
   with as direct an aim for your salvation as though there had not been
   another soul to be redeemed by His blood! And now, though He reigns
   exalted high, and you are "poor and needy," yet He still thinks upon
   you! The Glory of His present condition does not distract His thoughts
   from His Beloved. He is lovingly thoughtful of you. When He stands up
   to intercede, your name glitters on His priestly breastplate with the
   names of the rest of the chosen. He thinks of you when He prepares
   mansions for those whom His Father has blessed. He looks forward to the
   time when He shall gather together in one all things in Heaven and in
   earth that are in Him--and He counts you among them. Christian, will
   not this Truth of God comfort you--that the Son of God is constantly
   thinking upon you?

   We must not forgot the love of the Spirit, t o whom we are so
   wondrously indebted. He cannot do otherwise than think upon us, for He
   dwells in us and shall be with us. As He dwells in us, He cannot be
   unmindful of us. It is His office to be the Comforter, to help our
   infirmities, to make intercession for us according to the will of God.
   So let us take the three thoughts and bind them together. "I am poor
   and needy, but I have a part in the thoughts of the Father, of the Son
   and of the Holy Spirit." What fuller cause for comfort could we
   conceive?

   We have answered the question "who?"Let us now turn to "what?""The Lord
   thinks upon me." He does not say, "The Lord will uphold me, provide for
   me, defend me." The declaration that He "thinks upon me" is quite
   enough. "Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these
   things," says our Lord, as if it was quite clear that for our Heavenly
   Father to know, is for Him to act. We poor short-sighted and
   short-armed creatures often know the needs of others and would help if
   we could, but we are quite unable--it is never so with God--His
   thoughts always ripen into deeds. Perhaps, O tried Believer, you have
   been thinking a great deal about yourself of late--about your many
   trials-- so that you lie awake nights, mourning over your heavy cares!
   "Alas," you think, "I have no one to advise me and sympathize with me."
   Let this text come to you as a whisper and you paraphrase it into a
   soliloquy, "I am poor and needy, this is true, and I cannot plan a
   method for supplying my needs, but a mightier mind than mine is
   thinking of me--the Infinite Jehovah thinks of me! He sees my
   circumstances, He knows the bitterness of my heart, He knows me
   altogether and His consideration of me is wise, tender and gracious.
   His thoughts are wisdom itself! When I think, it is a poor, little,
   weak, empty head that is thinking! But when Godthinks, the gigantic
   mind which framed the universe is thinking of me!"

   Have you ever attained to the idea of what the thoughts of God must be?
   That pure Spirit who cannot make mistakes, who is too wise to err, too
   good to be unkind, thinks upon us! He does not act without
   deliberation, does not come to our help in inconsiderate haste, does
   not do as we do with a poor man when we throw him a penny to be rid of
   him, but He thoughtfully deals with us. "Blessed is he that considers
   the poor," says the Psalmist. Those who take up the case of the poor,
   weigh it and remember it, are blessed! That is what the Lord does for
   us--"yet the Lord thinks upon me." He considers my case, judges when,
   and how, and after what sort it will be most fitting to grant me
   relief. "The Lord thinks upon me." Beloved, the shadow of this thought
   seems to me like the wells of Elim, full of refreshment, with the
   seventy palm trees yielding their ripe fruit! You may sit down here and
   drink to your full--and then go on your way rejoicing! However poor and
   needy you may be, the Lord thinks at the present moment upon you.

   We have spoken upon who and what--now we will answer the inquiry, How
   do we know that the Lord thinks upon us? "Oh," say the ungodly, "how do
   you know?" They are very apt to put posing questions to us. We talk of
   what we know experimentally and again they cry, "How do you know?" I
   will tell you how we know that God thinks upon us. We knew it, first of
   all, when we had a view of the Redeemer by faith, when we saw the Lord
   Jesus Christ hanging upon a tree for us, and made a curse for us. We
   saw that He so exactly suited and fitted our case that we were clear
   that the Lord must have thought and well considered it. If a man were
   to send you a sum of money tomorrow, exactly the amount you owe, you
   would be sure that someone had been thinking of you. And when we see
   the Savior, we are compelled to cry out, "O Lord, You have given me the
   very Savior I needed! This is the hope which my despairing soul
   required and this the anchorage which my tempest-tossed boat was
   seeking!" The Lord must have thought upon us, or He would not have
   provided so suitable a salvation for us.

   We learn anew that the Lord thinks upon us when we go up to the House
   of God. I have heard many of you say, "We listen to the preacher and he
   seems to know what we have been saying on the road. The Word comes so
   home to our case that surely God has been hearing our very thoughts and
   putting into the mind of the preacher a word in season for us." Does
   not this show how the preacher's Master has been thinking of you? Then
   sit down and open the Bible, and you will frequently feel the words to
   be as much adapted to your case as if the Lord had written them for you
   alone! If, instead of the Bible having been penned many hundreds of
   years ago, it were actually written piecemeal to suit the circumstances
   of the Lord's people as they occur, it could not have been written more
   to the point! Our eyes have filled with tears when we have read such
   words as these, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."--"Fear not,
   you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will help you, says the
   Lord."--"He shall deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven there
   shall no evil touch you."--"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shall
   you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." And such like
   which we could quote by the hundreds! We feel that the Lord must have
   thought about us, or He would not have sent us such promises.

   Best of all, when we sit quietly at the feet of Jesus, in the power of
   the Spirit of God, in solemn silence of the mind, then we know that the
   Lord thinks upon us, for thoughts come bubbling up, one after another,
   delightful thoughts, such as only the Holy Spirit could inspire. Then
   the things of Christ are sweetly taken by the Spirit and laid home to
   our hearts. We become calm and still, though before we were distracted.
   A sweet savor fills our heart like ointment poured

   forth--it diffuses its fragrance through every secret corner of our
   spirit. Sometimes our soul has seemed as though it were a peal of bells
   and every power and passion has been set a-ringing with holy joy
   because the Lord was there! Our whole nature has been as a harp
   well-tuned, and the Spirit has laid His fingers among the strings and
   filled our entire manhood with music. When we have been the subjects of
   these marvelous influences and gracious operations, if any had said to
   us that the Lord did not think of us, we would have told them that they
   lied, even to their face, for the Lord had not only thought of us, but
   spoken to us and enabled us, by His Grace, to receive His thoughts and
   to speak again to

   Him!

   The Lord not think of us? Why, we have proof upon proof that He does!
   He has very remarkably thought upon us in Providence. Should some of us
   relate the memorable interpositions of Providence on our behalf, they
   would not be believed--but they are facts for all that. William
   Huntington wrote a book called, "The Bank of Faith," which contains in
   it a great many very strange things, no doubt. But I believe hundreds
   and thousands of God's tried people could write "Banks of Faith" too,
   if it came to that, for God has often appeared for His saints in such a
   way that if the mercy sent had been stamped with the seal of God,
   visible to their eyes, they could not have been more sure of its coming
   from Him than they were when they received it! Yes, answered prayers,
   applied promises, sweet communing and blessed deliverances in
   Providence all go to make us feel safe in saying, "yet the Lord thinks
   upon me."

   We will close our meditation upon this text when we have remarked that
   those who are not poor and needy may well envy in their hearts those
   who are. You who have abounding riches, who feel yourselves to be
   wealthy in goodness. You who feel as if you could afford to look down
   upon most people in the world. You who are so respectable, decorous and
   deserving, I beseech you to note well that the text does not say a word
   about you! You are not poor, and you are not needy, and you do not
   think upon the Lord--and the Lord does not think upon you. Why should
   He? "The whole have no need of a physician." Christ did not come to
   call you. He said He came to call not the righteous, but sinners to
   repentance. Shall I tell you that it is your worst calamity that you
   have such an elevated idea of your own goodness? Whereas you say, "We
   see," you are blindest of all! And whereas you boast that you are
   righteous, there is in that self-righteousness of yours the very worst
   form of sin, for there is no sin that can be greater than that of
   setting up your own works in competition with the righteousness of
   Christ! I bear you witness that you have a zeal for God, but not
   according to knowledge, for you, being ignorant of the righteousness of
   Christ, go about to establish your own righteousness-- and your efforts
   will end in terrible disappointment!

   I pray you to cast away all reliance upon your own works. Tear up, once
   and for all, all that you have been spinning for these many years--your
   tears, your prayers, your church attendance, your chapel attendance,
   your confirmation, your baptism, your sacraments--have done with the
   whole rotten mass as a ground of confidence! It is all quicksand which
   will swallow you up if you rest upon it. The only rock upon which you
   must build, whoever you may be, is the rock of the finished work of
   Jesus! Come, now, and rest upon God's appointed Savior, the Son of God,
   even though you may not have felt your own poverty and need. If you
   mourn that you do not mourn as you should, you are one of the poor and
   needy, and are bidden to turn your eyes to the Lamb of God and live!

   I would to God that all of us were poor and needy in ourselves and that
   we were rich in faith in Christ Jesus! Oh, that we had done both with
   sin and with self-righteousness, that we had laid both those traitors
   with their heads on the block for execution! Come, you penniless
   sinners, come and receive the bounty of Heaven! Come, you who mourn
   your need of penitence, come and receive repentance and every other
   heavenly gift from Him who is the sinner's Friend, exalted on high to
   give repentance and remission of sins! But you must come empty-handed
   and sue, as the lawyers say, in forma pauperis, for in no other form
   will the Lord give ear to you! "He has put down the mighty from their
   seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with
   good things; and the rich He has sent away empty."--

   "'Tis perfect poverty alone

   That sets the soul at large!

   While we can call one mite our own,

   We have no full discharge.

   But let our debts be what they may,

   However great or small--

   As soon as we have nothing to pay,

   Our Lord forgives us all!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM40.

   If our hearts are in trouble, as his was who wrote this Psalm, may we
   be able to act as wisely and as well as he did, and so obtain a like
   deliverance!

   Verses 1, 2. I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined unto me,
   and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
   the miry clay, andset my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
   God does nothing by halves. If He brings people up out of their sorrow,
   or their sin, He takes care that their feet shall not slip back again
   into the mire. David says, "He set my feet upon a rock, and established
   my goings." What a blessing that last little sentence contains! God
   does not set our feet upon a rock, that we may afterwards slip off and
   finally fall, but He establishes our goings, He makes our footing firm,
   so that we do not ever perish!

   3. And He has put a new song in my mouth.Such a song as I never sang
   before, for I had never been in such trouble before and, therefore, had
   never experienced such a deliverance as the Lord has now granted to me.
   "He has put a new song in my mouth." With that sweet songstress, Ann
   Letitia Waring, I can say--

   "My heart is resting, O my God,

   I will give thanks and sing.

   My heart is at the secret source

   Of every precious thing.

   And 'a new song' is in my mouth,

   To long-loved music set--

   Glory to You for all the Grace

   I have not tasted yet."

   3, 4. Even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall
   trust in the LORD. Blessed is that man that makes the LORD his trust,
   and respects not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. You know
   that this Book of Psalms has many benedictions in it. It begins with a
   blessing upon "the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
   nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the
   scornful." But here it has a blessing for the Believer--"Blessed is
   that man that makes Jehovah his trust." As for the proud and the false,
   may God preserve us from ever paying any regard to them for, if not,
   they will lead us into some such mischief as that into which they have
   themselves fallen.

   5. Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done.
   "Your works in creation, in Providence and in Redemption."

   5. And Your thoughts which are to us-ward. God is always thinking of
   His people, and His thoughts are wise, and kind, and practical, for
   when He thinks of doing anything for us, He speedily performs it.

   5. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto You: if I would declare and
   speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.Think of that! You
   cannot count God's thoughts of you. If He were only to think of us
   once, in tender mercy, that one thought would run on throughout
   eternity, for He does not retract either a thought that He thinks or a
   word that He utters! Instead thereof, one gracious thought is followed
   by another, swiftly as the beams of light flash from the sun, so that
   it is impossible for us to number them. Thus thinking and writing
   concerning God's work, the Psalmist is carried away, as it were, into a
   vision in which he sees Christ and speaks in the name of Christ.

   6. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire. The blood of all the
   bullocks, and rams, and lambs offered in sacrifice had possessed no
   real efficacy in putting away sin. They had no virtue except as types,
   symbols and prophecies of the one great Sacrifice that was to come!

   6. My ears have You opened. Probably alluding to the ceremony of boring
   to the doorpost the ears of those who determined to remain as slaves to
   their masters when they might have gone free. So Christ was ready to be
   the Servant of His Father, and the Savior of sinners. He voluntarily
   undertook to bear all that this would involve.

   6-8. Burnt offering and sin offering have You not required. Then said
   I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight
   to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My heart. He was the
   Perfect One, coming

   to do God's will for us and offering Himself as the truest Sacrifice
   that could ever be presented to God. So we may rightly picture our
   great Lord and Master uttering these words when He came to die.

   9, 10. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I
   have not refrained My lips. O LORD, You know. I have not hid Your
   righteousness within My heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and
   Your salvation: I have not concealed Your loving kindness and Your
   truth from the great congregation. With what indefatigable earnestness,
   with what indomitable courage, with what sacred faithfulness, with what
   holy tears did Christ preach the Truth of God while He was upon earth!
   He was always the Prince of Preachers, so, when He was dying, He could
   plead this fact with His Father.

   11, 12. Withhold not You Your tender mercies from Me, O LORD: let Your
   loving kindness and Your truth continually preserve Me. For innumerable
   evils have compassed Me about Was it not so with Christ? The evils of
   sinners seemed to compass Him about and, like wild beasts, to hunt Him
   to the death! And the saints of God, in their measure, may often use
   similar language to that which the Psalmist here prophetically used
   concerning Christ.

   12. My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to
   look up; they are more than the hairs of my head: therefore my heart
   fails me.We could not apply this language to the Savior except as we
   spoke of the sins of ourselves and others which were laid upon Him, but
   we may apply this language, and ought to apply it to ourselves when we
   are sorely beset by sin. Have not even you, who are the dear children
   of God, sometimes felt as if you could not look up and dared not look
   up? You were so desponding, so downcast that there seemed no help for
   you, even in God. Your sins, your cruel sins, your fierce tormentors
   were and, therefore, your heart failed you.

   13-15. Bepleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
   Let them be ashamedand confounded together that seek after my soul to
   destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me
   evil Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me,
   Aha, aha. So will it surely be, for the enemies of God's people are
   God's enemies--and Satan and all his host who seek to destroy the souls
   of the Lord's chosen shall be driven backward and covered with eternal
   shame!

   16. Let all those that seek You rejoice and be glad in You: let such as
   love Your salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. Are you
   content to bear your present trial, dear Friend, so that God may be
   magnified? Are you willing to be reduced by infirmities and weaknesses
   to a condition of absolute nothingness, so long as God is exalted? If
   you are, then you will be saying continually, "Let God be magnified in
   my weakness, let His majestic love be seen amid all my sorrows."

   17. But I am poor and needy. A double expression for a poverty that is
   doubly felt--perhaps poor in temporals-- certainly poor in spirituals!
   Poor and full of needs, yet with nothing to supply those needs. "I am
   poor and needy."

   17. Yet. That is a blessed, "yet."

   17. The Lord thinks upon me. That is enough for me! If He thinks of me,
   His thoughts are so kind, generous, wise and practical that He will
   help me!

   17. You are my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sparrow and the Swallow

   (No. 3041)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 30, 1870.

   "Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for
   herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O LORD of
   Hosts, my King, and my God." Psalm 84:3.

   WHEN David was far away from the services of the Tabernacle, he envied
   the birds that had built their nests near the sacred shrine. And
   Christians, in like manner, when they are debarred from the holy
   associations of Christian fellowship and united worship, always sigh
   over the lost privilege of meeting with their Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ. With even greater emphasis we may say that when a Christian
   loses the realization of the Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
   the "Minister of the sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle, which the
   Lord pitched, and not man," then it is, above all other seasons, that
   he sighs and cries for a renewal of communion with Christ. We would
   envy any, however poor and insignificant they may be, who can maintain
   unbroken fellowship with their Lord. And when it falls to our lot,
   through our own sin or neglect, or in the inscrutable wisdom of Divine
   Sovereignty, to be, for awhile, spiritually in the dark, seeking our
   Savior and not finding Him, we would willingly take the place of the
   godly captive pining in the persecutors' dungeon, or of the dying yet
   enraptured saint, if we could but once again enjoy the Presence of our
   Master! This was David's state of heart when he languished for the
   ancient Tabernacle services or, more probably, when he longed for that
   communion with his Lord which, perhaps, had been suspended together
   with his attendance upon the public worship of God's House. It was
   then, as I believe, that he was inspired to pen this "Pearl of the
   Psalms," including the verse upon which I am going to try to speak,
   praying that the Holy Spirit may enable me to utter words which shall
   be to the profit of both hearers and readers.

   It seems that the birds which came to David's mind when he wrote this
   Psalm had found two things--houses for themselves and nests for their
   young. And these two things Christians find in Christ and also, in a
   certain sense, in the assemblies of His servants for public worship in
   His name.

   I. First, I want to remind you that CHRISTIANS FIND IN CHRIST AND, IN A
   CERTAIN SENSE, IN THE ASSEMBLIES OF THE FAITHFUL, HOUSES FOR
   THEMSELVES.

   Turn to the text and read--"Yes, the sparrow has found a house." And
   upon that our first question shall be, What were those creatures that
   there found a house?

   Well, they were only sparrows, yet they found a house near the altars
   of God and, therefore, David envied them. Now, sparrows are very
   insignificant things. ' 'Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?"
   said Christ to His disciples. And you and I, dear Friends, when we
   really know ourselves as we are in God's sight, are led to feel that
   because of our sin, we are even more insignificant than sparrows--and
   to realize that our being blotted out of the universe would be rather a
   gain to it than a loss! What unworthy creatures we see ourselves to be
   when once God pours upon us the bright light of His Word! Then we think
   that any mercy is too great and any blessing is far too good for us to
   receive. Yet, as the sparrows were permitted to find their house under
   the eaves of God's ancient Tabernacle, we, insignificant and worthless
   as we are, may come and build under the shelter of God's great House of
   Mercy. There we may find a safe refuge from every danger, a perfect
   security for all time, and even for all eternity. O you who think
   yourselves despised and forgotten, remember that the sparrow has found
   a house on God's altar! Come, then, and see if there is not also space
   there for you! Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast
   out." And the Apostle Paul, writing under Inspiration, says, "God has
   chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God
   has chosen the weak

   things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base
   things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen,
   yes, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: that
   no flesh should glory in His Presence." Therefore, poor despised one,
   though you feel yourself to be a nobody, come and welcome to the
   Savior, come to Him with cheerful confidence, for He will not, He
   cannotreject you!

   The sparrows were not only very insignificant, they were also very
   needy. They needed a house, they needed a place of shelter--and they
   found it at God's altar. How needy, also, are we! Though we are
   insignificant, our needs are anything but insignificant. How much we
   need! Who can tell what we do not need? Were it not for God's super
   abounding mercy, we would all be in Hell. Were it not for His
   unspeakable goodness, we would, this day, have no hope of Grace, no
   prospect of pardon, no assurance of a holy, happy hereafter in Heaven.
   Our needs are countless--every moment brings a fresh one--and all the
   supplies of the past and the present are not sufficient to meet the
   voracious demands that will come upon us in the future. The sparrow,
   needy creature that she was, having nothing to bring to God's House,
   found there a house freely given to her and, you needy souls, the
   infinite supply of Divine Mercy in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
   is freely given to you! You need not bring anything with you when you
   come to Christ, only come and trust Him, and all your needs shall be
   supplied. Whatever your souls can need to bear them safely through the
   troubles of earth-- and bring them to the bliss of Heaven--you shall
   have it freely given to you if you do but come flying with the wings of
   faith to find a house and a home in Jesus Christ. At the great altar
   where Christ was offered as the one Sacrifice for sin forever, the most
   needy soul that ever lived on the face of the earth will find a hearty
   welcome!

   These sparrows were uninvited guests, yet they found a house and took
   possession of it. And they were never blamed for doing so. But in this
   verse David seems to commend them--he certainly envied them. But, my
   dear Hearers, you who have never come to the Lord Jesus Christ are not
   uninvited guests. The Gospel invitation rings through this building
   every Sabbath day--

   "Come and welcome, Come to Jesus, Sinner, come!"

   We not only invite you, but we earnestly press you, in Christ's name,
   to come and put your trust in His great Sacrifice, assuring you that if
   you do, you shall find an everlasting and blessed home for your souls.
   So, as the sparrows came to God's House without an invitation, will not
   you come to Christ with one? They were bold enough to find a house when
   no man bade them do so. Therefore will not you be bold enough, trembler
   though you are, to take what Divine Mercy freely proffers to you? Do
   you not remember how Agur commends the spider as being "exceedingly
   wise" because she "takes hold with her hands and is in kings' palaces"?
   No one ever asked the spider to come into the palace. She was a
   loathsome creature, quite out of place in a palace, and her web would
   mar the beauty of the place, yet the spider knew by instinct that a
   storm was coming on and so sought shelter in the king's palace. There
   was Solomon's fine house of the forest of Lebanon, and the spider said
   within herself, "Why should not I, spider though I am, abide here?" So
   she crept about till she found a window open and in she slipped and
   made herself at home by taking hold with her hands, first of one wall
   and then of another, till she found herself at ease! There came along
   one who said, "Let that spider and her web be removed. What business
   has she to be here?" But Solomon thought otherwise, so the spider is
   immortalized in this Book of Proverbs, because of her wisdom in taking
   hold with her hands even on the walls of a royal palace!

   O Soul, perhaps you are consciously to yourself as loathsome as that
   spider was, and the King's great House of Mercy seems too fair a place
   for you to enter! You ask, unbelievingly, "Shall I ever be made a
   saint? Shall I ever be cleansed from sin? Shall I ever be taken up to
   dwell with the great King in Heaven?" Talk not so, but rather see
   whether you cannot find an entrance into the King's palace! And if you
   can find it, go in! Surely there is a window open for you where it is
   written by the King, Himself, as I reminded you just now, "Him that
   comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Then there is another window
   where the King has hung up the invitation, "Come unto Me, all you that
   labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Does not that
   invite you? Come in, poor spider-sinner! Take hold of the walls of
   Christ's great House of Love and Mercy, and I can assure you that my
   royal Master will not be angry with you! But when He sees you there, He
   will immortalize you in His "Book of Life." You shall have a name and a
   place there and He will think you wise, not intrusive, in daring to
   believe Him and to come into His palace, spider-sinner as you are! He
   delights to have great things thought of Him--and if you will but think
   great things of His love and mercy, I will guarantee you that you

   will never think thoughts that shall outstrip the reality, for what He
   has said is true, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My
   ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."

   Let us learn, then, from the sparrow finding her house near to God's
   altar, that although we are inconsiderable and insignificant, although
   we are full of needs and although we may even deem ourselves to be
   uninvited, yet we are at liberty to come to the Savior and find in Him
   our eternal dwelling place!

   Next, what does the text tell us that these sparrows did?We should
   learn something from that.

   The text says, "Yes, the sparrow has found a house." Then, first of
   all, she looked for it The sparrow needed a house and she searched to
   see where she could find it. One great reason why many do not find
   salvation is because they do not look for it. Many of them do not even
   know that they need it or, if they know it as a matter of doctrine,
   they do not believe it so as to look for it and appropriate it as their
   own. I feel persuaded that no man ever did sincerely seek salvation,
   through Jesus Christ, without finding it. I do not believe that among
   all the lost, there is one who will be able to tell the Lord that he
   honestly and earnestly sought His mercy, yet did not obtain it. If you
   have not found Christ, my dear Hearer, it is because you have not
   sought Him, for He said, "He that seeks, finds, and to him that knocks
   it shall be opened." I grant you that the blessing may be delayed for
   awhile--you may be some time in finding peace, perhaps through your
   ignorance, or through some cherished sin that you have not given
   up--but if you truly come to the Throne of Grace and cry in real
   earnest for mercy, as surely as God is in Christ Jesus, He will stretch
   out His silver scepter toward you and you shall touch it and find Grace
   in His sight! Be encouraged, O you Seekers, to persevere in your search
   for salvation! Ask that the aid of the Holy Spirit may be given to you
   that you may wisely and rightly seek the way of faith and may speedily
   find it!

   Further, "the sparrow found a house"--then there was a house for her,
   or she could not have found it A traveler in Palestine writes in his
   journal that as he was wandering among the ruins on the site of the
   Temple at Jerusalem, he noticed a little bird--known in the Hebrew as
   tzippor, or sparrow--fly out of a crevice between two great stones
   where the mortar or cement had been removed--and he thought at once of
   these words, "The sparrow has found a house." That is just what David
   meant. The sparrow no doubt found a little vacant place, just what she
   wanted, and in she went and there was her "house" ready-made for her!
   And let me say to you, O Seeker, that if you would find rest in Christ,
   there is rest prepared for you in Him! He who has prepared your heart
   to seek Him has prepared that which you would gladly find. It is not
   for you to make a salvation for yourself--your salvation is finished
   and you have but to find it. It is not for you to make an Atonement for
   yourself--the one Atonement for sin was made, once and for all, on
   Calvary! It is not for you to make a righteousness for yourself--the
   righteousness that Christ Jesus worked out for you is perfect and you
   may not add thereto any supposed righteousness of your own. If you are
   an honest seeker after Christ, for you there is already prepared by
   those dear hands that once were pierced for you, the salvation that
   shall lift you up from the depths of sin to the heights of Glory! As
   Bunyan said--"Does not your mouth water as you hear this? Do you not
   say, 'Is all this really prepared for me?' Then why do I not have it?"
   Ah, why not, why not indeed? In my Master's name, I assure you that
   "all things are ready" for all who will seek Him, for every soul that
   will trust Him. If you seek Him not. If you will not believe, there is
   no mercy for you! But if you seek heartily and trustfully, you shall
   assuredly find it, for it was prepared for you long ago by Him who has
   gone to Heaven to prepare Glory, having already prepared Grace for you!

   "Yes, the sparrow has found a house." That also means that when she had
   discovered it, she appropriated it. There was the little place, so snug
   and cozy, just on the warm side of the Tabernacle where the South wind
   would blow and she would be shielded from the cold--and in went the
   little bird. She had found it and she took care to make it her own by
   personal appropriation. Now, we may find Christ, in a sense, so as to
   know much about Him, to read about Him, to hear about Him and even to
   understand much about Him, yet not truly find Him. The root of the
   matter is to get Christ for yourself! In this respect, you must be
   selfish and you can thus be selfish without being sinful. You must
   personally lay hold of Christ if you would be saved!

   One who desired to teach a little girl this lesson, tried to do it when
   the child was waiting upon him while he was ill. "Please pour out my
   medicine, Jane," said the sick man. And when it was poured out, he said
   to her. "Now, Jane, take that medicine for me." "O Sir!" she said. "I
   would willingly do it, if it were the right thing to do, but the
   medicine would not do you any good if I took it." "You're right," he
   said, "and as I must personally take the medicine before it can do me
   good, my child, you must personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   or else another person's faith will do you no good." The idea of
   anything like sponsorship in religion--one person vowing and promising
   certain things for another--is utterly without any foundation in the
   Word of God! Religion is wholly and only a personal thing--you must
   repent for yourself, believe for yourself and lay hold on Christ for
   yourself! It would have been no benefit to that little bird if all
   other sparrows had found houses for themselves if she, herself, had
   been driven about, shelterless, in the storm. Oh, no--she must have a
   house for herself, "and the swallow a nest for herself," where she
   might lay her young.

   You and I, dear Friends, will be wise if we do as this sparrow did, for
   she found a house for herself because she looked for it. She found it
   because it was already there for her and she found it by appropriating
   it so that it became her very own. Thus may we appropriate the Lord
   Jesus Christ--by an act of faith--and so make Him our very own!

   I have, at various times, learned some lessons concerning living by
   faith. A friend frequently drives me through the streets of London and,
   one day, when all the cabs and wagons seemed to leave us no room to
   move, I said to him, more than once, "I am afraid we shall have an
   accident." When I had said that to him, perhaps for the third time, he
   put the reins into my hand and said, "Here, if you cannot trust me,
   drive yourself." Suppose God should say to us when we fear that we are
   getting into difficulties, "If you cannot trust Me, arrange for
   yourselves"? What a position we would be in then! If He left the reins
   in our hands for a single hour, we would be like the one who sought to
   drive the chariot of the sun and set the world a-blaze! When we leave
   all in the hands of God--and we must leave all there whether we are
   willing or not--then we can sing that sweet little song which Luther
   said that the sparrows always sing--

   "Mortal, cease from care and sorrow, God provides for the morrow." May
   we all be able to sing that little song and to sing it to ourselves,
   too!

   We will further prolong this simile by noticing what the sparrow found.

   "Yes, the sparrow has found a house." The word is a very simple one,
   but there is much meaning in it. And when we find, in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, a house for our souls, we find safety in Him, even as the
   sparrow found safety in her "house." When the stormy wind blew all
   around her, the sparrow felt safe in her house hard by the altar in
   God's ancient Tabernacle. And when the storm of conscience beats upon
   us, we feel safe in our hiding place in the altar where Jesus suffered
   for us! And when the last dreadful storm of Divine Judgment shall come,
   we shall be safe beneath the shelter of the Atonement that He offered
   upon Calvary. He that believes in Jesus is safe forever! When the earth
   and all its works are burned up and the heavens shall pass away with a
   great noise, no hurt shall come to the man to whom Jesus is "a hiding
   place from the wind and a shelter from the tempest."

   Next to safety, we find rest in Christ. The soul that is out of Christ
   knows not what true rest is, but, "we who have believed do enter into
   rest."--

   "'Tis done! The great transaction's done! I am my Lord's, and He is
   mine!"

   My salvation is finished, my sins are pardoned, my security is
   established by the promise and oath of God, Himself, ratified by the
   blood of the Everlasting Covenant. If this is your happy condition, you
   can enjoy the blissful sleep of the Beloved of the Lord, "and the peace
   of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and
   minds through Christ Jesus." Just as the little sparrow felt perfectly
   at rest when she had entered her "house" in the Tabernacle, so do we,
   come what may, enjoy complete, absolute, unbroken rest when we have
   truly believed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. "You will keep him
   in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You: because he trusts in
   You!"

   Further, a house is a place of abode. The sparrow lived in her house in
   the Tabernacle--and he who finds the Lord Jesus Christ, finds in Him a
   spiritual'abode--he lives in Christ. He has heard his Master's blessed
   command, "Abide in Me," and he desires to dwell there, hard by the
   pierced heart of Jesus. My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you have not
   a mere temporary lodging place, out of which you may someday be driven
   back into the cold world where you used to live. That would be a poor
   prospect for us--but we need not anticipate such a sad future, for we
   can say with Moses, "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all
   generations." And He always will be, blessed be His holy name!

   Once more, a house is, or ought to be, a place of delight When a man
   reaches his home, he is at his ease and can unwind himself. If he is
   not happy at home, where can he be happy? The little sparrow, when it
   reaches its home, is perfectly content. Its day's work is over, its
   day's needs are supplied, and it chirps its evening song of joy. So
   when we make our abode in Christ our soul is filled with delight! We
   have a bliss that is not only full to the brim, but it even

   overflows. Truly happy are those who are Christ's servants, thrice
   happy are they who are looking alone to His Cross for their salvation!

   But the point upon which David seemed to lay the greatest emphasis was
   that the sparrow's house was near to God's earthly dwelling place and
   oh, when we abide in Christ, how near we are to God! You remember how
   Christ prayed to His Father concerning His disciples, "That they all
   may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You...I in them, and
   You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one." No nearness
   imaginable can be greater than Christ's nearness to His Father! Yet, as
   we are in Christ, we are, in His Person, as near even as He is!

   I can only spare a minute or so for the secondary meaning which may be
   found in our text. In a certain sense, Christians, like the sparrow,
   find a house in the assemblies of the saints.

   When the sparrow went to her house in the Tabernacle, she never needed
   to be driven there, but she went there of her own accord. And I trust
   that when we came up to our solemn assemblies, we need nothing to
   compel us to come, but that our own delightful remembrances of
   fellowship with God, in seasons past, make us long for the renewal of
   such seasons again and again! I hate to see people going to any place
   of worship as if they were being marched off to jail. But I rejoice to
   see them come up to the House of God with alacrity and holy joy, and
   with fleet footsteps as if they were delighted to think that the time
   had come when they could once more unite with their Brothers and
   Sisters in worship before the Throne of the Most High God. If you, like
   the sparrow, have found a house in God's House, you will go there with
   joy! And when you are there, you will be happy to be there. And when
   the service is over, you will wish that it had to begin again and you
   will long for the time when you will reach that city of God--

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

   There are many poor people here who scarcely ever have any peace except
   when they are sitting in this House of Prayer and who find here the
   richest enjoyments they ever know. I know some of God's afflicted
   children who have but little sacred mirth except when the holy hymn
   goes up in glorious peals to Heaven and they can join in it--

   "Then they forget their pains a while,

   And in the pleasure lose the smart." Cultivate more and more your love
   for the assemblies of the saints! We have no reverence for bricks and
   mortar, stones and wood, glass and iron--we do not believe in the
   sanctity of any one place above others--but we have a reverence for the
   living Temple of God, built up of living men and living women whose
   hearts are sanctified by the Holy Spirit! And we can say of their
   assemblies--

   "I have been there, and still will go, 'Tis like a little Heaven
   below"--

   and we can also say--

   "There my best friends, my kindred dwell, There God my Savior reigns."

   The sparrow has found a house and we too have found a house, where
   God's people meet, and of that house we sing--

   "Here do I find a settled rest,

   While others go and come, No more a stranger or a guest, But like a
   child at home."

   II. After a man is himself saved, his first anxiety, if he is a father,
   will be concerning his children. The next clause of the text will be
   helpful to such parents--"The swallow (has found) a nest for herself,
   where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my
   King, and my God." Every Christian should think that what is good for
   himself is good for his children! He who does not labor and pray for
   the salvation of his own offspring has good reason to doubt whether he
   knows the Grace of God, himself. Believing parents cry, with Thomas
   Hastings--

   "God of mercy, hear our prayer

   For the children You have given!

   Let them all Your blessings share,

   Grace on earth, and bliss in Heaven."

   Children should early be brought to the House of God! To keep to the
   figure of the text, THE ASSEMBLIES OF THE SAINTS SHOULD BE A NEST FOR
   OUR LITTLE ONES.

   First, because they are safe there. At any rate, you need not fear that
   they will be hurt when they are where God is being worshipped in spirit
   and in truth. In the Sunday school, under the loving tuition of godly
   people, they will be safe. We never feel any need to ask whether they
   will be in a place of danger when we take them with us where Christ is
   preached and His Gospel is simply, earnestly and faithfully proclaimed.
   Bring, then, your children with you to the House of God, for it is a
   place where you may expect that your little ones, as well as
   yourselves, will be blessed.

   The "swallow" is expressed, in the Hebrew, by a word which signifies
   liberty. It is the bird of freedom. It is not to be caged. Even a whole
   continent does not give room enough for its rapid, untiring flight over
   hill and dale, mountain and plain, so it crosses the ocean and flies to
   other lands far away. The swallow is the bird of liberty, yet David
   writes of one that found her nest where she might lay her young at
   God's altar--and if you want your children to be truly free, train them
   in the fear of God and the love of His Truth. The spirit of liberty
   will always be maintained in this land as long as we have the open
   Bible, the family altar and the training up of our children in the way
   that they should go. But take these things away and Popery will again
   enchain our country and bring back the curse from which our fathers set
   free our land even at the cost of their own lives!

   Further, the nest is a place of delight to the little birds and so
   ought the House of God to be to children. And so it would be if
   preachers would always seek to make their language simple and would
   illustrate what they have to say so that the children can comprehend
   it. It is a bad sign concerning any man's ministry when the children do
   not understand him! I always look upon it as being one of the highest
   compliments I ever receive when I see some little boy's or girl's
   bright eyes, that are all too apt to wander here and there, fixed upon
   me while they seem to be drinking in what I have to say. There is a
   great lack in the preachers of the present day in this respect--we need
   to have the Master's words to Peter, "Feed My lambs," as well as the
   command, "Feed My sheep," more and more impressed upon our hearts! May
   you, Beloved, find a place of prayer for your children where it shall
   be their delight to go with you and to join intelligently in the
   worship of God.

   When you take them there--as I have already hinted to you, they are in
   the way that the blessing is often given. I do not say that they will
   all be saved through coming to God's House, but if they are there with
   you, He who called you by His Grace, may also call them. And that
   ever-blessed Spirit who led you to find the Savior may also lead them
   to Him. Bring them to Bethesda, "the house of mercy," and pray to
   Christ to say to them, as He said to the impotent man, "Will you be
   made whole?...Rise...and walk." At any rate, do not let your children
   miss the blessing through neglecting to use the means which the Lord
   has blessed to you and to many others, both old and young.

   Your children, if you take them with you to God's House, will be like
   the swallows in this respect, they will be pretty sure to return to the
   nest even if they leave it for awhile. Though the swallows may fly over
   the deep blue sea to the lands that are far away, yet when the next
   season comes, they find their way back again to the old nest and home.
   So, though some of our sons and daughters may grow up and leave the
   House of God for awhile, they cannot altogether forget it. The
   recollection of their father's prayers and of their mother's tears will
   follow them wherever they roam. Refrain your eyes from weeping, dear
   mothers! Your sons and daughters shall come back again! Possibly, when
   you sleep beneath the clods of the valley, they will recollect what
   they heard when, as children, you took them with you to the House of
   God. Words that have been forgotten for 50 years may yet ring in their
   souls and lead to their eternal salvation! At any rate, as the swallows
   found a nest for their young at God's altar, mind that you Christian
   parents make the House of God your children's house. Associate them, as
   far as you can, with all that is going on there so that they shall feel
   at home when they go with you to the place where you worship the Lord
   and serve Him.

   But after all it is not the main thing to merely bring our children to
   the House of God--oh, that we could bring them to Christ! That is where
   we long to lay our young, for only there shall they be truly safe,
   happy and blessed! Christian parents, can you rest content as long as
   your children are unconverted? I am ashamed of you if you can! Do you
   say that you hope they will be converted in future years? I hope so,
   too, but are you not concerned that they are out of Christ now? Perhaps
   you remind me of what I said just now, that your instruction may be
   blessed to their salvation long after you have been called Home. Yes, I
   recollect that I said that and I do not wish to withdraw what I
   said--yet I would like to ask whether you are willing to run the
   fearful risk of your children dying unsaved? The objective of parents,

   preachers and teachers should be that children should be saved while
   they are children! That while they are yet young their names should be
   enrolled in the army of the Church militant!

   How can we lay our children before Christ, as the swallow laid her
   young before God's altar? I answer, first, by prayer. The Lord will
   hear our prayers for our children as He heard our fathers' prayers for
   us. Example will also help toward the end we have in view--godly
   example at home. And personal precept will also help. We must talk to
   our children, one by one, alone, about their souls. I am afraid that
   some of you parents do not do this. But if you do not see your children
   grow up to do what is right, you will have to blame yourselves because
   you never personally pleaded with them to flee from the wrath to come.
   I know that the words of my father with me, alone, when he prayed for
   me and bade me pray for myself--not to use any form of prayer, but to
   pray just as I felt and to ask from God what I felt that I really
   needed--left an impression upon my mind that will never be erased. I
   have heard of an idiot who was one day scouring a brass plate to get
   the name out. But the more he scoured, the more clearly it shone! And
   when the devil tries to erase the impressions made upon my mind and
   heart by my mother's tears and my father's prayers, he is as much like
   an idiot as he possibly could be, for, let him scour as he may, those
   impressions will never be removed, but will continue to shine yet more
   brightly!

   Do, dear Christian parents, resolve that if your children perish, it
   shall not be through any fault of yours. But why should they perish?
   Why should I suppose that such a thing is possible? "The promise is
   unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as
   many as the Lord our God shall call." Did not Paul and Silas say to the
   jailer at Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
   saved, and your house"? Do not be content with being saved yourselves!
   Say, "No, my Master, I cannot be put off with half Your promise--it is,
   'and your house,' and I would gladly have it all, and see my
   children--and if I live long enough, their children, too, all
   encompassed in the arms of Your love and all of them saved." Brothers
   and Sisters, if you are like the sparrow, and have found a house, now
   be like the swallow and find not only a nest for yourself, but a place
   where you may lay your young, even God's altar upon which Christ
   offered His great atoning Sacrifice.

   I wonder what other birds are represented here. Alas! Alas! I fear that
   I am addressing some who will not heed what I have been saying. They
   are not like the sparrow and the swallow. Perhaps they are like the
   eagle that was far too ambitious to think of building her nest anywhere
   near God's altar--too fond of soaring and struggling, too fond of high
   and lofty things. But there will come a time when the pride of man
   shall be laid low. Beware, beware, you who are like the eagle! Possibly
   there is one here who is like the vulture--far too foul to think of
   building in God's House! He is fond of everything that is
   unclean--wicked amusements and sinful pleasures, which are sadly
   miscalled, "pleasures." Ah, the time will come when sin will be as
   bitter to you as now it is sweet! Yes, and far more so, for it "will
   eat as does a canker." When you come to the dregs of the cup of sinful
   pleasure, you shall find that there is Hell in them and that forever!
   Or, perhaps there is one here who is like the cormorant who will not
   build on God's House because he is far too greedy after the world,
   seeking to gather gold and to amass property. Ah, Sir! Have you never
   heard of the rich fool whose soul was required of him the very night on
   which he boasted of his wealth? Play not you the fool, but be willing
   to leave all those things and come and seek enduring riches!

   If you do not care for your own souls, it must seem to you an idle task
   for me to talk to you about your children, yet I will venture to say to
   any unconverted person here that it will increase his misery
   intolerably to see his children lost through his own example! If you
   must perish--if you are resolved to perish--why need you drag your
   child down with you? If you must drink, why need that boy of yours be
   taught the base habit into which you have fallen? If you will swear, do
   not let your child hear you. I would not have you swear at all, but if
   you will do so, why should your child learn from you to curse and
   blaspheme God? O Sirs, you will find it dreadful enough to perish,
   yourselves, but to bring down one, two, three--I know not how many
   children you have--to bring them down, one after the other to that same
   place of awful and eternal misery--what a terrible increase to your own
   wretchedness! You could not look at your dear child's face and then do
   him harm. I know that you would not touch him so as to break a bone, or
   do his body any injury. No, you pat his curly head, and say, "God bless
   you!" Yes, but why do you then do injury to his soul by your evil
   example? Why do you take your boy where you know he will learn no good
   and much harm? How dare you take him to places where the amusement is
   defiled and defiling, lascivious, unclean? No, if you really mean it
   when you say, "God bless my boy!" then live so that you will bless him
   by your example! May you be saved yourself, and then may you be a true
   parent.

   to your children for immortality as well as for time! May these words
   abide with you and God bless them, so that we and our children may meet
   in Heaven, for Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Parable of the Ark

   (No. 3042)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, FEBRUARY
   17, 1856.

   "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh,
   wherein is the breath of life." Genesis 7:15.

   CHRIST always taught by parables. Hence the popularity and the power of
   His teaching. The masses never were and perhaps, never will be, able to
   receive instruction in any other way than by parabolic illustrations.
   He who would be a successful minister must open his mouth in parables.
   He who would win the hearts of the multitude must closely imitate his
   Master and preach in parables which all men can understand. I believe
   there are few living men who are able to devise a parable. Those who do
   possess this rare ability are very scarce, indeed. Nor do I profess to
   belong to the honorable confraternity. I have sometimes endeavored to
   fashion a parable and though I found it easy, at times, to manufacture
   a figure, yet a parable I can by no means make. I am happy to say it is
   not required of me to do so, for God's Word, if it is rightly used, is
   suggestive of a thousand parables! And I have no reason to fear that I
   shall be short of subjects for preaching when I am able to find such
   parables as I do in God's Word.

   I shall preach to you this evening a parable. It shall be the parable
   of the ark. While I do so, you must understand that the ark was a real
   thing--that it was really made to float upon the waters and carry in it
   Noah and his family and "two and two of all flesh." This is a fact, not
   a myth. But I shall take this real fact and use it as a parable. Making
   the ark represent salvation, I shall preach to all who are within sound
   of my voice the parable of the ark. The ark, which saved from the
   floods of water, is a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ as the means of
   salvation, by whom multitudes of all flesh are preserved and saved from
   perishing in the floods of eternal Perdition!

   I. First, then, in working out this parable I shall remark that THERE
   IS BUT ONE MEANS OF SALVATION.

   No, Sir, but it does notsay any such thing! It says they are a
   multitude that no man can number who have been elected! And who knows
   but what you are one of them? Calvinism gives you ten thousand times
   more reason for hope than the Arminian preacher who stands up and says,
   "There is room for everybody, but I do not think there is any special
   Grace to make them come. If they won't come, they won't come, and that
   is the end of it. It is their own fault and God will not make them
   come." The Word of God says they cannot come, yet the Arminian says
   they can. The poor sinner feels that he cannot, yet the Arminian
   declares positively that he could if he wanted to. And though the poor
   sinner feels sometimes that he would if he could, and groans over his
   inability, this blind guide tells him it is all nonsense! Whereas, it
   is, in truth, God's own work. You must feel it and you may plead
   against yourself on account of it, but you shall come for all that. He
   will not plead against you, but He will put strength in you. There is
   more hope for you in the pure Gospel of the blessed God than there is
   in those fancies and fictions of men which are nowadays preached
   everywhere, except in a few places where God has reserved unto Himself
   a people who have not bowed their knee to the Baal of the age!

   III. In the third place, note that THE ARK WAS A SAFE REFUGE.

   Noah was commanded to make an ark of gopher wood and, lest there should
   be any leakage in it, he was commanded to "pitch it within and without
   with pitch." The ark had no harbor to go to and we never read that Noah
   called up Shem, Ham and Japheth to work at the pumps, nor yet that they
   had any, for there was not a leak in her. No doubt there were storms
   during that year, but we do not hear that the ship was ever in danger
   of being wrecked. The rocks, it is true, were too low down to touch her
   bottom, for, "fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the
   mountains were covered." Rising 27 feet above the loftiest mountains,
   she had no quicksands to fear--they were too deep below her keel. But
   of course she was exposed to the winds. Sometimes the hurricane might
   have rattled against her and driven her along. Doubtless, at another
   time, the hail beat on her top, and the lightning scarred the brow of
   night, but the ark sailed on, not one was cast out from her, nor were
   her sailors wearied with constant pumping to keep out the water, or
   frequent repairs to keep her secure. Though the world was inundated and
   ruined, that one ark sailed triumphantly above the waters! The ark was
   safe and all who were in her were safe, too.

   Now, Sinner, the Christ I preach to you is such a refuge as that. His
   Gospel has no flaw in it. As the ark never sank, and the elements never
   prevailed against it, so Christ never failed. He cannot fail. All the
   principalities and powers are subject to Him. Those who are in Christ
   are sheltered from every storm. They shall never perish, neither shall
   any pluck them out of His hands. Remember that God gave the pattern and
   Noah perfected the work of the ark before a single fountain of the
   great deep was broken up, or one drop of the desolating storm fell from
   the vengeful clouds. And it is not less true that our glorious Lord was
   set up in the counsels of eternity, a perfect Christ before the clouds
   of vindictive wrath began to brew on account of man's iniquity! And His
   mighty work of mediation was finished before your poor soul was invited
   to take shelter in Him. Oh, I think as the angels looked out of the
   windows of Heaven upon the swelling tide and saw how securely the ark
   rode upon its surface, they never doubted that all who were inside were
   as safe as the ark itself--and is there any reason to doubt that those
   who are in Christ are as safe as Christ? "They that trust in the Lord
   shall be as Mount Zion which cannot be removed, but abides forever."
   They that trust in the Lord are blessed! They are like trees planted by
   rivers of water--their leaf shall not wither and whatever they do shall
   prosper. If you once come to Jesus and trust in Him, there is no fear
   of your sinking! There will be storms, tempests will beat around
   you--these you will be sure to have--but you will be too high up ever
   to strike on the rocks. If you are once on board the Good Ship of
   Salvation, you will be lifted up too high above the floods to be
   swallowed in the quicksands. With cheerful heart I can "commend you to
   God, and to the word of His Grace." Christ will preserve you!

   Believers, could you give up to anybody the Doctrine of your Security
   in Christ? No, I know you could not. Touch one of my Brothers or
   Sisters in the Lord who attends this Chapel on that point and you will
   soon get your answer. I have sometimes heard disputes outside the
   chapel door, when some who do not believe that Truth of God, have been
   disputing it, and I have felt confident that I might leave its defense
   in your hands. There are mighty men of valor among you who are not
   ashamed to uphold the whole counsel of God, even as I am constantly
   anxious to declare it!

   IV. Now I go to another part of the parable. The creatures in the ark,
   of course, needed light--but it is a singular thing that THERE WAS ONLY
   ONE WINDOW IN THE ARK.

   In the 16th verse of the 6th Chapter we read, "A window shall you make
   for the ark." I have often wondered how all the creatures could see
   through one window, but I have not wondered what was meant by it, for I
   think it is easy to point the moral. There is only one window whereby
   Christians ever get their Light of God. All who come to Christ and
   receive salvation by Him are illuminated in one way. That one window of
   the ark may fitly represent to us the ministry of the Holy Spirit There
   is only one Light which lightens every man who comes into the world, if
   he is lightened at all. Christ is the Light and it is the Holy Spirit
   of truth by whom Christ is revealed. Thus we discern sin, righteousness
   and judgment. No other conviction is of any real value. As we are
   brought under the teaching of the Spirit, we perceive our guilt and
   misery--and our redemption and refuge in Christ! There is only one
   window to the ark. "Why," says one, "there are some of us who see light
   through one minister and some through another." True, my Friend, but
   still, there is only one window. We ministers are only like panes of
   glass and you can obtain no light through us but by the operations of
   the same Spirit that works in us. And even then, the different panes of
   glass give different shades of light. There you have your fine polished
   preacher--he is a bit of stained glass, not very transparent, made to
   keep the light out rather than to let it in! There is another pane. He
   is a square-cut diamond. He seems an old-fashioned preacher, but he is
   a bit of good glass, and lets the light through. Another one is cut
   after a more refined style, but he is plain and simple, and the light
   shines through him. But there is only one light and only one window! He
   who reveals to us "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
   the face of Jesus Christ" is the Holy Spirit. We have only one
   Instructor if we preach the Truth of God. One Brother may be preaching
   this night in the Church of England, another may be holding forth the
   Word of God among the Independents and others among the Baptists, but
   they have only one Spirit if they are taught of God. There was only one
   window to the ark and though there were first, second, and third
   stories to the ark, all saw out of one window. And the little saint who
   is on the first story, gets light through the one window of the Spirit.
   And the saint who has been brought up to the second story, gets light
   through the same window. And he who has been promoted to the loftiest
   story has to get light through the same window, too! There is no other
   means of our seeing except through the one window made to the ark, the
   window of the Holy Spirit! Have we looked through that? Have we seen
   the clear blue sky above us? Or have we known that when our eye of
   faith was dim and we could see nothing at all, still our Master was at
   the helm and would preserve us through all our darkness and
   difficulties?

   V. Now, if you will read the chapter (Gen 6) attentively, you will find
   it said, "ROOMS shall you make in the ark" (Gen 6:14).

   When I read that, I thought it would serve for a point in the parable,
   seeing that it may teach my dear friends that they are not all to be
   put together--in the ark, rooms were made. Those who lived in one room
   did not stand or sit with those who lived in another--but they were all
   in the same ark. So I have sometimes thought--"There are our Wesleyan
   friends, some of them love the Lord. I have no doubt they are in the
   ark, though they do not occupy the same apartment as we do. There are
   our Baptist friends who love the Lord--we welcome them in our room.
   Then there are our Independent friends, those also love the Lord. They
   are in another room and our Presbyterian and Episcopalian Brothers and
   Sisters--in all these various sections are some who are called of God
   and brought into the ark--though they are in different rooms." But,
   Beloved, they are all in one ark. There are not two Gospels. As long as
   I can find a man who holds the same Gospel, it does not matter what
   order of church government he adopts if he is in Christ Jesus--it is of
   little consequence what room he is in so long as he is in the ark. If
   he belongs to those of whom it is written, "By Grace are you saved,
   through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God," I
   will call him Brother.

   We cannot all expect to be in one room. The elephants did not live with
   the tigers and the lions did not lie down with the sheep. There were
   different rooms for different classes of creatures--and it is a good
   thing there are different denominations, for I am sure some of us would
   not get on very comfortably with certain denominations. We would need
   more liberty than we could get in the Church of England. We would want
   more freedom than we could get with the Presbyterians. We would need
   more soundness of Doctrine than we could get with the Wesleyans, and we
   would want a little more brotherly love, perhaps, than we could get
   with some of the Strict Baptists. We could not entirely agree with them
   all. And happy is he who can sometimes put his head into one room, and
   sometimes into another, and can say to all who love the Lord Jesus
   Christ, "Grace be with you all, so long as you are but in the Ark."

   VI. But though there were many rooms in the ark, I want you to notice
   that THERE WAS ONLY ONE DOOR.

   It is said, "And the door of the ark shall you set in the side
   thereof." And there is only one door into the ark of our salvation, and
   that is Christ. There are not two Christs preached--one in one chapel
   and another in another. "If any man preach any other Gospel unto you
   than that which you have received, let him be accursed." There is but
   one Gospel. We take in the righteous out of all sections, but we do not
   take in all sections! We pick out the godly from among them all, for we
   believe "there is a remnant according to the election of Grace" in the
   vilest of them. But still, there is only one door--and "he that enters
   not by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and
   a robber."

   There was only one door to the ark. Some animals, like the giraffe,
   whose heads are higher than those of other animals, might have to bow
   their necks to go in by the same entrance as the waddling ducks which
   naturally stoop, even as they enter a barn. And so the lofty ones of
   this world must bend their stiff necks and bow their proud heads if
   they would enter into the Church by Christ. The swift horse and the
   slow-paced snail must enter by one door. So too the scribes and
   Pharisees must come in the same way as the publicans and harlots or be
   forever excluded. All the beasts God had chosen went in by the one
   door--and if any had stood outside and said, "We shall not enter in
   that way," they would have been standing outside till the flood
   overtook and destroyed them, for there was only one door. There is only
   one way of salvation and there is only one means of getting into
   it--"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be

   saved." But "he that believes not," whoever he may be, must "be
   damned." There is no hope of any other way of salvation! He that comes
   in by the door shall be saved--and Jesus says, "I am the door."

   VII. Proceeding in the parable, you will notice that THIS ARK HAD
   SUNDRY STORIES IN IT. They were not all of one height--there were
   lower, second and third stories.

   This is, to me, a figure of the different kinds of Christians who are
   carried to Heaven. There is my poor mourning Brother who lives in the
   bottom story. He is always singing--

   "Lord, what a wretched land is this!" He lives just near the keel, on
   the bare ribs of the ark. He is never very happy. At times a little
   light reaches him from the window, but generally he is so far from the
   light that he walks in darkness and sees very little, indeed. His state
   is that of constant groaning--he loves to go and hear " the corruption
   preachers? He revels with delight in the deep experience of the tried
   family of God. He likes to hear it said, "We must, through much
   tribulation, enter into the Kingdom of God." If you paint the Christian
   life as a very gloomy one, he will like your picture, for his is
   gloomy, indeed. He is always poring over texts such as this, "O,
   wretched man that I am!" He is down in the lower story of the ark. But
   never mind-- he is in the ark, so we will not scold him, though he has
   little faith and very much doubt. "With lower, second, and third
   stories shall you make it." There is one of our Brothers who is up a
   little higher and he is saying, "I cannot exactly say that I am safe,
   yet I have a hope that my head will be kept above the billows, though
   it goes hard with me at times. Now and then, too, the Lord bestows
   'some drops of Heaven' upon me. Sometimes, I am like the mountains of
   Zion, where 'the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.'"
   He is in the second story, but he is no safer, though he is happier,
   than the man on the ground floor! All are safe so long as they are in
   the ark! Yet, for my part, I like the uppermost story best. I had
   rather live up there where I can sing, "My heart is fixed, O God, my
   heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise." I love the place where
   the saints are "teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and
   hymns and spiritual songs."

   I confess that I am obliged to go down to the lower story sometimes,
   but I like running up the ladder to the third deck, yet I am no more
   safe when I am in the top story than I am when I am in the bottom one.
   The same wave that would split the ship and drown me, were I in the
   lowest story, would drown me if I were in the highest. However high
   some of us and, however low others of us may be, the same vessel bears
   us all, for we are one crew in one boat--and there is no dividing us.
   Come, then, my poor desponding Hearer, is that your place, somewhere
   down at the bottom of the hold, along with the ballast? Are you always
   in trials and troubles? Ah, well, fear not, so long as you are in the
   ark! Do not be afraid. Christ is your strength and righteousness. The
   ark was, in each and every department, a secure shelter to all who were
   shut in!

   "Ah," says one, "but I am down there, Sir, always at the bottom, and I
   am afraid the vessel will sink." Do not be so silly! Why should your
   heart beget such fears? I knew a man who went up the Monument and when
   he had got half way, he declared that it vibrated and was about to
   fall, and he would come down. But the Monument has not fallen. It is as
   safe as ever and if 50 like he, or fifty thousand, went up, the
   Monument would be just as firm! But some poor nervous Christians are
   afraid Christ will let them sink. A wave comes against the side of the
   ship, but it does not hurt the ship, it only drives the wedges in more
   tightly. The Master is at the helm--will not that assure your heart? It
   has floated over so many billows--will not that increase your
   confidence? It must, indeed, be a strong billow that will sink it! No,
   there never shall be such an one! And where, do you think, is the power
   that could destroy the souls who are sheltered in the Ark of our
   salvation? Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect, since
   Christ has died and God the Father has justified us? Happy assurance!
   We are all safe, so surely as we are in the Ark of the Covenant. The
   ark floated triumphantly on amidst all the dangers and when it finally
   rested on Mount Ararat and God spoke to Noah, saying, "Go forth of the
   ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.
   Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you," the
   inventory was complete and all were safely landed. So, too, will Christ
   present the perfect number of all His people to the Father in The Last
   Day--not one shall perish!

   VIII. This brings me to notice, in the last place, THE DIFFERENT KINDS
   OF ANIMALS THAT ENTERED

   INTO THE ARK. Listen to the statement--"Of every clean beast you shall
   take to you by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are
   not clean by two, the male and his female."

   www.spurgeongems.org

   5

   This great ark was meant to save both clean and unclean beasts! In like
   manner, the great salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ is intended for
   sinners of all kinds, the clean and the unclean. There are some people
   in the world whom we may well reckon in the former class. They are in
   every way respectable. Their conduct in society is beyond
   reproach--exact in their commerce, they were never known to erase a
   figure in their account books--they would not defraud their neighbors,
   nor would they be so negligent of their fair fame as to do a disorderly
   action. Their character is so amiable that their mothers might regard
   them from childhood as almost without a fault. They have grown up to
   mature years without the hideous taint of immorality--their practice
   has been always akin to piety. Their zeal for the Law of God has been
   truly commendable so that Christ, Himself, might have looked on them
   and loved them, although He would have tenderly and pitifully
   admonished them as He said to the young man who came to Him, "One thing
   you lack." Yes, but the desolations of the flood are so universal that
   there is no escape except in the ark. The clean beasts must go into the
   ark to be saved--and there is not a soul among you so good, nor a
   character so clean--but you have need of Christ, whether you know your
   need or not! You may be ever so good and excellent but you will need a
   Savior. There is something about your character that is not clean. Your
   lives require purification which you can never find except in Christ.

   But then the unclean beasts went in likewise. Here is the opposite
   class. Are there not some of you, (we know there are), whose education
   from early childhood has been vicious--certainly not virtuous? From
   your earliest recollections you have gone into the paths of open
   profanity. You have dived into the kennel and have steeped yourselves
   up to the very lips in the gall of bitterness. You have been drunks,
   swearers, Sabbath-breakers and injurious. You have indulged in all
   kinds of iniquities. You are just the sort of persons we should liken
   to unclean beasts. Yes--then the ark was built on purpose for you, too!
   The most moral man will stand no better when he comes before God than
   you will. He must be saved just as you are. You must both be saved by
   the one common salvation, or not at all. There is but one Savior for
   all who are saved--there is but one Redemption for everyone of you who
   really is redeemed. There is but one ark for the clean and the unclean!

   "Ah," says someone, "I suppose, then, the unclean beasts come from the
   courts, the alleys and the filthy slums of the metropolis." Oh, no, not
   particularly so! We can find the unclean as plentifully in St. James's
   as in St. Giles's. There are some in what you call "the higher circles"
   who, from infancy, have reveled in vice. Soon did you learn to break
   the rule of your parents' authority. You laughed at your mother's
   tears, you sneered at your father's counsels--you drank up iniquity in
   your schooldays, as the greedy ox drinks up water. You made a boast of
   your wild riots. You tell of your wickedness, now, with an air of
   impertinent triumph. You brag of having sowed your wild oats. So
   infamous has been your career, in spite of good example and education,
   that I suppose, "Newgate" could hardly produce a class of unclean
   beasts more to be loathed than you are!

   Well, now, to each class of sinners I preach. If you feel and deplore
   your uncleanness, there is mercy for you, unclean as you are. I beseech
   you, come into the Ark and you will never be turned out! If God shall
   compel you to come as He did those creatures, He will never, never
   drive you away. The ark was for the unclean as well as for the
   clean--for the swine as well as for the sheep--for the poisonous asp as
   well as for the harmless dove--for the carnivorous raven as well as for
   the turtle-dove. All creatures came in--some of every sort. You swinish
   sinner, one of Satan's hogs, come in and you shall be safe! And you
   lamb-like sinner, gentle and mild, come in, for there is no other Ark
   for you, and you will be drowned unless you come in by the same door
   into the great Ark of salvation!

   Let us divide these creatures once more. There were creeping things and
   there were flying things. On the morning when the ark door was opened,
   you might have seen, in the sky, a pair of eagles, a pair of sparrows,
   a pair of vultures, a pair of ravens, a pair of hummingbirds, pairs of
   all kinds of birds that ever cut the azure, that ever floated on wing,
   or whispered their song to the evening gales. In they came. But if you
   had watched down on the earth, you would have seen come creeping along
   a pair of snails, a pair of snakes and a pair of worms. There ran along
   a pair of mice. There came a pair of lizards and in there flew a pair
   of locusts. There were pairs of creeping creatures as well as pairs of
   flying creatures. Do you see what I mean by that? There are some of you
   who can fly so high in knowledge that I should never be able to scan
   your great and extensive wisdom--and others of you so ignorant that you
   can hardly read your Bibles. Never mind! The eagle must come down to
   the door and the ant must go up to it. There is only one entrance for
   you all--and as God saved the birds that flew, so He saved the reptiles
   that crawled!

   Are you a poor, ignorant, crawling creature that never was
   noticed--without intellect, without repute, without fame, without
   honor? Come along, crawling one! God will not exclude you! I have often
   wondered how the poor snail crawled in, but I daresay he started many a
   year before! And some of you have started for years and still you keep
   crawling on. Ah, then, come along with you, poor snail! If I could just
   pick you up and help you on a yard or two, I would be glad to do it. It
   is strange how long you have been near to the Ark, but not yet in--how
   long you have been near the portals of the Church, but never joined it.

   Remark again, they all got in. Do not fear if you are, in your own
   esteem, a crawling reptile--you may have the lowest possible opinion of
   yourself--still come! Nobody forbids you to come, however mean you are!
   Yes, and the meaner you are, the more willing do I feel to invite you,
   for Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance!
   What a strange assemblage was there that morning! But Noah was
   positively commanded to bring all sorts of creatures into the ark. He
   might have thought some too vile and worthless to preserve, yet his
   orders were to bring them in. When Peter was commanded to preach the
   Gospel to the Gentiles, God showed him in a vision, "all manner of
   four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things,
   and fowls of the air," and said to him, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat."
   "Not so, Lord," said Peter, "for I have never eaten anything that is
   common or unclean." And, lo, "the Voice spoke unto him again the second
   time, What God has cleansed, that call you not common." In Christ there
   are some out of every nation, kindred, tongue and people who shall be
   saved to the praise of God and the Lamb forever and ever!

   Moreover, it was a mysterious impulse by which God moved the creatures
   to come. The sight must have been imposing--the elephants, the camels,
   the giraffes, the rhinoceroses and all the huge creatures walking in
   side by side (as it were) with the timorous hares, the tiny mice, the
   lizards, ferrets, squirrels, beetles, grasshoppers and all such
   insignificant-looking little creatures. So it has been in the Church of
   Christ and so it shall be to the end of her history-- "As many as were
   ordained to eternal life believed," though their characters, by
   nurture, were as various as this globe has ever witnessed--rude as
   barbarism's foulest sink, or polished as Grecian culture ever knew!

   Now, dear Hearer, I do not care about asking you who you are, or what
   you are--that has nothing to do with me. What I ask you is--Are you in
   the Ark, or are you not? You are saying, perhaps, "Sir, I do not care
   for you--why should you enquire about my condition?" But there will be
   a day when you will be like those who spoke to Noah and said, "Go
   along, old graybeard--build your ark on the dry land, like a fool, as
   you are--build your ark there on the hillside where the waters cannot
   come. As for us, we shall eat and drink and if, tomorrow we die, what
   will it matter, for we have eaten and drunk the merrier while we have
   had the opportunity." In vain did Noah warn them that the waters would
   surely come. He seemed to them as one to mock, and they laughed at him.
   Even so, when I preached to you, this

   morning, of the Resurrection, [Sermon #s66, 67, Volume 2--THE
   RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.] some of you may have mocked and thought that
   I was but pursuing a wild reverie of imagination. Ah, but how different
   was their tune when the rain fell and "the same day all the fountains
   of the great deep were broken up"! They doubtless changed their notes
   when the clouds began to empty themselves in fury, when the very earth
   did crack, and its heart was dissolved and the mighty fluid gushed up
   to devour them all! Did they think Noah was a fool when the last man
   stood on the last mountaintop and cried in vain for help?

   I saw, some time ago, a picture which I think time will never erase
   from my memory. It was a picture of a man who had been climbing up to
   the top of the last mountain and the floods were coming around him. He
   had his old father on his back. His wife was clasping him round his
   waist and he had one arm round her. She held one child at her breast
   and with her other hand she grasped another. In the picture one child
   was represented as just letting go, the wife dropping and the father
   clinging to a tree on the top of the hill. The branches were breaking
   and it was being torn up by the roots. Such a scene of agony I never
   saw depicted before--yet such a scene was likely enough to have been
   real when the waters entirely covered the earth. They had climbed up to
   the top of the last hill--and now they sank. False hopes gave place to
   fell despair--and so it will be with you, you careless ones, unless you
   take shelter in the Ark!

   Do you ask me, "How can we do that?" You look anxious, some of you.
   Listen, then, while I finish, as I have often done before, with the
   simple statement which contains our authority to preach and your
   admonition to believe! Jesus said, "Go you into all the world and
   preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."
     __________________________________________________________________

Filling Up the Measure of Iniquity

   (No. 3043)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 8, 1871.

   "The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Genesis 15:16.

   THE Amorites had indulged in the most degrading sin. God had observed
   this, but He did not at once execute vengeance upon them. He had
   determined that, as a nation, they should be destroyed and rooted out
   from under Heaven and that their land should be given to the seed of
   Abraham. But He tells Abraham that his seed must wait for it, for as
   yet the Amorites had not filled up the measure of their iniquity. It
   would take more than 400 years, during which time God's patience would
   wait while the Amorites continued to heap sin upon sin, iniquity upon
   iniquity, until they reached a certain point--and then God would bear
   with them no longer. When the Lord uttered the words of our text, the
   Amorites had not come up to that fatal point and, therefore, He did not
   at once mete out their punishment to them, for the measure of iniquity
   was not yet full.

   It is a well-known Truth of God that God has great long-suffering, but
   that there is a point beyond which even His long-suffering will not go.
   It has been so in the great judgments of God in the world. Before the
   days of Noah, men had revolted from God, but Noah was sent to them as a
   preacher of righteousness. And he did preach and the Spirit of God was
   with him. Yet, for all that, the antediluvian world turned not from its
   sin and when the 120 years had expired--but not till then--God opened
   the windows of Heaven and down came the deluge which destroyed the
   whole race with the exception of the eight souls who were preserved in
   the ark. Those old-world sinners had had 120 years for repentance, and
   120 years of earnest, faithful warning from holy Noah--and not till all
   those year's had expired did God's patience come to an end and His
   judgments begin.

   Remember also the case of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
   They were a rebellious people--constantly revolting, often
   murmuring--at one time setting up a golden calf in the place of the one
   living and true God--yet the Lord had long patience with them. His
   anger did sometimes wax hot against them, but Moses came in between
   them as a mediator and God postponed the punishment of His wayward
   people. But at last it seemed as though He could bear with them no
   longer, so He swore in His wrath, "They shall not enter into My
   rest"--and their carcasses fell in the wilderness till the track of
   Israel through the desert could be marked by the graves of the
   unbelieving nation--and there were funerals every day. It was this sad
   fact that caused Moses so mournfully to sing, in the 90th Psalm, "You
   carry them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning
   they are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes, and
   grows up; in the evening it is cut down, and withers. For we are
   consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled. You have set
   our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your
   Countenance. For all our days are passed away in Your wrath: we spend
   our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore
   years and ten; and if by reason of strength they are fourscore years,
   yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we
   fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? Even according to Your
   fear, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may
   apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? And let it
   repent You concerning Your servants. O satisfy us early with Your
   mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad
   according to the days wherein You have afflicted us, and the years
   wherein we have seen evil." Not a man of all that generation, save only
   Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, was permitted
   to enter the promised land!

   You will also at once call to mind the history of the two nations of
   Israel and Judah in later years. They exceedingly provoked the Lord and
   their land was, therefore, invaded by their enemies--and many of the
   people and their rulers

   were carried into captivity. But God did not cast off His people, nor
   expatriate them from their highly-favored land till, by degrees, they
   had reached the climax of rebellion and idolatry. Then He delivered the
   chosen nations into the hands of their cruel adversaries. Israel was
   swept clean as a man's threshing floor when he has purged it. And as
   for the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, they ceased to dwell by the
   vine-covered hills of their own dear land, for they were carried away
   into captivity by the rivers of Babylon where they wept when they
   remembered Zion. God is indeed long-suffering, but there is an end,
   even to His long-suffering! The Jews in our Lord's day, and especially
   the scribes and Pharisees, were so obstinate and perverse that, at
   last, our Savior said to them, "Fill you up, then, the measure of your
   fathers." He had borne long with them and He still pleaded with them
   and wept over them--but at last, the nation as a nation, was given up
   to blindness and hardness of heart! The beautiful city of Jerusalem was
   destroyed and not one stone of the Temple was left upon another.

   I might, if it were necessary, say that a similar experience has
   befallen all the great nations of the earth, for all of them have been
   greatly sinful. The crimes of the Assyrian king and people brought that
   mighty empire to an inglorious end. Babylon sank, not so much beneath
   the power of the Medes and Persians as beneath the sins of Belshazzar
   and his blasphemous princes and lords and ladies! And the Persian
   Empire, in its turn, passed not away because of Alexander's valor so
   much as because the Medes and Persians were corrupt in the sight of the
   Lord. So was it with Greece--her idolatries and her filthinesses
   brought upon her the ruin which makes her at once the admiration of all
   lands for her artistic beauty and the detestation of all lands for her
   festering corruption and iniquity. As for the Roman Empire--who that
   reads the history of her rise and fall but knows that long before the
   city of Rome began to crumble and decay, her virtue had departed, her
   ancient valor had declined, licentiousness had reached an awful
   pitch--and then the Word of the Lord went forth that the iniquitous
   empire should be swept away? I might give modern instances of the
   working of the same Law, but I shall not. Certain is it that God has
   long patience with the various nations and tribes of men that keep on
   sinning against Him, but at last He utters that mysterious prophetic
   sentence (Isa 34:5), "My sword shall be bathed in Heaven." And then woe
   be unto the men or the nations whom He smites, "for it is the day of
   the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of
   Zion."

   When we speak of this great Law of God as it operates on a large scale
   among nations, many will admit the truth of it, but they are not so
   willing to admit the truth of it so far as it concerns themselves. I
   intend, therefore, to confine myself in this discourse to the great
   principle of my text as it can be applied to individuals. There is a
   fullness of the iniquity of every individualsinner in these days, just
   as there was a fullness of the iniquity of the Amorites in ancient
   times. And I will try to prove to you, first, that there is a time when
   the measure of a sinner's iniquity is not yet full. Secondly, that the
   measure ofhis iniquity is constantly being filled. And, thirdly, that
   the measure willsoon be full And I want you all solemnly and seriously
   to consider the question--What will happen then?

   I. First, then, THERE IS A TIME WHEN THE MEASURE OF A SINNER'S INIQUITY
   IS NOT YET FULL.

   There is a measure for all iniquity and every iniquity is put into that
   measure. Flatter not yourself, Sinner, with the false and foolish
   notion that your sin is forgotten. You may possibly forget it, but God
   never forgets. You may keep no record of your transgressions, but God's
   recording angel does not fail to write in His Book of Remembrance, and
   to engrave them as "with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever," as
   Job said concerning the preservation of his own words. All those sins
   of yours--the sins of your youth and of your manhood--are registered in
   God's Book. You shut your eyes, and--like the ostrich that has buried
   his head in the sand and, therefore, thinks itself secure because it
   cannot see the danger that threatens it--you delude yourself with the
   notion that because you have forgotten your sins, they have ceased to
   be, but it is not so! Though you should seek to hide your sins in a
   cleft among the snow on the top of the Himalayas, Jehovah would
   speedily bring them down from those lofty heights! And though you
   should attempt to bury them in the depths of the Atlantic, God would
   bring them up from the lowest ocean bed! Sin is an everlasting thing--
   unless it is put away by God, Himself, for the Lord Jesus Christ's
   sake--no grave in the world can hide it. No earthly sepulcher can
   conceal it from the all-seeing eyes of Jehovah. If buried for a while,
   there will be a resurrection of sin as well as of sinners--and what a
   dread procession of sin, iniquity, unrighteousness and transgression
   shall slowly march before your newly-awakened eyes, O unrepentant and
   unforgiven sinner, when your iniquities shall rise up in judgment
   against you to condemn you!

   Thus I have reminded you that there is a measure for all iniquity, but,
   happily, that measure is not yet full. That was a very remarkable
   vision that was seen by the Prophet Zechariah, "a woman that sits in
   the midst of the ephah." And the angel said, "This is wickedness. And
   he cast it into the midst of the Ephah," so that evidently the measure
   had not been full. And it is still true that there is a time when a
   sinner's measure of iniquity is "not yet full." Let me, however, also
   remind you it is only God's infinite mercy that permits a sinner to
   continue to live after he has committed even one sin. There is no
   reason why, upon the basis of Infallible Justice, a man should be
   allowed to sin up to a certain point. A single sin is the transgression
   of the Law of God--it is high treason against "the King eternal,
   immortal, invisible," and deserves to be punished. However much or
   however little we may have sinned, "every transgression and
   disobedience" ought to receive "a just recompense of reward," as in the
   days of which Paul wrote to the Hebrews. Apart from the Atoning
   Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is not one sinner living in
   the whole world who could stand before God! It is not justice, but
   boundless compassion and infinite pity which put a measure to man's
   iniquity and allows him to live on until he has reached that point--for
   sin is worthy of death in every case, and in any degree--so says the
   Word of the Lord.

   I must also remark that when we say that some sinners have not filled
   their measure of iniquity, it must not be imagined that the same
   measure of sin is to be filled up by every sinner The measures differ,
   but when any man has filled his own measure, be it a large one or a
   small one, then will God come to him in His wrath and punish him in His
   hot displeasure. Some great offenders like Pharaoh and Judas fill up a
   huge measure of transgression--some others, cut off in their earlier
   days, spend a hot and hasty manhood in sin and go to their doom before
   they have committed any notorious offenses against mankind in general.
   The measures differ in size, but still in each case it gets filled
   sooner or later. And then, woe, woe, woe unto the man whose measure of
   iniquity is full! It is through God's long-suffering that we are able
   to tell you this solemn Truth. I have reminded you already that if it
   were not for His long-suffering patience, there would not be such a
   point for sinners to reach, but their first sin would the crushing,
   final, fatal blow from the hand of Divine Justice! It is God's
   long-suffering that gives men space for repentance, that presents to
   them, under the Gospel dispensation, the proclamations of mercy that
   plead with them to turn from their sins and to lay hold on Eternal
   Life.

   Because of this, does anymore here wickedly say that as his particular
   measure is not yet full, he may still go on in sin? Ah, my Friend, you
   know not how small your measure may be, nor how soon it may be full!
   But suppose it is a great measure which is to be filled by you? Then
   the longer it is in getting filled, the heavier it will be when it is
   filled and the more terrible will be your eternal doom! Little comfort
   can any man ever derive from the fact that he is permitted to live long
   in sin, for he will have to endure forever the heavier punishment for
   the greater measure of guilt. Beware, beware, beware, you who would
   draw the wrong kind of consolation from the subject we are now
   considering, for there is no consolation in it for the willfully
   wicked--only sorrow, fear and trembling of heart! Here we sit or stand
   together in this House of Prayer--some of us saved by the Sovereign
   Grace of God and others, sitting side by side with us, only here
   because the measure of their iniquity is not yet full! Here is one who
   is 40 years of age, but his measure is not yet full--he shall live
   another year. Over there is one who is 60 years of age, but his measure
   of iniquity is not yet full--he shall yet see another decade of years.
   Yonder is one who is 70 and even his measure is not yet full, but it
   soon will be! Ah, and how short is the span of human life even when it
   is longest! And as I have already said, the heavier the sinner's
   measure that takes so long to get filled, the more overwhelming shall
   be the punishment that shall be meted out to such a sinner in the Great
   Day of account.

   When I have such a solemn theme as this, my words cannot flow freely
   from my lips. I wish that I could speak out the inmost emotions of my
   heart without even using my tongue, for my words fail to convey to you
   what I feel in the deepest recesses of my being. O impenitent Sinner,
   it is so sad to think that you are only sitting here because the
   measure of your iniquity is not yet full! If there were half-a-dozen
   persons together in a room and one of them was only there because the
   hour fixed for his execution had not yet come, I think that you would
   not take any particular interest in the other five individuals, whoever
   they might be, but all your thoughts would center upon that one man of
   whom you would say to yourself, sadly and sorrowfully, "He has been
   judged according to the law of the land. The death-sentence has been
   pronounced upon him and he is only spared because the clock has not yet
   struck and the bell has not yet tolled for him to go out to execution."
   You unbelievers are, according to God's Word, "condemned already"
   because you have "not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of
   God." Christians, do you know that such condemned persons are here and
   have you no heart of compassion for them? Children of God, do you know
   that some of your own sons and daughters are in this terrible position
   and yet have you no tears to shed on their account? O Preacher, can you
   stand here and talk so coldly upon such a theme as this when words of
   flame would be all too cold to express the horror that should fill your
   soul in view of such an assembly as this? Oh, that we had more tender
   hearts! For then should we more deeply pity those poor sinning souls
   whose iniquity is not yes full!

   II. With a heavy heart I must turn to my second point, which is that IN
   THE CASE OF EVERY UNCONVERTED SINNER, THE MEASURE OF HIS INIQUITY IS
   CONSTANTLY BEING FILLED.

   Every sin that he commits helps to fill up the measure of his iniquity
   and there is nothing that he can do without sin being mixed with it.
   Solomon says that "the plowing of the wicked is sin." That is to say
   even his common actions, in performing the ordinary avocations of his
   daily life, bring sin upon him! Solomon also said, "The sacrifice of
   the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," so that even when he
   pretends to do that which is right in the case of a Christian, he is
   still heaping up sin, filling up the measure of his iniquity!

   There are some persons who fill up their measure very quickly--wanton,
   dissolute, depraved sinners, they seem as if they could not heap up
   iniquity fast enough! They are so greedy that with both hands they
   labor to fill up the measure. They run, as Peter says, "to the excess
   of riot,"with body and with the soul apparently determined to go post
   haste to Hell. And if anything can be found by which they can quicken
   their speed to destruction, they seek it out and seem to prize it. Is
   it not strange that it should be so? Yet, in London, and I suppose it
   is the same elsewhere, anyone who walks along the streets for a little
   while will soon see evidences of the fact that there are many persons
   to whom the usual methods of going to destruction seem to be all too
   slow. I trust that if there are any young men here who are thus rapidly
   filling up their measure of iniquity, they will stop and think. My
   Friend, your candle will burn fast enough without your lighting it at
   both ends! You will ruin yourself fast enough without needing to heap
   up sin upon sin by becoming a drunkard and a gambler as well as profane
   and unchaste! O man, why are you so diligent to be your own
   destroyer?--

   "Sinner, oh why so thoughtless grown? Why in such dreadful haste to
   die? Daring to leap to worlds unknown, Heedless against your God to
   fly."

   Perhaps among the sins that fill up a man's measure very quickly, one
   of the chief is persecution of God's people. A man will bear many
   insults and even much injury to himself, but if you touch his children,
   then the color comes into his face and he is swift to avenge the wrong
   that has been done to them. So is it in the case of God's children and
   their Father! He said to Zion in Babylon, "He that touches you, touches
   the apple of My eye." If you want to be damned out of hand, become a
   persecutor of the saints, for that is the quickest way to Hell! When
   holy Wishart was chained to the stake, he pointed to the cardinal who
   was gloating over the spectacle and told him that God's wrath would
   shortly fall upon him--and so it came to pass, for God avenges His own
   elect--and sometimes does it very speedily. The sin of persecuting the
   Church of God is one which, perhaps more than any other, helps to fill
   up the measure of a sinner's iniquity!

   Another sin of a similar character is that of attending Gospel
   ordinances and yet despising them. The Lord will deal more leniently
   with those who are ignorant of the Gospel and have no opportunity of
   hearing it, than He will deal with you to whom the Gospel has long been
   familiar as a household word, yet in whom familiarity with it has only
   bred contempt. Christ has been knocking at the door of some of your
   hearts for many years. I can personally bear witness that the message
   of salvation has come to you in many forms and various ways. I have
   searched the Word of God with the view of finding the most impressive
   texts--and I have prayed to God to guide me to subjects which might
   savingly affect you. These topics have often affected my own heart
   while I have been preparing for the pulpit, yet, so far they have not
   affected your hearts--or at least not sufficiently to lead you to faith
   in the Lord Jesus Christ. Depend upon it, you sermon-hearers are
   bringing a curse upon yourselves by despising and refusing the blessing
   which has so long been made known to you in vain! God may well say, "I
   will not always send My servant to preach to those who judge themselves
   unworthy of Everlasting Life. Why should I cast my Gospel pearls before
   such swinish creatures? Why should I continue to call to those who will
   not heed My voice?" Well may He say, as He did of old, "Because I have
   called, and you refused; I have stretched out My hand and no man
   regarded; but you have set at naught all My counsel, and would none of
   My reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your
   fear comes." It is no small sin to have heard the Gospel and yet to
   have rejected it. You know how our Savior upbraided the cities wherein
   most of His mighty works were done because

   they repented not--"Woe unto you, Chorazin! Woe unto you, Bethsaida!
   For 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!
   But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at
   the Day of Judgment, than for you."

   It is another great help in filling up the measure of iniquity when a
   man has had serious personal affliction, yet it has not softened, but
   rather has hardened him. You, my Friend, were laid low a little while
   ago. Was it a malignant fever, or some other dangerous disease that you
   had? Your relatives said, "He cannot recover," and you turned your face
   to the wall, in the bitterness of your spirit, for you feared that you
   would die, and you knew that you were unprepared to meet your God. You
   were glad enough if somebody would pray with you then! And, after a
   fashion, you shuffled into some sort of prayer of your own and you
   promised what you would do if the Lord would spare your forfeited life.
   But where are your good resolutions now? There are some of you who used
   to be Sabbath-breakers. And when you were likely to die, you said, "If
   God will but spare me, the shop shall be closed on His holy day." Yet
   you have opened it again though He spared you. You were a drunkard up
   to the time of your great illness, but you said, "If God will spare my
   life, I will never touch the intoxicating cup again." God did spare
   your life, yet you are as conspicuous a slave of drink as ever you
   were! And you have proved yourself to be a liar in the sight of God!
   Young man, you got into a sad trouble once, but God, by a very special
   Providential deliverance, helped you out of it and you then said, "I
   will walk more guardedly for the future." Yet you have gone back to the
   same sin, as the dog turns to his own vomit, "and the sow that was
   washed, to her wallowing in the mire." But God will not waste His pains
   on you much longer. A farmer plows his field and if it brings forth no
   harvest, he may plow it again, but he will not always go on plowing a
   field that is as barren as a rock. [See

   Sermon #2977, Volume 52--PLOWING A ROCK.] A gardener may come to a

   fig tree and if it bears no fruit, he may prune it and dig about it,
   and fertilize it, but he will not go on doing that year after year--he
   will at last say, "Cut it down; why cumbers it the ground?" And it must
   be so with you if you still remain impenitent after all God's dealings
   with you! By refusing to heed God's warning message which came to you
   in the chamber of affliction. By forgetting the gentle pressure of
   God's hand of mercy which raised you up to health and strength again,
   you are helping to fill up the measure of your iniquity!

   And let me further say that--and I know that my words will go home to
   some here--when a man has been subject to convictions--whether those
   convictions may be set down to an alarmed conscience, or to what I may
   call the secondary operations of God's Holy Spirit, I will not
   say--but, when a man has been the subject of convictions and has
   stifled them, it greatly adds to the measure of his guilt The other
   night a young man was in the street and a temptation was set before
   him--and he knew it to be a temptation. He stood still a while and
   thought within himself, "I know that this is a wrong thing for me to
   do. It would break my mother's heart if she knew that I committed this
   sin. And as for my father, I could never dare to look him in the face
   again if he knew that I had done this and, besides, I am an attendant
   at a place of worship and know that this is an evil thing--and that it
   might be my eternal ruin." Now, after that young man had weighed the
   matter, if he had deliberately chosen to commit that sin, there would
   have been ten times the guilt in it than there might have been in the
   case of another who was overtaken unawares by sudden temptation and had
   no time to consider what was the right thing for him to do. In
   proportion to the violence that a man has to do to himself in order to
   commit a certain transgression, the measure of his guilt may be
   estimated.

   I believe there are people here who, on many occasions, have sat and
   trembled at the Word of the Lord--and have been softened in spirit till
   they have wept in silence--and sometimes openly. And they have
   whispered to themselves, "We will really seek the great change. We will
   cry to God for help that we may repent of sin and believe in Jesus, as
   the preacher urges us." But on those steps outside they have met with
   some worldly companion and, while talking with him, all their good
   resolutions have melted away and the sinner who seemed to be impressed
   remains a sinner still! The one who appeared to be awakened a month ago
   is now a drunkard and the conscience that was thought to be getting
   tender six months ago, is fast becoming as hard as the nether
   millstone! These are dreadful facts, but they all go to show that a man
   may be--even in the House of Prayer, and under the means of
   Grace--continually filling up the measure of his iniquity. These are
   terrible Truths of God for me to have to preach, but it is necessary
   for them to be told. May you all feel the force of them and may God
   thus drive you to seek shelter in His Son who died upon the Cross of
   Calvary, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

   III. My third point is that THE MEASURE OF INIQUITY WILL ONE DAY BE
   FULL.

   It will take time to fill it, but it will be filled in due time and, at
   the rate at which some men go in sinning, they will soon fill up the
   measure of their transgression. The tares are green and God will not
   have them cut down yet, for He lets even the tares ripen. He allows
   even the poisonous fruit of evil to hang on the tree till it grows
   mellow and then it drops with its own weight. But the tares will ripen
   and the evil fruit will become mellow--and then will their end come.
   And it will take time for you sinners to ripen in sin, but you wil
   ripen, and then you will be shaken from the tree and this life shall
   know you no more.

   I want you unconverted ones to think for a minute or two how nearly
   full your measure probably is even now. Begin with your early childhood
   and think over your many acts of willful disobedience and sin. I cannot
   trace your whole life, but let me remind you of your early manhood. Is
   there nothing for you to be ashamed of and nothing for you to repent of
   there? I am sure that there are some here who cannot think of that
   period of life without blushing for very shame. Then think of the later
   days of your riper manhood. O Sirs, what heaps of sin are there! The
   measure of your iniquity must be nearly full. Do not forget, too, that
   we are usually very bad judges of our real state in the sight of God.
   The probability is that the measure of our iniquity is a great deal
   more full than we think it is. I hope none of you were ever bankrupts,
   but if you ever were insolvent I expect that when you actually came to
   look into your books, you found that you were much more deeply in debt
   than you ever thought that you were! It is a common thing for men who
   are in an unsound state in their business to fancy that their position
   is better than a rigid examination proves it to be. And I believe it is
   so in spiritual things with many of you. Take care, take care! You
   suppose that only the bottom of the measure is full as yet, but the
   recording angel sees that your iniquity is nearly up to the top! It is
   a very mournful reflection, dear Friends, that there may be some
   here--and that there probably are some here--who have only to commit
   one more sin to fill up the measure of their iniquity! One more lie and
   the measure is full! One more lascivious song and it is full. One more
   act of theft, one more drunken bout and it is full! I have known some
   people come here--and perhaps some such are now here--who have had
   delirium tremens It is a wonder that they were not cast into Hell
   then--a marvel of mercy that they were spared a little longer! But, the
   next time that happens to you, Sir, it may be a delirium that will
   never have an end! The next time you put that poison cup to your lips
   and dare to drink till you are drunk, you will drink yourself into
   eternal damnation! O beware, beware, BEWARE! It is not merely a man who
   speaks thus to you--there is a warning Voice from Heaven which is
   speaking to some people here through my lips. Stop, Sir, for if you
   take only one step more you will be plunged in eternal ruin! Do you ask
   what concern it is of mine whether you are lost or saved? It is as much
   my concern as it would be if I could save your temporal life if I saw
   you in danger! Much more would I desire to point out to you the danger
   of your immortal soul that you may, by God's Infinite Grace, be saved
   from spiritual and everlasting ruin!

   All this while there is one very sad but most true reflection that I
   must mention to you. It is this--while the unconverted are always
   putting more sin into the measure, it is not in their power to take out
   anything that is already in the measure. I can fill the ephah of my
   transgression, but I cannot empty it, and I cannot even diminish it.
   Somebody says to me, "Suppose, Sir, that I never sin again?" Well, what
   then? Even if you get no further into debt, that will not pay off the
   old score. "Then, Sir, what shall we do? Shall we stand here and weep
   over our sins--will not our tears wash them away?" No, though you shed
   a Niagara of penitential tears, there is no power in them to blot out a
   single sin! "But what if we perform many good works?" No, though you
   could fill an Atlantic with your good works, you would not have washed
   out the crimson stain of even one of your innumerable transgressions!
   No, you cannot take one sin out of the measure, though you can keep on
   putting in sin upon sin upon sin--and so the measure is being filled
   and it will soon be

   full.

   IV. So I close by asking you--what then?

   I was reading in the New Testament, the other night, and there were
   half-a-dozen words that impressed me with peculiar force. I think they
   are, on the whole, as dreadful as any words that were ever spoken. I
   may venture to say that even the Scripture, itself, contains no more
   terrible words than these which I am about to quote to you, yet they
   were spoken by the Lord Jesus, Himself--the loving, tender, gentle
   Jesus, who called the little children to Him. They are recorded in the
   8th Chapter of John' Gospel, the 21st verse. And then, as though one
   thunder-clap must follow another, they are repeated in the 24th verse.
   These are the words--

   "You shall die in your sins."

   Hear them again--"If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in
   your sins." I heard of a man who died in a ditch, but that is nothing
   compared with dying in the ditch of your sins! I heard of one who fell
   down dead in the street, but what is that compared with dying in sin?
   Some die starved, but that is nothing to dying in sin! Near my house,
   the other day, there was one who sat down to eat and some coals from a
   fire flew out and caught her clothes on fire--the people around her
   tore her clothes from her back, but she was so badly burnt that she
   died--but the flames of sin are worse than coals of the fire. "You
   shall die in your sins." I have no choice as to how or where I shall
   die except in this one respect--that I may never die in sin, with
   iniquity like the fabled poison shirt killing its unhappy wearer. He
   tried to tear it off and even tore away his flesh, but the poison burnt
   into his bones--but it is worse than that to die in sin! Man, you must
   die in your sins if you continue to live in them! You cannot escape
   from the consequence of sin if you keep following in the pursuit of
   sin. Work and you shall have your wages--and "the wages of sin is
   death." Sow and you shall reap your harvest--and if you sow to the
   flesh, you must and shall of the flesh reap corruption! I pray God that
   none of you may ever know, in your own persons, the full meaning of
   those awful words of the Savior, "You shall die in your sins."\f you
   believe not--

   "YOU SHALL DIE IN YOUR SINS."

   But I cannot send you away like this, although yonder clock has struck
   the usual hour for closing the service. Thank God that no clock has
   struck to forbid me to proclaim the tidings of mercy as long as men are
   yet in this world. I told you that you could not take any sin out of
   that measure and most truly did I speak, but let me whisper in your
   ears that there is One, the ever-blessed Son of God, who can empty it!
   He can take the measure of your sin, just as it is, and not merely take
   out a little, but He can take it all and put it on His own shoulders
   and carry it right away, and hurl it into his own sepulcher where it
   shall be buried so deep that even the eyes of God, Himself, shall never
   see it again! "Oh, would to God," says one, "that He would do that with
   my sins!" Sir, He will do it with your sins, now, at this moment, if
   you believe on Him. "Believe on Him?" says one, "I believe that He is
   the Son of God and the Savior of men." Go further then, and trust Him
   as your own Savior. Give up your sins! Give up your self-reliance and
   cast yourself into those dear arms that were outstretched on the Cross
   that great sinners might be folded in them and find eternal shelter
   there--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One. There is life at this
   moment for you," if you will but look to Him! May God's gracious Spirit
   enable you to look away from self to His great substitutionary
   Sacrifice, to the full Atonement He made, to the utmost ransom that He
   paid! Close in with Christ and the measure of your iniquity shall be
   emptied!

   But remember that if Christ is not received, there is no other hope of
   salvation. And what is more, after this night there may not even be
   another proclamation of the way of salvation for some of you. I do not
   know when I am more pained--when I have to go to visit young men who
   are dying, perhaps of consumption and without hope. It is dreadful work
   to try to set forth the Gospel to them. I sometimes feel as if I must
   proclaim the Law, though they are so sick and weak. And, sometimes, the
   mother stands beside the bed and weeps, and says, "Ah, I have prayed
   for him many times, but, oh, that I knew that he was saved!" Then she
   says to me, on the stairs, "I could give him up, Sir, though I love the
   dear boy--I could give him up without a sigh, but, oh, it breaks my
   heart to think that he is dying without a Savior!" Yes, and every
   Christian ought to feel the same, in his measure, about every sinner!
   It is a trying thing to me, when I am walking in the street, to see an
   accident. I feel as if my heart were in my mouth at once. If I were in
   a railway accident and saw somebody killed, I do not think I would be
   able to hold up my head for days. But, oh, to know that some of you are
   losing your souls and that you are every day getting nearer and nearer
   to your eternal doom! "Turn you, turn you, for why will you die?"

   I often wonder why some of you come to hear me as you do. It puzzles
   me, for I see no reason why you should do so. I offer you no amusement.
   I tell you no comical stories, but I seek to break your hearts with the
   hammer of the Word of God! You come and you go, yet you get no blessing
   as far as I can see. Are you content to always have it so? If you are,
   I am not content! I am at least responsible for faithfully warning you
   and honestly preaching to you the great Gospel message, "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Every time I stand in this
   pulpit, there is somebody here who never comes again--he cannot come
   again, for he dies before the next Lord's-Day. So large is the
   congregation here that I may almost say, speaking according to the laws
   of probability, that it is almost certain that some one of us

   will have gone the way of all flesh before this week is gone. Who will
   it be? May God take the ripe and spare the green! May He take those who
   are ready and spare those who are not ready! But, better still, may He
   lead us all to trust in the Savior and then we shall all be ready
   whenever the summons comes! May He do so, for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Spiritual Transformations

   (No. 3044)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A THURSDAY EVENING IN THE
   YEAR 1865.

   "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the
   brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a
   name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" Isaiah 4:13.

   For many centuries the Holy Land has been covered with thorns and
   briers. Travelers tell us it is so exceedingly barren that except upon
   the dreary desert of Sahara, you cannot find a more absolute sterility
   than in many parts of Judea and Israel. But the land will not remain
   forever thus unproductive. Even now, in spots where it can be
   cultivated, it flows with milk and honey, and the day is coming when
   the chosen people shall return to their own land which God has given to
   them and to their fathers by a Covenant of Salt--and when again they
   shall begin to irrigate the hills and to plant the valleys, to
   cultivate the vineyards and to scatter the seed broadcast into the
   well-plowed furrows! The Holy Land will again blossom--"Instead of the
   thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come
   up the myrtle tree." When this is done, the whole world will ring with
   the fame thereof. They will say, "Is this the Zion whom no man sought
   after? Is this the land which was called desolate? Is this the city
   whose name was FORSAKEN?" Then shall Mount Zion again be "beautiful for
   situation, the joy of the whole earth." And then shall the whole land
   flow with fertility--"and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an
   everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

   But the spiritual meaning of our text, to which we draw more immediate
   attention tonight, is this--God, by His Grace, is able to work moral
   and spiritual transformations. Men, comparable to thorns and briers,
   are, by the Sovereign Grace of God, changed and renewed so that they
   may then be compared to fir trees and to myrtles. This wonderful
   transformation is to the glory of God and is to Him "an everlasting
   sign that shall not be cut off." Let us talk a little with one another,
   first, concerning these transformations. Secondly, concerning how they
   are worked. And, thirdly, let us contemplate their happy result--they
   "shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall
   not be cut off."

   I. Let us talk CONCERNING THESE TRANSFORMATIONS.

   It appears, from our text, that there are some men who may fitly be
   compared to thorns and briers. The similitude may be applied to their
   original Here we must all take our share. The thorn is the child of the
   curse. The brier is the offspring of the Fall. There were no thorns and
   briers to cause the sweat to flow from Adam's face until after he had
   sinned. Then did the Lord say to him, "Cursed is the ground for your
   sake; sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life, thorns also
   and thistles shall it bring forth to you." And we, too, are the
   offspring of the curse. What says David? "Behold, I was shapen in
   iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." We are born under sin.
   We are subject to it from our very earliest moments and we go astray,
   not merely by the imitation of bad example, but from the force of a
   corrupt nature.

   It may be that there are some here, this evening, who feel that they
   are under the curse. You cannot look back upon your original without
   discovering this. It may be, my Friends, that your parents taught you
   to sin--you cannot remember ever having been instructed in the way of
   God. It may be that this very moment you can recollect some of the
   earliest training that you received--and you remember that it was such
   as might fit you for the service of Satan, but could not lead you to
   the Cross of Christ. You feel that you are under the curse and you have
   met such afflictions and your own heart is so heavy that if I were to
   write anyone down as a child of the curse, you would boldly say, "Put
   my name in the list. Indeed, I am born of a traitor and I feel in my
   blood the taint of his sin." There is comfort for us,

   however, even though this is true of us! We are thorns, but the Lord
   can transform us into myrtles. Jehovah knows how to remove the curse of
   the first Adam by the blessing of the second Adam. He can tear up by
   the roots everything that is vile, sinful and accursed, and can plant
   in the place, thereof, everything that is lovely and of good
   repute--and so we shall inherit His blessing. So be of good
   comfort--though you are now under the curse, the Lord Jesus, who was
   made a Curse for us, is able yet to pronounce you blessed!

   Again, the thorn is the true image of the sinner because it is of no
   sort of service. I suppose almost everything has its use, but I do not
   know that there has been discovered any use for the thorn and the
   brier. So has it been with many of us, and it is so with some of you
   tonight. What have you done for God? Twenty years, young man, have
   brought you to maturity, but what quit-rent has the Almighty ever
   received from you? Perhaps 40 years have ripened your manhood, but,
   hitherto, what songs of praise have gone up to Heaven from you? What
   acceptable fruits have you laid upon God's altar? You are His
   vineyard--what ripe grapes have ever come to Him from you? He has dug
   about you. He has protected you by the wall of His Providence and
   watched over you with tender care. How is it that when He looks for
   grapes, you bring forth only wild grapes? When He expects to have some
   return for the talent which He has committed to your care, how is it
   that you have wrapped it in a napkin and have hidden your Lord's money?
   You have been useless-- not exactly so to your fellow men--your
   children have received your care--you have been, perhaps, some help to
   your neighbors and to your friends. But, as far as God is concerned,
   the natural man is perfectly useless! He brings no harvest to the great
   Owner of the ground. Did I say, just now, you were 40 years old? What
   if there should be, in this place, some unconverted person of sixty,
   seventy, or even eighty? And all these years, in vain has the light of
   Heaven shone for you! In vain has the Divine long-suffering said,
   "Spare him yet another year." In vain the preaching of God's Word to
   you and all the ordinances of His House--you are still bare, leafless,
   fruitless! You have only lived unto yourself and you have in nowise
   glorified your Creator and your Preserver. You are a thorn and a brier!
   Yet be of good comfort--if you have a heart for better things, God can
   make you into the fir tree and the myrtle that yield genial shade and
   gladden the gardens of the Lord! He can yet transform your uselessness
   into true service and take you from among the idlers in the market to
   go and work actively and with success in His vineyard!

   The thorn, too, (we have only commenced upon this point), wastes the
   genial influences which, falling upon good wheat, would have produced a
   harvest The rain fell today, but it fell upon thorns and briers as well
   as upon the green blades of the wheat. The dews will weep and they will
   fall quite as copiously upon the thickly tangled thistles and matted
   briers as upon the cottager's well-weeded garden. And when the sun
   shines out with cheering ray, he will have rays quite as genial for the
   thistle and for the briers as for the fruit trees and for the barley
   and the wheat. So it is with you unconverted men and women! You have
   received God's daily favors in as great abundance as the righteous
   have. No, perhaps you have had even more! You have been sitting,
   clothed in fine linen, like Dives, while God's own saints have been
   rotting at your gates, like Lazarus. You have not pined for lack of the
   outward influences of the means of Grace. Some of you are
   sermon-hearers. You are constantly within God's gates. You frequent the
   place where the proclamation of mercy is freely made. Your Bibles are
   not unknown to you and yet, all this has been wasted on you. Are you
   not near unto cursing? Visited by daily favor, rebuked by conscience,
   awakened at times by the natural motion of your own heart, awakened by
   God's Spirit, awed under His Word and yet, for all this, you are aliens
   from the commonwealth of Israel! Yet despair not! If your souls seek
   after better things, God is able to transform these wasteful thorns,
   these briers that bear no fruit into fig trees that shall shower their
   luscious fruit all around!

   It was a foolish saying of a certain preacher that the tares would
   never become wheat--what business had he to strain Christ's parable?
   This I know--the brier can become a myrtle and the thistle can become a
   fir tree by Divine Grace! Did the man mean to deny the possibility of
   conversion? Did he mean to say that Almighty Grace could not turn the
   lion into a lamb, the raven into a dove? If so, he uttered a direct
   blasphemy, for there is no miracle of Grace which God cannot perform!
   He can take the black lumps of ebony and make them alabaster! He can
   cast the tree of the Cross into Marah's bitter waters and make them
   sweet as the water of the well of Bethlehem for which David thirsted!
   He can take the poison out of the asp and the sting out of the
   cockatrice--and make them serviceable to God and man! The camel can go
   through the needle's eye! Know for sure that nothing is too hard for
   the Lord! He can accomplish whatever He pleases.

   To continue our remarks upon the thorn and its transformation into the
   fir tree--Is not the thorn a hurtful thing? It rends and tears the
   passers-by. Sometimes, if I would pursue my path straight across to
   yonder point, I must break through a hedge of briers--and how often has
   the Christian been tormented and torn by the thorns of the ungodly? Let
   the age of martyrs tell how God's saints have had their flesh torn from
   their bones by these thorns and briers! And let a weeping mother tell
   how her son has broken her heart and turned her hair prematurely gray.
   And let a sorrowing wife tell how an ungodly husband has sent her to
   her chamber with briny tears streaming from her eyes. And let us all
   tell how sometimes our ungodly relatives have made our hearts beat fast
   with dread anxiety for them! Lot cannot live in Sodom without being
   vexed and David cannot sojourn in Mesech without crying, "Woe is me,
   that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" But
   remember, however much you have persecuted God's saints, however
   harshly you may have dealt with the followers of Christ, the Lord is
   able to transform you into one of them! Paul little thought, when he
   was riding to Damascus, that it would be so with him. He had his
   precious documents all safe. "I will harass the Nazarenes," he seemed
   to say. "I will bring them to the whipping post. I will drag them out
   of the synagogue and compel them to blaspheme!" Little do you know,
   Paul, that you shall soon bend the knee to that very Jesus of Nazareth
   whom you hate! A light shines about him, brighter than the noonday sun!
   He falls from his horse. He hears a voice which says, "Saul, Saul, why
   do you persecute Me?" Them meekly he asks, "Who are You, Lord?" And the
   answer comes, "I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for you to
   kick against the pricks." Ah, Sinner, perhaps you do not know that you
   are persecuting Jesus. You think that it is only your child, or your
   wife, or your mother. But, in persecuting the members of the body of
   Christ, you persecute the Head! Saul of Tarsus is lead by the hand to
   Damascus and, after his conversion, who is more bold than he? The
   preacher upon Mars' Hill, the witness before Nero, the aged man of God
   sitting in the dungeon, the child of God with his head upon the
   block--this is the man who persecuted the saints of God--but is now
   full of zeal above all others for the spread of the knowledge of
   Christ! The thorn is turned into a fir tree and the brier into a myrtle
   tree.

   Nor have I yet exhausted the figure. The thorn sows its own seed and
   when the winds blows they bear upon their wings the thistledown--and
   the seed is dropped here and there and everywhere! You cannot keep
   thistles to themselves. If you grow them in your own garden, they will
   be in your neighbor's garden before long. And if your neighbor grows
   them, it will be difficult for you to keep them out of your plot. And
   here is the worst point about an unconverted man. If you have been
   doing mischief, your children grow up in your own image, or your
   servants imitate their master. If you are an unscrupulous trader, you
   assist to make other traders, if not palpably dishonest, yet
   scandalously lax. Your language pollutes the air you breathe. Or if you
   keep that tolerably right, your sentiments are not without their
   influence upon your fellow men. You live not unto yourselves. If you
   were to lead a hermit's life, your very absence from society would have
   its influence. If you are literally a leper, I may shut you up and make
   you cover your lips and cast ashes on your head and cry, "Unclean!
   Unclean!" but with your spiritualleprosy, I cannot so seclude you. You
   will taint the air wherever you go--it is not possible for you to do
   otherwise than to spread pollution round about you. O thorn,
   seed-sowing thorn, my God change you!

   Do I tonight address some infidel who has been very earnest in the
   propagation of his views? How would my heart leap if the Lord would
   make you just as earnest in lifting up the Cross upon which you have
   trampled! He can do it! I pray God that He may. Do I speak tonight to
   one who has been furiously set against the things of God? Brethren, the
   worst of sinners make the best of saints! And if the Lord shall please
   to touch you, you shall be just as hot for Him as you now are against
   Him. He that has much forgiven shall love much. No one could break an
   alabaster box of precious ointment but the woman who was a sinner. John
   Bunyan used to say that he believed there would be a great band of
   saints in the next generation, for his own generation was noted for its
   many great sinners and he did hope that as these great sinners grew up,
   God would transform them into great saints. We could mention many names
   of men who have been, as it were, the devil's sergeants, but who, when
   God has once transformed them into His own soldiers, have made most
   blessed recruiting sergeants for the Kingdom of Christ. Look at John
   Newton, John Bunyan and other men of that stamp--and see what Sovereign
   Grace can do in similar cases.

   Yet once more. I cannot help remarking that it was the thorn and the
   brier that composed the crown that pierced the Savior's temples. And it
   is our sins, our cruel sins, that have been His chief tormentors. Every
   soul that lives without Christ, after having heard of Him, is piercing
   Christ's temples afresh. When you think that He is unwilling to forgive
   you, that ungenerous thought wounds Him more than anything else. And
   when you speak ill of His name--when you slander His people and despise
   His saints, what are you doing but plaiting another crown of thorns to
   put upon His head? Yet you, you who have pierced the Savior's brow, you
   can yet become a myrtle to crown that brow with victory! The Savior,
   having fought for you and won you--having bought you with His heart's
   blood--will put you as a wreath about His brow "and i t shall be to the
   Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not, be cut off."
   The meaning of the whole is that God does, by the power of the Gospel,
   transform His enemies into His friends. He turns men from darkness to
   light, from the power of Satan to the Kingdom of Christ, from being
   possessed with devils to become full of the Holy Spirit, from being a
   den of dragons, full of sin, to be temples where every Grace shall
   shine to reflect the Glory of the Most High. Some of you can bear
   witness to this as a matter of experience--others of you contemplate it
   with strong desire.

   II. Secondly, we are to consider HOW THIS TRANSFORMATION IS WORKED IN
   MEN.

   It is worked by the secret and mysterious agency of God the Holy Spirit
   Certainly, dear Friends, it can never be worked in us by the power of
   man! Let us tremble if our religion rests upon any man, for that is a
   poor, unstable foundation. I learn each day more and more my utter
   inability to do good to my fellow men apart from the Spirit of God.
   There come to me, sometimes, cases that completely stagger me. I try,
   for instance, to comfort a broken heart. I seek, but in vain, all sorts
   of metaphors to make the Truth of God clear. I quote the promises, bow
   the knee in prayer and yet, after all, the poor troubled spirit has to
   go away still unbelieving, for only God can give it faith! There are
   other cases where we know of men who have lived in sin and God has been
   pleased to put His afflicting hand upon them and we do not know what to
   say to them. They profess repentance, but we fear it is only remorse.
   They talk of faith in Christ, but we are afraid it is a delusion. We
   would convince them of sin if we could. We remind them of the past and
   they give an assent to every sentence we utter against them, but yet
   they feel not the evil of their own ways. Oh, it is hard work to deal
   with sinners! It needs a sharper tool than man can keep in his toolbox.
   Only God Himself can break hearts--and when they are broken--only the
   same hand that broke them can bind them up.

   It is the Holy Spirit, then, who is everywhere in the midst of His
   Church, who comes forth and puts Himself into direct contact with a
   human spirit and, straightway, a change is affected. I cannot tell you
   with what part of man the Holy Spirit begins, but this I can tell
   you--He changes the whole man! The judgment no longer takes darkness
   for light and light for darkness! The will is no longer obstinately set
   against God but bows its neck to the yoke of Christ! The affections are
   no longer set upon sinful pleasure, but they are set upon Christ! It is
   true that corruption still remains in the heart, but a new heart and a
   right spirit are given. There is put into the quickened soul a living
   Seed which cannot sin because it is born of God--a living Seed which
   lives and abides forever! "I don't know," said one, "whether the world
   is a new world, or whether I am a new creature, but it is one of the
   two, for, 'old things are passed away, and all things are become new.'"
   When Christ descends into the human heart to reign, He seems to take
   this motto, "Behold, I make all things new." Therefore is "a new Heaven
   and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness," within that poor
   sinner's heart! It is a complete change. You will observe that it is
   not the thorn, somewhat trimmed and pruned--it is not the brier made to
   grow upon a wall and trained into order--that is reformation. But it is
   the thorn turned into a fir tree-- this is a perfect re-creation, a
   making anew of the man and this happens to everyone of us, by the power
   and energy of the Divine Spirit, or else in the garden of the Lord we
   shall never bloom, nor ought we to join the Church of God on earth, for
   we have no part nor lot in the matter.

   But, while I have said that it is the Spirit who works this change, you
   are enquiring by what means He does it If you will kindly refer to the
   chapter from which my text is taken, you will observe that the Lord
   Jesus has to do with it-- "Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to
   the people, a Leader and Commander to the people." That verse comes
   before my texts. We must know Christ before we can ever be changed.
   Some people think they are to change themselves and then come to
   Christ. Oh, no! Come to Jesus just as you are! It is the work of His
   Spirit to change you. You are not to work a miracle and then come to
   show the miracle to Christ, but you are to come to Chris to have the
   miracle worked. It is Christ's work to begin with the sinner as the
   sinner, even as the Good Samaritan did with the man who fell among
   thieves. He did not wait for him to be cured before he helped him, but
   he poured oil and wine into his wounds, lifted him upon his beast, and
   then carried him to the inn. And Christ is able to save to the
   uttermost all who come unto God by Him.

   But the chapter seems to teach another lesson. You say, "I know that
   the Holy Spirit brings Christ home to the heart and conscience, but how
   am I to get at Christ?" The chapter tells you. It says that God's Word
   shall not return unto Him void. The way by which Christ is discovered
   and found by a sinner is by Christ being preached to him! "Hear, and
   your soul shall live." That is the Gospel! The way by which Christ
   comes into the soul is through Ear-gate. "Satan tries to stop up
   Ear-gate with mud," says John Bunyan. But, oh, it is a glorious thing
   when God clears away the mud of prejudice so that men are willing to
   hear the Truth of God! There was an old man, a member of this Church,
   who used to preach every Sunday in Billingsgate. Many persons tried to
   begin a controversy with him, but he was an old soldier in more senses
   than one and his answer, when anybody tried to dispute or enter into an
   argument with him, was, "'Hear, and your soul shall live!' I have not
   come to argue, but to preach the Truth of God--'Hear, and your soul
   shall live.'" That was a plain answer, sure enough!

   Now you know that simple trust in Christ is all that He asks of
   you--and even that He gives you. 'Tis the work of His own Spirit. Hear
   this, then, you thorns and briers, before God sets Himself in battle
   array against you--before His fires devour you! Hear the gentle notes
   of a Father's heart as He speaks in Gospel invitations to you, "Come,
   buy wine and milk without money and without price." "Ho, everyone that
   thirsts, come you to the waters." May you all be brought there! May
   God's Grace bring you all to lay hold on Christ!

   III. And then, to close--WHAT IS THE RESULT OF THIS TRANSFORMATION?

   To whose honor shall so beneficial a change accrue? "It shall be to the
   Lord for a name. "As soon as that great sinner gets converted, it makes
   a buzz and a noise in the workshop where he goes. "What?" they ask,
   "has that wretch become a saint?" He used to curse, but, "Behold, he
   prays!" He could drink with the drunk, but now he walks in the fear of
   God "in all temperance and sobriety." He could not be trusted, but now
   temptation cannot turn him from his integrity. The name of Christ at
   one time brought the blood into his cheeks, but now--

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows Charm him in Immnanuel's name." I say
   there is a buzz about the workshop--the men say to one another, "What
   is the meaning of this? How came this about." And though they hate the
   change, yet they gaze at it and admire it. They cannot understand it.
   They are like the magicians of Egypt--they cannot do these things with
   their enchantment and, therefore, they are compelled to say, "This is
   the finger of God." If God converts some ordinary sinners, He does not
   get half as much glory out of them as He does out of these
   extraordinary ones. The man whose vile character was known in a whole
   parish, whose name was foul in the court where he lived, who had
   acquired a reputation for evil in the whole district--when this thorn
   becomes a fir tree, then everyone wonders! If I had in my garden a
   great brier which had once torn my hands, but one day when I walked
   down I saw, instead of that briar, a fir tree growing and a genial
   shade could be enjoyed under its branches, how astonished I would be! I
   would naturally ask, "Who has done this? Who could have transformed
   this brier into a fir tree?" And so, when a great sinner is converted,
   the finger of God is recognized and God is glorified! Even the ungodly
   are compelled to honor the name of the Most High when other ungodly
   ones are saved!

   And then as to the church, the members are, perhaps, at first rather
   shy and cannot believe it is true. They hear that he who once
   persecuted the Brothers and Sisters, now professes the name of their
   Master and, at last, they get good evidence of the truth of it--and oh,
   what hallowed glee there is among the sons of God! There is a church
   meeting and he comes forward to confess his faith--they know how foully
   he has erred and they rejoice to see him brought back again. There may
   be one "elder brother" who is angry and will not come in but, for the
   most part, the household is very glad when the prodigal returns! And
   chief in joy among you all, when such a scene occurs, is the one who
   has preached the Gospel to you. Oh, the joy of my soul when some of you
   were brought to Christ! I remember the cheering nights I had and how I
   went to my house rejoicing and triumphant in my God because of some of
   you! You were once foul, "but you are washed, but you are sanctified,
   but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit
   of our God." And truly, there would be more of such joy if others were
   brought in! Some of the best of the members of this Church are those
   who were brands plucked out of the burning. May we have more such
   sinners saved by the blood of Jesus!

   Nor is this all. There was an angel present when the deed was done.
   They are always present in the assemblies of the saints--hence it is
   that the women have their heads covered--"because of the angels." If no
   one else could see it, yet the angels, who cover their faces when they
   bow before God, would have us come into His Presence in decency and in
   order.

   This angel hears us weep--a stream of light ascends to the regions of
   the blessed. Straightway the bliss spreads throughout the celestial
   field and, as the news is propagated, "A prodigal has returned, another
   heir of Glory is born," they take their harps and tune their strings
   anew! They bow with great reverence! They sing with loftier joy! They
   shout with more glorious praise, "Unto Him that loved the souls of men
   and washed them in His blood, to Him be glory, and honor, and power,
   and dominion, forever and ever!" And thus the songs of Heaven are
   swollen, made more deep, more mighty with tumultuous joy by sinners
   saved on earth! Yes, they tell it in Heaven that the thorn-brake has
   become a grove of firs, that the brier has become a myrtle and what,
   shall I dare to say?--even the Divine Trinity break forth in joy. Their
   joy cannot be increased, for God over all is "blessed forever." But
   still, it is written, "He will rest in His love, He will joy over you
   with singing." Is it not said that when the prodigal was yet a long way
   off, his father saw him? Can it be that among the servants and friends
   there was joy and none in the father's heart? Impossible! The Eternal
   God, Jehovah, Himself, views with delight the chosen of His heart!
   Jesus sees the purchase of His blood! The Spirit sees the result of His
   own power and so, up to the very Throne of God, the impulse of a sinner
   saved is felt! She came from the brothel. He came from the prison and
   yet even Heaven thrills with the news! She had defiled herself with
   sin. He had polluted others with his crimes and yet angels tune their
   harps to Jehovah's praise because of them! Was that prophetic when the
   woman broke the alabaster box and filled the house with the perfume?
   Was that prophetic of what every repentant sinner does when his broken
   heart fills Heaven and earth with the sweet perfume ofjoy because he is
   saved? And when she washed the Savior's feet and wiped them with the
   hair of her head, was that also prophetic? Did that show how Jesus gets
   His greatest honor, His purest love, His fairest worship and His
   sweetest solace from sinners saved by blood? I think it was so. May He
   get such joy from us! Truly Jesus died for me and, at the foot of His
   Cross, I now stand weeping to tell of His true love to sinners! And O
   poor Sinner, Christ is able to save you! Whomever comes to Him, He will
   in no wise cast out. Oh, that you would come! May Sovereign Grace
   compel you to come in!

   I sat, this afternoon, looking at one with a withered countenance and a
   sunken cheek, marked out for death, once a member of this Church, but
   foully fallen and gone far astray. And I remember two or three of his
   age, once also professors who, strange to say, also went away from God
   as he did. When I talked to him about the Lord and His infinite
   compassion, I could but have in my mind's eye the prodigal who wasted
   his substance with riotous living, and yet his father did not spurn
   him, did not even rebuke him, but he--

   "--was to his Father's bosom pressed,

   Once again a child confessed,

   From his house no more to roam." And I thought I would say to you
   tonight--

   "Come and welcome, Sinner, come." Do not think that God is harsh. Think
   not that Christ is not tender. There is no breast so soft as His, no
   heart so deeply full of sympathy. He cries over the very worst of you,
   "How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you, Israel? How
   shall I make you as Admah? How shall I set you as Zeboim? My heart is
   turned within Me. My repentings are kindled together. I cannot destroy
   you, for I am God, and not man." Oh, shall my Savior plead with you in
   vain? Shall the tears of Jesus fall to the ground? Shall the love of
   God have no attracting influence? Shall not Mercy, as it rings its
   silver bell, draw you to the feast of love? Oh, why will you die? Is
   sin so sweet that you will suffer for it forever? Are the trifles of
   this world so important in your estimation that you will lose Heaven
   and Eternal Life? I pray you "seek the Lord while He may be found: call
   you upon Him while He is near," and think not that He will reject you,
   for "He will abundantly pardon." Oh, may He do this tonight!--

   "My God, I feel the mournful scene!

   My heart yearns over dying men

   And gladly my pity would reclaim

   And snatch the firebrands from the flame!

   But feeble my compassion proves,

   And can but weep where most it loves--

   Your own all-saving arm employ,

   And turn these drops of grief to joy!"

   O Lord, do it, for You can! Come forth, O Jesus! Mount Your chariot!
   Hell shakes at Your majesty. Heaven adores Your Presence--earth cannot
   resist you! Gates of brass fly open and bars of iron are snapped. Come,
   Conqueror, and ride through the streets of this city and through the
   hearts of all of us, and they shall be Yours, "and i t shall be to the
   Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."
   May God command His blessing on you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM84.

   Verse 1. How amiable are Your tabernacles, O LORD of Hosts! "Though
   they are only tabernacles, temporary structures that are soon to be
   taken down and carried away, they are very dear to us. Your tabernacles
   are so lovely to us because You meet us there."

   2. My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart
   and my flesh cries out for the living God. A little starving brings on
   an appetite for health-giving food--and a brief absence from the House
   of God through sickness, or by reason of distance, makes a Christian
   sigh and cry for the dainties of the Divine Table. Even the heavy
   flesh, which is so slow to move, at last joins the heart in crying out
   for the living God!

   3. Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for
   herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O LORD of
   Hosts, my King, and my God. He envies even the sparrows which have no
   sort of bashfulness, but boldly enter God's House and find a house for
   themselves there. O Lord, make me like the sparrows, blessed in finding
   shelter in the courts of Your House! As for the swallow, she makes
   God's House a nest for herself, and a place where she may lay her
   young. And it is blessed when our children, as well as ourselves, love
   the House of God--when they have been so nurtured and cherished that
   they are at home there. We may well envy the sparrows and the swallows
   when we and our families are unable to go up to the House of the Lord.
   And it is as sad for those who have to go up to a place where there is
   nothing good to be had, a place where the Gospel is not preached and so
   their souls are not fed.

   4. Blessed are they that dweel in Your House. The men who are always
   occupied in the Lord's service, or those who are in God's House even
   when they are in their own houses--the men who are always at home with
   God, who feel that the canopy of Heaven is the roof of God's House in
   which they dwell and who, therefore, never go away from God's House,
   but always dwell there with Him--

   It also brings to us--at least it does to me--a painful remembrance of
   the time wasted--time spent unprofitably before our conversion when, if
   we were not actually doing damage to the souls of others, yet we
   allowed opportunities for doing them good to glide by unused. Oh, these
   blessed hours, these precious hours, these more than golden hours in
   which Christians may win souls for the Lord Jesus Christ! Angels never
   had them and the spirits of just men made perfect have them no more.
   Though they can render other and perhaps yet higher service to their
   Lord, this special service of soul-winning is reserved for us who are
   still living on this earth. We have, at the longest, only a few days,
   or weeks, or months, or years allotted to us in which we may glorify
   God by being a blessing to our fellow creatures after we have found the
   Lord for ourselves! Yet some of us allowed many years to pass away
   before we even gave earnest heed to these things for ourselves. Those
   of us who were brought to know the Lord in our early youth, bless Him
   for that, yet we

   regret that we were not saved in our childhood. We wish we had given to
   God the very first rays of the morning of our life as well as the
   bright beams of the fuller day, so that we might have been made a
   blessing to the Church and the world as soon as we had intellect and
   understanding--and were capable of influencing the minds and hearts of
   others.

   There is another reflection which is also a sorrowful one and causes us
   deep regret--namely that since the ever-blessed hour when the Holy
   Spirit taught us to trust in Jesus and gave us new life in Him, we have
   not been such a blessing to our fellow creatures as we ought to have
   been. Not altogether in vain have we lived--we have not sown to the
   flesh, but to the Spirit--yet how scanty has been our sowing of the
   Good Seed of the Kingdom! And, in consequence, how small has been the
   harvest that we have reaped! Oh, that we had availed ourselves of all
   the golden opportunities we have had of serving the Lord Jesus Christ!
   How much more good we might have done had we been earnest at all times,
   fervent at all seasons, had we thrown spirit, soul and body entirely
   into this holy service--and lived and breathed alone for our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ! If we had reached the ideal Christian life so that
   we did eat, drink and sleep eternal life, having Christ living in us
   and we living in Him, how much more we might have achieved than any of
   us have yet done! The capacity to "be a blessing" to others was given
   to all of us who have believed in Jesus at our conversion--but we have
   left that precious talent unused to a very large extent. To some
   Christians, and to some now present, this message must go home and this
   question must be asked and answered--what have we done for Him who died
   to save us? Alas, how little--at the most, how little--but by the most
   idle, alas, alas, how little! God help you to turn your regret to
   practical account while the glad sound of the text rings in your ears
   like the music of a silver bell, "You shall be a blessing." Let your
   tears fall plenteously as you recall the sad fact that before you knew
   the Lord, you were a curse to others--and not a blessing--and that even
   since you have known Him, you have not grasped the truth of the text
   and realized the fullness of its blessed meaning as you should have
   done, for such tears of regret will be likely to lead you to change
   your course of action for the future!

   II. Let us now notice, in the second place, that OUR TEXT IS CALCULATED
   TO EXCITE INQUIRY as well as to quicken regret. Inquiries will come
   something in this style from young Believers, "Will you kindly tell us
   what we can do by which we shall be a blessing? We hear the promise of
   the text, but how can we get it fulfilled in our own experience? In
   what way can we be made a blessing to others?" Beloved Friends, there
   are many ways in which God can make you the channels of blessing to
   your fellow creatures if you are, yourselves, regenerated by the Holy
   Spirit.

   First, it will probably be by your consistent conduct that you will be
   made a blessing to others more than in any other way. An unholy
   professor is a downright curse both to the church and to the world and,
   as for a church of inconsistent members, Satan himself could not devise
   an instrument more fitted to carry out his diabolical purposes! A
   community of ungodly men that is known by everybody to be a synagogue
   of Satan is robbed of much of its power to do mischief--but if it is
   misnamed a Church of Christ, it is potent for all manner of evil! An
   unholy professor outside the Church of God may batter against the walls
   with small effect but inside, he would be like the concealed soldiers
   in the wooden horse who opened the gates of Troy to the besiegers. It
   was only an Apostle who could be such a "son of perdition" as Judas
   was, so beware, you who profess to be followers of Christ! You have
   great capacities for usefulness, but your position gives you immense
   capacities for doing damage to the cause of Christ. Only holy
   Christians are useful Christians--and the preaching of Christ's Truth
   must be backed up by the consistent living of Christ's followers if it
   is to have its due effect upon the hearts and lives of the ungodly. No
   doubt many a shaft has missed the mark because it has not been shot
   from the bow of a consistent preacher, or because it has been turned
   aside by inconsistency in the church of which he is the pastor. Oh, for
   holy living! The honest tradesman who has just weights and measures.
   The diligent domestic servant who sweeps under the mats and in the dark
   corners. The laborious workman who may be trusted when his master is
   absent. The man who would not tell a lie even though he could win a
   fortune or a throne by doing so. The man who in all things acts justly
   towards men and walks humbly before his God--these are the people who
   "shall be a blessing" to all around them! If a man had no tongue and so
   never spoke a word. If it were not in his power to bestow as much as a
   farthing upon the poor. If he could not visit the sick or the
   prisoners, yet his very presence upon the earth would be in itself a
   blessing--a silent reproof, but none the less eloquent to ungodly
   men--and a powerful example to such as wish to walk in the way of
   righteousness. "Be you holy," for so shall you serve God and serve the
   Church of Christ and, in the highest sense, serve your generation and
   serve the world! I love to sing, with John Newton--

   "Let worldly minds the world pursue, It has no charms for me! Once I
   admired its trifles too, But Grace has set me free! Now, Lord, I would
   be Yours alone, And wholly live to Thee!"

   But, in addition to that, all Christians may be made a blessing to
   others by instructing them in the Truths of the Gospel. The world is
   still very dark, spiritually, though many people foolishly speak of
   "this enlightened century." It has "light" of a certain sort--or
   rather, of a very uncertain sort--within it. But the light that is in
   it is almost entirely darkness! It is still true of the bulk of
   mankind, as it was in Isaiah's day--they "put darkness for light, and
   light for darkness.. .bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" Today the
   scarcest thing in the whole world is true spiritual light and, where it
   is revealed, men hate it and try to banish it from their sight!
   Philosophy is exalted above Revelation. Science, falsely so-called, is
   set up in the place of Christ who is the Wisdom of God, though true
   science is never in conflict with the true Gospel. And anything that
   pretends to be light is preferred by many to Him who is "the true
   Light." Spiritual Light is mainly conveyed to the dark souls of men
   through the proclamation of the Gospel--the good news concerning Jesus
   Christ, the Savior of sinners. So, proclaim that--

   "Old, old story

   Of Jesus and His love"--

   to as many as you can! Tell it to thousands, to hundreds, to
   scores--tell it to one if you cannot tell it to more. Tell to all, as
   far as you can, these precious things concerning the Lord Jesus
   Christ--His Incarnation, His holy life, His wondrous Words, His perfect
   example and His substitutionary death! Tell these things to your
   children and charge them to tell them to their children--and to charge
   their children to tell them to the generation following. Tell that
   great central Truth of the substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ to the
   man who sits beside you in the tram or train, or who calls at your
   house on business! Seize every opportunity you can get of letting men
   know, by the Inspired Word of God, or by the written or spoken message,
   all that you can about "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom
   God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,"
   "and by Him all that believe are justified from all things." And not
   only justified, but also glorified! Every true testimony to Christ
   brings glory to God and blessing to men. A preacher may halt and limp,
   his elocution may be faulty, his theology may be open to criticism--but
   if it is "the Gospel of Christ" that he proclaims, it will be precious
   Truth to the saints who hear him--and sinners will be saved by it!

   Not only by instructing men will you be a blessing to them, but also by
   reproof. This is a far more difficult matter and probably nine out of
   ten of us had better keep to the easier task of giving instruction. Yet
   now and then there will come occasions when you must not see sin in
   your Brother or Sister without rebuking it. If I hear blasphemy and am
   able to condemn it, yet do not, my silence makes me a sharer in the
   sin. I am always afraid lest when I hear God's name blasphemed, my
   guilty silence should make me an accomplice of the blasphemer. A rebuke
   need not be and should not be discourteous or disrespectful. And it
   should not be unduly severe, but I am afraid that nowadays we are not
   so likely to err by our harshness, as by failing to be faithful to our
   conscience and our God. We must boldly stand up, at all costs, for God,
   for truth, for purity. Shut your ear to the lascivious song--do not
   allow it to be sung in your house--and let not scandal be spoken at
   your table! Set your face like a flint against sin of every kind and,
   God speeding your testimony, you "shall be a blessing."

   More frequently, however, and much more pleasingly to yourself, you can
   be a blessing by giving words of comfort. And often something more
   substantial than words to the poor and afflicted ones with whom you may
   come into contact. If you know someone who is fighting with a fierce
   temptation, go and help to succor him. If you know another who is
   struggling with a troublesome doubt, try to assist him to drive it
   away. Your experience may be just what he needs to know, so tell him.
   Be not backward or bashful in speaking of what the Lord has done for
   you. I am always grieved when I hear of any persons coming to this
   Tabernacle for a long time and nobody speaking to them--let it not be
   so. Do endeavor, Brothers and Sisters--you who know Christ by
   experience--to tell others of the sweetness that you have found in Him
   and of the faithfulness of God to His promises--and of the power of
   prayer and the reality of faith. You will thus bring many a poor soul
   out of bondage who, but for you, might have lingered long in Doubting
   Castle in the dungeons of Giant Despair. God grant you the Grace "to
   speak a word in season to him that is weary." A word on wheels, as
   Solomon calls, "a word fitly spoken," is like apples of gold on plates
   of silver.

   Besides that you can be a blessing by your actions, as well as by your
   words. Some of you have the means with which you can assist your poorer
   neighbors. Of all people who ought to be kind and neighborly. Of all
   who should be sympathetic and generous, the Christian should be the
   first! The tendency nowadays is to get everything under a cast-iron
   code of law and I should not wonder if a law is passed, some day,
   making it penal to give sixpence to a poor person who is starving.
   Somebody said to me today when I was telling him how I had been
   deceived by a vagabond whom I had relieved, "It is such as you who make
   the vagabonds." If so, I shall go on making vagabonds sooner than let
   the stream of charity in my soul be frozen into ice! It is better to be
   taken in a few times than to let the heart become hardened like steel
   against the real poverty that there is in London and many other places
   besides--the gaunt, grim poverty that may soon be seen if we will but
   take a little trouble to search for it. Be charitable, notwithstanding
   all the mischief that unworthy applicants may make of your charity,
   remembering the command of our Savior to His disciples, "Give to him
   that asks you."

   You can also "be a blessing" in many other ways which I need not
   mention now. In such a vast city as this metropolis, there is work for
   all to do. A Christian living in a remote hamlet might, perhaps, say to
   his minister, "Sir, can you find me an opportunity of serving the
   Lord?" But no person who lives in London ought to ask another person,
   "What can I do for Christ?" If he is willing to do anythingfor the
   Master, the work lies at his door! Floods of sin are surging all around
   you--and sinners are sinking in them! Stretch out your hands to help
   them--

   "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying--

   Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave." In such a city as this,
   with hundreds of thousands--I might truthfully say, millions--needing
   the Bread of Life and the Water of Life--and with many of them
   literally needing bread and water--all of you can do something to
   relieve them! And I beseech you, if you love your Lord and Master, do
   the first thing that comes to hand and "whatever your hand finds to do,
   do it with all your might." Well did Dr. Horatius Bonar write--

   "'Tis not for man to trifle!

   Life is brief,

   And sin is here.

   Our age is but the falling of a leaf, A dropping tear.

   We have no time to sport away the hours, All must be earnest in a world
   like ours. Not many lives but only one have we, One, only one--

   How sacred should that one life always be, That narrow span!

   Day after day filled up with blessed toil, Hour after hour still
   bringing in new spoil."

   III. Now we must pass on to the third point which is that OUR TEXT IS
   ALSO CALCULATED TO SUGGEST ENDEAVOR. It has quickened regret and
   excited inquiry--now it suggests endeavor. But what endeavor?

   Well, first I think it stirs us up to look for a blessing upon what we
   have already tried to do for Christ and His Church. You, my Brother,
   have been teaching a Sunday school class for two years--is it not time
   that you saw some blessing? Go and look for it! Perhaps in looking for
   it, you will be the means, under God, of bringing it to your scholars.
   I think that an earnest, godly teacher, believing that God had blessed
   his message, would be well repaid if he asked the boys or girls in his
   class, "Has God blessed your souls through my teaching?" If he asked
   that question with tears, it might be more effective than all his
   ordinary teaching. And you, my dear Brother, have you been preaching in
   some little mission-room in London or in the country and have you seen
   no "fruit" from your sowing of the Good Seed of the Kingdom? Have you
   asked, "Who has believed our report?" If so, I ask you--"Have you
   believed the promise of my text, 'You shall be a blessing'?" If not, do
   so at once and go and inquire if there has not been a blessing--and
   never rest satisfied until you have it!

   Next, the text bids us look for a blessing wherever we may be and
   whatever we may do. What have you been doing just lately? You have
   moved to a more suitable neighborhood? Then let one of your first
   questions there be, "How can I

   be a blessing here?" You have been recently married. I congratulate you
   and suggest that you should ask, "How can I, in my new relationship, be
   made a blessing?" You, my Friend over yonder, have gone down in the
   world lately--well then, ask yourself, "For what purpose am I put in
   this lower position? Is it not that I may be a blessing to some whom I
   could not have reached under happier circumstances?" Are you a
   commercial traveler? Are you not sent from town to town to be a
   blessing to those you meet? Are you a tradesman? Are you not put behind
   the counter to be a blessing there?

   So I might go on addressing the members of various trades or
   professions, but I want to remind you that there are some persons who
   ought, above all others, to aim at being a blessing to their fellow
   creatures. And I put, first of all, ministers of the Gospel. O my
   Brothers in the ministry, if we are not a blessing, we are a double
   curse! Every so-called "place of worship" in which the true Gospel is
   not preached is a curse, for it is like a sepulcher full of rottenness
   doing nothing but harm! Worldlings more often judge Christianity by
   fruitless trees than by fruit-bearing trees. O preacher, be a blessing,
   or never enter the pulpit again!

   This rule should also apply to parents. What a blessing Christian
   parents often are to their children! I can conceive of nothing more
   natural and, at the same time, nothing more blessed than a father and
   mother who, by precept and example, have trained up their children in
   God's fear and whose loving instruction and earnest prayers have been
   blessed by the Holy Spirit to their children's salvation! What greater
   joy can we have than to see our children walking in the Truth of God?
   God grant that you, fathers and mothers, may all diligently seek to be
   a blessing to your offspring!

   There may be some domestic servants here. If so, let me remind you that
   you have great opportunities for being made a blessing. Good servants
   can contribute much to the well-being of the family. By the faithful
   discharge of their duties, they may be the means of preventing others
   from committing sin. Whereas on the other hand, untidy and idle
   servants create so much discord in the household that they are the
   fomenters of sin! I do not know of any person who can have so much
   influence for good as a godly maid who has the care of little
   children--one who, instead of scaring them with wicked threats or silly
   tales, talks to them discreetly concerning Him who said, "Suffer the
   little children to come unto Me." I have known domestic servants who
   were earnest Christians, who have gone to live where there was no
   religion whatever, no family prayer and no Sabbath observance--and
   without ever intruding beyond their proper place, they have worked a
   blessed revolution in the house--and their masters and mistresses and
   fellow servants have been brought to Christ by their godly example! Let
   all Christian servants here endeavor to get the fulfillment of the
   promise of our text, "You shall be a blessing."

   I might speak thus to you who have the duty and privilege of
   instructing the children in our schools, to you masters of large
   factories, to you who, as workingmen, meet with great numbers of your
   fellow men--all of you ought to aim at realizing this promise, "You
   shall be a blessing." Dearly beloved in Christ, let me say to all of
   you--Do, by God's Grace, maintain a holiness of walk with God and then
   seek to be a blessing to others. Look at the six words before our
   text-- "So will I save you, and you shall be a blessing." It is only as
   you yourselves are, in the fullest sense, saved--saved from falling
   into sin, saved from inward corruption, saved from error--it is only as
   you are conformed to the image of Christ that you can expect to be a
   blessing to others. Do, I pray you, as members of this Christian
   Church, always feel that you are to take your full share in being made
   a blessing to others! There are some who hold that blessing comes to
   men only through priests--that is what I hold! I believe that no
   blessing comes to men except through priests! First, through the great
   High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and then through all who believe in
   Him, who are, as Peter says, "a holy priesthood" and "a royal
   priesthood," and whose song in Heaven shall be, "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."

   The priesthood of the Christian Church is common to all the saints!
   There is no other true priesthood but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
   cannot discharge any of your religious duties or relieve you of any of
   your responsibilities. My own are quite heavy enough for me to bear--I
   will seek, as God gives me Grace, to discharge them--but I cannot
   discharge the responsibilities of any other person in the world! You,
   having been personally redeemed by Christ, personally washed in His
   blood, personally saved by His Grace, are to render personal service to
   Him. All proxy-religion must be abhorrent to Christ, "who His own Self
   bore our sins in His own body on the tree." He did not seek to find
   someone else to save you, for He knew that no one else could do it! He
   tread the winepress alone and of the people there was none with Him.

   So, to your personal Redeemer render your personal service. Give
   liberally of your substance to help others to do their part of the
   work, but give yourself--spirit, soul and body--for these are claimed
   by Christ as "your reasonable service."

   IV. Now I must conclude by trying to show you that our TEXT FURNISHES
   US WITH MANY

   CONSOLATIONS. "You shall be a blessing."

   Some of you have to live in places where you are not comfortable.
   Perhaps you are not in a neighborhood that you like. Possibly in the
   very house where you live there may be others whose thoughts and
   feelings are very different from yours and, sometimes, you are grieved
   and perhaps perplexed because you have to live there. But if God put
   you there, "you shall be a blessing." My dear Friend, Mr. Orsman of the
   Golden Lane Mission, has often told me that the results of his work
   will never be visible in Golden Lane because as soon as a man is
   converted, he begins to save, he becomes industrious, wears a better
   coat, seeks a better house, for he cannot live in that dirty room in
   which he once lived and he cannot bear the foul language of the court
   or alley--so, very properly and very naturally--he moves away!
   Unhappily there are always others coming in to keep the place as bad as
   ever. Now, when a Christian man is compelled to live in such a place as
   that, let him conclude that he has been put there that he may be a
   blessing. If that is your trying lot, my Brother, fight the devil where
   you are placed, on his own ground! It is not fair that you should have
   the pick of the spot where the great duel is to be fought. Fight the
   devil where he has a firm foothold and beat him by God's Grace! I think
   if I were a gas lamp and had the choice of the place where I should be
   hung--and it was proposed to me that I should hang up somewhere in the
   West End where there is already abundance of light streaming from the
   fine shops--I don't know that I would particularly care to be put
   there. But if there was a dark corner where thieves were in the habit
   of meeting and where much mischief might be done if it were not for the
   light of a lamp--I fancy I should ask to be hung up there where I
   should be of the most use! At any rate, if you are placed, in the
   Providence of God, in a dark neighborhood, let this be your prayer, "O
   Lord, make me a blessing here!"

   Perhaps, however, you are a member of an ungodly family. Now, you had
   no hand in that matter. You were not responsible for your birth and you
   cannot get out of that family into which you were born. Now, instead of
   saying, "I wish I had a Christian mother and that our house were
   ordered in God's fear," say, "God has called me, by His Grace. At
   present I am the only one saved, but He must mean me to be a blessing
   to my brothers, sisters and parents and, therefore, I am thankful that
   He has put me where I am needed. I will try to do everything that shall
   be kind to them--I will win their love if I can and I will also try to
   win them for Christ." I am really thankful when some of you come to
   join the Church and tell me that there is no other in the house who
   cares for the things of God--for I look upon your conversion as getting
   in the thin end of the wedge! If we get one who fears God inside the
   house, I hope we shall get more, for, blessed be God, good example is
   contagious as well as bad! God grant that since it is your unhappiness
   to have ungodly relatives, it may be your happiness to "be a blessing"
   to them!

   It may be that you are persecuted, that you live in places where you
   are sneered at, where the Doctrines that are dearer than life to you,
   are regarded with contempt and Scriptural ordinances, in which you
   delight, are held up to constant ridicule. Do not altogether regret
   this, but say to yourself, "Perhaps I am put here in order that I may
   be a blessing to my persecutors." Do not imagine that the unlikeliest
   man to get a blessing out of you is the one who laughs most at you. I
   sometimes think that the infidels who shout most loudly have more faith
   than others and that because they are afraid they shall hear conscience
   speak, they make a great clamor to try to drown its voice! When a man
   bullies you, there is a great deal better opportunity for you to get at
   him than when he says, as so many do, "Oh, yes, Sir, it is all
   true"--and there the matter ends as far as they are concerned. But
   there is something in a man who will stand up to oppose you and you may
   yet be able to say a word for Christ that will be blessed to him. Why
   should we want to run away because men mock us? If they say, "Come and
   fight," let us go and fight--only with other weapons than theirs-- with
   the weapons of holy gentleness giving a good reason for the hope that
   is within us with meekness and fear, for that is always the more
   powerful way of speaking! Do not, therefore, fear persecution, but
   rather thank God for it, and say, "I have to endure this that I may be
   a blessing to those who revile and abuse me."

   Brothers and Sisters, I think our text furnishes sweet consolation to
   any who have been engaged in very arduous service. Have you a great
   deal to do for Christ--a great deal too much to do, it often seems to
   you? Are you incessantly occupied about the Lord's business? Then thank
   God for it, for He has said, "You shall be a blessing"--and the more
   you have to do for Him, the more blessing you are likely to be the
   means of conveying to others!

   Or on the other hand, are you passing through a very trying experience?
   If so, you are being qualified for greater usefulness. Your dark
   experience will only teach you more that you will be able to teach to
   others concerning God and His dealings with His own. Believe that you
   will become a blessing to others by means of your trials and cheerfully
   bow your heads to overwhelming floods of sorrow in the confident
   assurance that you will thus be made a blessing to others--and so bring
   glory to God!

   Yes, Beloved, and we may even be content to die if our last testimony
   shall be more useful than any that we have borne before! If God will
   enable us to glorify Him by being a blessing to others, we will be
   content. I hope we can say that we desire nothing on earth compared
   with this--to be blessed of God and to be made a blessing by God. We
   covet not earthly wealth or position, but we do covet the honor of
   being a blessing! Have an insatiable thirst for this honor, beloved
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ--to be a blessing to tens, to hundreds,
   to thousands, to the millions of this great city! Incessantly strive,
   by your private prayer, by your generous alms, by your kindly deeds, by
   your public testimony, to be a blessing and may God bless you more and
   more--you and your children--for His dear name's sake!

   But, alas, there are many who cannot be a blessing to others, for they
   are not themselves saved. They are getting gray, but they are not
   saved! Death will soon call for them. Hell opens wide for them and they
   are not saved! May the Lord have mercy upon all of you who are not
   saved and may He, by His Grace, constrain you to believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ and then to make the Scriptural profession of your faith,
   for HE said, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." May God
   grant that you may all "be saved in the Lord with an everlasting
   salvation," for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Believers A Blessing

   (No. 3045)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   12, 1871.

   "You shall be a blessing," Zechariah 8:13.

   SO terribly had God punished idolatrous Israel and Judah that their
   names were a byword and a proverb among all the surrounding nations. If
   any man wished to pronounce upon his fellow man the most dreadful curse
   that he could utter, he would say, "May you become like a Jew--may a
   blight fall upon your whole life as awful as that which has fallen upon
   Israel!" Even the heathen used the Jewish nation as a model of their
   cursing and blasphemed the name of Jehovah who had poured out the vials
   of His wrath upon them. But God declared that He would return to His
   ancient people in love and mercy--and replenish them in the multitude
   of His loving kindnesses to them so that, from that time, instead of
   being the pattern of cursing, they should be used as the model of a
   blessing--that when men wished good things for one another, they would
   say, "May you be as blessed as the children of Israel, whom the Lord of
   Hosts has favored above all the rest of mankind!" You remember that old
   Jacob, when he blessed the sons of Joseph, uttered a sort of formula
   for future use by others, "He blessed them that day, saying, In you
   shall Israel bless, saying, God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh."
   And I believe that to this day, in Jewish marriages, the blessing is
   given to the newly-married couple, "As Isaac and Rebekah may they be!"
   In like manner would God make His people to become the model of
   benediction as before they had been the pattern of a curse.

   Leaving that primary meaning of the passage, I am going to apply the
   promise of the text to the spiritual'Israel. In His inscrutable wisdom,
   God allowed His ancient people, the nation of Israel, to become a curse
   among the other nations of the earth. Their idolatry was not only high
   treason against God, but it also gave the very heathen reason to
   blaspheme His holy name. The Lord said, by the mouth of the Prophet
   Jeremiah, "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, says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: they
   have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters and hewed them out
   cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." Israel turned aside
   from Jehovah to worship Baal, Ashtaroth and other false gods without
   number--and so, by evil example, Israel led other people into idolatry,
   dishonored the name of the Most High and became a curse among the
   nations. Yet Israel was the guardian of the Oracles of God and the time
   will yet come when God shall again visit His ancient people--and the
   branches that have been broken off, because of unbelief, shall be
   grafted again into their own olive tree--and their "fullness" shall be
   "the riches of the Gentiles," as Paul so plainly shows in the parable
   of the olive trees in Romans 11:1136. Indeed, at this very hour a Jew
   is the riches of Jews and Gentiles alike, for our Lord sprang out of
   Judah and, therefore, do we "take hold of the skirt of Him that is a
   Jew, saying, We will go with You." And He is to us, "more precious than
   fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir." The Son of Mary,
   who is also the Son of God, is our blessed Lord and Savior, and in Him
   is that ancient promise fulfilled which was made to Jacob at Bethel,
   "In you and in your seed shall all the families of the earth be
   blessed." We cannot sing too often that grand Coronation Anthem of the
   Christian Church--

   "All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall. Bring
   forth the royal (diadem, And crown Him Lord of all!

   Crown Him, you martyrs of our God, Who from His altar call. Extol the
   stem of Jesse's rod, And crown Him Lord of all! You chosen seed of
   Israel's race, A remnant weak and small, Hail Him who saves you by His
   Grace, And crown Him Lord of all!"

   Yet let us not omit to sing also --

   "The hymn shall yet in Zion swell

   That sounds Messiah's praise,

   And Your loved name, Immanuel!

   As once in ancient days.

   For Israel yet shall own her King,

   For her salvation waits,

   And hill and dale shall sweetly sing

   With praise in all her gates."

   Whereas through sin, then, Israel had been a curse to the other nations
   of the earth, she shall, through the mercy of God, be a blessing when
   she repents of her sin and accepts the Messiah whom she has so long
   rejected. But we need not confine to the literal Israel and Judah the
   promise of our text, for it belongs to all the people of God, and so to
   you, Beloved, who are, by faith, the true seed of believing Abraham!
   This promise is applicable to you--"You shall be a blessing."

   I. And first, I want to remind you that THIS PROMISE QUICKENS REGRET
   WITHIN OUR SPIRITS--"You shall be a blessing."

   Then the first emotion in our heart is that of penitential sorrow. If
   God says that He will make us a blessing, surely it is implied that
   once we were not so. Let us look back to the days of our unregeneracy.
   It may be that some of us were great curses to our families and to the
   neighborhood in which we dwelt. If so, we must look back with deep
   sorrow upon the past, for, albeit that God has blotted out the guilt of
   our iniquity, yet the consequences of the sin still continue. We cannot
   undo the evil that we have done to others. If we first tempted them and
   they fell into sin, we may be forgiven the temptation, but we cannot
   recall it, nor can we put them back into the place from which they have
   fallen. A child once learned an evil word from you--oh, how gladly
   would you unsay that word if you could! But it entered that child's
   memory and it will abide there, perhaps forever! If you led others into
   places of frivolous amusement, or into haunts of vice, you may abhor
   those places, now, and God may have forgiven you the sin of your
   youth--but what about those whom you led there--what will become of
   them? You can pray for them and I know that you will do so. You will
   plead with them if you know where they are and you will be quickened in
   your service for the Savior by your remembrance of the earnestness with
   which you served Satan in those evil days of the past--but Beloved,
   there must still remain the bitter fruit of perpetual regret that you
   cannot destroy the results of that early sowing of bad seed! The
   handfuls of cockle and darnel that you scattered broadcast in the
   furrows--you cannot call them back again! The firebrands you have
   thrown, the hot coals that you have cast about and which caused such a
   terrible conflagration--you cannot undo the mischief and ruin that they
   worked! The results of good or evil deeds will abide forever and ever,
   so let us beware what we do since it can never be undone. So, first,
   when God makes us a blessing, it reminds us that we were once a curse.

   It also brings to us--at least it does to me--a painful remembrance of
   the time wasted--time spent unprofitably before our conversion when, if
   we were not actually doing damage to the souls of others, yet we
   allowed opportunities for doing them good to glide by unused. Oh, these
   blessed hours, these precious hours, these more than golden hours in
   which Christians may win souls for the Lord Jesus Christ! Angels never
   had them and the spirits of just men made perfect have them no more.
   Though they can render other and perhaps yet higher service to their
   Lord, this special service of soul-winning is reserved for us who are
   still living on this earth. We have, at the longest, only a few days,
   or weeks, or months, or years allotted to us in which we may glorify
   God by being a blessing to our fellow creatures after we have found the
   Lord for ourselves! Yet some of us allowed many years to pass away
   before we even gave earnest heed to these things for ourselves. Those
   of us who were brought to know the Lord in our early youth, bless Him
   for that, yet we

   regret that we were not saved in our childhood. We wish we had given to
   God the very first rays of the morning of our life as well as the
   bright beams of the fuller day, so that we might have been made a
   blessing to the Church and the world as soon as we had intellect and
   understanding--and were capable of influencing the minds and hearts of
   others.

   There is another reflection which is also a sorrowful one and causes us
   deep regret--namely that since the ever-blessed hour when the Holy
   Spirit taught us to trust in Jesus and gave us new life in Him, we have
   not been such a blessing to our fellow creatures as we ought to have
   been. Not altogether in vain have we lived--we have not sown to the
   flesh, but to the Spirit--yet how scanty has been our sowing of the
   Good Seed of the Kingdom! And, in consequence, how small has been the
   harvest that we have reaped! Oh, that we had availed ourselves of all
   the golden opportunities we have had of serving the Lord Jesus Christ!
   How much more good we might have done had we been earnest at all times,
   fervent at all seasons, had we thrown spirit, soul and body entirely
   into this holy service--and lived and breathed alone for our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ! If we had reached the ideal Christian life so that
   we did eat, drink and sleep eternal life, having Christ living in us
   and we living in Him, how much more we might have achieved than any of
   us have yet done! The capacity to "be a blessing" to others was given
   to all of us who have believed in Jesus at our conversion--but we have
   left that precious talent unused to a very large extent. To some
   Christians, and to some now present, this message must go home and this
   question must be asked and answered--what have we done for Him who died
   to save us? Alas, how little--at the most, how little--but by the most
   idle, alas, alas, how little! God help you to turn your regret to
   practical account while the glad sound of the text rings in your ears
   like the music of a silver bell, "You shall be a blessing." Let your
   tears fall plenteously as you recall the sad fact that before you knew
   the Lord, you were a curse to others--and not a blessing--and that even
   since you have known Him, you have not grasped the truth of the text
   and realized the fullness of its blessed meaning as you should have
   done, for such tears of regret will be likely to lead you to change
   your course of action for the future!

   II. Let us now notice, in the second place, that OUR TEXT IS CALCULATED
   TO EXCITE INQUIRY as well as to quicken regret. Inquiries will come
   something in this style from young Believers, "Will you kindly tell us
   what we can do by which we shall be a blessing? We hear the promise of
   the text, but how can we get it fulfilled in our own experience? In
   what way can we be made a blessing to others?" Beloved Friends, there
   are many ways in which God can make you the channels of blessing to
   your fellow creatures if you are, yourselves, regenerated by the Holy
   Spirit.

   First, it will probably be by your consistent conduct that you will be
   made a blessing to others more than in any other way. An unholy
   professor is a downright curse both to the church and to the world and,
   as for a church of inconsistent members, Satan himself could not devise
   an instrument more fitted to carry out his diabolical purposes! A
   community of ungodly men that is known by everybody to be a synagogue
   of Satan is robbed of much of its power to do mischief--but if it is
   misnamed a Church of Christ, it is potent for all manner of evil! An
   unholy professor outside the Church of God may batter against the walls
   with small effect but inside, he would be like the concealed soldiers
   in the wooden horse who opened the gates of Troy to the besiegers. It
   was only an Apostle who could be such a "son of perdition" as Judas
   was, so beware, you who profess to be followers of Christ! You have
   great capacities for usefulness, but your position gives you immense
   capacities for doing damage to the cause of Christ. Only holy
   Christians are useful Christians--and the preaching of Christ's Truth
   must be backed up by the consistent living of Christ's followers if it
   is to have its due effect upon the hearts and lives of the ungodly. No
   doubt many a shaft has missed the mark because it has not been shot
   from the bow of a consistent preacher, or because it has been turned
   aside by inconsistency in the church of which he is the pastor. Oh, for
   holy living! The honest tradesman who has just weights and measures.
   The diligent domestic servant who sweeps under the mats and in the dark
   corners. The laborious workman who may be trusted when his master is
   absent. The man who would not tell a lie even though he could win a
   fortune or a throne by doing so. The man who in all things acts justly
   towards men and walks humbly before his God--these are the people who
   "shall be a blessing" to all around them! If a man had no tongue and so
   never spoke a word. If it were not in his power to bestow as much as a
   farthing upon the poor. If he could not visit the sick or the
   prisoners, yet his very presence upon the earth would be in itself a
   blessing--a silent reproof, but none the less eloquent to ungodly
   men--and a powerful example to such as wish to walk in the way of
   righteousness. "Be you holy," for so shall you serve God and serve the
   Church of Christ and, in the highest sense, serve your generation and
   serve the world! I love to sing, with John Newton--

   "Let worldly minds the world pursue, It has no charms for me! Once I
   admired its trifles too, But Grace has set me free! Now, Lord, I would
   be Yours alone, And wholly live to Thee!"

   But, in addition to that, all Christians may be made a blessing to
   others by instructing them in the Truths of the Gospel. The world is
   still very dark, spiritually, though many people foolishly speak of
   "this enlightened century." It has "light" of a certain sort--or
   rather, of a very uncertain sort--within it. But the light that is in
   it is almost entirely darkness! It is still true of the bulk of
   mankind, as it was in Isaiah's day--they "put darkness for light, and
   light for darkness.. .bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" Today the
   scarcest thing in the whole world is true spiritual light and, where it
   is revealed, men hate it and try to banish it from their sight!
   Philosophy is exalted above Revelation. Science, falsely so-called, is
   set up in the place of Christ who is the Wisdom of God, though true
   science is never in conflict with the true Gospel. And anything that
   pretends to be light is preferred by many to Him who is "the true
   Light." Spiritual Light is mainly conveyed to the dark souls of men
   through the proclamation of the Gospel--the good news concerning Jesus
   Christ, the Savior of sinners. So, proclaim that--

   "Old, old story

   Of Jesus and His love"--

   to as many as you can! Tell it to thousands, to hundreds, to
   scores--tell it to one if you cannot tell it to more. Tell to all, as
   far as you can, these precious things concerning the Lord Jesus
   Christ--His Incarnation, His holy life, His wondrous Words, His perfect
   example and His substitutionary death! Tell these things to your
   children and charge them to tell them to their children--and to charge
   their children to tell them to the generation following. Tell that
   great central Truth of the substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ to the
   man who sits beside you in the tram or train, or who calls at your
   house on business! Seize every opportunity you can get of letting men
   know, by the Inspired Word of God, or by the written or spoken message,
   all that you can about "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom
   God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,"
   "and by Him all that believe are justified from all things." And not
   only justified, but also glorified! Every true testimony to Christ
   brings glory to God and blessing to men. A preacher may halt and limp,
   his elocution may be faulty, his theology may be open to criticism--but
   if it is "the Gospel of Christ" that he proclaims, it will be precious
   Truth to the saints who hear him--and sinners will be saved by it!

   Not only by instructing men will you be a blessing to them, but also by
   reproof. This is a far more difficult matter and probably nine out of
   ten of us had better keep to the easier task of giving instruction. Yet
   now and then there will come occasions when you must not see sin in
   your Brother or Sister without rebuking it. If I hear blasphemy and am
   able to condemn it, yet do not, my silence makes me a sharer in the
   sin. I am always afraid lest when I hear God's name blasphemed, my
   guilty silence should make me an accomplice of the blasphemer. A rebuke
   need not be and should not be discourteous or disrespectful. And it
   should not be unduly severe, but I am afraid that nowadays we are not
   so likely to err by our harshness, as by failing to be faithful to our
   conscience and our God. We must boldly stand up, at all costs, for God,
   for truth, for purity. Shut your ear to the lascivious song--do not
   allow it to be sung in your house--and let not scandal be spoken at
   your table! Set your face like a flint against sin of every kind and,
   God speeding your testimony, you "shall be a blessing."

   More frequently, however, and much more pleasingly to yourself, you can
   be a blessing by giving words of comfort. And often something more
   substantial than words to the poor and afflicted ones with whom you may
   come into contact. If you know someone who is fighting with a fierce
   temptation, go and help to succor him. If you know another who is
   struggling with a troublesome doubt, try to assist him to drive it
   away. Your experience may be just what he needs to know, so tell him.
   Be not backward or bashful in speaking of what the Lord has done for
   you. I am always grieved when I hear of any persons coming to this
   Tabernacle for a long time and nobody speaking to them--let it not be
   so. Do endeavor, Brothers and Sisters--you who know Christ by
   experience--to tell others of the sweetness that you have found in Him
   and of the faithfulness of God to His promises--and of the power of
   prayer and the reality of faith. You will thus bring many a poor soul
   out of bondage who, but for you, might have lingered long in Doubting
   Castle in the dungeons of Giant Despair. God grant you the Grace "to
   speak a word in season to him that is weary." A word on wheels, as
   Solomon calls, "a word fitly spoken," is like apples of gold on plates
   of silver.

   Besides that you can be a blessing by your actions, as well as by your
   words. Some of you have the means with which you can assist your poorer
   neighbors. Of all people who ought to be kind and neighborly. Of all
   who should be sympathetic and generous, the Christian should be the
   first! The tendency nowadays is to get everything under a cast-iron
   code of law and I should not wonder if a law is passed, some day,
   making it penal to give sixpence to a poor person who is starving.
   Somebody said to me today when I was telling him how I had been
   deceived by a vagabond whom I had relieved, "It is such as you who make
   the vagabonds." If so, I shall go on making vagabonds sooner than let
   the stream of charity in my soul be frozen into ice! It is better to be
   taken in a few times than to let the heart become hardened like steel
   against the real poverty that there is in London and many other places
   besides--the gaunt, grim poverty that may soon be seen if we will but
   take a little trouble to search for it. Be charitable, notwithstanding
   all the mischief that unworthy applicants may make of your charity,
   remembering the command of our Savior to His disciples, "Give to him
   that asks you."

   You can also "be a blessing" in many other ways which I need not
   mention now. In such a vast city as this metropolis, there is work for
   all to do. A Christian living in a remote hamlet might, perhaps, say to
   his minister, "Sir, can you find me an opportunity of serving the
   Lord?" But no person who lives in London ought to ask another person,
   "What can I do for Christ?" If he is willing to do anythingfor the
   Master, the work lies at his door! Floods of sin are surging all around
   you--and sinners are sinking in them! Stretch out your hands to help
   them--

   "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying--

   Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave." In such a city as this,
   with hundreds of thousands--I might truthfully say, millions--needing
   the Bread of Life and the Water of Life--and with many of them
   literally needing bread and water--all of you can do something to
   relieve them! And I beseech you, if you love your Lord and Master, do
   the first thing that comes to hand and "whatever your hand finds to do,
   do it with all your might." Well did Dr. Horatius Bonar write--

   "'Tis not for man to trifle!

   Life is brief,

   And sin is here.

   Our age is but the falling of a leaf, A dropping tear.

   We have no time to sport away the hours, All must be earnest in a world
   like ours. Not many lives but only one have we, One, only one--

   How sacred should that one life always be, That narrow span!

   Day after day filled up with blessed toil, Hour after hour still
   bringing in new spoil."

   III. Now we must pass on to the third point which is that OUR TEXT IS
   ALSO CALCULATED TO SUGGEST ENDEAVOR. It has quickened regret and
   excited inquiry--now it suggests endeavor. But what endeavor?

   Well, first I think it stirs us up to look for a blessing upon what we
   have already tried to do for Christ and His Church. You, my Brother,
   have been teaching a Sunday school class for two years--is it not time
   that you saw some blessing? Go and look for it! Perhaps in looking for
   it, you will be the means, under God, of bringing it to your scholars.
   I think that an earnest, godly teacher, believing that God had blessed
   his message, would be well repaid if he asked the boys or girls in his
   class, "Has God blessed your souls through my teaching?" If he asked
   that question with tears, it might be more effective than all his
   ordinary teaching. And you, my dear Brother, have you been preaching in
   some little mission-room in London or in the country and have you seen
   no "fruit" from your sowing of the Good Seed of the Kingdom? Have you
   asked, "Who has believed our report?" If so, I ask you--"Have you
   believed the promise of my text, 'You shall be a blessing'?" If not, do
   so at once and go and inquire if there has not been a blessing--and
   never rest satisfied until you have it!

   Next, the text bids us look for a blessing wherever we may be and
   whatever we may do. What have you been doing just lately? You have
   moved to a more suitable neighborhood? Then let one of your first
   questions there be, "How can I

   be a blessing here?" You have been recently married. I congratulate you
   and suggest that you should ask, "How can I, in my new relationship, be
   made a blessing?" You, my Friend over yonder, have gone down in the
   world lately--well then, ask yourself, "For what purpose am I put in
   this lower position? Is it not that I may be a blessing to some whom I
   could not have reached under happier circumstances?" Are you a
   commercial traveler? Are you not sent from town to town to be a
   blessing to those you meet? Are you a tradesman? Are you not put behind
   the counter to be a blessing there?

   So I might go on addressing the members of various trades or
   professions, but I want to remind you that there are some persons who
   ought, above all others, to aim at being a blessing to their fellow
   creatures. And I put, first of all, ministers of the Gospel. O my
   Brothers in the ministry, if we are not a blessing, we are a double
   curse! Every so-called "place of worship" in which the true Gospel is
   not preached is a curse, for it is like a sepulcher full of rottenness
   doing nothing but harm! Worldlings more often judge Christianity by
   fruitless trees than by fruit-bearing trees. O preacher, be a blessing,
   or never enter the pulpit again!

   This rule should also apply to parents. What a blessing Christian
   parents often are to their children! I can conceive of nothing more
   natural and, at the same time, nothing more blessed than a father and
   mother who, by precept and example, have trained up their children in
   God's fear and whose loving instruction and earnest prayers have been
   blessed by the Holy Spirit to their children's salvation! What greater
   joy can we have than to see our children walking in the Truth of God?
   God grant that you, fathers and mothers, may all diligently seek to be
   a blessing to your offspring!

   There may be some domestic servants here. If so, let me remind you that
   you have great opportunities for being made a blessing. Good servants
   can contribute much to the well-being of the family. By the faithful
   discharge of their duties, they may be the means of preventing others
   from committing sin. Whereas on the other hand, untidy and idle
   servants create so much discord in the household that they are the
   fomenters of sin! I do not know of any person who can have so much
   influence for good as a godly maid who has the care of little
   children--one who, instead of scaring them with wicked threats or silly
   tales, talks to them discreetly concerning Him who said, "Suffer the
   little children to come unto Me." I have known domestic servants who
   were earnest Christians, who have gone to live where there was no
   religion whatever, no family prayer and no Sabbath observance--and
   without ever intruding beyond their proper place, they have worked a
   blessed revolution in the house--and their masters and mistresses and
   fellow servants have been brought to Christ by their godly example! Let
   all Christian servants here endeavor to get the fulfillment of the
   promise of our text, "You shall be a blessing."

   I might speak thus to you who have the duty and privilege of
   instructing the children in our schools, to you masters of large
   factories, to you who, as workingmen, meet with great numbers of your
   fellow men--all of you ought to aim at realizing this promise, "You
   shall be a blessing." Dearly beloved in Christ, let me say to all of
   you--Do, by God's Grace, maintain a holiness of walk with God and then
   seek to be a blessing to others. Look at the six words before our
   text-- "So will I save you, and you shall be a blessing." It is only as
   you yourselves are, in the fullest sense, saved--saved from falling
   into sin, saved from inward corruption, saved from error--it is only as
   you are conformed to the image of Christ that you can expect to be a
   blessing to others. Do, I pray you, as members of this Christian
   Church, always feel that you are to take your full share in being made
   a blessing to others! There are some who hold that blessing comes to
   men only through priests--that is what I hold! I believe that no
   blessing comes to men except through priests! First, through the great
   High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and then through all who believe in
   Him, who are, as Peter says, "a holy priesthood" and "a royal
   priesthood," and whose song in Heaven shall be, "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."

   The priesthood of the Christian Church is common to all the saints!
   There is no other true priesthood but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
   cannot discharge any of your religious duties or relieve you of any of
   your responsibilities. My own are quite heavy enough for me to bear--I
   will seek, as God gives me Grace, to discharge them--but I cannot
   discharge the responsibilities of any other person in the world! You,
   having been personally redeemed by Christ, personally washed in His
   blood, personally saved by His Grace, are to render personal service to
   Him. All proxy-religion must be abhorrent to Christ, "who His own Self
   bore our sins in His own body on the tree." He did not seek to find
   someone else to save you, for He knew that no one else could do it! He
   tread the winepress alone and of the people there was none with Him.

   So, to your personal Redeemer render your personal service. Give
   liberally of your substance to help others to do their part of the
   work, but give yourself--spirit, soul and body--for these are claimed
   by Christ as "your reasonable service."

   IV. Now I must conclude by trying to show you that our TEXT FURNISHES
   US WITH MANY

   CONSOLATIONS. "You shall be a blessing."

   Some of you have to live in places where you are not comfortable.
   Perhaps you are not in a neighborhood that you like. Possibly in the
   very house where you live there may be others whose thoughts and
   feelings are very different from yours and, sometimes, you are grieved
   and perhaps perplexed because you have to live there. But if God put
   you there, "you shall be a blessing." My dear Friend, Mr. Orsman of the
   Golden Lane Mission, has often told me that the results of his work
   will never be visible in Golden Lane because as soon as a man is
   converted, he begins to save, he becomes industrious, wears a better
   coat, seeks a better house, for he cannot live in that dirty room in
   which he once lived and he cannot bear the foul language of the court
   or alley--so, very properly and very naturally--he moves away!
   Unhappily there are always others coming in to keep the place as bad as
   ever. Now, when a Christian man is compelled to live in such a place as
   that, let him conclude that he has been put there that he may be a
   blessing. If that is your trying lot, my Brother, fight the devil where
   you are placed, on his own ground! It is not fair that you should have
   the pick of the spot where the great duel is to be fought. Fight the
   devil where he has a firm foothold and beat him by God's Grace! I think
   if I were a gas lamp and had the choice of the place where I should be
   hung--and it was proposed to me that I should hang up somewhere in the
   West End where there is already abundance of light streaming from the
   fine shops--I don't know that I would particularly care to be put
   there. But if there was a dark corner where thieves were in the habit
   of meeting and where much mischief might be done if it were not for the
   light of a lamp--I fancy I should ask to be hung up there where I
   should be of the most use! At any rate, if you are placed, in the
   Providence of God, in a dark neighborhood, let this be your prayer, "O
   Lord, make me a blessing here!"

   Perhaps, however, you are a member of an ungodly family. Now, you had
   no hand in that matter. You were not responsible for your birth and you
   cannot get out of that family into which you were born. Now, instead of
   saying, "I wish I had a Christian mother and that our house were
   ordered in God's fear," say, "God has called me, by His Grace. At
   present I am the only one saved, but He must mean me to be a blessing
   to my brothers, sisters and parents and, therefore, I am thankful that
   He has put me where I am needed. I will try to do everything that shall
   be kind to them--I will win their love if I can and I will also try to
   win them for Christ." I am really thankful when some of you come to
   join the Church and tell me that there is no other in the house who
   cares for the things of God--for I look upon your conversion as getting
   in the thin end of the wedge! If we get one who fears God inside the
   house, I hope we shall get more, for, blessed be God, good example is
   contagious as well as bad! God grant that since it is your unhappiness
   to have ungodly relatives, it may be your happiness to "be a blessing"
   to them!

   It may be that you are persecuted, that you live in places where you
   are sneered at, where the Doctrines that are dearer than life to you,
   are regarded with contempt and Scriptural ordinances, in which you
   delight, are held up to constant ridicule. Do not altogether regret
   this, but say to yourself, "Perhaps I am put here in order that I may
   be a blessing to my persecutors." Do not imagine that the unlikeliest
   man to get a blessing out of you is the one who laughs most at you. I
   sometimes think that the infidels who shout most loudly have more faith
   than others and that because they are afraid they shall hear conscience
   speak, they make a great clamor to try to drown its voice! When a man
   bullies you, there is a great deal better opportunity for you to get at
   him than when he says, as so many do, "Oh, yes, Sir, it is all
   true"--and there the matter ends as far as they are concerned. But
   there is something in a man who will stand up to oppose you and you may
   yet be able to say a word for Christ that will be blessed to him. Why
   should we want to run away because men mock us? If they say, "Come and
   fight," let us go and fight--only with other weapons than theirs-- with
   the weapons of holy gentleness giving a good reason for the hope that
   is within us with meekness and fear, for that is always the more
   powerful way of speaking! Do not, therefore, fear persecution, but
   rather thank God for it, and say, "I have to endure this that I may be
   a blessing to those who revile and abuse me."

   Brothers and Sisters, I think our text furnishes sweet consolation to
   any who have been engaged in very arduous service. Have you a great
   deal to do for Christ--a great deal too much to do, it often seems to
   you? Are you incessantly occupied about the Lord's business? Then thank
   God for it, for He has said, "You shall be a blessing"--and the more
   you have to do for Him, the more blessing you are likely to be the
   means of conveying to others!

   Or on the other hand, are you passing through a very trying experience?
   If so, you are being qualified for greater usefulness. Your dark
   experience will only teach you more that you will be able to teach to
   others concerning God and His dealings with His own. Believe that you
   will become a blessing to others by means of your trials and cheerfully
   bow your heads to overwhelming floods of sorrow in the confident
   assurance that you will thus be made a blessing to others--and so bring
   glory to God!

   Yes, Beloved, and we may even be content to die if our last testimony
   shall be more useful than any that we have borne before! If God will
   enable us to glorify Him by being a blessing to others, we will be
   content. I hope we can say that we desire nothing on earth compared
   with this--to be blessed of God and to be made a blessing by God. We
   covet not earthly wealth or position, but we do covet the honor of
   being a blessing! Have an insatiable thirst for this honor, beloved
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ--to be a blessing to tens, to hundreds,
   to thousands, to the millions of this great city! Incessantly strive,
   by your private prayer, by your generous alms, by your kindly deeds, by
   your public testimony, to be a blessing and may God bless you more and
   more--you and your children--for His dear name's sake!

   But, alas, there are many who cannot be a blessing to others, for they
   are not themselves saved. They are getting gray, but they are not
   saved! Death will soon call for them. Hell opens wide for them and they
   are not saved! May the Lord have mercy upon all of you who are not
   saved and may He, by His Grace, constrain you to believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ and then to make the Scriptural profession of your faith,
   for HE said, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." May God
   grant that you may all "be saved in the Lord with an everlasting
   salvation," for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

One of the Master's Choice Sayings

   (No. 3046)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart." Matthew 14:16.

   OF course the Master was right, but He appeared to speak unreasonably.
   It seemed self-evident that the people very much needed to depart. They
   had been all day long hearing the Preacher. The most of them had not
   broken their fast and they were ready to faint for hunger. The only
   chance of their being fed was to let them break up into small parties
   and forage for themselves among the surrounding villages. But our Lord
   declared that there was no necessity for them to go away from Him, even
   though they were hungry, famished and in a desert place. Now, if there
   was no necessity for hungry hearers to go away, much less will it ever
   be necessary for loving disciples to depart from Him! If these, who
   were hearers only--and the bulk of them were nothing more, a
   congregation collected by curiosity and held together by the charm of
   His eloquence and by the renown of His miracles--if these needed not to
   depart, much less need they depart who are His own friends and
   companions, His chosen and beloved. If the crowds needed not through
   hunger to depart bodily, much less need any of the saints depart
   spiritually from their Lord. There is no necessity that our communion
   with Christ should ever be suspended--

   " To walk with Christ from morn till eve, In Him to breathe, in Him to
   live--

   is no mere wish, no visionary's prayer--it may be realized--we need not
   depart from Jesus! There is no need that the spouse of Christ should
   wander from beneath the banner of His love. Mary may always sit at
   Jesus' feet. There is no Law which says to holy fellowship, "To here
   shall you come, but no further. Here shall your communion cease!" There
   is no set hour when the gate of communion with Christ must inevitably
   be closed. We may continue to come up from the wilderness, leaning upon
   the Beloved. We "need not depart." Yet is it so commonly thought to be
   a matter of course that we should wander from our Lord that I shall ask
   for strength from Heaven to combat the injurious opinion.

   I. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, THERE IS NO PRESENT NECESSITY FOR
   YOUR DEPARTING FROM CHRIST. At this moment we may truthfully say of all
   the saints of God, "They need not depart."

   There is nothing in your circumstances which compels you to cease from
   following hard after your Lord. You are very poor, you say. But you
   need not depart from Christ because of penury, for, in the depths of
   distress the saints have enjoyed the richest Presence of their once
   houseless Lord. Your poverty may be pinching you at this very
   moment--to be relieved from that pinch you need not break away from
   Jesus, for fellowship with Him may be maintained under the direst
   extremity of need. Indeed, your need increases your necessity to walk
   closely with your Lord so that patience may have its perfect work and
   your soul may be sustained by the mighty consolations which flow out of
   nearness to Jesus. Need shall not separate the soul from communion with
   Him who hungered in the wilderness and thirsted on the Cross! You tell
   me that in order to relieve your necessities, you are compelled to
   exercise great care and anxiety. But all the cares which are useful and
   allowable are such as will allow of a continuance of fellowship with
   Christ! You may care as much as you ought to care--and I need not say
   how little that is--and yet you need not depart from Him who cares for
   you. But you tell me that in addition to deep thought, you have to
   expend much labor in order to provide things honest in the sight of all
   men. Yes, but you need not depart from Christ for that reason! The
   carpenter's Son is not ashamed of the sons of toil--He who wore the
   garment without seam does not despise the peasant's smock or the
   servant's apron. Labor is no enemy to communion--idleness is a far more
   likely separator of the soul from Christ. Not to the idlers in Herod's
   court did Jesus reveal Himself, but to hard-working fishermen by the
   lake of Galilee. If Satan is never far away from the idle, it

   is pretty plain that it is no disadvantage to be busy! A toil amounting
   to slavery may weaken the body and prostrate the spirit, but even when
   heart and flesh fail, the heart may call the Lord its portion. There is
   no service beneath the sun so arduous that you need depart from Christ
   in it! But rather, while the limbs are weary, the spirit should find
   its rest in drawing nearer to Him who can strengthen the weak and give
   rest to the laboring and heavy-laden. Do you tell me that you are rich?
   Ah, indeed, how often has this made men depart from Christ!--

   "Gold and the Gospel seldom do agree-- Religion always sides with
   poverty." So said John Bunyan and his saying is true. Too often the
   glitter of wealth has dazzled men's eyes so that they could not see the
   beauty of Christ Jesus. But O, you few wealthy saints, you need not
   depart! The camel can go through the needle's eye for, "with God, all
   things are possible." Men have worn coronets on earth and inherited
   crowns in Heaven! He who was the man after God's own heart swayed a
   scepter. To grow rich in substance does not make it inevitable that you
   should become poor in Divine Grace. Do riches bring you many
   responsibilities and burdens--and are you so much occupied with them
   that your fellowship with the Lord grows slack? It should not be so.
   You need not depart from Him. You can bring those responsibilities and
   the wealth to Jesus and communion with Him will prevent the gold from
   cankering and the responsibility from involving you in sin. Very often
   the servant of God who ministers to the Church of Christ finds so much
   to do in watching over the souls of others--and in caring for the
   various needs of the flock--that he is in danger of losing his own
   personal enjoyment of his Lord's Presence. But it need not be so. We
   can make all our many works subservient to our personal communion with
   our Lord and, as the bee flies to many flowers and gathers honey from
   each one, so may we, out of many forms of service, extract a sweet
   conformity to Him who was always about His Father's business. We need
   not be "cumbered" either with much serving or with much suffering. Our
   surroundings are not to be our sovereigns, but our subjects. We are, in
   all these things, to be "more than conquerors through Him that loved
   us."

   Brothers and Sisters, you need not depart because of anything in Christ
   Jesus. Those whom we love most would not desire us to be always with
   them and never out of their sight. A guest is very welcome, but the
   proverb says that after three days he is stale. A mother does not
   always want her child in her arms! Its face is the epitome of beauty,
   but at eventide she is glad that those dear blue eyes no longer shine
   upon her--she is happy to lay her treasure in its cradle basket. We do
   not always wish for the company of those whom we compassionate--if they
   will condense their requests and do their errands rapidly, we are best
   content. And Jesus Christ says to us, His poor dependents, His crying
   children, "You need not depart." When we are weeping, He will lay us in
   His bosom and give us rest. When we are famishing, He will entertain us
   at His royal table till we forget our misery. He is "a Friend that
   sticks closer than a brother" in this respect, for we need not, in this
   instance, heed the wise man's caution, "Go not into your brother's
   house in the day of your calamity," for we may, at all times and
   seasons, resort to our elder Brother! We may ask Him, "Where do You
   dwell?" and when we receive His answer, we may go forth and dwell with
   Him and make His house our home. Do you not remember His words, "Abide
   in Me"? Not merely "Abide with Me," but, "Abide in Me." The closest
   contact with Christ may be maintained with the utmost constancy--

   " You need not depart, you may tarry for, yes,

   Unchanged is His heart, He invites you to stay!

   He does not despise nor grow weary of you,

   You're fair in His eyes and most comely to view.

   Then wish not to roam, but abide with your Lord

   Since He is your home, go no longer abroad!

   Lie down on His breast in unbroken repose,

   For there you may rest, though surrounded with foes." II. Secondly, NO
   FUTURE NECESSITY WILL EVER ARISE TO COMPEL YOU TO DEPART FROM JESUS. It
   will always be true, "You need not depart."

   You do not know what your needs will be and though you are no Prophet,
   your words will be true if you affirm that no need shall ever
   necessarily divide you from Jesus because your needs will, instead,
   bind you to Him. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
   dwell." "And of His fullness have we all received, and Grace for
   Grace." We will draw nearer to Him, in time of need, to obtain the
   Grace we need! We shall never be forced to go elsewhere to find sup-

   plies for our spiritual needs! There stands another trader over the way
   who gladly would have you deal with him--"his Infallible Holiness," as
   he styles himself--but, ah, if you need Infallibility, you need not
   wander from Him who is "the Truth!" And if you desire holiness, you
   need not withdraw from Him who was the "Holy Child Jesus." To gain all
   that the superstitious profess to find in Babylon, you need not depart
   from the Son of David who reigns in Zion! They tell us that we must
   confess our sins to a priest--we will stay at home and lay bare our
   hearts to the great High Priest who "sprang out of Judah" and who is
   "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." They teach that we must
   receive absolution from one chosen from among men to forgive sins--we
   go at once to Him who was raised from the dead "that repentance and
   remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations,
   beginning at Jerusalem." They tell us that we should continue in
   morning and evening prayers--we do so, and offer our "matins" and our
   "vespers" where no bells call us except the bells upon our High
   Priest's garments! Our daily office may not be according to "the use of
   Sarum," but it is according to the use of those who "worship God in
   spirit and in truth." They cry up their daily sacrifice of the
   "mass"--but in Him who "offered one Sacrifice for sins forever," we
   find our All-in-All! His "flesh is meat, indeed," and His "blood drink,
   indeed." You "need not depart" to pope or priest, church or altar, for
   you may rest assured that there dwells in the Man, Christ Jesus, the
   Mediator of the New Covenant, all that your spiritual needs shall need
   for their supply! And on no occasion--for any needs that can by any
   possibility arise--need you go down into Egypt for help, or trust
   yourself to Assyria or Babylon!

   You will experience great trials as well as great needs. That young
   man, fresh from the country, has come to town to live in a godless
   family. And last night he was laughed at when he knelt down to pray. My
   young Friend, you need not forsake the faith, for other saints have
   endured more severe ordeals than yours and have still rejoiced in the
   Lord! Yours are only the trials of cruel mocking--they were stoned and
   sawn asunder--yet neither persecution, nor nakedness, nor sword divided
   them from the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord! Many also are
   those with whom God, in His Providence, deals severely--all His waves
   and billows go over them! Through much tribulation they enter the
   Kingdom of God and everything in the future forebodes multiplied
   adversities--but still, "they need not depart" from Jesus their Friend!
   If, like Paul, you should come to a place where two seas meet. If you
   should experience a double trouble and if neither sun nor moon should
   give you cheer, yet you need not suspend, but may rather deepen your
   fellowship with the Man of Sorrows! Christ is with you in the
   tempest-tossed vessel and you, and those who sail with you, shall yet
   come to the desired haven. Therefore be of good courage and let not
   your hearts be troubled. The Son of God will be with you in the furnace
   heated seven times hotter than normal. He has said, "When you pass
   through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they
   shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not
   be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." This proves to a
   demonstration that you "need not depart" from Christ in great trials!

   You will also encounter many difficulties between here and Heaven.
   Those who paint the road to Glory through rose-colored glasses have
   never trodden it. Many are the hills and dales between this Jericho and
   the city of the Great King! Let who will, be without trials--Christians
   will have their full share of them! But there shall come no difficulty
   of any kind, between here and Paradise, which shall necessitate the
   soul's going anywhere but to her gracious Lord for guidance, for
   consolation, for strength, or for anything besides! Little know we of
   the walls to be leaped or the troops to be overcome--but we know full
   well that we never need part from the Captain of our salvation, or call
   in other helpers.

   Death will probably befall us, but we "need not depart" from Jesus in
   the hour of our departure out of this world. On the contrary, when the
   death-dew lies cold on our brow we will sing--

   "If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now"-- and we will say with the
   Apostle Paul, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
   nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
   nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate
   us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Straight on
   into eternity--and on and on forever--that word, "depart," never need
   cross our path. As never in eternity will the great Judge pronounce the
   sentence, "Depart, you cursed," upon His saints, so never in His
   Providence, nor in the severest trial will He render it necessary that
   the saints should in any sense depart from Him--

   "Never, O time, in your darkest hour

   Shall I need depart from Him,

   Though round me your blackest tempests lower

   And both sun and moon grow dim.

   Faster and faster each grief shall bind

   My soul to her Lord above

   And all the woes that assail my mind

   Shall drive me to rest in His love." There is no necessity, then, in
   the present--and there will be none in the future--for departing from
   communion with the Lord!

   III. Thirdly, "they need not depart." that is to say, NO FORCE CAN
   COMPEL THE CHRISTIAN TO DEPART FROM JESUS.

   The world can tempt us to depart and, alas, too successfully does it
   seduce with its fascinating blandishments! Its frowns alarm the
   cowardly and its smiles delude the unwary, but none need depart. If we
   have Grace enough to play the man, Madam Bubble cannot lead us astray!
   "Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." We need
   not be taken in the world's traps--there is One who can deliver us from
   the snare of the fowler! We are not ignorant of the devices of Satan
   and the temptations of the world--we are not compeled to fall from our
   steadfastness--and if we do, it is our willful fault. There is no
   necessity for it. Many live above the world--many in as difficult
   circumstances as ours. There are those in Heaven who have found as hard
   hand-to-hand fighting in the spiritual life as we do--yet they were not
   vanquished, nor need we be--for the same strength which was given to
   them is also available for us!

   "But," says one, "you do not know where I live." Perhaps not. "You do
   not know what I have to endure," cries another. Most true, but I know
   where my Lord lived and I have read that He endured "such contradiction
   of sinners against Himself" that Paul holds Him up as a pattern to all
   His people! He did not depart from holiness, nor from love to you. "You
   have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." Perseverance
   to the end is possible to every Believer-- no, it is promisedto us and
   we may have it for the seeking! You need not depart from Christ, my
   young Friend--the world cannot drag you from Jesus, though it may
   entice you. Yield not and you shall stand, for "there has no temptation
   taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will
   not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will, with
   the temptation, also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear
   it" (1 Cor 10:13).

   Satan i s a very cunning tempter of the souls of men, but though he
   would gladly constrain you to depart from your Lord, you need not do
   his bidding. Satan is strong, but Christ is stronger! His temptations
   are insinuating, but you are no longer in darkness that you should be
   deceived by him. You "need not depart." Even though surprising
   temptation should assault you unawares, it ought not to find you
   sleeping. Has not Christ said, "What I say unto you, I say unto all,
   Watch"? You will not be surprised if holy anxiety stands sentinel to
   your soul. Prayer and watchfulness will warn you of the enemy's
   approach and, therefore, you need not be driven to forsake your Lord.

   Yes, but it may be that in addition to the world and to Satan, you are
   very conscious of the terrible depravity of your own heart. And,
   indeed, that is the chief ground of fear! The heart is deceitful, prone
   to wander and ready enough to depart from the living God--but you "need
   not depart" from the Master because of that. The newborn nature takes
   up arms against the body of sin and death. The Holy Spirit also dwells
   within to conquer indwelling sin. Shall not the life which is from
   above subdue the natural death? Shall not the Spirit of God purge out
   the old leaven? You "need not depart" from Jesus! It is true that you
   have a fiery temper, but it must not prevail--there is a cure for that
   plague. Perhaps we are inclined to levity, but we need not let our
   frivolous nature reign--Grace can overcome it and will. "Where sin
   abounded, Grace did much more abound." There is no unconquerable sin!
   There is no Dagon that shall not be broken in the presence of the Ark
   of God! There is no temple of the Philistines which shall not fall
   beneath the might of our greater Samson! We need not, as the result of
   temperament, or because of any sin that does so easily beset us, depart
   from Jesus, for Grace is equal to all emergencies.

   Do you call to mind that there may be another force employed beside
   that of the world, or of Satan, or the corruption within, namely, the
   lamentable coldness of the Christian Church?Truly it is to be feared
   that more have departed from close walking with Christ through the
   chilliness of inconsistent professors than from almost any other cause!
   Newborn children of God too often feel the atmosphere of the church to
   be as freezing as that of an ice-well. Their holy warmth of zeal is
   frozen and their limbs are stiffened into a rigor of inactivity--so
   that it is a marvel that they do not die--and die they would were not
   the spiritual life immortal and eternal! But, Brothers and Sisters,
   even in the midst of the coldest church we "need not depart" from a
   near and elevated fellowship with the Lord. The church of Rome is a

   church defiled with error and debased with superstition, but was there
   ever a nobler Christian woman in this world than Madame de la Mothe
   Guyon? She did not depart from Christ, though in the midst of a
   pestilent atmosphere. Remember, too, the names of Jansenius, Arnold,
   Pascal, and Fenelon which are an honor to the universal Church of
   Christ--who ever walked in closer communion with Christ than those holy
   men did? In the midst of the darkest ages, there have shone forth the
   brightest stars! John wrote, by Inspiration, "You have a few names even
   in Sardis which have not defiled their garments." Often am I told, by
   some Brother in a country village where the minister seems to have gone
   to sleep 20 years ago and has never awakened since, that he finds it
   very hard to rejoice in the Lord, for his Sabbaths are a burden instead
   of a joy. My dear Brother, you need all the more Grace if this is your
   case! You must have more vitality within if you see so much death
   without. You "need not depart" from Christ--on the contrary, by
   becoming an example of living near to Christ, yourself, you may be the
   means of quickening others, for, thank God, Grace is contagious as well
   as sin! At any rate, it is certain that though many influences may
   seduce us, no force can compel us to depart from Jesus--

   "No power in earth or Hell

   Can force me to depart--

   Christ is my unconquerable strength,

   He fortifies my heart!

   Fixed in His love I stand,

   And none shall drive me thence--

   Enclosed I am within the hand

   Of Love's Omnipotence!"

   IV. Regarded from another point, our text may teach us that THERE IS NO
   IMPOSSIBILITY IN KEEPING CLOSE TO THE BELOVED.

   Many Believers think that if they have fellowship every now and then
   with Jesus, with long intervals between, they are quite as much
   advanced as they need be and have probably reached as far as human
   nature is ever likely to go. An affectation of superfine godliness is
   suspicious but, at the same time, a higher standard of religion than is
   commonly seen among professors at this time can be maintained--and
   ought to be maintained. We ought to attain to such a walk with God--to
   so calm and serene a frame--that the light which shines upon our
   pathway shall be constant and clear. "Enoch walked with God" for
   hundreds of years. So cannot a man, nowadays, walk with God for 20
   years? Enoch lived in the dark age of the world, comparatively, so
   cannot we, who live under the Gospel dispensation, continuously walk
   with God? Enoch begat sons and daughters and so had all the cares of a
   household--yet he walked with God--so cannot we, who have the same
   cares, yet still, by Divine Grace, be enabled to maintain unbroken
   communion with Christ? I know the place is high where they stand who
   consciously abide in Christ, but will you not strive to climb there and
   bathe your foreheads in the everlasting sunlight of Jehovah's face? I
   know that it would require most jealous walking, but you serve a
   jealous God and He demands holy jealousy from you! Oh the joy of living
   in the embrace of Jesus and never departing from it! Oh the bliss of
   sitting always at His feet, abiding with the Bridegroom and listening
   to His voice! Surely the gain is worth the exertion and the prize is
   worthy of the struggle! Let us not, since the attainment is not
   impossible, murmur at the difficulty, but rather, in faith, let us ask
   that we may begin tonight to achieve the blessed result and continue to
   achieve it till we are privileged to see the face of Christ in Heaven!
   Others have done so--why shouldn't we?

   Brothers and Sisters, the way to maintain fellowship with Christ is
   very simple. If you desire to retain in your mouth all day the flavor
   of the "wines on the lees well refined," take care that you drink
   deeply of them by morning devotion. Do not waste those few minutes
   which you allot to morning prayer! Lay a text on your tongue and, like
   a wafer made with honey, it shall sweeten your soul till nightfall!
   During the day, when you can do so, think about your Redeemer-- His
   Person, His work. Pray to Him and ask Him to speak to you. All day long
   lean on the Beloved. During the day, serve Him and constantly say,
   "Lord, how can I best serve You in my calling?" Consecrate the kitchen,
   consecrate the market-room--make every place holy by glorifying the
   Lord there. Converse much with Him and it will not be impossible for
   you to abide in Him from the year's beginning to its close! You "need
   not depart." There is no mental or spiritual impossibility in the
   maintenance of unbroken communion with Christ if the Holy Spirit is
   your Helper!

   V. Once more, we "need not depart." That is to say, THERE IS NO REASON
   THAT CAN BE IMAGINED

   WHICH WOULD RENDER IT A WISE, PROPER AND GOOD THING FOR A CHRISTIAN TO
   DEPART FROM

   CHRIST.

   Suppose that the search after happiness is the great drift of our life,
   as the old philosophers assert--then we "need not depart" from Jesus to
   win it, for He is Heaven below! If you desire pleasure, forget not that
   the pleasures of God which are in Christ--His joy, the joy that fills
   His great heart--are more than enough to fill your heart! I sometimes
   hear people say, as an excuse for professors going to doubtful places
   of amusement, "You know, they must have some recreation." Yes, I know,
   but the re-creation which the Christian experienced when he was
   born-again has so completely made all things new to him, that the vile
   rubbish called recreation by the world is so dull to him that he might
   as well try to fill himself with fog as to satisfy his soul with such
   utter vanity! No, the Christian finds happiness in Christ Jesus--and
   when he needs pleasure, he does not depart from Jesus.

   Perhaps it is said that we require a little excitement now and then,
   for excitement gives a little stimulant to life and is as useful to it
   as stirring is to a fire. I know it and I trust you may have
   excitement, for the medicinal power of a measure of exhilaration and
   excitement is great. But you "need not depart" from Christ to get it,
   for there is such a thing as the soul's dancing at the sound of His
   name while all the sanctified passions are lifted up in the ways of the
   Lord! Holy mirth will sometimes so bubble up and overflow in the soul,
   that the man will say with Paul, "Whether in the body, I cannot tell;
   or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; God knows." Joy in Christ
   can rise to ecstasy and soar aloft to bliss! If you desire to wear the
   highest crown ofjoy, you "need not depart" from Christ.

   "But," it is said, " we require food for our intellect A man needs to
   develop his intellectual faculties. He must learn that which will
   enlarge and expand his mind." Certainly, by all means. But, O beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, you "need not depart" from Christ to get this,
   for the science of Christ Crucified is the most excellent,
   comprehensive and sublime of all the sciences! It is the only
   Infallible science in the circle of knowledge! Moreover, by all true
   science you will find Christ honored, and not dishonored. And your
   learning, if it is true learning, will not make you depart from Christ,
   but lead you to see more of His creating and ruling wisdom. The most
   profound astronomer admires the Sun of Righteousness! The best-taught
   geologist has no quarrel with the Rock of Ages! The greatest
   mathematician marvels at Him who is the sum total of the universe! He
   who knows the most of the physical, if he knows aright, loves the
   spiritual and reverences God in Christ Jesus! To imagine that to be
   wise one needs forsake the Incarnate Wisdom is insanity! No, to reach
   the highest degree of attainment in true learning, there is no reason
   for departing from Christ.

   "We must have friends and acquaintances," one says. You "need not
   depart" front Christ to get them. We admit that a young woman does well
   to enter the marriage state--a young man is safer and better for having
   a wife--but, my dear young Friends, you need not break Christ's Law and
   depart from Him in order to find a good husband or a good wife! His
   rule is that you should not be "unequally yoked together with
   unbelievers." It is a wise and kind rule and is an assistance rather
   than a hindrance to a fit marriage. "But," says one, "I do not intend
   to depart from Christ, though I am about to marry an unconverted
   person." Rest assured that you are departing from Jesus by that act! I
   have never yet met with a single case in which marriages of this kind
   have been blessed of God. I know that young women say, "Do not be too
   severe, Sir, I shall bring him around." You will certainly fail! You
   are sinning in marrying under that idea. If you break Christ's Law, you
   cannot expect Christ's blessing. To be happy in future life with a
   suitable partner you "need not depart" from Jesus. There is nothing in
   life you can need that is truly desirable, nothing that can promote
   your welfare, nothing that is really good for you that can ever make it
   necessary for you to depart from the Lord Jesus Christ!

   Now, if this is true, do not some of us feel very guilty? I could weep
   to think that I have so often departed from close fellowship with my
   Lord and Master when I need not have done it. I am cast down and
   weary--and occasionally cumbered with much serving. I know my faith is
   in Christ, but I have not the calm, unstaggering faith I desire to
   have. And I know that with a thousand cares, (and I have ten thousand),
   I need not for a moment lose serenity and peace of mind if I can reach
   the place which, by God's Grace, I will yet reach. Do you not feel
   ashamed that your family troubles and perhaps your family joys have
   taken you off from your Savior? Some of you have a great deal of
   leisure and yet you slide away from Christ. Let us be ashamed together,
   but let us remember that while this verse stands true--if we have
   departed from Christ and the enjoyment of His fellowship--we can offer
   no excuse by saying that we could not help it! We do it willfully, we
   do it sinfully! It is not to be thrust on the back of circumstances. It
   cannot be laid on the devil nor blamed to

   this, nor blamed to that--it is our own fault. We "need not depart!"
   There never was any need for it and there never will be. May God's
   Grace descend mightily upon us so that we may henceforth abide in our
   Lord! May those who know Him not, be led to seek Him by faith even now,
   and find Him, and then even they shall not need to depart from Him at
   the last.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 14:13-36.

   Verse 13. When Jesus heard of it, He departed from there by a boat into
   a desert place apart It is well for us to get alone with God when He
   takes Home the best and most faithful of His servants. Neither the
   Church nor the world could afford to lose such a man as John the
   Baptist--so it was well for Christ's disciples to retire with Him to a
   desert place that He might teach them the lesson of that highly-favored
   martyr's death.

   13, 14. And when the people had heard thereof, they followed Him on
   foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth, and saw a great
   multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed
   their sick He needed quiet, but He could not get it just yet. He was
   not "moved" with indignation against the crowd that had sought Him out,
   but He "was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their
   sick." Out of the fullness of His heart of love, He condescended to do
   for the people what they most needed.

   15. And when it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, This is
   a desert place, and the time is nowpast; send the multitude away, that
   they may go into the villages and buy themselves food. Human compassion
   might have moved the disciples to say something more kind than that
   heartless request, "Send the multitude away." Perhaps they wished to
   spare themselves the sight of so much distress, but they evidently did
   not expect the answer that Christ gave them.

   16. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; you give them
   something to eat. Christ seemed to say to His disciples, "If you only
   exercise the power that is within your reach, with Me in your midst,
   you are equal to this emergency--'You give them something to eat.'"

   17. 18. And they said unto Him, We have here but five loaves, and two
   fishes. He said, Bring them to Me. "They are little enough in your
   hands, but they will be ample when they get into Mine." When everything
   that we have is in the hands of Christ, it is amazing how much He can
   make of it. Bring your talent to the Lord Jesus, be it ever so little--
   sanctify to Him every possibility that lies within your reach--you
   cannot tell how much He can and will do with it.

   19. And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass. It must
   have been a beautiful sight to see those thousands of men, women and
   children at once obeying His command! There were five loaves and two
   fishes--probably five small barley cakes and a couple of sardines--so
   the people might have said, "What is the use of such a multitude
   sitting down on the grass to partake of such scanty fare as that?" But
   they did not say that--there was a Divine Power about the very simplest
   command of Christ which compelled instant obedience! "He commanded the
   multitude to sit down on the grass."

   19. And He took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to
   Heaven, He blessed. This was that "blessing of the Lord" of which
   Solomon says that "it makes rich, and He adds no sorrow with it." If
   you get this blessing on your five loaves and two fishes, you may feed
   five thousand men with them--besides the women and the children!

   19, 20. And broke, and gave the loaves to His disciples, and the
   disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and
   they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full Much
   more than they began with, for it is a Law of the Heavenly Kingdom that
   he who gives to God shall be no loser--his five loaves and two fishes
   shall turn to twelve baskets full after thousands have eaten and been
   satisfied! The more there is of complete consecration to Christ and His
   blessed service, the more reward will there be in the world to come
   and, possibly, even here!

   21, 22. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside
   women and children. And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to
   get into a boat, and to go before Him unto the other side, while He
   sent the multitudes away. He always takes the heavier task upon
   Himself. They may go off by themselves, but He will remain to send the
   multitudes away. Besides, no one but Christ could have done it--only He
   who had made them sit down to the feast could make them go to their
   homes.

   23. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a
   mountain apart to pray. He had had a long day of preaching, healing and
   distributing the bread and fish--and now He closed the day with prayer
   to His Father.

   23. And when the evening was come, He was there alone. Dr. Watts was
   right in saying to His Lord--

   "Coldmountains, and the midnight air

   Witnessed the fervor of Your prayer." He is not now on the bare
   mountainside, but He is engaged in the same holy exercise up yonder
   before His Father's Throne.

   24. But the boat was nowin the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for
   the wind was contrary This is the case with the good ship of the Church
   of Christ today--it is "tossed with waves" and the wind is "contrary."
   It is very contrary just now, but then, Christ is still pleading for
   the ship and all on board. And while He pleads, it can never sink.

   25-29. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them,
   walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea,
   they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit: and they cried out for fear
   But straightway Jesus spoke unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is
   I; be not afraid. And Peter answered Him, and said, Lord, if it is You,
   bid me come unto You on the water And He said, Come. And when Peter was
   come down out of the boat, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.You
   who are wanting to get to Jesus should make a desperate effort to get
   to Him--even walk on the water to get to Jesus. Walking on the water
   might be an idle and evil exhibition, but to walk on the water to go to
   Jesus is another matter. Try it and the Lord enable you to get to Him!

   30-32. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and
   beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me! And immediately
   Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him, and said unto him, O you
   of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they were come into the
   boat, the wind ceased. The Greek word implies that the wind was tired,
   weary, "done up," as we say. It had had its boisterous time and spent
   its force--but now it knew its Lord's voice and, like a tired child,
   fell asleep.

   33. Then they that were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying, Of
   a truth You are the Son of God. This seems to have been the first time
   that the disciples arrived at this conclusion so as to state it so
   positively. Yet, do you not think that after the miraculous
   multiplication of the loaves and fishes they might have very fitly
   said, "Of a truth You are the Son of God"? Sometimes, however, one
   wonder will strike us more than another and, possibly it was because
   they were in danger when this second miracle was worked and, therefore,
   they the more appreciated the coming of Christ to them at midnight.
   They were in no danger when the multitude were fed. Perhaps they were
   not themselves hungry. That strikes us most which comes most home to
   us, as this miracle did.

   34-36. And when they were gone over, they came into the land of
   Gennesaret. And when the men of that place had knowledge of Him, they
   sent out into all that country roundabout and brought unto Him all that
   were diseased; and besought Him that they might only touch the hem
   ofHis garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.
     __________________________________________________________________

If So--what Then?

   (No. 3047)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 15, 1871.

   "If the righteous are scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the
   sinner appear?" 1 Peter 4:18.

   SOME people suppose that it is a very easy thing to be saved, but our
   Lord said, "Strive ("Agonize" is the original word) to enter in at the
   strait gate, for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall
   not be able." When men hear a simple Gospel sermon of which the pith
   and marrow is the great soul-saving message, "Believe and live," they
   say, "If it is such a simple matter, will not all believe?" But the
   Prophet Isaiah spoke not so, for his sad inquiry was, "Who has believed
   our report ("our doctrine" is the marginal reading)?" Faith seems so
   easy that one might ask, "Where will it not be found? But our Savior
   thought not so, for He asked, "When the Son of Man comes, shall He find
   faith on the earth?" He who knows where to look for it and who has the
   quickest eyes to discern it, asks whether He shall be able to find,
   anywhere on the earth, that scarce thing called faith--"the faith of
   God's elect." Believe me that though "the way of holiness" is so plain
   that "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein," yet on
   account of the hardness of our hearts, it is no easy thing for any of
   us to enter that way and to continue in it until it leads us to our
   everlasting Home above.

   I do not intend to keep strictly to my text, but to give you the
   meaning of it in this way. First, here is a fact stated-- "The
   righteous are scarcely saved." Then, secondly, there is an inference
   drawn from that fact--if they are truly saved with great difficulty,
   "where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" When we have
   considered that inference, we shall take the liberty to draw two other
   inferences which may afford us further instruction.

   I. First, then, HERE IS A FACT STATED--"The righteous are scarcely
   saved." That is to say, they are only saved with great difficulty. This
   is not because there is any deficiency in Jesus Christ, our Lord and
   Savior, or any lack of efficacy in His atoning Sacrifice, or in His
   intercession for transgressors. God be thanked that there is no
   difficulty there! It is not through any lack of power to save on the
   part of the Holy Spirit. Nor is it through any failure of God's
   faithfulness that "the righteous" are only saved with great difficulty.
   But it is for two reasons which I will now give you.

   The first reason is, because of the strictness of Divine rule. Read the
   first clause of the verse preceding our text-- "The time is come that
   judgment must begin at the House of God." And that judgment is so
   severe that even "the righteous are scarcely saved." When Christ comes
   even to His own people, He comes to purge and purify them. The Prophet
   Malachi wrote concerning His first coming, "He is like a refiner's
   fire, and like fullers' soap; and He shall sit as a refiner and
   purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge
   them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering
   in righteousness." John the Baptist said, concerning Christ, "He that
   comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
   He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire: whose fan is
   in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His
   wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
   fire." Judgment must always "begin at the House of God" and there is,
   as good Archbishop Leighton very properly says, both "equity and
   congruity in such an arrangement." There is equity in it, for
   Christians profess to be better than others and so they ought to be.
   They say they are regenerate, so they ought to be regenerate. They say
   that they are a holy people, separated unto Christ, so they ought to be
   holy and separate from sinners, as He was. It is right that where there
   is a high calling and an honored name, there should be a life proving
   the accuracy of these two things. So, when God begins to test that
   which professes to be gold and silver, who can say that He does not
   begin His testing at the right place, and with the right material?
   There is also a congruity or fitness in this arrangement.

   The Church of God is His house--and where does a man begin cleansing
   and reforming? Why, in his own house, of course! He might perhaps feel
   that he must have some filth in the farmyard, but not in his own
   sitting-room! There may be much evil abroad that he cannot remove, yet
   he can begin cleaning up at home. If we want to do any good in
   reforming the world, the very first duty for each of us is to begin
   reforming at home-- and the Lord, when He means to clear away the
   dross, begins at home by setting up His "fire in Zion and His furnace
   in Jerusalem."

   The tests to which God subjects those who profess to be His people are
   not easy ones. When His fan is in His hand, woe be unto those who are
   "like the chaff which the wind drives away." The Lord says, by the
   mouth of the Prophet Amos, "I will sift the house of Israel among all
   nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least
   grain fall upon the earth." Nor shall an atom of chaff be left in the
   sieve. When Omnipotence and Omniscience unite to sift the chaff from
   the wheat, you may depend upon it that the sifting will be thoroughly
   done! There is also the testing by fire. And if any are not able to
   endure that test, "reprobate silver shall men call them because the
   Lord has rejected them." Then God will weigh us--we shall be put into
   the balances of the sanctuary and if we are found wanting, how terrible
   it will be! We often judge by appearances, but God looks at the heart.
   We may be deceived by the outward profession, but God sees what is
   within. He looks for the Truth in our inward parts and in our hidden
   parts there must be the true Wisdom or else we are not saved.

   Now, dear Friends, as the tests are so severe, you see how it is that
   the righteous are only saved with difficulty. Oh, if I may but come out
   of that scale full weight, if I may but come out of that fire as pure
   gold, if I may but remain with the wheat in that sieve and not be blown
   away with the chaff, I shall bless God forever and ever that I was
   saved, even though it was with great difficulty!

   Further, the experience of all Christians proves that the work of Grace
   in their hearts is not easily accomplished and that their pilgrimage to
   Heaven is full of difficulties. At the very beginning of the Christian
   life, some find it hard to lay hold on Christ. We truly sing or say--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One." Yet there was a time
   when I felt that I would gladly give my life in exchange for that look!
   Easy as it seems to be to cast ourselves into the Savior's arms, there
   are Satanic doubts, evil questionings, and fierce temptations that
   cause even that simple act to be accomplished only with great
   difficulty. Indeed, wherever it is accomplished, it is a miracle of
   Divine Mercy and in every case saving faith is "the gift of God."

   Then, how difficult it is to overcome the flesh! Are you a Believer in
   the Lord Jesus Christ? Then I need not ask whether you find it so. You
   love holiness, yet unholiness tries hard to make you its slave. Perhaps
   it is a fiery temper that is your "thorn in the flesh," or some
   constitutional sin, or some lust that you thought had been subdued. You
   may have said, with David, "My feet were almost gone; my steps had
   well-near slipped." And I know that if your life is that of a true
   child of God, you have to fight hard in order to "put off the old man
   with his deeds," and to lead a godly life in the midst of this ungodly
   generation.

   The temptations that assail you from without are equally hard to
   overcome. There are temptations of wealth and temptations of
   poverty--temptations to turn aside to the right or to the left--and it
   is not easy to keep to the middle of the King's highway and to walk in
   the footprints of Jesus who has left us an example that we should
   follow His steps. When the world, the flesh and the devil combine to
   assail us--if the Lord does not cover our head in the day of battle,
   how can we gain the victory? With some Christians it is a very hard
   struggle from day to day, and even from hour to hour--and then we are
   like Mr. Stand-Fast who, when he was in what Bunyan calls the Enchanted
   Ground, was assailed by Madam Bubble and who could do nothing but fall
   on his knees and cry to God for help! There are many of us who have
   felt like that and who, in the bitterness of our agony, have had to cry
   to God to help us, for it is only with difficulty that we are saved. I
   can say, with good John Fawcett--

   "Temptations everywhere annoy,

   And sins and snares my peace destroy.

   My earthly joys are from me torn,

   And oft an absent God I mourn.

   My soul, with various tempests tossed,

   Her hopes overturned, her projects crossed,

   Sees every day new straits attend,

   And wonders where the scene will end.

   Is this, dear Lord, that thorny road

   Which leads us to the Mount of God?

   Are these the toils Your people know,

   While in the wilderness below?

   'Tis even so, Your faithful love

   Does thus Your children's graces prove--

   'Tis thus our pride and self must fall,

   That Jesus may be All-in-All." How difficult is it for a true Christian
   even to perform necessary duties in a humble and holy spirit! It is a
   simple matter to pray--it is just going, like a child, to tell God all
   that you feel and all that you need. Yet I ask you, Christian, whether
   you do not sometimes find it hard work to pray? When you are on your
   knees, all sorts of cares come buzzing about you, like so many hornets.
   You want to wrestle with God as Jacob did, but you find that your
   wrestling has to be with the devil! I know what it is to long to pray
   when I cannot find a prayer in my soul! I make this confession because
   I believe there are many of God's people who get into that state. And,
   moreover, I know that we often pray best when we think we are not
   praying. Perhaps those groans that come from the lowest depths of our
   spirit when we think we are not groaning at all are just the most
   potent prayers that ever reach the Throne of God! But there are seasons
   when one can only say, "May the Holy Spirit feel for me what I cannot
   feel, and utter for me what I cannot speak, and do for me what I cannot
   perform!"

   And if such ordinary acts of devotion are so difficult, how much more
   difficult is it to reach gracious attainments in the Divine life! If
   any of your graces come to you very easily, suspect whether they are
   genuine, for in the Christian life, all that is worth having has to be
   fought for in stern conflict. So determined are the powers of darkness
   to prevent the Christian pilgrim from entering the Celestial City that
   all the way to Heaven will be more or less a Hill of Difficulty. You
   will have to go often upon your hands and knees because the road is so
   rough and the ascent is so steep that you cannot advance in any other
   way. We would be holy as God is holy, but there is another law in our
   members warring against the law of our renewed minds. God knows that we
   yearn after perfection but, alas, like the bird that would gladly fly,
   there is something that holds us down! Many of you have seen an eagle
   in a cage and you know how he looks up with those bright eyes of his
   that were made to gaze into the sun! If he stretches his wings and
   tries to fly, he only wounds himself against the bars of his cage and,
   oh, what wounds some of us have had when in our aspirations after
   better things, to will has been present with us, but how to perform
   that which we would, we found not! Often have I had to cry, with Paul,
   "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
   death?" Yes, it is hard work for any of us to get to Heaven. God, the
   Eternal Spirit, helps us to overcome our infirmities, but we are often
   made to feel those infirmities and to confess that our weakness is no
   match for the strength of sin--and to admit that were it not for God
   Himself, we should certainly perish after all. I delight to sing with
   holy John Newton--

   "Beyond a doubt, I rest assured

   You are the Christ of God!

   Who has eternal life secured

   By promise and by blood.

   The help of men and angels joined

   Could never reach my case,

   Nor can I hope relief to find

   But in Your boundless Grace!" Do you not, dear Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, sometimes feel how hard it is for you to be saved when you put
   your soul before the tribunal of your own enlightened conscience? Our
   own conscience, at the best, is a poor partial judge compared with the
   impartial and Infallible Judge who will, by-and-by, sit upon the Great
   White Throne. Yet I ask any Christian here who is really aware of his
   own frailties and infirmities--when he comes seriously to take stock of
   himself, whether he finds any reason in himself for glorying? I have
   turned over my sermons and my many labors for the Lord, but there is
   scarcely one of them that I dare to think of without tears--they are
   all marred by sin and imperfection! As I think of every act I have ever
   done for God, I can only cry, "O God, forgive the iniquity of my holy
   things!" But what

   about our unholy things? Brothers and Sisters, look well to the
   evidences of your new birth. And as you examine them, see if you do not
   have to say with the Prophet, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all
   our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf;
   and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." If so, then let
   each one of us pray with penitent David, "Purge me with hyssop and I
   shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." If we are
   really God's people, it is a great consolation for us to know
   that--notwithstanding our many infirmities and iniquities, our many
   anxieties and doubts and fears as to whether, after all, we have been
   self-deceived or devil-deceived--God will never forsake us!

   II. This must suffice concerning the fact that Christians are only
   saved with great difficulty. Now, secondly, let us consider THE
   INFERENCE FROM THAT FACT.

   Peter says, "If the righteous are scarcely saved, where shall the
   ungodly and the sinner appear?" By which he means, I think, first, that
   if even the righteous are so severely tested, what short work will God
   make with the unrighteous--if the wheat must thus be winnowed, how
   certainly will the chaff be destroyed--if the gold must pass through
   the fire, how assuredly will the dross be consumed! The God who tries
   and tests the best will certainly not wink at the worst.

   He means next, I think, that if "the righteous" only attain to felicity
   with great diificulty, "the ungodly and the sinner" can never attain to
   it Suppose there has been a terrible storm on a rock-bound coast. The
   lifeboat has gone out and the men have nobly done their duty and saved
   many precious lives. But as each man leaps ashore, he says, "I was
   never before out in such a storm. It is only by the merciful Providence
   of God that we were able to get back." When the people on the shore see
   that even the lifeboat so narrowly escaped destruction, they naturally
   ask, "What must become of those poor leaky and unseaworthy boats that
   are hardly fit to be in a mill pond?" Or imagine a river, full of
   sandbanks, with a channel that twists and turns in a tortuous
   fashion--and there is a vessel on it with an experienced pilot on
   board--yet even he is very anxious and is constantly heaving the lead,
   and frequently going at half-speed, or stopping altogether! Now, if a
   steamer with a good pilot on board can scarcely get up the river, what
   will happen to a small sailboat, in the charge of a reckless drunk, who
   scarcely steers at all, but lets the boat drift wherever it will? Why,
   it must be lost! So, if "the vessels of mercy...before prepared unto
   glory," on which Christ is the Pilot, barely escape the rocks and
   quicksands, what must be the end of "the vessels of wrath fitted to
   destruction" which have no pilot on board and drift here and there at
   the mercy of winds and waves? If there is a great conflagration in the
   city and there is a massive stone structure with iron girders which the
   firemen can only save from destruction with great difficulty, what will
   be the fate of a wooden house, covered with pitch and tar and full of
   oil? If a man who has built for eternity upon Christ, the only true
   Foundation--and who has built, not with gold, silver and precious
   stones, but with wood, hay and stubble-- if such a man "shall be saved,
   yet so as by fire," what will become of the sinner who is only like a
   dry log fitted for the everlasting burning?

   My text does not tell us where "the ungodly and the sinner" will
   appear. This is one of the unanswered questions of Scripture--"Where
   shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" So I shall scarcely speak of
   that dreadful place where our Savior says, "There shall be weeping and
   gnashing of teeth," "where their worm dies not and the fire is not
   quenched." These metaphors, terrible as they are in their grim
   suggestiveness, are only faint images of the awful reality! And I again
   remind you that they are the words of Him to Whom we teach our children
   to pray--

   "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child."

   In Psalm 50:22 there is this dreadful Divine warning, "Consider this,
   you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to
   deliver." If it is difficult for a Christian to be saved--and I have
   shown you that it is--where shall you who are not God's people, you who
   have no Christ, you who have no Holy Spirit to guide you--where shall
   you appear? The Apostle Paul wrote, "I keep my body under and bring it
   into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to
   others, I myself should be a castaway." If Paul entered Heaven with
   difficulty, where will you be? Martin Luther's biography tells us that
   he was the subject of grievous doubts, depressions and soul anxieties.
   So, if he only reached Heaven as a sinner saved by Grace, where will
   you be who know nothing experimentally of the Grace of God? If John
   Knox, after serving his God so faithfully that his epitaph truly says,
   "Here lies a man who in his life never feared the face of man"--if he,
   on his deathbed, found it hard to cherish a hope of Heaven--what will
   you do who despise Christ's mercy and riot in sin?

   Before I close, I want to draw two other inferences. The first is
   this--IF THE RIGHTEOUS ARE ONLY SAVED

   WITH DIFFICULTY, WHAT ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE "SAVED" SO VERY
   EASILY? It looks as if they were not righteous, does it not? Perhaps
   there is a man here who is like Bunyan's Formalist. This is his
   hope--"I was 'christened' when I was a child, I was confirmed as a
   youth, I attend my church and take the 'sacrament' regularly." Or he
   may say, "I regularly attend chapel." He says, "Don't talk to me about
   anxieties as to my state--I have no such anxieties." No, I expect you
   have not, but if you have no doubts about yourself, permit me to have
   my doubts about you! And let me go a great deal further than doubts and
   solemnly tell you that a hope founded on ceremonies will lead to your
   "everlasting destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from the
   glory of His power."

   There may be another who says, "I have made a profession of religion,
   but I never have any questions about whether I am saved or not. I
   pray--in a fashion. As to praising God, I always could sing and I
   believe I am about as right as I can be. I don't see any cause for
   distressing myself." Yes, Friend, but let me remind you that there is a
   great difference between presumption and "full assurance of faith."
   There is also a very great difference between believing that you are
   saved and being really saved!

   Possibly there is another who says, "I believe I am one of God's elect
   and that I am quite safe." Well, Friend, if it is so, no one is more
   thankful than I am. But if that is your only hope of salvation and you
   have never been born-again and know nothing of the new life with its
   anxieties and joys, I would not give a bent pin for your hope of
   Heaven! And the sooner you get rid of it, the better. A dead fish finds
   no difficulty in floating down the stream--it is only the living fish
   that can swim against the current. The broad road is very smooth and
   there is a good deal of company on it--but it leads to destruction.
   There are few in the narrow way and many difficulties there--but it
   leads to eternal life. You say that you never know any changes. No, nor
   do the statues in St. Paul's Cathedral. There they stand, year after
   year, upon their marble pedestals because they are dead--and you are
   the same. "But I never have to fight that battle of which you have been
   speaking." No, of course not, because the world and you are friends!
   And because you are of the world, the world loves its own. If you were
   a stranger and a foreigner in this world, you would be treated as
   strangers and foreigners are in an inhospitable country.

   I will draw only one more inference from our text and that is a very
   comforting one. THE RIGHTEOUS ARE ONLY SAVED WITH DIFFICULTY--THEN
   TEMPTED SOULS MAY BE SAVED. That Truth of God has given me comfort when
   I have thought, "Well, it is difficult for me to be saved, then it
   appears that I am numbered with the righteous and that I am on the
   right road." "Oh, Sir," says a poor sinner here, "I am glad you said
   that. I hope I have cast myself wholly upon the Lord Jesus Christ and I
   thought I was going to have peace always, but, instead of that, ever
   since I have believed, or thought I had believed, I have had more
   fights in my soul than I ever had before." Well, the righteous are only
   saved with difficulty, so do not be depressed. "But I have been more
   tempted than I ever was before and it seems, Sir, as if everybody is
   against me and tries to drive me back. I thought I should find cheerful
   companions who would help me on the road to Heaven, but I seem to be
   alone in an enemy's land." My dear Brother, it is always so with the
   righteous--no strange thing has happened to you. "But, Sir," says one,
   "horrible thoughts and terrible blasphemies arise in my mind even when
   I try to pray. And I say to myself, 'If I were a child of God, could it
   be thus with me?'" Dear Friend, be comforted! Satan is afraid of losing
   you, so he is putting out all his force to try to hold you. Now that
   you are a Christian, you are a target for all the devil's fiery darts,
   so do not be astonished--this is the lot of the people of God! When a
   man has been drowning, I have heard that his sensations have often been
   very pleasant, but when the circulation of the blood commences again,
   pain begins at once and the more pain he suffers, the more surely is he
   being restored to life! It is just so with the spiritual blood that is
   circulating in your soul. You are not dead, so you smart and suffer
   because you are alive. If you imagine that the moment you believe, your
   battle is over, you make a great mistake--your battle has only just
   begun and because while really trusting in Jesus, you have battles,
   contentions, difficulties and troubles, conclude that, therefore, you
   are a child of God!

   Remember this, if the righteous are only saved with great difficulty,
   they would never be saved if they did not look right away from
   themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. There lies the one hope for
   sinners and saints--in the finished work of the blessed Redeemer! "I
   know what you are at," said a good man once to one who was doubting,
   "Christ has finished the work of salvation, but you are not content
   with what He has done, so you want to patch it up with something of
   your own." Come sinners and come saints, back to the foot of that dear
   Cross where Jesus bought with His own blood the souls of all who
   believe in Him! let us throw ourselves prostrate before Him and say,
   "You are all our confidence, our only hope and our full salvation
   forever and ever. Save us, O Savior! We are sinners and You are the
   sinners' Friend-- save us now and we shall be saved forever!" Amen, so
   let it be!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHAARIAH8. [See Note to Sermon No.
   3045, on Zechariah 8:13.]

   Verses 1, 2. Again the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
   Thus says the LORD ofHosts; I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy,
   and I was jealous for her with great fury. Because they worshipped
   idols instead of the living God, Jehovah of Hosts, who is a jealous
   God, was very angry with His ancient people and allowed them to be
   carried away into captivity. And it is well for us in these days to
   remember that we serve a jealous God and that if our hearts are not
   true to Him, He will soon send us sharp afflictions and make us feel
   the weight of His rod! It was Paul's anxious desire that he might be
   able to present the Church at Corinth "as a chaste virgin to Christ"
   and, certainly, our Lord Jesus Christ will not accept the professing
   Church of these days on any other terms. Let your heart be loyal and
   true to Him, or else you will stir up the holy jealousy of your God!
   Yet the same jealousy which makes God punish His people for their
   unfaithfulness, prompts Him to return to them in love as soon as He
   sees that He can justly do so. When their enemies have sorely vexed and
   oppressed them, then is the Lord jealous, not against them, but against
   their enemies-- and He swiftly returns to His own people in love.

   3. Thus says the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the
   midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and
   the mountain of the LORD ofHosts the holy mountain. The first coming or
   the return of God to a Church, or to an individual heart, always
   promotes holiness. So, unless your piety is growing daily, do not
   imagine that God is in the midst of you, for wherever the Lord comes,
   He comes "as a refiner and purifier." You will never find Jesus come
   except as John the Baptist pictured Him to the Pharisees and Sadducees
   of his day--"whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His
   floor." The coming of Christ into any soul, or into any Church, is the
   death of sin and the birth of holiness!

   4, 5. Thus says the LORD ofHosts, There shall yet old men and old women
   dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his
   hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys
   and girls playing in the streets thereof It is an indication that there
   is peace in the city when the children can play in the streets without
   fear. We may thus apply these verses spiritually--when God greatly
   blesses a Christian Church, there are sure to be many aged persons in
   it, those who, by their long experience and their matured wisdom, are
   able to teach others the lessons which they have themselves learned at
   the feet of Jesus. Happy is the Church that has in it many fathers and
   mothers in Israel. At the same time, a Church that is largely blessed
   by God will also have in it many young converts who will be as full of
   life and joy as children playing in the streets of a city in time of
   peace. There is a text which is true both in its literal and its
   spiritual sense--"Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord...Happy is
   the man that has his quiver full of them." There is no glory so great
   to a Christian minister and a Christian Church as that of having an
   abundance of spiritual children and multitudes of converts brought to
   Christ. So shall it be with any Church when God is in the midst of her.

   6. Thus says the LORD ofHosts; If it is marvelous in the eyes of the
   remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvelous in My
   eyes?says the LORD ofHosts. This is a very remarkable passage, warning
   us not to judge of God by ourselves. Though a thing may be difficult to
   us, there are no difficulties with God. No, even if we imagine anything
   to be impossible to man, the word impossibilityhas no relation to the
   Deity, for "with God all things are possible." Are you in trouble
   today? Do you say that it is impossible for you to be delivered? It is
   an easy thing for God to deliver you, though the task seems so hard to
   you. Do you feel the weight of your sin and do you imagine that it is
   impossible for your sin to be pardoned? Would you look upon it as a
   miracle and because it seems so marvelous to you, do you think it is
   marvelous in God's eyes? Remember what He said by the mouth of Isaiah,
   "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says
   the Lord." Consider the infinite difference between God and man--and
   look no longer at God through the misleading glasses of your own
   feebleness!

   7, 8. Thus says the LORD ofHosts; Behold, I will save My people from
   the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and
   they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be My
   people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. Mark
   God's emphatic language, how full it is of, "shalls" and, "wills." "I
   will," and "they shall," says He, again and again. And if God says, "I
   will," who shall dare to say that it shall not be? What God declares
   shall certainly come to pass. Surely this is golden language of comfort
   to those who are bowed down! Then how great must be the sinfulness of
   that unbelief which dares to despair when God says, "shall" and,
   "will"! That one sentence in the eighth verse contains the whole Gospel
   in two short sentences--"They shall be My people, and I will be their
   God." This is the tenor of the Covenant of Grace. There is no "if," nor
   "but," nor "perhaps" in it. God does not say, "I will be their God if
   they will be My people." Nor, "I will love them if they will keep My
   Laws." That is the Old Covenant of works which has been broken forever!
   The Covenant of Grace runs thus, "They shall be My people, and I will
   be their God, in truth and in righteousness."

   9-11. Thus says the LORD ofHosts; Let your hands be strong, you that
   hear in these days these words by the mouth of the Prophets, which were
   in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD ofHosts was
   laid, that the Temple might be built For before these days there was no
   hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to
   him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all
   men, everyone against his neighbor But now I will not be unto the
   residue of this people as in the former days, says the LORD ofHosts.
   The Jewish people had been brought into abject poverty. They were all
   so poor that there was not one who could hire his fellow man or even
   pay for the hire of a beast of burden. This was before the foundation
   of Solomon's Temple was laid. But, as that wondrous structure grew, the
   State also grew and often the prosperity of a Church brings prosperity
   to the people around it. And to the residue of God's people there comes
   a blessing, and not a curse.

   12. For the seed shall be prosperous. It is a happy omen for a Church
   when the Word preached is with power.

   12. The vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her
   increase. Happy are the hearts that are like fruitful vines, and good
   and fertile ground yielding thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold increase.

   12. And the heavens shall give their dew.We cannot bring forth fruit
   unto God without the bedewing influences of the Holy Spirit. This is
   that "womb of the morning" of which David speaks in Psalm 110:3--and
   out of which the precious fruit of the Spirit must come.

   12-15. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these
   things. And it shall come to pass, that as you were a curse among the
   heathen, Ohouse of Judah, andhouse ofIsrael; so willIsave you, andyou
   shall be a blessing; fear not, but let your hands be strong. For thus
   says the LORD ofHosts; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers
   provoked Me to wrath, says the LORD ofHosts, and I repented not: so
   again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the
   house of Judah: fear you not Did you notice the repetition of the
   exhortation, "Fear not," and then again, "Fear you not"? The Lord knows
   how much mischief, doubts and fears do to His people and, therefore,
   many a time in Scripture He aims a blow at them. "Fear nots" abound in
   Scripture! It would be well if you made every one of them into a
   gallows upon which to hang your unbelief until it died! What is your
   fear at this moment? What is the cause of your trembling? "Fear you
   not," says God to you! Will you dare to fear after this?

   16, 17. These are the things that you shall do; Speak you every man the
   truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your
   gates: and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his
   neighbor Some have wickedly said that "thought is free and can't be
   condemned." But here we see that if it goes after evil, it is a wicked
   thing which God abhors.

   17-19. And love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate,
   says the LORD. And the word of the LORD of Hosts came unto me, saying,
   Thus says the LORD ofHosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast
   of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth,
   shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts;
   therefore love the truth and peace.God turns sad fasts to glad feasts
   when He visits His people in love! Is there one here who has been
   having a long fast? Has your soul been sorely afflicted? Have you been
   desponding and trembling so that you have had no joy and gladness? Ah,
   when the Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself to you, He will soon change
   your sad state into something brighter and better! He will give you
   "beauty for ashes, the oil ofjoy for mourning, the garment of praise
   for the spirit of heaviness." Look up, poor trembling Soul, to yonder
   hill of Calvary where Jesus bled and died for you--and there let your
   joys begin and never, never end!

   20, 21. Thus says the LORD of Hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that
   there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: and the
   inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily
   to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of Hosts: I will go also.
   You see that in the latter days there is to be a great spirit of prayer
   and of seeking the Lord. This will include the hearing of the Word and
   the love of the Truths of God. And one good sign is that the people
   will say, "Let us go speedily." They will not come in late, as so many
   do nowadays, just getting into their seats when the Scripture is being
   read, instead of being present at the opening prayer. I am sorry to say
   that some of you are getting later and later--and some morning I shall
   most certainly carry out my threat, and preach the sermon first unless
   you are more punctual! A little more thought and a little sooner start
   and you might all be at God's House on time. David longed to be a
   doorkeeper in the Lord's house and you know that the doorkeeper is
   always the first in and the last out. May you all have more of David's
   spirit, though you cannot all be doorkeepers! These people are to say,
   "Let us go speedily (the marginal reading is 'continually') to pray
   before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also." That is
   the best way of bringing others to God's House--to say, "I will go
   also." I have read that Julius Caesar never said to his soldiers, "Go,"
   but, "Let us go." So should we seek to get others to God's House by
   saying to them, "Let us go...I will go also."

   22, 23. Yes, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD
   ofHosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD. Thus says the LORD
   ofHosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take
   hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the
   skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have
   heard that God is with you. In the latter days, the Jews, who are still
   despised, oppressed and persecuted in many countries, shall be so
   highly honored by God that men of other nationalities will want to be
   in their company! But, no doubt, there is here a special reference to
   Jesus, the Jew, the Son of God who became the Son of Mary, too. Oh that
   this very day many Jews and Gentiles may take hold of His skirt by a
   living faith and so may receive blessing from Him and be saved in the
   Lord with an everlasting salvation!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Holy Spirit in the Covenant

   (No. 3048)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON A LORD'S-DAY MORNING IN 1856.

   "And I will put My Spirit within you." Ezekiel 36:27.

   THE Holy Spirit is the third Person in the Covenant. We have considered
   "God in the Covenant" and "Christ in the

   Covenant" [See Sermons #93 and 103, Volume 2--GOD IN THE COVENANT and
   CHRIST IN THE COVENANT.] and now, this morning, we have to consider the
   Holy Spirit in the Covenant. For, remember, it is necessary that the
   Triune God should work out the salvation of the Lord's people if they
   are to be saved at all. And it was absolutely requisite that when the
   Covenant was made, all that was necessary should be put into it and,
   among the rest, the Holy Spirit, without whom all things done even by
   the Father and by Jesus Christ would be ineffectual, for He is needed
   as much as the Savior of men, or the Father of spirits. In this age,
   when the Holy Spirit is too much forgotten, and but little honor is
   accorded to His sacred Person, I feel that there is a deep
   responsibility upon me to endeavor to magnify His great and holy name.
   I almost tremble, this morning, in entering on so profound a subject,
   for which I feel myself so insufficient. But, nevertheless, relying on
   the aid, the guidance and the witness of the Holy Spirit, Himself, I
   venture upon an exposition of this text, "I will put My Spirit within
   you."

   The Holy Spirit is given, in the Covenant, to all the children of God
   and received by each in due course. And yet upon our Lord Jesus Christ
   did the Spirit first descend and alighted upon Him as our Covenant
   Head, "like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the
   beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his
   garments." The Father has given the Holy Spirit without measure unto
   His Son--and from Him, in measure, though still in abundance, do all
   "the brethren who dwell together in unity" (or union with Christ)
   partake of the Spirit. This holy anointing flows down from Jesus, the
   Anointed One, to every part of His mystical body, to every individual
   member of His Church. The Lord's declaration concerning Christ was, "I
   have put My Spirit upon HIM." And He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is
   upon ME, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor;
   He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted." The Spirit was first poured
   upon Christ and from Him descends to all those who are in union with
   His adorable Person. Let us bless the name of Christ if we are united
   to Him--and let us look up to our Covenant Head, expecting that from
   Him will flow down the heavenly unction which shall anoint our souls!

   Those who are taught of the Spirit often surpass those who are taught
   of man. I have met with an entirely uninstructed clod-hopper in the
   country who never went to school for one hour in his life--who yet knew
   more about the Holy Scriptures than many a clergyman trained at the
   University! I have been told that it is a common practice for men in
   Wales, while they are at work breaking stones on the road, to discuss
   difficult points in theology which many a Divine cannot master! How?
   Because they humbly read the Scriptures, trusting only to the guidance
   of the Holy Spirit, believing that He will lead them into all
   Truth--and He is pleased so to do. All other instruction is very well.
   Solomon says "that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good." We
   should all seek to know as much as can be known, but let us remember
   that in the work of salvation real knowledge must be obtained by the
   teaching of the Holy Spirit. And if we would learn in the heart and not
   merely in the head, we must be taught entirely by the Holy Spirit. What
   you learn from man, you can unlearn--but what you learn of the Spirit
   is fixed indelibly in your heart and conscience--and not even Satan
   himself can steal it from you. Go, you ignorant ones, who often stagger
   at the Truths of Revelation--go and ask the Spirit, for He is the Guide
   of benighted souls! Yes, and the Guide of His own enlightened people,
   too, for without His aid, even when they have been "once enlightened,
   and have tasted of the heavenly gift," they would not understand all
   Truths of God unless He led them into it.

   IV. I desire further to mention that GOD WILL GIVE THE SPIRIT TO US AS
   A SPIRIT OF APPLICATION.

   Thus it was that Jesus said to His disciples, "He shall glorify Me, for
   He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto

   you." To make the matter still more plain, our Lord added, "All things
   that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of
   Mine, and shall show it unto you." Let me remind you how frequently
   Jesus impressed on His disciples the fact that He spoke to them the
   words of His Father--"My Doctrine," said He, "is not Mine, but His that
   sent Me." And again, "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of
   Myself: but the Father that dwells in Me, He does the works." As Christ
   thus made known the will of God the Father to His people, so the Holy
   Spirit makes known to us the words of Christ. I could almost affirm
   that Christ's words would be of no use to us unless they were applied
   to us by the Holy Spirit! Beloved, we need the application to assure
   our hearts that they are our own, that they are intended for us and
   that we have an interest in their blessedness! And we need the unction
   of the Spirit to make them bedew our hearts and refresh our souls.

   Did you ever have a promise applied to your heart? Do you understand
   what is meant by application as the exclusive work of the Spirit? It is
   as Paul says the Gospel came to the Thessalonians, "not in word only,
   but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance."
   Sometimes it comes all of a sudden--your heart may have been the scene
   of a thousand distracting thoughts, billow dashing against billow till
   the tempest rose beyond your control. But soon some text of Scripture,
   like a mighty fiat from the lips of Jesus, has stilled your troubled
   breast and immediately there has been a great calm--and you have
   wondered from where it came. The sweet sentence has rung like music in
   your ears. Like a wafer made of honey it has moistened your tongue.
   Like a charm it has quelled your anxieties while it has dwelt uppermost
   in your thoughts all day--reining in all your lawless passions and
   restless strivings. Perhaps it has continued in your mind for weeks!
   Wherever you went, whatever you did, you could not dislodge it nor did
   you wish to do so, so sweet, so savory was it to your soul. Have you
   not thought of such a text as that as the best in the Bible, the most
   precious in all the Scriptures? That was because it was so graciously
   applied to you!

   Oh, how I love applied promises! I may read a thousand promises as they
   stand recorded on the pages of this Sacred Volume and yet get nothing
   from them. My heart would not burn within me for all the richness of
   the store--but one promise brought home to my soul by the Spirit's
   application has such marrow and fatness in it that it would be food

   enough for forty days for many of the Lord's Elijahs! How sweet it is,
   in the times of deep affliction, to have this promise applied to the
   heart--"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and
   through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through
   the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon
   you"! Perhaps you say, "That is all enthusiasm." Of course it appears
   so to you, if, as natural men you discern not the things of the Spirit!
   But we are talking about spiritual things to spiritual men and to them
   it is no mere enthusiasm--it is often a matter of life or death. I have
   known numerous cases where almost the only plank on which the poor
   troubled saint was able to float was just one text of which, somehow or
   other, he had got so tight a grasp that nothing could take it away from
   him! Nor is it only His Word which needs to be applied to us. "He shall
   receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you," may be referred,
   likewise, to our Savior's precious blood. We sometimes sing--

   "There is a Fountain filled with blood"-- and we talk of bathing in it.
   Now faith does not apply the blood to the soul--that is the work of the
   Spirit. True, I seek it by faith, but it is the Spirit who washes me in
   "the fountain opened...for sin and for uncleanness." It is the Spirit
   who receives of the things of Christ and shows them to me. You would
   never have a drop of blood sprinkled on your heart unless it was
   sprinkled by the hand of the Spirit. So, too, the robe of Christ's
   righteousness is entirely fitted on us by Him. We are not invited to
   appropriate the obedience of Christ to ourselves--but the Spirit brings
   all to us which Christ has made for us. Ask, then, of the Spirit, that
   you may have the Word applied, the blood applied, pardon applied and
   Grace applied--and you shall not ask in vain--for Jehovah has said, "I
   will put My Spirit within you."

   V. But now we have to mark another very important point. WE MUST
   RECEIVE THE SPIRIT AS A SANCTIFYING SPIRIT.

   Perhaps this is one of the greatest works of the Holy
   Spirit--sanctifying the soul. It is a great work to purge the soul from
   sin. It is greater than if one should wash a leopard till all his spots
   were obliterated, or an Ethiopian till his sable skin became white, for
   our sins are more than skin-deep--they have entered into our very
   nature! Should we be outwardly washed white this morning, we would be
   black and polluted before tomorrow! And if all the spots were taken
   away today, they would grow again tomorrow, for we are black all
   through! You may scrub the flesh, but it is black to the last--our
   sinfulness is a leprosy that lies deep within. But the Holy Spirit
   sanctifies the soul. He enters the heart, beginning the work of
   sanctification by conversion. He keeps possession of the heart and
   preserves sanctification by perpetually pouring in fresh oil of Grace
   till at last He will perfect sanctification by making us pure and
   spotless, fit to dwell with the blest inhabitants of Glory!

   The way the Spirit sanctifies is this--first He reveals to the soul the
   evil of sin and makes the soul hate it. He shows it to be a deadly
   evil, full of poison--and when the soul begins to hate it, the next
   thing the Spirit does is to show it that the blood of Christ takes all
   the guilt away and, from that very fact, to lead it to hate sin even
   more than it did when it first knew its blackness. The Spirit takes it
   to "the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of
   Abel." And there He tolls the death-knell of sin as He points to the
   blood of Christ and says, "He shed this for you, that He might purchase
   you unto Himself to be one of His peculiar people, zealous of good
   works." Afterwards, the Holy Spirit may, at times, allow sin to break
   out in the heart of the child of God that it may be more strongly
   repressed by greater watchfulness in the future. And when the heir of
   Heaven indulges in sin, the Holy Spirit sends a sanctifying
   chastisement upon the soul until the heart, being broken with grief by
   the blueness of the wound, evil is cleansed away and Conscience,
   feeling uneasy, sends the heart to Christ who removes the chastisement
   and takes away the guilt!

   Again, remember Believer, all your holiness is the work of the Holy
   Spirit You have not a Grace which the Spirit did not give you! You have
   not a solitary virtue which He did not work in you. You have no
   goodness which has not been given to you by the Spirit. Therefore,
   never boast of your virtues or of your Graces. Have you now a sweet
   temper, whereas you once were passionate? Boast not of it--you will be
   angry if the Spirit leaves you. Are you now pure, whereas you were once
   unclean? Boast not of your purity, the seed of which was brought from
   Heaven--it never grew within your heart by nature--it is God's gift. Is
   unbelief prevailing against you? Do your lusts, your evil passions and
   your corrupt desires seem likely to master you? Then I will not say,
   "Up, and at 'em!" but I will say--Cry mightily unto God that you may be
   filled with the Holy Spirit--so shall you conquer at last and become
   more than conqueror over all your sins--seeing that the Lord has
   engaged to put His Spirit "within you."

   VI. When I have spoken of two more points, I shall conclude. THE SPIRIT
   OF GOD IS PROMISED TO THE HEIRS OF HEAVEN AS A DIRECTING SPIRIT to
   guide them in the path of Providence.

   If you are ever in a position in which you know not what road to take,
   remember that your "strength is to sit still," and your wisdom is to
   wait for the directing voice of the Spirit saying to you, "This is the
   way, walk you in it." I trust I have proved this myself and I am sure
   every child of God who has been placed in difficulties must have felt,
   at times, the reality and blessedness of this guidance. And have you
   never prayed to Him to direct you? If you have, did you ever find that
   you went wrong afterwards? I do not mean the sort of prayers that they
   present who ask counsel, but not of the Lord--"who walk to go down into
   Egypt.. .to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh," and then
   ask God to bless them in a way that He never sanctioned. No, you must
   start fairly by renouncing every other trust. It is only thus that you
   can make proof of His promise, "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust
   also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." Take with you, then, child
   of God, an open confession. Say, "Lord, I desire, like a sheet of
   water, to be moved by the breath of the Spirit. Here I lie, 'passive in
   Your hands.' Gladly would I know no will but Yours. Show me Your will,

   Lord! Teach me what to do and what to refrain from doing."

   To some of you this may seem all fanaticism. You believe not that God
   the Holy Spirit ever guides men in the way they should take. So you may
   suppose if you have never experienced His guidance. We have heard that
   when one of our English travelers in Africa told the inhabitants of the
   intense cold that sometimes prevailed in his country, by which water
   became so hard that people could skate and walk upon it, the king
   threatened to put him to death if he told anymore lies, for he had
   never felt or seen such things. And what one has never seen or felt is
   certainly fit subject for doubt and contradiction. But with regard to
   the Lord's people who tell you that they are led by the Spirit, I
   advise you to give heed to their sayings and seek to make the trial for
   yourselves! It would be a good thing if you were just to go to God, as
   a child, in all your distresses. Remember that as a Solicitor whom you
   may safely consult, as a Guide whose directions you may safely follow,
   as a Friend on whose protection you may safely rely, the Holy Spirit is
   personally present in the Church of Christ and with each of the
   disciples of Jesus! And there is no fee to pay but the fee of gratitude
   and praise, because He has directed you so well!

   VII. Just once more--THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL BE GIVEN TO GOD'S CHILDREN AS
   A COMFORTING SPIRIT.

   This is peculiarly His office. Have you ever felt, immediately before a
   great and grievous trouble, you have had a most unaccountable season of
   joy? You scarcely knew why you were so happy or so tranquil. You seemed
   to be floating upon a very Sea of Elysium--there was not a breath of
   wind to ruffle your peaceful spirit, all was serene and calm. You were
   not agitated by the ordinary cares and anxieties of the world. Your
   whole mind was absorbed in sacred meditation. By-and-by, the trouble
   comes and you say, "Now I understand it all. I could not, before,
   comprehend the meaning of that grateful lull, that quiet happiness, but
   I see now that it was designed to prepare me for these trying
   circumstances. If

   1 had been low and dispirited when this trouble burst upon me, it would
   have broken my heart. But now, thanks be to God, I can perceive through
   Jesus Christ how this 'light affliction, which is but for a moment,'
   works for me, 'a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'" But,
   mark you, I believe that it is worthwhile to have the troubles in order
   to get the comfort of the Holy Spirit--it is worthwhile to endure the
   storm in order to realize the joys!

   Sometimes my heart has been shaken by disgrace, shame and contempt, for
   many a brother minister, of whom I thought better things, has reviled
   me--and many a Christian has turned on his heels away from me because I
   had been misrepresented to him and he has hated me without a cause. But
   it has so happened that at that very time, if the whole Church had
   turned its back on me and the whole world had hissed me, it would not
   have greatly moved me, for some bright ray of spiritual sunshine lit up
   my heart and Jesus whispered to me those sweet words, "I am My
   Beloved's, and My Beloved is Mine." At such times the consolations of
   the Spirit have been neither few nor small with me! O Christian, if I
   were able, I would bring you yet further into the depths of this
   glorious passage but, as I cannot, I must leave it with you. It is full
   of honey--only put it to your lips and get the honey from it. "I will
   put My Spirit within you."

   In winding up, let me add a remark or two. Do you not see here the
   absolute certainty of the salvation of every Believer? Or rather, is it
   not absolutely certain that every member of the family of God's Israel
   must be saved? For it is written, "I will put My Spirit within you." Do
   you think that when God puts His Spirit within men, they can possibly
   be damned? Can you think God puts His Spirit into them and yet they
   perish and are lost? You may think so if you please, Sir, but I will
   tell you what God thinks--"I will put My Spirit within you, and cause
   you to walk in My statutes; and you shall keep My judgments, and do
   them." Sinners are far from God by wicked works and they will not come
   unto Him that they may have life. But when God says, "I will put My
   Spirit within you," He compels them to come to Him!

   What a vainpretense it is to profess to honor God by a Doctrine that
   makes salvation depend on the will ofmanHf it were true, you might say
   to God, "We thank You, O Lord, for what You have done--You have given
   us a great many things and we offer You Your wages of praise, which are
   justly due to Your name, but we think we deserve more, for the deciding
   point was in our free will." Beloved, do not any of you swerve from the
   free Grace of God, for the babblings about man's free agency are
   neither more nor less than lies, right contrary to the Truth of Christ
   and the teachings of the Spirit.

   How certain, then, is the salvation of every elect soul! It does not
   depend on the will of man--he is "made willing"

   in the day of God's power. He shall be called at the set time and his

   heart shall be effectually changed, that he may become a trophy of the
   Redeemer's power. That he was unwilling before is no hindrance, for God
   gives him the will, so that he is then of a willing mind. Thus, every
   heir of Heaven must be saved because the Spirit is put within him and
   thereby his disposition and affections are molded according to the will
   of God!

   Once more, how useless is it for any persons to suppose that they can
   be saved without the Holy Spirit! Ah, dear Friends, men sometimes go
   very near to salvation without being saved--like the poor man who lay
   by the side of the pool of Bethesda, always close to the water, but
   never getting in. How many changes in outward character there are which
   very much resemble conversion but, not having the Spirit in them, they
   fail after all! Deathbed repentances are often looked upon as very
   sincere, although too frequently, we fear, they are but the first
   gnawing of the worm that never dies. I have read, this week, an
   extraordinary anecdote, told by Dr. Campbell, of a woman who, many
   years ago, was condemned to death for murdering her child and was hung
   in the Grass Market at Edinburgh. She very diligently improved the six
   weeks allowed her by the Scottish law, previous to her execution, and
   the ministers who were with her continually gave it as their opinion
   that she died in the sure and certain hope of salvation. The appointed
   day came. She was hung, but it being very rainy, and no awning having
   been prepared, those who had the charge of her execution were in a
   great hurry to complete it and get under shelter--so she was cut down
   before the legal time and, as the custom is, the body was given up to
   her friends to be buried. A coffin was provided and she was moved in it
   to East Lothian where her husband was going to bury her. They stopped
   at a public-house on the road, to refresh themselves, when, to their
   great surprise and alarm, in rushed a boy and said he heard a noise in
   the coffin! They went out and found that the woman was alive! The vital
   powers had been suspended, but the life was not extinct and the jolting
   of the cart had restored her circulation. After a few hours she became
   quite well. They moved their residence and went to another part of the
   country. But the sad part of the tale is that the woman was as bad a
   character afterwards as she ever was before and, if anything, worse.
   She lived as openly in sin and despised and hated religion even more
   than she had previously done.

   This is a most remarkable case. I believe that you would see that the
   great majority of those who profess to repent on their deathbeds, if
   they could rise again from their graves, would live a life as profane
   and godless as ever. Rely on this-- it is nothing but the Grace of the
   Spirit of God that makes sure work of your souls. Unless He shall
   change you, you may be changed, but it will not be a change that will
   endure! Unless He shall put His hand to the work, the work will be
   marred, the pitcher spoiled on the wheel. Cry unto Him, therefore, that
   He may give you the Holy Spirit, that you may have the evidence of a
   real conversion and not a base counterfeit! Take heed, Sirs, take heed!
   Natural fear, natural love, natural feelings are not conversion!
   Conversion, in the first instance, and by all subsequent edification,
   must be the work of the Holy Spirit and of Him alone! Never rest
   comfortable, then, until you have the Holy Spirit's operations most
   surely effected in your hearts!
     __________________________________________________________________

"Going and Weeping"

   (No. 3049)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 9, 1871.

   "Going and weeping." Jeremiah 50:4.

   POSSIBLY someone says, on hearing my text, "I like better to be going
   and singing." Yes, my Friend, and I do not blame you for making such a
   choice. As long as you can go and sing in the name of the Lord, let
   nothing stop you from doing so. It is meet that we who have been
   redeemed by Christ from destruction and are heirs of Heaven, should
   make merry and be glad. We should "rejoice in the Lord always," yet we
   must not despise others if they should seem to give more prominence to
   another phase of spiritual experience, namely, "going and weeping," for
   there are sons of sorrow on earth who will undoubtedly be sons of joy
   in Heaven. Among the sweetest flowers that bloom in the Savior's garden
   are those that, like the snowdrops and the lilies of the valley, hang
   down their heads.

   It is also possible to be going and singing and yet, at the same time,
   to be going and weeping, for the mind may be in such a complex
   condition that while it has abundant cause for joy, it has a sweet well
   of happy grief within itself. There is such a thing as a bitter
   sweet--the worldling has that. But there is also such a thing as a
   sweet bitter--and the Christian often has that--so that while he is
   weeping, he can also be singing. While his soul is cast down within
   him, yet does he lift up his horn on high and rejoice in the God of his
   salvation! It is quite possible to blend these two experiences and the
   life of God's people thus becomes like a rainbow, consisting partly of
   the sunshine of Heaven and partly of the raindrops of earth. They sing
   because of their present and future joy--and they weep because of the
   sad past and the relics of the Fall that are still about them--and the
   sins of the age that still surround them. I will not say that "Going
   and Weeping" is a better motto than "Going and Singing," but sometimes
   it is the only one we can use. And often it may be joined with the
   other. I hope I shall be able to show you that "going and weeping" is a
   very choice way of living.

   We see in our text, first, a blessed combination. When we have spoken
   of that, we will mention when and where this combination should be
   conspicuous. And lastly we will give reasons why this combination
   should be manifest in our lives.

   I. First, here is A BLESSED COMBINATION--"going and weeping." The two
   things certify each other, supplement each other and stimulate each
   other.

   First, they certify each other. I mean that when a man is going away
   from his past sins, away from his old habits, away from
   self-righteousness, if that reformation is a work of Divine Grace, it
   will have a watermark upon it--there will be "weeping" with the
   "going." If the prodigal had only said, "I will arise and go to my
   father," we might have doubted the reality of his repentance. But when
   he added, "and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven
   and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son," then the
   tears of penitence, which must have accompanied such a confession,
   verified the reformation. Beware, Beloved, of all dry-eyed
   reformations! Certain preachers disparage and run down repentance--they
   say that it is simply "a change of mind." That is true in a sense, but
   what a change of mind it is--not such a change of mind as a man makes
   when, instead of buying one hat, he buys another or, instead of
   spending a shilling, he saves nine pence out of it! I have heard
   preachers refer to repentance as if it were a trifling, insignificant
   alteration of opinion--but if that is all the repentance we have had,
   it is a repentance of which we need to repent! The old-fashioned
   repentance is the only one that will bring you to Heaven! If you do not
   leave--

   "The sins you loved before, And show that you in earnest grieve,

   By doing so no more"--

   you will come short of the repentance which the Holy Spirit works in
   the souls of the Lord's own chosen people! There must be, as John the
   Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees, "fruits meet for repentance."
   Or, as the marginal reading puts it, "answerable to amendment of life."
   There must be true godly sorrow over your past evil conduct. There must
   be a loathing of yourself in the sight of God. And all the "going" that
   is not attended by "weeping" will be a bad going after all.

   Now I will turn this Truth of God around the other way by reminding you
   that there are some persons who profess to be very repentant concerning
   the past--if they could live their lives over again they would not live
   at all as they have done--so they say and their tears flow copiously. I
   am not always pleased to see copious tears. When seeing inquirers, I
   have noticed that when men weep very much, they are either men of a
   tender spirit who are easily moved to tears, or else they have been so
   accustomed to drink that they have got into a maudlin state and cannot
   help crying. I would rather have tears falling inside a penitent than
   outside. Never condemn a man because he does not weep as others do--it
   may be that his heart is too full for tears. Nor condemn those who cry
   outwardly, for tears are often genuine evidences of repentance. I
   merely remark that a briny tear, in itself, is not a sufficient proof
   of that godly sorrow for sin of which the tear is only the index. And
   when I warned you against dry-eyed reformations, I meant those
   so-called reformations which do not include real sorrow for sin.
   External weeping is quite a secondary matter, but inward weeping there
   must be in all true converts. Some people cry a great deal and talk a
   great deal--they say that their heart is adamant and that they are dead
   as a stone. Of course they are dead! They never were spiritually alive
   and the natural, stony heart has never been taken out of their flesh!
   There is a great deal of truth in what they say, but they have not
   learned it from the Spirit of God. They have caught certain phrases
   from the lips of gracious people and merely say what they hear others
   say--just as parrots do when they are taught to repeat what their
   owners say.

   How am I to know whether this profession of repentance is genuine or
   not? Why, as I know the value of the "going" by the "weeping," so I
   know the value of the "weeping" by the "going!" Is the weeping man's
   life changed? Has God the Holy Spirit enabled him to lay the axe to the
   roots of those old habits of which he says he repents? Does he go on
   drinking and yet say that he mourns that he was a drunkard? Does he go
   on swearing and yet say that he laments his profanity? Is his temper
   constantly boiling over, yet he says that he repents of it? My dear
   Friends, there must be something more than that, for God cannot look
   upon our expressions of regret for the past as having any sincerity in
   them unless they are attended by a Grace-assisted effort to put an end
   to such sins for the future! There must be the "going" to prove the
   "weeping" to be true, as well as the "weeping" to prove that the
   "going" is in the right road.

   In the next place, these two things supplement each other. That is to
   say, what is deficient in the "going" is supplied in the "weeping." And
   what is not in the "weeping" will be found in the "going." For
   instance, the "going" concerns the present. When a man is, by the Grace
   of God, renewed in the spirit of his mind, he is a different man from
   what he used to be--there is faith instead of unbelief, love to God
   instead of enmity against Him and holiness instead of sin. In fact, he
   is "a new creature" in Christ Jesus! And this "going" applies to the
   future as well as to the present, for the man will "go from strength to
   strength." Led on by the Divine Spirit, he will "grow in Grace, and in
   the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He will tread the
   path of holiness till he enters the Celestial City, to go no more out
   forever. But when the black and dreary past of his sinful life again
   comes before his mind, he cannot help weeping. Yet even then he pleads
   the merit of the precious blood of Jesus and prays with penitent king
   David, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness:
   according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my
   transgressions." When that black past is blotted out like a cloud blown
   away by the wind, the "weeping" and the "going" are not
   separated--tears have still to be shed because of the turning aside,
   the faltering, the halting even in going along the road which God has
   marked out for us. When we see men reclaimed from outward sin. When we
   mark the manifest change in their character we may call that "going" in
   the right road! But unless there is some "weeping" through intense
   heart-emotion, some manifestation of sincere sorrow over that in which
   they once delighted and of regret that they have not attained to the
   high and holy things which ought to be the portion of all true
   Christians, there is something lacking.

   Now turn the thought the other way and notice how the "going"
   supplements the "weeping." The "weeping" is an evidence that we have
   learned our need. The "going" to Christ in faith supplies that need.
   The "weeping" is the

   acknowledgment of the disease. The "going" is the application to the
   Great Physician. The "weeping" mourns over our nakedness. The "going"
   takes us to the King's wardrobe to put on Christ's spotless robe of
   righteousness. The "weeping" is because of our emptiness. The "going"
   links us on to His fullness. It would be wretched "weeping" if we did
   not know the blessed way of "going" to Him of whom Paul wrote, "My God
   shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ
   Jesus."

   I also said that these two things stimulate each other--and the truth
   of this statement is readily perceptible. Our "going" leads to our
   "weeping," and our "weeping" excites us to "going." The poor prodigal
   felt the pangs of hunger within his body and he felt in his spirit that
   he had sinned against his father. Therefore he said, "I will arise and
   go." And I expect that as he went, his hunger quickened his pace--and
   that every pang of his emptiness, and every sight of his
   filthiness--and every consequent tear would make him speed with greater
   energy towards his father's house. A deep sense of sin is often a
   blessedly impelling power to drive us to the Savior. I desire never, in
   this world, to be free from a deep sense of the bitterness and
   guiltiness of sin. Even though freed from the guilt of sin by the
   precious blood of Jesus, I still desire to feel what an abominable
   thing sin is, that I may go, eagerly and passionately, to my dear
   Lord's wounds and get the one only effectual remedy for all my soul
   diseases. Light thoughts of sin breed light thoughts of the Savior.
   When our "weeping" over our transgressions ceases, our "going" to Him
   who "was wounded for our transgressions" is apt to also cease.
   Repentance and faith are like the Siamese twins. If one is sick, the
   other cannot be well, for they live but one life. If ever you are asked
   which comes first, repentance or faith, you may answer, by another
   question, "Which spoke of a wheel moves first when the wheel begins to
   revolve?" You know that they are all set in motion at the same time.
   So, when the hand of God sets our soul "going" in the right road, it
   also sets our soul and often our eyes "weeping." And I believe that
   when our soul is really "going" towards God, it is with a deepened
   repentance over the past and a sincere "weeping" over the imperfections
   which it still has to lament.

   So that the "weeping" stimulates the "going" and I am sure that the
   "going" stimulates the "weeping." If the Lord helps you to grow in
   Grace and you get much joy and peace in believing, you will be sure to
   say, "What a fool I was to have been all those years a slave to sin and
   an enemy to such a blessed Savior!" And when you get very near to God
   and "walk in the light, as He is in the light," you will see your
   imperfections more than you ever did before. When I meet with a Brother
   who tells me that he is nearly perfect, I know that he is living in the
   dark, for, if he lived in the light, he would see how far short he came
   of the Glory of God. You think your white linen looks very white, do
   you not? But when the snow falls and you place your linen upon it, it
   no longer looks white. So, until you come near to God, you do not know
   what "perfection" is--but when you get even a dim perception of what
   His holiness is, you say, with the Patriarch Job, "I have heard of You
   by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor
   myself and repent in dust and ashes." Oh, that the Lord would enable us
   to have more true "going" in the way of holiness-- growing in communion
   with the Holy Spirit, advancing in our likeness to Christ and becoming
   more humble, more prayerful and more fervent in spirit and more
   diligent in service, for then I am certain that the blessed art of holy
   "weeping" would be more practiced by us every day of our life! So, the
   "weeping" helps our "going" in the right road and our poor "going"
   leads to more "weeping" because we do not go better.

   II. Now I leave the explanation of this strange combination of "going
   and weeping" to point out WHEN AND WHERE IT SHOULD BE MOST CONSPICUOUS.

   And here, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I begin with myself and with
   my Brothers engaged in the same holy office. Scripture teaches us that
   with the sower of the Good Seed of the Kingdom, there should always be
   a "going" and a "weeping." Here is a passage to prove my assertion to
   be true, "He that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall
   doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." We
   have a Christ-like task if our "going" is what it should be--to "preach
   the Word," to "make full proof of our ministry," to "keep back nothing
   that is profitable unto you," to bring forth, as scribes instructed
   unto the Kingdom of Heaven, "things new and old" out of the Divine
   Treasury--to go after the outlying masses and "compel them to come in,"
   that our Master's great House may be filled for the great Gospel feast
   to care for the sick, the sad and the dying--all this is included in
   the "going" of "a good minister of Jesus Christ." But it will be a poor
   "going" if there is no "weeping" with it! Think of the Prince of
   Preachers--what a wonderful "going" was His! Ah, and what wonderful
   "weeping" was His--at the grave of Lazarus and over the Jerusalem
   sinners! How deeply He loved even those who rejected Him! Oh, that we
   who profess to be His servants had more tender hearts! Then we would
   say with the weeping Prophet Jeremiah, "Oh that my head were waters,
   and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for
   the slain of the daughter of my people!" Paul was indeed a "going"
   preacher--"in journeying often" and, "in labors more abundant." But
   what a "weeping" preacher he was also! You know how he said to the
   elders of the Church at Ephesus, in his farewell address at Miletus,
   "Remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn
   everyone night and day with tears." And to the Church at Philippi he
   wrote, "For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you
   even weeping, that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ." So
   these two things, "going and weeping," ought to be characteristic of
   every true preacher of the Word--and of all teachers and other servants
   of the Lord Jesus Christ whose office is of the like kind. I often feel
   that I can adopt Doddridge's language and say--

   "Arise, my most tender thoughts, arise!

   To torrents melt my streaming eyes

   And you, my heart, with anguish feel

   Those evils which you cannot heal!

   See human nature sunk in shame.

   See scandals poured on Jesus' name!

   The Father wounded through the Son--

   The world abused and souls undone.

   See the short course of vain delight

   Closing in everlasting night--

   In flames that no abatement know

   Though briny tears forever flow.

   My God, I feel the mournful scene.

   My heart yearns over dying men

   And gladly my pity would reclaim

   And snatch the firebrands from the flame!

   But feeble my compassion proves,

   And can but weep where most it loves!

   Your own all-saving arms employ,

   And turn these drops of grief to joy." This combination, "going and
   weeping," should be conspicuous, not only in those who plead with men
   for God, but also in those who plead with God for men. The best praying
   consists in "going" "boldly unto the Throne of Grace" and pleading
   there--yet they who win most from God are those whose hearts are most
   deeply affected--those in whom there is the "weeping" as well as the
   "going." Such was the prayer of Jacob in that great night of wrestling
   concerning which the Prophet Hosea says, "He had power over the Angel
   and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto Him." Weeping is a
   wondrous help to those who would find their way to the heart of God!
   So, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, pour out your hearts before
   Him--pour them out like water before the Lord and when your heart is
   breaking for the longing that it has, even if you shed no outward
   tears, you have learned the sacred art of praying and you shall receive
   what you have asked in so far as it is according to the will of God!

   Beloved, it is a sad thing to have to say, yet it is true, that this
   "going and weeping" ought to be very conspicuous in backsliders. I am
   always glad to see backsliders returning to their first love and
   restored to fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. But there are one or
   two things that I always like to see about such people--the absence of
   all arrogance and self-justification and the presence of deep humility
   both towards God and towards His Church--for their offense has been
   against God's people as well as against God, Himself. When a Church
   member falls into sin, all the members have to suffer in their repute
   among men and they also have to suffer in their power with God and,
   therefore, the returning of a backslider should always be accompanied
   by manifest signs of the deepest contrition. Many speak of David's sin,
   but say nothing of David's penitence. Nathan rebuked him in a fashion
   that very few kings would have endured, yet there was no anger in
   David's heart against him for the stern way in which he told him of his
   faults. The 51st and other penitential Psalms show how melted by
   contrition David's soul was--groans, sobs and sighs escaped from his
   heart instead of his former joyous music. There was a "going" and a
   "weeping" on the part of the repenting backslider! If he had known
   George Herbert's quaint lines, he might have said--

   "O who will give me tears? Come all you springs, Dwell in my head and
   eyes--come, clouds and rain! My grief has need of all the watery things
   That Nature has produced. Let every vein Suck up a river to supply my
   eyes! My weary weeping eyes are too dry for me Unless they get new
   conduits, new supplies, To bear them out and with my state agree. What
   are two shallow fords, two little spouts Of a lesser world? The greater
   is but small-- A narrow cupboard for my griefs and doubts, Which need
   provision in the midst of all. Verses, you are too fine a thing, too
   wise For my rough sorrows----cease, be dumb and mute! Give up your feet
   and running to my eyes, And keep your measures for some lover's lute,
   Whose grief allows him music and a rhyme-- For mine excludes both
   measure, tune and time. Alas, my God!"

   But, Beloved, this "going and weeping" should also be seen in
   Christians who are making progress in the Divine Life. I believe it
   always will be seen in those who are diligently and carefully watching
   and striving against even the appearanceof evil. That "going" which
   consists in a sort of feverish excitement, or in a sudden leap into a
   high condition of soul is to be very seriously suspected. I have found
   that I have had to fight for every inch of the road that I have ever
   traveled Heavenward. I do not think I ever gained any spiritual victory
   easily. If any here find the road to Heaven to be strewn with flowers
   and one in which they can run without being weary, I can only say that
   I have not found it so--and that if I did not wait upon the Lord, I
   should utterly fall. Brothers and Sisters, I pray you to suspect that
   it is presumption and not the full assurance of faith if you are always
   "going," but never "weeping." I have already explained that this
   "weeping" does not put aside the rejoicing, for a Christian may
   "rejoice in the Lord" all the more while he mourns before God on
   account of his own shortcomings, waywardness and faultiness. I think
   the most joyful soul among us may willingly sing--

   "Lord, let me weep for naught but sin, And after none but Thee And then
   I would, oh, that I might A constant weeper be!"

   And this "going and weeping" should also be conspicuous in every
   student--I mean not only students for the ministry, but students for
   Heaven, and that is what every Christian is. The Apostle John was a
   student, and he once saw, in the hand of God, "a book...sealed with
   seven seals." And when it was asked, "Who is worthy to open the book,
   and to loose the seals thereof?" and there was no man found worthy,
   what did John do? He says, "I wept much." And often that is almost as
   good as knowing the original languages--indeed, it may be better! If
   the heart can weep over a Doctrine, it will get that Doctrine opened up
   before long. There is no chemical so strong as our tears for piercing
   through the hard shell of the Truth of God. Sincerely cry over the
   Truth and soon the Truth will enter your soul and you will know its
   inmost meaning! There is a way of "going" by bending the mind to the
   Truth of God, but there is also a "weeping" in the passionate longing
   that we ought always to have towards God's statutes. "Going and
   Weeping" is a noble motto for the student.

   So it is for the Christian worker and for the Christian sufferer I will
   put the two together. The Christian worker goes and weeps--the
   Christian sufferer weeps, yet goes. I desire, while working for God in
   vigorous health, to maintain a lowly, humble, penitent frame of mind.
   But if sickly and laid low--and made to weep through bodily pain or
   relative affliction, I ask that I may have cheerful courage, so that if
   I cannot do much, I may do somethingfor the Lord and still keep on
   "going." I have seen and often is my spirit melted at the sight of one
   whose sufferings seldom abate, yet whose desire to serve God never
   abates, but rather increases and who would give anything if activity
   might take the place of patience. Blessed be those weak ones whom the
   Lord elects to suffer, yet who still seek to serve Him! And blessed are
   those who actively serve Him, yet sit humbly at His feet and feel that
   they are less than nothing and who weep tears of joy to think that God
   should so honor such poor worms as they are as to permit them to do
   anythingfor His dear name's sake!

   This "going and weeping" ought to be most conspicuous in those of you
   who are not yet saved. If you really want to be saved you will seek the
   Lord your God by hearing His Word and by much earnest prayer. If His
   Grace is really working in you, you will seek Him by casting yourselves
   at His feet and by looking to the great Sacrifice of Christ upon the
   Cross and by trusting in His redeeming blood. But with all that "going"
   there will be "weeping." You will loathe yourselves in your own
   sight--you will bemoan the corruptions of your heart and cry, "The
   whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the soles of the
   feet even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and
   bruises, and putrefying sores." Never cease your "weeping" till Christ
   has said, "I absolve you." Sigh and cry until, at His dear Cross you
   have seen all your transgressions blotted out forever. O Sinner, I pray
   God to work in you this "going" and this "weeping!" I have already told
   you that the "weeping" is of no use without the "going" by faith to
   Christ, but I have also said to you that the supposed going to Christ
   is not a real "going" to Him unless there is also sincere "weeping" on
   account of sin. May your "going" be away from your sin and may your
   "weeping" lead you to look to Christ as you pray--

   "Lord God of my salvation, To You, to You, I cry! Oh let my
   supplication Arrest Your ear on high! Distresses round me thicken, My
   life draws near the grave-- Descend, O Lord, to quicken, Descend my
   soul to save!"

   III. Our time is nearly exhausted, but I ask you to have patience with
   me for two or three minutes more while I mention a very few out of the
   multitude of REASONS WHY THE "GOING" AND THE "WEEPING" SHOULD BE
   CONJOINED IN OUR LIVES.

   And, first, speaking to the members of this Church, I mention that
   which is always uppermost with me. We want to see a great enlargement
   of our Church, a deep and permanent revival of religion. We have had a
   foretaste of it, but we are sighing and crying for a great deal more.
   If we are to have it, there must be in the Church a "going" and a
   "weeping." Every Brother and every Sister must be doing something for
   the Lord! You who can preach in the street, go and do it! You who can
   distribute tracts, go and do it! You who can teach in the Sunday
   schools, go and do it! You who can serve the Lord in the lodging houses
   or anywhere else--you who can speak to the ones and the twos--go, go,
   GO, in the Lord's name, "go you into all the world and preach the
   Gospel to every creature!" But you will go best where you go "weeping."
   Ah, me, what cause we have for weeping! Planted in the midst of the
   greatest city upon the face of the earth--the greatest for population
   and, considering its Light of God, the greatest for transgression--what
   cause we have for weeping! If you knew what some of us have to know,
   you would know enough to give you heart-ache or heartbreak. If you went
   into some of our streets on the Sabbath, you might ask, "Is there any
   Sabbath at all with all this marketing and bargaining?" Look at the
   gin-palaces--those doors of Hell are wide open in almost every
   street--as though they sold the Bread of Life, men multiply these
   places where they destroy both body and soul! I dare hardly remind you
   of the haunts of vice--I will rather speak of the agents of
   superstition. How busily they ply their deadly trade! Some damn men by
   open sin but these damn them by a lie which they offer to them as the
   truth of God! This city is a reeking dunghill and, "except the Lord of
   Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as
   Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." May God, in His
   mercy, preserve us as salt in the midst of the general putridity!

   Some of you have even greater cause than this for weeping for, in your
   own houses there are those who love not the Lord. Your children are not
   the Lord's children. Perhaps your wife or your husband loves not your
   God. You may well weep as you go! Sympathy and activity, compassion and
   diligence--with this sweet mixture every saint ought to be anointed.
   The anointing of the Holy Spirit is better still, for that anointing
   has among its choicest ingredients the power to give us the sympathy
   and the diligence that we need.

   Now, Beloved Friends, I speak to you who are not converted. If you are
   seeking the Lord, there ought to be in you the "going" and the
   "weeping." The "weeping" as you think of Jesus and His great love to
   sinners like yourself. They despised Him, rejected Him, laughed Him to
   scorn but He still pursued them with love, as I trust He has pursued
   you. And I know some for whom He has, by His Grace, continued the
   pursuit until, at last, with a Divine art known only to Himself, He has
   made the unwilling, willing in the day of His power! For the love that
   Christ has to sinners, we ought all to feel our heart "weeping" that we
   should ever have offended such a Divine Lover. To transgress against
   His crown is high treason, but to transgress against His Cross is the
   sin of sins! I know not by what name to call such hardness of heart,
   such barbarity of spirit, such brutishness of soul. Think, for a
   moment, (for perhaps this may help you to go and weep), of the Lord,
   Himself, the King of Glory coming down among men and finding a poor
   shelter in His birth, little comfort in His life and no solace in His
   death. Very poor was He who could have worn the sun upon His head and
   the stars as rings upon His fingers! Very lowly was He before whom the
   tallest angel shrank into less than nothing in joyful adoration! Think
   of Him amidst the cold night of Gethsemane sweating great drops of
   blood! Think of Him scourged, spit upon, mocked and, at last, fastened
   to the cruel Cross to die the death of a slave--all for love of guilty
   men! Where are our hearts? Surely adamant is softer than our hearts if
   we do not weep to think that all this was for undeserving,
   ill-deserving, Hell-deserving sinners! And for no motive but that He
   was so full of love to them that He must give Himself thus to suffer
   and to die for them. Let us go to His Cross and look upon Him whom we
   have pierced and mourn because of Him. And while we rejoice over
   pardoned guilt, let us mourn that we have pierced the Lord.

   If nothing else will make us weep, there is one other reflection that
   should bring out the sorrow and also the activity of all Believers--and
   that is the fact that though we were once lost and far from God, we are
   now saved! There are sitting in this house hundreds, if not thousands
   of persons who were "heirs of wrath, even as others," "but you are
   washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of
   the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God"! And now, "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." "Oh, what amazing mercy," each saved soul may
   well say, "and all this for me!" Everlasting Love ordained it.
   Immutable Love has accomplished it. And unchanging Love will perfect
   it! The chief of sinners, yet chosen before time began! A sinner since
   conversion, yet loved with a love that will never change--it cannot
   increase and it never will diminish--loved with a love that will
   outlast the sun when its bright lamp has burned up all its oil! A love
   that shall outlast time so that when the angel shall "stand upon the
   sea and upon the earth," and swear "by Him that lives forever and
   ever," that there shall be time no longer, it shall not affect the
   heritage my soul possesses in the Infinite, Eternal Love of God the
   Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!

   Oh, how could I ever offend such a God as this? Shame on my heart!
   Gladly would I smite you that you could ever be an enemy to One who
   loved you before the day-star knew its place. And O base spirit that
   does not now serve God better, more ardently, more passionately, more
   perfectly, seeing that all this love has been spent on you! Beloved,
   God grant that we may realize, in all its sweetness, the meaning of our
   text, "going and weeping," and unto Him shall be glory forever and
   ever. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EPHESIANS 1:1-14.

   In this chapter we see what Paul, writing under the Inspiration of the
   Holy Spirit, has to say about the possessions and privileges of
   Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

   Verses 1, 2. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to
   the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
   Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord
   Jesus Christ Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this is a benediction for
   you as well as for the saints at Ephesus! It is for all "the faithful
   in Christ Jesus." May you all have Grace without measure and may you
   all have "the peace of God, which passes all understanding," to "keep
   your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"! Grace and peace are both
   to be had by believing in Jesus.

   3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
   blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.It
   is right that we should bless God as He has so richly blessed us.
   Blessed be the Heavenly Father who

   has so abundantly blessed His children. How has He blessed us? "With
   all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (or, things) in Christ."

   4. According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
   world, That is the commencement of all the blessing, God's electing
   love. This is the Fountain from which the Living Waters flow. There
   would have been no stream of blessing to us at all if it had not been
   for this first primeval choice of us by God, even as Jesus said to His
   disciples, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you."

   4. That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Here is
   the blessing of sanctification--we are chosen that we may be made holy.
   To what nobler end could we have been elected? Is not this the very
   highest of our heart's desires--"that we should be holy and without
   blame before Him in love"?

   5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
   Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will Oh, what
   a blessing this is, altogether inconceivable in its results!--

   "Behold what wondrous Grace, The Father has bestowed On sinners of a
   mortal race, To call them sons of God!"

   6. To the praise of the glory of His Grace, wherein He has made us
   accepted in the Beloved. Here is music for you-- "accepted in the
   Beloved." Are there grander words in any language than those four? Oh,
   the joy of being Beloved, adopted, accepted by God the Father because
   of His beloved Son! Now comes something more.

   7. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
   sins, according to the riches of His Grace. Redemption from
   destruction, the forgiveness of our sins--we have all this through "the
   riches of His Grace."

   8-14. Wherein He has abounded toward us in all wisdom andprudence;
   having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His
   good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself: that in the
   dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one
   all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on earth;
   even in Him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
   predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things
   after the counsel of His own will: that we should be to the praise of
   His glory, who first trusted in Christ In whom you also trusted, after
   that you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation: in whom
   also after that you believed, you were sealed with that HolySpirit
   ofpromise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption
   of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory. There is no
   end to the blessing which God gives to His chosen. He is always
   blessing us with blessings upon blessings, Grace upon Grace, and then
   there will be Glory to crown it all. Blessed be His holy name forever
   and ever!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Errand of Mercy

   (No. 3050)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

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

   "For the Son of Mann is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
   Luke 19:10.

   GOD came down from Heaven but once to be united with human flesh. On
   what errand did He come and who were the objectives of it? What
   messenger was sent on that errand? What method was pursued by Him? With
   what success was it attended?Our text gives us the information--"The
   Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Let us
   speak briefly upon these four points.

   I. First, AS TO THE OBJECTIVE OF CHRIST'S ERRAND--"The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost."

   That word, "lost," is constantly applied by desponding and despairing
   persons to themselves. Such people say, "We are lost--we feel that we
   are lost, wholly lost. There is no hope for us." Herein they betray
   both their ignorance and their unbelief--their ignorance, for to be
   lost is nothing so peculiar that they should claim to be heritors of a
   strange doom since the whole human race is lost! And their unbelief
   since Christ came especially to seek and to save the lost. Therefore,
   their being lost is not a ground for despair, but may be construed into
   a ground of hope! Let us think over that word, "lost," and see in what
   sense those are lost whom Christ came to save.

   Christ came to save those who were lost hereditarily. You often hear
   people say, "Man is in a state of probation." No such thing! There is
   no man now in a state of probation. Adam was in a state of probation
   and man in Adam was in a state of probation in the Garden as long as he
   stood in obedience to the test that was given. He was upon his trial,
   but the moment that Adam tasted of the forbidden fruit, the probation
   was over--he was a lost man! And our probation was over, too, for we
   were lost in him. Man, in this world, is either in a state of
   condemnation or a state of salvation. "He that believes not" is not in
   a state of probation--he is "condemned already, because he has not
   believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." We have Divine
   authority for this. A man who has believed in Jesus is not in a state
   of probation, for "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
   are in Christ Jesus," and, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." The
   fact is that we are all absolutely lost through the sin of Adam and we
   need a Revelation to show us that we are absolutely saved in the
   righteousness of Christ! It is not a question whether I shall fall or
   not--I have fallen in Adam. "By one man's disobedience," says the
   Apostle, "many were made sinners." I stood in Adam as long as he stood,
   but when Adam fell, he so represented me and all my kith and kin, that
   I fell in him--and fell so as to be hopelessly and forever lost--if
   Jesus Christ had not stepped in "to seek and to save that which was
   lost."

   We are lost, again, in another sense. We are lost naturally. It is
   supposed by some that man has it now in his power to choose his own
   character and so become the arbiter of his own destiny. They say that
   his nature is, at first, in such a state of equilibrium that he can
   select either the strait and narrow path of rectitude, or pursue the
   broad road which leads to destruction. No, my dear Friends, both
   Scripture and experience teach us otherwise! We are born with natures
   that incline towards that which is evil and never of themselves tend
   towards that which is good! "Behold," says David, "I was shapen in
   iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Well did Job ask, "Who
   can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one." How, then, can he
   be pure who is born of a woman who is herself sinful? How can we, who
   are impure, be the parents of pure children? Such a thing is not
   possible! The whole head of human nature is sick and the whole heart
   faint. Naturally from our very birth we go astray, speaking lies! There
   is written upon human nature, by the finger of our first parent, this
   word, "Lost!"--lost to God, therefore lost to the virtuous exercise of
   the affections and the true balance of the judgment, lost to rectitude,
   the will lost to obedience, the mental vision lost as to a sight of
   God, the moral sense lost as to that proper sensibility of conscience
   by which it shall stand out against sin. The reigning power in

   man is dislodged from its place--manhood's glory, his victory and
   integrity lost, lost forever--unless some greater Man shall restore it.
   This is how we truthfully describe the whole human race and so, surely,
   those whom Christ came to save were hereditarily and naturally lost.

   Among these, there are some so totally lost to all feeling that they do
   not know they are lost. Even the preaching of the Gospel does not
   suffice to bring them to a consciousness of their condition. Their
   conscience has become seared and their heart hardened by perversity in
   sin. If they once knew what it was to tremble at the wrath to come,
   that time is past. Even the wooing of Divine Mercy fall upon them as
   oil would fall upon marble and runs off without producing any effect.
   They wish they could feel. They envy souls that despair and wish that
   they could, themselves, despair. They despair, however, of ever being
   able to get into a good enough state of heart to despair! "If anything
   is felt," they say, "'tis only pain to find we cannot feel," and not
   much of that is felt. Now, even such Jesus Christ came to save--and we
   know this because such were some of us! Do not I recollect the time
   when I would have given my eyes for a tear and would have been willing
   to suffer anything if I could have but bent my knees and uttered one
   groan? But my heart would not yield a sigh or my eyes a tear! I turned
   to the Book of God but that did not move me. I listened to the preacher
   without emotion. It seemed as if even a dying Savior's groans could
   never move a heart so base as mine--and yet I bear witness that Christ
   came to save such, for I do myself rejoice in His salvation! You who
   are lost to all feeling may well catch at this text, "The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost."

   Then there are others who are lost to all hope. It is in vain that you
   pray with them. They rise up from their knees and thank you for your
   prayers, but they are assured that God will never hear them. They
   sometimes pray--necessity drives them to their knees--but they pray
   with the conviction that they are merely talking to a God whose mind is
   made up about them and determined to cast them forever from His
   Presence. Comforts that are available to others are of no use to them.
   You may skillfully seek to adjust your consolation so as to suit their
   case, but they ward off your comfort as skillfully as a warrior guards
   himself from the enemy's arrow with his shield. They will not hear a
   word of comfort, charm you ever so wisely. They have made up their
   minds that there cannot be anything in the Book of God for them except
   thunder and lightning and "a certain fearful looking for ofjudgment and
   fiery indignation." Yes, and if they had their own names put in the
   Bible and a promise appended to their names, they would deny their own
   names and the promise too! They have come to be in such a state of
   subjection to that tyrant, Unbelief, that they say, "Never shall we
   have hope. It is impossible that such sinners as we are, should ever be
   partakers of eternal life." If you ask them the reason for their
   despair, they cannot always tell you. "No," they say, "we would not
   tell any man living what we have done and what we feel." In one case it
   is some overwhelming sin. In another case it is having resisted at
   certain periods the convictions of conscience. Or yet again, it is old
   age--their having been living so long a time in impenitence. They have
   all different arguments and none of them are the arguments of truth.

   They believe Satan's lie that God is not willing to forgive, in
   preference to God's own oath--"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." I do not know how it is that these poor souls manage
   to get away from such texts as these--"All manner of sin and blasphemy
   shall be forgiven unto men." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin." "He is able also to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make
   intercession for them." And such an one as this-- "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 say again that I do not
   know how they escape from the soothing influence of such words of hope,
   but they do manage, by some means, to fly from them! And still they hug
   their chains and sit in a sort of willful bondage in the darkness of
   their dungeon. Yet Jesus came to save just such sinners as those and
   there are some here of elastic step and bright eyes who once were
   "bound in affliction and iron!" But you have been brought out of the
   Valley of the Shadow of Death and Christ has broken your bonds asunder!
   You can now sing praises unto God and your songs shall testify to
   others, who were your fellow captives, that Jesus Christ has come "to
   seek and to save that which was lost."

   Some whom Christ saves are lost socially. Their names are not mentioned
   in the family--they would bring such a pang to the mother's heart, such
   a flush to the father's cheek. They could not now enter into any
   respectable society-- they are marked men and marked women. There are
   some who are lost even before the law of the land. The hand of justice
   has been laid upon them and they are held in bonds under the law. It
   may be that they are even marked as felons. Yet the Son of Man has come
   to seek and to save those who are socially lost! When the gates of
   society are shut, the gates of Mercy are not shut. When man considers
   the case to be utterly hopeless and the social outcasts are put into a
   sort of leper colony lest the infection should spread, Jesus walks into
   the colony and touches the leper and says, "Be you clean." You may shut
   them out from yourselves, but not from the Savior! When they have come
   to their worst and have run the whole

   round of dissipation till they are jaded and sick, still can the Master
   step in and whisper into that ear rendered attentive by pain and
   sickness--and snatch the fire-brand from the flame--to the Glory of His
   own Grace!

   Others whom the Savior doubtless came to save, were, at one time, lost
   avowedly and determinedly. There have been those who have made a league
   with Satan and a covenant with death. They have said, "Turn to God?
   Never! We will burn first." They have not only resisted conscience, but
   they have, as it were, proclaimed war to the knife against God Himself!
   They have called Heaven and earth to witness that they were the slaves
   of Satan and had chosen him to be their master--and would serve him to
   their dying hour! Yet their covenant with death has been broken and
   their league with Hell has been broken! God has, by mighty Grace, made
   them quite as decidedly His servants as they were once the servants of
   the Evil One! Oh, what has not Grace done, and what can it not still
   do? Take the word, "lost," in the very worst possible sense that you
   can attach to it and still my text shall apply to it also--"The Son of
   Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

   Perhaps of all lost souls, the most miserably lost are those whoperish
   under the sound of the Gospel. There are some of you who have been
   prayed over, preached at and wept over year after year till you seem to
   be hopeless cases. You yourselves feel that there is a hardness which
   is begotten in the light of the Gospel which is not begotten anywhere
   else. The same sun which melts wax hardens clay and it has hardened you
   after an awful fashion till, now, you really dread to hear the Gospel
   lest you should drift still further away from God! Well, even such lost
   ones Jesus came to save! I am conscious that my language cannot
   sufficiently express the extent to which the word, "lost," may be
   applied. Some of you think there is very little difference between you
   and the damned in Hell--they feel the flame--you are waiting for it.
   You feel that they are undergoing the execution while you are in the
   condemned cell. They have heard Christ say, "Depart, you cursed." You
   feel that you are cursed though He has not yet said to you, "Depart."
   You think (though you think wrongly, let me say), that your death
   warrant has been signed and sealed--you declare that you might as well
   be banished from this world, for you know that if you live ever so
   long, you will live and die without hope and without God! Ah, poor
   Soul! Jesus Christ has come to seek and to save just such sinners as
   you are! And I trust, notwithstanding all you say to the contrary, He
   has come to seek and to save you--even you.

   Such are the woe-begone objects of this mission of mercy! Now let us
   turn to the Messenger of mercy--the Savior of the lost!

   II. If the lost are to be saved, someone of extraordinary character
   must come to do it. No, IF THEY ARE TO BE SOUGHT AND FOUND, THERE MUST
   BE A SPECIAL MESSENGER.

   Ordinary men, if they go to seek the lost ones, soon grow weary in the
   search. Perhaps they have to seek them where pride does not like to go,
   or to follow them when their perseverance fails and their patience
   cannot endure. It needs a special One to seek the lost. But when the
   sinner is found, who can save the found one? No human arm is long
   enough, no human merits strong enough, no human plea prevalent
   enough--it is delightful, therefore, to read that "the Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost."

   Who is this Son of Man? "Christ, who is over all, God blessed
   forever.." Though peerless in dignity, He assumes a humble title with a
   lowly estate when He condescends to undertake this menial service.
   Before He came to be the Son of Mary, He was the eternal Son of God! He
   sat upon the Throne of His Glory, adored by the spirits which His own
   hand had made, but He came down from yonder starry sky to seek and save
   the lost! This proves how full of pity, how condescending and how kind
   was God's eternal Son. Lost one, here is some comfort for you! If
   Jesus, from His Throne of Glory, pitied you in your lost estate and if
   it is the same pitying One who is come to seek and to save the lost,
   then is He not the One to find and to save you?

   But remember who He is, "the Son of Man." He gives Himself that title,
   "the Son of Man!" He feels as you feel. He was tempted in all points
   like you are tempted. He never had a single sin of His own, but He bore
   the sins of many and He knows what the weight of sin is. You think
   Christ has forsaken you and Christ once thought His Father had forsaken
   Him--"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" He cried. You are
   broken in heart. He knows what that means for He said, "Reproach has
   broken My heart." You think that all God's waves and billows have gone
   over you. He said they had all gone over Him and in very truth they
   had! It is not possible that you should have a grief deeper than that
   which the Savior knew. You cannot plunge lower than He went. What if I
   say that though sin is come over you so that you cannot look up, there
   cannot be so black a cloud of sin between you and God as there was once
   between the Substitute and the Father--for ALL the sins of His elect
   ones rolled like an ocean's tempest between the God of Justice and the
   Surety who was smitten in our place! Think of Christ, you who are lost,
   as being just such an One as yourself,

   except in the matter of sin--poor, having not where to lay His
   head--destitute, afflicted and tormented as much as you can be. He is
   the Son of Man! Oh, rest you upon that tender bosom and confide in that
   compassionate heart!

   If it were merely that He came from Heaven, it would be a proof of love
   and a token of sympathy, but that is not enough. It is written, "He is
   come to seek and to save." Here is a proof of His activity. He does not
   sit still and pity men, does not stand up and propose a plan for them,
   but He is come to seek and to save them! The angels celebrated His
   Advent when they sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
   peace, good will toward men." The Son of Man is come! They watched Him
   in His journey through the 30 years of His earthly pilgrimage and they
   seemed to sing, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save." But how
   the song must have deepened with a wondrous emphasis when they saw Him
   sweating great drops of blood in Gethsemane, when they saw Him bound,
   scourged and tormented by the Roman soldiers, when they saw Him bearing
   the weight of the Cross, when they marked Him fastened to the accursed
   tree, pouring out His soul in streams of blood! How they must have
   felt, then, that the Son of Man was come to seek and to save! Earth
   heard the note, "The Son of Man is come." Sin heard it and Death heard
   it--and when the Savior bowed His head upon the Cross, there went up a
   great shout, "The Son of Man is come!" And startled Hell heard it when
   Satan saw those whom he had expected to be his prey, delivered by the
   strong arm of the dying Sufferer! Heaven heard it as the peal rolled
   upward and angels said, "The Son of Man is come to bring up here that
   which was lost." So, then, there is activity in the Savior and on this
   you may rely!

   I shall say but little more concerning the Savior, except these few
   thoughts on which you may meditate at your leisure. He who has come to
   save the lost, loved sinners from before the foundation of the world,
   was appointed of God to be their Savior, comes on a Divine mission
   clothed with the Spirit of Power, comes with an atoning Sacrifice in
   His hands, comes with a plea in His mouth--the voice of blood, "which
   speaks better things than that of Abel"--comes with love beaming from
   His eyes and overpowering compassion in His heart! He comes not to
   those who come to Him, but to those who cannot come and are afraid to
   come! The Son of Man, none other than He who said, "I am meek and lowly
   of heart," has come to seek and to save the lost!

   III. Now notice THE PLAN OF THIS LOVING COMMISSION.

   It does not say, "He is come to save" merely, but, "to seek and to
   save." It is an astounding thing and a great proof of human depravity
   that men do not, themselves, seek salvation. They even deny the
   necessity of it and would sooner run away than be partakers of it! If
   you pass by a dispensary in the morning, you will often see the poor
   outpatients at the door. And when the time comes for the doctor to see
   them, many will be found waiting in his outer room, but you do not
   often hear of a doctor who goes out seeking for gratis patients. But my
   Savior not only cures, but seeks the patients out--and if He did not,
   He would never have patients, for our sickness is of a kind that never
   brings men to the Physician, but drives them farther and farther from
   Him!

   He is come to seek them. He seeks them by the Gospel. Tonight He seeks
   some of you. He seeks them by Providence. Sometimes His rough
   Providences seek them. At other times the daily mercies of His goodness
   beckon them to come. He seeks them by the death of their fellows--a
   mother's dying bed, the snatching of a baby to Heaven--all these are
   the ways in which Jesus is seeking that which was lost. He seeks them
   effectually by His Spirit. His Spirit comes and reveals to them their
   darkness, points them to Christ, the true Light, and thus clearly they
   are found out, just where they are, and stand discovered to themselves
   in their ruin.

   But it is added that He not only came to seek, but to save. "Oh!" says
   one, "I don't need any seeking. I am found. Convinced of my folly, here
   I sit, and acknowledge my sin. I am indeed sought out and found, but I
   need saving." Now, Friend, the Son of Man has come to save the lost, as
   well as to seek them. And He does it in this way--He saves them from
   the guilt of past sin. In one moment, as soon as ever the blood of
   Christ is applied to the conscience, every past sin is gone and the man
   is, in God's sight, as if He had never sinned. Christ puts away
   iniquity in a moment. The next thing He does is that He kills the power
   of sin within and makes the man "a new creature." He does not merely
   save him from the guilt of the past, but from the power of sin in the
   present! If He does not tear up sin by the roots, He at least cuts it
   down. And sin does not have dominion over us because we are not under
   the Law, but under Grace. The man who has trembled long, trembles no
   longer! He who was sinking deeper and deeper in the mire feels that
   there is a new song in his mouth and that his goings are established.
   And as He saves him from the power of sin in the present, so He saves
   him from future falling. He saves, not only for a year, or for ten
   years and then lets men fall, but He finally and completely saves that
   which was lost! And this one act will enable you, sinner, to realize
   all this blessedness--cast your guilty soul on Him who saves you! Do
   this with your whole heart and your sin is blotted out--your soul is
   saved and you may go in peace!

   IV. Lastly, let us rejoice in THE SUCCESS OF THIS BLESSED SCHEME. "The
   Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Does He
   succeed in what He came to do? He does, thank God! And in these later
   times we live to see how the Master saves that which was lost. The
   opening of the theatres for the preaching of the Word has been a very
   blessed thing. The raising up of Evangelists who have gone throughout
   the land preaching the Word has been a proof that the Son of Man has
   not ceased to seek and to save! When I look back to 11 years ago, when
   I commenced my pastorate in London, [1851] I recollect that there
   seemed to be very little care, then, about the preaching of the Word.
   We could not, then, do what we now can--count up some 20 Evangelists
   always going through the country, and all of them in their measure
   useful men--I mean such men as Richard Weaver, Reginald Radcliffe and
   Brownlow North and a great many others, all in their way adapted to the
   work. It seemed then as if the Church of Christ had given up seeking
   the lost--but God has raised up one and another for the purpose of
   preaching the Word, fulfilling this Scripture, that "the Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost."

   Some say, "If the people want to hear the Gospel, let them go to church
   or chapel--they can always hear the Gospel when they like." That is not
   Christ's way! We are to go and seek them! Open-air preaching is a
   blessed institution and though you may sometimes block up a
   thoroughfare, it is better to do that than that the thoroughfare to
   Hell should be crowded! If you can turn a soul from the road to Hell,
   it will not matter though you may turn some passenger in the street out
   of his way, so that he may have to muddy his boots! Midnight services,
   hunting after the poor sinners in the streets at midnight, the opening
   of Ragged Schools and Reformatories--all these things are the
   fulfilling of the word, "The Son of Man is come to seek that which was
   lost."

   We know that He seeks, but does He save them? If I must give an answer
   from my own observation, I can point to many members of this
   congregation and say, "Save them? Indeed He does! Has He not delivered
   them from the bonds of sin? Has He not made them new creatures in
   Christ Jesus?" But if you look anywhere, wherever a faithful Gospel is
   preached, you will see that salvation-work does go on! I hope it may go
   on with us for many and many a year until Christ shall come. Christ is
   not disappointed in the souls He came to save. All for whom He stood as
   Substitute shall sing His praise in Heaven. He has not redeemed souls
   that may afterwards be cast into Hell. He did not suffer for my sins
   that I might suffer for them, too! His Atonement is effectual! Every
   sinner He died to save He does save. He is not foiled at any point, nor
   disappointed in any single aim. The lost He came to seek and save, He
   finds and saves! And in eternity we shall find, when turning over the
   register of the chosen, that every one of them has been gathered around
   the Eternal Throne singing the praise of His Sovereign Grace!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 19.

   Verses 1-5. And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold,
   there was a man named Zacchaeus, who was the chief among the publicans,
   and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who He was; and could not
   for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and
   climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him: for He was to pass that
   way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up, and saw him, and
   said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must
   abide at your house.Remember that the Lord Jesus was on His way to
   Jerusalem to suffer and to die. And there He was, the patient,
   suffering Lamb of God--but here He speaks in that commanding tone which
   well became the Prince of the House of David--"Zacchaeus, make haste,
   and come down; for today I must abide at your house."

   6. And he made haste, and came down, and received Him joyfully. Solomon
   said, "Where the word of a king is, there is power." Omnipotence went
   with the word of this King of kings, so Zacchaeus was bound to obey it.

   7-11. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That He was gone
   to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said
   unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor;
   and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
   restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation
   come to this house, for as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of
   Man is come to seek and to sa ve that which was lost And as they heard
   these things, He added and spoke a parable, because He was near to
   Jerusalem, and because they thought that the Kingdom of God should
   immediately appear Their minds were full of thoughts concerning
   Christ's coming as a King--and they had very mistaken notions
   concerning His Kingdom, so He indicates to them that, for the present,
   the practical matter to be remembered was that He had come "to seek and
   to save that which was lost." If they had not been

   so full of their idle dreams of a temporal sovereignty, they would have
   perceived that in the calling of Zacchaeus, Christ had manifested His
   Kingship in the realm of mercy and had there exercised the Sovereignty
   of His Grace. In order that they might be able the better to understand
   the meaning of His spiritual Kingdom and not have their eyes so dazzled
   by the illusions which had so long deceived the Jews, our Lord pointed
   out to them, in the parable of the pounds, the practical way of
   preparing for His Second Coming.

   12-15. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to
   receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten
   servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy
   till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him,
   saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass
   that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he
   commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given
   the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
   It would have been well if our translators, instead of using that ugly
   Latin word, "occupy," had kept to the expression, "trade with it," for
   here we get the same words again--"that he might know how much every
   man had gained by trading."

   16. Then came the first, saying, Lord, your pound has gained ten
   pounds. The genuine servant, with due humility, puts himself in the
   background. It is not he who has "gained ten pounds"--it is his lord's
   pound that has done it. He is pleased to bring the ten pounds, yet he
   claims no credit for himself, but says, "Lord, yourpound has gained ten
   pounds."

   17. Andhe said unto him, Well, you good servant: because you have been
   faithfulin a verylittle, have you authority over ten cities. There is
   no comparison between the servant's work and the reward for its
   faithful performance. That ten pounds, if his lord had given it all to
   him, would not have bought a house in a village, unless it had been a
   very tiny one--"a cottage in a vineyard," or "a lodge in a garden of
   cucumbers." Yet his lord gives him "authority over ten cities."

   18. 19. And the second came, saying, Lord, your pound has gained five
   pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be you also over five cities. How
   he must have opened his eyes when he received authority over five
   cities!

   20. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is your pound, which
   Ihave kept laid up in a napkin. The napkin with which he ought to have
   wiped away the sweat from his brow, he had used merely as a wrapper for
   the pound that his lord had entrusted to him for the purpose of trading
   with it. He had done nothing with the pound--he thought he was all
   right because he had not done any harm with his lord's money. He had
   not joined the revolting citizens who said, "We will not have this man
   to reign over us." He had not spent the pound, nor embezzled his
   master's money--in fact, he had been very careful to keep intact the
   treasure that had been entrusted to him--and he felt proud of his own
   prudence and said, "Lord, behold, here is your pound, which I have kept
   laid up in a napkin."

   21. For I feared you, because you are an austere man: you take up that
   you lay not down, and reap that you did not sow. This was impudence
   indeed! But his master took him on his own ground and showed that even
   if his statement had been true, he ought to have been the more diligent
   in obeying his lord's command.

   22. 23. And he said unto him, Out of your own mouth will I judge you,
   you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, taking up that
   Ilaid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: therefore then gave not
   you my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required my
   own with usury?"You might have done that, at any rate, even if you were
   afraid to trade with it, as I bade you." God often deals with men on
   their own ground and condemns them out of their own mouth. They say
   that God is very severe in threatening them with "the wrath to come."
   Well, if you so believe and so speak, there is the more reason why you
   should fear to disobey Him and so to incur His just displeasure! If, in
   spite of such terrible threats, you still defy Him, it only brings out
   the more clearly the greatness of your guilt!

   24, 25. And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound,
   and give it to him that has ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord,
   he has ten pounds). They were quite astonished. "What? Give more to the
   man who has so much already?" "Yes," says the master, "that is my
   command."

   26. For I say unto you, That unto everyone which has shall be given;
   and from him that has not, even what he has shall be taken away from
   him. Hear again the note of sovereignty. Christ will do as He wills!
   And His mode of action shall sometimes be so singular that even His own
   attendants will wonder at the strangeness of His procedure and will
   begin to ask, "How is this?" But, as Elihu said to Job, "He gives not
   account of any of His matters."

   27-31. But those my enemies, which wouldnot that Ishouldreign over
   them, bring here andslay them before me. " And when He had thus spoken,
   He went before, ascending up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass, when He
   was come near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the Mount
   of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, saying, Go you into the
   village over against you; in the which at your entering you shall find
   a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him here.
   Andif any man asks you, Why do you loose him? Thus shall you say unto
   him, Because the Lord has

   need ofhim. Here we see Christ's true royalty again flashing out from
   beneath the humiliation of His Humanity! He lets us know that although
   He is going up to Jerusalem to die, it is not because He is not Lord of
   All! But that being Lord of All, He makes Himself of no reputation,
   takes upon Himself the form of a Servant, is made in the likeness of
   men and being found in fashion as a Man, He humbles Himself and becomes
   "obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross."

   32-34. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as He had
   said unto them. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof
   said unto them, Why loose you the colt? And they said, The Lord has
   need ofhim. The word of the King was again with power and the owners of
   the colt were willing to let the animal go since the King had "need of
   him." They may have been secret disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
   we have no information upon that point. Our King's warrant runs
   anywhere--and even when His personal Presence is not consciously
   realized, His royal and Divine word still rules the minds and hearts of
   men!

   35-38. And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon
   the colt, and they set Jesus thereon. And as He went, they spread their
   clothes in the way. And when He was come near, even now at the descent
   of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to
   rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that
   they had seen. Saying, Blessed be the King that comes in the name of
   the Lord: peace in Heaven, and glory in the highest They were so
   jubilant that they seemed to have caught some notes from the song that
   the angels sang at the Savior's birth--"Glory to God in the highest,
   and on earth peace, good will toward men." There had been war in
   Heaven, but these disciples of Christ sang, "Peace in Heaven, and glory
   in the highest."

   39-41. Andsome of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto Him,
   Master, rebuke Your disciples. AndHe answered and said unto them, I
   tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would
   immediately cry out. And when He was come near, He beheld the city and
   wept over it. What a contrast! The King's courtiers shouting for joy
   and the King, Himself, weeping over the guilty city where the greatest
   tragedy in the history of the whole universe was about to take place!
   The King saw, in the near and more remote future, what no one else
   could see, so, "when He was come near, and beheld the city, He wept
   over it."

   42-48. Saying, If you had known, even you, at least in this your day,
   the things which belong unto your peace! But now they are hid from your
   eyes. For the days shall come upon you that your enemies shall cast a
   trench about you, and compass you round, and keep you in on every side,
   and shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you;
   and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another; because you
   knew not the time of your visitation. And He went into the Temple, and
   began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying
   unto them, It is written, My house is the House of Prayer; but you have
   made it a den of thieves. And He taught daily in the Temple. But the
   chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to
   destroy Him, and could not find what they might do: for all the people
   were very attentive to hear Him. There was a popular wave of enthusiasm
   in His favor but, alas, it soon ebbed away and then the multitudes that
   had cried, "Hosanna!" were just as loud in their shouts of, "Crucify
   Him! Crucify

   Him!"
     __________________________________________________________________

Lessons From a Dovecot

   (No. 3051)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   24, 1872.

   "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"
   Isaiah 60:8.

   THE chapter from which our text is taken predicts very glorious times
   for the true Church of God. The promises recorded in this chapter were,
   in a measure, fulfilled when Jews and Gentiles were gathered into the
   fold of Christ in great numbers in the days of the Apostles. But God's
   promises are not like man's. When a man has kept his promise once, it
   does not stand good any longer--but God's promises may be fulfilled a
   hundred times over and yet remain just as valid as when He first gave
   them. So what God did for His Church at Pentecost, He is prepared to do
   today--and He will do it on a yet larger scale in those happy times
   that are yet to come--the latter days for which we look and long with
   joyful expectation!

   I do not intend, however, to explain the text in its strict connection,
   but shall try to turn it to profitable account with regard to
   ourselves. You will notice that the question indicates a measure of
   surprise and that surprise reveals some dark fear which must have been
   lurking in the background. The Church sees an innumerable company of
   converts coming to join her ranks and she cries out in amazement, "Who
   are these that fly as a cloud?" She could not, therefore, have been
   expecting them. Her faith must have been weak and, in consequence, a
   great gloom had settled upon her mind. And a similar kind of gloom
   comes over our minds when our faith is weak and our expectations are
   slender. I think that all of us who love the work of God and who
   especially love that work in connection with our own branch of Christ's
   Church are apt, at times, to feel a deep anxiety of soul and to fear
   lest God should forsake His work among us because of our sins. God may
   leave a Church that He has formerly greatly honored if it grows
   lukewarm, as did the Church at Laodicea, or has left its first love, as
   did the Church at Ephesus. There will always be a Church of God in the
   world, but there may not always be a Church in any particular place.
   There will always be a people whom He has chosen to show forth His
   praise and to proclaim His Gospel--but they may not be found in this
   place, or in any other where the Lord has been known to meet with them.

   The idolatrous church of Rome calls itself the only true church,
   outside which none can find salvation, but although the church in Rome
   was once a bright and glorious church, God forsook it and for many a
   day it has been the very center of apostasy and abomination! It is like
   Shiloh where the Ark abode for a time, but concerning which God said,
   "Go you now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at
   the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people
   Israel." And it may be so with any professed Church of Christ
   today--and my fear often is lest, in any measure, it may be so with us.
   Have we not, even in this Church, sins enough to provoke the Lord to
   leave us? Have we not, at any rate, sufficient sins of omission in our
   lack of earnestness, our lack of prayerfulness and our lack of
   Christ-likeness, to cause Him to say, as He is reported to have been
   heard to say during the siege of Jerusalem, "Arise, let Us go from
   here"? Then would "Ichabod" be written on these walls and we might make
   this building like the Jews' place of wailing, for if the Lord should
   forsake us, we might well say, "The glory is departed. The Church has
   lost her strength, her honor and, indeed, her very life!" We fear,
   then, lest the Lord should leave us. But, Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, if you turn your fears into prayersthere may be no longer any
   need for your fears!

   My other fear has been lest converts should not continue to come into
   this Church and that appears to also have been the fear of the Church
   in Isaiah's day, or else she would not have been so surprised to see
   them come. I watch, each month, and each week, with prayerful anxiety
   and ask--Will there be more Believers putting on Christ in Baptism?
   Will there be

   more sinners crying out, "What must we do to be saved?" Will there be
   more of our hearers boldly but truthfully declaring--

   "We are on the Lord's side. We will serve the King!"?

   I would rather suffer any personal affliction or calamity than that
   God's work of Grace should be stopped among us. It is a terrible thing
   when a professing Church continues to exist, in a fashion, yet is
   unfruitful--a vine whereon hang no ripe clusters--a field that yields
   no harvest. There may be some ministers who can be content when their
   churches do not grow, but I am thankful to say that I am not one of
   them! My heart is troubled, and I trust, my Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, that your heart is also troubled unless converts continue to
   come to us "as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows."

   There is another fear that often passes across my mind like a dark
   threatening cloud--and that is lest some of those already brought into
   the Church should grow cold and others should apostatize altogether
   because they never had "the root of the matter" in them--and lest the
   rest should stand still in mere dead formality and not live in the
   Light of God. We need to have churches and church members that are full
   of life! And if there really is true spiritual life within us, we need
   to "have it more abundantly." Cold or lukewarm religiousness is to be
   found on all sides, but where can we find such holy fervor as blazed in
   England in the days of Whitefield and Wesley? Even on the old Methodist
   altar, it burns but very feebly. Oh, that everywhere it could be fanned
   into a vehement flame! We have some of this fervor here, but we pray
   that it may come with still greater force. Some of you, dear Friends,
   have had it and have been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts--are you
   growing cold? If so, may the Master revive you! Are you curtailing your
   efforts? Are you shortening your prayers? Are your offerings less
   generous than they used to be? Is your consecration to Christ less
   complete than it once was? Oh, for a great revival to begin with us at
   home--for if the Lord is not with us, warming our hearts, fanning our
   zeal and inflaming our love--we cannot expect that our efforts on
   behalf of others will be attended by any great measure of success! Paul
   truly wrote to Timothy, "The husbandman that labors must be first
   partaker of the fruits." The water must gush up at the fountainhead
   otherwise it cannot flow down the hills to make fertile the meadows and
   make glad the vales. May God grant that inasmuch as these fears of ours
   have good reason for existing, we may not put them away, but may turn
   them into earnest prayers such as these--"O Lord, do not forsake us! O
   Lord, do not leave us without continual additions to our membership! O
   Lord, do not let us, as a Church, be without many true conversions! O
   Lord, do not allow Your people to grow cold--to become dead--but 'visit
   us with Your salvation!'"

   Now I can advance a step further. Our text, though it came to persons
   possessed by gloomy fears, contains in itself a very bright picture.
   You will understand the metaphor that is used in it if I just tell you
   that a traveler in the East saw, near Ispahan, many large round towers
   crowned by conical spiracles through which the pigeons descended.
   Inside they were like a vast honeycomb, pierced with a thousand holes,
   in each one of which pigeons could build. And he said that when he saw
   them fly back to their homes at night, they were so numerous and so
   compact that they might well be compared to a cloud--and the swiftness
   with which they flew back to their dovecot forcibly reminded him of
   this passage, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to
   their windows?" We have here, then, a beautiful picture of souls coming
   to Christ and to Christ's Church in great numbers and with great speed!
   And we will ask and try to answer three questions concerning them.
   First, why should they come? Secondly, how should they come? And
   thirdly, why should so many of them come?

   I. First, WHY SHOULD THEY COME?

   There is a very complete answer to that question with regard to the
   doves. It is natural that doves should come to their dovecots and there
   is an equally complete answer to the question, Why should souls come to
   Christ? There are four reasons why they should come.

   First, because Christ is the true food of souls. No doubt the doves or
   pigeons were often fed at the dovecot. Therefore they knew where it was
   and they gladly flew to it. Hungry Soul, Christ is the only food that
   can ever appease your hunger--are you as eager to get to Him as the
   hungry doves are to get to the dovecot? Do you long for peace,
   happiness, forgiveness, salvation? All these are to be found in Christ!
   Yes, all that your empty soul can require to fill it to the brim is
   stored up in Christ Jesus! Therefore you should come to Him--and our
   prayer is that you may come to Him even now.

   Next, the doves came to the dovecot because it was a place of security
   for them--and for the same reason sinners should come to the Savior.
   They are unsafe as long as they are out of Christ. Go where you may, O
   Soul--until you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you are in jeopardy!
   Whether you live in sin or in self-righteousness, you are equally
   liable to be destroyed until you come to Christ! The whole world is the
   City of Destruction and Christ is the only Gate of Salvation, as Paul
   says in writing to the Galatians, "Scripture has concluded all under
   sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ

   might be given to them that believe." [Sermon #1145, Volume 19--THE
   GREAT JAIL--AND HOW TO GET OUT OF IT.]

   But next, the doves came to their dovecot because it was their home.
   And the only true home of any human heart is in the wounds of Jesus. He
   who really finds Christ finds rest, enjoyment, peace, tranquility--in
   fact, all that the word, "home," really means. The man who truly
   believes in Jesus is forgiven. He is reconciled to God. For him there
   is no gloom with regard to the world to come--no Hell to dread and only
   a Heaven of bliss to enjoy! Moses wrote, "Lord, You have been our
   dwelling place in all generations." And God is still the dwelling place
   of His people--they find rest and peace in Him. Therefore should souls
   go to Christ, even as the doves go to the dovecot. The fourth reason
   why the doves came to the dovecot was because it was a fit place in
   which to lay their young. Some of you may remember a sermon

   I preached on Psalm 84:3, [Sermon #3041, Volume 53--THE SPARROW AND THE
   SWALLOW.] "Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest
   for herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O Lord of
   Hosts, my King and my God." A saved man has at least a greater
   probability than any unsaved man has of seeing his children saved. On
   the day of Pentecost, in answer to the question, "Men and brethren,
   what shall we do?" Peter said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of
   you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you
   shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is unto you,
   and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the
   Lord our God shall call." So, for your children's sake as well as for
   your own sake--

   "Come, guilty souls and flee away,

   Like doves, to Jesus' wounds!

   This is the welcome Gospel-Day

   Wherein Free Grace abounds!" II. Secondly, the text answers the
   question, HOW SHOULD THEY COME? They should come "as a cloud, and as
   the doves to their windows."

   That is, they should come very swiftly. A dove's flight is very rapid
   and when a cloud of doves is driven by the wind, they fly very swiftly
   through the air. That is the way for sinners to come to Christ--come at
   once without delay. The very best time to trust the Savior is NOW, for,
   "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of
   salvation." I cannot give you a promise of salvation tomorrow, but I
   find many promises in the Word of God concerning the present time. Oh,
   that God would, by His Grace, incline some soul to break away from the
   bands of procrastination and say, "Since it may be 'now or never' with
   me, it shall be NOW! I will fly to Christ at once."

   There are many reasons why you should fly to Christ at once. First,
   because you are in present danger Should not the dove fly at once to
   its windows when the hawk is after it? And Sinner, sin is after you and
   wrath is after you if you are out of Christ. "He that believes
   not"--and mark, this is God's Word--"he that believes not is condemned
   already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
   Son of God." "Condemnedalready." Then you are in a condition of present
   danger and I say to you as the angel said to Lot, "Escape for your
   life! Look not behind you, neither stay you in all the plain; escape to
   the mountain, lest you be consumed." Already the venom of the fiery
   serpent's poison is boiling in your veins! Look then, at once to Him
   who is lifted up before you as the bronze serpent was lifted up before
   the bitten Israelites, for there is healing in a single glance at
   Christ Crucified! Though you are at the very ends of the earth, the
   message can reach you, for the Lord says, "Look unto Me, and be you
   saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none
   else." So come to Christ at once because you are in present danger.
   [See Sermon #60, Volume 2--

   SOVEREIGNTY AND SALVATION.]

   Besides that, there is great reason why you should fly at once to
   Christ because time is flying faster than you can fly. And with the
   flight of time, the approach of the night of death is certain. The dove
   seeks its dovecot before nightfall, for it knows the dangers to which
   it would be exposed in the darkness. The night is fast approaching with
   some of you. In the nature of things, you cannot live much longer, yet
   how strange it is that men often think that they will continue to live

   though they expect that others will die! I heard, only this week, of a
   man of 86 who expects some property to come to him, but there is
   another man's life that delays his possession of it--and he is
   eighty-four. Yet the older man told a friend of mine that he expected
   very soon to inherit the property as the person who held it was a very
   old man and could not live much longer, though he himself was two years
   older--an admirable commentary on the words of the poet, "All men think
   all men mortal but themselves." Yet if we use our wits, we shall know
   that we are also mortal. Possibly old age is already creeping over us
   or, if not, there is an unseen hand that may be, even at this moment,
   tugging at our heartstrings--some fatal disease or sudden stroke from
   God may swiftly come upon us and we shall be gone from earth as so many
   others have gone. Fly, O you doves, for death's arrows are flying! Fly,
   for the fowler's nets are spread all around you! Fly, for true life is
   only to be found through those blessed windows which Christ has opened
   for guilty souls!

   I am praying for conversions tonight. Brothers and Sisters, you who
   know how to pray, join with me in praying for conversions tonight that
   before the unsaved sleep, they may come to Jesus and be saved!

   III. Now, having spoken of why they should come and how they should
   come, I have to answer the third question,

   WHY SHOULD SO MANY COME? They are to fly in such a vast flock that they
   shall be like a cloud! My heart rejoices at the very thought of great
   numbers of sinners coming to Christ, but why should so many come?

   Well, first, because there is room for them. There is room in the
   dovecot for every dove that comes and there is room in the heart of
   Christ for every soul that ever will come to Him. There never was a
   true penitent whom Christ repelled, saying, "I did not shed My blood
   for you." There never was a Believer whom Christ refused, saying, "You
   had no right to believe in Me." No, His gracious message still stands--

   "Engraved as in eternal brass,"--

   "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." [See sermon #3000,
   Volume 52, COME AND WELCOME.] Write that truly golden text in starry
   letters across the sky, or, better still, ask the Holy Spirit to write
   it in your memory so that you will never forget it--"Him that comes to
   Me I will in no wise cast out." Though he may have been a drunk, a
   swearer, or a thief--though he may have been unchaste or unjust--though
   he may even now be black or red with crime--if he does but come and
   trust in Jesus Christ, he cannot be cast out! There is room in Christ's
   heart for all who come to Him, so let many come now.

   Besides, 'tis sweet for many to go together How glad I am when I can
   receive husband and wife into the Church at the same time! And I am
   still more glad when there is a little train of their sons and
   daughters behind them, all coming together to confess their faith in
   Christ! You know that if only one member of a family is brought to
   Christ, that one will be like a speckled bird in the home-nest, but
   when the Lord draws the whole family to Himself, how blessed it is for
   them all to walk hand in hand to Heaven! I think that, if necessary, I
   should have been glad to go on pilgrimage alone, as Christian went, but
   I should have liked much better to have gone with Christiana, Mercy and
   the children, and with Mr. Greatheart, and old Father Honest and all
   that noble party of pilgrims who went together to the Celestial City.

   Further, the same reason that should make one go to Christ should make
   others go to Him. When I used to preach at Waterbeach, the chapel was
   crowded, but when I first came to London, I was very much discouraged
   by the sight of so many empty seats. But somebody said, "You may depend
   upon it that the Gospel that will draw 600 in a country village will
   draw 6,000 in London." And I have found it so all these years. If
   Christ can draw one soul to Himself, why can He not draw twenty? And if
   He can draw twenty, why not twenty thousand, and why not thousands of
   millions? Why should not we live to see many millions of souls
   converted to God? Let us pray to the Holy Spirit to present the
   irresistible attractions of Christ to the hundreds of millions in the
   whole human race!

   And then, Beloved, when sinners come to Christ in great numbers, think
   what honor it brings to Him. A soul saved here, and another saved there
   may go unremarked--but what a joy it is to us, and what Glory it brings
   to God--when hundreds, or thousands, as on the day of Pentecost, are
   converted at once! Then the Church is refreshed, revived and
   encouraged! And the world hears of it and other churches hear of it and
   ask for the same blessing. I do, therefore, beg you, my Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ, to join with me in prayer that we may have a cloud
   of converts flying to Christ-- multitudes of precious souls coming to
   Him as the doves fly to their windows!

   IV. My time fails me, so I must close by again reminding you that OUR
   TEXT SETS BEFORE US A BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL PICTURE--"Who are these that
   fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?"

   Shall I tell you who they are? I am not going to speak of them as being
   God's elect, though that is true. And Christ's redeemed, though that is
   also true. And the Holy Spirit's effectually called ones, though that,
   too, is true! But I am going rather to dwell upon another phase of the
   subject and that is this. Some of those that will fly as a cloud, if
   our prayers are heard, and they do really come to Christ, will be our
   own sons and daughters. It has been one of the greatest joys of every
   revival season which we have ever had, that among the converts there
   has always been a considerable proportion of the sons and daughters of
   the members of the Church. Does not the very mention of that fact make
   your mouths water? Do not your prayers now go up, "O Lord, bring my boy
   in! Lord, save my girls! Let our children live in Your sight"? Perhaps
   you have other young people living with you who are not literally your
   sons and daughters, but who stand to you in almost the same
   relationship. They are your nephews and nieces, or some orphan children
   for whom you are caring, or it may be your pupils. Well, may the Lord
   grant that when you ask the question, "Who are these that fly as a
   cloud?" the answer may come, "Why, they are the very ones who dwell
   with you! God has blessed those who are nearest and dearest to you!"
   Dear young people, we cannot wish for you a greater blessing than that
   you may be brought to Christ early and be united to His Church!

   Yet again, how delighted would many of you be if, in answer to this
   question, "Who are these that fly as a cloud?" it would be said, "Why,
   some of them are from the Sunday school--and you would be even more
   gratified if the reply would be, "Some are from your own class, the
   very scholars for whom you have been especially praying--the boy to
   whom you spoke so seriously--the girl whom you so affectionately sought
   to come to Jesus." Teachers, would you not clap your hands for joy if
   that could be truly said to you? Why should it not be the case? God has
   often blessed such instrumentality and His arm is not shortened that it
   cannot save, nor is His ear heavy, that He cannot hear. Go in faith and
   ask for the blessing--and then work in real earnest, believing that it
   will come--and it will assuredly be bestowed upon you and upon those
   whose salvation you are seeking!

   It would be peculiarly gladdening to my heart if the answer to the
   question of our text should be, "Some of those that are flying to
   Christ, as the doves fly to their windows, are your old hearers, old
   seat-holders who have long been unconverted." I thank God that there
   are not very many such hearers, for the Lord has brought in one after
   another until there are not many of those who have long heard the Word
   who still remain unsaved. The axe of Grace has cut down these trees of
   sin, one after another, and built them into the Temple of God! Our
   unconverted seat-holders are getting to be fewer and fewer--and my
   prayer is, "O Lord, bring Your sharp axe and cut every one of them
   down!" I am sorry that there are any of my old hearers who are still
   unsaved--how I would praise the Lord if, after ten, twelve and some of
   you 18 years of hearing the same voice preach the same Gospel, you
   should be saved at last!

   Probably, however, there will be another answer to the question of our
   text. "Some strangers, some of your casual hearers, have been brought
   to Christ.." Dear Friends, I repeat the request that I have often
   made--Please look after those who come here only occasionally to hear
   the Word. Do all you can to make them comfortable and then, if there is
   any sign of attention to the preacher's message, or of impression
   produced by it, do not let anyone be able to say, "I went to the
   Tabernacle half-a-dozen times, yet nobody ever spoke to me." Be sure
   that no one shall be able to truthfully say, "Why, I am still quite a
   stranger there, though I have been attending for years! But nobody has
   spoken to me." We used to have--I wish we had more of the same sort
   now--some very gracious people who were always on the watch for anxious
   souls. I remember one young man who joined the Church in this way--he
   came up from the country--we were then worshipping at the Surrey
   Gardens Music Hall. And the first time he was at our service, one of
   our brethren took him into the hall and gave him a seat. On another
   Sunday, when he saw him again, he asked him home to dinner and he
   talked to him about the things of God in such a way that, in a very
   short time, that young man became a Christian and joined the Church,
   though before he had lived without the fear of God. Would it not be
   something for which to praise the Lord for many a day if, among those
   that fly to Christ, as the doves fly to their windows, there should be
   one to whom youhad spoken--a casual hearer, smitten by the Word
   preached, but brought into peace and liberty through a few sentences
   which you spoke privately to him?

   I pray that among those who are brought to Christ, there may be many
   rank outsiders. I do not know when I ever more enjoyed speaking, or
   hearing anybody else speak, than I did while speaking or listening to
   my Brother Varley last Wednesday when we had the area of this
   Tabernacle full of butchers. They appeared to be thoroughly in earnest
   and they drank in the Gospel--and I do trust that some of them retained
   it in their hearts and will bring forth fruit in their lives.

   We must constantly try to lay hold of men who are outside all ordinary
   religious worship. You who go with tracts all round this district, you
   who visit the people in their homes, you who stand at the corners of
   the streets and preach, you who are spiritual Uhlans, riding ahead of
   the main army of God, you who are breaking up fresh ground and trying
   to increase the area of ground that is being cultivated for Christ--may
   you all have a present reward as you see the converts coming to Christ
   as the doves fly to their windows! May our Bible classes for men and
   women be richly blessed in bringing many to Christ and His Church! May
   our College be richly blessed and every man become abundantly useful in
   the Master's cause! And may every one of us seek to have a share in the
   great additions to our numbers which we trust God will soon send to us!

   I have only to ask one more question and then I will close. Among these
   that are to fly as a cloud, and as doves to the dovecot, will you be
   one, my Hearer? "Do you want me to join this Church?" I did not say
   that! I did not say anything about your joining any church. You must be
   joined to Christbefore you can join His Church. That was the Apostolic
   way--"They first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the
   will of God." I do not first ask if you are willing to be baptized. I
   do not want you to be baptized before you believe in Christ. That is
   useless--no, it is worse than that-- it is wicked! There is no
   Scriptural warrant for the Baptism of an unbeliever. To sprinkle a
   baby, or to immerse an adult who does not believe in Jesus is a
   transgression of Christ's Law! He has laid down the order, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." Do you ask, "What do you want
   me to do?" I want you to be one of those who believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ! Is the Spirit of God working in your heart and saying to you,
   "Turn you, turn you, for why will you die?" Is He saying to you, "Trust
   yourself to Christ"? Then, yield to that gracious influence now, and
   say--

   "Now to be Yours, yes, Yours alone,

   OLamb of God, I come!"

   If that is your sincere utterance, you are a saved soul! Now be
   baptized, now join the Church! But first see to it that you believe in
   Jesus, for that is the first business. May God bring you to Christ and
   may the blessing of the Triune Jehovah be with you forevermore! Amen
   and amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 10.

   This chapter is a Gospel in itself--it very clearly points out the plan
   of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

   Verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is
   that they might be saved. Paul had a tender heart towards all
   unconverted men and women and he longed and pleaded with God that they
   might be saved. Have all of us this unselfish compassionate feeling? I
   am afraid that there are some Christians who are very deficient in it,
   yet in the dread of an immortality to be spent in unutterable woe by
   all unbelievers, our hearts' desire and perpetual prayer should be as
   Paul's prayer for Israel was, "that they might be saved." And if there
   is one class among the ungodly which should touch our hearts more than
   all the rest, it is those who are earnestly seeking salvation but who
   are seeking it where they will never find it, namely, by the works of
   the Law.

   2. For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not
   according to knowledge. It is not sufficient for a man to be sincere in
   his zeal for God--sincerity must be according to knowledge if it is to
   be of any value. If a man travels North, his sincere belief that he is
   on the right road will not bring him to his destination in the South!
   If a man, in all sincerity, drinks poison under the belief that it is a
   cheering cordial, it will kill him, notwithstanding his sincerity. And
   if a man sincerely believes a lie, it will turn out to be a lie
   notwithstanding his sincerity. So that it is not enough to be sincerely
   zealous for God, or sincerely anxious to be saved--but you must seek
   salvation in God's revealed wayif your search is to be a successful
   one.

   3. For they being ignorant ofGod's righteousness, andgoing about to
   establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
   the righteousness of God.This is not an error on the part of only the
   Jews--it is to be found also among many Gentiles. Such people must have
   a righteousness of their own and Paul says they are continually "going
   about" to establish it. To do this they will undertake any labor,
   endure any suffering, or perform any self-denial, but all the while
   they despise God's righteousness--despise it by the very act of
   preferring their own, or seeking another way of salvation instead of
   walking in the one which God has provided! How sad it is that so many,
   in all sincerity of blind zeal,

   should be dishonoring God and virtually dethroning Him by the attempt
   to set up a righteousness of their own when He has already provided a
   perfect one which they will not accept.

   4. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that
   believes.Even the Law itself has this for its main drift and
   purpose--that it may introduce Christ. Its end, its intent, is to show
   to us our need of Christ, to point us to Christ and to make us willing
   to have Christ as our Savior. And as even the Law aims at this
   objective, much more clearly does the Gospel. Oh, that none of us might
   miss the aim and objective of this blessed design of God--that we might
   find righteousness through believing in Christ!

   5. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the Law. And he
   does it in very brief, concise and satisfactory terms.

   5. That the man which does those things shall live by them. That is the
   beginning and end of the Law, "Do and live."

   6-8. But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say
   not in your heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (that is, to bring
   Christ down from above), or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is,
   to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what says it? The word is
   near you. The saving, life-giving word is not to be sought above, nor
   below, nor afar off--it is "near you."

   8. Even in your mouth, and in your heart It is not a matter of doing
   with the hands but of believing with the heart and of confession with
   the mouth!

   8, 9. 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 Gospel's
   command, "Believe and live," is quite as clear and plain and positive
   as the Law's command, "Do and live."

   10, 11. 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. He shall never be ashamed
   of having believed on the Lord Jesus Christ! If he really believes on
   Him, he shall never be ashamed of the result of so believing, for that
   result will be eternal salvation to him--there is no doubt about that!

   12. 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.If there are
   great numbers to be saved at one time, Christ will not have to do as we
   do when we have too many guests at a feast, namely, cut the portion of
   each one smaller. Oh, no! For "the same Lord over all is rich unto all
   that call upon Him," whether they are Jews or Gentiles.

   13. For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
   Let us read that blessed verse again.

   13, 14. 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?When I hear anyone say, "I cannot believe in Christ, but I
   will pray to Him for faith." I say, surely the prayer is more difficult
   than the believing--"How then shall they call on Him in whom they have
   not believed?"

   14, 15. And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?
   And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach,
   except they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of
   them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good
   things.'We, dear Friends, have had this whole process carried out in
   our midst. The Gospel has been preached--preached, I trust, by one who
   can prove, by the many seals to his ministry, that he has been "sent"
   by God who has given him these confirmations of his commission in the
   constant conversion of those to whom he has preached. Then many of you
   have heard the preaching and have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ
   and, therefore, you are "saved" to all eternity. But, alas, there are
   some of you who have not believed in Jesus! Yet you must be saved by
   this process, or you can never be saved at all, for God will never try
   any other plan! His way of saving men is to send the preacher whom He
   has called and qualified to preach. The preacher preaches. The people
   hear. By hearing they believe and by believing they are saved! This is
   God's way of saving sinners and He will not depart from it! So let us
   walk in it. May His gracious Spirit take away from us all our proud,
   foolish and wicked objections to His simple plan and may we all believe
   and live!

   16. But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who
   has believed our report?So you see that even the Prophet Isaiah had the
   idea that salvation comes to sinners by believing. He mourned and cried
   to his God because men did not believe the "report" which he had been
   sent to deliver to them concerning that Man who was "despised and
   rejected of men," that Man of whom the Prophet truly said, "Surely He
   has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.. .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."

   17. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
   With what solemnity this invests our hearing! I often hear people say,
   "We go to such-and-such a place of worship, to hear so-and-so preach."
   That is well if the preacher is, like John the Baptist, "a man sent
   from God," for, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of
   God." Only let us all so hear the Word of God that hearing it we
   believe on Jesus Christ whom God has sent--believing on Him, we confess
   our faith in the Divinely appointed way, devoutly worship and adore the
   ever-blessed God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--and do all we can to
   make the Savior known to others.

   18, 19. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went
   into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I
   say, Did not Israel know?These Jews for whom Paul prayed--these people
   who were so zealous in seeking to establish their own
   righteousness--did not they know God's way of salvation? Did not they
   know Jesus of Nazareth, the Divinely appointed Savior? Yes, they did,
   but they refused to believe on Him--they would not walk in God's way of
   salvation.

   19-21. First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that
   are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Isaiah is
   very bold, and says, I was found of them that sought Me not; I was made
   manifest unto them that asked not after Me. But to Israel he says, All
   day long I have stretched out My hands unto a disobedient and
   gainsaying people. Oh, that God would soon bring these "disobedient and
   gainsaying people"--whether Jews or Gentiles--to submit themselves unto
   His righteousness and so to be saved! May He graciously grant it, for
   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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Loneliness and Ours

   (No. 3052)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, yes,
   is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and
   shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is
   with Me." John 16:31,32.

   [Another sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text is #2271, Volume
   38--ALONE , YET NOT ALONE.]

   "Do you now believe?" Then it seems that faith held them fast to
   Christ, but as soon as fear prevailed they were scattered and left
   their Master alone. Faith has an attracting and upholding power. It is
   the root of constancy and the source of perseverance under the power of
   God's Spirit. While we believe, we remain faithful to our Lord. When we
   are unbelieving, we are scattered, "every man to his own." While we
   trust, we follow closely. When we give way to fear, we ungratefully
   forsake our Lord. May the Holy Spirit maintain our faith in full vigor
   that it may nourish all our other Graces! Faith being strong, no
   faculty of the inner man will languish, but if faith declines, the
   energy of our spiritual nature speedily decays. If you believe not, you
   shall not be established, but "the just shall live by faith" to the
   fullest force oflife.

   This being noted, our meditation shall now be fixed alone upon the
   Savior's loneliness and the measure in which the Believer is brought
   into the same condition. I. THE LONELINESS OF THE SAVIOR.

   Note the fact of it He was left alone--alone just when most, as Man, He
   needed human sympathy. Solitude to Him, during His earthly life, was
   often the cause of strength. He was strong in public ministry because
   of the hours spent in secret wrestling with God on the lone
   mountainside. But when He came to the hour of His agony, His perfect
   Humanity pined after human sympathy, yet it was denied Him. He was
   alone in the Garden of Gethsemane though He took the eleven with Him.
   Yet must He leave eight of them outside at the garden gate--and the
   three, the choice, the elite of them all--though they were brought
   somewhat nearer to the scene of His passion, yet even they must remain
   at a stone's cast distance. None could enter into the inner circle of
   His sufferings where the furnace was heated seven times hotter than it
   was known to be heated. In the bloody sweat and the agony of
   Gethsemane, the Savior trod the winepress alone. [See Sermon

   #2567, Volume 44--THE SINGLE-HANDED CONQUEST.] His specially-favored
   disciples might have watched with Him, wept with Him and prayed for
   Him--but they did not. They left His lone prayer to ascend to Heaven
   unattended by sympathetic cries.

   He was alone, too, when put upon His trial. False witnesses were found
   to bear lying testimony against Him, but no man stood forward to attest
   the honesty, quietness and goodness of His life. Surely one of the many
   who had been healed by Him, or of the crowds that had been fed by His
   bountiful hands or, still likelier, some of those who had received the
   pardon of their sins and enlightenment of their minds by His teaching
   might have come forward to defend Him! But no, His coward followers are
   silent when their Lord is slandered. "He is brought as a lamb to the
   slaughter" and no pitying voice entreats that He may be delivered.
   True, His judge's wife tries to persuade her husband to have nothing to
   do with Him and her vacillating husband offers to liberate Him if the
   mob will have it so--but none will raise the shout of "loose Him and
   let Him go." He was not literally alone upon the Cross, yet He was
   really so in a deep spiritual sense. Though a few loving ones gathered
   at the foot of the Cross, yet these could offer Him no assistance and
   probably dared not utter more than a tearful protest. Perhaps the
   boldest there was that dying thief who called Him, Lord, and
   expostulated with his brother-malefactor, saying, "This Man has done
   nothing amiss." [See Sermon #1881, Volume 32--the dying thief in a new
   light

   --Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org .] Few, indeed, were the voices that were
   lifted up on behalf of the Man of Sorrows. From the time when He bowed
   in agony amid the deep shades of the Mount of Olives, till the moment
   when He entered the thicker darkness of the valley of death-shade, He
   was left to suffer alone.

   Here was the fact. What was the reason for it? We conclude that fear
   overcame the hearts of His disciples. It is natural that men should
   care for their lives, but these men pushed this instinct of
   self-preservation beyond its legitimate sphere. And when they found
   that the Master was taken and that probably the disciples might share
   His fate, they each one, in the panic of the moment, fled in haste!
   They were not all traitors, but they were all cowards for the time
   being. They meant not to desert their Lord--they even scorned the
   thought when it was put to them in calmer moments--but they were taken
   by surprise and, like a flock of sheep, they fled from the wolf. They
   rallied after a little while and mustered courage enough to follow Him
   from afar off. They did not quite forget Him--they watched Him to His
   latter end, they kept together after He was dead--they united to bury
   Him and they came together instinctively on the first day of the week.
   They had not altogether cast off their loyalty to their Lord and
   Master, for He was still keeping those whom the Father had given Him
   that none of them might be lost--yet fear had, for awhile, defeated
   their faith and they had left Him alone.

   There was a deeper reason, however, for the Savior's loneliness. It was
   a condition of His sufferings that He should be forsaken. Desertion was
   a necessary ingredient in that cup of vicarious suffering which He had
   covenanted to drink for us. We deserved to be forsaken and, therefore,
   He must be. Since our sins against man, as well as our sins against God
   deserved that we should be forsaken of men, He, bearing our sins
   against God and man, is forsaken. It cannot be that a sinner should
   enjoy true friendship. Sin is a separating thing and so, when Christ is
   made the Sin-Bearer, His friends must leave Him. Besides, this was one
   jewel in the crown of His Glory. It was said, in triumph, by the great
   hero of old who typified our Lord, "I have trodden the winepress alone
   and of the people there was none with me." To make that true in the
   severest sense, it was necessary that the Captain of our salvation
   should, by His single arm, defeat the whole of Hell's battalions! His
   are the sole laurels of the war, for, "His right hand and His holy arm
   have gotten Him the victory."

   Can you, for a moment, enter into the sorrow of that loneliness? There
   are men to whom it is a small matter to be friendless. Their coarse
   minds scorn the gentle joys of fellowship. Sterner virtues may tread
   beneath their iron heel the sweet flowers of friendship and men may be
   so defiantly self-reliant that, like lions, they are most at home amid
   congenial solitudes. Sympathy they scorn as womanish and fellowship as
   a superfluity. But our Savior was not like they--He was too perfect a
   Man to become isolated and misanthropical. His grand gentle Nature was
   full of sympathy towards others and, therefore, sought it in return.
   You hear the voice of grief at the loss of brotherly sympathy in the
   mournful accents of that gentle rebuke, "What? Could you not watch with
   Me one hour?" How could they sleep while He must sweat? How could they
   repose while His soul was "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"? He
   showed the greatness of His soul even in its depression when He
   lovingly excused them by saying, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the
   flesh is weak."

   How sad to Him it was that they should desert Him! The brave Peter and
   all the rest of them, all taking to their heels! Worse still was it to
   receive the traitor's kiss with the word, "Hail, Master," as the son of
   perdition betrayed his Friend to win the blood-money! David lamented
   the villainy of Ahithophel, but the Savior, inasmuch as He was of a
   more tender spirit than the son of Jesse, even more keenly felt the
   treachery of Judas. For Peter to say that he knew Him not and, with
   cursing and swearing to deny Him three times in succession was terribly
   cruel. There was such an element of deliberation about that denial that
   it must have cut the Savior to the very quick. But where was John--John
   who leaned on His bosom--"that disciple whom Jesus loved"--where was
   John? Did not he say a word, nor even interject a single syllable for
   his dear Friend? Has Jonathan forgotten his David? The Master might
   have said to John, "Your love to Me was wonderful, passing the love of
   women," but, alas, John is gone with the rest! He has nothing to say
   for his Master! Though he remains at the foot of the Cross to the last,
   yet even he cannot defend Him! Jesus is all alone--all alone and none
   of us can fully fathom the sorrow of His lonely heart.

   This is a painful meditation and, therefore, let us notice the result
   of our Savior's loneliness. Did it destroy Him? Did it overwhelm Him?
   It pained Him but it did not dismay Him. "You shall leave Me alone: and
   yet I am not alone," says He, "because the Father is with Me." The
   effect of that solace in His soul was wonderful. Our Savior did not
   turn aside from the purpose of redeeming His people though they proved
   so unworthy of being redeemed. Might He not well have said, "You have
   forsaken Me, so I will forsake you"? It would have seemed but natural
   for Him to have exclaimed, "You

   are types of all My people, you care little enough for Me: I have come
   into this world to save you, but you do not try to rescue Me; you have
   deserted Me, so I leave you to your fate." But no, "having loved His
   own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." And although
   they forsook Him, yet He fulfilled to each one of them His ancient
   promise, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." The Baptism
   wherewith He was to be baptized He would still accomplish and be
   immersed in the floods of death for their sake!

   Nor did He merely exhibit constancy to His purpose. He displayed great
   courageousness of spirit. He was all alone, but yet how peaceful He
   was! The calmness of the Savior is amazing. When He was brought before
   Herod, He would not utter one hasty or complaining word. His perfect
   silence was the fittest eloquence and, therefore, He was majestically
   mute. Before Pilate, until it was necessary for Him to speak, not a
   syllable could be extorted from Him. All along He possessed His soul in
   patience. In the Garden and afterwards, He was quiet as a lamb,
   surrendering Himself to the Sacrifice without a struggle. His solemn,
   deliberate self-surrender, in His loneliness, has an awfulness of love
   in it--more fit for thought than words. His brave spirit was not to be
   cowed, though it stood at bay alone and all the dogs of Hell raged
   around Him!

   Mark too not only the constancy and the courageousness of our Savior,
   but His matchless unselfishness, for, while His disciples forsook Him
   and fled, He forgave them in His inmost heart and cherished no
   resentment against them. When He rose again His conduct to these
   runaways was that of a loving shepherd or a tender friend--He fully
   forgave them all. If He did mention it, it was only in that gentle way
   in which He inquired of Peter, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love
   Me?"--reminding him of his failure for his lasting improvement and
   benefit--and giving him an honorable commission as the token that it
   was all condoned.

   Inquire awhile the reason for this result Why was it that our Savior,
   in His loneliness, thus stood so constant, courageous and forgiving?
   Was it not because He fell back into the arms of His Father when He was
   forsaken by His friends? It was even so--"The Father is with Me." Look
   carefully at that word. As the Savior uttered it, it was true that the
   Father's Presence was with Him, but I beg you to remember that it was
   not true, in every sense, all the way through His passion. The Father
   was not with Him on the Cross in the sense of manifested personal
   favor. His cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" shows that
   our Savior did not, at that time, derive comfort from any present

   revelation of the love of God to Him as Man. [See Sermon #2133, Volume
   36--"MY god, my god, why have YOU FORSAKEN ME?"] The conscious Presence
   and display of love were taken away.

   There is, therefore, another meaning in these words, "Because the
   Father is with Me" and surely it is this--the Father was always with
   Him in His design. The enterprise He had undertaken was the salvation
   of His people--and the Father was wholly and always with Him in that
   respect. In that sense He was with Him even where He deserted Him--it
   was but a form of the Father's being with Christ that He should be
   forsaken of God. I am not quite stating a paradox and if it should
   sound like one to any here, let me expound it. It was in pursuance of
   Their united great design that the Father forsook the Son. Both were
   resolved upon the same gracious purpose and, therefore, the Father must
   forsake the Son, that the Son's purpose and the Father's purpose in our
   redemption might be achieved! He was with Him when He forsook Him--with
   Him in design when He was not with Him in the smiles of His face.

   Furthermore, the Father was always with our Lord in His co-working.
   When Jesus was in Gethsemane and the staves and lanterns were being
   prepared, the God of Providence was permitting or arranging it all.
   When Jesus was taken before Caiaphas, Herod, Pilate and Annas, God was
   allowing all this to be done--the Father was with Christ fulfilling the
   prophecies, answering the types and accomplishing their Covenant
   engagements. Through the whole sad chapter it might be said, "My Father
   works." Even amid the thick darkness and the dire suffering of Christ,
   the Father was with Christ, working those very sufferings in Him, for
   "it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief." Into this
   fact Christ sinks as into a sea of comfort--"The Father is with Me."
   "It is enough," He says, "My own chosen friends forsake Me and My
   dearest earthly friends leave me. Those whom I have purchased with My
   blood deny Me, but My Father is with Me." By a matchless exercise of
   faith, our Redeemer realized this and was sustained even in that dread
   hour!

   II. We shall make practical use of our subject by considering THE
   CHRISTIAN IN HIS LONELINESS. No Believer traverses all the road to
   Heaven in company. There must be lonely spots here and there, though
   the greater part of our heavenward pilgrimage is made cheerful by the
   society of fellow travelers. "They go from company to

   company; every one of them in Zion appears before God." Christ's sheep
   love to go in flocks. "They that feared the Lord spoke often one to
   another." We take sweet counsel together and walk to the House of God
   in company. Yet somewhere or other on the road, every Christian will
   find narrow paths and close places where pilgrims must march in single
   file.

   Sometimes the child of God endures loneliness arising from the absence
   of godly society. It may be that in his early days as a Christian, he
   mixed much with gracious persons, was able to attend many of their
   meetings and to converse in private with the excellent of the earth.
   But now his lot is cast where he is as a sparrow alone on the housetop.
   No others in the family think as he does. He enjoys no familiar
   converse concerning his Lord and has no one to counsel or console him.
   He often wishes he could find friends to whom he could open his mind.
   He would rejoice to see a Christian minister or an advanced Believer
   but, like Joseph in Egypt, he is a stranger in a strange land. This is
   a very great trial to the Christian, an ordeal of the most severe
   character. Even the strong may dread it and the weak are sorely shaken
   by it. To such lonely ones, our Lord's words, now before us, are
   commended with the prayer that they may make them their own--"I am
   alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me." When
   Jacob was alone at Bethel, he laid down to sleep and soon was in a
   region peopled by innumerable spirits, above whom was God Himself! That
   vision made the night at Bethel the least lonely season that Jacob ever
   spent! [See Sermon #402, Volume 7--jacob's waking exclamation--

   ] Your meditations, O solitary ones, as you read the Bible in

   secret, and your prayer's, as you draw near to God in your lonely room,
   and your Savior Himself in His blessed Person, will be to you what the
   ladder was to Jacob! The words of God's Book, made living to you, shall
   be to your mind the angels and God Himself shall have fellowship with
   you! If you lament your loneliness, cure it by seeking heavenly
   company. If you have no companions below who are holy, seek all the
   more to commune with those who are in Heaven where Christ sits at the
   right hand of God!

   God's people are frequently made lonely through obedience to honest
   convictions. I t may happen that you live in the midst of professing
   Christians and you have received Light upon a part of God's Word which
   you had formerly neglected, either a Doctrine, or an ordinance, or some
   other matter--and having received that Light, if you are as you should
   be--you are at once obedient to it. It will frequently result, from
   this action on your part, that you will greatly vex many good people
   whom you love and respect, but to whose wishes you cannot yield. Your
   Master's will once known, father or mother may not stand in your
   way--you do not wish to be singular, or obstinate, or offensive--but
   you must do the Lord's will even if it should sever every fond
   connection! Perhaps, for a time, prejudiced persons may almost deny you
   Christian fellowship. Many a baptized Believer has been made to know
   what it means to be almost tabooed and shut out because he cannot see
   as others see, but is resolved to follow his conscience at all hazards.
   Under such circumstances, even in a godly household, a Christian who
   fully carries out his convictions may find himself treading a separated
   path. Be bold, my dear Brothers and Sisters, and do not flinch! Your
   Savior walked alone and you must do so too.

   Perhaps this lone obedience is to be a test of your faith. Persevere!
   Yield not a particle of the Truth of God! These very friends who now
   turn their backs on you, if they are good for anything, will respect
   you all the more for having the courage to be honest--and perhaps the
   day will come when, through your example, they will be led in the same
   obedient way. At any rate, do not mar your testimony by hesitancy or
   wavering, but "follow the Lamb wherever He goes." Fall back upon this
   Truth of God--you may displease and alienate friends and be charged
   with bigotry, self-will and obstinacy, but you are not alone when you
   follow the path of obedience, for the Father is with you! If what you
   hold is God's Truth, God is with you in maintaining it. If the
   ordinance to which you submit was ordained by Christ, Jesus is with you
   in it. Care not how either the Church or the world reviles you! Serve
   your Master and He will not desert you! With all due deference to
   others, pay yet greater deference to the Lord who bought you with His
   blood! Where He leads, follow without delay--the Father will be with
   you in so doing.

   The solitary way is appointed to Believers who rise to eminence of
   faith. In these days the common run of Christians have but struggling
   faith. Should you sift the great mountain of visible Christianity very
   carefully, will you find so much as ten grains of faith in the whole?
   When the Son of Man comes, keen as His eyes are to discover faith,
   shall He find it on the earth? Here and there we meet a man to whom it
   is given to believe in God with mighty faith. As soon as such a man
   strikes out on a project and sets about a work which none but men of
   his mold would venture upon, straightway there arises a clamor, "The
   man is overzealous!" Or he will be charged with an innovating spirit,
   rashness, fanaticism, or absurdity. Should the work go on, the opposers
   whisper together, "Wait a little while and you'll see the end of all
   this

   wildfire." Have we not heard them criticize an earnest Evangelist by
   saying, "His preaching is mere excitement, the result of it is
   spasmodic"? At another time, "The enterprise which he carries out is
   Quixotic. His designs are Utopian"? What said the sober semi-faith of
   men to Luther? Luther had read this passage, "By the deeds of the Law
   there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." He went to a venerable
   Divine about it and complained of the enormities of Rome. What was the
   good but weak brother's reply? "Go you to your cell and pray and study
   for yourself, and leave these weighty matters alone." Here it would
   have ended had the brave Reformer continued to consult with flesh and
   blood! But his faith enabled him to go alone, if none would accompany
   him! He nailed up his theses on the church door and showed that one
   man, at least, had faith in the Gospel and in its God! Then trouble
   came, but Luther minded it not because the Father was with him! We also
   must be prepared, if God gives us strong faith, to ride far ahead like
   spiritual Uhlans who bravely pioneer the way for the rank and file of
   the army. It were well if the Church of God had more sons swifter than
   eagles and bolder than lions in God's service--men who can do and dare
   alone--till laggards gain courage from them and follow in their track.
   These Valiant-for-Truths full often pursue a solitary path, but let
   them console themselves with this word of the solitary Savior, "Yet I
   am not alone, because the Father is with Me." If we can but believe in
   God, He will never desert us! If we can dare, God will do! If we can
   trust, God will never allow us to be confounded, world without end! It
   is sweet beyond expression to climb where only God can lead and plant
   the standard on the highest towers of the foe!

   Another form of loneliness is the portion of Christians when they come
   into deep soul-conflict. My Brothers and Sisters, some of you
   understand what I mean by that. Our faith, at times, has to fight for
   very existence! The old Adam within us rages mightily and the new
   spirit within us, like a young lion, disdains to be vanquished and so
   these two mighty ones contend till our spirit is full of agony! Some of
   us know what it is to be tempted with blasphemies we would not dare
   repeat, to be vexed with horrid temptations which we have grappled with
   and overcome, but which have almost cost us resistance unto blood. In
   such inward conflicts, saints must be alone. They cannot tell their
   feelings to others-- they would not dare to do so. And if they did,
   their own brethren would despise or upbraid them, for the most of
   professors would not even know what they meant--and even those who have
   trodden other fiery ways would not be able to sympathize in all, but
   would answer them thus, "Those are points in which I cannot go with
   you." Christ alone was tempted in all points like as we are, though
   without sin. No one man is tempted in all points exactly like another
   man and each man has certain trials in which he must stand alone amid
   the rage of war, with not even a book to help him, or a biography to
   assist him--no man ever having gone that way before except that one Man
   whose trail reveals His nail-pierced feet. He alone knows all the
   devious paths of sorrow. Yet, even in such by-ways, the Father is with
   us, helping, sustaining and giving us Grace to conquer at the close.

   We will not, however, dwell on this aspect of solitary walking, for we
   have three others to mention. Many dear Brothers and Sisters have to
   endure the solitude of unnoticed labor They are serving God in a way
   which is exceedingly useful, but not at all noticeable. How very sweet
   to many workers are those little corners of the newspapers and
   magazines which describe their labors and successes. Yet some who are
   doing what God will think a great deal more of at the last never see
   their names in print. Yonder beloved Brother is plodding away in a
   little country village--nobody knows anything about him, but he is
   bringing souls to God. Unknown to fame, the angels are acquainted with
   him and a few precious ones whom he has led to Jesus know him well.
   Perhaps yonder Sister has a little class in the Sunday school. There is
   nothing striking in her or in her class. Now and then a little child
   ascends to Heaven to report her success and occasionally another comes
   into the Church--but nobody thinks of her as a very remarkable worker.
   She is a flower that blooms almost unseen, but she is none the less
   fragrant! Or shall we think of the humble City Missionary? The
   Superintendent of the District knows that he goes his regular rounds,
   but he has no idea of the earnest prayers and deep devotedness of that
   obscure lover of Jesus. The City Mission Magazine puts him down as
   trying to do his duty, but nobody knows what it costs him to cry and
   sigh over souls. There is a Bible-woman--she is mentioned in the Report
   as making so many visits a week, but nobody reports all that she is
   doing for the poor and needy and how many are saved in the Lord through
   her instrumentality. Hundreds of God's dear servants are serving Him
   without the encouragement of man's approving eye--yet God is with them!

   Never mind whereyou work--care more about howyou work! Never mind who
   sees or does not see you as long as God approves your efforts! If He
   smiles, be content. We cannot be always sure when we are most useful. A
   certain minister with very great difficulty reached a place where he
   had promised to preach. There was deep snow upon the ground, therefore
   only one hearer came. However, he preached as zealously as if there had
   been a thousand! Years later, when he was travelling in that same part
   of the country, he met a man who had been the founder of a Church in
   the village and from it, scores of other Churches had been established.
   The man came to see him and said, "I have good reason to remember you,
   Sir, for I was once your only hearer. And what has been done here has
   been brought about instrumentally through my conversion under that
   sermon." We cannot estimate our success. One child in the Sunday
   school, converted, may turn out to be worth 500 others because he may
   be the means of bringing 10,000 to Christ! It is not the acreage you
   sow, it is the multiplication which God givesto the Seed which will
   make up the harvest! You have less to do with being successful than
   with being faithful! Your main comfort is that, in your labor, you are
   not alone, for God, the Eternal One, who guides the marches of the
   stars, is with you!

   There is such a thing--I would that we might reach it--as the solitude
   of elevated piety. In the plain everything is in company, but the
   higher you ascend, the more lonely is the mountain path. At this moment
   there must be an awful solitude on the top of Mont Blanc. Where the
   stars look silently on the monarch of mountains, how deep the silence
   above the untrodden snows! How lonely is the summit of the Matterhorn,
   or the peak of Monte Rosa! When a man grows in Grace, he rises out of
   the fellowship of the many and draws nearer to God. Unless placed in
   very happy circumstances, he will find very few who understand the
   higher life and can thoroughly commune with him. But then the man will
   be as humble as he is high and he will fall back, necessarily and
   naturally, upon the eternal fellowship of God. As the mountain pierces
   the skies and offers its massive peak to be the footstool of the Throne
   of God, so the good man passes within the veil, unseen by mortal eyes,
   into the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High where he
   abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

   The last solitude will come to us all in the hour of death. Down to the
   river's brink they may go with us, a weeping company--wife, children
   and friends. Their kind looks will mean the help they cannot give. To
   that river's brink they may go in fond companionship, but then, as with
   our Lord, the cloud received Him out of His disciples' sight, so must
   we be received out of sight of our beloved ones. The chariot of fire
   must take Elijah away from Elisha. We must ascend alone. Bunyan may
   picture Christian and Hopeful together in the stream, but it is not
   so--they pass, each one, alone through the river. Yet we shall not be
   alone, my Brothers and Sisters--we correct our speech--the Father will
   be with us! Jesus will be with us! The Eternal Comforter will be with
   us! The everlasting Godhead in the Trinity of Persons shall be with us!
   And the angels of God shall be our convoy. Let us go our way, rejoicing
   that when we shall be alone, we shall not be alone because the Father
   will be with us--as He is with us even now!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN161-22.

   Verse 1. These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be
   offended. "That you should not be scandalized when you see Me put to
   death, and when you miss My bodily Presence from your midst. I want to
   prepare you for the shame and death that lie before Me and also prepare
   you for all that lies before you, for many of you will have to drink of
   My cup and to be baptized with My Baptism." "These things have I spoken
   unto you, that you should not be offended," or ashamed, or scandalized,
   or caused to stumble when they come to pass.

   2. They shall put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time comes that
   whoever kills you will think that he does God service. That terrible
   "time" did come very soon--and the Jewish and other persecutors hunted
   down the Christians in almost every place where they could be found.
   Nothing would satisfy their cruel foes but the blood of multitudes of
   martyrs! And many of the persecutors actually thought that they were
   doing God service while they were putting His children to torture and
   death!

   3. 4. And these things will they do unto you because they have not
   known the Father, nor Me. But these things have I told you, that when
   the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. To be
   forewarned is to be forearmed, especially when the Lord Jesus Christ
   gives the forewarning. And His disciples were thus to be forearmed and
   braced up for the coming conflict.

   4. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was
   with you. "I needed not, at the beginning of My ministry, to trouble
   you about these things. Even then you and I were hated by evil men, but
   I was with you, so I was

   able to protect you from them." The persecutors could not slay Christ's
   sheep, as they desired to do, as long as their Shepherd was still with
   them, so His warning words were not needed while He was in their midst.
   Christ does not teach us everything at once--if He did, we might be so
   confused that we should not learn anything! Perhaps we have sometimes
   wished that our ears could hear more than they now do, but it is most
   probable that if we could hear more, we would really understand less
   than we do now. Have you, at any time, had your hearing more than
   usually acute? If so, you must then have heard a thousand sounds which
   it would have been better for you not to have heard, for they so
   confused and confounded one another that you did not hear anything
   distinctly. It is just so with the mind--it is capable of receiving a
   certain quantity of the Truth of God, but if too much Truth is placed
   before it at once, it produces confusion in the mind's ears and in the
   mind's eyes and we really hear less, see less and understand less than
   we would do if less were set before us! The Master knew that His
   disciples were like narrow-necked bottles which must be gradually
   filled. So He only revealed the Truth to them as they were able to
   receive it.

   5, 6. But nowl go My way to Him that sent Me; andnone of you asks Me,
   Where are You going?But because Ihave said these things unto you,
   sorrow has filled your heart Sorrow sometimes prevents us from learning
   the lessons that Christ wishes to teach us. You remember that in the
   Garden of Gethsemane, Christ's disciples were "sleeping for sorrow,"
   and so they lost some of the lessons that they might otherwise have
   learned. Those who are in great trouble are often in that dazed
   condition in which half-awakened persons are. And there is a measure of
   sleepiness about us all in times of sorrow. It was so with the
   disciples on this occasion and, therefore, they did not ask their Lord
   what they might have asked Him if sorrow had not filled their
   hearts--"None of you asks Me, Where are You going?"

   7-9. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I
   go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
   but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will
   reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of
   sin, because they believe not on Me. Which is the head of all sin, the
   root of all sin, the sin which lies in front of the door of Mercy and
   blocks the sinner's way! Oh, that the Spirit of God would convince all
   here who are not Believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they are
   living in the greatest of all sins, "because they believe not on
   Christ"!

   10. Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no
   more. Of course Christ would not have been received back by His Father
   if He had not completed the work of righteousness which His Father gave
   Him the commission to perform. The risen and glorified Savior is the
   great testimony to the righteousness both of Christ and of His Gospel!

   11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. Christ has
   already judged the prince of the powers of evil, so you may depend upon
   it that He will also judge all those who are under the dominion of the
   traitor prince who has usurped his Master's position and authority.
   Christ has summoned the dread lord of evil to His bar and judged him.
   Think not, O you who are his servants, that any of you will be able to
   elude the vigilance of the great Judge of All! Judgment will assuredly
   come to the common soldiers of the Prince of Darkness since their
   captain, himself, has been judged and condemned!

   12. Ihave yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them
   now. Here again observe the reticence of the Savior for His disciples'
   good--still graciously keeping from them what they could not bear to
   hear. And are not you, Beloved, thankful that you do not, at this
   moment, know what is to happen to you in the future? It is wise for
   each one of us to say--

   "My God, I would not wish to read My fate with curious eyes-- What
   gloomy lines are writ forme, Or what bright scenes arise."

   It is best for you, at present, to know but little. Prize what you do
   know and be content to leave all that is not yet revealed, for "the
   secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are
   revealed belong unto us and to our children forever."

   13. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you
   into all Truth. All that you need to know and may know, He will teach
   you. If you cannot find your way into the heart of any Truth of God,
   the Spirit of God has the

   clue to it, so ask Him to guide you into it. There is such a thing as
   seeing the outside of a Truth--that is good as far as it goes, but the
   blessedness lies in getting to the insideof the Truth of God--the very
   kernel and core of it.

   13, 14. For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear,
   that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall
   glorify Me. That is the distinctive mark of the Spirit of God. If any
   man says that he speaks by the Spirit, you can test him in this
   way--does what he say glorify Christ? If not, away with him, for he is
   not speaking as the Holy Spirit speaks!

   14-18. For He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you. All
   things that the Father has are Mine: therefore saidI, that He shall
   take ofMine, and shall show it unto you. A little while, andyou shall
   not see Me: andagain, a little while, and you shall see Me, because I
   go to the Father Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What
   is this that He says unto us, A little while, andyou shall not see Me:
   andagain, a little while, andyou shall see Me: and, Because I go to the
   Father? They said therefore, What is this that He says, A little while?
   We cannot tell what He says.These disciples of Christ were almost as
   ignorant as the rank outsiders were! Though they had been with Jesus
   for three years, they had not learned what is clear enough to every
   Sunday school child, today, and what is certainly perfectly understood
   by all who are taught of God! They said, "What is this that He says
   unto us, A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little
   while, and you shall see Me: and, because I go to the Father? They said
   therefore, What is this that He says, A little while? We cannot tell
   what He says."

   19-22. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto
   them, Do you inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while,
   andyou shall not see Me: and again, a little while, andyou shall see
   Me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you shall weep and lament, but
   the world shall rejoice: andyou shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow
   shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail has sorrow,
   because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child,
   she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the
   world. And you now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and
   your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you
     __________________________________________________________________

Jesus Christ's Idiom

   (No. 3053)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 19, 1873.

   "Jesusanswered, Verily, verily." John 3:5.

   THIS expression, "Verily, verily," seems to me to have been the
   peculiar idiom of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has absolutely forbidden
   His people ever to take an oath. His command upon that matter is most
   explicit, "I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by Heaven; for it
   is God's Throne: nor by the earth; for it is His footstool: neither by
   Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King: neither shall you
   swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.
   But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more
   than these comes of evil." My text was Jesus Christ's strongest form of
   affirmation--when He wished to speak most emphatically, He said,
   "Verily, verily, I say unto you." Every prominent public speaker has
   his own peculiar idioms and very much of the man's character will be
   found in the idioms that he uses. And I may add that the attention
   which the man deserves may sometimes be gauged by his idioms, for as
   his style of speaking will reveal to you the man, you will discover how
   far you ought to lend him your ears. If, from his speech, you judge
   that he is flippant, or insincere, or that there is something sinister
   in his motives, or that he is aiming at the display of himself rather
   than at the proclamation of the truth, you may straightway say, "Then
   there is no particular reason why I should listen to him." But if, from
   the very idiomatic force of the words which he uses, you feel that the
   man is true, sincere and earnest, then you say, "I shall be wise to
   give heed to his words and to let his thoughts operate upon my own."

   There are three qualities which these words reveal to us in our
   Savior's teaching. First, there was clearness-- "Verily, verily."
   Secondly, there was certainty--"Verily, verily, I say this and that
   unto you." Thirdly, there was solemnity--"Verily, verily, I say unto
   you." We must, therefore, give to Him, in return for clearness, the
   desire to understand Him. In return for certainty, the conviction of
   the Truth of what He says and, to His solemnity, we must respond with a
   deep sense of the importance of His teaching and act in accordance with
   what He says.

   I. I am to speak, first, upon Christ's idiom, "Verily, verily," as
   denoting to US THE CLEARNESS OF WHAT THE SAVIOR SAID.

   He knew what He meant when He spoke. Some people, when they speak, do
   not know what they mean and, when a man does not make you understand
   what he means, it generally is because he does not know the meaning of
   what he says. Indistinct speaking is usually the result of indistinct
   thinking. If men think clouds, they will preach clouds, but the Savior
   never spoke in that style which, at one time, was so common in our
   pulpits--a style imported partly from Germany and which was excessively
   cloudy and smoky, though it was thought by some people to be
   wonderfully profound and to be the very trademark of intellect! But
   there was not a sentence of that kind in all Christ's teaching. He was
   the clearest, most straightforward and most outspoken of all speakers.
   He knew what He meant to say and He meant His hearers also to know. It
   is true that the Jews of His day did not comprehend some of His
   teaching, but that was because judicial blindness had fallen upon them.
   The fault was not in the light, but in their bleared eyes. Turn to His
   teaching and see if anyone else ever spoke as simply as He did. A child
   can comprehend His parables. There are, in them, hidden Truths of God
   which are a mystery even to Christ's deeply-taught disciples, but
   Christ never mystified His hearers--He talked to them like a child, as
   He was--God's "Holy Child Jesus." He never laid aside the simplicity of
   childhood though He had all the dignity of fully-developed Manhood. He
   wore His heart upon His sleeve and spoke out

   what was on His mind in such plain, clear language that the poorest of
   the poor and the lowest of the low were eager to listen to Him.

   Now, Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you wish to imitate
   your Master, speak with the same clearness. Say to your hearers,
   "Verily, verily, I have to proclaim to you, in Christ's name, this
   simple yet sublime Truth of God which I have myself grasped, and which
   I would also have you grasp." Never affect profundity among the poor
   and never use a theological jargon among the uneducated anywhere! If
   you have, in speaking, to show the Savior to your hearers, show Him in
   His own dress--do not cover Him up with the tawdry vestments of your
   gaudy language, for He will count them only as filthy rags. Tell
   sinners, in simple words, first about their sins and then about the
   Savior who can wash away their sins in His most precious blood. But go
   not a-hunting after novelties, for they will be of no service to
   perishing souls. If you are to be like Jesus, your teaching must be
   clear!

   But next I need to say to those of you who are still unconverted, how
   necessary it is that you should clearly understand this clear teaching
   of the Lord Jesus Christ/There are some Truths upon which He spoke with
   very wonderful clearness--as for instance, concerning what sin is--how
   a look may be a sin and how a longing may be as much a sin as an action
   or a word is. Christ has also told us very clearly that sin must and
   will be punished. There never was anyone else so kind in heart as He
   was, yet He clearly taught the dreadful Truth of God that sinners shall
   be punished in Hell forever! There never can be any question about the
   Savior's view of sin as being a very evil thing and of the punishment
   of sin as being a very terrible thing. How very plainly, too, He speaks
   about the new birth! He said to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born-again,
   he cannot see the Kingdom of God." And He was equally explicit
   concerning the way of salvation. He tells us that just as Moses lifted
   up the serpent in the wilderness and every bitten Israelite who looked
   to it was healed, so He, Himself, was lifted up upon the Cross and
   every sinner who trusts Him is saved forever! The teachings of Christ
   and of His Apostles concerning sinners being saved through faith in Him
   are blessedly clear. The Gospels and Epistles tell us that a perfectly
   holy and Divine Substitute for sinners was required--and that Jesus was
   that Substitute and stood in the place of all His chosen people--and
   bore the punishment which was due for all their sins. If we are
   Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, all our liabilities to Infinite
   Justice are forever discharged, for Jesus bore all our sins in His own
   body on the tree--and bore them so completely away that they shall be
   remembered against us no more forever!

   I want to ask you who have not yet believed in Jesus, whether you
   really understand this Truth of God of which I have been speaking. Lest
   there should be anyone here under a delusion upon this matter, let me
   say, once and for all, that there is no salvation in any charm or
   ceremony invented or performed by men. The common notion is that there
   is some kind of charm which operates upon a person, young or old, who
   is brought to a font--that some virtue or other goes through the
   fingers of the "priest" who sprinkles the water because at his
   "ordination" he received something or other, from somebody or other,
   who received that something or other from some other body and so on,
   and so on, and so on right up to the Apostles! All that is sheer
   superstition as base as the witchcraft for which old women were burned
   in the

   evil days of the past! [See Sermons #581, Volume 10--CHILDREN BROUGHT
   TO CHRIST, NOT TO THE FONT and #573, Volume 10--BAPTISMAL REGENERATION,
   the sermon by Mr. Spurgeon which has had a larger circulation than any
   other in the 3,052 published sermons to date.] How I wish that all men,
   women and children could be undeceived concerning it! Then there is a
   notion that a piece of bread, or a drop of wine, "consecrated" and
   dispensed by properly-authorized persons, will, somehow or other, charm
   away evil from a dying person. That is another superstition not a whit
   better than the fetish of the pretended rainmakers of South Africa!
   Neither the water, nor the bread and wine can convey Divine Grace to an
   unbeliever! But if I am a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, my being
   buried with Him in Baptism [See Sermon #1627,

   Volume 27, BAPTISM--A BURIAL.] reminds me that I am saved through

   His death and burial--and if I, as a Believer in Christ, eat the bread
   and drink the wine at the Communion Table, those suggestive symbols
   help me, as Paul says, to "show the Lord's death till He comes." That
   is all. There is no charm in the water, or the bread, or the wine in
   themselves, whatever incantations any so-called "priest" may have
   muttered over them!

   Then, never imagine that we cannot understand what the Gospel of Christ
   really is. Someone perhaps says, "Well, you see, Sir, I am not learned.
   I am no scholar, so I cannot understand the Gospel." My dear Friend,
   there are many people who cannot understand the Gospel just because
   they are scholars! They know too much to understand it--they have so
   much of what they think is knowledge that they are prejudiced against
   it! Knowledge may prejudice a person as much as ignorance does. What
   you need to know is simply this--that you are a sinner and that if you
   trust in the Lord

   Jesus Christ, He is your Savior. The result of believing in Him will be
   this--knowing that you are saved because God tells you that you are,
   you love God whom you dreaded before and, loving Him, you naturally
   ask, "What can I do to please Him?" So you give up your old sins and,
   led on by the impulse of love, which is the work of the Holy Spirit in
   your heart, you seek after holiness! The things that concern your
   soul's salvation are plain enough for a child to comprehend! If you are
   lost, it will not be a mystery that damns you--and if you are ever to
   be saved, it is the simplicity of the Gospel that will save you! The
   Truths of God that relate to your ruin through sin--and the only remedy
   for that ruin-- through the Grace of God, are "as plain as a
   pikestaff," as our common proverb puts it.

   "Still," says one, "I have often listened to the preaching of the
   Gospel, but I have failed to understand it." Then ask the Spirit of God
   to guide you into it! He is waiting to instruct sincere seekers. Let me
   ask you whether you have ever really tried to understand the Gospel.
   "Well, Sir, I have heard Dr. So-and-So and Mr. So-and-So." Yes, but
   perhaps they have only muddled you. Have you read the Bible itself? He
   who wishes to drink pure water had better go to the wellhead. He who
   wishes to find the Truth of God had better come to these sacred pages,
   for here he will find it pure and unalloyed. Have you imitated the Jews
   at Berea who "searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were
   so"? There are many people who condemn the Scriptures, but no man who
   has read them in the right spirit ever condemns them. You may remember
   the story of the City Missionary who was arguing with a cobbler--a man
   who thought himself a very wise skeptic although he had never read the
   Bible. He said he never would do so, yet he knew it was a very bad
   book! So the missionary said to him, "I bought a pair of boots
   yesterday which cost me twelve and sixpence--do you think they were
   worth the money?" He replied, "Possibly they were, but I can't say
   positively without seeing them." The missionary said, "But, if you are
   a cobbler and understand your business, you can certainly tell me their
   value without seeing them." "Why you must consider me a fool to think
   that I can judge of a thing I never saw." "Yes," said the missionary,
   "I did think you were a fool because you have been judging and
   condemning the Bible which you have never studied." So I ask you, dear
   Friend--Have you read the Bible? Have you studied it? If you say that
   you cannot comprehend it, I ask--Have you ever tried to do so? Do not
   plead that you cannot understand the Gospel if you have never tried to
   understand it! But if you humbly ask the Holy Spirit to teach you its
   meaning as you read it, I believe the Light of the Truth of God will
   soon enter your soul.

   Let me ask you another question--Have you put into practice what you
   really do understand of the Scriptures? You know that you are
   sinful--have you confessed your sinfulness to God? You know that there
   is a Savior from sin and that He is to be laid hold of by faith--have
   you trusted Him to save you? With the Truth of God so clear there is no
   need for you to perish in the dark! I read in the paper, yesterday, the
   notice of a reward to be given to anyone who would furnish information
   concerning the injury done to a certain buoy off the coast. The buoy
   was described as being on such-and-such a sand and, as it was 20 feet
   in height, it must have been injured through sheer carelessness or
   willful wickedness. So, if you have rightly read the Scriptures, or
   have heard the Gospel plainly preached, it will be impossible for you
   to perish by accident--you will perish willfully and your blood will be
   upon your own head. When Christ brings the printed Gospel before your
   eyes, as it were, in capital letters--if you will not read it and
   understand it--you must perish as a spiritual suicide, which may God
   forbid!

   II. The time flies so quickly that I must pass on to notice, in the
   next place, that THE EXPRESSION, "VERILY, VERILY," AS THE SPECIAL IDIOM
   OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, SIGNIFIED CERTAINTY.

   He knew that what He said was true and, therefore, He said, "Verily,
   verily, I say unto you." Untold mischief has been done in our country
   by the kind of preaching which was very common at one time, namely, for
   the preacher to speak as if he did not knowwhat the Truth of God is and
   must be pardoned for intruding his opinions! If a man does not know the
   Truth, let him hold his tongue until he does. "I believed, therefore
   have I spoken," said the Psalmist. And he alone has the right to speak
   who speaks that which he believes and, therefore, knows. The Lord Jesus
   never hesitates as to what He shall say, His language never halts! His
   "Verily, verily, I say unto you," is the utterance of One who knows the
   Truth of God and who speaks it as One who is assured that it is the
   Truth of God.

   On our part, there should be a suitable response to Christ's certainty.
   If we believe Him to be the Son of God speaking the Truth of God to us
   with absolute certainty, let us receive with certainty what He says to
   us. "But," says one, "there are so many different opinions that I do
   not know which to believe." What have you to do with men's opinions?
   Supposing there are 10,000 "isms" in the world--what have they to do
   with you? If you are lost, it will not abate the flames of Hell if you
   say, "There were so many isms in the world I did not know which to
   choose." There was but one Truth, for Christ said, "I am the Truth." If
   you had believed Him you would have been saved by Him. There are,
   today, many persons who raise all sorts of questions--there always have
   been and there always will be such persons while this dispensation
   lasts--but what have you to do with them? Your business is to trust the
   Lord Jesus Christ and leave all those questions alone!

   "But," says another, "even good men differ." I know they do, but if you
   go into a watchmaker's shop, you find that even good watches and clocks
   differ in some respects. Yet that fact does not affect Greenwich mean
   time which is the standard for all the watches and clocks in the
   country! So, supposing that one good man sees one side of a Truth and
   another sees another side of it--what good man ever asks you to trust
   in him? You have listened to my preaching--some of you for many
   years--did I ever ask you to follow my guidance except just as far as
   the Scriptures prove the truth of what I preach to you? With God's Word
   in your hand as the map of the road to Heaven, ask His Spirit to guide
   you and He will guide you all the way!

   All that Christ teaches is certainly true and there are some things
   which He tells us which are absolutely essential for us to learn. For
   instance, "You must be born-again." Or this, "Except you repent, you
   shall all likewise perish." There is no doubt that at the Last Great
   Day, Christ "will judge the world in righteousness." We must all stand
   before His Great White Throne to receive from Him the final sentence
   which shall fix our eternal destiny. If you are an unbeliever, you are
   condemned already--and if you live and die an unbeliever, you must be
   driven from His Presence into a hopeless eternity. All these things are
   certainties. There are many fictions in the world, but these things are
   not fictions--neither are they trifles. And I do pray you to believe
   these Truths of God and to draw the right practical inferences from
   them.

   There are also some Truths about which Christ says, "Verily, verily,"
   which ought to be a great comfort to you. For instance, it is certainly
   true that if you confess your sins to Him, He will forgive you. It is
   certainly true that if you trust in Jesus, He will give you rest and
   peace, and you shall be, "accepted in the Beloved." It is certainly
   true that if you commit your soul into Christ's hands you shall never
   perish, and no one shall ever be able to pluck you out of His hands.

   [See Sermon #726, Volume 12--LIFE ETERNAL and #2120, Volume 35--THE
   SECURITY OF BELIEVERS--OR, SHEEP WHO SHALL NEVER PERISH.] There are
   many blessed assurances in the Word of God upon which you may surely
   rely. God help you to rely upon them now!

   There are other Truths in God's Word which you will find to be sure if
   you test and try them. I might address myself to many a man here and
   say to him, "Brother, did you not put Christ's Word to the test in the
   time of trouble, and did you not prove it to be true?" And I know that
   the answer would be, "Yes, that I did!" I might pick out many a humble
   man and woman here who have had a heavy task to bring up their children
   as they have done and many stern struggles with poverty and affliction,
   and I might say to them, "My Brother, my Sister, has not Christ been
   precious to you?" And I know that the answer would be, "Yes! That He
   has! He has fulfilled every word of promise that He ever gave us to
   rely upon." There is no one who can ever convict Christ of a lie--there
   is not a friend or a foe who can truthfully say, "He deceived me."
   "Verily, verily," is stamped upon every promise, every precept and
   every threat--and He will prove all of them to be true to the end of
   time and throughout eternity!

   Then, as these things are certain, let us act upon them. O Sirs, in a
   short time we shall have done with preaching and hearing the Gospel! I
   fear that many people come to our places of worship in the same spirit
   in which they go to places of amusement and that the main things of
   which they think are--how the preacher puts his message, whether he is
   fluent and eloquent and whether he interests them or not. Yes, but that
   is not the principal matter about which we should be concerned! You and
   I will soon be before the bar of God! I shall have to prove that I
   faithfully preached what I believed to be the Truth of God--and you
   will have to prove whether you accepted it and acted upon it! And I
   charge you all, before the living God, at whose bar you must soon
   stand, not to treat the Gospel as if it were mere fiction. Go not away
   from this building as though you had been watching a play, or listening
   to an organ recital which might or might not mean anything to you.
   There is a real Hell--will you be shut up in it forever? There is a
   real Heaven--will you be shut out of it forever? There is a real Savior
   who died upon the Cross for sinners--will you despise and reject Him?
   And, above all, there sits a real God in whom we live, and move, and
   have our being--shall we continue to forget Him, break His Laws as if
   we had liberty to do what we would and despise Him as if He were a man
   like ourselves? Oh, by the "Verily, verily," of the Christ of God, I
   beseech you to lay to heart the certainty, the reality of His teachings
   and let them have their due weight upon your spirits! May the Spirit of
   God make it to be so!

   III. The third point was to be that CHRIST'S "VERILY, VERILY" MEANT
   SOLEMNITY. Christ was a very solemn Preacher, though He was by no means
   a dull Preacher There are some speakers who confound dullness with
   solemnity, but Christ's discourses were always interesting. How He
   abounded in parables and metaphors! The children listened with pleasure
   to His teachings, yet how solemn it always was, and how forcibly the
   Master proved the solemnity of His speech by the solemnity of His life!
   Those nights of prayer that He spent on the lone mountainside show that
   His was no mock earnestness. And that life of untiring labor showed how
   real and intense was His zeal. And His death, as with blood-red seals
   proved that, "having loved His own which were in the world, He loved
   them unto the end." It was the same Christ who said, "Verily, verily,"
   who died upon the Cross, rose again and went up into Glory to make
   intercession for the transgressors!

   The solemnity of Christ's words and work should cause us to listen to
   His Gospel with a corresponding seriousness and solemnity. If you are
   worldly and earth-bound, you will not attach that importance to the
   Gospel of Christ that you should. To many of you, the Truth that you
   need to be saved does not seem to come home with power. If I were, in
   the middle of a sermon, to begin to talk about the way to get money,
   the attention of many of you would be far more intense than it is when
   I am speaking about the salvation of immortal souls. If I were to
   discuss the price of British bonds, many ears would be at once opened
   to catch every syllable! Whereas when I talk of the incalculable price
   that Jesus paid for the redemption of the souls of men, the Truth makes
   no more impression upon many men's minds than oil would upon a slab of
   marble! Your souls, the best part of your real selves, concern you not,
   O you foolish sons of men! You treat your souls as if they were dirt,
   yet you prize the things of time and sense as if they were all that you
   had! You have a notion that these things concern people a long way
   off--people who are very wicked and do not go to any place of worship,
   or other people in this congregation who are somehow more fitted than
   you are to receive my message! But, Sir, the Gospel is for you, and God
   is speaking by His Word and by His servant, to you! I wish that you
   would end this folly of passing on to others the Gospel that is meant
   for yourself.

   In closing, I must just mention one or two reflections concerning the
   solemnity of the Gospel message. First, remember that the Gospel
   concerns our never-dying souls. Most people think a great deal about
   that which concerns the body. There is much talk about an operation,
   wisely performed by an eminent surgeon upon the poor body which must
   soon become food for worms. Yet little or nothing is said about the
   soulwhich is so vastly more precious! The soul of an emperor or the
   soul of a beggar is of the same value in God's sight. "Where does it
   take its flight when its earthly cage is broken?" Is that a question
   which is never asked by some of you? If so, what arrant fools you must
   be! O blessed Spirit of God, teach us the solemnity of the Gospel which
   concerns the soul which must live forever in raptures or in woe!

   This Gospel also concerns the never-ending eternity. We are not going
   into another time-state that shall come to an end, but into that
   eternity which shall know no close. I can make no meaning out of
   Christ's words if it is not so--and He said, concerning the wicked,
   "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous
   into life eternal." The word is the same in each case in the original.
   Oh, eternity, eternity, eternity, who can conceive what it is? A
   million millions of years would be less than a moment compared with
   eternity--and that sum multiplied by a million millions a million times
   told would be but as a drop in a bucket compared with that which is
   everlasting! O Sirs, as I know that I am to live forever in such a
   state as I shall die in, my first concern is to be ready for death that
   I may be ready for my eternal future! Is it not so with you also? Oh, I
   do implore you, trifle not with eternity and with your never-dying
   souls! Trifle not with the God who can cast you into Hell forever!
   Trifle not with Christ whose hands and feet were nailed to the accursed
   tree for sinners such as you! Trifle not with His precious blood for
   that is your only hope of redemption! Trifle not with the Holy Spirit
   for if He should leave you to perish, your case would be hopeless!
   Trifle not with your Sabbaths--you will wish to have them back again
   when you are near death. Trifle not with the Gospel--what would the
   lost in Hell not give to hear another proclamation of mercy? The devil
   does not trifle--he is very earnestly seeking your destruction! God,
   Christ and the Holy Spirit are not trifling with you--and we are not
   trifling with you! We long to preach the Gospel to you more earnestly,
   more fully and more faithfully than ever--and we pray to God to help us
   do so and lament when we fear that we have failed. Trifle not when
   everything around you seems to be in earnest and especially when the
   Lord Jesus Christ, speaking out of this chapter, says to you, "Verily,
   verily, I of the crown of thorns. I of the pierced hands and feet speak
   plainly, certainly and solemnly to you and bid you look unto Me that
   you may be saved."

   I never go out of this pulpit feeling so utterly cast down as when I
   have been trying to deal with the consciences of the ungodly. I wish I
   could grip each one of you by the hand and look you in the face, and
   say, "Man, Woman, are you going to die without a Savior? Oh, be not so
   foolish, so mad!" I would tell every young man here how, when I was
   myself a young man, I was led to look by faith to the Savior and I have
   found it a blessed thing to rest in Him ever since. And I would say to
   him, "Brother, come with me to the Cross of Calvary and rest in Jesus,
   and begin to live a holy and useful life--and you shall find yourself
   truly blessed among men." I cannot come round and speak personally to
   you all, but will you let me follow you to your bedside and, if you
   think of getting into bed tonight without a prayer for your soul's
   salvation, just imagine that you feel my hand upon your shoulder and
   hear me say to you, "What? No offering of a prayer to God?" I was about
   to say, "Stepping into your bed," but I thought that it might become
   your sepulcher, for you may die there! As many have done who went to
   bed as thoughtlessly and prayerless as you have often done. But if you
   trust in Jesus and then fall asleep for the last time on earth, you
   will wake up amid the splendors of eternal bliss!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN3:1-18.

   If we were asked to read to a dying man who did not know the Gospel, we
   would probably select this chapter as the most suitable one for such an
   occasion. And what is good for dying men is good for us all, for that
   is what we are--and how soon we may actually be at the gates of death,
   none of us can tell.

   Verses 1, 2. There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler
   of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night.We do not know the names
   of many other Pharisees, but we do know the name of this one because
   God had loved him with an everlasting love and, therefore, with loving
   kindness did He draw him to the Savior's feet! "The same came to Jesus
   by night." Possibly he was too busy to come during the day. Anyway, it
   was better to come to Jesus late at night than not to come to Him at
   all! From the fact that after our Lord's death, it is said that he was
   the man who "at the first came to Jesus by night," I gather that he did
   come then partly out of timidity and partly also out of candor. He
   wanted to know more about Christ before he committed himself, so he
   came privately to see and hear for himself. It does not matter if any
   of you also come to Christ by night if you like. Our Savior has a
   night-bell to His door and He is quite willing to be the Physician of
   your soul--even if you ring Him up at midnight!

   2. And said unto Him, Rabbi.He begins very respectfully, and so far, so
   good. But then, Judas said, "Hail, Master," and kissed Christ when he
   went to Gethsemane to betray Him.

   2. We know that You are a Teacher come from God: for no man can do
   these miracles that You do, except God be with him.Dear Friends, if any
   of you do not know all about Christ that you wish to know, or that can
   be known, make use of what you do know about Him. Nicodemus had not yet
   learned the truth of Christ's Deity, but he knew that He was a teacher
   sent from God, and that God was with Him.

   3. Jesus answered and said unto Him, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
   Except a man is born-again, he cannot see the

   Kingdom of God. [See Sermon #130, Volume 3--REGENERATION.] Christ s

   formula, "Verily, verily, I say unto you," was a new style of speech
   for the Pharisees to hear, for they quoted Rabbi this, and Rabbi
   that--but Jesus gives Himself as His own sufficient authority, with an
   egoism which cannot be blamed and which no true disciple of His ever
   questions, for Christ is, Himself, the Truth, and whatever He says is
   to be humbly received by all His followers. "Verily, verily, I say unto
   you, Except a man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." He
   has no notion of what it really is. He cannot even see it, for he is
   blind to it until he is born-again. It is for this reason that our most
   lucid explanations of the Gospel are altogether lost upon unregenerate
   men and women. However bright a light God may make our ministry to be,
   bright light is of no use to blind men and they must be born-again
   before they can even seethe Kingdom of God.

   4. Nicodemus said unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can
   he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?His
   questions proved that he could not see the Kingdom of God. He blundered
   over the letter of Christ's message. He misunderstood the metaphor that
   Christ used--but did Jesus therefore not give Nicodemus any further
   instruction? Oh, no! Listen.

   5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man is born
   of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of
   God.There must be a purifying operation upon his heart and mind, he
   must be spiritually washed and cleansed, and the Spirit of God must
   create him anew. Otherwise he cannot possibly enter into the Kingdom of
   God.

   6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of
   the Spirit is spirit So that the best child who was ever born, even
   though he were, like Saul of Tarsus, "of the stock of Israel, of the
   tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews," yet even he, inasmuch as
   he "is born of the flesh, is flesh," and not "spirit." Everything which
   comes to us by our first birth can be nothing better than flesh--and
   what can you get out of flesh but flesh? The only "evolution" that can
   come of the flesh is corruption! There must be another birth if you are
   to get anything but flesh--"that which is born of the Spirit is
   spirit." Fleshly things are understood by the flesh, and spiritual
   things must be spiritually discerned. Hence the absolute necessity of a
   second birth, a Spirit birth, that we may first see and then enter the
   spiritual Kingdom

   of God.

   7. Marvel not that I said unto you, You must be born-again. This ruler
   of the Jews was full of astonishment at this strange Doctrine, so
   Christ said to Him, "Marvel not."

   8. The wind blows.That is, the Spirit blows.

   8. Where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from
   where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the
   Spirit This is a great mystery and our Savior connected it with the
   most mysterious thing in the whole realm of Nature--the wind--a thing
   which has never been seen and which must remain a mystery to us, at
   least while we are upon the earth. Christ uses this mysterious force as
   an emblem of the Holy Spirit and of those who are "born of the Spirit."

   9. Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?He was
   puzzled and perplexed, like a man in a maze. The Savior had given him
   something to think about--and I wish that when we preach to a
   congregation, or when we talk to individuals, we would not aim at
   dazzling them with our fine phrases, but would seek to set the Truth of
   God before their minds, that it might lie there to be studied, and
   thought of, and to be like seed which, in later days, would germinate
   and bring forth a harvest to God's praise and Glory! Our Savior is an
   example to all of us who preach and, in this instance, He shows us the
   wisdom of not keeping back the mysteries of the Kingdom of God! I am
   greatly afraid that many preachers would have begun by talking to
   Nicodemus of some point that was common to both Judaism and
   Christianity and that they would have gone on to apologize for the
   peculiar mysteries of Christianity, all of which would have been a
   waste of breath and worse than that. Do not so, my Brothers, but speak
   out the Truth boldly and leave the Eternal Spirit to make use of it as
   He pleases!

   10-12. Jesus answered and said unto Him, Are you a master of Israel,
   and know not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto you, We speak
   that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and you receive not Our
   witness. If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how
   shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? The Savior as good
   as told Nicodemus that He did not come to argue or to reason with him,
   but to bear witness to absolute certainties of which He Himself was
   absolutely sure. So He said to him, "If you do not receive Our witness
   concerning these things, which lie on the very threshold of the
   Kingdom"--yet, mark you, He had been speaking about regeneration, the
   great mystery of the new birth--"it is of no use going on to still
   higher themes." So it is evident that the Kingdom of Christ requires
   great faith--faith on the very threshold of it--to believe the wondrous
   mystery of the new birth and still greater faith as deeper Truths, the
   more heavenly things of the Kingdom are revealed to us.

   13. And no man has ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from
   Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven.Now Nicodemus must have
   been indeed puzzled! Here was a Man who had come down from Heaven, yet
   who had gone up to Heaven and was still there, although He was at that
   moment talking to Nicodemus! Without the Spirit of God to explain the
   mystery, he could not make heads or tails of it.

   14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
   must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whoever believes in Him should
   not perish, but have eternal life. [See Sermon #153, Volume 3--the
   mysteries of the bronze serpent--

   .] Mark, dear Friends, the blending of the different Truths of God

   in this wonderful chapter! There is no keeping back the necessity of
   the new birth and there is no cutting down of the glorious Doctrine of
   Salvation by Faith in Jesus! He puts the whole matter as broadly as it
   could be put.

   16, 17. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
   that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but
   that the world through Him might be saved. If any one of you says, "I
   cannot cause myself to be born-again," that is quite true. Yet listen
   to this message in the same chapter which speaks of the new birth--"For
   God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
   whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

   BUT JESUS--SECOND PART.] That is a grand Truth of God!

   18. But He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not
   believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.His not believing
   is the master-sin, the surest evidence of his being, in his heart, an
   enemy to God. If he refuses to trust Christ, the matchless gift of the
   Father's love, he must be desperately set on mischief and he "is
   condemned already." These two Truths of the necessity of the new birth
   and of the fact that everyone who believes on Christ is saved, are
   quite consistent and in perfect harmony with each other. God grant to
   us the Grace to know them both by experience! Never talk about
   "reconciling" them, for they have never fallen out with one another!.
   God grant that we may find them both true in our own lives, for His
   dear Son's sake! Amen.

   on Him is not condemned [See Sermons #361, Volume 7--NONE BUT
   JESUS--FIRST PART and #362, Volume 7.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Pardon and Justification

   (No. 3054)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

   "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."
   Psalm 32:1.

   FEW men judge things correctly. Most people measure by appearances--few
   know the test of reality. We pronounce the man blessed who grasps the
   scepter or wears the crown, whereas perhaps no peasant in his dominion
   enjoys less happiness than he does. We pronounce that man blessed who
   has uninterrupted and perpetual health, but we know not the secret
   gnawing of the heart devoured by its own anguish and embittered by a
   sorrow that a stranger cannot perceive. We call the wise man happy
   because he understands all things--from the hyssop on the wall to the
   cedar of Lebanon-- but he says, "Of making many books there is no end
   and much study is a weariness of the flesh." We are all for pronouncing
   our neighbor's lot happier than our own. As Young says of mortality,
   "All men think all men mortal but themselves." And we are apt to think
   all men happy but ourselves. But oh, if we could see things as they
   are. If we were not deceived by the masquerade of this poor life. If we
   were not so easily taken in by the masks and dresses of those who act
   in this great drama, be it comedy or tragedy--if we could but see what
   the men are behind the scenes, penetrate their hearts, watch their
   inner motions and discern their secret feelings--we should find but few
   who could bear the name of "blessed"! Indeed, there are none except
   those who come under the description of my text, "Blessed is he whose
   transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." He is blessed, thrice
   blessed, blessed forevermore, blessed of Heaven, blessed of earth,
   blessed for time, blessed for eternity! And the man whose sin is
   notforgiven is not blessed--the mouth of Jehovah has said it and God
   shall manifest that cursed is every man whose transgression is not
   forgiven, whose sin is not covered!

   Dearly Beloved, we come to the consideration of that most excellent and
   choice blessing of God which bespeaks our pardon and justification--and
   we trust that we shall be able to show you its extreme value.

   The blessedness of the person enjoying this mercy will appear if we
   consider, first, the exceeding value of it in its nature and its
   characteristics. Then, if we notice the things that accompany it And,
   afterwards, if we muse upon the state of heart which a sense of
   forgiveness would engender, we shall see that a man whose sin is
   covered and whose transgression is forgiven, must indeed be blessed!

   I. Let us first look at THE BLESSING AS IT IS.

   It is an unpurchasable blessing. No one could purchase the pardon of
   his sin. What though we should each offer a hecatomb to our God, the
   sacrifice would smoke in vain, for "Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
   nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering." If we could
   make rivers of oil as wide as the Amazon and as long as the
   Mississippi, we could not offer them to God as an acceptable present,
   for He would laugh at its value. We might bring money to Him in vain,
   for He says, "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine." No oblation
   can add to His wealth, for He says, "Every beast of the forest is Mine,
   and the cattle upon a thousand hills.. .If I were hungry, I would not
   tell you: for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof." These are
   all God's own creatures, so we could only offer to Him what is already
   His! Nothing that man can present to God by way of sacrifice can ever
   purchase the blessing of forgiveness.

   Next, consider the utter difficulty of procuring the blessing in any
   human way. Since it is not to be purchased, how can it be procured?
   Here is a man who has sinned against God and he makes the inquiry, "How
   can I be pardoned?" The first thought which starts up in his mind is
   this, "I will seek to amend my ways. In the virtue of the future I will
   endeavor to atone for the follies of the past--and I trust a merciful
   God will be disposed to forgive my sins and spare my guilty but
   penitent soul." He then turns to Scripture to see if his hopes are
   warranted and he reads there, "By the deeds of the Law

   there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." He fancies that if he
   should reform and amend his life, he will be accepted, but there comes
   from the Throne of God a voice which says, "Having sinned, O man, I
   must inflict punishment for your sin." God is so inflexibly just that
   He has never forgiven and will never forgive the sinner without having
   exacted the punishment for his sin! He is so strictly true to His
   threats and so inexorably severe in His justice, that His holy Law
   never relaxes its hold upon the sinner till the penalty is paid to the
   utmost farthing.

   "Well," says the sinner, "if I amend for the future, there is the dark
   catalog of past offenses still pursuing me. Even if

   1 run up no other debts, there are the old accounts--how can I get
   thempaid? How can I get my past sins forgiven? How can I find my way to
   Heaven." Then he thinks, "I will seek to humble myself before God. I
   will cry and lament and I hope, by deep penitence, heart-felt
   contrition and by perpetual floods of tears, God may be induced to
   pardon me." O man, your tears will not blot out a single sin! Your sins
   are engraved as in brass and your tears are not a liquid strong enough
   to burn out what God has thus inscribed--

   "Could your tears forever flow,

   Could your zeal no respite know,

   All for sin could not atone.

   Christ must save, and Christ alone." You might weep till your very eyes
   were wept away and until your heart was all distilled in drops and yet
   not remove one single stain from the bronze tablet of the memory of
   Jehovah! There is no atonement in tears or repentance! God has not
   said, "I will forgive you for the sake of your penitence." What is
   there in your penitence that can make you deserve forgiveness? If you
   did deserve forgiveness, you would have a set-off against your guilt.
   This were to suppose some claim upon God and there would be no mercy in
   giving you what you could claim as a right. Repentance is not an
   atonement for sin!

   What, then, can be done? Justice says, "Blood for blood, a stroke for
   every sin, punishment for every crime, for the Lord will by no means
   clear the guilty." The sinner feels within his heart that this judgment
   is just. Like the man to whom I talked some time ago, who said, "If God
   does not damn me, He ought to. I have been so great a sinner against
   His Laws that His equity would be sullied by my escape." The sinner,
   when convicted in his own conscience, must acknowledge the
   righteousness of God in His condemnation. He knows that he has been so
   wicked, he has sinned so much against Heaven, that God in justice must
   punish him. He feels that God cannot pass by his sin and his
   transgression. Then there must be an atonement in order to obtain
   pardon, he thinks, and he asks, "Who shall effect it?" Speed your way
   up to Heaven, for it is vain to seek it on earth! Go up there where
   cherubs fly around the Throne of God and ask those flaming spirits,
   "Can you offer an atonement? God has said that man must die and the
   sentence cannot be altered. God Himself cannot revise it, for it is
   like the laws of the Medes and Persians, irrevocable! Punishment must
   follow sin and damnation must be the effect of iniquity. But O you
   blazing seraphs, no satisfaction would be yielded to Infinite Justice
   even if you all should die! You angels, I have no hope from you! I must
   turn my eyes in another direction. Where shall I find help? Where shall
   I obtain deliverance?"

   Man cannot help us. Angels cannot help us--the greatest archangel can
   do nothing for us. Where shall we find forgiveness? Where is the
   priceless prize? The mine has it not in its depths. Stars have it not
   in their brilliance. The floods cannot tell me as they lift up their
   voice--nor can the hurricane's blast discover to me the profound
   mystery! It is hidden in the sacred counsels of the Most High. Where it
   is I know not until, from the very Throne of God, I hear it said, "I am
   the Substitute." And looking up there, I see, sitting on the Throne, a
   God and yet a Man--a Man who once was slain! I see His scarred hands
   and His pierced side. But He is also God and, smiling benignantly, He
   says, "I have forgiveness, I have pardon--I purchased it with My
   heart's blood. This precious casket of Divinity was broken open for
   your souls. I had to die--'the Just for the unjust.' I had to suffer
   for your sake, excruciating agony, unutterable pains and woes such as
   you cannot comprehend." And can I say that this amazing Grace is mine?
   Has he enrolled my worthless name in the Covenant of His Grace? Do I
   see the blood-mark on the writ of my pardon? Do I know that He
   purchased it with such a price? And shall I refuse to say, "Blessed is
   he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered"? No! I must
   and will exult, for I have found this jewel before which earth's
   diadems do pale and lose their luster! I have found this "pearl of
   great price" and I must and will esteem all things but loss for Jesus'
   sake, for having found this indescribable blessing which could not be
   bought except with the precious blood of Jesus, I must shout again,
   "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven."--

   "Happy the man to whom his God No more imputes his sin But, washed in
   the Redeemer's blood, Has made his garments clean!"

   It would be well for you, Christian, if you would often review this
   mercy and see how it was purchased for you. If you would go to
   Gethsemane and see where the bloody clots lie thick upon the ground. If
   you would then take your journey across that bitter brook of Kedron and
   go to Gabbatha and see your Savior with His hair plucked by the
   persecutors, with His cheeks made moist with the spittle of His
   enemies, with His back lacerated by the deep furrows of knotted whips
   and Himself in agony, emaciated, tormented--then if you would stand at
   Calvary and watch Him dying, "the Just for the unjust"--and having seen
   these bitter torments, remember that these were but little compared
   with His inward soul-anguish, then you would come away and say,
   "Blessed, yes, thrice blessedis the man who has thus been loved of
   Jesus and purchased with His blood! 'Blessed is he whose transgression
   is forgiven, whose sin is covered.'"

   Another thing concerning this blessing of justification is not only its
   immense value and its unpurchasableness, but its coming to us
   instantaneously. You know it is a Doctrine that has been taught by
   Divines long enough and taught in Scripture that justification is an
   instantaneous act. The moment God gives me faith, I become justified
   and, being justified by faith, I have peace with God! It takes no time
   to accomplish this miracle of mercy. Sanctification is a lifelong work,
   continuously effected by the Holy Spirit, but justification is done in
   an instant! It is as complete the moment a sinner believes as when he
   stands before the Eternal! Is it not a marvelous thing that one moment
   should make you clean? We love the physician who speedily heals. If you
   find a skillful physician who can heal you of a sad disease even in
   years, you go to him and are thankful. But suppose you hear of some
   wondrous man who, with a touch, could heal you--who, with the very
   glance of his eyes, could stanch that flow of blood, or cure that
   deadly disease and make you well at once? Would you not go to him and
   feel that he was, indeed, a great physician? So is it with Christ.
   There may be a man standing over there with all his sins upon his head,
   yet he may be justified--complete in Christ, without a sin--freed from
   its damning power, delivered from all his guilt and iniquity in one
   single instant! It is a marvelous thing beyond our power of
   comprehension! God pardons the man and he goes away that same instant
   perfectly justified--as the publican did when he prayed, "God be
   merciful to me, a sinner," and received the mercy for which he prayed.

   But one of the greatest blessings about this mercy is that it is
   irreversible. The irreversible nature of justification is that which
   makes it so lovely in the eyes of God's people. We are justified and
   pardoned, but then the mercy is that we can never be unpardoned--we can
   never again be condemned! Those who are opponents of this glorious
   Doctrine may say what they please, but we know better than to suppose
   that God ever pardons a man and then punishes him afterwards. We would
   not think the Queen would give a criminal a free and full pardon and
   then, in the course of a few years, have him executed. Oh, no! I thank
   God that I can say and that each of the Lord's believing people can
   say--

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past, It matters not how black their
   cast! And, O my Soul! With wonder view, For sins to come here's pardon
   too!" It is complete pardon that Jesus gives--for that which is to
   come, as well as for that which is past--

   "The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God, His
   pardon at once he receives, Redemption in full through His blood!" God
   never did anything by halves. He speaks a man into a justified
   condition and He will never speak him out of it again! Nor can that man
   ever be cast away. O God, do any persons teach that men can be
   quickened by the Spirit and yet that the quickening Spirit has not
   power enough to keep them alive? Do they teach that You first forgive
   and then condemn? Do they teach that Christ stands Surety for a man and
   yet that the man may afterwards be damned? Let them teach so if they
   will, but we "have not so learned Christ." We cannot use words so
   dishonorable to the blessed Savior, so derogatory to His Deity! We
   believe that if He stood as our Substitute, it was an actual, real,
   effectual deed and that we are positively delivered thereby. We believe
   that if He did pay the penalty for our sin, God cannot by any means
   exact it twice! We believe and teach that if He did discharge our debt,
   it is discharged! That if our sin was imputed to Christ, it cannot also
   be imputed to us. We say, before all men, that Heaven itself cannot
   accuse the sons of God of any sin! "Who shall lay anything to the
   charge of God's elect," if God has justified and Christ has died? Ah,
   Christian! You may well stand and wonder at this mighty
   justification--to think that you are so pardoned that you never can be
   condemned! That all the powers in Hell cannot condemn you! That nothing
   which can happen can destroy you! That you have a pardon that you can
   plead in the Day of Judgment and that will stand as valid, then, as
   now! Oh, it is a glorious and gracious thing! Go, you who believe in
   another gospel and seek comfort in it if you will, but yours is not the
   justification of the blessed God! When He justifies, He justifies
   forever and nothing can separate us from His love!

   II. This is the mercy itself. Now I turn to the second point. "Blessed
   is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered," BECAUSE
   THAT MERCY BRINGS EVERYTHING ELSE WITH IT.

   When I know that I am pardoned, then I can say that all things are
   mine! I can look back to the dark past and all things there are mine. I
   can look at the present and all things here are mine. I can look into
   the deep future and all things there are mine. Back in eternity, I see
   God unrolling the mighty scroll of the Book of Life and lo, in that
   volume I read my name! It must be there, for I am pardoned--and whom He
   calls, He had first predestinated. And whom He pardons, He had first
   elected. When I see that Covenant roll, I say, "It is mine." And all
   the great books of God's eternal purposes and infinite decrees are
   mine. And what Christ did upon the Cross is mine. The past is mine! The
   revolutions of all past ages have worked for the good of myself and my
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Standing in the present, I see Divine
   Providence and that is mine. Its various circumstances are working
   together for the good of all the chosen people of God. Its very
   wheels--though high and wonderful--are working, wheel within wheel, to
   produce some great and grand effect which shall be for the general good
   of the Church of Christ! Afflictions are mine to sanctify me--a hot
   furnace where my dross is taken away. Prosperity is mine to comfort
   me--a sweet garden where I lie down to be refreshed in this weary
   journey. All the promises of God are mine. What though this Bible is
   the prince of books--what though each letter is a drop of honey and it
   is filled with sweetness--there is not a precious text here which is
   not mine if I am a Believer in Christ! There is not a promise which I
   may not say is my own, for all is mine! All these present things I may
   take without fear, for they are my Father's gift to me, a portion of my
   heritage.

   I rejoice also to know that all the future is mine, whatever that
   future may be. I know that in the future there shall come an hour when,
   at God's command, the long pent-up fires of earth shall start up from
   between her brazen ribs--her mountains shall be dissolved and the earth
   shall pass away. But even this last great conflagration is mine! I know
   that on a certain day I shall stand before the judgment bar of
   Christ--but that Judgment Day is mine! I fear it not, I dread it not. I
   know that soon I must die, but the River of Death is mine! It is mine
   to wash me, that I may leave the dust of earth behind. It is a glorious
   river though its waters may be tinged with blackness, for it takes its
   rise in the mountains of love, hard by the Throne of God! And then
   after death there will come the resurrection and that resurrection is
   mine! In a perfect body, clear as the sun and fair as the moon, I shall
   live in Paradise! And then whatever there is in Heaven is mine! If
   there is a city with azure light and with jasper walls--it is mine.
   What though there are palaces there of crystal and of gold that sparkle
   so as to dim poor mortal eyes. What though there are delights above
   even the dream of the voluptuary. What though there are pleasures which
   heart and flesh cannot conceive and which even spirit itself cannot
   fully enjoy-- the very intoxication of bliss! What though there are
   sublimities unlawful for us to utter and wonders which mortal men
   cannot grasp. What though God in Heaven does unravel His Glory to make
   His people blessed--all is mine! The crown is bright and glorious, but
   it is mine, for I am pardoned! Though I may have been the chief of
   sinners and the vilest of the vile, if God shall justify me tonight,
   all things in Heaven are mine, however glorious, bright, majestic and
   sublime! Oh, is not this a wondrous mercy? Verily, as we consider what
   comes with the mercy, we must say, "Blessed is he whose transgression
   is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

   III. We would that time and bodily strength permitted us to dilate upon
   this wide subject, but we must pass on to the last point. "Blessed is
   he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" BECAUSE IT
   MAKES HIM BLESSED BY THE EFFECTS IT HAS UPON HIS MIND.

   What glorious peace it brings to a man when he first knows himself to
   be justified! The Apostle Paul said, "Therefore being justified by
   faith, we have peace with God." Some of you in this chapel do not know
   what peace means. You never had any real, satisfactory peace. "What?"
   you say, "never had any peace when we have been happy and merry and
   joyous?" Let me ask you, when the morning has appeared after your
   evening of mirth, could you look back upon it with

   joy? Could any one of you look back upon it and say, "I rejoice in
   these unbridled revellings. I always find such laughter productive of a
   sweet calm to my heart"? No, you could not unless you are utterly
   hardened in heart. I challenge you to tell me what fruit you have ever
   gathered from those things of which you are now ashamed. You know that
   you have not had any true peace. When alone in your chamber and a leaf
   fell, or some little insect buzzed in the furtherest corner, you
   trembled like the leaves of the aspen and thought perhaps the angel of
   death was there with a dreary omen! Or, passing from the haunts of
   fashion, you have walked along some lonely road in solitude and your
   disordered fancy has conjured up all sorts of demons. You had no peace
   and you have no peace now, for you are at war with the Omnipotent, you
   are lifting your puny hands against the Most High God, you are warring
   against the King of Heaven, rebels against His government and guilty of
   high treason against the Eternal Majesty! Oh, that you did but know
   what true peace is--"the peace of God which passes all understanding"!

   I compare not the peaceful mind to a lake without a ripple--such a
   figure would be quite inadequate. The only comparison I can find is in
   that unbroken tranquility which seems to reign in the deep caverns and
   grottoes of the sea-- far down where the sailor's body lies, where the
   seashells rest undisturbed, where there is nothing but darkness and
   where nothing can break the spell--for there are no currents there and
   all is still--that is somewhat like the Christian's soul when God
   speaks peace to him. There may be billows on the surface and by these
   he may be sometimes ruffled, but inside his heart there will be no ebb
   or flow. He will have a peace that is too deep to fathom, too perfect
   for the ungodly to conceive--for none but they who prove it know what
   it is. Such peace that tonight you could lay your head down to sleep
   with the knowledge that you would never wake again in this world as
   calmly as you could if you knew your days were to be, like Hezekiah's,
   lengthened out for 15 years! When we have peace with God we can lie
   down and if an angel visited us to say, "Soul, your Master calls you,"
   we could reply, "Tell my Master that I am ready." And if grim Death
   were to come stalking to our bedside and were to say, "The pitcher is
   about to be broken at the fountain, and the wheel to be broken at the
   cistern," we might answer, "We are quite prepared. We are not afraid.
   We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace
   here and we are glad to go and have that peace consummated up yonder in
   the better world." Could you all say that? Some of you know that you
   could not. If I were to go round this building and ask you, you would
   have to say, "No. I am not at peace with God. I am afraid to die, for I
   do not know that my sins are blotted out." Well, poor Soul, at any rate
   you will say, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin
   is covered." You know that he is blessed, though you are not yourself
   blessed--and you feel that you would be blessed indeed if you could
   once get your sin covered and your transgression forgiven.

   Justification not only gives peace, it also gives joy. And this is
   something even more blessed. Peace is the flowing of the brook, but joy
   is the dashing of the waterfall when the brook is filled, bursts its
   banks and rushes down the rocks! Joy is something that we can know and
   esteem--and justification brings us joy. Oh, have you ever seen the
   justified man when he is first justified? I have often told you what I
   myself felt when first I realized that I was pardoned through the blood
   of Christ. I had been sad and miserable for months and even years--but
   when I once received the message, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
   the ends of the earth," verily I could have leapt for joy of heart, for
   I felt then that I understood the meaning of that text, "The mountains
   and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the
   trees of the field shall clap their hands."

   I remember hearing Dr. Alexander Fletcher, when speaking to children,
   tell them a simple anecdote in order to illustrate the joy of a man
   when he gets delivered from sin. He said, "I saw on the pavement three
   or four little chimneysweeps jumping about and throwing up their heels
   in great delight. And I asked them, 'My boys, why are you making all
   this demonstration?' 'Ah,' they said, 'if you had been locked up for
   three months, you would do the same when you once got out of prison.'"
   I thought it a good illustration and we cannot wonder that people are
   joyous and glad when, after being long shut up in the prison of the
   law, all sad and miserable, they have felt their bonds broken, seen the
   door of the jail opened and obtained a legal discharge! What cared
   they, then, about trials and troubles, or anything else? The heart
   seems scarcely big enough to hold their joy and it bursts out so that
   they hardly know what to do or to say! Thus it is at that wondrous hour
   which comes but once in a Christian's life--when he first feels himself
   delivered, when God for the first time says to him, "I, even I, am He
   that blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not
   remember your sins." I verily think that hour is a fragment of eternity
   cut off and given us here! I am sure it is a foretaste of the happiness
   at God's right hand! It is a day of Heaven upon earth, that blessed day
   when God first gives us a knowledge of our own justification! Heaven's
   bliss itself can scarcely exceed it! We seem to drink of the very wine
   that saints in Glory quaff. We need nothing else--what more can we
   desire? "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered"--it gives him joy and it gives him peace.

   Have you ever noticed one thing that I must mention here? If you have
   ever had a great trouble, you have found that it has swallowed up all
   little troubles. Suppose the captain of a ship finds something on deck
   that is not quite right? He fidgets and worries himself about this,
   that and the other. And soon a great storm arises. Big clouds appear
   and the winds begin to whistle through the cordage. The sails are torn
   and now the ship is driving before the wind over mountains and into
   valleys of water. He fears the ship will be wrecked and that he will be
   lost. What cares he now for the little things on deck, or the furniture
   of the cabin, or such things as those? "Never mind about those things,"
   he says, "the ship is in danger of being lost." Suppose the cook should
   run up and say, "I am afraid, Sir, the dinner will be spoiled." What
   does he say? "The ship," he says, "may be lost, and that is of much
   more consequence than the dinner." So is it with you! If you once get
   into real trouble on account of your souls, you will not fret much
   about the little troubles you have here, for they will all be swallowed
   up by the one giant alarm. And if you get this everlasting joy into
   your souls, it will be much the same--it will consume all your smaller
   joys and griefs. That joy will be like Moses' rod which ate up all the
   serpents that the magicians produced before Pharaoh--it will eat up all
   other joys! It will be enough for you if you can say--

   "I'm forgiven! I'm forgiven! I'm a miracle of Grace!"

   That is a nice little house of yours. Well, be thankful for it, but yet
   you can say, "If I had not got it, I should be a happy man." You have a
   certain property. Thank God for it, but yet you can say, "If I had not
   got it, I should be happy in my poverty." You remember what the poor
   slave said, "Ah, it's all very well for you freemen to find fault with
   your lot. Give me freedom and I would need nothing more! Give me
   freedom and I will gladly live on crusts and drink water-- only let me
   know that I am free--that is all that I desire. Let me stand on God's
   free soil and feel that no man can say, from the crown of my head to
   the sole of my feet that I am his, and I will be happy." The slave says
   so, and so may you. If you can but feel yourself justified. If you know
   that you are delivered, that you are, indeed, pardoned, that you are
   beyond the clutches of the Law of God, you can rejoice that you know
   and feel the truth of the saying, "Blessed is he whose transgression is
   forgiven, whose sin is covered."

   Now let me ask, in conclusion, Howmany such blessed men and women are
   there here tonight?How long shall I give you to answer the question? I
   wish formal preaching were done away with and that we had a little more
   talking to one another. I wish to lay the formalities of the pulpit
   aside and talk to you as if you were in your own houses. That, I
   believe, is the true kind of preaching. Let me inquire, then, how many
   of you, my Friends, can claim the title of "blessed" because you are
   justified? Well, I think I can see one Brother who puts his hands
   together, and says--

   "'A debtor to mercy alone, Of covenant mercy I sing.'

   "I know I am forgiven." My Brother, I rejoice to hear you speak thus
   confidently. But I come to another and I ask-- What about you, my
   Friend? "Ah, Sir! I cannot say as much as that Brother did, but I hope
   I am justified." What ground have you for your hope? You know that we
   cannot properly hope unless we have some grounds for our hope--what are
   your grounds? Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? "Yes," you say,
   "I do believe on Him." Why, then, do you say, "I hopeI am justified"?
   Dear Brother or Sister, you know, if you really believe on Christ! You
   have no need to talk about hope where you may be certain! And it is
   always better to use words of confidence when you can. Keep your head
   as high as you may, for you will find troubles enough to drag it down.
   The next one replies--

   "'Tis a point I long to know, Oft it causes anxious thought-- 'Do I
   love the Lord or no? Am IHis, or am Inot?'"

   I have heard a great deal said against that hymn, but I have myself had
   occasion to sing it sometimes, so I cannot find much fault with it.
   That state of mind is all very well if it lasts a little while, though
   not if it lasts a long time and a man is always saying, "I long to
   know," or, "I am afraid." Paul says, "Being justified by faith, we have
   peace with God." You

   would not always have this anxiety if you were brought to realize your
   justification in the sight of God. You may have it sometimes, "when the
   eye of faith is dim," but I do not like to see people contenting
   themselves with any measure of faith short of that which apprehends
   full redemption! Do not let me distress the weak ones of the flock, for
   I often say--

   "Thousands in the fold of Jesus,

   This attainment can never boast--

   To His name eternal praises,

   None of them shall ever be lost." Their names were written in the
   Lamb's Book of Life before the world was made! But if any of you are
   always in distress and doubt, if you never did at any time feel
   confident, you should begin to be apprehensive, for I think you should
   now and then get a little higher. You may pass through the Valley of
   the Shadow of Death sometimes but, surely, sometimes the Spirit of God
   will also carry you up to the top of the mountain that is called,
   "Clear." Yet, if you are still dwelling on this point, "I long to
   know," are you not anxious to settle the question? Suppose you do not
   belong to Christ? Put it in that way--for, in a doubtful case, it is
   best to look at the worst side--suppose you do not love the Lord?
   Nevertheless you are a sinner. You feel that you are a sinner, do you
   not? God has convinced you that you are a sinner. Well, as long as you
   can claim sinnership, you can go to His feet! If you cannot go as a
   saint, you can go as a sinner! What a mercy this is! It is enough to
   save us from despair. Even if our evidence of saintship seems clean
   gone, we have not lost our sinnership! And the Scripture still says,
   "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
   Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And while it says that, we
   will hang on it!

   Another one says, "I don't know whether I am justified and I don't care
   much about it." Let me tell you, Sir, when you willcare. When you come
   near your end, young man, you will care then! You may think you can
   live very well without Christ, but you cannot afford to diewithout Him!
   You can stand very securely at present, but death will shake your
   confidence. Your tree may be fair to look at now, but when the great
   testing wind comes, if it has not its roots in the Rock of Ages, down
   it must come! You may think your worldly pleasures good, but they will
   then turn bitter as wormwood to your taste--worse than gall shall be
   the daintiest of your drinks when you shall come to the bottom of your
   poisoned bowl!

   But there is another who says, "I wish I were justified, but I feel
   that I am too great a sinner." Now I like to hear the first part of
   your speech, but the last is very bad. To say that you are bad is
   right--I know you are. You say you are vile and that is true enough and
   I hope you mean it. Do not be like some men of whom I have read. There
   was a monk who on a certain occasion described himself as being as
   great a hypocrite as Judas. And a gentleman at once said, "I knew it
   long ago! You are just the fellow I always thought you were." But up
   jumped the monk and said, "Don't you be saying such things as those
   about me." His humility was feigned, not felt. Thus people may make
   such a general confession as this, "We are all sinners," who would
   resist any special charge brought home to their consciences, however
   true it might be. Say to such an one, "You are a rogue," and he
   replies, "No, I'm not a rogue." "What are you, then? Are you a liar?"
   "Oh, no!" "Are you a Sabbath-breaker?" "No, nothing of the kind." And
   so, when you come to sift the matter, you find them sheltering
   themselves under the general term, sinner, not to make confession, but
   to evade it! This is very different from a real conviction of sin.

   But if you feel yourself to be a real, actual sinner, remember that you
   are not too bad to be saved, because it is written in Scripture that
   Christ came to save sinners and that means that He came to save you,
   because you are a sinner! And I will preach it everywhere, without
   limitation, that if a man knows himself to be a sinner, Jesus Christ
   died for him, for that is the evidence that Christ came to save him!
   Let the sinner, then, believe on Jesus as his Savior! Let the
   "outcasts" come to Jesus, for the Psalmist says, "He gathers together
   the outcasts of Israel." There is an outcast here tonight. There is a
   backslider over there who has been cut off from the Church years ago.
   Behold his sad plight. As Achish said of David, "He has made his people
   Israel utterly to abhor him: therefore he shall be my servant forever."
   But he escaped and you shall yet escape! The prey shall not be taken
   from the Mighty! The lawful captive shall not be taken from Jesus
   Christ! The Captain of our salvation conquered his soul once, and He
   will yet save it.

   But another says, "I never was a member of a church and I am afraid I
   never shall be. I am a hardened sinner, a reprobate." Well, do you
   confess it? Then hear the word of the Lord--"He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned." "He
   that believes"--that is, he that believes on Jesus and in Jesus. He
   that

   casts himself on Christ. Our hymn bids us "venture" on Christ, but that
   is not right--there is no venturing, it is all safe--he who trusts
   himself on Christ--throws himself flat on Sovereign Mercy--"He that
   believes"--notice what follows, "and is baptized." Baptism is to come
   afterwards, not for salvation, but as a profession of his faith--he
   that with his heart believes and with his mouth confesses--"He that
   believes and is baptized--shall be saved! And he that believes notshall
   be damned." I dare not leave any word out, whatever any of my Brothers
   may do. Whether a man is baptized or not, if he does not believe, he
   shall be damned. But the word, "baptized," is not put into the last
   sentence because the Holy Spirit saw there was no necessity for it, for
   He knew if the ordinance were correctly administered, no person who did
   not believe would be baptized! So it was the same thing as saying, "He
   that believes not shall be damned."

   Oh, may God grant that you may never know the meaning of that last
   dreadful word, but may you know what it is to be saved by Divine Grace!
     __________________________________________________________________

Accomplices in Sin

   (No. 3055)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   30, 1873.

   "Neither be partaker of other men's sins." 1 Timothy 5:22.

   WE have all abundant reason to look at home and see about our own sins.
   Nothing can be more absurd than for a man to take his hoe and weed
   everybody else's garden--and leave all the thorns and thistles to
   flourish on his own plot. The old parable of the man who carried two
   bags, one behind and one in front, and who put other people's faults
   into the one in front, and his own into the one at his back, is a very
   correct representation of the folly of those who have their eyes wide
   open to see the faults of their neighbors, but are totally blind to
   their own imperfections. If, as our proverb puts it, "Charity begins at
   home," so should criticism--and criticism concerning character had
   better stop there. There is so much dirty linen in our own house
   needing to be washed that none of us need to take in our neighbor's
   washing. "Mind your own business," is a command that might have been
   spoken by Solomon, himself, and the Apostle Paul was inspired to write
   to the Thessalonians, "Study to be quiet and to do your own business."
   And he and Peter very sternly condemned those who were "busybodies in
   other men's matters."

   So it is not my intention to bid any of you to cease to look to your
   own affairs, but at the same time, I want to remind you that we cannot,
   in this world, live altogether to ourselves. He who is most bent upon
   minding his own business cannot help knowing that his next door
   neighbor has something to do with his garden. Even if he looks
   diligently after his own plot, thistle seeds from the left and the
   right may blow over into his garden and trouble will come to him from
   the very fact that he has neighbors! Our dwelling places in this life
   are not all detached--many of us have to live on streets and if our
   neighbor's house is on fire, it is not at all unlikely that the flames
   may spread to our dwelling. Let us never be so concerned about our own
   interest as to be selfish, for even if we try to be wholly wrapped up
   in ourselves, we shall be compelled to notice the actions of others
   with whom we are more or less intimately linked-- whether we wish to do
   so, or not. Hence, the message of the text is necessary, not to take us
   away from our own duty, but to help us to make sure that we are not
   "partakers of other men's sins."

   The connection in which this text stands must be noticed. Timothy was
   exhorted by Paul to "lay hands suddenly on no man." There were certain
   upstarts who wrongly thought that they could preach--and there were
   others who thought that they could rule in the churches. These persons
   probably gained a few or many partisans to support their claims. There
   were some of their relatives in the church who thought a great deal of
   their sons, or brothers, or uncles, or cousins, or there were friends
   who heard some man speak on a certain occasion with considerable
   fluency and, being unwise, they judged him to be man of master-mind and
   would have put him into the front rank of the army at once if the power
   to do so had rested with them! Paul tells Timothy, whom he had sent to
   exercise a general oversight over the officers and members of the
   church, not to be in a hurry to lay his hands upon these men, so as to
   endorse their claim, but to let them wait awhile until they were tried
   and tested--because if he allowed them to take office in the church and
   they committed faults or follies, he would be responsible for them and
   everybody would say, "We wonder that Timothy should have sent out such
   men as these." So he was bid to be cautious lest he should become, in
   any way, "a partaker of other men's sins." None of us are exactly in
   Timothy's position so we are not likely to fall into the fault against
   which Paul warned him-- at least not in precisely the same form. Yet
   the text has a message to us and we may say to one another, "Be not
   partakers of other men's sins."

   I. I shall first try to show you HOW WE CAN BE PARTAKERS OF OTHER MEN'S
   SINS and, in doing that, I am afraid that the various ways in which we
   can do this will seem to be very many. And that if I am not very
   careful, you will think that my sermon is like Ezekiel's valley of
   vision in which the bones were "very many" and "very dry." I will not
   be more wordy than I can help, but at the same time I must deal with
   the subject somewhat in detail.

   As to how we can become accomplices in other people's sins--the
   preacher must first say to himself that he will be such a man if he is
   not true to his trust If he shall teach false Doctrine, or if, teaching
   the true Doctrines, he shall teach them erroneously--if he shall keep
   back unpalatable Truths of God--if he shall allow sin to pass without
   reproof--if he shall see a great deficiency of spiritual life and
   service and not point it out--if, in brief, he shall be an unfaithful
   servant of Christ and his hearers shall thereby be kept in a low state
   of Divine Grace, inconsistent with their profession--and the
   unconverted shall be hindered from coming to Christ, he will become a
   partaker in other men's sins. Indeed, I know of no man who is more
   likely to fall into the fault indicated in the text than a minister of
   the Gospel is! Oh, what Grace we need and what help from on high lest
   if we fail in faithfulness to God and our hearers, the doom of souls
   should be laid at our door and we should be partakers of other men's
   sins! Brothers and Sisters, pray for us that this may not be our
   unhappy lot--

   "'Tis not a cause of small import The pastor's care demands, But what
   might fill an angel's heart And filled a Saviors hands! They watch for
   souls for which the Lord Did heavenly bliss forego, For souls which
   must forever live In raptures or in woe. May they that Jesus, whom they
   preach, Their own Redeemer see-- And watch YOU daily over their souls,
   That they may watch for THEE." That piece is especially intended for
   myself and my Brother ministers. The rest of my discourse will be for
   you as well as myself. So next I must remind you that we can, all of
   us, be partakers of other men's sins by willfully joining with them in
   any act of sin and doing as they do--like those sinners mentioned by
   Solomon in the Book of Proverbs, who said, "Cast in your lot among us;
   let us all have one purse." We must have nothing to do with such men!
   God forbid that we should! If we sin alone, it is bad enough, but if we
   sin in company, we have not only to answer for our own sins, but also
   for the sins of others, at least in part. If hand joins with hand in
   sin, there is a multiplication of its guilt, for each man who has
   helped to lead a fellow creature into iniquity will have his own
   transgression increased by the transgression of that other sinner. By
   their combination, the two will become capable of even greater guilt
   than they would have committed individually. God save us all from being
   accomplices in the sins of others by uniting with them in their sinful
   acts and deeds!

   Further, we may be partakers in other men's sins by tempting them to
   sin. This is a most hateful thing and makes the man who practices it to
   become the devil's most devoted drudge, servant and slave. I have known
   such tempters of others--old men who, from their youth up, had sinned
   in such a shameful way that their very looks were full of lechery.
   There was a leer about their eyes that was almost enough to destroy all
   chastity that came beneath their glance. And their speech was full of
   the double entendre, insinuations and innuendoes which were almost
   worse than open profanity. I have known one such walking mass of
   putrefaction defile a whole parish--and when I have seen a boy walking
   with such a demon incarnate, or sitting down with him in the
   public-house, I knew that the boy's character would be ruined if that
   vile doctor in devilry could only instruct him in the vices with which
   he is, himself, so shamefully familiar. There are such fiends in London
   and we could almost wish to have them all buried straightaway, for they
   are Satan's servants spreading wickedness all around them! I do not
   suppose I am addressing one such dreadful creature, yet I know that
   some great sinners of that sort do come within these walls and they
   will, of course, be very angry because of my allusion to them. Yet I
   never knew a thief who was fond of a policemen and I do not expect or
   wish to secure the approval of scoundrels whose evil character I am
   exposing. If, Sir, I have described you and you will not repent of your
   sin, I tell you that the hottest

   place in Hell is reserved for you, for you have led young men to the
   alehouse and taught them to drink the devil's drugs and to repeat your
   foul blasphemies and to imitate your scandalous lasciviousness! Yet
   before it is too late, I beseech you to repent of your sin, that it may
   be blotted out by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which
   cleanses from all sin! But if not, "other men's sins" will cry out
   against you for judgment at the bar of the Almighty! I solemnly charge
   all of you who have not committed this iniquity, to never do so--take
   care that you never say a word which might stain the innocence of a
   child's mind and that you never let fall an expression which might, in
   any way, be the means of leading another person into sin--for it is an
   easy thing for us to become partakers of other men's sins by tempting
   them to commit iniquity.

   If there is any evil worse than that, I think it is that of employing
   others to sin. It was one of the basest parts of David's great sin that
   when he wanted to have Uriah killed, he did not slay him, himself, but
   got Joab to expose him in a position where he was certain to be killed.
   It is horrible when a man is determined to be dishonest, yet gets
   someone else to commit the sin for him! It is a shameful thing that
   there are professedly "religious" employers who try to get their young
   men to say across the counter what they know is not according to truth.
   Are there not some of these so-called "Christian" employers who want
   young men who are not "too particular"? Do I not hear, every now and
   then, of young men who have been found to be too scrupulous and who
   have been told that they had better get situations somewhere else? They
   objected to describe the goods as their employer wanted them to do
   because they knew it would be a lie. They were told, "It is the custom
   in the trade and, therefore, must be so here." That is to say because
   other persons were liars and cheats, these young men must be
   knaves--and their master must make money by their lying to his
   customers! Now, if I meant to thieve or deceive, I would do it
   myself--I would not employ young men and women, or old ones either, to
   lie and cheat for me! If any of you have done so, I pray God that He
   may lead you to repent of such abominable wickedness, for the sin is
   not one-half theirs and the other half yours--it is partly theirs, but
   it is far more yours if they are doing wrong at your bidding! God save
   us all from being "partakers of other men's sins" in that way!

   Some commit this great crime by driving other men into sin by the fears
   which they have inspired, or by oppressing them in their wages, or by
   setting them to do what must involve them in sin. I remember the case
   of a man who was employed where it was well known that some of the
   parcels which he collected on his way and carried to their destination
   would never be booked by him, but the price paid for the carriage would
   be secretly dropped into his own pocket. The man's wages were so small
   that nobody, unless an idiot, ever believed that he lived on them, so,
   tacitly, the understanding was that the man would be sure to pilfer on
   his own account, so his wages were cut down below the point at which he
   could earn an honest living. I fear that there are many men who are
   dishonest for this reason--I will not excuse them, but I hope that if
   they are ever sent to prison for stealing, their masters will be sent
   with them, for they are equally guilty!

   Yet again, we may become partakers of the sins of others by a misuse of
   our position over them. This is especially the case with parents. When
   a father is a man of loose habits, if his son follows his evil example,
   who is to blame? If a drunken father sees his child become a drunkard,
   whose fault is it? If he is a swearer and his son uses profane
   language, who taught the boy those oaths? Is not the guilt of that
   swearing largely the father's? "Oh!" some of you say, "we would not
   teach our children either drunkenness or profanity." Yet you are not,
   yourselves, Christians--you may be moral and truthful, and so on, but
   you are not Christians. And if your children are not converted, will
   they not say, "Our father was never converted, so why should we be?"
   "But we always take them to a place of worship." I know you do. And
   your children say, "Father goes to a place of worship, but he does not
   believe in Christ and he never prays." So if they grow up in the same
   way, who is to blame? You say that you trust they will not do so--then
   ask the Lord to make you a Christian, for then it will be more likely
   that your children will also be Christians. When you blame your
   children for wrongdoing, you ought to blame yourselves even more, for
   after all, what are they doing but what you yourself are doing?

   Plato, the philosopher, one day saw a boy in the street behaving in a
   very shameful manner, so he walked straight into the house where the
   boy's father lived and began to beat him. When he said to Plato, "Why
   do you beat me?" the philosopher replied, "I found your boy doing
   wrong. I did not beat him, but I beat you, for he must have learned it
   from you, or else it was your fault because you did not exercise proper
   discipline upon him at home." Have you never felt, when you have seen
   the faults of your own children, that you ought to lay the rod on your
   own back because, in some way or other, you were an accomplice in your
   children's sins? How much of the ruin of many children's souls lies at
   their Volume 53 www.spurgeongems.org 3

   parents' door! How sad it is that in many cases the influence of the
   mother and father is damning to their children! Men and women who have
   boys and girls at home who are very dear to you--can you bear the
   thought that you may, one day, have to say, "Our unchristian example
   has ruined our own children"?

   "Oh, but we are members of the Church," say some. Yes, I know you are,
   yet I speak to you as well as to others, for there are some of you who
   are bringing up your children in an improper manner. I do not see how
   they can be expected to love religion when they see your own household
   ordered so badly, or not ordered at all. The professor of religion who
   does not live consistently with his profession does more injury to the
   cause of Christ than a non-professor does! There are some who hang out
   the sign of, "The Angel," but the devil keeps the inn! Someone has
   truly said that many a man's house is like Noah's ark in that it is
   pitched within and without with pitch. There is pitch in the
   dining-room--gluttony and drunkenness. And pitch in the
   bed-chamber--lasciviousness and wantonness. Pitch in the
   drawing-room--talk which is not even fit for the stables. And pitch in
   the shop, for much that is "dirty" goes on there. How can anyone expect
   good children to come out of such a house as that? May none of us, like
   Eli, be accomplices in our children's sins through neglecting to rebuke
   them, or like David, through our evil example leading them into sin! On
   the contrary, let us pray for them, as Abraham cried to the Lord, "O
   that Ishmael might live before You!" I like to present to God the
   petitions and pleas which are so well worded in that hymn in "Our Own
   Hymn Book" which is attributed to Rowland Hill--

   "You, who a tender Parent are,

   Regard a parent's plea--

   Our offspring, with an anxious heart,

   We now commend to Thee.

   Our children are our greatest care,

   A charge which You have given--

   In all Your Graces let them share,

   And all the joys of Heaven.

   If a centurion could succeed,

   Who for his servant cried,

   Will You refuse to hear us plead

   For those so near allied?

   On us You have bestowed Your Grace,

   Be to our children kind--

   Among Your saints give them a place,

   And leave not one behind."

   The injunction of the text of course applies, in a measure, to the
   teacher of a class as well as to the parent of a family. If the teacher
   is inconsistent and his scholars imitate him, the guilt of their
   wrong-doing will, at least in part, rest upon the teacher. The same
   principle applies to all persons who are in positions of influence in
   the land. If I were preaching to the House of Commons and the House of
   Lords, I would probably have to say some things which they would not
   wish to hear again. Certain "honorable gentlemen" and "noble lords"
   talk very glibly about the necessity for the nation to be religious,
   yet their lives are not remarkably religious, so their talk is all
   hypocritical and great sin lies at their door! God will certainly
   punish princes and so-called "nobles" if their example is not such as
   the common people can safely follow.

   But even though we may not be of royal or exalted rank, all of us will
   become "partakers of other men's sins" if we set them bad examples. If
   they can quote us as having done certain wrong things which they have
   imitated, we must share in the guilt of their sin. Yet it is always a
   bad thing to follow a bad example. If I see anyone's example to be bad,
   it ought not to be a temptation to me--and I am a partaker of that
   man's sins if, knowing that he has done amiss--I also do amiss simply
   because he has done so first. If I know that his course is wrong, I
   ought to shun the rock on which his boat has been wrecked.

   We can also be "partakers of other men's sins" by countenancing them
   and there are many ways in which that may be done--for instance, by
   associating with ungodly men as though we did not think there was much
   harm in them. And worst of all, by laughing at and with them when their
   mirth is not pure fun. I fear that many a wicked man has been hardened
   in his sin because a professing Christian has laughed at his filthy
   jests.

   We may also be "partakers of other men's sins" by joining a church that
   holds unscriptural doctrines, or that does not act according to
   Apostolic precedent Some people say, "We belong to such-and-such a
   church, but we don't approve

   of its teaching or its practice." What? You belong to it and yet you do
   not approve of its principles? Out of your own mouth you are condemned!
   If I unite with a church whose creed and catechism I do not believe,
   and whose ordinances I do not practice, I am guilty of my own share in
   all the error that is there! It is no use for me to say, "I am trying
   to undo the mischief"--I have no business to be there! If I join a
   pirate's crew, I shall be responsible for all that is done by the whole
   crew. I have no business to be on that vessel at all and I must get off
   it at the first opportunity, or even fling myself into the sea rather
   than have a share in the pirates' wrongdoing!

   But supposing you have joined a church whose doctrines are Scriptural,
   you may be "partakers of other men's sins" if the discipline of the
   church is not carried out as it should be. If we know that members are
   living in gross sin and do not deal with them either by way of censure
   or excommunication in accordance with the teaching of Christ and His
   Apostles, we become accomplices in their sin. I often tremble about
   this matter, for it is no easy task where we count our members by the
   thousands. But may we never wink at sin, either in ourselves or in
   others! May you all, Beloved, exercise a jealous oversight over one
   another and so help to keep one another right! And let each one pray
   Charles Wesley's prayer which we have often sung--

   "Quick as the apple of an eye,

   God, my conscience make! Awake, my Soul, when sin is near, And keep it
   still awake."

   Further, we may be "partakers of other men's sins" by not rebuking them
   for sinning if it is our duty to do so, or by not doing all we can
   towards their conversion. For instance, by living in a certain
   neighborhood and never trying to bring the Gospel to the people in that
   neighborhood, or by not maintaining our consistent Christian walk as
   the separated people of God. In brief, let each one sing, from the
   heart, the rest of that hymn from which I began to quote just now--

   "I need a principle within Of jealous godly fear. A sensibility of sin,
   A pain to feel it near!

   1 need the first approach to feel Of pride, or fond desire

   To catch the wandering of my will,

   And quench the kindling fire.

   That I from You no more may part,

   No more Your goodness grieve--

   The filial awe, the fleshy heart,

   The tender conscience give.

   If to the right or left I stray,

   That moment, Lord, reprove

   And let me weep my life away,

   For having grieved Your love.

   Oh may the least omission pain

   My well-instructed soul

   And drive me to the blood again,

   Which makes the wounded whole!" II. I must not say more upon this part
   of the subject lest I should weary you. So I pass on to ask, in the
   second place, WHY SHOULD WE SEEK TO AVOID BEING PARTAKERS OF OTHER
   MEN'S SINS?

   This will be a sufficient answer--Because we have more than enough sins
   of our own and cannot also carry other people's. And also because if we
   are partakers in their sins, we shall also partake in their plagues.
   And because we do other men an injury by being accomplices with
   them--we steel and harden them in their sins. The weightiest reason of
   all is this--we should not be "partakers of other men's sins" because,
   by so doing, we should grieve our holy and gracious God--and no true
   lover of Christ ought ever to do that! Remember what Paul wrote to the
   saints at Ephesus, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are
   sealed unto the day of redemption."

   III. My next question is--HOW CAN WE AVOID BEING PARTAKERS IN OTHER
   MEN'S SINS?

   And I reply--Only by the help of God's Spirit! First, be very jealous
   about other men's sins. I wish all parents acted as wisely as Job did
   concerning his children. They went to one another's houses and feasted,
   so Job "rose up early in the morning and 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." O parents, do
   likewise, for that is the way to keep yourselves from participation in
   your children's sins!

   Next to being thus jealous with a holy jealousy, be always on the watch
   lest you should be "partakers in other men's sins. "The man who wants
   to avoid certain diseases will take care not to go to an infected
   house. So, go not where sinners go, lest you should catch the infection
   of their sin. Remember how careful Abraham was not to take anything
   from the King of Sodom, "from a thread even to a shoelace," even though
   it was his lawful share of the spoils of war. Be you equally careful
   concerning even the least sin.

   The next way to keep from being an accomplice in sin is by prayer.
   Augustine used to offer a short prayer which I commend to you all, "O
   Lord, save me from my other men's sins!" Put this down among your other
   confessions, "O Lord, I confess unto you my other men's sins! I mourn
   over my other men's sins, I repent of my other men's sins, I grieve on
   account of my participation in other men's sins." This will be a good
   way of keeping from committing them.

   I think I had better close by saying that I do not think we have, any
   of us, escaped from the meshes of this sermon. If we have done so, it
   is either my fault or the fault of our own consciences. I have tried to
   fire red-hot shot in all directions, not omitting myself--and most of
   us have felt that there was a shot specially meant for us. What had we
   better do then? I will call to your minds a verse which we often sing
   and which we will again sing almost immediately--

   "There is a Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins--
   And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains!"

   We are all stained with at least splashes from other men's sins as well
   as our own, so let us all go to the Fountain and wash. Let us renew our
   faith in the precious blood of Jesus, for if we never had any faith in
   it before, may God graciously grant it to us now! If we had rebelled
   against the Queen and had been at last subdued by force--and if there
   had been an Act of Oblivion passed for all who wished to claim an
   interest in it--perhaps some would say to themselves, "We do not know
   that we took any great part in the rebellion, yet it may be that we
   did--and the safest thing for us all to do is to put down our names and
   so secure the benefit of the Act of Oblivion." So I, as one of the
   guilty ones, confessing that it is so, desire to say to the great King,
   "My Lord, I am guilty of sins of my own, sins of my children, sins of
   my servants, sins of my neighbors, sins of my Church and sins of my
   congregation--but You have said, 'I, even I, am He that blots out your
   transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember your sins.' You
   have promised to blot out all sin from those who believe in Jesus
   Christ, Your Son. Lord, I believe in Him, so I claim the benefit of
   that Act of Oblivion."

   Dear Hearer, will not you say the same? Will you not now obey that
   Divine command, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth"? Though you have gone to the ends of the earth, yet God says to
   you, "Look unto Me, and be you saved." Look! Look! LOOK! It is little
   that you have to do! Indeed, it is nothing that you have to do, for God
   gives you Grace to do all that He requires of you. So trust in Him,
   rest in Him--the Lord help you to do so and then, whatever your sins
   may have been, though they may have been "as scarlet, they shall be as
   white as snow." Though they may have been "red like crimson, they shall
   be as wool." God bless you and save you, for His name's sake! Amen. Now
   let us all sing the verse that I quoted just now--

   "There is a Fountain filled with blood,

   Drawn from Immanuel's veins--

   And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

   Lose all their guilty stains"-- and let all who can sing it from the
   heart join in the well-known chorus--

   "Ido believe, I will believe,

   That Jesus died for me!

   That, on the Cross, He shed His blood

   From sin to set me free!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 73.

   You may have noticed that the 73rd Psalm and the 37th Psalm are on the
   same subject. It will help you to recall this fact if you remember that
   the figures are the same, only reversed.

   Verse 1. Truly God is good to Israel Settle that matter in your hearts.
   Whatever doubts may distress or disturb your mind, fix this point as
   certain-- "Truly God is good to Israel."

   I, 2. Even to such as are of a clean heart But as for me, my feet were
   almost gone; my steps had well near slipped.He was a good man, one of
   the leaders in Israel, yet he had to make this confession, "My feet
   were almost gone; my steps had well near slipped."

   3, 4. For I was envious at the foolish, when Isaw the prosperity of the
   wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is
   firm. Many of them have so stifled conscience that it does not trouble
   them even in that last dread hour--and they pass into eternity with
   blinded eyes, self-deluded to the last.

   5. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like
   other men. They are not the children of God-- and that is why they
   escape the rod of God. The rod is not for strangers, but for the
   children of the family. Yet the Psalmist began to envy these people
   because, said he, "they are not in trouble as other men; neither are
   they plagued like other men."

   6. Therefore pride compasses them about as a chain. They wear it gladly
   and think it to be an ornament.

   6-9. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with
   fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and
   speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set
   their mouth against the heavens.As though they would blow them down, as
   the wind blows the clouds that are full of rain.

   9. And their tongue walks through the earth. Like the ravening lion of
   the pit, seeking characters that they may destroy or devour. There is
   no end to the mischief that such people can do. If they are not in
   trouble, they make much trouble for other people and while they set
   themselves on so high a pinnacle, they are mean enough to slander the
   characters of the good.

   10. Therefore his people return here: and waters of a full cup are
   wrung out to them. They have to drink of the bitter cup again and
   again--it seems to them to be always full. And the wicked have their
   full cup--filled, as it seems, with the juice from the very finest
   fruit!

   II. And they say, How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most
   High?They admit that there is a God, but they ask, "What does He know,
   and how does He know?"

   12-14. Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world; they
   increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed
   my hands in innocence. For all day long have I been plagued, and
   chastened every morning. It was one of his greatest sorrows that the
   more holy he was, the more troubled he seemed to be--and the more
   closely he endeavored to follow his God, the more it seemed as if God
   only frowned upon him. Yet the Psalmist's was no exceptional case, of
   which there is only one in all history--there have been many such and
   there are many such to this day!

   15. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the
   generation of your children. You know that some people have made up a
   kind of proverb like this, "If you think it, you may as well speak it."
   But it is not so. Bad thoughts should never be spoken! If a man has a
   bottle of whisky in his house, or in his pocket, that is bad enough,
   but if the cork is never taken out, it will do no very great hurt to
   anybody. So if a man has evil thoughts but does not utter them, the
   mischief will not be so great as if he were to make them known to
   others.

   16. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. He could
   not bear the thought of offending God's children, but at the same time,
   the problem itself, concerning the righteous and the wicked, until he
   could solve it, was too painful for him.

   17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God. When he went into God's
   holy place--when he began to understand God's purposes and plans and
   looked beyond the present life into the dreadful future of the ungodly,
   he could say.

   17. Then I understood their end. And understanding their end, his
   difficulty ceased, his puzzling problem was solved!

   18. Surely You did set them in slippery places. As if they stood upon a
   ridge of ice from which they must slip down--who wishes to be lifted up
   upon an Alp of prosperity from which he may be dashed down at any
   moment? If you knew that there was a man standing on the top of the
   Cross of St. Paul's at this moment, I do not suppose that any of you
   would envy him--certainly I would not. Let him have a patent for
   standing there and let nobody else ever attempt it. And an ungodly man,
   in the elevated places of prosperity, is in such a perilous position
   that we need not envy him.

   18. You cast them down into destruction. Down they go! If not in this
   life, yet in the next, and who will envy them

   then?

   19, 20. How they are brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are
   utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so, O Lord,
   when You awake, You shall despise their image. When a man wakes up, the
   image that was before his mind, in his dream, is gone. And when God
   wakes up to judgment, these wicked men who were but as images in a
   night dream, shall pass away.

   21. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. In the
   most tender and most vital parts of his being, he felt an inward and
   terrible pain.

   22. So foolish was I, and ignorant I was as a beast before You. Judging
   as the beast judges that can only see the little grass around itself,
   and fattens itself, knowing nothing of the shambles and of the
   butcher's knife that is being sharpened to kill it there. "So," says
   the Psalmist, "I was like that, I forgot about the future, I did not
   judge as an immortal being should judge concerning the infinite and the
   eternal, but I judged things as a beast might judge by the narrow
   compass of its little grazing ground.

   23. Nevertheless.This phrase is most delightful, coming in connection
   with his previous confession, "I was as a beast before you.
   Nevertheless."

   23. I am continually with You: You have held me by my right hand. That
   is your portion also, Christian! However few your pounds, however short
   your supplies, you are continually with God and He holds you by your
   right hand. Will you envy the ungodly after that?

   24. You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to
   Glory. There is where your chief possession lies, locked up in that
   which is marked, "Afterward." Not today, possibly not tomorrow, but,
   "afterward," is your inheritance! "Afterward You will receive me to
   Glory."

   25. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I
   desire beside You. Here is the Christian's heavenly and earthly portion
   and treasure. He has his God, both here and hereafter--and this is
   better than all that can fall to the lot of the worldling!

   26. 27. My flesh and my heart fails; but God is the strength of my
   heart and my portion forever For, lo, they that are far from You
   shallperish: You have destroyed all them that go a whoring from You.
   That is, setting their hearts on unlovely things and forgetting to love
   God.

   28. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in
   the Lord GOD, that I may declare all Your works.The Psalm ends
   jubilantly, as it began, though part of it had been in a minor key.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Guilt and the Cleansing

   (No. 3056)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 8, 1865.

   "Purge me with hyssop, and/shall be clean: wash me, and/shall be whiter
   than snow." Psalm 51:7.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same text is #1937, Volume 32--A
   MINGLED STRAIN.]

   You know how David had sinned. To the sin of adultery he had added that
   of murder. David felt like one who was shut out from God and was
   unworthy to approach Him. He could not be content to remain in such a
   condition. He longed to be reconciled to God and he remembered that he
   had sometimes seen a man who had the leprosy put out of the city as an
   unclean person, or he had seen one who had defiled himself by touching
   a corpse shut out for a time from all communion with those who drew
   near to worship God. "Ah," he thought, "that is just as I am--I am
   unworthy to appear before God, for I am spiritually unclean."

   But David had also seen the priest take a basin full of blood and dip
   hyssop in it--and when the bunch of hyssop had soaked up the blood, he
   had seen the priest sprinkle the unclean person therewith and then say
   to him, "You are clean. You have admittance now to the worship of God.
   You can mingle with the great congregation--I pronounce you clean
   through the sprinkled blood." And David's faith, acting upon the
   telescopic principle, looked far down the ages and he saw the great
   atoning Sacrifice offered upon Calvary. And as he saw the Son of God
   bleeding for sins which were not His own, he desired that the blood of
   Christ might be applied to his conscience, feeling that it would take
   away his defilement and admit him into the courts of God's House and
   into the love of God's heart. And so he prayed this prayer, "Purge me
   with hyssop, and I shall be clean."

   He felt, too, that sin was a very great defilement--that he was black
   and filthy--but he knew how he had often, when hunted like a wild goat
   among the mountains, stooped down to a cooling brook and washed away
   the dust and stain of travel in the running water and his face and
   hands had been clean again. And so, bowing down before God he sees, in
   the Sacrifice of Christ, a cleansing flood and his desire is expressed
   in these words, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." The words
   do not require any exposition--they require application. They do not
   need to be explained--they need to be offered up to God in prayer by
   broken-hearted suppliants!

   There are two things I shall try to talk about, as God shall help me.
   The one is that sin is a very foul thing--David says, "Purge me." "Wash
   me." The other is that the cleansing must be very great--this process
   of sprinkling hyssop and of washing must be very potent, for he says,
   "I shall be clean." "I shall be whiter than snow."

   I. First, then, a little about THE DEFILEMENT.

   Sometimes it has been asked by unconverted men, "Why do you talk so
   much about Atonement? Why could not God be generous and forgive sin
   outright? Why should He require the shedding of blood and the endurance
   of great suffering?" Sinner, if you had a right sense of sin you would
   never ask such a question! In asking that question you speak upon the
   supposition that God is such an One as yourself. But He hates sin. He
   sees in sin such loathsomeness as you have never dreamed of! There is,
   to Him, such horrible abomination, such a heinousness, such a
   detestableness and uncleanness about sin that He could not pass it by.
   If He did, He would bring upon His own Character the suspicion that He
   was not holy. Had God passed by human sin without a substitutionary
   Sacrifice, the seraphim would have Suspended their song, "Holy, holy,
   holy, is the Lord of Hosts." The judge who winks at sin is the abettor
   of sin. If the supreme Ruler does not punish sin, He becomes Himself
   the patron of all guilt and sin may take its rest beneath the shadow of
   His wings! But it is

   not so and, Sinner, God would have you know, and have angels know--and
   have devils know that however lightly any of His creatures may think of
   sin--and however foolishly simple man may toy with it--He knows what a
   vile thing it is and He will have no patience with it! "He will by no
   means spare the guilty."

   I have heard it said by persons looking at the subject from another
   point of view, that the preaching of full forgiveness through the
   Savior's blood, to the very chief of sinners, is apt to make men think
   lightly of sin--that, when we tell them--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One, There is life at this
   moment"--

   for every soul that looks at Christ, we do, in effect, find a plaster
   for men's wounded consciences which, when thus healed, will only aid
   and abet them in going to sin again. How untrue this is! A moment's
   reflection will show you. We tell the sinner that God never does
   gratuitously pass by a single sin and that pardon never could have come
   to one man of Adam's race had it not been procured by the tremendous
   griefs of the Savior who stood in men's place. Our own belief is that
   all the proclamations of the Law of God and all the threats of judgment
   that were ever thundered forth by the most Boanerges-like of ministers,
   never did show man so much the vileness of sin as the preaching of this
   one great Truth of God--"The Lord has caused to meet on Him the
   iniquity of us all. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our
   sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
   But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
   iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His
   stripes we are healed." That is the great condemnation of sin--the
   Savior's death! Never is God dressed in such resplendent robes of
   glorious holiness as when He is smiting sin as it is laid upon His
   only-begotten Son! Having lifted it from sinners and laid it upon
   Christ, He does not spare it because of the worthiness of the Person to
   whom it is imputed. He smites and crushes it with His full force and
   fury till the oppressed Victim cries out, "Behold, and see if there is
   any sorrow like unto My sorrow which is done unto Me when Jehovah has
   afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger."

   Let us now turn this subject over a little--the guiltof sin. We think
   that the Atonement sets forth that guilt most thoroughly--let this
   Truth of God reach the ears of every unpardoned man and woman here. It
   appears that there is nothing but blood that will ever wash your sin
   away--the blood of Christ, the blood of God's dear Son--this cleanses
   us from all sin, but nothing ease can. The blackness of your sin will
   appear, then, if you recollect that all the creatures in the universe
   could not have taken one of your sins away If all the holy angels in
   Heaven had performed the best service that they could render, they
   could not have taken away even one of your sins! If the great archangel
   had left his station near the Throne of God's Glory and had been led
   into a deep abyss of suffering, all that he could have done would not
   have been a drop in the bucket compared with what would be required to
   take away one single sin, for sin is such an enormous evil that no
   created being could remove it! And even if all the saints on earth
   could have ceased to sin and could unceasingly have praised God day and
   night, yet there is not merit enough in all their songs to blot out one
   single offense of one single sinner! No, let me go further. Could your
   tears and the tears of all created intelligences, "no respite know."
   Could the briny drops--

   "Forever flow-- All for sin could not atone."

   No, I will go a step lower. The pains of the damned in Hell are no
   atonement for sin! They suffer in consequenceof sin, but no atonement
   has been made by them, for all they have suffered has not lessened what
   they have to suffer. And when ten thousand times ten thousand years
   shall have rolled over their poor accursed heads, they will be just as
   far off having satisfied Divine Justice as they are now, for sin is
   such a dreadful thing that even Tophet cannot burn it up, though "the
   pile thereof is fire and much wood," and though "the breath of the
   Lord, like a stream of brimstone, does kindle it." Sin is cast into its
   flames and men suffer there--but all the burnings of Gehenna never did
   consume a single sin--and never could! Think of that! Earth, Heaven and
   Hell could never take away a single sin from a single soul!

   None but Christ could do it and even Christ Himself could not do it
   unless He became a Man. I t was absolutely necessary that the
   Substitute for human sin should be of the same nature as the offender.
   Christ must therefore be born of Mary that He might become Man. Man
   must suffer, for man had sinned. As in Adam all died, so in another
   Adam must all be made alive if they were ever to be made alive at all.
   They fell by one man, so they must rise by another Man, or else never
   rise. But even the Man Christ Jesus, in association with the Godhead,
   could not have taken away your sins unless He had died. I never read in
   Scripture that all that He did in His life could take away sin. The
   Savior's life is the robe of

   righteousness with which His people are covered, but that is not the
   bath in which they are washed. The whole life of Christ--all His
   preaching upon the mountains, all His fasting in the wilderness, all
   His travail in birth for souls, yes, all His bloody sweat, all His
   scourging, all the shame and the spitting that He endured could not
   have saved your soul, or take away one sin, for it is written, "Without
   shedding of blood is no remission" of sin. Think of this, Sinner! To
   take out that one sin of yours, if you had only one sin, the Infinite
   must become an Infant and the Immortal must yoke Himself with
   mortality! And then, in that position, and in that condition, He must
   become "obedient unto death," or else not one sin on your part could
   ever be removed from your soul!

   But I want you to go with me further than this. Christ Himself, in His
   death, could not have taken away one sin if it had not been for the
   peculiar form of death which He endured. He had to be crucified and
   then Paul could write, "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. Christ must, therefore, hang upon a tree that He
   might be cursed--and there is no man who ever lived who can tell what
   is meant by that expression--that Christ was cursed. If all the mighty
   orators who have moved the Christian Church at once to tears and to
   joy, could stand here, I would defy them to weigh this burden of the
   Lord, or estimate its tremendous meaning, "Christ was made a curse for
   us." Christ a curse! Jehovah-Tsidkenu a curse! Jesus, the darling of
   the Father, made a curse! He, who "counted it not robbery to be equal
   with God," a curse! O angels, you may well marvel at this mystery, for
   its astounding depths you cannot fathom! Yet so it is. "He has made Him
   to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
   righteousness of God in Him."

   And this leads me to mention what I think is surely the climax here,
   that although Christ died the death of the Cross, even then He could
   not have taken any sin away unless it had been expressly ordained and
   settled that He therein did Himself take our sin as well as our
   curse--and did therein stand before God, though in Himself personally
   innocent--as if He had been a sinner and there suffer, "the Just for
   the unjust, that He might bring us to God." There is that black, that
   hideous, that damning, that everlasting soul-destroying thing called
   sin! Jehovah-Jesus sees it on His people. He knows that they can never
   be with Him where He is while that sin rests on them and He also knows
   that there is no way by which they can be freed from it except by His
   taking it. Can you picture the scene? He takes that terrible, that
   cursed, that Hell-kindling, that Hell-feeding thing--that fuel of the
   eternal Pit, that object of eternal Wrath--He takes that sin upon
   Himself and now what does sin seem to say? It is imputed to Christ and
   it seems to hide itself behind Christ--and it says to God, "O God, You
   hate me, but You cannot reach me here. Here I am! I am Your enemy, but
   there is between us an impassable barrier." Now, what will become of
   sin? Hear this, you sinners who still have your sins resting upon you!
   What will become of sin? God says, "Awake, O sword, against My
   Shepherd, and against the Man that is My Fellow, says the Lord of
   Hosts: smite the Shepherd." And the sword did smite Him, so that Christ
   cried out, "All Your waves and Your billows are gone over Me." And He
   uttered that dreadful shriek, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken
   Me?" in unutterable depths of anguish because God had turned away His
   face and smitten Him in His fierce anger, pounded Him as in a mortar,
   trampled on Him as in the wine-press, crushed Him as in the
   olive-press, broke Him between the upper and the nether millstones of
   His awful wrath made Him to drink the whole cup dry and caused Him to
   suffer--

   "All that Incarnate God could bear, With strength enough, but none to
   spare."

   So you see that before even one sin can be pardoned, Christ must suffer
   what that sin deserves, or something tantamount thereunto by which
   Divine Holiness shall be cleared of all stain. Then what an awfully
   evil thing sin must be! Yet you will see her standing at the corner of
   the street, with a smiling face, trying to allure you. But shake your
   head at her and say, "No, no! The Savior bled because of you!" And you
   will see sin sparkling in the wine-cup, but look not on it when it is
   red, and moves itself aright, but say unto it, "O Sin, I loathe you,
   for you did open my Savior's veins and cause His precious blood to
   flow!" It is easy to get black by sin, but remember that it is so hard
   to get clean that only God's Omnipotence, in the Person of Christ,
   could provide a Cleanser for your sins!

   And now, Sinner, I say this word to you, yet some will go and mock it.
   I cannot make you see the filthiness of sin. You think it a mere
   trifling thing. God Almighty, you say, is very merciful, forgetting how
   tremendously just He is. But though I cannot make you see sin, yet I
   can leave this Truth with you--you will one day feel what sin means
   unless you repent of it, for He that spared not His own Son will not
   spare you! If the Judge upon the Throne of God smote Christ, who had no
   sin of His own--smote Him so sternly for other men's sins--what will He
   do with you? If He spared not His Beloved Son, what will He do with His
   enemies? If the fire burned up Christ, how will it burn up you? O you
   who are out of Christ--without God and without hope--what will you do?
   What will you do when God shall put on His robe of thunder and come
   forth to deal with you in His wrath? Beware, beware, you that forget
   God, lest He tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you!
   "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His
   wrath is

   kindled but a little."

   I want you to take this prayer now. I have tried to bring out the
   meaning of it. You are thus black, so pray to God, "Purge me with
   blood: apply it by Your Holy Spirit, as the priest applied to the leper
   the blood upon the bunch of hyssop. 'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
   be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.'"

   II. And now we shall have a few words upon THE POWER OF THE CLEANSING.

   Whom can it cleanse?That is the first question. David answers it, for
   he says, "It can cleanse me" He meant himself. I would not exaggerate
   David's sin, but it was a very frightful one. What could be more
   dreadful than for a man so highly-favored, who had so much of the Light
   of God, so much communion with God and who stood so high as a light in
   the midst of the nation to commit two crimes so accursed as those which
   we must lay at his door--adultery and murder? While my blood runs chill
   at the very thought of his having committed them, yet in my soul I am
   glad that the Holy Spirit ever permitted such a black case to stand on
   record! What an encouragement to seek pardon it has been to many who
   have sinned as foully as David did! If you can bend your knees and pray
   David's prayer, you shall get David's answer! "Purge me with hyssop,
   and I shall be clean." What if you have even defiled your neighbor's
   wife? What if you have even struck your neighbor to his heart and left
   him dead upon the earth? These two crimes will damn you to all eternity
   unless you shall find pardon for them through the blood of Jesus--and
   there is pardon for them there! If you look up to where that blood is
   streaming from the hands and feet and side of Jesus. If you trust your
   broken spirit in His hands, there is pardon for your crimson sins to be
   had right now! Is there a harlot here? O poor fallen woman, I pray that
   Christ may so forgive you that you will wash His feet with your tears
   and wipe them with the hairs of your head! Is there a thief here? Men
   say that you will never be reclaimed, but I pray the same Eternal Mercy
   which saved the dying thief to save the living thief! Have I any here
   who have cursed God to His face a thousand times? Return unto your God,
   for He comes to meet you! Say to Him, "Father, I have sinned." Bury
   your head in His bosom! Receive His kiss of forgiveness, for God
   delights to pardon and to blot out transgression. Now that He has
   smitten Christ, He will not smite any sinner who comes to Him through
   Christ. His wrath is gone and He can now say, "Fury is not in Me."
   Here, then, is a great wonder--that Christ's precious blood can cleanse
   the vilest of the vile and you may now pray the prayer of the text,
   "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean."

   From what can it cleanse? I dare not mention every kind of sin, but
   there is no sin from which it cannot cleanse. What a precious Truth of
   God that is, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all
   sin." During this last week I have been with Brother Offord conducting
   Prayer Meetings. And he told, one evening, a tale which I made him tell
   every evening afterwards, for I thought it so good. He said there was a
   poor man living in Dartmoor who had been employed during the summer in
   looking after horses, cows and so on, that were turned out on the moor.
   He was a perfect heathen and never went to a place of worship, perhaps,
   since he was a child. For him there was no Sabbath. After a time, he
   grew very ill. He was over 60 years of age and, having nothing to live
   upon, he went into the workhouse. While he was there, it pleased the
   mysterious Spirit to make him uneasy as to his soul. He felt that he
   must die and the old man had just enough Light of God to let him see
   that if he did die, all was wrong with regard to a future state. He had
   a little grandchild who lived in a neighboring town--Plymouth, I think
   it was--and he asked leave for his grandchild to come in to see him
   every day. As he was very ill and near death, that was allowed. She
   came in and he said to her, "Read the Bible to me, Dear." She complied
   and the more she read, the more wretched the old man grew. "Read
   again," he said. The more she read, the more dark his mind seemed to be
   with a sense of guilt.

   At last, one day, she came to that passage in the first Epistle of
   John--you know it--"The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us
   from all sin." "Is that there?" he asked. "Yes, Grandfather," replied
   the little girl, "that is there." "Is that there?" "Oh, yes,
   Grandfather, it is there." "Then read it again! Read it again!" She
   again read, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all
   sin." "My Dear, are you sure it is just like that?" "Yes, Grandfather."
   "Then read it again, Dear." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
   cleanses us from all sin." "Then," he said, "take my finger and put it
   on that verse. Is it on that text, Child?--is my finger on that blessed
   text?" "Yes, Grandfather." "Then," he said, "tell

   them," (alluding to his friends) "that I die in the faith of
   that!"--and he closed his eyes and doubtless entered into eternal rest.
   And I will die in the faith of that Truth of God, by the Grace of
   God--and so will you, I trust, Brothers and Sisters, die with your
   finger on that text, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us
   from all sin." Oh, it is sweet living and it is sweet dying if you can
   rest there! Now we see, then, that whatever your sins may have been,
   they are all included in those little words, "all sin"--therefore be of
   good comfort, poor Sinner--if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are born
   of God and His blood cleanses you from all sin!

   Another question is, When will it cleanse? It will cleanse now. It will
   cleanse at this moment! You remember that it is in the present tense,
   "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses"--that is to say, just at
   this particular moment, some three or four minutes to eight
   o'clock--there is efficacy in the precious blood of Jesus to cleanse
   now. You need not stop till you get home to pray. He who trusts Christ
   is saved the moment that he trusts! His sin is blotted out the instant
   that he accepts Christ as his Substitute and justifies God in smiting
   sin in the Person of the Savior. There is efficacy in the blood now!
   Perhaps there has strayed in here one who says, "It is too late." Who
   told you that? Sir, it was the devil-- and he was a liar from the
   beginning! "Ah," says another, "but you do not know that I have sinned
   against the Light of God and knowledge." My dear Friend, I do not know
   how much you have sinned, but I do know that it is written, "He is able
   also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." And I
   know that you have not gone beyond the uttermost, so I conclude that He
   is able to save you--right now, just as you are, standing in yonder
   crowd, or sitting here in these pews!

   Once more--In what way is Christ able thus to cleanse? I answer--In a
   perfect and complete way! David says, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter
   than snow." We do not see snow very often, now, but when we did see it
   last time, what a dazzling whiteness there was upon it! You took a
   sheet of paper and laid it upon the snow and you were perfectly
   surprised to see the clean, white paper turned yellow or brown in
   comparison with the snow's dazzling whiteness! But David says, "I shall
   be whiter than snow." You see, snow is only earthly whiteness, only
   created whiteness, but the whiteness which Christ gives us when He
   washes us in His blood, is Divine whiteness! The whiteness is the
   righteousness of God Himself! Besides, snow soon melts and then where
   is the whiteness? The snow and the whiteness run away together, but
   there is no power in temptation, no power in sin which is able to stain
   the whiteness which God gives to a pardoned sinner! And then snow,
   especially here in this, our smoky city, soon gets brown or black--but
   this righteousness never will--

   "No age can change its glorious hue-- The robe of Christ is always
   new!"

   "And is this perfect whiteness for me?" asks one. Yes, for you, if you
   believe in Jesus! If you were as black as the devil himself, if you did
   but believe in Jesus, you should be as white as an angel in a moment
   because, by believing, you accept God's way of saving souls--and to do
   this is the greatest thing that can be done! The Pharisees came to
   Christ and they said, making a great fuss about their zeal, "Here is
   our money. Here is our talent. Here is our time--'what shall we do,
   that we might work the works of God?'" They opened their ears for His
   answer and they thought He would say, "Give tithing of mint, anise and
   cummin. Be careful to wash your hands every time you eat. Give your
   money to the poor. Endow a row of almshouses. Become monks. Lacerate
   your backs. Tear your flesh," and so on. But Jesus said nothing of the
   kind! They wondered, I have no doubt, what He was going to say and they
   seemed to be all on tiptoes. "Now He is going to tell us the greatest
   work that a creature can do." "What shall we do that we might work the
   works of God." He answers them thus--"This is the work of God, that you
   believe on Him whom He has sent." Ah, then they went away, directly,
   for no such simple thing, no such humbling thing as this would they do!
   Perhaps there are some of you who say, "Why don't you preach morality?"
   "Talk of morality!" Says Cowper--

   "O You bleeding Lamb, The best morality is love of You"-- and so,
   indeed, it is! If I were to tell you that I was commissioned by God to
   say that if you walked from here to John o'Groat's House in the cold
   and wet, bare-footed and ate nothing on the way but dry bread and drank
   nothing but water, you would inherit eternal life, you would all be on
   the road tomorrow morning, if not tonight! But when I say just this,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," what do you
   do, then? Are you such a fool as to be damned because the way to be
   saved is too simple? My anger waxes hot against you, that you should
   play the fool with

   your own soul and be damned because it is too easy! Think of a man who
   has a disease that is killing him and he will not take the medicine
   because it is too simple. He will not apply to the physician because
   his terms are too cheap. He will not apply such-and-such a remedy
   because it is too simple! Then when that man dies, who can pity him?
   Did he not reject the remedy from the worst and emptiest of all
   motives?

   "Oh!" says one, "but, simple as it is, it seems too hard for me--I
   cannot believe!" Sinner, what can you not believe? Can you not believe
   that if Jesus Christ took human sin and was punished for it, God can be
   just in forgiving it? Why, you can surely believe that! You say that
   you cannot believe, that is, you cannot trustChrist! Why, poor Soul, I
   should find it the hardest work in the world if I were to try notto
   trust Him, for He is such a precious Savior, such a mighty Savior that
   I can say with John Hyatt that I would not only trust Him with my one
   soul, but with a million souls if I had them! Yet it may be that you do
   not understand what believing is. It is not doinganything! It is
   leaving off doing. It is just believing that Christ did it all--

   "Nothing, either great or small,

   Nothing, Sinner, no--

   Jesus did it, did it all

   Long, long ago!"

   Christ is worthy of being trusted. Rely upon Him! God give you the
   Grace to do so and you are saved! Remember what we said the other
   night--there is all the difference in the world between the religion
   that is made up of, "Do, do," and that other religion that is spelt
   "D-o-n-e, done." He who has the religion of, "It is all done," loves
   God out of gratitude and serves Him because he is saved. But he who has
   the religion of "Do" is always a slave, never gets salvation, but
   perishes in his doings--as they deserve to do who will look to
   themselves instead of looking to Christ! May the Lord now command His
   own blessing for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM51.

   May God graciously grant to all of us the Grace which shall enable us
   to enter into the penitential spirit which is so remarkable in this
   Psalm!

   Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God. David breaks the silence at last
   and he does so by crying to God for mercy! Before he says anything
   else, he appeals to this attribute of mercy which is so glorious a
   trait in the Character of Jehovah. And he casts himself, all guilty as
   he is, upon the absolute mercy of God. "Have mercy upon me, O God."

   1. According to Your loving kindness: according unto the multitude of
   Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. David talks as if the
   Lord had said to him, "What is the measure of the mercy that you need?"
   And he knows of nothing by which he can measure it except the boundless
   and infinite loving kindness of the Lord. "O God!" he seems to say,
   "deal out mercy to me according to the measure of Your own boundless
   Nature. Let Your mercy be the only judge of the mercy that I need."

   2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. The forgiveness of sin is not
   enough for the true penitent. He needs the defilement which he has
   incurred through sin to also be removed. If washing will not suffice,
   he asks the Lord to try any other method that will accomplish the
   desired end.

   And, mark you, for each one of us there is a special vocation in which
   we can follow Christ. I do not believe that all of you would be
   following Christ if you were to attempt to preach. Even Christ never
   attempted to do what His Father did not intend Him to do. A man once
   asked Him to officiate as a lawyer or a judge, but He replied, "Who
   made Me a judge or a divider over you?" One beauty of Christ's life was
   that He kept to His calling and did not go beyond His commission. And
   you will be wise if you do the same. If you are a servant, you can
   follow Christ by ministering to the comfort of all who are in the
   house. If you are a mother, you can follow Christ by training up your
   children for Him. Every man has his own particular calling and every
   Christian's calling should be especially for God. One is called to the
   foreign mission field--let him go, in God's name, to the regions
   beyond--let him not stay at home. Another is called to go from house to
   house to visit the sick, to care for the poor and so on--Bible-woman,
   City Missionary, I greet you in Christ's name and bid you keep to your
   own work and never run away from it! One is called to teach an infant
   class and another to care for the lads or the lasses--and all are
   fitted for the work to which they are called by God. And to each one
   the Master says, "Follow Me and keep to the work which My Father has
   given you to do, even as I pleased not Myself by selecting My own work,
   but did that which My Father had appointed for Me."

   II. Now secondly, IN ORDER TO FOLLOW CHRIST IT WILL BE A WISE THING TO
   LET A GREAT MANY

   OTHER THINGS ALONE.

   Peter wanted to know about John--"What shall this man do?" But Jesus
   said, "What is that to you? You follow Me." From this answer of Christ,
   we learn that we are not to be curious as to what God is going to do
   with other people. I will tell you what thoughts have been passing
   through the minds of some of us. One has said, "I am a poor humble
   believer in Jesus. I have to struggle with poverty and need, yet God
   graciously helps me and I can tell of many instances of His delivering
   mercy." Well, dear Friend, God is greatly glorified by this testimony!
   But when you go on to ask about those rich people who have everything
   that heart can wish, "What is God going to do with them?" I can only
   reply, "What is that to you? Follow you Christ and be not curious about
   others." It is equally wrong if a rich man says, "There are those poor
   people who are converted, but who cannot give much to the cause of God
   and who need education to enable them to teach others--what will the
   Lord do with them?" That is nothing to do with you, my Brother. You
   have to follow the Lord, yourself, and to mind your own business!
   Someone else says, "There's such-and-such a man--really, I can't see
   any ability in him! He tried to preach the other day and I was glad
   when he stopped, for it was very poor talk." I must confess that I have
   sometimes felt like that when I have listened to a friend, but I have
   said to myself, "What is that to me? God knows His own servants better
   than we do and He knows where to place them, and how to use them to the
   best advantage." Possibly, someone says, concerning a fine orator, "A
   man who blazes away at that rate thinks too much of himself for God to
   bless him." But Christ says, "What is that to you? You follow Me." God
   has all sorts of stones in His Temple and some of them are of such a
   strange shape that I am glad the placing of them is not left to me, for
   I could not do it! I am thankful that God never sent me into the world
   to make people perfect, but to use them as I find them. And I believe
   that He also uses them as He finds them and gradually prepares them for
   higher uses and for the place which He means them to occupy in His
   Temple above. So do not say, "I am wondering what this man will do and
   what that man will do, and what others around me will do"--but do what
   you can for Christ and, as for others--leave them to the Master!

   Further, this rule also applies to the character of others. How much
   some people are concerned because a certain man is so purse proud! It
   seems to be a sort of consolation to them to think how much better they
   are than he is. Another is very frivolous and they frequently bring his
   character into their conversation, apparently as a means of showing how
   superior in sobriety they are. To everyone of that stamp, Christ seems
   to me to say, "'What is that to you? You follow Me,' and then the
   imperfections of your neighbor will not lie so near to your heart." I
   have heard of a minister who, wishing to bring the Truth of God home to
   the hearts and consciences of his people, said that he should like to
   pass a Reform Act--that everybody should reform one person and then all
   would be reformed. He meant that they should all reform themselves, but
   one man said, "The minister is quite right! Everybody is to reform one
   and I am going home to reform our Mary." That is often our idea--that
   we must reform somebody else--but if we could bring ourselves to feel
   that weeding our own garden, watering our own plants and fulfilling our
   own vocation is what God requires of us, how much better it would be
   for the entire Church of Christ!

   I think the same rule applies, to a large extent, to remarks concerning
   the general condition of Christian Churches. There are some of my
   Brothers who assure me that these are the most terrible times through
   which the world has ever passed. They cannot discover any ground for
   congratulation--everything seems to wear to them a most gloomy aspect.
   It may be so, yet I think I can see much reason for thankfulness as
   well as much cause for sorrow and regret. We are constantly told that
   this is a crisis, but I recollect that when I first came to London, 20
   years ago, [1853] I was told that it was a crisis and it seems to have
   been a crisis every few weeks since! Some people appear to imagine that
   the future of the universe depends upon a meeting which they propose to
   hold in a month or so--yet so far God has managed the affairs of the
   universe without any help from them and He still reigns as universal
   King and Lord notwithstanding all the efforts of the Pope, the Devil
   and Essays and Reviews! I have come to the conclusion that instead of
   trying to set all my Master's servants right at once, my first and most
   important work is to follow my Lord--and I think, my Brothers, that it
   will be wise for you to come to the same conclusion!

   Suppose a man is set by his master to plow a field? His main business
   is to go up and down that field until he has plowed it all. But suppose
   that, instead of doing so, he gets into a comfortable corner under the
   hedge and tells his fellow plowman that the whole system of farming
   adopted by his master is a mistake, that this field is being sown with
   the wrong sort of seed, that his master does not understand the best
   manure to use and that if he were make me his manager, the whole farm
   would pay much better that it now does? If his master comes while he is
   talking like this and asks, "John, what have you been doing?" and he
   replies, "I have been expounding to William a better plan of farming
   than you have adopted," his master would probably say to him, "I shall
   have to discharge you unless you give up these speculations. Get on
   with your plowing at once and leave the management of the farm to me."
   And I would say that to many Christians-- Get on with your plowing! Get
   to your own proper work! Teach that class in the Sunday school. Speak
   to sinners about Christ whenever you can and try to win them for
   Him--but leave those greater and deeper things to your Master. Go on
   following Him with all your heart and serving Him with all your might.
   He has His special servants whom He calls to great works of reform,
   those whom He uses as His speaking trumpets to proclaim the Truth upon
   the solemn matters with which the most of us have not so much to do.

   The same rule applies to many theological questions. For instance, the
   puzzling problem concerning the origin of evil. I am not so much
   troubled about how evil came into the world as about helping to get it
   out! Practical common-sense seems to say, "If there is a thief in the
   house, let us catch him, or else get him out. And after that we will
   try to find out how he got in." Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come into
   the world to tell us how sin was brought here, but He came to show us
   the only way in which sin can be taken out of the world--and that is by
   the door which He opened in His own side. It is by His death that sin
   is to be expelled from the earth!

   Then there is that great and weighty question concerning the relation
   between Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility. You may go to one
   place of worship and you will hear about very little except Divine
   Sovereignty. And you may go to another place and you will hear about
   little except human responsibility. Or you may have heard me

   preach about both Truths of God [See Sermon #77, Volume 2--DIVINE
   SOVEREIGNTY; #194, Volume 4--HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY and #207, Volume
   4--SOVEREIGN GRACE AND MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY.] without any

   attempt to "reconcile" them, as I believe that they have never been at
   enmity against one another and, therefore, there is no need for any
   reconciliation! It has been a great temptation to many good men to get
   to fighting about these Truths when they would have been better
   employed in preaching the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ. I believe that
   before the foundation of the world, God chose in Christ all those whom
   He will eternally save. And I equally believe that whoever believes in
   the Lord Jesus Christ shall be eternally saved, that salvation is all
   of Grace and damnation is all of man's sin--that God will have the
   glory of every soul that is saved--and that every lost soul will be
   responsible for its own ruin.

   I think my text also applies to those prophetical studies in which so
   many seem to lose their way. I am not much encouraged to follow their
   example when I see how the students of prophecy denounce each other and
   disprove each other's theories. There are some prophetic Truths that
   ought to be constantly preached, as for instance that the Lord will
   surely come again and that there will be a Final Judgment when the
   righteous shall have the full glories of Heaven, and

   the wicked shall know the woes of Hell. But as to the dates of the
   various events foretold in the prophecies that are still unfulfilled, I
   think I have something better to do than to puzzle my brains over them.
   "Oh!" say some, "but we now have the right theory." So others thought
   20 years ago! But it did not prove to be right, nor did the theory that
   was held a hundred years ago, or 200 years ago, or even more! Yet men
   go on building up their card house of speculation and Time comes and
   pushes it all over with his finger! I advise you to study Matthew,
   Mark, Luke and John--and to preach the crucified Savior of which the
   Gospels and Epistles will tell you! And when you get to the Revelation,
   keep it in its proper place and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you the
   meaning of its mysteries. May God save this generation from the follies
   of some of the generations that have preceded it--and may we be most of
   all concerned about being born-again, about faith in Jesus, about
   preaching His Gospel and following Him all the days of our life!

   III. Now, lastly, THERE ARE MANY REASONS WHY WE SHOULD CONFINE OUR
   LIFE-WORK TO THE FOLLOWING OF CHRIST. And those reasons are these.

   First, our powers are limited. Mine are, I know, and I should like to
   use what powers I have in the work of following Christ in preaching the
   Gospel and seeking to bring others to follow Him.

   Next, our time is limited. We may all of us live but a very short time.
   And at the longest it will be but a brief life. I have heard of a
   minister who used to say that he would be thankful, in his last hours,
   that he had been enabled, by God's Grace, to spend the greater part of
   his time in inviting sinners to the Savior. And I should like to
   live--and I should like you, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, to
   live in such a way that when we come to die, we may be able to say,
   "There, that is the kind of life I would like to have lived, now that I
   am at the end of it." Suppose anyone should live to fight for the
   Baptist denomination? When he dies, men would say, "Well, he was a
   thorough Baptist and he fought well for his denomination." But that
   would be a poor wreath to lay on his coffin! Would you care to have a
   long Latin inscription on your tombstone recording the fact that you
   were always hammering away at some important Doctrine? Or would you
   wish to have it said, "There lies a man who charmed a few Christian
   people with the deep spirituality of his teaching, but

   that was all he did"?

   I covet and I think I am right in doing so, the honor of having it said
   of me, "That man lived to snatch sinners like brands from the burning."
   I hope some of you will have it said when you are gone, "That woman
   lived to bring her children to Christ. That girl lived to talk to those
   she met with about the dear Savior who had been so precious to her that
   she wished all others to enjoy the same blessing." Oh, that each one of
   us might live to glorify God! To be like an arrow shot from Christ's
   bow by His own pierced hand! To feel an impetus given to us to bear us
   right on to the center of the target of the Glory of God, nothing
   turning us aside, either to be thought good, or to be thought great, or
   to be thought learned, or to desire to gain honor or esteem among our
   fellow men--but just to glorify God by the conversion of sinners
   through the Holy Spirit's blessing resting upon our labors!

   Having but little strength, it is best for us to use it all in one
   direction. Some men know too much to be powerful for anything. They are
   like water that is spread over the meadows and not like the stream that
   runs along in a narrow channel and, therefore, concentrates its energy
   and renders real service to mankind. "This one thing I do," is a good
   motto for any man, if he does that one thing well. And the one thing
   that I will seek to do shall be to glorify God by following Jesus and
   doing the work He has given me to do! For, my Brothers and Sisters,
   suppose that you and I should make out the mystery of predestination?
   Suppose we should become adepts at prophecy? Suppose we should become
   exceedingly learned in a thousand subjects and yet should go down to
   our graves without having ever glorified God? We should find no apology
   for our neglect in all that we had done! Nobody will be lost, as far as
   I know, through my getting a wrong theory of prophecy, but thousands
   may be saved if I know the Truth concerning Christ and Him Crucified
   and preach Him with all my might! I do not know that I shall love the
   Savior any the less if I make a mistake about some of the great
   mysteries of the Kingdom, but I do know that if I give myself up wholly
   to His service and am the means of bringing others to do the same, I
   shall have no regrets compared with those I should have felt if I had
   neglected this all-important matter. I charge all of you, men and
   women, in these evil days to keep close to Jesus! Follow Him with the
   utmost care, reverence and love. Follow Him with intense ardor and with
   all your heart, soul and strength--and make that the one thing for
   which you live! Do not let anything divert you from the straight path
   of obedience to your Lord, for to that you are called above everything
   else! If men come to you talking about mental culture and modern
   thought, stand firm to this--that you will follow Christ wherever He
   leads you!

   I wonder what God would have each of us here do? You may think I am
   falling into Peter's error if I press this point upon you. I wonder
   what there is for us to do as a Church? Do you think, dear Friends,
   that we are doing all that we ought to do for this neighborhood? We
   have heard about what our missionaries have been doing in foreign lands
   and most of us have something to do with that. But I think the
   principal point for us is--What is to be done in Newington? What is to
   be done for Christ all around this region? You tract-distributors, are
   you earnestly attending to your work? You Sunday school teachers, are
   you faithfully doing your work for God? I will not bid you forget the
   foreign field, but still, our first concern must be our own class, our
   own immediate neighborhood. Many of you have come from different parts
   of London--what are you doing for the district where you live? Every
   Christian should first seek the good of those nearest to his own door.
   Some of you have come from the country--what are you doing in your own
   village? You say that you have been hearing a man of God preach the
   Truth. That is quite right, but is that working for God? There is a
   young man over there who professes to be a follower of Christ and who
   often speaks at the debating club. Do you, My Friend, ever preach in
   the street, or teach in the Sunday school? Then I am ashamed of you! Or
   rather, are you not ashamed of yourself? There is a man over there who
   is making money. I do not say that he is doing wrong, but My Friend,
   have you ever consecrated to God the part which belongs to Him? If you
   keep it for yourself, it will canker all the rest!

   I might say to someone here, "You ought to be taking a Bible class for
   young women." I might say to others, "You ought to be teaching in the
   Sunday school. You come here twice on the Lord's day, but you have no
   business to come here twice--you ought, once at least, to go to work
   for Christ." I am pleased with some whose consciences prick them so
   that they say, "Dear Pastor, do not imagine that we are forsaking you!
   We would be glad to be here, but we have been down at the
   lodging-houses, or down in Golden Lane, or over at Bethnal Green." That
   is right and I am glad when I see somebody else in their seats! With
   four or five thousand members in the Church, if they all come here at
   each service, where are our converts to come from? Am I to cast the
   Gospel net into the midst of the fish that are already caught? If you
   stay away to let a sinner come here in your place and if you are,
   yourself, seeking to bring sinners to Christ, you are doing two good
   things! I want everyone of you to be living to do good to your fellow
   men and seeking to save souls for the Glory of God! The enemies of the
   faith are very busy and very earnest--and they seem to use up all their
   material. The moment a man gets into the Church of Rome, there is sure
   to be something found for him to do and I want to see all of you used
   to the utmost of your power. You are free men and women and, therefore,
   not to be controlled by me. I do not prescribe what you are to do, but
   cannot you, as independent men and women, obey the sacred dictates of
   the Spirit of God and each of you drop into your proper place?

   Give up all speculating, I beseech you--give up reading books merely
   for the sake of curiosity, and, in God's name, get to work for Him! The
   graves are filling, our cemeteries are filling, and Hell is filling
   too! Meanwhile, the dupes of Satan are compassing sea and land to do
   all the mischief that they can. If you really are what you say you are,
   the servant of Him who wept over Jerusalem--if you are bought with the
   blood He shed on Calvary's Cross--I charge you to consecrate yourself,
   this very hour, to that form of Christian work to which your Master
   calls you and follow Him through evil report and good report! Follow
   Him in the path of duty and let nothing turn you aside from your
   life-work of glorifying God! May God bless you all, for Jesus' sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN21.

   Verse 1. After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples
   at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed He Himself.Jesus loved
   to show Himself to His people. Of old, His delights were with the sons
   of men. So now that He had risen from the dead, He was not ashamed to
   visit His brethren and He did not disdain to make Himself known to
   them--and He will still show Himself to us after a spiritual fashion,
   if we sincerely desire to see Him.

   2. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and
   Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of
   His disciples. As John was the writer of this record, he did not put
   his own name there, but merely mentioned "the sons of Zebedee."

   3. Simon Peter said unto them, I am going fishing. They said unto him,
   We will also go with you. Men who are in a right state of heart cannot
   willingly be idle. So, if these Apostles cannot preach for a time, they
   will go back to their old employment and seek to catch fish.

   3. They went forth and immediately entered into a boat and that night
   they caught nothing. Brothers and Sisters, without Christ's Presence,
   that is what always happens--"they caught nothing." But notice what the
   next verse says.

   4. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the
   disciples knew not that it was Jesus. We must remember that a great
   change had taken place in Him and that the disciples were at some
   distance from the shore. They saw a person standing there, but they
   were not sure who it was.

   5. Then Jesus said unto them, Children, have you any food?This is not
   an exact translation of our Savior's words. He might too readily have
   revealed His identity if He had spoken like that. His question was more
   like a common fisherman's salutation, "Lads, have you any food?"

   5. They answered Him, No. Jesus likes us to admit that we do not
   possess anything of our own before He gives us the blessing He is
   waiting to bestow. He lets us see that the table is bare before He
   loads it with His bounty so that He may have all the praise and glory
   for what He gives us.

   6. And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat,
   and you shall find some. They cast therefore, and now they were not
   able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. This is another proof of
   the difference between Christ's Presence and Christ's absence.

   7. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved (again John does not
   mention his own name) said to Peter, It is the Lord."It is only He who
   could spy out the fish and only He who could fill the net with them. It
   is just His way of acting. 'It is the Lord.'" The eyes of true love are
   very quick. Peter was not the first to recognize Jesus--John was--for
   He loved Him most.

   7. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer
   garment (for he had taken it off) and did cast himself into the sea.He
   had such reverence for his Master that he would not appear before Him
   without a sufficient covering, yet he was in a hurry to get to Him.
   Peter always was in a hurry--yet he was grandly impetuous as a rule. I
   wish that some "slowpokes" had a little of his pace!

   8, 9. And the other disciples came in the little boat, (for they were
   not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits) dragging the net
   with fishes. As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of
   coals there and fish laid thereon, and bread.How that fire must have
   reminded Peter of his denial of his Lord! He saw his Master by the
   light of the charcoal fire--and that is how he saw Him on the night
   when he denied Him.

   10, 11. Jesus said unto them, Bring of the fish which you have now
   caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great
   fishes, an hundred and fifty-three: and for all there were so many, yet
   was not the net broken. On the previous occasion when Peter's net was
   miraculously filled by Christ, we read that the net broke. That was
   Peter's own net, but this time I suppose it was not Peter's, but one
   that he had borrowed and probably he had no time to mend it, so the
   Master took care that it should not break. He always has His own ways
   of working--and they always fit the circumstances of the case and show
   His thoughtful care of His people.

   12. Jesus said unto them, Come and dine. The Revised Version is more
   correct--"Come and break your fast"--

   "Come and have your breakfast." [See Sermon #2072, Volume 35--BREAKFAST
   WITH JESUS.]

   12-15. And none of the disciples dared ask Him, Who are You? knowing
   that it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to
   them, and likewise the fish. This is now the third time that Jesus
   showed Himself to His disciples, after that He was risen from the dead.
   So when they had dined. When they had broken their fast--but not until
   then, for Christ does not talk to men when their hunger might make them
   inattentive.

   15. Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love Me more
   than these?He had talked as if he did-- "Although all shall be
   offended, yet will not I."

   15. He said unto Him, Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.He was wise
   in not measuring his love in comparison with that of his fellow
   disciples, or in speaking of the quantity of it, but he affirmed that
   even Christ knew that he did really love Him.

   15-17. He said unto hiim, Feed My lambs. He said to him again the
   second time, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love Me? He said unto Him,
   Yes, Lord; You know that I love You. He said unto Him, Feed My sheep.
   He said unto Him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love
   Me?Here is a lesson for all who would be pastors of Christ's flock. The
   first necessity of a true pastor is love to Christ. The second
   necessity of a true pastor is love to Christ. And the third necessity
   of a true pastor is love to Christ. A man who does not love the Great
   Shepherd cannot properly feed either His sheep or lambs. If his own
   heart is not right towards the Divine Owner of the sheep, he cannot be
   a true under-shepherd to Christ's flock.

   17-19. Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Do
   you love Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, You know all things; You know
   that I love You. Jesus said unto him, Feed My sheep. Verily, verily, I
   say unto you, When you were young, you gird yourself, and walked where
   you would: but when you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your
   hands, and another shall gird you, and carry you where you would not.
   This spoke He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. Peter
   was to stretch out his hands and be nailed to a cross as his Lord was.

   19. And when He had spoken this, He said unto him, Follow Me. "That is
   to be your rule, whether you feed My sheep or lambs, or whether you
   stretch out your hands upon a cross and die as a martyr--'Follow Me.'"
   That is also the rule for all of us who love the Lord. O Lord, help us
   to obey it!

   20-25. Then Peter, turning about, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved
   following; which also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord,
   which is he that betrays You? Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord,
   and what shall this man do? Jesus said unto him, Ifl will that he tarry
   till Icome, what is that to you? You follow Me. Then went this saying
   abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus
   said not unto him, he shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till
   I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple which testifies of
   these things, and wrote these things. And we know that His testimony is
   true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which,
   if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world
   itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen
     __________________________________________________________________

Following Christ

   (No. 3057)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   11, 1873.

   "What is that to you? You follow Me." John 21:22.

   [Other sermons by Mr. Spurgeon on FOLLOWING CHRIST are as
   follows--#403, Volume 7--THE BROKEN COLUMN; #1530, Volume 26--FOLLOWING
   THE RISEN CHRIST; #2273, Volume 38--FICKLE FOLLOWERS and #2324, Volume
   39--THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB.]

   ONLY a moment or two before, our Lord had said to Peter, "Follow Me,"
   yet He found it necessary to repeat that command from which it is clear
   that the Lord Jesus, Himself, might be here and might speak to us in
   the most plain terms and yet His words might not make the impression
   upon our hearts that we sometimes think they would. Yet even though
   Jesus Christ Himself should speak to us, we should not feel the full
   force of His words unless the Spirit of God applied them to our hearts.
   This reflection may teach us not to indulge in idle regrets that Jesus
   is not here now in bodily Presence, or to say, "I wish that I had been
   living on the earth in Christ's day." The fact is, if the Holy Spirit
   shall bless the word that is spoken to you by the humblest Christian
   alive, it may be quite as useful to your soul as though the Master,
   Himself, had been here and the Truth of God had fallen upon your ears
   direct from His own lips!

   Peter's mind seems to have been distracted from the command to follow
   the Savior by a very simple incident. "Turning about," it is said, he
   saw John following--and the sight of his fellow disciple awakened his
   curiosity and he put to the Master the speculative inquiry as to John's
   future, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" To which the Master
   replied, in the words of my text, "What is that to you? You follow Me."
   This teaches us that the presence of even the holiest man may sometimes
   call us off from following our Master. It is certain that thousands of
   serious impressions have been lost through idle chit-chat after
   sermons. The Sabbath's services lose many of their benefits to us
   through the common habit of talking on the way home from a place of
   worship about anything and everything rather than the one subject that
   ought to engross our minds. Some of the best people in the world may,
   involuntarily, turn our minds from that line of thought in which the
   Savior would have them run, so let us constantly pray, "O Lord, keep
   our eyes, keep our ears, keep our hearts from wandering away from You
   for, if not, we shall soon forget the sound even of Your own voice and
   the impressions which may have been made upon us!"

   I think we have greater reason to ask the Lord to impress more deeply
   upon us the Truth of God we have received than to ask Him to give us
   more Truth, for what we already know might suffice us if we did but
   know it better. And if we kept in mind the things which we have already
   heard, we might almost be satisfied even if we heard no more. One
   sermon a Sunday, really cut into the soul as with the point of a
   diamond, would be of more real, permanent value to us than two sermons
   which we hear, but speedily forget because we happen to meet an
   acquaintance on our way home, or have our thoughts diverted by some
   other simple means.

   Dear Friends, do not let our thoughts be thus diverted at this time,
   but let us come to the principal point and keep to it. And that point
   is this--that the main business of our life is to follow Jesus. And,
   secondly, to effect this, we had better avoid all idle
   speculations--and indeed, questions not altogether idle had better be
   left alone that we may keep to the one main business of our life. The
   reasons for doing this are very clear--and with them I shall close my
   discourse.

   I. First, then, THE MAIN BUSINESS OF OUR LIFE IS TO FOLLOW THE LORD.

   I can truly say to every one of you that the main thing you have to do
   in this world is first to follow Christ until you find Him as your
   Savior or, in other words, the first thing for you to do is to look to
   Him, to trust in Him. We live in

   vain if we do not live unto God and if we do not live by faith in Jesus
   Christ, the one and only Savior. "Live in vain," did I say? It were
   better for you, dear Hearers, and for me, that we had never been born
   if we should live and die without faith in Jesus Christ! You may
   neglect your business, you may neglect what you will--but do not
   neglect your souls. First, first, FIRST--beyond and before everything
   else--must be the matter of your own personal salvation! On board a
   vessel that is going down, a man may forget his luggage and many
   precious treasures that he has with him. It is for his life that he is
   concerned. Even Satan spoke the truth for once when he said, "Skin for
   skin, yes, all that a man has will he give for his life." Let it be so
   with you in the highest sense. Make your soul your first care, for what
   shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul?
   So the first thing for you to do is to follow Christ for life, for
   salvation-- looking to Him by faith, in obedience to the Apostolic
   command, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

   Procrastination often comes in to cause the solemnities of the Gospel
   to seem less serious. "There is plenty of time," we say. "We are quite
   young as yet and we have many years in which to think of these things."
   Where the sere and yellow leaf is beginning to fall, there is something
   else to put away thoughts of eternity. There is another daughter to be
   married, so a few more hundreds of pounds must be saved up for her. And
   then when you have retired to your country house, you will think about
   "making your peace with God"--as if it were nothing to you that you are
   "condemned already" because you have "not believed in the name of the
   only begotten Son of God," and as if it were a matter of no importance
   to be an enemy of God and to be unsaved for 50 or 60 years of sin--as
   if it were a small thing to have the leprosy of sin still eating into
   your immortal spirits! Why, if there were no Hell, sin would be, to a
   right-minded man, such a vile thing that he would long to escape from
   it and dread it as he now dreads the pains of Hell. Oh, that all here
   had even half such a sense as Christ had of the solemnity of the things
   of which I am speaking! That would drive us to our knees and we would
   not dare to go out of this house unsaved--and all through this building
   we would hear the cry that arose on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem,
   "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

   Keeping more closely to my text, I have to say that after we are saved,
   the main business of our life is still to follow Christ. When sin is
   pardoned and the eternal safety of the soul is ensured, the next thing
   is to seek the purity of the soul and to secure a character that shall
   be worth having throughout eternity. There is no character which is
   worth having which is not fashioned according to the Character of
   Christ. He is absolute perfection! In Him is nothing redundant and from
   Him nothing is omitted which ought to be there. To be perfect, we must
   be like Jesus. "Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our
   faith," we are to conquer this sin and to overcome that passion and, in
   the power of God's Spirit, to cultivate this tender Grace and that
   other bolder virtue! The one thing we are to aim at is to tread in
   Christ's footsteps, to do what He did and, as far as He is imitable by
   us, to do it as He did it and to be as He was in the midst of the sons
   and daughters of men. If I am a Christian, I am not to be following
   Calvin, or Arminius, or any other earthly leader--I am to mold my
   doctrinal opinions, my thoughts, words, character and acts after the
   model of Christ's!

   The same Law applies to the whole of our life-service. If we would do
   what we were created to do--if, being trees of God's planting, we are
   to bear the fruit He meant us to bear, we must follow Jesus Christ! We
   are sent into the world, under Him, upon the great errand of seeking
   the lost--

   "'Tis all our business here below To cry, 'Behold the Lamb!'"

   some from the pulpit, but every Christian from some place or other. To
   each individual Believer, Christ has given a position which nobody else
   can so well occupy and from that position he can influence some other
   person or persons whom God will bless through him. I do not believe
   that any Christian was created merely to keep a shop--he was created to
   serve God in his trading. Notwithstanding all man's sin, a man is such
   a noble work of God that he cannot have been intended merely to measure
   off yards of silk, or to weigh pounds of sugar, or to sweep street
   crossings, or to put on crowns, robes and diamonds. There is something
   grander than that for man to do! The little birds are made to sing
   God's praises and I, who am of more value than many sparrows, must be
   meant to sing God's praises too! This is especially true concerning us
   who profess to have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and
   to have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Our life has an outlook
   towards the Infinite--there are windows in our life that look towards
   God. Look out of them, O Christian! With your windows open towards God,
   live in the light of His Countenance and seek in all things to please
   and honor Him! It is your life-work to honor God, to glorify the Lord
   Jesus Christ, to be the instrument

   by which God shall illustrate His almighty power--the black foil from
   which He shall display the brightness of His Grace. You are to be the
   means of spreading abroad in this world the savor of Christ's name--but
   you cannot do this unless you follow Christ.

   And, mark you, for each one of us there is a special vocation in which
   we can follow Christ. I do not believe that all of you would be
   following Christ if you were to attempt to preach. Even Christ never
   attempted to do what His Father did not intend Him to do. A man once
   asked Him to officiate as a lawyer or a judge, but He replied, "Who
   made Me a judge or a divider over you?" One beauty of Christ's life was
   that He kept to His calling and did not go beyond His commission. And
   you will be wise if you do the same. If you are a servant, you can
   follow Christ by ministering to the comfort of all who are in the
   house. If you are a mother, you can follow Christ by training up your
   children for Him. Every man has his own particular calling and every
   Christian's calling should be especially for God. One is called to the
   foreign mission field--let him go, in God's name, to the regions
   beyond--let him not stay at home. Another is called to go from house to
   house to visit the sick, to care for the poor and so on--Bible-woman,
   City Missionary, I greet you in Christ's name and bid you keep to your
   own work and never run away from it! One is called to teach an infant
   class and another to care for the lads or the lasses--and all are
   fitted for the work to which they are called by God. And to each one
   the Master says, "Follow Me and keep to the work which My Father has
   given you to do, even as I pleased not Myself by selecting My own work,
   but did that which My Father had appointed for Me."

   II. Now secondly, IN ORDER TO FOLLOW CHRIST IT WILL BE A WISE THING TO
   LET A GREAT MANY

   OTHER THINGS ALONE.

   Peter wanted to know about John--"What shall this man do?" But Jesus
   said, "What is that to you? You follow Me." From this answer of Christ,
   we learn that we are not to be curious as to what God is going to do
   with other people. I will tell you what thoughts have been passing
   through the minds of some of us. One has said, "I am a poor humble
   believer in Jesus. I have to struggle with poverty and need, yet God
   graciously helps me and I can tell of many instances of His delivering
   mercy." Well, dear Friend, God is greatly glorified by this testimony!
   But when you go on to ask about those rich people who have everything
   that heart can wish, "What is God going to do with them?" I can only
   reply, "What is that to you? Follow you Christ and be not curious about
   others." It is equally wrong if a rich man says, "There are those poor
   people who are converted, but who cannot give much to the cause of God
   and who need education to enable them to teach others--what will the
   Lord do with them?" That is nothing to do with you, my Brother. You
   have to follow the Lord, yourself, and to mind your own business!
   Someone else says, "There's such-and-such a man--really, I can't see
   any ability in him! He tried to preach the other day and I was glad
   when he stopped, for it was very poor talk." I must confess that I have
   sometimes felt like that when I have listened to a friend, but I have
   said to myself, "What is that to me? God knows His own servants better
   than we do and He knows where to place them, and how to use them to the
   best advantage." Possibly, someone says, concerning a fine orator, "A
   man who blazes away at that rate thinks too much of himself for God to
   bless him." But Christ says, "What is that to you? You follow Me." God
   has all sorts of stones in His Temple and some of them are of such a
   strange shape that I am glad the placing of them is not left to me, for
   I could not do it! I am thankful that God never sent me into the world
   to make people perfect, but to use them as I find them. And I believe
   that He also uses them as He finds them and gradually prepares them for
   higher uses and for the place which He means them to occupy in His
   Temple above. So do not say, "I am wondering what this man will do and
   what that man will do, and what others around me will do"--but do what
   you can for Christ and, as for others--leave them to the Master!

   Further, this rule also applies to the character of others. How much
   some people are concerned because a certain man is so purse proud! It
   seems to be a sort of consolation to them to think how much better they
   are than he is. Another is very frivolous and they frequently bring his
   character into their conversation, apparently as a means of showing how
   superior in sobriety they are. To everyone of that stamp, Christ seems
   to me to say, "'What is that to you? You follow Me,' and then the
   imperfections of your neighbor will not lie so near to your heart." I
   have heard of a minister who, wishing to bring the Truth of God home to
   the hearts and consciences of his people, said that he should like to
   pass a Reform Act--that everybody should reform one person and then all
   would be reformed. He meant that they should all reform themselves, but
   one man said, "The minister is quite right! Everybody is to reform one
   and I am going home to reform our Mary." That is often our idea--that
   we must reform somebody else--but if we could bring ourselves to feel
   that weeding our own garden, watering our own plants and fulfilling our
   own vocation is what God requires of us, how much better it would be
   for the entire Church of Christ!

   I think the same rule applies, to a large extent, to remarks concerning
   the general condition of Christian Churches. There are some of my
   Brothers who assure me that these are the most terrible times through
   which the world has ever passed. They cannot discover any ground for
   congratulation--everything seems to wear to them a most gloomy aspect.
   It may be so, yet I think I can see much reason for thankfulness as
   well as much cause for sorrow and regret. We are constantly told that
   this is a crisis, but I recollect that when I first came to London, 20
   years ago, [1853] I was told that it was a crisis and it seems to have
   been a crisis every few weeks since! Some people appear to imagine that
   the future of the universe depends upon a meeting which they propose to
   hold in a month or so--yet so far God has managed the affairs of the
   universe without any help from them and He still reigns as universal
   King and Lord notwithstanding all the efforts of the Pope, the Devil
   and Essays and Reviews! I have come to the conclusion that instead of
   trying to set all my Master's servants right at once, my first and most
   important work is to follow my Lord--and I think, my Brothers, that it
   will be wise for you to come to the same conclusion!

   Suppose a man is set by his master to plow a field? His main business
   is to go up and down that field until he has plowed it all. But suppose
   that, instead of doing so, he gets into a comfortable corner under the
   hedge and tells his fellow plowman that the whole system of farming
   adopted by his master is a mistake, that this field is being sown with
   the wrong sort of seed, that his master does not understand the best
   manure to use and that if he were make me his manager, the whole farm
   would pay much better that it now does? If his master comes while he is
   talking like this and asks, "John, what have you been doing?" and he
   replies, "I have been expounding to William a better plan of farming
   than you have adopted," his master would probably say to him, "I shall
   have to discharge you unless you give up these speculations. Get on
   with your plowing at once and leave the management of the farm to me."
   And I would say that to many Christians-- Get on with your plowing! Get
   to your own proper work! Teach that class in the Sunday school. Speak
   to sinners about Christ whenever you can and try to win them for
   Him--but leave those greater and deeper things to your Master. Go on
   following Him with all your heart and serving Him with all your might.
   He has His special servants whom He calls to great works of reform,
   those whom He uses as His speaking trumpets to proclaim the Truth upon
   the solemn matters with which the most of us have not so much to do.

   The same rule applies to many theological questions. For instance, the
   puzzling problem concerning the origin of evil. I am not so much
   troubled about how evil came into the world as about helping to get it
   out! Practical common-sense seems to say, "If there is a thief in the
   house, let us catch him, or else get him out. And after that we will
   try to find out how he got in." Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come into
   the world to tell us how sin was brought here, but He came to show us
   the only way in which sin can be taken out of the world--and that is by
   the door which He opened in His own side. It is by His death that sin
   is to be expelled from the earth!

   Then there is that great and weighty question concerning the relation
   between Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility. You may go to one
   place of worship and you will hear about very little except Divine
   Sovereignty. And you may go to another place and you will hear about
   little except human responsibility. Or you may have heard me

   preach about both Truths of God [See Sermon #77, Volume 2--DIVINE
   SOVEREIGNTY; #194, Volume 4--HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY and #207, Volume
   4--SOVEREIGN GRACE AND MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY.] without any

   attempt to "reconcile" them, as I believe that they have never been at
   enmity against one another and, therefore, there is no need for any
   reconciliation! It has been a great temptation to many good men to get
   to fighting about these Truths when they would have been better
   employed in preaching the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ. I believe that
   before the foundation of the world, God chose in Christ all those whom
   He will eternally save. And I equally believe that whoever believes in
   the Lord Jesus Christ shall be eternally saved, that salvation is all
   of Grace and damnation is all of man's sin--that God will have the
   glory of every soul that is saved--and that every lost soul will be
   responsible for its own ruin.

   I think my text also applies to those prophetical studies in which so
   many seem to lose their way. I am not much encouraged to follow their
   example when I see how the students of prophecy denounce each other and
   disprove each other's theories. There are some prophetic Truths that
   ought to be constantly preached, as for instance that the Lord will
   surely come again and that there will be a Final Judgment when the
   righteous shall have the full glories of Heaven, and

   the wicked shall know the woes of Hell. But as to the dates of the
   various events foretold in the prophecies that are still unfulfilled, I
   think I have something better to do than to puzzle my brains over them.
   "Oh!" say some, "but we now have the right theory." So others thought
   20 years ago! But it did not prove to be right, nor did the theory that
   was held a hundred years ago, or 200 years ago, or even more! Yet men
   go on building up their card house of speculation and Time comes and
   pushes it all over with his finger! I advise you to study Matthew,
   Mark, Luke and John--and to preach the crucified Savior of which the
   Gospels and Epistles will tell you! And when you get to the Revelation,
   keep it in its proper place and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you the
   meaning of its mysteries. May God save this generation from the follies
   of some of the generations that have preceded it--and may we be most of
   all concerned about being born-again, about faith in Jesus, about
   preaching His Gospel and following Him all the days of our life!

   III. Now, lastly, THERE ARE MANY REASONS WHY WE SHOULD CONFINE OUR
   LIFE-WORK TO THE FOLLOWING OF CHRIST. And those reasons are these.

   First, our powers are limited. Mine are, I know, and I should like to
   use what powers I have in the work of following Christ in preaching the
   Gospel and seeking to bring others to follow Him.

   Next, our time is limited. We may all of us live but a very short time.
   And at the longest it will be but a brief life. I have heard of a
   minister who used to say that he would be thankful, in his last hours,
   that he had been enabled, by God's Grace, to spend the greater part of
   his time in inviting sinners to the Savior. And I should like to
   live--and I should like you, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, to
   live in such a way that when we come to die, we may be able to say,
   "There, that is the kind of life I would like to have lived, now that I
   am at the end of it." Suppose anyone should live to fight for the
   Baptist denomination? When he dies, men would say, "Well, he was a
   thorough Baptist and he fought well for his denomination." But that
   would be a poor wreath to lay on his coffin! Would you care to have a
   long Latin inscription on your tombstone recording the fact that you
   were always hammering away at some important Doctrine? Or would you
   wish to have it said, "There lies a man who charmed a few Christian
   people with the deep spirituality of his teaching, but

   that was all he did"?

   I covet and I think I am right in doing so, the honor of having it said
   of me, "That man lived to snatch sinners like brands from the burning."
   I hope some of you will have it said when you are gone, "That woman
   lived to bring her children to Christ. That girl lived to talk to those
   she met with about the dear Savior who had been so precious to her that
   she wished all others to enjoy the same blessing." Oh, that each one of
   us might live to glorify God! To be like an arrow shot from Christ's
   bow by His own pierced hand! To feel an impetus given to us to bear us
   right on to the center of the target of the Glory of God, nothing
   turning us aside, either to be thought good, or to be thought great, or
   to be thought learned, or to desire to gain honor or esteem among our
   fellow men--but just to glorify God by the conversion of sinners
   through the Holy Spirit's blessing resting upon our labors!

   Having but little strength, it is best for us to use it all in one
   direction. Some men know too much to be powerful for anything. They are
   like water that is spread over the meadows and not like the stream that
   runs along in a narrow channel and, therefore, concentrates its energy
   and renders real service to mankind. "This one thing I do," is a good
   motto for any man, if he does that one thing well. And the one thing
   that I will seek to do shall be to glorify God by following Jesus and
   doing the work He has given me to do! For, my Brothers and Sisters,
   suppose that you and I should make out the mystery of predestination?
   Suppose we should become adepts at prophecy? Suppose we should become
   exceedingly learned in a thousand subjects and yet should go down to
   our graves without having ever glorified God? We should find no apology
   for our neglect in all that we had done! Nobody will be lost, as far as
   I know, through my getting a wrong theory of prophecy, but thousands
   may be saved if I know the Truth concerning Christ and Him Crucified
   and preach Him with all my might! I do not know that I shall love the
   Savior any the less if I make a mistake about some of the great
   mysteries of the Kingdom, but I do know that if I give myself up wholly
   to His service and am the means of bringing others to do the same, I
   shall have no regrets compared with those I should have felt if I had
   neglected this all-important matter. I charge all of you, men and
   women, in these evil days to keep close to Jesus! Follow Him with the
   utmost care, reverence and love. Follow Him with intense ardor and with
   all your heart, soul and strength--and make that the one thing for
   which you live! Do not let anything divert you from the straight path
   of obedience to your Lord, for to that you are called above everything
   else! If men come to you talking about mental culture and modern
   thought, stand firm to this--that you will follow Christ wherever He
   leads you!

   I wonder what God would have each of us here do? You may think I am
   falling into Peter's error if I press this point upon you. I wonder
   what there is for us to do as a Church? Do you think, dear Friends,
   that we are doing all that we ought to do for this neighborhood? We
   have heard about what our missionaries have been doing in foreign lands
   and most of us have something to do with that. But I think the
   principal point for us is--What is to be done in Newington? What is to
   be done for Christ all around this region? You tract-distributors, are
   you earnestly attending to your work? You Sunday school teachers, are
   you faithfully doing your work for God? I will not bid you forget the
   foreign field, but still, our first concern must be our own class, our
   own immediate neighborhood. Many of you have come from different parts
   of London--what are you doing for the district where you live? Every
   Christian should first seek the good of those nearest to his own door.
   Some of you have come from the country--what are you doing in your own
   village? You say that you have been hearing a man of God preach the
   Truth. That is quite right, but is that working for God? There is a
   young man over there who professes to be a follower of Christ and who
   often speaks at the debating club. Do you, My Friend, ever preach in
   the street, or teach in the Sunday school? Then I am ashamed of you! Or
   rather, are you not ashamed of yourself? There is a man over there who
   is making money. I do not say that he is doing wrong, but My Friend,
   have you ever consecrated to God the part which belongs to Him? If you
   keep it for yourself, it will canker all the rest!

   I might say to someone here, "You ought to be taking a Bible class for
   young women." I might say to others, "You ought to be teaching in the
   Sunday school. You come here twice on the Lord's day, but you have no
   business to come here twice--you ought, once at least, to go to work
   for Christ." I am pleased with some whose consciences prick them so
   that they say, "Dear Pastor, do not imagine that we are forsaking you!
   We would be glad to be here, but we have been down at the
   lodging-houses, or down in Golden Lane, or over at Bethnal Green." That
   is right and I am glad when I see somebody else in their seats! With
   four or five thousand members in the Church, if they all come here at
   each service, where are our converts to come from? Am I to cast the
   Gospel net into the midst of the fish that are already caught? If you
   stay away to let a sinner come here in your place and if you are,
   yourself, seeking to bring sinners to Christ, you are doing two good
   things! I want everyone of you to be living to do good to your fellow
   men and seeking to save souls for the Glory of God! The enemies of the
   faith are very busy and very earnest--and they seem to use up all their
   material. The moment a man gets into the Church of Rome, there is sure
   to be something found for him to do and I want to see all of you used
   to the utmost of your power. You are free men and women and, therefore,
   not to be controlled by me. I do not prescribe what you are to do, but
   cannot you, as independent men and women, obey the sacred dictates of
   the Spirit of God and each of you drop into your proper place?

   Give up all speculating, I beseech you--give up reading books merely
   for the sake of curiosity, and, in God's name, get to work for Him! The
   graves are filling, our cemeteries are filling, and Hell is filling
   too! Meanwhile, the dupes of Satan are compassing sea and land to do
   all the mischief that they can. If you really are what you say you are,
   the servant of Him who wept over Jerusalem--if you are bought with the
   blood He shed on Calvary's Cross--I charge you to consecrate yourself,
   this very hour, to that form of Christian work to which your Master
   calls you and follow Him through evil report and good report! Follow
   Him in the path of duty and let nothing turn you aside from your
   life-work of glorifying God! May God bless you all, for Jesus' sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN21.

   Verse 1. After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples
   at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed He Himself.Jesus loved
   to show Himself to His people. Of old, His delights were with the sons
   of men. So now that He had risen from the dead, He was not ashamed to
   visit His brethren and He did not disdain to make Himself known to
   them--and He will still show Himself to us after a spiritual fashion,
   if we sincerely desire to see Him.

   2. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and
   Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of
   His disciples. As John was the writer of this record, he did not put
   his own name there, but merely mentioned "the sons of Zebedee."

   3. Simon Peter said unto them, I am going fishing. They said unto him,
   We will also go with you. Men who are in a right state of heart cannot
   willingly be idle. So, if these Apostles cannot preach for a time, they
   will go back to their old employment and seek to catch fish.

   3. They went forth and immediately entered into a boat and that night
   they caught nothing. Brothers and Sisters, without Christ's Presence,
   that is what always happens--"they caught nothing." But notice what the
   next verse says.

   4. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the
   disciples knew not that it was Jesus. We must remember that a great
   change had taken place in Him and that the disciples were at some
   distance from the shore. They saw a person standing there, but they
   were not sure who it was.

   5. Then Jesus said unto them, Children, have you any food?This is not
   an exact translation of our Savior's words. He might too readily have
   revealed His identity if He had spoken like that. His question was more
   like a common fisherman's salutation, "Lads, have you any food?"

   5. They answered Him, No. Jesus likes us to admit that we do not
   possess anything of our own before He gives us the blessing He is
   waiting to bestow. He lets us see that the table is bare before He
   loads it with His bounty so that He may have all the praise and glory
   for what He gives us.

   6. And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat,
   and you shall find some. They cast therefore, and now they were not
   able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. This is another proof of
   the difference between Christ's Presence and Christ's absence.

   7. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved (again John does not
   mention his own name) said to Peter, It is the Lord."It is only He who
   could spy out the fish and only He who could fill the net with them. It
   is just His way of acting. 'It is the Lord.'" The eyes of true love are
   very quick. Peter was not the first to recognize Jesus--John was--for
   He loved Him most.

   7. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer
   garment (for he had taken it off) and did cast himself into the sea.He
   had such reverence for his Master that he would not appear before Him
   without a sufficient covering, yet he was in a hurry to get to Him.
   Peter always was in a hurry--yet he was grandly impetuous as a rule. I
   wish that some "slowpokes" had a little of his pace!

   8, 9. And the other disciples came in the little boat, (for they were
   not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits) dragging the net
   with fishes. As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of
   coals there and fish laid thereon, and bread.How that fire must have
   reminded Peter of his denial of his Lord! He saw his Master by the
   light of the charcoal fire--and that is how he saw Him on the night
   when he denied Him.

   10, 11. Jesus said unto them, Bring of the fish which you have now
   caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great
   fishes, an hundred and fifty-three: and for all there were so many, yet
   was not the net broken. On the previous occasion when Peter's net was
   miraculously filled by Christ, we read that the net broke. That was
   Peter's own net, but this time I suppose it was not Peter's, but one
   that he had borrowed and probably he had no time to mend it, so the
   Master took care that it should not break. He always has His own ways
   of working--and they always fit the circumstances of the case and show
   His thoughtful care of His people.

   12. Jesus said unto them, Come and dine. The Revised Version is more
   correct--"Come and break your fast"--

   "Come and have your breakfast." [See Sermon #2072, Volume 35--BREAKFAST
   WITH JESUS.]

   12-15. And none of the disciples dared ask Him, Who are You? knowing
   that it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to
   them, and likewise the fish. This is now the third time that Jesus
   showed Himself to His disciples, after that He was risen from the dead.
   So when they had dined. When they had broken their fast--but not until
   then, for Christ does not talk to men when their hunger might make them
   inattentive.

   15. Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love Me more
   than these?He had talked as if he did-- "Although all shall be
   offended, yet will not I."

   15. He said unto Him, Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.He was wise
   in not measuring his love in comparison with that of his fellow
   disciples, or in speaking of the quantity of it, but he affirmed that
   even Christ knew that he did really love Him.

   15-17. He said unto hiim, Feed My lambs. He said to him again the
   second time, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love Me? He said unto Him,
   Yes, Lord; You know that I love You. He said unto Him, Feed My sheep.
   He said unto Him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, Do you love
   Me?Here is a lesson for all who would be pastors of Christ's flock. The
   first necessity of a true pastor is love to Christ. The second
   necessity of a true pastor is love to Christ. And the third necessity
   of a true pastor is love to Christ. A man who does not love the Great
   Shepherd cannot properly feed either His sheep or lambs. If his own
   heart is not right towards the Divine Owner of the sheep, he cannot be
   a true under-shepherd to Christ's flock.

   17-19. Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Do
   you love Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, You know all things; You know
   that I love You. Jesus said unto him, Feed My sheep. Verily, verily, I
   say unto you, When you were young, you gird yourself, and walked where
   you would: but when you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your
   hands, and another shall gird you, and carry you where you would not.
   This spoke He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. Peter
   was to stretch out his hands and be nailed to a cross as his Lord was.

   19. And when He had spoken this, He said unto him, Follow Me. "That is
   to be your rule, whether you feed My sheep or lambs, or whether you
   stretch out your hands upon a cross and die as a martyr--'Follow Me.'"
   That is also the rule for all of us who love the Lord. O Lord, help us
   to obey it!

   20-25. Then Peter, turning about, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved
   following; which also leaned on His breast at supper, and said, Lord,
   which is he that betrays You? Peter seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord,
   and what shall this man do? Jesus said unto him, Ifl will that he tarry
   till Icome, what is that to you? You follow Me. Then went this saying
   abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus
   said not unto him, he shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till
   I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple which testifies of
   these things, and wrote these things. And we know that His testimony is
   true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which,
   if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world
   itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen
     __________________________________________________________________

The Joy of Harvest

   (No. 3058)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1865.

   "They joy before You according to the joy in harvest." Isaiah 9:3.

   HARVEST crowns the year with God's goodness. When the harvest is
   abundant, there is universal joy. Everybody rejoices. The owner of the
   land is glad because he sees the recompense of reward. The laborers are
   glad for they see the fruit of their toil. Even those to whom not a
   single ear may belong, nevertheless sympathize in the common joy
   because a rich harvest is a gift to all the nation. It is a joyous
   sight to see the last loaded wagon come creaking down the village road,
   to note the youngsters who shout so loudly yet know so little what they
   are shouting about, to mark the peasant on the top of the wagon as he
   waves his hat and gives vent to some gleeful exclamation--and to see
   them taking it all to the stack or barn. There is joy throughout the
   village! There is joy throughout the land when the harvest time comes!
   They that divide the spoil shout loudly, their joyous clamor reaches
   the heavens!

   A better joy than this, however, greets the more auspicious season when
   a sinner finds his Savior, when the prayers that he has sown, like
   handfuls of seed, come up and the good yellow ears of confidence in his
   Savior are brought to maturity. The joy of those who have found the
   Savior is greater than harvest time--they can say with the Psalmist,
   "You are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey."
   Burst, you barns! Overflow, you wine vats! But you cannot give such joy
   to your possessors as Christ, really grasped and laid hold upon, can
   give to a soul that feels its need of Him! The joy of harvest is far
   exceeded by the joy of simple faith!

   We, as a Church, like Christian Churches in all ages, have had times of
   ingathering when we have rejoiced before God as with the joy of
   harvest. And there comes even a brighter day than has ever dawned upon
   this poor misty earth-- the day of the coming of the Son of Man, when
   the Sun of Righteousness shall arise, when Christ shall thrust in His
   golden sickle and shall reap the harvest of this world! And then shall
   the righteous rejoice before Him with a greater joy than ten thousand
   harvest years have ever known!

   I. Let us talk, then, of our own joy at the present time as the joy of
   harvest. The joy of receiving as members of the Church these converts
   from the world is THE JOY OF REALIZATION and, therefore, is like the
   joy of harvest!

   Faith realizes what she sought and expected. It is an act of faith, in
   some sort, when the farmer casts his good seed into the earth to die.
   He loses sight of it for a long time. It must rot and decay under the
   clods. It is not quickened unless it dies. But he believes that it will
   be ultimately to his gain to sustain a loss of those golden handfuls.
   When he sees the harvest, his faith is honored and proved to be sound
   sense. Thus, too, his cherished hopes are fulfilled. When he first saw
   the green blade appearing above the soil, he had hope of golden ears.
   When the whole field grew green and looked like his own pastures, then
   he thought full sure that harvest time would come and each day, as he
   has walked across his field, or round about it--as he has seen first
   the blade, and then the ear--he has hoped to see the full corn in the
   ear. And now his hopes are all fulfilled in the harvest before him! His
   labor is all repaid. Many a time have his workmen plodded to and fro
   over that ground. It was toilsome drudgery--to plow, to harrow, to
   sow--then there was much weeding, the hoe

   had to be in frequent use. But now he grudges no labor that has been
   spent--he has a good return for all his outgoing in the incoming of his
   harvest! Harvest is the realization of faith, of hope and of labor.

   So is it with the conversion of souls. We sow the Word of God in faith.
   How often have I preached the Gospel here and I have felt that there
   was no power whatever in it, of itself, to convert souls, and no power
   whatever in souls to make it converting to them! Yet I felt and knew
   that God would honor His own Truth and make it quickening to those whom
   He had ordained unto eternal life. And you, sitting in these pews and
   offering your silent prayers, have hoped that it would be so, too. You
   have anticipated it. Your faith has been exercised with my faith,
   expecting that God's Word would not return unto Him void. And I know
   that many of you, earnest men and women, have looked out for
   results--you have had a quick ear to catch a hopeful word from your own
   children. You have had a quick eye to notice the tears of any who sat
   in the same pew with you. And sometimes your hopes rose very high--and
   sometimes sank very low. But now that you have seen many of these in
   whom you have been interested, brought in and added to the Church, you
   seem to go beyond hope and you bless God that His Word has been honored
   and that souls have been saved!

   I cannot tell how many of you have labored for those particular persons
   who are to be added to us. I know that some of you have, but I venture
   to say that you who have prayed the most, will rejoice the most. You
   who have spoken most to souls. You who have labored most to bring them
   to Christ will have the greatest part in the present joy of harvest! As
   for you loiterers, who do nothing but look on--as for you who are ready
   at meal-time to come in and dip your bread into our vinegar, but have
   nothing to do with the labor, you who have not toiled with us side by
   side--you will have little joy. You will perhaps stand by and be
   suspicious concerning the results. Like the elder brother, you will be
   angry and not come in while we have music and dancing over the Brother
   who was lost and is now found--who was dead and is alive! But you who
   have believed the most, you who have hoped the most, you who have
   worked the most--you shall keep the feast and rejoice before God with
   the joy of harvest! Glory be unto God! He has not failed us! His Word
   has not returned unto Him void! He has heard the cry of His children!
   He has given to us to sow in tears and to reap in joy!

   II. Change the note a little and observe that the joy of harvest is THE
   JOY OF CONGRATULATION.

   I think I may congratulate you, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, on
   the ingathering of converts into the Church. There is a time for rebuke
   and there is a time for expressing our mutual comfort in one another.
   Let us congratulate one another that the Spirit of God is with us as a
   people and with us in no mean measure. Oh, what would other churches
   give to have such an increase as we have had year by year? God has been
   pleased to add to us, year by year, pretty nearly after the rate of
   four hundred members in a year till our numbers have been swollen
   beyond our most sanguine hopes. Oh, how greatly has He multiplied the
   people and increased our joy! Surely the Spirit of God is with us!
   Every month we have testimony that the Word has been made useful. I do
   not think there has been a sermon preached here which God has not
   blessed. Ought we to restrain the expression of our gratitude through
   any fear of trespassing on humility, when we can say, from positive
   facts, that there have been those who have come to us and professed
   either that they have found the Savior, or that they were led to
   tremble under a sense of sin through the Word every time it has been
   preached? Surely, the Spirit of God is manifestly with us! Shall we not
   recognize His Presence? Must we not now adoringly bless Him, that
   though we are not worthy that He should come under our roof, He does
   deign to abide with us and make the place of His feet glorious?

   Let us congratulate one another that our prayers, notwithstanding all
   the faults that mar them and the infirmities that cleave to them, are
   being heard! They are penetrating Heaven, they are entering the pearly
   gate, they are going up before the Throne of the Most High! Through
   Jesus' blood, which they use as their great prevailing weapon, they are
   moving the arm which moves the world! Blessings are coming down upon
   our sons and daughters, upon our kinsfolk and acquaintances in answer
   to our wrestling, believing prayers! Let us congratulate one another.
   If we were depressed, if we were like a wilderness, we would console
   one another. Let us now felicitate one another, interchange our
   cheerful smiles and our thankful greetings! Let us take the right hand
   of fellowship over again and, looking back upon the past, vow for the
   future, in God's name, that if He will but strengthen us, nothing shall
   daunt our courage, nothing shall restrain our zeal! What He has done
   shall make us aspire to more! What has been accomplished by us, as a
   people, shall be but a steppingstone to more daring attempts, to more
   zealous adventures, to more arduous labors for the promotion of His
   Kingdom and the extension of His sway! Let us, then, have the joy of
   congratulation! As the farmer congratulates the men, and as the men
   congratulate the master, as the one says, "Blessed be you in the name
   of the Lord," and the others

   reply, "We wish you a blessing in God's name," so now let us
   congratulate each other upon God's mercy which we have received!

   III. And is not the joy of harvest particularly A JOY OF GRATITUDE?

   I envy not the man who can see the Church increased and yet not feel a
   sacred, grateful joy. I know some little narrow souls, so compressed
   within their own selfishness, that to feed their own souls and cherish
   their own feelings seems to them the only aim and end of Gospel
   ministry. Whether souls, other than their own, are lost or saved, they
   care not. It has been the lot of some of us to be, at times, cast among
   a narrow-minded class of people who say, with a supine satisfaction,
   "There are very few that shall be saved." And the fewer the number in
   their fellowship, the more confident they grow of their own election!
   The appearance of a candidate for Baptism or church membership is the
   signal for all of them to put on their spectacles and look him through
   and through to see if he is not a hypocrite. I do not know that their
   churches are so particularly pure, but I do know that it is
   particularly difficult to get into them! I do not know that they are
   worth getting into, but I do know that they oughtto be worth it,
   considering the time it takes before one can possibly be received into
   their enclosure! You must be summered and wintered and tried this way
   and that before you can be received--and when you are received, the
   members are sure to rub their hands together and say, "Well, it's a
   serious thing to receive members." And they are about as glad as I
   suppose a poor man might be who had 19 children, when there is another
   coming to eat of the scanty loaf! They seem to think that the addition
   of so many new members would make the whole of the old members so much
   the poorer. For my part--and I think I can speak for all here--we
   greatly rejoice when new converts are welcomed into the Church--and the
   more there are brought into the Christian family, the more joyful we
   shall be! We will bless our God--without ceasing will we bless His
   name, that He does add to us, for this is His work! Jesus sees of the
   fruit of His passion. The Spirit sees the result of His operation. The
   Divine Father sees His own children returning to His own board and
   herein we do rejoice, yes, and we will rejoice with the joy of
   gratitude!

   IV. I have been trying to think over the various causes for joy we may
   have concerning those who are just now added to us, but I do not think
   I can sum them all up. THE JOY OF SYMPATHY, however, cannot be lacking.

   In many cases you may not know the persons admitted, yet you may enter
   into the fellowship of their circumstances. A parent's joy may kindle
   some fellow-feeling. There are fathers and mothers here who feel the
   tears rising in their eyes because a dear boy or a dear girl has been
   before the Church and borne witness to faith in Jesus--and is now to be
   publicly received with the right hand of fellowship into communion with
   that Church of which the parents have long been members. Estimate the
   prayers uttered or unexpressed, the sighs that have gone up to Heaven,
   the many fears, the motherly pangs, the fatherly cares--and now share
   the joy of the parents while they say to you, "Magnify the Lord with
   us, and let us exalt His name together!" Here, too, are wives who see
   their husbands saved and there is much joy occasioned thereby. There
   will be a happy household now. Here are sisters and brothers who have
   watched over brothers and sisters with the most sedulous attention and
   importunate prayer and, at last, they see them relent the stubbornness
   they once indulged and confess the Savior whom once they despised!

   But, oh, pardon me when I entreat you to sympathize with me and to
   share my joy, for it is a joy that overflows just now, and would gladly
   call kinsfolk and friends to rejoice with me! What a mercy to be the
   means of saving a soul from death and hiding a multitude of sins! How
   precious is that promise, "they that turn many to righteousness shall
   shine as the stars forever and ever." As I sight that constellation in
   the Scriptural heavens, my heart beats with grateful emotion. But I do
   not ask you to share only my joy, but to share the joy of earnest
   teachers and other workers in this Church! Need I mention names? You
   know the persons without my breathing their names. The men, the women
   who love the souls of sinners and have been blessed in our midst in
   bringing them to Jesus are entitled to your sympathetic greetings!
   Rejoice with them! They have reaped their golden sheaves and they are
   rejoicing with the joy of harvest! I pray you to share their joy and to
   increase their joy! Sunday school teachers-- God blesses you so that
   out of our school there come many additions to the Church. You who
   conduct our catechumen classes, God blesses you--and we have additions
   from your midst. Young men who preach in the street, you missionaries
   who toil in your little rooms and serve God by speaking a word of
   exhortation--you have all been honored this month--there has been some
   fruit from every department of service! Therefore let us join in
   sympathy with the laborers whom God has thus honored, in thanking God
   for their success in souls saved!

   And may I not ask you to rejoice because there is One who loves souls
   better than I do, better than you do and who rejoices more than any of
   us? It is the Man who bought them with the wounds in His hands, and
   feet, and side! He looks down upon those who have come up to Him from
   the wilderness and are looking to Him alone for salvation. Their eyes
   that were once red with weeping, now flash with hallowed joy! His eyes,
   that were full of pity, beam with satisfaction and unfeigned delight
   sits upon the Savior's brow! I cannot see Him with these dim mortal
   eyes, but I know by an inward consciousness that He is here. Each soul
   that has trusted Him has been another jewel for His crown, another
   flush of pleasure in return for His pangs of grief. Come, then, let us
   rejoice with Him! Jesus, Companion of our sorrow, Captain of our
   salvation, when You are glad we are exceedingly refreshed!

   Nor is this all, for in yonder skies there are those who wait upon our
   Master, who once waited on Him on earth, and are now glad to hymn His
   praise before His Throne. Oh, could you hear their songs, you would
   find that they are just now louder and sweeter than is ever known.
   "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah," always rolls up to the Throne of
   God and the Lamb. But now it is deeper, its volume is more mighty and
   its note more sweet as they sing over the ingathering of souls into
   God's Church. Christ Himself said, "I say unto you, there is joy in the
   Presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents." How much
   more joy is there when, by scores and even by hundreds, repenting
   sinners find the Savior!

   Think what might have been the lot of those who profess now to have
   been saved. You have need of an inspired Prophet to tell you that. Some
   of them might still have been where they once were--upon the ale-house
   bench, with the drunkard. Yes, and where some of them were who have
   been washed and cleansed--with the harlot in her midnight sin. There
   are young ones to be added to this Church who have never gone into open
   sin, but if they had not been called by Grace, little do we know what
   might have been the career of vice before them. Temptation might have
   led to sin, sin might have ripened into habit, habit might have
   gathered force until they became ringleaders in mischief--but they are
   washed, they are cleansed! And O Satan, what a harvest you have lost!
   What soldiers have been taken from your ranks! How much mischief might
   they have done which now they shall scrupulously avoid, for Grace has
   turned them in another road and filled their mouths with another song!

   Think, too, of what they now shall be through Divine Grace. I cannot
   depict to you each case. I know that there are some here upon whom we
   look with the hope that they will be teachers of others. We have,
   especially, holy mothers bringing up their children in God's fear and
   holy fathers seeking the conversion of their little ones. Their seed,
   as a generation which the Lord has blessed, shall become, in later
   years--some of them--pillars of the Church, honored and honorable! They
   shall serve their Master in this life, they shall bear testimony to His
   faithfulness in death and they shall sing His praise forever!

   Still, with all this joy of harvest, there is one mortifying
   reflection. I would not say much about it lest it should dampen your
   joy. It is this. Out of those who are added to the Church, there are
   always some who are not saved. Let us judge carefully and watch
   earnestly. Some come like Judas with a lie in their right hand and put
   on Christ by profession who are not followers of Christ in spirit and
   in truth. Search yourselves, Brothers and Sisters, and if you are not
   Christ's, do not dishonor His name by venturing to be called by it!

   And there is another grievous thought. While so many are gathered in,
   there are many who are left out Some of you have been with us in our
   best days and I am afraid I shall have to ring that text again in your
   ears, as I have done before--"The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
   but you are not saved, you are not saved." Your sister is saved, but
   you are not saved! Your wife is saved, but you are not! Two of you
   sleep in one bed--one has been taken and the other left. Two of you
   grind at one mill in your daily work--one has been taken and the other
   left. You are not saved, you are not saved! And when the time comes for
   you to die, these will be sad words to ring in your ears with a more
   doleful sound than death-knell ever knew, "Not saved! Not saved!"
   Amidst the joy of harvest, let us not forget to pray for those who are
   still wandering in the paths of sin or pandering to the vanities of the
   world.

   Another harvest is coming when Christ shall gather together His people.
   There will be, first of all, the ingathering of the righteous. Do not
   make a mistake about the Day of Judgment, as though the righteous and
   the wicked were to be judged together, for remember that first of all
   there will come the day when the righteous shall be gathered. If you
   read the 14th Chapter of the Book of Revelation, you will find that the
   harvest precedes the vintage. [See Sermon #2910, Volume 50--the

   HARVEST AND THE VINTAGE.] The righteous are gathered as the

   harvest of the earth and afterwards the vintage of the world is
   gathered--that is, the wicked. The harvest is gathered into the garner
   of God--and the vintage "into the great winepress of the Wrath of
   God"--and there the grapes are trodden under foot till the blood flows
   out, even up to the horses' bridles! Well, there is to come a harvest
   of the righteous and what joy there will be when you see the countless
   number that swells the ranks of the blessed! O you angels, you had need
   to be twice ten thousand times ten thousand when, at the ingathering of
   sheaves that no man can number, you welcome the multitudes of the
   redeemed! What shouts there will be when millions upon millions mount
   to the upper skies! It was a time of great joy when all Israel passed
   through the Red Sea, but how much greater joy will there be when ten
   thousand times ten thousand, even myriads of myriads, shall enter into
   their eternal rest!

   There will be joy in the persons saved--each one will have a separate
   song or make a distinct note in the one song. What joy over Magdalene
   and the dying thief! What joy over Manasseh and Saul of Tarsus! Each
   separate case shall stand out clear and bright, as though it were
   better than another and yet each one shall claim that his is the
   choicest exhibition of Divine Love and Faithfulness. What joy when, all
   together, the Lord's jewels shall be put into His casket!

   Think of where they shall be gathered from--from poverty, from
   sickness, from beds of dust and silent clay. They shall be gathered
   from slander and rebuke, from persecution and from suffering, from the
   lion's jaws and from the flames--they shall be gathered, ten thousand
   times ten thousand of them--from sin and suffering, to sin and suffer
   no more!

   To where will they be gathered? Gathered to their Savior, to the
   general assembly and Church of the first-born whose names are written
   in Heaven! Remember that they will all be gathered, not one will be
   absent and everyone will be gathered in a perfect state, not one unripe
   for Heaven, not one green ear, not one child of God unfit for his
   heavenly heritage, but all ready and prepared through the sanctifying
   influence of the Holy Spirit! Oh, that my eyes could see the glorious
   day! The pearly gates stand wide open and first comes the Savior up the
   eternal hills, leading the van fresh from the battlefields of
   Armageddon, where, for the last time, He has fought and triumphed over
   all His foes! And here comes the noble army of martyrs waving the palm
   branches and then the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the great
   assembly of the ministers and preachers of the Word, and the hosts of
   those who have come through great tribulation and have washed their
   robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! Listen how Hell
   gnashes her teeth! How the infernal lake is stirred to envious burning
   while the fiends see these brands plucked from the fire as they ascend
   to Heaven! Listen to the symphonious harpings of the myriads of spirits
   as from the battlements of Heaven they look on with wonder and gaze
   upon the new inhabitants of Jerusalem who are coming to people it and
   make it even more glorious than it was before! Listen how they begin
   the song, "Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King
   of Glory." And listen how the multitude of the redeemed join in the
   chorus, "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!"

   And they sing again and yet again, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,
   for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns." May you and I be partakers of the
   joy of harvest and not be yonder with those among whom there is
   weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth because they would not trust
   the Lamb, because they would not come to Him that they might have
   life--but chose their own delusion and followed out their own
   corruptions till they met with the due dessert of their evil deeds! God
   bless you, dear Friends, every one of you, and make you partakers of
   the present joy and the everlasting felicity of the saints, for Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW9:35-38; 10:1; 13:3-8; 18-23.

   Matthew 9:35. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages,
   teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom,
   and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. This was
   His answer to the blasphemous slanders of the Pharisees. A glorious
   reply it was! Let us answer calumny by greater zeal in doing good!
   Small places were not despised by our Lord--He went about the villages
   as well as the cities. Village piety is of the utmost importance and
   has a close relation to city life. Jesus turned old institutions to
   good account--the "synagogues" became His seminaries. Three-fold was
   His ministry--expounding the old, proclaiming the new, healing the
   diseased.

   Observe the repetition of the word, "every" as showing the breadth of
   His healing power. All this stood in relation to His royalty, for it
   was "the Gospel of the Kingdom" which He proclaimed. Our Lord was " the
   Great Itinerant"--Jesus went about preaching and healing. His was a
   Medical Mission as well as an evangelistic tour. Happy people who have
   Jesus among them! Oh, that we might now see more of His working among
   our own people!

   36. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on
   them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having
   no shepherd.A great crowd is a demand upon compassion, for it suggests
   so much sin and need. In this case the great need was
   instruction--"they fainted" for lack of comfort. They "were scattered
   abroad" for lack of guidance. They were eager to learn, but they had no
   fit teachers. "Sheep having no shepherd"are in an ill plight. Unfed,
   unfolded, unguarded--what will become of them? Our Lord was stirred
   with a feeling which agitated His inmost soul. "He was moved with
   compassion." What He saw affected not only His eyes, but His heart. He
   was overcome by pity. His whole frame was stirred with an emotion which
   put every faculty into forceful movement. He is even now affected
   towards our people in the same manner. He is moved with compassion if
   we are not.

   37, 38. Then He said unto His disciples, The harvest truly isplenteous,
   but the laborers are few; pray you therefore the Lord of the Harvest,
   that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. His heavy heart
   sought solace among "His disciples"and He spoke to them. He mourned the
   scantiness of workers. Pretenders were many, but real "laborers"in the
   harvest were few. The sheaves were spoiling. The crowds were ready to
   be taught, even as ripe wheat is ready for the sickle; but there were
   few to instruct them and where could more teaching men be found? God
   only can thrust out, or "send forth laborers." Man-made ministers are
   useless! Still are the fields encumbered with gentlemen who cannot use
   the sickle. Still the real ingatherers are few and far between. Where
   are the instructive, soul-winning ministries? Where are those who
   travail in birth for their hearers' salvation? Let us plead with the
   Lord of the Harvest to care for His own harvest and send out His own
   men. May many a true heart be moved by the question, "Whom shall I
   send? And who will go for us?" to answer, "Here am I! Send me."

   Matthew 10:1. And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He
   gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal
   all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. See the way of making
   Apostles! They were first disciples and afterwards teachers of
   others--they were specially His, and then they were given to be a
   blessing to men. They were "called unto Him"and thus their higher call
   came to them. In the Presence of their Lord they received their
   equipment--"He gave them power." Is that so with us in our own special
   office? Let us come to Him that we may be clothed with His authority
   and girded with His strength! Their power was miraculous, but it was an
   imitation of their Lord's--and the words applied to it are very much
   the same as we have seen in use about His miracles of healing. The 12
   were made to represent their Lord. We, too, may be enabled to do what
   Jesus did among men. Oh, for such an endowment!

   Matthew 13:3. And He spoke many things unto them in parables, saying,
   Behold, a sower went forth to sow. He had much instruction to give and
   He chose to convey it in parables. What wonderful pictures they were!
   What a world of meaning they have for us as well as for those who heard
   them! This parable of the sower is a mine of teaching concerning the
   Kingdom of God, for the seed was "the word of the Kingdom." (See verse
   19). "Behold"--every word is worthy of attention. Maybe the Preacher
   pointed to a farmer on the shore who was beginning to sow one of the
   terraces. "A sower," read, "The Sower." Jesus, our Lord, has taken up
   this business of the Sower at His Father's bidding. The Sower " went
   forth." See Him leaving the Father's house with this one design upon
   His heart--"to sow."

   4. And when He sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls
   came and devoured them up. When HE sowed, some seeds fell by the
   wayside--even when the Chief Sower is at work, some seed fails. We know
   He sows the best of seed and in the best manner, but some of it falls
   on the trodden path and so lies uncovered and unaccepted of the soil.
   That soil was hard and beaten down with traffic. There, too, on the
   wayside, we meet with dust to blind, settlements of mud to foul and
   birds to pilfer--it is not a good place for good seed. No wonder, as
   the seeds lay all exposed, that the fowls came and devoured them up. If
   the Truth of God does not enter the heart, evil influences soon remove
   it.

   5, 6. Some feel upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and
   forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and
   when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root,
   they withered away. Among the rocks or on the shallow soil with the
   unbroken rock-pan underneath, the seed fell--for if the sower had
   altogether avoided such places he might have missed some of the good
   ground. In these stony places the seed speedily

   sprang up because the rock gave it all the heat that fell on it, and so
   hastened its germination. But, soon up, soon down. When the time came
   for the sun to put forth its force, the rootless plants instantly pined
   and died. They had no deepness of earth and "no root" What could they
   do but wither quite away?Everything was hurried with them--the seeds
   had no time to root themselves and so in hot haste the speedy growth
   met with speedy death. No trace remained.

   7. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked
   them. The ground was originally a thorn-brake and had been cleared by
   the thorns being cut down. But speedily the old roots sent out new
   shoots and other weeds came up with them--and the tangled beds of
   thistles, thorns, nettles, and what not, strangled the feeble shoots of
   the wheat. The native plants choked the poor stranger. They would not
   permit the intrusive corn to share the field with them--evil claims a
   monopoly of our nature. Thus we have seen three sets of seed come to an
   untimely end.

   8. But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an
   hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. This would repay all
   losses, especially at the highest rate of increase here quoted. To the
   bird, the weather and the weeds, three sets of seeds have gone. Yet,
   happily, one remains to increase and fill the barn. The sowing of good
   seed can never be a total failure--"other fell into good ground."The
   harvest was not equally great on every spot of fertile soil. It varied
   from an hundredfold to thirtyfold. All good ground is not alike good
   and, besides, the situation may differ. Harvests are not all alike in
   the same farm, in the same season and under the same farmer--and yet
   each field may yield a fairly good harvest. Lord, if I cannot reach to
   a hundredfold, let me at least prove to be good ground by bearing
   thirtyfold.

   18. Hear you therefore the parable of the sower. Because you see behind
   the curtain and have Grace given to discern the inner meaning through
   the outer metaphor, come and hear the explanation of the parable of the
   sower.

   19. When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and understands it not,
   then comes the Wicked One, and catches away that which was sown in his
   heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. The Gospel is "
   the word of the Kingdom?" It has royal authority in it . It proclaims
   and reveals King Jesus and it leads men to obedience to His sway. To
   hear but not to understand is to leave the good seed on the outside of
   your nature and not to take it into yourself. Nothing can come of such
   hearing to anyone. Satan is always on the watch to hinder the
   Word--"Then comes the Wicked One," even at the moment when the seed
   fell. He is always afraid to leave the Truth of God even in hard and
   dry contact with a mind and so he catches it away at once and it is
   forgotten, or even disbelieved. It is gone, at any rate. And we have
   not in our hearer's mind a cornfield, but a highway, hard and much
   frequented. The man was not an opposer. He "received seed"but he
   received the Truth as he was, without the soil of his nature being
   changed--and the seed remained as it was till the foul bird of Hell
   took it off the place and there was an end of it. So far as the Truth
   was sown in his heart, i t was in his natural, unrenewed heart and,
   therefore, it took no living hold. How many such hearers we have! To
   these we preach in vain, for what they learn, they unlearn, and what
   they receive they reject almost as soon as it comes to them! Lord,
   suffer none of us to be impervious to Your royal Word, but whenever the
   smallest seed of Your Truth falls on us, may You open our soul to it!

   20. 21. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he
   that hears the Word, and with joy receives it; yet has he not root in
   himself, but endures for awhile: but when tribulation or persecution
   arises because of the Word, by-and-by he is offended.Here the seed was
   the same and the sower the same, but the result somewhat different. In
   this case there was earth enough to cover the seed and heat enough to
   make it grow quickly. The convert was attentive and easily persuaded.
   He seemed glad to accept the Gospel at once. He was even eager and
   enthusiastic, joyful and demonstrative. He hears the Word and with joy
   receives it. Surely this looked very promising! But the soft was
   essentially evil, hard, barren, superficial. The man had no living
   entrance into the mystery of the Gospel, no root in himself, no
   principle, no hold of the Truth of God with a renewed heart. And so he
   flourished hurriedly and showily for a season but only for a season. It
   is tersely put, "He endures for awhile." That "awhile" may be longer or
   shorter according to circumstances. When matters grow hot with
   Christians, either through affliction from the Lord, or persecution
   from the world, the temporary Believer is so sapless, so rootless, so
   deficient in moisture of Grace, that he dries up and his profession
   withers. Thus, again, the sower's hopes are disappointed and his labor
   is lost. Till stony hearts are changed it must always be so. We meet
   with many who are soon hot and as soon cold. They receive the Gospel
   "anon" and leave it "by-and-by."Everything is on the surface and,
   therefore, is hasty and unreal. May we all have broken hearts and
   prepared minds, that when the Truth of God comes to us it may take root
   in us and abide.

   22. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears the
   Word and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke
   the Word, and he becomes unfruitful. This class of hearers we know by
   personal acquaintance in this busy age. They hear the Word, they are
   affected by the Gospel, they take it as seed into their minds and it
   grows well for a season. But the heart cannot belong to two absorbing
   objects at the same time and, therefore, these men cannot long yield
   themselves up to the world and Christ, too. Care to get money,
   covetousness, trickery and sins which come from desires to be rich, or
   else pride, luxury, oppression and other sins which come of having
   obtained wealth, prevent the man from being useful in religious
   matters, or even sincere to himself--"he becomes unfruitful." He keeps
   his profession. He occupies his place, but his religion does not grow.
   In fact, it shows sad signs of being choked and checked by worldliness.
   The leaf of outward religiousness is there, but there is no dew on it.
   The ear of promised fruit is there, but there are no kernels in it. The
   weeds have outgrown the wheat and smothered it! We cannot grow thorn
   and corn at the same time--the attempt is fatal to a harvest for Jesus.
   See how wealth is here associated with care, deceitfulness and
   unfruitfulness. It is a thing to be handled with care. Why are men so
   eager to make their thorn-brake more dense with briars? Would not a
   good farmer root out the thorns and brambles? Should we not, as much as
   possible, keep free from the care to get, to preserve, to increase and
   to hoard worldly riches? Our heavenly Father will see that we have
   enough--why do we fret about earthly things? We cannot give our minds
   to these things and also to the Kingdom

   of God.

   23. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that hears the
   Word and understands it; which also bears fruit, and brings forth, some
   an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Here is the story of the
   Word's success. This fourth piece of land will repay all charges. Of
   course no one parable teaches all the Truth of God and, therefore, we
   have no mention here of the plowing which always precedes a fruitful
   harvest. No heart of man is good by nature--the good Lord had made this
   plot into "good ground."In this case, both thought and heart are
   engaged about the heavenly message and the man "hears the Word and
   understands it. "By being lovingly understood, the Truth gets into the
   man and then it roots, it grows, it fruits, it rewards the sower. We
   must aim at the inward apprehension and comprehension of the Word of
   God for only in this way can we be made fruitful by it. Be it ours to
   aim to be among those who would bear fruit an hundredfold! Ah, we would
   give our Lord ten-thousand fold if we could! For every sermon we hear
   we should endeavor to do a hundred gracious, charitable, or
   self-denying acts. Our Divine Sower, with such heavenly seed, deserves
   to be rewarded with a glorious harvest!

   --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 Poor Man's Friend

   (No. 3059)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
   8, 1873.

   "The poor commits himself unto You." Psalm 10:14.

   GOD is the poor man's Friend. The poor man, in his helplessness and
   despair, leaves his case in the hands of God and God undertakes to care
   for him. In the days of David--and I suppose, in this respect, the
   world has but little improved--the poor man was the victim of almost
   everybody's cruelty and sometimes he was very shamefully oppressed. If
   he sought redress for his wrongs, he generally only increased them, for
   he was regarded as a rebel against the existing order of things. And
   when he asked for even a part of what was his by right, the very
   magistrates and rulers of the land became the instruments of his
   oppressors and made the yoke of his bondage to be yet heavier than it
   was before. Tens of thousands of eyes, full of tears, have been turned
   to Jehovah and He has been invoked to interpose between the oppressor
   and the oppressed, for God is the ultimate resort of the helpless. The
   Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed--He
   undertakes the cause of all those that are downtrodden.

   If the history of the world is rightly read, it will be found that no
   case of oppression has been allowed to go long unpunished. The Assyrian
   empire was a very cruel one, but what is now left of Nineveh and
   Babylon? Go to the heaps of ruins by the banks of the Tigris and the
   Euphrates and see what will become of an empire which is made to be
   only an instrument of oppression in the hands of an emperor and the
   great men under him. It has ceased to be more than a name--its power
   has vanished and its palaces have been destroyed. In later times there
   sprang up the mighty empire of Rome and even now, wherever we wander,
   we see traces of its greatness and splendor. How came it to fall? Many
   reasons have been assigned, but you may rest assured that at the bottom
   of them all was the cruelty practiced towards the slaves and other poor
   people who were absolutely in the power of the aristocracy and
   oligarchy who formed the dominant party in the empire. There is a fatal
   flaw in the foundations of any throne that does not execute
   justice--and it matters not though the empire seems to stand high as
   Heaven and to raise its pinnacles to the skies--down it must come if it
   is not founded upon right. When ten thousand slaves have cried to God,
   apparently in vain, it has not really been in vain, for He has
   registered their cries and in due season has avenged their wrongs! And
   when the poor toilers who have reaped the rich man's fields have been
   deprived of their harshly-earned wages and have cast their complaints
   into the court of Heaven, they have been registered there and God has,
   at the right time, taken up their cause and punished their oppressors!

   For many years the Negro slaves cried to God to deliver them and, at
   last, deliverance came to the joy of the emancipated multitudes, yet
   not without suffering to all the nations that had been concerned in
   that great wrong. And here, too, if the employers of labor refuse to
   give to the agricultural laborer his just wage, God will surely visit
   them in His wrath. At this very day we have serfs in England who, with
   sternest toil, cannot earn enough to keep body and soul together and to
   maintain their families as they ought to be maintained. And where
   masters are thus refusing to their laborers a fair remuneration for
   their work, let them know that whoever may excuse them and whatever may
   be said of the laws of political economy, God does not judge the world
   by political economy! He judges the world by this rule, that men are
   bound to do that which is just and right to their fellow men--and it
   can never be right that a man should work like a slave, be housed worse
   than a horse and have food scarcely fit for a dog! But if the poor
   commit their case to God, He will undertake it and I, as one of God's
   ministers, will never cease to speak on behalf of the rights of the
   poor. The whole question has two sides--the rights of the employers and
   the rights of the men. Let not the men do as some

   workmen do, ask more than they ought--yet, on the other hand, let not
   the employers domineer over their men, but remember that God is the
   Master of us all and He will see that right is done to all. Let us all
   act rightly towards one another, or we shall feel the weight of His
   hand and the force of His anger.

   Now, having thus given the literal meaning of my text, I am going to
   spiritualize it, which I should have no right to do if I had not first
   explained the primary reference of David's words, "The poor commits
   himself unto You."

   I. THERE ARE SPIRITUALLY POOR MEN and these do what other poor men have
   done in temporal things--

   they commit their case into the hands of God.

   Let me try to define the spiritually poor. They are, first, those who
   have no merits of their own. There are some people in the world who
   are, according to their own estimate, very rich in good works. They
   think that they began well and that they have gone on well--they hope
   to continue to do well right to the end of their lives. They do
   confess, sometimes, that they are miserable sinners, but that is merely
   because that expression is in the Prayer Book. They are half sorry it
   is there, but they suppose that it must have been meant for other
   people, not for themselves. So far as they know, they have kept all the
   Commandments from their youth up. They have been just in their dealings
   with their fellow men and they do not feel that they are under any very
   serious obligations even to God, Himself. I have nothing to say to such
   people except to remind them that the Lord Jesus Christ 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." Christ came
   to bring healing to those who are spiritually sick--you say that you
   are perfectly well, so you must go your own way and Christ will go in
   another direction--towards sinners.

   Further, the poor people of whom I am speaking are not only totally
   without anything like merit, absolutely bankrupt of any goodness and
   devoid of anything of which they could boast, but they are also without
   strength to perform any such good works in the future. They are so
   poor, spiritually, that they cannot even pray as they would--and they
   do not even feel their poverty as they would like to feel it. After
   having read this Bible, they wish they could re-read it with greater
   profit. And when they weep oven sin, they feel their sin in their very
   tears and need to weep in penitence over their tears. They are such
   poor people that they can do absolutely nothing without Christ and so
   poor that in them, that is, in their flesh, there dwells no good thing.
   They did once think that there might be something good in them, but
   they have searched their nature through most painfully and they have
   discovered that unless Divine Grace shall do everything for them, where
   God is they can never come.

   Perhaps some of you say, "These must be very bad people." Well, they
   are no better that they should be, yet I may tell you another thing
   concerning them--they are no worse than many of those who think
   themselves a great deal better. They have this lowly opinion of
   themselves because the Grace of God has taught them to think rightly
   and truthfully about themselves in relation to God. They are, in
   outward appearance, and as far as we can judge, quite as good as others
   and better than some. In certain respects, they might be held up as
   examples to others. This is what we say of them, but they have not a
   good word to say of themselves. Rather, they put their finger upon
   their lips and blush at the remembrance of what they feel themselves to
   be. Or if they must speak of themselves at all, they say, "All we like
   sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way."

   II. That brings me to notice, secondly, WHAT THESE POOR PEOPLE DO. They
   commit themselves unto God. This is a very blessed description of what
   true faith does. The poor in spirit feel that their case is so
   desperate that they cannot keep it in their own charge and, therefore,
   they commit it to God. I will try to show you how they do that.

   First, they commit their case to God as a debtor commits his case to a
   surety. The man is so deeply in debt that he cannot pay his creditors
   even a farthing in the pound. But here is someone who can pay
   everything that the debtor owes and he says to him, "I will stand as
   security for you. I will be bondsman for you. I will give full
   satisfaction to all your creditors and discharge all your debts." There
   is no person who is deeply in debt who would not be glad to know of
   such a surety, both able and willing to stand in his place and to
   discharge all his responsibilities! If the surety said to this poor
   debtor, "Will you turn over all your liabilities to me? Will you sign
   this document, empowering me to take all your debts upon myself and to
   be responsible for you? Will you let me be your bondsman and surety?"
   "Ah," the poor man would reply, "that I will, most gladly!" That is
   just what spiritually poor men have done to the Lord Jesus
   Christ--committed their case with all their debts and liabilities into
   the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ--and He has undertaken all the
   responsibility for them!

   I think I hear someone say, "But will Christ really stand in the
   sinner's place in such a way as that?" Oh, yes, for He did stand, in
   anticipation, in the sinner's place before the foundation of the world
   and He actually stood there when He died upon the accursed tree. By His
   death He obtained a full discharge of the debts of all those whose
   Surety He had

   become. [See Sermons #694, Volume 12--SIN LAID ON JESUS and #925,
   Volume 16--INDIVIDUAL SIN LAID ON JESUS.] Dear Soul, will you not
   commit all your affairs into His hands? Are you not willing to let Him
   stand as your Surety, to clear you of all your liabilities? "Willing?"
   you say! "Ah, that I am and not only willing, but right glad shall I be
   for Him to take my place and relieve me of the burden that is crushing
   me to the dust." Then it is done for you and so done that it can never
   be undone! Suppose that one of you had taken all my debts upon you and
   that you were quite able and willing to pay them? I would not go home
   and fret about my debts. I would rejoice to think that you had taken
   them upon yourself and that, therefore, they would no longer be mine!
   If Christ has taken your sins upon Himself--and He has done so if you
   have truly trusted Him--your sins have ceased to be! They are blotted
   out forever! Christ nailed to His Cross the record of everything that
   was against us and now every poor sinner who is indebted to God's Law
   and who trusts in Christ, may know that his debt is cancelled and that
   he is clear of all liability for it forever! Next, we commit our case
   to Christ as a client does to a solicitor and advocate. [See Sermon
   #515, Volume 9--the sinners

   ADVOCATE.] You know that when a man has a suit at law, (I hope

   that none of you may ever have such a suit), if he has an advocate to
   plead his cause, he does not plead for himself. He will probably get
   into trouble if he does. It is said that when Erskine was pleading for
   a man who was being tried for murder, his client, being dissatisfied
   with the way in which his defense was being conducted, wrote on a slip
   of paper, "I'll be hanged if I don't plead for myself." Erskine wrote
   in reply, "You'll be hanged if you do!" It is very much like that with
   us--if we attempt to plead for ourselves, we shall be sure to go wrong.
   We must have the Divine Advocate who alone can defend us against the
   suits of Satan and speak with authority on our behalf even before the
   bar of God. We must commit our case to Him, that He may plead for
   us--and then it will go rightly enough.

   Remember also that any man who has committed his case to an advocate,
   must not interfere with it himself. If anybody from the other side
   should wait upon him and say, "I wish to speak to you about that suit,"
   he must reply, "I cannot go into the matter with you. I must refer you
   to my solicitor." "But I want to reason about it. I need to ask you a
   few questions about the case." "No," he says, "I cannot listen to what
   you have to say--you must go to my solicitor." How much trouble
   Christians would save themselves if when they have committed their case
   into the hands of Jesus, they would leave it there and not attempt to
   deal with it on their own account! I say to the devil, when he comes to
   tempt me to doubt and fear, "I have committed my soul to Jesus Christ
   and He will keep it in safety. You must bring your accusations to Him,
   not to me. I am His client and He is my Counselor. Why should I have
   such an Advocate as He is, and then plead for myself?" John does not
   say, "If any man sins, let him be his own advocate"--he says, "If any
   man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
   Righteous." Dear Brothers and Sisters, leave your case with Christ-- He
   can handle it wisely--you cannot! Remember that if the devil and you
   get into an argument, he is much older than you are and far more clever
   than you are--and he knows a great many points of Law that you do not
   know. You should always refer him to the Savior, who is older than he
   is and knows much more about Law and everything else than he does--and
   who will answer him so effectually as to silence him forever! So, poor
   tried and tempted Soul, commit your case to the Great Advocate and He
   will plead for you before the Court of King's Bench in Heaven--and your
   suit will be sure to succeed through His advocacy!

   Further, sinners commit their case to Christ as a patient commits his
   case to the physician. We, poor sin-sick Sinners, put our case into the
   hands of Jesus that He may heal us of all our depravities, evil
   tendencies and infirmities. If anyone asks, "Will He undertake my case
   if I come to Him?" I answer--Yes, He came to be the Physician of souls,
   to heal all who trust Him. There never was a case in which He could not
   heal, for He has a wonderful remedy, a catholicon, a cure for all
   diseases. If you put your case into His hands, the Holy Spirit will
   shed abroad His love in your heart--and there is no spiritual disease
   that can withstand that wondrous remedy! Are you predisposed to
   quickness of temper? He can cure that! Are you inclined to be indolent?
   Is there a sluggish spirit within you? He can cure that! Are you proud,
   or are your tendencies towards covetousness, worldliness, lust or
   ambition? Christ can cure all those evils! When He was on this earth,
   He had all manner of patients brought to Him, yet He never was baffled
   by one case. And your case, whatever it may be, will be quite an easy
   one to Him if you only go and commit it into His hands! This building
   seems to me like a great hospital [See Sermon #2260, Volume
   38--CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.] full of

   sin-sick souls and I pray the Great Physician to come here and heal
   them all! No, I must correct myself, for He ishere and as He walks
   through these aisles, and around these galleries, I beseech you to say
   to Him, "Good Master, I commit myself to You. I take You to be my
   Savior. O save me from my constitutional temperament, my besetting sins
   and everything else that is contrary to Your holy will!" He will hear
   you, for He has never yet refused to heed the cry of a poor sin-sick
   soul. Do not let Him go by you without praying to Him, "Son of David,
   have mercy on me!" Come, Lord, and lay Your hands upon each one of us
   and we shall be made perfectly whole!

   As to the future, the spiritually poor commit themselves to Christ in
   the same way in which the pilgrims described in The Pilgrim's Progress
   commit themselves to the charge of Mr. Greatheart, that He might fight
   all their battles for them and conduct them safely to the Celestial
   City. In the old war times, when the captains of merchant vessels
   wanted to go to foreign countries and they were afraid of being
   captured by the privateers of other nations, they generally went in
   company under the convoy of a man-of-war to protect them. And that is
   the way you and I must go to Heaven. Satan's privateers will try to
   capture us, but we commit ourselves to the protection of Jesus, the
   Lord High Admiral of all the seas! And we poor little vessels, by His
   Grace, sail safely under His convoy! When any enemy seeks to attack us,
   we need not be afraid. He can blow them all out of the water if He
   pleases, but He will never suffer one of them to injure a solitary
   vessel that is entrusted to His charge. Sinner, give yourself up to the
   charge of Jesus to be convoyed to Heaven! And you over-anxious children
   of God, lay down all your anxieties at the feet of Jesus and rest in
   His Infinite Power and Love which will never let you be lost!

   I might thus multiply figures and illustrations of how we commit
   ourselves to Christ. We do it very much in the way in which our blind
   friends, sitting under the pulpit, got here this evening--they came by
   committing themselves to the care of guides. Some of them can walk a
   good long way without a guide, but others could not have found their
   way here tonight without some friend upon whose arm they could lean.
   That is the way to get to Heaven, by leaning upon Jesus! Do not expect
   to see Him, but trust yourself to Him and lean hard upon Him. He loves
   to be trusted and faith has a wonderful charm for Him. I was once near
   the Mansion House and as I stood there, a poor blind man, who wished to
   cross over to the bank, said to me, "Please, Sir, lead me across. I
   know you will, for I am blind." I was not sure that I could do so, for
   it is not an easy task to lead a blind man across that part where so
   many cabs and omnibuses are constantly passing, but I managed it as
   best I could. I do not think I could have done it if the poor man had
   not said to me, "I know you will," for then I thought that I must. And
   if you come to Christ and say, "Lord Jesus, will You lead me to
   Heaven?" and tell Him that you are sure that He will never let a poor
   blind soul miss its way, that you are sure you can trust Him, that He
   is such a kind-hearted Savior that He will never thrust away a guilty
   sinner who thus commits himself into His hands--I am sure that He will
   be glad to save you and that He will rejoice over you as He leads you
   safely home to Heaven! If any of you can see with your natural eyes and
   yet are spiritually blind, be glad that there is a blessed Guide to
   whom you can commit yourself! Christ leads the blind by a way that they
   know not and He will continue to lead them until He brings them to the
   land where they will open their eyes and see with rapture and surprise
   the splendors of Paradise and rejoice that they are all their own
   forever!

   Is not this work of the poor committing themselves to Christ a very
   easy task? It is a very easy thing for a debtor to commit his debts to
   his surety, for anyone to commit his case to his advocate, for a
   patient to trust himself to his physician, for a pilgrim to feel safe
   under a powerful convoy and for a blind man to trust in his guide--all
   this is very simple and easy. It does not need much explanation--and
   faith in Jesus is just as simple and just as easy as that! Why is it
   that we sometimes find that faith is difficult? It is because we are
   too proud to believe in Jesus. If we did but see ourselves as we really
   are, we would be willing enough to trust the Savior--but we do not like
   going to Heaven like blind people who need a guide, or like debtors who
   cannot pay a farthing in the pound. We want to have a finger in the
   pie. We want to do something towards our own salvation. We want to have
   some of the praise and glory of it. God save us from this evil spirit!

   While it is a very simple thing for the spiritually poor to commit
   themselves to Christ, let me also say that it is an act which greatly
   glorifies God. Christ is honored when any soul trusts in Him--it is a
   joy to His heart to be trusted. When the feeble cling to Him, He feels
   such joy as mothers feel when their little ones cling to them. Christ
   is glad when poor

   sin-sick souls come and trust Him. It was for this very purpose that He
   came into the world--to meet the needs of guilty sinners. So this plan,
   while it is easy for us, is glorifying to Him.

   And I will add that it is a plan that never fails any who trust to it.
   There never was a single soul that committed its case to Christ and
   then found Him fail--and there never shall be such a soul so long as
   the earth endures! He that believes in Christ shall not be ashamed or
   confounded, world without end! "He that believes on the Son has
   everlasting life," and everlasting life can never be taken away from
   one who has received it!

   I close by asking a question--If the spiritually poor commit themselves
   unto God, what comes of it? Why, it makes them very happy! But are they
   not sinful? Oh, yes, but they commit themselves to God's Grace and His
   Grace blots out all their sins forever! Are they not feeble? Oh, yes,
   but their feebleness leads them to commit themselves to His
   Omnipotence--and His strength is made perfect in their weakness. Are
   they not needy? Oh, yes, but then they bring their needs to Him and
   they receive out of His fullness, "Grace for Grace." But are they not
   often in danger? Oh, yes, in a thousand dangers! But they come and hide
   beneath the shadow of God's wings and He covers them with His feathers
   and there they rest in perfect security! His Truth becomes their shield
   and buckler so that they need not fear any foe. But are they not apt to
   slip? Oh, yes, but they commit themselves to Him who gives His angels
   charge over them--to keep them in all their ways and to bear them up in
   their hands, lest they should dash their feet against a stone. But are
   they not very fickle and changeable? Oh, yes, but they commit
   themselves to Him who says, "I am Jehovah, I change not." But are they
   not unworthy? Oh, yes, in themselves they are utterly unworthy! But
   they commit themselves to Him who is called The Lord Their
   Righteousness--and when they are clothed in His Righteousness, they are
   looked upon by God as being "without spot or wrinkle, or any such
   thing." But have they no sickness? Yes, but they commit themselves to
   Jehovah-Rophi, the Lord the Healer--and He either heals their sickness,
   or gives them the Grace to endure it. Are they not poor? Yes, many of
   them are extremely so! But they commit themselves to the faithful
   Promiser and so bread is given them and their water is sure. But don't
   they expect to die? Oh, yes, unless the Lord should first come, but
   they are not afraid to die! This is the point, above all others, in
   which the spiritually poor commit themselves unto God. They have
   learned that sweet prayer of David so well that it is often on their
   tongues, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit: You have redeemed me, O
   Lord God of Truth." They committed their spirit into God's hands years
   ago and He has kept them until now-- and they know that He will not
   fail them in their dying hour.

   In conclusion, I pray every spiritually poor heart to commit itself to
   God. I like to do this every morning. Satan often comes and says, "You
   are no Christian! All your supposed Christian experience is false."
   Very well, suppose it has been false? Then I will start afresh--saint
   or no saint! I will begin over again by trusting Christ to be my
   Savior. When you, dear Friend, wake tomorrow morning, let this be the
   first thing that you do--commit yourself to Jesus Christ for the whole
   of the day. Say, "My Lord, here is my heart which I commit to You.
   While I am away from home, may my heart be full of the fragrance of
   Your blessed Presence. And when I return at night, may I still find my
   heart in Your kind keeping!" And every night, before we go to sleep,
   let us pray--

   "Shouldswift death this night overtake us, And our couch become our
   tomb, May the morn in Heaven awake us, Clad in light and deathless
   bloom!"

   Are you going to a foreign land? Then renew the committal of your life
   to God. Are you going to change your state, and enter upon the joys and
   responsibilities of married life? Then commit yourself to God. Are you
   going to a new situation, or opening a new business? Is any change
   coming over you? Then make a new committal, or a re-committal of your
   soul to the Lord Jesus--only take care that you do it heartily and
   thoroughly--and make no reserve. I rejoice to feel that I have
   committed myself to Christ as the slave of old committed himself to his
   master. When the time came for him to be set free under the Jewish Law,
   he said to his master, "No, I do not want to go. I love you, I love
   your children, I love your household, I love your service. I do not
   want to be free." Then you know that the master was to take an awl and
   fasten him by the ear to the doorpost. I supposes this was done to see
   whether the man really wanted to remain with his master or not. Ah,
   Beloved, some of us have had our ears bored long ago! We have given
   ourselves up to Christ and we have a mark upon us which we can never
   lose. Were we not buried with Him by Baptism unto death--a symbol that
   we are dead to the world and buried to the world for His dear sake?
   Well, in that same way, give yourself wholly up to

   Jesus! Commit yourself to Him. As that young bride commits all her
   life's joys and hopes to that dear bridegroom into whose face she looks
   so lovingly, so, O Souls, commit yourselves to that dearest Bridegroom
   in earth or Heaven--the Lord Jesus Christ! Commit yourselves to Him, to
   love and to be loved--His to obey, His to serve and His to be kept--
   His in life--and you need not add "till death us do part," but you may
   say, "till death shall wed us more completely and we shall sit together
   at the marriage banquet above and be forever and forever one before the
   Throne of God."

   Thus the poor soul commits itself unto Christ, is married unto Christ,
   gets the portion which Christ possesses, becomes Christ's own and then
   lives with Christ forever! Oh that this might be the time in which many
   a man and many a woman would commit themselves to Christ! I do not
   merely mean you who are poor in pocket, but you who are poor in
   spirit--I am asking you to commit yourselves to Christ. Do not put it
   off, but may this be the very hour in which you shall be committed to
   Christ and He shall take possession of you to be His forever and
   forever! Amen and Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM31.

   Verse 1. In You, O LORD, do I put my trust This is a good beginning.
   This is the fulcrum which will give us the necessary leverage for
   lifting any weight of sorrow or trouble that may be burdening us--"In
   You, O Jehovah, do I put my trust." Can each of us truthfully say that
   to begin with? If so, we may go on with David to the petitions that
   follow.

   1. Let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Your righteousness. It would
   be to us the shame of shames if God, in whom we put our trust, could
   fail us. Then, indeed, might the scoffers say, "Where, now, is their
   God?" And what should we then be able to say of the righteousness of
   God? He has pledged Himself that He will never fail nor forsake any of
   His people. So, if He ever did fail them, what would become of His
   honor?

   2. Bow down Your ear to me. "Listen to me, O Lord! Stoop down out of
   Your Glory to catch the faint accents of my sorrowing, almost expiring
   spirit."

   2. Deliver me speedily."My case is urgent, Lord, for I am in deep
   distress. Delay will be dangerous and may be even fatal--'Deliver me
   speedily.'"

   2. Be You my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me. David was
   so accustomed to hide in the rocks of Engedi and similar fastnesses,
   that we do not wonder that he found such a comparison as this come
   naturally to his mind--"Be You my strong rock, for a house of defense
   to save me."

   3. For You are my rock and my fortress. Why did David just now pray God
   to be to him what he here says that God is? Surely it was in order that
   he might know experimentallywhat he already knew doctrinally--he wanted
   the Truth of God, in which he already believed, to be proven in his own
   experience, so he prayed to the Lord, "Be You my strong rock...for You
   are my rock and my fortress."

   3. Therefore for Your name's sake. "For Your glory's sake, for Your
   honor's sake."

   3. Lead me and guide me. "Lead me as a child needs to be led. Guide me
   as a traveler in a foreign land needs to be guided. I need You to both
   lead and to guide me."

   4. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privately for me: for You
   are my strength Sometimes the Believer gets so entangled that he sees
   no way of escape. He is caught like a bird in the fowler's net and he
   is so surrounded by it that he cries to the Lord, "Pull me out of the
   net." He feels that he can only be delivered by the putting forth of
   God's power-- and that is the reason why he adds, "O Lord, use Your
   strength on my behalf! Give a desperate tug and pull me out of the net
   that they have laid privately for me; for You are my strength."

   5. Into Your hands I commit my spirit The dying words of Jesus may well
   be the living words of each one of His redeemed people. We ought
   continually to commit our spirit into our great Father's hands, for
   there is no other place that can be so safe and blessed as between the
   strong, almighty, never-failing hands of the eternal God!

   5. You have redeemed me, O LORD God of Truth Redemption is such a
   blessed ground for confidence in God. Even the ordinary redemptions,
   such as David had experienced when the Lord had redeemed him out of the
   hand of his enemies and redeemed him out of troubles of many kinds,
   were great sources of consolation to David. But what shall we say of
   that rich, full, free redemption which Christ accomplished for His
   people upon Calvary's Cross? Think you that God will not keep those
   whom He has purchased with the blood of His own dear Son? Will He
   suffer those to perish who have cost

   Him so dearly? Oh, no! None shall pluck them from His hands. This is a
   sound argument that David uses--"Into Your hands I commit my spirit:
   You have redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth."

   6. I have hated them that regard lying vanities. That is, those that
   trusted in their idol gods which he calls by this contemptuous name,
   "lying vanities." David was not very respectful to false religions. He
   called them vanities and lies, and said, "I have hated them that regard
   them."

   6, 7. But I trust in the LORD. I will be glad and rejoice in Your
   mercy: for You have consideredmy trouble; You have known my soul in
   adversities."'You have considered my trouble.' You have looked at it,
   weighed it, understood it." When a wise man gives his consideration to
   a thing, we respect his judgment, but what shall we say of the
   consideration of God? This is a wonderful expression--"You have
   considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities." "When I
   hardly knew myself, and could not make out what I was or where I was,
   You have known all about me. You have known me when I was in rags and
   tatters, when I was so down at the heel that nobody else would
   acknowledge me. You did not discard me--'You have known my soul in
   adversities.'"

   8-10. Andhave not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: You have set
   my feet in a large room. Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in
   trouble: my eyes are consumed with grief. Yes, my soul and my belly.
   For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.That is
   better than spending our years in sinning! Yet it is a painful
   experience when every breath seems to be drawn with a pang and the
   effort to live is itself a struggle, as it is in certain trying
   diseases.

   10. 11. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones are
   consumed. I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among
   my neighbors.They were the nearest to him and, therefore, could smite
   him the most keenly.

   11. And a fear to my acquaintance.They did not like to acknowledge him
   even as an acquaintance. They were afraid of him. Yet what a light this
   verse throws upon David's previous declaration, "You have known my soul
   in adversities"!

   12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind. The very man in whose
   honor, in the former times, the women out of all the cities of Israel
   sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands," now
   had sorrowfully to say, 'I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind."

   12. I am like a broken vessel. "Men think me of no more value than a
   piece of broken crockery that is flung away on the dunghill as utterly
   useless."

   13. For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side. The
   very best of men have had to smart under the wounds caused by that
   cruel, accursed thing, slander! No quality of purity, no degree of
   piety can screen a man from the tongue of slander. In fact, as the
   birds peck most at the ripest fruit, it is often the best of men who
   are most slandered.

   13, 14. While they took counsel together against me, they devised to
   take away my life. But I trusted in You, O LORD: I said, You are my
   God.That is a grand utterance of the Psalmist! Now he is coming back to
   the point where he began--the Psalm is now in harmony with its keynote.

   15. My times are in Your hands.My times are not in the hands of my
   enemies--they cannot hurt me without God's permission.

   15, 16. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from them that
   persecute me. Make Your face to shine upon Your servant.Oh, for the
   shining of God's face! How blessed and glorious they are! It is Heaven
   on earth to dwell within the circle of that light--but if we get out of
   the range of those rays, what joy can we have?

   16. Save me for Your mercies' sake.That is a prayer for a sinner and a
   prayer for a saint--a prayer for every day of the year. "Save me for
   Your mercies' sake."

   17-19. Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for Ihave called upon You: let
   the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. Let the
   lying lips be put to silence which speak grievous things proudly and
   contemptuously against the righteous. Oh, how great is Your goodness,
   which You have laid up for them that fear You. Then be of good courage,
   you tried ones! Think of all the good things that are laid up in store
   for you--the treasures that are put away for the present. Nor is this
   all--"How great is Your goodness."

   19. Which You have worked for them that trust in You before the sons of
   men! So there is goodness in the present as well as goodness in the
   future--goodness worked out as well as goodness stored up!

   20. You shall hide them in the secret of Your Presence from the pride
   of man: You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of
   tongues. There is nothing much worse than the strife of tongues. A pack
   of wolves would not be half as bad as a pack of tongues let loose upon
   a man! Wolves do but tear the flesh, but tongues devour a man's
   character and eat up his very life. Oh, how blessed it is to be kept
   secretly in God's royal pavilion from the strife of tongues!

   21. Blessed be thee LORD; for He has showed me His marvelous kindness
   in a strong city. He has kept me in safety, and preserved me from every
   foe. Blessed be His holy name!

   22. 23. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes:
   nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto
   You. O love the LORD, all you His saints. It seems as if David felt
   that he could not love the Lord sufficiently by himself, so he calls
   upon all the saints to bring their hearts full of love and yield their
   treasure unto God.

   23. For the LORD preserves the faithful, and plentifully rewards the
   proud doer. He gives him a sharp blow with the back of His hand, but He
   gives to the righteous a full-handed mercy!

   24. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you
   that hope in the LORD. Your heart is faint, but the Lord will put
   strength where there now is weakness. Therefore "be of good courage."
   Cowardice weakens, fear saps a man's strength--so "be of good courage,"
   for your strength shall be equal to your day--and you shall yet win the
   victory, "all you that hope in 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 Good Shepherd

   (No. 3060)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

   "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Psalm 23:1.

   [See Sermon #3006, Volume 52--"THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD." Sermons on the
   Parable of the Good Shepherd are as follows--#1877, Volume 32--OUR OWN
   DEAR SHEPHERD; #1713, Volume 29--OTHER SHEEP AND ONE FLOCK; #995,
   Volume 17--THE SHEEP AND THEIR SHEPHERD and #2120, Volume 35--THE
   SECURITY OF BELIEVERS--OR, SHEEP WHO SHALL NEVER PERISH.]

   DOES not this sound just like poetry or like singing? If you read the
   entire Psalm through, it is written in such poetic prose that though it
   is not translated into meter, as it should have been, it reads just
   like it. "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. He
   restores my soul: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His
   name's sake." It sounds like music for this, among other reasons,
   because it came from David's heart. That which comes from the heart
   always has melody in it. When men speak of what they know and from the
   depths of their souls testify to what they have seen, they speak with
   what we call, eloquence, for true eloquence is speaking from the soul.
   Thus David spoke of what he knew--what he had verified all his
   life--and this rendered him truly eloquent.

   As "truth is stranger than fiction," so the truth that David spoke is
   more sweet than even fancy could have imagined. And it has more beauty
   than even the dream of the enthusiast could have pictured. "The Lord is
   my Shepherd; I shall not want." How naturally it seems to strike on the
   ear as uttered by David who had, himself, been a shepherd boy! He
   remembers how he had led his flock by the waters in the warm summer,
   how he had made them lie down in shady nooks by the side of the river,
   how, on sultry days, he had led them on the high hills that they might
   feel the cool air and how, when the winter set in, he had led them into
   the valleys that they might be hidden from the stormy blasts. Well
   could he remember the tender care with which he protected the lambs and
   carried them--and how he had tended the wounded of the flock. And now,
   appropriating to himself the familiar figure of a sheep, he says, "The
   Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." I will try to preach
   experimentally tonight and I wonder how many of you will be able to
   follow the Psalmist with me while I attempt to do so?

   First of all, there are some preliminaries before a man can say
   this--it is absolutely necessary that he should feel himself to be like
   a sheep by nature, for he cannot know that God is his Shepherd unless
   he feels in himself that he has the nature of a sheep. Secondly, there
   is a sweet assurance--a man must have had some testimony of Divine care
   and goodness in the past, otherwise he cannot appropriate to himself
   this verse, "The Lord is my Shepherd." And thirdly, there is a holy
   confidence. I wonder how many there are here who can place all their
   future in the hand of God and can join with David in uttering the last
   sentence, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

   I. First then, we say THERE IS A CERTAIN CONFESSION NECESSARY BEFORE A
   MAN CAN JOIN IN THESE WORDS. We must feel that there is something in us
   which is akin to the sheep. We must acknowledge that in some measure we
   exactly resemble it or else we cannot call God our Shepherd.

   I think the first apprehension we shall have if the Lord has brought us
   into this condition, is this--we shall be conscious of our own
   folly--we shall feel how unwise we always are. A sheep is one of the
   most unwise of creatures. It will go anywhere except in the right
   direction. It will leave a fat pasture to wander into a barren one. It
   will find out many ways, but not the right way. It would wander through
   a forest and find its way through ravines into the wolf's jaws, but
   never by its wariness turn away from the wolf. It could wander near his
   den, but it would not instinctively turn

   aside from the place of danger. It knows how to go astray, but it knows
   not how to come home again. Left to itself, it would not know in what
   pasture to feed in summer, or where to retire in winter.

   Have we ever been brought to feel that in matters of Providence, as
   well as in things of Grace, we are truly and entirely foolish? I think
   no man can trust Providence till he distrusts himself--and no one can
   say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," until he has given up
   every idle notion that he can control himself or manage his own
   interests. Alas, we are, most of us, wise above that which is written
   and we are too vain to acknowledge the Wisdom of God! In our
   self-esteem we fancy our reason can rule our purposes and we never
   doubt our own power to accomplish our own intentions! And then, by a
   little maneuvering we think to extricate ourselves from our
   difficulties. Could we steer in such a direction as we have planned, we
   entertain not a doubt that we could avoid at once the Scylla and the
   Charybdis--and have fair sailing all our life! O Beloved, surely it
   needs but little teaching in the School of Divine Grace to make out
   that we are fools! True wisdom is sure to set folly in a strong light.

   I have heard of a young man who went to college and when he had been
   there a year, his father said to him, "Do you know more than when you
   went?" "Oh, yes!" he said, "I do." Then he went the second year and was
   asked the same question, "Do you know more than when you went?" "Oh,
   no," he said, "I know a great deal less." "Well," said the father, "you
   are getting on." Then he went the third year and was asked, "What do
   you know now?" "Oh," he said, "I don't think I know anything." "That is
   right," said his father, "you have now learned to profit since you say
   you know nothing." He who is convinced that he knows nothing as he
   ought to know gives up steering his ship and lets God put His hand on
   the rudder. He lays aside his own wisdom and cries, "O God, my little
   wisdom is cast at Your feet. Such as it is, I surrender it to You. I am
   prepared to renounce it, for it has caused me many an ill and many a
   tear of regret, that I should have followed my own devices. But from
   now on I will delight in Your statutes. As the eyes of servants look
   unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the
   hand of her mistress, so shall my eyes wait upon the Lord my God. I
   will not trust in horses or in chariots; but the name of the God of
   Jacob shall be my refuge. Too long, alas, have I sought my own pleasure
   and labored to do everything for my own gratification. Now would I ask,
   O Lord, Your help that I may seek first the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness, and leave all the rest to You." Do you, O my Friends,
   feel persuaded that you are foolish? Have you been brought to confess
   the sheepishness of your nature? Or are you flattering your hearts with
   the fond conceit that you are wise? If so, you are indeed fools! But if
   brought to see yourself like Agur when he said, "I am more brutish than
   any man and have not the understanding of a man," then even Solomon
   might pronounce you wise! And if you are thus brought to confess, "I am
   a silly sheep," I hope you will be able to say, "The Lord is my
   Shepherd, I cannot have any other, I want none other--He is enough for
   me."

   Again, a sheep is not only foolish, but it is a very dependent
   creature. The sheep, at least in its domesticated state, as we know it,
   must always be dependent. If we should take a horse, we might turn him
   loose upon the prairie and there he would find sufficient food for his
   sustenance. And years later we might see him in no worse condition than
   that in which we left him. Even the ox might thus be treated and still
   be able to provide for itself. But as for the silly sheep, set it alone
   in the wilderness, let it pursue its own course unheeded--and what
   would be its fate? Presently, if it did not wander into places where it
   would be starved, it would ultimately come to ruin, for assuredly some
   wild beast would lay hold upon it and it has no means of defense for
   itself.

   Beloved, have we been brought to feel that we have of ourselves no
   means of subsistence and no power of defense against our foes? Do we
   perceive the necessity for our dependence upon God? If so, then we have
   learned another part of the great lesson that the Lord is our Shepherd.
   Some of us have yet to learn this lesson. Gladly would we cater for
   ourselves and carve for ourselves--but as the good old Puritan said,
   "No child of God ever carves for himself without cutting his fingers,"
   we sometimes fancy that we can do a little for ourselves--but we shall
   have that conceit taken out of us very soon. If we, indeed, are God's
   people, He will bring us to depend absolutely upon Him day by day. He
   will make us pray, "Give us this day our daily bread"--and make us
   acknowledge that He opens His hands and gives us our food in due
   season. Sweet is the meal that we eat, as it were, out of His hands!
   Yet some will rebel against this dependence as very humiliating. Men
   like to vaunt their independence--nothing is more respectable in their
   eyes than to live in independent circumstances. But it is no use for us
   to talk of being independent--we can never be.

   I remember a dear Christian who prayed very sweetly each Sunday morning
   at a certain Prayer Meeting that I once attended, "O Lord, we are
   independent creatures upon You." Except in such a sense as that, I
   never knew any

   independence worth having! Of course he meant, "we are dependent
   creatures upon You." So we must be. We cannot be independent even of
   one another--and certainly we are not independent of God, for when we
   have health and strength, we are dependent upon Him for their
   continuance. And if we have them not, we are dependent on Him to
   restore them to us. In all matters whatever, it is sweet, it is blessed
   to see the tokens of His watchful care. If I had anything of which I
   could say, "God has not given me this," I hope, by Divine Grace, I
   would turn it out of doors. Food, raiment, health, breath,
   strength--everything comes from Him and we are constantly dependent
   upon Him! As Huntington used to say, "My God gives me a hand-basket
   portion. He does not give me an abundance at once, but He gives it,
   basket by basket, and I live from hand to mouth." Or, as old Hardy once
   said, "I am a gentleman commoner on the bounty of God. I live day by
   day upon morning commons and evening commons--and thus I am dependent
   upon Him--independent of the world, but dependent upon God." The sheep
   is a dependent creature, always needing some help. And so is the
   Christian. And he realizes the blessedness of his dependence when he
   can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd."

   These are the two principal points upon which we view this Truth of God
   with regard to Providence. I might wander from what I wished to be the
   subject of this evening. And I might be doing good if I were to show
   you some other points of comparison between the Christian and the
   sheep. O Beloved, there are some of you here present who know
   yourselves to be sheep by reason of your frequent wanderings. How often
   have we made this confession, "We have erred and strayed from Your ways
   like lost sheep"? And we feel it this night, bitterly ruing the
   waywardness of our hearts. But it is well to be the sheep of God's
   pasture even if we have been wandering sheep! We do not read of
   wandering dogs, because dogs are naturally wild, while sheep are always
   accounted to be someone's property. The straying sheep has an
   owner--and however far it may stray from the fold, it ceases not to
   belong to that owner. I believe that God will yet bring back into the
   fold every one of His own sheep and they shall all be saved. It is
   something to feel our wanderings, for if we feel ourselves to be lost,
   we shall certainly be saved! If we feel ourselves to have wandered, we
   shall certainly be brought back.

   Again, we are just like sheep by reason of the perverseness of our
   wills. People talk about free-will Christians and tell us of persons
   being saved and coming to God of their own free will. It is a very
   curious thing, but though I have heard a great nanny free-will sermons,
   I never heard any free-will prayers. I have heard Arminianism in
   preaching and talking, but I have never heard any Arminian praying. In
   fact, I do not think there can be any prayer of that sort--it is a
   style that does not suit prayer! The theory may look very nice in
   argument and sound very proper in discourse, though we somewhat differ
   from it. But for practical purposes it is useless! The language will
   not suit us in prayer and this alone would be sufficient reason to
   condemn it. If a man cannot pray in the spirit of his own convictions,
   it shows they are a delusion from beginning to end, for if they were
   true, he could pray in that language as well as in any other! Blessed
   be God, the Doctrines of Grace are as good to pray with as to preach
   with! We do not find ourselves out of order in any act of worship when
   once we have the old fundamental Doctrines of the blessed Gospel of
   Grace! Persons talk about free-will Christians coming back to Jesus of
   themselves. I intend to believe them when they find me a free-will
   sheep that has come back of itself--when they have discovered some
   sheep, after it has gone from its fold--stand bleating at its master's
   door, asking to be taken in again! You will not find such a sheep and
   you will not find a free-will Christian, for they will all confess, if
   you thoroughly probe the matter, that it was Grace, and Grace alone
   that restored their souls--

   "Grace taught our souls to pray, And made our eyes overflow-- 'Tis
   Grace that keeps us to this day And will not let us go."

   II. The next thing is THE ASSURANCE THAT THE LORD IS OUR SHEPHERD. It
   is very easy to say, "The Lord is a Shepherd," but how shall we
   appropriate the blessedness to ourselves and be able to say, "The Lord
   is our Shepherd?" I answer that He has had certain dealings with our
   souls in the past which have taught us that He is our Shepherd. If
   every man and every woman in this assembly should rise up and say, "The
   Lord is my Shepherd," I feel convinced it would be, in many instances,
   the solemn utterance of a lie, for there are, it is to be feared, many
   here who have not God for their Shepherd. He is their Guide, it is
   true, in some sense, because He overrules all the hearts and controls
   all the affairs of the children of men. But they are not the people of
   His pasture, they are not the sheep of His hand. They do not
   believe--therefore they are not of His fold. And if some of you should
   say that you are, your own conscience would belie you! How, then, does
   a man come to know that the Lord is his Shepherd?

   He knows it, first, because Jesus Christ has brought him back from his
   wanderings. If there is anyone here who, after a course of folly and
   sin, has been fetched back from the mountains of error and the haunts
   of evil. If there is one here who has been stopped in a mad career of
   vice and has been reclaimed by the power of Jehovah Jesus, such a one
   will know, by a happy experience, that the Lord is his Shepherd! If I
   once wandered on yon mountaintop and Jesus climbed up and caught me,
   and put me on His shoulders and carried me home, I cannot and dare not
   doubt that He is my Shepherd! If I had belonged to some other
   sheep-owner, He would not have sought me. And from the fact that He did
   seek me, I learn that He must be my Shepherd! Did I think that any man
   convinced me of sin, or that any human power had converted me, I would
   fear I was that man's sheep and that he was my shepherd. Could I trace
   my deliverance to the hand of a creature, I would think that a creature
   might be my shepherd! But since he who has been reclaimed of God must
   and will confess that God alone has done it and will ascribe to His
   free Grace, and to that alone, his deliverance from sin, such a one
   will feel persuaded that the Lord must be his Shepherd because He
   fetched him back from his wanderings--He snatched him out of the jaw of
   the lion and out of the paw of the bear.

   We know still further that like a shepherd, He has supplied our needs.
   Some of you, Beloved, know of a surety that God is your Provider.
   Sometimes you have been brought into such straits that if it had not
   been for an interposition of Heaven, itself, you never could have had
   deliverance! You have sunk so deep down into poverty and loved ones and
   acquaintances have stood so far aloof from you that you know there is
   but one arm which could have fetched you up. You have been reduced,
   perhaps, to such straits that all you could do was to pray. You have
   wrestled at the Throne of God and sought for an answer, but it has not
   come. You have used every effort to extricate yourself and darkness has
   still compassed your path. Again and again you have tried till hope has
   well-near vanished from your heart. And then, adding vows to your
   prayer, you have said in your agony, "O God, if You will deliver me
   this time, I will never doubt You again!" Look back on the path of your
   pilgrimage. Some of you can count as many Ebenezers as there are
   milestones from here to York! Ebenezers piled up with oil poured on the
   top of them--places where you have said, "Hitherto, the Lord has helped
   me." Look through the pages of your diary and you will see, time after
   time, when your perils and emergencies were such as no earthly skill
   could relieve and you felt constrained to witness what others among you
   have never felt--that there is a God, that there is a Providence--a God
   who compasses your path and is acquainted with all your ways! You have
   received deliverance in so marvelous a way, from so unseen a hand and
   so unlikely a source, under circumstances, perhaps, so foreign to your
   wishes--and yet the deliverance has been so perfect, so complete and
   wonderful--you have been obliged to say, "The Lord is my Shepherd."
   Yes, He is! The sheep, we know, fed day by day in good pasture, may
   forget its Shepherd. But if for a time it is taken from the pasture and
   then brought home again, after having been nearly starved, it says,
   "Truly, He is my Shepherd." If I had always been supplied with bread,
   without the pinch of anxiety, I might have doubted whether He had given
   it, and ascribed it to the ordinary course of passing events. But
   seeing that "everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be
   full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need," I
   acknowledge that it is my God who supplies all my need! Yes, and with
   gratitude I will write it down for a certainty--"The Lord is my
   Shepherd."

   But, Beloved, do not be distressed even though you should not have had
   these particular trials and deliverances, for there is a way whereby we
   can tell that the Lord is our Shepherd without encountering so many
   rough and rugged passes, as I will show you presently. I have heard it
   said, by some, that a man cannot be a child of God unless he has gone
   through a certain set of trials and troubles. I recollect hearing a
   sermon from these words, "Who passing through the Valley of Baca makes
   it a well." Certainly the preacher did not make his sermon a well, for
   it was as dry as a stick and not worth hearing. There was nothing like
   cheerfulness in it, but a flood of declamation all the way through
   against hopeful Christians, against people going to Heaven who are not
   always grumbling, murmuring, doubting, fumbling for their evidences
   amidst the exercises of their own hearts, always reading and striving
   to rival Job and Jeremiah in grief, taking the Lamentations as the fit
   expression of their own lips, troubling their poor brains, vexing their
   poor hearts, smarting, crying and wearying themselves with the
   perpetual habit of complaining against God, saying with poor Job, "My
   stroke is heavier than my groaning." Such persons measure themselves by
   their troubles, trials, distresses, tribulations, perplexities and no
   end of things--things that we will not stop to recount! We believe,
   indeed, that such things will come to a child of God. We think every
   Christian will be corrected in due measure--we would be the last to
   deny that God's

   people are a tried people! They must all pass through the furnace of
   affliction and He has chosen them there, but still, we believe that
   religion is a blessed and a happy thing and we love to sing that
   verse--

   "The men of Grace have found Glory begun below! Celestial fruits on
   earthly ground From faith and hope may grow."

   And what though some of my Hearers have not yet had to swim through the
   rivers. Though they may not have had to pass through the fiery furnace
   of Providential trial, they have had trials enough and trials that no
   heart has known except their own suffering which they could not tell to
   flesh and blood, which have gnawed their very souls and catered into
   the marrow of their spirits. Bitter anguish and aching voids such as
   those who boast about their trials nearer felt, such as mere babbling
   troublers did never know, deep rushing of the stream of woe with which
   little bubbling narrow brooks could never compare! Such persons fear to
   murmur--they cannot reveal their sufferings because they think it would
   be showing some lack of trust in God. They keep their trials to
   themselves and only speak of them into that ear which hears and has no
   lips to babble afterwards.

   "But," you say, "how can you tell that the Lord is your Shepherd if you
   have not been tried in any of those great deeps?" We know that He is
   because He has fed us day by day in goodpasture. And if He has not
   allowed us to wander as far away as others, we can lift up our eyes to
   Him and each one of us say, "Lord, You are my Shepherd. I can as fully
   prove that You are my Shepherd by Your keeping me in the grassy field
   as by Your fetching me back when I have wandered. I know You are as
   much my Shepherd when You have supplied my needs day by day as if you
   had allowed me to go into poverty and given me bitterness. I know You
   are as much my Shepherd when granting me a continua1 stream of mercy,
   as if that stream had stopped for a moment and then had begun to flow
   again." People say, if they have had an accident and been nearly
   killed, or have narrowly escaped, "What a Providence!" Yet it is as
   much a Providence when you have no accident at all! A good man once
   went to a certain place to meet his son. Both his son and he had ridden
   some distance. When the son arrived, he exclaimed, "Oh Father! I had
   such a Providence on the road." "Why, what was that?" "My horse
   stumbled six times and yet I was not thrown." "Dear me!" said his
   father, "but I have had a Providence too!" "And what was that?" "Why,
   my horse never stumbled at all! And that is just as much a Providence
   as if the horse had stumbled six times and I had not been thrown."

   It is a great Providence when you have lost your property and God
   provides for you. But it is quite as much a Providence when you have no
   loss at all and when you are still able to live above the depths of
   poverty! And so God provides for you. I say this to some of you when
   God has blessed and continually provided for you from your earliest
   youth. You, too, can each of you say, "The Lord is my Shepherd." You
   can see this title stamped on your mercies, though they come daily.
   They are given to you by God and you will say, by humble faith, the
   word, "my," as loudly as anyone can! Do not get to despising the little
   ones of the flock because they have not had as many trials as you have
   had! Do not get to cutting the children of God in pieces because they
   have not been in such fights as you have! The Shepherd leads the sheep
   where He pleases and be you sure that He will lead them rightly! And as
   long as they can say from their hearts, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
   shall not want," do not trouble yourselves about where or how they
   learned it!

   III. Now we finish up with THE HOLY CONFIDENCE OF THE PSALMIST. "I
   shall not want."

   "There," poor Unbelief says, "I am wanting in everything. I am wanting
   in spirituals, I am wanting in temporals and I shall always want! Ah,
   such distress as I had a little while ago you cannot tell what it
   was--it was enough to break one's heart and it is coming again--I shall
   want." That is what Unbelief says, but you must write your own name at
   the bottom and then I will repeat this, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
   shall not want." That is what David said and I think David's faith far
   preferable to your unbelief. I might take your evidence in some
   matters, but I really would not take it before David's. I would accept
   your testimony as an honest man in some respects, but the words of
   Inspiration must be preferable to your words of apprehension! When I
   find it written, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want," I would
   rather take one of David's affirmations than 50 of your negations.

   I think I hear someone saying, "I would bear the want of any temporal
   good if I could but obtain spiritual blessings. I am in want this night
   of more faith, more love, more holiness, more communion with my
   Savior." Well, Beloved, the Lord is your Shepherd, you shall not want
   even those blessings--if you ask of Him, He will give them to you,
   though it

   may be by terrible things in righteousness that He will save you. He
   often answers His people in an unexpected manner. Many of God's answers
   to our letters come down in black-edged envelopes, yet mark you, they
   will come. If you want peace, joy, sanctification and such blessings,
   they shall be given to you, for God has promised them. The Lord is your
   Shepherd, you shall not want. I have often thought of that great
   promise written in the Bible--I do not know where there is a greater
   one--"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."
   "No good thing!" It is a mercy that the word, "good," was put in, for
   if it had said, "He, will withhold nothing," we should have been asking
   for many things that would be bad for us. But it says, "no good thing!"
   Now, spiritual mercies are good things and not only good things, but
   the best things so that you may well ask for them! For if no good thing
   will be withheld, much more will none of the best things! Ask, then,
   Christian, for He is your Shepherd and you shall not want! He will
   supply your needs. He will give you whatever you require. Ask in faith,
   doubting nothing, and He shall give you what you really need.

   But still there are some who say, "The text applies to temporal
   matters," and persist in it. Well, then, I will accept this sense--the
   Lord is your Shepherd, you shall not want for temporal blessings. "Ah,"
   cries one, "I was once in affluence and now I am brought down to
   penury. I once stood among the mighty and was rich--now I walk among
   the lowly and am poor." Well, David does not say, "The Lord is your
   Shepherd, and you shall not come down in society." He does not say,
   "The Lord is your Shepherd and, therefore, you shall have 500 or a
   thousand pounds a year." He does not say, "The Lord is your Shepherd
   and, therefore, you shall have whatever your soul lusts after." All
   David says is, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." There are
   different ways of wanting. There are many people whose foolish craving
   and restless anxiety make them always in want. If you gave them a house
   to live in and fed them day by day, they would always be wanting
   something more. And after you had just relieved their necessities, they
   would still want. The fact is theirs are not real wants, but simply
   fancied wants. David does not say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore
   I shall not fancy that I want," for though God might promise that, it
   would need His Omnipotence to carry it out, for His people often get to
   fancying that they want when they do not. It is real needs that are
   referred to. "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not really want." There
   are many things we wish for that we do not really need, but there is no
   promise given that we shal1 have all we wish for. God has not said that
   He would give us anything more than we need, but He will give us that.

   So lift up your head and do not be afraid! Fear not, your God is with
   you! He shall prevent evil from hurting you. He shall turn darkness
   into light and bitter into sweet. He has led you all the way and all
   the way this shall be your constant joy--He is my Shepherd, I shall not
   really want that which is absolutely necessary. Whatever I really
   require shall be given by the lavish hands of a tender Father.
   Believer, here is your inheritance, here is your income, here is your
   yearly living--"He is your Shepherd, and you shall not want." What is
   your income, Believer? "Why," you say, "it varies with some and others
   of us." Well, but, a Believer's income is still the same. This is
   it--"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." That is my income and
   it is yours, poor little one. That is the income of the poorest pauper
   in the workhouse who has an interest in the Grace of God--the Lord is
   her Shepherd, she shall not want! That is the income of the poor
   foundling child who has come to know the Lord in early life and has no
   other friend--the Lord is his Shepherd, he shall not want! That is the
   widow's inheritance--the Lord is her Shepherd, she shall not want! That
   is the orphan's fortune--the Lord is his Shepherd, he shall not want!
   That is the Believer's portion, his inheritance, his blessing!

   "Well now," some may say, "what is this Truth worth?" Beloved, if we
   could change this Truth for a world of gold, we would not! We had
   rather live on this Truth of God than live on the finest fortune in
   creation! We reckon that this is an inheritance that makes us rich,
   indeed--"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Give me ten
   thousand pounds and one reverse of fortune may scatter it all away. But
   let me have a spiritual hold of this Divine Assurance, "The Lord is my
   Shepherd, I shall not want," and then I am set up for life! I cannot
   break with such stock as this in hand! I never can be a bankrupt, for I
   hold this security--"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Do not
   give me ready money now--give me a checkbook and let me draw what I
   like. That is what God does with the Believer. He does not immediately
   transfer his inheritance to him, but lets him draw what he needs out of
   the riches of his fullness in Christ Jesus! The Lord is his Shepherd;
   he shall not want. What a glorious inheritance! Walk up and down it
   Christian! Lie down upon it, it will do for your pillow--it will be
   soft as down for you to lie upon. "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
   want." Climb up that creaking staircase to the top of your house, lie
   down on your hard mattress, wrap yourself with

   a blanket, look out for the winter when hard times are coming and say
   not, "What shall I do?" but just hum over to yourself these words, "The
   Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

   That will be like the hush of lullaby to your poor soul and you will
   soon sink to slumber. Go, you business man, to your counting-house
   again, after this little hour of recreation in God's House, and again
   cast up those wearisome books. You are saying, "How about business?
   These prices may be my ruin. What shall I do?" When you have cast up
   your accounts, put this down against all your fears and see what a
   balance it will leave--"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."
   There is another man. He does not lack anything, but still he feels
   that some great loss may injure him considerably. Go and write this
   down in your cash-book. If you have made out your cash-account truly,
   put this down-- "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." Put this
   down for something better than gold and silver--"The Lord is my
   Shepherd; I shall not want." He who disregards this Truth, knows
   nothing about its preciousness, but he who apprehends it, says, "Ah,
   yes, it is true, 'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.'" He will
   find this promise like China wind of which the ancients said that it
   was flavored to the lips of him that tasted it! So this truth shall
   taste sweet to you if your spiritual palate is pure--yet it shall be
   worth nothing to you but mere froth if your taste is not healthy.

   But Beloved, we must divide our congregation before we send you away
   and remind you that there are some of you to whom this Truth of God
   does not belong. Perhaps some of you professors of religion may want
   this Truth badly enough, but it is not yours. The Lord is not your
   Shepherd--you are not the sheep of His pasture and the flock of His
   hand. You are not sheep, but goats--unclean creatures, not harmless and
   undefiled as sheep, but everything that is the very reverse! Oh it is
   not only eternal loss, it is not only everlasting injury that you have
   to regret--it is also present loss and present injury--the loss of an
   inheritance on earth, the loss of an inheritance below. To be deprived
   of such a comfort as this is a terrible privation. Oh, it is enough to
   make men long for religion if it were only for that sweet peace and
   calm of mind which it gives here below! Well might men wish for this
   heavenly oil to be cast on the troubled waters of this mortal life even
   if they did not anoint their heads with it or enter into glory with the
   joy of their Lord upon their countenance!

   Beloved, there are some I know here--and your conscience tells you whom
   I mean--who have a voice within your own hearts which says, "I am not
   one of Christ's sheep." Well then, there is no promise for you that you
   shall not want! The promise and the Providence are for Believers, not
   for you. There is no promise that all things shall work together for
   your good, but rather you shall be cursed in your basket and cursed in
   your store, cursed in the field, cursed in your house, cursed in your
   going out and cursed in your coming in, for, "the curse of the Lord is
   in the house of the wicked." It does not merely peep in at his window
   but it is in his house! Yet God "blesses the habitation of the just."
   If you do not repent, the curse shall follow you until your dying day
   and not having Christ for your Shepherd, you shall wander where that
   hungry wolf, the devil, shall at last seize upon your soul--and
   everlasting misery and destruction from the Presence of Jehovah must be
   your inevitable, miserable and inexpressibly awful doom! May the Lord
   in mercy deliver you from it!

   And this is the way of salvation--"He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned." "He that
   believes and is baptized"--we omit nothing that God has said. "He that
   believes and is baptized"-- not he that is baptized and then believes
   (which would be reversing God's order), but "He that believes and is
   baptized-- not he that is baptized without believing, but the two
   joined together! He that believes with his heart and is baptized,
   confessing with his mouth--"he that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." Do you neglect one part of it? It is at your peril, Sir! "He
   that believes and is baptized," says God. If any of you have neglected
   one portion of it--if you have believed and have not been baptized--God
   will save you. Still, this promise says not so. "He that believes and
   is baptized." It puts the two together and "what God has joined
   together, let no man put asunder." What He has ordered let no man
   disarrange. "He that believes"--that is, he that trusts in Jesus--he
   that relies upon His blood, His merits, His righteousness--"and is
   baptized, shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Rule of Grace

   (No. 3061)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 17, 1873.

   "Man/ lepers were in Israel in tie time of Elisha the Prophet; and none
   of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." Luke 4:27.

   OUR Savior never sought popularity. His ministry was so attractive that
   thousands thronged to hear Him, glad to catch the accents of His
   instructive tongue, but He never for a moment sought to preach
   flesh-pleasing truths, neither did He keep back any Doctrine by which
   it might be feared that His hearers would be disgusted. On this
   occasion He was speaking to His own townsmen. The young Man who had
   left the place for a while and who, during His absence, had acquired
   great fame as a Teacher and Miracle-Worker, had come home and there
   was, naturally, much curiosity to hear Him. They supposed that He would
   make the town where He had been brought up, to be the chief place of
   His benedictions. They were His fellow townsmen, so surely they had
   some claim upon Him! But our Lord, knowing right well that if they
   really understood His teaching, they would not be pleased with it--and
   knowing that the blessings He came to bring were not such as they
   desired--at once dealt honestly with them and told them that Elisha did
   not heal the lepers in his own country, but one was healed who came
   from a foreign land. And He led them to infer that very likely He would
   do His greatest deeds of healing elsewhere than at Nazareth, that God
   might be pleased to bestow the richest supplies of His Grace upon
   heathens--upon Syrians--and not upon those who seemed to suppose that
   they had some right or claim to it. Our Lord, in fact, preached to
   these people the great Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty, the humbling
   Doctrine of Divine Election of which Paul wrote to the Romans, "He said
   to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
   compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him
   that wills, nor of him

   that runs, but of God that shows mercy." [See Sermon #442, Volume
   8--GOD'S WILL AND MAN'S WILL.] That was the main point of our Savior's
   discourse and His fellow townsmen could not endure it, as many since
   have not been able to endure it--and seeking to end such hateful
   teaching by murdering the Teacher, they hurried Him from the synagogue
   to the top of the precipice whereon their city stood, that they might
   hurl Him down and destroy Him!

   I learn, from this incident in our Lord's life, that it is not the
   preacher's business to seek to please his congregation. If he labors
   for that end, he will in all probability not attain it. But if he
   should succeed in gaining it, what a miserable success it would be! He
   must lose the favor of his Master if he should once aim at securing the
   favor of his fellow men. We therefore ought to preach many Truths of
   God which will irritate our hearers! We ought to declare to them the
   doctrines which are for their present and eternal welfare, however
   distasteful they may be to their carnal reason and natura1
   inclinations. As the physician must give bitter medicine to his
   patients if he would cure them of their diseases, so must the preacher,
   who is truly sent of God, proclaim unpalatable Truths of God to his
   hearers and he must preach the more often upon those very bitter Truths
   because men are so unwilling to receive them. That part of the Gospel
   which they will readily embrace without any persuasion need not be
   preached as often--but that part which they will kick at and resist
   must be enforced again and again, if perhaps at last their judgment
   should be convinced of its truth and their heart won for its reception!

   By the Holy Spirit's help, I am going to preach to the unconverted with
   the earnest desire and hope that they will remain unconverted no
   longer. And my subject is the healing of Naaman the Syrian. There are
   two points in it that are

   especially worth noting. The first is the sovereignty of Divine Grace
   which was manifest in it. And the second is the unvarying rules by
   which that Grace works.

   I. First then, let us consider THE SOVEREIGNTY OF DIVINE GRACE which
   was so clearly manifested in the healing of Naaman the Syrian.

   And I will observe at the outset that the experience of Naaman equally
   teaches the freeness of Divine Grace. If our Savior had selected this
   case as an instance, not of the sovereignty, but of the freeness of
   Divine Grace, it would have been equally appropriate. Two Truths of God
   which sometimes appear to be in opposition will often prove, if they
   are examined more closely, to be nestling side by side with one
   another. Suppose our Savior had put the case of Naaman thus--"Every
   person who was a leper who applied to Elisha to be healed was healed,
   and though one of them came from a foreign country and was a
   heathen--and a determined enemy of Israel--he was not rejected, for
   whoever came to the Prophet was accepted and received the blessing."
   That would have been a Truth of God and a most blessed Truth, too, and
   a Truth which we delight to preach and which we do preach incessantly.
   And that Truth does not clash with the other Truth of God of which our
   text speaks--that out of all the lepers who were in Israel in the days
   of Elisha, none were cleansed save this one stranger from the alien
   land of Syria! The universality of Divine Grace is easily reconciled
   with the sovereignty of it! Perhaps we cannot reconcile it so that
   others can see the reconciliation, but we have felt the reconciliation
   in our own hearts and in our own experience. And for my part it would
   be as stern a difficulty to see that there is anything irreconcilable
   between the two Doctrines as it seems to be to others to see how the
   two Doctrines can possibly agree! I cannot, for the life of me, detect
   where they clash, just as some others cannot see how they agree. I do
   unfeignedly believe that Christ will in no wise cast out anyone who
   comes to Him and I dare to say that to every man and woman of the human
   race--but I also believe just as firmly that no one comes unto Christ
   except those whom the Father draws to Him--and that all whom the Father
   has given to Christ shall surely come to Him. [See Sermons #1762,
   Volume 30--high

   DOCTRINE AND BROAD DOCTRINE and #2386, Volume 40--THE DRAWINGS OF
   DIVINE LOVE.] Both these statements are true and, therefore, both of
   them are to be believed and we may rest assured that they both agree
   with one another!

   But our Savior, on this occasion, though He often preached upon the
   freeness of Divine Grace, was pleased to preach upon the sovereignty of
   it, for it was the sovereignty of Grace that saved Naaman. He was a
   heathen, a worshipper of the idol god, Rimmon, yet when he obeyed the
   Prophet's command, he received the healing he asked for, yes, and more
   than that, he received the salvation of his soul, too! In addition to
   being a heathen, this man was a sworn enemy of Israel. He had often led
   the bands of Syria to plunder the people of God and yet, for all that,
   eternal mercy looked with complacency upon him and determined not only
   that his leprosy should be healed but that he should be a perpetual
   monument of the Sovereign Grace of God! He also lived far away from the
   abode of Elisha and in those days, the difficulty of travelling such a
   distance was exceedingly great--and yet, for all that, the Grace of God
   which passed by the lepers who were living near the Prophet's home,
   went far afield and found this Syrian soldier--and it is even so to
   this day! There are those who have lived ungodly, dishonest,
   unrighteous, unchaste lives whom God, nevertheless, saves by His
   Almighty Grace! There are even those who have been enemies of the
   Gospel, deniers and despisers of it and some who have been persecutors
   of God's people who have, like Saul of Tarsus, breathed out threats and
   slaughter against the disciples of the Lord and who have hated the
   things of God with their whole heart, yet, like Saul of Tarsus, these
   men have been overcome by the Omnipotence of Eternal Love and they have
   been saved by the Sovereign Grace of God. Some of these people have
   like Naaman been far off from the means of Grace. They have seldom
   attended the House of Prayer. They have been disregarders of God's holy
   Sabbath and yet, strange to say, the first time they went to the House
   of God, they found the blessing! They have been sought for by Go, and
   found according to His Sovereign Grace. 'Tis wonderful, but 'tis true,
   and nobody can long be pastor of such a Church as this without
   observing that it is often the most unlikely persons who are saved.
   Those who seem to you not likely even to be influenced by Divine Truth,
   are the very people who yield to it! Many whom you have set down as
   quite incorrigible have been renewed by Sovereign Grace. Why it is so,
   is not for us to know--we can only say, "Even so, Father: for so it
   seemed good in Your sight."

   This sovereignty of Grace, in the case of Naaman, seems all the more
   remarkable when we think of the many others who were passed over while
   he was healed. We would have thought surely, if Elisha can cure lepers,
   he will begin with those in Israel of whom our Lord tells us that there
   were many. But he does not begin with them--what he does is done for
   Naaman the Syrian! We think, surely, if he can cure lepers, he will
   cure those who are observers of the Ceremonial

   Law, but he does no such thing--he brings healing to this heathen
   foreign soldier! At the present day, in every congregation, there are
   persons who have been brought up in an atmosphere of godliness. The
   first sound they ever heard was the voice of praise and prayer and they
   have lived in such surroundings all their lives--yet they are not
   converted. They have been at the House of God almost as often as the
   doors have been open--yet they are not saved. And they are respectable
   people, too. They are of excellent morals, very good in many ways and
   yet, for all that--while publicans and harlots, strangers and
   foreigners, occasional hearers and the like have actually been
   converted and are rejoicing in the blessings of full salvation--these
   people still remain in the leprosy of their natural depravity and
   sin--impenitent, unbelieving, unconverted, unpardoned!

   How is this and why is it? It is not for us to give any reasons except
   the one reason that lies upon the surface, which is this--that God will
   have all men know that there is no one who has any right to salvation!
   That we are all lost and condemned to begin with and that if He does
   save any of us at all, it must be upon the resting of His free,
   Sovereign Mercy and cannot be upon the ground of our own merits and
   works. Suppose that it were a rule of the Kingdom of God that all the
   children of pious parents should be converted? There would be many who
   would say, "My mother was a godly woman, my father was a Christian--and
   that is all that is required." But it is not so. You are a lost sinner
   whatever your mother may have been! And you must repent and be
   converted just as truly as if you had been the child of the worst drab
   of the streets. Even though you may have descended from a long line of
   saints, you are a sinner and must be pardoned through the Infinite
   Mercy of God quite as much as the child of the man who was hanged for
   committing murder! You must be saved on the same principles as the
   vilest of the vile, must be saved and, to make men see this, God often
   passes by the children of the godly and calls the children of the
   godless into the Kingdom of His Grace. If everybody who went to the
   House of God was entitled to the blessings of salvation, many would
   say, "We attend such-and-such a place of worship and that is sufficient
   to ensure us a place in the Kingdom of Heaven!" So you seat-holders
   would conclude that there was no need for you to be anxious and that
   one of these days you would be sure to get the blessing.

   But, my dear Hearers, how many have gone to Hell from seats in places
   of worship! How many regular hearers of the Word are also regular
   unbelievers who will one day be banished from God's Presence with a
   deeper woe upon them because they knew their duty, yet did it not--they
   heard the Truth of God yet did not heed it! And the Lord makes this to
   be known among men by often calling, by His Grace, those who attend our
   services, as it were, by accident and by making the Word preached to be
   the savor of life unto life to them--while those who regularly hear it,
   yet do not receive it, prove it to be the savor of death unto death to
   them! And, then, if all respectable people were saved, or those only
   were saved who were respectable, we would have this pretty thing which
   is nowadays called, "respectability," seeking to make God its debtor
   and to cause the Most High to bow down before the respectability of
   men!

   Let a woman but turn aside from the path of virtue. Let a man be but
   once convicted of a crime and how our self-righteous hands are held up
   against them! We are so pure, so good, so free from sin that we can
   afford to say with the hypocrite of old, "Stand by yourself, come not
   near me, for I am holier than you." We do not wonder that the Lord said
   concerning such people, "These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that
   burns all the day." How the thrice-holy Jehovah must loathe those who
   hypocritically pretend to be pure when their heart is full of
   rottenness and uncleanness! Many a man may appear not to be leprous,
   but the fatal disease is upon him all the while--and only waiting for
   an opportunity to show itself as it will do before long! Oh how God
   hates the wicked cant of this self-righteous world! And therefore He
   comes and looks for sinners, for real sinners, for those who admit that
   they have gone astray from His ways like lost sheep--and He leaves
   those who think themselves good, those who are in their own esteem,
   righteous. And He says to them, "According to your belief, you do not
   need a Savior. Therefore go your way and perish in your sin. But as for
   those poor lost ones whom you judge to be so full of sin that there is
   a double necessity for them to be pardoned and saved, it is for just
   such sinners as these that Jesus died! He came not to call the
   righteous, but sinners to repentance."

   I have heard of a great man who was once taken to see the French galley
   slaves. And he had given to him the authority to set free any man whom
   he found at the galleys to whom he cared to give his liberty. He went
   to one man and found that he was committed for ten years and he asked
   him about his crime. He said that he thought he had been treated very
   unfairly. He didn't know that he had done much amiss. Perhaps he had,
   once or twice, taken a little that was not his, but the temptation to
   which he had yielded was very strong and he had done so much good in
   other ways that he really thought he was very harshly treated in being
   sent to the galleys. So the gentleman passed him by--he was too good a
   man to receive a free pardon. There was another who said that he was
   perfectly innocent. He even swore that he was as innocent as a new-born
   babe of every accusation that had been brought against him. The
   gentleman also passed him by, for he, too, was too good to be freely
   forgiven. Then he came to another who said that he might have tripped
   perhaps, but much more was made of it than was true and there were
   liars in court and perjury had been committed by a great many of the
   witnesses against him. And he knew a great many men who were twice as
   bad as he was, yet they were at liberty while he was there in chains.
   That man was not the one to be pardoned. At last the visitor came to a
   poor fellow who said to him, "I have a long sentence to serve, but I
   fully deserve even more than that sentence. I wonder that I was not
   condemned to death, for had they proceeded to extremities, they might
   have proved me guilty of murder. So I look upon my sentence as much
   lighter than I really deserve to suffer." Then he who had received the
   authority to pardon whom he pleased, said, "I pardon you, for,
   according to your own confession, you appear to be the only man in the
   whole place who is really receiving justice and, therefore, I will show
   you mercy, so you may go your way as a free man." In like manner, the
   Lord Jesus Christ is always ready to bestow His mercy upon those who
   confess that they deserve the heaviest sentence of His justice. But as
   long as we kick against that, we cannot expect Him to look upon us in
   love.

   II. Now I think I have spoken sufficiently upon the Sovereignty of
   Grace, so I want to enlist your earnest attention to another part of
   the subject as I try to show you that in the case of Naaman, Sovereign
   Grace followed THE

   UNVARYING RULES OF GRACE.

   God is a Sovereign and may therefore save whom He wills. And He may
   also save them howHe wills. Yet when He is about to save a man, He does
   not depart from His usual method of working, but saves him according to
   the way in which He is accustomed to save.

   Let me call your attention, first, to the fact that although Naaman was
   to be healed, and although Divine Sovereignty ordained the healing, it
   was necessary that he should first hear the good news of the
   possibility of healing. The ordinary way in which a sinner is saved is
   this, "Faith comes by hearing." It is as simple as possible. We hear
   the message and we believe it. So Naaman must first hear about the
   possibility of his being healed--but how is he to hear? Where is the
   preacher who will wend his way to Syria and tell him about the Lord's
   Prophet in Samaria? There is no need for any preacher to go on that
   long journey--a little maid is taken captive and she conveys the
   necessary message! That is all that is required. It was through a
   suitable messenger that Naaman was healed and blessed, so let none of
   us ever get into our heads the idea that God will save His own and,
   therefore, there is no need for us to go out to seek them, or to preach
   to them when we have found them! He will not save them apart from His
   own way--which way is that the preacher shall be sent and the person to
   be blessed shall hear the Gospel--and when he hears it, he shall be
   constrained to believe it. Hence we who are preachers must continue to
   preach the Word and you who are unsaved hearers, must make a point of
   endeavoring to hear the Gospel message, for that is both your privilege
   and your duty. God's own message to you is, "Incline your ears and come
   unto Me. Hear and your soul shall live." Therefore give your most
   earnest attention to the gracious message of mercy which God sends to
   you by His servants!

   Next, when Naaman has heard that there is healing to be had in Israel,
   he must give heed to the message and make a long journey in order to
   reach the Lord's Prophet. He would not have been healed if he had sat
   down and said, "I have heard about this possibility of being healed of
   my leprosy, but I shall take no trouble to see whether it is true or
   not." Oh, no! He does not talk like that, but he gives orders for the
   horses and camels to be brought out and the talents of silver, and the
   pieces of gold, and the changes of raiment that he will need for use as
   presents. And he departs for that far country where he hopes to receive
   the blessing that he desires. And, sinners, if you really wish to be
   saved, you must remember that God will save you through your
   attentively listening to the Gospel message that He sends to you and
   compelling your spirits to do what that message bids you do. God does
   not convert sinners while they are asleep! The Gospel is not absorbed
   by men as water is absorbed by a sponge, by a kind of insensible
   action. The Truth of God comes to the mind of the hearer and he is
   impressed by it. And being impressed by it, he lays it to heart and
   gives his whole soul to its comprehension and reception. And if you
   would be converted, you must get the Truth into your very soul. You
   must not play with it, you must not toy with it, you must not trifle
   with it--but you must be in earnest about the matter--you must, as the
   Apostle says, "Lay hold on eternal life." There must be an agonizing
   and a wrestling that you may enter into the full appropriation and
   possession of the Truth of God which is proclaimed in your hearing!

   When Naaman had come to the Prophet Elisha, he was not healed merely
   because he had heard the little maid's message, or because he had heard
   it with such a measure of attention that he had given earnest heed to
   it. But it was also imperative upon him that he should obey the command
   he received. ' 'Go," said the Prophet, "and wash in Jordan seven
   times." Naaman was ordained to be healed, yet he never would have been
   healed without the washing that Elisha commanded! And there is no
   sinner, be the purposes of God what they may, who will ever get his
   sins forgiven except by washing in the precious blood of Jesus! It
   matters not who you may be--unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
   you cannot have eternal life! Do not suppose, dear Hearers, that there
   is some secret decree of God that will override this-- there is no such
   decree! The Truth of God with which you have to do is this, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall
   be damned." If you do not believe in Jesus, there is no hope for you!
   There remains, neither in God, nor in anyone else, any hope for you!
   The way of salvation is set before you and it is quite as simple as
   Elisha's command to Naaman to wash seven times in Jordan. The Gospel is
   that Jesus Christ suffered in the place of all sinners who trust Him as
   their Savior, that He endured what they ought to have endured and made
   atonement to God for all the sins that they would ever commit. And if
   you thus trust Him, you are saved. The simple act of relying upon Jesus
   as your Substitute and Savior puts away your guilt and sin forever!

   But if you say, "This plan of salvation is too simple to be safe! I
   thought that there would be some imposing ceremony to be performed. I
   fancied that there would be certain mysterious feelings to be
   experienced!" If you talk like this, you cannot be healed. It is the
   Eternal Purpose of God that we shall be saved through faith in Jesus
   Christ and if there is no faith in Jesus Christ, that is a proof that
   there is no Divine Purpose to heal that soul! But where there is the
   Divine Purpose to heal, it is evidenced, sooner or later, by a
   submissive yielding to the ordained way of salvation and simple trust
   in the Lord Jesus Christ.

   Notice once more, Naaman was not healed until he was humbled. It was
   God's purpose to heal him. He had been set apart by Sovereign Grace to
   be healed, yet he had to be humbled before the blessing could come to
   him. While his pride was so great, he could not be healed. Why should
   he wash in the Jordan? Were not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,
   quite as good as the Jordan? Why should he wash there? Is he not high
   in the esteem of his master, the king of Syria? Why should he stoop to
   this indignity? He will not do anything of the kind! But if he will
   not, be he who he may, he cannot be healed. Though he is such great
   man, there is no healing for him without humbling--and it is so with
   those who would be cured of the leprosy of sin! There is no hope of
   Heaven for you unless you are humbled. As long as you have a rag of
   your righteousness that you trust in, you cannot have the robe of
   Christ's righteousness to cover you. If you glory in what you have, and
   what you are, you are not the kind of man whom God delights to save!
   You must lie low at the feet of Jesus! You must plead for forgiveness
   like a poor guilty sinner! You must cry, "Jesus save me, or I die!" or
   else through the gate of Heaven you are too big to pass for, "strait is
   the gate and narrow is the way," and no self-righteousness can go in
   there.

   "But," says one, "I have always been a regular attendant at a place of
   worship. I have always paid twenty shillings in the pound. I give a
   guinea to the hospital and I believe myself to be, on the whole, a most
   excellent person." I do not suppose that anybody will say just that,
   but I mean that great many will think it. And I want all such people to
   plainly understand that until they get all this horrible boasting out
   of their soul, they will no more go to Heaven than the devil himself
   will! But if any man here confesses that he is a mass of iniquity--that
   even his best works have something bad in them, that his praying has to
   be wept over and his tears of repentance have to be washed to get the
   filth out of them--if there is a sinner here, real black or scarlet
   sinner, he or she is the one who is freely invited to come and put his
   trust in Jesus, for it is "a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,"
   even the very chief! Pride must come down, self-righteousness must die
   and the sinner must glorify the Grace of God by admitting that he has
   no merit of his own--or he cannot be saved.

   What shall we say, then, to these things? Just this. Let us all go
   together to the Throne of God where we have offended and let us confess
   that none of us have any claims upon Him. Let each of us say to Him,
   "My Lord, if You should destroy me, I must confess that I deserve it.
   If You should save my brother, who is equally guilty, and not save me,
   I dare not complain, for You have the right to exercise Your mercy
   wherever and however You will. I shall receive the sentence that is
   just even if I am banished from Your Presence forever." Submit to the
   Lord as the burgesses of Calais came to the conquering king with ropes
   about their necks! That is the proper costume for a sinner to wear
   before God. Say, "Lord, I deserve, to die. I deserve to perish. I
   deserve to be destroyed. I will have no quibbles with You about my
   sentence, for how can a worm dispute with the Almighty? Who am I that I
   should reply against my Maker?"

   When you have taken that position, rely upon the freeness of Divine
   Grace. Grasp, as with a death-clutch, this great fact and say, "Lord,
   You forgive sinners for Your own name's sake. You cannot find anything
   in us that is good, anything that can move You to pity. But oh, by Your
   mercy and Your love, let men see what a gracious God You are! For Your
   great name's sake, have mercy upon us and save us!" And you can plead
   that Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." And
   that He has bid His servants say, "Whoever shall call upon the name of
   the Lord shall be saved." "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." Plead with Him that He has said, "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." Go and
   plead in that way, and trust yourself upon the Truth revealed in the
   Word of God. Try it and prove it, and see whether God really means what
   He says. Say to Him--

   "You have promised to forgive

   All who in Your Son believe.

   Lord, I know You cannot lie--

   Give me Christ, or else I die!"

   I will not say to you--Go and risk it, for there is no risk. I will not
   say to you--Go and venture, for it is no venture. Go and say to the
   Lord, "O Lord, if I must perish, I will perish trusting in Your mercy
   through the precious blood of Jesus, Your dear Son! 'Other refuge have
   I none.' I cast aside all my former confidences and all my boasting and
   come as the worst sinner must come, for I feel that in some respects I
   am the worst sinner who ever came to You. I come as an utterly lost,
   undone, bankrupt sinner and I look to the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus
   for all that, I need." Then if you perish like that, I am quite willing
   to perish with you! And I will stand at the bar of God with you on the
   same terms, for if you are lost, I must be lost too! I solemnly avow
   that I have no hope in anything I have ever done. I have preached the
   Gospel these many years, but I have not preached one sermon that I can
   look upon with any confidence so far as to depend upon it as a merit in
   the sight of God! After we are saved, we may do something in the way of
   almsgiving and other things to show our gratitude to God, but they are
   worse than useless if we begin to boast of them as a reason forour
   salvation. My song is--

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

   I know He did and I hope many of you can say the same thing. We are in
   the same boat and if we go down, God will have to go down, too, for it
   would stain His honor for anyone to be lost trusting in Jesus. But we
   shall never go down if we are trusting in Him! We shall stand when the
   great floods are out and the heavens are pouring forth their deluge of
   devouring rain! We shall stand, for we are built upon a rock if we are
   trusting in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ! God grant that
   we may all be found there and His shall be the praise forever and ever.
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM107:23-82.

   Verses 23, 24. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business
   in great waters; these see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in
   the deep. The Jews were never given to navigation. To "go down to the
   sea in ships," seemed a very extraordinary thing to them. They looked
   upon it as a going down, as it were, into a dreadful abyss. We who are
   more accustomed to going to sea than they were, talk of "the high
   seas," but they spoke of going "down to the sea." They never went to
   sea except on business. King Solomon had no pleasure yacht. There was
   never one of that ancient race who cared to trust himself upon the sea
   except as a matter of sheer necessity--and those who did so were looked
   upon with wonder by their land-loving friends. "They that go down to
   the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works
   of the Lord"--that is, His greatest works, both in the sea and on it.
   They know what storms are and they see what Omnipotence can do--and
   they come back to tell of the wonders of God upon the mighty deep. This
   verse may be read spiritually as well as literally. God calls some of
   His servants, as it were, to go down to the sea in ships. They are
   tried with poverty, with personal sickness, with temptation, with
   inward conflicts, with fierce persecutions. And God

   never calls them to these trials out of mere caprice, there is always a
   reason for it. They go down to the sea in ships to "do business in
   great waters." There is something to be gained from their trials and
   something to be learned from them. They "do business in great waters"
   and "these see the works of the Lord." Others hear about them and
   believe what they are told concerning them. But these see them. They
   see what God has done in their case--how He sustains, how He delivers,
   how He sanctifies trials and overrules them for His own Glory and His
   people's good. "These see the works of the Lord." And they also see the
   wonders of the economy of Grace. They are made to experience the
   heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of that love which passes
   knowledge. They see "His wonders in the deep." You and I need not
   desire to have trouble, as though we put out to sea for our own
   pleasure, but if God calls us to sail upon a sea of troubles, if He
   sends us there upon His business, we may depend upon it that He means
   that business to end to our profit and His Glory.

   25-27.--For He commands, and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the
   waves. They mount up to the heavens. They go down again to the depths.
   Their sou1 is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and
   stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Here we learn
   something of what sailors see and of what tried Christians experience.
   These great storms arise by God's command--not as many say, nowadays,
   "by the laws of nature." The wind, which had been quiet, heard God's
   voice and raises itself up, like a wild beast from its lair--"He
   commands, and raises the stormy wind." And no sooner does the great
   wind begin to blow than the white crests of the waves are seen, and the
   white horses fly before the blast which lifts up the waves on high.
   Then the ship, however staunch it is, seems to have no greater power of
   resistance than a frail sea bird. And it is tossed up and down, up and
   down, from the trough of the sea to the billows' crown--"They mount up
   to the Heaven, they go down again to the depths." And their very soul
   begins to melt. Brave men as they are, it only needs a sufficient
   amount of storm to make their hearts turn to water and their spirits
   dissolve into the turbulent element that is all round them! "Their soul
   is melted because of trouble." Then they cannot keep their
   balance--"they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man." What
   is worse, they cannot control their thoughts--they "are at their wit's
   end." What can they do in such a case as that? There is an end to all
   human wit and wisdom when the great storms are out upon the sea. You
   who have ever had deep spiritual trials know the analogy of all this.
   There may come times--there have come times to some of us--when, at the
   command of God, or by Divine Permission, there has been a fierce blast
   of temptation or a fiery trial--and then all that was peaceful around
   us before, suddenly turns into a whirlpool of tempestuous billows and
   we are tossed to and fro at the mercy of the winds and the waves.
   Sometimes we ascend in presumption and then we go down into the very
   depths of despair. At one moment we are joyous with hope and a moment
   later we seem ready to give up all hope--our courage fails us and our
   soul dissolves within us. If you have never known this experience, I
   pray that you never may know it, but some of us have had stormy times
   when we have seemed to have no foothold, when we have reeled to and fro
   like drunken men--when the best faith we have had has been little
   better than staggering! Still, it is better to stagger on the promise
   than to stagger at it--and we did still stand though we staggered and
   we were at our wit's end. We could not see what to do, we could not
   tell what to do and we could not have done it if we had known what to
   do! We were brought to such an extremity that we seemed to have neither
   wit nor wisdom left.

   28. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them
   out of their distresses. This shows that although they were at their
   wit's end, they had wit enough or wisdom enough to pray! Their souls
   were melted, so they let them run out in prayer. It is a good thing to
   get the soul melted, for then it will flow out like water before the
   Lord. Note that these sailors cried to God when there was no one else
   to whom they could cry--"Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble."
   Learn from this sentence that when your soul is melted because of
   trouble, you can still pray. When you reel to and fro and stagger like
   a drunken man, you can still pray--and when you are at your wit's
   end--you can still pray! Prayer is never out of season! It is a fruit
   of Grace that is acceptable to God in autumn and in winter, in spring
   and in summer. As long as you live and even when the worst comes to the
   worst, cry mightily unto God, for He will surely hear you. Was it not
   so with us when we were in spiritual trouble and could do nothing else
   but cry unto the Lord? It was a poor prayer that we offered, but it was
   a real prayer that we presented when we cried unto God. Mark how quick
   God is to hear such prayer as this--"Then they cry unto the Lord in
   their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses." He brought
   them into them and, therefore, He brought them out of them. It was God
   who took Jacob into Egypt and, therefore, though it took 400 years to
   bring Israel out of Egypt, God brought them out at last. He kills and
   He makes alive. He wounds and He heals. Rest in this Truth of God as a
   matter of absolute certainty!

   29. He makes thee storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. At
   the first, God made everything out of nothing, so He can easily make a
   calm out of a storm. And He can make the storm a calm for you whenever
   He pleases to do so. Your troubled feelings, your tossing to and fro
   may soon subside into "the peace of God, which passes all
   understanding," which "shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
   Jesus."

   30. Then are they glad because they are quiet; so He brings them unto
   their desired haven. And there is no music that is sweeter to the
   mariner's ears than the rattle of the chain as the anchor grips the
   bottom of the harbor and the ship rests from all her tossing. The Lord
   will give you Grace, my Brother, my Sister, to let down your
   anchor--or, rather, to throw it up "into that within the veil," for
   that is the way that your anchor goes--and then you shall be glad
   because you will be quiet. I believe that there is often a greater,
   fuller, deeper joy in being quiet than there is in making a noise.
   There are times when it is good to praise the Lord with the
   high-sounding cymbals and with the harp of a solemn sound. But, in the
   deepest joy of all, we are still before God and praise is silent before
   God in Zion.

   31. Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His
   wonderful works to the children of men! Should they not do so? Those
   who have survived the storms at sea, or the still greater storms within
   their own souls should surely take care to praise the Lord. If we know
   how to pray, we also ought to know how to praise. Prayer and praise
   ought to form the two covers of the book of our life--and our life is
   not well bound unless these are the two covers to it--with a good stiff
   back of faith to bind the two covers firmly together and to hold every
   leaf in its proper place.

   32. Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people, and
   praise Him in the assembly of the elders. Let them not only praise the
   Lord in private, but let them also sound out their song of gratitude to
   God where the graybeards are gathered together! And let the men of
   experience, the officers of the Church, the leaders of the Lord's
   people, help them in the expression of their gratitude.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Spirit's Office Towards Disciples

   (No. 3062)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   23, 1865.

   "He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive ofMine, and shall show it
   unto you." John 16:14.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon this passage are as follows--#465,
   Volume 8--THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST; #2213, Volume 37--"HONEY
   IN THE MOUTH"; #2382, Volume 40--THE HOLY SPIRIT'S CHIEF OFFICE. An
   Exposition ofJohn 16:1-22, was published with #3052, Volume
   53--CHRIST'S LONELINESS AND OURS.]

   MANY persons are anxiously asking the question, "Are we partakers of
   the Holy Spirit?" With enlarged anxiety, they reason thus, "We have
   felt certain inward emotions. There has been in us, we trust, a change
   of life. Eager are our desires for God and His Grace. Do these come of
   the Spirit of God? When we find a suggestion which appears to be holy
   in our soul, does it come from Him? When we are at any time filled with
   earnestness and pray, or our soul has peculiar delight in considering
   Divine things, may we say with truth that we are under the operation of
   the Holy Spirit?" I do not intend to go thoroughly into the resolution
   of these scruples--that would be too wide a subject for a short
   evening's discourse--but there is one point which may often relieve
   your perplexities. It appears from the text that it is the work and
   office and custom of the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ. If, therefore,
   with much strength and fervor in your soul, you glorify Him, you may
   trust that it comes from the Spirit of God. But if there is anything in
   you which is derogatory to the Character or Person or Glory of the Lord
   Jesus, it may either come from Satan or from your own corrupt mind. But
   from the Spirit of God it never came and it would be blasphemy to
   impute it to Him. Whatever you feel which lifts Christ on high in your
   soul comes of the Spirit--but whatever there may be which exalts self
   or anything else in the place of Christ--no matter from where it
   comes--the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with it!

   Let us then just handle this point. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in
   His people. How does He do it and how far may I judge that He is at
   work in me?

   One way in which the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ is this--He gives us
   more and more debasing views of ourselves. There are two Gods, as it
   were. One the true, the other the false. Self first mounts the throne
   in our heart and the higher the throne of self is exalted, the lower
   must Christ go. Much of self, little of the Savior. Exalted views of
   self, self-power, or self-righteousness, and then there are sure to be
   low views of Christ. But when self goes down, then Christ at once
   rises. It may be said of self, as John the Baptist once said of Christ
   and himself, "He must increase, but I must decrease." If you have had
   shallow views of your own natural depravity, then you have had very
   shallow thoughts of Christ. If you think sin to be delightful, if
   Gethsemane, Golgotha and Calvary seem to you to be names without weight
   or meaning. If you have never groaned under sin, I do not wonder that
   you think little of Christ's groans, griefs and bloody sweat. But when
   you come to know yourself as verily lost and undone, then you will
   prize your Deliverer! When the dread word, "lost," has seemed to fall
   like a death knell upon your ears, then the tidings that the Son of Man
   came to seek and to save that which was lost will be as sweet to you as
   the Christmas carol of the angels, when they sang, "Glory to God in the
   highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." If you feel the
   disease, you will value the Physician. If you know your own emptiness,
   you will prize Christ's fullness. But if you reject the teaching of the
   Holy Spirit which shows you your utter helplessness and worthlessness,
   in so doing you have rejected Christ and put far from you that Savior
   who alone came to save sinners! It is, then, a most precious thing when
   we begin to sink lower and lower in our own estimation. At the
   commencement of spiritual life we believe that we are nothing. As we
   advance, we find that we are less

   than nothing. May the Holy Spirit so work in you! Some of you are,
   perhaps, depending and thinking that you are not children of God, or
   else you would not be so cast down as you are. I pray you to understand
   this matter aright. Instead of having any reason for despondency, you
   will find a subject for joy, for I am sure that the Spirit is honoring
   Christ when He is lowering you in your own estimation.

   Still more to the point, when the Holy Spirit really works in the heart
   of man, He honors Christ in every respect. He honors the Person of
   Christ. Those who think but little of His Deity are not taught of the
   Spirit of God. No man is taught by the Holy Spirit to regard the
   only-begotten Son of the Father as a secondary God, for the Holy Spirit
   teaches us upon this wise, "When He brings in the First-Begotten into
   the world, He says, "And let all the angels of God worship Him." "In
   the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
   God." The Spirit always teaches concerning Christ that He is God over
   all, blessed forever. Some have had lowering views of His Humanity.
   Every now and then we hear dark hints about the Human Nature of our
   Lord Jesus Christ, His peccability and so on. But this never comes from
   the Spirit of God. Both the Deity and the Humanity of Christ receive
   honor in the Christian's soul when the Spirit comes there with the
   Light of God--

   "Jesus is worthy to receive Honor and power Divine."

   That very Man who did hang upon Calvary we now adore. He is exalted far
   above all principalities and powers. All teaching which honors Christ
   in His Person is of the Spirit. And that which dishonors Him should be
   branded with its evil authorship.

   The Spirit also glorifies Christ in His work. Have you ever seen the
   finished work of Christ? He came into the world to save men and He did
   save them. He did not make a bridge over which they might possibly get
   across, but He carried them across the bridge. He did not so far
   accomplish the work of redemption that, by their own exertions, some
   persons might climb to Heaven, but He, Himself, entered into the
   heavenly places and took possession, representatively, of the Throne of
   God for all His people who were in Him. The salvation of the elect, so
   far as Christ is concerned, is finished. He took upon His shoulders all
   their guilt. He was punished for that guilt and they were then and
   there justified. He rose again, having shaken off alike the punishment
   and the iniquities that incurred it. He entered into Glory and they
   were then and there virtually made possessors of an inheritance which
   nothing will ever be able to take from them! Let the Christian feel
   that the teaching which lowers the work of Christ or makes it dependent
   upon the will of man as to its effect, puts the Cross on the ground and
   says, "That blood is shed, but it may be shed in vain, shed in vain for
   you"--let us all feel that such teaching comes not from the Spirit of
   God! That teaching which, pointing to the Cross, says, "He shall see of
   the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." That teaching which
   makes the Atonement a true atonement which forever put away the
   vindictive Justice of God from every soul for whom that Atonement was
   offered, exalts Christ and, therefore, it is a teaching which comes
   from the Spirit of God! When your heart is brought to rest upon what
   Christ has done. When, laying aside all confidence in your own works,
   knowledge, prayers, doing, or believing, you come to rest upon what
   Christ has done in its simplicity--then is Jesus Christ exalted in your
   heart and it must have been the work of the Spirit of Divine Grace! The
   Person, then, and the work of Christ are exalted.

   The Holy Spirit also exalts Christ in all His offices. That teaching
   which calls a man a priest and bids me take my child to receive some
   "grace" at his priestly hands and which puts another man into lawn
   sleeves and bids me kneel before him to receive a confirmation of my
   "grace" from his pretentious fingers. That system of religion which
   lifts up any one man above his fellow men, as if there were any priests
   other than the common and general priesthood which belongs to every
   child of God--such teaching as that lowers Christ by lifting up human
   priests info Christ's place! The Spirit bears witness that Christ is
   the Great High Priest of His Church. It is from His hands we receive
   the blessing! Through His blood we receive the washing! And nowhere
   else will we look for the Divine Grace that comes alone from Him!

   Christ, too, is exalted by the Spirit in His prophetic as well as in
   His priestly office. Shall I call any man master so as to take him for
   my teacher? All teaching which lifts up Wesley, or Calvin, or any man,
   living or dead, in the place of the authorized Teacher and which says
   that their teachings are to be taken as though they were the Infallible
   Revelations of Christ is not of the Spirit of God! But that teaching
   which says, "One is your Master, even Christ, and all you are
   brethren," and which tells us of the holy equality of all saints and
   that the true Teacher and the only Teacher who can

   speak with authority is Jesus Christ, the Son of God--such teaching you
   may accept as coming from God the Holy Spirit.

   Then Christ occupies a third office. He is Prophet and Priest--and He
   is also King. And any teaching which takes Christ off the Throne of God
   and puts someone else on it, is not according to the Spirit of God. The
   Headship of Christ in His Church is the Doctrine which, perhaps, beyond
   all others, needs to be taught at this time. It was for this that
   Scotland's sons suffered misery and death. Cast out, they wandered in
   the morasses and among the mountains. I stood, the other day, near the
   place where the monument is raised to thousands of men who had shed
   their blood for Christ-- and I felt it no small privilege to stand
   where Guthrie and others had poured out their blood for the defense of
   the Headship of the Church when Charles the Second would be the head of
   the Church, or James, or some other man of like character. But would
   this be tolerated by true-hearted saints of God's own true Church? No!
   None but rogues and cowards will ever admit the authority of men or
   women over the Church of Christ, or permit them to usurp the Divine
   rights of the Lord Jesus! When that day comes, when the King of kings
   shall sit upon His throne, He will take summary vengeance upon the
   traitors who have dared to give up His high prerogatives! Christian,
   make Christ your Priest who absolves you! Take Him as your only Leader
   and Prophet, who is the truth and the life for you! And then take Him
   as your King and bow your knees become Him! Take Christ in all His
   offices to be exalted, for so the Spirit teaches.

   Then Christ is also exalted by the Holy Spirit in His Word. There are
   some who think and say that they can do without the Bible. But
   certainly such think and speak not by the Spirit of God! This is always
   an Infallible test of the work of the Spirit--that He honors God's own
   Word. I could think no man true who, first of all, professed to write
   out his own mind and then afterwards contradicted it. Then how can that
   spirit be true that contradicts the writing of the Spirit of the living
   God? Bring whatever you have of revelation to the test of Scripture--if
   it is not in accordance with it--throw it away! I wish this rule were
   learned by all men, for every now and then we read of or meet with
   persons who think that the Spirit has revealed to them something over
   and above what is in Scripture. Now this is never the case! Any man who
   says that he has had more revealed to him than is in the Holy
   Scriptures, incurs the curse of the last chapter of Revelation! He must
   take care lest, since he adds to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,
   "God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book." "It
   is finished," must be said concerning this Book as we close it. Not a
   single verse or Revelation shall henceforth come of the Spirit. Until
   Christ comes, this Book is sealed, so far as any addition to it is
   concerned!

   Indeed, there is nothing which concerns Christ which the Spirit of God
   does not magnify. Consider any of His offices or His relationships and
   you will find that the Spirit magnifies them and glorifies them--and so
   presents them to the Believer's soul that he may rejoice therein.

   Now, I advance a little further. The Holy Spirit's work is to glorify
   Christ and this He will do by filling you with Christ. If you are
   subject to the work of the Spirit, then ought you to have much of the
   spirit of Christ within you. But if you can live days and weeks without
   thinking of Christ, set yourself down as being a hypocrite, if you
   will, for you are not a true Christian! The very mark of the blessed
   man is that he lives upon God's Word. "In His Law does he meditate day
   and night." We feed upon Christ and as our bodies could not live
   without food, so neither can our souls live without Jesus. The Spirit
   of God will also fill your heart with Christ so that the more you have
   of that Spirit, the more intense will be your love of the Savior until,
   at last, you will be able to say--

   "Jesus, the very thought of You With sweetness fills my breast." When
   the Spirit of God is with you, you will indeed feel that it is so. No
   joy can be compared with that of the love of Christ shed abroad in your
   heart. When the Spirit has thus filled your thoughts and heart, He will
   be sure to occupy your tongues. They who love the Savior must speak of
   Him! In choice company they will tell some of the secrets of His love,
   and in any company they will not be ashamed to acknowledge that they
   are His servants. Occupying their tongue, He will also be sure to
   engage it in prayer for them and they will not cease to offer such
   prayers as these--"Your Kingdom come, Jesus. Be You exalted. Oh, when
   will You come in Your chariot of salvation to ride over the whole
   earth? Come quickly, O come quickly, Lord Jesus!" And then, too, your
   tongue will be employed in songs concerning Him. It is always a token
   of a revival of religion, it is said, when there is a revival of
   Psalmody. When Luther's preaching began to tell upon men, you could
   hear plowmen at the plow-tail singing Luther's Psalms. Whitefield and
   Wesley would never have done the

   great work they did if it had not been for Charles Wesley's poetry and
   for the singing of such men as Toplady, Scott, Newton and many others
   of the same class. And even now we mark that since there has been
   somewhat of a religious revival in our various denominations, there are
   more hymnbooks than there ever were before and far more attention is
   paid to Christian Psalmody than ever before. When your heart is full of
   Christ you will want to sing! It is a blessed thing to sing at your
   labor and work, if you are in a place where you can do so. And if the
   world should laugh at you, you must tell them that you have as good a
   right to sing the songs that delight your heart as they have to sing
   any of the songs in which their hearts delight. Praise His name,
   Christians! Be not dumb! Sing aloud to Jesus, the Lamb! And if we, as
   Englishmen, can sometimes sing our national air, let us as Believers
   have our national hymn and sing--

   "Crown Him, crown Him,

   Crown Him Lord of all!"

   And surely when the Spirit of God thus honors Christ in the tongue, it
   will not stop there! It comes to the acts of daily life. The Spirit
   shall glorify Christ by helping you to glorify Him in your own actions.
   I spoke, this morning [See

   Sermon #626, Volume 11--THE WATERER WATERED.] of some who set

   themselves apart for extraordinary service. I did not, however, intend
   to imply that that was at all necessary, for you may serve Christ as
   good housewives. You may serve Him as merchants, shopkeepers and, in
   short, in every condition of life. Our religion is for the
   market-place, for the shop, for the streets and for the field. And as
   God's Being is not confined to temples made by the hands of men, but is
   present everywhere--on heath, and city, and moor, and field--in the
   sunbeams that light the peasant's cot as well as the monarch's
   palace--present in the minute as well as in the magnificent--down there
   in the glades where the red deer wander and the child loves to play.
   And up there where the storms gather upon the mountain's hoary brow--as
   visible in a blade of grass as in the cedar and the tall waving
   pine--to be seen as well in the dewdrop as in the avalanche--as
   certainly in the falling of a leaf as in the tremendous roar of the
   thunder--everywhere present--so is true religion everywhere--in the
   cottage as well as in the temple, in business as well as in devotions.
   Abroad in the streets as well as in the silence of retirement! Up
   yonder where men wrestle with God and down there where they come to
   contend with men and for His Truth! You have never received the Spirit
   so as to know that Christ is the Glorified One unless in your life as
   well as with your lips you show forth His praise!

   If the Spirit has thus far instructed you, He will conduct you a little
   further and you may accept His teaching because it glorifies Christ
   There are some Doctrines which are not often preached in certain
   pulpits. They are supposed to be rather dangerous. Speaking of a
   certain hymnbook, I remarked to a minister in whose pulpit I preached,
   that I did not like the hymnbook, as I could never find a hymn that
   sang of the Covenant of Grace or the Doctrine of Election. "Oh, well,"
   he said, "that is no disadvantage to me, for I never say anything about
   those Doctrines!" And I can quite believe what he said. There are
   certain higher Truths of God which only belong to those who have passed
   through the rudiments and have done with the grammar-school books and
   can enter into the university! One of the things which glorify Christ
   is where the Spirit makes us understand the eternal love of Christ to
   His people and His Covenant engagements for them.

   Christian, I would have you know that Christ never did begin to love
   you! Before the mountains were piled, or the clouds had gathered about
   them, Christ had set His heart upon you! No, when this great world, the
   sun, moon and stars slept in the mind of God like forests in an
   acorn-cup, then--then had Jehovah-Jesus love for you! And when the
   proper time came, He offered Himself up as a Surety for your souls, to
   pay your debts, to stand as your Representative, to keep you in this
   world and to present you at the last to the Father as a priceless
   jewel. Oh, how you will glorify Christ if you have faith enough to take
   in this Divine mystery! Stagger not at electing love--it is one of the
   highest notes of heavenly music! Be not afraid of such a verse as
   this--"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving
   kindness have I drawn you." Here is marrow and fatness such as saints
   fed upon in days long since gone!

   Take another Truth of God, the precious Truth of the finished work of
   Christ for His people. How often do you hear Christ's work preached as
   if it were only begun and many hold Him up as though He had commenced a
   fitting garment but had left off somewhere so that by adding our rags
   we might complete the work! I was in one of the vaults of the British
   Museum some time since, when the sculptures came from Nineveh and one
   of them was unfinished. There was evidently the last mark which the
   mason had made before he was destroyed or, it may be, called away from
   his work to which he never returned. But Jesus Christ has left no
   sculpture of this kind--He has finished all His work. "It is finished,"
   were words that gladdened earth and made Heaven more glorious! There is
   now nothing for souls to do to save

   themselves. For where Jesus died, that soul is saved and all that that
   soul has to do is, being saved, to show its gratitude and love as one
   that is brought to life from the dead--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again

   With love intense I burn.

   Chosen of Him before time began,

   I chose Him in return."

   You may know that perfection in Christ by a firm reliance upon the
   Scriptures. How can you perish? You are saved! There is, therefore, now
   no condemnation recorded against you. Who shall lay anything to your
   charge? Who shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ
   Jesus, your Lord?

   If there is one Doctrine, however, more sweet and yet more deep than
   another, it is the Divine Doctrine of that Eternal Union which exists
   between Christ and His people. It is the Spirit's work to take the
   golden key and let us into this secret cabinet. Believers are one with
   Christ! By vital personal union they are one with Him! They are members
   of His body, or as He, Himself, says, they are the branches and He is
   the Vine. They are the members and He is the Head. I know of nothing
   that can be more delightful than this union--this eternal union--with
   Christ--

   "One in the tomb, one when He rose,

   One when He triumphed over His foes!

   One when in Heaven He took His seat,

   While seraphs sang all Hell's defeat!

   This sacred tie forbids our fears

   For all He is or has is ours.

   With Him, our Head, we stand or fall--

   Our Life, our Surety and our All." It used to be said by an excellent
   theologian that any man who understood the two Covenants of Works and
   Grace was a master in theology. Yet, oh how few Christians there seem
   to be who really understand the Covenant of Grace! "As in Adam all die,
   even so in Christ shall all be made alive." We fell, not by our own
   fault, but by Adam's fault. And we rise not by our own virtue, but by
   virtue of our union with Christ! If you are in Christ, Believer, you
   are safe while Christ stands. You cannot drown the body until you drown
   the Head. My foot may be deep in the streams, but until the billows
   roll over my brow, my foot is not drowned--and until Christ shall
   perish, no soul that is one with Christ can be destroyed, for He said
   to His disciples, "Because I live, you shall also live." Did time
   permit, I might enter into some more of those sublime mysteries which
   make the core and pith of the comfort of the Christian, but I forbear.
   May the Spirit of God glorify Christ by taking these things of Christ
   and revealing them to you and making them personally yours!

   And to close--the Holy Spirit will continue all your life, if you are a
   Believer in Christ, to further His work in you by writing all that
   concerns Christ upon your experience and your life. I long to see in
   the Church more men and women who have Christ so glorified in them that
   their faith never staggers--who have neither doubts nor fears, who know
   whom they have believed, who are persuaded that He is able to keep that
   which they have committed unto Him, who leave all things to the
   Father's wisdom--and find everything in a perfect Savior! I long to see
   some of you, Brothers and Sisters, made partakers of our overflowing
   joy! I long to see your eyes flash with the joyous radiance of your
   Savior's Presence. I pray that you may be so full of joy that when you
   speak, you may cheer the downcast and lift up the countenances of the
   sad. I want you to have added to this an intense and fervent love--love
   which shall perform impossibilities, which shall dare anything for
   Christ, which, instinct with zeal, shall thresh the mountains and beat
   them small, and shall winnow the wheat from the chaff upon the
   threshing floor. I pray that you may have that mighty consecration of
   spirit which shall make you altogether unearthly, that as you have
   borne the image of the earthy, you may also bear the image of the
   heavenly and that as you have been conformed to the first Adam in the
   curse, and in all the infirmities and griefs of this mortal life, you
   may be conformed to the Second Adam in His pure unselfish love for man,
   His noble, all-daring, all-consuming love for His Father and for His
   cause.

   I am persuaded that the Spirit does not glorify Christ in us so much as
   He would if we gave ourselves up more fully to the Savior. As one said
   on a certain occasion, there is a fleet lying in the river,
   richly-laden, but it cannot come up because the river is blocked up
   with ice. So I think I see my Master's love lying out far down the
   river and it would gladly come to my poor soul to enrich me and make me
   holy and heavenly, but alas, the coldness of my heart, like ice, blocks
   up the channel and I get not what I might obtain! Come, heavenly love,
   and melt the ice! Flow, streams of Grace, and dissolve every barrier!
   Come, Jesus, come into my heart and let Your treasures be mine
   forevermore! Oh that I could stir some Believers here to seek more than
   is generally enjoyed by Christians! May God give you the seraphic
   earnestness of a Whitefield, the deep piety of a Martyn and the lovely
   spirit of a Newton or a Cowper! May He fill you to the brim with
   Himself till you shall be like a city set upon a hill that cannot be
   hid--and like unto candles in the house that enlightens all around!

   [Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon on various aspects of the Covenant of Grace
   are as follows--#19, Volume 1--DAVID'S DYING SONG; # 93, Volume 3--GOD
   IN THE COVENANT; #103, Volume 2--CHRIST IN THE COVENANT; #212, Volume
   4--THE NEW HEART; #233, Volume 5--FREE GRACE; #251, Volume 5--THE
   NECESSITY OF THE SPIRIT'S WORK; #277, Volume 5--THE BLOOD OF THE
   EVERLASTING COVENANT; #456, Volume 8--THE STONY HEART REMOVED; #517,
   Volume 8--THE RAINBOW; #714, Volume 12--A SAVIOR SUCH AS YOU NEED;
   #1046, Volume 18--COVENANT BLESSINGS; #1129, Volume 19--THE HEART OF
   FLESH; #1186, Volume 20--THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT; #1289, Volume
   22--THE HEART FULL AND THE MOUTH CLOSED; #1451, Volume 25--THE COVENANT
   PLEADED; #1840, Volume 31--THE BOND OF THE COVENANT; #1886, Volume
   32--GOD'S REMEMBRANCE OF HIS COVENANT; #1921, Volume 32--CLEANSING--A
   COVENANT BLESSING; #1942, Volume 33--SALT FOR SACRIFICE; #2092, Volume
   35--GOD'S OWN GOSPEL CALL; #2108, Volume 35-- PERSEVERANCE IN HOLINESS;
   #2200, Volume 37--THE COVENANT PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT; #2316, Volume
   39--TWELVE COVENANT MERCIES; #2427, Volume 41--"THE ARK OF THE
   COVENANT"; #2438, Volume 41--"TWO IMMUTABLE THINGS"; No. 2506, Volume
   43--GOD'S LAW IN MAN'S HEART and No. 3048, Volume 53--THE HOLY SPIRIT
   IN THE COVENANT.]

   But, alas, there are some here who know not my Master at all, who are
   strangers to His love! There is Christ looking down upon you with
   tearful eyes and He bids you come to Him. That blood which you have
   hitherto despised will wash away your every sin. Only cast yourself
   upon Him. Look up into those languid eyes, for they are full of pity.
   That streaming blood flows to every soul that trusts in Jesus. Read the
   mystery of that pierced heart--there is love alone written there. Study
   the anguish of that poor martyred body, for in every pang you can learn
   the story of His compassion. And as you see Him bowing His head and
   hear Him saying, "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit." He asks
   you, every one, to commend your spirit to Him. Do it, do it now, God
   helping you--and Christ will thus be glorified!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GALATTIANS 2:15-21; 3.

   Galatians 2:15-21. We who are Jews by nature, andnot sinners of the
   Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law,
   but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus
   Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by
   the works of the Law: for by the works of the La w shall no flesh be
   justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves
   also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God
   forbid! For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make
   myself a transgressor For I through the Law am dead to the Law, that I
   might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live;
   yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the
   flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
   Himself for me. I do not frustrate the Grace of God: for if
   righteousness comes by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain. Paul is
   arguing against the idea of salvation by works, or salvation by
   ceremonies. And he shows, beyond all question, that salvation is by the
   Grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Mark the strength of the
   Apostle's argument in the 21st verse--"If righteousness comes by the
   Law, then Christ is dead in sin." That is to say, there was no need for
   Christ to die--the Crucifixion was a superfluity if men can save
   themselves by their own good works. Paul is very emphatic about the
   matter. He puts it as plainly as possible: "If righteousness comes by
   the Law, then Christ is dead in vain."

   Galatians 3:1, 2. O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you
   should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been
   evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of
   you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing
   offaith?'"When the Spirit of God came upon you, and renewed you-- when
   He endued some of you with miraculous gifts--did this power come by the
   works of the Law, or through your believing the Gospel? 'Received you
   the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith?'"

   3. Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made
   perfect by the flesh?"Is this work to be partly God's and partly your
   own? And if He has begun it with a basis of gold, are you to perfect it
   with your poor dust and

   clay? Are you so foolish as to attempt to do this?" [See Sermon #1534,
   Volume 26--Salvation by Works, a Criminal Doctrint.]

   4, 5. Have you suffered so many things in vain? If it is yet in vain.
   He therefore that ministers to you the Spirit, and works miracles among
   you, does He it by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of
   faith?They knew very well that the miracles came as the result of faith
   and were an attestation and seal of the Gospel of Faith, and not of the
   works of the Law.

   6, 7. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for
   righteousness. Know you therefore that they which are of faith, the
   same are the children of Abraham. He was the father of the
   faithful--that is of the believing--not of those who trust in their own
   works. These are only like Ishmael, who must be cast out of the chosen
   family--but the true children, the real Isaacs, are those who are born
   according to the promise of Grace. [See Sermon #1705, Volume 29--the

   HEARING OF FAITH.]

   8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
   through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In you
   shall all nations be blessed. That is, "in you, because you are the
   father of Believers. You are a sort of head and prototype of men who
   believe in Me and so, 'in you shall all nations be blessed' and in your
   Seed, too, as you shall be the father of the Christ, shall all nations
   be blessed."

   9-11. So then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful
   Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the
   curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continues not in all
   things which are written in the book of the Law to do them. But that no
   man is justified by the Law in the sight of God, it is evident: for,
   The just shalllive by faith. If then, even those who are just live by
   faith, how can any expect that they shall live by their works? [See
   Sermons #814,

   Volume 14--LIFE BY FAITH and #2809, Volume 48--FAITH--LIFE.]

   12. And the Law is not of faith: but The man that does them shalllive
   in them. The Law says nothing about faith. It speaks only about
   doing--"You shall do My judgments, and keep My ordinances, to walk
   therein: I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep My statutes,
   and My judgments: which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am the
   Lord."

   13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a
   Curse for us: for it is written, Cursedis everyone that hangs on a
   tree.There is the key of the mystery! Christ is our Substitute. He
   fulfilled the Law's demands by His perfect obedience and He suffered
   the Law's utmost penalty by His death upon the Cross. And now, all
   those who believe in Him are forever justified because of what He did
   for them. [See Sermon #873, Volume 15--christ made a curse for us; and
   #2093,

   Volume 35--THE CURSE AND THE CURSE FOR US.]

   14. 15. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
   Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
   faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it is but a
   man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed If it is legally drawn up,
   signed, sealed and witnessed.

   15. No man disannuls, or adds thereto. There it stands and an appeal
   can be made to it in any court of Law where it may be produced.

   16. 17. Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He says
   not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your Seed, which
   is Christ. And this Isay, that the Covenant that was confirmed before
   of Godin Christ, the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after,
   cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of no effect. That is
   clear enough. The Covenant made with Abraham and his Seed cannot be
   affected by anything that was said or done on Sinai. Whatever the
   Covenant of Works may be, or say, or do, it comes in more than four
   centuries after this glorious Covenant of Grace had been signed, sealed
   and ratified! Therefore it cannot be affected, it must stand fast
   forever.

   18. For if the inheritance is of the Law, it is no more of promise: but
   God gave it to Abraham by promise. So, then, we know it is by promise
   and God must keep His promise--and we must believe it. It must be true
   and if we do believe it, we shall prove it to be true and it will be
   fulfilled in every jot and tittle to every believing soul.

   19-22. What purpose, then, does the Law serve? It was added because of
   transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom thepromise was made;
   and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator
   is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the Law then against the
   promises of God? God forbid! For if there had been a Law given which
   could have given life, verily righteousness would have been by the Law.
   But the Scripture has concluded all are under sin. Or, "shut us all up
   under sin." The Law has come and proved us all guilty, and shut us all
   up as in a great prison from which we cannot escape by any power of our
   own. [See Sermons #1145, Volume 19--the great jail--and how to get out

   OF IT and #2402, Volume 41--UNDER ARREST.]

   22-24. That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them
   that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the Law, shut
   up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Therefore the
   Law was our schoolmaster

   tO bring us unto Christ. [See Sermon 1196, Volume 20--THE STERN
   TEACHER.] It whipped us to Christ and taught us that we could not be
   saved except by Christ.

   24-28. That we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is
   come we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For you are all the
   children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have
   been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
   Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
   female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Yet some foolish people
   still talk about our Jewish origin! What would that matter even if it
   were true? "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor
   free." All these distinctions are done away with and Christ is All--and
   Believers, whether Jews or Gentiles--"are all one in Christ Jesus."

   29. And if you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs
   according to the promise, So that all the blessings which God promised
   to Abraham belong to you who are Believers in Christ! And you may take
   them and rejoice in them! But if you are without faith in Christ, then
   are you without the one essential thing which gives you an interest in
   the Covenant of Grace!
     __________________________________________________________________

Jotham's Peculiar Honor

   (No. 3063)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   28, 1873.

   "So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord
   his God." 2 Chronicles 27:6.

   THIS is a very singular expression which is used here concerning Jotham
   who is one of the kings of Judah who are commended as having done that
   which was right in the sight of the Lord. All of them had their faults,
   yet they were the best monarchs that sat upon the throne of Judah--and
   concerning Jotham it is mentioned as his peculiar honor that he "became
   mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God."

   I want to draw your attention to this ancient king and specially to
   point out to you, first, the peculiar circumstances of Jotham's life.
   Secondly, thepeculiar distinction ofhis character. And then thirdly,
   thepeculiar honor ofhis career. He "became mighty, because he prepared
   his ways before the Lord his God."

   I. So let us commence by considering THE PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF
   JOTHAM'S LIFE.

   And to begin with, he was the son of a good father and I should
   suppose, from the mention of his mother here, of a good mother, too.
   This is a good beginning for a young man and yet, mark you, there are
   many who have been trained in the ways of godliness who have not
   continued to walk in them. How often does it seem as if children were
   dead set against the very things which their parents have loved and
   although one would almost have expected that they would have gone in
   the right way, yet since Divine Grace does not run in the blood, we
   have deplorable proofs of human depravity even in those who can trace a
   long line of Christian ancestry. However, it was no small advantage to
   Jotham that he had godly patents. But it would have been no permanent
   and eternal advantage to him--it would rather have involved him in
   greater responsibility without corresponding benefits if it could not
   also have been said of him that "he prepared his ways before the Lord
   his God."

   And note, next, that he did not commit the great fault ofhis father,
   Uzziah. Uzziah was a good man, an excellent man in many respects, but
   in his latter days, he conceived the idea that he would be a priest as
   well as a king and he therefore thrust himself into the place that was
   meant for only the priests. The priests, in great alarm, hastened into
   the Temple of the Lord where Uzziah had gone to burn incense upon the
   altar of incense and vehemently protested against his intrusion into
   their holy office. He was very angry with them, but suddenly the deadly
   leprosy was white upon his brow, for God had smitten him for his daring
   intrusion--and the priests thrust him out of the Temple that he might
   no longer pollute the sanctuary of the Lord. "Yes," we read, "he,
   himself, hurried also to go out because the Lord had smitten him." Now,
   if a father--and especially a professedly godly father--has committed a
   great fault, it may be a temptation to his son to fall into the same
   evil. But in the case of Jotham, it was not so. He regarded his
   father's sin rather as a beacon to warn him away from that rock on
   which Uzziah's life had been wrecked--and so, when he was put upon the
   throne as regent for his father and Uzziah had to be shut up in a house
   apart as a leper who could not be allowed to mingle with his family and
   his subjects, Jotham took that as a daily lesson to himself and he
   walked the more carefully and humbly before God, preparing his ways as
   his father Uzziah had not done on that unfortunate, unhappy day when he
   went into the Temple to offer incense.

   It is a great mercy for us when we have seen others sin, if we use
   their shipwrecks as beacons for ourselves. What fascination should
   there be in sin? When one bird sees another fall into a snare, we
   wonder that it should, itself, be so foolish as to fall into the snare
   that it can see. Yet we have known men who have seen the sins of their
   parents and the consequent sorrow, thereon, who have fallen into the
   same sins themselves! Dear Christian young people, if God has

   called you, by His Grace, and you have had professing Christian friends
   whose imperfections you could not help seeing, and seeing with sorrow,
   also, the evil effects of their wrong-doing--do not run into the same
   courses yourselves--but let the painful circumstances which have
   happened in your own family lead you the more carefully, like Jotham,
   to prepare your ways before the Lord your God!

   Jotham also was quite a young man when he came into the position of
   power For some years he occupied the place of his father, nominally
   holding the position of regent, yet really acting as the actual
   monarch. And now, at the age of twenty-five, we find him sitting upon
   the throne of Judah. How necessary it is, especially in young people,
   that the heart and the ways should be prepared before the Lord their
   God! Yet I retract the expression that it is "especially" necessary for
   young people to do this, for I have lived long enough to observe that
   the greatest faults that are ever committed by professedly Christians
   are not committed by young people. Most painful is it to me to remember
   that the worst cases of backsliding and apostasy that I have ever seen
   in this Church, have been by old men and middle-aged men--not by young
   people, for somehow or other, the young people, if they are truly
   taught of God, know their weakness and so they cry to God for help. But
   it often happens that more experienced people begin to think that they
   are not likely to fall into the faults and follies of the young. I care
   not how old a man may be--even if seven centuries had passed over his
   head--if he began to trust in himself, he would be a fool and soon he
   would have a grievous fall! Yes, even if he had lived as long as
   Methuselah and all that while had been advancing in the Divine Life so
   that he could even fancy that he had reached perfection--the moment he
   thought so he would be in imminent danger! And the instant he began to
   think that he should never fall, he would be the very one, above all
   other men, who would be likely to fall into sin. They are the strongest
   who are the weakest in themselves. They are the richest who know how
   poor they are apart from God. They have the most Grace who know how
   utterly empty they would be of Grace if the Lord should ever withdraw
   His hand from giving it to them. Growing Christians think nothing of
   themselves, but full-grown Christians know themselves to be less than
   nothing.

   Notwithstanding that there are peculiar dangers associated with youth
   and especially with youth placed in a prominent position, here was an
   instance of a young man and a king--and yet, for all that, a saint of
   the right kind-- one who "prepared his ways before the Lord his God."
   It must be a hard matter to be a king and to be a saint at the same
   time. The combination has very seldom occurred and when it has, it has
   been a prodigious triumph of Divine Grace. So young man, if God shall
   put you into a place of great responsibility where you will need much
   Grace to keep you from falling, ask Him for the necessary Grace and He
   will give it to you. Do not ask for an eminent position--let your
   prayer rather be, "Lead me not into temptation." An eminent position
   always has a measure of temptation connected with it, so you are
   justified in praying to be preserved from it. Still, if the position is
   one which it is your duty to take, take it and trust to God's Grace to
   keep you there in safety. You are just as safe if God has put you on
   the cross of St. Paul's as you would be on the pavement below--quite as
   secure on the top of a mast as you would be in the cabin of the vessel
   if God, in His Providence, has called you to occupy that position! But,
   since there is, in itself, a great danger in the lofty pinnacle, you
   have the more reason to ask for the necessary Grace that you may
   carefully prepare your ways before the Lord--so that you may not bring
   the greater dishonor upon His name because of the prominence of the
   position you are called to occupy. King Jotham was a young man and a
   great man--yet, for all that, he was a saintly man.

   Remember, also, that he lived in very evil times. The second verse of
   this chapter tells us that his own people, whom he had to govern, "did
   yet corruptly." And the parallel passage, in 2 Kings 15:35, says that
   they "sacrificed and burnt incense still in the high places." Their
   king's good example was not sufficient to reclaim them from the
   iniquities in which they had so long indulged. It was a great thing for
   the nation to have a king who worshipped Jehovah, but it was a sad
   thing that the people still continued to practice their idolatrous
   rites in the high places which they were forbidden to do. It is not an
   easy thing for a man--even a king--to live above his surroundings. And
   all men are more or less the creatures of circumstances. They are
   influenced for good or evil by the people around them--and the most of
   them fashion their consciences according to the consciences of other
   people with whom they come in contact. Even down to a few years ago,
   there were undoubtedly good men in America who did not think it wrong
   to buy and sell and hold slaves. The general conscience of the people
   around them was only up to that level and their own conscience was not
   sufficiently enlightened to lift them above their surroundings. They
   did not see that no man has a right to the labors of another man
   without adequate payment and that every man has a right to his own
   liberty. Their conscience had no more light than

   there was in those who lived around them. When a man lives in a
   feverish district, he must have a good sound constitution and be in
   vigorous health if he is not to feel some of the evil influence by
   which he is surrounded. If he does not actually take the fever, there
   is a feverishness, a lethargy and a condition of malaise about him
   which he would not have felt if he had been in a more healthful and
   bracing atmosphere.

   Yet Jotham appears to have been, through Divine Grace, a man full of
   spiritual health although he lived in a land that was spiritually
   fever-stricken. He dwelt in the midst of people who were corrupt and
   yet was himself not corrupt, "because he prepared his ways before the
   Lord his God." Some of you young people do not know much about this
   experience because you live, as it were, in a greenhouse with Christian
   parents and with the means of Divine Grace all around you. You are like
   plants in a conservatory--you ought to grow fast. But there are others
   here who know what the chilly atmosphere of the world means and who
   know only too well that after they have been communing with God a
   little while within these walls, they will have to go where they will
   hear the voice of blasphemy and profanity--and see a thousand things
   which grieve their spirits day by day and hour by hour. If that is the
   case with you, my Friends, you ought, above all else, to prepare your
   ways before the Lord your God! I charge you, my Brothers and Sisters,
   if your occupation takes you among ungodly men--and there are some
   lawful occupations that will call us where we shall certainly meet with
   little or nothing that will help us, but much that will hinder us--you
   must be careful, above all men, to keep a diligent watch upon
   yourselves and to prepare your ways before the Lord your God! Your Lord
   does not pray the Father to take you out of the world, but He does pray
   that He will keep you from the evil that is in the world. And in
   accordance with His prayer, it ought to be the great aim of your life
   that you may so live as not to be dragged down to the low level of
   ungodly men--yes, and not even down to the level of common
   Christianity--for the level of ordinary Christianity, at this day, far
   too closely resembles that of the Church in Laodicea which was so
   nauseous to the Lord. May you, Beloved, be a people separated unto God
   to walk in holiness before Him and to adorn the Doctrine of God your
   Savior in all things! But if it is to be so with those of you who are
   placed in circumstances similar to those of Jotham, king of Judah, you
   must do as he did--you must prepare your ways before the Lord your God.

   Once more, as Jotham's surroundings at home were bad, so they were a
   little further afield, for the adjoining kingdom of Israel was utterly
   polluted with idolatry and all manner of evil And Jotham was obliged,
   more or less, to feel the influence of that ungodly neighboring nation.
   Wherever he looked, he saw very few who prepared their ways before God.
   Every man went his own way and sought his own wealth or pleasure and
   oppressed the people around him. But Jotham, like--

   "the seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only
   he--

   prepared his ways before the Lord his God." Oh, that such Grace as that
   might be found in abundance in all Christians, that they might seek to
   walk in the right road in God's name--not running with the multitude to
   do evil, but choosing the straight and narrow way which leads unto life
   eternal with strong resolve determining, the Holy Spirit dwelling in
   them, that let others do as they will, as for them and their house,
   they will serve the Lord and their ways shall be prepared before Him!

   While there were so many unfavorable circumstances that might have been
   a hindrance to Jotham, there was one fact that must have been very
   helpful to him. There were some notable Prophets living in Judah in his
   day. Isaiah, Hosea and Micah must all have been well known to Jotham.
   Isaiah wrote the biography of his father Uzziah, for it is said, in the
   chapter before that from which our text is taken, "Now the rest of the
   acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the Prophet, the son of
   Amoz, write." Jotham therefore knew Isaiah and I should not wonder if
   it was one of the greatest helps to the growth of his spiritual
   life--to be able to talk with such a man so full of love and the Light
   of God, with such a clear foresight of the coming of Christ and such
   far-reaching visions of the Glory of the blessed Gospel day! I should
   not wonder if Jotham often got away from the people and got away from
   the court--and talked alone with this holy man of God. If he did, it
   was the natural means which God generally uses for the strengthening of
   His people. You will be wise, you young Christian professors, if you
   cultivate Christian companionship! Try to live with those who live with
   God and sit at the feet of these who sit at the feet of Christ. God may
   speak through them to your soul, so give heed to what they say--it may
   be that in giving heed to them, you will be listening to the voice of
   God Himself! If God does not lack a messenger to deliver His message,
   let not the messenger lack a hearer to receive the message! Rest
   assured that

   you will be most likely to grow in Grace when you are earnestly and
   zealously attending upon the ministry of the Word. The messages of the
   Lord's chosen Prophets probably greatly strengthened the good
   resolutions and the deep-seated principles of Jotham, and so helped him
   to prepare his ways before the Lord his God.

   This must suffice concerning Jotham's circumstances--they are certainly
   instructive and suggestive to us.

   II. Now, secondly we are to consider THE PECULIAR DISTINCTION OF
   JOTHAM'S CHARACTER. It is said that "he prepared his ways before the
   Lord his God." What does that sentence mean?

   Certainly it means, first, that he resolved to do what God bade him. He
   made God's Law, God's will, to be the rule that was to govern his life.
   He desired that what he did should be right in the sight of the Lord.
   He did not trouble about being thought to be right by neighboring
   kings, nor was it his chief care to be thought to be right by the
   people over whom he ruled. He was not ambitious to be regarded as right
   by the heathen nations that were near him, but he did want to be right
   in the sight of God. He had selected as the rule by which he was to
   regulate his conduct, God's standard of right, equity, truth and
   righteousness. Jotham recognized Jehovah as being his God and he
   understood that he was bound to obey God--that the first objective of
   his life ought to be to please Him who first gave him life and who had
   continued to sustain him in life. It is a grand thing when a man comes
   to this decision--that the rule of his life shall be the will of
   God--that from that day forward, God the Holy Spirit, working in him to
   will and to do according to God's good pleasure, he will judge that to
   be right which God commands and that to be wrong which God forbids--and
   that all other rules shall only be rules to him in proportion as they
   stay in a line with this rule. And that whatever else may be the guide
   of others, though it may be a matter of custom, or prescription, or
   law, or example of the highest kind, he will not yield to it.

   The worst of it is that there are so many who have a number of petty
   masters whom they try to serve. One says, "I would not do anything that
   is not customary to people in my position." Another says, (and this is
   a great thing with most men), "I should not like to be regarded as
   singular or unfashionable." Another asks, "What would society say?"--
   that wonderful tyrant of these latter days! Yet another says, "But my
   father always did as I am doing," thus putting his father in the place
   that ought to be occupied by his God. Another says, "But, you know, my
   practice is in accordance with the Council of such-and-such a Church."
   Or, "It is in accordance with the decisions of such-and-such a
   Synod"--as if Councils, or Synods, or anything else had any right to
   rule over us except in so far as their regulations are in harmony with
   the will of the Lord our God! It is grand to feel that you are free
   from all these fetters and that you can say, "O Lord, I am Your
   servant! You have loosed my bonds and no earthly or hellish power can
   now make my spirit bow down before it. Your will commands me, but no
   other will does. My knees bow before Your Omnipotent majesty. With awe
   and reverence I worship You and desire to be subservient in all things
   to Your great behests, O Jehovah. But as for these, Your creatures,
   what are they that I should fear them? Who are they--like the moths
   that swiftly pass away and the worms that soon perish--that I should
   tremble at their frown, or court their smile?" God said He, alone,
   should be the Christian's Master--and the rule of his conduct should be
   the will of the Lord as revealed in the teaching of this blessed Book.
   Happy will Christians be, and strong in the Lord will they become, when
   they get as far as that!

   But that is not all--that is only the beginning! Jotham had set up the
   true standard. He desired to do what was right in the sight of the
   Lord. But the next thing was that he realized God's Presence and so
   acted like a man who was living consciously in God's Presence.
   According to the text, he "prepared his ways before the Lord his God."
   Beloved, do you and I always realize God's Presence in this way?
   Suppose that at this very moment it flashed upon your mind that God was
   looking into your heart? Could you say that you are loving and thinking
   of such things as you would be glad to be loving and thinking of while
   you were conscious that God was looking upon you? Where have you been
   today? It is not my place to answer the question for you. Where have
   you been today? Have you been in such places that you would be glad for
   God to see you there? Have you been in such a frame of mind that you
   would be glad for God to see you in that frame of mind? Have you spoken
   to others in just that spirit and tone that you would like God to hear?
   He did hear it-- remember He was there. But would you have done as you
   have done had you been fully conscious, as you ought to have been, that
   God was there? You know that you sometimes do things that you would not
   like others to see you doing and you are startled when somebody finds
   you so acting. But should it be so? Should it be so? Of course I do not
   mean that any of the ordinary work that any of us are doing is of that
   character--the work that we are doing about the house or in our
   business should not be a cause of shame to us. I suddenly came upon one
   of our friends the other day, just as she was

   whitening the front steps. "Oh, dear," she said, "Mr. Spurgeon, I am
   sorry you caught me doing this." "My good woman," I said, "I hope that
   when the Lord comes, He will find me at work about my proper duties
   just as I have found you. Never mind about your hands--they are as good
   to shake as ever they were! Let us go into the house and have a little
   talk together." There is nothing to be ashamed of or to blush at in
   such work as that! But I would be ashamed and expect others to blush if
   I found them cheating, or doing wrong in some other way, or idling
   their time away as some do. Ought we not to live as though we were
   expecting the Lord Jesus Christ to come any minute, or as if we knew,
   as we do know, that God sees us and knows all about us every moment?

   But that is not all that we gather concerning Jotham's character. He
   had accepted the right standard and he had set that standard in the
   right light. But now he went still further, for he was thoughtfully and
   carefully considerate. I think that is the gist of the meaning of the
   expression, "He prepared his ways before the Lord his God." That is to
   say, he did not go and live in what I may call a careless,
   happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss, neck-or-nothing, over-head-and-heels kind
   of way of living as some people do! They rush with desperate haste at
   the battle of life and never seem to give time for thought as to due
   preparation for the great combat. When any good impulse is upon them,
   away they go, in the right direction, at such a speed that you would
   think they were very eminent and zealous saints! But perhaps tomorrow
   there will be an evil impulse upon them and they will go just as fast
   in the wrong direction! They are so easily influenced by outside
   circumstances that they are turned either way by those who have power
   over them--and they are as thoughtless for good as they are for evil.
   They are heedless and reckless--fine enthusiastic people in their way,
   but they lack solidity--they are without permanent principles. Like
   Reuben, being unstable as water, they shall not excel. If a tailor is
   about to make a suit of clothes, he looks carefully at the cloth before
   he begins to cut it. But there are some people who seem to use scissors
   without any thought at all--they cut out their life-garment at a
   chance! When a man goes into a certain trade, if he hopes to do
   business, he lays out his plans with considerable forethought and
   considers his projects with all proper care. If he is to be a
   successful man of business, he must exercise forethought. And in the
   Christian life, we also need much forethought. There ought to be a
   mapping out of the day, a mapping out of the year--in fact, a mapping
   out of life, itself, and a serious thinking over every part of it. We
   would often do much better if we did nothing at all. We would
   frequently make the most progress if we stood quite still. Our common
   proverb is quite correct, "The more haste, the less speed." It would be
   a wise plan for each one of us to pause a while, to put the hand to the
   brow and then to say, "Lord, let me hear a voice behind me saying,
   'This is the way; walk you in it.'"

   We need to be led where the path seems most plain. Did not the children
   of Israel make a great mistake in the case of the Gibeonites because it
   seemed very clear that they must have come from a far country? We
   generally make our worst mistakes in matters which appear to us to be
   so plain that we think we do not need direction from God concerning
   them. If we waited upon God in what we regarded as plain and simple
   matters--if we made that our rule with regard to them--we would be more
   likely to do right in the more difficult matters. It would be something
   like the old proverb, "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take
   care of themselves." I mean that if we always took our simplicities to
   God, we would be quite sure to take our difficulties to Him. I suppose
   Jotham used, when he was considering a certain course of action, to
   consider whether he could glorify God by that course of action. And if
   he thought, he could not, he would not take it. And when there was
   proposed to him any mode of doing a certain thing which had to be done,
   he looked carefully to see whether it was God's mode--and if it was
   not--he would not adopt that method of doing even the right thing, but
   would do the right thing in the right way.

   But I think there is even more meaning than this in our text. In order
   to accomplish this preparation of his ways before the Lord his God,
   Jotham must have been a man of prayer He could not have prepared his
   ways thus anywhere except at the Mercy Seat. He must have been in the
   habit of taking his daily troubles to his God and of seeking guidance
   from Him in his daily difficulties and of thanking Him for his daily
   mercies. He must have been in constant communion with his God or else
   he could not have ordered his ways aright before Him.

   And I should also gather from our text that Jotham was a very fearless,
   calm, collected, quiet-spirited man who was not easily moved, for I
   find that the marginal reading is, "He established his ways before the
   Lord his God." He was not fickle-minded, carried about by every wind
   that blew, but having prepared his heart to serve the Lord, God was
   pleased to give him a steadiness of heart so that he was established in
   the right way. He could say with David, "My heart is fixed, O God, my
   heart is fixed." And the marginal reading there is "prepared." "My
   heart is prepared, O God." Jotham was steadfast in the right, way. What
   a grand thing it is, in our daily life, not to be so worried that we
   are almost driven to distraction and caused to do foolish things
   through unwise haste. And what a mercy it is to be kept calm and quiet
   in our daily walk before the Lord our God! O dear Friends, seek to be
   thus established before the Lord, so that whatever happens to you, your
   heart shall be so fixed that you shall not be afraid of evil tidings!
   You can never have power to move the world unless you have a fixed
   fulcrum for your lever. If your heart is fixed on God, you will be able
   to move the world, but the world will not be able to move you.

   The real reason why Jotham's heart was prepared and established before
   God was because his heart was right with God. And how did his heart get
   to be right with God? Why, in the same way as yours and mine must--by
   being created anew! The heart of man, by nature, whether it is Jotham's
   heart or anybody else's, is a heart of stone. And God's Almighty Grace
   must make it a heart of flesh, or else a heart of stone it will always
   remain. If there is anything good in any man, it must have been placed
   there by a supernatural work of God the Holy Spirit. Job rightly said,
   "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." Who can bring
   steadiness of heart out of an unstable heart like ours? Who can bring
   the preparation of our ways before God out of a heart that is, by
   nature, deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? Jotham
   earned the commendation in our text because he had been the subject of
   Sovereign Grace and continued still to be so. And if you and I think
   that we can prepare our ways before the Lord our God without first
   resorting to the precious blood of Christ for cleansing--and to the
   Holy Spirit for the renewal of our nature--we shall make a very great
   mistake. The Lord must first work in us both to will and to do of His
   good pleasure and then we must work out our own salvation with fear and
   trembling. But, not till He has thus worked in us can we work it out.
   [See Sermon

   #820, Volume 14--WORKING OUT WHAT IS WORKED IN.]

   III. Now, thirdly, we are to notice THE PECULIAR HONOR OF JOTHAM'S
   CAREER--"So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before
   the Lord his God."

   I should imagine, first, that he was mighty in resolve. It is a grand
   thing to have a man of resolves who has a high purpose before him and
   who means to accomplish it. That is the only man who is worthy to be
   called a man. As for that poor creature who looks like a man, but who
   has not any mind or will of his own--who has his ear pulled, first this
   way, and then that way, by whomever likes to pull it--what is the use
   of such a creature on the face of the earth? But Jotham was not a man
   of that kind. He sought counsel of the Lord to know what he ought to
   do. He judged honestly and carefully, in the sight of God, what was the
   right thing for him to do. And when he found that out, he put his foot
   down and said, "That is the thing that I am going to do." It was no use
   for any of his subjects to say to him, "But perhaps that is not a
   prudent thing for you to do." He believed that to be right is to be
   truly prudent. It was no use for any of them to say to Jotham, "But
   this course of yours may involve us as well as you in serious trouble."
   He knew perfectly well that if right sometimes brings trouble, wrong
   always brings ten times as much! And whenever doing right does bring
   trouble, it ought to be the delight of the right-hearted to endure that
   trouble cheerfully. Jotham was strong in resolution, as a man has a
   right to be when he knows that his resolution is a right one. And that
   man who has prepared his heart and his ways with a single eye to God's
   Glory, resolving only to do the right thing whatever may happen, is the
   man who has a right to say, "I will," and "I shall." And he is the man
   who in the long run will be respected by his fellow men.

   Having ordered his ways before the Lord, his God, Jotham had another
   sort of strength which is a very valuable one--he was mighty in faith.
   He felt this, "I have sincerely desired to glorify God and to walk in
   His ways and I am sure that God will carry me through." When he felt
   that it was right for him to fight the king of the Ammonites, he did
   fight him in no half-hearted manner because he felt that if God had bid
   him fight, God would surely give him the victory! He went to all his
   work relying upon God! And oh, how strong is the man who is mighty in
   faith! You know that you cannot have faith in God about a thing that
   you know is wrong. If you have ever so slight a suspicion that you are
   in the wrong, you cannot trust in God concerning it. It is like a
   little stone in your boot--it may not kill you, but you cannot walk
   with comfort as long as it is there. And a little question--even a very
   little one--as to whether you are in the right, cuts the sinews of your
   strength and you go limping along, if you can go at all. If I were
   speaking to you as a member of a church in which I did not quite
   believe. If I had to twist my message so as to make it fit the creed
   that I professed to hold, I would feel wretched. I would not get into
   such a position as that! I would sooner break stones upon the road any
   day. But where I feel that I have satisfied the requirements of my
   conscience in all points and that if I do err, I do not err willfully,
   or with my eyes open about it, then I can speak with confidence and
   say, "I know that this is right and that God will help me through with
   it. It does not at all matter to me what it involves. If it should
   bring me to poverty or

   suffering, or draw down upon my head misrepresentation and contempt, it
   does not matter an atom. Wisdom will be justified of all her children.
   God never did forsake the right, yet, and He never will--it must
   conquer in the long run." If the follower of the right and the true
   should have to suffer, it shall be a joy to him for he will thus be all
   the more a follower of his Lord and Master--and of all the true
   servants of his God who have gone before!

   As Jotham was a mighty man in resolution and in faith, he also became
   mighty in prayer. You know that you cannot pray to God with power about
   a thing that you are not certain is right. It is no use for me to ask
   the Lord to help me in a matter in which there is something that will
   grieve His Holy Spirit. It must be a case that I can confidently bring
   before God if I am to secure His help in it. I am sure that some trades
   people could not show the Lord their books. And if they cannot do
   so--and they are getting into difficulties--who can help them out of
   them? But when all is straight and honest, and the loss, whatever it
   may be, is caused by no fault of theirs, or when the accusation that is
   brought against them is nothing but slander, then they can present
   their petition to God with a clear conscience. And they may rest
   assured that He will hear them and grant their requests. A man becomes
   mighty in prayer, as well as in resolution and in faith, whose ways are
   prepared before the Lord his God.

   And such a man also becomes mighty in action. He has not that guilty
   conscience which is the very essence of cowardice. He has gone before
   God as a sinner and confessed his guilt--and he has been washed in the
   precious blood of Jesus and cleansed from every stain. His heart has
   been renewed by the Holy Spirit. And although he is not yet perfect, he
   is perfect in his intention to do the Lord's will! And feeling that he
   is right and that what he is doing is at God's bidding, he is a
   terrible man to oppose. He is such a man that no other shall be able to
   stand against him all the days of his life. He is of that seed royal
   that Haman will in vain seek to slay, for Haman will be hanged upon the
   gallows, but Mordecai will be in power in the palace! If a man has thus
   prepared his ways before the Lord his God, he will be mighty in all
   that he does and God will be with him.

   And this, dear Friends, will make him mighty against his foes as Jotham
   was against the Ammonites. Oftentimes they will not even dare to attack
   him, for "when a man's ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies
   to be at peace with him." They will watch him and go around him, as
   Satan went around Job, but they will find scarcely anything that they
   can truthfully say against him. Or if they do oppose him, it will be of
   no use, for he will live them down if he does not overcome them in
   other ways. If they bark at him, he will let them bark, for he knows it
   is the nature of dogs to do so. And he will go on his way all the same,
   as the moon does when the dogs bark at her at night. She never pauses
   in her course, but goes shining on her way!

   If a man's ways are prepared before the Lord his God, he will be
   mighty, not only against his foes, but he will also be mighty in the
   midst off his own people. Even though Jotham's subjects would not
   follow him in all respects, they respected him and loved him and made
   great lamentation over him when he died. Let me say to you young men,
   if you want to have influence over your fellows, do not take to
   flattering them--and never try to show them how great your talents are,
   or to make them believe you are somebody of importance. We have seen
   plenty of flashes in the pan, but the darkness has been just as great
   afterwards. Believe me, there is no building up of character except
   upon sound principles! And there is no building up of influence except
   upon good character. You must seek God helping you by His Spirit to
   prepare and establish your ways before Him--and then such influence as
   you ought to have will come to you. When a man tells me that he is very
   good, I do not believe it. There are certain people, nowadays, who are
   writing, printing and talking in order to convince us that they are
   wonderfully holy. I used to think that some of them were so till they
   said it themselves! But ever since they have said it, I have gravely
   questioned whether it is true. If anyone whom I met always told me that
   he was rich--well, if I had dealings with him in business, I would want
   him to pay cash for everything. And when a person tells me that he is
   holy--well, I trust him as far as I can see him and not much further,
   for really holy men seldom say anything about their own holiness. They
   have no need to do so, for it always shows itself. Gold glitters quite
   enough of itself to show what it is, so there is no need for us to say,
   "That is gold." You do not need to say of these lamps, "They are
   bright." They say that for themselves by saying nothing, but simply
   shining.

   I have been preaching to you about a very wonderful example of a
   gracious man. I wonder whether all here wish to be like he? I am afraid
   there are some of you who never try to prepare your ways at all. And as
   for preparing your ways before the Lord, that idea has never struck
   you. And yet, my dear Hearer, what can be so safe a way of living as to
   live in the love of God? And what can be more unhappy than for a man to
   be out of gear with the Omnipotent Creator--to feel every day you live
   that you are forgetting God and are ungrateful to Him--and that He is
   angry with you? I hope that this thought will strike some of you to the
   heart and make you miserable until all that is altered! And the way for
   it to be altered is for you to submit yourself to God by repentance and
   by looking to Jesus Christ by faith. May His Holy Spirit lead you to do
   so now, and then you will begin to live the happiest of lives, for you
   will be preparing your ways before the Lord your God.

   May God bless you all for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"And It Was So"

   (No. 3064)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, DURING THE SUMMER OF 1871.

   "And it was so." Genesis 1:7.

   You will find those words six times upon the first page of Scripture.
   God spoke and said, "Let there be a firmament." "And it was so." He
   said, "Let the dry land appear." "And it was so." He bade the earth
   bring forth grass, "And it was so." He ordained the sun and moon for
   lights in the firmament of Heaven. "And it was so." Whatever it was
   that He willed, He did but speak the Word, "and it was so." In no
   single case was there a failure. There was not even a hesitation, a
   pause or a demand for a more powerful agency than the Divine Word. In
   each case, Jehovah spoke, "and it was so." Nor is this first week of
   Creation the only instance of the kind, for in no case has the Word of
   God fallen to the ground--whether of promise or of threat--the Word has
   been confirmed and fulfilled. "As it was in the beginning, it is now,
   and ever shall be, world without end." Whatever the mighty God decrees,
   foretells, declares, or promises shall, before long come to pass.

   I shall ask you to accompany me in a mental voyage down the stream of
   history to show that this has been the case as far as all history is
   concerned up till now. ' 'And it was so." The Lord's will has been Law.
   His Word has been followed by fact. Dictum factum, as the Latins say.
   We shall then endeavor to show that with an Immutable God, it will be
   so continually in the great and in the small--in the affairs of the
   world--and in our own personal matters. What God has promised shall
   come to pass! And at the winding-up of all history, it shall be said,
   "God said this and that, and it was so."

   I. We stand at the fountainhead of human history and hear the Lord
   declare to our parents that in the day in which they should break His
   commands and eat of the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. "And it
   was so." They died that moment. That spiritualdeath which was the great
   and essential part of the sentence, was then and there fulfilled! The
   likeness and image of God was broken in them immediately and we are
   dead in trespasses and in sins by reason of their death. He also warned
   them when His wrath, as it were, glanced aslant from them to smite the
   soil on which they stood, that the earth would bring forth thorns and
   thistles to them, and that in the sweat of their face they should eat
   bread, and truly it has been so. The earth has yielded her harvest, but
   she has produced her thorns and briars, also. And though the curse of
   labor has become a blessing, yet man's toil and woman's travail
   vindicate the Divine veracity.

   When all flesh had corrupted its way, God repented that He had made
   man, and sent His servant Noah as a preacher of righteousness to
   threaten a universal flood. It did not appear very probable that the
   dense population of the earth could all be swept away and that the
   billows should rear their proud heads above the mountains--but it
   turned out that Noah was no fool and his prophecy was no raving. God
   had said that the world should be drowned "and it was so." The sluices
   of the great deep beneath were drawn up, the cataracts of Heaven
   descended and none escaped, save the few--that is eight--whom God
   enclosed within the ark.

   A little further on the Lord appeared to His servant Abraham and told
   him that the wickedness of Sodom had been so great that the cry had
   gone up even to His Throne and the Lord communicated to His servant
   that He would go and see if it was altogether according to the cry
   thereof. And if so, Sodom would be destroyed. Abraham pleaded and his
   intercession almost prevailed, but as no righteous salt was found in
   the filthy cities of the plain, they were doomed to perish. They had
   given themselves to strange flesh and a strange judgment must,
   therefore, come upon them. Hell must

   fall out of Heaven upon such abominable offenders! "And it was so," for
   when the morning dawned, Sodom was utterly consumed and the smoke
   thereof went up to Heaven.

   You know how God kept His Covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who
   were strangers with Him, dwelling in tents, looking for a better city,
   that is, a heavenly. Whatever promise was made to the Patriarchs was
   fulfilled to the letter! In all respects, "it was so." When they went
   down into Egypt, God declared that after 400 years He would bring them
   out and though the tribes appeared to be naturalized in Egypt and were
   rooted to the soil, yet God would bring them forth. And though Pharaoh
   took strong measures and thought to hold them fast, yet God had said
   that they should come out with a high hand and an outstretched arm--
   "and it was so." Let the wonders which He worked on the fields of Zoan,
   the plagues which overthrew the sons of Ham, the going forth out of
   Egypt and the terrors of the Red Sea when the depths covered all the
   chivalry of Egypt--let these remind you that God had spoken--and so it
   was. Pharaoh was hardened, but he was not able to resist the will of
   the Almighty! He stands forever in history as a memorial that none
   shall harden himself against the Most High and prosper, for the Lord
   does as He wills in Heaven and on earth and in all deep places! Has He
   said, and shall He not do it? "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

   I would not weary you, I think, if I were to dwell a little while upon
   the promise that God gave to Israel that He would lead the tribes
   through the wilderness and surely bring them to their inheritance. It
   appeared very unlikely that they would ever enter into Canaan, when,
   for 40 weary years, they wandered in the pathless wilderness. Yet the
   Jordan was crossed in due season and Jericho was taken. He said that
   they should, every man, possess his portion and each tribe its
   lot--"and it was so." The Canaanites dwelt in cities that were walled
   up to Heaven and they dashed into the battle in chariots of iron, yet
   they were overcome, for God had said it--"and it was so." He cast out
   the heathen and planted the vine which He had brought out of Egypt. He
   overthrew Og and Sihon, "and gave their land for an heritage; for His
   mercy endures forever." Many a time, after Israel had been settled in
   the land, did they provoke the Lord to jealousy, so that He sent
   Prophet after Prophet, and their message was, "If you thus sin against
   the Lord, you shall be given into the hands of your enemies..."and it
   was so." But when they were sorely smitten, they repented and they
   cried unto God and He had pity upon them. And then He sent another of
   His servants with a gentle message, saying, "Turn unto Me, and repent,
   and I will deliver you." "And it was so."

   In every case He kept His Word, whether for chastening them or
   delivering them. Evermore was He faithful. When, in the later period of
   their history, Sennacherib blasphemed the Lord, His servant Hezekiah
   took the cruel letter of Rabshakeh and laid it before the Lord in the
   Temple and cried mightily unto Him--and Isaiah came with the promise,
   "He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come
   before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it." Who could put the
   hook into the nose of that leviathan? Who could turn him back by the
   way that he came? The Lord had said it should be done-- "and it was
   so"--for that night the destroying Angel went through the host of
   Assyrians and there fell corpses on the plain as many as the leaves of
   autumn! Has God promised to rescue His children? Then be assured this,
   however numerous their foes, His Word shall not fail! Then came that
   dark day when Israel and Judah were threatened with captivity in a
   strange land. They sinned and, lo, "it was so." They were exiled far
   away. By the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept. They wept when
   they remembered Zion. But there came a promise to them--a promise which
   they had left all unread and forgotten in their Sacred Books, that
   after the lapse of 70 years they should return again and once more see
   the land of their fathers--"and it was so." God raised up for them a
   friend and a helper--and the captives came back again to their land.

   Let us quote the grandest instance of all. The Lord promised,
   immediately after the Fall, that the Seed of the woman should bruise
   the serpent's head. That promise had been succeeded by many others and
   those in Israel who knew the Lord waited for the coming of the
   Deliverer. The promise tarried long. Day and night devout man cried
   unto God, for their patience was sorely tried, yet they confidently
   expected the Messenger of God who would suddenly come in His Temple--
   and when the fullness of time was come, "it was so." The everlasting
   God was found living among men and they "beheld His Glory, the Glory as
   of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth." It was
   the master-promise of all-- the promise of the greatest gift that God
   has ever bestowed upon mankind! And that promise was kept, kept to the
   letter and to the hour. He had said it should be, "and it was so,"
   though it was a wonder beyond all wonders!

   We might pursue our theme and show you that as far as all past events
   have gone, God's Word has been verified. But now, though we keep to
   history, we shall leave the large volume of the public records and ask
   you to take down from its

   shelf that little diary of yours, the pocketbook of your own life
   story--and then observe how God's Word has been true. You remember the
   warnings that you received in your youth, when you were told that the
   ways of sin might be pleasantness at first, but would end in sorrow.
   You were told that the cup might sparkle at the brim, but that the
   dregs thereof were full of bitterness. Did you test that statement in
   the days of your early manhood? Ah, then I know you cannot deny that it
   was as God had declared. He said, "The wages of sin is death"--"and it
   was so." He said it would be bitterness in the end thereof, "and it was
   so." He told you that the fascinations of sin were as destructive as
   they were alluring and truly, "it was so." If you have tasted that the
   Lord is gracious, you will blush as you answer the question, "What
   fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed?"

   It fell on a day, as God would have it, that your eyes were opened to
   see your lost estate. And there was a voice which spoke in the Gospel
   and said, "If you will return unto Me, return. Only confess the
   transgressions that you havesinned against Me, and I will forgive you.
   Come and put your trust in My Son, and your iniquity shall be blotted
   out like a cloud and your transgressions like a thick cloud." Led by
   Sovereign Grace, you came to Jesus. You washed in the fountain of His
   blood, guided to it by the Holy Spirit. What is your testimony? You
   were promised salvation, pardon, peace. My testimony is--and it was so!
   Is not that yours also? Oh, the joy of believing in Jesus! Oh, the
   bliss of casting one's self into the Father's arms and pleading the
   merits of the Only-Begotten! There is a peace of God that passes all
   understanding which comes to our faith when we exercise it upon Christ!
   Peace was promised--"and it was so."

   Since the time when you believed in Jesus, you have had many needs,
   both spiritual and temporal, but He has promised no good thing will He
   withhold from them that walk uprightly. What say you, Brothers and
   Sisters? Your needs have come--have the supplies also come? I am sure
   you will say, "it was so"--strangely so--but always so! As your day,
   your strength has been. The shoes of iron and of brass have had rough
   usage, but they have not worn out. The all-sufficient God has proved
   that His Grace is all-sufficient for us. Our personal history bears
   witness that with regard to the Providence of God and to the supplies
   of His Grace, He said that He would grant us enough, "and it was so."
   He told you that when you believed in His Word, He would hear your
   prayers. Three times He put it in varied form, "Ask, and it shall be
   given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto
   you." Brothers and Sisters have been to the Mercy Seat and tried
   whether God hears prayer, and it has been so--He did hear prayer! We
   believed His Word and in due time our faith has been turned to sight
   and the promise has been fulfilled. We have read in God's Word that He
   would sanctify our trials to us and that, "all things work together for
   good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His
   purpose." What then, is my witness, after having been week after week
   and even month after month racked with pain and laid low with sickness?
   What have these things been to me? Have they worked to my good? Do they
   bring forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness? My truthful witness
   is, "and it was so." I feel persuaded that every Christian shall have
   to say of his afflictions that they have been blessed to him--"Before I
   was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Your Word," said one
   of old. And many in these modern times can say the same. "It is good
   for me that I have been afflicted"--the Lord said it would be--"and it
   was so."

   Up to this hour it has always been true with regard to us, His people,
   that what the Lord has said, He has surely performed. We can--

   "Sing the sweet promise of His Grace, And the performing God."

   Let me remind you that our history is only the common experience of all
   God's people and if there is anything uncommon in the stories of the
   saints, then there is only a more than usually clear confirmation of
   the Truth of God. Look at the martyrs--they suffered what we can
   scarcely bear to read of--yet the Lord said He would be with them. "And
   it was so." They wore the chain for Christ's sake and He promised to be
   their companion--"and it was so." They went to the stake or bowed their
   head to the axe and they were promised that even to the end He would be
   with them-- "and it was so." Right along through all the history of the
   Church militant and, I might also ask the confirmation of the Church
   triumphant, too--the saints declare that "it was so." Christ has kept
   His Word to the letter! Not one good thing has failed of all that He
   ever promised to His people!

   II. And now, having taken this very brief run through history, let me
   ask you to follow me when I say that, AS IT HAS BEEN IN THE PAST, SO IT
   WILL BE IN THE FUTURE!

   It is always good reasoning, when we are dealing with God, to infer the
   future from the past. "Because You have been my help, therefore in the
   shadow of Your wings will I rejoice." Having the same God and the same
   promises, we may expect to always see the same results. As for the
   future, a large part of Scripture is as yet unfulfilled. Many persons
   try to interpret it, but the man is not born who can explain the
   Revelation. Yet, whatever God has there declared will be explained by
   the working out of His Providence--

   "God is His own Interpreter, And He will make it plain."

   Whatever He has there promised, it shall be said of it, by-and-by, "and
   it was so." We learn that there is to be a wide spread of the Gospel.
   It is written, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God." "Ethiopia
   shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." Therefore be assured that
   it shall be so! Let the missionary toil on and the devil rage on if he
   will--the devil shall be disappointed and the servant of God shall have
   his heart's desire! God will honor His Church when she has faith enough
   to believe in His promises.

   There is to be, in the fullness of time, a Second Coming of the Lord
   Jesus. He who went up from Olivet sent two of His angelic servants to
   promise that in the same manner as He went up into Heaven, He would
   return again. He shall surely come. Virgin souls who are awake and
   watching for the midnight cry will hear it before long. And when He
   comes, "the dead in Christ shall rise first"--there shall be a
   resurrection of the just at His appearing. So He has promised" and,
   "blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on
   such the second death has no power." There are no bonds of death that
   can hold the saints in their graves when the Lord descends at the sound
   of the archangel's trumpet! God has said that they shall arise--and it
   shall be so. They shall, everyone of them, return from the land of the
   enemy and then will follow the millennial glory--we will not explain
   that splendor--but we know that it is promised, and that whatever has
   been foretold by God shall surely be! The saints shall possess the
   Kingdom and shall reign with Christ!

   And Heaven and the eternal future in the Glory Land where the
   ever-blessed God shall reveal Himself unto His servants, "and they
   shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads"--every
   golden word, every sapphire sentence which glows and sparkles with the
   Glory of the Most High and the loving kindness of the Infinite shall be
   fulfilled! It shall be said of the whole, "and it was so." Yes! And
   concerning the dread future of the lost--those awful words that tell of
   fires that burn and yet do not consume--and of a wrath that slays and
   yet men live beneath its power--verily, verily, "These shall go away
   into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"
   These shall all be fulfilled! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not
   one Word that God has spoken shall fail. Of doom or of glory, of
   promise or of threat, it shall be said, "and it was so." And when the
   end shall come and Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the
   Father, and the drama of history shall be ended and the curtain shall
   drop and God shall be All-in-All--all shall be summed up in this
   sentence, "He spoke, and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast,"
   He said it, "and it was so."

   I desire, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, for your consolation, to
   bring this Truth of God home to yourselves, if the Spirit of God will
   enable me. "It was so"--this has been true and it shall be so to you.
   God's promises shall all be kept to you personally. God will fulfill
   His Word to you in every letter. Observe there will occur cases in
   which there will be no visible help toward the fulfillment of the
   Divine Promise and no tendencies that way. But if God has pledged His
   Word, He will keep it. Note well that in the creation of the world
   there was nothing to help God. "With whom took He counsel, and who
   instructed Him?" When He began to fit up the world for man and to
   furnish the house which He had made in the beginning, there was
   darkness and that was no aid. There was chaos and that was no help. Now
   you are troubled at the present time. Your condition is one of
   confusion, disorder, darkness--you see nothing that could make God's
   promise come true, not a finger to help--no one even to wish you well.
   Never mind! God needs no helper. He works gloriously alone. See how the
   earth stands. What does it hang on? "He hangs the earth upon nothing."
   Look at the unpillared arch above it. There are no buttresses, no
   supports, no props to the sky--yet it has not fallen and it never will.
   "Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting
   strength." And if He has given you a promise and you have laid hold
   upon it, though nothing should appear to aid its fulfillment, yet it
   shall be fulfilled! You will have to write, "and it was so."

   Yes, and this shall be the case though many circumstances tend the
   other way. When there seems to be a conflict against God--not only no
   help, but much resistance--then do not fear. What does it matter to
   God? Though all the

   men on earth and all the devils in Hell were against Him, what does it
   matter? Though heaps of chaff contend against the wind, what does it
   matter to the wind? They shall be whirled along in its fury! What if
   the wax shall defy the flame? It shall but melt in the fervent heat! If
   all the world and all Hell should declare that God will not keep His
   promise, yet He will perform it and we shall have to say, "it was so.
   "No opposition can stop the Lord!

   But you may say, "This cannot be true, surely, in my case. I could have
   believed it on a great scale, but not for myself." Ah, does God speak
   Truth in great things, and lies in little ones? Will you blaspheme the
   Most High by imagining that in public acts of royalty He is true, but
   in the private deeds of His family He is false? What would be a worse
   imputation against a man than that? Who shall throw such a charge upon
   the eternal God? The Lord promised His servant Elijah that He would
   take care of him. Did He not make the ravens feed him? Did He not send
   him to the widow of Sarepta and multiply her meal and her oil? He was
   as true to him in the ravens' matter, and in the handful of meal
   matter, as when, in the business of the great rain, the Prophet bowed
   his head between his knees on Carmel and saw at length the heavens
   covered with clouds and the land deluged with showers! God will keep
   His Word in little things to you. Do not imagine that He forgets your
   little problems. The hairs of your head are numbered. A sparrow lights
   not on the ground without your Father. Are you not better than the
   sparrows which are sold at five for two farthings in the market? Will
   you not rest in your Father's care and believe that His promises shall
   be fulfilled and that your bread shall be given you, and your water
   shall be sure and you shall dwell in the land and verily, you shall be
   fed?

   God's Word stands true even when our unworthiness is in the way. I know
   you have fancied, "If I were a great saint, God would surely keep His
   Word to me. But I, being a very grievous sinner, how shall He be
   gracious to me?" And do you think that God is good and truthful only to
   the good and true? Would you be so yourself? Surely we must deal
   honestly with all men, whoever they may be! Their character is no
   excuse for our unfaithfulness to our own promises. Our Lord Jesus has
   said, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." And if you
   come to God, He will not cheat you and say, "I said, 'Who confesses and
   forsakes his sins shall have mercy,' but I did not mean the promise for
   such an one as you are." No, Christ has said, "Him that comes to Me I
   will in no wise cast out" and if you come to Him, though you are the
   blackest sinner out of Hell, yet Christ will not reject you, for it is
   not your character, but HisCharacter that is to be considered in the
   promise! Even "if we believe not, yet He abides faithful--He cannot
   deny Himself."

   Yes, and His promise comes true and we have to say of it, "and it was
   so," even in cases of our own confessed incapacity to receive it. Take
   the case of Abraham, for that is typical of many others in this
   respect. He had the promise of a son and heir. And though, as for his
   own body, it was as dead and Sarah was well stricken in years, Abraham
   did not consider himself or Sarah, but believed the promise and, in the
   fullness of time, there was the sound of laughter in the tent, for
   Isaac was born! We err when we become so depressed by our own
   incapacity as to conceive doubts of God's faithfulness. The Lord gives
   the promise that the barren woman shall keep house--and it is so. Our
   desert-hearts shall have the blessing--it shall drop upon the pastures
   of the wilderness and the little hills shall rejoice on every side! Our
   weakness shall not hinder the fulfillment of the Divine Promise. God is
   able to bless us even when we feel only fit to be cursed. O empty one,
   God can fill you! O dried branch and withered tree, you that stand like
   an oak smitten by lightning, only fit for the burning--the Lord, the
   everlasting God--can quicken you and put fresh sap in you, and make
   your branches to bud again to the glory of His holy name! He promises
   and if you believe, you shall have to say, "and it was so."

   It will be thus right on to the end of the chapter. A few days ago I
   stood by the side of a dear departing Brother who feebly lifted his
   hands from the bed and said just these few words, "Christ, Christ,
   Christ is All." And then he said, as I bade him "Good-bye," "We shall
   meet in Heaven. I shall go there soon and you will follow, but I hope
   it will be a long while before you do." I asked him whether that was
   quite a benediction and he said, "You know what I mean. The Church
   needs you." About half-past five this afternoon, he who rejoiced that
   he would soon be in Heaven entered within the gate of pearl! He had
   served us well as a deacon of this Church and now he sees the face of
   the Ever-Blessed. He believed, while here on earth, that it was bliss
   to be with Christ and he finds it so! He is saying, "The half has not
   been told me." Well, well, whether we live to old age, or depart in
   mid-life, or die in early youth, what does it matter? We shall find
   that passing across the river is delightful when at eventide it is
   light. And oh, the glory of the everlasting daybreak! The splendor of
   the sun that goes down no more! Oh, the bliss of beholding saints and
   angels, and seeing the King in His beauty! The messengers of God said
   that Heaven is blessed--and it is so--it is so! The voice from Heaven
   said, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," and it is so! [See
   Sermon #1219, Volume 21--A VOICE FROM HEAVEN.]

   I would leave a thought with those who are exercised with doubts and
   fears about the Lord's sure mercies. It is a very hard thing that we
   should doubt our God, but we do. And therefore let us shoot arrows at
   unbelief. Note well that when God spoke in the Creation, "and it was
   so," there was only His power concerned. Supposing He had spoken and it
   had notbeen so? Then the only result would have been that God was
   proved not to be Omnipotent. But His might did not fail Him! His
   glorious attribute of power showed its majesty and what the Lord spoke
   was accomplished. Yet, in this instance, only one attribute was at
   stake. Now, when you consider any one of God's promises recorded in the
   Bible, there is more than one attribute engaged for its
   fulfillment--there are at least two--for there is the Divine Truth at
   stake as well as the Divine Power. If He said it should be and it is
   not, it is either that He would not or He could not--if He could not,
   then His power has failed. But if He would not when He promised, then
   His truth is forfeited! We have, therefore, a double hold when dealing
   with Covenant promises and may rest in two Immutable things wherein it
   is impossible for God to lie!

   But sometimes, in certain promises, even more is observable. For
   instance, you who have known the Lord these 10 or 20 years, have been
   helped before. But suppose the Lord were to fail you now? Then not only
   would His Power and His Truth be compromised, but His Immutability
   also, since He would then have changedand would no longer be the same
   God today as He was yesterday! Three attributes are leagued upon your
   side--you have three sacred pledges for the fulfillment of the promise!
   Frequently you also have God's Wisdom brought into the affair in hand.
   You have been in great difficulty and you have seen no means of escape.
   But you have laid the case before God and left it there. He has
   inspired His servant David to say, "Cast your burden upon the Lord and
   He shall sustain you." Now, if He does not sustain you, there are four
   attributes at stake! His Power--can He do it? His Truth--will He keep
   His promise? His Immutability--has He changed? His Wisdom--can He find
   a way of escape?

   Frequently, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord's honor is also brought
   into the field in addition to the other attributes. You recollect how
   Moses put it when the Lord said, "Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax
   hot against them, and that I may consume them." Then Moses said, "Why
   should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did He bring them out,
   to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the
   earth?" See, too, how Joshua uses the same argument with the Lord--"The
   Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it...and
   what will You do unto Your great name?" Oh, that is grand
   pleading--that is grand pleading! Now if the Lord has brought you into
   deep waters and you have put your trust in Him and said, "I know that
   He will deliver me." If He does not do so, the enemy will say, "It is a
   vain thing to trust in God, for the Lord does not deliver His people."
   His honor is at stake and, ah, He is a jealous God! He will rouse
   Himself and go forth like a man of war to show Himself strong in the
   behalf of them that trust in Him!

   In addition to all this, Divine Love is included in the issue. How did
   Moses put it? The people said, "Because there were no graves in Egypt,
   have you taken us away to die in the wilderness." And Moses argued thus
   with the Lord, "Did You bring all these people out of Egypt that they
   might die in the wilderness? Have You no love to them? Will You be
   cruel to the sons of men?" Even thus may we plead with the benevolence
   and pity of the Lord. "Will the Lord cast off forever? Will He be
   favorable no more?" Oh, no, that cannot be! Each child of His can
   sing--

   "And can He have taught me to trust in His name, And thus far have
   brought me, to put me to shame?" "Is it so that He has taught me long
   after the sweetness of His Grace and yet will He deny it to me? Does
   the Lord tantalize men in this way? I could have been happy enough in
   my poor ignorant way as a sinner, but now that I have been made to
   taste of higher and sweeter things, I shall be doubly wretched if I may
   not enjoy them! If He makes men hunger and thirst, and then does not
   feed them, He is not a God of love." But He isa God of love and,
   therefore, He cannot treat His servants so! You remember Luther used to
   say that when he saw that God was in his quarrel, he always felt safe.
   "Your honor is at stake," he would say, "and it is no business of
   Luther's--it is God's business when God's Gospel is concerned." Every
   Divine Attribute is pledged as a guarantee that every Divine Promise
   shall be kept! Here faith may gather strength, and rest assured that
   the Covenant is sure in every jot and tittle! If one child of God who
   has put his trust in Jesus should perish, the everlasting Covenant of
   Grace would have failed, for this is a part of its stipulations, "From
   all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new
   heart also will I give you, and a new spirit

   will I put within you." And if I have come to Jesus and rested in Him
   and, after all, do not find salvation and eternal life, then the
   Covenant has become a dead letter to me--and this it shall never be!
   "Although my house is not so with God, yet has He made with me an
   Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure." He will not
   allow His promise to fail!

   Last word of all, remember that the very blood of Christ is at stake in
   the matter of God's Promise. If a poor guilty sinner shall come and
   rest in Jesus and yet is not saved, then Jesus Christ is grievously
   dishonored--He has shed His blood in vain! Shall they perish on whom
   His blood is sprinkled? Has the Fountain, after all its boasted
   efficacy, become a mockery? Is there no power in the Atonement of Jesus
   to cleanse the guilty? Ah, Beloved, He said it would cleanse and it was
   so, it is so and it shall be so forever! They who rest in Christ shall
   not perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of His hand. Each one
   of us, as we arrive in Heaven, shall add our testimony to the general
   verdict of all the saints and say, "It was so. He said it and He
   fulfilled it. Glory be unto His name!" If any soul comes to Jesus at
   this hour, he shall find eternal life. "He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved." Such is the Gospel. The Lord grant His great
   blessing!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM107:33-43.

   [The previous portion of this Exposition was published with Sermon
   #3061, Volume 53--THE RULE OF GRACE.]

   Verse 33, 34. He turns rivers into a wilderness, and the water springs
   into dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of
   them that dwell therein. Hearken unto this, you who are men of
   understanding! God can soon take away from any people the privileges
   which they cease to prize. He sent barrenness upon the earth in the
   days of our first father, Adam, and He has long cursed with barrenness
   the very land in which this Psalm was written. He can give us what He
   pleases, and He can take it all away when He pleases. And, spiritually,
   God can easily turn a fruitful land into barrenness. The means of
   Grace, the ministry of His Word which was once very rich and fertile to
   you, may suddenly lose all its savor and all its fruitfulness. Yes,
   even His own Word, which may be compared to water springs, may suddenly
   seem to you to be but as dry ground. And your secret devotions, your
   reading of godly books, your conversation with gracious men and
   women--all of which were like wells of water--may seem to be dried up.
   If you walk contrary to God, He will walk contrary to you. "He turns a
   fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell
   therein." When the people of God fall from their steadfastness. When
   they wander from the paths of holiness, it is easy for God to let them
   know that the best means are only means--and that the best earthly
   supplies are barrenness, itself, apart from Him. God grant that it may
   never be so with any of us! But now see what happens when the Lord
   turns His hand the other way.

   35. He turns the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into
   water springs. He can make the sandy desert into a lake of water! He
   can make that which was barren as the desert of Sahara to become as
   fruitful as the Garden of the Lord. And if you are just now mourning
   your barrenness, believe in the Omnipotence of His Grace which can work
   such wonderful transformations as these for you. "All my fresh springs
   are in You," said the Psalmist. And so they are with us! Therefore, why
   should not those fresh springs now flow into our nature so as to make
   the dry ground into water springs?

   36, 37. And there He makes the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a
   city for habitation; andsow the fields, and plant vineyards which may
   yield fruits of increase. See, Brothers and Sisters, when God blesses
   us, then we begin to work for Him. When He works, we work. He blesses
   the barren land with fruitfulness and then we sow the fields and plant
   vineyards. We do not sit still because God is at work--no, rather, we
   obey the Apostolic injunction, "Work out your own salvation with fear
   and trembling, for it is God which works in you both to will and to do
   of His good pleasure."

   38, 39. He blesses them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and
   allows not their cattle to decrease. Again, they are diminished and
   brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. God has a great
   many rods and we get a great many smarts because of our many sins. If
   we were but saved from our sins, we would not need all these rods,
   "oppression, affliction and sorrow"--tribulation, anguish, pain and
   distress. I will not tell you the names of all of them,

   but they are very many and their strokes are very painful. May God
   grant that we may be rid of sin, for only so shall we be rid of many of
   these sorrows!

   40. He pours contempt upon princes, and causes them to wander in the
   wilderness, where there is no way. God makes very little of earth's
   biggest men--"He pours contempt upon princes." He has wonderful ways of
   making very poor those who are very rich in themselves. He makes those
   who were lords of all the fields to be exiles and wanderers in the
   wilderness where there is no way. Do not get proud, Brothers and
   Sisters, or else that may be your lot. He who is so near perfection
   that he need not pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner," may before
   long be so near desperation that he will not have to pray even the
   publican's prayer! Let none of us become too great, lest we soon be
   made very little.

   41. Yet sets He the poor on high from affliction and makes him families
   like a flock. God always has an eye of pity for the poor, and
   especially for the spiritually poor. While "He pours contempt upon
   princes" with one hand, He is lifting the poor from the dunghill with
   the other!

   42. The righteous shall see it and rejoice. When God's Providence and
   Grace are at work with men, the righteous shall see it, understand it
   and be glad.

   42. And all iniquity shall stop her mouth. She is generally very noisy
   and boastful, but sometimes, when God's judgments are abroad, she is
   obliged to hold her tongue. "All iniquity shall stop her mouth." O
   Lord, stop it speedily, for she is making a great noise just now!

   43. Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall
   understand the loving kindness of the LORD. Those who watch Providence
   will never be without a Providence to watch!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Third Beatitude

   (No. 3065)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 11, 1873.

   "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon the Beatitudes are as
   follows--#422, Volume 7--THE PEACEMAKER and #2103, Volume 35--THE
   HUNGER AND THIRST WHICH ARE BLESSED.]

   I HAVE often reminded you that the Beatitudes in this chapter rise one
   above the other and spring out of one another and that those which come
   before are always necessary to those that follow after. This third
   Beatitude, "Blessed are the meek," could not have stood first--it would
   have been quite out of place there. When a man is converted, the first
   operation of the Grace of God within his soul is to give him true
   poverty of spirit, so the first Beatitude is, "Blessed are the poor in
   spirit." The Lord first makes us know our emptiness and so humbles us.
   Then next He makes us mourn over the deficiencies that are so manifest
   in us. Then comes the second Beatitude, "Blessed are they that mourn."
   First, then, is a true knowledge of ourselves and then a sacred grief
   arising out of that knowledge. Now, no man ever becomes truly meek, in
   the Christian sense of that word, until he first knows himself and then
   begins to mourn and lament that he is so far short of what he ought to
   be. Self-righteousness is never meek. The man who is proud of himself
   will be quite sure to be hard-hearted in his dealings with others. To
   reach this rung of the ladder of the Light of God he must first set his
   feet upon the other two. There must be poverty of spirit and mourning
   of heart before there will come that gracious meekness of which our
   text speaks.

   Note too that this third Beatitude is of a higher order than the other
   two. There is something positive in it as to virtue. The first two are
   rather expressive of deficiency, but here there is a something
   supplied. A man is poor in spirit-- that is, he feels that he lacks a
   thousand things that he ought to possess. The man mourns--that is, he
   laments over his state of spiritual poverty. But now there is something
   really given to him by the Grace of God--not a negative quality, but a
   positive proof of the work of the Holy Spirit within his soul so that
   he has become meek. The first two characteristics that receive a
   benediction appear to be wrapped up in themselves. The man is poor in
   spirit--that relates to himself. His mourning is his own personal
   mourning which ends when he is comforted. But the meekness has to do
   with other people. It is true that it has a relationship to God, but a
   man's meekness is especially towards his fellow men. He is not simply
   meek within himself--his meekness is manifest in his dealings with
   others. You would not speak of a hermit who never saw a fellow creature
   as being meek. The only way in which you could prove whether he was
   meek would be to put him with those who would try his temper. So that
   this meekness is a virtue--larger, more expansive, working in a wider
   sphere than the first two characteristics which Christ has pronounced
   blessed. It is superior to the others, as it should be, since it grows
   out of them. Yet, at the same time, as there is through the whole of
   the Beatitudes a fall parallel with the rise, so is it here. In the
   first case, the man was poor--that was low. In the second case, the man
   was mourning--that also was low. But if he kept his mourning to
   himself, he might still seem great among his fellow men. But now he has
   come to be meek among them--lowly and humble in the midst of
   society--so that he is going lower and lower! Yet he is rising with
   spiritual exaltation, although he is sinking as to personal
   humiliation, and so has become more truly gracious.

   Now, having spoken of the connection of this Beatitude, we will make
   two enquiries with the view of opening it up. They are these--first,
   who are the meek? And, secondly, how and in what sense can they be said
   to inherit the earth?

   I. First, then, WHO ARE THE MEEK? I have already said that they are
   those who have been made poor in spirit by God and who have been made
   to mourn before God and have been comforted. But here we learn that
   they are also meek, that is, lowly and gentle in mind before God and
   before men.

   They are meek before God. And good old Watson divides that quality
   under two heads, namely, that they are submissive to His will and
   flexible to His Word. May these two very expressive qualities be found
   in each one of us!

   So the truly meek are, first of all, submissive to God's will Whatever
   God wills, they will. They are of the mind of that shepherd on
   Salisbury Plain, of whom good Dr. Stenhouse enquired, "What kind of
   weather shall we have tomorrow?" "Well," replied the shepherd, "we
   shall have the sort of whether that pleases me." The doctor then asked,
   "What do you mean?" And the shepherd answered, "What weather pleases
   God always pleases me." "Shepherd," said the doctor, "your lot seems
   somewhat hard." "Oh, no, Sir!" he replied, "I don't think so. For it
   abounds with mercies." "But you have to work very hard, do you not?"
   "Yes," he answered, "there is a good deal of labor, but that is better
   than being lazy." "But you have to endure many hardships, do you not?"
   "Oh, yes, Sir!" he said, "a great many. But then I don't have so many
   temptations as those people have who live in the midst of towns, and I
   have more time for meditating upon my God. So I am perfectly satisfied
   that where God has placed me is the best position I could be in." With
   such a happy, contented spirit as that, those who are meek do not
   quarrel with God! They do not talk as some foolish people do of having
   been born under a wrong planet and placed in circumstances unfavorable
   to their development! And even when they are smitten by God's rod, they
   do not rebel against Him and call Him a hard Master, but they are
   either dumb with silence, and open not their mouth because God has done
   it or, if they do speak, it is to ask for Grace that the time they are
   enduring may be sanctified to them, or they may even rise so high in
   Grace as to glory in infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon
   them! The proud-hearted may, if they will, arraign their Maker. And the
   thing formed may say to Him who formed it, "Why have You made me thus?"
   But these men of Grace will not do so. It is enough for them if God
   wills anything! If He wills it, so let it be--Solomon's throne or Job's
   dunghill--they desire to be equally happy wherever the Lord may place
   them, or however He may deal with them!

   They are also flexible to God's Word. If they are really meek, they are
   always willing to bend. They do not imagine what the Truth of God ought
   to be and then go to the Bible for texts to prove what they think
   should be there--they go to the Inspired Book with a candid mind and
   they pray with the Psalmist, "Open You my eyes that I may behold
   wondrous things out of Your Law." And when, in searching the
   Scriptures, they find deep mysteries which they cannot comprehend, they
   believe where they cannot understand and where, sometimes--different
   parts of Scripture seem to conflict with one another--they leave the
   explanation to the Great Interpreter who alone can make all plain. When
   they meet with Doctrines that are contrary to their own notions and
   hard for flesh and blood to receive, they yield themselves to the
   Divine Spirit and pray, "What we know not, teach You to us." When the
   meek in spirit find, in the Word of God, any precept, they seek to obey
   it at once. They do not cavil at it or ask if they can avoid it, or
   raise that oft-repeated question, "Is it essentialto salvation?" They
   are not so selfish that they would do nothing unless salvation depended
   upon it--they love their God so much that they desire to obey even the
   least command that He gives, simply out of love to Him. The meek in
   spirit are like a photographer's sensitive plates--as the Word of God
   passes before them, they desire to have its image imprinted upon their
   hearts. Their hearts are the fleshy tablets on which the mind of God is
   recorded. God is the Writer and they become living Epistles, written
   not with ink, but with the finger of the living God! Thus are they meek
   towards God.

   But meekness is a quality which also relates largely to men and I think
   it means, first, that the man is humble. He bears himself among his
   fellow men not as a Caesar who, as Shakespeare says, does "bestride the
   narrow world like a Colossus," beneath whose huge legs ordinary men may
   walk and peep about to find themselves dishonorable graves, but he
   knows that he is only a man and that the best of men are but men at the
   best. And he does not even claim to be one of the best of men. He knows
   himself to be less than the least of all saints and, in some respects,
   the very chief of sinners. Therefore he does not expect to have the
   first place in the synagogue, nor the highest seat at the feast--he is
   quite satisfied if he may pass among his fellow men as a notable
   instance of the power of God's Grace and may be known by them as one
   who is a great debtor to the loving kindness of the Lord. He does not
   set himself up to be a very superior being. If he is of high birth, he
   does not boast of it. If he is of low birth, he does not try to put
   himself on a level with those who are in a higher rank of life. He is
   not one who boasts of his wealth, or of his talents. He knows that a
   man is

   not judged by God by any of these things--and if the Lord is pleased to
   give him much Grace and to make him very useful in His service, he only
   feels that he owes the more to his Master and is the more responsible
   to Him. So he lies the lower before God and walks the more humbly among
   men.

   The meek-spirited man is always of a humble temper and carriage. He is
   the very opposite of the proud man who you feel must be a person of
   consequence--at any rate to himself--and to whom you know that you must
   give way unless you would have an altercation with him. He is a
   gentleman who expects always to have his top-gallants flying in all
   weathers. He must always have his banner borne in front of him and
   everybody else must pay respect to him. The great "I" stands
   conspicuous in him at all times. He lives in the first house on the
   street, in the best room, in the front parlor--and when he wakes in the
   morning, he shakes hands with himself and congratulates himself upon
   being such a fine fellow as he is! That is the very opposite of being
   meek and, therefore, humility, although it is not all that there is in
   meekness, is one of the chief characteristics of it.

   Out of this grows gentleness of spirit. The man is gentle. He does not
   speak harshly. His tones are not imperious, his spirit is not
   domineering. He will often give up what he thinks to be lawful because
   he does not think it is expedient for the good of others. He seeks to
   be a true brother among his brethren, thinks himself most honored when
   he can be the doorkeeper of the House of the Lord, or perform any
   menial service for the household of faith. I know some professing
   Christians who are very harsh and repellent. You would not think of
   going to tell them your troubles. You could not open your heart to
   them. They do not seem to be able to come down to your level. They are
   up on a mountain and they speak down to you as a poor creature far
   below them. That is not the true Christian spirit--that is not being
   meek. The Christian who is really superior to others among whom he
   moves is just the man who lowers himself to the level of the lowest for
   the general good of all! He imitates his Master who, though He was
   equal with God, "made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the
   form of a Servant." And in consequence, he is loved and trusted as his
   Master was, and even little children come to him and he does not repel
   them. He is gentle towards them, as a loving mother avoids all
   harshness when dealing with her children.

   In addition to being humble and gentle, the meek are patient. They know
   "it must be that offenses come," yet they are too meek either to give
   offense or to take offense. If others grieve them, they put up with it.
   They do not merely forgive seven times, but 70 times seven! In fact,
   they often do not feel as if anything had been done that needed any
   forgiveness, for they have not taken it as an affront. They consider
   that a mistake was made, so they are not angry at it. He may be angry
   for a moment--he would not be a man if he were not. But there is such a
   thing as being angry and yet not sinning--and the meek man turns his
   anger wholly upon the evil and away from the person who did the wrong--
   and is as ready to do him a kindness as if he had never transgressed at
   all! If there should be anybody here who is of an angry spirit, kindly
   take home these remarks and try to mend that matter, for a Christian
   must get the better of an angry temper. Little pots soon boil over and
   I have known some professing Christians who are such very little pots
   that the smallest fire has made them boil over! When you never meant
   anything to hurt their feelings, they have been terribly hurt. The
   simplest remark has been taken as an insult and a construction put upon
   things that never was intended. And they make their brother offenders
   for a word, or for half a word, yes, and even for not saying a word!
   Sometimes if a man does not see them in the street through being
   short-sighted, they are sure he passed them on purpose and would not
   speak to them because they are not so well off as he is. Whether a
   thing is done or is left undone, it equally fails to please them. They
   are always on the alert for some cause of annoyance and almost remind
   one of the Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, trailing his coat in the dirt
   and asking for somebody to tread on it, that he may have the pleasure
   of knocking that somebody down! When I hear of anybody like that losing
   his temper, I always pray that he may not find it again, for such
   tempers are best lost. The meek-spirited man may be naturally very hot
   and fiery, but he has had Grace given to him to keep his temper in
   subjection. He does not say, "That is my constitution and I cannot help
   it," as so many do. God will never excuse us because of our
   constitution--His Grace is given to us to cure our evil constitutions
   and to kill our corruptions! We are not to spare any Amalekites because
   they are called constitutional sins, but we are to bring them all
   out--even Agog who goes delicately--and slay them before the Lord who
   can make us more than conquerors over every sin, whether constitutional
   or otherwise!

   But since this is a wicked world and there are men who will persecute
   us, and others who will try to rob us of our right and do us serious
   injury, the meek man goes beyond merely bearing what has to be borne,
   for he freely forgives the injury that is done to him. It is an ill
   sign when anyone refuses to forgive another. I have heard of a father
   saying that his child should never darken his door again. Does that
   father know that he can never enter Heaven while he cherishes such a
   spirit as that? I have heard of one saying, "I will never forgive
   So-and-So." Do you know that God will never hear your prayer for
   forgiveness until you forgive others? That is the very condition which
   Christ taught His disciples to present-- "Forgive us our debts, as we
   forgive our debtors." If you take your brother by the throat because he
   owes you a hundred pence, can you think that God will forgive you the
   thousand talents which you owe Him? So the meek-spirited man forgives
   those who wrong him--he reckons that injuries are permitted to be done
   to him as trials of his Grace, to see whether he can forgive them--and
   he does so, and does so right heartily. It used to be said of
   Archbishop Cranmer, "Do my lord of Canterbury an ill turn and he will
   be a friend to you as long as you live." That was a noble spirit, to
   take the man who had been his enemy and to make him henceforth to be a
   friend. This is the way to imitate Him who prayed for His murderers,
   "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." And this is the
   very opposite of a revengeful spirit. There are some who say that they
   have been wronged and they will retaliate. But "retaliation" is not a
   Christian word! "Revenge" is not a word that ought to be found in a
   Christian's dictionary--he reckons it to be of the Babylonian dialect
   and of the language of Satan. His only revenge is to heap coals of fire
   upon his adversary's head by doing him all the good he can in return
   for the evil that he has done.

   I think that meekness also involves contentment. The meek-spirited man
   is not ambitious. He is satisfied with what God provides for him. He
   does not say that his soul loathes the daily manna. And the water from
   the Rock never loses its sweetness to his taste. His motto, is, "God's
   Providence is my inheritance." He has his ups and his downs, but he
   blesses the Lord that his God is a God of the hills and also of the
   valleys. And if he can have God's face shining upon him, he cares
   little whether it is hills or valleys upon which he walks. He is
   content with what he has and he says, "Enough is as good as a feast."
   Whatever happens to him, seeing that his times are in God's hand, it is
   with him well in the best and most emphatic sense. The meek man is no
   Napoleon who will wade through human blood to reach a throne and shut
   the gates of mercy on mankind. The meek man is no miser, hoarding up,
   with an all-devouring greed, everything that comes to his hands and
   adding house to house and field to field so long as he lives. The meek
   man has a laudable desire to make use of his God-given talents and to
   find for himself a position in which he may do more good to his fellow
   men. But he is not unrestful, anxious, fretful, grieving, grasping--he
   is contented and thankful.

   Put those five qualities together and you have the truly meek
   man--humble, gentle, patient, forgiving and contented--the very
   opposite of the man who is proud, harsh, angry, revengeful and
   ambitious. It is only the Grace of God, as it works in us by the Holy
   Spirit, that can make us thus meek. There have been some who have
   thought themselves meek when they were not. The Fifth Monarchy men, in
   Cromwell's day, said that they were meek and that they were, therefore,
   to inherit the earth--so they wanted to turn other men out of their
   estates and houses so that they might have them--and thereby they
   proved that they were not meek! For if they had been, they would have
   been content with what they had and let other people enjoy what
   belonged to them. There are some people who are very gentle and meek as
   long as nobody tries them. We are, all of us, remarkably good-tempered
   while we have our own way. But the true meekness which is a work of
   Grace will stand the fire of persecution and will endure the test of
   enmity, cruelty and wrong--even as the meekness of Christ did upon the
   Cross of Calvary.

   II. Now, in the second place, let us think of HOW THE MEEK INHERIT THE
   EARTH. Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
   earth." This promise is similar to the Inspired declaration of Paul,
   "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life
   that now is, and of that which is to come." So first, it is the meek
   man who inherits the earth, for he is the earth's conqueror. He is the
   conqueror of the world whenever he goes. William the Conqueror came to
   England with sword and fire, but the Christian conqueror wins his
   victories in a superior manner by the weapons of kindness and meekness.
   In Puritan times there was an eminent and godly minister named Mr.
   Deering, who has left some writings that are still valuable. While
   sitting at a table one day, a graceless fellow insulted him by throwing
   a glass of beer in his face. The good man simply took his handkerchief,
   wiped his face and went on eating his dinner. The man provoked him a
   second time by doing the same thing--and he even did it a third time
   with many oaths and blasphemy. Mr. Deering made no reply, but simply
   wiped his face and, on the third occasion, the man came and fell at his
   feet and said that the spectacle of his Christian meekness, and the
   look of tender, pitying love that Mr. Deering had cast upon him, had
   quite subdued him. So the good man was the conqueror of the bad one! No
   Alexander

   was ever greater than the man who could bear such insults like that!
   And holy Mr. Dodd, when he spoke to a man who was swearing in the
   street, received a blow in the mouth that knocked out two of his teeth.
   The holy man wiped the blood from his face and said to his assailant,
   "You may knock out all my teeth if you will permit me just to speak to
   you so that your soul may be saved." And the man was won by this
   Christian forbearance! It is wonderful what rough natures will yield
   before gentle natures. After all, it is not the strong who conquer, but
   the weak. There has been a long enmity, as you know, between the wolves
   and the sheep. And the sheep have never taken to fighting, yet they
   have won the victory and there are more sheep than wolves in the world
   today. In our own country, the wolves are all dead, but the sheep have
   multiplied by tens of thousands. The anvil stands still while the
   hammer beats upon it, but one anvil wears out many hammers. And
   gentleness and patience will ultimately win the day. At this present
   moment, who is the mightier? Caesar with his legions or Christ with His
   Cross? We know who will be the victor before long--Mohammed with his
   sharp scimitar or Christ with His Doctrine of Love. When all earthly
   forces are overthrown, Christ's Kingdom will still stand. Nothing is
   mightier than meekness! And it is the meek who inherit the earth in
   that sense.

   They inherit the earth in another sense, namely, that they enjoy what
   they have. If you find me a man who thoroughly enjoys life, I will tell
   you at once that he is a meek, quiet-spirited man. Enjoyment of life
   does not consist in the possession of riches. There are many sick men
   who are utterly miserable and there are many poor men who are equally
   miserable. You may have misery or you may have happiness according to
   your state of heartin any condition of life. The meek man is thankful,
   happy and contented--and it is contentment that makes life enjoyable.
   It is so at our common meals. Here comes a man home to his dinner. He
   bows his head and says, "For what we are about to receive, the Lord
   make us truly thankful." And then opens his eyes and grumbles, "What?
   Cold mutton again?" His spirit is very different from that of the good
   old Christian who, when he reached home, found two herrings and two or
   three potatoes on the table and he pronounced over them this blessing,
   "Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have ransacked both earth and
   sea to find us this entertainment." His dinner was not so good as the
   other man's, but he was content with it and that made it better! Oh the
   grumbling that some have, when rolling in wealth, and the enjoyment
   that others have when they have but little, for the dinner of herbs is
   sweeter than the stalled ox if contentment is but there! "A man's life
   consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses," but in
   the meek and quiet spirit which thanks God for whatever He pleases to
   give.

   "Oh!" says someone, "but that is not inheriting the earth--it is only
   inheriting a part of it." Well, it is inheriting as much of it as we
   need and there is a sense in which the meek do really inherit the whole
   earth. I have often felt, when I have been in a meek and quiet spirit,
   as if everything around me belonged to me. I have walked through a
   gentleman's park and I have been very much obliged to him for keeping
   it in such order on purpose for me to walk through it! I have gone
   inside his house and seen his picture gallery--and I have been very
   grateful to him for buying such grand pictures and I have hoped that he
   would buy a few more so that I might see them when I came next time. I
   was very glad that I had not to buy them and to pay the servants to
   watch over them--and that everything was done for me! And I have
   sometimes looked from a hill upon some far-reaching plain, or some
   quiet village, or some manufacturing town, crowded with houses and
   shops, and I have felt that they were all mine, although I had not the
   trouble of collecting the rents which people, perhaps, might not like
   to pay. I had only to look upon it all as the sun shone upon it and
   then to look up to Heaven and say, "My Father, this is all Yours and,
   therefore, it is all mine, for I am an heir of God and a joint-heir
   with Jesus Christ." So, in this sense, the meek-spirited man inherits
   the whole each.

   He also inherits it in another sense--that is to say, whatever other
   men have, he is glad to think that they have it Perhaps he is walking
   and gets weary. Someone comes riding by and he says to himself, "Thank
   God that man does not need to walk and get tired as I do. I am glad
   there is somebody who is free from that trial." He works very hard and
   perhaps earns very little, but he lives next door to a workingman who
   has twice his wages and he says, "Thank God that my neighbor does not
   have such a pinch as I have. I should not like to see him in such a
   plight as I am in." Sometimes, when I am ill, someone comes in and
   says, "I have been to see somebody who is worse than you are," but I
   never get any comfort out of such a remark as that. And my usual answer
   is, "You have made me feel worse than I was before by telling me that
   there is somebody worse even than I am." The greater comfort for a meek
   man is this, "Though I am ill, there are plenty of people who are
   well." Or this, "Though I am blind, I bless God that my dear Brothers
   and Sisters can see the flowers and the sun." Or this, "Though I am
   lame, I am thankful that others can run." Or this, "Though I am
   depressed in spirit, I am glad that there are sweet-voiced singers." Or
   this, "Though I am an owl, I rejoice that there are larks to soar and
   sing, and eagles to mount towards the sun." The meek-spirited man is
   glad to know that other people are happy--and their happiness is his
   happiness! He will have a great number of heavens, for everybody else's
   Heaven will be a Heaven to him! It will be a Heaven to him to know that
   so many other people are in Heaven, and for each one whom he sees
   there, he will praise the Lord. Meekness gives us the enjoyment of what
   is other people's, yet they have none the less because of our enjoyment
   of it!

   Again, the meek-spirited man inherits the earth in this sense--if there
   is anybody who is good anywhere near him, he is sure to see him. I have
   known persons join the Church and after they have been a little while
   in it, they have said, "There is no love there." Now, when a Brother
   says, "There is no love there," I know that he has been looking in the
   mirror and that his own reflection has suggested his remark. Such
   persons cry out about the deceptions and hypocrisies in the professing
   church--and they have some cause for doing so--only it is a pity that
   they cannot also see the good people, the true saints who are there!
   The Lord still has a people who love and fear Him, a people who will be
   His in the day when He makes up His jewels. And it is a pity if we are
   not able to see what God so much admires. If we are meek, we shall the
   more readily see the excellences of other people. That is a very
   beautiful passage, in the second part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" which
   tells that when Christiana and Mercy had both been bathed in the bath
   and clothed in the fine linen, white and clean, "they began to esteem
   each other better than themselves." If we also do this, we shall not
   think so badly as some of us now do of this poor present life, but
   shall go through it thanking God and praising His name--and so
   inheriting the earth.

   With a gentle temper and a quiet spirit, and Grace to keep you so, you
   will be inheriting the earth under any circumstances. If trouble should
   come, you will bow to it as the willow bows to the wind and so escapes
   the injury that falls upon sturdier trees. If there should come little
   vexations, you will not allow yourself to be vexed by them, but will
   say, "With a little patience, they will all pass away." I think I never
   admired Archbishop Leighton more than when I read a certain incident
   that is recorded in his life. He lived in a small house in Scotland and
   had only a manservant beside himself in the house. John, the
   manservant, was very forgetful and, one morning when he got up before
   his master, he thought he would like to have a day's fishing, so he
   went off and locked his master in. He fished until late in the evening,
   forgot all about his master, and when he came back, what do you think
   the bishop said to him? He simply said, "John, if you go out for a
   day's fishing again, kindly leave me the key." He had had a happy day
   of prayer and study all by himself. If it had been some of us, we would
   have been fuming, fretting and getting up a nice lecture for John when
   he came back--and he richly deserved it--but I do not suppose it was
   worthwhile for the good man to put himself out about him. The incident
   is, I think, a good illustration of our text.

   But the text means more than I have yet said, for the promise, "They
   shall inherit the earth," may be read, "they shall inherit the land,"
   that is, the promised land, the heavenly Canaan! These are the men who
   shall inherit Heaven, for up there they are all meek-spirited. There
   are no contentions there! Pride cannot enter there. Anger, wrath and
   malice never pollute the atmosphere of the Celestial City. There, all
   bow before the King of kings and all rejoice in communion with Him and
   with one another. Ah, Beloved, if we are ever to enter Heaven, we must
   fling away ambition, discontent, wrath, self-seeking and selfishness!
   May God's Grace purge us of all these, for as long as any of that evil
   leaven is in our soul--where God is, we cannot go.

   And then, dear Friends, the text means yet more than that--we shall
   inherit this earth by-and-by. David wrote, "The meek shall inherit the
   earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." After
   this earth has been purified by fire. After God shall have burned the
   works of men to ashes and every trace of corrupt humanity shall have
   been destroyed by the fervent heat, then shall this earth be fitted up
   again, and angels shall descend with new songs to sing and the New
   Jerusalem shall come down out of Heaven from God in all her glory! And
   then upon this earth, where once was war, the clarion shall ring no
   more! There shall be neither swords nor spears and men shall learn the
   arts of war no more. The meek shall then possess the land and every
   hill and valley shall be glad, and every fruitful plain shall ring with
   shouts of joy, and peace, and gladness throughout the long millennial
   day! The Lord send it and may we all be among the meek who shall
   possess the New Eden, whose flowers shall never wither and where no
   serpent's trail shall ever be seen!

   But this must be the work of Grace. We must be born-again, or else our
   proud spirits will never be meek. And if we have been born-again, let
   it be our joy, as long as we live, to show that we are the followers of
   the meek and lowly Jesus with whom gracious words I close my
   discourse--"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am
   meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. For
   My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." So may it be, for Christ's
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:1-12.

   Verse 1. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain. For
   convenience and quietude and to be out of the way of traffic He went up
   into a mountain. Elevated Doctrines would seem most at home on the high
   places of the earth.

   1. And when He was set.For that was the mode of Eastern teaching.

   1. His disciples came unto Him. They made the inner ring around Him and
   others gathered around them.

   2. And He opened His mouth and taught them. Chrysostom says that He
   taught them even when He did not open His mouth! His very silence was
   instructive. But when He did open His mouth, what streams of wisdom
   flowed forth! He "taught them." He did not open His mouth to make an
   oration, He was a Teacher, so His aim was to teach those who came to
   Him. And His ministers best follow their Lord's example when they keep
   to the vein of teaching. The pulpit is not the place for the display of
   oratory and eloquence, but for real instruction--"He opened His mouth,
   and taught them."

   2. 3. Saying, Blessed. The Old Testament closes with the word "curse."
   The New Testament begins here, in the preaching of Christ, with the
   word, "Blessed." He has changed the curse into a blessing. "Blessed."

   3. Are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. This is
   a paradox that puzzles many, for the poor in spirit often seem to have
   nothing--yet they have the Kingdom of Heaven, so they have everything!
   He who thinks the least of himself is the man of whom God thinks the
   most. You are not poor in God's sight if you are poor in spirit.

   4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. They are
   not only poor in spirit, but they are weeping, lamenting, mourning.
   Worldlings are frivolous, frolicsome, light-hearted and loving
   everything that is akin to mirth-- yet it is notsaid of them, but of
   those that mourn, that "they shall be comforted."

   5. Blessed are the meek.Not your high-spirited, quick-tempered men who
   will put up with no insults--your hectoring, lofty ones who are always
   ready to resent any real or imagined disrespect. There is no blessing
   here for them! But blessed are the gentle--those who are ready to be
   thought nothing of.

   5. For they shall inherit the earth. Some say that the best way to get
   through the world is to swagger along with a coarse impudence and to
   push out of your way all who may be in it. But there is no truth in
   that idea. The truth lies in quite another direction--"Blessed are the
   meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

   6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
   they shall be filled. The course of these Beatitudes is like going
   downstairs. They began with spiritual poverty, went on to mourning,
   came down to gentle-spiritedness and now we come to hunger and thirst.
   Yet we have been going up all the time, for here we read, "They shall
   be filled." What more can we have than full satisfaction?

   7. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. ' 'The
   merciful" are those who are always ready to forgive, always ready to
   help the poor and needy, always ready to overlook what they might well
   condemn--"they shall obtain mercy."

   8. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. When the
   heart is washed, the dirt is taken from the mental eyes. The heart that
   loves God is connected with an understanding that perceives God. There
   is no way of seeing God until the heart is renewed by Sovereign Grace.
   It is not greatness of intellect, but purity of affection that enables
   us to see God.

   9. Blessed are the peacemakers. Not only the passively peaceful, but
   the actively peaceful who try to rectify mistakes and to end all
   quarrels in a peaceful way.

   9. For they shall be called the children of God. They shall not only be
   the children of God, but men shall call them so! They shall recognize
   in them the likeness to the peace-making God.

   10. Blessed are theey which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for
   theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. They have it now, they are already
   participating in it for, as Christ was persecuted and He is again
   persecuted in them, as they are partakers of His sufferings, so are
   they sharers in His Kingdom.

   11, 12. Blessed are you when men shall revile you, andpersecute you,
   and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
   Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in Heaven:
   for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you. You have an
   elevation by persecution--you are lifted into the peerage of martyrdom,
   though you occupy but an inferior place in it, yet you are in it.
   Therefore, "rejoice and be exceedingly glad."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Everlasting Counselor

   (No. 3066)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

   "Has your Counselor perished?" Micah 4:9.

   THIS question is addressed to the Church of God, for in the context it
   is written, "And you, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the
   daughter of Zion, unto you shall it come, even the first dominion; the
   kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why do you cry out
   aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your Counselor perished? For pangs
   have taken you as a woman in travail." The poor Church of God had lost
   its way--it was doubting with regard to its direction. It knew not
   where to turn--to the right hand or to the left. In an agony of deep
   distraction, it bowed its head in fell dismay and thought that its King
   had disappeared and its Counselor perished. Forth comes the Prophet
   Micah, full of the Spirit, and addresses this question to the tried
   children of God, "Has your Counselor perished?"

   We have before us a question implying three things. First, aDoctrine,
   namely, that our Counselor has not perished. Secondly, a reproof, for
   we sometimes act as if our Counselor had perished. And, thirdly, an
   encouragement for, however we may be situated and whatever may have
   perished--our Counselor has not perished.

   I. First, then, here is A QUESTION IMPLYING A DOCTRINE, namely, the
   Doctrine that the Church of God has a Counselor and that that Counselor
   has not perished.

   In olden times, the Lord's people, whenever they were in a difficulty,
   could always find direction. Any man who doubted whether he should
   build his house, or whether he should go to war, or whether in any
   matter of his business he should do this or that, could at once receive
   instruction and advice by referring to the high priest who wore the
   ephod. And, being moved by the Spirit, the high priest spoke with his
   hand on the Urim and Thummim and gave an authoritative answer. Thus
   David told Abiathar to bring the ephod, and when he asked the Lord,
   "Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?"
   the Lord said, "They will deliver you up." So in other critical periods
   of the history of the saints, you will find it recorded that they were
   constantly in the habit of going to the priest and seeking for
   direction. Some of us may bewail the loss of such priests. We may be
   thinking, "I know not which way to go. I have no direction, I have no
   means of obtaining guidance." O Christian! Has your Counselor perished?
   Ah, no! The Doctrine is assuredly taught us in Scripture that the
   Church of God still has an Infallible Guide!

   There are some things, Beloved, in which we do not need a guide.
   Concerning morality, for instance, we need no other guide than that of
   the Sacred volume wherever our course has two phases to it and the one
   is morally wrong and the other morally right, we have no need of a
   counselor. We only need, by the help of God's Spirit, to come to the
   Bible and we can always see which road to take. Whenever a thing is a
   sin, we need not appeal to Christ to know whether we shall commit it,
   for we are taught to avoid even the appearance of evil! If we consider
   that a thing is wrong, we have no right to do it, even though it might
   tend to our advantage in worldly affairs. We must not do evil that good
   may come, for if we were to do so, then indeed our damnation would be
   just! We have no occasion to ask whether we should go the road of sin
   or the road of righteousness. Is there not a sign clearly pointing,
   "This is the way"? When we see that it is the path which Christ has
   marked out, in which the holy Prophets have gone and that wherein
   Apostles followed, we know we ought to walk in it!

   But the difficulty is when two things may be both right and we do not
   know which to choose--when there are two courses which seem to us to be
   indifferent as to moral propriety--when there is no Law against either
   and we can do as seems best to us without staining our profession as
   Christians, or forgetting to honor God in all our ways. We are in a
   great difficulty then. We know not what to do. We are resolved we will
   not commit a willful sin. Through Divine Grace

   we are determined that we will not sin to rid ourselves of our
   embarrassments, but we are in such a strait we do not know what to do.
   How are we to tell? Is there any means left in the Church of God
   whereby a distressed and entangled traveler on the road to Heaven may
   ascertain his way in the dubious paths of Providence, when it is left
   to his own choice?

   We answer--Yes, there is. The Counselor has not perished. There are
   still appointed means whereby the members of the Church of Christ,
   individually, have found guidance. These means are not what some take
   them to be. For instance, they are not by casting lots. Mr. John Wesley
   very frequently cast lots to know what he should do. Now, I care not
   who it was that did so, it is all the same to me--it is tempting God.
   For a man to twist a piece of paper and say, "Black, I go. White, I
   stay," is tempting God's Providence. I remember a case that happened in
   the country when 12 jurymen were almost equally divided as to the guilt
   of a certain prisoner--and they had the impudence to appeal to God in
   the matter--and to toss up, "heads or tails," whether the person was
   innocent or guilty! They were Christians, too, and they thought they
   were appealing to God for they said that the lot was the end of
   contention. It is true that lots have been sanctioned in olden times.
   God has acknowledged lots and has blessed them, but we know of nothing
   to countenance lots now. We have no right to think we can appeal to God
   in such a manner! God by his Providence can direct it and no doubt He
   does. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is
   of the Lord." Still, God will take care that the direction will be such
   a painful one that we shall be chastised for our presumption in daring
   thus to appeal to Him. We do not believe in such things--"we have a
   more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed,
   as unto a light that shines in a dark place."

   Again, there are some persons who think they are counseled by God when
   they certainly are not. They will even come to their minister to ask
   his advice concerning things--when they have already made up their
   minds what they will do. We have heard a story of a good minister who
   was applied to by a young woman, to know what she should do in a
   certain matter. He could perceive full well that she had made up her
   mind, so he said, "Go outside and hear what the bells say." The bells
   of course chimed in her ears, "Do it! Do it!" She went home and did it!
   A little while later, she found she had got into disgrace by doing it,
   so she came back to the minister and said, "Sir, you have advised me
   wrong." "No, I did not," said the minister. "You did not interpret the
   bells right--go and listen again." She went outside and the bells said,
   "Never do it! Never do it!" There are many persons whom we might advise
   to listen to the bells, for they never seek counsel till they have made
   up their minds! They call it a guidance of Providence, whereas the
   truth is that they determine beforehand what they will do--and if our
   advice happens to suit them, they take it--but if not, they prefer
   their own opinion and give their inclination the benefit of a doubt.

   Having thus exposed some of the fallacies in respect to guidance, you
   will ask me to tell you how our Counselor really does guide us. I will
   try to explain this to you briefly. There were two or three different
   manners whereby the Lord guided the children of Israel when they were
   passing through the wilderness which may serve to show us the methods
   of His counsel. One of them was the fiery cloudy pillar of His
   Providence. Another was the Ark of the Covenant which always went
   before them. Another was the advice of Hobab, the father-in-Law of
   Moses, who knew the best places to pitch the tents. And yet again they
   had the priest with Urim and Thummim who told them what they were to
   do. Each of these things has a spiritual meaning.

   First of all, the fiery cloudy pillar of God's Providence is often a
   very precious guide to God's people. Beloved, there may be those among
   you who will not be able to understand my meaning and yet, if you live
   long enough, you will review with pleasure, in your old age, the Truth
   of God I am setting forth. Many a time when the night was dark, the
   hosts of Israel moved forward by the light of that pillar of fire.
   There was a necessity for them to proceed in one direction because
   there was no light in any other. So you will often find Providence
   going before you. Just now, you are in a dilemma. You are saying,
   "Which road shall I take?" Suddenly Providence stops one of the roads
   up. Well, you don't need a guide, then, because there is only one road
   to go! You are saying, "Which of two situations shall I take?" One is
   taken by somebody else and there is only one left--so that you have no
   alternative but to follow the cloud! Look at that pillar of Providence
   and you will find it will guide you better than anything else! Seek,
   when you're in difficulty and you know not what to do, to come before
   God and say to Him, "O Lord, show me by Your Providence what to do. Let
   events so turn out that I cannot avoid doing that which would be for
   the best. If there are two doors and I know not which is the proper
   one, shut one of them up, Lord, even though it should be the one I like
   best--and then I must go through the other--and so I shall be guided by
   Your Providence."

   But instead of that, my Hearers, we often run before the cloud and, as
   the old Puritans had it, "They who ran before the cloud went on a
   fool's errand and they soon had to come back again." Followthe cloud,
   Beloved! Ask Providence to give you direction. You have not, perhaps,
   looked to God in the matter, to see His hand in Providence. Good Mr.
   Milllet (of the Orphan Home) says, "In regard to placing out my
   children in situations for life. In regard to what servants I shall
   take into my house and whom I shall receive in my family, I always go
   and seek direction of God and exercise faith in His Word that, even in
   these little matters He will direct and guide me. And when I do so, I
   do not hear a voice from Heaven, but I hear something tantamount to it,
   in Providence, which teaches me that such-and-such a thing I ought to
   do, and that such-and-such a thing I ought not to do." Do not expect,
   Beloved, to hear voices, to see visions and to dream dreams, but rather
   look at Providence--see how God's wonder-working wheels turn round and,
   as the wheels turn, so do you! Whichever way His hand points, go there
   and thus God shall guide you, for your Counselor has not yet perished!

   Again, there is not only the fiery cloudy pillar of Providence, but
   there is, next, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord resting in the
   Believer's heart which often guides him. You know that the Ark is the
   type of Jesus, and Jesus often leads a Christian by His Holy Spirit
   immediately exercised upon the heart. Perhaps when you have read the
   lives of some eminent Quakers, you have laughed at what they conceived
   to be the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit "moving" them as they said, to
   go to certain places. Never laugh at that, Beloved. There is more in it
   than some of you imagine--some of you who are not moved by the Holy
   Spirit and who cannot understood it. Your nature is so hard and
   stubborn that you do not feel that gentle influence, that touch of
   God's hand moving you to do a thing. But it is not a fancy, mark
   you--they who know most of spiritual life will attest its reality. I
   myself, sometimes, (I speak honestly what I know. I testify what I have
   felt) have been moved to do certain things from altogether
   unaccountable reasons, not knowing in the least degree why I was to do
   them, or understanding why such things would be profitable. Perhaps a
   text has come forcibly to my mind and I have been obliged to take a
   certain course which I found, afterwards, was for the best.

   I remember one incident which was a turning-point in my life and led me
   to this place. I had determined that I would enter a college. I had
   made up my mind and resolved to see the principal. In fact, I had
   waited at his house some time to see him. But, by Divine Providence,
   though I waited in his house, he was shown into one room and I into
   another. He never knew that I was there and I never knew that he was
   there! So there we sat waiting for each other all the time--and I left
   without seeing him. I went home and the text came into my mind, "Do you
   seek great things for yourself? Seek them not." Day after day, week
   after week, I could neither rest, sleep, nor do anything without those
   words ringing in my ears, "Do you seek great things for yourself? Seek
   them not." And as I pondered them, I thought--I know what this means. I
   have been thinking of great things for myself, but I will no longer
   seek them. So I made up my mind the other way, and I said, "By God's
   Grace, I will never go there." Then I found rest for my spirit, by
   following God's Word. I shall never doubt, as long as I live, that it
   was a Divine impulse--nor shall I ever cast away that thought from my
   mind. At any rate, it was such an impulse that my conscience could not
   be easy till I obeyed it. And you, Christians, who look at the inner
   life--you who live in much fellowship with God--will have Divine
   impulses. You will have Divine moving of the Holy Spirit. You will, at
   certain seasons, be moved to do a certain thing--and I beseech you, if
   you are so moved, however strange it may seem to yourselves, if you
   hear the whisper of the Spirit within you--go and do it at once!

   There is a remarkable anecdote of an old Christian man who was stirred
   up, one night, to go to a certain house on a certain street. And though
   it was 15 miles away and it was eventide, he saddled his horse and rode
   with all haste to the place. He arrived at the city. The lamps were
   glistening and as he crossed the bridge, he paused at the sound of the
   river murmuring in his ears, as if to break the solemn stillness of the
   night. Still he felt a sacred impulse within him urging his steps
   forward till, at length he reached the street and the house. When he
   had arrived at the door and knocked, he waited a long time before there
   was an answer. Presently, down came a haggard-looking man who asked,
   "What are you after?" "Friend," said he, "I am told to come and see you
   at this hour of the, night. Why, I cannot tell. I know the Lord has
   some message for your soul." The man started. "Bless God," he said. "I
   had this halter around my neck five minutes ago to hang myself. Verily
   you were moved to come here." Then he cast the rope aside and
   exclaimed, "Now I know that the Lord has not forgotten me, because He
   has sent His servant to deliver me out of the hand of the enemy." If
   this is not a case of being moved by the Holy Spirit, I leave it to
   those who are so incredulous, or rather, so credulous in their
   unbelief, as to doubt it! There are such things, Beloved. They may not
   often happen in so remarkable a manner but, depend upon it, such things
   are occasionally experienced. The Counselor has not perished and He
   does speak to the heart!

   He does put Divine impulses there. He does move the soul. He does make
   us do things of which we would not have dreamed. And thus a strong
   necessity may be laid upon our circumstances, or it may be laid upon
   our will, while our understanding is in either case kept in the dark,
   so that we are led in a way we think not, to prove that our Counselor
   has not perished!

   But there was another mode of guidance. I told you that the children of
   Israel were guided by Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses. He knew the
   places where to pitch their tents. He knew where the palm trees grew,
   he knew the shady side of the rock, he knew where the rippling rills
   flowed from beneath the rocky mountainside. He knew the best place of
   shelter from their foes. Hobab guided them and he was a type of the
   Gospel ministry. And those whom God has called to that honorable
   service will often be the means of guiding God's people. We have known
   many come to God's House seeking guidance and have heard them say that
   the minister described their case exactly. And they have gone away and
   said, "Although nobody could have told him about me, really, if I had
   told him all about myself, he could not have spoken more pointedly at
   me than he did." Have I not had hundreds of cases of that sort? Why, I
   have had letters written to me telling me not to be so personal, when I
   never knew anything whatever of the person who felt offended! What? Do
   any of you object to my being personal? As long as I live I will be
   personal to all of you! And if there is an error in any man's conduct,
   or judgment--by the help of God I will show him where he is wrong!
   Personal preaching is the best kind of preaching. We are not going to
   avoid personalities! We are striving to reach individual cases as much
   as possible, that every man may hear the Word of God in his own
   tongue--and hear it speaking to his own heart.

   But how singularly, at times, you have heard your case described! You
   have gone to the House of God and sat down in the pew, and the minister
   has gone into the pulpit and taken a text just adapted to yourself. He
   begins to tell you what your exact position is and then he tells you
   the way you should go. You cannot help saying as you retire, "That man
   is a Prophet." Yes, and so he is, for as you will remember, I have
   often told you this is the way to find out a true servant of the Lord.
   Daniel was acknowledged to be a true servant of the Lord because he
   could tell the king both the dream and its interpretation. The
   astrologers could only tell the interpretation after they had been told
   the dream. Many can give you advice when they know your case, but the
   true servant of the Lord does not need to be informed about your
   case--he knows it beforehand. You come up here unobserved by your
   fellow creatures, but what you have done in your closet, that the Lord
   has told His servant! What you have done in your business, that He has
   revealed to him in secret communion and it will be made manifest to
   your conscience. He will tell you your dream and the interpretation of
   it, too! And you will say, "Verily, he is a servant of the Lord God of
   Israel." That is the way to tell a true Prophet of the Lord. And I
   beseech you believe no other. Do not go to the astrologer or the
   soothsayer who wishes to know your experience before he will open to
   you the future--but go where your experience is unfolded and where you
   have all your difficulties grappled with and removed! The Counselor has
   not perished! Though speaking not in visions, He still leads His people
   by Providence, by Divine impulses on the mind and by a holy ministry
   which is the oracle of the most high and living God! Still does the
   gracious Counselor deign to counsel His people!

   And the children of Israel were also guided in another way--when the
   priest inquired of the Lord by the Urim and Thummim. There is a sacred
   mystery about this, "of which we cannot now speak particularly." Still,
   I doubt not that by this ordinance, God put a very high honor upon the
   priesthood and conferred a great privilege on His people. Now the
   peculiar privilege of this dispensation i s not the Urim and
   Thummim--it is the gift of the Holy Spirit This is the promise of the
   Lord Jesus Christ to all His disciples, to all who believe on His name!
   Ah, Beloved, you know not much of counsel and guidance if you have not
   yet received the Holy Spirit! Observe how it is written, "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
   is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide
   in Him."

   Do you ask me, "How does the Spirit of God guide us?" I answer, not by
   making fresh Revelations as the Swedenborgians pretend, but by shining
   upon the Word that has been revealed of old--and by shining in our
   hearts. So the Spirit witnesses with our spirits. So does He apply to
   us the promises. So does He open the Scriptures to our understanding
   and He opens our understanding to understand the Scriptures!

   The blessed Spirit also makes intercession for us on earth even as
   Christ makes intercession for us in Heaven. Then He takes of the things
   of Jesus and shows them unto us. And He guides us by the old paths
   where we see the footprints of

   Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and martyrs. Such is the Doctrine
   implied in the inquiry of my text, "Has your Counselor perished?"

   II. Then, secondly, THIS QUESTION SUGGESTS A REPROOF--"Has your
   Counselor perished?"

   It is a reproof because the child of God does not believe, doctrinally,
   that his Counselor has perished, but he does so practically. He at
   times runs of his own accord instead of waiting for the guidance of
   God. At other times he is afraid to move forward, even when the finger
   of Him who "is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working," has
   clearly pointed the way and made the vision so plain "that he may run
   that reads it." How often does the child of God nurse his difficulties
   as Asaph did when he said, "When I thought to know this, it was too
   painful for me." But then he adds, "until I went into the sanctuary of
   God; then understood I their end." O Beloved, remember how Habakkuk, in
   a time of danger, stood upon his watch and sat upon his tower to see
   what the Lord would say to him! Remember what Hezekiah did with the
   letter which he received from the hand of the messengers of
   Sennacherib, king of Assyria! When he had read it, "he went up into the
   house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord." Alas, alas! That,
   your lives should be constantly vexed with trifling cares instead of
   "casting all your care upon God." The knowledge that "He cares for you"
   ought to drive all your anxious cares away!

   One reason why many of us are slow to take counsel of the Lord is
   this--we are not thoroughly emptied of our own conceits. Let me remind
   you of that memorable passage in the history of the children of Israel
   when they came to Kadesh and were proceeding along the borders of
   Canaan. The spies were sent forth by Moses to bring in their report of
   the land. And of the twelve, only two brought in a cheering report. The
   other 10 discouraged the hearts of the people with a pitiful tale of
   walled cities and their giant population. In vain does Moses admonish
   them, "Dread not, neither be dismayed." In vain does he assure them,
   "The Lord shall go before you, He shall fight for you." In vain does he
   call to remembrance the wonders which the Lord had done in Egypt before
   their eyes! Faint-hearted and desponding in this thing, they did not
   believe the Lord their God!

   Look again and you shall behold the counterpart. They were not more
   timid than they were presumptuous. The heart that is prone to resist is
   equally liable to presume. No sooner has the commandment been given to
   return into the wilderness than they gird on, every man, his weapons of
   war and go presumptuously up the hill to fight with the Amalekites and
   the Canaanites--and so they were smitten and fled before them. Who
   would imagine that the people who cringed at the mention of the sons of
   Anak yesterday, would dare to fly in the face of the Commandment of God
   on the morrow? With more humility they would have been braver men. Ah,
   Beloved! How closely we resemble those Israelites in measuring
   ourselves by ourselves! One day we feel so faint that we can attempt
   nothing for God. And another day our hearts beat so high that we could
   presume on anything! The young convert in particular will often
   complain that he is too weak in faith to pray--and then again he will
   boast that he feels so strong in faith that he could preach! The oldest
   of you have never yet learned the full meaning of these precious words,
   "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your
   requests be made known unto God." Ah, you may make a deal of ceremony
   about laying your great troubles before Him, but you do not seem to
   understand the length and breadth of "everything"--every little thing
   as well as every great thing! Paul could go into particulars and say,
   "Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do." You seek counsel in
   foul weather but not when the sun shines. You consult the weather
   instead of watching "the cloud" to regulate your movements.

   The reproof is intended to rebuke our folly as well as our sin. ''Has
   your Counselor perished?" What would you think of a captain out at sea,
   near a coast where there are many rocks--as on the British coast which
   is exceedingly dangerous--if he should say, "Now, sailors, reef your
   sails. You must be kept still on the ocean, for there are so many
   rocks, we don't know which way to go"? Imagine him as he walks up and
   down the deck in melancholy anxiety and says, "Sailors, we can't go on.
   I don't know which way to steer. I can't tell what to do!" What would
   the sailors say? "Sir, are all the pilots dead?" "No, they are not."
   "Then run up a signal and fetch a pilot." That is the way to steer
   through your difficulties but, very often, you are pacing up and down
   the deck and saying, "Oh, I shall never be able to steer through this
   narrow channel! I shall never be able to escape these dangers. I shall
   never be able to avoid that rock." But run up the signal and fetch the
   Pilot! That is the way, for our Counselor has not perished. There is
   yet a Pilot on shore--He will see your signal and as sure as, by prayer
   and supplication, with thanksgiving, you make known your requests unto
   God, He will guide you by His counsel--and afterward receive you to
   Glory!

   But you often act as if you had no Counselor. You run to one friend and
   then to another friend and you ask their advice. But let me tell you
   that if you asked advice of the creature all day long, to however many
   different counselors you went, you would have as many different pieces
   of advice! We have heard of a man who, in order to test the doctors and
   ascertain whether they were true, wrote, I think, to 400 of them for a
   prescription, giving them all the same case. And I think he had 380
   different prescriptions, many of them diametrically opposite to one
   another--and not above two of them at all like each other in the
   smallest degrees. Astonishing, is it not, that there should be such
   division? But there is equal division of opinion when you come to ask
   advice of your friends. One says, "I would do it." Anothersays, "I
   would not do it." Some of old said, "This i s the blind man." Others
   said, "He is like he." There were those, again, who denied his
   identity. But there were some who said, "The best way is to go to the
   blind man himself." And he said, "I am he." It is the wisest plan to go
   to the Master and ask Him, instead of going to our fellow men! You may
   go round and round and round and take all the advice you like, but you
   will obtain no guidance, nor direction. Rather follow the example of
   the disciples who went to Jesus when they were in difficulties. He will
   guide you through the desert and bring you safely to Heaven.

   "But," says one, "how may I draw near to this great Counselor, for I am
   in deep distress?" Ah, then the question comes to you with full power
   as a reproof! Are you asking how you may find Him? What? Does He not
   abide with you? Do you not live with Him? Has your Counselor perished?
   Is He gone? Has He forgotten you? Or do you cease to remember Him--your
   Friend, your bosom Companion? Do you not hold to Him to walk with you
   and lodge with you? Do you not live in Him? Verily, this is a reproof
   to you, for you have lived as if your Counselor had perished! And if
   you ask, O Christian, how you may draw near, even to His seat, let me
   tell you there is the sacred ladder of prayer and faith up which you
   may climb, even to Heaven, and talk with Jesus! Let your difficulties
   be ever so great, go and tell them to your Lord!

   You say, "Why, He knows them. There is no necessity for telling them to
   Him." I would have you all, when you are in doubt, go and tell the Lord
   what you are in doubt about. Go and cross-examine yourselves in prayer.
   Draw out your confessions. Tell Him all your circumstances. Do not say,
   "I need not utter them with my mouth, for He knows them"-- but tell Him
   all about them! It will do you good and it will ease your aching
   hearts. God likes His people to make a clean breast of it. Speak it in
   plain English to God. Don't go quoting human prayer-books, but breathe
   out the plaintive melody of your own sighs. Tell Him, "I am in
   such-and-such distress and I ask Your gracious guidance." Don't go
   around in circles, but go straight to the point. Tell Him what it is
   and when you have confessed your difficulty, the Lord will help you.
   Cast the anchor out and let the Pilot come on board. After that you may
   ship your anchor again and let the Almighty God of Jacob take the
   tiller, guide you over the stormy billows and land you in the haven of
   peace! The Counselor has not perished!

   Here, then, is a reproof which may be often of use to us. When we
   observe the temper and the conduct of Christian people we frequently
   think them ill-advised, as if they had no Counselor. Why so timorous
   and so craven-hearted when duty calls? Why is zeal so wild and so
   little tempered with discretion? Why does adversity cast you down so
   much? Why does prosperity make you vaunt yourselves and behave so
   unseemly? The answer to such questions, I suppose, is not to be found
   in any wanton disrespect to the Word of God, or the statutes of His
   mouth, but you draw not near to the Lord as your Counselor--you hold
   not sweet fellowship with Him! You may spell over His ancient oracles
   with diligent care and yet, if you have no communion with your
   Counselor, if you order not your cause before Him and fill your mouth
   with arguments, then the reproof belongs to you, "Has your Counselor
   perished?" He is an ever-living Advocate! His secret is with them that
   fear Him. Our blessed Master did not leave His disciples like orphans,
   to shift for themselves. Why, then, should you perplex yourself with
   strange fears and forebodings? Why run here and there to one and
   another for advice? "Has your Counselor perished?"

   III. Now, lastly, here is a word of comfort to the desponding. THE
   QUESTION IS INTENDED FOR

   ENCOURAGEMENT. "Has your Counselor perished?"

   There are many things that have perished. There is one of you now
   lamenting the loss of a dear, pious father. And another is groaning
   over the corpse of a mother. The yet unburied body of a husband lies
   within your house. Or perhaps your dead child is yet unconfined and you
   have come here to seek some cordial for your griefs. Well, these have
   perished--objects of your sweet affection! As a dream they have passed
   away and lo, they are not! The place that knew

   them once shall know them no more. You may weep, Mourner, for Jesus
   wept! Yet you may not despair. If they are gone, your Counselor has not
   perished. You have lost some friends, but your Counselor is not dead.
   Some of the private soldiers are slain, but the General is alive! Some
   of the common people have fallen prey to a disease, but the Counselor
   still lives. If anyone had met poor Little-Faith and said to him,
   "Well, Little-Faith, you have been met by the robbers-- what have you
   lost?" "Oh, he would have said, "thank God! Thank God! Thank God!"
   "What for, Little-faith?" "Why, I have lost a great many things, but
   look here! I have not lost my jewels!" One of you goes home from
   business to your private house. As you go, you have to take a large bag
   with £500 in it. Going along, somebody comes behind you and steals your
   handkerchief. What do you say when you get home? "I did not like to
   lose the handkerchief, certainly, but never mind, the £500 are safe! I
   am glad they did not steal that." So it is with you--some of your
   earthly comforts have been taken from you, but do not despair. "Has
   your Counselor perished?" "No, He has not. He is still my Counselor and
   He has not ceased to love me, nor has He ceased to live for me. His
   affection is not abated. His Grace is unchanged. His understanding is
   unsearchable. He knows the way that I take."

   But another says, "I have not lost my friends by death. I could almost
   wish I had. But, Sir, they have deserted me. I am a minister. I had
   deacons who stood by me once, but now they have turned their backs upon
   me. I had an affectionate church, but there are some who, like
   Diotrephes, have loved the pre-eminence and turned against me." Is that
   your state, Brother? I can pity, if I cannot sympathize with your
   trouble. I have not felt the same, for my people love their pastor and
   gather round him in every possible way. But I can tell you this for
   your comfort, your Counselor has not perished! What though your
   principal supporter is determined that you should leave the place? What
   if your familiar friend with whom you went to the House of God in
   company has betrayed you? Your Counselor has not perished! I think
   again I hear a whisper from one who says, "I am not a minister, but I
   am engaged in seeking the welfare of my people. I had helpers once. I
   thought I was doing good, but one by one they have all left and I am
   left alone, faint and cheerless." You may wish them back for they were
   good men, but console yourself with this thought--your Counselor is not
   gone and He is able to support you! We have heard of an ancient orator
   who, when he was speaking, had only one auditor. All who had come to
   listen at the commencement went away--but he still kept on with his
   oration. When he closed, the question was asked him, how he could keep
   on when there was only one person to hear him. "It is true," he said,
   "I had only one auditor, but that auditor was Plato, and that was
   enough for me." So, you may have only one Friend, but that one Friend
   is Jesus and He is enough--a host in Himself--"The Wonderful,
   Counselor, The Mighty God!" O deserted Soul, you who walk in solitary
   places--you who have neither friend nor helper--your Counselor has not
   perished!

   And you sons of poverty, bereaved of your wealth. You children of
   indigence, bereft of all that you had. You whose health is weak and
   whose spirits are low and desponding--though you have lost wealth,
   health and friends--yes, though you are a total wreck now, there still
   remains one blessed reserve, "Has your Counselor perished?" No! Jesus
   lives! Write that down--Jesus lives! Then let every Believer in Jesus
   make his own application of that Truth of God! A great minister is
   dead, but Jesus lives! A kind friend is dead, but Jesus lives! My
   property is gone, but Jesus lives! My comfort has failed, but Jesus
   lives! And because He lives--He, Himself, has said it--I shall live
   also. "Where I am, there shall also My servant be." Then trust Him and
   give no quarter to fear or despondency. Your life is secure! He will
   preserve you!

   O my Friends, my Friends, how much I mourn that there are some of you
   who are without a Guide! Oh, that I could picture that sad thought so
   that you might see your own unhappy case--without a Guide! See yonder
   desert? It is in the midst of Arabia. There are no trees, no shrubs, no
   cooling streams--nothing but the hot sky above and the burning sand
   beneath! And there is a man wandering there in awful solitude! Do you
   see him? He looks haggard, warn, forlorn. He is gazing on the ground to
   see if he can find a camel's track, that he may follow it. He runs here
   and there seeking a path of escape, but he runs in vain! He turns round
   and round in a perpetual circle, while the fiery desert still
   encompasses him. Why does he wander thus? Because he has no guide!
   Watch him a while longer. He casts his eye around, but there is no
   hope. Deluded by the mirage for a moment, he thinks there are green
   plains around him, but alas, the vision mocks his hope! Stooping down
   to drink, he fills his mouth with hot sand. O Man! Why are you so
   foolish as to pursue the phantom? Because he has no guide! Watch him
   again. He lays himself upon the ground, the subject of despair. He
   groans and casts his eyes up at the death-bird wheeling in the air,
   expectant of his prey, for he has scented him from a distance and is
   come to devour him! Why does he not rouse himself? Because he has no
   guide!

   And now he is dead, the vulture is upon him and his flesh is cleared
   away by the horrid bird. And as you go through the desert, there is
   nothing but a bleached skeleton to tell the harrowing tale. Why did
   that man die? Because he had no guide! And so shall the wicked perish!
   But the righteous "shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
   that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not
   wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but
   are like the chaff which the wind drives away."

   God give you His Holy Spirit, that you may receive the instruction,
   listen to the reproof and enjoy the comforts of this Counsel evermore!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Bold Challenge Justified

   (No. 3067)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   1, 1871.

   "Who is he who condemns?It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen
   again, who is even at the right hand ofGod, who also makes intercession
   for us." Romans 8:34.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon this passage are as follows--#256,
   Volume 5--THE BELIEVER'S CHALLENGE;

   #1223, Volume 21--JESUS, THE SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS PEOPLE and #2240,
   Volume 38-- A CHALLENGE AND A SHIELD.]

   ALL through this very wonderful chapter the Apostle seems to be piling
   up, in heaps upon heaps, the many marvels of Divine Grace. I might
   quote from the old classic fable of the giants who piled the mountains,
   one upon the other-- Pelion upon Ossa--and I might say that even so has
   Paul done here. He has piled mountain upon mountain of wondrous Grace
   in his description of the way to Heaven! And now he seems to have
   climbed to the top of them all and to have transformed them into a kind
   of Tabor or Pisgah. And as he stands there, he exults in the Lord! He
   waves the palm branch of triumph. He boasts with holy boasting. And he
   challenges all his enemies to attack him--"Who shall lay anything to
   the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who
   condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen again, who is
   even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."

   I. Here, first of all, is A SOLEMN QUESTION--a very solemn question if
   it were put to all here present--"Who is he who condemns?"--for I am
   afraid that some of my hearers, if they asked that question, might have
   a speedy answer-- "It is your own conscience that condemns you; it is
   the Word of God that condemns you; it is Christ Himself who condemns
   you. It is God, the Judge of All, who condemns you because you have not
   fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before you in the
   Gospel--you have not believed in Jesus Christ." But Paul is speaking as
   a Believer in Christ and for him to ask the question, or for any other
   Believer to ask it, is a very different thing, for he may say what
   others must not, "Who can lay anything to mycharge? Who is he that can
   condemn me, now that I have believed in Jesus Christ, my Lord and
   Savior?"

   Now, Beloved, one answer that might be given to this question, "Who is
   he who condemns?" is that, there are many who would if they could for
   probably no Believer in Christ is without his enemies. There are few
   good men and women who are not slandered. The majority of God's people
   have been persecuted in some way or other--and some of them have had to
   lie in prison year after year. Many more have been condemned to die and
   yet, inasmuch as slanderers and persecutors have no right to condemn
   the man of God, he may challenge his slanderers and his persecutors and
   say, "You may profess to condemn me if you please, but I count your
   condemnation to be no more potent than the whistling of the wind. You
   would condemn me if you could, but you cannot really do so." Satan, our
   arch-enemy, would condemn us if it were in his power. Only fancy him
   for a moment sitting on the Judgment Seat. If we had the devil to judge
   us, he would soon bring to our recollection our many faults, follies
   and failings--and condemn us for them. But, O you fiend of Hell, God
   has not made you the judge of His saints! You may cast foul
   insinuations against them, but the Lord says to you concerning each one
   of them, "The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! Is not this a brand plucked out
   of the fire?" Satan has no right to judge us and no power to condemn
   us! So when he speaks the worst he can about us, we laugh him to scorn,
   rejoicing that God will shortly bruise him under our feet!

   But, Beloved, sometimes our own conscience condemns us. The best man
   here will, at times, have painful memories of the past and to look at
   the past, except through the glass made red by our Savior's precious
   blood, is to look upon

   despair--for our past transgressions would drag us down to Hell were it
   not for the Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Yes, and we need not
   look back far to have this sad view, for the sins of any one of the
   best days we have ever lived might cause us to tremble! The sins of our
   holy things are black enough to cause us great sorrow. Did you ever
   pray a prayer that you could not have wept over afterwards? Have you
   ever preached a sermon with which you could feel content? Is not sin
   mixed with all that we do? But here is the mercy, that our conscience
   is not set upon God's Throne to judge and to condemn us, although we do
   well to listen to the voice of conscience and to give heed to its
   admonitions. The Apostle John reminds us that, "if our heart condemns
   us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things." And that, "if
   any man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
   Righteous." With all our imperfections and our consciousness of guilt
   we rejoice that--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood,

   Drawn from Emmanuel's veins.

   And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

   Lose all their guilty stains."

   It looks like a bold question for any man to put so unreservedly, "Who
   is he that condemns?" But there is really only One who can condemn. Our
   characters may have been pulled to pieces by a thousand accusers, but
   they could not condemn us. When a prisoner stands in the dock, he need
   not be afraid of anybody except the judge and jury. It does not matter
   what you or I may believe about him--nobody but the 12 men in the box
   can give the verdict against him or in his favor. These are the persons
   before whom he has cause to tremble but before none besides. So whoever
   may pretend to condemn us, there is only One who can really do so--and
   that is the Judge--and what is His name? O Christian, what a comforting
   fact is this to you! Your Judge is your Savior! And it is not possible
   to conceive that He who died and rose again, and entered into
   Heaven--and every day pleads for us--can ever use His blessed lips to
   pronounce condemnation upon any one of His own people! "Oh," you say,
   "but He must do it as He is the Judge! He must not show any favor on
   the Judgment Seat." That is a correct remark and I have been sorry
   whenever I have heard a preacher say that. It is a consolation to think
   that the Judge will be our Friend. Why, Beloved, we must not imagine
   that Jesus will judge partially and give His verdict in our favor
   because we are His friends. No, but here is our comfort--He who is our
   Judge, beyond everybody else, knows the whole truth about us and He
   would not justify us at the last if we really ought to be condemned.
   Ah, no, He is too just to do that! But He knows that every Believer is
   so completely justified that he cannot be condemned. He knows, as
   nobody else does, how the Believer was justified--what blood it was
   that washed the Believer white! And what righteousness it is that has
   made the Believer "accepted in the Beloved." He knows His own and He
   knows the way in which He has justified His own and, therefore, as an
   Omniscient, Infallibly just Judge, He knows that the sentence which
   will be passed upon the Believer, which is a sentence of acquittal, is
   the only one that could be passed!

   "Who is he who condemns? Christ who died." So the fact stands that
   whatever there may be in store for others in connection with the coming
   Day of Final Judgment and the banishment of the condemned to Hell, all
   who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will never be condemned! Under no
   possible or conceivable circumstances can they ever be condemned, for
   they who are once forgiven and justified always shall be forgiven and
   justified in time and throughout eternity! There is now no condemnation
   to them who are in Christ Jesus--and there never shall be! [See Sermon
   #1917, Volume 32--in christ no

   CONDEMNATION.]

   II. Our second point is THE GROUND OF THIS HOLY CONFIDENCE.

   It was holy confidence that made Paul ask, "Who is he who condemns?"
   And he has given us the reasons for his confidence, but I shall first
   call your attention to what he has not given as the ground of
   confidence.

   He does not say, "Who is he who condemns?--for we have never sinned."
   That would be a very good ground of confidence if it were true, for if
   we had never sinned, nobody could condemn us. God is not unrighteous,
   so He does not condemn an innocent man. But there is not one glorified
   person in Heaven who will ever dare to plead that he never sinned, for
   "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We have all gone
   astray from God like lost sheep. Everyone of us has gone the downward
   road. By the works of the Law we can never be justified, for the Law
   only brings to us a knowledge of sin and proves to us that our fancied
   perfection can never be the ground of our confidence.

   Neither does the Apostle ground his confidence on the fact of his
   repentance. Some people seem to have a notion that although sin is a
   very evil thing, yet if repentance is sincere and deep, it will suffice
   to wash out the sin. But Paul does not

   say, "Who is he who condemns?--for I have felt the plague of sin and
   hated it, and wept over it and turned from it." He makes no mention
   whatever of his repentance as a ground of his confidence! He had truly
   repented, yet he never dreamed of relying upon his repentance as a
   reason for his justification in the sight of God!

   Nor does he say that he puts any dependence upon a long life of
   holiness. From the time of his conversion, Paul had been an example to
   all the flock, so that he could even write, "Be you followers of me,
   even as I also am of Christ." Yet he does not say, "Who is he who
   condemns?--for I have lived a blameless life among you all, and none
   can convict me of sin." Not a word of that sort does he utter! I know
   that some of you seekers after salvation fancy that those good
   Christian people whom you very much admire must get a great deal of
   comfort out of the good lives that they lead. But I can assure you that
   this is not the case with any of them. They will all tell you that they
   have not the least confidence in themselves, or in their own works, but
   that their confidence is found in quite another direction!

   Paul does not say that his confidence was based upon the fact that he
   had practiced great self-denial and had been a most devoted missionary
   of the Cross of Christ. It is true that he had been beaten, and stoned,
   and shut up in prison, and that he had been quite willing to lay down
   his life for his Lord, but he makes no mention of all that as the
   reason why he felt that he could not be condemned. What do you think
   was Paul's opinion of all the good works he had ever done, and of all
   that he had suffered for the name of Christ? This is what he says, "I
   do count them but dung," (he could hardly have used a more opprobrious
   word than that), "that I may win Christ and be found in Him." A good
   man, when he was dying, said that he was gathering all his good works
   and his bad works together in one bundle and flinging them all
   overboard. In his estimation, the one set was about as good as the
   other as a ground of confidence in the sight of God-- and he meant to
   be rid of the whole and to put his trust somewhere else. And believe
   me, dear Hearer, as I stand here before you, I know whom I have
   believed--and I have not only a hope of eternal life, but I know that I
   have eternal life within my own soul! But, if you ask me whether I base
   my confidence of my salvation upon the fact that these many years I
   have preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I tell you, "No, I place no
   reliance upon my own preaching as any ground of merit in the sight of
   God." And if I am asked whether, having experienced much of the Grace
   of God, I build my confidence on my experience, I answer, "No, in no
   wise. Infinitely better than anything within me or of me is the Rock
   upon which my soul rests, or else I should be resting upon a shifting
   quicksand which would be my destruction." On Christ and what He has
   done, my soul hangs for time and eternity! And if your soul also hangs
   there, it will be saved as surely as mine shall be! And if you are lost
   trusting in Christ, whoever you may be, I will be lost with you--and I
   will go to Hell with you! I must do so, for I have nothing else to rely
   upon but the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived, died, was
   buried, rose again and went up to Heaven--and still lives and pleads
   for sinners at the right hand of God!

   I have thus shown you that the Apostle's confidence was not founded
   upon anything of himself. Now I want to explain to you the reasons why
   he knew that he was not condemned and never should be. He had four
   pillars to his confidence.

   And the first great massive pillar was this--"It is Christ who died.
   "But Paul, you have broken God's Law, so He must punish you. He
   replies, "God cannot punish me. He cannot even condemn me." But Paul,
   you helped put Stephen to death--your hands were red with the blood of
   the martyrs! You hunted the saints of God and delighted to put them to
   death--and yet you say that God cannot condemn you for that and never
   will? "Yes," says the Apostle, "He never will. He never can!" And why?
   "Because Christ died." But Paul, what has Christ's death to do with
   your guilt? His answer is, "All my sins, however many or however black
   they may have been, were laid upon Christ and He stood in my place in
   the sight of God. And in my place He suffered that which has rendered
   full satisfaction to the Law of God for all my evil deeds, thoughts and
   words. The sufferings of Jesus were the sufferings of my Substitute. He
   bore, that I might never bear, the wrath of God on account of my sin."
   Do you see this, poor sin-burdened soul? If Jesus Christ died in your
   place, God cannot condemn you! If Jesus Christ did really suffer in
   your place, as your Substitute, where would God's honor and justice be
   if He should punish the sinner for whom Jesus had died as Substitute?
   That can never be!

   The comfort of the text lies here. Paul says, "It is Christ who died."
   That is to say, it is the Son of God who died and there must be
   infinite merit in the Atonement which was presented by the sufferings
   of so august a Person. Paul says, "It is Christ who died." That word
   signifies "the Anointed One"--the Divine Person who was sent by the
   Father and anointed by the Holy Spirit--and who Himself undertook to
   suffer in the place of His people. He did not do it of His own will
   alone--He was authorized to do it--appointed and anointed to do it! God
   put His Son into that place, as the Prophet Isaiah says, "All we like
   sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, everyone to his own way; and
   the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Now, if Christ was
   Substitute, and if God appointed Him and anointed Him as my only
   Substitute, to suffer in my place, where in the whole Universe can
   there be found any reason why God should first punish Christ and then
   punish me? The only question is--Did He so die in my place? The answer
   to that question is this--If I believe in Christ, I am one of those for
   whom He died as Substitute. If I trust Him with my whole heart. If I
   rely alone upon Him as my Substitute and Savior, I have the mark and
   sign upon me that He suffered in my place, that He offered a full and
   complete Atonement for my sin and, knowing this, I dare to say as
   confidently as the Apostle Paul said it, that Christ died for me! Who
   can ever condemn the sinner for whom Christ died as Substitute and
   Savior? Is not this a good foundation to have under my feet? May I not
   stand here securely and, knowing that Jesus died instead of me, may I
   not feel assured that I can never die and that I can never be sent to
   Hell--for Jesus Christ has suffered all that I ought to have suffered?

   But the Apostle had a second reason for feeling sure that he should not
   be condemned, and that was that Christ had risen from the dead. "Yes
   rather, "he says, "who is risen again. "Now, if Christ had not risen
   from the dead, He would have been proved to be an impostor. If He had
   not risen from the dead, it would have been clear that He was not God,
   or the Son of God. But His rising from the dead proved that He was both
   God and the appointed and anointed Savior. Christ's death paid the debt
   that His people owed to Divine Justice--and when He came out of the
   prison of death in which He had been detained for a while, it was, so
   to speak, God's receipt by which He said to the whole universe, "My Son
   has paid the debts of all His people; therefore I let Him go free."
   Jesus was the Hostage for all His chosen ones and until the last
   farthing of the tremendous price of their redemption had been paid, He
   must lie in the prison of the tomb. But when it had been certified by
   Infallible Justice that the great transaction was finished and the
   redemption of His people was fully accomplished, then Christ was set
   free and "He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." Now
   see, Believer, what is the effect of this glorious Truth of God! How
   can God ever condemn you after He has accepted Christ as your
   Substitute--after He has publicly accepted Him by raising Him from the
   dead in the presence of men and angels? God cannot so belie himself! It
   is not possible that after He has accepted the Substitute, He should
   afterwards condemn those for whom that Substitute bled and died!

   Paul had those two pillars--the death and Resurrection of Christ--but
   he added a third. He says that Christ is at the right hand of God. This
   is another weighty reason for our feeling that we never can be
   condemned, for the right hand of God is the place of power and the
   place of majesty! Christ at the right hand of God is there as King. And
   as King He is able to defend His people against all their adversaries.
   False accusers, therefore, shall be driven away by the power of His
   Omnipotent arm. While Christ is King, at the right hand of God, what
   accuser shall dare to impeach us in the courts of Heaven? Christ's
   sitting at the right hand of God proves that His great redeeming work
   is done! If He had not completed it, He would not be sitting down. But
   it is done and done forever! Finished in that matchless loom is the
   perfect Robe of Righteousness that we are to wear forever! The last
   throw of the sacred shuttle of His untold agony has been made. Dyed is
   the wondrous garment that we are to wear, for it has been dipped in His
   precious blood. And when it was finished, the Divine Worker "sat down
   at the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies
   are made His footstool." For Christ to sit at the right hand of God is
   a continual certificate from the Father that He is satisfied with the
   substitution of His Son instead of us and satisfied with us as we are
   represented in Him. Every moment that Christ is at the right hand of
   God, every Believer is safe. For Christ to be in Heaven and for the
   people for whom He died to be in Hell is utterly impossible! For Christ
   to be there as our Representative and yet for those whom He represents
   to be cast out from the favor of God would be a monstrosity, a
   blasphemy which cannot be imagined for a single instant! The Head is
   glorified, so the members of His mystical body shall never be
   condemned. They must be eternally saved because He is at the right hand
   of God! Look up, then, Christian! You looked down into the tomb and saw
   Him there paying your debts. You looked round to the garden from where
   He rose and saw that your debts were all discharged. Now look up to the
   Heaven where He dwells with His Father--and see yourself "accepted in
   the Beloved."

   The Apostle had yet one more ground of confidence for he says that
   Christ "also makes intercession for us." And if any doubt could linger
   until now, surely this must expel it! When Jesus pleads for His people,
   His pleas are Omnipotent and God will nearer deny to His Son the reward
   of His soul-travail. I suppose that in Heaven Christ pleads for His
   people vocally, but it is not at all necessary that He should, for His
   very Presence there is an irresistible plea. If someone were

   pleading before an earthly court and if he had been an old soldier, and
   had rendered valiant service to his country, if he were to bare his
   chest and show the scars of the wounds that he received in battle, he
   would not have to say much, for his scars would plead better than any
   words could. And Jesus in Heaven lifts His hands and feet, and shows
   His pierced side. His scarred Person still adorned with the marks of
   His passion and death is an everlasting and overwhelming plea. If Jesus
   pleads for me, can His Father reject me? If so, He must also reject His
   Son! He must refuse the authoritative requests of His only-begotten and
   well-beloved Son! He must deny to Jesus that which He well
   deserves--and that He can never do. O Believer, if you still have any
   doubts about your acceptance in Christ, let them fly before this fourth
   mighty blow, "who also makes intercession for us."

   I am not going to keep you here much longer, but I want to remind you
   that the main difficulty with some of you seems to be that you do
   believe these great Truths of God, but you do not fully realize what is
   contained in them. I am speaking now only to you who really do believe
   in Jesus. You are resting upon Him alone--you know you are. Unless you
   are awfully deceived, each one of you can say--

   "My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus' blood and righteousness."
   Well, Beloved, do not let me merely say this and you simply hear it,
   but believe it, enjoy it, drink it in, live on it! You are not
   condemned by God and, therefore, the opposite of that is true--you are
   accepted by God, you are Beloved of God, you are dear to God--you are
   pure and precious in God's sight. Let that blessed thought get into
   your brain and when it is there, pray to God to let it get down deeper,
   even into your heart and soul, and then say as Paul did, "Being
   justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ." And "there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in
   Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Why
   do I see you hang down your head and look as gloomy as an owl? You
   might well look so if you were condemned or if there were any threat of
   your being condemned--but there is no such fear if you are a Believer
   in the Lord Jesus Christ!

   I sometimes hear preachers say that we are in a state of probation, but
   I should like to know who is in such a state as that. Certainly the
   sinner is not, for he is already lost! And the saint is not, for he is
   saved and can never be lost. The sinner is already condemned and the
   saint is already justified! We are not waiting for the verdict for it
   has already been given! It is recorded concerning every Believer that
   he is justified and that the claim he makes that he is a child of God
   is a true one and that all the glorious inheritance in the land of the
   blessed is his and he may claim it at once as his own, for it all
   belongs to him! So, up with you child of God! Up with you, bird of the
   day! Eagle of God, will you sit day after day moping in the dark when
   you might soar up into the light and gaze even at the sun? Up with you,
   son of the morning! Up with you, child of light! Away from all your
   gloomy doubts and fears! You have a million a year for spending money,
   given to you by the God of Grace, so will you go on spending a few
   pence a day, like a beggar who needs to be careful even of his
   farthings? You are forgiven! Then live as a forgiven man should. What
   if God smites you every now and then with trouble? Can you not say, as
   one did long ago, "Smite, Lord, as hard as You will, for there is now
   no anger in Your blows and, therefore, I can bear them without
   complaining"? Are you suffering severe losses and carrying heavy
   crosses? They ought to seem very light to you now! As long as you are
   forgiven, what does anything else matter? Go to a man in Newgate,
   condemned to die, and take him a free pardon. Tell him that by the
   favor of his sovereigns, he is to live! And do you think he will begin
   murmuring because some little thing is not just as he would like it?
   Oh, no! He will say, "It is enough for me that my life is spared." Now
   you are forgiven! You are God's child! You are on the way to Heaven, so
   "fret not yourself because of evil-doers." Murmur not against the Most
   High. Take your harp down from the willows and sing unto the Lord a new
   song, for He has worked marvels of mercy for you!

   And then, in the light of this wonderful love of God to you, so live at
   home and abroad that others shall ask, "What makes this man so happy?
   What makes this woman so glad?" I will not say to you who are
   forgiven--Sing with your voice all the day, though I would have you
   praise the Lord with joyful lips as much as you can. But let the bells
   of your hearts go on ringing all day! Sometimes when I think of what
   the Lord has done for me, I feel myself to be like a church steeple
   that I saw some few months ago. There had been a wedding in the place
   and the bells were pealing out a merry chime. And as they rang, I
   distinctly saw that steeple reel and rock, and the four pinnacles
   seemed to be tossing to and fro--the whole tower seemed as though it
   would come down as the bells pealed out again and again. And sometimes
   when my soul pulls the big bell--"Jesus loved you and gave Himself for
   you, and you are accepted in Him, you are God's

   own child, and on your way to Heaven, and a crown of eternal life is
   yours"--I feel as if this crazy steeple of my body would rock and reel
   beneath the excessive joy and be scarcely able to hold the ecstatic
   bliss which the love of God creates within my soul! And then do I
   sing--

   "In the heavenly Lamb, thrice happy I am, And my heart it does leap at
   the sound of His name!" Oh, I would that everyone of you had that joy!
   And surely everyone shall have it who will have it in God's way! If you
   believe in Jesus Christ, you shall be absolved from all your guilt. If
   you will but trust yourself to Him, whoever you are, He will take your
   sin and lift it off from you--and cause you to be accepted, as all His
   people are!

   God give to all of you the Grace to believe in Jesus and to go your way
   rejoicing, for His name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN20:1-18.

   Verse 1. The first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early, when it
   was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and saw the stone was taken away from
   the sepulchei. Her love for her Lord made her rise early and helped her
   to overcome the fear which would have prevented many from going out
   "when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher." There are fears which some
   cannot shake off in the dark--and those fears would be apt to become
   intensified in going to a sepulcher in the dark. But love wakes early
   to try to find Christ and love can see in the dark when looking for
   Jesus! Mary little expected to find the tomb of Jesus rifled and the
   stone rolled away--she was so surprised at what she saw that she
   hurried away to tell the story to other friends of her Lord.

   2. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple,
   whom Jesus loved, and said unto them, They have taken away the Lord out
   of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid Him. This was
   the language of ignorance and unbelief. She had forgotten that the Lord
   had said that He would rise again the third day. Or else she had never
   understood the meaning of His words. So, instead of saying "He is
   risen," she said, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher,
   and we know not where they have laid Him." Unbelief often reads things
   wrongly--it reads sorrow into facts that should create joy. Nothing
   could have made Mary happier than to believe that her Lord had risen
   from the dead--and nothing ever made her more sorrowful than feeling
   that she must say, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher,
   and we know not where they have laid Him."

   3, 4. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to
   the sepulcher So they ran both together: and the other disciple did
   outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher They wanted to know what
   had really happened, so they resolved that they would go and see. The
   woman's message surprised them and troubled them, "So they ran both
   together." A good many people seemed to be running that morning. Had
   the disciples known the whole truth, they might have taken to dancing
   for joy, but their fears quickened their footsteps!

   5. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes. So that
   he knew that they had not taken away the body of Jesus, for if they
   had, they certainly would not have taken off the linen clothes. It
   would have been very difficult and would have taken considerable time
   to unwrap the cold grave-clothes when they were bound to the body by
   the ointments that had been used--"He saw the linen clothes."

   5. Yet went he not in. Perhaps out of reverence or, possibly, out of
   deference to the older man. He would give him the preference and let
   him enter first.

   6. Then came Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher and
   saw the linen clothes. They were evidently both struck with that sight.
   It indicated that there had been no haste, no hurry by thieves, but
   deliberate action of quite another kind.

   7. And the napkin, that was about His head, not lying with the linen
   clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself As one has well
   said, there were the grave-clothes left as the furniture for the
   Believer's last bed, and there was the napkin, "in a place by itself,"
   to wipe away the tears of mourners. The chief lesson is that this act
   had been done at leisure by someone who was in no hurry whatever! He
   had put together the linen clothes and wrapped up the napkin, and laid
   it "in a place by itself."

   8. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the
   sepulcher, and he saw, and believed. That is a great deal for John to
   be able to say concerning himself, for Mary had not yet believed.
   Possibly Peter had scarcely believed, but John had. He felt certain
   that the Lord had risen. He remembered His words and He correctly
   interpreted the fact now before him--"He saw, and believed."

   9. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from
   the dead. They did not understand it. Even John himself did not until
   then. The rest of the disciples had never put that interpretation upon
   our Lord's words which was the clear and simple meaning of them,
   namely, that He would rise from the dead. I should not wonder if there
   are other words of Scripture with regard to the future which we would
   comprehend if we took them exactly as they stand in the Word--but we
   have put other meanings upon them and, consequently, see no further
   into them.

   10. Then the disciples went away again unto their own homes. Having
   ascertained that the body of Jesus was not there, and John having come
   to the conclusion that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, He and
   Peter went away home prayerfully to wait and see what would happen
   next.

   11. But Mary stood. She was not going home. Love cannot leave the place
   where it lost its objective. It will continue to search there. "But
   Mary stood."

   11. Outside of the sepulcher weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down
   and looked. Some can weep, but never look. Do not act so, Beloved, but
   look for comfort even when your heart is breaking. "As she wept, she
   stooped down and looked."

   11. 12. Into the sepulcher and saw two angels in white. The
   resurrection color, the color ofjoy and gladness! "Two angels in
   white."

   12. Sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the
   body of Jesus had lain. I have no doubt that the angel who sat at the
   feet was quite as content to sit there as the other was to sit at the
   head. If any two of you are sent upon the Lord's business, do not pick
   and choose as to where you shall be, or what you shall do. "One at the
   head, and the other at the feet." I am afraid that if they had been
   men, instead of angels, both would have wanted to sit at the head, and
   the feet would have been neglected. This sight seems to remind one of
   the Mercy Seat where the cherubim stood facing each other and covering
   the Mercy Seat with their outspread wings.

   13. And they said unto her, Woman, why do you weep? She said unto them,
   Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
   laid Him. Grief has not many words. It is apt to repeat itself, as the
   Lord Himself did in Gethsemane when He prayed three times using the
   same words.

   14. 15. And when she had said thus, she turned herself back and saw
   Jesus standing and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said unto her,
   Woman, why do you weep?Christ often repeats the words of His messengers
   as if to endorse them. The angels said, "Woman, why do you weep?" The
   angels' Master said the same. I pray Him, tonight, not only to give me
   the right words to say, but also to say it, Himself, to your hearts.
   But Jesus added another question to the angels', "Woman, why do you
   weep?"

   15. Whom do you seek?She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said unto
   Him, Sir, 'if you have borne Him from here, tell me where you have laid
   Him, and I will take Him away. Did it occur to her that, possibly, the
   gardener objected to having a corpse in the garden and that, therefore,
   He had come early in the morning and taken it away? We can hardly
   imagine what she thought, but when people are in great grief, they
   often think a great many things which they would not think if they were
   quite in their right minds! What strange delusions, what singular
   images of monstrous shape will pass through the heart of grief! God
   help us to be clear-minded and not to think what we should not like to
   say! Still, Mary was a brave woman, for she said to the gardener, "Tell
   me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away."

   16. Jesus said unto her, Mary. She turned and said unto Him, Rabboni!
   Which is to say, Master She said, "My Master, my Rabbi, my Teacher, my
   Leader, my dear Master." And I expect she said it with great
   exultation. She delighted to have her Master again, to have her Teacher
   again for, to be without her Teacher and without her Lord was a
   terrible bereavement to that gentle, teachable heart! I suppose she was
   about to lay hold upon Christ, to grasp Him by the feet, lest He should
   again go away from her.

   17. Jesus said unto her, Touch Me not Or, as the words may be read,
   "Hold Me not; detain Me not."

   17. For I have not yet ascended to My Father. "I have to go away from
   you, so do not imagine that you can hold Me back. No, the time for such
   communications with Me is past, for I am now in another condition. I
   will communicate with you spiritually but, for that, you must wait a
   little--"I have not yet ascended to My Father.'"

   17. But go to My brethren. He had never called them that before.
   "Brethren," He had called them, but not with the emphatic, "My." "Go to
   My brethren."

   17. And say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to
   My God, and your God. Thus Christ explained to them that the Father,
   who is God, was God to Christ and God to them. The Father of Christ and
   their Father also.

   18. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the
   Lord. That was a very different message from her first one. Then she
   came and said, "He is gone! The tomb is empty. The stone is rolled
   away." Now she comes with the joyful tidings, "I have seen our risen
   Lord."

   18. And that He had spoken these things unto her. Sometimes we have to
   deliver the message of stern justice which is one of doom to the
   guilty, but oh how sweet it is to be able to come with the message of
   the Gospel!--

   "He lives!--The great Redeemer lives!"

   He lives to plead for sinners! So, sinners, come and trust Him, for He
   will manifest Himself to you as surely as He did to these disciples,
   though not in exactly the same form!
     __________________________________________________________________

Unknown Depths and Heights

   (No. 3068)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

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

   "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
   do." Luke 23:34.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon Christ's cries from the Cross (in
   addition to those mentioned later) are as follows: #2562, Volume
   44--CRIES FROM THE CROSS; #2803, Volume 48--THE SADDEST CRY FROM THE
   CROSS; #2344, Volume 40--CHRIST'S DYING WORDS FOR HIS CHURCH; #2311,
   Volume 39-- OUR LORD'S LAST CRY FROM THE CROSS and #2644, Volume
   45--THE LAST WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS.]

   IT needs a tongue as eloquent as that which uttered these words to
   fitly describe the scene before us. Christ, the King of kings, and yet
   the sorrowful Substitute for sinners, has been stripped naked. The
   mocking soldiers have unconsciously fulfilled the Scripture which said,
   "They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast
   lots." He has been thrown roughly to the ground. His legs and arms have
   been stretched out upon the transverse wood. Rough hands have grasped
   the cruel nails. Stern blows have been dealt with the heavy hammer--He
   now begins to know the physical sufferings of crucifixion. He looks
   down to the faces of the men who have been putting him to exquisite
   torture and to bitter shame and utters not a single word of complaint,
   much less of accusation or of vengeance. And He breathes a prayer,
   "Father, forgive them"--My murderers, the rough men who have stripped
   Me, the cruel men who have nailed My hands and pierced My
   feet--"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

   Brothers and Sisters, the sayings of Christ upon the Cross have a
   deeper meaning than that which appears upon the surface. They were
   texts of which His eternal life should be the sermon--they were no
   common words. As no Word of Scripture is of private interpretation, no
   Word of the Savior upon the Cross loses its force and significance in
   later times. What He said then, He is saying now. What He said then was
   but the utterance of a sentence which shall roll through the ages and
   which shall prevail with God through time and throughout eternity.
   "Father, forgive them," was the prayer of a dying Man, but it was not a
   dying prayer. "They know not what they do," was the plea of lips that
   were about to be closed, but it was no plea which was doomed to
   silence--it is heard in Heaven today, as much as when Jesus first
   offered it on Calvary from His Cross!

   The text seems to me to be of great depth. I shall not attempt to
   fathom it tonight, but reserve it for some future sermons, only tonight
   exploring two of its parts, rather flitting like a swallow across its
   surface, than like the leviathan stirring its depths. [Mr. Spurgeon
   carried out this intention with Sermons #897, Volume 15--THE FIRST CRY
   FROM THE CROSS and #2263, Volume 38--

   CHRIST'S PLEA FOR IGNORANT SINNERS.]

   There are two things in the text, the unknown depths of sin--"They know
   not what they do." And the unknown heights of mercy, as manifested in
   Christ's dying plea--"Father, forgive them." May God grant His blessing
   while I shall endeavor to set forth both, according as the Spirit of
   God shall enable me to do so!

   I. And first, my Friends, it appears from the text that THERE ARE
   UNKNOWN DEPTHS IN HUMAN INIQUITY. "They know not what they do."

   You will tell me, perhaps, that Christ applied this remark to His
   murderers who did not know that He was the Son of God, for if they had
   known Him to be the Messiah, "they would not have crucified the Lord of
   Glory." And it might have been said to them, "You did it ignorantly in
   unbelief." I grant you that this was the immediate meaning of Christ's
   words, but I think, to return to what I have already affirmed, this
   saying is true of the entire human family--whenever any of us sin, we
   know not what we do. Do not misunderstand me. There is no man in the
   world who has not enough perception left to teach him the difference
   between right and wrong. Even upon the natural conscience of man there
   is

   engraved so much of the Law of God that his conscience either accuses
   or excuses him. I can scarcely think that there is any race of bushmen,
   or that there is a single tribe of aboriginal savages who have
   altogether lost that "candle of the Lord which searches all the inward
   parts of the belly." They know enough to leave them without excuse, so
   that if they perish, they perish through willful sin. Yet I must admit,
   at the outset, that it is possible for the conscience to become so
   blind through prevailing customs, so seared through lengthened habit
   and so preserved through absolute ignorance, that men may sin and yet
   know not what they do. There may be some in whom the judgment has left
   its seat--they have become maniacs so far as any moral judgment is
   concerned. They sin with both their hands and, perhaps, write down that
   very sin as being righteousness, and their obscenity as being a
   sacrifice acceptable to God! There are none such, however, here. I
   think in a land like this, with an open Bible, with a preached Gospel,
   with the Presence of the Spirit of God, I need not address such an
   assembly as this as not knowing what they do in that sense. If you sin,
   my Hearers, you sin against light and knowledge. You sin knowing that
   you do wrong. You put out your hand to touch the accursed thing knowing
   that it is accursed. You sin willingly and many shall be your stripes,
   seeing that you know your Master's will and do it not! But still, of
   the whole human race it is nevertheless true that when they sin, "they
   know not what they do." Let me show you, as briefly and forcibly as I
   can, how this is the fact.

   Who among us knows, to the full, the real meaning and nature of sin?\
   can give some description to you of what sin is, but I question,
   Brothers and Sisters, whether even the most enlightened of us know the
   whole of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Sinner, I address myself
   pointedly to you. Do you know that when you sin, you call God a fool?
   You say that His Law is not the best thing for you, that He has made a
   mistake and has asked you to do that which would not conduce to your
   happiness. You call God a fool--is that nothing? Do you know that when
   you sin, you call God a liar? He tells you that sin is a bitter and an
   evil thing. You say, "No, it is sweet. It is pleasant. At any rate, I
   will taste it." You give the lie to the Eternal God! Is that nothing?
   Whenever you sin, you call God a tyrant. You do, in fact, avow that He
   has given Laws which are hard and arbitrary, which He ought not to have
   given and which you are determined to break because you feel that they
   are not for your happiness--they do not promote your comfort! And is
   this nothing? Is this nothing--to call the all-wise God a fool, the
   truthful God a liar and the good and generous God a tyrant?

   But there is more than this in your sin. Every time a man sins, he aims
   a blow at the crown of God. He refuses to let God be the King but puts
   his hand, his wicked hand, upon the diadem of Deity and would dash the
   crown from God's head if he could. No, more! He aims a blow at God's
   very existence. The language of sin is, "No God!" And every time a
   sinner sins, he tries to get rid of God--and his aim and drift is to
   stop the Eternal One and to put the King of kings out of His own
   universe. Is this nothing? Is this nothing? Does not even this, feeble
   though the explanation is, make sin to be exceedingly sinful? Verily,
   when we sin, we know not what we do! I can hardly believe that there is
   a man or woman in this assembly who would, in cold blood, stand up and
   say, "I defy God! I will do my best to drive Him from His throne. Yes,
   and to drive Him from existence!" And yet, Sinner, every time you
   curse, or lie, or swear, or break God's Law in any way whatever, you
   do, in fact, do all these things and I think I may say you know not
   what you do.

   Let us now shift the kaleidoscope and get another view of this great
   and solemn Truth of God. Some of us know what we do if we judge of sin
   by its loathsomeness in God's sight There is no man living who knows
   how much God hates and abhors sin! You may detest the loathsome toad.
   You may give way to a wicked disposition and hate some enemy till you
   cannot live till that enemy is slain. But you cannot loathe the toad,
   you cannot hate your foe so thoroughly as God abhors and hates sin!
   Wherever sin is, there is God's utmost hate, anger and ire. He cannot
   endure it! His eyes cannot light upon it without burning it up and His
   hand is always longing to smite it to the death. Why, look Sirs, God
   had a choice archangel--a glorious being whose wings were like the
   beams of the rising sun, whose stature was like a great snow-clad
   mountain and whose beauty was as a fair field girt with flowers. He
   sinned and God spared neither him nor the angels that followed him in
   his rebellion, but cast them down to Hell and reserved them "in
   everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
   Angelhood could not save an angel--angelic stature, a seraphic voice
   and a cherubic flight could not save Satan and his hosts when the stain
   of sin had fallen on them! How much, then, must God hate sin?

   When God had made the world, He smiled and said, "It is good." The
   morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy,
   for the world was very good and God's own heart was glad at the sight
   of the new-made world. But when Adam sinned, God did not spare Eden,
   with all its perfections of beauty! And later, when the iniquity of man

   was fully ripe, He did not spare the round world itself, but bade the
   floods leap up from their cavernous darkness and bade the clouds burst
   their swaddling bands, and the earth was covered with a flood, for "it
   repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him
   at His heart."

   No, if we still want to see more clearly how God hates sin, let us see
   how sin came upon His own Son, His only-begotten, His well-beloved Son.
   It came there, not by any deed of His own, but because He took our
   iniquities upon Himself and, therefore, was numbered with the
   transgressors. And did His Father spare Him? Far from it! He smote Him
   with the rod, He scourged Him with the lash, He pierced Him to the
   heart with His sword. He gave up His darling to the power of the dog,
   and "Lama Sabachthani?" was a sorrowful proof that God hates and
   loathes sin, let it be wherever it

   may. [See Sermon #2133, Volume 36--"MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU
   FORSAKEN ME?"] Now, Sirs, would you go and press to your bosom and
   dandle and pamper and pet that thing which God loathes and hates? I
   think not. If we ever had, before our eyes, God's hatred of sin and
   this were revealed to our heart by the Holy Spirit, we would long to be
   rid of it and, therefore, I say that when we take hold of it and
   embrace it, we know not what we do.

   Again, what man among us knows sin in its awful consequences?\s there a
   mother here who would go home tonight and ask herself the quickest way
   to damn her child's soul? Is there a father here who would take counsel
   with his own wickedness as to the readiest method of sending his son to
   Hell? I think not. And yet, when the father is a drunk or a swearer,
   what does he do but do his worst to ruin his child? And when the mother
   is prayerless, Godless, Christless, does she not do her utmost to
   murder her child's soul? Verily, we in our relationships, when we go
   into sin, know not what we do! What master could sit down wantonly to
   undermine the spiritual health of his workmen? What citizen would wish
   to become the deadly upas tree dropping poison from all its branches?
   What man of influence would wish to be the basilisk whose eyes should
   tempt men to their destruction? Not one! And yet when you commit
   iniquity--and especially those of you who occupy the responsible
   position of parents, or masters, or ministers, or employers in any
   way--you do your best to destroy the souls of others! So I can truly
   say, "Surely you know not what you do."

   Do you know, Sinner, that every time you sin, your sin affects the
   whole world? Let me not stagger you. It is only our finite vision which
   prevents us seeing the effect of even one thought upon the entire
   universe. The word I am speaking, just now, sets in motion a wave in
   the air which reaches your ears. It will abide in your memory, to a
   certain degree, throughout eternity. In limiting the sphere of my voice
   to your ears, I have set eternity pulsating--you shall think these
   things over either in the waves of fiery Hell, or in the fields of
   glorious Heaven. Eternity has been affected by the speech of a man! And
   so it is with what you do--there is an effect produced on earth, in
   Heaven, in Hell by whispered blasphemy or by an unseen lust--you cannot
   sin alone! You are part of a universe--you cannot disentangle yourself
   from the meshes of the net of society. You are in the ship of the
   universe and you cannot get out of it. You cannot even be thrown out of
   it, as Jonah was cast out of the ship into the sea. Your sin is
   dragging other men down to Hell, or else the Grace that is in you is
   helping to lift up others towards God and Heaven. Mind that when you
   sin, for from this day on I think that you will hardly be able to say
   as, perhaps, you may have done before, that you know not what you do.

   But Sinner, let me speak to you solemnly--to you--about something in
   which no imagination is needed. Do you see that man yonder? What is he
   doing? I see a pearly gate within which I mark the splendors of
   unutterable bliss and hear the hymns of the Paradise of God! What is
   that man doing? He is putting bolts and bars upon that gate to shut
   himself out. Do you call him a madman? Sinner, that madman is you! Your
   sins are shutting you out of Heaven. Do you see yonder man? He is
   carrying wood on his weary shoulders and stooping to the very ground as
   he bears his burden. For what purpose is he carrying that fuel? It is
   to make a bed of fire on which he shall lie and swelter in flames
   forever! Do you call him a madman? Sinner, that madman is yourself!
   What is Hell but the laying on upon your back of a whip whose knots you
   have yourself tied? What is it but the drinking of a cup of gall, every
   drop of which was distilled from your own sin? These are awful things
   to say, but I feel that when I look at what Hell is, in all its
   horrors, and what the loss of Heaven is, with all its dreadful
   darkness, I must say to you when you sin, surely you know not what you
   do! The man who puts himself to death with the halter, or drives the
   knife into his heart, or throws himself into his watery grave may have
   some present griefs which may, to him, though not to us, seem to be an
   excuse for fleeing from them. But you, when you sin, are a suicide
   without excuse because you flee from good that stands before you to an
   evil that has no mixture of benefit or mercy! You leap into the fire
   yourself--a fire which you have yourself kindled and which your own
   blasphemous breath has fanned! Oh, may God teach us, when we sin, what
   we have really done, that we may not do it again and that, by His
   Grace, we may be led to the precious blood of Christ to have the guilt
   of it washed away!--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel's veins.
   And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains."

   Only once more upon this point and then I will leave it. "They know not
   what they do." Sinner, do you know that when you sin, eternity is
   involved in every act?Faith binds me to eternal bliss--sin and unbelief
   fetter me to everlasting woe. I think I hear the voice of a spirit
   which has been these last ten years in Hades. Listen! Listen! There is
   a cry, a groan, but now the words are audible--"Fool that I was to come
   here! Here I am tortured in indescribable agony that is to go on
   forever--and for what? For a few hours of giddy mirth, for a few silly
   jokes that I might indulge my pride rather than submit to the Free
   Grace of God. Why am I here? Because I would serve Satan--and God knows
   that it was a bitter service and what little sweet it had is all
   forgotten now." Do you hear this man as he speaks to himself? "Oh, if I
   could ever escape from this dreadful dungeon, it would be a Heaven to
   me! If these awful fires could be quenched, if this gnawing worm would
   but die, then I would be content! If after ten thousand, thousand,
   thousand years I could hope to make my escape from this pit of woe, it
   would set all the bells of my heart a-ringing for very joy at the bare
   possibility that, at last, I might escape! But what is it that I see
   written before me? Forever! Forever, on my chains! Forever, branded on
   my limbs of pain! Forever, on yon waves of fire! Forever, in the angry
   gaze of an incensed Deity! Forever, in those hungry depths which seem
   to yawn to suck me into deeper woe! Forever, forever, forever,
   forever!" O drunkard, swearer, whoremonger--when you sin the next time,
   remember that the deed you do entails everlasting consequences which
   will run on forever, forever, FOREVER! Surely, when you have sinned in
   the past, you must have been ignorant of this overwhelming Truth of
   God--you could not have known what you were doing!

   Job speaks of washing himself with snow water and trying to make
   himself clean. And this he speaks of right earnestly. However far from
   the hot plains in which he lived, Job might have to send for snowy
   water--whatever quantity of soap (for in the Hebrew there is an
   allusion to soap in the second clause)--however much nitre and soap he
   might have to take in order to wash himself perfectly clean, it was
   worth all the expense and trouble if only it could be accomplished.

   And, dear Friends, we must be clean in the sight of God. We must desire
   to be clean in the sight of God for, if not, we are the objects of His
   continual displeasure. ' 'God is angry with the wicked every day." This
   is a solemn Truth of God which is far too much forgotten in the present
   day. Many have tried to put the thought of it right on one side and
   held forth only the Doctrine of the Divine Benevolence. But while that
   Doctrine is blessedly true, these solemn declarations are equally true,
   "The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget
   God." And, "He that believes not, is condemned already, because he has
   not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." Now, if we
   were right-hearted towards God, this would seem to us to be a very
   dreadful thing. We little know how exceedingly hateful sin is to

   God. [See Sermon #3068, Volume 53--UNTOLD DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS.] You

   know that there are some things which you and I sometimes see which are
   very disgusting and loathsome to us. I went into a railway station in
   Italy once, where I saw a man who had lost his arm and who by way of
   begging, exposed to us the stump of it and also a horrible ulcer from
   which he was suffering. I turned away sick at the sight and dreaded to
   go to that station again, for fear that I should be met inside the door
   of the waiting room by that horrible spectacle! But, depend upon it, no
   mutilation and no disease of man's body was ever so sickening to the
   most delicate taste as sin is sickening to God! He loves purity and,
   therefore, He must loathe impurity. He delights in those who are just
   and true and upright--and He cannot endure those who are unjust, false,
   or unrighteous. His holy soul abhors them as that strong expression of
   His in the prophecy of Zechariah proves--"My soul loathed them and
   their soul also abhorred Me." The sinner does not dislike God more than
   God dislikes him as a sinner. The sinless God cannot look with
   complacency upon him who is sinful--he is loathsome to the holy mind of
   God. So, surely, if we are right-hearted, we shall feel that anything
   and everything that we can do in order to get right with God and to
   become clean in His sight, we ought to do at once!

   Let us also remember that as long as we are unclean, we are in daily
   danger of the fires of Hell. Do any of you know what Hell is? It is the
   leper colony of the universe! Just as in the olden times when the
   "black pest," or some other terrible epidemic ran through a town or
   village, they would build a house some miles away from the place and
   call it the pest house where they would put away all those who had the
   pest or plague--such is Hell, only a million times worse than any
   earthly pest house ever was! Hell is the pest house of the moral
   universe. You know that in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut
   up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease
   should pollute the whole district. And Hell is God's leper colony where
   sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope!
   And what are the pains of Hell? They are the natural result of sin. Sin
   is the mother of Hell. The pains and groans of lost spirits in Hell are
   simply the fully-developed flowers of which their sins were the seed.
   Bitter is the fruit, sour is the vintage of that vine of Sodom and
   Gomorrah which some men set themselves so diligently to plant--and so
   industriously to water. Sin bears its own sting within itself. The
   torments that are to come are the stings of conscience and the
   inevitable effects of remorse upon the soul and body of the man who
   will continue to be unclean in the sight of God! Lest, therefore, any
   of you should ever be shut up in that place of "everlasting destruction
   from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," I do
   beseech you to awaken yourselves and diligently seek to find out how
   you may be made clean in God's sight--

   "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."

   In addition to the eternal loss which all who are cast into Hell must
   sustain, also remember that none can enter Heaven until they are pure.
   Those holy gates are so closely guarded by angelic watchers that no
   contraband of sin shall ever cross the frontiers of Heaven. The angels
   look up and down and through and through. The man who presents himself
   there--if so much as a speck, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing is
   found upon him--cannot be allowed to enter! Just think for a minute how
   utterly impossible it must be for the impure to enter the courts of the
   thrice-holy God. You sometimes see, in the streets of London, wretched
   creatures in whom poverty, drunkenness and debauchery have so combined
   that even in their outward appearance, they present a truly horrible
   aspect. They are so foul, filthy and loathsome that I should not dare
   to describe them more fully. None of us would like to come near
   them--our flesh creeps at the very thought of them! Now, suppose that
   these shoeless, ragged, filthy, diseased creatures should present
   themselves at the gates of Buckingham Palace on some great occasion
   when all the princes of the blood and the peers of the realm were
   gathered there? Do even the most democratic of you think that the
   soldiers would be too squeamish if they were to tell them that they
   were unfit to enter such a place and to mingle with such company? "Why,
   no," you say, "of course they must at least be clean, or they can never
   enter the royal palace." Well then, it must assuredly be so in a still
   more emphatic sense with regard to the palace of the King of kings!
   Would it be possible for any to enter there defiled with sin, foul with
   fornications, adulteries, thefts, murders, infidelities, blasphemies,
   profanities and rebellions against God? It cannot be that the pure air
   of Heaven should ever be breathed by them, for it is expressly declared
   that "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles,
   neither whatever works abomination or makes a lie." All who are there
   are absolutely perfect! And you and I, if we would be with them, must
   be renewed in heart and converted unto God--and washed from every
   stain, and spot and speck of sin. It is clearly impossible that the
   thrice-holy God should have unrenewed, unclean sinners immediately
   under His own eyes, in His own courts. It is bad enough for Him to have
   them, for a time, in this little planet, floating in the vast sea of
   space. But He could not endure to have them up there amid the splendors
   of eternal Glory! That cannot, must not and will not be!

   Once more, every man will feel that it is worth his while to endeavor
   to be clean before God if he wants a quiet conscience, for a truly
   quiet conscience is never possessed by any man until he has been washed
   in the precious blood of Jesus and so made "whiter than snow." Does
   anyone ask, "Can that be done?" I answer in God's own words. "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." This great miracle
   of mercy can be worked and nobody's conscience will ever be perfectly
   at peace till it is accomplished. There is a way of silencing
   conscience without that miracle being worked, but it is like the way in
   which cruel tyrants sometimes silenced the martyrs. "Hold your tongue,"
   the tyrant has said, "I will not listen to your heresy." But the brave
   man has still gone on speaking--he would not be silenced. And then the
   tyrant has cut his tongue out. I think I have known men cut out the
   tongue of their conscience, so that it could no longer speak. Perhaps
   some here have done it--torn it right out by the roots by going to the
   drink shop, by frequenting evil company, by taking up infidel ideas
   when they knew better. They knew that they could not, with a clear
   conscience, do what they wanted to do, so they resolved that they would
   tear out its tongue, so that it could no longer rebuke them!

   O foolish Man, you could not have dome a worse thing for yourself than
   that, for he who quiets his conscience after that fashion is like one
   of whom I have heard who, one night, was unable to sleep because a
   faithful dog kept on howling under his window. He called out to it and
   bade it lie down, and went back to bed and tried to sleep, but still
   the howling continued. And at last, when the creature would not be
   quiet, he took his gun and shot it, in his anger. He ought to have
   known that the dog wanted to tell him that there were burglars who were
   trying to enter his house and that the faithful animal was doing its
   best to preserve its master's life. After the dog was dead and the man
   had gone to sleep again, the burglars entered his bedroom, stole
   everything of value that they could find and ended by staining their
   hands with the blood of the foolish man who had killed the poor
   creature that warned him of his peril! The devil is trying to destroy
   your soul and your conscience, like that faithful dog, gives the alarm,
   but you cry to it, "Lie down!" It does not lie down, however, and
   perhaps this very sermon is helping to wake it up, but you are
   determined that it shall be quiet and you will even kill it if you can!
   Well, if you do, you will then have sealed your own destiny by that
   very deed. The only proper way of quieting conscience is the method
   that a wise owner would have taken of quieting his dog. Supposing that
   man had gone downstairs and patted his dog on the head and praised it
   for being a good dog? Suppose that he had loosed its chain and taken it
   round the yard with him? Suppose, too, that he had taken that gun, with
   which he so foolishly killed his dog, and when, at last, he had
   discovered the villains who had come to rob him, he had set his dog on
   them, or even leveled his gun at them? That would have been far wiser
   than killing his dog and losing his own life! In such a fashion as
   that, go and lose your conscience and let your sins be
   destroyed--otherwise they will assuredly destroy you! The quieting of
   an awakened conscience can only be rightly done by getting rid of
   sin--and there is but one way to get rid of sin--of which I will speak
   before I have finished my discourse.

   Thus much on the first point--to be clean in the sight of God is worth
   any and every effort.

   II. Now secondly, ALL EFFORTS OF OUR OWN, MADE IN OUR OWN WAY, WILL
   CERTAINLY FAIL.

   It is very curious what efforts people will make to get rid of their
   sins. Some try to get clean by ceremonies. Ah, Mr. Priest, is that good
   soap that you are bringing with your bowl of water? "Yes," he replies,
   "the best Roman soap, or you can have a cake from Canterbury or Oxford
   if you would prefer it. How beautifully white your hands will look if
   you only use enough of this patent soap." So you say, but if you had
   your eyes opened, you would see that after all your washing, they are
   as black as night! The soapsuds get in your eyes, Sir, and therefore
   you do not see the dirt that is still on the sinner's hands. That is
   all that ever comes of mere ceremonies--they blind, but they do not
   cleanse.

   Another thinks that he can obtain cleansing by religious observances.
   His form of washing with snow water is attendance at his usual place of
   worship. He goes there regularly. He would never be away if he could
   help it! When the proper time for service comes and having done that,
   he asks, "Will not that take away my sin?" No, Sir, not a spot, nor
   even half a spot! Some have given away large sums of money with the
   hope of thereby cleansing themselves from sin. But all the gold in the
   world can never form a golden ointment with which to cleanse iniquity.
   There are many who have tried to get cleansing by their moralities and
   their charities, but their efforts have all been in vain. Mr. Legality
   and Mr. Civility are said to be great hands at washing Blackamoors
   white, but I have very grave doubts as to whether the Blackamoors are
   not blacker after the washing than they were before!

   Men have had the strangest notions as to how they might be cleansed
   from sin. Read John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of
   Sinners--which is, as you know, a record of his own experience--and you
   will see some very curious ideas of his concerning the way in which he
   hoped to wash himself from sin. Yet, his ideas are not any more curious
   than those of people who are now living. The other day I read a letter
   from a young farm laborer, describing the way in which, at one time, he
   hoped to get saved. He said that in the village where he lived, there
   were some young men who went to the Patagonian Mission and there got
   what he called, "massacreated." Of course, he meant to say that they
   were massacred. And he further wrote, "I thought that if the Patagonian
   Mission would have taken me and the natives would only have killed me,
   I would have gone joyfully and gladly, for I heard that they were all
   saints who died in that way and I would willingly have gone if I could
   have got to Heaven by that method." Yes, and so would I, and so would
   most of us when we were under the burden of sin. We would not have
   minded being killed and eaten if we might in that way have entered into
   eternal life, for a man who really feels the burden of sin is willing
   to try all sorts of extraordinary methods of getting rid of it! Look at
   the methods adopted by the heathen in order, as they hope, to get rid
   of sin. Go to India and look at the great car of Juggernaut, and see by
   what cruel means the people there hope to get rid of sin! And there are
   many other equally useless methods which the spiritual quacks are
   vainly puffing as unfailing ways of getting rid of sin!

   But on the authority of the Word of God, we confidently declare that
   all human methods of seeking the cleansing of sin which men may
   practice must end in failure, even as Job's did when he said, "If I
   wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet shall
   You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." Yet, if
   God really means to save you, He will never let you be satisfied with
   any human plan of salvation, but He will, to use Job's expression,
   plunge you in the ditch and make you feel even blacker than you did
   before! How will He do that?

   Sometimes the Lord does this by bringing to a man's memory his old
   sins.' 'There," says the self-satisfied man, "I am getting on now--how
   clean I am after that last wash!" And just then he recollects some sin
   he committed as a boy, or some foul deed which he can never wipe
   completely off the tablet of his memory. "Oh!" he cries, "that dreadful
   past sin of mine has not gone as I vainly hoped that it had--it is
   still there." So he is again plunged in the ditch and all his beautiful
   washing counts for nothing!

   At another time, the Lord permits the man to be greatly tempted. He
   gets up in the morning and says to himself, "Now I really feel a great
   deal better than I have felt for a long time. I have firmly resolved to
   make a man of myself and I know that my resolutions are much stronger
   than they used to be." So he starts out very confidently. But presently
   there comes to him something that is stronger than his resolutions--and
   over goes the boastful man, generally failing in the very thing in
   which he fancied himself to be strongest! He soon discovers that he was
   only powerful as long as he had not a powerful adversary to contend
   with him. That is the way in which many a man has been plunged by God
   in the ditch.

   Sometimes God will do it in another way--by opening a boastful man's
   eyes to see the imperfection of his work He thinks, "I did that piece
   of work well. I am sure I did and I do not see how any Christian could
   do it better." When any man begins to talk like that, the Lord often
   makes him sit down and closely examine that work of which he is so
   proud. And as he looks at it, he sees that it is full of flaws. It is a
   beautiful vase, but just try to fill it with water. Ah, it leaks! The
   man looks at it and says, "Well, I never thought it was as faulty as
   this. It seemed to me to be perfect! Yet this beautiful vase that
   appeared to be so fair, leaks like a sieve." The man says to himself,
   "That good action of mine was done with a bad motive, so it is like a
   leaky vessel. While I was doing it, I was as proud as Lucifer over it.
   So it leaks--and after I had done it, I went away and boasted about it,
   so the vase kept on leaking." In that way the man gets plunged into the
   ditch and he sees himself to be blacker than he was before he had thus
   washed his hands with snow water!

   Very frequently men have been plunged into the ditch by being made to
   see the spirituality of the Law. A man says, "I have not broken the
   Law. I have kept all the Commandments from my youth up. I never killed
   anybody. No one can say that I ever did." But where he finds it
   written, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer," he cries, "Ah then
   I have been a murderer!" A man says very boldly, "I have never
   committed adultery! Who dares to say that I have?" But when he reads
   the words of Jesus, "I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to
   lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart,"
   then the man says, "I must admit that I am guilty, for I see that I
   have broken these commandments by my thoughts and looks, although I
   knew that I had not broken them by my actions. I did not know that the
   Law concerned itself so closely with looks and thoughts as well as with
   acts and words." But, indeed, that is the very thing with which the Law
   is concerned--and for which it condemns men! And when the
   self-satisfied man learns this solemn Truth of God, he says, "Then I am
   plunged in the ditch, and my own clothes abhor me, although I had
   washed myself quite clean."

   Others are plunged in the ditch in this way--they are made to realize
   the supreme holiness of God. It had been the habit of a certain man to
   say, "I am as good as my neighbors, and better than most of them. Don't
   talk to me about Christian men and women--there's many a professing
   Christian not half as good as I am! Why, was I not kind to my neighbor
   when he was in distress? Did I not give a guinea to such-and-such a
   charity? Am I not ready at all times to stand up for the right?" So he
   talks. But when he gets a view of God, then, like Job, he abhors
   himself and repents in dust and ashes! And he says, "I thought I could
   compare myself with man, but I cannot compare myself with God! And as
   God and not man, is the standard of holiness, I am indeed plunged in
   the ditch. Yet I thought I had washed myself perfectly clean--that snow
   water and patent soap did seem to take the dirt off beautifully--but
   now I find that in the sight of God I am just as filthy as I can be."
   And when the Lord, the Holy Spirit, convinces a man of sin, the words
   of Job are none too strong--"My own clothes shall abhor me." You may
   sometimes have abhorred your clothes because they were so dirty that
   you were ashamed to be seen in them. But you must be dirty, indeed,
   when your very clothes seem ashamed to hang upon you! This is what the
   convicted sinner feels--that he is so foul that his very clothes seem
   to be ashamed of him, as if they would rather have been on anybody
   else's back than on the back of such a filthy sinner as he is!

   "Ah," says someone, "you are exaggerating now." No, I am not
   exaggerating, at least as far as my own personal experience is
   concerned. I can well remember--though I did not then know that John
   Bunyan had used somewhat similar expressions--I can well remember when
   I was under deep conviction of sin, wishing that I had been a frog or a
   toad rather than have been a human being because I felt myself to be so
   foul in the sight of God. I felt that I was such a great sinner that
   the bread I ate might justly choke me and that the air I breathed might
   have righteously refused to give life to the lungs of such a sinner as
   I was. I felt, at that time, that if God spared me, it was only because
   He was boundless in compassion--and if He cast me into the hottest
   Hell, I could never murmur against the justice of His sentence, for I
   felt that I deserved any punishment that He might award me. When the
   Holy Spirit brings sinners to feel like this, it is a proof that He is
   leading them on the way by which He brings them to Christ. Oh, that the
   Lord would make every guilty sinner here long to be clean in His sight!
   And also make each one feel what is certainly the truth--that all the
   means in a man's own power of making himself clean will turn out to be
   dead failures--for though he should take snow water and wash himself
   ever so clean, yet would he again be plunged in the ditch and his own
   clothes would abhor him!

   III. The last point on which I have to speak is the best. It is
   this--THERE IS A RIGHT WAY OF GETTING CLEAN IN GOD'S SIGHT.

   First, it is an effective way. He that believes on the Lord Jesus
   Christ shall be made clean. He shall be cleansed from all the foulness
   of the past--God will wipe it right out. He shall be cleansed as to his
   heart and his nature. To him God repeats that ancient promise, "A new
   heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."
   "How is this to be had?" By trusting to the Divine method of cleansing
   the filthy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all
   sin everyone who believes in Him. There are millions upon the earth now
   whom the blood of Jesus Christ has completely cleansed--and there are
   millions more now hymning His praises in Glory who have had every spot
   of sin taken out of them by the application of His precious blood! O
   sinful Souls, if you could ever have made yourselves clean, Christ
   would not have needed to pour out His life's blood that you might be
   washed in it! If the cleansing bath could have been filled with human
   tears, or could have been filled by means of the incantations of a
   so-called priest, there would have been no need for Your wounds, O
   Emmanuel, and no need of Your indwelling, O regenerating and
   sanctifying Spirit! But because we could not be cleansed by any other
   means, the water and the blood flowed freely from the pierced heart of
   Jesus, the Divine Son of God! And now the ever-blessed Spirit waits to
   be gracious and to change the heart and renew the nature and make us
   fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light!

   This effective way of getting cleansed is also an immediate way. We
   have often sung--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
   moment for you"-- and it is true, for there is instant cleansing for
   anyone who looks to Jesus Christ. A sinner may have committed more sins
   than he could count in a million years and yet, as soon as he gives one
   believing look at Jesus Christ, all those sins are gone forever! You
   know that when a bill is paid, the receipt is written at the bottom and
   that puts an end to the whole debt. So, Sinner, the name of Jesus at
   the bottom of the whole roll of your indebtedness to God puts an end to
   it all! The man who thinks he has only a few sins may bring his little
   bill--and you who know that you have many sins may bring your big
   bill--but Christ's receipt avails for one as much as the other! Even if
   the roll of your guilt should be many miles long, it makes no
   difference to the efficacy of the blood of Jesus! If the list of your
   sins should be long enough to go right around the world--and just one
   drop of the blood of Jesus should be put upon it--all that is written
   there would at once disappear and be gone forever! And the sinner would
   be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

   Further, this effective and immediate way of cleansing is also an
   attainable way of cleansing. To preach to sinners a salvation which
   they cannot obtain would be to tantalize them. We do not so, but to
   every person in this Tabernacle tonight and to everyone anywhere else
   whom this message may reach, we have to say this, "If you will confess
   your sin to God and then put your trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, you
   shall be saved--even you, whoever you are, and whatever sin you may
   have committed!" Your confession is to be made, not to your fellow
   creature, but to Him against whom your sins were committed. Go to your
   home, or seek some quiet spot where you can commune with your God. Tell
   Him that you have sinned, and ask Him to have mercy upon you. Tell Him
   that Jesus died in the place of sinners--plead the merit of His
   precious blood and say, "Lord, I believe that You can save me and I
   trust in You to save me, for Jesus' sake." If you will do this, you
   shall be forgiven! You shall be renewed in heart, you shall be made
   clean!

   In closing my discourse, I remind you, as I have often done before,
   that this cleansing is available now, at this very moment! I recollect
   hearing of a somewhat stingy man who once needed to hire a horse and
   chaise to go out for a drive. So he went to the man who let such things
   and asked the price. He said that the sum asked was too high--and went
   round to every other person in the little town who had such things to
   let, but found that their prices were higher still. So, at last, he
   went back to the first man and said to him, "I will take your horse and
   chaise at the price you mentioned." "No," he said, "you won't, for you
   have been around to everybody else to try to get them at a lower price,
   and I shall not let you have mine now." I was not very much surprised
   to hear that he was told that. Now, some of you have been to everybody
   else for salvation except to the Lord Jesus Christ! You have been to
   Rome and you have been to Oxford, and you have been to self and I
   hardly know where you have not been! Yet, notwithstanding that, you may
   come to Christ even now! He will not refuse you even now! Going to
   Canterbury has not saved you, but going to Calvary can. You have found
   no help in the city on the seven hills, but you may find immediate help
   on the little hill outside Jerusalem's gate-- the little mound called
   Calvary, where the Savior shed His precious blood for all who will put
   their trust in Him!

   I have been talking to you in a very simple, homely way, for I have
   been afraid lest anybody should by any possibility not know what the
   Gospel really is. I always think that if my net has small meshes, the
   big fish can get in and the little fish cannot get out, So I have put
   small meshes to my net and talked in a homely style with simple
   illustrations which all can understand. The Lord knows that I have done
   this out of love to your souls. I would bring you all to Jesus if I
   could--but I cannot do that. Oh, that the Spirit of God would do it!
   Why do you need so much urging to come to Christ? You are filthy with
   sin and here is a free bath in which you may be washed spotlessly
   white! Come and bathe in Jesus' blood and that will make you fairer
   than the lilies, and lovelier than all the glories of Solomon! If you
   do but wash in this Fountain, you will scarcely know yourself when you
   come up out of it! And if you happen to meet your old self, the next
   day, you will say, "Ah, Self! I don't want to be on speaking terms with
   you anymore. I never knew that you were so ugly! I never knew that you
   were so filthy! I never knew that you were so abominable till I had
   gotten rid of you by being made a new creature in Christ Jesus."

   The Lord bless you and bring you to trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and
   He shall have all the praise and glory forever and forever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:13-26.

   Verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. The earth would go putrid if
   there were no salt of Divine Grace to preserve it. So, dear Friends, if
   God's Grace is in you, there is a pungent savor about you which tends
   to preserve others from going as far into sin as otherwise they would
   have done. "You are the salt of the earth."

   13. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?If
   the God-given Grace could be altogether taken from you. If you had no
   sanctifying power about you at all, what could be done with you? You
   would be like salt that has lost its savor.

   13. It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be
   trodden under foot of men. Mark this, then-- either the saints must
   persevere to the end, or else the Grace of God has effectually done
   nothing for them. If they do not continue to be saints and to exercise
   a saintly influence, there is no hope for them! There cannot be two new
   births for the same person. If the Divine work has failed once, it will
   never be begun again. If they have really been saved, if they have been
   made the children of God and if it is possible for them to lose the
   Grace which they have received, they can never have it again. The Word
   of God is very emphatic upon that point--"If they shall fall away, it
   is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" Falling may be
   retrieved, but falling away can never be. [See Sermon #75, Volume
   2--final

   PERSEVERANCE--Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org.]

   There are countries where there is found salt from which the pungency
   has completely gone. It is an altogether useless article and if there
   are men who ever did possess the Grace of God, and who were truly God's
   people, if the Divine life could go out of them, they would be in an
   utterly hopeless case. Perhaps there are no powers of evil in the world
   greater than apostate churches--who can calculate the influence for
   evil that the Church of Rome exercises in the world today?

   14. You the are light of the world. The Bible is not the light of the
   world, it is the light of the Church! But the world does not read the
   Bible, the world reads Christians! "You are the light of the world."

   14. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. You Christians are
   like a city built upon a hilltop--you must be seen. As you will be
   seen, mind that you are worth seeing.

   15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
   candlestick and it gives light unto all that are in the house. God's
   intent is, first, to light you. And, secondly, to put you in a
   conspicuous position where men can see you.

   16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
   works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.Let the light of your
   purity and your good works be as bright as possible, yet let not the
   light be to your own praise and glory, but let it be clearly seen that
   your good works are the result of Sovereign Grace for which all the
   glory must be given to "your Father which is in Heaven."

   17. 18. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I
   am not come to destroy, but to fulfill For verilyIsay unto you,
   TillHeaven and earthpass away, onejot or one tittle shallin no wisepass
   from the Law, tillallare fulfilled. See how the great Lord of the New
   Testament confirms the Old Testament? He has not come to set up a
   destructive criticism that will tear in pieces the Book of Deuteronomy,
   or cut out the very heart of the Psalms, or grind Ezekiel to powder
   between His own wheels. But Christ has come to establish yet more
   firmly than before all that was written aforetime and to make it stand
   fast as the everlasting hills.

   19. Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
   shall teach men so, he 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. A true man may make mistakes and so he
   may teach men to violate someone or other of the Divine Commandments.
   If he does so, he shall not perish, for he was honest in his blunder.
   But he shall be among the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he who
   earnestly, perseveringly and conscientiously teaches all that he knows
   of the Divine Will, "the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of
   Heaven."

   20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
   righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
   into the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ does not teach a lower kind of
   morality than the Pharisees taught. They were very particular about
   little things--jots and tittles--but we must go further than they went!
   We must have more righteousness of life than they had, although they
   seemed to their fellow men to be excessively precise. Christ aims at
   perfect purity in His people and we must aim at it too. And we must
   really attain to more holiness than the best outward morals can
   produce.

   21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
   kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment God had
   said, "You shall not kill." But the remainder of the verse was the
   gloss of the Rabbis--a true one, yet one that very much diminishes the
   force of the Divine Command.

   22. But I say unto you, That whoever is angry with his brother without
   a cause shall be in danger of the judgment And a far higher judgment
   than that of men.

   22. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca. A word of very
   uncertain meaning, a kind of snubbing word, a word of contempt which
   men used to say to one another, meaning that there was nothing in them.
   "Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca."

   22. Shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
   shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ will not have us treat men with
   anger, or with contempt, which is a very evil form of hate, akin to
   murder, because we as good as say, "That man is nobody." That is, we
   make nothing of him, which is morally to kill him. We must not treat
   our fellow men with contempt and derision, nor indulge any angry temper
   against them, for anger is of the devil, but "love is of God."

   23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
   remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
   gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
   brother, and then come and offer your gift. Note that this injunction
   is addressed to the man who has offended his brother Why is this?
   Because he is the least likely to try to make up the quarrel. It is the
   man who has been offended who usually exhibits the nobler spirit--the
   offender is almost always the last to seek a reconciliation and
   therefore, the Savior says to him, "If your brother has anything
   against you, it is but right that you should be the first to seek
   reconciliation with him. Leave your gift, go away from the Prayer
   Meeting, turn back from the Lord's Table and go and first be reconciled
   to your brother."

   25. Agree with your adversary quickly.Always be ready to make
   peace--not peace at any price--but, still, peace at any price except
   the sacrifice of righteousness.

   25, 26. While you are on the way with him, lest at any time the
   adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
   officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You shall
   by no means come out from there till you have paid the uttermost
   farthing. And there are some debts of which we cannot pay the uttermost
   farthing! And there is a prison out of which no man shall come, for the
   uttermost farthing demanded there shall never be paid. God grant that
   we may, none of us, ever know what it is to be shut up in that dreadful
   dungeon!
     __________________________________________________________________

Cleansing--Wrong Or Right?

   (No. 3069)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   31, 1874.

   "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet
   shall You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me."
   Job 9:30,31.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on the same text is #1908, Volume
   32--WASHED TO GREATER FOULNESS.]

   WE are all, by nature and by practice, unclean in the sight of God.
   However excellent or virtuous we may seem before man, we have all
   broken God's Law, for that Law requires perfection and we have been far
   from it. The Law demands spotless holiness towards God and perfect
   rectitude towards man and, in some point or other, we have all
   transgressed that Law--and we have therefore become polluted before the
   thrice-holy Jehovah. The great question which ought to arise in the
   mind of every one of us is this--"How can I be cleansed before God?"

   I. We are called upon to remember, first, that TO BE CLEAN IN THE SIGHT
   OF GOD IS WORTH EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT.

   Job speaks of washing himself with snow water and trying to make
   himself clean. And this he speaks of right earnestly. However far from
   the hot plains in which he lived, Job might have to send for snowy
   water--whatever quantity of soap (for in the Hebrew there is an
   allusion to soap in the second clause)--however much nitre and soap he
   might have to take in order to wash himself perfectly clean, it was
   worth all the expense and trouble if only it could be accomplished.

   And, dear Friends, we must be clean in the sight of God. We must desire
   to be clean in the sight of God for, if not, we are the objects of His
   continual displeasure. ' 'God is angry with the wicked every day." This
   is a solemn Truth of God which is far too much forgotten in the present
   day. Many have tried to put the thought of it right on one side and
   held forth only the Doctrine of the Divine Benevolence. But while that
   Doctrine is blessedly true, these solemn declarations are equally true,
   "The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget
   God." And, "He that believes not, is condemned already, because he has
   not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." Now, if we
   were right-hearted towards God, this would seem to us to be a very
   dreadful thing. We little know how exceedingly hateful sin is to

   God. [See Sermon #3068, Volume 53--UNTOLD DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS.] You

   know that there are some things which you and I sometimes see which are
   very disgusting and loathsome to us. I went into a railway station in
   Italy once, where I saw a man who had lost his arm and who by way of
   begging, exposed to us the stump of it and also a horrible ulcer from
   which he was suffering. I turned away sick at the sight and dreaded to
   go to that station again, for fear that I should be met inside the door
   of the waiting room by that horrible spectacle! But, depend upon it, no
   mutilation and no disease of man's body was ever so sickening to the
   most delicate taste as sin is sickening to God! He loves purity and,
   therefore, He must loathe impurity. He delights in those who are just
   and true and upright--and He cannot endure those who are unjust, false,
   or unrighteous. His holy soul abhors them as that strong expression of
   His in the prophecy of Zechariah proves--"My soul loathed them and
   their soul also abhorred Me." The sinner does not dislike God more than
   God dislikes him as a sinner. The sinless God cannot look with
   complacency upon him who is sinful--he is loathsome to the holy mind of
   God. So, surely, if we are right-hearted, we shall feel that anything
   and everything that we can do in order to get right with God and to
   become clean in His sight, we ought to do at once!

   Let us also remember that as long as we are unclean, we are in daily
   danger of the fires of Hell. Do any of you know what Hell is? It is the
   leper colony of the universe! Just as in the olden times when the
   "black pest," or some other terrible epidemic ran through a town or
   village, they would build a house some miles away from the place and
   call it the pest house where they would put away all those who had the
   pest or plague--such is Hell, only a million times worse than any
   earthly pest house ever was! Hell is the pest house of the moral
   universe. You know that in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut
   up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease
   should pollute the whole district. And Hell is God's leper colony where
   sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope!
   And what are the pains of Hell? They are the natural result of sin. Sin
   is the mother of Hell. The pains and groans of lost spirits in Hell are
   simply the fully-developed flowers of which their sins were the seed.
   Bitter is the fruit, sour is the vintage of that vine of Sodom and
   Gomorrah which some men set themselves so diligently to plant--and so
   industriously to water. Sin bears its own sting within itself. The
   torments that are to come are the stings of conscience and the
   inevitable effects of remorse upon the soul and body of the man who
   will continue to be unclean in the sight of God! Lest, therefore, any
   of you should ever be shut up in that place of "everlasting destruction
   from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power," I do
   beseech you to awaken yourselves and diligently seek to find out how
   you may be made clean in God's sight--

   "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."

   In addition to the eternal loss which all who are cast into Hell must
   sustain, also remember that none can enter Heaven until they are pure.
   Those holy gates are so closely guarded by angelic watchers that no
   contraband of sin shall ever cross the frontiers of Heaven. The angels
   look up and down and through and through. The man who presents himself
   there--if so much as a speck, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing is
   found upon him--cannot be allowed to enter! Just think for a minute how
   utterly impossible it must be for the impure to enter the courts of the
   thrice-holy God. You sometimes see, in the streets of London, wretched
   creatures in whom poverty, drunkenness and debauchery have so combined
   that even in their outward appearance, they present a truly horrible
   aspect. They are so foul, filthy and loathsome that I should not dare
   to describe them more fully. None of us would like to come near
   them--our flesh creeps at the very thought of them! Now, suppose that
   these shoeless, ragged, filthy, diseased creatures should present
   themselves at the gates of Buckingham Palace on some great occasion
   when all the princes of the blood and the peers of the realm were
   gathered there? Do even the most democratic of you think that the
   soldiers would be too squeamish if they were to tell them that they
   were unfit to enter such a place and to mingle with such company? "Why,
   no," you say, "of course they must at least be clean, or they can never
   enter the royal palace." Well then, it must assuredly be so in a still
   more emphatic sense with regard to the palace of the King of kings!
   Would it be possible for any to enter there defiled with sin, foul with
   fornications, adulteries, thefts, murders, infidelities, blasphemies,
   profanities and rebellions against God? It cannot be that the pure air
   of Heaven should ever be breathed by them, for it is expressly declared
   that "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles,
   neither whatever works abomination or makes a lie." All who are there
   are absolutely perfect! And you and I, if we would be with them, must
   be renewed in heart and converted unto God--and washed from every
   stain, and spot and speck of sin. It is clearly impossible that the
   thrice-holy God should have unrenewed, unclean sinners immediately
   under His own eyes, in His own courts. It is bad enough for Him to have
   them, for a time, in this little planet, floating in the vast sea of
   space. But He could not endure to have them up there amid the splendors
   of eternal Glory! That cannot, must not and will not be!

   Once more, every man will feel that it is worth his while to endeavor
   to be clean before God if he wants a quiet conscience, for a truly
   quiet conscience is never possessed by any man until he has been washed
   in the precious blood of Jesus and so made "whiter than snow." Does
   anyone ask, "Can that be done?" I answer in God's own words. "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." This great miracle
   of mercy can be worked and nobody's conscience will ever be perfectly
   at peace till it is accomplished. There is a way of silencing
   conscience without that miracle being worked, but it is like the way in
   which cruel tyrants sometimes silenced the martyrs. "Hold your tongue,"
   the tyrant has said, "I will not listen to your heresy." But the brave
   man has still gone on speaking--he would not be silenced. And then the
   tyrant has cut his tongue out. I think I have known men cut out the
   tongue of their conscience, so that it could no longer speak. Perhaps
   some here have done it--torn it right out by the roots by going to the
   drink shop, by frequenting evil company, by taking up infidel ideas
   when they knew better. They knew that they could not, with a clear
   conscience, do what they wanted to do, so they resolved that they would
   tear out its tongue, so that it could no longer rebuke them!

   O foolish Man, you could not have dome a worse thing for yourself than
   that, for he who quiets his conscience after that fashion is like one
   of whom I have heard who, one night, was unable to sleep because a
   faithful dog kept on howling under his window. He called out to it and
   bade it lie down, and went back to bed and tried to sleep, but still
   the howling continued. And at last, when the creature would not be
   quiet, he took his gun and shot it, in his anger. He ought to have
   known that the dog wanted to tell him that there were burglars who were
   trying to enter his house and that the faithful animal was doing its
   best to preserve its master's life. After the dog was dead and the man
   had gone to sleep again, the burglars entered his bedroom, stole
   everything of value that they could find and ended by staining their
   hands with the blood of the foolish man who had killed the poor
   creature that warned him of his peril! The devil is trying to destroy
   your soul and your conscience, like that faithful dog, gives the alarm,
   but you cry to it, "Lie down!" It does not lie down, however, and
   perhaps this very sermon is helping to wake it up, but you are
   determined that it shall be quiet and you will even kill it if you can!
   Well, if you do, you will then have sealed your own destiny by that
   very deed. The only proper way of quieting conscience is the method
   that a wise owner would have taken of quieting his dog. Supposing that
   man had gone downstairs and patted his dog on the head and praised it
   for being a good dog? Suppose that he had loosed its chain and taken it
   round the yard with him? Suppose, too, that he had taken that gun, with
   which he so foolishly killed his dog, and when, at last, he had
   discovered the villains who had come to rob him, he had set his dog on
   them, or even leveled his gun at them? That would have been far wiser
   than killing his dog and losing his own life! In such a fashion as
   that, go and lose your conscience and let your sins be
   destroyed--otherwise they will assuredly destroy you! The quieting of
   an awakened conscience can only be rightly done by getting rid of
   sin--and there is but one way to get rid of sin--of which I will speak
   before I have finished my discourse.

   Thus much on the first point--to be clean in the sight of God is worth
   any and every effort.

   II. Now secondly, ALL EFFORTS OF OUR OWN, MADE IN OUR OWN WAY, WILL
   CERTAINLY FAIL.

   It is very curious what efforts people will make to get rid of their
   sins. Some try to get clean by ceremonies. Ah, Mr. Priest, is that good
   soap that you are bringing with your bowl of water? "Yes," he replies,
   "the best Roman soap, or you can have a cake from Canterbury or Oxford
   if you would prefer it. How beautifully white your hands will look if
   you only use enough of this patent soap." So you say, but if you had
   your eyes opened, you would see that after all your washing, they are
   as black as night! The soapsuds get in your eyes, Sir, and therefore
   you do not see the dirt that is still on the sinner's hands. That is
   all that ever comes of mere ceremonies--they blind, but they do not
   cleanse.

   Another thinks that he can obtain cleansing by religious observances.
   His form of washing with snow water is attendance at his usual place of
   worship. He goes there regularly. He would never be away if he could
   help it! When the proper time for service comes and having done that,
   he asks, "Will not that take away my sin?" No, Sir, not a spot, nor
   even half a spot! Some have given away large sums of money with the
   hope of thereby cleansing themselves from sin. But all the gold in the
   world can never form a golden ointment with which to cleanse iniquity.
   There are many who have tried to get cleansing by their moralities and
   their charities, but their efforts have all been in vain. Mr. Legality
   and Mr. Civility are said to be great hands at washing Blackamoors
   white, but I have very grave doubts as to whether the Blackamoors are
   not blacker after the washing than they were before!

   Men have had the strangest notions as to how they might be cleansed
   from sin. Read John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of
   Sinners--which is, as you know, a record of his own experience--and you
   will see some very curious ideas of his concerning the way in which he
   hoped to wash himself from sin. Yet, his ideas are not any more curious
   than those of people who are now living. The other day I read a letter
   from a young farm laborer, describing the way in which, at one time, he
   hoped to get saved. He said that in the village where he lived, there
   were some young men who went to the Patagonian Mission and there got
   what he called, "massacreated." Of course, he meant to say that they
   were massacred. And he further wrote, "I thought that if the Patagonian
   Mission would have taken me and the natives would only have killed me,
   I would have gone joyfully and gladly, for I heard that they were all
   saints who died in that way and I would willingly have gone if I could
   have got to Heaven by that method." Yes, and so would I, and so would
   most of us when we were under the burden of sin. We would not have
   minded being killed and eaten if we might in that way have entered into
   eternal life, for a man who really feels the burden of sin is willing
   to try all sorts of extraordinary methods of getting rid of it! Look at
   the methods adopted by the heathen in order, as they hope, to get rid
   of sin. Go to India and look at the great car of Juggernaut, and see by
   what cruel means the people there hope to get rid of sin! And there are
   many other equally useless methods which the spiritual quacks are
   vainly puffing as unfailing ways of getting rid of sin!

   But on the authority of the Word of God, we confidently declare that
   all human methods of seeking the cleansing of sin which men may
   practice must end in failure, even as Job's did when he said, "If I
   wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet shall
   You plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." Yet, if
   God really means to save you, He will never let you be satisfied with
   any human plan of salvation, but He will, to use Job's expression,
   plunge you in the ditch and make you feel even blacker than you did
   before! How will He do that?

   Sometimes the Lord does this by bringing to a man's memory his old
   sins.' 'There," says the self-satisfied man, "I am getting on now--how
   clean I am after that last wash!" And just then he recollects some sin
   he committed as a boy, or some foul deed which he can never wipe
   completely off the tablet of his memory. "Oh!" he cries, "that dreadful
   past sin of mine has not gone as I vainly hoped that it had--it is
   still there." So he is again plunged in the ditch and all his beautiful
   washing counts for nothing!

   At another time, the Lord permits the man to be greatly tempted. He
   gets up in the morning and says to himself, "Now I really feel a great
   deal better than I have felt for a long time. I have firmly resolved to
   make a man of myself and I know that my resolutions are much stronger
   than they used to be." So he starts out very confidently. But presently
   there comes to him something that is stronger than his resolutions--and
   over goes the boastful man, generally failing in the very thing in
   which he fancied himself to be strongest! He soon discovers that he was
   only powerful as long as he had not a powerful adversary to contend
   with him. That is the way in which many a man has been plunged by God
   in the ditch.

   Sometimes God will do it in another way--by opening a boastful man's
   eyes to see the imperfection of his work He thinks, "I did that piece
   of work well. I am sure I did and I do not see how any Christian could
   do it better." When any man begins to talk like that, the Lord often
   makes him sit down and closely examine that work of which he is so
   proud. And as he looks at it, he sees that it is full of flaws. It is a
   beautiful vase, but just try to fill it with water. Ah, it leaks! The
   man looks at it and says, "Well, I never thought it was as faulty as
   this. It seemed to me to be perfect! Yet this beautiful vase that
   appeared to be so fair, leaks like a sieve." The man says to himself,
   "That good action of mine was done with a bad motive, so it is like a
   leaky vessel. While I was doing it, I was as proud as Lucifer over it.
   So it leaks--and after I had done it, I went away and boasted about it,
   so the vase kept on leaking." In that way the man gets plunged into the
   ditch and he sees himself to be blacker than he was before he had thus
   washed his hands with snow water!

   Very frequently men have been plunged into the ditch by being made to
   see the spirituality of the Law. A man says, "I have not broken the
   Law. I have kept all the Commandments from my youth up. I never killed
   anybody. No one can say that I ever did." But where he finds it
   written, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer," he cries, "Ah then
   I have been a murderer!" A man says very boldly, "I have never
   committed adultery! Who dares to say that I have?" But when he reads
   the words of Jesus, "I say unto you, that whoever looks on a woman to
   lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart,"
   then the man says, "I must admit that I am guilty, for I see that I
   have broken these commandments by my thoughts and looks, although I
   knew that I had not broken them by my actions. I did not know that the
   Law concerned itself so closely with looks and thoughts as well as with
   acts and words." But, indeed, that is the very thing with which the Law
   is concerned--and for which it condemns men! And when the
   self-satisfied man learns this solemn Truth of God, he says, "Then I am
   plunged in the ditch, and my own clothes abhor me, although I had
   washed myself quite clean."

   Others are plunged in the ditch in this way--they are made to realize
   the supreme holiness of God. It had been the habit of a certain man to
   say, "I am as good as my neighbors, and better than most of them. Don't
   talk to me about Christian men and women--there's many a professing
   Christian not half as good as I am! Why, was I not kind to my neighbor
   when he was in distress? Did I not give a guinea to such-and-such a
   charity? Am I not ready at all times to stand up for the right?" So he
   talks. But when he gets a view of God, then, like Job, he abhors
   himself and repents in dust and ashes! And he says, "I thought I could
   compare myself with man, but I cannot compare myself with God! And as
   God and not man, is the standard of holiness, I am indeed plunged in
   the ditch. Yet I thought I had washed myself perfectly clean--that snow
   water and patent soap did seem to take the dirt off beautifully--but
   now I find that in the sight of God I am just as filthy as I can be."
   And when the Lord, the Holy Spirit, convinces a man of sin, the words
   of Job are none too strong--"My own clothes shall abhor me." You may
   sometimes have abhorred your clothes because they were so dirty that
   you were ashamed to be seen in them. But you must be dirty, indeed,
   when your very clothes seem ashamed to hang upon you! This is what the
   convicted sinner feels--that he is so foul that his very clothes seem
   to be ashamed of him, as if they would rather have been on anybody
   else's back than on the back of such a filthy sinner as he is!

   "Ah," says someone, "you are exaggerating now." No, I am not
   exaggerating, at least as far as my own personal experience is
   concerned. I can well remember--though I did not then know that John
   Bunyan had used somewhat similar expressions--I can well remember when
   I was under deep conviction of sin, wishing that I had been a frog or a
   toad rather than have been a human being because I felt myself to be so
   foul in the sight of God. I felt that I was such a great sinner that
   the bread I ate might justly choke me and that the air I breathed might
   have righteously refused to give life to the lungs of such a sinner as
   I was. I felt, at that time, that if God spared me, it was only because
   He was boundless in compassion--and if He cast me into the hottest
   Hell, I could never murmur against the justice of His sentence, for I
   felt that I deserved any punishment that He might award me. When the
   Holy Spirit brings sinners to feel like this, it is a proof that He is
   leading them on the way by which He brings them to Christ. Oh, that the
   Lord would make every guilty sinner here long to be clean in His sight!
   And also make each one feel what is certainly the truth--that all the
   means in a man's own power of making himself clean will turn out to be
   dead failures--for though he should take snow water and wash himself
   ever so clean, yet would he again be plunged in the ditch and his own
   clothes would abhor him!

   III. The last point on which I have to speak is the best. It is
   this--THERE IS A RIGHT WAY OF GETTING CLEAN IN GOD'S SIGHT.

   First, it is an effective way. He that believes on the Lord Jesus
   Christ shall be made clean. He shall be cleansed from all the foulness
   of the past--God will wipe it right out. He shall be cleansed as to his
   heart and his nature. To him God repeats that ancient promise, "A new
   heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."
   "How is this to be had?" By trusting to the Divine method of cleansing
   the filthy, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all
   sin everyone who believes in Him. There are millions upon the earth now
   whom the blood of Jesus Christ has completely cleansed--and there are
   millions more now hymning His praises in Glory who have had every spot
   of sin taken out of them by the application of His precious blood! O
   sinful Souls, if you could ever have made yourselves clean, Christ
   would not have needed to pour out His life's blood that you might be
   washed in it! If the cleansing bath could have been filled with human
   tears, or could have been filled by means of the incantations of a
   so-called priest, there would have been no need for Your wounds, O
   Emmanuel, and no need of Your indwelling, O regenerating and
   sanctifying Spirit! But because we could not be cleansed by any other
   means, the water and the blood flowed freely from the pierced heart of
   Jesus, the Divine Son of God! And now the ever-blessed Spirit waits to
   be gracious and to change the heart and renew the nature and make us
   fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light!

   This effective way of getting cleansed is also an immediate way. We
   have often sung--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
   moment for you"-- and it is true, for there is instant cleansing for
   anyone who looks to Jesus Christ. A sinner may have committed more sins
   than he could count in a million years and yet, as soon as he gives one
   believing look at Jesus Christ, all those sins are gone forever! You
   know that when a bill is paid, the receipt is written at the bottom and
   that puts an end to the whole debt. So, Sinner, the name of Jesus at
   the bottom of the whole roll of your indebtedness to God puts an end to
   it all! The man who thinks he has only a few sins may bring his little
   bill--and you who know that you have many sins may bring your big
   bill--but Christ's receipt avails for one as much as the other! Even if
   the roll of your guilt should be many miles long, it makes no
   difference to the efficacy of the blood of Jesus! If the list of your
   sins should be long enough to go right around the world--and just one
   drop of the blood of Jesus should be put upon it--all that is written
   there would at once disappear and be gone forever! And the sinner would
   be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

   Further, this effective and immediate way of cleansing is also an
   attainable way of cleansing. To preach to sinners a salvation which
   they cannot obtain would be to tantalize them. We do not so, but to
   every person in this Tabernacle tonight and to everyone anywhere else
   whom this message may reach, we have to say this, "If you will confess
   your sin to God and then put your trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, you
   shall be saved--even you, whoever you are, and whatever sin you may
   have committed!" Your confession is to be made, not to your fellow
   creature, but to Him against whom your sins were committed. Go to your
   home, or seek some quiet spot where you can commune with your God. Tell
   Him that you have sinned, and ask Him to have mercy upon you. Tell Him
   that Jesus died in the place of sinners--plead the merit of His
   precious blood and say, "Lord, I believe that You can save me and I
   trust in You to save me, for Jesus' sake." If you will do this, you
   shall be forgiven! You shall be renewed in heart, you shall be made
   clean!

   In closing my discourse, I remind you, as I have often done before,
   that this cleansing is available now, at this very moment! I recollect
   hearing of a somewhat stingy man who once needed to hire a horse and
   chaise to go out for a drive. So he went to the man who let such things
   and asked the price. He said that the sum asked was too high--and went
   round to every other person in the little town who had such things to
   let, but found that their prices were higher still. So, at last, he
   went back to the first man and said to him, "I will take your horse and
   chaise at the price you mentioned." "No," he said, "you won't, for you
   have been around to everybody else to try to get them at a lower price,
   and I shall not let you have mine now." I was not very much surprised
   to hear that he was told that. Now, some of you have been to everybody
   else for salvation except to the Lord Jesus Christ! You have been to
   Rome and you have been to Oxford, and you have been to self and I
   hardly know where you have not been! Yet, notwithstanding that, you may
   come to Christ even now! He will not refuse you even now! Going to
   Canterbury has not saved you, but going to Calvary can. You have found
   no help in the city on the seven hills, but you may find immediate help
   on the little hill outside Jerusalem's gate-- the little mound called
   Calvary, where the Savior shed His precious blood for all who will put
   their trust in Him!

   I have been talking to you in a very simple, homely way, for I have
   been afraid lest anybody should by any possibility not know what the
   Gospel really is. I always think that if my net has small meshes, the
   big fish can get in and the little fish cannot get out, So I have put
   small meshes to my net and talked in a homely style with simple
   illustrations which all can understand. The Lord knows that I have done
   this out of love to your souls. I would bring you all to Jesus if I
   could--but I cannot do that. Oh, that the Spirit of God would do it!
   Why do you need so much urging to come to Christ? You are filthy with
   sin and here is a free bath in which you may be washed spotlessly
   white! Come and bathe in Jesus' blood and that will make you fairer
   than the lilies, and lovelier than all the glories of Solomon! If you
   do but wash in this Fountain, you will scarcely know yourself when you
   come up out of it! And if you happen to meet your old self, the next
   day, you will say, "Ah, Self! I don't want to be on speaking terms with
   you anymore. I never knew that you were so ugly! I never knew that you
   were so filthy! I never knew that you were so abominable till I had
   gotten rid of you by being made a new creature in Christ Jesus."

   The Lord bless you and bring you to trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and
   He shall have all the praise and glory forever and forever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:13-26.

   Verse 13. You are the salt of the earth. The earth would go putrid if
   there were no salt of Divine Grace to preserve it. So, dear Friends, if
   God's Grace is in you, there is a pungent savor about you which tends
   to preserve others from going as far into sin as otherwise they would
   have done. "You are the salt of the earth."

   13. But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?If
   the God-given Grace could be altogether taken from you. If you had no
   sanctifying power about you at all, what could be done with you? You
   would be like salt that has lost its savor.

   13. It is therefore good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be
   trodden under foot of men. Mark this, then-- either the saints must
   persevere to the end, or else the Grace of God has effectually done
   nothing for them. If they do not continue to be saints and to exercise
   a saintly influence, there is no hope for them! There cannot be two new
   births for the same person. If the Divine work has failed once, it will
   never be begun again. If they have really been saved, if they have been
   made the children of God and if it is possible for them to lose the
   Grace which they have received, they can never have it again. The Word
   of God is very emphatic upon that point--"If they shall fall away, it
   is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" Falling may be
   retrieved, but falling away can never be. [See Sermon #75, Volume
   2--final

   PERSEVERANCE--Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org.]

   There are countries where there is found salt from which the pungency
   has completely gone. It is an altogether useless article and if there
   are men who ever did possess the Grace of God, and who were truly God's
   people, if the Divine life could go out of them, they would be in an
   utterly hopeless case. Perhaps there are no powers of evil in the world
   greater than apostate churches--who can calculate the influence for
   evil that the Church of Rome exercises in the world today?

   14. You the are light of the world. The Bible is not the light of the
   world, it is the light of the Church! But the world does not read the
   Bible, the world reads Christians! "You are the light of the world."

   14. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. You Christians are
   like a city built upon a hilltop--you must be seen. As you will be
   seen, mind that you are worth seeing.

   15. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a
   candlestick and it gives light unto all that are in the house. God's
   intent is, first, to light you. And, secondly, to put you in a
   conspicuous position where men can see you.

   16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
   works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.Let the light of your
   purity and your good works be as bright as possible, yet let not the
   light be to your own praise and glory, but let it be clearly seen that
   your good works are the result of Sovereign Grace for which all the
   glory must be given to "your Father which is in Heaven."

   17. 18. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I
   am not come to destroy, but to fulfill For verilyIsay unto you,
   TillHeaven and earthpass away, onejot or one tittle shallin no wisepass
   from the Law, tillallare fulfilled. See how the great Lord of the New
   Testament confirms the Old Testament? He has not come to set up a
   destructive criticism that will tear in pieces the Book of Deuteronomy,
   or cut out the very heart of the Psalms, or grind Ezekiel to powder
   between His own wheels. But Christ has come to establish yet more
   firmly than before all that was written aforetime and to make it stand
   fast as the everlasting hills.

   19. Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
   shall teach men so, he 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. A true man may make mistakes and so he
   may teach men to violate someone or other of the Divine Commandments.
   If he does so, he shall not perish, for he was honest in his blunder.
   But he shall be among the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he who
   earnestly, perseveringly and conscientiously teaches all that he knows
   of the Divine Will, "the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of
   Heaven."

   20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
   righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
   into the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ does not teach a lower kind of
   morality than the Pharisees taught. They were very particular about
   little things--jots and tittles--but we must go further than they went!
   We must have more righteousness of life than they had, although they
   seemed to their fellow men to be excessively precise. Christ aims at
   perfect purity in His people and we must aim at it too. And we must
   really attain to more holiness than the best outward morals can
   produce.

   21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
   kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment God had
   said, "You shall not kill." But the remainder of the verse was the
   gloss of the Rabbis--a true one, yet one that very much diminishes the
   force of the Divine Command.

   22. But I say unto you, That whoever is angry with his brother without
   a cause shall be in danger of the judgment And a far higher judgment
   than that of men.

   22. And whoever shall say to his brother, Raca. A word of very
   uncertain meaning, a kind of snubbing word, a word of contempt which
   men used to say to one another, meaning that there was nothing in them.
   "Whoever shall say to his brother, Raca."

   22. Shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
   shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ will not have us treat men with
   anger, or with contempt, which is a very evil form of hate, akin to
   murder, because we as good as say, "That man is nobody." That is, we
   make nothing of him, which is morally to kill him. We must not treat
   our fellow men with contempt and derision, nor indulge any angry temper
   against them, for anger is of the devil, but "love is of God."

   23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
   remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
   gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
   brother, and then come and offer your gift. Note that this injunction
   is addressed to the man who has offended his brother Why is this?
   Because he is the least likely to try to make up the quarrel. It is the
   man who has been offended who usually exhibits the nobler spirit--the
   offender is almost always the last to seek a reconciliation and
   therefore, the Savior says to him, "If your brother has anything
   against you, it is but right that you should be the first to seek
   reconciliation with him. Leave your gift, go away from the Prayer
   Meeting, turn back from the Lord's Table and go and first be reconciled
   to your brother."

   25. Agree with your adversary quickly.Always be ready to make
   peace--not peace at any price--but, still, peace at any price except
   the sacrifice of righteousness.

   25, 26. While you are on the way with him, lest at any time the
   adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the
   officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You shall
   by no means come out from there till you have paid the uttermost
   farthing. And there are some debts of which we cannot pay the uttermost
   farthing! And there is a prison out of which no man shall come, for the
   uttermost farthing demanded there shall never be paid. God grant that
   we may, none of us, ever know what it is to be shut up in that dreadful
   dungeon!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Visit to Christ's Hospital

   (No. 3070)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER I2, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities,
   are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat; and they draw near
   unto the gates ofdeath. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
   and He saves them out of their distresses. He sent His Word and healed
   them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh that men would
   praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the
   children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
   and declare His works with rejoicing." Psalm 107:17-22.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on verses 17-20 is #1824, Volume
   31--THE HISTORY OF SUNDRY FOOLS.]

   IT is a very profitable thing to visit a hospital. The sight of others'
   sickness tends to make us grateful for our own health. And it is a
   great thing to be kept in a thankful frame of mind, for ingratitude is
   a spiritual disease, injurious to every power of the soul. A hospital
   inspection will also teach us compassion and that is of great service.
   Anything that softens the heart is valuable. Above all things, in these
   days we should strive against the petrifying influences which surround
   us. It is not easy for a man who has constantly enjoyed good health and
   prosperity, to sympathize with the poor and the suffering. Even our
   Great High Priest, who is full of compassion, learned it by carrying
   our sorrows in His own Person. To see the sufferings of the afflicted,
   in many cases, would be enough to move a stone. And if we visit a
   hospital and come back with a more tender heart, we shall have found it
   a sanatorium to ourselves.

   I purpose, at this time, to take you to a hospital. It shall not be one
   of those noble institutions so pleasingly plentiful around the
   Tabernacle, but we will take you to Christ's Hospital, or, as the
   French would call it, the HotelDieu. And we shall conduct you through
   the wards for a few minutes, trusting that while you view them, if you
   are yourself healed, you may feel gratitude that you have been
   delivered from spiritual sicknesses and an intense compassion for those
   who still pine and languish. May we become like our Savior who wept
   over Jerusalem with eyes which were no strangers to compassion's
   floods. May we view the most guilty and impenitent with yearning hearts
   and grieve with mingled hope and anxiety over those who are under the
   sound of the Gospel and so are more especially patients in the Hospital
   of God.

   We will go at once with the Psalmist to the wards of spiritual
   sickness.

   I. And first we have set out before us THE NAMES AND CHARACTERS OF THE
   PATIENTS.

   You see in this hospital, written up over the head of every bed, the
   name of the patient and his disease. And you are amazed to find that
   all the patients belong to one family and, singularly enough, are all
   called by one name--and that name is very far from being a reputable
   one. It is a title that nobody covets and that many persons would be
   very indignant to have applied to them--"Fool." All who are sick in
   God's Hospital are fools, without exception, for this reason--that all
   sinners are fools. Often in Scripture, when David means the wicked, he
   says, "the foolish." And in saying this, he makes no mistake, for sin
   is folly.

   Sin is foolish, clearly, because it is a setting up of our weakness in
   opposition to Omnipotence! Every wise man, if he must fight, will
   choose a combatant against whom he may have a chance of success. But he
   who wars with the Most High commits as gross a folly as when the moth
   contends with the flame, or the dry grass of the prairie challenges the
   fire! There is no hope for you, O sinful Man, of becoming a victor in
   the struggle! How unwise you are to take up the weapons of rebellion!
   And the folly is aggravated, because the One who is opposed is so
   infinitely good that opposition to Him is

   violence to everything that is just, beneficial and commendable! God is
   Love--shall I resist the Infinitely Loving One? He scatters
   blessings--should I therefore be His foe? If His Commandments were
   grievous, if His ways were ways of misery and His paths were paths of
   woe, I might have some pretense of an excuse for resisting His will.
   But O my God, so good, so kind, so boundless in Grace, 'tis folly, as
   well as wickedness, to be Your enemy!--

   "To all that's good, averse and blind,

   But prone to all that's ill.

   What dreadful darkness veils our mind!

   How obstinate our will!"

   Besides this, the Laws of God are so supremely beneficial to us that we
   are our own enemies when we rebel. God's Laws are danger signals. As
   sometimes, on the ice, those who care for human life put up the warning
   sign, "Danger, " here and there, and leave the part that is safe for
   all who choose to traverse it, so God has left us free to enjoy
   everything that is safe for us--and has only forbidden us that which is
   to our own hurt. If there is a law which forbids me to put my hand into
   the fire, it is a pity that I should need such a law, but a thousand
   pities more if I think that law a hardship! The commands of God do but
   forbid us to injure ourselves. To keep them is to keep ourselves in
   holy happiness--to break them is to bring evil of all kinds upon
   ourselves in soul and body. Why should I violate a law, which, if I
   were perfect, I would myself have made, or myself have kept finding it
   in force? Why need I rebel against that which is never exacting, never
   oppressive, but always conducive to my own highest welfare? The sinner
   is a fool because he is told, in God's Word, that the path of evil will
   lead to destruction--and yet he pursues it with the secret hope that in
   his case the damage will not be very great. He has been warned that sin
   is like a cup frothing with a foam of sweetness, but concealing death
   and Hell in its dregs--yet each sinner, as he takes the cup, fascinated
   by the first drop, believes that to him the poisonous draught will not
   be fatal! How many have fondly hoped that God would lie unto men and
   would not fulfill His threats? Yet be assured, every sin shall have its
   recompense of reward! God is Just and will by no means spare the
   guilty. Even in this life many are feeling in their bones the
   consequences of their youthful lusts--they will carry to their graves
   the scars of their transgressions. In Hell, alas, there are millions
   who will forever prove that sin is an awful and an undying evil, an
   infinite curse which has destroyed them forever and ever!

   The sinner is a fool because while he doubts the truthfulness of God as
   to the punishment of sin, he has the conceit to imagine that
   transgression will even yield him pleasure! God says it shall be
   bitterness--the sinner denies the bitterness and affirms that it shall
   be sweetness. O Fool, to seek pleasure in sin! Go rake the morgue to
   find an immortal soul! Go walk into the secret springs of the sea to
   find the source of flame! It is not there and you can never find bliss
   in rebellion! Hundreds of thousands before you have gone upon this
   search and have all been disappointed. He is indeed a fool who must
   rush headlong in this useless chase and perish as the result! The
   sinner is a fool--a great fool--to remain as he is in danger of the
   wrath of God! To abide at ease in imminent peril and scorn the way of
   escape. To love the world and loathe the Savior. To set the present
   fleeting life above the eternal future. To choose the sand of the
   desert and forego the jewels of Heaven--all this is folly in the
   highest conceivable degree!

   Though all sinners are fools, yet there are fools of all sorts. Some
   are learned fools. Unconverted men, whatever they know, are only
   educated fools. Between the ignorant man who cannot read a letter and
   the learned man who is apt in all knowledge, there is small difference
   if they are both ignorant of Christ! Indeed, the scholar's folly is, in
   this case, the greater of the two! The learned fool generally proves
   himself the worst of fools, for he invents theories which would be
   ridiculed if they could be understood--and he brings forth speculations
   which, ifjudged by common sense and men were not turned into idiotic
   worshippers of imaginary authority, would be scouted from the universe
   with a hiss of derision! There are fools in colleges and fools in
   cottages.

   There are also reckless fools and reckoning fools. Some sin greedily
   with both hands. "A short life and a merry one," is their motto--while
   the so-called "prudent" fools live more slowly, but still live not for
   God. These last, with hungry greed for wealth, will often heard up gold
   as if it were true treasure and as if anything worth the retaining were
   to be found beneath the moon. Your "prudent respectable "sinner will
   find himselfjust as much lost as your reckless prodigal. They must all
   alike seek and find the Savior, or be guilty of gross folly. So, alas,
   there are old fools as well as young ones! There are those who, after
   an experience of sin, still burn their fingers in it. The burnt child
   dreads the fire, but the burnt sinner lovingly plays with his sin
   again! Gray hair ought to be a crown of glory, but too often they are
   fool's caps. There are young sinners who waste the prime of life when
   the dew is on their spirit and neglect to give their strength to God--

   and so miss the early joy of religion, which is the sweetest and makes
   all the rest of life sweeter--these are fools. But what is he who has
   one foot hanging over the mouth of Hell and yet continues without God
   and without Christ, a trifler with eternity?

   I have spoken thus upon the name of those who enter God's Hospital.
   Permit me to add that all who go there and are cured, agree that this
   name is correct. Saved souls are made to feel that they are naturally
   fools and, indeed, it is one stage in the cure when men are able to
   spell their own name and when they are willing to write it in capital
   letters and say, "That is my name! If there is no other man in this
   world who is a fool, I am. I have played the fool before the living
   God." This confession is true, for what madness it is to play the fool
   before the Eternal One with your own soul as the subject of the
   foolery! When men make sport, they generally do it with trifling
   things. A man who plays the fool and puts on a cap and bells is wise in
   comparison with him who sports with his God, his soul, Heaven and
   eternity! This is folly beyond all folly! Yet the sinner, when he is
   taken into God's Hospital, will be made to feel that he has been such a
   fool and that his folly is folly with emphasis. He will confers that
   Christ must be made unto him wisdom for he by nature was born a fool,
   has lived a fool and will die a fool unless the Infinite Mercy of God
   interposes!

   II. Now, for a minute or two, let us notice THE CAUSE OF THEIR PAINS
   AND AFFLICTIONS. "Fools because of their transgression and because of
   their iniquities, are afflicted."

   The physician usually tries to find out the root and cause of the
   disease he has to deal with. Now those souls that are brought into
   grief for sin, those who are smarting through the Providential dealings
   of God, through the striking of conscience, or the smiting of the Holy
   Spirit, are here taught that the source of their sorrow is their sin.
   These sins are mentioned in the text in the plural--"Fools because of
   their transgression and because of their iniquities." How many have our
   sins been? Who shall count them? Let him count the hairs of his head
   first. Sins are various and are, therefore, called "transgressions and
   iniquities." We do not all sin alike, nor does any one man sin alike at
   all times. We commit sins of word, thought, deed--against God, against
   men, against our bodies, against our souls, against the Gospel, against
   the Law, against the week-day duties, against the Sabbath
   privileges--of all sorts and these all lie at the root of our sorrows.
   Our sins also are aggravated. Not content with transgression, we have
   added iniquities to it. No one is more greedy than a sinner, but he is
   greedy after his own destruction! He is never content with
   revolting--he must rebel yet more and more. As when a stone is rolled
   downhill, its pace is accelerated the further it goes, so is it with
   the sinner--he goes from bad to worse.

   Perhaps I speak to some who have lately come into God's Hospital. I
   will suppose a case. You are poor, very poor. But your poverty is the
   fruit of your profligate habits. Poverty is often directly traceable to
   drunkenness, laziness, or dishonesty. All poverty does not come from
   these sources. Blessed be God, there are thousands of the poor who are
   the excellent of the earth--and a great many of them are serving God
   right nobly! But I am now speaking of certain cases and probably you
   know of such yourselves where, because of their transgression and
   iniquities, men are brought to need. There will come to me, sometimes,
   a person who was in good circumstances a few years ago, who is now
   without anything but the clothes he tries to stand upright in. And his
   wretchedness is entirely owing to his playing the prodigal. He is one
   of those whom I trust God may yet take into His Hospital.

   At times the disease breaks out in another sort of misery. Some sins
   bring into the flesh itself pains which are anticipatory of Hell--yet
   even these persons may be taken into the Hospital of God, though they
   are afflicted to their shame through gross transgression. Oh, how many
   there are in this great city of London, of men and women who dare not
   tell their condition, but whose story is a terrible one, indeed, as God
   reads it! Oh, that He may have pity upon them and take them into His
   hospital and heal them through His abundant Grace!

   In more numerous cases, the misery brought by sin is mental. Many are
   brought very low by sin--even to despair. Conscience pricks them. Fears
   of death and Hell haunt them. I remember well when I was in this way
   myself. When I, poor fool, because of my transgression and my
   iniquities, was sorely bowed in spirit. By day I thought of the
   punishment of my sin. By night I dreamed of it. I woke in the morning
   with a burden on my heart--a burden which I could neither carry nor
   shake off--and sin was at the bottom of my sorrow. My sin, my sin, my
   sin--this was my constant plague! I was in my youth and in the heyday
   of my spirit. I had all earthly comforts and I had friends to cheer me,
   but they were all as nothing. I would seek solitary places to search
   the Scriptures and to read such books as Baxter's Call to the
   Unconverted and Alleine's Alarm, feeling my soul plowed more and more,
   as though the Law, with its ten great black horses, was dragging the
   plow up and down my soul breaking, crushing, furrowing my heart--and
   all for sin. Let me tell you, though we read of the cruelties of the
   Inquisition and the sufferings which the martyrs have borne from cruel
   men--no racks, nor fire pans, nor other instruments of torture can make
   a man so wretched as his own conscience when he is stretched upon its
   rack!

   Here then, we see both the fools and the cause of their disease.

   III. Now let us notice THE PROGRESS OF THE DISEASE. It is said that
   "their soul abhors all manner of meat," like persons who have lost
   their appetite and can eat nothing--"and they draw near unto the gates
   of death"--they are given over and nearly dead.

   These words may reach some whose disease of sin has developed itself
   into fearful sorrow so that they are near unable to find comfort in
   anything. You used to enjoy the theater--you went lately but you were
   wretched there. You used to be a wit in society and set the table on a
   roar with your jokes--but you cannot joke now. They say you are
   melancholy, but you know what they do not know, for a secret arrow
   rankles in your bosom. You go to a place of worship, but you find no
   comfort even there. The manner of meat that is served to God's saints
   is not suitable to you. You cry, "Alas, I am not worthy of it!"
   Whenever you hear a sermon thundering against the ungodly, you feel,
   "Ah, that is for me!" But when it comes to, "Comfort you, comfort you
   My people," you conclude, "Ah, that is notfor me!" Even if it is an
   invitation to the sinner, you say, "But I do not feel myself a sinner.
   I am not such an one as may come to Christ. Surely I am a castaway."
   Your soul abhors all manner of meat, even that out of God's kitchen.
   Not only are you dissatisfied with the world's dainties, but the marrow
   and fatness of Christ, Himself, you cannot relish. Many of us have been
   in this way before you.

   The text adds, "They draw near unto the gates of death." The soul is
   exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and feels that it cannot bear
   up much longer. I remember once, in the bitterness of my spirit, using
   those words of Job, "My soul chooses strangling and death rather than
   my life," for the wretchedness of a sin-burdened soul is intolerable.
   All do not suffer like strong convictions but in some it bows the
   spirit almost to the grave! Perhaps, my Friend, you see no hope
   whatever. You are ready to say, "There cannot be any hope for me. I
   have made a covenant with death and a league with Hell. I am past hope.
   There were, years ago, opportunities for me, and I was near the Kingdom
   of God, but like the man who put his hand to the plow and then looked
   back, I have proven myself unworthy of eternal life." Troubled Heart, I
   am sent with a message for you--"Thus says the Lord, your covenant with
   death shall be disannulled and your league with Hell shall not stand.
   The prey shall be taken from the mighty and the lawful captive shall be
   delivered." You may abhor the very meat that would restore you to
   strength, but He who understands the human heart knows how to give you
   better tastes and cure these evil whims! He knows how to bring you up
   from the gates of death to the gates of Heaven! Thus we see how
   terribly the mischief progresses--

   "Our beauty and our strength are fled,

   And we draw near to death,

   But Christ the Lord recalls the dead

   With His almighty breath."

   IV. And now the disease takes a turn. Our fourth point is THE
   INTERPOSITION OF THE PHYSICIAN. "Then they cry unto the Lord in their
   trouble, and He saves them out of their distresses. He sent His Word
   and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions."

   The Good Physician is the true Healer. Observe when the Physician comes
   in--when "they cry unto the Lord in their trouble." When they cry, the
   Physician has come! I will not say that He has come because they cry,
   though that would be true--but there is deeper truth still--they cried
   because He came! For whenever a soul truly cries unto God, God has
   already blessed it by enabling it to cry. You would never have begun to
   pray if the Lord had not taught you. God is visiting a soul and healing
   it when it has enough faith in God to cast itself, with a cry, upon His
   mercy! I cannot hope that there is a work of Grace in you until I know
   that you pray. Ananias would not have believed that Paul was converted
   had it not been said, "Behold he prays!"

   Note the kind of prayer here. It was not taken out of a book and it was
   not a fine prayer in language, whether extempore or composed--it was a
   cry. You do not need to teach your children how to cry--it is the first
   thing a newborn child does. It needs no schoolmaster to teach it that
   art! Our School Boards have a great deal to teach the children of
   London, but they need never have a department for instruction in
   crying. A spiritual cry is the call of the new-born

   nature expressing conscious need. "How shall I pray?" says one. Pour
   your heart out, Brother. Turn the vessel upside down and let the
   contents run out to the last dreg as best they can. "But I cannot
   pray," says one. Tell the Lord you cannot pray and ask Him to help you
   pray and you have already prayed! "Oh, but I don't feel as I should!"
   Then confess to the Lord your sinful insensibility and ask Him to make
   your heart tender and you are already in a measure softened! Those who
   say, "We don't feel as we should," are very often those who feel the
   most. Whether it is so or not, cry. If you are a sin-sick soul, you can
   do nothing towards your own healing but this--you can cry. He who hears
   your cries will know what they mean. When the surgeon goes to the
   battlefield after a conflict, he is guided to his compassionate work by
   the groans of the wounded. When he hears a soldier's cry, he does not
   inquire, "Was that a Frenchman or a German, and what does he mean?" A
   cry is good French and excellent German, too! It is part of the
   universal tongue. The surgeon understands it and looks for the sick
   man. And whatever language you use, O Sinner, uncouth or refined, if it
   is the language of your heart, God understands you without an
   interpreter!

   Note well that as we have seen when the Physician interposed, we shall
   see next what He did. He saved them out of their distresses, healed
   them and delivered them from their destructions! Oh, the Infinite Mercy
   of God! He reveals to the heart pardon for all sin and, by His Holy
   Spirit's power, removes all our weaknesses. I tell you, Soul, though
   you are at death's door this moment, God can even now gloriously
   deliver you! It would be a wonder if your poor burdened spirit should,
   within this hour, leap for joy and yet, if the Lord shall visit you in
   mercy, you will do so! I fall back upon my own recollection. My escape
   from despondency was instantaneous. I did but believe Jesus Christ's
   word and rest upon His Sacrifice and the night of my heart was
   over--the darkness had passed and the true light had shone! In some
   parts of the world there are not long twilights before the break of
   day--the sun leaps up in a moment. The darkness flies and the light
   reigns--so it is with many of the Lord's redeemed. As in a moment,
   their ashes are exchanged for beauty and their spirit of heaviness for
   the garment of praise! Faith is the great transformer! Will you cast
   yourself, now, whether you shall live or die, upon the precious blood
   and merits of Jesus Christ the Savior? Will you come and rest your soul
   upon the Son of God? As you do so, you are saved! Your sins, which are
   many, are now forgiven you! As of old the Egyptians were drowned in a
   moment in the Red Sea, and the depths had covered them so that there
   was not one of them left, so the moment you believe, you have lifted a
   mightier rod than that of Moses! And the sea of the atoning blood, in
   the fullness of its strength, has gone over the heads of all your
   enemies--your sins are drowned in Jesus' blood! Oh, what joy is this
   when, in answer to a cry, God delivers us from our present distresses
   and our threatened future destructions!

   But how is this effected?The Psalmist says, "He sent His Word and
   healed them." "His Word."How God enables language when He uses it!That
   word, "Word,"is lifted up in Scripture into the foremost place and put
   on a level with the Godhead. "THE WORD." It indicates a God-like
   Personage for, "in the beginning was the Word." No, it denotes God
   Himself, for, "the Word was God." Our hope is the Word--the Incarnate
   Logos, the Eternal Word. In some respects, our salvation comes to us
   entirely through the sending of that Word to be made flesh and to dwell
   among us. He is our saving health--by His stripes we are healed. But
   here the expression is best understood of the Gospel, which is the Word
   of God. Often the reading of the Scriptures proves the means of healing
   troubled souls or else that same Word is made effectual when spoken
   from a loving heart with living lips. What might there is in the plain
   preaching of the Gospel! No power in all the world can match it. They
   tell us, nowadays, that the nation will go over to Rome and the Gospel
   candle will be blown out. I am not a believer in these alarming
   prophecies. I neither believe in the battle of Dorking, nor in the
   victory of Pius the Ninth. Leave us our Bibles, our pulpits and our
   God, and we shall win the victory! Oh, if all ministers preached the
   Gospel plainly, without aiming at rhetoric and high flights of oratory,
   what great triumphs would follow! How sharp would the Gospel sword
   prove itself to be if men would but pull it out of those fine
   ornamental, but useless scabbards! When the Lord enables His servants
   to put plain Gospel truth into language that will strike and stick, be
   understood and retained, it heals sick souls that otherwise might have
   lain fainting a long time!

   Still, the Word of God in the Bible and the Word of God preached cannot
   heal the soul unless God shall send it in the most emphatic sense. "He
   sent His Word." When the eternal Spirit brings home the Word with
   power, what a Word it is! Then the miracles of Grace worked within us
   are such as to astonish friends and confound foes! May the Lord, even
   now, send His Word to each sinner and it will be his salvation! "Hear,
   and your soul shall live." "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
   Word of God." And faith brings with it all that the soul requires. When
   we have faith, we are linked with Christ and so our salvation is
   ensured.

   V. That brings us to the last point--THE CONSEQUENT CONDUCT OF THOSE
   WHO WERE HEALED.

   First, they praised God for His goodness. What rare praise a soul
   offers where it is brought out of prison! The sweetest music ever heard
   on earth is found in those new songs which celebrate our recent
   deliverance from the horrible pit and the miry clay. Did you ever keep
   a sparrow in a cage and then think that it was cruel to rob it of its
   liberty? Did you take it out into the garden and open the cage door?
   Oh, but if you could have heard it sing when it had escaped from the
   cage where it had been so long, you would have heard the best sparrow
   music in all the woods! When a poor soul breaks forth from the dungeon
   of despair, set free by God, what songs it pours forth! God loves to
   hear such music. Remember that ancient Word of His, "I remember you,
   the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went
   after Me in the wilderness." God loves the warm-hearted praises of
   newly-emancipated souls and He will get some out of you, dear Friend,
   if you are set free at this hour!

   Notice that these healed ones praised God especially for His goodness.
   It was great goodness that such as they were should be saved. So near
   death's door and yet saved! They wondered at His mercy and sang of "His
   wonderful works to the children of men." It is wonderful that such as
   we were should be redeemed from our iniquities, but our Redeemer's name
   is called Wonderful, and He delights in showing forth the riches of His
   Grace.

   Observe that in their praises they ascribe all to God--they praise Him
   for His wonderful work Salvation is God's work, from beginning to end.
   Their song is, moreover, comprehensive, and they adore the Lord for His
   love to others as well as to themselves--they praise Him "for His
   wonderful works to the children of men."

   Forget not that they added to this praise, sacrifice. "Let them
   sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving." What shall be the sacrifices
   of a sinner delivered from going down into the Pit? Shall he bring a
   bull that has horns and hoofs? No, let him bring his heart! Let him
   offer himself, his time, his talents, his body, his soul, his
   substance. Let him exclaim, "Let my Lord take all, seeing that He has
   saved my soul." Will you not lay yourselves out for Him who laid
   Himself out for you? If He has bought you with such a price, confess
   that you are altogether His! Of your substance give to His cause. As He
   prospers you, prove that you are really His by your generosity towards
   His Church and His poor!

   In addition to sacrifice, the healed ones began to offer songs, for it
   was to be a "sacrifice of thanksgiving."May those of you who are
   pardoned sing more than is customary nowadays. May we, each one of us,
   who have been delivered from going down to the Pit, enter into the
   choir of God's praising ones--vocally singing as often as we can--and
   in our hearts always chanting His praise!

   Once more, the grateful ones were to add to their gifts and Psalms, a
   declaration of joy at what God had done for them. "Let them declare His
   works with rejoicing." You who are pardoned should tell the Church of
   the Lord's mercy to you. Let His people know that God is discovering
   His hidden ones. Come and tell the minister. Nothing gladdens him so
   much as to know that souls are brought to Jesus by his means. This is
   our reward. You are our crown of rejoicing, you saved ones! I can truly
   say that I never have such joy as when I receive letters from persons,
   or hear from them personally the good news, "I heard you on
   such-and-such a night and found peace." Or, "I read your sermon and God
   blessed it to my soul." There is not a true minister of Christ but
   would willingly lay himself down to die if he could thereby see
   multitudes saved from eternal wrath! We live for this. If we miss this,
   our life is a failure. What is the use of a minister unless he brings
   souls to God? For this we would yearn over you and draw near unto God
   in secret, that He would be pleased in mercy to deliver you!

   But, surely, if you are converted, you should not conceal the fact! It
   is an unkind action for any person who has received life from the dead
   through any instrumentality to deny the worker the consolation of
   hearing that he has been made useful--for the servant of God has many
   discouragements and he is, himself, readily cast down. And the
   gratitude of those who are saved is one of the appointed cordials for
   his heavy heart. There is no refreshment like it! May God grant you
   Grace to declare His love, for our sake, for the Church's sake and,
   indeed, for the world's sake! Let the sinner know that you have found
   mercy--perhaps it will induce him, also, to seek salvation. Many a
   physician has gained his practice by one patient telling others of his
   cure. Tell your neighbors that you have been to the Hospital of Jesus
   and been restored, though you hated all manner of meat and drew near to
   the gates of death! And maybe a poor soul in the same condition as
   yourself will say, "This is a message from God to me."

   Above all, publish abroad the Lord's goodness for Jesus' sake. He
   deserves your honor. Will you receive His blessing and then, like the
   nine lepers, give Him no praise? Will you be like the woman in the
   crowd who was healed by touching

   the hem of His garment and then would gladly have slipped away? If so,
   I pray that the Master may say, "Somebody has touched Me," and may you
   be compelled to tell us all the truth and say, "I was sorely sick in
   soul, but I touched You, O my blessed Lord, and I am saved! And to the
   praise of the glory of Your Grace I will tell it! I will tell it though
   devils should hear me! I will tell it and make the world ring with it
   according to my ability, to the praise and Glory of Your saving Grace!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM107:1-22.

   Verse 1. O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good: for His mercy
   endures forever In the heading of this Psalm we are reminded that the
   Psalmist here exhorts the redeemed, in praising God, to observe His
   manifold Providence over travelers, prisoners, sick men, seamen "and in
   divers varieties of life." But, inasmuch as the exhortation is
   especially addressed to the redeemed of the Lord, I shall endeavor to
   cast the red ray of redemption over it and to explain these various
   circumstances as relating to the spiritual experience of God's people
   and to their deliverance out of divers perils to which their souls are
   exposed.

   "O give thanks unto the Lord." This seems to imply that we are so slow
   to praise God that we have to be stirred up to this sacred duty! This
   exhortation looks as if we needed to be entreated to give thanks unto
   the Lord. Yet this ought not to be an uncongenial or disagreeable task.
   It ought to be our pleasure to praise the Lord. We should be eager to
   do it and yet it is to be feared that we are often silent when we ought
   to be giving thanks unto His holy name. "O give thanks unto the Lord,
   for He is good." Whether you give Him your praises, or--

   "Let His mercies lie Forgotten in unthankfulness, And without praises
   die"-- He deserves them, "for He is good: for His mercy endures
   forever."

   2, 3. Let the redeemed ofthe LORD sayso, whom He has redeemed from the
   hand ofthe enemy; andgathered them out of the lands from the east, and
   from the west, from the north, and from the south. Whenever God's
   people are redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered unto
   Himself, it is always by His Grace and power. They are not only
   gathered to Him, but they are gathered byHim and, therefore, let them
   all praise His holy name!

   4. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no
   city to dwell in. This is the experience of all God's redeemed and
   gathered ones--they were, at one time, all lost and wandering to and
   fro in the wilderness--as God's ancient people did.

   5, 6. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried
   unto the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their
   distresses. This is the point to which a true spiritual experience
   sooner or later brings all God's elect ones! They cry unto the Lord in
   their trouble. The end, the design of their trouble is that they may
   cry unto Him! And when they do so, it is absolutely certain that they
   shall be delivered out of their distresses.

   7-11. AndHe led them forth by the right way, that they mightgo to a
   city ofhabitation. Oh that men wouldpraise the LORD for His goodness,
   and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies
   the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. Such as sit
   in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and
   iron; because they rebelled against the words of God, and despised the
   counsel ofthe Most High. All God's people, all His redeemed have been
   made to feel, in a greater or lesser degree, the agony of their
   spiritual bondage. They have been like captives sitting in darkness,
   dreading death, realizing that they are utterly unable to deliver
   themselves. They have been rebellious against the words of God, and
   have despised His counsel, so that it is absolutely necessary that they
   should be brought to their right position and be made to kneel before
   the Lord in true humility of heart.

   12-16. Therefore He brought down their heart with labor; they fell
   down, and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the LORD in
   their trouble. and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought
   them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bonds in
   sunder Oh that men wouldpraise the Lord for His goodness, and for His
   wonderful works to the children of men! For He has broken the gates of
   brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder Is any child of God thus shut
   up in the dark? Those of you who have ever been lost in a London fog
   know what a depression of

   spirit it brings upon you while you are in the impenetrable darkness
   out of which you cannot see any way of escape. All that you can do is
   to stand still and cry out for help. Well, try what crying to God will
   do for you in your spiritual depression! Your spirit is cast down into
   the very deeps--then, out of the depths cry unto the Lord as Jonah did!
   Rest in Him! Trust in Him, and see whether He will not bring you up
   into the light of His Countenance!

   17, 18. Fools because of their transgression, and because of their
   iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat; and
   they draw near unto the gates of death. All God's redeemed people have
   suffered from soul-sickness and some of them have suffered from it so
   acutely that they have lost all appetite for spiritual comfort. "Their
   soul abhors all manner of meat." They cannot bear the sight or the
   thought of it. A man in this condition says, "Do not bring me any food.
   I loathe it." The very nourishment that might have restored him, he
   rejects because of the nausea which soul-sickness brings.

   19, 20. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, andHe saves them
   out of their distresses. He sent His Word, and healed them, and
   delivered them from their destructions. He healed them with His Word.
   And there is a remedy, in God's Word, for every form of spiritual
   malady. What we need to know is where the particular remedy for our
   special form of soul-sickness is to be found--and this, the Holy Spirit
   will teach us if we will but ask Him!

   21, 22. Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His
   wonderful works to the children of men!

   were published with Sermons #3061--THE RULE OF GRACE and 3064--"AD IT
   WAS SO" both Volume 53]
     __________________________________________________________________

Idolatry Condemned

   (No. 3071)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 6, 1874.

   "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." 1 John 5:21.

   THIS is the conclusion of one of the most mysterious, most simple and
   yet most sublime of all the Divinely-inspired Books. And we may
   naturally expect that the closing verse of the Epistle will have great
   weight in it. This seems to be the practical conclusion of the whole
   matter upon which John had been writing, "Little children, keep
   yourselves from idols." This Epistle is specially perfumed with love.
   As you read it, you cannot help realizing that it was written by a very
   tender, gentle hand and yet, when this loving writer is giving has last
   words in this Epistle, the admonition with which he closes is this,
   "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." As love thus speaks in
   its fullness, let us be ready to give earnest attention to the message
   which it utters. John has, in this Epistle, written much concerning the
   love of Jesus, as well he might, for he knew more about that love than
   any other man knew. And yet, when he had written concerning love to
   Jesus, he was moved to an intense jealousy lest, by any means, the
   hearts of those to whom he wrote should be turned aside from that dear
   Lover of their souls who deserved their entire affection and,
   therefore, not only love to them, but also love to Jesus, made him wind
   up his letter with these significant words, "Little children, keep
   yourselves from idols."

   I. My first observation shall be concerning THE TITLE UNDER WHICH WE
   ARE HERE ADDRESSED--"Little children."

   I do not think that John meant, literally, to address little children.
   Nor do I think he merely referred to a certain class of Believers who
   are very little in Grace and, therefore, are called "babes" in contrast
   to those who are men in Christ. I think he addressed himself to the
   whole body of Believers to whom he was writing and, through them, that
   he addressed the whole Church of Christ when he wrote, "Little
   children, keep yourselves from idols."

   This is, first, a title of deep affection. The Christian Church is the
   home of Christian love. When it is what it should always be, it is a
   family--it is "the household of faith," of which God Himself is the
   Father, the Lord Jesus is the Elder Brother, and all the members are
   Brothers and Sisters--all equal, all one in Christ Jesus, all seeking
   to serve the rest, laying themselves out to be servants to the whole
   band of Brothers and Sisters in Christ. It seems most appropriate that
   an aged Apostle, such as John doubtless was when he wrote this Epistle,
   should have looked round upon the younger members of the Lord's family
   and should have called them, "little children." And when we recollect
   how much he knew and, above all, how much he had seen of Jesus, how he
   had fallen at the feet of his glorified Lord as one who was dead, and
   then had had the pierced hand of Jesus laid upon him to raise him
   up--when we remember how he had heard the blowing of the seven trumpets
   and seen the pouring out of the seven vials, how he had beheld a door
   opened in Heaven, how he had counted the foundations of the glorious
   City and gazed within its streets of gold, and heard the music of the
   celestial harps--I do not wonder that such a man with such a mind and
   heart, so full of God, must, as he looked upon the rest of his
   brethren, have regarded them, without any egotism, as still remaining
   as "little children." It is a familiar, endearing mode of speech such
   as I think should often be coming from the lips of aged saints. At any
   rate, if our expressions are not exactly the same as John's, the love
   to which the expression was thus given should burn in each one of our
   hearts. Like as a father loves his children, so should the pastor love
   his flock, so should the teacher love his class-- and he may speak to
   them in such terms as these, "My little children."

   Mark, next, that in this title there is much that indicates good. John
   calls those to whom he wrote, "children"-- children of God, he means
   and he calls them "little children." Now, it is a good thing to be even
   little children in Christ, for this is an indication that the new birth
   has taken place! If this is the case with us, we are not now men or
   women in sin, but children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. What a
   priceless privilege it is to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit! There
   is a so-called "regeneration" by a priestly ceremony which leaves the
   man or the child as unregenerate as he was before the ceremony had been
   performed! But the regeneration by the Holy Spirit entirely changes the
   nature of the pea-son concerned and bestows upon him or her a new heart
   and a right spirit. To have this high privilege is to have one of the
   choicest gifts of Heaven--indeed, it is that which is essential to the
   enjoyment of all other blessings! So, however humble the title, "little
   children," may be, it is an indication of much good, for it is no small
   thing to be a little child in Christ Jesus and to be able even to lisp,
   as a little child might, "Abba, Father," and to say, with all the rest
   of God's family, "Our Father, who are in Heaven."

   The title, "little children," also indicates the humility of those who
   are rightly called by that name. A little child is not proud. He
   meddles not with high things. He is content to sit at his father's feet
   or to lie in his mothers bosom. And Christians, being born-again--born
   from above--become as little children, otherwise they could not enter
   the Kingdom of Heaven. They were very great people once, but they are
   very little now. They thought, at one time, that they were really
   growing as they grew bigger in their own estimation, but now they
   understand that they are growing in the best fashion when they are
   growing smaller! Growing Christians reckon themselves to be nothing.
   But full-grown Christians count themselves less than nothing! And when
   we feel ourselves to be "less than the least of all saints," then we
   are indeed making good progress in the Divine Life. To grow less and
   less in your own esteem is the right kind of growth. Naturally, we grow
   up from childhood to manhood but, spiritually, we grow down from
   manhood to childhood--yet it is not really growing down, but growing up
   as we increase in humility.

   Moreover, this title denotes teachableness. A little child will go to
   school. A little child is not above learning its letters. We cannot
   often get men to do this, especially in spiritual things. They are so
   crusted over with prejudice that they think they know all they need to
   know, yet it is little that they do know, and even that little is
   wrong, yet it is enough to keep them from being willing to be taught
   what they really need to learn! Truly blessed is the man who is a
   little child in relation to God. I believe that very often great
   knowledge and more especially great pretensions to knowledge of science
   and philosophy, stand in men's way and prevent them from learning what
   is most worth learning. God forbid that I should say anything in praise
   of ignorance! Yet I think that I might, in spiritual things, give it
   greater praise than I could give to "philosophy" or "science," falsely
   so-called. Happy and wise were the shepherds to whom the angels came
   and sang and spoke concerning the birth of Jesus, for in their
   simplicity, they went straight away to Bethlehem and found the newborn
   King! But the wise men (happy, too, for a star came to guide them), in
   their very wisdom seemed to make mistakes, for they went to Jerusalem
   and enquired, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" And so, for
   a time, they lost their way--and caused Herod to seek the life of the
   Holy Child Jesus! Well did Augustine say, "Shepherds and artisans often
   enter the Kingdom of Heaven while wise men and scholars are fumbling to
   find the latch." Know all you can that is really worth knowing but,
   with your knowledge, mind that you have the child-like spirit without
   which all your knowledge will be of little service to you! After all,
   there is not much difference between those who are called wise men and
   those who know but little, for the wisest of men really know but
   little--and if they are truly wise, they know that they know but
   little.

   There are some, nowadays, who think themselves to be such wise men that
   they even pretend to know more than God knows, or has revealed to us in
   His Word. They sit upon the throne of judgment and call God, Himself,
   before them and arraign Him, rejudge His judgments and profess to be
   the god of God! Such "wise" men are the most credulous fools of the
   age! I pity the poor creatures who believe in popish miracles, but I
   have now learned to think that those who can believe in such frauds are
   not half such idiots as the men who try to teach us that inanimate
   matter has fashioned itself into those marvelously beautiful shapes in
   which we see it all over this wondrous world which God created "in the
   beginning." Set these "wise"men up on a pinnacle in the center of the
   court of fools and let the biggest fools' caps that were ever made be
   placed upon their heads! When they sneer at the credulity of Believers
   in Christ, we can tell them to look at home, for there are none who are
   so credulous as they are! And let us still come to God's Book as little
   children who are willing to be taught by God's Spirit all that God's
   Son has to say to our hearts.

   And little, children, too, have faith. What a great deal of faith they
   usually have and how wicked it is for anyone ever to trifle with the
   faith of little children! It is really scandalous when nurses and
   others tell little children idle tales and foolish stories which the
   children believe to be true. We should be very careful and jealous
   concerning the faith which a little child has in its elders and never
   do or say anything to weaken their belief. Little children have a very
   beautiful faith, especially when the word of their father is concerned.
   They know that what he says is true. They laugh at the idea that their
   father would ever tell a lie. Let us be little children of that sort
   towards God, unquestioningly believing whatever He says to us--not
   asking how or why it is so but, being quite prepared to be told that we
   cannot yet understand everything and that all we have to do is
   implicitly believe all that our Heavenly Father says. If it is God who
   speaks, believe what He says and say with the confidence of a little
   child, "My Father cannot lie."

   So far, we see that it is a good thing to be called little children.
   But I think there is another view of the matter which we must not
   forget, for the title also implies weakness. "Little children"--that is
   all we are at the very best--little children are very apt to be led
   astray and so are we. We all of us feel the influence of others and we
   sometimes feel it more than we would like to confess. And it is a
   singular thing that probably there are no persons who are so much
   influenced by others as those who themselves influence others. The
   leaders are often those who are most led and, therefore, we need to be
   extremely cautious. Surrounded as we are by hosts of idolaters, we are
   all too apt to be swayed by their example, so John says to us, "Little
   children, do not be led into evil by those who are around you. Try to
   be men in this respect and dare to do right even if you stand alone.
   Stand fast and quit yourselves like men. Be not carried about by every
   wind that blows, but stand like a mighty rock that is immovable."

   Little children, too have this weakness, that they have need, as a
   rule, of something to see. You cannot teach them so well in any other
   way as you can by pictures and models. That tendency is also manifest
   in us spiritually--we have a craving for signs and symbols. The great
   mass of people--even Christian people--need something or other that
   they can see. Like Israel in the wilderness, they say, "Make us gods
   which shall go before us." If they cannot have a god in some visible
   shape, then they need some ceremony, some ritual, something or other
   that is not purely spiritual. As the girl wants her doll and the boy
   his rocking horse, so those who are little children in spiritual things
   seem to need some article which they can see and touch. Oh that we were
   men enough to believe in the spiritual--to be content with God's
   Revelation without needing anything symbolical except the two grand
   symbols which Christ has given us in His two ordinances--and never
   putting even those out of their proper place, much less wishing to
   overlay them with any adornments of our own, but worshipping Him, who
   is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth and yielding ourselves up to the
   guidance of His gracious Spirit, who will teach us how to worship God
   acceptably!

   Little children also have a very bounded range. Put a little child down
   with a few broken platters and a little dirt, and he will amuse himself
   by the hour together! It does not seem to strike him that he may grow
   up to be a man and have to work for his living, or manage big business
   like his father does. It is, under some aspects, a great blessing to be
   such a child as that, but it is a pity that we are so prone to be thus
   childish spiritually. We are so much engrossed in the present that if
   we have a little trouble we fret over it as if that trouble would last
   for years! If we meet with a little discouragement, we are worried by
   it and seem to forget the Heaven that is awaiting us, the God who rules
   over all, the Divine Comforter who is always near us and the unerring
   Wisdom which will bring good out of evil. Our sphere of observation is
   too confined--we are too much taken up with the present and do not turn
   our eyes across the gulf of time to that fair Glory Land where the day
   has broken and the shadows have forever flown away. Little children, it
   is because of this special weakness of yours that the Apostle has said,
   "Keep yourselves from idols."

   II. This remark brings me to the second part of my subject which is
   this--THE WARNING WHICH IS DIRECTED TO US. "Keep yourselves from
   idols."

   I hope that I need not say to you, dear Friends, Keep yourselves from
   all sorts of visible idols, for I trust that you abhor them as much as
   I do. Yet in this present age, idol temples are being set up almost
   everywhere by our Ritualistic clergy! And a form of idolatry that is on
   a par with the fetishism of ignorant Africans has come back to this
   land, for they make a god out of a bit of bread. And after worshipping
   their idol, eat it up--a process which can only be fitly described in
   such sarcasm as Elijah would have poured upon it if he could have stood
   in the midst of these modem priests of Baal as he stood among their
   prototype of old! Keep yourselves, Beloved, from all their idols! Pay
   no reverence to them, nor to their so-called "priests." It is strange
   that now, when men have open Bibles and can read them, there should
   come back to us the old idolatry which our fathers abhorred and which
   even in the days of dim religious light, their ancestors could not
   endure. Do not endure it for a moment, but make your protest against it
   every day in the most earnest possible manner! Let the cry ring out to
   any Christians who are mingled with the idolaters, "Come out from among
   them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean
   thing." God will surely punish this land and every other land where
   these or any other idols are set up!

   But to you, dear Friends, I must speak concerning other idols. First,
   keep yourselves from worshipping yourselves. Alas, how many fall into
   this gross sin! Some do it by indulgence at the table. How much of
   eating and especially of drinking, is there which, correctly speaking,
   is nothing better than gluttony and drunkenness! There are professing
   Christians who, perhaps, never are regarded as intoxicated, yet they
   sip, and sip, and sip until if they do not lose the control of their
   brain, they cause observers to raise the question whether they ever had
   any at all! It is almost a pity for some professing Christians that
   they can thus indulge themselves at home, for if like working men, they
   had to go home from the tippling-shop, it would soon be discovered that
   they were scarcely able to walk straight and the evil habit might be
   cured! It is a scandalous thing when there is such a sin as this in the
   Church of God. And as it has been known, I urge all of you, Beloved, to
   see to it that you offer no sacrifices to gluttony, nor pour out
   libations to Bacchus--for if you do, you prove that you are idolaters
   worshipping your own bellies and that God's love dwells not within you.

   There are others who worship themselves by living a life of indolence.
   They have nothing to do and they seem to do it very thoroughly. They
   take their ease and that is the main thing in which they take any
   interest. They flit from pleasure to pleasure, from show to show, from
   vanity to vanity as if this life were only a garden in which
   butterflies might fly from flower to flower, and not a sphere where
   serious work was to be done and all-important business for eternity was
   to be accomplished. Worship not yourselves by trifling as these
   indolent people do!

   Some worship themselves by decorating their bodies most elaborately.
   Their first and their last thought being, "What shall we wear?" Fall
   not into that idolatry!

   Then there are some people who make idols of their wealth Getting money
   seems to be the main purpose of their lives. Now it is right that a
   Christian man should be diligent in business--he should not be second
   to anybody in the diligence with which he attends to the affairs of
   this life. But it is always a pity when we can be truthfully told,
   "So-and-So is getting richer every year, but he has also gotten
   stingier. He gives less now than he gave when he had only half as much
   as he now has." We occasionally meet with people like the man who, when
   he was comparatively poor, gave his guinea--but when he grew rich, he
   only gave a shilling. His explanation was that when he had a shilling
   purse, he had a guinea heart, but when he had a guinea purse, he found
   that he had only a shilling heart. But it is always a pity when hearts
   grow smaller as means grow greater. Remember, dear Friends, that it
   will be only a little while before you must leave all that you have.
   What is the use of your having it at all unless you really enjoy it and
   how can you so truly enjoy it as by laying it at your Savior's feet and
   using it for His Glory? There is certainly more lasting enjoyment to be
   gained out of the unrighteous mammon in this way than in any other that
   I ever heard of--this is the testimony of those who have tried it and
   proved it to be so. I trust that none of you will worship the golden
   calf.

   Some worship the pursuit which they have undertaken. They give their
   whole soul up to their art, or their particular calling, whatever it
   may be. In a certain sense, this is a right thing to do, yet we must
   never forget that the first and great commandment is, "You shall love
   the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
   all your mind." This must always have the first place.

   Let me here touch a very tender point. There are some who make idols of
   their dearest relatives and friends. Some have done this with their
   children. I remember reading a story of a good man who seemed as if he
   could never forgive God for taking away his child. He sat in a Quakers'
   meeting bowed down and sorrowful. His time of deliverance came when a
   Sister rose, uttered these words, "Verily, I perceive that children are
   idols," and then resumed her seat. Such a message as that is often
   needed--yet it is a pity that it should be. Make no idol of your child,
   or your wife, or your husband, for by putting them into Christ's place,
   you really provoke Him to take them from you! Love them as much as you
   please--I would that some loved their children, their husbands, or
   their wives more than they do--but always love them in such a fashion
   that Christ shall have the first place in your hearts!

   The catalog of idols that we are apt to worship is a very long one.
   Hindus are said to have many millions of idols and it would take me a
   very long while to make a list of the various forms which the idolatry
   of the heart will take, but in a

   sentence, let me say to you--Remember that God has a right to your
   whole being. There is nothing and there can be nothing which ought to
   be supreme in your affections but your Lord. And if you worship any
   thingor any ideal, whatever it may be, if you love that more than you
   love your God, you are an idolater, and you are disobeying the command
   of the text, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." So pray to
   Him, with Toplady--

   "The idols tread beneath Your feet,

   And to Yourself the conquest get--

   Let sin no more oppose my Lord,

   Slain by the Spirit's two-edged sword." I would say to you, Beloved, in
   closing my observations upon this point--in the matter of your faith,
   be sure to keep yourselves from the idol of the hour Some of us have
   lived long enough to see the world's idols altered any number of times.
   Just now, in some professedly Christian churches, the idol is
   "intellectualism," "culture," "modern thought." Whatever name it bears,
   it has no right to be in a Christian church, for it believes very
   little that appertains to Christ! Now, I have some sort of respect for
   a downright honest infidel, like Voltaire or Tom Paine, but I have none
   for the man who goes to college to be trained for the Christian
   ministry and then claims to be free to doubt the Deity of Christ, the
   need of conversion, the punishment of the wicked and other Truths of
   God that seem to me to be essential to a full proclamation of the
   Gospel of Christ. Such a man must have strange views of honesty--and so
   has the minister who goes into a pulpit and addresses people when he
   knows that he does not believe any of the Doctrines that are dearer to
   them than their own lives! Yet the moment he is called to account for
   his unbelief, he cries out, "Persecution! Persecution! Bigotry!
   Bigotry!" A burglar, if I found him outside my bedroom door and held
   him till the Policeman came, might consider me to be very bigoted
   because I did not care to have my property stolen by him and because I
   interfered with his liberty. So, in like manner, I am called bigoted
   because I will not allow a man to come and assail, from my own pulpit,
   the Truths which are dearer to me than my life! I am quite willing to
   give that man liberty to go and publish his views somewhere else, and
   at his own expense, but it shall not be done at my expense, nor in the
   midst of a congregation gathered by me for the worship of God and the
   proclamation of His Truths as they are revealed in the Scriptures! Keep
   yourselves from this idol of the times, for it is the precursor of
   death to any church that gives it admittance.

   Unitarianism, to which this so-called liberality of thought always
   goes, is a religion of a parasitical kind. It flourishes by feeding
   upon the life of other churches, just as the ivy clings to the oak and
   sucks the life out of it. Let us tear this ivy down wherever we find it
   beginning its deadly work! Believe me, my Brothers and Sisters, that
   the Church of Christ, if not the world, shall yet learn that the
   highest culture is a heart that is cultivated by Divine Grace! That the
   truest science is the science of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified! That
   the greatest thought and the deepest of all metaphysics are found at
   the foot of the Cross! That the men who will keep on simply and
   earnestly preaching the old-fashioned Gospel--and the people who will
   stand fast in the old paths are they who will most certainly win the
   victory! When those who are sailing in a frail boat--which they or
   their fellow sinners have constructed without a rudder and without a
   pilot at the helm--when, I say, theyshall drift away and be dashed to
   pieces upon the rocks--they who trust in the Lord and have Him as their
   Pilot shall be kept clear of the rocks on which others have made
   shipwreck, and shall be safely steered into the haven of peace--and
   there be at rest forever!

   Many of us are about to gather around the Communion Table to celebrate
   the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This ordinance should
   help us to keep ourselves from idols, for if there is any place where
   idols disappear, it is at the foot of the Cross! Look, by faith, at
   your Lord and Savior as He hung upon the accursed tree--

   "See from His head, His hands, His feet,

   Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

   Did ever such love and sorrow meet,

   Or thorns compose so rich a crown??" Can you give your heart's
   affection to any idol after that? Has not Christ so engrossed your
   warmest love that no earthly charms have any power to allure you away
   from Him? Are you not, as it were, fastened up by His nails? Is not
   your heart pierced with His spear? Are you not so crucified with Christ
   that the world is dead to you and you are dead to the world? Do you
   think Jesus lived for self? What provision did He make for the flesh,
   to fulfill the lusts thereof? Was not His whole life one of self-denial
   and self-renunciation? What idol did He ever set up? To what objective
   did He devote His life? Did

   He seek fame? Did He labor for earthly honor and glory? Did He hoard up
   wealth? Did He say to the man of the world, "Applaud MM"? Was He turned
   aside from His purpose by either the frowning or the fawning of men?
   You know that it was not so! Then you who have been washed in His
   blood, follow Him! O you who are called by His name, do not blaspheme
   that name among the Gentiles by idolatry of any kind! Bring out your
   idols if you have hidden them as Rachel hid her father's images in the
   camel's furniture--bring them all out and let them be broken in pieces
   at the foot of the Cross, or be ground to powder as Moses treated the
   golden calf that his brother Aaron had made! O Jesus, where You are,
   who can worship any but You? If He came and lodged in your house, that
   child of yours would not be adored as it now is. If He always dwelt
   there, you would not pamper yourself as you now do. If you could see
   Him as He is, you must admit Him to reign within your heart. Well, let
   it be so as you now, by faith, gaze upon Him. And as these dear
   memorials of His broken body and His blood are fed upon by you and you
   remember Him, do with all your idols as the Ephesians did with their
   magical books--bring them out and let them be burned--a blessed
   holocaust in honor of Him who "has loved us, and has given Himself an
   offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Sing with
   Cowper, and let the prayer ascend to your Lord from the very depths of
   your heart--

   "The dearest idol I have known,

   Whatever that idol be,

   Help me to tear it from Your Throne,

   And worship only Thee!

   So shall my walk be close with God,

   Calm and serene my frame,

   So purer light shall mark the road

   That leads me to the Lamb."

   God bless you. And if any of you are living without Christ, perhaps it
   is some beloved idol that is keeping you from Him. If so, may you be
   delivered from its thralldom by coming to Jesus right now, for His dear
   name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 5.

   Verse 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.
   Where there is real faith in Jesus Christ as the Anointed of God, there
   is the evidence that the new birth has taken place. Let the first, the
   best and the clearest proof of our regeneration be the fact that we do
   verily and in our heart believe that Jesus is the Christ!

   1. And everyone who loves Him that begot, loves Him also that is
   begotten of Him. If we really love God with our whole heart, we must
   equally love Jesus Christ. And we shall also love all His people, for
   they are one with Him.

   2. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love
   Godandkeep His commandments. For love leads to imitation. If we truly
   love the children of God, we shall imitate them. And they are known by
   these distinguishing characteristics--that they love their Heavenly
   Father and keep His commandments.

   3. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His
   commandments are not grievous. Obedience is the flower of love. Where
   obedience to God does not exist, no love to God exists. It is a mockery
   for us to talk about emotions of the heart if there are not actions
   that correspond with them.

   4. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. The new life is the
   conquering life. The old must give place to the new. The world that is
   one day to be finally overthrown, is already overcome by the child of
   God.

   4. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith For
   it brings a better and brighter world before us and, opening to us the
   eternal, takes away from us the charms and allurements of the temporal.

   5. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus
   is the Son of God?No one else can overcome the world. But where there
   is true faith in Christ, it creates within the heart a holy valor by
   which the conquest of the world is achieved. The Law tells us to
   overcome the world, but the Gospel of God's Grace enables us to do it.
   The legal spirit knows that it ought to conquer the world, but the
   evangelical spirit does conquer it.

   6. This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by
   water only, but by water and blood. Andit is the Spirit that bears
   witness, because the Spirit is truth The cleansing of the outward life
   does not stand alone, but it is accompanied by the putting away of sin
   from the heart. The two must go together and no man will ever rightly
   value the

   cleansing water unless he equally values the atoning blood. It is said
   by some that the preaching of the Doctrine of the full and free
   forgiveness of sin which is bestowed upon all who exercise faith in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, will load men to carelessness of life. But it has
   quite the opposite effect. The cleansing of the life by the sanctifying
   power of the Holy Spirit through the Word, becomes incumbent upon us
   when once we are washed from sin in the precious blood of Jesus. The
   Atonement is the true guarantee of holiness!

   7, 8. For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the
   Word, and the Holy Spirit and these three are one. And there are three
   that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood:
   and these three agree in one. What a blessing it is for us to get the
   witness of these three even here on earth in the new life which is
   created within our souls by the Holy Spirit--the daily cleansing of our
   life by that same blessed Spirit through the Word, and the continual
   application by the Spirit of that precious blood by which peace is
   given to the conscience and sin is put away from the

   heart. [See Sermon #1187, Volume 20--THE THREE WITNESSES, for a fuller
   explanation of this subject.]

   9, 10. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater:
   for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. He
   that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself.That very
   faith becomes to him the best witness and he is able to confirm the
   witness of his faith that he is a partaker of the salvation of Christ.

   10, 11. He that believes not God has made Him a liar; because he
   believes not the record that God gave of His Son. And this is the
   record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His
   Son. That is the Gospel in brief--what Luther would have called a
   little Bible containing a condensation of the whole Revelation of God.

   12. He that has the Son has life; and He that has not the Son of God
   has not life. He may exist. He may have that which may be called moral,
   physical, or animal life--but there is such a thing as existing. Yes,
   and existing forever, without even a particle of "life" in the
   Apostle's sense of the word, in the Scriptural sense of the word! And
   blessed and happy are those who do not merely exist, but who have, by
   the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, been brought into that living
   inner circle and have been made to live, really to live in Christ!

   13, 14. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name
   of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and
   that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the
   confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to
   His will, He hears us.First we believe, and so we prove that we have
   eternal life. Then we climb up to the full assurance of faith. From
   full assurance we mount still higher to the clear conviction that God
   hears prayer--and from that height we mount yet higher to the assured
   confidence that He will hear our prayer!

   15. 16. And if we know that He hear us, whatever we ask, we know that
   we have the petitions that we desired of Him. If any man sees his
   brother sin a sin which is not unto death.What then? He shall run all
   over the place and tell everybody of it? Oh, no! That is not what the
   Apostle says, yet I have seen something like that carried into
   practice. But when I look into this Inspired Book, I do not see
   anything about talking of this sin to our fellow men, but something is
   said about talking of it to God! And this is what every true Christian
   should do. If you see any man sin, mind that you ask for pardon for the
   erring one, "If any man sees his brother sin a sin which is not unto
   death."

   16. He shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto
   death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for
   it John does not say that he may not--and as we cannot be absolutely
   sure that any sin is a sin unto death, this verse does not prevent us
   from praying for any man, whatever his sin may have been. John says,
   writing under Inspiration, "There is a sin unto death." "What is it?"
   someone asks. Ah, would you really like to know? If you did know, you
   could go and commit all other sins except that one, could you not? But
   would that be any help to your piety? Certainly not! You know that,
   sometimes, a notice to this effect is put up as a warning, "Man-traps
   and spring guns set on these premises." And do you go and knock at the
   door and say, "Will you kindly tell me where the man-traps and spring
   guns are?" No, for it is the fact that you do notknow where they are
   that keeps you out of the premises! In like manner, somewhere in the
   fields of sin, there is one great man-trap which John calls "a sin unto
   death"--but you need not need to know what that sin is, nor where that
   trap is set--your business is to keep as far away from allsin as you
   can, whether it is unto death, or not unto death!

   17. All unrighteousness is sin. If a thing is not right--if it is not
   right all round, it is sin, you can be sure of that. I heard the other
   day of a man who was said to be a splendid Christian God-wards, but a
   wretched creature man-wards.

   But there cannot be such a monstrosity as that! Such a man as that was
   not a Christian at all. Our righteousness, if it is real and true, must
   be an all-round righteousness towards men as well as towards God!

   17, 18. And there is a sin not unto death. We know that whoever is born
   of God sins not, but he that is begotten of God keeps himself and that
   Wicked One touches him not That is to say sin is not the bent of his
   renewed nature. It would not be a fair description of his life to say
   that he was living a sinful life. There are spots in the sun, but the
   sun itself is a great mass of brightness. So is it with the Christian's
   life--it is not a sinful life although there are imperfections in it.

   19-21. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in
   wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us
   an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him
   that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and
   eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

An Observation of the Preacher

   (No. 3072)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1907.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 25, 1864.

   "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." Ecclesiastes
   7:8.

   SOME translators read this passage, "Better is the end of a speech than
   the beginning thereof." And I doubt not that many of my hearers quite
   concur in that opinion. You endeavor to be patient when we begin, but
   as soon as we utter the word, "finally," your eyes begin to glisten,
   for the tedious exercise, you think, will soon be over! And if it is so
   to the hearers, I grant you it is sometimes so to the speaker! A
   speaker s ometimes finds it difficult to begin, more difficult to
   continue to edification, not difficult to come to a close, but often
   exceedingly pleasant to do so. Well, doubtless many a young preacher
   can remember when he first tried to speak--how much better he felt the
   end of the speech to be than the beginning! Like the young acrobat,
   walking upon a rope on high who tremblingly launches forth and timidly
   puts one foot after the other until he reaches the end of his dangerous
   task, he was relieved to sit down! Far better was the end of the speech
   than the beginning thereof.

   I do not think that is a correct version, or a proper translation, but
   it is a great truth, for if a man should speak what is mischievous, it
   is a good thing when he has done. It is better that he should have done
   with it than that he should be continuing in his idle and dangerous
   talk. And if a man speaks well and is a good ambassador--and has good
   tidings to deliver--it is better that he should have delivered them and
   fulfilled his mission. Now you have advanced one stage. You have
   received a truth on which your souls can feed. And it is better to have
   received it, than not to have received it--and hence the end is better
   than the beginning.

   I think we must take the text as it stands with a grain or two of salt.
   It is relatively rather than absolutely true. "Better is the end of a
   thing than the beginning thereof." That is true, or we would not find
   it in Scripture. But the application of its truth is particular, not
   universal. There are some things which are worse in their ending than
   in their beginning. It is true, I believe, of all things which proceed
   according to God's order, when God begins them and God ends them, or
   when they are begun by God's direction, conducted in God's fear and
   ended in God's Presence. In such cases I say the end is better than the
   beginning--but the text must not be taken to be absolutely and
   indiscriminately true in all cases. With a grain or two of salt,
   however, I think it is a maxim worthy of Solomon.

   "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." Some
   pictures in nature will illustrate this. We compare the beginning and
   the end. The sower goes forth on a damp and drizzling morning with his
   handful of precious seed which he is loath to spare. And as he scatters
   it, the rough wind blows into his face and the frost bites his cheek
   and, literally, it may be said that he "sows in tears." The beginning,
   therefore, is by no means pleasant. Then comes the harvest home, with
   the songs and dances of smiling damsels and joyous swains, when the
   produce of the fields is safely housed--that is the end thereof. I
   think that everyone can see that the harvest is better than the
   seedtime! Or a man starts forth upon a long journey. He takes a staff
   in his hand. He prepares himself to climb yonder crags. The storm will
   come on, but he must press through it. There will be brooks swollen
   with the rains, but he must pass through them all. Summoning courage to
   his aid, he surmounts every obstacle. He comes in all flushed with the
   healthy exercise. He has climbed yonder crags, he has passed through
   the brooks, he has braved the storm and now he comes to the blazing
   fire to sit down and rest himself, for the journey is over. "Better,"
   says the traveler, "is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.
   Toil came but now toil is sweetened, for I look back upon it and can
   take my rest." Or see the good ship as the dock gates are opened and
   she is drawn out into the river. Flags are flying and everyone cheers
   those who are about to

   make a venturesome voyage to the East Indies. See her, however, coming
   back up the river, well loaded, going into dock--and ask the captain,
   who remembers the rough weather as he passed the Cape, and the storm
   just as he came off the Peninsula--and he will tell you that he likes
   coming up the river much better than going down! Coming home with his
   ship well freighted, after a prosperous voyage, he says, with thanks to
   God, "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof."

   One more picture. An army of soldiers goes forth to war. Can you look
   upon them with pleasure? I know that you crowd the streets and shout as
   they march down your thoroughfares and, truly, it is a thrilling sight
   to see the stalwart heroes as they go forth to fight their country's
   battles. But when you think of the number of those brave men who may
   lie dead on the battleground, and how few may ever return, I am sure,
   to say the least, it is not a pleasant sight. But when those brave men
   who have escaped the storm and crash of battle return to their native
   land and again pass through the streets, they feel, if the spectators
   do not, that better is the end of war than the beginning thereof!
   Someone once said he thought there was never a good war and never a bad
   peace. And I believe to a very great extent he was right. Peace is of
   itself an inestimable blessing, and war in itself, whether just or
   unjust, is a most terrific scourge. So whether you see the sower in the
   field, or the traveler starting on his journey, or the voyager
   launching upon the deep, or the warrior going forth to the fight--you
   are ready to think that, "Better is the end of a thing than the
   beginning thereof." I have given you these four pictures because I
   shall want to use them as I turn from natural things to more spiritual
   things.

   I. Let me use this general principle tonight, in the first place, TO
   SOOTHE YOUR REGRETS.

   This year has all but gone. 1864, then, must soon be numbered with the
   things that were. Perhaps someone says, "Would to God that I had this
   year to live over again! I have missed many opportunities of doing good
   or, when I have availed myself of them, I have not served my God as I
   could have desired. I have another year less in which to serve the
   Church, the world and my God. I have spent another of my talents and
   have so much fewer to put out to usury for my Lord and Master." Now, do
   not regret, dear Friend, that the year has passed. It should rather be
   to you, if you are a believer in Christ, a subject for congratulation!
   Would you wish to have the year over again, when in sober silence you
   meditate upon the subject? You have had some sorrows this year. You are
   like the sailor I spoke of just now--you have passed through some
   storms. Weather-beaten mariner, would you like to have the storms of
   this year over again? Do you remember that dreadful night when the ship
   was driven so fearfully by the tempest, or the time when you were cast
   upon the rocks--and would you like to endure the same again? I see you
   shake your head and say, "No! Thank God we weathered that storm, but we
   don't want it again." And, Christians, as you think of the losses,
   crosses, sufferings and bereavements which you have had during this
   year, can you feel any regrets that it is gone? Must not each one of
   you say, "I thank God that stormy voyage is over and I have not those
   tempests to endure"?

   How many snares have you escaped during the past year? In looking back,
   must you not observe that your feet have sometimes almost gone and your
   steps have well-near slipped? There have been times when sin had almost
   tripped you up, when the world had almost taken you in its trap and
   when the devil had all but wounded you in a mortal part. You are like a
   sailor who remembers the rocks by which he has sailed and the
   quicksands from which he has escaped. Would you wish to run such risks
   again? Do you wish, sailor, to go again over the bar at such a low
   tide, or to be drifted so unpleasantly near that rock as almost to
   grate against it? "No," he says, "having escaped those dangers, I am
   thankful that they are over and have no wish to have them over again."
   And are you not grateful, Christian, that another year of temptation
   has gone forever and that the arrows that Satan has shot at you this
   year, he can shoot at you no more? Those sword-cuts we received which
   threatened to be mortal, we shall never have to dread again! They are
   gone and when I say they are gone, it is implied that their mischief
   and their power to hurt are gone forever.

   But there is another side to this matter. What a multitude of mercies
   you have enjoyed this year! How good God has been to us!--

   "When all Your mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys-- Transported
   with the view, I'm lost In wonder, love and praise."

   Those of us who have traveled in Switzerland, or in other countries
   where the views are glorious to look upon, would not wish that we had
   never seen them. On the contrary, we are glad that our eyes have
   feasted on those sunny prospects. And you, too, Christian, cannot
   regret that you have seen God's mercies, but you will thank God that it
   has been your

   privilege to have enjoyed such favors. There is another reason, then,
   why you should not regret that the year has passed. I address myself to
   some who are growing gray. I know there is a tendency in your minds to
   regret that so many years have gone, but, my dear Brothers and Sisters
   in the Lord, if you should do so, I think you would be guilty of a
   folly unworthy of a Believer with such a long experience! Take John
   Bunyan's picture of the Christian's progress. He describes Christian as
   starting on his pilgrimage to the Celestial City with a burden on his
   back that pressed him down, wringing his hands for fear and running
   because he is afraid that he will be destroyed in the City of
   Destruction. He has not gone a day's journey before he is up to his
   neck in the Slough of Despond and floundering in the mire! This is the
   beginning of the pilgrimage, but look at the end--he has come to the
   river, he dips his foot into it and though it is chill and cold, it
   does not stop him. When he gets midway in the river, how does Bunyan
   picture him? The angels beckon him from the other side--those very
   angels whose voices he had heard ringing clear and sweet across the
   stream when he wandered in the groves of Beulah and sat among the
   spices there. And now he reaches the bank on the other side and,
   leaving his sins, his doubts, his infirmities and his mortality behind,
   his disembodied spirit goes up to the celestial land and angel
   attendants conduct him to the pearly gates of the golden-paved city!
   Oh, infinitely better is the end of a spiritual life than the
   beginning! Contrast the Slough of Despond with the Celestial City and
   human intellect cannot fail to see how much better, how infinitely
   better, the end is than the beginning!

   Take this picture as a further illustration of the same point--Moses at
   the beginning of his spiritual career is seen killing an Egyptian and
   burying him in the sand--just like a young Christian, full of zeal, but
   having little prudence. There is the beginning of his public career.
   And now I think I see the old man of 120 years, firm of step, with an
   eye as clear and piercing as an eagle's, standing up to address the
   people whom he has carried, as nursing mother, in his arms! And, having
   done this, leaving Joshua, his familiar servant, and all others behind,
   he began to climb to the top of Pisgah. He has mounted to its loftiest
   crag and, leaning over, he begins to take a full view of the Promised
   Land. He sees the palm trees of Jerusalem and Zion, and his eyes linger
   on Bethlehem--he catches glimpses of the blue sea afar off, and the
   goodly land of Lebanon. And as he looks, one scene melts into the other
   and he sees the face of God, for God, Himself, has come down and his
   spirit is taken away with a kiss. As to his body, it is buried where no
   man knows--but as to his soul, it is with God forever! Truly, in the
   case of Moses, better was the end than the beginning, and such shall be
   the spiritual end of every man of God who with the simplicity and faith
   of Moses, can put his trust in God. I think this is sufficient to
   soothe all your regret! Instead of being sorry that these years have
   passed, thank God for them and be glad.

   II. I shall now use this general principle to endeavor to STOP YOUR
   FOREBODINGS.

   It may be that many of you are in darkness--darkness which may be felt.
   You find it very difficult to accept the truth that God is a God of
   Love and One who cares for you. You are, however, only at the
   beginning--the beginning of the ways of Providence. Your poor faith is
   ready to be staggered by the sufferings you endure and unbelief
   prophesies ten thousand things to fill your soul with doubts and
   alarms--but the end of all this shall be better than the beginning!
   Many Christians have more trials in the earlier part of their spiritual
   life than they will ever have afterwards. "It, is good for a man that
   he bear the yoke in his youth." You must not consider, because the sun
   is just now behind a cloud, that it will always be there. It was a
   little child who said when there was an eclipse, "Father, the sun is
   put out." It was only a child who said that--no man thought so. Let
   your riper experience correct the childishness of your unbelief. God
   only hides His face to show it more clearly, by-and-by. The end shall
   be better than the beginning. Have you not often seen a day which,
   early in the morning, was heavy with fog and rain? As it came on, we
   waited patiently and anxiously, for we wished for fine weather--but
   those incessant drops of rain still fell. We looked to the wind quarter
   and to the rain quarter, we looked with hope and then with fear, but
   the drops fell unceasingly and there seemed to be no chance of
   intermission. And yet, before noon had come we had seen the sun shining
   brightly and we have heard the birds singing more sweetly--and it has
   been fair weather after rain. Take that morning as a prophecy to your
   poor, doubting, troubled soul of what your path in life will yet be.
   You shall yet see that the end is better than the beginning.

   Take one picture as an illustration and then I will leave this point.
   Poor Joseph has been slandered by his mistress. His character is under
   serious imputation. He is put into the round house by Potiphar--he is a
   prisoner and must have prisoner's fare. And yet I think that Joseph had
   never sat upon the throne of Egypt if he had not been put into the
   dungeon. You must "stoop to conquer" and, like gold, you must be put in
   the burning coals that you may be refined. But

   you shall soon come out and, like that gold, when you shall glitter
   with purity you shall know that "better is the end of a thing than the
   beginning thereof."

   III. And now let us use this simple statement of the text TO ENCOURAGE
   OUR FAITH.

   The way of sense is to get everything now--the way of faith is to get
   everything in God's time. The worldly man lives on the present--the
   Christian lives on the future. It will always greatly strengthen faith
   if we, according to God's Word, look not so much at present appearances
   as at the issue of our lives which is to make amends for all the toils
   and disappointments we experience at the commencement of our career. So
   surely as God has called you to be a partaker of the Kingdom, you must
   renounce the pleasures of this present world. Look at your Lord and
   Master. Look at His beginning. "He was despised and rejected of men; a
   Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." Remember Gethsemane's blood
   and sweat, and Gabbatha's terrible flagellation, and Golgotha's mount
   of doom? This is the beginning. Would you see the end?--

   "The head that once was crowned with thorns, Is crowned with Glory
   now."

   The mighty Victor drags death and Hell at His triumphant chariot
   wheels! He mounts His Father's Throne and amidst the acclamations of
   men and angels, He sits down forever and all His enemies shall be made
   His footstool! This is the end, or rather, this is the beginning of the
   end, for the splendors of the millennium, the Second Advent, and the
   eternal honors which shall be cast at Jesus' feet, these are the end.
   How much better is the glorious end than the sorrowful beginning! "As
   He Is, so are we, also, in this world." You must take the manger, or
   you shall never take the throne! You must have the Cross, or you shall
   never wear the crown! You must be despised and rejected, or you shall
   never be accepted and crowned! You must wade through the mire, or you
   shall never walk the golden pavement! Cheer up, then, poor Christian!
   Let this Truth of God be a stay to your soul just now, "Better is the
   end of a thing than the beginning

   thereof."

   I will give you two illustrations and then leave this point. You see
   that creeping worm, how contemptible is its appearance! You wish to
   sweep it away--that is the beginning of the thing. You see that insect
   with gorgeous wings playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower
   bells and full of happiness and life--that is the end thereof. That
   worm, that caterpillar, that maggot, if you will, is you! And you are
   to be content with that until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of
   death. But you cannot tell what you shall be after death. All that we
   know is that when Christ shall appear, "we shall be like Him, for we
   shall see Him as He is." Be content to be like He, a worm, a
   caterpillar in the beginning that, like He, you may be satisfied when
   you wake up in His present likeness!

   Again, you see that rough-looking diamond--it is put upon the wheel of
   the lapidary. With much care he begins to turn it and to cut it on all
   sides It loses much--much that seemed to itself costly. Do you see it
   now? The king is to be crowned, the diadem is put upon the monarch's
   head with the trumpet's joyful sound. There is a glittering ray which
   flows from that diadem and it comes from that very diamond which was
   cut just now by the lapidary. You, Christian, may venture to compare
   yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God's jewels. And this
   is the time of the cutting process. You must endure it. Be of good
   courage and murmur not. Let faith and patience do their perfect work.
   In the day when the crown shall be set upon the head of "the King
   eternal, immortal, invisible," one ray of glory shall stream from you,
   for you shall be His! "You shall be Mine," says the Lord, "in the day
   when I make up My jewels."

   IV. Have patience with me, in the next place, while I use my text TO
   SUGGEST ACTION.

   It is very clear that we cannot have an ending if we have not a
   beginning. However bright our end might be, we can never know it
   experimentally unless we begin. The text therefore, suggests the
   question to each one of us, "Have I begun? Has God begun with me?" The
   beginning may be dark and gloomy, but you can never have a bright
   ending without it. I know the beginning will involve the sacrifice of
   many pleasures and the giving up of friends--"pleasures" and "friends"
   so-called, but you cannot have an ending with the saints of God in
   Heaven unless you have a beginning with the poor and afflicted of His
   family on earth! I wonder whether there are some with whom God will
   begin now. It will be a blessed thing if He should begin with you, but
   it will be a far more blessed thing for you when He comes to the end.
   It. will be so blessed, if you should, tonight, be led by the Holy
   Spirit to direct your eyes with faith to Christ that the very angels
   before the House of God shall have a merrier Christmas because of your
   conversion! [See Sermon #2791, Volume 48--a high day in

   HEAVEN.] Can I be mistaken in that notion? Did not our Lord

   Jesus Christ say, concerning the shepherd who had found his sheep which
   was lost. "When he comes home, he calls together his friends and
   neighbors," (who are they but the angels who are the friends and
   neighbors of Christ in Heaven?) "saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for
   I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy
   shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety
   and nine just persons which need no repentance." In Heaven they sing
   more and with a more joyful song when sinners turn from the error of
   their ways. I wonder whether tonight will be a time for "beginning"
   with some of you? Oh, if the Spirit of God is now teaching you your
   sinnership, if you feel that you are lost and ruined, I have to remind
   you that on the Cross of Calvary, there hung a bleeding Savior and
   that--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One"--

   and the moment you glance at Him by faith, the good beginning comes to
   you! But, oh, it were vain for fancy to attempt to describe the ending
   when the angel convoy shall bear your ransomed spirit upward to be
   beatified forever and to be full of eternal life and joy in the
   Presence of Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior. May God begin thus with
   some of you tonight!

   V. And now to close--THE TEXT SUGGESTS A MOST SOLEMN ENQUIRY and the
   enquiry for each one of us is this--If my life were to come to an end
   tonight, would my end be better than my beginning? I said when I began
   that my text must have some salt with it--and here I must use the salt.
   There are some things that are best in the beginning and worst at the
   end. There is, yonder, the sinner's feast. Bring in the dishes. Fill
   the goblets with sparkling wine--drink deep and sing right merrily. The
   lute and the harp are there and the feasters stand up and shout and
   sing. But what is that I see? As the night wears away and the morning
   light streams in through the windows, "who has woe? Who has redness of
   the eyes?" Truly, the end of such feasts is worse than the beginning!
   And in that ward of foul disease where they seem to sweep together the
   rank refuse of what once was beauty, exceedingly fair to look upon,
   truly we learn the lesson that in some cases the end is worse than the
   beginning. Beware, you that go to the house of strange women, lest you
   find that the end thereof is infinitely worse than the beginning! Stop
   your feet before they enter there, lest you go like a bullock to the
   slaughter, or a fool to the stocks. And if that one walk is so
   notoriously worse in the end than it is in the beginning, such,
   likewise, is every walk of sin. See the greedy man as he accumulates
   money! Look at the beginning of it--he puts out his money to interest
   and makes out his bonds. He takes security for debts and calls houses
   and streets after his name. And then see the end of it. The old man is
   haggard and wan. He cannot count his wealth, yet he fears he will die
   in the workhouse. And when he thinks, in those intervals when his
   senses come back and he realizes his own self, it is always with the
   shuddering thought, "I must part with you, my treasures. I must part
   with you all and go back to my mother earth as naked as I came into
   it." So that, you see, there are times when the ending of a thing is a
   great deal worse than the beginning.

   Someone will doubtless say, "I am not like these men. I am neither
   debauched nor avaricious." Well, I will take you at the best. Here is
   your beginning--you are a respectable attendant at a place of
   worship--you go because others go, not because your heart is right with
   God. This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next 20 or 30
   years you will be spared to go on as you do now, professing religion as
   far as outward attendance upon the means of Grace will make a
   profession, but having no heart in the matter. Shall I show you your
   end? Be hushed and silent, tread softly, for I must show you the
   deathbed of such an one as yourself! Let us gaze upon him gently. Let
   us not disturb him. A clammy sweat is on his brow and he wakes up and
   cries, "O God, it is hard to die!" He says to his friends, "Did you
   send for my minister?... "Yes, he is coming." The minister comes and
   the poor fellow says to him, "Sir, I fear that I am dying." "Have you
   any hope?" "I cannot say that I have any. I shall have to stand before
   my God--oh, pray for me!" The prayer is offered for him with sincere
   earnestness and the way of salvation is for the ten thousandth time put
   before him. But before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. Shall I
   picture the scene further? I may put my finger upon those eyelids, for
   they will never see anything here again. But where is the man and where
   are the man's true eyes? Christ said of the rich man, "In Hell he
   lifted up his eyes, being in torments."

   And it is so with this man. But why did he not lift up his eyes before?
   Because he got so accustomed to hear the Gospel that his soul went to
   sleep under it! He cannot sleep now--"being in torments." There is no
   sleep in Hell. Oh, what a blessing sleep would be if it could enter the
   habitation of the damned! Alas, if any of you should lift up your eyes
   there, what a sight you will behold! Here, if you drop off to sleep and
   wake up in the Tabernacle, you see the faces of attentive listeners
   hearing words of mercy--there, when first you lift up your eyes, you
   will gaze into visages more marred with pain than any you have ever
   seen before! And if you ask them the cause of their awful grief and why
   agony, as with a red-hot plowshare, has made such deep furrows in their
   cheeks, they will tell you that you need not ask them, for you will
   soon learn the reason yourself! I cannot picture it. Let the Savior's
   own Words tell you the terrible Truth of God--"The rich man cried and
   said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may
   dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am
   tormented in this flame." There is a frightful meaning in those words!
   May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's
   wrath!--

   "You sinners, seek His Grace,

   Whose wrath you cannot bear!

   Fly to the shelter of His Cross,

   And find salvation there!"

   Before this last Sabbath of the year closes, I pray that the Lord may
   come down in mercy and visit those who have not yet received Christ,
   that of them it may be truly said, "Better i s the end of this year
   than the beginning thereof." God grant it for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM116.

   We have read this Psalm many times and have often felt it to be a
   photograph of our own spiritual experience, but we will, on this
   occasion, read it from one special point of view. Please notice that
   this Psalm is exceedingly full of the letter, "I." Cast your eye down
   the page and you will be struck with the number of times in which the
   first person singular appears. Well, then, let us read the Psalm with
   this view, and each of us for himself or herself say, "I," as the
   Psalmist did if the Holy Spirit shall enable us to do so.

   Verse 1. I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my
   supplications. If this double declaration is true, it turns the reading
   of the Psalm into a devout spiritual exercise for each one of us who
   can rightly adopt the Psalmist's language. But can each one of us
   truthfully say, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You"?
   If I can honestly say, "I love the Lord," then I can give the reason
   for the love that is in me. It is because He has loved me with an
   everlasting love and because He has manifested that love, among many
   other ways, in hearing "my voice and my supplications."

   2. Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore willI call upon
   Him as long as Ilive. "Whatever others may do or may not do, I will
   call upon Him as long as I live, and I have a good reason for doing so,
   'Because He has inclined His ear unto me.' He has stooped from His
   Throne in Heaven to listen to my feeble voice. He has bowed Himself in
   His majesty to listen to the appeal of my misery. I was brought down
   very low in my sorrow, but the Lord brought His ear down as low as my
   lips--'He has inclined His ear unto me' and because He has done that,
   therefore my heart is inclined unto Him and I will call upon Him as
   long as I live."

   3. The sorrows of death compassed me."They formed a ring around me from
   which I could see no way of escape. I was like a wounded stag that is
   surrounded by fierce dogs."

   3. And the pains of Hell got hold upon me. "The dogs of Hell had fixed
   their cruel teeth in my throat so that it seemed impossible for me to
   escape from them."

   3. I found trouble and sorrow. "When I searched for something better, I
   only found still more trouble and sorrow. I had enough of them without
   finding any more, but the more I looked for anything else, the more
   trouble and sorrow I found." This is a very graphic description of the
   state of heart in which some of us have been more than once. We have
   seen no way of escaping from it and we have been in great distress
   because we could not discover any way of alleviating our grief.

   4. Then I called upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech You,
   deliver my soul. Do you remember, dear Friend, when you prayed such a
   prayer as that--short, sharp, sincere, pointed, personal, out of the
   depths of your soul? Then let your recollection of that prayer have so
   gracious an influence upon your heart that in the remembrance of the
   past mercy, when the Lord heard and answered your supplication, you may
   find a well of present gratitude!

   5. Gracious is thee LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful
   Listen to that blessed little sentence, those of you who are full of
   sin, and who are therefore afraid that God will cast you away forever!
   "Our God is merciful."

   6. The Lord preserves the simple: I was brought low and He helped me.
   There is here, first, a general Doctrine and then, there is a
   particular proof and application of it. It is true, in a general sense,
   that the Lord preserves the simple-hearted ones who have learned to
   trust in Him. But, in particular, you or I, if saved by His Grace, can
   say with the Psalmist, "I was brought low and He helped me." There is a
   little book of medicine [See Sermon #240, Volume 5--prayer

   ANSWERED, LOVE NOURISHED.] which Mr. John Wesley brought out

   and he put to some of the recipes, the word "Proved." He had evidently
   tried the medicine and proved it to be efficacious in his own case. In
   a similar fashion, we can often put in the margin of our Bibles,
   concerning the Word of the Lord, "Proved." We have tried it and proved
   it--and therefore we also can personally say, "The Lord preserves the
   simple: I was brought low, and He helped me."

   7. Return unto your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully
   with you. Cannot we also, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, speak
   well of our God tonight? If any of us have been wandering at all from
   His Presence and so have lost the conscious sense of His love, let us
   come back to Him at once! We cannot be happy anywhere else. God has
   spoiled you and me, Beloved, for the world, so we must be happy in Him,
   for we can never be satisfied anywhere else. Only in our God can our
   joy be full. Come back then, my Soul, come back to your Lord! "Return
   unto your rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with
   you." He is your true Noah. You can find no real rest anywhere else--
   therefore return unto Him even as the dove flew back to the ark with
   weary wings after wandering over the wild waste of waters.

   8. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and
   my feet from falling. "I have had a trinity of deliverances--my soul
   saved from eternal ruin, my eyes delivered from the greatest grief of
   all and my life saved from sinful stumbling! 'You have delivered my
   soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.'" This
   testimony is far in advance of that given in Psalm 56:13 where David
   says, "You have delivered my soul from death: will not You deliver my
   feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the
   living?"

   9. I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living. "I will not
   walk before some great man so as to seek to please him. I will not walk
   before my fellow Believers so as to be merely looking for their
   approbation. But, 'I will walk before the Lord.'" This is the best way
   of living, so let it be yours and mine, Beloved. Let each of us say, "I
   will walk before the Lord in the land of the living."

   10. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted. I
   call your attention again to the repeated use of the word, "I." Three
   times in this one verse we have that little personal pronoun. And I
   want you, each one, to take this whole Psalm to yourself so far as it
   is suited to your case, to make an appeal of it while we are reading
   it. "I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted."

   11. 12. I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto
   the LORD for all His benefits toward me?I expect that we have all of us
   said in our haste some things that we had better not have said. They
   may have been true, yet for all that, it was a pity that we uttered
   them. Yet I am glad that the Psalmist, although he said, "All men are
   liars," did not dwell upon that unpleasant truth, but speedily turned
   from unreliable man to his ever-reliable God. "What shall I render unto
   the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" If all men are liars, if all
   earthly comforts fail us, if all human dependences disappoint us--our
   God will not do so. Let us leave the broken cisterns without even
   grumbling at them, or having bitter feelings concerning them. And let
   us turn to God and let this be the question put by each one of us,
   "What

   shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" [See
   Sermon #2758, Volume 47--"RETURN UNTO YOUR REST".] I suggest, dear
   Friends, that we, each of us, personally put this question to
   ourselves, "What shall I render unto the Lord? What can I do for Jesus?
   What can I give to God? What is there, at this particular time, that I
   can devise for the Glory of God in order to manifest my love to Him?"
   Perhaps in this house, tonight, there may be the conception--perhaps
   the birth--of some high and noble enterprise for God. If this question
   shall be pressed home upon some ardent spirit here, there may be the
   first thoughts, in this House of Prayer, of some far-reaching ministry
   which shall be a means of blessing to many lands through all the ages
   that are yet to come. God grant that it may be so! What shall I, a
   young man just beginning life, render unto the Lord? What shall I, a
   man in the full strength of his manhood, render unto the Lord? What
   shall I--a man far advanced in years, mature and ripe for Heaven, lume
   53 www.spurgeongems.org 7

   and soon to be taken there--render unto the Lord? Whoever I am, let me
   make haste to answer the question, "What shall I render unto the Lord
   for all His benefits toward me?" [See Sermon #910, Volume
   16--overwhelming obligations.]

   13, 14. I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the
   LORD. I willpay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all His
   people.There never was a better time than the present--and there never
   was better place than this for some holy resolve concerning consecrated
   service for the Master!

   15. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints. They
   are themselves at all times so precious to the Lord that everything
   about them is very dear in His esteem--and they are never more precious
   than in their deaths. [See

   Sermon #1036, Volume 18--PRECIOUS DEATHS.] We constantly have some

   of the very choicest of the Lord's saints going Home to their Father.
   And when the Lord takes any of them Home to Himself, it becomes those
   of us who are left to try to do all the more for our God. Let some of
   us be baptized for the dead, let us press forward to fill the gaps in
   the ranks of the armies of God and do all that lies in our power to win
   the victory for His righteous cause!

   16. O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of
   Your handmaid: You have loosed my bonds.Still read this Psalm very
   personally--you especially who have had godly mothers. Say, "I am a
   born slave-- born of one who was your slave, for I delight to use even
   such a hard name as that. I am God's servant, born of one of God's
   servants--'the son of Your handmaid.'" I like to remember that it was
   so in my own case and I can truthfully say to the Lord, "I am Your
   servant, and the son of Your handmaid." "You have loosed my bonds," by
   making me to feel the bonds of your Grace. There is no liberty like
   complete subjection to God. The greatest freedom of thought is to think
   only God's thoughts--and the highest freedom of living is to live
   according to the rule of holiness in the ways of the Most High.

   17-19. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call
   upon the name ofthe Lord. I willpaymy vows unto the LORD now in the
   presence of all His people. In the courts of the LORD'S house, in the
   midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise you the LORD. And we do and will
   praise Him at this time and forever and ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [1]1:7   [2]7:15   [3]15:16

   1 Samuel

   [4]25:32-33

   2 Chronicles

   [5]27:6

   Job

   [6]1:21   [7]9:30-31

   Psalms

   [8]10:14   [9]23:1   [10]32:1   [11]40:17   [12]45:5   [13]51:7
   [14]71:15   [15]84:3   [16]107:17-22   [17]119:37   [18]119:82

   Ecclesiastes

   [19]7:8

   Isaiah

   [20]4:13   [21]9:3   [22]32:2   [23]38:1   [24]53:3   [25]58:8
   [26]60:8

   Jeremiah

   [27]50:4   [28]50:5

   Ezekiel

   [29]36:27

   Amos

   [30]5:8

   Micah

   [31]4:9

   Zechariah

   [32]8:13

   Malachi

   [33]3:10

   Matthew

   [34]5:5   [35]9:20-22   [36]14:16

   Mark

   [37]14:50-52

   Luke

   [38]1:78   [39]4:27   [40]19:10   [41]23:34

   John

   [42]3:5   [43]12:23-24   [44]16:14   [45]16:31-32   [46]21:22

   Romans

   [47]3:24-26   [48]8:34

   Colossians

   [49]2:6

   1 Timothy

   [50]5:22

   1 Peter

   [51]4:18

   1 John

   [52]5:21
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

   1. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=7#xliv-p0.1
   2. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=7&scrV=15#xxii-p0.1
   3. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=15&scrV=16#xxiii-p0.1
   4. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=1Sam&scrCh=25&scrV=32#xvii-p0.1
   5. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=2Chr&scrCh=27&scrV=6#xliii-p0.1
   6. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=1&scrV=21#vi-p0.1
   7. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=9&scrV=30#xlix-p0.1
   8. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=10&scrV=14#xxxix-p0.1
   9. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=23&scrV=1#xl-p0.1
  10. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=32&scrV=1#xxxiv-p0.1
  11. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=40&scrV=17#xx-p0.1
  12. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=45&scrV=5#xix-p0.1
  13. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=51&scrV=7#xxxvi-p0.1
  14. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=71&scrV=15#iii-p0.1
  15. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=84&scrV=3#xxi-p0.1
  16. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=107&scrV=17#l-p0.1
  17. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=119&scrV=37#vii-p0.1
  18. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=119&scrV=82#viii-p0.1
  19. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Eccl&scrCh=7&scrV=8#lii-p0.1
  20. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=4&scrV=13#xxiv-p0.1
  21. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=9&scrV=3#xxxviii-p0.1
  22. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=32&scrV=2#xii-p0.1
  23. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=38&scrV=1#ii-p0.1
  24. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=53&scrV=3#xiii-p0.1
  25. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=58&scrV=8#ix-p0.1
  26. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Isa&scrCh=60&scrV=8#xxxi-p0.1
  27. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=50&scrV=4#xxix-p0.1
  28. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Jer&scrCh=50&scrV=5#xv-p0.1
  29. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Ezek&scrCh=36&scrV=27#xxviii-p0.1
  30. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Amos&scrCh=5&scrV=8#xiv-p0.1
  31. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Mic&scrCh=4&scrV=9#xlvi-p0.1
  32. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Zech&scrCh=8&scrV=13#xxv-p0.1
  33. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Mal&scrCh=3&scrV=10#xvi-p0.1
  34. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Matt&scrCh=5&scrV=5#xlv-p0.1
  35. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Matt&scrCh=9&scrV=20#i-p0.1
  36. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Matt&scrCh=14&scrV=16#xxvi-p0.1
  37. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Mark&scrCh=14&scrV=50#iv-p0.1
  38. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Luke&scrCh=1&scrV=78#x-p0.1
  39. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Luke&scrCh=4&scrV=27#xli-p0.1
  40. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Luke&scrCh=19&scrV=10#xxx-p0.1
  41. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Luke&scrCh=23&scrV=34#xlviii-p0.1
  42. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=John&scrCh=3&scrV=5#xxxiii-p0.1
  43. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=John&scrCh=12&scrV=23#v-p0.1
  44. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=John&scrCh=16&scrV=14#xlii-p0.1
  45. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=John&scrCh=16&scrV=31#xxxii-p0.1
  46. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=John&scrCh=21&scrV=22#xxxvii-p0.1
  47. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Rom&scrCh=3&scrV=24#xviii-p0.1
  48. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Rom&scrCh=8&scrV=34#xlvii-p0.1
  49. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=Col&scrCh=2&scrV=6#xi-p0.1
  50. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=1Tim&scrCh=5&scrV=22#xxxv-p0.1
  51. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=1Pet&scrCh=4&scrV=18#xxvii-p0.1
  52. file:///ccel/s/spurgeon/sermons53/cache/sermons53.html3?scrBook=1John&scrCh=5&scrV=21#li-p0.1