__________________________________________________________________

        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 59: 1913
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

The Divine Discipline

   (No. 3335)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 9,
   1867.

   "As am eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad
   her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings: so the Lord alone did
   lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Deuteronomy 32:11,12.

   MOSES in this Chapter is speaking concerning Israel in the wilderness.
   When the great host came out of Egypt, they were, through the debasing
   influences of slavery--which are not easily or quickly shaken off--not
   much better than a mere mob. They were not at all fitted to march at
   once to take possession of Canaan, nor to take part in the compacts of
   organized social life. Therefore God, instead of taking them by the
   short way along which they might have passed in a very few days,
   ordained it so in His Providence that they should wander about for 40
   years in the wilderness--partly, it is true, as a punishment for their
   unbelief, but also in order that the nation might be trained and
   educated for its future destiny--made as fit as it could be, to be the
   custodian of the oracles of the Truths of God and to be the receiver of
   the Revelation which God intended to give to men.

   If you will read carefully over the history of the children of Israel
   in the wilderness, I think you will see that the practical training
   which God adopted was--if they had been right-minded men--splendidly
   adapted to bring them to the very highest state of spiritual life. In
   some respects it was weak through their flesh, but the method, itself,
   was superlatively excellent. Here was a people taken away from the
   multitude of gods which they had been known to see on every hand in
   Egypt and they were taught to reverence an unseen God for whom they had
   no symbol whatever for some time. And afterwards, when symbolical
   worship in some form was ordained, yet there was still so little of
   symbol that Moses could say, "They saw no similitude." They were
   trained to worship a spiritualGod--in spirit and in truth. They never
   saw Him, but every morning they had the best testimonies of His
   existence, for round about the camp lay the manna like hoarfrost, or
   dew, upon the ground! Their feet grew not weary, neither did their
   garments become old all those years, and thus about their very clothes
   on their bodies and before them on their tables, they had constant
   proofs of the great God existing and caring for the sons of men. The
   whole of their training, while it educated and developed their patience
   and their faith, had also the high purpose of teaching them gratitude
   and to bind them by the cords of love and the bands of a man to the
   service of God. It was not because the training was not wise in the
   highest degree, but because they were children that were corrupters
   and, like ourselves, an evil and stiff-necked generation, that they did
   not learn even when God, Himself, became their Teacher.

   Now in drawing a parallel between the children of Israel and ourselves,
   we shall invite you to notice, first, in the text--the Divine
   Instructor,' 'the Lord alone did lead them." And then the method of
   instruction illustrated--they were trained as an eagle trains the
   eaglet for their flight. First, then, we have--

   I. A DIVINE INSTRUCTOR.

   The Israelites had for their Guide, Instructor and Tutor, in order to
   prepare them for Canaan, none other than Jehovah, Himself! He might
   employ Moses and Aaron and He did also make use of those marvelous
   picture books, if I may so call them, of sacrifice, type and metaphor,
   but still, God, Himself, was their Guide and their Instructor. And it
   is so with us. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of the Christian Church.
   Although He uses this Book, of which we can never speak too highly.
   Although He still uses the ministry of the Word, for which we are
   thankful as for a candlestick which we trust may never be taken out of
   its place, still, our true Teacher is God the Holy Spirit. He instructs
   us in the Truths of God and, meanwhile, it is also God, who, in the
   rulings and guiding of Providence, is our Instructor if we will but
   learn. He is

   teaching us, sometimes by sweet mercies and at other times by bitter
   afflictions, instructing us from our cradles to our graves if we will
   but open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the lessons which He
   writes and speaks. We, alas, are often as the horse and as the mule
   which have no understanding--and will not be taught by the Providential
   teachings, but still we have God to be our Teacher--and it is none
   other than our heavenly Father who is daily training us for the skies.
   If we are, indeed, His children and can say, "Our Father, which are in
   Heaven," we may also go to Him as our Teacher, believing He will,
   notwithstanding all our folly, make us "meet to be partakers of the
   inheritance of the saints in light."

   The text speaks of "the Lord alone." Brothers and Sisters, it is well
   for us that in Providence we are led by "the Lord alone." There is an
   over-ruling hand after all, notwithstanding our follies and our
   willfulness, so that God's purposes are ultimately fulfilled. But I
   wish this were more true to our consciousness--that we are led by "the
   Lord alone." I mean that we waited upon Him at every step of life. I am
   persuaded that the holiest of characters take more matters to God than
   you and I are accustomed to do. I mean they not only consult Him, as we
   do, upon certain great and critical occasions, but those saints who
   live nearest to Christ, go to Him about little matters, thinking
   nothing to be too trifling to speak into the ear of Christ.

   Some things about which they will not even consult their kindest and
   wisest human friends will be matters of consultation between them and
   their Savior. Oh, what mistakes we would escape, what disasters we
   would avoid, if "the Lord alone" did guide us! And if we watched the
   signs of His hands in guiding us, if our eyes were to Him as the eyes
   of the handmaidens are to their mistress, anxious to know the Lord's
   will and always saying to our own self-love, "Down, down, busy will!
   Down proud spirit! What would You have me do, my Master, for Your will
   shall be my will and my heart shall always give up its fondest wish
   when once I understand what Your will is concerning me." Beloved, I am
   afraid that some strange god is often with us, even with us who are the
   people of God! We are united to God and He will gladly teach us--and
   from Him, alone, should we learn! But oftentimes we harbor idolatrous
   thoughts in our heart. All selfishness is idolatry! All repining
   against the Providence of God has in it the element of rebellion
   against the Most High! If I love my own will and if I desire my own way
   in preference to God's way, I have made a god of my own wisdom, or my
   own affection--and I have not been true in my loyalty to the only
   living and true God, even Jehovah! Let us search, look and see if there
   is not some strange god with us. It may be hidden away, perhaps, and we
   may scarcely know it. It may be hidden, too, in that very part of us
   where our dearest affections dwell. Some Rachel may be sitting in the
   tent on the camel furniture under which the false gods are concealed!
   Let us, therefore, make a thorough search and then invite the Great
   King, Himself, to aid us. "Search me, O God, try me, and know my ways,
   and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
   everlasting."

   The great Truth of God which I want to bring forward, if I can, is
   this--that God in His Providence and in Grace, as far as we have been
   made willing to learn of Him, is educating us for something higher than
   this world! This world is the nature in which we dwell. Sometimes we
   who love the Lord mount up from it with wings as eagles, but we do not
   stay on the wing. We drop again--we cleave to earth. 'Tis our mother
   and it seems as though we can never rise permanently above our kinship
   to it. Very powerful is it in its attraction over us. Down we go again.
   We have not yet learned to keep up yonder where the atmosphere is clear
   and where the smoke of the world's cares will not reach us. But God is
   educating us for the skies! The meaning of these trials of ours, the
   interpretation of our sorrows is this--God is preparing us for another
   state, making us fit to dwell with angels and archangels and the
   spirits of the just made perfect! If this earth were all, then, your
   teachers at school, or your tutors when you passed through college,
   might have sufficed. But this world is but the vestibule to the next
   and if you know, as well as man can teach you, how to play your part
   here with a view only to secular advancement, you are not yet educated
   at all in the highest sense! God Himself must teach and train you, that
   you may be fit to sit among the princes of the royal blood before His
   Throne and to have communion with those celestial spirits who--

   " With songs and choral symphonies Day without night circle His throne
   rejoicing."

   God is teaching you! God alone can do it and He will do it--but take
   care that you put away all strange gods and give yourselves up wholly
   to His guidance, submitting your will and your affections and all parts
   of your spirit and nature to His teaching so that you may be found
   fully ready when He shall say, "Come up here to dwell with Me forever."
   Now, passing from that, we shall notice very briefly, indeed--

   II. THE METHODS OF THE DIVINE INSTRUCTION.

   These methods of Divine instruction are given to us under the very
   poetical picture of the eagle training its young ones for flight. God,
   to accommodate Himself to our poor understandings, sometimes compares
   Himself to a father with children. At other times to a mother with her
   little ones. Sometimes even to an animal. In this case, even to a bird
   of prey, so that we may but learn no depths of condescension are too
   great for the Great Teacher! He compares Himself here, then, to the
   eagle. I suppose that Moses was well acquainted with the eagle's
   natural habits. He describes it, first of all, as stirring up its nest,
   as though the young birds were unwilling to stir from their pleasant
   home. Having from the time of their birth been quiet and happy there,
   they had no anxiety whatever to try the blue unfathomable oceans of the
   air! They had no wish to leave the rocky refuge where they had been
   reared. They feared, perhaps, lest they might fall over the precipices
   and be dashed in pieces. Therefore is it said, "The eagle stirs up her
   nest." She makes it uncomfortable for the little ones so that they may
   be willing to leave it. And that which would have been obnoxious and
   burdensome to them, they may come even to desire, namely, to be out of
   the nest! Someone has quaintly said that the eagle puts thorns into the
   nest which prick the fledglings so that they are anxious to get away!

   Certain it is that God does thus with those He would train for the
   skies. He stirs up their nest. Cannot some of you recollect times when
   your nests were stirred by Providential dealings while you were in sin?
   All things went well with you for a season, but you forgot God. And His
   Son, Jesus, had no attractions for you. But suddenly the child sickened
   or the wife was smitten with death, or trade separated from you, or
   you, yourselves, were ill, or there was a famine in the land. Then it
   was, when you were in need, your nest being thoroughly stirred up, that
   you said, "I will arise and go unto my Father." The land of Goshen was
   like a nest to the Israelites. They had no desire to come out of it,
   but God stirred them up by means of Pharaoh, who kept them in heavy
   bondage, put them to making bricks and then to making bricks without
   straw. And then he slew their male children. In all sorts of ways they
   were made to cry out under the bitter yoke. We know that they loved
   that nest, for they often longed to be back in it. They talked of the
   leeks, the garlic, the onions and the cucumbers which they did eat when
   they were in Egypt, so that the nest seems to have been a tolerably
   downy one to them at one time! But God so stirred it up that they
   longed to be away--and even the howling wilderness seemed a paradise
   compared with the house of bondage. So was it with you! You found that
   the world was not what it seemed to be. Troubles increased,
   Providential afflictions trod on each other's heels and then you turned
   to your God and remembered your sins. And so He stirred up your nest by
   inward trouble under conviction of sin. I know my soul's nest was once
   very soft. I thought I had done no great evil, that I had kept God's
   Commandments from my youth up. But when conviction of sin came, then I
   discovered my heart to be deceitful above all things and desperately
   wicked! Then my sins, like so many daggers, were at my heart, My soul
   was torn in two--I could say with gracious George Herbert--

   "My thoughts are all a case of knives, Wounding my heart"

   There was no rest, no peace, no joy, no comfort to be found. Well, that
   was God stirring up the nest! If there are any of you in that condition
   now--uneasy and troubled about sin, I am glad of it! Your nest is being
   stirred and God grant that you may fly from it and never come back to
   that nest again!

   If all had gone smoothly with you. If sin had always been a sweet
   morsel to your tongue, we might despair of your ever being saved. But
   now you feel the smart of it, I trust it is, in order that you may be
   delivered from the guilt of it and led to find a Savior! Well, since
   that, dear Friends, how many times we have had our nests stirred up! I
   do not know your history, but you do, and I ask you now to look it
   over. Oh, you planned, and planned, and planned, and said, "Now I shall
   live in this house for the next 20 or 30 years, I shall live here,
   certainly, as long as I live anywhere." And now you find yourselves,
   perhaps, 50 or a 100 miles from it. You were in the service of a
   certain kind man and you felt very happy in it, but the firm has broken
   up and where are you now? There is that dear child you have set your
   heart upon. You have said, "What a mercy it will be to see him growing
   up! What a comfort he will be to me!" He is not a comfort to you, but
   just the very reverse, for he is your greatest sorrow! It is God
   stirring up your nest. Whereas a fear years ago you were in good, sound
   health, now the eyes begin to fail, or the ears are giving way, or
   there is some internal complaint, or some constant pain. Whereas years
   ago you were a master, you are now a servant--whereas years ago
   everybody looked up to you, now everybody looks down upon you! It is
   all the stirring up of the nest because you have no abiding city here--
   because you were too prone to say, "My mountain stands firm. I shall
   never be moved!" Therefore God has stirred up your nest and He will do
   it yet again and again! Between now and Heaven how many times will the
   nest of ours be stirred? Oh, blessed be God for it! "Moab is settled
   upon his lees: he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel"--and then
   comes a curse upon him! Sometimes these long periods of prosperity,
   rest and ease are very unhealthy for us poor unworthy and sinful
   beings. If we were more like Jesus. If we were more pure and heavenly,
   we could bear prosperity, but because we are so sinful, I question if
   any of us can bear it long. If the Master shall give some of us outward
   prosperity, He will have to whip us behind the door in private to keep
   us right! We must have some thorn in the flesh, some secret
   grief--there must be some skeleton in the cupboard, some specter in
   some chamber of the house, or else we shall say, "Soul, take your ease,
   you have much goods laid up for many years"--and when we do this, we
   shall be modern fools like the great fool of old! But the gracious Lord
   will not let His people get into that state. Again and again, and yet
   again, against their wishes, and contrary to their expectations, He
   will stir their nest and they shall cry out against it. But if they did
   but only know the meaning of it, or could read the whole of it in the
   light of eternity, they would bless the hand which tears away their
   comforts, seeing Divine Wisdom and Infinite Affection in it all! That,
   then, is the first thing-- God instructs His people to mount aloft by
   stirring up their nests.

   The next picture is the eagle fluttering over her young. What is that
   for? She wants them to mount, my Brothers and Sisters! Well, then, in
   order to teach them to mount, she first mounts, herself--"she flutters
   over her young." She moves her wings to teach them that thus they must
   move their wings, that thus they must mount! There is no teaching like
   teaching by example. We always learn a great deal more through our eyes
   and ears than we do merely through our ears. Those of us who cannot
   preach with our mouths would do well to preach with our lives--which is
   the very best kind of preaching. So God preaches to us. If He would
   have us holy, how holy He is Himself! "Be you holy for I am holy."
   Would He have us generous? How generous is He! "He spared not His own
   Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all." Would He have us forgive
   our enemies? How He delights in mercy, Himself! If we need a picture of
   perfection, where can we get it but in God? "Be you perfect even as
   your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." God shows us His law in His
   holy actions, He being, Himself, the very mirror and paragon of
   everything that is absolutely pure and right. Above all, the Lord has
   been pleased to set us an example of mounting above the world in the
   Person and life of His own dear Son! Oh, how the eagle flutters when I
   look upon the Savior!--

   "Such was Your truth and such Your zeal, Such deference to Your
   Father's will, Such love and meekness so Divine I would transcribe and
   make them mine! Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the
   fervor of Your prayer-- The desert Your temptations knew, Your conflict
   and Your victory, too. Be You my Pattern--make me bear-More of Your
   gracious Image here! Then God the Judge shall own my name Among the
   followers of the Lamb." Beloved, see how our Lord Jesus this day mounts
   to Heaven! There He is--He has gone there that our hearts may follow
   Him! He fluttered to the skies that we might also follow and might rise
   above the world, setting our affections no longer upon the things of
   earth, but upon things above where Christ sits at the right hand of
   God! What way could there be of teaching us tenderness like the
   tenderness of the Savior? What method of teaching us love like the
   display of the love of God in Christ Jesus? Brothers and Sisters, I
   commend you to the picture of the eagle fluttering and thus setting an
   example to its little ones. You may also see before your eyes the great
   Incarnate God teaching you how to mount above the trials and
   temptations of this mortal life and living, even on earth, a celestial
   life!

   This, however, is not all the eagle does. We read in our text that she
   then spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings. I
   suppose this means just this, that spreading her wings she entices her
   young ones to get between her wings upon her back and then she mounts
   and flies towards the sun. It may be fable or not, I do not know, that
   she flies towards the sun to teach her eaglets to bear its blaze. Then,
   when she has mounted to a good height, she suddenly shifts her wings
   and throws the young eaglets off--and there they are on their own
   wings! They begin to descend to

   earth, not able to keep themselves up, but compelled to fly--but before
   they fall on the rocks, she makes a swoop and comes under them and
   catches them on her wings again, gives them a little rest, bears them
   up once more, and then throws them off again, so that they must fly.
   But she takes care that these early trials, for which they are scarcely
   able, shall not end in their destruction, for again she makes another
   swoop and catches them between her wings once again.

   This is the picture of what God does to us again. We must speak of Him
   after the metaphor which He, Himself, uses--He takes us up between
   those mighty wings and bears us as high as we dare go--and only pauses
   because He knows we cannot now bear more. Then, when we have had full
   fellowship and looked the sun in the face, and have had bright
   enjoyment of Heaven, as far as we could bear, He suddenly throws us off
   and makes us try our own wings, and alas, they are very feeble and
   weak, indeed. We then discover our own impotence and we think we shall
   fall like stars and be dashed in pieces! But lo, He comes and
   underneath us are the everlasting wings--and just when we thought we
   should surely come to destruction, we find ourselves safely sheltered
   between the mighty pinions of the Eternal God! Up, again, we mount, and
   before long we are thrown off again--cast away, as it were, for a time.
   His face is hidden from us, or else by some outward trial of Providence
   we are made to try our wings again to see whether our faith will keep
   us up! And by degrees it comes to pass that we learn to fly till we
   love flying and are not satisfied to come back to earth anymore! We are
   loving to fly and often sighing and longing for the day when we shall
   be permitted to--

   "Stretch our wings and fly Straight to yonder worlds ofjoy! Do you not
   sometimes feel as if your wing feathers were come, my Brothers and
   Sisters? Surely you must sometimes feel as though your faith were
   growing stronger and your communion with Christ getting clearer--as
   though you anticipated and felt that the time must be drawing near when
   you could mount to dwell where Jesus is! I am thankful if such is your
   experience, but I should not wonder if you find that all the wing
   feathers which you have got will be all too few for you, for you may
   yet be made to have another descent from between the almighty wings and
   be made once again to see how great your weakness is. One other
   thought, however, occurs to us. There is no doubt that the idea of
   security as well as of teaching is here because when the eagle bears
   her young ones on her wings, if the archer, or in these modern days the
   hunter with his rifle should seek to destroy the eaglets, it is plain
   there is no reaching them without first killing the mother bird. So
   there is no destroying possible to the true people of God. "Greater is
   He that is for us, than all that can be against us." God puts Himself
   between His people and the danger which threatens them--and unless the
   foe should be mightier than God, Himself--which is inconceivable, there
   is no soul that trusts in Him which shall know eternal hurt!

   Oh, how glorious a thing it is to feel, when the light air is all
   around me and I know that if I fall I would perish, that yet I cannot
   fall, for God' s wings bear me up! And to feel that though there are
   hosts of enemies able to destroy me if they can get at me, yet they
   cannot, for they must first get through God, Himself, before they can
   get to the weak soul who hangs upon Jesus and rests alone in Him! Well
   did David say, "In the time of trouble He will hide me in His pavilion:
   in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me: He shall set me up
   upon a rock." You know the threefold figure. The "pavilion" stood in
   the middle of the camp and all the armed men kept watch around the
   royal tent. There was no slaying the man who was hidden in the royal
   pavilion unless the king, himself, were destroyed! And unless Divine
   Sovereignty is overthrown, not one of the elect can perish! Then,
   again, there was "the secret of the tabernacle." That was the Most Holy
   Place into which no one entered but the high priest once a year! And
   there God said He would put His child, so that they must first break
   through and dare the very Shekinah and come before the brightness, the
   destroying brightness, of Jehovah' s face, before they can reach the
   soul that trusts in the Mercy Seat on which the blood was sprinkled!
   Then there is the third figure--"He shall set me up upon a rock"--so
   that the rock, itself, must shake--the Immutability of God, itself,
   must cease to be and God's everlastingness must die before it shall be
   possible for a soul to perish that rests in Him! The eagle takes up the
   eaglets on her wings and bears them--and so in this way does God lead,
   train and guide us for the skies!

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, I shall not detain you longer, except to say
   that if God is training you for the skies--oh, let your hearts go up.
   Grovel not below--

   "Go up, go up, my Heart, Dwell with your God above! For here you cannot
   rest,

   Nor here give out your love Go up, go up, my Heart, Be not a trifler
   here-- Ascend above these clouds, Dwell in a higher sphere! Let not
   your love flow out To things so soiled and dim-- Go up to Heaven and
   God, Take up your love to Him! Waste not your precious stores On
   creature love below-- To God that wealth belongs, On Him that wealth
   bestow."

   You are a stranger here. If you are God's child, then you are a citizen
   of another country! Are there any bands to bind you here? I thought He
   had broken them. Have you never said--

   "The bands that bind my soul to earth

   Are broken by His hand--

   Before His Cross I find myself

   A stranger in the land." Are there loved ones to bind you here?--

   "Your Best-Beloved keeps His Throne

   On hills of light in worlds unknown." All the love you dare to give to
   all below, if you are true to Christ, can be as nothing compared with
   the love which you give to Him! Do you not feel your soul now drawn
   towards Him? At least if you cannot fly on the wings of confidence, fly
   on the wings of desire! A sigh will mount to Him, or He will come down
   to it! Only be not fond of this world. Do not let this thick clay
   cleave to you. You are not earth-born now--you are born from above!
   This corruptible world must not claim you, for you are born-again of
   incorruptible seed! You are not this world's property. You are bought
   with a price by Him who prays for you that you may be with Him where He
   is and behold His Glory. I am ashamed of myself that I who talk thus
   with you should so often grovel here. But this one thing I must say--I
   am never happy except when my soul is up with my Lord. I know enough of
   this to acknowledge that it is my misery to feed upon the ashes of this
   world, to lie among the pots, to serve the brick-kilns of this Egypt!
   There can be no peace between my soul and this world. Oh, I know this,
   for this painted Jezebel has mocked me too often and she has become so
   ugly in my esteem that I cannot endure her! But yet--what shall we say
   of our nature?--We go back again to the Marah, which was bitter for us
   to drink and try to drink from it again! And the broken cisterns which
   held no water before, we fly to again and again! Oh, for more wisdom!
   The Master has taught us and He has been so long a time with us, but we
   have not known Him. Yet may He have patience with us until He has
   taught us to mount above the world and dwell where He is!

   Ah, dear Friends, there are some of you to whom I cannot talk in this
   fashion because you cannot mount. You have nowhere to mount to! Oh, may
   the Master stir up your nests! I pray that He may put the thorns of
   conscience into your pillows tonight. May you recollect those sins
   which God hates and which God will punish--and if you do remember them
   and feel bowed down under their weight--then remember that there is one
   who can help you and who willhelp you, even the Lord Jesus Christ! Look
   to Him in the hour of trouble and He will be your Deliverer! May the
   Lord bless these thoughts to all our souls for Jesus' sake.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: DEUTERONOMY 29:1-21.

   Verse 1. These are the words of the Covenant, which the LORD commanded
   Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides
   the Covenant which He made with them in Horeb. That is the preamble,
   just as in legal documents there is usually some statement of the
   purport and intent of the indenture before the matter is proceeded

   with. These Covenants with God are solemn things and, therefore, they
   are given in a formal manner to strike attention and command our
   serious thoughts.

   2-4. And Moses called unto all Israel and said unto them, You have seen
   all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto
   Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great
   trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
   yet the LORD has not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see,
   and ears to hear, unto this day.You saw all that and yet did not see
   it--you saw the external work, but the internal lesson you did not
   perceive. A very mournful statement to make, but God's servants are not
   sent to flatter man but to speak the truth-- however painful the
   speaking of it may be.

   5, 6. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes
   have not worn out upon you, and your shoe did not wear out upon your
   foot You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong
   drink: that you might know that I am the LORD your God. Either there
   had been means of frequent renewal of their garments, or else by a
   miracle these garments had never worn out! And the very shoes that they
   put upon their feet on the Passover night were still on their feet--if
   not the same, yet still they were shod, though they trod the weary
   wilderness which well might have worn them till they were bare. "You
   have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink"--a
   nation of total abstainers for forty years! There was no bread in the
   wilderness for them and there was no wine. It may have been obtained as
   a great luxury, as it probably was, for we have reason to believe that
   Nadab and Abihu were slain by fire before the Lord because they were
   drunk when they offered strange fire--but taking the whole people
   around, anything like wine had not crossed their lips for forty years,
   yet there they were, strong and healthy! "That you may know that I am
   Jehovah your God."

   7. And when you came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og
   the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote
   them.People not used to war, either, and feeble folk! Yet they smote
   the great kings and slew mighty kings, for the Lord was with them!

   8, 9. And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the
   Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh. Keep
   therefore the words of this Covenant, and do them, that you may prosper
   in all that you do. This, then, was the Covenant made with the
   nation--that God would be their God and He would prosper them. As He
   had done, so would He do--He would be their protector, defender,
   strength and crown and joy.

   10, 11. You stand this day, all of you, before the LORD your God; your
   captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the
   men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is
   in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your
   water.This National Covenant embraced all the great men, the captains,
   the wise men, all that were in authority, "your elders, and your
   officers." It took in all their children, for it was a Covenant
   according to the flesh--and their children according to the flesh are
   included. "Your wives," too, for in this matter there was no sex. "The
   stranger also." Here we poor Gentiles get a glimpse of comfort, even
   though from that old Covenant we seem to be shut out. "Your stranger
   that is in your camp" is included. And the poorest and those that
   performed the most menial service were all to be made partakers of this
   Covenant, "from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water."

   12-15. That you should enter into Covenant with the LORD your God, and
   into His oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day: that He
   may establish you today for a people unto Himself, and that He may be
   unto you a God, as He has said unto you, and as He has sworn unto your
   fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I
   make this Covenant and this oath; but with him that stands here with us
   this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here
   with us this day. With the sick that were at home, with the generations
   that were not yet born, for this was intended to be a National Covenant
   in perpetuity to their children and their children's children to the
   end of time. Had they kept it so would it have stood!

   16, 17. (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt and how we
   came through the nations which you passed by, and you have seen their
   abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which
   were among them). Now you have seen how they worshipped idols. You have
   seen what you must avoid--you have beheld their folly that you may
   escape from it.

   18. Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe,
   whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve
   the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that
   bears gall and wormwood. For the worship of false gods is the cause of
   untold mischief and evil--wherever it is found it is a root that bears
   gall and wormwood--and God would not have it in a single individual,
   man nor woman, no, not in a single family or tribe!

   19. And so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse,
   that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace,
   though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to
   thirst. For there were some who so hardened themselves against God that
   they said, "We shall have peace! Let us do what we like--let us worship
   these idol gods more and more and more--let us add drunkenness and
   idolatry to our thirst."

   20. The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and His
   jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are
   written in this book shall lie upon him. Not light upon him, but lie
   upon him--rest there and stay there!

   20, 21. And the LORD shall blot out his name from under Heaven. And the
   LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel. As a
   huntsman separates a stag from the herd that he may hunt it all day, so
   shall God with any idolater that should come among His people with whom
   He made a Covenant that day. Oh, how God hates that anything should be
   worshipped by us but Himself! How indignant is He if anywhere, anything
   takes the supreme place in the human heart which ought to be occupied
   by God alone!
     __________________________________________________________________

Beauty for Ashes

   (No. 3336)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To give unto them [who mourn in Zion] beauty for ashes." Isaiah 61:3.

   I WOULD remind you that the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ related to
   mourners in Zion. He did not come into the world to exalt those who are
   high, to give greater power to the strong, or to clothe those who are
   already clad in their own righteousness. No! The Spirit of God was upon
   Him that He might preach good tidings to the meek, that broken hearts
   should be bound up, captives redeemed and prisoners released. He came
   with blessings for the poor, not with luxuries for the rich. This ought
   to be a very great subject of thanksgiving to those who are heavy of
   heart. Is it not sweet to think that the Anointed of the Lord came for
   your sakes, that you of the rueful countenance whose eyelids are
   fringed with beaded tears, you whose songs are dirges, you who dwell at
   death's door may be brought forth into the sunlight? Most men choose
   cheerful company whereby they may be entertained, but the Lord Jesus
   evidently selects mourners and delights in those whom He may encourage
   and cheer. Blessed be His name! How meek and lowly is He in all His
   ways! How forgetful of Self and how thoughtful towards His poor
   servants. He looks upon them with pitying eyes and makes untold
   blessings their portion!

   Notice with pleasure that in dealing with mourners, according to the
   text before us, the Lord acts upon terms of exchange or barter. He
   gives them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and the
   garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. It is a gracious
   exchange, but it is tantamount to everything being a free gift. "To
   give unto them beauty for ashes" is a free gift because what He takes
   away is of no value and they are glad to be rid of it. In condescending
   compassion He took our ashes upon Himself. Ah, how they once covered
   His sacred head and marred His beauty! He took our mourning. Alas, how
   it made Him the Man of Sorrows in the day of His humiliation! He took
   our spirit of heaviness and as He lay prostrate in the Garden beneath
   the load, He was exceedingly heavy and sorrowful even unto death! He
   took a loss to give us a gain and so it is a barter in which there is a
   double profit upon our side--we lose a loss and the gain is pure gain!
   From our Lord the blessings of love are all of Free Grace and,
   therefore, let Him have all the praise! I am sure that no mourner would
   hesitate to deal with Jesus on these special terms, of which only
   Divine Love could have thought. If you have ashes, will you not be glad
   to exchange them for beauty? If you are mourning, will you not
   willingly cease from weeping to be anointed with the oil of joy? And if
   the spirit of heaviness presses upon you like a nightmare, will you not
   be glad to be set free and to be arrayed in the glittering garments of
   praise? Yes, there could not be better terms than those which Grace has
   invented--we accept them with delight! Poor Mourner, they are
   especially ordained for you, that by a twofold Grace in removing evil
   and bestowing good, you might be doubly enriched and comforted!

   In our present meditation I shall call attention, first, to the
   lamentable condition i n which many of the Lord's mourners are
   found--they sit in ashes, expressive of deep sorrow. Secondly, we shall
   observe the Divine interposition on their behalf, for the ashes are
   removed and, thirdly, we shall notice the sacred gift--"Beauty for
   ashes." Let us begin with--

   I. THE MOURNER'S CONDITION--He is covered with ashes as the emblem of
   his sad estate. Let us now, like Cinderella, sit down among the cinders
   for awhile in order that we may come forth from the ashes with
   something better than glass slippers, adorned with a beauty which shall
   befit the king's courts! The fairy fable which has often made our
   childhood smile shall now be actually realized in our own souls--yes,
   we shall see how far the Truth of God outshines romance! How much
   grander are the facts of God than the fictions of men!

   It seems, from the text, that the righteous are sometimes covered with
   grief Orientals were always excessive in the use of symbols and,
   therefore, if they were in sorrow, they endeavored to make their
   outward appearance describe their inward misery. They took off all
   their soft garments and put on sackcloth--and this they rent and tore
   into rags! And then

   upon their heads, instead of perfumed oil which they were so fond of
   using, they threw ashes--and so disfigured themselves and made
   themselves objects of pity. Ashes were of old, signs of mourning, and
   they continued to be so down to Popish times of which we have a trace
   in the day called, Ash Wednesday, which was the commencement of the
   time of fasting known as Lent. It was supposed that those who commenced
   to fast sat in ashes to begin with. Such symbols we leave to those who
   believe in the bodily exercises and outward rites of will-worship.
   However, God's servants have their spiritual fasts and their heads are
   metaphorically covered with ashes. I will not stop to read you the list
   of the occasions in which the princes of the royal blood of Heaven are
   found sitting in the place of humiliation and distress.

   Suffice it to say that they began their new life among the ashes. Like
   Jabez who was more honorable than his brethren, they were born in
   sorrow. Some of us will never forget our grief for sin--it was a
   bitterness with which no stranger could intermeddle. We shall never
   forget the anguish of our soul and our deep humiliation which no ashes
   could sufficiently symbolize. Like the Patriarch of old, we cried, "I
   abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."

   Repentance since then has always had a large degree of mourning
   connected with it. Sorrow has salted all our penitential tears. It is
   right it should be so and it is equally right that we should never
   leave off repenting. Repentance and faith are two inseparable
   companions--they flourish or decay together like the two arms of the
   human body. If faith could enter Heaven, repentance would certainly
   pass the gate at the same time. That they will not both enter there, or
   something near akin to them, I will not venture to assert quite so
   confidently as some have done. Whether in eternity I shall regret that
   I have sinned and shall still believe in Jesus and find my everlasting
   safety in so doing, I will not positively say--but if I so asserted,
   who could refute the statement? Assuredly we shall mourn for sin as
   long as we are upon the earth and we do not desire to do otherwise.
   Grief for sin and love to Jesus will endure through life--there will
   never come a time when we shall refuse to bathe with tears the pierced
   feet and kiss them with warmest love--

   "Sorrow and love go side by side,

   Nor height nor depth can ever divide

   Their Heaven-appointed bands.

   Those dear associates still are one,

   Nor till the race of life is run

   Disjoin their wedded hands."

   We have to mourn bitterly when we have fallen upon times of strong
   temptation and, alas, of surprising sin. We grieve to confess the fact,
   but it is sadly true that faults have overtaken us. Who among God's
   chosen sheep has not gone astray? In consequence of such sin we have
   had to return to the sackcloth and the ashes--and our heart has sunk
   within us. By reason of our old nature we have transgressed like David
   and then, by reason of our new nature, we have wept like David and
   mourned our broken bones. If a foul spot has defiled our garments, we
   have been led by the Holy Spirit to go at once to Jesus and, while He
   has washed it out with His blood, we have lamented our offense.
   Whenever Believers permit the fires of sin to burn, they are made,
   before long, to cast the ashes of repentance upon their heads and
   shrink into the dust.

   Beloved Friends, we have also covered our heads with ashes on account
   of the sins of others. Parents have been compelled to sorrow very
   grievously for their sons and daughters. The wail of David is no
   unusual sound. "O Absalom, my son, my son! Would God I had died for
   you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Many a woman sits in ashes half her
   life because of her ungodly husband who makes her life bitter to her.
   Many a loving sister pines inwardly because of a profligate brother who
   persists in ruining himself. The crimes of the world are the burdens of
   the saints. We cannot make the ungodly mourn for their guilt, but we
   can and do deeply mourn over their insensibility. How can we bear to
   see our fellow men choosing everlasting destruction, rejecting their
   own mercies and plunging themselves into eternal misery? If Hagar said,
   "Let me not see the death of the child," and if the Prophet's eyes ran
   with ceaseless tears over the slain of his people, shall not we mourn
   in dust and ashes the willful soul-suicide of our neighbors who perish
   before our very eyes with mercy at their doors?

   Moreover, we pity the Christian who does not frequently mourn over the
   depravity of the times in which he lives. Infidelity has in these last
   days stolen the garb of religion so that now we frequently meet with
   volumes in which the fundamentals of the faith are denied, written by
   ministers of churches whose professed creed is orthodox. Our
   grandfathers would have shuddered at reading from a disciple of Tom
   Paine sentiments which pretended ministers of the Gospel have given
   forth to the world! Things have reached a painful pass when those who
   are called to office on purpose to proclaim the Gospel are allowed to
   use their position to sow doubts about it and sap and undermine all
   belief in it. Such conduct is meanness, itself, and it is amazing that
   the churches tolerate it! Only Satan, himself, could have put it into a
   man's heart

   to become a salaried preacher of the Gospel in order to deny its
   fundamental truths! He who does this is Judas Redivivus, Iscariot the
   second! God save us from all complicity with such practical falsehood
   and fraud! But when the child of God sees this and sees besides this,
   ritualism and latitudinarianism spreading on all sides, he feels a
   sympathy with Mordecai of whom we read that "when he perceived all that
   was done, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went
   out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry."
   It were a happy omen if there were more of this--and especially if many
   could be found to imitate Daniel, who said, "I set my face unto the
   Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication, with fasting and sackcloth
   and ashes." We should soon behold the dawn of better days if such ashes
   were commonly found upon saintly heads!

   Yes, the best of God's people must sometimes sit down among the ashes
   and cry, "Woe is me!" When the saints mourn, it will sometimes happen
   that they cannot help showing their sorrow--it is too great to be
   controlled or concealed. Usually a spiritual man tries to conceal his
   soul's distress and he has his Master's command for so doing, for Jesus
   said, "You, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that
   you appear not unto men to fast." In personal trouble we would rather
   bear our burden alone than load others with it and, therefore, we
   endeavor to maintain a cheerful manner even when our heart is sinking
   like a millstone in the flood. As to spiritual depressions, we cannot
   show these to men who know nothing about them--and in the presence of
   the ungodly we are dumb upon such topics. But there are sorrows which
   will have a tongue, concerning which we may even be bidden to speak, as
   says the Prophet, "O daughter of my people, gird you with sackcloth,
   and wallow yourself in ashes." At such times we must express our inward
   grief and then the men of the world begin to ask, "What ails him?" and
   jeeringly cry, "He is crazy! Religion has turned his brain." Note that
   mourning young woman--her mother said only the other night, "What makes
   Jane so sorrowful?" She did not know that her girl was under a sense of
   sin. Your workmates asked you, my good Friend, the other morning, "What
   makes you so dull?" They did not comprehend that their vile language
   had helped to vex your heart, and had wounded you so that your heart
   was bleeding inwardly. As we have joys that worldlings cannot share, so
   have we sorrows which they cannot comprehend--and yet we are obliged,
   now and then, to let them see that we are cast down--even though this
   brings us new reproach! The ashes must sometimes be upon our head and
   we must cry, "They have heard that I sigh. All my enemies have heard of
   my trouble." Do not, therefore, beloved Friends, when you see a
   mournful Believer, condemn him, nor even depreciate him, for his sorrow
   may be a necessity of nature. Yes it may even be a direct result of his
   eminence in Divine Grace. He may, perhaps, love the souls of men more
   than you think. He may have a more tender sense of the sinfulness of
   sin than you have. And, perhaps, if you knew his family trials and if
   you knew the jealousy of his walk with God, or if you knew how the Lord
   has hidden His face from him, you would not wonder at his rueful
   countenance. You might even marvel that he was not more cast down and
   you might be ready to give him your pity and even your admiration,
   instead of your cold censure. Be sure of this, that some of the holiest
   of men have mourned as David did--"I have eaten ashes like bread and
   mingled my drink with weeping."

   Next let us note that such grief disfigures them. I gather that from
   the contrast intended by the words of our text-- "Beauty for ashes."
   Ashes are not beautifiers and mournful faces are seldom attractive. A
   Believer, when he is in a mourning frame of mind wears a marred
   countenance. He is disfigured before his friends--he makes bad company
   for them and they are apt to see his weak points. He is disfigured
   before his fellow Christians--they delight to see a Brother rejoicing
   in the Lord, for this is a manifest token of favor--but sorrow of heart
   is often contagious and, therefore, it is not admired. The mourning
   Christian is especially disfigured in his own esteem. When he looks in
   the mirror and sees his rueful visage, he cries to himself, "Why are
   you cast down, O my Soul? Can all be right within? If it is so, why am
   I thus?" He questions, upbraids and condemns himself. If his eyes were
   not so weakened by tears, he might see a beauty in his sorrow, yet just
   now he cannot, but views himself as a mass of uncomeliness! Nor is he
   altogether in error, for generally with spiritual mourning there is a
   measure of real disfigurement. Unbelief, for instance, is a terrible
   blot upon any man's beauty. Distrust of God is a horrible blotch.
   Discontent exceedingly injures mental and spiritual loveliness. We are
   not lovely when we are unbelieving, petulant, envious, or discontented.
   We are not beautiful when we are distrustful and suspicious,
   self-willed and rebellious! Yet these evils often go with soul-sorrow
   and we may truthfully say that some Christians are not only at times
   very sorrowful, but their beauty is marred by their misery.

   The grief of good men's hearts is often a very expressive one, as the
   language before us suggests. When sorrow puts ashes on its head, what
   does it say? It makes the man eloquently declare that he feels himself
   to be as worthless as the dust and ashes of his house. "I cover my
   head," he says, "with ashes to show that the very noblest part of me,
   my head, my intellect, is a poor fallen earthly thing of which I dare
   not boast. I count the best thing there is in me to be but dust and
   ashes fit only to be cast away." You mourners often thus despise
   yourselves. Well, if it is any consolation to you to know it, I know a
   minister of Christ who the longer he lives, thinks less and less of
   himself, and utterly abhors himself before God. It is a wonder of
   Divine Grace that the Lord should ever have loved us at all, for there
   is nothing in our nature that is lovely. Through our fall there is
   everything in us to be hated by His pure and holy mind, but nothing to
   esteem--and the best of the best, when they are at their best, are poor
   creatures. "Lord, what is man that You are mindful of him?" If the
   Righteous Judge had swept the whole race away at the first with the
   besom of destruction, He would still have been as great, glorious and
   blessed as He is--He only spares us because He is Infinite in mercy!
   When Abraham said, "I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, I that
   am but dust and ashes," he had not too lowly an opinion of himself, for
   even the Father of the Faithful, though a prince among men, was nothing
   in himself but a son of fallen Adam! And nothing but undeserved mercy
   made him to differ from the idolatrous race out of which he was chosen
   and called. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes," is our last memorial--and
   all along we are tending that way by nature, for we are of the earth,
   earthy. When we put ashes on our head, we do but confess ourselves to
   be what we really are!

   The use of ashes would seem to indicate that the fire is out. Men would
   not place burning coals upon their heads, but when they cast ashes
   there, they mean to say, "These ashes from which all fire is gone are
   like ourselves--we, too, are spent, our fire of hope has burned out,
   our joy, our confidence, our strength have all departed from us and
   left us only the black ashes of despair." Is not this suggestive of a
   state of feeling common enough to truly humbled men? Let me ask my
   Brothers and Sisters--Have you never felt as if your coal were quenched
   in Israel? Have you not admitted that, apart from any salvation which
   might come to you from your dear Lord and Savior, you had no hope
   whatever? Have you not felt as if every spark of faith, love, gratitude
   and all that was good, was gone out in darkness? Some of you young
   Christians have never yet stumbled into that slough, and I hope you
   never will, but if you ever do, it may console you if I let you know
   that older saints have been there before you--and have had to cry to
   the Strong for strength or they would have perished! Some of us know
   what it is to feel as if we had not even a spark of Grace left. We
   cry--

   "If anything is felt

   'Tis only pain to find we cannot feel."

   At such times we have felt that if there was any prayer in us it was
   only a prayer to be helped to pray, or to be helped to mourn that we
   could not pray, for our stock was lying dead and our poor husbandry
   yielded us no increase for lack of dew from above. Our soul has been in
   a state of drought! The rain from Heaven has been withheld and the
   earth has broken and chapped beneath our feet, devouring rather than
   nourishing the seed. God's children have their droughts and
   famines--and then dust and ashes are fit emblems of their dry and dead
   condition.

   Ashes, too, as the symbol of sorrow, might also indicate having passed
   through the fire of trial, even as these ashes have been burned. Truly,
   some of God's best servants have been most often through the furnace
   and have been so long in the heat that strength fails them and hope
   well-near expires. They cry to God for patience to endure all His holy
   will, but they feel that their own power is as much spent as if they
   were burnt to nothing but ash and there was nothing more left of them
   upon which the fire could kindle. Is it not a mercy that the Lord looks
   upon such as these--the utterly spent ones who are ready to be blown
   away and to perish, even as smoke and dry ashes are borne away by the
   wind and lost? You who are at ease in Zion know little about these
   terrible feelings, but you should be grateful to God and sympathize
   with those who are more exposed to tribulation. Join with them in
   magnifying the Lord because He promises beauty instead of these ashes
   of the furnace!

   Ashes, also, as you know, are the emblem of death. The Romans placed in
   sepulchral urns the ashes of the dead. We say, "Dust to dust, ashes to
   ashes," when we bury the departed. It is not an uncommon thing for
   tried saints to complain that they are brought into the dust of death
   by a faintness of mind which renders life a difficulty. We come to look
   upon the grave as a refuge and a relief. "Ah," cries one, "they may as
   well bury me, for I am more dead than alive. Well may I heap ashes on
   my head." Like Elijah, they say, "Let me die, for I am no better than
   my fathers." To such depths of grief the best of men have sometimes
   descended. Many of the most peaceful and joyous spirits have joined in
   David's description of himself--"I am as a man that has no strength:
   free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom You
   remember no more: and they are cut off from Your hand."

   But enough of this dolorous ditty, let us now change the subject. We
   have shown you the Believer in the ashes, let us now rejoice that some
   better thing is in store for him! Secondly, there is--

   II. A DIVINE INTERPOSITION. The Lord Himself breaks in upon the
   mourner's misery and makes the most gracious arrangements for his
   consolation. When a man is in sore trouble, he naturally begins to look
   this way and that way

   for deliverance and, thereby, much of the man's mind and heart are made
   manifest. You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a
   hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of
   severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of
   comfort there, but the child of God runs to his Father and expects
   consolation only from the Lord's hand! True Grace abides with God and
   submits itself to His will. This is always good for us. Brothers and
   Sisters, if the Lord makes you sick, remain sick till the Lord restores
   you, for it is dangerous to call in any other physician to your soul
   but your Lord. If the Lord frowns, do not ask others to smile, for you
   can derive no joy from that source. If it is God's wrath that breaks
   you, let God's love mend you, or else remain broken--

   "I will not be comforted

   Till Jesus comforts me,"

   is a sweet resolve of a truly penitent soul, for has not the Lord said,
   "I kill and I make alive; I wound, and I heal. I the Lord do all these
   things"? Will you take the healing and the making alive out of
   Jehovah's hand? God forbid! Where you have received your smart, there
   get your sweet. Where you do drink the gall of sorrow, there drink the
   wine of joy, for in the Lord's hand there is abundant mercy to be
   found--and He will end your misery!

   According to the text, the way in which Believers rise out of their
   mourning is through the coming of Jesus. Read the Chapter again. What
   does the Lord say? "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord
   has anointed Me." Yes, Beloved, our hope lies in the mission of Christ,
   in the Person of Christ, in the work of Christ, in the application of
   the blood of Christ to our hearts! We turn our eyes evermore towards
   the hills from where comes our help! Look, O Sinner, always to the
   brazen serpent whatever serpent bites you! Whether it is the old
   serpent, himself, or some smaller serpent of the same brood which lurks
   in the way and bites at the horse's heels, still look to the one
   appointed Cure. Never speculate in healing drugs, but keep to the one
   antidote which never fails! Jesus is the consolation of Israel and let
   not Israel place her hope elsewhere!

   And, mark you, it is Jesus coming in the Gospel which is the mourner's
   hope--for this coming of the Lord is to preach good tidings to the meek
   and so to bind up the brokenhearted. I have little confidence in those
   persons who speak of having received direct Revelations from the Lord,
   as though He appeared otherwise than by and through the Gospel. His
   Word is so full, so perfect, that for God to make any fresh Revelation
   to you or me is quite needless. To do so would be to put a dishonor
   upon the perfection of that Word! In the "most sure Word of testimony"
   there is a release from every difficulty, a plaster for every sore, a
   medicine for every disease! My dear sorrowing Friend, it is very
   dangerous to look for consolation from dreams, or from the opening of
   the Bible upon certain texts, or from fancied voices, or from any other
   of those foolish superstitions in which weak-minded persons seek for
   comfort! Go you to what God has said in the Scriptures--and when you
   find your character described and promises made to such a character as
   your own, then take them home, for they are plainly spoken to you! Go
   not about to look for comfort in the cloud-land of fancy or the
   moonshine of superstition, but believe in the Lord Jesus who comes to
   bless broken hearts in no other way than by preaching to them the glad
   tidings of His Grace!

   You are not to expect the Lord Jesus to speak with you in any other way
   than by the written Word applied to the soul by the Holy Spirit. Look
   for no new Revelation! Drive out the very idea as deceptive! If an
   angel were to come to my chamber and inform me that he brought a
   message from God which would tell me more than is written in the
   Scriptures of Truth, I would not listen to him for a moment, but say,
   "Get you behind me, Satan. The end of these manifestations has come!
   The stars no more appear, for the sun has risen." Our heavenly Father
   has already sent the Lord Jesus and it is written, "Last of all He sent
   His Son." In Christ Jesus there is such a fullness of Truth and Grace
   that all the angels combined could not increase it. He who looks for
   more revelation should beware lest he receive the curse with which the
   Bible concludes--which will certainly come upon any who either add to,
   or take from, the Inspired Words of God! The sum of the matter is
   this--if there is any comfort to be received, it is in Christ. And if
   there are any ashes to be taken away and any beauty to be given, it
   will be through the Lord Jesus in the preaching and reading of the
   Word! This much by way of protest against the superstitions of weak
   minds.

   But now I want you to notice a something which does not appear in our
   English version, but is clear in the Hebrew. It is that the Lord very
   easily makes a change in His people's condition, for the word in the
   Hebrew for ashes is epheer, and the word for beauty is peer The change
   is very slight in the original. Some idea of the similarity of the
   words may be given you in English if I quote from Master Trapp. "The
   Lord promises to turn all their sighing into singing, all their musing
   into music, all their sadness into gladness and all their tears into
   triumph." Perhaps I may myself give you a closer imitation, still, and
   more after the Hebrew model, by saying He turns our mourning into
   morning. In the case before us we might say, "He gives us splendors for
   cinders," beauty for ashes. Now, as readily as we change a word by a
   single letter, so easily does the God of All Comfort alter the state of
   His own people! With Him nothing is hard, much less impossible. From
   the Cross to the crown, from the thorn to the throne, from misery to
   majesty, is but a hand's turn with the Lord! Often does He call His
   people like Mordecai from sitting at the gate to riding upon the king's
   horse, like Joseph from lying in the dungeon to ruling in the land,
   like Job from the dunghill to double wealth, like David from the caves
   of Engedi to the palace in Jerusalem. This He does both suddenly and
   easily, as when a man lights a candle and the darkness departs at once!
   How charming and astonishing the change to pass in a moment from winter
   into summer, from midnight into noon, from storm into profound calm!
   This is the finger of God and it is often seen.

   When you are at your lowest do not conclude that it will be months
   before you can rise. Not so. From the lowest point to the highest you
   will spring at a single leap when the Almighty Helper girds you with
   power! David in the Psalms describes the Lord coming to his rescue in
   haste most marvelous. Out of the depths was he snatched by the flash of
   Jehovah' s power!--

   "On cherub and on cherubim

   Right royally He rode,

   And on the wings of mighty winds

   Came flying all abroad!

   And so delivered He my soul--

   Who is a Rock but He?

   He lives--Blessed be my Rock!

   My God exalted be."

   How joyously he sings! And well he may after so special a rescue. There
   is no slow travelling with God when His people are in sorrow. Before
   they have time to call, He answers them! While they are yet speaking,
   He hears their requests! He hears them chanting "De Profundis," and He
   lifts them to sing aloud, '"GloriainExcelsis." From "Out of the depths"
   their tune changes to, "Glory in the highest." Nor are there slow
   pauses of weary hope, but the Lord works a world of wonders in the
   twinkling of an eye!

   Thus we see how our Lord gives beauty for ashes. We now turn to the
   last point, which is--

   III. WHAT HE BESTOWS INSTEAD OF THE ASHES--beauty. All disfigurement is
   removed. The ashes had

   made the person to be defiled, uncomely to others and unpleasant to
   himself, but all this is removed. Beauty is given and his countenance
   is not marred with dust and grime. His face is bright with joy and
   beaming with hope. No more unpleasant to the eyes, the person has even
   become attractive and delightful! The original Hebrew implies that
   occasions for joy and emblems of joy are also given, for it might be
   read, "A chaplet for ashes." The ashes were on the head and now a crown
   is placed there. The allusion is to the nuptial tiara which men wore on
   their marriage day. The Lord's mourners are to be decked with crowns of
   delight instead of being disfigured with ashes of grief. When does that
   happen to us? Do you recollect when you first obtained a sense of
   forgiveness? How gloriously were you then arrayed! When the father said
   of His prodigal son, "Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. Put
   a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet," that was a high day! And so
   was it with us when we were delivered from our filthy rags and clothed
   in Divine Righteousness! Our ashes were gone, then, and a crown adorned
   our heads. Forgiven! It was a joy of joys! Even now as we look back
   upon it we begin to sing again--

   "Happy day! Happy day!

   When Jesus washed my sins away"

   We went a little farther on in spiritual life and then we discovered
   that we were the children of God! We did not at first know our
   Adoption, but it burst gloriously upon us like a newly kindled sun! Do
   you recollect when you first learned the meaning of the word and
   perceived that Adoption secured eternal salvation? For the heavenly
   Father does not cast His children away, nor can they cease to be the
   objects of His love! How can any child be unchilded? And if still a
   child, he must still be beloved and still an heir! When you once drank
   consolation from that Doctrine, did you not receive a tiara for ashes?
   How lovely a thing it is to be a child of God! "Behold, what manner of
   love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons
   of God!"

   We lived a little longer, and we began to understand the Doctrine of
   Vital Union with Christ. We had not dreamed of it at first. We then
   discovered that there is a vital, actual union between us and
   Christ--that we are married to Him! It is a great mystery, but yet it
   is a great Truth of God. It is all but inconceivable that we should be
   members of His body, of

   His flesh and of His bones--and yet it is even so. That was a heavenly
   day wherein we perceived that we were one with Jesus--"by eternal
   union, one." Then we rejoiced as wearers of a marriage crown and we
   sang

   "My Beloved is mine and I am His." Since then we have learned other
   Truths and on each occasion of being thus taught of the Lord we have
   again obtained a crown for ashes! Another and yet another chaplet has
   adorned our brow. We have felt ourselves to be made priests and kings
   unto God and the beauty of the Lord our God has rested upon us! All
   glory be to His name!

   Let us remark that the contrast of our text is peculiarly suggestive
   because it is not quite what we might expect. The Lord takes away our
   ashes, but what does He give in exchange? The natural contrast would be
   joy, but the Lord bestows that which is better, namely, beauty, because
   that is not only joy to ourselves but to others. "A thing of beauty,"
   as we say, "is a joy forever." A beautiful person gives pleasure to all
   around. Now, child of God, you are not only to have those ashes taken
   away which have disfigured you, but you are actually to become the
   source of joy to others! How pleasant that will be for you who have so
   long touched the mournful string that you have distressed your family.

   Yes, young Friend, you are to make your mother rejoice by telling her
   that you have found peace with God! You are yet to cheer your father' s
   heart, young woman, when you shall say to him, "Father, I have found
   Him in whom you trust and I am trusting in Him, too." Yes, poor
   Mourner, you will yourself be comforting other mourners one of these
   days! You who have been in Giant Despair's castle shall help in pulling
   down the monster's den! You can hardly believe it, but so it shall be!

   In the sense of being a joy to others, many of the Lord's people are
   very beautiful, indeed. You cannot help being charmed with them,
   especially with those of deep experience. Good men are glad of the
   company of those to whom the Lord has given the beauty of Divine Grace.
   Even the ungodly, though they do not confess it, have a respect for the
   majesty of holy characters. There is a charm about Beauty which makes
   her ride as on a lion through the midst of her foes-- every man's hand
   is bound to defend her--and none dare to injure her! The beauty which
   the Lord gives to His people is as a queen among all beauties and sways
   a potent scepter!

   Yes, and when the Lord makes His people beautiful they are a delight
   even to God, Himself, for the Lord rejoices in His works and His works
   of Grace are the noblest labor of His hands and, as being fullest of
   Divine Grace, are most graceful! The Lord delights in His people! We
   read of the Lord Jesus that His delights were with the sons of men, and
   even now, though angelic harps ring out His praises, He loves to be
   here in our Churches and to commune with us as a man speaks with his
   friend. Beloved, cultivate His society! Abide with Him and if He can
   find any cause of delight in you, which is a wonder of wonders, put all
   your delight in Him!

   Let us have this gracious beauty about us and even our heavenly
   Bridegroom will have to say, "Turn away your eyes from Me, for they
   have overcome Me. You have ravished My heart with one of your eyes."
   May we be kept from marring this beauty and be forever so fair that
   even our Lord, Himself, may look and love! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Ears Bored to the Doorpost

   (No. 3337)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 16, 1866.

   "And if the servant shall'plainlysay, Ilove my master, my wife, and my
   children; I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto
   the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost;
   and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall
   serve him forever" Exodus 21:5, 6.

   THE Jewish people had lived in Egypt and had been themselves slaves.
   They had, doubtless, learned much of art and science in Egypt, but they
   also learned many sinful manners and customs--and among the rest they
   learned the habit of slavery. When God found them and led them out into
   the wilderness to make a nation of them, He did not give them a code of
   laws such as He would give to us in the light of this dispensation, but
   He gave them laws as Jesus Christ, Himself, says, "according to the
   hardness of their heart." He gave them a law suitable to the state in
   which they were. Their ceremonial laws, their political and economic
   laws, were very far from being perfect and were never intended to be
   regarded as perfect. They were not meant for a nation of men as much as
   for a nation of children. The nation was then in its infancy and
   statutes and ordinances were very much in accordance with the infancy
   of the people. Slavery, for instance, was not forbidden. It was not
   even forbidden for a Hebrew to hold his brother Hebrew in bondage! But,
   though it was not forbidden, yet it was so hedged about and limited
   with many regulations and conditions that it must have become very
   difficult, if not almost impossible.

   In the first place, every Hebrew who held his brother in bondage was
   compelled to treat him as he treated himself. There was a law that his
   food and his raiment should be precisely similar to that of his master.
   Then, again, at the end of six full years, the man must go free,
   whatever might be the price at which he was purchased for six years.
   And when he went free, he was not to go out empty, but his master was
   required to give him something out of his barn, out of the winepress
   and out of the flock. In fact, it was a sort of apprenticeship of one
   man to another, with the condition that the servant should be treated
   as one of the family and was to be set up in business when he left. So
   much did the Jews feel that this was not a very profitable kind of
   thing, that it got to be a proverb that, "A Hebrew who buys a Hebrew
   servant, does not buy a servant, but he buys a master." So the thing
   became very seldom practiced at all and this, perhaps, was the best way
   of dealing with the evil. They would have kicked against a law which
   forbade slavery altogether, but they submitted to this one which
   regulated it--and so the thing was kept in such check that it must of
   necessity fall. That, however, again, was not at all a rule for you or
   for me. It was like the putting away of a wife with a writing of
   divorcement, of which the Savior said that "Moses allowed it because of
   the hardness of their hearts." It was not right in itself, but it was
   simply endured because of the low moral state of the people when they
   came as a herd of slaves from Egypt's brick kilns, not having been
   trained and educated to understand the value of liberty as you and I
   happily have been in these later times for these many years.

   But observe that sometimes the Hebrew servant, although free to go
   where he liked at the end of six years, would not go. He had married
   one of his master's female servants. He had children and, besides, was
   so attached to his master and his family that he preferred to stay with
   him. Now, as God did not wish the people to love slavery, but would
   teach them the nobility of liberty, He made this ordinance that a man's
   wish to remain in servitude should be attested by a somewhat painful
   rite--and He made it a law that this rite should be administered to him
   in public before the judges.

   Lest a master should say the servant wished to be with him and then
   bored his ears by force--and so ensured his perpetual service--it was
   commanded that this boring of the ears should always be done in public
   before witnesses and the

   judges. An awl was taken and the man's ears were fastened to the
   doorpost--and then after he must forever remain, though he might change
   his mind, since he had once deliberately chosen to serve his master.

   Leaving, however, this outline of the meaning of this picturesque
   ceremony, I now want to use the passage in its spiritual meaning.

   First, I shall have to remind you that in Psalm 40 our Savior speaks of
   Himself as having had His ears bored. Did you notice the expression in
   the 40th Psalm, "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire: My ears
   have You opened." The Hebrew says, "My ears have You dug." Christ's
   ears, then, were pierced so that He might from His own voluntary choice
   be the Servant of God forevermore. When I have spoken a little upon
   that, I want to speak of some professed servants of God who have never
   had their ears bored. And then, in the third place, I want to go into
   this business of boring some of your ears--and I have no doubt there
   are many here who have had their ears bored in days gone by and who
   will be glad to renew the rite afresh tonight by consecrating
   themselves again unto their Master. First, we have to speak--

   I. OF THE SAVIOR HAVING HAD HIS EARS BORED.

   One would not have dared to apply this to Him if He had not instructed
   His servant David, by the Holy Spirit, to apply it to Himself. "My
   ears," says He, "have You opened." Oh, wonder of wonders! That the King
   of kings should thus come to be the Servant of servants--that He who is
   "God over all, blessed forever" and who thinks it not robbery to be
   equal with God--should take upon Himself the form of a Servant and be
   made in the likeness of sinful flesh and, being found in fashion as a
   Man, should become obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross!
   Our Savior's first appearance, here, was in the servant's place! He was
   the son of a carpenter and He was laid in a manger. When He comes
   forward to begin His active life at thirty--that life is one continual
   service. They would have made Him a king, but He preferred to remain
   the Servant of all. You see this from the first to the last of His
   earthly life, for even in view of the Cross, He took a towel and girded
   Himself, and then a basin and, showing He was still a servant, He
   washed His disciples' feet. He was still a Servant when He was led as a
   sheep to the slaughter. And as the last act of obedience that was
   possible, He bows His head and says, "Not My will, but Yours be done,"
   and He yielded up the ghost. Our blessed Lord might have broken free
   from the servitude whenever He pleased. He claims this for Himself,
   that He was voluntarily a Servant and especially that His obedience and
   Sacrifice unto death were His absolutely willing offering. He says of
   His life, "No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself: I have
   power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again." He
   could have gone out free if He would. That host that came to seize Him
   in the Garden would have been no more able to take Him than the
   Philistines were able to take Samson when he snapped the green withes.
   He did but speak to them and they fell backwards--and this proved how
   powerful He was to have delivered Himself. And when He was before
   Pilate, He might even then have escaped. Did He not say, "You could
   have had no power against Me if it had not been given you from above"?
   And even on the Cross when they said, "If He is the Son of God, let Him
   come down from the Cross," He might have leaped in one tremendous
   stride into the midst of His foes and smitten them with lightning
   flashes from those fearful eyes! He might have shaken the earth and
   removed Heaven rather than have died, if so it had been His will. But
   He had given His ears to be bored and He remained His Father's Servant
   even unto death! Willingly, without a struggle, this Victim was laid
   upon the altar. Like the passive lamb, which starts not even when the
   knife is thrust into it, the Savior gave Himself as a Sacrifice for the
   sins of the people--and to the fullest extent was the Servant of His
   Father!

   This is very delightful for us to think upon, especially when we
   remember that our Savior still wears the print of the opened ear Still
   is He in Heaven and there--

   "Looks like a Lamb that has been slain And wears His priesthood still."
   For your sake He does not hold His peace and for Jerusalem's sake He
   does not rest, but still continues to accomplish His Father's good
   pleasure, still interceding for His saints and waiting until the time
   shall come when He shall take His great power and reign and the number
   of His elect shall be accomplished. Still is He the Servant of God and
   the Friend of man--His opened hands, His side and feet bearing the
   marks that like the scars in the ears of the Jewish slave made Him to
   be recognized as a slave forever!

   So is He our Friend and His Father's Servant eternally. Brothers and
   Sisters, there is this to be said which ought to endear the Savior to
   you and to me--that His only motive for so having His ears bored, or
   dug, was His love. What says the servant in the text? "I love my
   master: I love my wife: I love my children." This is what our
   Servant-Savior said. He

   loved His God--never man loved God as Christ did! As God, He loved
   infinitely Him who is One with Him, even His Father. And as perfect
   Man, He loved God with all His heart, soul and strength. He had
   voluntarily become a Servant and He loved His Master. And He also loved
   His spouse. Oh, there was little in her to love, but He thought much of
   her and does think much of her now! The Church is His bride and He sees
   her--

   "Not as she stood in Adam's fall,

   When sin and ruin covered all,

   But as she'll stand another day--

   Fairer than sun's meridian ray." He saw His Character reflected in her.
   He saw her as what she is to be when she is perfect through the Spirit
   and He loved her, oh, with such a perfect, all-constraining love, and
   said--

   "ForherIllgo

   Through all the depths of sin and woe,

   And on the Cross will even dare

   The dreadful weight of wrath to bear."

   He found His spouse in the mire. He brought her up out of it. He found
   her in poverty and He became poor for her sake. He found her in rags
   and He stripped Himself to clothe her. He found her condemned and He
   was condemned for her acquittal. He found her on earth--He came from
   Heaven to bring her up from earth that she might be with Him where He
   is in Heaven forever. Then I love the last word, "I love my children."
   That may be laid hold of by each one of us, for as He is "The
   Everlasting Father," every Believer may regard himself or herself as
   His child! And He loves each one. He could die, but He could not deny
   His people! He could leave Heaven, but could never abandon us! He could
   not be content to be glorified unless His people were, too! He dared
   not be satisfied to sit upon a throne while they might be cast into
   Hell, but He could come down and bring them near to Himself by stooping
   as low as they had become! Let us bless Him! Let us, tonight, extol
   this blessed Servant of God in our hearts, who though King of kings had
   His ears opened because He loved His master, He loved His spouse, and
   He loved His children--and has, therefore, become their Servant
   forever!

   Now I thought, when I was turning over this in my mind, that perhaps
   some troubled conscience here might get comfort out of it, that perhaps
   someone might say, "Oh, well, if Jesus Christ has so given Himself up
   to be the Savior of sinners that He will never give up the work, then
   perhaps He will save me." You know what is meant by nailing the flag to
   the mast. It means that the man means to fight it out. Jesus Christ
   has, so to speak, nailed the flag of mercy to the masthead and He will
   fight it out with the devil! Yes, He will save the meanest of His
   people! He has given Himself up, heart and soul, to be the Savior of
   sinners! It is His business and He will never give it up. So long as
   there is an unsaved sinner, Christ will be seeking him! So long as this
   world has sinners in it, it will be a hunting ground for this glorious
   Nimrod, this "mighty hunter before the Lord," who has come to seek out
   poor wondering souls and bring them to Himself. "He is able to save
   unto the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever
   lives to make intercession for us." His ears being bored for this work,
   the work of intercession will be His as long as He lives! We will now
   pass from that to remark, in the second place--

   II. THAT EVERY GENUINE SERVANT OF GOD IS ONE WHO WOULD NOT ACCEPT HIS
   LIBERTY, OR

   LEAVE OFF BEING THE SERVANT OF GOD, IF HE COULD.

   He has had his ears bored and he means to be, and must be, a servant of
   God as long as he lives. There are, however, a great many professors of
   whom we are going to speak to you, and a great many other men in the
   world, too, who have never had their ears bored to be God's servants at
   all. There are some, in the first place, who hate the very thought of
   being God's servant' 'Serve God!" says one, "who is He? Who is Jehovah
   that I should obey Him?" The mass of men are of Pharaoh's mind--they
   are not going to obey God--they think they are their own masters. I do
   not believe there ever was a man who was his own master, but that every
   man has a master of some kind or other. How many men whose master is
   money--and if money orders them to do anything, however
   outrageous--they would at once do it to obtain the money. No matter how
   dirty the trick might be, there are some men who would do it if it
   promised profit to them and they would not be found out. No matter
   though they were to half starve themselves and lose comfort in their
   houses, how many there are who would suffer much if they might but gain
   gold! Mammon is their master. Some take pleasure to be their
   master--and pleasure is a very hard master, indeed, for the pleasures
   of sin, though they seem to be cheap, are al-

   ways dearly bought. A man never gets his penny's worth for his penny
   when he goes into the lusts of the flesh. There whatever he gets he has
   to pay back again--in his own flesh and bones shall he have to pay back
   every drachma of joy that he wins by unhallowed lust! But, oh, how men
   will bend their necks to many gods and many lords rather than serve
   Jehovah! As for the God that made them, many never think of Him and
   many never think of Him but to mention His name in ribald jest or oath,
   or to despise His authority. Ah, Sinner, God knows how to deal with
   such as you are, for if you sin with Pharaoh, you shall perish with
   Pharaoh! If you say, "I will not serve God," God will take care to make
   you a monument of His Justice, if you will not be a trophy of His
   Grace. "For this purpose," said He to Pharaoh, "have I raised you up,
   that I might show My power in you," and if God does not show His love
   in you, He will show His power by bringing you down one of these days,
   till you shall loathe the things you once loved and curse the day in
   which you dared to think yourselves wiser than God! When a creature is
   out at elbows with its creator, depend upon it, it is also out at
   elbows with itself. Things can never go along well when the wheel of
   our hearts does not cog with the wheel of God's heart. We must come
   down to God's will if we would rise up to happiness and peace!

   But there are many who profess to be the servants of God who have not
   had their ears bored--and this is proved by the fact that some of them
   go out from us after a time. Oh, it is a thing the most vexatious
   beneath the skies--it is the plague of the Church and it is the
   minister's nightmare and specter--that there should be so many hollow
   professors who, nevertheless, are able to maintain a whitewashed
   profession for so many years! Truly, it is but a poor test of
   Christianity to walk uprightly in appearance for 10 or even 20 years,
   for there are inventions nowadays by which counterfeits may be brought
   to such perfection that you can scarcely tell them from the pure gold!

   Through many a crucible will the false thing go and not betray its
   falseness until at last there comes a discovering hour--and then woe to
   the Church of God, but, most of all, woe to the man who duped that
   Church and misled those who trusted him! I am inclined to say to
   everyone of you, "Do not be too sure--search yourself." I am inclined,
   most of all, to say it to myself. I do so like to read a sermon
   sometimes--for I do not often hear one--that seems to give me a ring
   down upon the counter. You know I am often afraid of the jingle,
   whether it will sound like true gold or not, but it is a good thing to
   get a ring. A preacher with a soft and mealy mouth is but of little
   service to a Christian, but the man who sets forth plain and
   unpalatable Truths of God often comforts him because he is able to say,
   "Well, I can stand this searching Truth," and then he goes away
   satisfied that things are right with God. Try yourselves, dear Friends!
   Try yourselves constantly and ask the Lord to search you, and come
   afresh to the blood of Jesus lest you should be mistaken! There was an
   Apostle who turned out to be a Judas--many a minister has been a
   deceiver! Many a Church member and many a Church officer, too, has been
   nothing but a whitewashed sepulcher full of bones and rottenness! Take
   care, dear Hearer, lest your lot should be the same!

   Then there are others who make a very fine profession, who are even
   worse, if possible, than these, for they are religious and irreligious,
   too. I know some of you can carry a hymnbook in your pockets and a
   songbook, too. You can come here, I daresay, on Sunday evenings and
   drop in on a weeknight, but there are some other places of very
   doubtful reputation which know you, too! Oh, yes, I know some who have
   said, "Well, I must give up my seat there because I cannot give up the
   other, for the preacher does give it to me so severely."

   Ah, how the preacher wishes he could give it to you still more
   severely, for of all classes of men that should excite our sorrow and
   our pity, it is the men who are able to stand the Gospel and yet go on
   in their sins! Why, I have known professors in the country who would
   stand up in the singing pew, or sit near, who did not know what time of
   night they came home on Saturday from market! And we know there are not
   a few people who can drink the cup of the Lord and deep draughts of the
   cup of the devil, too, who will sing well when they are here, but will
   also sing a roaring good song at a public dinner. Jolly fellows! They
   are not very particular, but they had better be, or else they will find
   their lot at last particularly severe, for surely none shall so deserve
   the wrath of God as those who knew better! As I heard a poor soul say
   the other day, "Ah, Sir, I sinned in the light," and said it, I hope,
   with a broken heart, too. I thought, "What a thing to be forced to
   say!" Some of you, I hope, will be forced to say it. You have sinned
   knowing that you were sinning--sinned knowing the penalty of sin,
   sinned knowing something about better things, too! Yet have you gone
   like a dog to his vomit--vomited on Sunday, but have gone back to it on
   Monday--and like the sow that was washed on the Sabbath have gone back
   to wallow in the mire for six days! God have mercy upon some of you! I
   would that in His mercy He would

   come and make you keep close to what you profess--and to be no longer
   halting between two opinions, but have your ears bored to be the
   servants of God forever--and not the slaves of sin!

   I think I might make out a pretty long list of people of this sort, but
   I shall only mention one class. There is a great number of young men
   and a greater number of young women who attend this place and we are
   delighted to see you, dear Friends. May your numbers never grow less,
   for we love you and we desire to bless God that so many of you have
   been converted! But I am always fearful about some of you young people,
   lest your religion should in any way depend upon any sort of
   excitement, or your happening to be connected with a really quickened
   and living Church, or happening to be in such an earnest class, as some
   of our classes are, or because you attend upon the ministry in this
   place. I do know some who, when they get away into the country, where
   perhaps the minister is not much more than half alive, they grow cold
   and, by-and-by, and especially if they happen to get married, then the
   zeal which once fired them quite subsides. Now remember that the
   religion that depends upon any man, whoever he may be, or upon any
   woman, or that rests at all upon the company you have to keep, is not
   genuine religion at all! For our religion ought to maintain and will
   maintain its vitality, at least, if not its constant health, be you
   cast into whatever circumstances you may be. Some of you young women,
   perhaps, are going out to service where there are ungodly masters. Now
   you will know whether your Grace is real or not. Some of you young men
   are apprenticed, or obliged to go into situations where you are
   constantly in the midst of those who chaff you and jeer you--now we
   shall know what stuff you are made of! Now we shall see whether you are
   only stony-ground hearers, or whether there is real depth of earth in
   you, for if there is no depth of earth, you will soon wither away! But
   if your conversion was a genuine one, we defy all the wicked men on
   earth and all the devils in Hell to destroy it, for what God has done,
   none can undo! But what comes from man and not from the Spirit of God,
   depend upon it, will be of no use to you in the Day of Judgment.

   Thus there are many servants in God's House who are only there a little
   while and who go out at the end of their six years. But now I am going
   to talk to--

   III. THOSE WHO HAVE HAD THEIR EARS BORED.

   First, I shall bring out the awls. Genuine Christians have had their
   ears bored, that is to say, they are such Christians that they could
   not be anything else. And when they have their choice--and they do have
   it every day, for temptation gives them many an opportunity--they will
   not go out, but are obliged to remain the servants of God. I am now
   going to tell you some of the awls with which God has bored their ears.
   Christian, you have had your ears bored. What was one of the things
   that did it? I think it was past mercies. Forsake the Lord Jesus
   Christ? How can I? He loved me! He bought me--

   "He saw me ruined in the Fall, He loved me, notwithstanding all."

   Some of us were in great distress and Christ gave us peace--we were
   ready to destroy ourselves and He gave us joy and liberty--and since
   that day He has led us into green pastures and beside still waters and
   we have been a happy people! He has supplied us night and day! We
   cannot leave Him! We cannot leave Him!

   He has bored our ears, His Infinite Mercy in the past has fastened us
   to His doorpost. We dare not leave Him--we would not if we could! Do
   not many of you feel that the verse of the hymn is the real truth--

   "A very wretch, Lord, I should prove,

   Had I no love to You"?

   We owe our gracious Master so much that our ears are bored and we
   cannot leave Him. Imagine you see Ignatius standing up in the
   amphitheater when he is told that if he will curse Christ, he shall
   escape, and he says, "How can I curse Him? He has never done me a
   displeasure!" So with us! He has never done us ill. We cannot but speak
   well of His name and cling to Him!

   But I think our ears are bored, also, by a sense of our present
   helplessness. You say, "Leave Him? Ah, but where to?" We cannot do
   without Him! You tell us to do without Christ? As well tell the
   helpless baby that is hanging on its mother's breast to leave its
   mother! And we are more helpless than that infant--there is nothing but
   death lying before us if we leave Him. Brothers and Sisters, what could
   you and I do the next hour if we had no Savior to depend upon, none of
   His Grace to keep us from sin, and none of His love to comfort us in
   affliction? We would be utterly ruined! Leave Him? Ask the young
   husband to forsake his spouse! Ask the man who has hunted after gold
   and won it to throw away his trea-

   sure! But as for us, we cannot leave our Spouse, nor forsake our Divine
   Treasure. Now have we found contentment! Now have we got all that our
   souls can wish for! Never, Jesus, never can we leave You! What could we
   do without You?--

   "To whom or where could we go If we should turn from You?' That is the
   second awl with which to bore our ears.

   Then there is a third awl. Leave Him? How can we, when we think about
   the future? We expect between now and getting to Heaven a great many
   storms--and what could we do without the Captain and Pilot of souls? We
   know there are many giants to fight and dragons to kill--and what could
   we do without our soul's Greatheart to be our champion and protector?
   There are many arrows flying and what could we do without our shield?
   We could not leave our castle and high tower, or, if we did, what might
   not happen to us? Every ill certainly would, if we forsook Him. The
   past, the present and the future are all like sharp awls to bore right
   through our ears and fasten us to Christ!

   Leave Him? Why, the joy He gives us, the satisfaction, the delight,
   make it impossible for us to leave Him! Can a bride forget her
   ornaments? Can it be possible for a nation to put away its gods? Can a
   mother forget her child? All these things might be, but we cannot
   forget Him who is All-in-All to us! Once get the flavor of Christ in
   your mouth and you will never be satisfied with anything short of Him!
   Drink water from the well of Bethlehem and you will be like David-- you
   will say of it again and again--"Oh, that one would give me a drink of
   the water of the well." "My heart is fixed," said David, "my heart is
   fixed." Some people's hearts are flying about like feathers in the air.
   Whichever way the wind blows, they blow, but "my heart is fixed."
   Christ has driven four nails right through it and fastened it to His
   Cross! The spear has gone through my inmost soul--I have no other love
   but He--and I must love Him as long as I live." Thus can the Christian
   speak! The joy which Jesus gives him is the awl that has pierced his
   ears!

   And then, dear Friends, is there not another reason, and a very strong
   one, namely, our hope forever? Leave Christ? Why, then we would have to
   leave Heaven and its happiness! We have great expectations. We
   sometimes hear of people who have "great expectations." Yes, Believers
   have great expectations. We are not watching for dead men's shoes, but
   we are looking for the golden sandals that they wear in the land of the
   living! We are not expecting the legacies of earthly relatives, but we
   are expecting the blessed legacy which Christ has left to all His
   people--to be with Him where He is! Yes, the son of poverty is
   expecting one of the many mansions! The child of tribulation is
   expecting to have every tear wiped away from his eyes! We are expecting
   to hear it said, "Well done, good and faithful servant--enter you into
   the joy of your Lord." Give up Christ? No, the thought of Heaven bores
   our ears yet again. We cannot give Him up! We must still cling to Him
   because "we have respect unto the recompense of the reward." Now all of
   these awls are sharp ones, but I do not suppose they have pierced some
   of you. If, however, any of you have ever felt them piercing your ears,
   I am sure you felt very happy while the boring was going on--and may
   you be pierced by them yet again and again!

   Thus, then, I have shown you the awls, but I cannot pierce your ears.
   The text forbids me, for it says, " the master was to pierce the
   servant's ear." Yes, there is no man can bind a soul to Christ, but
   Christ Himself must do it. There is such a struggle in men's hearts
   against Christ that only the High Priest who knows how to bind the
   Sacrifice, can ever cast the cords of love around us and to His altar
   bind us fast. If, dear Friends, you are afraid of backsliding. If you
   are afraid you should grow cold and turn aside from your Master, bore
   your ears again tonight! Ask Him to open the scars afresh and let you
   feel it until you can have no doubt that it is there! That sweet sermon
   by Mr. Lewis some of you have never forgotten--on the text--"I bear in
   my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." May you feel that you have had
   the Master boring your ears.

   Now, just one word upon what is to be bored, namely, the ears. The
   boring of the ears was the emblem of obedience, for it is with the ear
   that the servant hears. The Christian, then, will be mainly God's
   servant through his ears. We hear God's will and, therefore, do it.
   Some of you have ears that need a little opening, for you know some
   things to be your duty and you profess to be God's servant, but you do
   not attend to them. Your ears, I hope, are bored, but you seem to have
   taken cold in them and you cannot hear the Master's voice! Some of you,
   for instance, know that as Believers you ought to be baptized but yet
   you shrink from it. Others of you know you ought to be united with a
   Christian Church. "They gave themselves first to the Lord, and
   afterwards to the saints by the Word of God." "He that has ears to
   hear, let him hear." The obedient servant only has to hear his Master's
   voice and he runs at once to do His bidding. "Oh," you say, "but it is
   not essential, Sir." No, I know it is not. But still, if you have a
   servant, you do not expect her to say that

   what you tell her to do is "not essential." Try your servant Mary
   tonight. Tell her to do something. She does not do it. You tell her
   again. She does not do it and she says to you, "But, Sir, remember it
   is not essential!" You say to her, "I do not keep servants to argue
   points with me! If they will not do my bidding they must find another
   master."

   Mind the Lord does not say this to you, for if a thing is His will, all
   that you have to do is to do it, asking no questions! I never heard of
   an angel in Heaven asking God why he was ordered to do such-and-such a
   thing. They serve Him there without questioning--and so may His will be
   done by us on earth after the same fashion, "as it is done in Heaven."

   May you be like the high priests whose thumbs and toes were touched
   with blood to show that their active powers were given to the service
   of God. And may you also be like those whose ears were touched with
   blood to show that you hear the Master's will and that your thoughtful
   faculties are given to the attentive observation of what His mind is,
   so that the hands and the feet may be guided as to what you should do!

   Lastly, I want you to notice that when the ear was bored, it was bored
   to the doorpost in the presence of the judges. It was not done in
   secret in some back room! It was done in public with witnesses present.
   If this man is going to devote himself to his master, he must be
   brought right out to the doorpost. "Now then, your ear, Sir. The awl
   must be driven right through it in the presence of spectators." And I
   think consecration to Christ is not a thing to be done in secret. You
   who love the Lord Jesus Christ--acknowledge it! If you are His
   servants, wear His livery. If you are His servants, come out and
   profess to be so! Have your ears bored to the very doorpost, publicly,
   and openly avow yourselves to be on the Lord's side. He asks it and it
   is no more than He deserves! "He that confesses Me before men," He
   says, "Him also will I confess before My Father who is in Heaven."

   I think this man might say, "My master's house is to be my dwelling
   place forever." I know some of us seem to have had our ears bored even
   to the posts of this very House of Prayer! Some of you are never
   absent, whatever service there may be. If it were to rain, I do not
   know how much, I do not think it would thin this congregation much, for
   you love to come up to the House of God. Well, the assembling of
   yourselves together will always, I hope, be a means of profit to
   you--it is always a manifest indication of your retaining your service
   under the good Master! May you thus always keep close to the posts of
   His door and when He comes, may He find you like servants waiting at
   the door for their lord!

   Now, are there any here tonight who would like to have their ears bored
   with the awls which I have mentioned? If so, I would say to them, "If
   your heart is right with God and you are trusting in Jesus, only,
   instead of making a resolution, offer a prayer and let this be the
   prayer--'Lord, while I live and till I die, I desire to be Your servant
   to the utmost of my power. I desire to do Your will or to allow it. I
   give myself up without reserve or limitation. All that I am, all that I
   have, I give up to You. Take me from this night forth and let me not
   offer this prayer as a mere matter of form or hypocrisy, but may I
   offer it heartily and from my inmost soul. Enable me to say I am Your
   servant. Oh, God! Sanctify me, spirit, soul and body, for Your name's
   sake. Amen.'"
     __________________________________________________________________

The Witness of the Lord's Supper

   (No. 3338)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 23, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

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

   THE center of our holy religion is the Cross. The central thought of
   the whole of Christianity is Christ and the great point in Christ's
   history is His Crucifixion. We preach Christ--but more--we preach Him
   Crucified! Beloved, this, which is the keystone or the whole arch of
   our religion, should be more constantly in our minds than it is. It
   should more frequently occupy our meditations. It should engage more
   incessantly our tongues--we should sing of it more often, we should
   pray more in the shadow of it and we should live more under the control
   of the impulses its suggests. In the Cross of Christ let each one of us
   glory and, like the Apostle, say, "God forbid that I should glory save
   in the Cross of Jesus Christ our Lord."

   In order to keep in our mind's eye what, alas, we so easily forget--the
   death of our blessed Lord--He has been pleased to institute the Supper
   which we are about to celebrate. Beneath yon fair white linen cloth we
   have memorials of His passion, full of instruction to those who rightly
   view them. If any in this place should ask, "What mean you by this
   service?" our ready answer shall be according as it is written--"For as
   often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's
   death till He comes" (1 Cor 11:26). We eat bread and drink wine, not
   out of any foolish superstition that these can be transmuted into the
   very flesh and blood of Jesus Christ--a superstition which would be a
   disgrace to a Bushman--a superstition which is a disgrace to those who
   hold it in this enlightened land, and not a disgrace only, but a vast
   sin--a black delusion which is given to them that they may believe a
   lie--whereby they involve themselves in the doom of Hell! We hold no
   such folly. Because we are rational and because we are spiritual, both
   our reason and our spiritual nature revolt against anything so
   atrocious as to believe that the body of Christ--the absolute flesh and
   blood--can be eaten and drank, or that if it could be done, it ought to
   be done, or that it could confer any spiritual benefit upon those who
   could perform so cannibal and revolting an act! We believe in the real
   Presence, but not in the corporeal Presence. We believe that Jesus
   Christ comes to us spiritually and refreshes us, and in that sense we
   both eat His flesh and drink His blood. But as to any such literal
   feast as some believe in, we reject the thought with horror and with
   contempt!

   The great meaning of "The Lord's Supper," as we call it, is that we
   show the Lord's death till He comes. We show it to ourselves and we
   show it, or represent it, to others--to unbelievers who may chance to
   look on. The former of these is, perhaps, the more important. In coming
   to eat of the bread and drink of the wine at this Supper--

   I. WE SHOW THE LORD'S DEATH TO OURSELVES.

   Not, indeed, that this is the exclusive manner of exhibiting the
   passion which our dear Savior endured, or the decease which He
   accomplished, for there are, it must be admitted, other methods of
   showing the Lord's death. One is by this Book, this Inspired Volume
   which contains the record of His Crucifixion--which explains it--which
   enforces upon men the duty of putting their trust in the merit of Him
   who died. Wherever this Bible is opened there is a showing of Christ's
   death! Why, the whole Book is full of it! There is a crimson line of
   atoning Sacrifice running from Genesis to Revelation--

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

   Every distinct Book of Inspiration is like a mirror reflecting the
   image of Jesus--"as in a glass, darkly," it is true, but still
   sufficiently clear even for these dim eyes of ours. All the Scriptures
   are the swaddling bands of the Child, Christ Je-

   sus, as said Augustine of old--If you would see Jesus, you must search
   for Him in Holy Scripture and, by the light of the Holy Spirit, you
   will not go far until you find Him!

   The Lord Jesus Christ's death is also shown forth in public ministry.
   There are some who are so fond of painted windows because, they say,
   they preach by painting. Brothers and Sisters, we paint by preaching!
   That is the only difference and to paint by preaching is an infinitely
   better thing than to preach by painting! All the methods that are
   adopted to show forth Christ's death throughout all the world are utter
   vanity compared with the ministration of the Gospel. It is not possible
   for the preacher too much to magnify His office. It is God's
   predestinated channel of Grace to the sons of men. "Faith comes by
   hearing, and hearing by the Word of God"--and as we speak, God helping
   us--Christ is set forth, manifestly Crucified among you! How many in
   this place have seen Jesus by what they have heard spoken of Him? The
   eye of the mind has seen Him. 'Twere of little use for the eyes of
   sense to do so. Thousands saw Christ with their natural eyes and
   perished in their sins! But to see Him with the eyes of the
   spirit--this it is that saves. The preaching of the Gospel paints
   Christ to the mind's eyes, not to the natural eyes, so it is the best
   way of depicting Him, for it exactly meets the vision that it is
   intended to impress!

   Still, over and above the showing of Christ's death in the printed Word
   and the Word preached, there comes in this emblematical Supper in which
   we show Christ' s death after a manner I will try to explain. We show
   to ourselves as we come here that Christ was really Incarnate and so
   could die. My Soul, as you take that bread into your fingers, remember
   that it is a thing to be handled and to be touched--a material
   substance. And so, God, the Infinite, took into union with Himself
   actual flesh and blood, such as you have in your own body! A strange
   thing that a pure Spirit should condescend to tabernacle in flesh--and
   yet it is so written--"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and
   we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
   full of Grace and truth." Oh, matchless mystery! He who fills all
   things became an Infant of a span long! He who is Eternal and
   Omnipotent became a humble working Man, putting on the garment without
   seam, suffering, toiling and at last yielding up His life! As each drop
   of wine shall pass your lips and you recognize it as a material
   substance, you show to yourself, O Believer, that Jesus Christ became
   Incarnate. Think of this! Take care that you do not make a God out of
   the manhood, nor a man out of the Godhead. Rest assured that as
   certainly as Christ was God, without diminution of His splendor, so
   certainly He was also Man, pure Man with a Manhood like your own, even
   as He, Himself, said--"Handle Me and see; a spirit has not flesh and
   bones as you see I have." See, then, Brothers and Sisters, your next of
   kin--a sufferer like yourselves--and let the bread and wine remind you
   of Him!

   Then next, the Supper reminds you of your Lord's sufferings. There is
   the bread broken. The wine, the juice of the grape, crushed out with
   pain and labor--poured out. Now remember that Jesus Christ, though not
   a bone of Him could be broken, was broken in spirit--"Reproach has
   broken My heart; I am full of heaviness"--He poured out His soul unto
   death. Let the bread and the wine remind you of the bloody sweat in the
   Garden--of the anguish unto death which He endured in dark Gethsemane
   among the olive trees. Let them bring to your recollection, Beloved in
   the Lord, the scourging at the hands of Pilate and of Herod. Imagine
   you see Him standing patiently there, giving up His back to the smiters
   and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair--hiding not His face
   from shame and spitting. That bread broken and that wine poured out
   should remind you of the journey along the Via Dolorosa, as He went
   fainting beneath the burden of His Cross. They must remind you of the
   Cross and the nails, the grief of being forsaken, the anguish of
   thirst, the bitterness of scorn, the torment of fever and, at last,
   death itself. I do not say that, perhaps you will be able to make the
   whole scene pass before your minds, but I bid you try to do so. Drive
   away every other thought as Christ drove the buyers and sellers out of
   the Temple. Charge your soul to stand with His Virgin Mother at the
   foot of the Cross and pray that His blood may fall upon you, drop by
   drop, that you may be so enchanted by what you see, withal so dreadful,
   but yet so full of bliss, that you may not dare for a moment to let a
   stray thought come in! This and this only, think of! Think of Jesus
   Incarnate and of Jesus suffering!

   But the bread and the wine show more than this. What do I see? Bread,
   the flesh. Wine, the life, the blood. Flesh and blood, then, when
   separated, are both dead so that the cup and the bread together
   distinctly signify the actual death of our Lord. There is no such thing
   as a Lord's Supper with the bread, alone, nor with the cup, alone, nor
   with the bread and wine mingled! They must both be distinct. Without
   shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. And until the blood has
   been poured forth, the flesh still remains and retains its life. But
   put the two, distinctly, and you get the idea of death as clearly as
   you can have it. Now, Beloved, I want you to come close up to this
   Truth of God, that the Lord of

   Glory actually died. For our Savior there was no passing into Heaven by
   a chariot of fire. It is not said of Him, as of Enoch, that "He was
   not, for God took Him." He must die! You dread death. You look forward
   to it frequently with trepidation. But Christ passed absolutely through
   it and the Human Soul and the Human Body of our Savior were torn from
   each other. He actually descended into the abodes of the dead! He bowed
   His head to the great enemy and yielded up the ghost. Had He not so
   died, there had been no ransom paid for you, for God's Law demanded a
   life. The sentence was, "The soul that sins, it shall die." Christ has
   actually died--and let this Supper bring home the thought most sweetly
   to yourselves that Jesus died!

   We have not yet shown Christ's death wholly to ourselves. The spreading
   of that breadand wine on yonder table is a showing to ourselves that
   God has made a provision for human needs. A hungry man coming to that
   Table thinks at once of eating and drinking. He perceives that if it is
   placed there, it is placed there for use. Bread and wine in the
   cupboard may be stored, but bread and wine on the table are evidently
   for use. Now, child of God, catch that thought and hold it. Jesus
   Christ has come into the world, not to withhold, but to give! Not to
   reserve, but to distribute! Not to keep to Himself any good thing, but
   to bestow all that He has upon His people! Come, then, with all your
   great necessities--come to the Savior, for He freely presents Himself
   to all Believers! Great Sinner, do you need great pardon? Jesus will
   give it to you! He puts on the Table the cup. Do you need, Christian,
   great comfort? Come and take it--it is put on the Table! Jesus keeps
   open house for all comers who come by faith to Him. Have you the faith
   to come and trust Him? Then all that Jesus is and has you may be and
   have! Especially you that are His friends, you that have leaned upon
   His bosom--do not stint yourselves, for He does not stint you. You are
   not straitened in Him--if straitened at all, it is in yourselves. Jesus
   puts upon the Table for us, Himself, and, being put there, it is as
   good as an open invitation by a loud voice, saying, "O, you hungry,
   come and feed! O, you thirsty, come and drink!" There is nothing in
   Christ which He will deny to His people! Christ has nothing in Heaven
   or on earth which He will keep back from the Believer that dares to
   come and ask for it! Come, then! Come boldly! The Lord give you access
   unto this Grace!

   And do we not show the Lord's death a little further when, after having
   spread the Supper, we come to eat it? Then we say to ourselves, "Just
   as I must eat this bread, or it will not nourish me, so must I take
   Jesus Christ, personally, by a distinct act of faith and take Him to be
   mine. And as this bread, after I have taken it, incorporates itself
   with me so that there is no distinction between this bread and my body,
   but it helps to build up the structure of my body, so when I take
   Christ and trust Him, He becomes one with me and I become one with Him
   and my life is hid with Him. And He says that because He lives I shall
   live also." Now, is not that a wonderful lesson to teach by so simple
   an action? You eat, you drink, the food becomes assimilated into
   yourselves. You come to Jesus, you trust Him and Christ becomes one
   with you and you become one with Him, so that henceforth you can say,
   "It is no more I that lives, but Christ that lives in me" and, as for
   Jesus, He calls you a member of His body! He calls you a branch from
   His stem! He calls you the spouse and He, Himself, your Bridegroom! Oh,
   sacred union effected by the act of reception which is the act of
   faith!

   And now, beloved Believer, as you first lived by receiving Grace, you
   can only grow in that life by still receiving it! Do not come to this
   Table and say, "What can I bring?" No, but come and say, "What can I
   take away?" Do not say, "Am I worthy?" That question never ought to be
   asked. You are not worthy! But come, unworthy as you are, and take what
   Jesus has provided for unworthy sinners! "Well," says someone, "but we
   are to take heed lest we eat and drink being unworthy." No, you are
   not! There is no such text in all the Bible! You see, you have left out
   a syllable. What it does say is about eating and drinking
   unworthily--and that is with respect to the way of eating it. If you
   come to this table lightly--if you come to it irreligiously,
   profanely--if you come as they did at Corinth, to merely drink. If you
   come to get money by it, as some did in years gone by, to qualify
   themselves for office or to obtain charity--thatwould be to eat and
   drink unworthily! But, unworthy as you are, if your--

   "Hope is fixed on nothing less Than Jesus' blood and righteousness,"
   then come, for such as you the Table is spread!

   And when you do come, I do pray you yet once more, do not let unbelief
   keep you back from enjoying all that is to be enjoyed. You know a very
   hungry man does not stand on many manners. If he is told to eat
   everything that is set before him, then his hunger does not permit him
   to stand on niceties, but he eats all he can get. And so may you. Yes,
   and you may carry away what you will, too, with you. You may come and
   get a feast tonight and the sweet remembrance of it in days to come
   will be permitted to you. Believe that Christ does not refuse you
   anything. When you pray, do not ask as if you were getting something
   out of a hard-hearted Being, but come to One whose delight it is to
   give--whose very Glory it is to scatter His mercies among His beloved
   ones--

   "Come, make your needs, your burdens known!

   He will present them at the Throne

   And angel bands are waiting there,

   His messages of love to bear." Thus, you see, in the bread and the
   wine, in the bread and wine separated, in the bread broken and the wine
   poured out, in the two emblems put on a table-- and in these two being
   so partaken of that they become united with the fabric of our body--we
   set forth the whole mystery of the death of Jesus Christ to ourselves.
   May the Spirit of God help us to truly do this!

   Observe now that--

   II. WE ARE TO SHOW CHRIST'S DEATH TO OTHERS.

   As often as we eat this bread and drink of this cup, we do this. We
   show to others the fact that Jesus died. I think historians have taken
   it as one of the best proofs of a fact when some rite has been
   instituted to commemorate it. A pillar with an inscription is not
   always a certain index to truth. Our own Monument, for instance, had a
   record on it that London was burned down by the Catholics--who had no
   more to do with it, certainly, than the Muslims did! The inscription in
   that case was not a record of fact! Yes, and a pillar might be erected
   to record an event which never occurred at all. But, as a general rule,
   large bodies of men will not agree together to continually celebrate
   events which never occurred. Nobody doubts, I suppose, the siege of
   Londonderry, when the prentice boys meet every year to make a noise and
   disturbance. They at least bring before the historian's mind the
   certainty that such an event did occur, for it is still thus recorded.
   Now, our Lord gave us this simple method of breaking bread and drinking
   wine to be our way of setting up our pillar--our mode of keeping up a
   great historical fact--that there was a Man who lived in Judea, who
   professed to be the Son of God, who was the King of the Jews, who lived
   a humble life and died a marvelous death! There is no fact in history
   so well attested as this! So that those who have given up the
   Inspiration of Scripture have seldom touched either the life or the
   death of Jesus, but have conceded both to be facts. And now this very
   night, perhaps, in fifty thousand places, at this moment, this
   commemorative act of eating bread and drinking wine is about to be
   performed in this one country of England. Now that is something by way
   of record, and by this act we help to perpetuate to all generations the
   fact that Jesus died!

   But we do a great deal more than this to others. We assert by coming
   here, tonight, and eating this bread and drinking of this cup, that we
   believe that this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, was the Son of God and the
   Savior of men, and that we go in with Him for everything that is
   involved in the story of His life and death. That is to say, if it is a
   shame for Christ to die upon the Cross, we are willing to bear part of
   the shame. If it is thought to be foolishness to believe in a Crucified
   Man--we are fools and come here to avow it. If it is said to be a
   stumbling block to many that Jesus of Nazareth should be the Son of
   God--we come to declare that it is no stumbling block to us! We accept
   Him as Divine! We trust in Him as the Propitiation for our sins!
   Beloved, when you shall take that bread, you take part with Christ. You
   take lot with Him and, mark you, He often goes up the bleak side of the
   hill--and you will have to do the same with the snow between your
   teeth! And He often lodges in huts and hovels--yes, He has not where to
   lay His head! He has handfuls of the world's filth thrown at Him and
   but little of its gold laid at His feet. He is despised and rejected of
   men--and if you will keep Him company, you must expect to be despised,
   too, and to be as ill-treated as He was--for the servant is not above
   his Master, nor the disciple above his Lord! Whoever follows David must
   go to him in the wild goat tracks of Engedi, or dwell with him in the
   Cave of Adullam. He that would be David's man must share David's needs
   and David's disgraces or else he cannot share his crown. Believers,
   have you counted this cost? You professors who come to this Table and
   who say to the onlookers, "We go with Christ! We are enlisted under His
   banner! We have given ourselves to Him"--have we counted the cost?--

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

   You followers of the Cross?

   And are you prepared for your Masters sake

   To suffer all worldly loss?

   And can you endure with the virgin band, The lowly and pure in heart,
   Who wherever the Lamb does lead, From His footsteps never depart?'

   Oh, that so counting the cost, you may continue with Him till life's
   journey is over! Thus, you see, you not only assert that Christ died,
   but you communicants assert that He died for you and that you are one
   with Him and will take shares with Him when He comes into His Kingdom!

   You do even more than that. You explain the meaning of Christ's death
   by the mere fact of coming to this Table. "How," you ask, "is that?" In
   eating the bread and drinking the wine, you set forth a sacrifice--a
   libation of blood and a slaughter of flesh--and you say to all the
   world, "Our trust for salvation rests in a Sacrifice! We have no hope
   of being saved by anything that springs of ourselves--we look wholly
   out of self and entirely to the Sacrifice which was offered up on the
   Cross." While some of you sit down to the Table, others of you will be
   onlookers. I do pray, as you look on, if you have never known this
   Truth of God before, learn it now. All your hope of ever entering
   Heaven must lie quite out of yourselves and be concentrated in
   Another--in God's only and own dear Son! While I am stating this fact,
   which is so well known to you that it sounds commonplace, I feel as if
   I could burst into a flood of tears to think that it should grow so
   commonplace and yet be not believed! Does God become Man and die, and
   will you not trust Him? Does my God, that made the heavens and the
   earth, of whom I read that without Him was not anything made that was
   made--does He become a Man and suffer that sinners might live? And is
   it nothing to you, is it nothing to you and will you prefer the tawdry
   pleasures of this world to the solid bliss which He can give you? And
   will you dash yourselves upon the bosses of Jehovah's buckler and run
   upon His glittering spear and ruin yourselves forever rather than close
   in with Christ and kiss the Son lest He be angry? I can understand why
   it is that you do not love my Lord, for once I was so foolish, myself,
   but oh, it is brutish--it is worse than that, it is devilish to despise
   a dying Christ! I know not whether I have not maligned the devil in
   using his name in such a matter as that, for surely, had Jesus died for
   devils, they would not have been such devils as men are who, hearing of
   a Savior and believing the story of His passion, yet turn a deaf ear to
   it and give their souls up to Madame Wanton, or to base-born Mammon, or
   to some other carnal thing which will but delude and destroy them!

   There are some of you I shall never see again. I charge you before the
   Eternal God, as we shall meet at His Last Judgment Seat, think of
   this--that if it is worth God's while to come here and be Incarnate,
   and so to suffer to make Atonement, it is not a thing for you to trifle
   with! But if you do, you will find that the stone which you refused
   will grind you to powder in that day when, like some cliff that is
   loosened from its socket, long quivering there, it shall come rolling
   down upon the heedless traveler to crush him and utterly destroy him!
   God save you, my dear Hearer, stranger to me, and stranger to yourself,
   and stranger to my God! And though you may remain a stranger to me, yet
   may you begin to know something of yourself, tonight, and something of
   my Master, of whom I will say this one thing--If you did but know Him
   you would love Him--

   "His worth if all the nations knew,

   Sure the whole world would love Him too."

   Thus, then, do we show the fact of our participation in Christ's death
   and the meaning of it.

   Does not the voice of ages and of generations after generations speak
   to you now in the constancy and frequency of this celebration? And do
   you not perceive that we move forward to the boundary which shall
   realize the Church's hope? "We do show the Lord's death till He comes."
   Then He is coming! He is coming! I know not when, no, nor know the
   angel of God that is nearest to the Eternal Book when God unfolds the
   leaves. But He is coming! As when the earthquake comes, with divers
   signs and prodigies that make men start, and yet they know not what it
   is, He comes! As the lightning flash that is seen from east to west, He
   comes! As the thief that steals silently through the shadows of the
   night and robs the sleeper, so He comes! The Man that wore the crown of
   thorns is coming with a crown about His brow more glorious than all the
   coronets of earth. He is coming! The Son of Mary is coming to wear no
   more the garment without seam, but wrapped--

   " With rainbow wreath and robes of storm."

   He is coming! The Man that did hang upon the Cross will sit upon the
   Great White Throne--

   "On cherub wings and wings of wind, Appointed Judge of all mankind."

   And you said tonight--you said it and I heard you--that you crucified
   Him and you said that yours were the hands that drove the nails and
   made the hammer fall. You sang just now--

   "Tis I have thus ungrateful been." Now you have confessed it! You who
   have trusted in Him will confess it and yet, thank God that out of a
   fault springs your salvation! But you who have not trusted Him, what
   will you say to Him in that day when He shall come to judge the world?
   You shall look on Him whom you have pierced and you shall weep and wail
   because of Him! Oh, that you would look at His wounds now and trust
   Him, for if you do not, you shall look on them, then, and you shall
   say, "I made those wounds." And that thought will shake you as when a
   lion shakes its prey. That thought will melt your bones as though they
   were but ice in the heat of the sun! And your loins shall be loosed and
   your soul shall sink in dismay. I pray you--I beseech you by the love
   you bear to yourself, and to your soul that can never die--look unto
   Jesus and be saved! Look unto Him now! You must look one day--look
   tonight! You must look, either with repentance and faith, or else with
   terror and despair! Choose which it shall be. Choose now! Young men and
   women who have stepped in here tonight, I pray God that you may have
   Grace to decide for Jesus now. Old men and fathers, maidens and
   matrons, may you also have Grace to say, "I will take Him as my Savior,
   not as my Judge"--

   "But if your ears refuse

   The language of His Grace,

   And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,

   That unbelieving race.

   The Lord in anger dressed,

   Shall lift His hand and swear,

   ' You that despise My promised rest

   Shall have no portion there.'"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EZEKKIEL 36:16-38.

   Verses 16-20. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son
   of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled
   it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before Me as the
   uncleanness of a removed woman. Therefore I poured My fury upon them
   for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols
   wherewith they had polluted it and I scattered them among the heathen,
   and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way
   and according to their doings I judged them. And when they entered unto
   the heathen, where they went, they profaned My holy name, when they
   said to them, these are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out
   of His land.All through Scripture we are told that God has great regard
   to the honor of His holy name. "The Lord your God is a jealous God."
   And this is no small blessing to us, for it has so happened that when
   there has been no other reason for mercy, God's regard to His own name
   has found Him a reason for dealing mercifully with His unbelieving,
   undeserving people! See how He had scattered His chosen people. He had
   sent them away into captivity, justly, on account of their sins. But it
   came to pass that wherever they went, whether it was into Persia or
   Babylonia, the people said, "These are Jehovah' s people! These are
   Jehovah' s people and they are gone forth out of His land." What was
   the consequence of this?

   21. But I had pity for My holy name, which the house of Israel had
   profaned among the heathen, where they went. He had pity for His own
   name! He had a reverence and esteem for His own renown and standing,
   even among these heathen nations!

   22, 23. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus says the LORD GOD;
   do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel but for My holy name's
   sake, which you haveprofaned among the heathen, where you went And I
   will sanctify My great name, which was profaned among the heathen which
   you have profaned in the midst of them: and the heathen shall know that
   I am the LORD says the LORD GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you
   before their eyes. Brothers and Sisters, what must God think of a
   nation like ours which has come to be called by His name, albeit it so
   little deserves that great

   honor? What, I say, must He think of the fact that if there are any
   vices yet unknown, white men will teach them to the heathen? And when
   the heathen have heard the Gospel, the great sources of doubt are the
   white men--Englishmen! Full often the greatest oppressors will spring
   out of our own nation! Certainly we hold the belt for drunkenness and
   where our fellow countrymen go, the name of Christianity is rendered
   base among the heathen! The Muslims say of such a man, "He has been
   drunk and turned a Christian." I will grant that much that is said is
   said unwisely, untruthfully and slanderously in exaggeration, for these
   men are no Christians! They know not the Lord. It is not a Christian
   country--it is a heathen country, as some of us know, not only by what
   we read, but by what we see and hear! Can you walk the streets without
   hearing blasphemies more black than might be heard in any streets under
   Heaven? This is a heathen country, but yet it has somehow come to be
   thought to be a Christian country and, therefore, its conduct is
   bringing dishonor upon the name of the Most High! Oh, that He would
   have pity upon that name and interpose, and once more establish the
   Truth of God and set up a throne of righteousness and turn the hearts
   of the people to Himself in this country! Oh, that it were so, for His
   great name's sake! He cannot bless us for our own sakes, for we deserve
   nothing but His wrath--but, oh, that He would once again have pity upon
   His holy name that is profaned--and bless this, our land! The Lord goes
   on to say concerning His people--

   24. For I will take you from among the heathen, andgather you out ofall
   countries, and will bringyou into your own land. Now, this stands true
   of Israel after the flesh. It will assuredly be fulfilled in the latter
   days. But it stands even more certain concerning Israel, the true
   Israel, of whom the natural Israel is but the type. Now, we read one
   form of that New Covenant made with God concerning His elect,
   comprehending all that have believed in Christ, or ever shall believe
   in Him. This is the Covenant that He makes with us in these days--

   25, 26. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be
   clean: from all your flthiness, 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 I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and
   I will give you an heart of flesh. Here is, first of all, full
   justification. "From all your filthiness will I cleanse you." And here
   is, next, regeneration--"A new heart also will I give you, and a new
   spirit will I put within you." These are unconditional promises of that
   Covenant which He has made with His redeemed in the Person of Christ
   Jesus, their Covenant Head! See how majestically it is worded--"I will"
   and, "You shall." There is not an "if" or a "but" all through it!

   27. And I willput My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My
   statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them.Here is
   sanctification! Here is final perseverance! Blessed promises of the
   Covenant of Grace!

   28. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers: and
   you shall be My people, and I will be your God. That is the greatest
   promise of all! If a man were to preach a series of sermons upon this
   text during every day in the year, he could never exhaust the fullness
   of its meaning. "You shall be My people, and I will be your God."

   29. I will also save you from all your uncleanness: and I will call for
   the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And,
   spiritually, how true this is--that whenever God saves us from sin, He
   also saves us from every form of famine. No heart was ever left to
   hunger and thirst in vain when it was cleansed from its sin! Our needs
   come out of our sins, but when we walk with God, He lays no famine upon
   us in spiritual things.

   30. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the
   field, that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the
   heathen. "Then," when I have blessed you thus--when I have fully saved
   you, when I have brought you up from all the places where I have
   scattered you, when I have enriched you and indulged you with mylove--

   31. Then shallyou remember your own evil ways, andyour doings that were
   not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your
   iniquities and for your abominations. Repentance is not the root of
   Grace, but the lily-like flower of it. It is not a thing for the early
   morning of Christian life, alone. Repentance will go side by side with
   faith all through the ways of righteousness till we get to Heaven Gate!
   It is when we have most of mercy that we have most loathing for sin--

   "Law and terrors do but harden All the while they work alone. But a
   sense of blood-bought pardon Soon dissolves a heart of stone!"

   32. Not for your sakes do I do this, says the LORD GOD. Be it known
   unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, Ohouse of
   Israel. There is no man saved for his own sake. There is no man
   redeemed for his own sake. It is for God's own Glory's sake. There is
   no motive so high--there is none so worthy of God, as the making known
   to all generations and all realms the majesty of His love and the
   faithfulness of His Covenant.

   33-36. Thus says the LORD GOD: In the day that I shall have cleansed
   you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the
   cities, and the wastes shall be built. And the desolate land shall be
   tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And
   they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden
   of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become
   fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about
   you shall know that I, the LORD, build the ruined places, and plant
   that, that was desolate; I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.
   Now, as He will do this, I doubt not, in Palestine, in due season, so
   does He always make the most desolate places to be built when His
   people live near to Him. Let us have courage, Brothers and Sisters,
   about London, about England, about the world! It is very wicked, but if
   we will keep close to God, we are able to overcome this wickedness in
   Christ's name. Let us have comfort about these evil days in which the
   most of men seem to be departing from the Gospel. We can "hold the
   fort" till Christ comes--let us but have courage! God will give us yet
   to see better and brighter days. He was thought to be a good citizen
   who never despaired of his country and he is a good Christian who never
   indulges a dreary thought about the ultimate triumph of Christ and the
   coming of His Kingdom--"for Yours is the Kingdom," even now, "and the
   power and the glory," and so shall it be, forever and ever!

   37. Thus says the LORD GOD; I will yet for this be enquired of by the
   house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like
   a flock. There must be the spirit of prayer and supplication poured out
   first. We shall see Israel restored to her land when Israel is restored
   to the Mercy Seat--and we shall see great prosperity as a Church and
   the blessing of God will rest upon our nation when once God's people go
   up to the top of Carmel with their faces between their knees and cry,
   and cry, and cry again, expecting that yet the heavenly shower shall
   end this long drought of the curse--and the blessing shall come. "I
   will yet be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them."

   38. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts;
   so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they shall
   know that I am the LORD. And that is the great end of it all--to make
   men know that the I AM is-- that the true and real God is still potent
   among the sons of men and does His will both here and among the armies
   of Heaven. Unto His name be glory forever and ever!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heart Perfumed

   (No. 3339)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING
   SEPTEMBER 13, 1866.

   "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who
   was given unto us." Romans 5:5.

   As one reads the opening verses of this Chapter, one cannot help
   saying, "What marvelous treasures are those which belong to the people
   of God!" Hezekiah took the Babylonian ambassadors through all his
   varied treasure houses and herein he did evil--but if you can conduct
   your mind through the spiritual treasure houses and the minds of your
   friends in the same direction, you will do well. What is the wealth of
   God's people? Who can count it? It is wondrous and beyond conception!
   The Apostle seems to have taken up a whole handful of brilliants in the
   first verses of this Chapter and he now holds them up, one by one, and
   lets them glitter in the light, no not merely a handful plucked at
   random, but they seem to be striving together, for one follows on after
   the other! "Therefore" is the link which connects justification with
   "peace," and then there is a connection between this "peace" and
   "access," and from this "access" to God we go on to "rejoice in hope of
   the glory of God." And when we have got as far as this string of
   pearls, the Apostle adds, "And not only so," and then he holds up a
   cluster--and when he has spoken of them he adds that "tribulation works
   patience, and patience experience, and"--another, "and"--"experience
   hope," and then another, "and"--"and hope makes not ashamed." And then
   at the end of this string ofjewels he brings up the language of the
   text--"Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
   Spirit who was given unto us."

   I suppose the allusion in the text is to the pouring out of water--the
   love of God being to us like a spring shut up, a fountain sealed until
   the Holy Spirit comes--and then the love of God flows in, a pure and
   crystal stream being shed abroad in our hearts!

   But perhaps another figure may suit us as well tonight. The love of God
   is comparable to precious spikenard, but it is in the alabaster box.
   The Holy Spirit opens that box and then the sweet perfume is "shed
   abroad" in our hearts, not merely "shed," but, "shed abroad." Not only
   poured out as the oil was on Aaron's head, but running down to the
   skirts of his garments and perfuming all the room, just as it did in
   his case.

   Now observe, to some extent we can shed abroad the love of God in this
   house. While the preacher is preaching of it, there will be a sweet
   savor Christ. There is, as it were, a spiritual perfume in the assembly
   of the righteous whenever Jesus Christ is spoken of, for, "Your name is
   as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love You." But the
   text means something more than this. It is the love of God shed abroad,
   not in the assembly, but in the heart. The one is the aggregate, but
   this is the individual and personal sense of it--not in the house, I
   say, but in the heart! The preacher sheds abroad this love when he
   preaches of Christ, but he cannot shed it abroad in the heart. He can
   only speak of it. He cannot bring it home to your own personal
   realization. It must be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit,
   but if it once gets there, the sweet perfume of it is always recognized
   by your inner man. It is not the preacher--neither is it the letter of
   this Book--it is the Holy Spirit who most graciously comes there to
   shed abroad the love of God in your heart! Oh, see, then, how much we
   are indebted to the third Person of the blessed Trinity! With what
   reverence should we always speak of Him! With what rapture should we
   love Him! With what devotion should we adore Him! The love of God,
   itself, is, even to us, as spikenard unperceived until He brings it to
   the spiritual senses and makes it sweet to us! The love of God is like
   light to a blind eye until the Holy Spirit opens that eye! It is like
   food and raiment to a dead man until the Holy One of Israel comes and
   gives us life to enjoy these mercies. Oh, then, may the Holy Spirit now
   be here in each one of us, to shed abroad the love of God in our
   hearts!

   I shall first, then, and for a very little time, speak of the precious
   ointment which is here said to be shed abroad, namely, the love of God.
   Secondly, upon the shedding of it abroad. Thirdly, upon the blessed
   results of its being shed abroad in the heart and then, fourthly, upon
   some matters which tend to hinder our enjoyment of the shedding abroad
   of this love in our hearts. First, let us speak of--

   I. THE PRECIOUS OINTMENT WHICH IS HERE SPOKEN OF--"the love of God."
   Now, although I have to speak of this, yet it is a thing which, as to
   its essence, is not to be spoken of. It is to be enjoyed and to be
   felt, but no words can convey its unmistakable sweetness!--

   "The love of Jesus, what it is None but His loved ones know." No words,
   either of the pen or the tongue will ever be able to convey it either
   to hearer or reader. We receive the love of God doctrinally and I think
   we do well to do so. We may speak of it in various theological senses.
   We may declare the love of God to be in some respects universal--for,
   "His tender mercies are over all His works" and, "the Lord is good to

   all."

   But we may delight most of all to speak of it in its discriminating and
   distinguishing character, as revealing itself in the full blaze of its
   splendor to those whom He has chosen unto Himself.

   I believe the preacher does well who descants upon this love of God in
   its eternity, who says of it that it is an ancient thing, more ancient
   than the hoary mountains, or the aged sea, who speaks of it as an
   unchangeable and inimitable thing, abiding forever fast to those chosen
   ones who possess it. He does well, I believe, who speaks of it as being
   without an end, who shall declare in God's name that Christ, having
   loved His own who were in the world, loves them to the end and that
   this is but a picture of the great love which is in God our Father
   towards us--that having loved us once, He will never cease to love us,
   but we shall always be the object of His heart's affection. But,
   Brothers, it is very easy to talkdoc-trinally about the love of God,
   but you may not know anything about the love of God when you know all
   that! If I were to give a description of a father's love to some poor
   orphan, here, I dare say I might make him feel envious. I might make
   him desirous to have something of the kind, but it would be quite
   impossible by any mere words to tell him what a father's love really is
   if he had never known it. It would be something like showing a skeleton
   to an angel who wished to see a man. A man is something more than a set
   of bones, nerves, muscles and ligatures--you cannot present the man by
   any description that you may give, however anatomically correct!
   Neither can you describe the love of God by merely doctri-nally giving
   an outline of it, as the theologian would do, for there is vastly more
   there than the mere theologian has ever learned! You know some people
   have a herbarium in which they preserve specimens of various plants.
   Among the Alps you are asked by persons to buy collections of the flora
   of such-and-such districts. Well, you may buy them, and you will be
   interested in them when you get them home, but when you turn over the
   leaves and find the plants dried between the papers, they are nothing
   at all like what they are as they bloom on the Alps! The gentian has
   not the marvelous yellow blooms which startles you as you find it on
   the side of the glaciers. It is a dry, dead thing now--you cannot
   convey to your friends what the flower is really like when at home--to
   know that fully you must take them to see it! So is it with
   theology--it is easy to preserve the living things of the Truth of God
   in a dry form, but you have not really understood them until you have
   seen them in life and known them by experience!

   Again, you may think about the love of God historically and what a
   wonderful topic is here! Begin--where? Well, since there is no
   beginning, begin where you will. Begin with the council chambers of
   eternity! Begin with the purpose, the election, the Covenant, the
   suretyship engagement. Then go on to the love revealing itself in the
   first promise--love sparing guilty man, love manifesting itself by slow
   degrees through the mist and smoke of the Mosaic ritual and, at last,
   bursting into its full splendor upon the Cross in the Person of the
   dying Savior! Then go on to love developing itself in our experience,
   beginning by convincing us of our folly and our danger and proceeding
   until it takes us into the arms of God, and puts us there forever in
   the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision! But, my dear Friends, you know
   reading the story of a battle cannot give you any idea of the battle
   itself! Every man who has heard the sound of the cannon and has marked
   the pain and misery of those who fall beneath the sword of war will
   tell you that no description, however graphic, can ever make you feel
   what a battle is. So with regard to the love of God. You may give the
   history of it with the greatest accuracy, but when you have given it
   all, you do not know what it is unless you have really tasted and
   handled it in your

   own soul's experience! So that if I am to speak of this ointment, I
   know not where I shall find words. I must rather ask that you may have
   it shed abroad in your hearts.

   I think there is a way, too, of speaking of the love of God in such a
   manner as to get none of it I think that arguing over practical Gospel
   Truths is about the surest way of depriving you of the unction and the
   savor of them. I think we ought to treat Divine Truth very much as the
   true mother treated her child when they were before Solomon. Let us not
   rend it. But there are some who rend it anyway, as long as they can
   keep their share of it. Oh, yes, for a hair's breadth of a doctrine,
   for some infinitesimal point, for one Greek article, or a half a word,
   some men would mar the fellowship of the saints and drive away some of
   the best-beloved of God out of their communion! They are like the
   simpletons who, to find out who shall drink a jug of milk, spill it
   altogether and neither of them get a drop of it. They have some choice
   of rare fruit, but they trample it under their feet in a strife as to
   who should eat it! Let us beware of so doing with the love of God--and
   yet we have sometimes felt that we have handled themes connected with
   the love of God in such a controversial spirit as to take the bloom
   from the surface and the very juice from the grape.

   After all, dear Friends, the best we can say of the love of God is just
   this--you must know it and feel it for yourselves. But oh, the wondrous
   love! Angels marvel at it! To think that God should love His sinful
   creatures! You will marvel at it, even in Heaven! When you shall have
   grown accustomed to wonders, this will still strike you as being a
   great marvel. I believe you will--

   "Sing with rapture and surprise His loving kindness in the skies"

   and that when you have dived into the greatest deeps that your
   intellect can bear, you will find the wondrous depth of love both
   beneath and above you! When your faculties shall have been expanded to
   the heavenly size and you shall be elevated to become the peer of the
   angelic host, even thenyou shall feel that the love of God surpasses
   your powers of knowledge and comprehension!

   This, then, is all we will say concerning it, that the love of God is
   the precious ointment. But secondly, the text says--

   II. THIS LOVE OF GOD IS "SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS."

   What does this mean? Does it mean our merely knowing that God is Love?
   We must know that as a preliminary step, but oh, the shedding abroad of
   the love of God is vastly more than that! It does not mean merely
   prizing that love, the coming into a state of desiring after it. When
   we feel that it must be a precious thing to be beloved of God. That is
   a very proper state of mind, but it is not what is meant here. It is
   not even believing in the love of God. That is the Christian's
   privilege and should be his constant position--believing that God loves
   him, resting confident that even under affliction's cross the love of
   God is still the same--and that if God should hide His face, yet His
   heart is not changed. But the love of God shed abroad is more than
   that. It is not even the waiting for visits from God's face. It is a
   sweet thing to sit at Christ' s door and wait until He comes to us. If
   I may not feast at the table, I may be grateful to be allowed to hunger
   and thirst to do it! Next to having Christ, a real longing after Him is
   one of the most precious gifts of the Holy Spirit. But still, a great
   deal more than this is meant here. It is not even remembering former
   love-visits. That is often very consolatory--

   "Our former favors we recount When with Him on the holy mount."

   And we sometimes think on the Hermonites and the hill Mizar, and find
   great comfort in the thought that He did once shine upon us--He did
   once show His love to us and we rejoice greatly. But the shedding
   abroad of His love is more than this. It is not the remembrance of a
   thing, however precious, that is past and gone, but the deep enjoyment
   of something that is now present!

   What is it, then? Well, is it not just this? When the Holy Spirit
   brings home to our souls a sense of the love of God, we no longer
   entertain the slightest doubt--we are assured of God's love to us. We
   are now far past the range of questioning. It is no longer with us--

   "'Tis a point I long to know Oft it causes anxious thought."

   It is there and we know it is there! I called today upon a friend whose
   business calls him to the use of many perfumes. And I was shown into
   his little room where there were various articles with which the
   perfumes were made. Now, I can suppose him to lose one of those pots of
   perfume, but I cannot suppose him to lose it and not know where it is
   when it is shed abroad, for then he cannot help smelling it and
   perceiving it--and then he says, "Why, here it is--the room is filled
   with it." So when the love of God is shed abroad, you do not ask where
   it is! Your heart is filled with it. All your passions and powers are
   flavored and scented with it. It is not, "Where is it?" but, "Here it
   is!" Oh, the joy of saying, "Here it is!" If all the powers of earth
   and Hell combined say that God does not love me, I can deny and refute
   them all, for I feel that love shed abroad in my heart! It is a clear
   perception of the fact that God loves me as a believer in the Lord
   Jesus Christ! It is a persuasion of the Presence of the Holy Spirit, of
   the sealing of the Spirit, of the Spirit bearing witness with our
   spirit that we are born of God!

   And even more than that. It is a thing that we hardly need a witness
   about I t is a consciousness, a perception, of the love of God as it is
   shed abroad in our soul, so that this love of God being shed abroad
   seems to us to mean that it is deeply and intensely enjoyed. Treasure
   it up in the bottle and you do not enjoy the perfume--shed it abroad
   and then all the fragrance fills the room and every nostril is regaled.
   Oh, there are times when we are as full of Heaven as we can hold this
   side of the Jordan! And when we know Christ's love because He kisses us
   "with the kisses of His mouth" and we drink deep draughts of His love,
   it is better than wine! We do not look on at the feast--we feed! We do
   not admire the rich clusters--we take them and drink the nectar
   thereof! We do not look from Pisgah's brow, as did Moses, with the eyes
   of faith--we come to the woods that drop with honey and, like Jonathan,
   we dip our spear into it and feel that our eyes are enlightened as
   doves' eyes. Oh, Christian! You know what this means! You have had it
   in the prayer chamber when you have been alone with God! You have had
   it in the depth of trouble--some of you have had it on a sick bed, some
   in the furnace--and yet so manifestly was Christ with you there that
   the furnace glowed with joy as with the pain you felt! You rejoiced in
   Christ Jesus and as your tribulations abounded, so your consolations
   also abounded. The love of God was enjoyed by you--you felt it, you
   were ravished with it!

   Where the love of God is shed abroad, it fills the whole man. There are
   some perfumes which if you once spill but a few drops of them, you
   would not only know it yourself, but everybody else would know it, too.
   "Gently," said my friend, when he was showing me a certain perfume and
   I was going to pour out a drop, "if you do not want to smell of that
   for a month, do not do that," and as I did not particularly desire to
   smell of anything for so long a time as that, I kept my fingers off! If
   you could once get the love of God shed abroad in your heart, you would
   be flavored by it--and when it is once shed abroad, there, it will be
   there to all eternity! There will be no fear of its being taken away
   from us when it is once fully poured out in all its glorious efficacy
   into our hearts. You must have felt it, my Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, when from morning till night the whole day was full of the love
   of God! When you woke, you did not know how it was, but instead of a
   care and a fear about the day, you woke with a hymn, a verse, a
   comfortable promise, as though you had put a wafer made with honey
   between your lips when you went to sleep and it had been melting there
   till it had sweetened your mouth and your whole soul! And when you went
   downstairs, it did not matter whether things went cross or not--they
   seemed to you to go well all the day, for your will was, through this
   love of God, brought to His will--and that pleased you which pleased
   Him!

   You were very rich, today, not that you had more than formerly, but you
   had the love of God to sweeten all! You were today kept from using the
   tongue too freely--you did not need to speak about the great many
   things which once had engrossed your conversation because your
   meditation of Him was sweet and you wanted to speak with Him. That day
   persons noticed you--they could not help it. If your face did not
   shine, your conversation did! And if you met with any of God's people
   who had a spiritual taste to appreciate your conversation, they
   remembered that you dropped pearls of soul-enriching from your mouth,
   for you spoke as one who had "been with Jesus and learned of Him."

   Do you remember, too, locking up your heart at night and giving God the
   key? And then when you woke up remembering David's words, "When I wake
   I am still with You"? Perhaps you did not remain with Him long, but,
   whether longer or shorter, it was the best exposition that could have
   been given you of the meaning of our text, "The love of God shed abroad
   in your heart by the Holy Spirit."

   I know this, dear Friend, if you have ever known this, you will thirst
   and hunger after it again! This wine of Heaven is such that if a man
   drinks of it, the more he drinks, the more he needs. If you have ever
   eaten the Bread of Heaven, the

   bread of earth will never satisfy you! If you have ever eaten of the
   bread which drops from Heaven, and on which angels feed, the food of
   common mortals will have lost its sweetness for you! You have been made
   to feast at the "feast of fat things, full of marrow, and of wines on
   the lees well-refined"--you have been taken up from where men grovel
   and where you are, yourself, now groveling--and on the wings of eagles
   you have been made to mount into a clearer atmosphere! And you will
   feel heavily oppressed in the dense smoke of this world and you will be
   wanting to be away with Christ again. Perhaps you are singing--

   "Ah, woe is me that I In Meshech sojourn long! That I in tents do
   dwell, To Kedar which belong!'

   But it shall not always be so. You shall soon see His face if you seek
   after Him and again shall the "love of God be shed abroad in your
   hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." And now, may God
   help us, while for a few minutes we go over what we have said, and
   ponder--

   III. THE RESULTS OF THIS LOVE BEING SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS.

   I have anticipated some of these already, but we remind ourselves more
   definitely that the love of God in our hearts sweetens everything. It
   sweetens our duties and they become privileges--

   "'Tis love that makes our willing feet In swift obedience move."

   Oh, when you feel that God loves you, how you can watch and pray! Then
   you can fight and wrestle! "All things are possible to him that
   believes," and more than all is possible to him that loves! When the
   heart gets the love of God in it, it--

   "Laughs at impossibilities, And cries, 'It shall be done!"

   A Believer may have the most desperate enterprises and they may involve
   the most serious self-denial, but they will be accomplished with
   readiness when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart. It sweetens
   all our trials. Trials are scarcely trials when we see them coming from
   a Father's hand. The gardener wept, you know, when he found that his
   choicest rose had been cut. But when he knew that it was the Master who
   had taken it, he wept no more, for the Master had a right to it. There
   are no murmurings in the heart of him who can say, "The Lord gave and
   the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And,
   Beloved, it sweetens, I am certain, all our pursuits. We are very apt
   to think that our engagements in the world are too humble, too
   obscure--and then they become a drudgery when we think so. Do you not
   know that Jesus counts the very hairs of your head and He seems to
   intimate by that, that your very humblest pursuits are the objects of
   His careful observation? He knows where you are, whatyou are and what
   you have to do--and He knows how to sweeten it all! But when the love
   of God is shed abroad in the heart, how cheerfully the poor woman, with
   her eyes all weary and red, plies her needle and how the hard-toiling
   man finds his load grow light! Poverty seems to grow rich and the hut
   and the hovel seem to grow into a mansion--and even rags seem to
   glisten like robes when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart!
   Have you never heard how the martyrs used to sing at the stakes? Why
   was it? Not because the fire was made of roses--they did not find the
   firewood to be less hot to them than they would have been to
   others--but it was because the love of God was shed abroad in their
   hearts and, therefore, they could endure all things for Christ's sake,
   seeing that love was theirs. It sweetens all.

   Then again, it overpowers all other things. There are some perfumes
   that if they were let loose in a room, would overpower and kill all
   others. There may be other sweet scents in the chamber, but just unstop
   this bottle and now where are they? They are all swallowed up, as
   Aaron's rod swallowed up Egypt's rods! When the love of Jesus fills our
   souls we have love towards our dear friends and relatives--God forbid
   that we should not! But still, the love we have to Jesus seems to
   swallow them all up--His love towers above all other loves, like some
   mighty Alp above molehills! Best of all, when this love masters the
   soul, it kills all evil loves. During cholera times, people are very
   anxious to get something that will destroy all noxious vapors and bad
   smells. Ah, there is many a bad odor in our hearts! There is the old
   swamp of natural depravity which is capable of spreading death and
   destruction every time we encounter it. But when the love of God is
   shed abroad in the heart, how effectually it kills this! Then the love
   of sin dies! The loving principle within subdues and

   tramples underfoot all lusts and all corruption--and we rejoice in the
   Lord Jesus Christ and are not daunted by the conflict we feel within.
   This love kills all evil. And how blessedly it destroys all doubt! As I
   have said, when you are smelling a perfume you cannot doubt but that it
   is there. If you go into a field at this time of the year, you might
   walk all down a path and not know that there was any game there, but as
   soon as ever the partridges begin to fly, or the hares begin to run,
   you know immediately that there is game there because you can see it.
   So when our graces are slumbering and we do not know that they are
   there, as soon as ever they get into active exercise, then we discover
   them and we are sure of them! So is it with the love of God. When it
   has been slumbering in our hearts, we have had some doubt--but when it
   is poured out and shed abroad--its fragrance fills the entire man and
   then doubts and fears are given to the winds!

   And where this perfume is, once more, it is quite sure to communicate
   itself from the man, instrumentally, to his fellows. He who has been in
   beds of spices will smell, thereof, and they who sit with their Lord
   will bear away some tokens of His companionship. All the ways of the
   Lord Jesus are full of perfume, because "His garments smell of myrrh,
   and aloes, and cassia." And when your garments smell of the same,
   through having been with Him, you will communicate something of the
   savor, instrumentally, to those whom you meet. God grant you Grace to
   seek this as a holy ambition, that, having the love of God in your
   hearts, it may be as when one has a candle lit and others bring their
   candles to his, and he imparts the light, for it makes him none the
   poorer, while they rejoice therein. And now, to conclude, I think we
   all who love the Lord desire to feel His love shed abroad in our
   hearts, but we sometimes mourn because we do not feel it. What, then,
   is

   IV. THE REASON WHY WE DO NOT FEEL THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD IN OUR
   HEARTS? May it not be, Brothers and Sisters, because we have restrained
   prayer?The common sin of God's people is slackness in prayer. If there
   is one sin that needs to be preached about more than another just now,
   it is the sin of the omission of secret dealings with God. This is the
   secret of our spiritual leanness, the secret of many of our trials, of
   our lack of joy, our loss of confidence in God.

   Neglect the prayer chamber? Why, the merchant might as well neglect his
   office and counting house! This is the place where you will be
   impoverished if you neglect it. I am persuaded more and more the longer
   I observe myself, and certainly the longer I observe others, that when
   we grow weak on our knees, it is a sign of weakness throughout the
   entire man. How can you expect to know much of the love of God if you
   will not go with Him? If you give no time to meditation, if you have no
   season for searching the Scriptures, if you have no periods for
   communion with God, why wonder if you should miss enjoyment with Him?

   I am persuaded, too, that a great many of us lose a good deal through
   neglecting the means of Grace. I do not think that this applies to the
   most of you as a congregation. I believe there are none who frequent
   the assembling of themselves altogether as much as you do. I have no
   cause to complain. There are some of you who are always here as often
   as the doors are opened--and Prayer Meeting and Lecture Nights are no
   burden to you. You come with willing feet to meet with your God. But it
   is not so with some professors. Step into most of the places of worship
   in London and look at the weeknight service--and in some country places
   they have to give up theirs because there are not enough to come to
   make it worth their while to hold such meetings. There is a sad
   deficiency in some places of a love of the means of Grace. There are
   some professors who, when they get by the seaside, or a little away in
   the country, are always glad of an excuse not to go out to hear the
   Word of God. They know but little of the emotion of David when he
   counted that to be a dry and thirsty land when he could not go up to
   the public worship of God! Brothers and Sisters, we must use the means
   of Grace or else, as we despise them, we must not expect a blessing! We
   must dig the well when we go through the valley of Baca. We must not
   depend upon that well, for it does not, in this case, fill from the
   bottom--it is filled from above! But still, the well must be dug. There
   must be our gracious exertions and then there shall come the Divine
   blessing.

   May we not also say that many Christians lose much joyous fellowship
   with Christ because of idleness?Christ is a worker. If we are idlers,
   we shall not have communion with Him. "The Father," says He, "works
   hitherto, and I work." If your possessions are unconsecrated, if your
   talents are unused, if your time is misspent, you cannot wonder if the
   Lord Jesus Christ should give you the whip! The "whip is for the ass,
   and the rod for the fool's back." Idle Christians must expect to feel
   the whip or the rod, but if we will do what we may for Christ, we shall
   have sweet consolation in the doing of it, and the love of God shall be
   shed abroad in our hearts!

   Worldliness, too, is a bar to the shedding abroad of the love of God in
   our hearts. Those who do as worldlings do, who can be amused and
   interested as they are, must not wonder if the love of God is not shed
   abroad in their hearts. I am very far from desiring to keep Christians
   from certain places of amusement where the amusement is simple, and
   only such as may be derived from social fellowship, science, music and
   so on. But I am satisfied that the frequenting of such places, even the
   very best, must be unfavorable to the piety of the very best Christian.
   You will gain but very little compared with the risk you run of losing
   very much! If these things charm you, it is not likely that Christ will
   charm you longer. If you get worldly, you cannot be spiritual at the
   same time.

   Is it not, also, very probable that our little faith prevents this love
   of God from being shed abroad in our hearts? If we trusted Christ more
   and honored Him more by resting upon the faithful love of His Father,
   would we not find His love shed abroad in us?

   And may it not also be our ingratitude as to past favors We have not
   thanked God enough for the comfortable seasons that we have enjoyed
   and, therefore, He keeps us hungering until we thank Him for what He
   did in days gone by.

   And, dear Friends, is it not because we do not sincerely seek
   conformity to the likeness of our Savior, that we have not, as we
   might, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts? It is even this, my
   Brothers and Sisters, it is even this! If you have ever known the
   sweetness of the love of Christ, you understand that I cannot
   exaggerate when I praise it. It is the sweetest, best and happiest
   thing of which a mortal can sing. It is a bliss which angels might
   envy--the sense of the love of God in a man or woman's heart! Then how
   is it that you and I can endure to be without it? The true wife would
   be grieved, indeed, if she had a doubt as to her husband's love--she
   could not be happy unless she could have an assurance of being its
   possessor. And oh, how is it that we can bear ourselves when we are
   saying, "Does He love me?" How is it we can endure, as some professors
   do, day after day, not to have a word from His lips, or a smile from
   His countenance? Do we really love Him, or is it all mere talk? Has our
   heart any deep affection for Him, or is it only formal profession? Have
   we caught it up from others? Have we stirred merely natural emotions in
   ourselves and then thought we loved Him? Oh, I do hope we may say, "It
   is not so, we do love Him! We would be very wretched if we did not. We
   might sooner wish to die than cease to love Him. He is the Chief among
   ten thousand to our hearts--we feel He is."

   Oh, then, without making vows and resolutions which we shall soon
   break, let us pray, "Oh, Savior, shed abroad Your love in our hearts by
   the Holy Spirit! Oh, God the Father, reveal Yourself in all the
   fullness of Your love to us now and we may never lose a sense of it,
   but have it abiding with us forever!" What a Church would this be if we
   all had fellowship with Christ! Oh, how trivial would the world's
   troubles become! We would then go on serving the Master like seraphs. I
   think we would scarcely rest day nor night, but be always praising and
   blessing His dear name! This place would be a paradise! We would have
   to bless God so continually and our songs might rival those before the
   Throne of God! "The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak,"
   but, "we have a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling of our
   infirmities." Let us draw near to Him with confidence and let this be
   the burden of our prayer, "Abide with me! Continue with me, for Your
   love's sake, Amen."
     __________________________________________________________________

"Take Away the Frogs"

   (No. 3340)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord,
   that He may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will
   let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." Exodus
   8:8.

   When it pleases God by His judgments to humble men, He is never at a
   loss for means--He can use lions or lice, famines or flies. In the
   armory of God there are weapons of every kind, from the stars in their
   courses down to caterpillars in their hosts. The dust of the earth, out
   of which man is formed, will at God's command forget its kinship and
   overwhelm a caravan, while the waters will forsake their channels,
   invade the tops of the mountains and drown a rebellious race. When the
   Lord contends against proud men, He has but to lift His finger and
   countless legions throng around Him, all loyal to their Lord and
   valiant for His name! Know you not that the beasts of the field are His
   servants and the stones of the street obey His bidding? Every wave
   worships Him and every wind knows its Lord. If you would war against
   Him, it would be well for you to know what His forces are--consider the
   battle--do no more.

   In the case before us Jehovah has to deal with Pharaoh and He humbles
   him by frogs. Strange! Amazing! One would have thought that such
   despicable means would never have been used. The Lord began with the
   proud monarch by turning the waters into blood, but it may be that
   Pharaoh said in his heart, "What a great man I am! If Jehovah comes
   forth against me, He must needs work a terrible miracle in order to
   conquer." He goes his way to his house unhumbled. This time the Lord
   will deal with him in another style. I grant you that the conflict was
   still sublime in the truest sense, but in Pharaoh's estimation the
   croaking frogs which came up from all the banks of the Nile were a mean
   sort of adversary! From every reservoir and marsh they marched up in
   countless hordes, entering into his chamber and coming upon his bed and
   his kneading trough. He could neither sleep nor eat, nor walk abroad
   without encountering the loathsome reptiles. The Lord seemed by this to
   say, "Who are you that I should do great things to conquer you? I will
   even vanquish you by frogs."

   There was a suitableness in God's choosing the frogs to humble Egypt's
   king, because frogs were worshipped by that nation as emblems of the
   Deity. Images of a certain frog-headed goddess were placed in the
   catacombs and frogs, themselves, were preserved with sacred honors.
   These are your gods, O Egypt! You shall have enough of them! Pharaoh
   himself shall pay a new reverence to these reptiles. As the true God is
   everywhere present around us--in our bedchambers and in our streets, so
   shall Pharaoh find every place filled with what he chooses to call
   Divine! Is it not a just way of dealing with Him?

   The Lord has sure ways of reaching the hearts of proud men and if He
   does not use frogs, today, He can use other means, for He has servants
   everywhere prepared for each emergency. He knows how to reach the rich
   and make them sit by the wayside, like Belisarius, begging for food.
   The strong and healthy man, He can soon place among the invalids and
   make him cry like a sick girl, "Give me a drink, Titinius." Your
   children are about you today--your pride and joy--but He can make you
   childless in an hour. His arrows can pierce through a sevenfold harness
   of steel--no man is so encompassed as to be beyond the reach of the
   Almighty! Let me speak of Pharaoh by way of observation and I will
   begin by remarking that--

   I. IN SORE TROUBLE, THE SERVANTS OF THE LORD ARE GREATLY VALUED.

   "Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron." The frogs had taught him
   good manners and he longs to see the ministers of the Lord. How is
   this? The man was somewhat brought to his senses--and when this
   happens, men begin to value those whom they aforetime despised. Listen
   to this story. There came a man of God to Bethel where king Jeroboam
   was

   setting up the golden calves and he began to cry against the altar.
   Then Jeroboam stretched forth his hand and cried, "Lay hold upon him."
   In a moment the rebel's right arm withered, and hung by his side,
   useless! Then he turned to the man of God, whom he was about to arrest,
   and said, "Entreat the Lord for me." Thus have persecutors been forced
   to crouch at the feet of those whom they would have destroyed! Another
   story will set forth the same truth. King Saul had been forsaken of God
   and the Philistines pressed hard upon him. In his extremity he resorted
   to a woman who professed to deal with the spirits of the dead. With
   whom would he speak? He cries, "Bring me up Samuel." Samuel was the man
   who had most sternly rebuked him! One would have thought that Samuel
   was the last person he would wish to see, but in his need, he asks for
   no one else but Samuel. When ungodly men get into straits, how they
   wish they could consult with one who has gone home, against whom they
   pointed many a jest. They never say, "Bring me up the jolly fellow who
   filled and quaffed the bowl with me." In their tribulation they think
   not of such. They never cry, "Bring me up the wanton with whom I
   sported in sin, that I may again enjoy her company." No, in their
   distress they desire other advisers--they would rather cry, "Bring me
   up my holy mother! Oh, for a sight of her dear, loving face as I saw it
   on her dying bed, when she urged me to follow her to Heaven! Bring me
   up that old friend whom I ridiculed when I turned aside from the ways
   of God! Oh, for an hour with the man of God whom once I scorned!" Do
   you not see that it is the old tale repeated--Pharaoh, when his
   troubles are multiplied, calls for Moses and Aaron!

   This is also to be accounted for by the fact that God puts a mysterious
   honor upon His faithful servants. The painters place halos about the
   heads of the Bible saints--there were no such crowns of light upon
   them, literally, and yet within the legend there slumbers a great
   truth. He who leads an upright, holy, gracious life has a power about
   him which impresses the beholder--his presence in an ungodly company
   has an influence on wicked men like that of Zephon, of whom Milton
   sings in Paradise Lost To the great fallen angel his presence was a
   rebuke. God hedges the good with a dignity which men feel even when
   they are not conscious of it. It was so in the case before us. Moses
   was made to be as a god unto Pharaoh. Pharaoh had said, "Get you unto
   your burdens," addressing Moses and Aaron as if they were slaves! But
   now he sends for them and entreats their prayers on his behalf! This
   was like the case of Joseph. His brothers hated him and sold him for a
   slave--but how different the scene when they bowed before him and
   trembled as he said, "I am Joseph!" The archers had shot at him and
   wounded him, but still his bow abode in strength!

   Remember, too, Jeremiah, whom Zedekiah, the king, treated with great
   indignity till the Babylonians had surrounded the city--and then he
   sent to him and said, "Enquire, I pray you, of the Lord for us." Our
   Lord describes an instance still more remarkable. It belongs to the
   next world, but the same principles rule in all worlds. A poor saint
   was laid at a rich man's door, full of sores. He begged for the crumbs
   that fell from the rich man's table, "moreover, the dogs came and
   licked his sores." The rich man, clothed with purple and fine linen,
   took small note of this saint of God. But what a change happened on a
   day when the beggar died and was carried by angels into Abraham's
   bosom--and the rich man also died and was buried! In Hell the rich man
   lifted up his eyes, and Lazarus had honor before him, for he begged
   that Lazarus might be sent to cool his burning tongue with the tip of
   his finger dipped in water. They had changed places, for God had
   crowned His poor servant with glory and honor! The halo was around the
   head of Lazarus most assuredly.

   A light shone upon the face of Moses and a glory settled upon the brow
   of Jesus. "Such honor have all the saints" in a spiritual sense--and
   the proudest of men shall be made to know it!

   Once more, let me note that this honor is doubtless set on saints that
   they may be of service to ungodly men. God intends, by their means, to
   bless the penitent. When it was wheat harvest and a thunderstorm came
   because Israel desired a king, you remember that while peal on peal the
   dread artillery of God was heard, the people trembled and besought
   Samuel the Prophet to pray for them. And he said, "God forbid that I
   should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you." Holy Samuel's
   prayer was heard for them!

   Much later an earthquake shook the foundations of a prison and loosed
   the bands of the prisoners. Then the jailer woke up in his fright and
   feared that his prisoners had escaped--and that he should have to die
   for it--but there stood Paul, the man whom he had thrust into the inner
   prison, and whose feet he had made fast in the stocks! And the jailer,
   trembling before him, cried out, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
   The answer was given. He was directed to believe and to be
   baptized--and the jailer and his house were saved! If God's servants
   are treated with scorn and harshness they need not fear, for they are
   put just where they are, that unconverted men may be blessed by their
   agency. Like Moses to

   Pharaoh, saints will yet have to say, "Glory over me. I will pray for
   you, or teach you, so that I may but lead you to the

   Savior."

   It is clear that in times of trouble godly men and women are at a
   premium! Secondly, with ungodly men--

   II. IN TIMES OF SORE TRIAL PRAYER ALSO BEGINS TO BE VALUABLE.

   Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, "Entreat the Lord."
   Pharaoh begs an interest in the prayers of good men--this is a fine
   change since the day wherein he said, "Who is Jehovah that I should
   obey His voice?"

   When men are sick and near to die, they send for us to pray with them.
   That old philosopher, Bion, showed much wisdom in his biting sarcasm.
   He was on shipboard and found that among the passengers there were
   certain foul-mouthed desperadoes. While they were venting all manner of
   abominations, a storm came on, and they began to pray! Then Bion cried
   out to them, "Hold your tongues, for if the gods only know that you are
   here, they will sink the vessel! Be quiet, lest your prayers should be
   our ruin." One's thoughts have taken somewhat of that form when we have
   seen men fulfilling the old adage--

   "When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be."

   Such prayers are too often an insult to the holiness of God!

   Why is it that reprobates take to praying when they are in deep
   trouble? Frequently superstition moves them. They regard a prayer as a
   spell or magical charm. So in their folly they send for a minister and
   cry, "Entreat the Lord for me!" Among many Londoners, so dense is this
   superstition that after a poor soul is dead, I have heard relatives
   say, "We sent for the minister and he came and prayed to him." Mark
   that word, "prayed to him"! Does not this discover the ignorance and
   superstition of the people? They do not know the design and object of
   prayer. This superstition needs to be spoken of with great truthfulness
   and fidelity.

   In certain instances the man's hope in prayer is the result of a
   condemning faith. There is a justifying faith and a condemning faith.
   "What?" you say, "does faith ever condemn men?" Yes, when men have
   faith enough to know that there is a God who sends judgments upon them,
   that nothing can remove those judgments but the hand that sent them and
   that prayer moves that hand--there are persons who yet never pray,
   themselves, but eagerly cry to friends, "Entreat the Lord for me." That
   is a measure of faith which goes to increase a man's condemnation,
   since he ought to know that if what he believes is true, then the
   proper thing is to pray himself! It would have been a wonderfully good
   sign if Pharaoh had said, "Join with me, O Moses and Aaron, while I
   pray unto Jehovah that He may take the frogs from me." But, no, he had
   only a condemning faith which contented itself with other men's
   prayers!

   In many instances this desire for prayer is one of the movements of the
   Spirit upon the heart of man. When a poor, afflicted man, in the depth
   of poverty, struck with consumption or laid aside by some other deadly
   disease, desires that a minister would come and pray with him, we will
   never treat such a wish with neglect. While it is our duty to expose
   the superstition which often lurks beneath the wish, we also hope that
   some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel may dwell in it. It is,
   perhaps, the prodigal saying, "I will arise and go unto my Father, and
   I will inquire the way home." I hope it is so.

   Take warning, you that do not pray--you will yet need to pray! There
   will come a time to the most of you when you will not be able to bear
   yourselves without crying unto God. May God, in His Infinite Mercy lead
   you to begin at once! For when it can be said of you, "Behold, he
   prays," it will be the best of news! Beginning to pray is the turning
   point of life! Why not at once set a high price upon that which in
   times of trouble you will seek for with tears? Our third observation is
   this--

   III. IN SORE TROUBLE THE PRAYER IS OFTEN A WRONG ONE.

   The petitions which men offer when they are in distress are often wrong
   prayers. Pharaoh said, "Entreat the Lord, that He may take away the
   frogs from me."

   A fatal flaw is manifest in that prayer. It contains no confession of
   sin. He says not, "I have rebelled against the Lord. Entreat that I may
   find forgiveness!" Nothing of the kind--he loves sin as much as ever. A
   prayer without penitence is a prayer without acceptance. If no tear has
   fallen upon it, it is withered. You must come to God as a sinner
   through a Savior, but by no other way. He that comes to God like the
   Pharisee, with, "God, I thank You that I am not as other men

   are," never draws near to God at all! But he that cries, "God be
   merciful to me, a sinner," has come to God by the way which God has,
   Himself, appointed! There must be a confession of sin before God or our
   prayer is faulty.

   Pharaoh's prayer dealt only with the punishment''Take away the frogs!
   Take away the frogs! Take away the frogs!" That is his one cry. So we
   hear the sick exclaim, "Oh, Sir, pray that I may get well." The
   drunkard begs that he may be helped out of his poverty. The impenitent
   sinner cries, "Pray that my child may not be taken from me." It is not
   wrong to pray, "Take away the frogs." We should all have prayed so if
   we had been surrounded by such pests. The evil is that this was the
   whole of his prayer. He said not, "Take away my sins," but, "Take away
   the frogs." He did not cry, "Lord, take away my heart of stone," but
   only, "Take away the frogs." Perhaps I am addressing those who are in
   poverty, sickness, or distress and all they are crying about is, "Lord,
   take away the frogs! Deliver me from my poverty, my trouble, my hunger,
   my disgrace, my punishment!" Now, if you have brought yourself into
   evil by a vicious life, your prayer must not be, "Take away the disease
   and the poverty," but "Take away the sin." The drunkard's prayer must
   not be, "Lord, take away the result of my intoxication," but, "Remove
   from me the poisoned cup." Lay the axe at the root and cry, "Lord, take
   the sin away." Alas, most of the prayers of men in trouble are only
   like Pharaoh's selfish prayer, "Take away the frogs." The Lord did hear
   his petition, but nothing came of it. The frogs were gone, but flies
   came immediately after and all sorts of plagues followed in rapid
   succession--and his heart was still hardened.

   When ungodly men are under a sense of Divine Wrath they turn not to God
   aright--their prayer is devoid of spiritual requests. When Cain had
   murdered his brother, did he express a regret? No. He only murmured,
   "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Esau sold his birthright.
   Did he repent of the sin of having been a profane person, and seek
   pardon carefully? Not he! He sought carefully with tears to get back
   his birthright, but he found no place for repentance in his father
   Isaac! The blessing had gone to Jacob and on Jacob it must remain.
   Another telling case is that of Simon Magus. When Peter told him that
   he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, he
   replied, "Pray you to the Lord for me that none of these things which
   you have spoken come upon me"--that was all he cared about. He
   expressed no desire to be delivered from his evil way, but only to be
   screened from the consequences of it! Every knave cries out against
   punishment--but he is attaining to honesty who entreats to be freed
   from his pilfering habits! Our last remark is that--

   IV. THE SINNER IN HIS SORE TROUBLES IS VERY APT TO MAKE GREAT PROMISES.

   Pharaoh cried, "Take away the frogs and I will let the people go, that
   they may do sacrifice unto the Lord." In this way one of you talked
   when you were down with fever, or when you were likely to lose your
   employment through your folly. You said, "Please God, if You let me
   escape this once, I will be a very different man." Such promises are
   generally boastful. Notice here the proud language of Pharaoh. "I will
   let the people go." He does not long talk in this fashion, but now he
   is a great king and he gives his royal word, "I will let the people
   go." Some folks are very big when they promise God, "Iwill do this and
   I will do that." But you cannot, my Friend! You reply that you are
   going to have a new heart and a right spirit. Are you looking to create
   them yourself? You talk as if you were! I think you said that you were
   going to "turn over a new leaf," but a new leaf in a bad book may be
   worse than the old leaf! But you are going to be entirely new, are you?
   Are you to do all this yourself? You are greatly mistaken--true
   conversion does not begin by talking of what "I' will do! It begins in
   casting ourselves upon the Lord and begging Him to work all our works
   in us!

   But this man's promises were all a lie. I daresay that for the moment
   he meant them--but he did not keep his word, for he did not let the
   people go. "When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his
   heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said." Has not that
   been the case with many others? You promised "faithfully," as you said.
   You pledged yourself that it would be so, but it is not so. Stand still
   awhile and hear a message from the Lord--"You have not lied unto men,
   but you have lied unto God." Let that sentence pierce the innermost
   heart of your conscience! "You have lied unto God." Remember Ananias
   and Sapphira and what followed upon their falsehood? Be astonished that
   it has not followed upon yours, for you made the promise before
   witnesses in the Presence of the Lord Himself!

   Mark well that in all this, Pharaoh increased his guilt His vows heaped
   up his transgressions. He forgot his promises, but God did not. They
   were laid by in store against him--and the blows of God upon him fell
   heavier and heavier until, at last, Jehovah drowned him and his chosen
   captains in the Red Sea! Oh, Sirs, if God comes to deal with you in
   this fashion, what will become of you? Your promises are filed in
   Heaven to be witnesses against you! God reaches out these promises of
   yours at this hour and holds them up before your eyes. And what does
   your conscience say? If you had

   promised a kind friend and broken your word, it would have been base
   enough, but you have been ungrateful to your God in whose hands your
   breath is, and whose are all your ways! Let a sense of guilt overwhelm
   you and, in the name of Jesus Christ, ask mercy of your God!

   I will tell you how God deals with His own children and then leave you
   to infer how He will deal with you if you are not His children. A
   certain man, to all appearances, feared God. Yes, and did so with a
   sincere heart. He was once an earnest Christian, a member of the Church
   and a worker in the service--faithful to his light and fervent in
   spirit--but he grew cold. He had a farm and it occupied nearly all his
   time. He was filled with an intense desire to grow rich and, therefore,
   he devoted his attention to his business till he grew colder and colder
   in Divine things--and the means of Grace on the weekdays were forsaken.
   Work for God was dropped, communion with God ceased and the religious
   professor became to all appearance an utter worldling. But yet he was a
   child of God and this is how his Father restored him. He took from him
   the wife of his youth, to whom his heart was knit. But this made him
   more worldly than before because his wife had been a great help to him
   in the farm--but now she was gone--so he must stick to it more than
   ever! Nothing came of the first chastisement except increased sin. He
   had only one son, for whom he was saving up his money and working his
   business--and he saw that son cut down with consumption, like his
   mother. This also made him still more worldly. It ought to have brought
   him to his knees, but it did not. He carried on the practice of prayer,
   but with little heart. He said, "Now, my dear son, who was such a
   comfort to me, has gone, I can hardly get out on Sundays at all. I must
   look after the cows and attend to the stock." So he sank deeper in the
   mire.

   Then the Lord began to deal with him in another way. He had a bad
   season and lost money farming, careful as he was. Next year was worse,
   and the cattle plague emptied his stalls. He was brought down to
   poverty. He could scarcely keep the farm, for he could not pay the
   rent. Still he did not yield. He had tender moments now and then, but
   he was usually hard, for he felt that God was dealing severely with
   him. He felt angry against God and stuck to his business more than
   ever, while the things of God were forgotten. Then the Lord took His
   erring child more closely in hand than before, and sent him an
   incurable disease in his body. The worldly farmer lay upon a sick bed
   fretting about his business--he did not turn to the Lord even then!
   Last of all, his house took fire and as the barn and the ricks and the
   house were all ablaze and all that he had was going, they carried him
   out into the open air upon the bed from which he could not stir, and he
   was heard to say, "Blessed be the Lord! Blessed be the Lord! I am cured
   at last." But, dear Friends, nothing would cure him till everything was
   gone from him! Was not that a pity? He was saved so as by fire. He
   would be "as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, whose
   mouth must be held in with bit and bridle" and, therefore, he had to
   suffer for it. I pray you do not copy him. People of God, do not make
   rods for your own backs in that way! Do not drive your heavenly Father
   to hard measures.

   But oh, you ungodly, if He will deal thus with His children, how will
   He deal with you who are not His children? If He means to bless you, He
   will not let you go unpunished, but He will smite you with heavy
   strokes. I remember one who used to bless God for a broken leg--he said
   that he never ran in the ways of God until he was lame. I believe that
   some parents never loved the heavenly Father till their dear infant
   child was taken away. The shepherd tried to get the mother sheep into
   the fold, but she would not come, so he took up her lamb and carried it
   away in his arms--and then the mother followed him! He has done that to
   some of you. You would never have come to Christ if dear little Johnny
   had not gone Home to Jesus. You lost one and another for that same
   purpose--have you not had enough strokes? You have been smitten till
   your "whole head is sick and your whole heart faint." Will you not turn
   unto your God without more ado? His blows are sent in mercy! It is far
   better that you should have a Hell here than Hell hereafter! It were
   better for you to live a lifelong agony than to be cast into Hell
   forever! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! He
   died for sinners--died for aggravating, guilty, willful sinners! And if
   they look to Him, they shall at once be forgiven! I cannot give the
   look of faith for you, or I would gladly do so, but I beseech you to
   look and live! May God the Holy Spirit lead you to do so, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITIONS BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS3:1-14; ROMANS 9:1-25.

   This Chapter in Exodus tells of the appearance of God to Moses in the
   Wilderness. Has He departed from us, Brothers and Sisters? He used to
   be seen by godly souls by mount and stream and sea--and even bushes
   were alive and blazing with the indwelt Godhead! Oh, that He would
   reveal Himself to us tonight! I am going to read this Chapter with this
   longing in my heart. I pray that the same longing may be in the heart
   of every child of God--"Show me Your face: show me Your face, my God,
   tonight!"

   Verse 1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the
   priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back side of the desert,
   and came to the Mountain of God, even to Horeb. There is nothing
   dishonorable about common trade and matters of business at all. Here is
   a shepherd who keeps his flock--and God keeps him and reveals Himself
   to him. When God wants a man to lead His people, He seeks for him not
   among idlers, but busy, active men. And God was pleased to show Himself
   more to Moses, as a shepherd, than He had ever shown Himself to him as
   a prince in Egypt. I find no glowing Deity in the halls of Pharaoh, but
   I find the Consuming Fire manifested in the lone wastes of the Sinai
   Desert!

   2. And the Angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out
   of the midst of a bush: and he looked and, behold, the bush burned with
   fire, and the bush was not consumed. Well might it say, "Behold." I
   have seen a bush set alight by a match. It blazed in a moment, but it
   was gone in another moment! It burned up fiercely and hastily. But God
   was pleased to make a poor consumable bush to be the unharmed place of
   His abiding. He dwells today in the Human Person of the Savior. The
   Godhead is in Christ. He dwells today in the Church which might well
   enough be consumed by His Presence--but it is not. He can come and
   dwell in my heart and in yours, tonight, and yet we shall bear the
   Presence of Deity to the hour of our death! He has a way of so throwing
   Himself into our feebleness that it becomes strong--and that which
   might otherwise have been destroyed, is even preserved by His Presence!
   The bush burned with fire and was not consumed.

   3, 4. AndMoses said, I will now turn aside, andsee this great sight,
   why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside
   to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said,
   Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. Oh, that personal call--that
   voice from God to the heart! How much we need it. Do you not remember
   when first the Lord called some of you? Then He says to you tonight, "I
   have called you by My name. You are Mine." Acknowledge that sweet
   impeachment, confess that you are His and say to Him, "For suffering or
   for service, here am I ready, yes ready, even as Moses was. Here am I."

   5. And He said, Draw not near here: take your shoes from off your feet,
   for the place where you stand is holy ground. Stand as a servant stands
   in the presence of his master in the East. He is not expected to wear,
   in the court of his master, the shoes which have trodden in the mire of
   the world. Now, put away your cares, put away your carnal thoughts, put
   away yourself, put away your sins. When God is near, solemnity and deep
   reverence become us. "The place where you stand is holy ground."

   6. Moreover He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham,
   the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he
   was afraid to look upon God. You need not hide your face if God shall
   appear to you, though I am sure you will do it. You may come boldly. It
   is your Father's face! It is the face of One who is reconciled to you
   in Christ. Therefore open your eyes and look--and may the Lord show
   Himself to you!

   7. And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people
   which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
   taskmasters; for I know their sorrows. Now, you troubled ones, are not
   these verses real music to you? God has seen your afflictions--there
   are God's eyes! God has heard your cry--there are God's ears. "I know
   their sorrows." There is God's mighty understanding. He is thinking
   about you. He knows all that which tries you tonight.

   10. "Comenow therefore"--This was a very extraordinary thing to follow
   after all that. God has seen the affliction of His people. What then?
   Does He say, "I am come down to deliver them"? What then? Why, the next
   thing is that He is going to use this trembling man who stands
   awe-struck with his shoes off in the presence of the still burning
   bush! "Come now, therefore"--

   10. And I will send you unto Pharaoh, that you may bring forth My
   people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. You have been praying for
   a blessing. God is going to give it through you. You have been looking
   east and west and north and south for some deliverer that shall win
   souls and stir up the Church. God calls you to do it! He invites you to
   under-

   take this gigantic service and I think that I see the color come into
   your face and then fly away again! You are ready to faint at the
   thought of such a charge laid upon you!

   11. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh,
   and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? Now,
   catch this--

   12. And He said, Certainly I will be with you. What more does Moses
   need? He said, "Who am I?" This showed his weakness. God said, "Never
   mind who you are. Certainly I will be with you." Here was strength
   enough for him!

   12. And this shall be a token unto you, that Ihave sentyou: When you
   have brought forth thepeople out ofEgypt, you shall serve God upon this
   mountain. And he did! You know how Sinai trembled while God made it His
   Throne and how Moses must have been strengthened when he did
   exceedingly fear and quake before God when he remembered that this same
   God had appeared to him when he was alone in the desert--and had
   promised that they should worship Him there.

   13. Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when Icome to the children of
   Israel and say to them, The God ofyour fathers has sent me to you, and
   they say to me, What is His name? what shall I say to them?

   14. God said unto Moses, I AM WHO I AM. That is His name--The Infinite,
   Eternal and Unchangeable God!

   14. And He said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, I AM
   has sent me unto you. Oh, what a glorious commission--to receive it
   direct from the self-existent God, who is the same forever and ever,
   and only has immortality! Speak to us tonight, you great I AM, JAH,
   Jehovah, God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Speak to this company
   in this House of Prayer tonight, because of Jesus, Joshua, Jehoshua,
   Jehovah, Jesus. I have tried to show you how that name of Jesus has the
   name "Jehovah" hidden away in it. Because of Him, draw near to us, O
   Lord!

   ROMANS9:1-25. The Jews thought that God must certainly save them. They
   thought they had a birth claim. Were they not the children of Abraham?
   Surely they had some right to it. This Chapter battles the question of
   right. No man has any right to the Grace of God. The terms are
   inconsistent. There can be no right to that which is free favor. We are
   all condemned criminals, and if pardoned, it must be as the result of
   pure mercy, absolute mercy, for there is no good in any one of us!

   Verses 1, 2. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
   bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit that Ihave great heaviness and
   continual sorrow in my heart. He never thought about his unbelief,
   Brothers and Sisters, without the deepest imaginable regret. How far is
   this from the spirit of those who look upon the ungodly without
   tears--settle it down as a matter that cannot be altered and take it as
   a question of hard fate--but are never troubled about it! Not so the
   Apostle. He had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart.

   3. For I could wish that I, myself, were accursed from Christ for my
   brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. He had just that
   self-sacrificing spirit of Moses, that he would lose anything and
   everything if they might but be saved. And this is the spirit which
   ought to actuate every Church of Christ. The church that is always
   caring for her own maintenance is no church. The Church that would be
   willing to be destroyed if it could save the sons of men--which feels
   as if, whatever her shame or sorrow, it would be nothing if she could
   but save sinners--that Church is like the Lord, of whom we read, "He
   saved others: Himself he could not save." Oh, blessed heartbreak over
   sinful men which makes men willing to lose everything if they might but
   bless and win men to Christ! "My kinsmen," he says, "according to the
   flesh."

   4, 5. Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory,
   and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God,
   and the promises. Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the
   flesh Christ came, who is over al, God blessed forever. Amen.What
   dignity has God put upon ancient Israel! How favored far beyond any of
   us in these particulars! They had the Light of God when the rest of the
   world was in darkness! Theirs was the Law of God, and theirs the
   Covenant promises! Above all, of them it was that Christ came! Our
   Savior was a Jew! Forever must that race be had in respectful honor and
   we must pray for their salvation.

   6, 7. Not as though the Word of God has taken no effect. For they are
   not allIsrael, which are ofIsrael. Neither, because they are the seed
   of Abraham, are they all children: but in Isaac shall your seed be
   called. Now the Apostle is getting to his point. You Jews claim to have
   the mercy of God because you are of the seed of Abraham, but there is
   nothing in that, he says, for God made a distinct choice of Isaac to
   the rejection of Ishmael, as he did afterwards of Jacob, and then Esau
   was left out.

   8. That is, your flesh which are the children of the flesh, these are
   not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted
   for the seed. Now Isaac was not the child of Abraham's flesh. He was
   born according to promise, when his mother was past age and his father
   well stricken in years. His was the birth according to the promise and
   that is the way the line of Grace runs--not according to the flesh, but
   according to the promise! If, then, all my hope of Heaven lies upon my
   being a child of godly parents, it is an Israelite hope and good for
   nothing! If my hope of Heaven lies upon my having been born according
   to the promise of God--born of His Grace and of His power--in that line
   the Covenant stands! God has determined that it shall be so.

   9-13. For this is the word of promise. At this time will I come, and
   Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had
   conceived by one, even by our father Isaac (for the children being not
   yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God
   according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls)
   it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is
   written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.So, then, there is
   no claim of birth, for he that had the claim of birth, even Esau, is
   passed by! There is, indeed, no claim at all, for God gives freely
   according to His own will, blessing the sons of men.

   14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God
   forbid/There is no unrighteousness in anything that He does! And in the
   winding up of all affairs, it shall be seen that God was righteous as
   well as gracious.

   15-16. For He says 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. That is where it must begin. When men are condemned, what
   can they appeal to, but the mercy of God? Where is the hope of men, but
   in the sovereignty of the Most High?

   17-24. For the Scripture says unto Pharaoh, Even for this samepurpose
   have Iraisedyou up, that Imight showMy power in you, and that My name
   might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore has He mercy on
   whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardens. You will say
   then unto me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His
   will? No but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the
   thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why have You made me thus? Has
   not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
   unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, wiiling to show His
   wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering
   the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? And that He might make
   known the riches of His Glory on the vessels ofmercy, which He had
   before prepared unto Glory, even us, whom He has called, not ofthe Jews
   only, but also of the Gentiles?'There was the sting of it. They could
   not endure that God should, in His Divine Sovereignty save Gentiles as
   well as Jews! But He has done so and He has sent the Gospel to us while
   they, having refused it, are left in the darkness which they chose.

   25. As He says also in Hosea, I will call them My people, which were
   not My people: andher beloved, which was not beloved.Oh, what a
   splendid verse is this! Let some here who have been far from God until
   now and never had a gracious thought, nevertheless hear what He has
   done and will do again! "I will call them My people that were not My
   people, and her beloved which was not beloved."
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Oil of Joy for Mourning"

   (No. 3341)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The oil of joy for mourning." Isaiah 61:3.

   MOURNERS in Zion ought to be doubly comforted, for here, in this
   gracious promise, is a second gift of Divine Love to them--a second
   exchange of loss for gain. The varied expressions of this choice
   Scripture show the manifold loving kindnesses of the Lord to His
   afflicted and the plentiful devices of wisdom by which He ministers
   consolation. It was not enough to give the sorrowing ones, "beauty for
   ashes"--He must add an oil with which to enhance the beauty and take
   away, not only the ashes, but the mourning which lay beneath them!
   This, also, illustrates the exceeding fullness of the blessings which
   are stored up in the Lord Jesus--in Him we have everything which heart
   can wish--a rich variety of joyful blessings never to be exhausted! It
   also shows us the marvelous fitness of our Lord Jesus, since solely
   because of His coming as the Anointed of the Lord, there is healing for
   the wounded, liberty for the captives, eyes for the blind, comfort for
   mourners, beauty for the disfigured and oil for fading countenances! He
   meets every need of the soul and fills the heart to overflowing with
   contented gratitude. Let it be repeated and gratefully remembered that
   all these good things come by the Anointed Savior alone. There can be
   no traffic with Heaven except by the crimson road of the atoning blood!
   No channel for Divine Favor except by the Christ of God on whom the
   Spirit of the Lord forever rests! To Him be Glory forever! Blessed be
   His name--He is the channel of Divine Grace and in Him is no straitness
   or shallowness! A Divine riches of glory flows to us by Christ Jesus--

   "Immortal joys come streaming down, Joys, like His griefs, immense,
   unknown." If our Redeemer were not what He is, what would we do? But
   being what He is, there is no necessity which He cannot supply, there
   is no grief which He cannot relieve and there is no right desire which
   He cannot satisfy. Let us drink of the river of His fullness and sing
   to His praise!

   Notice, also, at the outset of our present meditation, the effectual
   way in which the blessings which Jesus brings are bestowed upon
   mourners. We have often heard doubting ones say, "Yes, there are
   promises, but we cannot reach them. We know that there are abundant
   consolations and rich and free comforts, but we do not feel their
   power, nor dare to take them to ourselves." Now, in this place we see
   the condescending Lord, Himself, applying the oil of joy in exchange
   for mourning! His own right hand pours the precious oil upon the bowed
   head--He, Himself, causes the face to shine and banishes woe! A man may
   lie bleeding on the battlefield and there may be liniments close at
   hand, but in his weakness and agony he may be quite unable to bind up
   his own wounds, or reach the cordials--he may die because he is not
   able to stretch so much as a finger to help himself to remedies which
   lie by his side! It is an unspeakable mercy that our Lord gives His
   Grace to us in such are effectual manner that His mourners actually
   obtain the help they need! He is a very present help, a real
   Comforter--the oil of joy is not shown us in an unbroken alabaster
   vase, nor merely offered to us in a vial, but it is actually and
   effectually applied to the soul!

   Let us now come to the consideration of this second of the three great
   blessings bestowed upon the mourners in Zion--and may we all enjoy a
   portion thereof while we meditate thereon. In working out the metaphor
   we shall observe

   that--

   I. OUR LOVING LORD BRINGS HIS MOURNERS TO SIT AT A FEAST.

   This is clearly intended, for oil was largely used by Orientals upon
   festive occasions. The oil which makes man's face to shine was
   associated with the bread which strengthens man's heart, and the wine
   which makes glad the heart of man,

   (Psa 104:15), because these are the chiefprovisions of a banquet.
   Before the feast, or during the entertainment, the guests were
   refreshed with perfumed oil which would be either poured upon the head,
   or furnished for anointing the face. It was part and parcel of a great
   feast. Hence we read of those who "drink wine in bowls, and anoint
   themselves with their chief ointments." Therefore our first thought is
   this, that the Lord Jesus brings mourning souls to a feast of love at
   which they sing, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my
   enemies, You anoint my head with oil." How great will be our joy if we
   can feel that our Lord has brought us into His banqueting house and
   that we are now reclining there! Now, to all Believers, this is truly
   the case. Our hunger now is relieved, for He satisfies our mouth with
   good things. That fierce, wolf-like hunger which we once felt, is gone
   forever, for it is written, "He that eats of this bread shall never
   hunger." Our craving, all-consuming thirst is ended, for he that drinks
   of the water which Jesus gives him shall never thirst! Many of Zion's
   mourners are sitting under the Word, longing for Divine Provision and
   praying, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." The bread is theirs and a
   Voice cries to them, "Eat, O Friends! Drink, yes drink abundantly, O
   Beloved!" Your deadly famine of heart is gone and the spiritual hunger
   which you now feel is a pleasant appetite which gives a zest to
   heavenly food--an appetite which you long to have increased to the
   utmost! Even at this moment, though you feel a blessed hunger and
   thirst after righteousness, you are filled with royal dainties. You are
   no longer starving in the streets, nor famishing under the hedges and
   in the highways, but, by Divine Grace you have been sweetly compelled
   to come in and you are at this moment the guests of the table of
   boundless mercy where the name of Jesus is as ointment poured forth, so
   that all around you the oil of gladness is shedding a Divine Perfume!
   You are no longer feeding the swine, but resting at the Father' s
   table--the oxen and the fatlings are killed and you are actually at the
   supper. Believe this and act accordingly!

   And what a feast it is! For who is your Host? The Lord of Life and
   Glory, Himself, ordains "the feast of fat things, of fat things full of
   marrow, of wines on the lees well-refined." "The King sits at His
   table." It is His table and He sits at it! It is a great thing to dine
   with a king, but what must it be to be daily eating bread at the table
   of the King of kings? Let the joy bells ring in your soul at the very
   thought, for you are already come to the great feast which the King has
   made for His Son! He comes in, Himself, to see the guests!

   It is the feast of the universe. There never was such another and there
   never can be its like! It is the antepast of the great Supper of the
   Lamb. What provisions are put upon the table! Men do eat angels' food
   when they come here. Yes, they eat viands better than the bread of
   angels, for the body of Christ has become the meat and the drink of His
   mourners. Poor Souls, you feast upon Incarnate Deity! Speak of oxen and
   of fatlings? These are poor types compared with the wondrous provision
   of celestial Grace with which the Infinite Jehovah has loaded the table
   of the Covenant! And all these things are yours. You may have as much
   as you will. There remains no need to eat bread by weight, or to drink
   water by measure--He will satiate your soul with fatness and nothing
   shall be withheld from you! Ought you not to bless Him that you are now
   a guest at such a table and that such food is at this very moment
   spread before you?

   Think of your fellow guests. Look around you and inspect the company.
   Remember where you were a little while ago--you were strangers and
   foreigners, yes, you were as dogs in the street! Where are you now? You
   are permitted to sit with the children of God, with the saints of the
   Most High! Does it not bring the water into your eyes to think that
   you--you who long refused to come and despised the feast of Grace--are,
   at last, brought in? No, not only are you sitting here at the feast of
   love with God's people, but the saints above are your comrades--for
   "you are come to the general assembly and church of the first-born,
   which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
   spirits of just men made perfect." We sup with the glorious company of
   the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets, the noble army of
   martyrs and the holy Church throughout all the world! Now, also, have
   we fellowship with angels. We have come unto Mount Zion and to an
   innumerable company of angels. Better still, we have fellowship with
   Jesus. "Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant," is the center of the
   whole! It is His wedding feast and we are glorifying Him by partaking
   of His Father's bounty. We cannot at this moment actually put our heads
   upon Jesus' bosom as John did, nor need we wish for that visible and
   physical delight, but our heart rests upon His breast and enjoys an
   unspeakable bliss in so doing! Jesus, Immanuel, we are safe in Your
   arms, and our heart is at perfect rest in You! We are even now abiding
   in You, while at Your Passover we keep the feast. We are feasting with
   the great Father, Himself, for, Beloved, when the glorious Sacrifice
   becomes a meat offering, God Himself delights therein and partakes with
   us in the satisfaction made by His Son! Oh, the satisfaction which God
   the Father finds in Jesus! It is a theme upon which we dare not attempt
   to speak,

   but this we know--the Lord rests in His love. He smells a sweet savor
   in the Person and work and Sacrifice of His dear Son. If we love Jesus,
   so does the Father! And if we rest in Jesus, so does He! And if we
   would glorify Jesus, so would the Father! Thus are we brought to feast
   with God, the Judge of all, when we come to "the blood of sprinkling,
   which speaks better things than that of Abel." Here the oil ofjoy is
   most befitting. Is it not most natural and proper that it should be
   poured out at such a festival?

   We cannot linger, but must pass to the next observation, which is
   this--

   II. BEING AT A FEAST, IT IS BECOMING THAT WE SHOULD HAVE PRESENT JOY.

   Hence the text speaks of "the oil of joy for mourning"--the mourning
   was present enough, the joy should be equally so. At feasts, the
   perfume poured upon the heads of the guests was a seemly and
   appropriate thing. It suited the feast, it made the guests feel at home
   and it gave refreshment all around as the delicious perfume sweetened
   the air. Come, Beloved, we have at this moment reason for joy--let us
   use it! Let every child of God feel that he has the oil of joy in the
   fact that he possesses present blessings. Our best things lie on the
   other side of the Jordan--we are looking for our full bliss at the
   coming of our Lord, but we have much in the present. The oil of joy is
   on our faces now, our locks are even now bedewed with the sacred
   anointing--and it will be well for us to turn our thoughts towards that
   Truth of God!

   For, first, let all Believers recollect that we have today the joy of
   the Atonement''By whom also," says the Apostle, "we have received the
   Atonement." The Atonement will be no more ours in Heaven than it is
   now. "We have redemption by His blood." Our sin will be no more put
   away in Glory than it is at this moment, for our iniquity is even now
   cast into the depths of the sea! Our Substitute has finished
   transgression and made an end of sin. And having believed in Him, we
   know that for us the full Atonement is already made and the utmost
   ransom forever paid! "It is finished." "Therefore being justified by
   faith, we have peace with God." "There is therefore now no condemnation
   to them who are in Christ Jesus." Having believed, we know that our sin
   is as far removed from us as the east is from the west! We also know
   that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us and that it covers us
   from head to foot. This is a Divinely sweet ingredient of the oil of
   joy which now distils upon us from the head of our glorified Aaron and
   perfumes even those who are as the skirts of his garments!

   Besides that, my Brothers and Sisters, at the present moment we live in
   the love of God. I t may not be at this moment sensibly shed abroad in
   your heart by the Holy Spirit, but still, "the Father Himself loves
   you." If you are a Believer in Christ, He will not love you more when
   you are in Heaven than He loves you now, for He loves you Infinitely at
   this instant! You are even now, "accepted in the Beloved." "Beloved,
   now are we the sons of God." Infinite love, eternal love, unchanging
   love, almighty love is the present possession of the children of God!
   Hence comes our safety, hence comes the certainty of the supply of all
   our needs--hence, indeed, flow all our joys! At this moment, despite
   our spirit depression and soul battling and heart strife, the Lord has
   set His love upon us and rests in that love! Should not this make our
   faces shine?

   At this time, too, we possess the Divine Life within us. Having
   believed, we have been regenerated and the Spirit of God dwells in us!
   Yes, within these mortal bodies does the Godhead dwell! He has made our
   bodies to be the temples of the Holy Spirit. And what a favor is this,
   for this indwelling is the witness of the Spirit within us, the
   perpetual seal of Divine Grace. God has put into us a new life, a life
   like His own--He has created in us a superior principle, unknown to
   flesh and blood, for we are not born-again of the will of man, nor of
   the will of the flesh, but of the will of God! A supernatural life has
   been implanted in us which cannot die because it is born of God! We
   have this and we know it--and because of it we greatly rejoice.

   And not only so, but because we are the sons of God, we are heirs
   according to the promise, since it is written, "If children, then
   heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Is not this oil to
   make the face shine? What better delights can your imagination conceive
   than the Divine joys of Adoption? O, you mourners, have you not here
   the oil of

   joy?

   Further, we have the present joy of a high calling i nvolving the
   exercise of sacred functions. You are at this hour, Beloved, as many of
   you as believe in Him, made kings and priests unto God! You are
   consecrated to the service of Him who has bought you with a price. The
   mark of the blood is upon you and "you are Christ's." At this moment
   you are a living sacrifice bound with cords to the horns of the altar.
   Your Lord has sent you into the world, even as the Father sent Him

   into the world, to proclaim His Truth and to do His will among the sons
   of men. Is not this cause for delight? Does not your Divine vocation
   anoint you with the oil of gladness?

   With this we have special privileges. There is one privilege I prize at
   this moment--I cannot tell you how much. It is this--the liberty to
   pray, the power to pray, the promise that I shall be heard! Take the
   Mercy Seat from me and poverty, faintness and anguish would seize my
   soul! As long as there is a Mercy Seat and a torn veil, and the Voice
   that bids me draw near and tells me that if I wait upon the Lord I
   shall renew my strength, I have a joy worth worlds! What? Have you lost
   a child? Is your property melting before your eyes? Does health
   decline? Do friends forsake? Yet the Throne of Grace is accessible--fly
   there and lose your grief! There burdens are light. There crosses bud
   with crowns and tears sparkle into diamonds! Come here, you mourners,
   even with the load of your doubts and fears--supplication will quicken
   you and for mourning you shall obtain the oil of joy!

   Time would fail me if I were to go through the whole catalog of the
   sources of the Christian's present joy. Ah, you worldling, you know and
   we confess it is true, that our chief joys are yet to come! But
   notwithstanding, we have enough today to make us more than a match for
   you! You may display your present mirth and carnal delight if you
   will--and laugh at us who weep now--but we can endure your ridicule
   with calm complacency because we have a secret peace and a deep
   fathomless repose of heart which make us even now as far from envying
   you as an angel from envying a mole! We are not of all men the most
   miserable, but of all men the most blessed! Our eternal hopes revive us
   amid the sorrows of this fleeting life. The harvests of Heaven shale
   out and drop golden grain from above, upon which we feed even now! To
   have Jesus for our Brother, God for our Father and the Spirit to be our
   Comforter is a better portion than the richest, the proudest, or the
   most famous of worldlings can possibly possess! The oil of joy is not
   made in the presses of earth--it drops upon us through the golden pipes
   of the sanctuary, flowing from the sacred olive trees which the Lord
   has planted! Passing on from that observation, we would offer a third,
   which is implied in the text, namely, that--

   III. THIS JOY COMES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

   This is clear, since evermore when we read of oil we have before us in
   Scripture the Divine influence of the Holy Spirit. The first part of
   the Chapter before us runs thus--"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me
   because the Lord has anointed Me." The oil with which Christ was
   anointed was the Holy Spirit--and the oil of joy with which we are
   anointed is the same Spirit! It is He who gives us joy in the Lord!

   The Holy Spirit brings joy to Believers thus--first, He clears the
   understanding and enables us to comprehend the deep things of God. Many
   poor souls know but little of the precious gifts which the Lord has
   bestowed upon them. As yet, though they are the Lord' s elect, they are
   not aware of it. Though they are the redeemed of the Lord, they
   perceive it not. There is the Light of God about them and yet they
   cannot see, for their eyes are not yet opened beyond the power to see
   men as trees walking. Let us be grateful if we have passed beyond this
   stage. Through Infinite Mercy the Holy Spirit has visited some of us
   and while He has painfully made us see our ruin, He has also most
   blessedly led us to comprehend something of the remedy--and has enabled
   us to understand with all saints what are the heights and depths, and
   to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge! We have an anointing
   so that we know all things. Now are the mysteries opened and the hidden
   things laid bare and, therefore, we have joy in the Lord, for our
   renewed understanding floods our heart with rivers of delight!

   The Holy Spirit also gives us joy as He enables us to exercise an
   appropriating faith You that have faith, do you bless God sufficiently
   for it? Do we not fail to adore the Divine Mercy which has worked this
   Grace in us? We ought to blame ourselves when we find our faith to be
   weak, but we must never commend ourselves when faith is strong. The
   weakness of faith is ours, but the strength of faith comes of the Holy
   Spirit and of Him alone. Let us bless Him that He has enabled us to
   take to ourselves what the Lord Jesus has provided, so that now we do
   not only see His Grace to be excellent, but we grasp it as our own!
   Here is oil of joy for us, indeed!

   The Spirit also, very graciously, sanctifies us, and this is joy. It is
   a part of His work to discover sin in us and to excite a holy hatred of
   it. He burns in our soul like flames of fire consuming evil. Now, the
   destruction of sin is the destruction of sorrow and, as a child of God
   grows in likeness to Jesus, he grows in solid peace of mind. If you
   will follow your doubts and fears to their roots, you will find that
   they grow from the dunghill of your sins--and when the Lord cleanses
   out the evil of our hearts and creates a new spirit within us, the oil
   of joy perfumes the soul and we are glad in His salvation.

   Moreover, the Holy Spirit graciously quickens His people and what a
   wonderful effect quickening has upon our joy! Whenever we are slothful
   in the things of God, we miss the delights of healthy spiritual life
   and, before long we mourn. But when the Holy Spirit comes and makes us
   feel lively and energetic and sensitive, then we begin, also, to
   rejoice in the Lord and the power of His might within us works in us a
   leaping of holy joy! Those who not only have life, but have it more
   abundantly, are a highly favored people and know how to exult in the
   Lord! Beloved, long for no joy but that which the Holy Spirit gives
   you! Thank God for the comforts of this life, but do not let them
   become your idols, as they will be if they become your exceeding joy.
   Draw from the upper fountains, fill your pitcher at the eternal
   springs--ask neither for the cinnamon nor camphor of this world's
   gardens, but let your chief spices be the fruit of the Spirit which are
   joy and peace through believing! We may now, in the fourth place,
   remark that--

   IV. THE JOY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES US IS A GREAT PRESENT GIFT.

   I once heard a person say, very wickedly, indeed, as I thought and
   still think, that sin could do the Believer no harm. But he added,
   "Except that it destroys his comfort." I thought, "Well, that is a
   terrible 'exception,' indeed! That surely is quite enough to fill us
   with holy fear! If anything robs the Christian of his joy, surely the
   loss is great enough to set him upon his watch tower!" Yet I fear that
   many Christians do not consider this. They dream that it can be well
   with their souls when the joy of the Lord is gone, but, Brothers and
   Sisters, it is not so! The healthy condition of a child of God is a
   state of peaceful rest in the Lord. It is amazing how full Scripture is
   of comfort for mourners because the Lord's objective is that the
   mourner may be comforted. "Comfort you, comfort you, My people, says
   your God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem." Our Lord desired that we
   might have His joy fulfilled in ourselves and He said, "Let not your
   hearts be troubled." "Rejoice in the Lord always," said the Apostle
   and, as if that were not enough, he added, "and again I say, rejoice."

   Hear me, you mourning ones--the maintenance of a cheerful, happy frame
   of mind is of the utmost importance to you, and that for many reasons
   which may be drawn from the metaphor of oil.

   Oil is refreshing, and so is holy joy. It puts new life into the soul
   and renews its youth like the eagle's. When the man is faint with long
   pursuing, he revives if he perceives he already possesses present
   blessings in which he may rejoice. The joy of the Lord is our strength!

   Oil was intended to also make each guest agreeable to his neighbors.
   When his head was anointed with the sweet perfume, those round about
   him were gratified. Happy Christians are pleasing to those about
   them--and thus they become a means of attracting souls to Jesus. We
   ought to be so happy that others ask, "From where have these men their
   joys?" If so, you can clearly see why we should exchange our mourning
   for the oil of joy. It would be evil to frighten men from the glad
   tidings by drawing long faces and using doleful tones.

   Besides, Brothers and Sisters, you all know how weak you are in the
   service of God if your heart runs down into despondency. But when holy
   joy comes back, you feel that you could face a lion, or the old roaring
   lion, himself! Joy makes us brave. "The spirit of a man will sustain
   his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?" Give me the joyful
   Christian for his Master' s service, for he will break through a troop
   and leap over a wall!

   How gloriously does sacred joy lift us up above the sorrows of the
   world! No, more--how it lifts us up above earth's joys! The man who has
   once drunk the old wine of the Kingdom does not desire the new and sour
   wine of earth. He who knows the joy of the Lord will despise the joy of
   the world. Earthly comforts are small concerns to the heavenly mind. He
   receives them gratefully as matters of ordinary gifts from his Father's
   hands, but his heart cries, "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." He
   who has eaten the white bread of Heaven has his mouth put out of taste
   for the black bread of earth. He who has feasted at God's table and had
   the oil ofjoy poured upon his head by the Holy Spirit has risen above
   the fascinations of the hour! What can charm a man who has gazed on the
   beauties of Jesus? What can delude us into idolatry when we have once
   beheld the Glory of the Lord? The joy of the Lord is a grand safeguard.
   Earnestly could I wish that all God's people were flooded with
   it--there would then be no fear of angry tempers, harsh speeches, or
   murmuring words. Full of the joy of the Lord, deeds of injustice in
   trade or of grasping at the world would be disdained by you! Suffering
   would be endured with patience and labor performed with diligence!
   Railing would never be returned for railing, nor proud looks given to
   the poor. The joy of the Lord makes a man so calm, so quiet, so
   heavenly, that he lives above the world. What a grand life is that of
   Abraham! He has his trials and some of them are intense, but he walks
   along the

   road of history with an almost noiseless tread, gliding along as though
   all were smooth! The record says, "It came to pass that the Lord had
   blessed Abraham in all things"--and yet in the previous pages we read
   of trials with Lot, with Hagar and Ishmael--and the grand ordeal with
   Isaac! Faith made his trials blessings, and his inward joy, like
   Aaron's rod, swallowed up all the rods of his afflictions. The same
   road is open to us and we have the same reasons for walking in it since
   the God of Abraham is our God forever and ever! He who can live by
   faith shall have a constant supply of the oil of joy poured upon him by
   the Holy Spirit--and his mourning shall flee away. Our last observation
   is--

   V. THE JOY WHICH GOD GIVES HIS PEOPLE IS BEST SEEN AND FREQUENTLY BEST
   FELT IN FELLOWSHIP.

   We began with noting that oil is connected with festivity. Sweet spices
   are for banquets where men feast together. Oh mourners, you will often
   find your souls made joyous when you assemble with your Brothers and
   Sisters! Bread eaten in secret is sweet and morsels behind the door are
   delicious, but still, the choicest and most abundant provisions are
   brought forth when the king's household gather around his table and
   realize that "they, being many, are one bread." Speaking personally, my
   happiest times are spent with my Brothers and Sisters in Christ in the
   high festivals, when the multitude keep holy day. Draw a circle around
   my pulpit and you have hit upon the spot where I am nearest Heaven!
   There the Lord has been more consciously near me than anywhere else. He
   has ravished my heart while I have been trying to cheer and comfort His
   mourners. Many of you can say the same of your pew where you are known
   to sit--it has been a Bethel to you and the Lord Jesus has revealed
   Himself to you in the midst of His people. Let us remember what
   delightful times we have had in prayer together. We have come into the
   sanctuary heavy of heart and while one Brother after another has
   approached the Throne of Grace for us, we have been unburdened and
   helped to joy in God till the Prayer Meeting has seemed to be a Heaven
   below, an antepast of the eternal meetings above! Thus the oil of joy
   is poured out in the assembly of fellowship.

   Ofttimes, also, when we have been singing together some delightful
   hymn, in a lively, feeling manner, we have felt as if we could leap
   with delight and so the oil of joy has streamed upon our heads. Have
   you not often cried with the poet--

   "I would begin the music here, And so my soul should rise! Oh for some
   heavenly notes to bear My passions to the skies!'

   Yes, that is the oil of gladness given at the festival of praise among
   the sons of God--who would not be there?

   A joyous influence has also been within the house when Believers have
   met to talk with one another concerning the things of God in simple,
   pious conversation. Alas, how little is there of such speaking, one to
   another, especially among wealthy Christians. A Christian man remarked
   to me the other day that when he was a boy the good old Christian
   people were constantly talking upon the Doctrines of Grace and other
   things which concern the Kingdom of God, but there is little of this
   now. The staunch old men of the last generation knew what they believed
   and discerned between things that differed--they were, perhaps, a
   little too severe in their judgments--but still they did converse on
   Divine things and were refreshed thereby! But now we are so very
   charitable that we are afraid to talk to one another about the things
   of God, for fear we should differ! It should not be so, for when Christ
   is the subject and God's people converse together, their hearts burn
   within them with sacred delight, and the oil of gladness is poured upon
   their heads! Holy fellowship brings heavenly joy--the conversation of
   saints with each other is the source of unnumbered delights.

   Lastly, the Communion Table has been to many of us, above all other
   places in the world, the palace of delight There are certain of us who
   never forget the ordinance for a single Lord's-Day, and years of
   experience bear witness to the value of this means of Grace! It is
   marvelous that so few, even among Christians, are regular in their
   attendance at that thrice blessed Supper. A young girl said to me the
   other Sabbath, "Jesus seems so near when we are at the Table." And she
   was quite right. The emblems used at the Supper so vividly bring our
   Lord before us that we think only of His passion, of the blood that was
   shed and of the body which was made to suffer for our sins. Then are we
   borne away with grateful emotion and feel as if we had reached the very
   gate of Heaven! While we drink the wine and eat the bread, the oil of
   gladness is poured upon us by our Lord Himself! You who neglect that
   ordinance are losing a great privilege and besides that you are
   neglecting a solemn duty. May the Lord convince you of your negligence
   and bring you to delight in that ordinance which is the joyful means of
   communion with Himself.

   Now, all this while I have been talking to God's people and you will
   say, "Have you not a word to say to the sinner?" Well, I have all the
   while been speaking to the sinner, too, because all this is for you if
   you repent of sin and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! If you will
   come and have it, the Table is spread and loaded for you. No,
   more--"the Word is near you, even in your mouth." What? Is the Bread of
   Life in your mouth and will you not eat it? Poor, hungry, empty, needy
   sinner, can you reject what God, Himself, puts into your mouth? If
   angels will rejoice when you repent, depend upon it there is also joy
   in store for you! Come then to Jesus, just as you are! Bring no money
   with you, bring no fitness with you, bring no fancied goodness with
   you--bring your sins and lay them before your Lord. Bring your hard
   heart, your lack of feeling, your lack of Divine Grace and just come
   and find all that you need in Christ, who is waiting to bless you! When
   I was a child I remember how at a school festival the children were
   instructed to bring their own mugs with them. Now that showed the
   poverty of those who gave the treat, but my Master does not want you to
   bring anything! He supplies everything. Come as you are, with nothing
   about you except your needs and your willingness to be saved! When an
   empty, guilty, lost, undone, ruined creature is coming to a great,
   blessed and mighty Savior, all he has to think of is the love which
   invites him and the greatness of the Redeemer who will receive him!
   Come here, then, all you who mourn because of sin, or mourn that you
   cannot mourn, and, by believing in Jesus you shall obtain the oil of
   joy and the days of your mourning shall be ended!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK9:20-41.

   This miracle is one that shows the transforming power of the Savior in
   a remarkable fashion.

   20-21. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him and he
   fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming. And He asked his father, How
   long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. A
   terrible case.

   22-25. And ofttimes it has cast him into the fire, and into the waters,
   to destroy him: but if You can do anything, have compassion on us, and
   help us. Jesus said unto him, If you can believe, all things are
   possible to him that believes. And immediately the father of the child
   cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief
   When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the
   foul spirit, saying unto him, You dumb and deaf spirit, I charge you,
   come out of him, and enter no more into him. That is one way in which
   Christ cures. When He drives the devil out of a man, He adds, "Enter no
   more into him." I believe in the final perseverance of the saints,
   because I believe in the Omnipotent ejection of Satan out of men when
   Christ speaks the word, "Come out of him, and enter no more into him."

   26-29. And the spirit cried, and convulsed him sorely and came out of
   him: and he was as one dead, insomuch that many said, he is dead. But
   Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And when
   He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why
   could not we cast him out? And He said unto them--According to another
   Evangelist, it was from lack of faith. Howbeit, He added--

   29. This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. God
   does not give us everything in answer to one prayer. It may be
   necessary for some blessings that the prayer should be reiterated--that
   it should deepen--that it should grow into an aching. It may be even
   necessary, in order that a blessing should come, that fasting should be
   used with prayer in order to show the intense eagerness and earnestness
   of the petitioner. Now notice the 38th verse.

   38. And John answeredHim, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils
   in Your name, andhe follows not us: and we forbade him, because he
   follows not us.John in this case was like a good many people at the
   present day. You notice it. They could not cast out the devils,
   themselves, and when they found somebody else that did it, they forbade
   his doing it because he did not follow with them. I have known learned,
   eloquent, respectable ministers who cannot save sinners. And they hear
   that certain poor, illiterate, uneducated men have snatched sinners
   like brands from the burning--and they forbid them to do what they
   cannot do themselves. It is insanity--that would stop any man from
   doing what God enables him to do! And we ought to be the very last to
   forbid others from doing it.

   39. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do
   a miracle in My name, that can lightly speak evil of Me. These people
   were dissenters, we may say--a sort of outsiders. And John puts forth
   the whole power of his

   Apostolic authority to put them down--and then Jesus Christ puts forth
   the full power of His Divine Authority to give them liberty to go on!

   40-41. For hie that is not against us is on our side. For whoever shall
   give you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to
   Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward
     __________________________________________________________________

Faith Seeing God's Glory

   (No. 3342)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus said unto her, Said I not unto you that if you would believe,
   you would see the Glory of God?" John 11:40.

   IT is not every man whose deed is as good as his word, but of the Son
   of Man, Christ Jesus, it may be said that whatever His lips have
   promised, His hands perform. He can, after the fact has transpired,
   turn to His disciples and say, "Said I not unto you, such-and-such, and
   is it not even as I said?" Seeking Sinner, Christ has said that you
   shall have peace if you believe on Him and He will not run back from
   that word! If you cast yourself upon Him, you shall have peace right
   now--you shall have happiness evermore, you shall have Heaven at the
   last--for there is no promise which Christ has made which He is not
   prepared to keep! There is no blessing which He presents to the hand of
   our faith which is either unreal, a sham, or a mockery! You shall find
   that Christ's gold is not mere tinsel, but true, and that His silver is
   silver tried in the furnace--good spending money, both for time and for
   eternity!

   I shall hope to use the text tonight--may God, too, use it--first, with
   regard to the case of our feelowmen, about whom many of us are much
   concerned. And then, in the second place, with regard to our own case.

   Dear Friends, I know that I touch a sympathetic chord in your hearts
   when I speak--

   I. WITH REGARD TO OUR CARE FOR OTHERS' SOULS.

   I bless God that so many of you love your fellow creatures and fellow
   sinners and earnestly desire to promote their highest interests by
   bringing them to Christ!

   You have tasted and known the sweetness of true religion for yourselves
   and you are not selfishly satisfied merely to rejoice in this, but long
   that others, too, may taste and see, as you have done, that the Lord is
   good! Now, I know that if you are really in earnest about the matter,
   you will often meet with cases which wiil stagger your faith, will
   throw you back entirely upon your God and compel you to make your
   passionate appeal to His Omnipotence. Well, the text addresses itself
   especially to those who meet with such cases. Poor Martha, when she saw
   the stone rolled away from the tomb of her dead brother, was shocked
   with what would meet the eyes and nostrils of her Lord, and so, in deep
   solicitude and almost alarm she declared, "Lord, by this time he
   stinks." The spectacle was too revolting, for he had been dead nearly
   four days--and in an Oriental climate that signified much that was
   repulsive. Terrible havoc would already have been worked on the body
   and she could not bear, I say, that the Savior should be exposed to
   such a spectacle! Now, how often do we meet with men and women, young
   and old persons, whose case is a very terrible one! We do not like to
   speak of it. It is getting among the putrid things, for "it is a shame
   even to speak of the things which are done of them in secret." There
   are some cases which are shocking, terrible, fearful! We may well wish
   that a stone may cover the cave so that they may not be seen, that they
   may be left unobserved as cases too vile for the ordinary gazer to look
   upon. Have you never met with such? I am sure, my dear Friends, if you
   are City Missionaries, or lovers of City Missionary work, you must meet
   in this great city with some of the most revolting instances of
   immorality, debauchery, dishonesty and everything that is dreadful--and
   you are very apt to think that these are cases in which the Gospel will
   be out of place and the publishing of the news of pardoning love will
   be like throwing pearls before swine! The text, however, tells you
   something which may comfort you concerning such cases.

   Perhaps I shall be addressing some tonight who have been laboring of
   late in connection with cases which appear hopeless to them, not so
   much from any gross immorality as from a hardness of heart which has
   come over the people. There may be a mother here tonight who is much
   concerned about her daughter--that daughter was once here, frequent-

   ly here, but where she is at this moment the weeping mother does not
   know, nor does her anxious father--and it is with deep concern and sad
   hearts that some of us have asked, "Where can she have gone?"

   While some thus actually leave the parental home and, we fear, plunge
   into sin and excess, there are others who cause great anxiety in
   another way. They do not want to hear the Gospel which once greatly
   moved them--they have wearied of it--they contrive to stay away from
   the public worship and now the mother's admonitions have become
   positively irksome. The girl feels herself too big to yield to a
   father's counsels and entreaties. Perhaps even worse than this is the
   case you have been praying for--the case of one who actually denies and
   flouts the religion of Jesus Christ, who declares it is all a sham, a
   mere form got up that priests of all sects may get a living by it.
   Perhaps even blasphemy has taken the place of attention to the Word.
   You feel, as you think of such an one, who is the object of your love,
   that you would give up your very heart if you could but have a hope of
   his ultimate salvation--but he seems to have gone too far. Now, you
   cannot get him to listen to the Word. He is tonight--yes, good woman,
   your own husband--where is he? He is possibly in the gin palace, or
   even worse. You fear that at the very moment when you are sitting here,
   some for whom you have been pleading night and day are plunging deeper
   and deeper into sin and that when you reach home, the cross you will
   have to endure will be to hear hard things and bitter against the
   Savior whom you love, and to see and hear those dear to you thus
   penetrating further and further into the lairs of wickedness! Now, you
   see, you have a desperate case before you, and I want, if God shall
   help me, just to push the text home. Christ says, "Said I not unto you
   that if you would believe you should see the Glory of God?" This death,
   this burial, this "stinking" of Lazarus--to use the expressive word of
   Martha--all this is only a platform for the Divine Glory to display
   itself! This horrible sin, this hardness of heart, this rejection of
   the Word of God--all this is only a stage upon which the Grace of God,
   in answer to your prayerful faith, shall come and do its wonders!

   Let me tell you what you will yet see if your faith is able to lay hold
   upon Christ. You will see the conversion of these lost ones and then
   you will see the Glory of God, for you will say, "Could God have given
   His only-begotten Son instead of such sinners as these?" Did it never
   strike you as strange that there should be two--one, the perfectly holy
   Christ, the beloved Son of God and, on the other hand, a reeling,
   cursing, blaspheming drunk--and that God would sooner smite His Son
   than smite that drunk? That He should even grieve His Son and make Him
   smart, rather than that that blasphemer should smart? Truly, when the
   Jews made the choice of a robber rather than Christ, it was a strange
   choice and only to be understood by their wicked infatuation. But here,
   such is the power of God's love that when one out of two must suffer,
   He chooses that the innocent Christ should suffer and that the drunken,
   blaspheming sinner should go free! Truly "God commends His love towards
   us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

   Look at it again. There is this great sinner whom we have been
   describing--is it not marvelous that Jesus Christ could really give
   Himself for such an one? He has been in prison, perhaps, two or three
   times, and he has done everything that is bad, and yet, oh, wonder of
   wonders--the Lord Jesus Christ gives Himself for him! Now, "scarcely
   for a righteous man would one die: perhaps for a good man one would
   even dare to die," but God commends His love towards us in that while
   we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. What? Did Christ shed His
   blood for thieves, harlots, and drunks? Yes, Sir, as much as for the
   self-righteous and even more so, for while the self-righteous miss
   Heaven by reason of their pride and refusal of His salvation, some of
   these, coming humbly to the Cross, find pardon through the precious
   blood!

   But it is a great wonder--and when a soul of this kind is converted you
   do see the Glory of God! You do not understand the miracle of love it
   expresses, in that Christ could die for such a mass of spiritual
   corruption, as some of His creatures have really made themselves to be
   before they had been helped by Sovereign Grace to trust in Christ. As
   the Glory of Christ's power was seen in Lazarus coming out of the
   grave, though He had been four days dead and was corrupt, so the same
   Glory is seen in the conversion of every great sinner!

   What? Does the former swearer pray? Yes, and prays better than half of
   us and much more earnestly! Oh, what depth of feeling, what groaning
   that cannot be uttered, comes welling up from his grateful, adoring
   heart. Does "the woman who was a sinner" love the Savior? Yes, and she
   washes His feet with her tears and wipes them with the hair of her
   head, thus doing more for Christ than Simon did, whose guest He was,
   though he thought he had done so much. Ah, yes, Grace can make bright
   saints out of black sinners, can take the very scum and dregs of
   Satan's dominions and make them into sparkling jewels to glitter in the
   crown of Divine Grace forever! It is wondrous what the Grace of God can
   do! My dear Hearer, if you should happen to feel yourself to be
   degraded by sin, do not give up! Do not think that Christ cannot save

   you! Do not let Satan tell you tonight that Christ can never save you!
   Look upon this case of Lazarus--"By this time he stinks, for he has
   been dead four days," and yet where the worm had been, where corruption
   had been, life came back at the Savior's word! And so shall it be with
   you. He can save you. He can save you now! He can save you from the
   blackest of your sins and make you sing His praises! The Glory of God,
   then, is seen in the conversion of every sinner, but most conspicuously
   in the conversion of the chief of sinners!

   And this Glory is also seen in the fact that these sinners, when saved,
   hold on and continue to the end. I have sometimes heard it said of such
   an one, "Ah, he will never hold out!" I bless God that there have been
   so many whom God has blessed in this house who have held out year after
   year! Look over our Church records--see the names of very nearly 3,600
   souls associated here in Church fellowship, and in a year how many are
   excommunicated for their sins? Why, enough to make us grieve, but so
   few that they make us wonder at the Grace of God which keeps them! Many
   of them have been brought in while young and they have been exposed to
   many temptations--some plucked from the depths of sin--and yet they are
   an honor to the Christian Church of which they are members! And I can
   speak of them in every company into which I move and say that they
   honor Christ and prove the power of the Gospel and the reality of
   conversion! Brothers and Sisters, we see the Glory of God, not only in
   the regenerating of those who were once great sinners, but even more
   remarkably displayed when we see that they do not go back to their old
   sins, but they have become such new creations that it is impossible for
   them to return to the old evil life and its evil loves and longings!
   So, then, it appears from the text that if we are praying for our
   friends, their present condition ought not to stagger us and, however
   bad their state may be, we should only hear the Savior telling us that
   He is making herein larger room for the display of His matchless Grace!
   So we should be encouraged to pray more earnestly for such--rather than
   even for a moment to give them up as though such case were hopeless!

   Now, who is it that sees the Glory of God in the conversion of a soul?
   When a man has produced some masterpiece of art or other genius, he
   likes others to see it. Who are they who see great sinners when they
   are converted? Who are they? We read of one stone upon which were seven
   eyes. When such a sinner is saved, all eyes are set upon him. Why, his
   neighbors see him. Some of them hate the change, but they cannot help
   seeing it. When a great sinner is converted, beloved Friends, his wife
   knows of it, his children know of it, his relatives know of it and it
   is a matter of wonder to them all! "Oh," they say, "So-and-So has
   become a Christian." Very likely they say he has become a Methodist, or
   a "Spurge-onite," or some such ugly name. They are sure to call him by
   the name of the minister whom God has blessed to him. And then they
   talk of it in the workshop and he gets jeered at for it, but they say,
   "Ah, what is this? Here is a kind of religion come among us which
   really has power over people to alter their lives, which takes them out
   of the old ruts in which they were known to run and puts them on a new
   highway, and turns their minds in another direction! What is it?" So
   that friends and relatives see it and enemies see it, too, and, what is
   still more remarkable, it becomes a theme of wonder in other
   worlds!Devils see it and they do not like it--and they resolve to
   overthrow the man--but all the devils in Hell cannot destroy a true
   child of God! You know Toplady's saying about the Grace of God. He says
   it is like leaven--if you once get it into the cake you may boil it,
   you may fry it, you may bake it--but you cannot get it out! And so,
   once get the Grace of God into a man's heart and you cannot get it out
   again! God does what the devil cannot undo when He makes "a new
   creature in Christ Jesus." And then the angels see it. We have God's
   Word for that, for we are told that they rejoice over one sinner that
   repents. A poor woman upstairs in an attic found the Savior and her
   finding the Savior affected three worlds in one moment! It made earth
   glad. It made Hell howl with indignation and it set Heaven in a blaze
   of extraordinary joy! Do not the harps of the angels thrill with
   super-celestial harmonies when they hear of sinners being eternally
   saved? Do they not lift up a new paean, and yet more exalted praise
   unto Him who trod the wine-press alone, and of whose victory these
   souls are the reward?

   Yes, earth, Heaven and Hell, all know of it! We know it for the text
   says, "Said I not unto you, that if you would believe, you should see
   the Glory of God"? It is a very great comfort in one's labors to see
   those who are truly converted. Of course, we ought to be able to work
   on and to believe in success even if we cannot yet see it, but it is a
   great delight to be privileged to see the sheaves cut and then carry
   them to the Great Husbandman and say, "That is a sheaf You gave me." I
   have heard of Mr. Matthew Wilks, the famous but eccentric preacher,
   being waited on by some of his very excellent and very proper members
   to reprove him for some of his quaint sayings. "Well," said Mr. Wilks,
   "if you will wait just a little, I will answer you." Going upstairs, he
   brought down a long roll which contained the names of those whom God
   had blessed and saved through his ministry. "Now," he said, "all these
   precious souls have been brought to God by these sermons which you feel
   moved to criticize. By the Grace of God I will preach yet more of
   them!" And so may every minister say when God gives him success, for it
   strengthens him in his work! You dear Sunday School teachers who teach
   in your classes. You who distribute tracts. You who preach in the
   streets--if God gives you conversions, I am sure you will go on with
   your work! It will whet your appetites! You will want more! You will
   never be satisfied, but will press on in your Master's service!

   But now comes in an "if," and then I will leave this point. "Said I not
   unto you, if you would believe, you should see the Glory of God"? That
   is the thing! Why is it that we are not more successful? It is because
   we do not believe. I heard a conversation the other day, something like
   this. A Brother said--and a very excellent Brother, too--"When I go
   into the pulpit I go hoping that perhaps God will bless the word that I
   am going to deliver, prayerfully seeking that He would do so, and
   feeling satisfied that it will be according to His mind and will and
   believing that if I preach the Word, perhaps it will be blessed."
   Another Brother said, "Well, my Brother, I think you are right, but I
   do not go into the pulpit in that way at all." "How then?" asked the
   other. "Why," was the answer, "I go into the pulpit believing that God
   is going to save souls tonight, that I am going to be made by Him the
   instrument of it and I preach believing that while I am preaching,
   souls must and will be saved--that there is not a chance they maybe,
   but they willbe, that God's Word will not return unto Him void, but
   will prosper in the thing whereto He has sent it. I hope I am as humble
   as if it were a pe-radventure, but I am all the more earnest, I trust,
   because I feel certain that now souls will be blessed." Now, I do
   believe that God does bless in a very great measure according to what
   we believe will be the result and that if we can only stand and preach
   Christ, believing Christ will come to souls and souls will find Him,
   then the more of such faith that we have, the greater will be the
   results. Beloved, do we always pray in faith, as we ought? We pray here
   at every Prayer Meeting that God would save souls--but do we believe
   that He certainly will hear us? If we do not, we shall lose the
   blessing. We must believe not only that God is, but that He is the
   rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, or we shall miss His
   blessing!

   Oh, what a mercy to rise from your knees and say, "I have got it! I
   asked for souls and God has heard me--and I shall see my desire and be
   satisfied! I have prayed definitely for conversions, and conversions
   will be given me." Brothers and Sisters, in such a Church as this,
   where God is so manifestly and so marvelously working, we ought to be
   forever expecting conversions!

   You Christian people, as you sit in the pews should be looking out for
   God to bless your friends, believing that your dear children will
   manifest the first signs of His gracious saving power. Then should you
   encourage these seedlings of promise and put the young plants in the
   hothouse of deep love during the winter of their conviction, so that
   they may not be withered or blighted, but come to be plants of God's
   right hand planting! Expect the blessing! It is coming! It is coming!
   God is blessing His Church and He intends to bless it yet more. He has
   opened the windows of Heaven and He is pouring out the blessing so that
   we have not room enough to receive it! We have not even now room enough
   to receive the hearers--the day is coming when we shall not have room
   enough to hold the Church! Only let us pray and work-- and God, even
   our own God, will bless us and bless His other Churches, too--and the
   ends of the earth shall fear Him! So you see, then, the whole matter is
   if you can believe. Now, Mother, can you believe about your child? Now,
   good Woman, can you believe about your husband? Now, my Brother, can
   you believe about your wife? May God help you to believe Him! Depend
   upon it, the struggle is there. It is much harder for you to believe in
   God than it is for God to convert your wife, much harder for you to
   trust God about your child than it is for Him to save your child! It is
   much easier for God to save the harlot, the drunk, the thief, than it
   is for us to think He will do it! But when we can believe in Him and,
   believing, boldly pray for it and expect it, we shall get it, and he
   that was repulsive but yesterday shall be fragrant with Divine Grace
   tomorrow! He that rotted in his tomb but the other day, so far gone
   that men turned away from him, shall come into the midst of God's
   Church, be found among the living in Zion and make the Church on earth
   and the Church in Heaven glad in his society! But now we must have a
   few minutes in which to use the text for--

   II. THE COMFORT AND BLESSING OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT THEMSELVES SAVED.

   I do not suppose, dear Friends--speaking to those of you who are
   awakened and quickened in your consciences--I do not suppose I could
   give a descriptive character of you which you would think to be too
   bad. You once thought yourselves very good and excellent, but it is
   quite a different tale with you now. God the Holy Spirit has met with
   you and

   made you see yourselves--and now you are ashamed of yourselves. You
   feel as if you were dead, as if you had no power, no life.

   You feel more, you seem as if you were buried. Satan tells you that
   there is no hope for such as you are and you feel as if you were like
   Lazarus, really corrupt in soul, so that you cannot sometimes endure
   yourselves. You cannot sleep at night--your fears distract you. You are
   afraid that God will do with you as Abraham did with his dead, that is,
   bury you out of His sight. I have known many like you and whenever I
   have met with them, I have been glad, for I have always felt that God
   was about to bless them when they could never stand, much less, bless
   themselves! It was just then, when they thought so badly of themselves,
   that God thought well of them. Now, dear Friends, I say I cannot
   describe your condition as being worse than you really think it to be,
   for you really now feel yourselves to be about as bad as a person could
   ever be. Now, what about you? Why, this--that the badness of your
   present condition is no barrier whatever to your salvation if you can
   now, enabled by Divine Grace, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save
   you! I will not enter into your past life, nor into your present state.
   We will suppose both to be outrageously bad, if you like. You may say
   that you have no feeling, no sensibility--that you cannot repent and a
   great many other things. But now, can you believe that Christ can save
   you? Can you trust Him to do it? If you can, then all there is of
   hardness in you--even if it were ten times more--could not keep you out
   of Heaven! "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 your
   heart is hard, pardoning love can melt it! If you have no repentance,
   Christ is exalted on high to giverepentance! If your will is stubborn,
   He can make you willing in the day of His power! Can you believe this?
   Have you not heard the story? It was God, Himself, who died on Calvary!
   It was none other than that same One who made the heavens, who came
   down on earth and became a Man for the sake of men--and on the bloody
   tree expired in extreme agonies! He, "very God of very God," though a
   Man like you, died that sin might be put away and that sinners might be
   saved!

   Sinner, can you believe this? Can you trust Him? "Yes, I should trust
   Him," says one, "but I cannot." I do not mean what you can do, but can
   you trust Him to do? Can you believe? For if you will believe on Him,
   you shall see the Glory of God. "But I cannot see." No! No! No! It does
   not say if you can see, but if you believe, you shall see! Believing
   comes first, and then the seeing follows! And what is it you are to
   see? The Glory of God. Now, supposing you were a very good sort of
   person and had not any sin, it would not be much Glory to God to save
   you. Why, you would not need saving-- you could save yourselves, or
   there would be nothing from which to be saved! What glory would then be
   His? But if, on the other hand, you can see nothing to nurture
   it--then, in your wondrous salvation would the Glory of God be
   gloriously seen! You, and others, too, would see God saving you in
   spite of your sin, in the teeth of your soul's corruption and in
   defiance of all the powers of evil! Such a sight of God's Glory will
   make it impossible for a single note of praise to be given to
   yourselves, but all the Glory, all the Glory shall be to His rich,
   all-conquering, Sovereign Grace!

   Now, can you believe this? Can you trust Jesus Christ, alone, to
   utterly save you? Sink or swim, can you throw yourself into the sea of
   Jesus' love? Now, can you just give yourself up to Christ to save you,
   for if you will believe, you shall see the Glory of God. You shall see
   that Glory in your pardon, in your new creation, in your being
   sustained under temptation, in your being kept in the hours of life, in
   the night of death, in your being lifted up at the Day of Judgment to
   receive an acquittal and in your being presented faultless before His
   Presence with exceedingly great joy! Mercy, in her dream--if you
   remember--laughed, and when Christiana asked her why she laughed, she
   said it was because of what she had dreamed. Now, verily, I have known
   what it is to laugh in the same way. I have thought of myself as black,
   defiled, corrupt, unworthy. And then I have thought of myself as one
   day wearing a crown, of waving a palm branch, of bowing before the
   eternal Throne of God, having neither spot nor wrinkle, nor any such
   thing--and, verily, I have seemed to laugh that that should ever be
   true and my soul has leaped at the very thought that I--yes I, shall
   tread the streets of gold, passing through the gates of pearl and see
   His face and bow before Him--I, who was once filled with sin and
   corruption, filled to the brim with the vision of God! And, Brothers
   and Sisters, we will meet there and what a wonder it will be that we
   should ever get there! Do you not think they will sometimes say to one
   another in Heaven, "I remember-- it is almost enough to make me weep to
   remember--when I stood in the tavern and made others laugh at a
   lascivious jest and when I could sing a merry song. Oh, how different
   from the song that now engages this happy heart and from the music that
   comes from these blessed strings!" And do you not think that another
   will say, "And I remember haunts of wickedness and vice that dare not
   be mentioned here, but I am washed!" And oh, when they think of that,
   they will strike up again the grand old song that will always be
   new--"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own
   blood, unto Him be Glory forever and ever." I am of the same mind as
   the good old soul who said that if Jesus Christ ever took her to
   Heaven, He would never hear the last of it. And He never will!--

   "I'll praise Him in life, I'll praise Him in death, I'll praise Him as
   long as He lends me breath! And say when the death-dew lies cold on my
   brow, If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now." Yes, and up there in
   Heaven we shall still praise Him! We shall not have time to think of
   anybody else, nor to think of any but our Lord--

   "Jesus sought me when a stranger Wandering from the fold of God. He to
   rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood."

   "Why, if an angel had come to me 17 years ago and had said to me, "Now,
   my lad, get up from that bedside"--there was I, about that time, on my
   knees before God, with many tears, thinking that I should never be
   saved. I had longed and entreated for mercy from my childhood, without
   having any comfortable answer. And I considered that I was among the
   reprobate and was meant to illustrate forever the Justice of God in
   Hell--if, I say, an angel had come to me at that time and said, "Come,
   my lad, you will one day preach the Gospel to thousands of sinners, and
   tell them what a dear Savior you have found"--do you think I would have
   believed him? "No," I would have said, "that will never be." Why, it is
   such a change for me to be here talking to you from being there, afraid
   of the wrath of God, that I do not know how to talk of it! But oh, that
   is nothing! That is no change at all compared with our being taken away
   to Heaven! With our being taken up where angels dwell! Above all, where
   He dwells, that Blessed One whom, though we have not seen, we love and
   unceasingly adore, to be in His bosom forever, to be kissed with the
   kisses of His mouth, to be His dear ones, to live in His Father's house
   where the many mansions are! Oh, the Glory of God! What a sight that
   will be! And, Sinner, if you will believe, you shall see it! Where did
   you come from tonight? Where are you going when you leave this service?
   I hope you will leave a different man, a different woman! If you will
   believe, you shall see the Glory of God! Oh, may the Holy Spirit
   constrain you to believe tonight! May this be the time when you shall
   come empty-handed and take Christ to be your All-in-All! May this be
   the instant when you shall be done with your self-righteousness, when
   you will give up trying to save yourself and come and rest where God
   would have you rest--in the blood of His dear Son! In His death! His
   Resurrection! In His intercession before the Throne of God!

   Oh, come, Sinner! God help you to come! Come! All black and ruined,
   come! All lost and defiled, come! Though you are as one dead, no, like
   Lazarus rotting in the tomb of your sins, "Awake, you that sleep, and
   rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." In the name of
   Jesus, thus I speak to you and He speaks to you through me. Come forth!
   Come forth! You corrupting Lazarus, come forth! 'Tis Jesus bids you
   come! Trust Him! He bids you trust Him and whoever trusts Him shall see
   the Glory of God forever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN111-26.

   Verse 1. Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the
   town of Mary and her sister, Martha. In God's Book, towns are most
   remarkable for saints that dwell in them. "The town of Mary and her
   sister, Martha." A day will come when a city shall be more illustrious
   for a saint than for a Caesar--be more renowned for deeds of faith than
   for deeds of battle! It was "the town of Mary and her sister, Martha."

   2, 3. (It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped
   His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick). Therefore his
   sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick
   They did not say anymore. They felt that it was quite enough to tell
   Him that Lazarus was sick. They left it to the tender heart of Jesus to
   do whatever seemed good in His sight. Some prayers would be all the
   better if they were shorter--all the better if they did not so much
   declare our own will as declare our confidence in the good will of
   Christ! I like the omissions of Martha's and Mary's prayer.

   4. When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but
   for the Glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
   Our Savior speaks in a different style from us. We would have said that
   the sickness was unto death, but, ultimately, to the Glory of God. But
   He who sees the end from the beginning speaks with a grandeur of style
   which could not be imitated by us! So the Lord speaks of things, not as
   they seem to be, nor even as they are in the present moment, but as
   they shall be in the long run--"Not unto death, but that the Son of God
   might be glorified."

   5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus. Yet Lazarus
   died. Jesus loved Lazarus, yet Lazarus was sick. Jesus was not of that
   cruel sort of people, of whom we have some in these days, who call
   themselves saints, and who attribute all sickness among God s people to
   their sin or to their lack of faith. Not He. Here was one that was
   sick, but Jesus loved him just as much for all that.

   6. When He hadheard, therefore, that he was sick, He abode two days,
   still, in the sameplace where He was. Notice the connection. "Jesus
   loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus"--and yet when He had heard
   that Lazarus was sick, "He abode two days, still, in the same place
   where He was." Sometimes true love may think fit to make us wait. It
   may be the truest love on God s part to let us lie sick and not to come
   post-haste to us to make us well. Yes, the truest love may demand that
   the sickness should turn to death, for out of the death He may bring
   the greater Glory. The Lord acts not upon the scale of man, for He sees
   not as man sees. He sees the end as well as the beginning.

   7. Then after that He said to His disciples, Let us go into Judaea
   again--And that because He loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus! If
   that love in its wisdom made Him tarry, yet that love in its sincerity
   at last moved Him to seek the house of grief.

   8. 9. The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone
   You, and are You going there again? Jesus answered, Are there not
   twelve hours in the day?Is there not a time in which the sun will not
   go down--in which it is safe and right for men to work?

   9. 10. If any man walks in the day, he stumbles not, because he sees
   the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles
   because there is no light in him. There is a singular turn, is there
   not, in that expression? We expected it to be, "Because he sees not the
   light of the world," instead of which the Savior says, "Because there
   is no light in him"--because in spiritual things our light not only
   comes from above, but it shines within--and without that inner light we
   are sure to stumble.

   11. These things said He: and after that He said unto them, Our friend
   Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.It is the
   Savior s way to use terms concerning His miracles, which, so far from
   exaggerating them, even appear to depreciate them. He is about to raise
   a man from the dead, but He says, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go
   that I may awake him out of sleep." I am afraid that our tendency is
   always to describe our actions in the largest possible terms consistent
   with truth, perhaps sometimes forgetting those last words. But the
   Savior describes truthfully what He does, but still in terms which,
   like His Humanity, seem to veil the Glory. Wonderfully condescending is
   it of Him to speak thus--

   12. Then said His disciples, Lord, if He sleeps, He shall do well. It
   is considered to be a sign of getting better when a patient can sleep.

   13-16. However Jesus spoke of his death: but they thought that He had
   spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
   Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, to
   the intent you may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said
   Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also
   go, that we may die with Him. A singular mixture of faith and unbelief!
   He so believes his Master that he is willing to die with Him. He so
   doubts Him that, although the Savior had plainly told him that He was
   immortal till His work was done, yet he is afraid that His Master and
   all of them will be put to death. Oh, the Lord knows us better than we
   know ourselves--and the Lord accepts us notwithstanding our
   infirmities.

   17. Then when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four
   days already. So that he was probably dead as soon as the messengers
   arrived to tell the Savior that he was ill.

   18. Now Bethany was near unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off.
   Just a nice little walk which our Savior had often taken in the evening
   after the toils of the day in Jerusalem. He had loved to make Bethany
   His quiet resting place. "Fifteen furlongs off."

   19-20. Andmany of the Jews came to Martha andMary, to comfort them
   concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus
   was coming, went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house. Because
   she had not heard that Jesus was come, or else, no doubt, she would
   have been there as soon as Martha.

   21. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if You had been here, my brother
   had not died. They had often said to one another, "Oh, we wish the Lord
   would come." They had sent for Him. They felt sure that He would come.
   But, alas, their brother had died before the Master had arrived--and
   now this thought which was uppermost in their hearts is uppermost in
   their speech, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother had not died."

   22. But I know that even now, whatever You will ask of God, God will
   give it to You. There is faith there, and there is unbelief, too. She
   believes that Christ can have what He wills of God, but she does not
   recognize His own personal Godhead--His own power to work resurrection.

   23-26. Jesus said unto her, Your brother shall rise again. Martha said
   unto Him, Iknnow that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
   Last Day. Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he
   that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And
   whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you Believe
   this?She looked upon the Resurrection and the Life as things that were
   to be in some dim and misty future. "No," says Christ, "I am the
   Resurrection and the Life. Not only do I get these things by prayer
   from God, but I am these things." And then He goes on to explain it. He
   says, "I am the Resurrection. He that believes in Me, though he were
   dead, yet shall he live. I am the Life. Whoever lives and believes in
   Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" He has taken her out of the
   thought of this poor common animal-life into the thought of the
   spiritual and higher life, which is, indeed, to the soul what the
   resurrection is to the body! It was well for the Savior thus to teach
   her higher truth than as yet she knew.
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Star Out of Jacob"

   (No. 3343)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "There shall come a Star out of Jacob." Numbers 24:17.

   THIS prophecy may have some reference to David, but we feel persuaded
   that the true design of the Holy Spirit is to set forth an emblem of
   our Lord Jesus Christ. All Nature, above as well as around us, is laid
   under contribution to set forth our Lord. All the flowers of the field
   and many of the beasts of the plain--and now the very orbs of
   Heaven--are turned into metaphors and symbols by which the Glory of
   Jesus may be manifested to us! Where God takes such pains to teach, we
   ought to be at pains to learn. Where He makes Heaven and earth to be
   the pages of the book, we ought to be most ardent in our study. Oh, you
   who have neglected to learn of Christ, may that neglect come to an end
   and may some word be spoken which shall be as the beaming of a star
   unto the darkness of your soul, that henceforth you may be led to know
   Christ and to be found in Him!

   Our Lord, then, is compared to a star, and we shall have seven reasons
   to assign for this. He is called a Star as--

   I. THE SYMBOL OF GOVERNMENT.

   You will observe how evidently it is connected with a scepter and with
   a conqueror. Jacob was to be blessed with a valiant leader who should
   become a triumphant sovereign. Very frequently in Oriental literature,
   their great men, and especially their great deliverers, are called
   stars. The star has been constantly associated with monarchy and even
   in our own country we still look upon the star as one of the emblems of
   lofty rank. Behold, then, our Lord Jesus Christ as the Star of Jacob!
   He is the Captain of His people, the Leader of the Lord's hosts, the
   King in Jeshurun, God Over All, glorious and blessed forever!

   We may say of Jesus in this respect that He has an authority which He
   has inherited by right. He made all things and by Him all things
   consist. It is but just that He should rule over all things. As there
   is not a tongue that can move in Heaven or earth except by His
   permission, it is right that every tongue should confess that He is
   Lord to the Glory of God the Father! Oh, that men were just towards the
   Son of God! Would that their rebellious souls would give way to the
   force of rectitude--that they would no longer say, "Let us break His
   bonds asunder and cast His cords from us!" Unconverted men and women, I
   would that you would yield to Jesus. He has a right to you. It is
   through His intercession that your forfeited life is still spared! It
   is by His Divine goodness that you are where you are tonight. Through
   His mediatorial Sovereignty it is that you are allowed to be on praying
   ground and pleading terms with God! Give Him His due then. Rob Him not
   of the allegiance which He so justly claims. Give not your spirit over
   to that exacting tyrant who seeks to compass your destruction! Bow the
   knee and kiss the Son, even now, lest He be angry and you perish from
   the way. Acknowledge Him to be your Lord!

   Our Lord as a Star has an authority which He has valiantly won.
   Wherever Christ is King, He has had a great and a stern fight for it.
   Remember the dread conflict in Gethsemane in which He said, "I have
   trodden the wine press alone." When He came red with His own gore from
   Calvary, He had, in fact, then and there put to flight the hosts of
   Bozrah and of Edom and stained His garments with the victor's crimson!
   He who, then, traveled in the greatness of His strength is still mighty
   to save. In every human heart where Jesus reigns, He reigns through
   having dislodged, by the force of Divine Grace, the old tyrant who had
   fixed his sovereignty there. The maintenance of that Sovereignty within
   the heart is the result of the same powerful scepter of His love and
   Grace. Oh, that King Jesus would put forth His power and get a throne
   in more hearts! Believers, do you not long to see Him glorious? I know
   you do if you love Him! You would live for this, you would die for
   this--that Christ might have His own and drive the milk-white steeds of
   triumph through the

   streets of Jerusalem, all His people bowing before Him and strewing His
   pathway with their honors! O Sinners, would to God that you would yield
   to Him! I pray that now He may gird His sword upon His thigh and by the
   power of Grace constrain you to bow your willing necks to His silver
   scepter! Brothers and Sisters, it is a mournful fact that Christ has so
   small a part of the world as yet in His royal power. Look, the gods of
   the heathen stand fast upon their pedestals! The old harlot of Rome
   still flaunts in her scarlet! The crescent of Mohammed wanes, but still
   its baleful light is cast throughout the nations! Why does He tarry?
   Perhaps His finger is on the latch. It may be that He will come before
   long. Come quickly, Lord! Our yearning hearts beseech You to come!
   Meanwhile, it is for you and for me to be fighting, each soldier in his
   rank, each of us standing in his place, as his Master has bidden us,
   contending with heart and soul and strength for the right and for the
   true, for faith, for holiness, for the Cross and all that that Cross
   indicates among the sons of men! Blessed Star of Jacob! You shine with
   no borrowed rays! You shine with a mysterious power which none gave to
   You, for it is inherently Your own.

   Before we leave this point, I will only say this Kingdom of Christ,
   wherever it is, is most beneficent Wherever this Star of government
   shines, its rays scatter blessings! Jesus is no tyrant. He rules not by
   oppression. The force He uses is the force of love. There was never a
   subject of Christ's Kingdom that complained of Him. Those who have
   served Him most, have longed to serve Him more! Why, even His poor
   martyrs in the catacombs of Rome, dying of starvation, or dragged up to
   the Coliseum to be devoured by wild beasts, never said an ill-word of
   Him. Certainly if it were difficult to any, it seems it would be hard
   to them--but the more they were troubled, the more they rejoiced--and
   there never were sweeter songs than those which came from dying lips
   when men were crackling on the firewood, or being dragged limb from
   limb at the heels of wild horses, or being sawn asunder! Just in
   proportion as the bodily pains became acute, the spiritual joy became
   intense! And while the outward man decayed, the inner man leaped up
   into newness of life, anticipating the joys of the first-born before
   the Throne of God! He is a good Master. Young people, I would that you
   would serve Him! Oh, that you were enlisted in His service. It is now a
   good many years since I gave my heart to Him--it is fast coming on 20
   years, but I cannot say a word against Him! No, but I wish I had always
   served Him! I wish I had served Him, before, and I pray that He may use
   me to the fullest extent. If He will make but a doormat for His temple
   of me, I shall be but too glad. If He will let my name be cast out as
   evil and give my body to the dogs, I do not care, so long as His truth
   does but prosper and His name becomes great! But alas, there is so much
   self in us, pride and I know not what besides, that we who really know
   the Master, have reason to ask Him to bring in His great artillery and
   blow down the castles of our natural corruption--conquer us yet again,
   and rule in us by main force of Grace, till in every part and corner of
   our spirits there shall be nothing but the love of Christ and the
   indwelling of His gracious Spirit! By the star we understand the symbol
   of government. In the second place, the star is--

   II. THE IMAGE OF BRIGHTNESS.

   When men wish to speak of brightness they talk of the stars. They who
   are righteous are as the stars and they that turn many to righteousness
   shall shine as the stars forever and ever! Our Lord Jesus Christ is
   brightness itself! The star is but a poor setting forth of His
   ineffable splendor. Oh, let the thought come home to you. He is the
   brightness of His Father's Glory--unutterably bright as the Deity. He
   is brightness Himself in His Human Nature, for in Him there was neither
   spot nor wrinkle. As Mediator, exalted on high, enjoying the reward of
   His pains, He is bright indeed! Observe that our Lord as a Star is a
   bright particular Star in the matter of holiness. In Him was no sin.
   Look, and look, and look again into His star-like character. Even the
   lynx-eyes of infidels have not been able to discover a mistake in Him!
   And as for the attentive eyes of critics who have been Believers, they
   have been made to water again and again--and then to glisten and
   sparkle with delight as they have seen the mingling of all the
   perfections in His adorable Character to make up one perfection!

   As a Star, He shines also with the light of knowledge. Moses was, as it
   were, but a mist, but Christ is the Prophet of Light. "The Law was
   given by Moses"--a thing of types and shadows--"but Grace and truth
   come by Jesus Christ." If any man is taught in the things of God, he
   must derive his light from the Star of Bethlehem. You may go as you
   will to the universities, to the tomes of the learned, to the schools
   of the philosophers, but in spiritual things you receive no light till
   you look up to Jesus! And then in His light you see light, for there is
   transcendent brightness in Him. He is the Wisdom of God as well as the
   Power of God. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life! Divine Light has
   found its center in

   Him!

   His Light, too, is that of comfort. Oh, how many have emerged from the
   darkness of their souls and found peace by looking up to this Star of
   Jacob, the Lord Jesus Christ! Well did our hymn put it--

   "He is my soul's bright Morning Star, And He my Rising Sun."

   One glimpse of Christ and the midnight of your unbelief is over. But a
   sight of the five wounds and your sins are covered and your iniquities
   put away. Happy day, happy day, when first the soul beholds a crucified
   Redeemer and gives herself up to Him, relying upon Him for eternal
   salvation! Shine, sweet Star--shine into some benighted heart tonight!
   Give holiness, give light, give the knowledge of God, give joy and
   peace in believing, in believing in the precious blood!

   When speaking upon Christ as a Star, "the Symbol of Government," I
   said, submit to Him. Now, speaking of Him as a Star, the Image of
   Brightness, I say, look to Him--look to Him! It is the Gospel's
   precept, "Look unto Me, and be you saved all you ends of the earth,"
   and well do we sing--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One!" Poor Sinner, delay no
   longer! You are not asked to doanything, nor to beanything, nor to
   feelanything! You are simply bid to look away from self to what Christ
   has done and you shall live--

   " View Him prostrate in the Garden,

   On the ground your Maker lies!

   On the bloody tree behold Him,

   Hear Him cry before He dies--

   'It is finished!'

   Sinner, will not this suffice?"

   Look to Him, then, and live! Thirdly, our Lord is compared to a star to
   bring out the fact that--

   III. HE IS THE PATTERN OF CONSTANCY.

   Ten thousand changes have been worked since the world began, but the
   stars have not changed. There they remain. We dreamed at one time that
   they moved. Untaught imagination said that all those stars revolved
   around this little globe of ours. But we know better now. There they
   are, both day and night--always the same--and we may say they have not
   changed since the world began, nor probably will they till, like a
   vesture, God shall roll up Creation because it is worn out. It is very
   delightful to recollect that the same star which I looked at last night
   was viewed by Abraham, perhaps with some of the same thoughts! And when
   we have gone and other generations shall have followed us, those that
   come after will look up to the same star! So with our Lord Jesus. He is
   the same yesterday, today and forever. What the Prophets and Apostles
   saw in Him, we can see in Him! And what He was to them, that He is to
   us and shall be to generations yet unborn! Hundreds of us may be
   looking at the same star at the same time without knowing it. There is
   a meeting place for many eyes. We may be drifted, some of us, to
   Australia, or to Canada, or to the United States. Or we may be sailing
   across the great deep, but we shall see the stars there. It is true
   that on the other side of the world we shall see another set of stars,
   but the stars, themselves, are always the same. As long as we who are
   in this hemisphere are concerned, we shall look upon the same star. So,
   wherever we may be, we look to the same Christ. One Brother here has
   learning, but as he looks to Christ, he sees the same Christ as the
   poor unlettered woman in the aisles. And you, poor man, who have not,
   perhaps, a sixpence in the world, you have got the same Christ to trust
   in as the richest man in all the world! And you who think yourself so
   obscure that no one knows you but your God, you look to this same Star
   and it shines with the same beams for you, as for the Christian who
   leads the van in the Lord's hosts! Jesus Christ is still the same, the
   same to all His people, the same in all places, the same forever and
   ever! Well, therefore, may He be compared to those bright stars that
   shine now as they did of old and change not! In the fourth place, we
   may trace this comparison of our Lord to a star as--

   IV. THE FOUNTAIN OF INFLUENCE.

   The old astrologers used to believe very strongly in the influence of
   the stars upon men's minds. Without endorsing their exploded theories,
   we meet in Scripture with expressions like this--"Can you bind the
   sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of
   Orion?"--alluding, no doubt, to the fact that the Pleiades are in the
   ascendant in the sweet months of spring when the warm breath and gentle
   showers are bringing forth the green sprout and tender blade, the
   foliage and the flowers of May with all the loveliness of the season.
   While Orion is in the ascendant as a wintry sign,

   when the bands of frost are binding up the outburst of Nature. But,
   whether there is an influence in the stars or not, as touching this
   world, I know there is great influence in Christ Jesus! He is the
   Fountain of all holy influences among the sons of men. Where this Star
   shines upon the graves of men who are dead in sin, they begin to live!
   Where the beam of this Star shines upon poor imprisoned spirits, their
   chains drop off, the captive leaps to lose his chains! When this Star
   gleams upon a burdened Christian with its light, he begins to bud and
   blossom and precious fruits are brought forth! When this Star shines
   upon the backslider, he begins to mend his ways and to follow, like the
   eastern sages, its light till he finds his Savior once more! This Star
   has an influence upon our nativity. It is through its benign rays that
   we are born-again and in our destiny it has an influence upon our
   death, for it is in its light that we fall asleep, believing that we
   shall wake up in the image of the Lord Jesus! Oh, sweet Star, shine on
   me always! Never let me miss Your rays, but may I always walk in the
   light thereof, till I am found sitting in the full noontide heat of the
   Sun of Righteousness forever and ever! In the fifth place, the Lord
   Jesus Christ may be compared to a star--

   V. AS A SOURCE OF GUIDANCE.

   There are some of the stars that are extremely useful to sailors. I
   scarcely know how else the great wide sea would be navigated,
   especially if it were not for the polar star. Jesus is the Polar Star
   to us. How the poor Negro in the olden times, when the curse of slavery
   had not been taken away, must have blessed God for that polar star--so
   easy to find. Any child with but a moment' s teaching will soon know
   how to discover it in the midst of its fellows at night. And when the
   Negro had once learned to distinguish the star that shone over the land
   of freedom, how he followed it through the great dismal swamps, or
   along the plains which were still more dreadful! How he could ford the
   streams and climb the mountains, always cheered by the sight of that
   polar star. Such is Jesus Christ to the seeker! He leads to liberty. He
   conducts to peace. Oh, I wish you would follow Him, some of you who are
   going about a thousand ways to find peace where you will never find it!
   There is never a Sunday but I try to speak, sometimes in gentler tones,
   and at other seasons with thundering notes, the simple Truth that Jesus
   Christ came into the world to save sinners. I try to make it plain to
   you that it is not your prayers and tears, your doings, your willings,
   your ANYTHING that can save you--but that all your help is laid upon
   One who is Mighty and that you must look alone to Him! Yet, Sinners,
   you are still looking to yourselves! You rake the dunghills of your
   human nature to find the pearl of great price which is not there! You
   will look beneath the ice of your natural depravity to find the flame
   of comfort which is not there! You might as well seek in Hell, itself,
   to find Heaven as look to your own works and merits to find some ground
   of trust! Down with them! Down with them, every one of them! Away with
   all those confidences of yours, for--

   "None but Jesus, none but Jesus,

   Can do helpless sinners good.?'

   Just reverse that helm and shift that sail, and tack about! Follow not
   the wrecker's beacon on yonder shore luring you to the rocks of
   self-delusion, but where that Star guides, there let your vessel sail
   and pray for the favoring gales of the blessed Spirit to guide you
   rightly to the Port of Peace. Our Lord is compared to a star, surely--

   VI. AS THE OBJECT OF WONDER.

   One of the first lines which full many of you ever learned to recite
   was--

   "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are."

   But that is precisely what Galileo might have said and exactly what the
   greatest astronomer that ever lived might say. You have sometimes
   looked through a telescope and have seen the planets, but after you
   have looked at them you do not know much about them--and those who are
   busy all day and all night long taking constant observations, I think,
   will tell you that the result is rather that of astonishment than of
   intelligence. Still, it is--

   "HowI wonder what you are." So to those of us who are in Christ Jesus,
   He is a peerless Star! But oh, Brothers and Sisters, we may well wonder
   what He is! We used to think, when we were little ones, that the stars
   were holes pricked in the skies through which the light of Heaven
   shone, or that they were little pieces of gold dust that God had strewn
   about. We do not think so now. We understand that they are much greater
   than they look to be. So, when we were carnal and did not know King
   Jesus, we esteemed Him to be very much like anybody else--but now that
   we begin to know Him, we find out that He is much greater, infinitely
   greater than we thought He was! And as we grow in Grace, we find Him to
   be still more glorious! A little Star to our view at first, He has
   grown in our estimation into a Sun, now, a blazing Sun by whose beams
   our soul is re-

   freshed! Ah, but when we get near to Him, what will He be? Imagine
   yourself borne up on an angel's wing to take a journey to a star.
   Travelling at an inconceivable rate, you open your eyes all of a sudden
   and say, "How wonderful! Why, that which was a star just now has become
   as large to my vision as the sun at noon!" "Stop," says the angel, "you
   shall see greater things than these," and, as you speed on, the disc of
   that orb increases till it is equal to a hundred suns! And now you say,
   "But what? Am I not near it now?" "No," says the angel, "that enormous
   globe is still far, far away," and when you come to it, you would find
   it to be such a wondrous world that arithmetic could not compute its
   size! Scarcely could imagination belt it with the zone of fancy. Now,
   such is Jesus Christ! I said He grows upon His people here, but what
   must it be to see Him there where the veil is lifted and we behold Him
   face to face? Sometimes we long to find out what that Star is, to know
   Him, to comprehend with all saints what are the heights and depths, and
   to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge--but, meanwhile, we
   are compelled to sit down and sing--

   "God only knows the love of God--

   Oh that it now were shed abroad

   In this poor stony heart!"

   We have to confess that--

   "The first-born sons of light Desire in vain its depth to see! They
   cannot reach the mystery, The length, the breadth, the height!"

   But, to conclude, the metaphor used in the text may well bear this
   seventh signification. Our Lord is compared to a star as--

   VII. HE IS THE HERALD OF GLORY.

   The bright and morning star foretells that the sun is on its way to
   gladden the earth with its light. Wherever Jesus comes, He is a great
   Prophet of Good. Let Him come into a heart and, as soon as He appears,
   you may rest assured that there is a life of eternity and joy to come!
   Let Jesus Christ come into a family and what changes He makes there!
   Let Him be preached with power in any town or city and what a herald of
   good things He is there! To the whole world, Christ has proclaimed glad
   tidings. His coming has been fraught with benedictions to the sons of
   men. Yes, the coming of Christ in the flesh is the great prophecy of
   the Glory to be revealed in the latter days, when all nations shall bow
   before Him and the age of peace, the golden age, shall come--not
   because civilization has advanced, not because education has increased,
   or the world grown better--but because Christ has come! This is the
   first, the fairest of the stars, the prognostic of the dawn.

   Yes, and because Christ has come, there will be a Heaven for the sons
   of men who believe in Him. Sons of toil, because Christ has come, there
   shall be rest for the weary! Daughters of sorrow, because Christ has
   come, there shall be healing for the weak! O you whom chill penury is
   bowing down, there shall be lifting up and sacred wealth for you
   because the Star has shone! Hope on! Hope always! Now that Jesus has
   come, there is no room for despair!

   I commend these thoughts to you and earnestly ask you once again, if
   you have never looked to Christ, trust in Him now! If you have never
   submitted to Jesus, submit to Him now! If you have never confided in
   Him, confide in Him now! It is a very simple matter. May God the Holy
   Spirit teach and guide you to disown yourselves and to acknowledge Him.
   Cease from your own thoughts and trust His Word. This done by you all,
   there is proof positive that all is done for you by Christ. You are His
   and He is yours--where He is, shall your portion be--and you shall be
   like He, for you shall see Him as He is! It will be a day to be had in
   remembrance if you are now led to give yourselves to Him. I well
   recollect when my heart yielded to His Divine Grace--when I could no
   longer look anywhere else and was compelled to look to Him! Oh, come to
   Him! I know not what words to use, or what persuasions to employ. For
   your own sake, that you may be happy now! For eternity's sake, that you
   may be happy hereafter! For terror's sake, that you may escape from
   Hell! For mercy's sake, that you may enter into Heaven, look to Jesus!
   You may never be bidden to do so again. This bidding may be the last,
   the concluding measure which shall fill up the heap of your guilt
   because you reject it. Oh, do not despise the exhortation. Let the
   prayer go up quietly now from your spirit, "God be merciful to me, a
   sinner." Let your soul wrestle vehemently. Let your tongue utter its
   mighty resolve--

   "I'll to the gracious King approach,

   Whose scepterpardon gives.

   Perhaps He may command my touch,

   And then the suppliant lives!

   I can but perish if I go,

   I am resolved to try,

   For if I stay away, I know

   I must forever die.

   But, if I die with mercy sought,

   When I the King have tried--

   That were to die, delightful thought,

   As sinner never died!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 15:1-24.

   Verse 1. Then drewnear unto Him all thepublicans andsinners to
   hearHim.They were drawing near. It was not an unusual occurrence. It
   was their habit to draw near to Christ. The Pharisees and Scribes stood
   in the outer ring. They did not come too near. These poor outcasts and
   publicans and sinners drew near. They wanted to catch every word. They
   could not have too much of it. They took a delight in getting near to
   His blessed Person. They drew near to hear Him.

   2. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receives
   sinners, and eats with them. The sinful, knownto be so. This Man
   receives them, welcomes them, admits them to an intimacy with Him. What
   is worse, He eats with them! To teach them is bad enough, but to sit at
   the same table with them, making Himself their company and making them
   His company--this is worse than worse! And so they murmured. I am very
   glad that they did. We owe a great deal to the murmurings of the proud
   Pharisee, for our Lord graciously answered those murmurings and then He
   gave us some of the choicest jewels of speech that are preserved in the
   treasury of knowledge!

   3. And He spoke this parable unto them, saying. So it is only one
   parable, yet it is three. Three panels making one picture. The whole
   three are necessary to make up all His teaching.

   4. What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he loses one of them,
   does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that
   which is lost, until he finds it?He is justifying His looking for the
   lost ones. Their accusation was that He received the sinful and false,
   and ate with them. "Well, well," says Christ, "I do that, but I am a
   shepherd, and if I have lost one of My sheep, do you blame Me if I
   leave the flock to go after the lost sheep?" "And he goes after that
   which is lost until he finds it."

   5. 6. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
   And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors,
   saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was
   lost A true picture of Christ going after those who are willful and
   wayward and, therefore, have taken to wandering till they are
   lost--lost to God, lost to society, lost to usefulness, lost to
   happiness--perhaps lost to hope. He goes after them. That is, in His
   life. He throws them on His shoulders in His death. He will bring them
   home rejoicing by His Resurrection Life and then throughout eternity He
   will make the glorified spirits in Heaven glad by showing them the
   sheep that was lost, the soul that was saved!

   7. Isay unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner
   that repents, more than over ninety andnine just persons, which need no
   repentance. If there is such, if there is some that have never wandered
   and who belong to the flock, yet the flock, itself, does not, of
   itself, cause any great exuberance of joy. The overflow of delight is
   caused by the lost sheep when it is found! A Church of godly people
   will give great content to Christ, but still, if there is any bell
   ringing, any sound of joy and gladness, it will be over the wandering
   one that has been restored! Here you have the Son of God, Himself, and
   His relation to the wandering souls of men. He is their Shepherd! He
   seeks them! He brings them back to the fold and He is glad! Now comes
   the second panel of the picture.

   8-10. Or what woman, having tenpieces of silver, if she loses onepiece,
   does not light a candle andsweep the house, and seek diligently till
   she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her
   neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece
   which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the
   presence of the

   angels of God, over one sinner that repents. In this second picture you
   have the Holy Spirit working through the Church, compared to a woman.
   She has lost her piece of money. She gets the candle of the Gospel. She
   takes the broom of the Law--she sweeps and searches, she raises dust,
   she expends her candle till she finds her piece of money. You notice
   that she blames herself for its being lost, for she says, "I have found
   the piece which I had lost." The shepherd did not say that of the
   sheep. He said, "the sheep that was lost." That was its own doing. The
   Church of God seems to blame herself that she has lost her hold upon so
   many who once belonged to her. The Holy Spirit, through the Church,
   seeks after lost souls who bear the image of the King upon them, like
   minted pieces of silver. It is a wonderful verse which is repeated
   here. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God." It does not
   say that the angels rejoice. It means that--but there is joy in their
   presence. Who is in their presence but God, Himself? The great and
   blessed God, whose Throne they continually surround, in whose face they
   see joy over saved souls! And notice the joy is about one sinner--a
   sinner. That is all we know about him. He may have been as poor as a
   church mouse and he may have made himself sick unto death by his vice.
   There was joy over him when he repented. It was only one! It was not a
   batch of twenty. It was not a large number con-verted--there is joy
   over one sinner. What had he done? Built a church? No. Preached a
   sermon? No. He had repented! That is all, but that is quite enough to
   set all the music of the angels' harps pouring forth the praise of God!
   "One sinner that repents."

   11. And He said--And here comes the greatest of all the parables, the
   most instructive, perhaps, and the best loved of them all! In these
   parables we do not find anything about a Savior, a Mediator. Did you
   ever read a parable that contained all the Truth of God? If any man
   were to try and make a parable that contained all Truths of God at
   once, verily I say unto you, he would be a fool! He must fail, and fail
   in his object of teaching anything--

   "One thing at a time, and that done well,

   Is a very good rule as many can tell." And to teach one Truth at a time
   is quite sufficient. It is true that the parable that we are going to
   read says nothing about a mediator, and it does not say anything about
   the father seeking his lost son, not a word. No work of the Holy
   Spirit. It is meant to teach one thing--and it does teach it! And if it
   does not teach 50 things, do not imagine that the other 49 are not
   true!

   11. 12. A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his
   father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.He would
   have that when His father died. Does he demandto have his heritage in
   his father's lifetime? Yes, he does. It is an unreasonable demand.
   Yet--

   12. And he divided unto them his living. He was of a gentle mold, of a
   kindly heart. He did not want to have a son stay with him like a slave.
   He must be served willingly or not at all--so he divided to them his
   living.

   13. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together He
   turned the sheep and the stock and everything into money.

   13. And took his journey into a far country. We do not know where it
   was. It does not matter, it was a far country. He wanted to get away
   from his father, from his authority, from his observation. He went into
   a far country.

   13. And there wasted his substance with riotous living. What he did I
   do not know. His elder brother had heard some very bad stories about
   him which we shall see at the end of the chapter. They may not,
   however, have been all true, for rumor is greatly given to
   exaggeration. Beware of this exaggeration, especially of the follies of
   others!

   14. And when he had spent all Got to his last penny.

   14. There arose a mighty famine in that land. Famines generally come
   when one's money is all gone. He might not have feared a famine if he
   had still been wealthy. The two things come together, the two seas
   meet. He had spent all and now there was a famine.

   14. And he began to be in need. The first time in his life. He had
   always had everything he wanted, but now he began to be in want. It is
   an ugly kind of feeling when, for the first time, you cannot buy a loaf
   of bread. When, for the first time, you cannot get a night's lodging
   for love or money--and have not any money and nobody gives you any
   love. He began to be in need.

   15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. I dare
   say he was a member of the same company that he belonged to. He went to
   him and said, "Now help me. You have many a time enjoyed yourself at my
   house. You have

   drunk my champagne, now help me. I am in trouble." Well, he had a berth
   empty and that was to keep his pigs--the very worst thing a Jew could
   do--and what a Jew would never do unless he was starving.

   15. And he sent him into his fields to feed swine. "There is a job for
   you! You need a job? Go into my fields and feed my swine." The son has
   become a swineherd. One who fared sumptuously everyday at home, has now
   come to serve pigs!

   16. And he would gladly have filled his belly with the husks that the
   swine did eat So hungry was he, that if he could have eaten the slop
   which the pigs fed upon, he would have been glad to kneel at the trough
   and feed with them!

   16. And no man gave unto him. No, they all alike seemed stony-hearted.
   When you have plenty, everybody will give you some more. When you have
   nothing, nobody will give you a penny. "No man gave to him."

   17. And when he came to himself.'For he had been away from himself. He
   was beside himself and now he came home to himself.

   17. He said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough
   and to spare, and I--The son whom he loves. "And I."

   17-19. Perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will
   say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before you, and
   am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired
   servants. Let me be anything, so that I may have something to do with
   you. Let me live at home. Let me eat the bread from your table. Put me
   in the lowest place. I cannot be so low as I now am. Put me anywhere.
   Make a hired servant of me.

   20. And he arose, and came to his father. But--Blessed "but."

   20, 21. 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. And the son
   said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in your sight,
   and am no more worthy to be called your son. He was going on with his
   prayer, "Make me as one of your hired servants," when his father kissed
   him right on his lips and smothered that prayer! He did not mean to let
   him pray that, and so the father, interrupting him, stopped that legal
   bit of prayer.

   22. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe,
   andput it on him: andput a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet Is
   this the justifying righteousness of Christ? I think not. No servant
   can put that on. God Himself, imputes the righteousness of Christ to
   us! It means just this--Receive this poor forgiven sinner into the
   Church and treat him like a gentleman. Do not look at him as one that
   is wearing rags any longer. Put the best robe on him, treat him well,
   take him into your favor, receive him into your society, put a ring on
   his hand, and shoes on his feet.

   23, 24. And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it: and let us eat,
   and be merry: For this, my son was dead, and is alive again. He was
   lost, and is found. And they began to be merry A fine old Saxon word
   that is, "merry." I have known some good people afraid to say, "I wish
   you a merry Christmas." But I always like it, for I like these grand
   old Bible words. If the word "merry" means anything wrong, it is you
   that make it wrong! But it is right enough in the Bible. "They began to
   be merry." Now, is it not a very curious thing that the father said,
   "Put the robe on him, put the shoes on him"--but he never said, "Now
   make him eat." Why is that? He says, "Let us eat and be merry." He does
   not say anything about the son eating. No, Brothers and Sisters,
   because the best way to make another man eat is to go at it yourself.
   It breeds an appetite in him. If he is standing there looking at what
   you are doing--"Let us eat and be merry"--his mouth begins to water!
   Why, you know how hard it is if you are called upon to stand when you
   are very hungry and see other people eat. How you want to eat! That is
   the best preaching in the world. If the end of the discourse is to make
   a man eat, the best preaching is to fall to, yourself! "Let us eat and
   be merry," and they did that--and then this restored prodigal son found
   his appetite, and so feasted, too.
     __________________________________________________________________

Unanswered Prayer

   (No. 3344)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 20, 1866.

   "O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You hear not; and in the night
   season, and am not silent." Psalm 22:2.

   It is very clear to everyone who reads this Psalm that these are not so
   much the words of David as they are the words of David's Son and
   David's Lord, our blessed Master. He prayed with strong crying and
   tears. He came before His Father's Throne with supplications and for a
   long time it seemed as if He would have no answer. It did appear as if
   God had utterly forsaken Him and that His enemies might persecute and
   take Him.

   Now, why was the Savior permitted to pass through so sad an experience?
   How was it that He whose lightest word is prevailing with Heaven, that
   He who pleads with Divine Authority this day in His continual
   intercession, was permitted, when here below, to cry, and cry, and cry
   again and yet to receive no comforting answer? Was it not mainly for
   this reason--that He was making an Atonement for us--and He was not
   heard because we, as sinners, did not deserve to be heard?He was not
   heard, that we might be heard! The ears of God were closed against Him
   for a season, that they might never be closed against us--that the
   mourner's cry might forever find a way to the heart of God--because the
   cry of Jesus was shut for awhile out from Mercy's gate. He stood the
   Surety for our sins and was numbered with the transgressors! Upon Him
   the Lord laid the iniquity of all His people and, therefore, being the
   sinner's Representative, He could not, for awhile be heard.

   There was also, no doubt, another reason, namely, that He might be a
   faithful High Priest having sympathy with His people in all their woes.
   As this not being heard in prayer, or being unanswered for awhile, is
   one of the greatest troubles which can fall upon the Christian, and
   fall it does, the Savior had to pass through that trouble, too, that so
   it might be said of Him--

   "In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows bore His part."

   When I fear that I have not been heard in prayer, I can now look upon
   my Savior and say--

   "He takes me through no darker rooms Than He went through before."

   He can now have a tender, touching sympathy with us because He has been
   tempted in all points like as we are.

   Was it not, also, once more in our Savior's case, with a view to
   display the wondrous faith, fidelity and trustfulness of the obedient
   Son of God? Having been found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself
   and became obedient to His Father's will. Now, obedience is not
   perceived until it is tried, and faith is not known to be firm and
   strong until it is put to the test and exercised. Through what an
   ordeal did this pure gold pass! It was put into the crucible and thrust
   into the hottest coals--all glowing with a white heat, they were heaped
   upon Him and yet no dross was found in Him! His faith never staggered!
   His confidence in His God never degenerated into suspicion and never
   turned aside into unbelief. It is, "My God! My God!" even when He is
   forsaken. It is, "My Godand My Strength" even when He is poured out
   like water and all His bones are out of joint! In this thing He not
   only sympathizes with us, you see, but He sets us an example. We must
   overcome, as He did, through faith. "This is the victory which
   overcomes the world, even your faith." And if we can copy this great
   High Priest of our profession who endured such contradiction of sinners
   against Himself--if we can copy Him so as to be neither faint in our
   minds, nor turn from our Master's work--we shall triumph even as He
   overcame!

   But my chief objective in considering this theme is not so much to
   speak of the Savior's trial as to address myself to those of our number
   who may even now be passing through the same experience as our Lord. It
   will already comfort you to know that Christ has been where you are.

   It will already comfort you to know that Christ has been where you are.
   It will already guide you to know that He has set you an example and
   that He bids you follow in His steps. Let us now draw near to His
   sorrow and think on it for awhile for our instruction and comfort.

   In the first place, the text--without any inquiry into the cause of
   unanswered prayer, seems to give--

   I. A GENERAL GUIDE FOR OUR CONDUCT.

   Suppose that we have been seeking some blessing from God for many
   months and have not obtained it? Whether it is a personal blessing, or
   on behalf of others, what ought to be our conduct under such a trial as
   that, the trial of a long delay, or an apparent refusal?

   In the first place, Brothers and Sisters, it is clear the text teaches
   us that we must not cease to trust God. ' 'O my God." Oh, that
   appropriating word! It is not, perhaps, "My Father." The spirit of
   adoption is not here so much as the spirit of reverent trustfulness,
   but still there is the hold-fast word--"O my God." Christian, never be
   tempted to give up your hold upon your only strength, upon your
   solitary hope! Under no conceivable circumstances, ever give place for
   an instant to the dark thought that God is not true and faithful to His
   promises! Though you should have seven years of unanswered prayer, yet
   suggest any other reason to your mind than one which would dishonor
   Him. Say with the Savior in this Psalm, "But You are holy." Settle that
   in your mind. Oh, never allow the faintest breath of suspicion to come
   upon the fair fame of the Most High, for He does not deserve it! He is
   true. He is faithful. In this apparently worst of all cases, He did
   deliver His Son and come to the rescue in due time. In all other cases
   He has done the same--and I pray you never to distrust your God until
   you have some good and valid occasion for it. Never cast a slur upon
   His integrity till He really does forsake you--till He absolutely gives
   you up to perish! Then, but not till then, shall you doubt Him. Oh,
   believe Him to be good and true! You may not know why it is that He
   deals so strangely with you, but oh, never think that He is unfaithful
   for an instant, or that He has broken His Word. Continue to trust Him!
   You shall be rewarded if you do--and the longer your faith is tried, it
   shall be with you as when the ship is longest out at sea--it goes to
   the richest climes and comes home with the heaviest and most precious
   freight. So shall your faith come back to you with joy!

   Your faith may lie among the pots for many a day, but the time of her
   deliverance shall come and, like a dove, shall she mount with wings
   covered with silver and her feathers tipped with yellow gold! "Trust in
   the Lord at all times you people, and pour out your hearts before Him."

   Once again, as we are never to cease to trust, so we are never to cease
   to pray. The text is very expressive upon this point. "I cry in the
   daytime, but You hear not: and in the night seasons I am not silent."
   Never cease your prayers! No time is a bad time for prayer. The glare
   of daylight should not tempt you to cease--and the gloom off midnight
   should not make you stop your cries. I know it is one of Satan's chief
   objectives to make the Christian cease praying, for if he could but
   once make us put up the weapon of all-prayer, he would easily vanquish
   us and take us for his prey. But so long as we continue to cry to the
   Most High, Satan knows he cannot devour the very weakest lamb of the
   flock! Prayer, mighty prayer, will yet prevail if it has but time!

   Oh, if this is the dark suggestion of the Evil One, "Forsake the
   closet! Give up private devotion. Never draw near to God, for prayer is
   all a fancy"--I pray you, spurn the thought with all your might and
   still cry, both in the daytime and at night, for the Lord will still
   hear your prayer!

   And while you never cease from your trust, nor from your prayer, grow
   more earnest in both Let your faith be still more resolved to give up
   all dependence anywhere but upon God, and let your cry grow more and
   more vehement. It is not every knock at Mercy's gate that will open
   it--he who would prevail must handle the knocker well and dash it down
   again, and again, and again! As the old Puritan says, "Cold prayers ask
   for a denial, but it is red-hot prayers which prevail." Bring your
   prayers as some ancient battering ram against the gate of Heaven and
   force it open with a sacred violence, "for the Kingdom of Heaven
   suffers violence, and the violent take it by storm." He that would
   prevail with God must take care that all his strength be thrust into
   his prayers! The Lord will not hear you if you only bring up a rank or
   line of the display of your desires. There must be no reserves--the
   whole army of your soul must come into the conflict

   and you must besiege the Mercy Seat, determined to win the day, and
   then shall you prevail! If there are delays, take them as good and
   sound advice to be more firm in your faith and more fervent in your
   cry!

   And yet again, cease not to hope. The New Zealander has a word for hope
   which means, "the swimming thought," because when all other thoughts
   are drowned, hope still swims. She lifts her head out of the foamy
   waves with her tresses all trailing and sees the blue sky above her and
   hopes, as it is there. So if you have prayed ever so long, yet hope on!
   "Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the strength of my
   life and my portion forever." As long as there is a place of prayer and
   a promise of an answer, no Believer ought to give way to despair. "Go
   again," said Elijah to his servant seven times! It must have been weary
   work to the Prophet to have to wait so long. He did not stand up once
   and pray to God as on Carmel--and then instantly came down the fire to
   continue the sacrifice--but again and again and, getting more humble in
   posture, with his face between his knees, he beseeches the Lord, not
   for fire, which was an unusual thing, but for water, which is the
   common gift of the skies! And though he pleads for that which the Lord,
   Himself, had promised, yet it did not at once come! And when his
   servant came back, four, five, six times, the answer was still the
   same--there was no sign of rain, but the brazen heavens looked down on
   an earth which was parched as if in an oven! "Go again!" said the
   Prophet, and at the seventh time, lo, there appeared the cloud like
   unto a man's hand--and this cloud was the sure forerunner of the deluge
   and storm! Christian, go again seven times! No, I will venture to say
   70 times seven, for God must keep His promise! Heaven and earth may
   pass away, but not one jot or tittle of Jehovah's Word can fail. "The
   grass withers, the flower thereof fades away, but the Word of our God
   endures forever." Do you plead that enduring Word of God? Let no dark
   thoughts drive you to despair. Continue to trust! Continue to pray!
   Increase in your fervency and in the hope that the blessing will yet
   come! It did come to the Savior. The morning broke upon His midnight
   after all. Never tide ebbed out so far as in the Savior's case, when
   the great stretches of misery and sorrow were visible where once God's
   love had rolled in mighty floods. But when the time came, it began to
   turn, and see how it has turned now in mighty floods of matchless joy!
   The love of God has come back to our once suffering Savior and there,
   upon the Eternal Throne He sits, the Man, the Crucified, who bowed His
   head under mountains of almighty wrath, which broke in huge billows and
   covered His soul. Be of good courage, Christian! Hope on, poor Soul,
   and hope on forever!

   Thus much by way of general direction. But we now go on to a second
   point and shall inquire into-- II. THE CAUSES OF UNANSWERED PRAYER.

   We shall, perhaps, on this theme, get a few special directions which
   may be available in particular cases. Dear Friends, there are some of
   us who are not often troubled about unanswered prayer--on the contrary,
   our own experience is such that the existence of a God who hears His
   people's cry is reduced to an absolute, mathematical certainty!

   I have no more doubt about this than about my own existence, not
   because I can see it clearly and understand it perfectly, nor because
   with a blind credulity I submit myself to the Bible as being the
   Infallible Revelation of God, but because I have had real dealings with
   God, have tried and proved His promises to be true and have found out
   that according to my faith, it has been done unto me in a thousand
   instances! This is truth that those who have learned to live in the
   spirit world and to talk with God understand and know as plainly as
   they understand and know that when a child speaks to its father, its
   father grants its request. It has become to many Believers not at all a
   matter to be argued or talked of by way of dispute--they know that they
   have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and
   their prayers are answered. But occasionally, to all Believers, I
   suppose, there will come staggering moments when they scarcely know how
   to reply to their doubts because certain of their prayers have not been
   answered.

   It may possibly happen that the cause of unanswered prayer may many
   times lie in something connected with sin. Do you not think that
   unanswered prayers are often a Fatherly chastisement for our offenses?
   The Savior, in that wonderful Chapter where He tells out His love to
   us, says, "If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love,"
   and then He notes, as a special favor, if a man abide in His love and
   keep His commandments, he, "shall ask what he wills and it shall be
   done unto him." Now it seems to me to be only reasonable that if I will
   not do what God wills, God will refuse to do what I will--that if He
   asks of me a certain duty and I refuse it--when I ask Him for a certain
   privilege or favor, it is not unkind, but, on the other hand, most wise
   and kind that He should say, "No, My Child, no. If you will not listen
   to My tender command, it is kind to refuse you your desire until you
   repent and obey."

   Perhaps this is the way in which, too, are visited upon God's people
   some neglects of ordinances.''He that knows his Master's will and does
   it not, the same shall be beaten with many stripes." And one of these
   stripes may surely be our failure in prayer! It may also be temporal
   affliction, but probably this is one of the main ways in which the
   Master inflicts the stripes upon His children. They are negligent of
   His commands and He says, "Then you shall tarry awhile. I will not yet
   grant you what you seek. But when you come to a better mind and are
   more scrupulous and tender in the fulfilling of My commands, then your
   longings shall be satisfied."

   It may occur, too, that this delay may be a sort of disclosure to us as
   to wherein our sin lies. Sin sometimes lies in a Christian unrepented
   of because he only dimly realizes that it is there. Hear what Job
   declares--"Are the consolations of God small with you? Is there any
   secret thing with you?" That is to say, if you love selfish ease and
   feeble comforting. If you do not prevail with God in prayer, is there
   some secret sin in you which keeps back the blessing? God does, as it
   were, say to us, "Search and look." Unanswered prayer should be to
   every Christian a search warrant--he should begin to examine himself to
   see whether there is not something harbored within which is contrary to
   the will of God. Oh, Believer, this is not a hard work for you to do,
   surely, but it is a very necessary one! Search yourself and breathe the
   prayer, "Search me, O God, and try me, and know my ways, and see if
   there is any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." I
   think this is one great reason for unanswered prayer, namely, that it
   is a chastisement for sin committed or an admonition against sin
   harbored.

   Sometimes there may be great sin in the prayer, itself! Are not our
   greatest sins often connected with our holiest things? We must be aware
   of our prayers. There is such a thing as polluting the Mercy Seat.
   Remember what became of Nadah and Abihu, who offered strange fire
   before the Lord. Beware, Christian, beware--you may sin against God in
   the prayer chamber as well as you can in the market--and you may offend
   on your knees, as well as when you are in your business! Have a care,
   for how can you hope that a prayer thus stained with sin can ever
   succeed unless you bring it to the blood to have it purged and cleansed
   from all defiling before it mounts to the Throne of Grace?

   And I sometimes fear, too, that our prayers do not speed because the
   thing asked for, though as we think good for us, is asked for from a
   wrong motive.

   If, for instance, a Christian minister asks that he may win souls in
   order that he may gain reputation and fame as a useful and successful
   Evangelist for his Master, he will probably not be heard, for he asks
   from an unworthy motive. If I seek to be useful merely that I may be
   known to be a useful man or woman, I am really seeking my own
   honor--can I expect God to minister to and pamper that?

   I must take care, then, that even when I ask for a good thing, I ask it
   for the purest of reasons--for God's Glory. Oh, what washing even our
   prayers need! What cleansing, what purging! Can we wonder that they do
   not succeed when we so often make mistakes, both in the substance of
   the prayers and the motives from which we offer them?

   Praying seems, to some persons, to be simply a child's play or a formal
   habit. They will take a book, read a form of intercession, and perhaps
   offer a few extemporary words and that is all. But these are all
   nothing and naughty prayers unless God shall touch them and give them
   life!

   Sometimes, then, failure in prayer may be caused by sin. In such a
   case, heart-searching, deep repentance and especially a speedy going to
   the Cross to have renewed fellowship with the cleansing blood and to be
   brought once more in contact with the holy sufferings of the blessed
   Substitute will make us speed.

   But we go on to notice that failure in prayer may sometimes be the
   result of ignorance.

   I think persons often offer very ignorant prayers, indeed. I am sure I
   have good evidence that some do. There is scarcely ever a week passes
   in which I do not receive intelligence from different persons who are
   on the verge of bankruptcy, or deeply in debt, that they have prayed to
   God about it--and that they have been guided by God to write to me to
   get them out of their difficulties and to pay their debts! Now, I am
   always perfectly willing to do so as soon as ever I am directed
   expressly by God, Himself! But I shall not receive the direction at
   secondhand! As soon as I receive it myself-- and I think it is only
   fair that I should receive it, as well as they--I shall be quite
   willing to be obedient to His direction, provided, too, the funds are
   in hand, which does not often happen! But folks must be very foolish to
   suppose that because they ask God that such-and-such a debt may be paid
   by miraculous means, it will certainly be done! I have a right to ask
   for anything which God has promised me, but if I go beyond the range of
   the Divine Promises, I also go beyond the range of assured and
   confident expectation. The promises are very large and very wide, but
   when one gets a fancy in his head, he

   must not suppose that God is there in his fancy. I have known some
   fanatical persons who thought they could live by faith. They were going
   to preach the Gospel, having no gifts whatever for preaching. They were
   going to be missionaries in a district having no more gift to be
   missionaries than horses in a plow. But they thought they were destined
   to do it and, therefore, they tried to live by faith. And when they had
   been nearly half-starved, then they complained against the goodness and
   abandoned the labor. Had God really inspired and sent them, He would
   have sustained and kept them, but if they go about it willfully and
   stubbornly on their own account, they must be driven back to realize
   their own ignorance of the Divine Will. Now, we must not pray
   ignorantly--we must pray with the understanding and with the spirit, so
   that we may clearly know what we are praying about. Get the promise and
   then offer the prayer--and the prayer will be answered as sure as God
   is God! But get your own fancy into your head and you will only have to
   get it out again, for it will be of no service to you.

   And then oftentimes we pray in a way in which our prayers could not be
   heard consistent with the dignity of the Most High. I love a holy
   familiarity with God and I believe it to be commendable, but still, man
   is but man, while God is God and, however familiar we may be with Him
   in our hearts, we must still remember the distance there is between the
   Most High and the most elevated and most beloved of His creatures--and
   we are not to speak as though it were in our power to do as we will and
   as we please. No, we are children, but we are to remember that children
   have a limit as to how they are to speak to their father. Their love
   may come as near as they please, but their impertinence may not--and we
   must mind that we do not mistake the familiarity of communion for the
   impudence of presumption! We must be careful to distinguish between the
   two, for he who is taught of God and waits upon Him according to His
   mind will find, as a general rule, that he will not be long without an
   answer to his prayer.

   Now, if it is ignorance that thus prevents the answering of your
   prayers, you should get better instructed and search especially into
   such texts as bear upon the matter of prayer, that you may know how to
   use your private key of Heaven and open the sacred portals, the gate of
   the Divine Mercy, for ignorance will often make you to fail.

   Again, does it not often happen that there may be reasons for delay
   lying in our own infirmity?

   Sometimes, if a mercy were to come to a Believer immediately when he
   asked for it, it would come too soon. But God times it until it appears
   only at the right and best moment. When a gracious godly soul has been
   much exercised in his mind concerning a special mercy--has studied it,
   weighed it, arrived at a proper apprehension of it and arranged his
   plans for its proper use and benefit--then, just at the time that the
   barn was swept and all the lumber taken out--then God's harvest of
   bounty comes home and the man, being quite ready for the blessing, the
   blessing comes!

   Perhaps you are not yet ready for the blessing. You have asked for
   strong meat, but you are but as yet a babe and, therefore, you are to
   be content with milk for a little while longer. You have asked for a
   man's trials, a man's privileges and a man's work, but you are as yet
   only a child growing up into manhood--and so your good Father will give
   you what you ask for, but He will give it to you in such a way as to
   make it not a burden to you, but a blessing. If it came now, it might
   involve responsibilities which you could not handle, but coming
   by-and-by, you shall be well prepared for it!

   There are reasons, too, I doubt not, which lie in our future, why our
   prayers are not answered. Delays in prayer may turn out to be a sort of
   training school for us. Take the Apostle's instance. The "thorn in the
   flesh" was very painful, and though he was a chosen Apostle, yet he had
   no answer. Thrice he cried, but still the "thorn in the flesh" was not
   removed. It was well that it was not, for Paul needed to be taught
   tenderness in order that he might write those loving Epistles of his
   and, therefore, he received an answer of another sort, "My Grace is
   sufficient for you." Oh Christian! If you could get rid of the trouble
   in which you now are, you would not be able to comfort poor mourners as
   you shall yet do! You would not be a full grown, strong man if you had
   not these stern trials to develop your manly vigor! Men do not learn to
   be intrepid sailors by staying on dry land. You are to put out to sea
   in the midst of the storm, so that you may learn how to manage and
   guide the vessel of your soul! You are going through a rough drill,
   that you may be a valiant and stalwart, a good soldier of Jesus Christ,
   for battles are yet to come and grim foes yet to face--for you have
   many fights between now and the blessed active ease of Heaven!

   You have not yet won the crown, but you will have to cut your way, inch
   by inch and foot by foot, and the Master is making you an athlete that
   wrestling with your enemies you may overcome. He is strengthening your
   muscles and tendons, sinews and power by the arduous exercise of
   unanswered prayer that you may be finely useful in the future! Still,
   yet again, perhaps the reason why prayer is not always quickly answered
   is this--a reason which no tongue can tell, but which is inscrutable
   lying in the Sovereign purposes and wisdom of God.

   Now, look! If I cannot tell why God does not hear me, what must I say?
   I had better say nothing but put my finger on my lips and wait. Who am
   I that I should question Him as to what He does? Who am I that I should
   arraign my Maker before my bar and say to Him, "What are You doing?"?
   Almighty Potter, You have a right to do as You will with Your own clay!
   We have learned to submit to Your will, not because we must, but
   because we love that will, feeling that Your will is the highest good
   of Your creatures and the most sublime wisdom! Why should we be so
   anxious to know the depth of the sea which cannot be fathomed by our
   line? Why must we be toiling to heave the lead so often? Leave these
   things with God and go on with your praying and your believing--and all
   shall yet be well with you!

   And now I conclude this point by saying that if the Christian, after
   looking into the matter, cannot find a reason why he should not be
   answered, let him still expect that he shall be, and still wait upon
   God, remembering, however, that he may never be answered after his own
   fashion, but that he shall be answered after God's fashion.

   I like that verse of old Erskine's, for though rough and quaint, it is
   true--

   "I'm heard when answered soon or late. Yes, heard when I no answer get!
   Yes, kindly answered when refused, And treated well when hardly used."
   In Heaven every Believer will realize how great was this truth--and so
   here I leave it.

   And now, to conclude, I thought I would say a few words upon a very
   special case which may occur, and which may be here represented this
   evening. I have no doubt that it is in more than one instance. It was
   once my case. It is not the case of a Christian asking a blessing for
   himself, but it is the case of a sinner, conscious of his danger as a
   sinner, asking for mercy.

   Brothers and Sisters, it was a very unhappy lot to have to seek the
   Lord with such earnestness as I could command as a child for four or
   five years--with sighs, and cries, and entreaties--but to have no
   comfortable answer whatever, to be as one that chooses strangling
   rather than life because of a sense of God's anger in my soul. To
   desire reconciliation, to live in the midst of Gospel Light and to hear
   the Truth of God preached every Sabbath day, indeed, every day in the
   week, after a fashion, and yet not to discover the way to Heaven was a
   great affliction. Now, sometimes it is not good advice to say to such a
   person, Go on praying. It is good advice! I must correct myself, there,
   but it is not the best advice in such a case. Soul, if you have been
   seeking mercy and you cannot find it, go on praying by all means--never
   relax that, but it is not by praying that you will ever get peace. The
   business of your soul is to listen to Christ's command--and His command
   is contained in the Gospel, which Gospel is not, "Go you into all the
   world and tell every creature to pray," but it is, "He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved."

   Now, your business is to pray, certainly, but your first business is to
   believe! Your prayers before you believe have but little weight in
   them. Unbelieving prayers! Shall I call them prayers? Prayers without
   faith? They are birds without wings, ships without sails and beasts
   without legs! Prayers that have no faith in Christ in them are prayers
   without the blood on them! They are deeds without the signature,
   without the seal, without the stamp--they are impotent, illegal
   documents! Oh, if you could but come as you are and look to Christ on
   the Cross! It is not your prayers that can save you--it is Christ's
   prayers, Christ's tears, Christ's sufferings, Christ's blood and
   Christ's death! If you trust to your prayers, you have gone back to the
   old beggarly elements of the Law. You might as well trust to your good
   works as to your prayers, but to trust either will be to rest in "a
   refuge of lies." Your hope, Sinner, lies in the altogether gratuitous
   mercy of God--and that mercy only comes to those who rest in Jesus
   Christ, alone, waiting patiently for Him! Oh, that you could but come
   just as you are and lay yourself at Mercy's door with such a word as
   this on your lips--

   "My hope is fixed on nothing else Than Jesus' blood and righteousness!"

   There are no doings of yours needed to complete the work. No! I venture
   to say, not even any praying of yours. Your praying and your doings
   shall each occupy their proper place, afterwards, and then they shall
   be essential in their way, but now, as a sinner, your business is with
   the sinner's Savior! If you are now enabled to look completely out of
   self and see all that your flesh can do as dead and buried forever in
   the grave of Christ--and as being nothing and worse than nothing! And
   if you can see Jesus, the mighty Savior, distributing the gifts which
   He has received for men, even distribut-

   ing them to the rebellious--if you can thus trust Him, you are saved!
   What do you say, Sinner? Are you enabled to do it now? Can you fall
   flat before His Cross? Oh, the happy day when I learned that I was no
   longer to look to self, but found that the Gospel was, "Look unto Me,
   and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." Many of you have looked,
   Brothers and Sisters! Look again to that sacred head once wounded and
   filled with pain and grief, but which now is crowned with glory! Look
   and renew your vow of dedication and He will lift you up to be above
   the angels and only second to God, Himself!

   Oh look now!

   And as to you who have never looked before, I pray the Master to open
   your blind eyes and cause the scales to drop, so that you may look now
   and, while you look, may see everything you need laid up for you in
   Jesus! Everything a sinner needs can be richly supplied by Him--and
   then the sinner can go his way rejoicing and singing, "Christ is All,
   and happy am I that I have sought and found Him." The Lord bless you
   all for His name's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM32.

   This is a great Psalm of Grace, a Psalm in which a sinner, cleansed by
   Sovereign Grace, adores and blesses the mercy ofGod.

   Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered. This is not a blessing for the man who says he has no
   sin--this is not a benediction for the innocent who talk about their
   own good works--but blessed is the man who, having sinned, is pardoned,
   whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! In a word, it is
   a Gospel blessing--it is the blessing of Free Grace.

   2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
   whose spirit there is no guile. He had a thousand iniquities. He
   transgressed in all sorts of ways. The Lord does not impute these
   things to him. He has set them down to the account of Another who has
   ventured to stand in the sinner's place and be made sin in the sinner's
   place! But to this man, this blessed man, God does not impute
   iniquity--and in his spirit there is no guile--he confesses his sin
   with honesty, he is pardoned with certainty and in his spirit there is
   no cunning concealment.

   3, 4. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my roaring all the
   day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture
   was turned into the drought of summer Selah. This is the experience of
   those men whom God saves. Till they confess sin, that sin rankles in
   them like venom--it boils their blood, it eats into their bones, it
   makes life worse than death, it makes them dread the wrath to
   come--their days are nights, and their nights are Hells! They cannot
   stand themselves. This was David's experience and it has been the way
   by which God has led thousands of His redeemed ones that He might bring
   them to Himself. As long as we cloak our sin and conceal it and pretend
   that we are innocent, the fire burns within us--but when we just
   confess the sin, then it is that we are dealing with God aright-- and
   God deals with us in Grace!

   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. All gone, gone forever, gone at a
   stroke! Oh, what a mercy this is, that when once we will take the place
   of sinners and plead guilty, then it is that we are absolved at once!
   We have but to acknowledge that we deserve the punishment and
   immediately that punishment is remitted! This is the way of Grace, the
   plan of Infinite condescending Love!

   6. 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. The man that has so prayed as to find complete
   forgiveness, he is the man that will never leave off praying as long as
   he lives! The one gain which covers everything, the gain of conscious
   forgiveness, inspires a man to pray about anything and about everything
   as long as he lives! "For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto
   You." "You are my hiding place." You see God was his hiding place when
   he was in a storm of sin, and now he takes God to be his hiding place
   in every time of trouble, from all the afflictions of his life, all the
   sorrows of the way. "You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me
   from trouble." Shall He not, since He has blotted out our sins? Oh, if
   God has preserved us from the wrath to come, what is there to be afraid
   of? "You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall compass me about
   with songs of deliverance." I shall live in a ring of music! I shall
   march onward to Heaven as in the center of song! Why, it may well be
   so, when once God has freely blotted out our sins--"You shall compass
   me about with songs of deliverance." Yes, says God, that I will, and I
   will do more!

   8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I
   will guide you with My eyes. I have not blotted out your sins to leave
   you to wander back into them again--I will be your Teacher, your folly
   shall not be your ruin, your ignorance shall not be your destruction. I
   will guide you--look at Me!--"I will guide you with My eyes." "A
   glance, a look, shall be enough for you! I will give you such a heart
   that you shall understand the least motion of My finger. No, I will
   guide you with My 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. A pardoning God may well ask this of us, that
   we would be tender. Oh, let us be very willing to do the Lord's will,
   plastic in His hands like clay in the hand of the potter! It is a great
   pity, Brothers and Sisters, when we won't be guided by the gentle
   leadings of God and must be whipped and spurred, and tugged at. For God
   will govern us if we are His people. If one bit will not do it, He will
   get a tougher bit that shall cut us and hurt us, but He will rule us!
   And so He ought to do, blessed be His name!

   10. 11. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the
   LORD, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice,
   you righteous: and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart
     __________________________________________________________________

Sunlight for Cloudy Days

   (No. 3345)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT MENTONE.

   "But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me." Psalm 40:17.

   IT is not everybody who would like to apply to himself the first part
   of the text. Perhaps we, most of us, accept it because it happens to be
   Scriptural language--and yet we might not spontaneously say of
   ourselves, "I am poor and needy." Some would even wish us to believe
   the very opposite, for if I read their hearts aright, they say, "I am
   not poor, nor needy." They have enough of this world's goods and as for
   spiritual matters, they are strong and self-reliant. All this comes of
   vainglory and, in the long run will end in vanity and vexation of
   spirit--for if a man can do without God, it is certain that God can do
   without him--and the day will come when God willdo without him,
   according to His Word, "I will ease Me of My adversaries." He who has
   tried throughout life to do without God will inherit remorse forever
   and ever. It is well to begin, continue and end in this life with God's
   favor, that we may enjoy it world without end! I therefore trust that
   none among you would wish to say, "I am rich and increased in goods and
   have need of nothing," for that would be tantamount to a proud resolve
   to do without God--and it will end in your eternal ruin!

   There are some who cry, "I am poor and needy, woe is me that I should
   be so! But the Lord does not think of me. I have looked up to Heaven,
   but no eye of pity looks down upon me in the depth of my misery." Many
   a wretched mind, many a bereaved spirit, many a downcast heart has
   cried, "The Lord has forgotten me! He counts the number of the stars
   and calls them by their names, but as for me, I am too little, too
   insignificant, too obscure--I cannot believe that God thinks upon me."
   Dear Friend, I hope you will be converted from this unbelief! I pray
   that you may not only be able to join in one half of my text by saying,
   "I am poor and needy," but that you may humbly unite in the second
   declaration, "Yet the Lord thinks upon me." Despite your insignificance
   and unworthiness, you may yet learn that the Lord has thoughts of love
   towards you and is causing all things to work together for your
   external, internal and eternal good!

   Do not let it surprise you that one of old should say, "I am poor and
   needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me," for God has often thought of poor
   and needy persons. Look at Joseph when he was in prison and the iron
   entered into his soul-- his reputation was gone, he was reproached and
   even punished unjustly--yet we read that the Lord was with Joseph and,
   in due time He brought him out and set him on the throne of Egypt!
   Ruth, the Moabitess, came penniless to Israel's land and she went to
   glean among the sheaves as a poor and needy peasant woman. But the Lord
   was thinking upon her and so provided for her that she rose to an
   honorable estate and her name is written among the progenitors of our
   Lord Jesus! To give you a more modern instance--the Apostles were poor
   fishermen with their little boats and well-worn nets, upon the Lake of
   Galilee--yet the Lord looked upon them--unlearned and ignorant men as
   they were, and made them to be the pioneers of His Kingdom! Never mind
   how poor and needy you are, you may yet be heirs of God, joint-heirs
   with Jesus Christ!

   "Alas," you say, "my trouble is not a poverty of gold and silver, but I
   am poor as to anything like goodness in the sight of God. I feel so
   guilty and so far from being what I ought to be." Yet the Lord has
   oftentimes thought of such people as you! Look at the blessed Master
   sitting on the well at Sychar, talking with that wanton woman who had
   had five husbands and he whom she then had was not her husband--she was
   a woman whom none would honor--but the blessed Savior thought upon her!
   Remember, too, the thief dying upon the cross next to the
   Redeemer--with all his sins red upon him, for he had been a robber and
   probably a murderer, too--his prayer, "Lord, remember me," touched the
   heart of Jesus and, "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise" was the
   gracious response! The Lord thought on him and yet there was never one
   more poor and needy than he! There, too, was Saul of Tarsus, the
   persecutor, breathing out

   threats and slaughter against the Church of God! But the Merciful One
   in Heaven, who saw his sin, thought on him with love and said, "Saul,
   Saul, why do you persecute Me?" Poverty of all merit and need of all
   Grace do not prevent the Lord from thinking upon men! Is not this fact
   as clear as the sun in the heavens? However spiritually poor you may
   be, you may yet partake of the riches of His Grace and so become rich
   in faith--indeed, none but consciously needy ones ever obtain the
   privilege of saying, "Yet the Lord thinks upon me."

   I was troubled, when I was asking the Lord, with the notion that I was
   so utterly insignificant that the Lord would never notice me. There is
   no reason for such fear, since the Lord has thought upon very obscure
   people. Think of the Sy-ro-Phoenician woman's daughter. What was her
   name? Do you know what sort of a girl she was? Can you tell her
   after-history? She is quite unknown to fame, yet the Lord thought upon
   her and healed her. That little daughter of Jairus, a child of 12 years
   of age, what could she do? Did she become a distinguished woman? What
   lifework did she perform? She makes no figure in history, yet the Lord
   thought upon her and even restored her from the dead! The widow's son,
   who was being carried out of the city of Nain, what did he achieve?
   What post of honor did he occupy? What lofty path did he pursue? We
   know nothing of him except that the Lord thought upon him! The most of
   the persons whom the Lord Jesus thought upon in the days of His flesh
   were unknown to fame and, for my part, I judge that the happiest
   persons are those who pass through life unknown of men, but known of
   God! During the French Revolution, a man of great influence escaped the
   guillotine and when asked how it was, he replied, "I made myself of no
   reputation and kept silent." Those who are content to follow the cool
   sequestered vale of life are often happier than those who climb the
   high places of the earth. Do not, therefore, think that your being in
   the background is any hindrance to the Lord's thinking upon you! He
   cares nothing about the blare of trumpets, or the blaze of fame--the
   Lord looks upon the meek and lowly and finds out the men that are of a
   broken heart and of a contrite spirit, and that tremble at His
   Word--and with these He deigns to dwell. May we be found among them!

   At this time my desire is to do four things upon each of which I would
   speak briefly. By the words of the text I desire, first, to help your
   faith to remember that if you are poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks
   upon you. Then I long to enlarge your hope. Thirdly, to inflame your
   love and fourthly, to direct your life. May God the Holy Spirit perform
   all these things for us! First, let me--

   I. HELP YOUR FAITH. You say to yourself, "I cannot understand why God
   should think of me." Why not? "Because I am so little." Let me ask you
   if there is anything in the world which is not little to God? You say,
   "There is the world, itself," and I answer that the earth which we
   think so large, is no more to God than a single grain of dust! The
   solar system and all the other systems that make up the Creation of God
   are as nothing to the Infinite Jehovah! So great is the universe that
   the most elevated conception of the most enlarged mind has never
   compassed more than a fragment of it--yet God is infinitely beyond the
   inconceivable whole of created existence! A man must always be really
   greater than his own works and certainly God must be infinitely greater
   than all that He has ever made. Now, if you think it difficult that God
   should think upon the little, what else should God think upon? You
   reply that you expect Him to think of the great ones of the earth.
   Alas, the most of them think very little of Him--the Lord has had the
   least worthy treatment from those who are ranked as rich and honorable.
   When we reach Heaven, we shall find few kings and princes, few of the
   learned and lauded--"God has chosen the poor of this world, rich in
   faith"--so says the Inspired Apostle.

   Again, if it should seem difficult to you for God to think upon the
   poor and needy, I invite you to answer the question, "Who need God's
   thoughts most?" On the field of battle, after the fight, if a surgeon
   should be there to attend to the wounded, where will he go first? Of
   course he will go to those whose gaping wounds have almost opened the
   gates of death for them! And the slightly wounded he will leave till he
   has more time. The Lord will not look upon us according to what we
   deserve, for if He did, He would destroy us all! He will look upon us
   in proportion to our needs. Our urgent needs move His mercy and He will
   go first to those who require Him most. Do you need His Grace more than
   anyone else? Then He will hasten at once to you! If I see a physician's
   carriage hurrying down the street, I feel morally certain that he is
   not driving to my door, for I am not dangerously ill. But if I know of
   one who has fallen in a fit, or has been badly injured by an accident,
   I conclude that he is going to him. When the Angel of Mercy is made to
   fly very swiftly, you can be sure that he is speeding to one who is in
   urgent need of Divine Grace.

   Remember, too, that God has always dealt with men from that point of
   view. When God made His election of men before the earth was, He chose
   them as fallen and undeserving, that He might lift them up to the
   praise of the glory of His

   Grace. His choice of men was never guided by anything good that He saw
   in them! As says the Apostle Paul, "For the children being not yet
   born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God
   according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that
   calls." The decree still stands, "I will have mercy on whom I will have
   mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion."
   The Lord of Grace asks in His Sovereignty, "Shall I not do as I will
   with My own?" God views all men as guilty and, finding them guilty, He
   yet chooses unto Himself a people in whom His Grace shall be
   resplendent! Therefore do not conclude that He will pass you by because
   you are poor and needy.

   Moreover, the redemption of Christ obviously views us as fallen and
   guilty. Did He lay down His life to redeem those who were not captives?
   Did He pour out His blood to cleanse those who were already clean? If
   we had not needed a great salvation, would the Darling of Heaven have
   stooped to the death of the Cross that we might be saved? They who
   think that sinners cannot be saved, or that men can be saved by any
   other means than by true faith in Jesus, make a superfluity of the
   death of Christ--and this is a blasphemy atrocious to the last degree!
   "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." "This is a
   faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
   into the world to save"-- the righteous?--oh no, but, "to save sinners,
   even the chief." Stagger not at the Grace of God to your own hurt but
   say, "Though I am spiritually poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon
   me."

   Furthermore, the gift of God the Holy Spirit proves that God regards us
   as poor and needy. If we were strong and full of all spiritual forces,
   we would not have needed the Spirit of God to quicken and regenerate
   us! And we would not have needed that Spirit to abide in us as our
   Teacher and Helper. Why, Brothers and Sisters, you cannot even pray
   without the Spirit of God! The Spirit is given to help your infirmity
   in prayer because that infirmity most surely exists. The gift of the
   Spirit of God to men is a proof that God looks upon them as being poor
   and needy in spiritual things. Now, if you feel that you cannot pray,
   that you cannot repent, that you cannot believe, that you cannot do
   anything that is good in your own strength, fret not about it, but fly
   to the Strong for strength! Say, "I am poor and needy, but the gift of
   the Holy Spirit is an evidence that the Lord thinks upon me."

   Let me further say, to help your faith, that though you say you are
   very poor and spiritually needy, you are not alone in this, for so are
   all God's saints--and the brighter the saints the more they feel their
   own poverty and need! Certain boasters talk "exceedingly proud" about
   their religious attainments. But the more they glory, the more vain is
   their glory. True saints are humble. In a company where certain people
   were displaying their spiritual attainments, it was noticed that one
   devout person remained silent. Finally a talkative man turned to him
   and asked, "Have you no sanctifica-tion?" He replied, "I never had any
   to boast of, and I hope I never shall have." The more high in Grace,
   the more low in self-esteem! Ask the man who has the most holiness what
   he thinks of himself and he will be the first to lament that he has not
   yet reached the point which he desires. We are like those old-fashioned
   wine glasses which had no foot to them, so that they could not stand
   upon the table, but must be held in the hand. When Jesus has us in His
   hand, we can be filled with the Water of Life--but out of His hand we
   cannot hold a drop, nor even stand! We are nothing at all without our
   All-in-All! "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,"
   said one. "Without Me you can do nothing," is the true word of Christ
   to every branch of the living Vine. Now, if all God's saints say that
   they are nobodies, do not despair because you are a nobody! If they all
   confess that they can do nothing without Christ, do not despond because
   you, also, can do nothing without Him!

   Do you reply, "I wish I had a greater sense of spiritual riches"? If
   you had more faith in Christ, it would be well, but to have any
   confidence in your own experience would do you mischief!

   Let me here relate a story which may cheer those who feel themselves to
   be so guilty that the Lord will not think upon them. The Lord looks
   upon those who feel their guilt. A Savior is on the lookout for sinners
   quite as much as sinners are on the lookout for a Savior. I have heard
   that a great English prince on one occasion went to visit a famous king
   of Spain. The prince was taken down to the galleys, to see the men who
   were chained to the oars and doomed to be slaves for life. The king of
   Spain promised, in honor of the prince's visit, that he would set free
   any one of these men that the prince might choose. So the prince went
   to one prisoner and said, "My poor fellow, I am sorry to see you in
   this plight, how came you here?" "Ah, Sire," he answered, "false
   witnesses gave evidence against me. I am suffering wrongfully."
   "Indeed!" said the prince, and passed on to the next man. "My poor
   fellow, I am sorry to see you here, how did it happen?" "Sire, I
   certainly did wrong, but not to any great extent. I ought not to be
   here." "Indeed!" said the prince, and he went on to others who told him
   similar tales. At last he came to one prisoner who said, "Sire, I am
   often thankful that I am here, for I am sorry to admit that if I had
   received my due, I would have been executed. I am certainly guilty of
   all that was laid to my charge--and my severest punishment is just."
   The prince replied wittily to him, "It is a pity that such a guilty
   wretch as you are should be chained among these innocent men and,
   therefore, I will set you free." You smile, and well you may. How you
   will smile if Jesus does the same for you! Assuredly this is the manner
   of Him--He passes by those who think highly of themselves and looks
   upon those who are self-condemned and plead guilty before God. He came
   not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance! When we have
   nothing to pay, He frankly forgives the debt! He thinks upon the poor
   and needy.

   I ask you to look at the text again, by way of--

   II. ENLARGEMENT OF YOUR HOPE. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks
   upon me." It is a great thing that God should think upon us. Is it true
   that the great heart of God is thinking upon me, an inconsiderable atom
   of existence? What then? It is enough to make the bells of our hearts
   ring for joy! Let us listen again to the silver note of the text, "The
   Lord thinks upon me." The Lord thinks as much of one of His people as
   if there were nobody else for Him to think upon! Poor needy one, the
   Lord thinks upon you as intensely as if you were the only being now
   existing! The Lord is able to concentrate His whole mind upon any one
   point without dividing that mind--He has such an infinite capacity that
   each one of us may be the center of God's thoughts--and yet He will not
   be forgetting any other beloved one! God is a Being whose center is
   everywhere, but His circumference is nowhere! "The Lord thinks upon
   me." Is it not beautiful to notice how God thought of the first man
   whom He placed on this earth? He did not make man till He had prepared
   everything for his happiness! The Lord would not rest until He had
   finished His work, until He had lighted up the heavens and created all
   manner of comforts and conveniences for His child. Not till He had even
   prepared the birds to sing to him and the flowers to breathe their
   perfume upon him, did God create man. Why did God rest on the seventh
   day? Because He had thought of all that man needed and had made all
   things good for Him. Our Lord Jesus never rested till He had finished
   the work that His Father gave Him to do, which work was all for us--and
   the great Providence of God will never rest till all the chosen of God
   are brought safely home to Heaven! Thus you see how God thinks upon us.

   Remember, also, that God's thoughts are not dumb thoughts. They break
   out into words and this precious Bible contains the expression of those
   thoughts of love. This priceless Book is a love letter from our Father
   who is in Heaven. Read each line as if it were freshly written and it
   will make you say, "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me,
   and here are His thoughts."

   Nor does the Lord rest in words. I have heard of a waiter who said to a
   guest, "I hope you will remember me, Sir." "Yes," replied the other, "I
   shall never forget your bad behavior." It would be well for us if our
   fellow men would not think of us when we have done them wrong, but
   God's thoughts of us are always kind and forgiving. His thoughts are
   practical and produce deeds of kindness. He thinks to give and forgive,
   to save and succor, to cheer and cherish. The Lord is thinking what He
   will give you, what He will make of you and what mansion in Heaven He
   will appoint for you! If He has thought upon you, He always will think
   upon you, for the Lord never changes! Our God, in whom we trust, is not
   fickle. He is not thoughtful of us today and forgetful of us tomorrow.
   If you should live to be as old as Methuselah, the promises of God will
   never wear out--and if all the troubles that ever fell upon humanity
   should pounce upon you-- God's strength will be put forth to sustain
   you and to bear you to a triumphant close!

   Oh, the joy of knowing that God thinks upon us! It is better to have
   God thinking upon us than to have all the kings of earth and all the
   angels of Heaven thinking upon us. Thirdly, and very briefly--

   III. LET THIS INFLAME YOUR LOVE. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord
   thinks upon me." Dear Friends, think much of God since He thinks much
   of you. Let your hearts go out towards Him on whose heart your name is
   written. It ought to be impossible for a Christian to wander among
   these olive groves without saying, "Beneath such trees as these my
   Savior sweat great drops of blood." We ought not to sit on the beach
   without thinking, "The Lord has cast my sins into the depths of the
   sea." As the palm tree lifts itself to Heaven, without an earthward
   branch, so send all your thoughts upward! As the vine, though sharply
   pruned, yields its cluster, so bear fruit unto your Lord. Upon yonder
   sea the Apostle of the Gentiles was tossed and wrecked for love of
   Jesus--yield to that same Lord, your whole hearts as you think upon His
   thoughts of you! Everything about this place should make us think of
   our Lord, for in many respects it is the counterpart of "Your land, O
   Immanuel!" This day God is thinking upon you! This day think upon God!
   Christ in

   Heaven is preparing Heaven for us--let us be preparing a place on earth
   for Him. I have often wondered what is meant by our Lord's preparing a
   place for us, since Heaven is prepared for us from before the
   foundation of the world. I suppose Heaven was not fully fit for us till
   Jesus went there and the very going there of our Well-Beloved has
   prepared Heaven for redeemed men and women to live in it in His own
   sweet society! Jesus is watching in Heaven for the time when we shall
   come Home and He is praying for that Homecoming--"Father, I will that
   they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am."

   Do you not receive frequent tokens that the Lord Jesus is thinking upon
   you? Special mercies in answer to prayer, sweet visits of love--do not
   these cheer your heart? Our sacred joys, which come from Jesus, are
   like those boxes of flowers that we send to our friends who are
   freezing in the cold at this time in England. They know that we
   remember them as they look upon every rosebud, violet and anemone that
   comes to them through the post. Our heavenly Father sends us many such
   tokens of His loving remembrance while we are hearing the Gospel, or
   enjoying the Lord's Supper, or occupied in our private prayers and
   meditations. "How precious, also, are Your thoughts unto me, O God, how
   great is the sum of them!" To close, let me use this text to--

   IV. DIRECT YOUR CONDUCT. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon
   me." The whole of what I say shall go into this one thought--if God
   thinks upon you, leave off all anxious and carking care about yourself!
   I do not suppose there is any place in the world that has more care and
   anxiety in it than this little town which nestles beneath the mountains
   and suns itself by the sea.

   Many of you come here with dear ones who are pining away before your
   eyes, or you are alarmed about your own health. Do not unduly trouble
   yourselves, for if you do so, you cannot remove sickness, thereby, but
   you may even increase it. If I could do any good by worrying, I would
   worry away to my heart's content! But as it is useless, I find it best
   to let it alone. They tell me that if a man were to fall into the sea,
   he would float if he would remain quiet, but because he struggles, he
   sinks. I am sure it is so when we are in affliction. Fretfulness
   results in weakening us, in hiding from us wise methods of relief and,
   in general, in doubling our pains. It is folly to kick against the
   pricks! It is wisdom to kiss the rod. Trust more and fear lees. If you
   have trusted your soul with Christ, can you not trust Him with
   everything else? Can you not trust Him with your sick child, or your
   sick husband? With your wealth, with your business, with your life?
   "Oh," says one, "I hardly like to do that. It is almost presumption to
   take our minor cares to the great Lord." But in so doing you will prove
   the truthfulness of your faith! I heard of a man who was walking along
   the high road with a pack on his back. He was growing weary and was,
   therefore, glad when a gentleman came along in a chaise and asked him
   to take a seat with him. The gentleman noticed that he kept his pack
   strapped to his shoulders, and so he said, "Why do you not put your
   pack down?" "Why, Sir," said the traveler, "I did not venture to
   impose. It was very kind of you to take me up, and I could not expect
   you to carry my pack as well." "Why," said his friend, "do you not see
   that whether your pack is on your back, or off your back, I have to
   carry it?"

   My Hearer, it is so with your trouble. Whether you care, or do not
   care, it is the Lord who must care for you! "But my daily trouble seems
   too mean a thing to bring before the Lord in prayer." Then I fear you
   forgot my text, or fail to see the spirit which dictated it--God thinks
   upon the poor and needy--and all the concerns of the poor and needy
   are, like themselves, poor affairs. Why do you weary yourself with care
   when God cares for you? If I were afraid of burglars and kept a
   watchman to guard my house at night, I certainly would not sit up all
   night, myself! The Lord is your Keeper, why are you fearful? It is
   infinitely better that you should be able to say, "The Lord thinks upon
   me," than that you should have all power, wisdom and wealth in your own
   hands! I charge you, then, to rest in the Lord and fret no longer!

   First, trust your Lord with your souls, and then trust Him with
   everything else! First, surrender yourself to His love, to be saved by
   His infinite compassion--and then bring all your burdens, cares and
   troubles--and lay them down at His dear feet and go and live a happy,
   joyful life, saying, as I will say, and close--

   "All that remains for me, Is but to love and sing! And wait until the
   angels come, To bear me to my King."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 8:1-31.

   Verse 1. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in
   Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.To my
   mind one of the sweetest words of that verse is that little word now.
   "There is, therefore, now no condemnation--at this very moment! Walking
   under the power of the Spirit of God in Christ Jesus, there is,
   therefore, now no condemnation to Believers! It is a logical
   conclusion, too, from something that went before. You and I are not
   absolved from sin apart from the Truth of God, but there is a great
   truth at the back of it which necessitates it. "There is, therefore,
   now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
   after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

   2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
   from the Law of sin and death Sin and death cannot govern me--cannot
   condemn me--cannot destroy me. Another Law has come in. The Spirit of
   life in Christ Jesus has brought me into another kingdom wherein I
   cannot be affected, so as to condemn me, by the Law of sin and death.

   3, 4. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the
   flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for
   sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the Law
   might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
   Spirit The Law of God was a good Law, a just and holy Law. It was weak,
   not in itself, for, verily, if righteousness could have been by any
   Law, it would have been by the Law of God! But it was weak through our
   flesh. We could not keep it. We could not fulfill the conditions of
   life laid down under it. Therefore, what the Law could not do, God has
   now done for us! He has found a way of making us righteous through the
   righteousness of His own dear Son, whom He has sent in the likeness of
   sinful flesh. He has found out a way of condemning sin, without
   condemning us! He condemned sin in the flesh, but we escaped. And He
   has found a way of making us practically righteous, too, through the
   abundance of His Grace, enabling us to walk no longer after the flesh,
   but after the Spirit. Blessed be God for this, for when we had broken
   His Law, He might justly have left us to take the consequences, but He
   has stepped aside--He has gone beyond all that might have been expected
   of Him--and brought in a Law by which a remedy is applied to all our
   ills. Glory be to His name!

   5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.
   They live to eat and drink. They live for self-aggrandizement. They
   live for the world and its pleasures. It is according to their nature.
   Everything acts according to its nature. The wolf devours--the sheep
   patiently feeds. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of
   the flesh.

   5. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit God has
   given us, then, the Spirit to dwell in us and now I trust we can say
   that we desire holiness, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
   Spirit, for these things are the things of the Spirit!

   6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded
   is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for
   it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. It is so
   deeply vitiated, so thoroughly depraved, that so long as the fleshly
   mind exists, it will be in rebellion against God. "You must be
   born-again," for that which is born of the flesh is flesh--and only
   that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Unless we are renewed,
   then, by the Spirit of God, we never shall be subject to the Law of
   God--neither, indeed, can we be.

   8, 9. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you
   are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if, indeed, the Spirit of God
   dwells in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
   ofHis. Christ does not acknowledge any that are not indwelt by His
   Spirit. They may wear the Christian name. They may perform some acts
   which look like Christian acts--but all this means nothing. You must
   have the Spirit of God within you, or else you are none of His! And
   what a thing it is to be "none of His." "Verily," says Christ, "I never
   knew you." "But, Lord, we ate and drank with You! You preached in our
   streets." But He says, "I never knew you." They are none of His. Oh,
   dear Friends, the highest point to which human nature can reach of
   itself falls short of being in Christ! There must be the Spirit of God
   dwelling in us or else we are none of His!

   10. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.
   Therefore, it suffers disease and pain, for the soul is regenerated,
   but not the body. If I may so speak, the Regeneration of the body
   happens at the Resurrection. It is then that it will receive its full
   share of the blessed work of Christ! "The body is dead because of sin."

   10, 11. But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the
   Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that
   raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by
   His Spirit that dwells in

   you.So there is a complete deliverance provided for body, soul and
   spirit! As Moses said to Pharaoh when he agreed to let the people of
   Israel go, but said that they must leave behind their flocks, "Not a
   hoof shall be left behind," so no particle of our real manhood shall be
   left under the thralldom of sin and death! The soul is already
   emancipated and the body shall be--by the Spirit which dwells in you!

   12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live
   after the flesh. For we owe the flesh nothing by way of gratitude or
   service. The flesh has dragged us down. The flesh has ruined us. We owe
   it nothing except mastery of it. We are not debtors to it, to live
   after it.

   13. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. It will die and so
   will you who make it your master!

   13. But if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body,
   you shall live. "Mortify," kill, put to death.

   14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
   God. There may be a great many weaknesses and infirmities about them,
   but if they follow the Divine Leadership of the Spirit of God, they are
   the sons of God!

   15. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but
   you have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father
   Is this true of you? "You have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby
   we cry, Abba, Father." Dear Friends, hearing these words, can you
   respond to them? Are they true of you?

   16. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the
   children of God. Many of you make a profession of being the children of
   God. Can your own spirit say that it is true? And is there, in addition
   to this, the witness of the Spirit within you that it is true? If not,
   unless there is a witness to our testimony, it avails nothing. Our Lord
   Jesus Christ said, "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not
   true." And if He chooses to put Himself on a level, as it were, with
   the rest of humanity in that respect, we cannot expect that our witness
   will stand for anything if it stands alone! No, there must be the
   Spirit, Himself, bearing witness with our spirit that we are the
   children of God!

   17. And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
   Christ Oh that if--"ifchildren." There are some that get over all that.
   They believe in a universal fatherhood--which is not worth the words in
   which they describe it. This is a different fatherhood altogether!

   17. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified
   together. Oh, this blessed co-partnership--this fellowship! Joint-heirs
   with Christ! Taking part in the whole heritage--as well the heritage of
   suffering as the heritage of glory. "It shall bruise Your heel, but You
   shall bruise his head." There is to be the heel-bruising for the
   Christ, as well as for us, but there is to be the head-crushing of sin
   and Satan for Him and for us, too!

   18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
   worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
   Glory in us? Only think of that! You know the Revelation that is in the
   Book--but how grand will be the revelation that is in the man! "The
   glory which shall be revealed in us." We shall be full of glory! And a
   part of God's Glory, which otherwise must have lain concealed, will be
   revealed in His people to His own praise forever and ever--but also to
   our own eternal joy.

   19. For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the
   manifestation of the sons of God. There is something that the whole
   creation is waiting for and it cannot come till God's children are
   manifested--till the glory is revealed in them!

   20. 22. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but
   by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope. Because the
   creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
   into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the
   whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. "The
   whole creation." It is the same word all through--so I have used the
   same word. The whole world is in its pangs and birth throes, and there
   can never come its complete deliverance into the new heavens and the
   new earth, except there shall also be the manifestation of the children
   of God and their deliverance from all that now hampers and hinders the
   Divine Life that is within them!

   23. And not only they, but ourselves, also, which have the first fruits
   of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for
   the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. This is what we are
   looking for! Our manhood is not all soul--it is body, too! And here, as
   yet, this poor body seems to lie outside the gate, like Lazarus, while
   the soul rejoices in God. But its time of glorifying is coming! The
   trumpet of the archangel shall proclaim it!

   24. For we are saved by hope. As yet we are saved by hope.

   24-26. But hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does
   he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with
   patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities.
   That is a grand thing! We have got the first fruits of the Spirit to be
   the pledge of all the glorious harvest. The very fact that the Spirit
   dwells in us is the conclusive proof that our bodies shall be raised
   from the dead! Meanwhile, the Spirit of God is helping us, as we groan
   and labor, towards the complete perfection. "The Spirit helps our
   infirmities."

   27. And He that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the
   Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the
   will of God.Nor is it only the Holy Spirit who is thus helping us
   onward towards the grand finale!

   28, 29. And we know that all things work together for good to them that
   love God, to them who are the calledac-cording to His purpose. For whom
   He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
   of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And
   you know that He is the First-Born in this sense--not only as the
   greatest, but that as the First-Begotten from among the dead, He has
   risen from the dead! He has risen from the dead and in this He leads
   the way for us all. "That he might be the first-born among many
   brethren."

   30. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He
   called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also
   glorified.No slips, no gaps or chasms by the way. The foreknown are
   predestinated. The predestinated are the called. The called are
   justified. The justified are glorified!

   31. What shall we say, then, to these things.?Shall we succumb under
   the sufferings of the body? Shall we yield to doubt because of all our
   heavy feelings and the dullness that comes of the flesh? By no means!

   31. If God is for us, who can be against us?We can get through all
   these difficulties if God is with us!
     __________________________________________________________________

Resurrection for the Just and the Unjust

   (No. 3346)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 4,
   1868.

   "There shall be a resurrection both for the just and the unjust." Acts
   24:15.

   THE heathen had, somehow or other, spelled out the Truth of God that
   the soul of man is immortal. Almost all their religions implied this
   and some of their sages plainly taught it. But never had they imagined
   that this immortality might belong also to the body!

   The Doctrine of the Resurrection from the Dead was peculiar to
   Christianity. It was so novel and it seemed, at first, to be so absurd
   that when men heard the Apostles speak of such a resurrection they
   mocked and laughed them to scorn as fools. They called Paul, "a
   babbler," because of this. They believed he must be mad. Had they not
   seen the body sicken and die? Had they not marked it in various stages
   of decay? Did they not know that it was frequently dissolved into small
   dust, scattered to the manifold winds of Heaven, or that its fragments
   mingled with the waves of the sea, or that its various members were
   torn by wild beasts and could they, therefore, imagine it to be
   credible that any sane person could believe that the human body would
   rise again from the dead? Yet Paul believed this and this he
   preached--that there would be a resurrection of the dead, both of the
   just and the unjust, not that the just and the unjust would merely live
   as to their souls, but that their bodieswould be restored from the
   grave and that a resurrection, as well as an immortality, would be the
   future of every man of woman born, whatever his character might be!

   Now, this is the great Doctrine of the Christian faith which we do not
   doubt, but joyously accept! Our Lord's Body, that same Body in real
   identity which was nailed to the tree and laid in the tomb for three
   days--that same Body came to life again, with the nail prints
   visible--into which Thomas was invited to put his finger--with the mark
   of the spear into which the same doubting Apostle was asked to thrust
   his hand! Christ proved Himself to be not merely a spirit, but a solid,
   tangible, corporeal existence, for He said, "Handle Me, and see; a
   spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have." And although He
   appeared in the room, the doors being shut, and thus proved that His
   body had lost some of the properties of coarse matter, yet, at the same
   time, He took a piece of flesh and of honeycomb and did eat before
   them--and let them see that it was His very Self who had hung upon the
   Cross and died there at Calvary! And so shall it be with us! Though by
   death our bodies shall lose some of their qualities which we shall all
   be only too glad to lose, though their corruptions and weaknesses shall
   all be laid aside, yet my body and yours in definite identity, each for
   itself, shall rise up from its bed of dust and silent clay, and enter
   into the rest that remains where Jesus dwells before the Throne of God!
   Behold at this present, "the whole creation groans and travails in pain
   together, until now, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
   of the body."

   My great purpose tonight, Beloved, is to speak on the majestic fact
   that the just and the unjust are to live on in a resurrection state. I
   am not going to debate, discuss, argue as to the fact of it, but,
   assuming your belief in God's Inspired Word, declare a few thoughts
   which that sublime Truth seems to raise in one's mind. I shall treat
   the Truth as though it were a lantern--and shall look at some of the
   rays of Divine Light that stream from it on all sides. And, first of
   all--

   I. WHAT AN ENNOBLING EFFECT THIS TRUTH HAS UPON US!

   Observe the effect it has, first of all, given our bodies. Paul
   elsewhere calls the body, "this vile body," and so it is in comparison
   with what it is to be, by-and-by! But yet if this body has been
   redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and if the Holy Spirit
   dwells in our bodies, as we are taught in Scripture--and if these
   bodies are to be partakers of a pure and sinless immortality--then what
   noble things these otherwise vile bodies become! So noble, my Brothers
   and

   Sisters, that it becomes us to guard them sacredly, as sacred things!
   Now, our bodies may be defiled, but shall they be defiled after being
   washed in pure water and after being given up to Christ? You know how
   they may be defiled. The Apostle speaks very plainly concerning certain
   carnal lusts whereby members of Christ may be made members of all
   manner of iniquity. From these things we fly--they should not be so
   much as named among you, as becomes saints. Our bodies may be defiled
   by eating and drinking, unless in the eating and the drinking we
   glorify God. We may by excess in either way bring ourselves into
   conditions in which the mind will not act and I believe, mark you, that
   gluttony is as much a sin in the sight of God as drunkenness, and that,
   in fact, any eating or drinking which makes us unfit for communion with
   God becomes sinful at once! Any passing beyond that boundary, whatever
   it may be, whether in eating or in drinking, becomes sinful! The body
   is clogged and defiled and who would have it so when it has been
   purchased by Christ's precious blood and is to dwell with Him forever?

   The body, too, may be defiled by outward adornments, for the Holy
   Spirit has expressly warned Christian men and women against these.
   There is a holy adornment that we speak of--that of a meek and a quiet
   spirit--but when men and women hang upon themselves their jewels and
   their ornaments of an ungodly profession, they sin against the plain
   precepts of the Word of God and they really defile the bodies that
   belong to Christ! So every bowing of the knee to that to which I ought
   not to bow, every yielding of this body of mine to write what is not
   true, every motion of my tongue to speak that which is not upright and
   according to the fear of God, every movement of these feet to take me
   where it is not good for me to be--defiles the body! So there are ten
   thousand ways in which the Temple of God may be defiled, but I say
   again that with the thought that this body is to live forever and ever,
   we ought to guard with sacred care these members of Christ! The body
   that has been bought with His blood--that is to sleep on His bosom,
   that is to be awakened in His likeness, that is to dwell with Him
   forever, molded after His own Image--take care of that body and keep it
   consecrated unto the Lord!

   And while this ennobles the body, let me say that it also ennobles the
   entire man. If man is a creature. If he is only first among animals,
   though the most highly organized of all the vertebrate creatures. And
   if, when he dies, that is the end of him, as that might be of a sheep
   or a dog, then, looking up to the stars and thinking of man as a mere
   beast, you need not say with David, "Lord, what is man?" You know what
   he is! You have got your answer--and a gloomy and a melancholy answer
   it is. But if man is to live forever and ever, what a noble creature he
   becomes! And, mark you, men are ready enough to admit this of some of
   their fellow creatures--kings, queens, princes, senators and men who
   have heaped up their gold--but when it comes to this, that the beggar,
   being immortal, is to be honored, they do not like it! I would that men
   would remember that the same Bible that says, "Honor the king," also
   says, "Honor all men"--that is, be they what they may! But men must
   honor people's coats--not the men! Or they honor their carriages, or
   they honor their sovereigns, but they do not honor the men! And yet, in
   truth, seeing that man is to live forever, that his existence in the
   future is coeval with the life of God, every man becomes a strange and
   wondrous thing! If you could pile up a mountain of gold, a huge pyramid
   of it, and then by the side of it a pyramid of precious stones, yet all
   these put together could not be valued with the soul of the pauper's
   child that has been in the workhouse from its very birth! Despise not,
   then, despise not a man made in the image of God--a man redeemed with
   the blood of Christ, a man immortal, a man a mystery if he is
   immortal--a mystery of mysteries!

   As I begin to look at him in the light of my text, which is far above
   all the fictitious surroundings to which men attach so much weight, he
   appears to me now to be a greater being than stars or suns, for these
   may die out and their brightness become extinct--but here is a star
   that shall shine on forever! A sun that shall flash its beams
   throughout eternity! We must not, therefore, if we are poor, broken,
   despised--at once go into sin as though we were too mean to be capable
   of excellence! We must not begin to say, "I cannot be saved--I am so
   illiterate, I am so obscure." Why not? If you are not saved, you will
   have to live forever in misery! Can you understand that? You are
   endowed with an immortality from which it is impossible for you to
   escape! In that respect, by that wondrous gift, God has put you on an
   elevated position and I pray that you may look at it as such--may, by
   His Grace, not fling yourselves away, nor trifle with yourselves, nor
   do the devil's bidding--but seek Him who has promised in His Word that
   they that seek Him shall find Him!

   Thus much on that one thought. And now a second one. If there is
   another state, as you know there is, for body and soul--

   II. WHAT A LIGHT THAT CASTS UPON THIS PRESENT LIFE!

   How little it makes it! How great it makes it! How little! Well, if I
   suffer, today. If my life should be made weary through weakness of
   body, or if it should be bitter through heart-toil, or if it should be
   severe through stern poverty, yet you know how we sing--

   "The way may be rough, but it cannot be long."

   And again, we sometimes sing--

   "An hour with my God will make up for it all."

   These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to
   be compared with the weight of glory which shall be revealed in us!
   Looking at the trials of this present life and comparing and
   contrasting them with the splendor, glory, and eternity of the life to
   come, they are not worth a thought! They disappear and we sing as we
   wade through the midst of them, knowing that it is so written that
   through much tribulation we must inherit the Kingdom of God. When we
   look back from the hilltops of Heaven, I suppose life itself will seem
   to be infinitesimal. Those great troubles of ours will look like pin's
   pricks and we shall almost laugh to think that we should have weighed
   those burdens and thought them so heavy when they were, after all,
   light as feathers. I think we shall, as Watts says--

   "With transporting joys recount

   The labors of our feet."

   We shall say, one to another, "How could we have been so unbelieving?"
   What was there, after all, in our trials to depress us so much? Our
   sufferings were not worth a thought when once compared with those of
   our Master. "His way was much rougher and darker than mine. Did Christ
   my Lord suffer, and did I repine?" Why was it that with such blessed
   help, such rich promises, such Covenant blessings and with the
   everlasting arms underneath us, yet nevertheless we were faint and
   ready to die? Oh, Brothers and Sisters, this world seems so little when
   we think of the world to come! Now, you who have been envious of the
   rich, you little think how soon they will be as poor as you! You who
   have sometimes thought how richly you were favored--think how fame is
   nothing but a breath--and how soon it is gone! Princes will sleep side
   by side with the slave. The great conqueror will not be distinguished
   from the victims of his ambition. The greatest millionaire will be no
   richer than you! Both alike, you came naked into this world--and naked
   you return to the dust. So must it be. Oh, it is all little! "Vanity of
   vanities, all is vanity." The big round world becomes a bubble and it
   vanishes--and as a puff of smoke, the glory of the world departs!

   And yet in this respect, I say, how great this present life becomes!
   You know how our poet puts its--

   "Great God! On what a slender thread

   Hang everlasting things!

   The eternal state of all the dead

   Upon life's feeble strings."

   This life is the mother of the life to come. There is a resurrection
   for the just, and all the glory which the just shall inherit will be
   but the outcome of that immortal life which they received here! There
   is a resurrection for the unjust, and the worm undying and the fire
   that shall never be quenched! And all these will be just the
   development and open revealing of the character which they acquired
   here on earth. Living in sin is the germ of living forever in Hell!
   Believing in Jesus is the root of rejoicing forever in glorious
   immortality! Now, Sirs, see you not that life is not a thing to be
   played with, not a heap of counters that a child may toss to and fro,
   not the mere spray on the great sea of eternity? You must not joke and
   talk about it as though it were a thing to be despised--but come up and
   look at it with all its solemn possibilities and results--and live the
   life of sober men, live the life of men who have peered beyond the veil
   and seen some of the momentous issues of this fleeting existence!
   Henceforth, live while you live, earnestly, as in the sight of God, the
   Judge of the quick and the dead! Yes, let the light of the Resurrection
   stream over the whole of your present life to make its great things for
   the present to become little--to make those things which otherwise
   might be little, which have a reference to eternity--become great in
   your esteem. But I will not tarry on this and, therefore, pass on to
   the thought--

   III. WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT THIS OFFERS TO US!

   To think that there is a resurrection and another life! What? Were it
   worth our while to toil here in the service of Christ, often unrewarded
   and very frequently misrepresented and persecuted for what we do, if
   there were not a place where the reward of Divine Grace would be given
   and where the mistakes of earth would all be set right? "Therefore,"
   says the Apostle, "beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch

   as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." It might be in
   vain here, but forasmuch as there is a resurrection, your labor is not
   in vain in the Lord! If we win souls for Christ, it often happens that
   some of those whom we thought were saved, go back into perdition--many
   of those who are really saved walk disorderly--others are ungrateful to
   their spiritual parents and turn aside to crooked ways. But if our
   record is on high and we do not look to our success for our reward, but
   to our Master--then we may be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in
   work! You who are doing something for Jesus Christ in the school, or in
   any other department of labor, if you look upon your rewards as the
   result, you may, perhaps, have very few conversions and you may go
   toiling on very heavily. But if you will look beyond all present
   results to the great Taskmaster's blessed smile and think you hear Him
   say, "Well done, good and faithful servant"-- when you see Him reward
   you not according to your success, but according to the measure of
   Grace which you use faithfully in His service--when you see that, you
   will pluck up courage, you will not be of heavy heart, you will be
   instant in season, out of season!

   The same thing is an encouragement under suffering. For this the
   martyrs cheerfully gave themselves up to their tormentors, not
   accepting deliverance because they looked for a better resurrection.
   This it was that made them brave to meet the lions in the amphitheater,
   or to lie and silently rot in the dismal dungeons of the Roman
   Emperors. This it was that made Smithfield glorious, as the saints in
   their chariots of fire clapped their hands and ascended to the skies!
   They were, of all men, most miserable if, in this life only, they had
   hope. They were, of all men, most insane to fling away their lives if
   this world were all! But because there is another and a better land, to
   die for Jesus became a glorious thing and they did it, being not
   amazed, not trembling, but dying with greater grandeur about them than
   that with which most men have learned to surround their living! And
   now, you that today are poor, or today are scoffed at. You who, though
   trying to follow Christ, find it a hard path. You who at home have
   little to encourage you and comfort you--remember this worldis not your
   rest! If you were to have 50 years of your present trouble, well, it
   will be as nothing compared with the eternal weight of Glory! Have
   patience. Ask your Master to give you His patience. Pray of the Holy
   Spirit to work in you holy virtue, that after you have endured awhile,
   you may inherit the promise. Remember that there must first be the
   service before there can be the reward--and even under the economy of
   Grace--in which we are not saved by works, but saved by the merit of
   Jesus, yet the Lord will have His servants, first of all, be made
   perfect through suffering before He admits them to their everlasting
   rest. Be of good courage, then! He will strengthen your heart. This is
   not your rest, but it remains for you, and you shall inherit it,
   by-and-by. Passing on again, for I only dwell for a moment upon each
   thought--this fact of our rising again and living forever suggests to
   us--

   IV. WHAT OUGHT TO BE THE ONE CONCERN OF LIFE.

   What shall this be for the saint--what for the sinner? If I am to live
   again as a child of God. If my salvation is accomplished. If my sin is
   blotted out and I am really saved, then let me serve my God with all my
   might, seeing what a blessed immortality He has prepared for me! Slaves
   work when they hear the whip crack, but the children of God are not
   slaves--they are not under bondage--they work from a very different
   motive. They have no fear of Hell, no fear of losing Heaven. When their
   faith is constantly fixed upon the merits of their Savior, they know
   that their warfare is accomplished, that their iniquity is pardoned,
   that their salvation is secure beyond all risks through the Everlasting
   Covenant, the inimitable purpose and the Divine promise of the Father
   in Christ Jesus! Because their salvation is secure and because it leads
   to such a blessed immortality, they burn with fervent love and
   passionate gratitude towards Him who has done so much for them!
   Gratitude in the heart ought to be, and I believe it is, the most
   powerful force in human motive. Love-- what shall equal it? Its wheels
   move until the axles grow hot with speed. Love has an impetuous force
   about it. Many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown
   it. What love we owe to Him who died, that when we die we may live
   again, who rose that we might rise and made a pathway to the skies that
   we might follow Him, even to His Throne!

   "He lives, the great Redeemer lives," and beckons us to come and live
   with Him! When our bodies must, for awhile, see corruption, His voice,
   which shall be the trumpet sound, shall call us from the beds wherein
   we slumber to abide with Him forever! Let us love Him, then! Let us be
   up and doing to find the lost ones that are His sheep, to find His
   pieces of money that are now in the dust, to discover our prodigal
   brethren that are still going astray! Shall we ask for rest when rest
   remains? Shall we escape from toil when toil is the only exposition of
   our love? Shall we bemoan our sufferings when sufferings give us
   opportunities of proving our affection to Him? If the saint in Heaven
   could wish himself back again, he almost might--if he could win a soul
   by tarrying here a little longer! If any one of yonder white-robed
   hosts could wish

   to be on earth, surely it might be to occupy the place of an earnest
   Evangelist, or of a fervent Sunday school teacher, or of any other who
   is a soul-winner for Jesus! I must confess I do not envy Gabriel his
   crown when God gives me souls! I have then thought that I would rather
   be here to talk with you and point you to my Master's Cross, than be up
   there and cast my crown at His feet--for surely there can be no joy in
   Heaven greater than the joy of doing the Master's will in winning souls
   for Him! Do not let us throw away our opportunities for doing this.
   Some of you do not, perhaps, think of using them. In your business, in
   the acquaintances that Providence puts in your way--you have
   opportunities in all these things of bearing your witness for your
   Master. I pray you to see them and seize them! They will soon pass, and
   in the silent chamber, when you are about to enter into another world,
   if regret shall mingle with the holy peace that then shall gild your
   brow, it will be this regret, "I wish I had served Him better, whom I
   am so soon to see. I wish I had more to take to Him who gave Himself up
   for me." Surely you will bid "good-bye" to friends with reluctance, if
   you have never warned them to escape from the wrath to come! And those
   dear children--it will bring hotter tears into your eyes to leave
   them--if you leave them unsaved because you did not plead and wrestle
   with them for their salvation. So live, dear Friends, that when you
   come to die, there shall be nothing left undone and you may go and feel
   that through Grace you have been what you are, and unto God be the
   praise--that you have not neglected the lifework which your Master gave
   you!

   Now, I said that this text should make the unforgiven sinner think--and
   so it should, and very earnestly, too, because there will be a
   resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just. If you who are now
   living in sin were really to die and perish like horses, there might be
   some sort of excuse found for choosing the pleasures of this life as
   being all-in-all. After all, if there is no other world, I do not know
   but what the Epicurean philosophy is the right one--"Let us eat and
   drink, for tomorrow we die." If we are only to live in this world, it
   is the part of wisdom to enjoy one's self as much as possible. I do not
   know but that even then a man would be justified in running into
   vice--because that does not bring enjoyment--it is sure to guarantee,
   even in this life, the most serious results. But still, at the bottom,
   that old Greek philosopher had hit upon the true philosophy of life if
   this life were all--"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." But if
   there is a life to come, as there is, then what a fool Epicurus was!
   And what nonsense his philosophy becomes! Let us eat and drink, for
   tomorrow we do not die, or if we do, yet we live again--and in the
   light of living again, why, eating and drinking seems such dreadful
   trumpery, such driveling idiocy that a man cannot tolerate it either
   from philosopher or from a fool! Oh, if you are to live forever, you
   who are living without thinking of your God, what sort of life must the
   next one be for you? You to whom, even now, to think of God is an
   irksome burden, what will the next world be for you? You believe that
   Book, you dare not doubt it! And that Book tells you that "except you
   repent of your sin, you shall all likewise perish." Moreover, it tells
   you that there is no salvation out of Christ, but "He that believes in
   Him shall be saved; but He that believes not is condemned already,
   because he has not believed on the Son of God." According to this Book
   of God's perfectly revealed mind, there is reserved for you, if you
   remain impenitent, a "fearful-looking-for of judgment and fiery
   indignation." Fear not him who can destroy the body--only fear Him who
   can cast both soul and body into Hell!

   Why do you give so much attention to this world that is so soon to be
   left--and the eternal things are quite forgotten or despised by you? I
   do not feel as if I could plead this with you with any sort of force or
   eager earnestness because it is really so plain that you, in your sins,
   must see it for yourselves! You surely, surely, as sober-minded men and
   women-- and I know there are some here who are accustomed to think--you
   must feel that the living throughout millions of ages ought to be of
   greater concern than living from week to week, or even year to year! We
   think a man is very foolish that lives from hand to mouth, and never
   cares to make any provision for a rainy day. But what a fool that man
   must be who makes no provision for that rainy day when the tempest of
   Heaven's retribution shall beat upon his naked soul--and he shall have
   no shelter and no way of escape! And if a man has grown old and yet
   neglects eternity, if his constitution is being gradually undermined
   and yet the everlasting things are despised. If he has had solemn
   warnings that he must soon depart. If he has seen old companions, one
   by one, taken to the grave--and he still trifles away his time,
   lingering upon the brink of fate--what folly is this and in what words
   can I describe it?

   Blessed Spirit, take away this folly and make men wise that they may be
   saved! Let this be our one great concern-- with holy care to make our
   calling and election sure, that when the Master comes we may not be
   found castaways--but may be gathered with His people! And now for the
   last point. I do not know whether you will set much store by this last
   thought, but it is this--considering that our friends whom we talk with
   everyday, with whom we go up and down to the market, and to the place
   of worship--considering that they are to live forever--

   V. SHOULD WE NOT ALTER A GREAT DEAL OF OUR PRESENT BEHAVIOR UNDER THE
   POWER OF THIS TRUTH?

   What kind of behavior does this majestic fact inculcate towards our
   fellow men and women? Well, I think that Christian people ought always
   to act to one another as immortal beings. Now I know some who belong to
   one denomination who will scarcely speak to those of another section of
   Christ's one Church. Well, well, well--if you both ever get to Heaven,
   you will have to dwell together! Yet it seems as though you cannot live
   together on earth without bickering! Why can't you make up your minds
   to differ from each other, but always in a Christian spirit? I think,
   if I knew I had to live with a man, forever, one thing I would like to
   do would be to tell him perfectly honestly, with sincere love, all the
   Truths of God I knew--and I ought to be willing to hear from him all
   the Truth he thought he knew. I would not like him to say to me, "Now,
   you must not hold your views strongly--you must not speak of them, or
   try to propagate them." That would be as bad as telling me I must sin
   against God by restraining the light which He had given me! Neither
   ought I to say to him, "You shall not be free to hold and disseminate
   your views," for that would be to take upon myself a responsibility
   which does not belong to me!

   But each holding our separate views and contending earnestly for what
   we believe to be "the faith once for all delivered to the saints,"
   might we not thus exercise an honesty which we shall look back upon in
   Heaven with joy--and at the same time, a brotherly kindness which will
   be a sweet reflection even beyond the stars? If any two of you have
   fallen out, even about the faith, go your way and agree tonight! You
   have got to live together forever--do not quarrel! You who are
   relatives, especially, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, but as
   you are birds in the same nest, children of one family, and one with
   God, do not fall out! And if you have, make it up at once and let holy
   Christian forgiveness reign and rule! You see, God will not put a
   partition between you in Heaven. I do not believe they will practice
   any kind of strict communion up there. I do not believe there will be
   any separate bench for any who would like to have that kind of thing,
   but that the whole company of saints will have communion with each
   other and with their common Lord, their glorious risen Head! And that
   it will be their delight, all washed from all their imperfections and
   infirmities, to eat bread together in the Kingdom of God, world without
   end! Well, let us have large hearts and brotherly kindness--not keeping
   back our views, for that would be to sin--but holding with a firm hand
   everything which we have received from the Holy Spirit, and yet loving
   the whole household of faith. If we were to die, and there were no life
   to come, then we might be foolish and unchristian enough to be forever
   squabbling and bickering! But if, after death, we are to live forever
   in the same place of Glory, let us so behave to one another that we
   shall not be ashamed or embarrassed to meet each other there.

   And so with regard to the unconverted. Oh, Christian people, try to
   think of all the unconverted people with whom you have to meet as
   immortal souls. Your servant girl that nurses and loves your child--you
   may, perhaps, never have thought of but as a servant girl--but she is
   an immortal soul as much as the Queen on the throne! Or it may be the
   man who comes to do odd jobs about the house and who blacks your
   shoes--you never thought of him, probably--but as a worker, yet
   he--even he--shall outlast the stars! And all those working men and
   women, and girls who come streaming into your yard or factory, who
   weave at your looms, toil in your workrooms, stand at your printing
   press or at the bookbinding, or in your builder's shop--all these and
   the myriads engaged in commercial and professional life you may
   hitherto, perhaps, have only thought of them as two-legged machines to
   earn so many shillings for you and draw so many less from you every
   week! Yes, but now just think again. They are living for immortality as
   well as yourselves! Will you try to act with them that if their funeral
   knell were heard and they were gone, the voice of conscience might not
   have to torment you with this suggestion, "You neglected their souls!
   You did not do to them what you ought to have done to them! You kept
   back from their immortal part that which, alone, could make them
   blessed in this life and in the life to come." 'Tis but a simple
   thought, and yet if I leave it with you, and God the Holy Spirit
   blesses it, it may be a very blessed thought to some whom you know not
   of today! Remember that all you see in the streets, and all you see in
   the house, and all you see here tonight are all immortal and shall live
   again! And so treat them as such, looking forward to the time when you
   will have to give an account whether you have abused or used graciously
   the opportunities which your Master placed in your way.

   And now may the good Lord keep our thoughts Heavenward and bless us in
   them, for His name's sake. Amen.

   7

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 73.

   Here you have the Psalmist in a fainting fit. He has allowed the flesh
   to conquer the spirit. The observant eye of reason has, for awhile
   rendered dim the clear vision of faith.

   Verse 1. Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
   heart That must be true. Whatever we have seen or felt, it cannot be
   doubted but what God must become a good God to His own people, "Such as
   are of a clean heart."

   2, 3. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had wellnear
   slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of
   the wicked. I began to envy those whom God hates and to think that it
   would be better for me to have been one of them!

   4. For there are no pangs in their death: but their strength is firm.
   Their unbelief helps them to die in peace, mocking God even to the
   last.

   5, 8. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued
   like other men. Therefore pride compasses them about as a chain;
   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 justify
   themselves in treading others down. They laud it over others. They
   bully them. They rob them. They crush them, yet speak as if they had a
   perfect right to do so!

   9. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walks
   through the earth. Leaving nobody alone, sparing no character, however
   pure.

   10, 11. Therefore his people return here: and waters of a full cup are
   wrung out to them. And they say, How does God know? And is there
   knowledge in the Most High?They get to doubt the Personality of God. If
   they will not precisely say that there is no God, yet they go as near
   to it as they can! They come to what is about the same thing. They have
   a god who does not know and who does not perceive.

   12. Behold, these are the ungodly whoprosperin the world; theyincrease
   in riches. And this is what the good man said--

   13, 14. Verily Ihave cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in
   innocence. For all daylong have I beenpla-gued, and chastened every
   morning. "Is this all I am to get by my righteousness? Is this the
   reward of following after God--to be whipped as soon as I wake, and to
   be sent to bed sore with grief?"

   15. If I say, I will speak thus, behold I should offend against the
   generation of Your children. So he did not say what he thought. Some
   have said, "If you think so, you may as well say so." But not so! You
   might as well say if you have a match you may as well burn your house
   down! Bad thought is bad to yourself, but it ends there--turn it into
   words and tell it to others and it may do infinite mischief.

   16, 17. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. Until I
   went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end.He went and
   hid himself in his God! He got near his God. It does not mean that he
   went to some place of worship, but that he went to the God whom he
   worshipped--hid himself in his God.

   18. Surely you did set them in slippery places; You cast them down into
   destruction--

   "On hills of ice I see them stand, While flaming billows roll below,"

   melting down their foundation.

   19, 22. How are they 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. Thus my heart was
   grieved, and I was pricked in my veins. So foolish was I, and ignorant:
   I was as a beast before You. It is a man of God that talks thus about
   himself. He feels that he had got to act and think as a beast might do,
   for a beast only calculates things according to time present--it crops
   the grass, is satisfied and lies down. But an immortal man ought to
   take a wider sweep and range in his thoughts and not merely think of
   today and of this present life, but of the end of time and of the
   eternity that lies beyond this present mortal state! And because he had
   failed to do so, he calls himself foolish and ignorant, and says--

   23, 28. Nevertheless I am continually with You: You have held me by my
   right hand. You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards
   receive me to Glory. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is none
   upon earth that I desire beside You. My flesh and my heart fails: but
   God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever. For, lo, they
   who are far from You shall perish: You have destroyed all them that
   desert You for harlotry 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.
   He finds all his comfort in his God. He comes to the conclusion that
   whatever the portion of the ungodly may be, his is infinitely better
   than theirs because they have not God and he has God, who is
   All-in-All!
     __________________________________________________________________

Things to Be Remembered

   (No. 3347)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "A Psalm of David to bring to remembrance." Psalm 38:(Title).

   THESE words form the title to the Psalm before us, which we read just
   now in your hearing. Let us note, for a short time, the subjects which
   David thought it necessary to bring to remembrance. We must all have
   noticed that our memories much more readily retain evil than good. The
   snatch of a profane song heard in childhood will remain with us to our
   graves--while many a holy thought leaves scarcely an impression upon
   the tablets of memory. We heard it--it is gone-- it would be difficult
   to recall it. The draft that flows down the rivers of Sodom, one
   retentively collects, but the goodly cedars of Lebanon that are floated
   down the stream pass by unheeded. We may well say, "Forget not all His
   benefits," for, alas, while the multitude of God's benefits is
   forgotten, if there is anything to murmur at, it is pretty sure to be
   treasured up as though it were a priceless relic to be carefully
   preserved! May the Lord mend our memories. As He makes us new men and
   women in Christ Jesus, may the Holy Spirit give to our memories the
   power to grip the right and the true--and with a loose hand to let slip
   that which is evil and contrary to His rule. The Psalm is "to bring to
   remembrance." This seems to teach us that good things need to be kept
   alive in our memories, that we should often sit down, look back,
   retrace and turn over in our meditation things that are past, lest, at
   any time we should let any good thing sink into oblivion. I have read
   the Psalm to you and I think you will all agree with me that among the
   things which David brought to his own remembrance, the first and
   foremost were--

   I. HIS PAST TRIALS AND HIS PAST DELIVERANCES.

   Come, my Brothers and Sisters, let me stir up your pure minds by way of
   remembrance. Let me remind you of your past battles and victories, of
   your troubles and conflicts and your sweet cheer and safe preservation.
   It will do you good to remember them--such a remembrance will prevent
   your imagining that you have come into the land of ease and perfect
   rest We may have our time of prosperity and say with David, "I shall
   never be moved. Lord, by Your favor, You have made my mountain to stand
   strong." But soon adversity surprises us, as it suddenly overtook him
   and changed his note, "You did hide Your face and I was troubled." This
   is not the place for us to have peace and rest! We are as yet at
   sea--the vessel has not reached the port. We are as yet in the
   wilderness--we have not come to the goodly land, even to Canaan. We are
   not yet out of gunshot of the devil. We are not yet beyond afflictions
   and trials and if, for awhile, the weather has been calm and the sun
   has been bright--and we poor pilgrims have been trudging on along green
   pastures and by the side of still waters--let us remember the giants
   with whom we fought in days long gone! Let us remember the hills of
   difficulty, the valleys of humiliation, the conflicts with
   Apollyon--for as it was at the first, so shall it always be till we
   come to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
   Oh, you who are making for yourself a downy nest and building up a
   castle in the air, remember you do this without the permission of your
   God! No, you do it in the teeth of His warnings, for has not Jesus
   said, "In the world you shall have tribulation"? And is it not written,
   "Many are the afflictions of the righteous"? Bring to remembrance,
   then, your former struggles lest you begin to settle upon your lees and
   fancy that there is no more trial for you!

   Remember them, too, because they will refresh your memories with regard
   to the mercy of God and so will stir you up to gratitude. Oh, we
   thought when we were in trouble that if the Lord would guarantee us
   deliverance, He would never hear the last of it! We said to ourselves,
   "I will praise Him while I have any being if He brings me out of this
   strait and sets my feet, once again, in a large room." But our song was
   not quite as long as we expected and, after having praised God a
   little, the novelty of the mercy departed and our gratitude subsided.
   But, oh, my Brothers and Sisters,

   have we not much cause to bless God? Have we not cause to bless Him
   that we have been delivered from the burden of guilt--a burden that
   once bowed us to the earth--that we have been saved in dire afflictions
   when it seemed as if we must be crushed, that tribulations have been
   averted which threatened us, or that we have been sustained under those
   which have actually come upon us? Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song!
   And weave that new song out of the remembrances of His past mercies
   when He appeared for His servants in the times of trouble and worked
   amazingly for them according to the counsels of His love! Blessed be
   the name of the Lord at this time as we bring to remembrance trials
   past, and mercies that have been received!

   Such a remembrance will be of great service to you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, if you are at this time enduring the like exercises. What God
   was, that He is. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and
   forever," is His people's trust and glory. Having begun to deliver you,
   He will not afterwards forsake you! He has not brought you this far to
   put you to shame. What is the trouble of today? You have passed through
   another quite as great. What is the doubt that assails you? You have
   already met a doubt quite as gloomy and by faith you have overcome it!
   What is the fear which now gathers like a heavy cloud? The time before,
   it burst with mercies upon your head--and it shall do the same again!
   Draw courage from the recollections of the past and go forward to the
   fears of the future--and they shall vanish as you advance confident in
   your God. The great point, however, in David's Psalm is--

   II. TO BRING TO REMEMBRANCE THE DEPRAVITY OF OUR NATURE.

   There is, perhaps, no Psalm which more fully than this one describes
   human nature as seen in the light which God, the Holy Spirit, casts
   upon it in the time when He convicts us of sin. I am persuaded that the
   description here does not tally with any known disease of the body. It
   is very much like leprosy, but it has about it certain features which
   cannot be found to meet in any leprosy described either by ancient or
   modern writers. The fact is, it is a spiritualleprosy--it is an inward
   disease which is here described--and David paints it to the very life
   and he would have us remember this. Child of God, let me bring to your
   remembrance, tonight, the fact that you are by nature no better than
   the vilest of the vile! "Children of wrath even as others," are we.
   Even you who are favored by Divine Grace to enter into rich fellowship
   with Christ are no better, naturally, than the lost spirits in Hell!
   There was no difference at birth and no intrinsic essential difference
   of moral constitution between Peter and Judas, between Paul and Demas,
   between the brightest Apostle and the bloodiest persecutor! We have
   grown in Grace--had we been left to ourselves, we would have rotted in
   sin! We have gone from strength to strength in the way of holiness, but
   if it had not been for Divine Grace that interposed most sovereignly,
   we would have gone from depth to depth in the way of crime!

   Just turn that over for a minute. By nature not one whit better than
   the rest of mankind, see what Grace has done for you in making such a
   difference! Why are you not tonight upon the drunkard's bench? Why fill
   you not the seat of the scorner? Perhaps you have been there already,
   and if Divine Grace had not prevented, you would have continued there!
   I think it does us a world of good, when Grace has made the difference,
   to still take the place which the publican did. I never feel so well in
   spiritual health as when I cry out, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
   Somehow there is a safeness about it, when a sense of sin makes one
   cling to the sinner's Savior. Growth in Grace and high frames in
   spirituality are very pleasant, but it does us so much good, every now
   and then, to come right on the ground again, flat on our face before
   the Lord, crying out, "What am I that You have brought me to this? God
   forgive me, and accept me through the precious blood, for in myself I
   am loathsome, vile and abhorred--and in me there dwells no good thing."
   The best mode of living is to live upon Christ every day as you did the
   first day of your conversion--always to stand at the foot of the Cross
   with--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Your Cross I cling."

   A saint, I hope, by Grace, but a sinner certainly by nature. Still,
   still dependent upon the same merit of the Substitute, still accepted
   through the continual plea of the Divine Intercessor who has espoused
   my cause and is able to save to the uttermost, them that come unto God
   by Him. "Heirs of wrath even as others"--this is what we were! Sinners
   saved by Grace--this is what we are! It is well to bring to the
   remembrance of the child of God that although his past sin is all
   blotted out, and he is justified by faith which is in Jesus Christ, yet
   there still remains in him the old body of this death. Sin, the force
   of sin, still dwells in him! Now, Brothers and Sisters, there are times
   when everything goes very smoothly with us. Everybody treats us kindly.
   We are much in religious exercises. We go from Prayer Meetings to
   lectures, from

   lectures to sermons, and from sermons to our room and to our Bibles. We
   do not get vexed or troubled and we begin to think, "Now I really am
   somewhat of a superior being. I think I am not what I used to be--I
   never could be roused to that old anger which once flamed out so
   furiously, nor could I now be led into such fretfulness as once was
   known to overcome me." I have noticed--take my experience for what it
   is worth--that the most dangerous time in the Christian's life is when
   he has been nearest to God in devotion. You meet the devil and not
   expecting him, he is too much for you. It is just when you have been
   most spiritual that the temptation which you had almost thought would
   never come again, trips you up, and ah, how soon you find that if when
   upon the mountain, your face glowed, down in the valley, again, unless
   your Master holds you up, your foot will slip and your face will be
   covered with the filthiness of the valley! Remember, child of God, let
   others say what they will to you, that the dictates of experience and
   the teachings of God's Word lead you to the remembrance that there is
   still in you a spirit that lusts after all manner of evil, a nature
   which, if it were not curbed and confined by the Grace of God, would
   make you again to be what you were, yes, and would bring into your
   house seven devils worse than the first! Never conceive that any one of
   the evils of your nature is so dead that it cannot have a resurrection.
   Strive against every form of sin, every thought of sin, every carnal
   tendency, every evil pas-sion--and when you have striven most, never
   count your victory to be complete until your feet are within the pearly
   gate! Never reckon that you may take off your helmet and lay aside your
   sword and say, "The battle is fairly won," until you have crossed the
   River of Death and go waving the banner of love in the streets of the
   New Jerusalem!

   David brings this to remembrance and that, too, in the most forcible
   words. Some of the children of God can use very terrible words about
   what they feel in their own nature, so that ungodly men say of them,
   "How bad these Christians must be!" It is not that they are worse than
   others, but that they have the sense to see the evil. A man in a black
   coat may have a hundred spots and blots upon it, but nobody will see
   them--but let him wear a coat of white and if there is only a little a
   speck of mire, it is immediately perceived! The holier the Christian
   becomes, the more readily he perceives his imperfections and the
   wickedness of his sins--and sin, instead of becoming more bearable to a
   Christian, becomes growingly more and more intolerable! A man in the
   water may bear much--in fact, much of it might roll over his head and
   he would not feel the weight of it--but let him come out on the dry
   land and put but a small quantity of water in a bucket and how heavy it
   is when he carries it upon his head! When he is in the water, he does
   not feel the weight, for it presses him on all sides--but get him out
   of the water and then he begins to feel its gravity. So, a sinner in
   his sin is like a man in the deep--he does not feel the weight of his
   sin. But get him out of it, bring him into a new element, and then
   immediately sin becomes exceedingly sinful! Oh, if we could but be
   perfect! If it were possible to be rid of this evil nature! So we sigh
   and so we cry, waiting for the adoption, for the coming of the Lord,
   for the perfecting of our nature as it shall be, by-and-by, when the
   furnace work of Providence and the refining work of Divine Grace shall
   all be done!

   It is a gloomy thing to bring to your remembrance, my dear Friends, but
   it is often brought to mine, and I know it is good for me--what you
   were by nature, and what you still are, unless the Grace of God
   prevents it. Remember old John Bradford's remark whenever he saw a man
   go by his window to Tyburn to be hanged--and he lived at that time
   where he saw them all--"Ah," he said, "there goes John Bradford if the
   Grace of God had not prevented." It is said that a Scotchman once went
   to see Rowland Hill and, sitting down, he looked at the lines in his
   face. He looked a long while, till Rowland smilingly said, "And what
   are you looking at, my Friend?" "I am looking at the lines in your
   face, Mr. Hill." "And what," said he, "do you make of them?" "Why, that
   if the Grace of God had not saved you, you would have been a great
   rogue." "Ah," said Rowland, "and you have hit the mark!" It is even so,
   and even worse than that! If the Grace of God had not come into our
   hearts and made new creatures of us, we had been equal to the devil,
   or, at any rate, it would not have been our fault if we had not
   excelled even Apollyon, himself, in rebellion and enmity to God! A
   third thing the Psalm brings to our remembrance is-- III. OUR MANY
   ENEMIES.

   David says that his enemies laid snares for him, sought his hurt, spoke
   mischievous things and devised and imagined deceits all day long.
   "Well," says one, "how was it that David had so many enemies? How could
   he make so many? Must he not have been imprudent and rash, or, perhaps,
   morose?" It does not appear so in his life. He rather made enemies by
   his being scrupulously holy. His enemies attacked him not because he
   was wicked, but, as he says in this very Psalm, they were his enemies
   because he loved the thing which is good. Now, you must not suppose
   that because you seek to live in all peaceableness and righteousness,
   that, therefore, everybody will be peaceable towards you. Far from it!
   Our Lord put us upon the right tack when He said, "I came not to send
   peace upon earth, but a sword." The ultimate result of the religion of
   Christ is to make peace everywhere--but the first result is to cause
   strife. When the Light of God comes, it must contend with the darkness.
   When the Truth of God comes, it must first combat error. And when the
   Gospel comes, it must meet with enemies--and the man who receives the
   Gospel will find that his foes shall be they of his own household. You
   shall not be helped by an ungodly father, nor be cheered onward by an
   un-Christian mother. One would think that even nature, itself, might
   lead parents to admire that which should make their children virtuous,
   preserve them in this life and bless them in the life to come. But such
   is the enmity of the human heart against Christ and His Gospel, that
   hundreds of parents have been monsters to their children when those
   children have been obedient subjects to Christ! Why those stakes, those
   dungeons and those racks? Why the snows of Piedmont dyed scarlet with
   human gore? Why the glens of Scotland marked with the lurking places of
   the saints? Because this world hates the people of God! "You are not of
   the world," says Christ, "even as I am not of the world, and therefore
   the world hates you." It is good to be reminded of this, that we may
   not be astonished at the fiery trial as though some strange thing had
   happened to us! It is the part and lot of the follower of the true to
   have to contend with deadly odds.

   And remember, Christian, you have enemies who seek to turn you aside
   and do you mischief. You are not now traveling along a road that is
   safe for your feet, in which there is no enemy whatever, but behind
   every hedge there lurks a foe. Whether you are in high or low estate,
   temptation will assail you. It is not possible for you to shut the door
   so quickly as to shut out temptations to sin! Snares assail you in your
   bed and at your table--snares will be about your feet at home and
   abroad, with your fellow workmen and in the bosom of your family. Be
   always on the alert then. Travel with a naked sword--never sheath it.
   "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation," and until you have
   come out of the enemy's country, into the land that flows with milk and
   honey, always hear your Captain say, "What I say unto you I say unto
   all--watch." Watch--especially watch against those who come to you with
   words softer than butter which inwardly are drawn swords! Watch against
   temptations that appeal to your pleasure. You need not be so much
   afraid of that which grieves you as of that which charms you. Watch
   against the fair siren whose fascinating song will attract you from the
   billowy deep with the hope of rest to where, alas, you will find
   shipwreck and ruin! Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it
   sparkles in the cup, when it moves itself aright. Let the charm of the
   temptation be the warning to you. Let the pleasure be the very beacon
   which shall make you turn aside from it, feeling that there must be
   evil lurking there. Christian, be always on your guard! Never be taken
   by surprise. Once more-- IV. THE PSALM REMINDS US OF OUR GRACIOUS GOD.

   Anything which drives us to God is a blessing and anything which weans
   us from leaning on an arm of flesh, and especially that weans us from
   trying to stand alone, is a blessing to us! Think awhile how much you
   owe to the Grace of God who has preserved you until now. The man who
   carries a bombshell within his heart, and has to walk through the midst
   of sparks, may wonder that he has not been blown to pieces--

   "Kept alive with death so near, I to God the glory give."

   With such a heart as mine, if You, O Lord, had not held me fast, I had
   long ago declined and turned back to the world! Praise the Grace that
   has held you till now! Keep in remembrance the patience of God in
   enduring with you, the power of God in restraining you, the love of God
   in instructing you and the goodness of God in keeping you to this day.

   Nor ought we ever to forget with regard to our inward depravity and the
   Grace of God, that mighty work which the Holy Spirit has undertaken. I
   was trying the other day in my own mind to weigh in the scales the work
   of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit--and the only conclusion I
   could come to was this--that I did not know which in its execution was
   the more difficult, or which in its results was the more precious. For
   Christ to take the guilt of sin and suffer was certainly a marvelous
   thing, but for the Holy Spirit to condescend to dwellin our hearts and
   to combat day by day with our sin until He should eradicate the very
   principle of selfishness and make us to be holy even as God is
   holy--this is a work worthy of God! And if the former work, that of
   Christ, was Divine, certainly this is no less so! Oh, let us never
   depreciate the Holy Spirit's work, but looking forward to what we are
   to be, as well as backwards upon what we were, let us magnify the Holy
   Spirit with our heart, soul and strength who has worked all our works
   in us and by whom we shall be presented faultless before the Presence
   of God without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing!

   "My God, I thank You for reminding me of Yourself, of Your Son by whom
   I am cleansed, of Your Holy Spirit by whom I am sanctified, of Yourself
   by whom I am daily succored. Oh, bind me to Yourself with tenfold cords
   and as your Providence brings me where I have to encounter new sins,
   and new trials, and to experience new deliverances and new mercies, may
   You be brought more closely to my soul and may everything bring You to
   remembrance." We never walk so safely as when we walk with God. We are
   never so rich as when we are poor in everything without Him, and never
   so strong as when we are weakness, itself, except for such strength as
   we get from our invisible Helper. Lean heavily there, Christian. Lean
   heavily! You can never make that arm weak. Bear with all your
   weight--He can never tire. Cast all your burden upon Him. You may even
   be glad to have a burden to cast there, so that you may have
   opportunities of knowing and proving the power and faithfulness of your
   God. Tonight, as your troubles have been brought to remembrance, let
   those bring your weakness to remembrance--let that bring your God to
   remembrance and so do you go up the rungs of the ladder from the bottom
   of the horrible pit and of the miry clay, to the very heights ofjoy and
   gladness! And as you go say, "My God, You are mine--mine, despite my
   sin--mine to deliver me from it all and to make me like Yourself, to
   dwell with You forever."

   Brothers and Sisters, the mercy is that all the badness that we see in
   ourselves does not at all affect our standing before God, or our belief
   in our own personal safety! Though I see within myself all that is foul
   and corrupt, everything that is villainous and even devilish, by
   nature, yet do I know that I am saved and rejoice that neither death
   nor Hell shall divide me from my Master's bosom, for our standing rests
   not in ourselves, but wholly in what Christ has done! His perfect work
   presents to us a foundation upon which we can build securely--and
   though we grieve daily over indwelling sin and have come to God with
   many a bitter accusation against ourselves, yet glory be to His name,
   Christ changes not and our acceptance in the Beloved does not wax and
   wane like the moon, but abides in one sacred, high, eternal noonday
   never to go down! Glory be to God, and let our souls exult in such
   mercy as this!

   I would to God as I bring these things to your remembrance, that you
   would remember how many have forgotten these things all their lives.
   How many of your own companions live as if there were no God and no
   hereafter? I bring them to your remembrance. Pray for them and do what
   you can to lead them to Jesus!

   I wish I could bring to theirremembrance that they must die and that
   after death there comes the judgment--and that the judgment for an
   unpardoned soul means eternal destruction from the Presence of the
   Lord! Oh you who have much remembrance for the things of this world
   that are not worth remembering, for awhile use that faculty for nobler
   ends. Scrape not up the mire of the streets, but begin to gather a
   little of the pure gold that God puts before you! Think upon your
   latter end! Think upon the Gospel which now is preached to you. Think
   upon the time when it shall be preached to you no more! Think of the
   hour when you shall be called to account for having rejected the
   Gospel's invitation. Whoever trusts Jesus shall be saved. Rely upon
   what Jesus has done and, guilty as you are, your sins shall be
   forgiven!

   God grant that it may be so with you, for His love's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 6.

   Verse 1 What shall we say, then?Shall we continue in sin that Grace may
   abound?The 5th Chapter ends up in this way, that "where sin abounded,
   etc.. Jesus Christ our Lord." Then he goes on to say, "What shall we
   say, then?" What inference shall we draw from the fact that where sin
   abounded, Grace did much more abound? Shall we be base enough to draw a
   wicked inference from a gracious statement? Shall we continue in sin
   that Grace may abound? It is a horrible suggestion and yet it is one
   which has come into the minds of many men, for some men are bad enough
   for anything--they will curdle the sweet milk of love into the most
   sour argument for sin! "Shall we continue in sin that Grace may abound?
   God forbid!" With all the vehemence of his nature, he says--

   2. God forbid! How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer
   therein?The Grace of God makes us dead to sin. This is the Grace of God
   which delivers us from the power of evil--and if this is so, how can we
   live any longer therein?

   3. Know you not, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
   were baptized into His death? If we are in Christ at all, we are
   partakers of His death and as His was a death for sin and a death to
   sin, we are made partakers of it--we are really dead because Christ
   died and we are in Him. Therefore we are dead to the old life, to the
   old way of sin. We signify that by our baptism.

   4. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as
   Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
   we also should walk in newness of life. Our Baptism, solemn as it was,
   was a great acted lie, a living pretense unless we are dead to our
   former way of living and have come to live unto God in a new life
   altogether, by virtue of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead!

   5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness ofHis death, we
   shall be also in the likeness ofHis Resurrection. If we have partaken
   of His death, we partake also of His rising power. We live because He
   lives and we live as He lives, not after the old manner, but in newness
   of life.

   6. Knowing this, that our oldman is crucified with Him, that the body
   of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.We
   are to regard ourselves as persons that have been dead. We are
   ourselves, it is true, and yet in another sense we are not ourselves.
   We are not to look upon ourselves as though we owed any kind of service
   to the power which we obeyed before we knew the Lord. We are new
   people--we have a new life and have entered upon a new exis-tence--the
   old man is crucified with Him

   7. 8. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we are dead with
   Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.There was no
   getting free from the power of sin except by dying to it but, being
   dead to it, we are free from it and, now being dead that way, we have
   entered into a new life that we might live as Christ lives!

   9. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more; death
   has no more dominion over Him. So we, being raised from our former
   death, shall die no more--death has no more dominion over us. That is
   to say, sin cannot reign in us again--we are dead to it, we are brought
   into a new life that can never end, even as our Lord Jesus Christ is.
   There is a parallel between us and Christ, even as there is a union
   between us.

   10. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He lives,
   He lives unto God. And so do we! We have died unto sin once, but now
   that we live, we live unto God.

   11. 12. Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead, indeed, unto
   sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin,
   therefore, reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the
   lusts thereof It is in the body that it tries to reign. These poor
   things, these mortal frames of ours, have so many passions, so many
   desires, so many weaknesses, all of which are apt to bring us under the
   dominion of sin unless we watch with great care.

   13. Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness
   unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from
   the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
   "Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto
   sin"--neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet--neither suffer any
   of these to become the tools of sin, "but yield yourselves unto God."
   He is ready to use you! Lay all the powers of your nature out as tools
   for Him to use. "Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from
   the dead." He is not the God of the dead--He cannot use the dead, but
   He is the God of the living--and as you profess to have received a new
   life in Christ, yield up all the faculties of this new life unto the
   living God, "and your members as instruments of righteousness unto

   God."

   14. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the
   Law, but under Grace. When you were under the Law, sin did get dominion
   over you! That Law which was ordained to life, worked towards death.
   The evil concupiscence of your nature revolted against the command and
   led you astray. But now, Beloved, it is of love and Grace, and now sin
   cannot get in--stronger motives shall hold you to holiness than ever
   held you before, and the Grace of God, itself, like a wall of fire,
   shall guard you from the dominion of sin!

   15. What then?Shall we sin because we are not under the Law, but under
   Grace? God forbid!That must not be! Again the evil spirit crops up,
   trying to turn the Grace of God into licentiousness, and to make us
   feel free to sin because of God's love--that must not be!

   16. Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey,
   his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of
   obedience unto righteousness?It is a wonderful heart-searching text, is
   this! Let us put ourselves under its power. Whatever you obey, that is
   your master! And if you obey the suggestions of sin, you are the slave
   of sin! And it is only as you are obedient to God that you are truly
   the servants of God. So that, after all, our out-

   ward walk and conversation are the best test of our true condition.
   Without holiness no man shall see the Lord, nor can he have any reason
   to believe that he belongs to God.

   17. But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have
   obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Or
   into which you were delivered. God has taken you, melted you down, and
   poured you into a new mold! God be thanked for that--you are not what
   you used to be. Although you are not what you hope to be, yet you have
   reason to bless God you are not what once you were--you have obeyed
   from the heart that form of doctrine into which you were delivered.

   18. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of
   righteousness. The fetters are struck off, the lusts of the flesh do
   not hold us any longer. We are the Lord's free men and women--and out
   of gratitude for this glorious freedom, we become the willing servants
   of the righteous God!

   19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
   flesh: for as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanliness
   and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants
   to righteousness unto holi-ness.It needs no explanation. In the days of
   our sin, we sinned with all our power. There was not one part of us but
   what became the willing servant of sin and we went from iniquity into
   iniquity! But now the Cross has made us entirely new and we have been
   melted down, poured out into a fresh mold. Now, let us yield every
   member of our body, soul and spirit to righteousness, even unto
   holiness, till the whole of us, in the wholeness and consequently the
   holiness of our nature, shall be given unto God.

   20. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from
   righteousness. You did not care about righteousness then. When you
   served sin, you felt it was utterly indifferent to you what the claims
   of righteousness might be. Well, now that you have become the servant
   of righteousness, be free from sin! Let sin have no more dominion over
   you, now, than righteousness used to have when you were the slaves of
   sin! "What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now
   ashamed?" What profit did they ever bring you? There was a temporary
   delight, like the blossom on the tree in spring, but what fruit did you
   find? Did it ever come to anything? Is there anything to look back upon
   with pleasure in a life of sin? Oh no, those things whereof we are now
   ashamed were fruitless to us, "for the end of those things is death."

   22, 23. But now beingmade free from sin, and being servants to God, you
   have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the
   wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
   Jesus Christ our Lord.

   ISAIAH53.

   This is a Chapter which you have read hundreds of times, perhaps. I am
   sure it is one that needs no comment from me. I shall read it through
   with scarcely a sentence of comment.

   Verses 1-9. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm ofthe
   LORD revealed? For He shallgrow up before Him as a tender plant, and as
   a root out of a dry ground: He has no form nor comeliness; and when we
   shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is
   despised and rejected of men; a Man of Sorro ws and acquainted with
   grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and
   we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our
   sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
   But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
   iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His
   stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
   turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the
   iniquity of us all He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He
   opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as
   a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. He was
   taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare His
   generation? For He was cut off out ofthe land ofthe living: for the
   transgression of My people was He stricken. And He made His grave with
   the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He has done no
   violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth A strange reason for
   making His grave with the wicked, and yet remember, if it had not been
   that He had done no violence, He would not have been fit to be a
   Substitute for sinners! And so He was numbered with transgressors to
   redeem men.

   10, 11, 12. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to
   grief when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see
   His seed. He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure ofthe Lord shall
   prosper in His hands. He shall see ofthe travail ofHis soul, and shall
   be satisfied; by His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many;
   for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore willIdivide Him aportion
   with the great, andHe shall divide the spoil with the strong because He
   has poured out His soul unto death; and He was numbered with the
   transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for
   the transgressors. How clearly you have before you, here, our blessed
   Redeemer, and how strong are the expressions used by Isaiah to set
   forth His Substitution. If he intended to teach us the Doctrine that
   Christ suffered in the place of His people, he could not have used more
   expressive words. And if he did not intend to teach us that Truth of
   God, it is marvelous that he should have adopted a phraseology so
   likely to mislead. Yes, we believe and hold it fast, that Christ did
   take the sins of His people verily and truly upon Himself and did, in
   proper Person make a complete expiation for the guilt of all His
   chosen! And in this we find our hearts' best confidence--

   Our soul can on this Doctrine live,

   Can on this Doctrine die!"

   Have you and I an interest in this Atonement, or must the complaint be
   made concerning us--"Who has believed our report, and to whom is the
   arm of the Lord revealed?" While I was reading just now, could you say
   by faith, "Yes, surely He has borne our griefs and carried oursorrows"?
   Have you an appropriating faith which takes the sufferings of Christ to
   be its own? Do you now humbly, but yet confidently, look to Jesus
   Christ, the great Burden-Bearer on yonder tree, and know that your
   guilt was there? If so, rejoice and walk worthily of your calling! If
   not, Soul, you do not know the first letters of the alphabet of
   religion! May the Lord teach you, for His name's sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

Knowing and Doing

   (No. 3348)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 20, 1868.

   "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." John 13:17.

   The original scope of these words was just this--"If, as you say, you
   have understood the meaning of this--the washing of your feet by your
   Master--if you have comprehended My intention in so doing, then it will
   be to your lasting honor and happiness if you do the same. I have
   symbolically represented to you, by washing your feet, certain virtues.
   You shall be a happy people if these virtues are found in you and
   abound." And have we not abundant proof that our Lord spoke the truth,
   for where are churches as happy as where they are knit together in
   brotherly love, where they have laid aside contentions about priority
   and distinction and where each one becomes a servant of all--everyone
   willing to take the lowest place and no one contending who shall be the
   greatest! May we prove, as I trust in our measure we have already done,
   how true these words are, and never may Diotrephes be in our midst to
   strive for the preeminence, nor a root of bitterness spring up to
   trouble us! May we, everyone, try to be like our Lord and happy,
   indeed, shall we be in such a case.

   But the sentence before us is equally applicable to every other Gospel
   precept. If we understand anything which the Holy Spirit has revealed
   to us, happy shall we be if we follow its practical intention--if,
   being first taught and instructed--we afterward practically exemplify
   in our life and conduct the things which we have learned! That is the
   one thought I propose to lay upon our hearts and minds this evening!
   And that one thought may be enough.

   You will notice in the text that there are two "ifs"--"If you know
   these things, happy are you if you do them." It appears, then, first,
   that genuine and acceptable service to Christ should be based upon
   intelligent knowledge--"If you know these things." And secondly, that
   all intelligent understanding of the things of God should lead us to
   the practice of them--"Happy are you if you do them." The first "if
   shall be taken first--"If you know these things"--

   I. ALL SERVICE OF CHRIST IS BASED UPON INTELLIGENT KNOWLEDGE.

   Our first observation is that this is an "if even in this country. "If
   you know these things." Alas, even in such a city as this, where the
   Gospel is to be heard in all our streets and Bibles are to be found in
   all our homes, it is so sad that tens of thousands do not know these
   things! They are so careless about what God has revealed that they will
   not even cross the threshold to listen to the Word of God! This day
   what a mass of Sabbath-breaking has grieved the Spirit of God! All
   around us there are those who are toiling hard six days in the week for
   themselves and cannot give to their God and, I may add, to their truer
   and nobler selves, this one day in which to think of Him. He has
   written to them the great things of His Law and they have trifled with
   it! He speaks to them and invites them to hear that their souls may
   live, but they would rather rest in their beds, or be found in any kind
   of pleasure sooner than seeking pleasure in the ways of God! Pity this
   poor city, you who know its sins! Pray for it, you who know its high
   privileges and solemn responsibilities! Work for it, you who have power
   with the heavenly Father, until at last the blessing shall come and men
   shall no longer need to say to their fellows, "Know the Lord."

   Alas, this is an "if," however, which does not merely concern those who
   are outside our walls. There are many who know not these things, though
   they hear about them--and the reason is because while they come to the
   place of worship, and the sound of the preaching glides across their
   ears, they never give deep, earnest attention to it They say that
   preaching is dull--very possibly it is--but it is very amazing that it
   should not be still duller when people have no concern to get into its
   inner meaning, but find it quite enough to come and to go like a door
   on its hinges! Full often from the hum-

   blest teacher something might be learned if we were but anxious to be
   taught. Or if we learned little by what he said, his very emotions
   might remind us and one thought, however commonplace, might engender
   another--and it would not be altogether without profit to sit together
   in the assembly of the saints.

   Oh, how negligently do some hear! They are thinking of their homes, of
   their horses, of their cattle, of their farm and their merchandise. God
   gets no such attention from men as legatees give the lawyer when he
   reads the will. If men would listen to the preaching of the Gospel but
   half as well as they listen to sweet music, there might be hope of its
   being a blessing to them! But many understand not the things of God
   because of their negligent hearing of it.

   Alas, too, there are some who attend at least with an outward attention
   which we cannot blame, but they know not the things of God because they
   have not yet found out that the letter, that is, the external word, is
   a killing thing, and that it is the inner and spiritual sense which is,
   alone, to be sought after To listen to a Doctrine, for instance, is
   right enough, and to catch the theory of it and be able to repeat the
   definition may be in some respects valuable. But it is imperative to
   get into the soul and spirit of that teaching of God which alone is
   spirit and truth and, consequently, food to the spiritual man! Dead
   orthodoxy, mere doctrinal correctness--these will never land men in
   Heaven because they do not even put them into the Kingdom of Heaven
   now! Men who merely have these are like botanists who know not the
   flowers, but only know the names of the divisions and the orders. They
   are like physicians who speak of drugs they have never seen or used,
   who would attempt to deal with men's bodies before they had even
   studied anatomy or seen a bone!

   We need to come to the tasting and handling of God's Word. And all the
   hearing in the world will end in nothing unless the soul gets still
   closer and in the very soul and secret of the Truths of God. Hence
   there is an "if," an "if about the best of hearers, about the most
   intelligent--"If you knowthese things"--you may have listened to them,
   have drunk them in from the earliest days of your life, but unless the
   Holy Spirit has revealed them to you, flesh and blood cannot do so and
   you cannot, therefore, know them!

   It is greatly to be regretted that there are some persons who do not
   know the Truth of God because they have no care to know at all They
   have a contempt for anything that God reveals. They are wise men and,
   therefore, they spend their whole lifetime in studying a piece of rock,
   or in collecting specimens of beetles, or in any wonderfully wise track
   of science! But to listen to the eternal Jehovah is quite beneath them!
   To hear what He has been pleased to say concerning Himself in His own
   Word seems to them to be trifling. Have I not often met with men who
   would think it to be worth years of study to make the idlest possible
   conjectures about the formation of a limestone rock, who yet would
   laugh in one's face if one began to speak about the soul and the things
   of the world to come? And these are wise men--at least according to
   their own estimate of themselves! Whether or not they are fools shall
   remain for the future to reveal to them--may they find it out before
   the discovery shall be too late!

   Others never will become intelligent in the things of God because they
   are prejudiced. They have made up their minds that they doknow--and he
   who thinks he knows will never learn. The conceptions which they
   received early in life--their training, the fancies which they have
   forged for themselves as being what should be the truth--these occupy
   their minds and they cannot see the things of God because the mind has
   been blinded with other matters. Would to God that we could be clear of
   prejudice and clear of unholy contempt for God's Truth--and could come
   simply to Him and ask to be taught as a child by the great Father and
   lay bare our bosoms that the Holy Spirit might cast out error from us
   and might write the mind and will of God there clearly! Then, indeed,
   with such a humble submission and a Divinely earnest desire, there need
   be no longer an "if" as to whether we learn these things. There is an
   "if," however.

   Let us now observe that we ought never to rest content while there is
   an "if""If you know these things." My God, is it a question whether I
   know You or not, whether I know Christ or not, whether I know the
   Revelation which You have given to us or not? Then begin to teach me
   now! Oh, Sirs, it will not do to trifle with an ignorance which shall
   be our lasting ruin! We ought not to give sleep to our eyes until we
   have asked to be taught of God! To be ignorant about the things of
   ordinary daily life is not wisdom, but to be ignorant about eternal
   life is stark madness!

   An uneducated man stands but little chance in the battle of this life.
   A man uneducated for eternity--alas, how exposed is he to innumerable
   adversaries, how sure to fall, how certain to perish! Go, I pray you,
   Brothers and Sisters, go to the Wise One for wisdom! Go to this Book
   for the Light of God! Go to the Holy Spirit, Himself, for Divine
   instruction and let it not be any longer with you a matter of question
   as to whether you are taught of God or not! Oh, I would speak very
   earnestly here. I do not ask that you should be learned. I do not ask
   for myself that I may be profound. But I

   do pray that we may comprehend with all saints what are the heights and
   depths and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, or at least
   may know Him and be found in Him, clothed in His righteousness and
   accepted in His merits. It ought not to be an "if."

   But, supposing that there is no "if with any of us, then what ground is
   there for gratitude! If the Savior need not say, "If you know these
   things," but if we can say, "Lord You know that we love You, that we
   rest in You, that we serve You, that we have been taught of Your
   Spirit," then there is no room for self-congratulation, no room for
   pride! What have you which you have not received? Thank God, dear
   Friend, that you were not born amidst the heathenism of Africa! Thank
   God that you were not left to the Sabbath-breaking of London! Thank God
   that when you did hear the Word, it broke through the outer door and
   came into the inner chamber of your soul! Thank God that that passage
   of Scripture was not sent to you, "Come and speak to this people and
   make their ears heavy that they shall not hear, for their hearts have
   grown gross"! Blessed be the distinguishing Grace that enabled us, who
   once were as incapable of this as the dead in their graves, to see and
   hear spiritually!

   What should come of it? Why, if you know these things and have learned
   them by the Spirit of God, make it the method of showing your gratitude
   to try and be His instruments in teaching others! If you know these
   things, be not silent. If you know these things, wrap not up these
   blessed secrets in your hearts as though they were committed to you
   only for your own personal enjoyment, but in the name of Him who gave
   such a priceless gift, go and tell wherever your tongue can be heard,
   the good news of the salvation of Jesus Christ! And perhaps God may
   make you a blessing to some of His hidden ones who as yet have not come
   to Christ.

   Thus much about the first "if." It looks to me like the first arch--and
   having passed through it, I can see another beyond me--and I must pass
   to the second if I would get the happiness.

   II. THE INTELLIGENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE THINGS OF GOD SHOULD LEAD US TO
   THE PRACTICE

   OF THEM.

   "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them."

   This second "if" applies to all the things which we have been taught of
   God. Let me give you, however, a specimen. Saving Truths--if you know
   them, happy are you if you do them! This is a saving Truth of God--that
   whoever trusts in Jesus Christ is saved. You know that. If there is
   anything you ought to know, you who come to this house, you ought to
   know that, for it is the staple of all our sermonizing every
   Lord's-Day--that a simple confidence in Jesus Christ, the Savior, saves
   the soul! Happy are you, then, if you have exercised this simple
   confidence, for then you are saved! If you have trusted with the whole
   weight of your sin upon Jesus, you have the happiness of being saved,
   accepted, secure. Saving Truths ought to, every one of them, be the
   first objects of practice. That same Spirit who teaches us the Truths
   of God enables us to put them into action in our daily life. Dear
   Hearer, have you been a hearer of the good message, but have been a
   hearer, only? If so, you have missed the joy of the whole business! I
   pray you go a step farther and believe and live!

   After saving Truths come purifying Truths. Such is the Doctrine of the
   Holy Spirit's indwelling. The Holy Spirit dwells in Believers and where
   He dwells, there should be purity, peace, holiness and purging out of
   sin.

   You believe this, but happy are you if you seek so to act. If you pray
   that you may not grieve the Spirit of God, nor cause Him to depart from
   you, your daily anxiety shall bring its results and you shall be happy.

   Then, there are certain ennobling Truths in God's Word and happy are we
   if we do them. Such is the Truth of Divine Adoption. Every Believer is
   a child of God. Happy are we if we live like one, if we exercise the
   privileges of heirs, if we come to our Father with a child-like
   confidence, if we plead with Him as a dear son asking a generous Father
   to supply his needs. Remember that every Doctrine of the Gospel has a
   practice appended to it and that to get the happiness out of the
   Doctrine you must put its preceptory part, or its practical inference,
   into action. You may be as orthodox as you please, but your orthodoxy
   shall be only like so many grapes untrodden in the winepress! But if
   you cast them into your daily life, then shall the luscious juice run
   forth and you shall be satisfied with favor and be full of the goodness
   of the Lord! Bread on the table will not satisfy you, nor will mere
   Doctrine. The bread must be taken and eaten--and assimilated--and then
   shall it comfort you. And so with the Truth of God--it must be a part
   of yourself and be worked out into your daily life--or else the
   happiness of it cannot be yours.

   If there were time tonight, I would make an inventory of all the Truths
   of Scripture and say after each one, "If you know these things, happy
   are you if you do them." If you know it to be a privilege to be united
   with God's people, come and join the Church! If you know that Jesus
   bids you be baptized and come to His Table to remember Him, I pray you
   be not disobedient, even to what you may think to be His least
   commandment! Whenever you get the glimpse of a Truth from God's Word,
   or in your conscience by His Spirit, never be a traitor to the heavenly
   vision! Depend upon it, it is a terrible thing to trifle with
   knowledge! Some men would not see when they might have seen--and they
   have always been blind. Many a man who might have led the van in the
   Church of God, and have helped on a glorious reformation, has stepped
   back from the forefront because, perhaps, of some spurious charity with
   which he indulged the flesh--and he has gone back into the rear--to the
   vile dust from whence he sprang! But he that is faithful to God,
   faithful to the convictions of his conscience--and carries all out into
   practice--shall be among those to whom the Master shall say, "Well
   done," at the last. I say to every Truth in Scripture there is a
   practical conclusion and I beseech you to see to it that you hear
   Christ say, "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them."

   Why is it that the practice of a Truth of God is required to the
   enjoyment of the happiness which it brings? Answer--this is always
   God's rule. The ground is fat and full of bread, but the farmer, by his
   tillage, must bring out the corn. Down deep in the heart of the earth
   are the stores of gold and silver--there gleam the precious ores in
   quantities that might make even Croesus, himself, to blush for poverty!
   But the metal starts not up from the soil by itself. It must be dug
   for--it must be cast into the furnace and separated from the ore. There
   shall be wealth in many nations, and trade shall bring comforts to all
   ranks, but the sea must be traversed, the sails must be spread, the
   voyage must be made! Labor everywhere shall bring enjoyment, but
   without labor there shall be none. God is not the God of idleness! He
   speaks not to the earth to bid it bring food to the door of the idler.
   He commands neither the ravens nor any other of His creatures to bring
   bread and meat for the sluggards. There shall always be practice, and
   then the result of work shall be the reward. So must it be in the
   things of God--you must put them into practice to get the blessing they
   hold! The laws of Nature are wonderful, and a knowledge of them
   desirable, but a knowledge of all the laws of Nature would never have
   reaped a field, built a house, found jewels in the mine, or even have
   made a steam engine without a furnace, a hammer and strenuous toil!

   All the knowledge with which a man can cram his brain cannot secure him
   in his daily needs until he transfers it from his brain to his right
   hand and sets to work with it! If you would get God's blessings, then,
   in Nature or in Grace, carry out the Divine Laws into immediate and
   energetic practice!

   In the next place, for God to give the comforts of His promises to men
   who will not obey His precepts would be to discourage all Christian
   effort. Every man would fold his arms and sit down. "If I am to have
   salvation without believing," says one, "why should I believe? If I am
   to have Grace given me without using such Grace as that which is
   already entrusted to me, then let me eat and drink, for Grace will come
   to me! Let me be as carnal as I like." But God will not so act as to
   give graceless hearts such an excuse!

   To give His blessing to those who do not practice His precepts would
   be, in fact, to give a premium for sin. The more knowledge, if that
   knowledge is not put into practice, the more sin, in consequence! Shall
   God reward a man who, sitting in the Light of God, will not walk by the
   Light? And shall He give enjoyments to those who know His will and who
   do not that will? No, Sirs, if blessings came to merely knowledge, I
   suppose the devil would be the most blessed of beings! Certainly if the
   comforts of the Gospel came to those who understand the Gospel best,
   but who do not practice it, there would be some of the vilest of
   mankind who would be orthodox enough--who would, on such a rule, go to
   Heaven! But they shall find themselves shut out when that judgment
   shall be given which proceeds upon this rule, "By their fruits you
   shall know them." You all see, without any reasoning from me, that it
   would seem strange, indeed, if God allowed the precepts of the Gospel
   to be trampled underfoot and then gave the same blessings to the
   rebellious as to the graciously obedient! It must not, shall not be!
   See we not, then, that our happiness from the things of God must come,
   not merely through knowledge, though that is the first stage of Divine
   Favor--but we must not rest satisfied until we pass into the second
   stage--the doingof what we have learned! We close with the question
   which the text naturally inspires--

   III. WHAT IS THE HAPPINESS WHICH THIS PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE BRINGS?

   Briefly, it is always a blessed thing to be obedient to God. The very
   soul of joy to the creature who wants to be truly happy is conformity
   to the will of the Creator. When God's will and ours keep pace
   together, it will be Heaven on earth to us! It is only when our will
   jars with the Divine mind that our soul's happiness departs, but when
   we are helped to lay

   aside self and say from our inmost soul, "Not my will, but Yours be
   done," and so come to be ruled and governed entirely by the Divine
   Mind, then shall we be in Paradise here below!

   Added to this, to increase our happiness if we do these things, we
   shall have the blessings promised to the doing thereof. We are no
   legalists. We do not believe in salvation by works, nor even in rewards
   given to men because of any merit on their part, but we do know that if
   Jesus says, "He that believes shall be saved," then he that believes
   will get that salvation and this will be the blessing which he enjoys,
   and so with every other new Covenant blessing!

   Brothers and Sisters, there is a happiness here in practical
   Christianity and there is a happiness hereafter. In mere nominal
   Christianity there is no happiness. Look at some of your professors.
   They have got religion enough to make them miserable! Their attendance
   at church or chapel--what is it but a bit of slavery? They would not go
   to church if they could help it, but they think it looks respectable.
   If they had their way and the force of custom were withdrawn, they
   would not be found among the worshippers! Look, I say, at many of them.
   The very sight of their Bible and Prayer Book seems to make their faces
   long and dismal at once. Prayer--is that a pleasure to them? To sing
   God's praise--is that a delight? No, far, far, far from it! And why is
   this? Because they have never, by Divine Grace, been led solemnly to
   trust in Jesus and earnestly to give themselves up to those Truths
   which only in their practical force and influence can make us
   happy--but which in their mere theory are "the letter which kills," and
   only in practice are they the spirit and life! Oh, that some of you
   church members would put in practice what you believe! Oh, Sirs, it is
   well enough to say that a Christian should be consistent, but if you
   are not honest in your business, how does your belief help you? It is
   well enough to say that a Christian should be godly, but if you are
   godless in your families--if family prayer is neglected and private
   prayer given up--what is the use of your beliefs, what the use of your
   perfect creeds? You may talk until doomsday about what you believe or
   what you do not believe, but it is that part of your belief which gets
   interwoven into the warp and woof of your daily life which affects your
   business, which really moves you, impels you, or restrains you
   according to whether you would do right or wrong--it is this, it is
   this, it is this, and it is just this, only, that is worth having! Your
   dead religion--it is a corpse--bury it! Your living godliness, your
   vital godliness, the godliness that vitalizes you and makes you live
   unto God and His Truth--this it is to be sought after--and may God in
   His mercy grant it to each one of us! "If you know these things, happy
   are you if you do them."

   And so we come to a conclusion by noticing that if the text were read
   in another form, it would read very solemnly, "If you know these
   things, unhappy, wretched, ruined are you if you do them not." I
   scarcely feel that I have either strength or will to enter upon the few
   sentences I meant to have uttered tonight. There are not many of you
   here who are ignorant of the Gospel. The most of this great assembly
   have read it and heard it, and if any should ask you, "What is the way
   of eternal life," you could give them a very ready answer. And, thank
   God, there are not a few of you who have put into practice this Gospel!
   You have looked to Jesus--you are resting in Him. You can say, while
   confessing many imperfections, that you desire to walk in the ways of
   obedience to Him who has redeemed you with His blood.

   But, painful reflection! There are many--very many--and you know who
   they are--who know these things, but do them not! Ten years ago they
   were greatly affected by a sermon and they vowed repentance. The season
   passed away and their conscience became crippled--no good results came.
   Some time ago, at an earnest Prayer Meeting, they were again pricked in
   conscience, but this time they were not so wounded as before. And now,
   tonight, they are just what they have always been--willing hearers,
   attentive hearers, kind friends to the Gospel in some respects,
   contributing towards any godly enterprise, but still they have not
   surrendered to God by believing in Christ--and so are still strangers
   to Him as the soul's Savior. And I have to ask them tonight whether it
   shall always be so, and, if not always, then how long? "How long halt
   you between two opinions?" And if it is not to be long, why not end it
   tonight? Oh, blessed Spirit, they do know! It is not this they need,
   but they need to feel! They do not love! They do not believe! Oh, give
   them these, that they may not go down into Hell with the accumulated
   responsibilities of abundant Light. "If I had not come and spoken to
   you," said Christ, "you had been without sin, but now you have no cloak
   for your sin." Oh, the godly mothers of some of you will rise up
   against you to condemn you, for you knew these things, but you did them
   not! Some of you, your conscience will speak with a voice of
   thunder--it will roar like a lion on you when God condemns you because
   you knew the Gospel and refused it--you understood the way of
   salvation, but you would not walk therein! There is no place more
   terrible to be lost than from the shadow of a pulpit! The more plain
   the Gospel, the more sure your ruin if you reject it! The more earnest
   the ministry that comes to you with its notes of warning and
   invitation, the more horrible your overthrow if your ears refuse the
   words of Jehovah's love! Tonight, I pray you--and I think I speak in
   God's name--cast in your lot with Christ and with God's people! You are
   guilty, but He is gracious and delights to pardon! You feel unworthy,
   and you are, but Christ receives the most undeserving! Rely upon Him
   now. You have nothing else that will suffice. Oh, cast yourselves upon
   Him! Happy shall you be if you do this. Other doings without this were
   mere legalism and vain, but this is the great work, the master work,
   the God work, that you believe on Jesus Christ whom God has sent!
   Trust, then, in Him, and your peace shall be like a river and your
   righteousness like the waves of the sea. Trifle no longer! Listen no
   longer merely with the outward ear, but now decide that if there is an
   inner sense, you will find it--if there is a secret Truth, you will
   hunt it out until you secure it.

   If there is a living Christ to pardon you and make you snowy clean,
   resolve you will find Him! If there is a road to Heaven, determine to
   find and walk in it. "And now farewell sin, farewell
   self-righteousness, farewell the shallow pleasures of this world!
   Jesus, take my heart just as it is--I give it up to You--and help me to
   do now what I have never done before--to put in practice what I hear,
   and carry out what I have been taught." So may God help you and we will
   meet in Heaven and we will say together there that this night's text
   was true, "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." God
   help you to do them, now, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HEBREWS 11.

   First, a definition of faith.

   Verses 1-3. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
   evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good
   report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the
   Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things
   which do appear. There was no pre-existent matter. The world was made
   by God's word, so that prior to the things which are seen, there
   existed that which is not seen. We, dear Friends, when we are trusting
   in the unseen God, are going back to first principles--we are getting
   to that which is the essence and the source of all. The next verse
   illustrates the worshipof faith.

   4. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
   by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
   his gifts: and by it he, being dead, yet speaks. There is no
   worshipping God aright except by faith. The most gorgeous ceremonies
   are as nothing in His sight! It is the faith of the heart which He
   accepts. Next we read of the rewardof faith.

   5, 6. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and
   was not found, because God had translated him: for before his
   translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without
   faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that comes to God must
   believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently
   seek Him. See this reward then--it pleases God--and that is reward
   enough for anyone of us. Next see faith's safety.

   7. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved
   with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he
   condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by
   faith. Faith can outlive a deluge which drowns the whole world! She has
   an Ark even when God's wrath sweeps all the rest away! Next we learn
   the obedience of faith.

   8-10. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place
   which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed: and he went
   out, not knowing where he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of
   promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac
   and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a
   city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.Here you
   have the expectation of faith. Faith does not live on things seen--she
   lives on something yet to come. That which is to come she regards as
   eternal, not like a mere tent in which she dwells here, but a city that
   has foundations, fixed and firm. Next we see the strengthof faith, that
   strength seen in the deadness of nature.

   11-13. Through faith, also, Sara herself received strength to conceive
   seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she
   judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of
   one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in
   multitude, andas the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These
   all diedin faith, not having received the promises, but having seen
   them afar of, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,

   and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. That
   is a rich word, they, "embraced them." They were far off and yet faith
   brought them so near that they seemed to receive them to their hearts
   and feel the comfort of them! Next is the confession of faith.

   14-19. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a
   country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which
   they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But
   now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly one. Therefore
   God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them
   a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he
   that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of
   whom it was said, That in Isaac shall your seed be called. Accounting
   that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also
   he received him in a figure. Here you have the triumphof faith, one of
   the greatest victories that was ever achieved by faith, when a man was
   willing, at God's command, to offer up his son, his only son, his son
   according to promise, his son in whom all the Covenant was to be
   fulfilled! In the 20th verse you get the discern-mentof faith, faith
   foreseeing--

   20, 21. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to
   come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of
   Joseph and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff You remember
   'his discernment, how he crossed his hands willingly that he might lay
   the right hand upon the younger son. Faith is always giving blessings
   to others and she knows which way to give them, for God makes her
   wondrous quick of heart and quick of eye.

   22, 23. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of
   the children of Israel: and gave commandment concerning his bones. By
   faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents,
   because they saw he was aproper child; and they were not afraid of the
   king's commandment Here is the courageof faith--

   24, 25. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called
   the son ofPharaoh's daughter: Choosingra-ther to suffer affliction with
   thepeople of God than to enjoy thepleasures of sin for a season. Here
   is the choiceof faith--

   26. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures
   in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.Here is
   the judgmentof faith, by which she judges wisely, choosing rather to be
   reproached for Christ than to reign with the world.

   27, 28. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath ofthe king:
   for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible. Through faith he kept
   the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest He that destroyed the
   first-born should touch them. Here, again, you have the obedienceof
   faith, taking God's precepts and carrying them out.

   29. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the
   Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. There you have the difference
   between faith and presumption--faith goes through the sea. Presumption
   is drowned in the sea.

   30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed
   about seven days. Here are the weapons of faith, the warfareof faith,
   with nothing but her ram's horn trumpet she encompasses the giant walls
   of the city and down they fall!

   31. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not
   when she had received the spies with peace. Here you have faith uniting
   itself with the people of God--she perished not with them that believed
   not, for she had come out from among them and allied herself with the
   people of God by receiving the spies.

   32-35. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of
   Gideon, and ofBarak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae: of David, also,
   and Samuel, and of the Prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms,
   worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
   quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge ofthe sword, out of
   weakness were made strong, grew valiant in fight, turned to flight the
   armies ofthe aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again:
   and others were tortured, not excepting deliverance: that they might
   obtain a better resurrection. Oh the victories of faith! When faith
   takes to working, how mightily she works.

   36, 37. And others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, yes,
   moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn
   asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about
   in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented. You
   have seen the works of faith and the sufferings of faith--now you see
   God's estimate of faith. He counts the believing man to be far beyond
   the rest of mankind!

   38, 39. (Of whom the world was not worthy). They wanderedin deserts,
   andin mountains, andin dens and caves of the earth. All these all
   having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.
   It lay in the future to them far more than it does to us, for Christ
   has now come and we look back to that glorious appearing of our Lord
   and Savior, but they had altogether to look forward.

   40. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us
   shouldnot be madeperfect. For it never was God's intention that any
   part of His Church should be able to do without the rest of it, so that
   those who lived before the time of Christ cannot do without us--neither
   can we do without them.
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Garment of Praise"

   (No. 3349)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Isaiah 61:3.

   THE list of comforts which the Anointed has here prepared for His
   mourners is apparently inexhaustible. He seems as if He delighted to
   give "according to the multitude of His tender mercies" a very cloud of
   blessings. This is the third of His sacred exchanges--"the garment of
   praise for the spirit of heaviness." Grace, like its God, delights to
   be a trinity. This is also the broadest of the blessings, for whereas
   the first adorned the face with beauty, and the second anointed the
   head with joy, this last and widest covers the whole person with a
   garment of praise! Man's first vesture was of his own making and it
   could not cover his shame--but this garment is of God's making and it
   makes us comfortable in ourselves, and comely in the sight of God and
   man. They are better adorned than Solomon in all his glory, to whom God
   gives the garment of praise. May the blessed Spirit sweetly help us to
   bring out the rich meaning of this promise to mourners, for again I
   must remind you that these things are only given to them--and not to
   the thoughtless world.

   We have already noticed the variety of the consolation which Jesus
   brings to mourners--the Plant of Renown produces many lovely flowers
   with rich perfume and a multitude of choice fruits of dainty taste. Now
   we would call your attention to their marvelous adaptation to our
   needs. Man has a spirit and the gifts of Grace are spiritual. His chief
   maladies lie in his soul and the blessings of the Covenant deal with
   his spiritual needs. Our text mentions "the spirit of heaviness" and
   gives a promise that it shall be removed. The blessings which Jesus
   gives to us are not surface blessings, but they touch the center of our
   being! At first we may not perceive their depth, but only know that
   beauty is given instead of ashes--this might seem to be an external
   change. Further on, however, joy is given, instead of mourning, and
   this is inward--the thought has advanced, we are getting nearer the
   heart. But in the words before us, the very spirit of heaviness, the
   fountain from which the mourning flows, the hearth whereon the ashes
   are burned is dealt with and taken away--and instead thereof we receive
   the garment of praise! What a mercy it is that the blessings of the
   Everlasting Covenant belong to the realm of the spirit for, after all,
   the outward is transient, the visible soon perishes. We are grateful
   for the food and raiment which our bodies require, but our sterner need
   is nourishment, consolation and protection for our spirits. The
   Covenant of Grace blesses the man, himself--the soul--which is the
   essence of his life. It puts away the sordid sackcloth of despondency
   and robes the spirit in royal garments of praise. Judge you your state
   by your estimation of such favors, for if you have learned to prize
   them, they are yours! The worldling cares nothing for spiritual
   blessings. His beauty, joy, and praise are found in things which perish
   in the using. But those who know their preciousness have been taught of
   God and since they can appreciate them, they shall have them!
   Soul-mercy is the very soul of mercy and he whom the Lord blesses in
   his spirit, is blessed indeed!

   I want you still further to notice how these blessings grow as we
   proceed. At first, out of the triplet of favors here bestowed there was
   beauty given, instead of ashes. There is much there--beauty of personal
   character before God is no mean thing--yet a man might have that, and
   by reason of his anxiety of heart he might scarcely be aware of it.
   Doubtless many who are lovely in the sight of God spend much of their
   time in bewailing their own uncomeliness. Many a saint sorrows over
   himself, while others are rejoicing in him! Therefore, the next mercy
   given to the mourner in Zion is the oil of joy, which is a personal and
   conscious delight. The man rejoices. He perceives that he is made
   beautiful before God and he begins to joy in what the Lord has done for
   him and in the Anointed One from whom the oil of gladness descends.
   This is an advance upon the other, but now we come to the highest of
   all! Seeing that God has made him glad, he perceives his obligations to
   God and he expresses them in thankfulness--and so stands before the
   Most High like a white-robed priest, putting on praise as the garment
   in which he appears in the courts of the Lord's House, and is seen by
   his Brothers and

   Sisters. As you advance in the Divine Life, the blessings you receive
   will appear to be greater and greater. Some promising things become
   small by degrees and miserably less, but in the Kingdom of Heaven we go
   from strength to strength. The beginning of the Christian life is like
   the water in the pots at Cana, but in due time it blushes into wine.
   The pathway which we tread is, at first, bright as the dawn, but if we
   pursue it with sacred perseverance, its radiance will be as the perfect
   day! There shall be no going down of our sun, but it shall shine with
   increasing luster till it shall be as the light of seven days, and the
   days of our mourning shall be ended!

   I beg you also to mark that when we reach the greatest mercy and stand
   on the summit of blessing, we have reached a condition of
   praise--praise to God invests our whole nature. To be wrapped in praise
   to God is the highest state of the soul. To receive the mercy for which
   we praise God is something, but to be wholly clothed with praise to God
   for the mercy received is far more! Why, praise is Heaven, and Heaven
   is praise! To pray is Heaven below, but praise is the essence of Heaven
   above! When you bow lowest in adoration, you are at your very highest.
   The soul full of joy takes a still higher step when it clothes itself
   with praise. Such a heart takes to itself no glory, for it is dressed
   in gratitude and so hides itself. Nothing is seen of the flesh and its
   self-exaltation, since the garment of praise hides the pride of man.
   May you all who are heavy in spirit be so clothed upon with delight in
   the Lord, who has covered you with the robe of righteousness, that you
   may be as wedding guests adorned for the palace of the King with
   glittering garments of adoring love!

   Looking carefully into the words before us, we will dwell, first, upon
   the spirit of heaviness. Secondly, upon the promise implied in the
   text--that this shall be removed. And then, thirdly, upon the garment
   of praise which is to be bestowed. First, let us muse upon--

   I. THE SPIRIT OF HEAVINESS.

   We would not make this meditation doleful and yet it may be as well to
   set forth the night side of the soul, for thus we may the better show a
   sympathetic spirit and come more truly home to those who are in
   heaviness through manifold temptations. Some of us know by experience
   what the spirit of heaviness means. It comes upon us at times even now.
   There are many things in the body. There are many things in the family.
   There are many things in daily life which make us sad. Facts connected
   with the past and with the future cause us, at times, to hang our
   heads. We shall just now dwell upon those former times when we were
   under the spirit of heaviness on account of unpardoned sin. We cannot
   forget that we were in bondage in a spiritual Egypt. We would awaken
   our memories to remember the wormwood and the gall, the place of
   dragons and of owls.

   Observe that this heaviness is an inward matter and it is usually a
   grief which a man tries to keep to himself. It is not that he is sick
   in body, though his unbelieving friends fancy that he must surely be
   ailing, or he would not seem so melancholy. "He sits alone and keeps
   silent," and they say that he has a low fit upon him and they invite
   him out into company and try, if they can, to jest him out of his
   distress. The fact is that sin is pressing upon him, and well may the
   spirit be heavy when it has that awful load to carry! Day and night
   God's hand is also heavy upon him and well may his spirit be loaded
   down. Conviction of sin makes us as a cart that is loaded with
   sheaves--but it is intensely inward and, therefore, not to be
   understood by careless minds. "The heart knows its own bitterness and a
   stranger intermeddles not therewith."

   1 have known persons who have been the subject of this heaviness most
   sedulously endeavor to conceal from others even the slightest
   appearance of it. And I cannot say that there has not been some wisdom
   in so doing, for ungodly men despise those who tremble at the Word of
   God. What do they care about sin? They can sin and rejoice in it as the
   swine can roll in the mire and feel itself at home. Those who weep in
   secret places because the arrows of the Lord have wounded them, are
   shunned by those who forget God, and they need not be sorry for it,
   since such company can furnish no balm for their wounds. Mourner, you
   are wise to keep your sorrow to yourself as far as the wicked are
   concerned, but remember, though perhaps you think not so, there are
   hundreds of God's children who know all about your condition, and if
   you could be bold enough to open your mind to them and tell them of
   your heaviness of spirit, you would be surprised to find how thoroughly
   they would sympathize with you and how accurately some of them could
   describe the maze through which you are wandering! All are not tender
   of heart, but there are Believers who would enter into your experience
   and who might, by God's blessing, give you the clue to the labyrinth of
   your grief. The Lord comforted Paul by Ananias, and you may be sure
   that there is an Ananias for you! If you feel, as many do, that you
   could not unburden your soul to your parents or relatives, go to some
   other experienced Believers and tell them as far as you can your
   painful condition. I know, for I have felt the same, that all hope that
   you shall be saved is taken away and that you are utterly
   prostrate--but yet THERE IS HOPE!

   While this heaviness is inward, notice in the next place that it is
   real. Heaviness of spirit is one of the most terribly true of all our
   griefs. He who is cheerful and light-hearted too often contemns and
   even ridicules him who is sad of soul. He says that he is "nervous,"
   calls him "fanciful.. .almost out of his mind," "very excitable..
   .quite a monomaniac," and so on. The current idea being that there is
   really no need for alarm and that sorrow for sin is mere fanaticism! If
   some persons had suffered half an hour of conviction of sin,
   themselves, they would look with different eyes upon those who feel the
   spirit of heaviness, for I say it, and know what I am saying, that next
   to the torment of Hell, itself, there is but one sorrow which is more
   severe than that of a broken and a contrite spirit that trembles at
   God's Word, but does not dare to suck comfort out of it! The bitterness
   of remorse and despair is worse, but yet it is unspeakably
   heartbreaking to bow at the Mercy Seat, and to fear that no answer will
   ever come--to lie at the feet of Jesus, but to be afraid to look up to
   Him for salvation! To be conscious of nothing but abounding sin and
   raging unbelief and to expect nothing but sudden destruction--this is
   an earthly Tophet! There are worse wounds than those which torture the
   flesh, but more cruel pangs arise from the broken bones of the soul
   than from those of the body. Sharp is that cut which goes to the very
   heart and yet does not kill, but makes men wish that they could die or
   cease to be. There is a prison such as no iron bars can make and a
   fetter such as no smith can forge. Sickness is a trifle compared to
   it--it is to some men less endurable than the rack or the stake. To be
   impaled upon your own sins, pilloried by your own conscience, shot at
   by your own judgment as with barbed arrows--this is anguish and
   torment!

   This heaviness of spirit puts a weight upon the man's activity and
   clogs him in all things. He is weighted heavily who bears the weight of
   sin. You put before him the precious Promises, but he does not
   understand them, for the heaviness presses upon his mental faculties.
   You assure him that these Promises are meant for him, but he cannot
   believe you, for heaviness of spirit palsies the grasping hand by which
   he might appropriate the blessing. "Their soul abhors all manner of
   meat, and they draw near to the gates of death." Troubled minds at
   times lose all their appetite. They need spiritual food and yet turn
   from it. The most wholesome meat of the Gospel they are afraid to feed
   upon, for their sadness makes them fearful of presumption. Heaviness
   brings on amazement and this is but another word for saying that the
   mind is in a maze and cannot find its way out.

   They are weighted as to their understanding and their faith, for "the
   spirit of heaviness" also presses there. Their memory, too, is quick
   enough at recollecting sin, but to anything that might minister
   comfort, it is strangely weak, even as Jeremiah said, "You have removed
   my soul far off from peace: I forget prosperity." Indeed, David was
   still more oblivious, for he says, "My heart is smitten and withered
   like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread." All the faculties become
   dull and inert, and the man is like one in a deadly swoon. I have heard
   persons, under conviction of sin, say, "I seem absolutely stupid about
   Divine things." Like one that is stunned by a severe blow, they fall
   down and scarcely know what they feel or do not feel. Were they in
   their clear senses, we could set the Gospel before them and point out
   the way of salvation and they would soon lay hold of it! But, alas,
   they seem to have no capacity to understand the Promise, or to grasp
   its consolation.

   Now, this heaviness of spirit also renders everything around the man
   heavy. The external is generally painted from within. A merry heart
   makes mirth in the dull November fog under a leaden sky, but a dull
   heart finds sorrow amidst May blossoms, and June flowers. A man colors
   the world he lives in to the tint of his own soul. "Things are not what
   they seem," yet what they seem has often more influence upon us than
   what they are! Find a man, then, with heaviness of spirit, and you will
   find that his sorrows appear to be greater than he can bear. The
   common-place worries of life which cheerfulness sports with, are a load
   to a sad heart--yes, the grasshopper is a burden! The ordinary duties
   of life become a weariness and slight domestic cares a torture. He
   trembles lest he should commit sin even in going in and out of his
   house. A man who bears the weight of sin has small strength for any
   other load. Even the joys of life become somber. It matters not how
   much God has blessed a man in his family, in his basket, or in his
   store, for as long as his heart is oppressed and his soul bowed down
   with sin, what are the bursting barns and what are the overflowing wine
   vats to him? He pines for a peace and rest which these things cannot
   yield. If the eyes are dark, the sun, itself, affords no light!

   There is one thing, however, which we would say to mourners pressed
   down with guilt--whatever heaviness you feel, it is no greater
   heaviness than sin ought to bring upon a man, for it is an awful thing
   to have sinned against God. If the sense of sin should drive you to
   distraction--and cavilers often say that religion does this--it might
   reasonably do so if there were no other matters to think upon--no
   forgiving love and atoning blood. That which is the result of sin ought
   not to be charged upon religion, but true religion should be praised,
   because it brings relief to all this woe! Sin is the

   most horrible thing in the universe--and when a man sees how foully he
   has transgressed--it is no wonder that he is greatly troubled. To think
   that I, a creature that God has made, which He could crush as easily as
   a moth, have dared to live in enmity to Him for many years, and have
   even become so hardened as to forget Him and perhaps defy Him! This is
   terrible! When I have been told of His great love, I have turned on my
   heels and rejected it. Yes, and when I have even seenthat love in the
   bleeding body of His dear Son, I have been unbelieving and have done
   despite even to boundless Grace, and gone from bad to worse, greedy
   after sin! Is it marvelous that when they have seen the guilt of all
   this, men have felt their moisture turned into the drought of summer
   and cried in desperation, "My soul chooses strangling rather than
   life"? However low you are, beloved Mourner, you are not exaggerating
   your guilt! Apart from the Grace of God, your case is, indeed, as
   hopeless as you suppose. Though you lie in the very dust and dare not
   look up, the position is not lower than you ought to take. You richly
   deserve the anger of God and when you have some sense of what that
   wrath must be, you are not more fearful of it than there is just need
   to be, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
   God. "He touches the hills and they smoke."--

   "The pillars of Heaven's starry roof Tremble and start at His reproof."
   What will His wrath be when He puts on His robes of justice and comes
   forth to mete out justice to the rebellious? O God, how terrible is
   Your wrath! Well may we be crushed at the very thought of it!

   Another reflection we would suggest here and that is, that if you have
   great heaviness of spirit on account of sin, you are by no means alone
   in it, for some of the best servants of God have endured hard
   struggling before they have found peace with God. Read their
   biographies and you will find that even those who have really believed
   in Christ have at some time or other felt the burden of sin pressing
   with intolerable weight upon their souls. Certain of them have recorded
   their experience in terrible sentences, but others have felt what they
   have not dared to commit to writing. "Weeping Cross," as the old
   writers call it, is a much-frequented spot--many roads meet at that
   point, and most pilgrims have left a pool of tears there.

   There is this to be added. Your Lord and Master, He to whom you must
   look for hope, knew what heaviness meant on account of sin. He had no
   sin of His own, but He bore the iniquity of His people and, therefore,
   He was prostrate in Gethsemane. We read that "He began to be sorrowful
   and to be very heavy." The spirit of heaviness was upon Him and He
   sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground! This
   same heaviness made Him cry upon the Cross, "My God, My God, why have
   You forsaken Me?" Jesus was sorely amazed and very heavy--and it is to
   Him as passing through that awful heaviness that I would bid you look
   in your hour of terror, for He alone is your door of hope. Through His
   heaviness, yours shall be removed, for "the chastisement of our peace
   was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." So much, then,
   concerning heaviness of spirit. And now, secondly, let us--

   II. SEE THE HEAVINESS REMOVED, for of this the text contains a Divine
   Promise--the anointed Savior will take it away. Only a word or two upon
   this.

   Brothers and Sisters, do you enquire how Jesus removes the spirit of
   heaviness? We answer, He does it thus--by revealing to us with
   clearness and certainty that our sin is pardoned. The Holy Spirit
   brings us to trust in Christ and the Inspired Word assures us that
   Christ suffered in the place of all Believers and, therefore, we
   perceive that He died for us. And also that nothing remains for us to
   suffer because sin, having been laid upon the Substitute, it is no more
   upon us. We rejoice in the fact of our Lord's Substitution and the
   transfer of our sins to Him. We see that if He stood in our place, we
   stand in His--and if He was rejected, we are "accepted i n the
   Beloved." Then straight away this spirit of heaviness disappears
   because the reason for it is gone--

   "I will praise You every day! Now Your anger's turned away, Comfortable
   thoughts arise From the bleeding Sacrifice."

   Moreover, in the new birth the Holy Spirit infuses into us a new
   nature--and that new nature knows not the spirit of heaviness--it is a
   thing of light, and life, and joy in the Holy Spirit! The newborn
   nature looks up and perceives its kinship with God. It rejoices in the
   favor of the Holy One from whom it came. It rests in the Lord, yes, it
   joys and rejoices in Him! And whereas, the old sin-spirit still sinks
   us down according to its power, there still being in us the evil heart
   of unbelief, this new life wells up within us as a living fountain of
   crystal and buoys us up with the peace and joy which comes of the Holy
   Spirit's indwelling! Thus the inner life becomes a constant remedy for
   heaviness of spirit.

   And faith, too, that blessed gift of God, wherever it resides, works to
   the clearing away of heaviness, for faith sings, "All things are mine,
   why should I sorrow? All my sin is gone, why should I pine and moan?
   All things as to the present life are supplied me by the God of
   Providence and Grace--and the future is guaranteed to me by the
   Covenant ordered in all things and sure." Faith takes the telescope and
   looks beyond the narrow range of time into the eternal heavens, and
   sees a crown laid up for the faithful. Yes, and her ears are opened so
   that she hears the songs of the redeemed by blood before the Throne of
   God--thus she bears away the spirit of heaviness! If I see no joy with
   these poor optics, faith has other eyes with which she discovers rivers
   of delight! If flesh and blood afford me nothing but causes for dismay,
   faith knows more and sees more--and she perceives causes for
   overflowing gratitude and delight! Hope also enters with her silver
   light, borrowed from faithful promises. She expects the future glory,
   at which we hinted just now, and begins to anticipate it all. And so,
   again, she drives away the gloom of the heart. Love, also, the sweetest
   of the three, comes in and teaches us to be resigned to the will of God
   and then sweetly charms us into acquiescence with all the Divine
   Purposes. And when we reach that point, and so love God that whatever
   He may do with us, we are resolved to trust Him and praise His name,
   then the spirit of heaviness must vanish!

   Now, beloved Mourners, I trust you know what this great uplifting
   means. It is a work in which the Lord is greatly glorified when He
   raises a poor, begrimed soul out of the sordid potsherds among which it
   has lain, and gives it to soar aloft as on the silver wings of a dove!
   Some of us can never forget the hour of our great deliverance--it was
   the day of our espousals, the time of love--and it must forever remain
   as the beginning of days unto us. All glory be to Him who has loosed
   our bonds and set our feet in a large room! But now we come to the
   third and most prominent point of the text, which is--

   III. THE GARMENT OF PRAISE BESTOWED, which takes the place of the
   spirit of heaviness. We suppose this may mean, and probably does mean,
   that the Lord gives us a garment that is honorable and worthy of
   praise--and what is this garment but the righteousness of our Lord
   Jesus Christ? The Lord arrays His poor people in a robe which causes
   them to be no more worthy of shame, but fit to be praised. They become
   unblameable in His sight. What a blessing this is! Did not the father,
   when he received the prodigal, say, "Bring forth the best robe and put
   it on him"? That was a praiseful garment, instead of the spirit of
   heaviness--and whenever a child of God begins to perceive his adoption
   and to say, "Abba, Father," then He puts on a fit garment for a child
   to wear, an honorable dress, a garment of praise! When we realize that
   Christ has made us priests unto God and we, therefore, put on the
   priestly garment of sanctification by beginning to offer the sacrifice
   of prayer and praise, then, again, we wear a praiseful garment! When we
   exercise the high prerogative of kings, for we are kings as well as
   priests, then, again, we wear not a sordid vesture of dishonor, nor the
   costume of a prison, nor the rags of beggary, nor the black robe of
   condemnation, but a garment of honor and of praise! Every child of God
   should be clothed with the garments of salvation--his Savior has
   prepared them for this end--let him wrap them about him and be glad,
   for these garments make him beautiful in the sight of God!

   But I choose, rather, to follow the exact words of our version tonight
   and speak of the garment of praise as meaning gratitude, thanksgiving,
   and adoration. The anointed Comforter takes away the spirit of
   heaviness and He robes His people in the garment of praise.

   Now, this is something outward as well as inward. A wise man endeavors
   to hide the heaviness of his spirit, but when the Lord takes that away,
   he does not wish to conceal his gratitude. I could not help telling
   those I lived with, when I found the Lord! Master John Bunyan informs
   us that he was so anxious to let someone know of his conversion that he
   wanted to tell the crows on the plowed land all about it! I do not
   wonder. It is a piece of news which it would be hard to withhold.
   Whenever a man's inward heaviness is graciously removed, he puts on the
   outward manifestation of joy and walks abroad in the silken robes of
   praise!

   As we have already said, a garment is a thing which covers a man, so
   when a man learns to thank God aright, His praise covers him--he,
   himself, is hidden while he gives all the glory to God. The man is seen
   as clothed in praise from head to foot. Many persons very unfairly
   judge Christians when they begin to speak of the love and mercy of God
   to them, for they cry out that they are egotistical--but how can it be
   egotistical to talk of what the Lord has done for you? If you speak
   with any sort of confidence, captious individuals say that you are
   presumptuous. How can it be presumptuous to believe what God, Himself,
   declares? It is presumptuous to doubtwhat God says, but it is not
   presumption to believe God! Neither is it egotism to state the truth.
   If I were to say that God has not blessed me abundantly, the pulpit on
   which I stand would cry out against me! Shall I conceal the mercy of
   God as if it were stolen goods? Never! But rather

   I will speak the more boldly of the measureless love which has kept my
   soul from going down to the pit! "He that glories, let him glory in the
   Lord." Bless the Lord, O you saints of His, and give thanks to His holy
   name. Show forth His salvation, compel men to see it, gird it about
   your loins and wear it for your adorning in all companies! While
   speaking of this garment of praise, let us enquire of what it is made.

   Is not praise composed in a large measure of an attentive observation
   of God's mercy?Thousands of blessings come to us without our knowledge.
   We take them in at the back door, and put them away in the cellar. Now,
   praise takes note of them, preserves the invoice of favors received and
   records the goodness of the Lord. O Friends, if you do this, you will
   never be short of reasons for praise!. He who notices God's mercy will
   never be without a mercy to notice. This is the chief material of the
   garment of praise--attentive consideration of Divine Grace is the
   broadcloth out of which the garment of praise is made.

   The next thing is grateful memory. Very much that God does for us we
   bury alive in the grave of oblivion. We receive His mercies as if they
   were common trash. They are no sooner come than they are gone, and the
   proverb truthfully says, "Bread eaten is soon forgotten." Why, my
   Brothers and Sisters, the Lord may give you a thousand favors and you
   will not praise Him. But if He smites you with one little stroke of the
   whip, you grumble at Him! You write His mercies on the water and your
   own trials you engrave on granite! These things ought not to be.
   Maintain the memory of His great goodness. "Forget not all His
   benefits." Call to remembrance your song in the night and remember the
   loving kindnesses of the Lord. In this, also, we find rich material for
   the garment of praise.

   We are further aided by rightly estimating mercy. Is it not a great
   mercy to be alive and not in Hell? To be in your senses and not in the
   lunatic asylum? To be in health and not in the hospital? To be in one's
   own room, and not in the workhouse? These are great favors, and yet,
   perhaps, we seldom thank God for them! Then count up your spiritual
   mercies, if you can. Remember, on the other hand, what you deserved,
   and what it cost the Savior to bring these blessings to you--how
   patient the Lord has been with your refusal of His love and how
   continuously He has loaded you with benefits! Weigh His mercies, as
   well as count them, and they will help you to put on the garment of
   praise.

   It is the telling out of the Divine goodness which largely constitutes
   praise--to observe, to remember, to estimate, to prize and then to
   speak of the Lord's gracious gifts--all these are essential. Praise is
   the open declaration of the gratitude which is felt within. How greatly
   do many fail in this! If you visit them, how readily they enlarge upon
   their troubles--in five minutes they have informed you about the damp
   weather, their aching bones and their low wages. Others speak of the
   bad times and the decline of trade till you know their ditty by heart!
   Is this the manner of the people of God? Should we not entertain our
   visitors with something better than the bones of our meat and the hard
   crusts of our bread? Let us set before them good tidings and cheerfully
   tell of the Divine goodness to us, lest they should go away under the
   impression that we serve a hard master. It would create an almost
   miraculous change in some people's lives if they made a point of
   speaking most of the precious things and least of the worries and ills!
   Why always the poverty? Why always the pains? Why always the dying
   child? Why always the husband's small wages? Why always the unkindness
   of a friend? Why not sometimes--yes, why not always--the mercies of the
   Lord? That is praise and it is to be our everyday garment, the livery
   of every servant of Christ!

   Let us enquire, too, who ought to wear this garment? The answer may be
   suggested by another--whom does it fit? Truly there is a garment of
   praise which exactly suits me and I mean to wear it. It is so capacious
   that some of my Brothers and Sisters would wonder if they could see it
   spread out. I am so much in debt to my God that, do what I will, I can
   never give a fair acknowledgment of it. I freely confess that I owe Him
   more than any man living and am morally bound to praise Him more
   earnestly than anyone else! Did I hear some of you claiming to be equal
   debtors? Do you demand to be allowed to praise Him more than I? Well, I
   will not quarrel with you. Let the matter stand and if you will excel
   me, I will praise my Lord for it. I once, in preaching, remarked that
   if I once entered Heaven, I would take the lowest place, feeling that I
   owe more to God's Grace than anybody else, but I found, when I left the
   pulpit, that I had several competitors who would not yield the lowest
   place to me! They were, each one, ready to exclaim--

   "Then loudest of the crowd I'll sing, While Heaven's resounding
   mansions ring With shouts of Sovereign Grace!" Blessed be God, this is
   the only contention among the birds of Paradise--who owes the most, who
   shall love the best, who shall lie lowest and who shall extol their
   Lord the most zealously! Charming rivalry of humility! Let us have more
   of it below. I again say there is a garment of praise that fits me.
   Brother, Sister, is there not one which fits you, ex-

   actly suiting your state and condition? If you are an heir of Heaven,
   there is--there must be a garment of praise which will rest most
   becomingly upon your shoulders--and you should put it on at once.

   Then, when shall we wear it? We should certainly appear in it on high
   days and holidays. On Sabbath days and communion seasons the hours are
   fragrant with grateful memories. I heard of someone who did not attend
   public worship because his clothes were not fit to come in, and I
   replied, What can he mean? Does the Lord care for our outward dress?
   Let him put on the garment of praise, and he may come and welcome! The
   outer vestments matter little, indeed! All garments of that sort are
   only proofs of our fall, and of the need to hide our nakedness for very
   shame. Fine dress is unbecoming in the House of God, especially for
   those who call themselves "miserable sinners." The best adornment is
   humility of spirit, the robe of thanksgiving, the garment of praise!
   The Lord's-Day should always be the happiest day of the week, and the
   communion should be a little Heaven to our souls. "Call the Sabbath a
   delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable."

   We should wear the garment of praise on the most commonplace of days.
   It should be the peasant's frock and the merchant's coat, the lady's
   dress and the servant's gown--it is the best for wear, for comfort, for
   beauty and it never gets out of fashion. I once knew an old saint, a
   Methodist, a very quaint, original, rustic old man, who was celebrated
   for happiness. When he went out to day labor early in the morning, he
   was always singing as he went along the road. The country people used
   to call it "tooting to himself." Quietly he hummed a bit of a hymn
   wherever he was. When he used his spade or his hoe, he worked to the
   music of his heart and never murmured when in poverty, or became angry
   when held up to ridicule. I wish we were all as spiritually minded and
   as full of praise as he! Bless the Lord! Bless the Lord! When should we
   notbless Him? We will praise Him when our beds refresh us--blessed is
   He who kept the night watches. When we put on our clothes in the
   morning, we will bless His name for giving us food and raiment. When we
   sit down to break our fast, we will bless the love which has provided a
   table for us. When we go forth to our work, we will bless the Lord who
   gives us strength to labor. If we must lie at home sorely sick, with
   fierce pain or slow decay, let us praise Him who heals and sanctifies
   all our diseases! Let us endeavor to display the sweet spirit of
   thankfulness from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.
   Every moment may suggest a new verse of our life Psalm and cause us to
   magnify Him whose mercy endures forever!

   Now, lastly, why should we wear the garment of praise? We should wear
   it as we wear other raiment, to keep us warm and comfortable, for there
   is no such vesture in the world as that of praise! It warms the inmost
   heart and sends a glow through the whole man. You may go to Nova Zembla
   and not freeze in such a robe! In the worst cases and in the most
   sorrowful plights, be you where you may, you are proof against outward
   circumstances when your whole being is enwrapped in praise! Wear it
   because it will comfort you. Wear it also because it will distinguish
   you from others. It will be livery to you and men will know whose
   servants you are. It will be a regimental dress and show to which army
   you belong. It will be a court dress and manifest to what dignity you
   have attained. So arrayed, you will bear the tokens of your Lord who
   often, in the days of His sorrow, lifted His eyes and heart to Heaven
   and thanked the great Father for His goodness!

   May some poor burdened soul lose its heaviness while thinking over our
   text, and henceforth wear this kingly robe--the garment of praise!
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Stewards"

   (No. 3350)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   TO THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE PASTORS' COLLEGE ASSOCIATION, 1887.

   "Let a maun so consider us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
   of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a
   man be found faithful." 1 Corinthians 4:1,2.

   MY beloved Brothers--I might even say with Paul, "My dearly beloved and
   longed for"--it gives me intense delight to look into your faces once
   again, and yet I feel weighted with a solemn responsibility in having
   to direct your thoughts at this time so as to give the keynote to our
   solemn conference. I ask your continued prayers that I may speak
   aright, saying the right thing in the right way.

   There is considerable advantage in the freedom of the usual inaugural
   address. It may take the methodical form of a sermon, or it may wear
   looser garments and come forth in the undress of a speech. Certain
   freedoms which are not usually accorded to a set sermon are allowed me
   in this rambling discourse. You shall call my talk by what name you
   choose, when I have done, but it will be a sermon--for I have a very
   definite and distinct text in my mind--and I shall keep to it with at
   least an average closeness.

   I may as well announce the text, for it will furnish you with a clue to
   my intent. You will find the passage in the First Epistle to the
   Corinthians, in the first verses of the fourth Chapter-- "Let a man so
   consider us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the
   mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be
   found faithful"

   The Apostle was anxious to be rightly considered and well he might be,
   for ministers are not often estimated rightly. As a rule, they are
   either gloried in, or else despised. At the commencement of our
   ministry, when our stores are fresh, and our energies are full--when we
   blaze and flash and spend much time in the firework factory--people are
   apt to think us wonderful beings! And then the Apostle's word is
   needed, "Therefore let no man boast in men" (1 Cor 3:21). It is not
   true, as flatterers insinuate, that in our case the gods have come down
   in the likeness of men--and we shall be idiots if we think so! In due
   time foolish expectations will be cured by disappointment and then we
   shall hear unwelcome truth mingled with unrighteous censure. The idol
   of yesterday is the butt of today! Nine days, nine weeks, nine months,
   or nine years--be it more or less--time works disenchantment and
   changes our position in the world's view. The primrose day is over, and
   the nettle months are come! After the time of the singing of birds has
   passed away, we come nearer to the season of fruit, but the children
   are not half as pleased with us as when they wandered in our luxuriant
   meadows and strung our daisies and buttercups into crowns and garlands.
   In our more autumnal years, the people miss our flowers and greenery.
   Perhaps we are becoming sensible that it is so. The old man is solid
   and slow, whereas the young man rode upon the wings of the wind! It is
   clear that some think too much of us, and some think too little of
   us--it would be far better if they considered of us soberly "as the
   ministers of Christ." It would be for the advantage of the Church, for
   our own benefit and for the glory of God if we were put in our right
   places and kept there, being neither overrated, nor unduly censured,
   but viewed in our relation to our Lord, rather than in our own
   personalities. "Let a man so consider us, as of the ministers of
   Christ."

   We are ministers. The word has a very respectable sound. To be a
   minister is the aspiration of many a youth. Perhaps if the word were
   otherwise rendered, their ambition might cool. Ministers are
   servants--they are not guests, but waiters, not landlords, but
   laborers. The word has been rendered "under-rowers," men who tug the
   oar on the lowest bench. It was hard work to row a galley--those rapid
   strokes consumed the life of the slaves. There were three banks of
   oars. Those on the upper bank of oars had the advantage of fresh air.
   Those who were beneath were more closely shut in and I suppose that the
   lowest bank of rowers would be faint with heat, as well as worn out
   with sore travail. Brothers, let us be

   content to wear out our lives even in the worst position, if by our
   labor we can speed the passage of our great Caesar and give speed to
   the ship of the Church in which He has embarked! We are willing to be
   chained to the oar and to work on through life to make His boat cleave
   the waves. We are not captains, nor owners of the galley, but only the
   oarsmen of Christ! The text, however, does not call us simply ministers
   or servants, but it adds, "ofChrist" We are not the servants of men,
   but of the Lord Jesus! Esteemed Sir, if you think because you subscribe
   to my support that I am bound to do your bidding, you are mistaken!
   Truly, we are "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake" But in the
   highest sense our sole responsibility is to Him whom we call Master and
   Lord. We obey superior orders, but we cannot yield to the dictation of
   our fellow servants, however influential they may be. Our service is
   glorious because it is the service of Christ--we feel honored in being
   permitted to wait upon Him whose shoe laces we are not worthy to
   unloose! We are also said to be "stewards." What are stewards? Let us
   consider--

   I. WHAT IS THE OFFICE OF STEWARD? What is required of stewards? This is
   our duty. We are not now speaking of anybody outside, but of you and
   myself, therefore, let us make personal application of all that is
   said.

   First, a steward is a servant and nothing more. Perhaps he does not
   always remember this--and it is a very pitiful business when the
   servant begins to think that he is "my lord." It is a pity that
   servants, when honored by their master, should be so apt to give
   themselves airs. How ridiculous Jack-in-Office makes himself! I do not
   refer now to butlers and footmen, but to ourselves! If we magnify
   ourselves, we shall become contemptible--and we shall neither magnify
   our office nor our Lord. We are the servants of Christ, but not lords
   over His heritage.

   Ministers are for churches--not churches for minister. In our work
   among the churches we must not dare to view them as estates to be
   farmed for our own profit, or gardens to be trimmed to our own taste.

   A steward is a servant of a peculiar kind, for he has to superintend
   the other servants and that is a difficult thing to do. An old friend
   of mine, who is now with God, once said, "I have always been a
   shepherd. Forty years I was a shepherd of sheep and another forty years
   I was a shepherd of men--and the last flock was a deal more sheepish
   than the first." This witness is true. I think I have heard that a
   sheep has as many diseases as there are days in the year, but I am sure
   that the other sort of sheep are liable to ten times as many! A
   pastor's work is an anxious one. All sorts of difficulties occur with
   our fellow servants and, alas, unwise stewards make a great many more
   than there need be by expecting perfection in others, although they do
   not possess it themselves! Our fellow servants are, after all, wisely
   selected, for He who put them into His household knew what He was
   doing--at any rate, they are His choice and not ours. It is not our
   place to find fault with our Lord's own election!

   The other servants will take their cue from us. A steward who is dull,
   inert and slow, will have a slow team of servants about him and the
   business of his lordship will fare badly. Those who travel will have
   noticed that the servants in a hotel are very much like the
   landlord--if the landlord is cheery, attentive, and obliging--all the
   maids and waiters partake of his geniality! But if he looks sourly at
   you and treats you with indifference, you will find that the whole
   establishment is of a disdainful order. Oh, that we may always be alive
   and earnest in the service of the Lord Jesus and that our people may
   also be alive! A minister must give himself wholly to his work. I have
   read of a Puritan divine, that he was so full of life that his people
   said he lived like one who fed on live things! Oh, for a life sustained
   by living bread! We shall not be good stewards in the management of our
   fellow servants unless we are, ourselves, filled with the Grace of God!
   We must set our fellow servants an example of zeal and tenderness,
   constancy, hopefulness, energy and obedience. We must ourselves
   practice constant self-denial and select as our own part of the work
   that which is the hardest and most humiliating. We are to rise above
   our fellows by superior self-forgetfulness. Be it ours to lead the
   forlorn hopes and bear the heaviest burdens. Archdeacon Hare was giving
   a lecture at Trinity College when a cry of, "Fire!" was raised. His
   pupils rushed away and formed themselves into a line to pass buckets of
   water from the river to the burning building. The tutor saw a
   consumptive student standing up to his waist in the water and cried to
   him, "What? You in the water, Sterling?" The reply was, "Somebody must
   be in it, and why not I as well as another?" Let us say to ourselves,
   "Some fellows must be doing the drudgery of the church and laboring in
   the hardest places--and why should not I take that post?"

   Next, remember that stewards are servants under the more immediate
   command of the great Master We should be as the steward who daily goes
   into his lord's private room to receive orders. John Ploughman was
   never in the squire's parlor, but the steward is often there. If he
   neglected to consult the squire, he would soon be doing amiss and
   involving himself in heavy responsibility. How often ought you and I
   say, "Lord, show me what You would have me to do!" To cease

   to look up to God, so as to learn and practice His will, would be to
   quit our true position. A steward who never communicates with his
   master? Give him his wages and let him go! He who does his own will and
   not his master's is of no value as a steward! Brothers, we must
   continually wait upon God. The habit of going for orders must be
   cultivated. How grateful should we be that our Master is always within
   call! He guides His servants with His eyes and with His guidance He
   also gives the necessary power. He will make our faces to shine before
   the eyes of our fellows if we commune with Him. Our example must
   encourage others to wait upon the Lord. As our business is to tell them
   the mind of God, let us study that mind very carefully.

   Again--stewards are constantly giving account Their account is given as
   they go along. A business-like proprietor requires an account of
   outgoings and incomings from day to day. There is great truth in the
   old proverb that "short reckonings make long friends." If we make short
   reckonings with God, we shall be long friends with Him. I wonder if any
   of you keep account of your faults and shortcomings. Perhaps the time
   will be better spent in constant efforts to serve your Master and
   increase His estate. We ought, each one, to ask himself, "What am I
   doing by my preaching? Is it of the right kind? Am I giving prominence
   to those Doctrines which my Lord would have me put in the forefront? Am
   I caring for souls as He would have me care for them?" It is a good
   thing thus to review one's whole life and enquire, "Do I give
   sufficient time to private prayer? Do I study the Scriptures as
   intensely as I should? I hurry about to many meetings, but am I, in all
   this, fulfilling my Master's orders? May I not be gratifying myself
   with the appearance of doing much, whereas I could really be doing more
   if I were more attentive to the quality than to the quantity of the
   work?" Oh, to go often to the Master and to be right and clear in our
   accounts with Him! This will be profitable both to our churches and to
   ourselves.

   To come to the main point--a steward is a trustee of his master's
   goods. Whatever he has belongs to his Master and choice things are put
   into his custody, not that he may do as he likes with them, but that he
   may take care of them. The Lord has entrusted to each one of us certain
   talents--and these are not our own. Gifts of knowledge, thought, speech
   and influence are not ours to glory in, but ours in trust for the Lord
   alone! It is His pound that gains five pounds!

   We ought to increase our capital stock. Are all you young Brothers
   doing that? Are you increasing in gift and capacity? My Brothers, do
   not neglect yourselves! I observe that some Brothers grow and others
   stand still, dwarfed and stunted. Men, like horses, are very
   disappointing creatures--good colts drop suddenly lame, or develop a
   vice of which they were never before suspected. To be always giving out
   and never taking in tends to emptiness.

   Brothers, we are stewards of the mysteries of God--we are "put in trust
   with the Gospel." Paul speaks of the Gospel of the blessed God which
   was committed to his trust. I hope none of you have ever had the
   misfortune to be made a trustee. It is a thankless office. In executing
   a trust, there is little scope for originality--we are bound to carry
   out a trust with literal exactness. One person wishes to receive more
   money and another desires to alter a clause in the deed--but the
   faithful trustee falls back upon the document and abides by its
   provisions. I hear him say, as they worry him, "Dear Friends, I did not
   make this trust. I am simply the administrator of it and I am bound to
   carry it out." The Gospel of the Grace of God needs great
   improvement--at least, so I am informed--but I know it is no business
   of mine to improve it! My part is to act upon it. No doubt many would
   improve God, Himself, from off the face of the earth if they could.
   They would improve the Atonement until it vanished. Great alterations
   are demanded of us, in the name of the spirit of the age. And of course
   we are warned that the very notion of punishment for sin is a barbarous
   relic of mediaeval ages and must be given up! And with it the Doctrine
   of Substitution and many other old-fashioned dogmas! We have nothing to
   do with these demands--we have only to preach the Gospel as we find it.
   Stewards must keep to their orders and trustees must carry out the
   terms of their trust!

   My Brothers, we are at this present hour set for the defense of the
   Gospel. If ever men were called to this office, we are so called. These
   are times of drifting--men have pulled up their anchors and are driven
   to and fro with winds and tides of divers kinds. As for me, I have in
   this hour of danger not only let down the great bower anchor, but I
   have cast four anchors out of the stern! That may be quite the wrong
   place, but in these times we need anchoring both fore and aft. Now I am
   fixed! Skeptical reasoning might have moved me at one time, but not
   now! Do our enemies ask us to lay down our swords and cease to fight
   for the old faith? Like the Greeks to Xerxes, we answer, "Come and take
   them!" The other day the advanced thinkers were going to sweep the
   orthodox into limbo, but as yet, we survive their assaults. These
   boasters do not know the vitality of evangelical truth! No, glorious
   Gospel, you shall never perish! If we are to die, we will die fighting.
   If we shall personally pass away, fresh Evangelists will preach upon
   our graves. Evangelical truths are like the dragon's teeth which Cadmus
   sowed--they breed men all armed for the fray. The Gospel lives by
   dying! Brothers, at any rate, in this contest, if we are not
   victorious, we will at least be faithful!

   A steward's business is to dispense his Master's goods according to
   their design. He is to bring forth things new and old--to provide milk
   for babes and strong meat for men, giving to each one his portion of
   meat in due season. At some tables I fear the strong men have been
   waiting a long time for the meat and there is small hope of its yet
   appearing--the milk and water is more plentiful by far! Someone went to
   hear a certain preacher last Sunday and complained that he did not
   preach Christ. Another remarked that perhaps it was not the due season,
   but my Brothers, the due season for preaching Christ is every time you
   preach! God's children are always hungry and no bread will satisfy them
   but that which came down from Heaven.

   A wise steward will maintain the proportion of the Truths of God. He
   will bring forth things new and old--not always Doctrine, not always
   practice, and not always experience. He will not always preach
   conflict, nor always victory-- not giving a one-sided view of the
   Truths of God, but a sort of stereoscopic view which shall make the
   Truth of God stand out "evidently set forth" before them. Much of the
   preparation of spiritual food lies in the correct proportion of the
   ingredients. Excess in one direction and failure in another may breed
   much mischief! Let us, therefore, use weight and measure--and look
   upfor guidance!

   Brothers, take care that you use your talents for your Master, and only
   for your Master. It is disloyalty to our Master if we wish to be
   soul-winners in order to be thought to be so! It is unfaithfulness to
   Jesus if we preach sound Doctrine with the view to be thought sound, or
   pray earnestly with the desire that we may be known as praying men. It
   is for us to pursue our Lord's Glory with a single eye and with our
   whole heart. We must use our Lord's Gospel, our Lord's people and our
   Lord's talents for our Lord and for Him alone.

   The steward should also be the guardian of his Master's family. Look to
   the interests of all who are in Christ Jesus, and let them all be as
   dear to you as your own children. Servants in the olden times were
   often so united to the family and so interested in their masters'
   affairs, that they spoke of our house, our land, our carriage, our
   horses and our children. Our Lord would have us thus identify ourselves
   with His holy business and especially He would have us love His chosen.
   We, beyond all others, should lay down our lives for the Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ! Because they belong to Christ, we love them for His
   sake. I trust we can heartily say--

   "There's not a lamb in all Your flock I would disdain to feed."

   Brothers, let us heartily love all whom Jesus loves! Cherish the tried
   and suffering! Visit the fatherless and the widow! Care for the faint
   and the feeble! Bear with the melancholy and despondent! Be mindful of
   all parts of the household and thus shall you be a good steward.

   I shall cease from this picture when I have said that the steward
   represents his master When the master is away, everybody comes to the
   steward for orders. He had need to behave himself well who represents
   such a Lord as ours! A steward should speak much more carefully and
   wisely when he speaks for his lord than when he speaks on his own
   account. Unless he is guarded in his utterances, his lord may be forced
   to say to him, "You had better speak for yourself. I cannot allow you
   thus to misrepresent me." My beloved Brothers and fellow servants, the
   Lord Jesus is compromised by us if we do not keep His way, declare His
   Truth, and manifest His spirit. Men infer the master from the servant.
   Are they not to be excused if they do? Ought not the steward to act
   after his master's manner? You cannot dissociate the squire from the
   steward--the lord from his representative. A Puritan was told that he
   was too precise, but replied, "I serve a precise God."

   If urged to utter your own thoughts rather than revealed Truth of God,
   follow Jesus, who spoke not His own things, but those of the Father. In
   this you will be acting as a steward should do. Here lies your wisdom,
   your comfort, and your strength. It was a sufficient vindication for a
   steward, when one accused him of folly, that he could reply, "Say what
   you please of what I did, for therein I followed my master's orders."
   Caviler, do not blame the steward! The man has done according to the
   command of his superior--what else would you have him do? Our
   conscience is clear and our heart is restful when we feel that we have
   taken up our cross and have followed the footprints of the Crucified
   One! Wisdom is justified of her children.

   The second part of our study is--

   II. OUR OBLIGATIONS AS STEWARDS. "It is required in stewards that a man
   be found faithful" It is not required that a man be found brilliant, or
   that he be found pleasing to his associates, or even that he be found
   successful! All that is required is that he be found faithful--but
   truly this is no small matter! It will need that the Lord, Himself, be
   both our wisdom and our strength, or we shall surely fail. Many are the
   ways by which we may come short of this requirement, however simple it
   may seem to be.

   We may fail to be faithful through acting as if we were chiefs instead
   of servants. A difficulty arises in the church which might readily be
   settled by loving forbearance, but we "stand upon our dignity" and then
   the servant grows out of his livery. We can be very high and mighty if
   we please--and the smaller we are, the more easily do we swell out. No
   cock is greater in fight than a bantam--and no minister is more ready
   to contend for his "dignity" than the man who has no dignity! How
   foolish we look when we play the grandee! The steward thinks he has not
   been treated with proper respect and he will "let the servants know who
   he is." His master was roughly used the other day by an angry
   tenant--and he took no notice, for he had too much mind to be put out
   with so small a matter--but his steward passes by nothing and fires up
   at everything! Is this as it should be? I think I see the gentle Master
   lay His hand upon His furious servant's shoulder, and I hear Him say,
   "Can you not bear it? I have borne far more than this."

   Brothers, our Master "endured such contradiction of sinners against
   Himself," and shall we be weary and faint in our minds? How can we be
   stewards of the gentle Jesus if we behave ourselves haughtily? Let us
   never ride the high horse, nor attempt to be lords over God's heritage,
   for He will not have it--and we cannot be faithful if we give way to
   pride.

   We shall also fail in our duty as stewards if we begin speculating with
   our Master's money. We may play ducks and drakes with our own, but not
   with our Lord's money. We are not bidden to speculate, but to "occupy"
   till He comes. Honest trading with His goods is one thing, but to play
   a high game and run unlawful risks is quite another! I do not intend to
   speculate with my Master's Gospel by dreaming that I can improve it by
   my own deep thinking, or by soaring aloft with the philosophers! We
   will not, even with the idea of saving souls, speak other than the
   Gospel! If I could create a great excitement by delivering novel
   doctrine, I would abhor the thought! To raise a revival by suppressing
   the Truth of God is dealing deceitfully--it is a pious fraud and our
   Lord wants no gain which might come by such a transaction! It is ours
   simply and honestly to trade with our Master's pounds and bring Him
   such increase as they gain in fair dealing.

   We may become false to our trust by acting as men-pleasers. When the
   steward studies the good pleasure of the plowman, or the whims of the
   maid, everything must go wrong, for everything is out of place. We are
   influenced by one another and we influence one another. The greatest
   are unconsciously influenced in some measure by the least. The minister
   must be overwhelmingly influenced by the Lord, his God, so that other
   influences may not warp him from his fidelity. We must resort
   continually to headquarters and receive the Word from the mouth of the
   Lord, Himself, so that we may be kept straight and true! Otherwise we
   shall soon be biased, although we may not be aware of it. There must be
   no holding back to please one person--no rushing forward to satisfy
   another--no moving an inch even to gratify the whole community! We must
   not harp upon a certain string to win the approval of this party.
   Neither must we be silent upon an important Doctrine to avoid offending
   that clique! What have we to do with idols, dead or alive? O Brothers,
   if you go in for pleasing everybody, you have indeed set yourselves a
   task! The toils of Sisyphus and the labors of Hercules are nothing to
   this! We must not flatter men. We must speak plain words--and words
   which conscience will approve. If we please men, we shall displease our
   Lord, so that success in our self-imposed task would be fatal to our
   eternal interests! In trying to please men, we shall not even succeed
   in pleasing ourselves! To please our Lord, though it may seem very
   difficult, is an easier task than pleasing men. O Steward, have your
   eyes only upon your Master!

   We shall not be found faithful stewards if we are idlers and trifers Do
   you ever meet with lazy ministers? I have heard of them, but when my
   eyes sees them, my heart abhors them. If you plan to be lazy, there are
   plenty of avocations in which you will not be needed, but, above all,
   you are not needed in the Christian ministry! The man who finds the
   ministry an easy life will also find that it will bring a hard death.
   If we are not laborers, we are not true stewards, for we are to be
   examples of diligence to the household. I like Adam Clarke's
   precept--"Kill yourselves with work and pray yourselves alive again."
   We shall never do our duty either to God or man if we are sluggards.

   Yet some who are always busy may yet be unfaithful, if all that they do
   is done in a jaunty, trifling manner. If we play at preaching, we have
   chosen an awful game. To shuffle texts like cards and make literary
   essays out of themes which move all Heaven and Hell is shameful work!
   We must be serious as death in this solemn work. There are boys and
   girls who are always giggling, but who never laugh--and they are the
   very image of certain always-jesting preachers. I like an honest laugh.
   True humor can be sanctified and those who can stir men to smile can
   also move them to weep. But even this has limits which the foolish soon
   exceed. Be seriously in earnest. Live like men who have something to
   live for and preach like men to whom preaching is the highest exercise
   of their being! Our work is the most important under Heaven, or else it
   is sheer imposture! If you are not earnest in carrying out His
   instructions, your Lord will give His vineyard to another, for He will
   not put up with those who turn His service into trifling.

   When we misuse our Master's property, we are false to our trust. We are
   entrusted with a certain amount of talent, strength and influence--and
   we have to use this trust money with a single purpose. Our purpose is
   to promote the Master's honor and Glory. We are to seek God's Glory and
   nothing else. By all means, let every man use his best influence on the
   right side in politics--but no minister has liberty to use his position
   in the Church to promote party ends! I do not censure workers for
   temperance, but even this admirable purpose must not push out the
   Gospel! I trust it never does. I hold that no minister has a right to
   use his ability or office to cater for the mere amusement of the
   multitude. The Master has sent us to win souls--all is within the
   compass of our commission which tends towards that--but that is chiefly
   our work which drives directly and distinctly at that end. The danger
   lies at this time in setting up theatricals, semi-theatricals,
   concerts, and so forth. Until I see that the Lord Jesus Christ has set
   up a theater, or planned a miracle play, I shall not think of emulating
   the stage or competing with the music hall! If I do my own business, by
   preaching the Gospel, I shall have enough to do. One objective is
   enough for most men--one such as ours is enough for any minister,
   however many his talents, however versatile his mind.

   If we would be faithful as stewards, we must not neglect any one of the
   family, nor neglect any portion of the estate. I wonder whether we
   practice a personal observation of our hearers. Our beloved friend, Mr.
   Archibald Brown, is right when he says that London needs not only
   house-to-house visitation, but room-to-room visitation! We must, in the
   case of our people, go further and practice man-to-man visitation. By
   personal contact, alone, can certain persons be reached. If I had a
   number of bottles before me, and were to play upon them with a
   fire-engine, how much of the water would be lost? If I want to make
   sure of filling them, I must take them up, one by one, and carefully
   pour the liquid into them. We must watch over our sheep, one by one.
   This is to be done not only by personal talk, but by personal prayer.
   Dr. Guthrie says that he called upon a sick man who greatly refreshed
   his soul, for he told him that he was known to accompany his minister
   in his visits. "While I lie here, I shall follow you in your
   visitation. I keep on remembering house after house in my prayer, and I
   pray for the man, his wife, his children and all who dwell with him."
   Thus, without moving a step, the sick saint visited Macfarlane, and
   Douglas, and Duncan, and all the others whom his pastor called to see!
   We ought thus to beat the bounds of our parish and go round and round
   our congregations, forgetting none, despairing of none, bearing all
   upon our hearts before the Lord. Especially let us think of the poor,
   the crotchety, the desponding. Let our care, like the hurdles of a
   sheepfold, enclose all the flock!

   Another thing must not be overlooked. In order to faithfulness we must
   never connive at evil. This injunction will be warmly commended by
   certain Brothers whose only notion of pruning a tree is to cut it down.
   A gardener comes to a gentleman's house and when he is told that the
   shrubs are a little overgrown, he answers, "I will see to it." In a few
   days you walk round the garden. He has seen to it with a vengeance! He
   has done the garden, and it is done for! Some persons cannot learn the
   balance of virtues--they cannot kill a mouse except by burning down the
   barn! Did I hear you say, "I was faithful, I never connived at evil"?
   So far so good! But may it not happen that by a bad temper you produced
   more evil than that which you destroyed? Yield in all things personal,
   but be firm where truth and holiness are concerned! We must be
   faithful, lest we incur the sin and penalty of Eli. Be honest to the
   rich and influential. Be firm with the wavering and unsteady, for the
   blood of these will be required at our hands. Brothers, you will need
   all the wisdom and Grace you can get in order to fulfill your duties as
   pastors! There is an adaptation to rule men which would seem to be
   quite absent from certain preachers--and the place of it is supplied by
   an adaptation to set a house on fire, for they scatter firebrands and
   burning coals wherever they go. Be you not like they! Strive not, and
   yet wink not at sin!

   Some neglect their obligations as stewards by forgetting that the
   Master is coming. "He will not come yet," whisper some. "There are so
   many prophecies to be fulfilled and it is even possible that He will
   not come at all, in the vulgar sense of the term. There is no
   particular need for us to make haste." Ah, my Brothers, it is the
   unfaithful servant who says,

   "My Lord delays his coming." This belief allows him to put off labor
   and travail. The servant will not clean the room by daily duty because
   the master is away--and she can have a great clean up, in the form of a
   revival, before her lord arrives. If we would each feel that each day
   may be our last day, we would be more intense in our work. While
   preaching the Gospel, we may someday be interrupted by the blast of the
   trumpet, and the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom comes; go you out to meet
   Him!" This expectation will tend to quicken our pace. The time is
   short, our account is near--our Lord is at the door! We must work with
   all our might. We must not be eye-servants, except in this sense--that
   we labor in the Lord's Presence since He is so near!

   I am impressed with the rapid flight of time, the swift approach of the
   last great audit. These annual conferences return so speedily! To some
   of us it seems only a day or two since that of 1886--the last of them
   hastens on. I shall soon be giving in the account of my stewardship,
   or, if I should survive for a while, others of you may be summoned to
   meet your Lord. You will soon go home to your Lord if your Lord does
   not soon come to you! We must work on from hour to hour with our eyes
   upon the audit, that we may not be ashamed of the record which will be
   found in the volume of the book.

   The reward of faithful stewards is exceedingly great--let us aspire to
   it. The Lord will make the man who was faithful in a few things to be
   ruler over many things. That is an extraordinary passage where our Lord
   says, "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 He will come forth and serve them."
   It is wonderful that our Lord has already served us, but how can we
   comprehend that He will serve us again? Think of Jesus rising up from
   His Throne to wait upon us! "Behold," He cries, "here comes a man who
   served Me faithfully on earth! Make way for him, you angels, and
   principalities, and powers! This is the man whom the King delights to
   honor." And to our surprise, the King girds Himself and waits upon us!
   We are ready to cry, "Not so, my Lord." But He must and will keep His
   Word! This unspeakable honor He will pay to His true servants. Happy
   man to have been the poorest and most despised of ministers, to be now
   served by the King of kings!

   Beloved Brothers, we are bound to go forward, cost us what it may, for
   we dare not go back--we have no armor for our backs. We believe
   ourselves to be called to this ministry and we cannot be false to the
   call. If I must be a lost soul, let me be lost as a thief, a
   blasphemer, or a murderer rather than as an unfaithful steward to the
   Lord Jesus! This is to be a Judas, a son of perdition, indeed!
   Remember, if any of you are unfaithful, you win for yourselves a
   superfluity of condemnation. You were not forced to be ministers. You
   were not forced to enter upon this sacred office. By your own choice
   you are here. In your youth you aspired to this holy thing and thought
   yourselves happy in attaining your desire. Brothers, if we meant to be
   untrue to Jesus, there was no necessity to have climbed this sacred
   rock in order to multiply the horrors of our final fall! We could have
   perished quite sufficiently in the ordinary ways of sin. What need to
   qualify ourselves for a greater condemnation? This will be a dreadful

   result if this is all that comes of our college studies and our burning
   of the midnight oil in acquiring knowledge. My heart and my flesh
   tremble while I contemplate the possibility of any of us being found
   guilty of treachery to our charge and treason to our King! May the good
   Lord so abide with us, that at the last we may be clear of the blood of
   all men! It will be seven heavens in one to hear our Master say, "Well
   done, good and faithful servant."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Queen of Sheba

   (No. 3351)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 8, 1867.

   "The Queen of the South shall rise up in thejudgment with this
   generation, and condemn it: for she came from the ends of the earth to
   hear the wisdom of Solomon and, behold, a greater than Salomon is
   here." Matthew 12:42.

   Our LORD, on this occasion, was addressing a number of captious critics
   who, instead of listening to what He said and giving it the attention
   due to its own weight, said, "Show us a sign." Our Lord replies to them
   that He will give them no sign except the two signs of Jonah and of the
   Queen of the South. The first was very much to the point. Jonah, a lone
   man, working no miracle, went to Nineveh, a great city, where he was
   completely unknown. There he commenced to preach. The whole subject of
   his testimony was, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
   Through the broad streets of that gigantic city and through its lanes
   and alleys, in its public squares the voice was heard, sharp and
   shrill, of that lone man--"Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
   overthrown." No rod was turned into a serpent. No mountains were made
   to smoke. None were struck dead by the sudden hand of God. No
   paralytics and sick folk were healed. No signs were given to the men of
   Nineveh, but the declaration of that one man sent of God was sufficient
   to denounce and discover their sin! They felt that they had been guilty
   of sins that deserved to be denounced. He pronounced their punishment
   and they also felt that the punishment was well deserved and,
   therefore, from the king on the throne to the meanest of the citizens,
   all the inhabitants of that great city humbled themselves and Jonah's
   work was done! And God forgave the city. And the Lord Jesus seemed to
   say, "I also speak to you and tell you Truths of God which ought to
   have as much power upon your consciences as Jonah's testimony had upon
   the men of Nineveh, but you turn away, albeit that I speak truth which
   you cannot answer, and tell you things which you cannot meet nor deny.
   Yet you say, 'Show us a sign,' fools that you are! There shall no sign
   be given you except the sign of Jonah, the Prophet." The second sign
   was also quite as much to the point. It was the case of the Queen of
   Sheba. She had heard, by report, that Solomon was the wisest of men.
   She knew that men flocked to his court to be instructed from his lips.
   Under many disadvantages and at much expense, she set out upon a long
   journey that she might listen to the wise man's teaching. She found it
   to her benefit and returned with joy. "But"--Christ seems to say, "I am
   as wise as Solomon. I am able to instruct you as well as that monarch
   instructed those who came to his court and yet you show no eager desire
   to know what it is I teach! You are not willing to open your ears to
   receive, nor your minds to give a candid judgment upon what I utter,
   but you cry out at once, 'Show us a sign.' You would open your eyes and
   stare in vacant wonder at a miracle, but the mightiest wisdom that I
   can deliver to you, you tread under foot as swine tread under feet the
   choicest pearls."

   So Christ would give them no sign. He felt that they needed it not and,
   indeed, it would be wasted upon them. If they had possessed the same
   naive mind that was found in the Queen of the South, they would have
   listened to Him. And if they had been of the same honest spirit with
   the men of Nineveh, they would have repented upon His testimony, even
   as they did of old, who heard the Prophetic voice of Jonah!

   Ah, my dear Hearers, this very night the same spirit broods over
   thousands! They do not, when they go to hear a sermon, think of the
   matter of what they hear, but they must have it delivered with
   cleverness, with refined speech, with polished periods. Ah, if men were
   wise, they would care but little how these Truths of God were given to
   them, but they would weigh the Truths themselves! We do not claim that
   you should believe all that we say--if we speak anything contrary to
   God's Word, we charge you to reject what we say, but we do ask you to
   judge it, to weigh it and to let the im-

   portant Truths which we are charged by God to deliver to you, have a
   place in your attention--let them exercise your judgment, let them move
   your heart and will--let them influence your lives!

   Coming now, however, at once to the text, we shall notice, in the first
   place, that Jesus is ' "greater than Solomon."\n the second place, that
   Jesus "is here." And in the third place, that if we do not listen to
   Him and obey Him, the Queen of the South may well rise up to condemn
   us.

   These things, I think, are very evidently in the text. In the first
   place, then, in the text--

   I. OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST CLAIMS TO BE "GREATER THAN SOLOMON."

   You all know the history of Solomon. Solomon was great in several
   particulars and we shall point out to you that in each of these, Christ
   is greater than he.

   In the first place, Solomon was very great as a ruler. His father,
   David, had, by much perseverance, valor and industry, very much
   enlarged the boundaries of his once small dominion. He was a man of war
   and he left to Solomon a heritage, indeed--a well-filled treasury and
   an army of veterans. Solomon ruled over the whole of Israel. There
   seems to have been no disloyal rebellion, no revolt throughout the
   whole of his reign. In David's reign there were many rivals and the
   people were a restless, discontented, turbulent people. No people,
   perhaps, were more difficult to govern than the Jewish people in the
   days of David! But Solomon was so judicious, noble and just a ruler,
   that he left the whole nation at peace with itself.

   He was a monarch whom all respected and Solomon, too, in his time,
   enlarged the boundaries of his territory until it reached to the
   borders of Egypt and to the river Euphrates on the other side. They
   that dwelt in the wilderness "bowed before him and his enemies licked
   the dust." Many nations paid him tribute and all the strangers who
   remained in the land, whom the children of Israel did not destroy, did
   him service. He had dominion from sea to sea and, to use an Oriental
   extravagance of expression, "from the river even unto the end of the
   earth." Solomon had a kingdom from his father and with it a special
   Divine Blessing--the gift of wisdom which enabled him to rule well. His
   army was one of the largest of the various armies of the Oriental
   kings. He ruled with wonderful state. The throne which he had built for
   himself is said to have had none like it in the whole of the then known
   world. His treasury was filled so full that as for silver, it was
   accounted for nothing. He made gold to be as silver, and silver as
   stones in Jerusalem! He was the greatest monarch that Israel had ever
   seen!

   And yet, dear Friends, what a petty, little king he was, and when we
   compare him for a single moment with our Lord Jesus Christ, what a
   contrast there is! All the power of Solomon is gone and not a speck of
   it is left. He had dominion in his day over vast numbers of humankind,
   but he has no dominion now. But the Throne of the Man who was crucified
   on Calvary has power over tens of thousands of human hearts at this
   present moment. Lo, these 1,800 years Christ has reigned over
   multitudes who have been all too glad to kiss His feet and have
   rejoiced in the light of His Countenance! His Kingdom, instead of
   waning, has continually increased and the day shall come when all kings
   shall yield their scepters to Him and He shall gather sheaves of them
   beneath His arm when all monarchs shall doff their diadems and He,
   alone, shall reign King of kings and Lord of lords--the universal Head
   of the great monarchy--the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands
   which shall yet fill all the earth! The power of the Lord Jesus Christ
   over His Church is like the power of Solomon over Israel. He keeps it
   at one, and together!

   Apart from Christ, the Church is a broken thing, divided into sects and
   parties, but in Christ Jesus, the Savior's prayer is answered, "That
   they all may be one." Bring any one of us to the Cross and you shall
   not know this from that, for there we all agree to trust Him, to
   worship Him, to count His authority to be paramount and His example to
   be our pattern! Yes, Lord Jesus Christ, all Your children praise You!
   All those that are of Your household put the crown upon Your head. You
   rule in the household and You rule well, You "first-born among many
   brethren." Moreover, our Lord's dominion extends beyond His Church. He
   rules even to the river of Egypt. Know you not that Christ is Lord
   paramount over Providence? Nothing occurs without Jehovah-Jesus'
   purpose, decree, or permission! The very hairs of your head are all
   numbered--

   "He overrules all mortal things, And manages our mean affairs."

   Nor is this all. The Lord Jesus has the government upon His
   shoulders--and that government extends not only to earth, but to Heaven
   and Hell--

   "Lo!In His hands, the Sovereign keys Of Heaven, and death, and Hell."

   The power of Christ is felt beneath Hell's most profound wave and His
   Glory is sung on Heaven's most starry heights! He has put all things
   under His feet. He is exalted far above all principalities and powers,
   and every name that is named, that at the name of Jesus every knee
   should bow, of things in Heaven, and things on earth, and things that
   are under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that He is
   Lord, to the Glory of God the Father. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, has
   a dominion which, for duration and for extent, is infinitely superior
   to anything of which Solomon ever conceived! And as for majesty and
   glory--talk not of the peacock--throne of the Great Mogul, all set with
   many colors and with gems and precious stones that shine resplendent
   like a rainbow in the glittering sun! There is no throne like unto the
   Throne of Jesus, the Emperor of all worlds! See before Him the sea of
   glass mingled with fire. Around Him stand His seraphic courtiers. There
   stand the elders with their "vials full of sweet odors." And as you
   listen you can hear their "harps of sweeter sound." And mark you not
   the countless hosts who all cast their crowns before Him and, with one
   soul and voice, cry, "You are worthy to take the book and to loose the
   seals thereof, for You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your
   blood"? Oh, cannot your ears hear this very moment the mighty booms of
   that great sea of music which rolls up to the Throne of Jesus? Can you
   not catch some stray notes from the harps of angels and archangels, as
   unceasingly they sing, "You are worthy! You are worthy to take the book
   and to loose the seals thereof"? Beloved, we cannot thinkof comparing
   Christ with Solomon, but we must contrast them, for a "greater than
   Solomon is here, as a Ruler."

   Let us learn from this the obvious lesson of practical value and
   wisdom. If, from the far-off South, the Queen of She-ba came to see
   Solomon, how wise will it be for us to come to see Jesus! Oh, that we
   would do so and make Him our King! Let us enlist in His warrior bands.
   None ever served so great a master! Let us be members of His household,
   for happy are they that stand continually in His Presence. Let us give
   over our enmity and cast down the weapons of our rebellion! And let us
   say by Grace --

   "Oh, King of Grace, my heart subdue--

   I would be led in triumph, too,

   A willing captive to my Lord,

   To sing the triumphs of His Word,"

   Solomon was great as a builder For this, perhaps, he is best known
   among us. 'Twas a mighty deed to bring the towering cedars of Lebanon,
   all fashioned and prepared, to Jerusalem to make a house for the
   Lord--to hew from the quarries in the mountains, great stones and
   goodly ones, all squared, and each one fitted and made ready for its
   place so that there might be no sound of hammer, nor lifting up of
   chisel in the building of the house. Happy were the eyes that looked
   upon the Temple of Solomon! Even at this very day, when the explorers
   come upon what they suppose to be the Temple, they are astounded at the
   masses of stone which they find there! Our Lord said that one stone
   should not be left upon another, but that all should be cast down--but
   even as they lie in the places where they were cast down--they are
   amazing! Even modern engineers have marveled how they could ever have
   been brought and put into their places--they are of such enormous size
   and yet so well squared and prepared for the building! Besides this,
   Solomon built a house of the forest of Lebanon, of which we have a
   descriptive account in the pages of Inspiration and which also seems to
   have been a marvelous work. In addition to that, he was great in the
   erection of works for the carrying of water. He made pools in Zion--the
   upper and the nether pools. He seems to have carried aqueducts where
   they were never heard of before his time, and it is possible that many
   of the great discoveries of modern days were well known to Solomon,
   even all those years ago. He seems to have built an ascent to the house
   of the Lord, which particularly struck the Queen of Sheba as being a
   most wonderful piece of masonry. Besides this, he was the builder of
   treasure cities. He also built Gezer, Bethhoron, Baalath, Tadmor in the
   wilderness, and so on. Solomon was a great master builder--none could
   excel him as a piler of huge stones, one upon another.

   Ah, but my Brothers and Sisters, a greater than Solomon is the Lord
   Jesus! It is easy enough to build with stones, granite, bricks and
   cedar. These are dead, coarse things that you can hew and cut as you
   will. Get enough sawing and cutting power and you can make what you
   will of these things. It is only brute mechanical force that is needed,
   with judgment here and there to direct and guide it. Get strength
   enough and, as Archimedes said, you might move the world with a
   lever--it is only one physical force pitted against another. But what
   shall we say of Christ, who has built a house

   that is made of living, immortal souls, built of what Peter, taught of
   the Spirit, calls, "living stones"? You do not cut these, nor polish
   them quite so easily. Men with strong, stubborn wills. Men with
   diseased imaginations. Men with perverse affections, men altogether
   gone from original righteousness--our Lord Jesus Christ has taken these
   and He has prepared them to make a Temple in which there shall be
   nothing but holiness and perfection! I trust that some of us have been
   prepared to be built into "a living Temple, for an habitation of God
   through the Spirit." But if the Lord Jesus Christ shall ever make tens
   of thousands--and thousands of thousands of once guilty men all
   perfect, and shall build these altogether, fitting each one into its
   place and making each one willing to maintain and stay in its
   place--this will be such a thing as a thousand Solomons could not have
   attempted! This is no work of brute force, of mechanical power, my
   Brothers and Sisters--this is the power of the Holy Spirit Himself--a
   spiritual'power, a power which comes from God, who is a Spirit, and who
   will have those who worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth!
   Can you conceive of this Temple? My soul seems to rise upon the wings
   of imagination at the very thought of it--a Temple all alive, a living
   Temple--each stone a priceless soul, glittering with immortality! John
   tells us of a city, the foundations whereof were of precious stones and
   he tells us of the "new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven," and I
   know not what besides. That was but a faint picture of the living
   Temple of Jesus, where each soul shall be more precious than the whole
   world, even though all the world were one pearl of the purest water--a
   Temple built by Him, for Him, to His own praise!

   Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the great Master Builder, has built
   many a pool and aqueduct. We sang about one just now, such as Solomon
   never knew--

   "There is a fountain filled with blood,

   Drawn from Immanuel's veins!

   And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

   Lose all their guilty stains!"

   This is more glorious than the Pool of Gihon, the upper and the nether
   pool! Moreover, Solomon brought a river into Jerusalem that the
   multitude might drink, but it was not like this--"The water that I
   shall give you, shall be in you a well of water, springing up into
   everlasting life." Beloved, we have said that Solomon built treasure
   cities, but our Lord has given us promises that hold richer treasures
   than Tadmor ever knew--a Covenant--oh, the grandeur of that word,
   Covenant--a Covenant stored with all the fullness of God, for in Christ
   "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily"!

   I shall lose myself if I attempt to extol my Master as a Builder! I
   only pray that you and I may be built upon His Foundation--that we may
   come to the Fountain which He has opened and may be cleansed
   therein--that we may come to His treasure city and be enriched, all our
   necessities being removed. And may we dwell with Him in the palace
   which shall never be taken down! A greater than Solomon, then, is
   Christ as a Builder!

   And now for a third view of Solomon. Solomon was the greatest man of
   his age as a trader A careless reader may not observe this, but a
   careful student of the narrative will discern the reason why Solomon
   was so immensely rich. Possessed of great wisdom, he saw at once that
   the wealth of a people must largely depend upon its commercial
   enterprise and activity. He therefore took a city upon the banks of the
   Euphrates, and when the great caravans, laden with costly treasures
   from India and China, sought to make their way to Egypt, Greece and
   Rome, they crossed at the very ford which Solomon possessed. He seized
   upon an oasis in the great desert and upon it he built a city, known to
   this day as Tadmor-- "Baalath and Tadmor in the wilderness." This
   little oasis, this spot of green earth in the midst of the desert, the
   caravans must pass. It was the only place where they could obtain
   water--and here Solomon built these cities which became the great
   depot, where exchanges were continually made of the productions of
   Egypt, India and China! The trade which, after the days of Solomon,
   went farther west and at last passed through the port of Venice--and
   then went still farther west and went through Holland, and has now come
   to London--all that trade was in the hands of Solomon. If you read
   carefully the record of his life, you will see that he was a most
   clever trader and managed for a time to secure a complete monopoly of
   all the provinces of the East. For this, the Queen of Sheba marveled at
   him. She wondered how it was that he could have been so wise as to be
   able to do this.

   But our Lord says that "a greater than Solomon is here." Our Lord Jesus
   Christ has been a Trader of no common sort, my Brothers and Sisters. By
   His most precious blood He has brought us the supplies of the skies!
   Solomon could only bring to himself gold, and silver, and spices, and
   apes, and peacocks--but our Lord Jesus Christ has, by His precious
   blood, opened up the skies to the commerce of souls so that now,
   through Christ, there comes to us pardon for our sin, acceptance in the
   Beloved, sanctification by the Spirit, preservation by the indwelling
   of God and all those priceless

   gifts of which we cannot now speak particularly, only we must say of
   them, "Blessed be the name of Jesus, that ever our souls learned to
   trade in this heavenly direction." Yes, Christ is, indeed, greater than
   Solomon! Oh that you would seek to be enriched by Him! Oh that you
   would seek to obey that text in which He says, "I counsel you to buy of
   Me gold, yes, fine gold, tried in the fire, and the white raiment that
   you may be clothed." God give us Grace that we may come to this greater
   Trader than Solomon!

   Moreover, Solomon was exceedingly great as a sage. I shall not amuse
   you, for that is no objective of mine, with the various legends that
   are told of him. The one instance of his decision between the two women
   reminds us of the excellency of his judgment.

   He was renowned for this. You have his Proverbs, his Ecclesiastes, one
   of his thousand and one songs, and you may be assured that he was a
   mastermind in his day.

   But the wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ far transcends this, for He can
   open up all the dark questions of your mind! He can teach you, O man,
   what you most want to know. He can teach you the way to Heaven, the way
   to escape from the power as well as the result of your sins, the way to
   get peace with God! The sages could not tell you this, but Jesus can.
   Seek Him, for He is greater than Solomon! I had more to say upon this
   point, but time will not allow, for I must have a word or two upon the
   second head, which is--

   II. THIS JESUS IS HERE

   He is not here in body. As we reminded you last Sabbath evening, He is
   gone. He is not here in that sense, "for He is risen." But Christ is
   here by His Spirit. If you want to get to Christ, this is the
   way--think of Him. That is, coming towards Him. Read His life. Study
   His death. Meditate upon Him. Let the thought of His laying down His
   life for His enemies dwell upon your minds. I wish that some of you
   would read the story of His Crucifixion very, very often. If you have
   not any faith, perhaps faith will come while you are reading it. "God
   commended His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, in due
   time Christ died for the ungodly." He did not die for those good people
   who have not any sin. He had nothing to do with those good people who
   are so righteous that they can get to Heaven their own way. Christ died
   for the guilty, the lost, the worthless. He comes like a physician to
   the sick--like one who gives sustenance to the perishing poor. Oh, read
   His life, for this will help you to come to Him!

   The true way in which to come to Christ is to believe Him, to trust
   Him. If any man trusts in Christ to save him, he has come to Him! When
   I used to hear sermons about coming to Christ, I thought, "Well, I
   would do it if I only knew how! If I had to walk from here to York, or
   no matter how far, I would find my way." But you do not come to Christ
   with your feet--you come to Him with your mind, heart and will--and he
   that trusts in Jesus, who says, "I will lean alone upon what Christ has
   done. I have been trying a thousand ways of salvation, but they shall
   all go to the winds and now, sink or swim, I believe that Jesus Christ
   died to save sinners and I trust in Him"--that man is saved! If you
   trust in Him, and lean on Him and if, just as you now see me throw the
   whole of my weight upon this rail, you lean the whole weight of your
   soul on Christ, you are saved!

   That is the only way of salvation, to throw yourselves completely on
   Jesus! God must punish sin, but Christ bore what was due to our sin in
   the place of sinners, of all who trust Him! If you trust Him, then
   Christ was punished instead of you and no penalty can fall on you. Your
   debts have all been paid by Christ and God cannot--for He is
   righteous-- demand from you what Jesus has already endured for your
   sake. If you trust Jesus Christ, then, as sure as God is true, He will
   save you! It is His own promise, "He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved." Now, for the purpose of trusting, Christ is here. If
   you could see Him with your eyes, you could not trust Him any more than
   you can tonight when you cannot see Him, though He is here and oh,
   wonder of wonders, He is also engaged yonder in Heaven, according to
   this Book, in pleading for you! You do not need to see a man to trust
   him. I can trust a man who is in India. I can trust a brother whom I
   may have in Australia, I can trust a man who may be in the backwoods of
   America and trust him quite as well as if I saw him--perhaps my trust
   might be all the more like trust because I did not see him. We say that
   there are some people whom we can only trust as far as we can throw
   them, that is to say, we cannot trust them at all! But Christ is not of
   that kind. For all the purposes that are needed, then, to save you,
   Christ is here! By His Spirit He is here, and here now, and He will now
   whisper into your soul, "Peace. Your sins are forgiven you." If you
   will now trust Him, you shall have in your heart a peace which passes
   all understanding, which shall be the best proof to you that Jesus is
   here. Oh, why do you put it off? Oh, why do you who feel you need a
   Savior, continue so long away from this simple faith." I prayed for you
   just now--the Lord knows how sincerely I prayed--that we might all meet
   in Heaven. We never shall, unless we all believe in Jesus, for He is
   the one Door--if we will not enter by Him, we cannot enter--there is no
   stealing or climbing our way there.

   If we have to come and rest in Christ, why should we not do it tonight?
   Oh, why should we this night not be led to rest alone in Christ? If we
   do this, we are saved, already saved, completely saved, irrevocably
   saved--so saved that neither death nor Hell shall ever divide the
   Believer from his Lord! May this be done by us all, for Jesus is here.
   And now I have to close by saying that if, with this Gospel before us,
   we do not come to this greater than Solomon-- III. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
   WILL CONDEMN US!

   For look! She was a heathen who had heard but a little about Solomon
   and yet she came to see if it were true. You profess to be Christians,
   many of you. You have heard about Jesus from the time when you left the
   cradle. If you come not, these many Sundays, these many sermons, these
   good books and these Bibles of yours--what shall they be but like the
   big stones that were hurled at Achan to destroy him for his sin? May
   God grant that you may not sin against the Light of God, but may the
   Light lead you to Christ that you may be saved!

   This woman came to see Solomon from afar We know not how far it
   was--whether she was the queen of the southern part of Arabia, or
   whether her territory was upon the other side of the Red Sea in
   Abyssinia--she seems to have been the queen of both countries. But from
   whichever she might have come, it was a long journey. You have no
   distance to go. Thought can travel all the distance in a moment! Faith
   can throw a bridge across every difficulty! Believe in Christ and you
   are with Christ! Trust Christ and Christ is with you--and you are with
   Him and in Him!

   The Queen of Sheba had to meet a thousand dangers. Traveling in those
   days was no easy task. The Bedouins would attack her caravans. She had
   many trials and hardships to put up with, but there are no such
   hardships to you. You have simply to trust. All the way to Heaven is
   only two steps--the first is to step out of yourselves and the second
   is to step into Christ. First to have done with all that you can do and
   secondly, to ask for all that Christ has done. You have no
   difficulties, then.

   Now, this woman, when she came, did not come bringing her own wisdom to
   Solomon, but she came to learn from Solomon. You must come to Christ,
   not to bring your own knowledge, but to learn of Him what He would have
   you to do. If you are to be saved, you must be taught as well. "Unless
   you are converted and become as little children, you shall in no wise
   enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

   And this woman did bring very great presents to Solomon--spices and I
   know not what. Now Christ asks you to bring nothing! And if you do not
   come on such terms, well may she condemn you. He needs no merits of
   yours. He needs no good heart. He needs nothing good from you. "Surely
   He needs faith and repentance," says one. Yes, but--

   "True belief and true repentance, Every Grace that brings me nigh,
   Without money,

   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   "But I must felmy needs," says one. Yes, but--

   "This He gives you-- 'Tis His Spirit's rising beam."

   You are to come to Christ without anything--and Christ will give you
   everything!

   This woman had never been invited to come. She went on a haphazard
   journey. Solomon never sent the Queen of Sheba an invitation to visit
   his court, but she came and was well rewarded. But you have been
   invited hundreds of times. I must bear this witness against you. I have
   invited you very earnestly times without number. Oh, why, why,
   why--when the Gospel is so simple, why do you kick against it? If my
   Lord were hard I could understand your lifting up the heel against Him.
   If He laid down some difficult conditions, I could excuse you if you
   said, "Master, we cannot come up to them." But when the only thing He
   says is, "Take what I give you. Receive it as a gift of Grace"--oh, not
   to receive it is unkindness, is madness, is wickedness! May God forgive
   your unbelief! I know the very difficulty in your case is that it is so
   easy. I do believe if salvation were more difficult, some of you would
   like it better. You are just like Naaman. If the Prophet had bid him do
   some great thing, he would have done it, but when it was nothing but,
   "Wash and be clean," it did not suit his pride. And it does not suit
   yours just to come and trust in Christ. I know you say you are afraid
   it would not be true. Ah, then you prefer your opinion to the testimony
   of God, for this is God's simple testimony, "Believe on the

   Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." "He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved. He that believes not shall be condemned."

   May the Eternal Spirit bring you, empty-handed and ruined, to the
   All-Sufficient Savior and may you be enabled to now rely upon Him and
   you shall find that He is true! "Him that comes unto Me," He says, "I
   will in no wise cast out." The Lord bless you for Christ's sake!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:113-120.

   The proper way in which to read these verses is to peruse them in the
   spirit of prayer, turning every verse into a personal supplication to
   God. I trust that many of us may be so in the Spirit, today, that these
   words may suit us.

   Verse 113. I hate vain thoughts: but Your Law do I love. The moralist
   is quite content to look after his actions, but the Christian is never
   happy until his thoughts are sanctified. The true Believer hates vain
   thoughts because they lead to vain words and to vain actions--because
   vain thoughts nailed his Savior to the tree, because vain thoughts
   spoil his devotion, mar his communion with God and, like the birds
   which came down upon Abraham's sacrifice--would destroy all his
   offering. "I hate vain thoughts." The converse of this is, "But Your
   Law do I love." There is nothing vain there. Nothing in Your Law to
   distract me. Nothing to give me unhallowed thoughts. Brothers and
   Sisters, here is a cure for vain thoughts! When you have been assailed
   by vain thoughts, let your mind be lovingly stored with texts of
   Scripture, with passages of God's Word! The Psalmist, while writing
   these words, is evidently under a sense of danger, so he said--

   114. You are my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Your Word. Here
   is a hiding place to escape to from danger and a shield to protect
   while in danger. A hiding place is not enough because that cannot be
   moved--but the shield can be carried everywhere. It is buckled on the
   warrior's arm and into every conflict he can take it. So, at evening,
   when I tell my troubles to my God, He is my hiding place. But all the
   day long, while I myself abide in the heat of the conflict, He is my
   shield! See where the Christian's hope is, dear Friends! It is not in
   his own integrity, or faithfulness, or sincerity-- but, "I hope in Your
   Word."--

   "The Gospel bears my spirit up! A faithful and unchanging God Lays the
   foundation for my hope In oaths and promises, and blood."

   115. Depart from me, you evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of
   my God. By which David did not mean that he would not speak with
   ungodly men. Monkish seclusion would be no advantage to a Christian! We
   are to be in the world, though not of it, as a ship is in the sea, but
   the sea is not in the ship, or else soon would she go to the bottom. We
   are to take care of the world--to hold such society with them as may
   come from necessity--but as to any nearer communion, "Depart from me,
   you evildoers. Your company I cannot bear! Your example pollutes the
   air! You do me damage, you vex my ears, you dishonor my God--depart
   from me, you evildoers, for I will keep the commandments of my God."
   You see, it seems as if this was not possible as long as there was an
   intimate association with the ungodly. I know nothing that is so likely
   to destroy the purity of a Christian's life as an intimate association
   with ungodly people. You cannot run with the hare and hold with the
   hounds, too. It is impossible for you to join with world and yet be
   true followers of Christ.

   116. Uphold me according unto Your Word, that I may live: and let me
   not be ashamed of my hope. You see, he feels his weakness and he cries
   to his God.

   117. Hold You me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto
   Your statutes continually. The brightest archangel owes all his glory
   to God--and the perpetuity of that glory depends upon the constant gift
   of the Gracious One. How wise, then, is it of men, conscious of their
   weakness, to hang constantly upon their God! As the vessel hangs upon
   the nail, and if the nail can move, the vessel must fall, so must we
   hang upon God. If He is not faithful, and true, and potent, then we
   must perish--but, thank God, concerning this we have no doubt!

   118-119. You have trodden down all them that err from Your statutes:
   for their deceit is falsehood. You put away all the wicked of the earth
   like dross: therefore I love Your testimonies. You see, the Psalmist's
   mind is entirely occupied

   with this spirit of perseverance. He seems to tremble and to be filled
   with awe lest he should by any means prove an apostate and be unworthy
   to enter into the Kingdom. He looks with solemn mind upon God as
   casting all the wicked of the earth down under His feet, just as men
   cast out the refuse--as the slag of the furnace is sometimes thrown
   down to make the footpath. So he says, "You put away the wicked of the
   earth like dross. You have trodden them down." David was filled with a
   heavy trembling lest this should be his lot--lest, after he had thought
   he had known and experienced the happiness of communion with God, he
   should be found to be reprobate silver and be given over to
   destruction! Does such a fear as this come upon you, my Brothers and
   Sisters? If it does not, there is room for you to fear, for even our
   holy Apostle had this as his anxiety, "Lest, after having preached to
   others, I myself should be a castaway." It is not as to whether God
   will be faithful to me, but whether I am really His, whether my
   conversion has been genuine and my union to Christ vital. These are
   questions which breed a holy anxiety, which is one of the very best
   means of keeping a Christian in the path of right and so of
   guaranteeing the perseverance which God has promised. 120. My flesh
   trembles for fear of You and'I am afraid of Your judgments
     __________________________________________________________________

A World Wide Welcome

   (No. 3352)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
   you rest." Matthew 11:28.

   PERHAPS no verse in the whole of Scripture has been handled in the
   pulpit more frequently than this, and yet it has not been exhausted and
   never can be! It is a great soul-saving text. There are some words of
   Scripture which seem to be like special stars in the sky. As the
   polestar is conspicuous to the astronomer, so are these salvation
   Truths of God to the Evangelist--he is never weary of gazing at them
   and pointing to them. The promises that are fitted to give present and
   immediate relief to the conscience are stars of the first magnitude and
   many sinners have had their attention attracted by them and by them
   been directed to the Port of Peace! Upon such a passage as I have
   propounded for our sermon tonight, [see exposition at end of sermon] I
   shall have nothing new to say. No novelty is required. We only need to
   hear the same old Truths--yes, to hear them till they work their way
   into our souls, and then to hear them yet again, that our pure minds
   may be stirred up by way of remembrance, and that we, feeling their
   value, may proclaim them out for the guidance and comfort of others!
   Observe first--

   I. TO WHOM THE SAVIOR ADDRESSED HIMSELF--all them that "labor and are
   heavy laden."

   It is not once out of a dozen times that I have ever had the good
   fortune to hear this text quoted correctly. It is, "All you that are
   weary and heavy laden," according to the modern rendering. But as Jesus
   Christ said it, it is, "All you that labor and are heavy laden." I
   suppose the alteration has been made in the interests of those who will
   not venture upon an invitation to men to come to Christ until they have
   got Him--I mean will not tell men to look to Jesus till they virtually
   have already experienced all that a look to Jesus is ever likely to
   give them! They will insist so much upon the spirituality of the terms
   used here that, seeing the words are a little difficult to get over,
   they must change them altogether! When our Lord said, "All you that
   labor," who is to tell me that I am to trace in the word all them that
   spiritually labor? I should be afraid to add to the words of Scripture
   and must leave the responsibility with those who do so. Men labor, and
   if they labor with their heads, or their brains, or their hearts, in
   any form of labor, Christ bids them come to Him for rest. Men bear
   great burdens, some of them burdens of care, some burdens of grief,
   some burdens of foolish hope--but if they come to Him, being heavy
   laden or heavily loaded, He will take their load from them and give
   them rest.

   From the day of the Fall man has been a laborer and he has been heavily
   laden. Into whatever condition man may climb, he cannot altogether
   escape that first curse, "In the sweat of your brow shall you eat
   bread." If he does not work with his hands, he must, at least, toil
   mentally. But if he is idle because he says he has a competency, there
   is a something about such a life as that from which a man cannot
   escape! Instead of the world getting better in the way of toil and
   burden carrying, it is every day getting worse. Why, our forefathers of
   the Puritan times were quite easy souls compared with us! When I read
   the diaries of some of their lives, I quite envy them. A Puritan
   minister, when he dedicated himself to the work of the ministry with
   all his heart, was not run upon by the public, hunted up by the postman
   and embarrassed with ten thousand of the difficulties which arise out
   of our unnatural civilization! Good souls, they sometimes had rest and
   walked with God with some degree of ease! But now the world goes by
   steam. We have laid down steel rails and all business must run on them.
   It is all driving and turmoil from morning till night. You wake up,
   some of you, with the sound of the steam whistle in your ears, and you
   scarcely can sleep in your beds because of the rumbling of the trains
   at your very doors! It is a world of toil, and I believe that it will
   go on so--and instead of getting better, the world will in some
   respects get worse. It will be a harder struggle to live and a sterner
   struggle to live a spiritual life as the world grows gray. Hence, the
   words of the Master seem to me to come more fresh tonight than even
   when they fell from His

   lips, "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden," for we
   labor more, now, than men did in His day, and are even more heavily
   laden than they were then! Jesus Christ addresses you tonight whose
   toils are many and your burdens heavy. Some of you are laboring after
   wealth, and if you got it you would find no rest in it. But the
   probabilities are that you may never get it and so be disappointed. But
   you need rest. Well, come to Him and you shall have it! Some of you,
   perhaps, are toiling after learning and the honor which it will bring
   you--may you get it! If it is good for you, you may, perhaps, obtain
   it. But in all learning there is sorrow--oftentimes the greater the
   domain of knowledge, the broader expanse is there in the soul for the
   floods of grief to cover. But if your mind needs rest, Jesus bids you
   come to Him! Oh you with enlarged ambitions, with grasping desires! Oh
   you that are panting and puffing in the race of life, you that are
   faint and weary with tugging at the oar of the world's great ship, come
   to Him, for He can release you! He can take off the chain from the
   galley slave and set you free!

   Still, while the text is not exclusively directed to those who
   spiritually labor and are spiritually heavy laden, it includes them. Do
   I not address some tonight who are laboring hard to establish a
   righteousness of their own? Oh, sinful attempt, since God has forbidden
   it and declares the effort to be futile! Oh, vain folly, thus to fly in
   the face of Eternal Wisdom which declares that "by the works of the Law
   there shall no flesh living be justified"! If you are ever to get rest,
   you must cease from your own doings and you must come to Christ! Oh,
   you that are heavily laden with your sins and feel them like a burden
   pressing your heart, bowing you to the ground and crushing you, as it
   were, down to the lowest Hell--that burden can never be lifted off your
   weary backs except by one hand--and that hand, the pierced hand which
   has felt the weight of the burden before! To you that toil, to you that
   are bowed down and crushed with the load, Jesus speaks tonight as He
   did of old! And He says, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." Now
   notice--

   II. THE COMMAND OR THE INVITATION--which you will--THAT JESUS GIVES.

   It is, "Come unto Me." There never seems to have been any difficulty in
   Christ's day in understanding the expression, "Come unto Me." It
   exactly struck the Oriental mind--they understood it at once. But
   now-a-days thousands ask the question, "What is faith? What is
   believing in Jesus? What is coming to Him?" Many convinced souls say,
   "If I could walk to Christ, it does not matter how perilous or
   fatiguing the journey--I would certainly go! And if He were here,
   literally, and I could fall down and kiss His feet, I would certainly
   do it."

   Understand, then, that the coming here mentioned is not to be taken
   literally, but spiritually. It is not a physical coming. We cannot now
   come to Christ by the motion of our bodies, nor shall we be able until
   He calls us by the sound of the last trumpet. If men had come to Christ
   physically when He was on earth, it would not have been of any use to
   them, unless by faith they had spiritual contact with Him, for some
   drew near to Him with idle curiosity and others with malignant
   opposition--yes, there were those who came to Him to crucify Him! They
   looked to Him physically as He hung upon the tree, but they were not
   saved by such a coming as that! The coming here meant is coming by the
   mind, approaching with the heart--a thing of the inner nature, a
   spiritual thing! To come to Christ, then, is just this--in one word it
   is to accept Him as your Savior--but to spell out that one counsel, let
   me trace out the action of the mind in coming. First, you must listen
   to His Doctrine. Seek to know, oh, weary ones, what it is that Jesus
   teaches! Turn to the record and see who He was, what He was, what was
   His commission, what was His message and what were the terms in which
   He delivered it, and what was the spirit in which He came to bring it.
   In the next place, believe whatever He teaches. Accept as being true
   what Christ declares. If He claims to be God, believe Him--accept Him
   as such. If He puts Himself down as Prophet, Priest and King, let your
   mind jump at it and say, "He shall be my Prophet, my Priest, my King."
   Coming to Christ begins in divers ways in the soul. With many it begins
   first by hearing of Christ, then by believing with the mind the
   testimony that is borne concerning Jesus. But this is not enough. After
   having heard and accepted that the witness of Christ is true, the
   genuine coming is then to cast your soul, with all its awful interests,
   into His hands and trust Him--in fact, to say, "I have no dependence
   for life, for death, for eternity, but on the Person and merits of that
   Son of God who was born of Mary, who lived a life of holiness, who died
   upon the tree, who rose again and whoever lives to make intercession
   for us." The simple act of trust--albeit by some it is so much
   despised--is the act which saves the soul! The moment a sinner casts
   himself flat upon what Christ has done, with no reserve, no holding to
   any other hope even with his little finger. The moment he makes himself
   to be a bankrupt, gives up all and lives upon the charity of Christ.
   The moment he completely takes off his own rags and puts on no garment
   but the righteousness of Christ. The moment that he acknowledges
   himself to be a black, filthy, condemned--yes, and without Christ--a
   condemned sinner! The

   moment he feels that and then takes Christ to be his fullness, his
   trust, his All-in-All--he has come to Christ! He is saved, he shall
   have rest!

   But to come to Christ implies a little more than even this, if we would
   get the perfection of it and the completeness of the rest which is
   promised. When I come to Christ and trust in Him to be my Savior, I am
   then to continue to come to Him by following in His footsteps, obeying
   His precepts, drinking in His spirit, and serving His cause. Brothers
   and Sisters, we are all, as His people, constantly coming to Him! "To
   whom coming," says the Apostle, "as unto a living stone"--not, "to whom
   we have come, and there is an end of it," but to whom we are always
   coming! We are like the country people who do not live by experience of
   having gone to the well seven years ago, but they go every day and dip
   the pitcher in afresh. We are like in our souls what we are in our
   bodies--we do not grow fat and flourishing on the experience of having
   eaten a good meal 20 years ago, but it is by daily coming to the table
   and continually receiving fresh food for the sustenance of our bodies!
   And, Brothers and Sisters, to get perfect peace through Jesus Christ,
   there must be a daily, an hourlycoming to Him in constant trust, in
   faithful obedience and in holy fellowship, striving to be conformed to
   His image. "Come unto Me,"then, says the Savior, "all you that labor
   and are heavy laden." He picks out you working men and He says, "Come
   and hear what I have got to say. Believe it, accept it, trust it and I
   will give you rest." He finds out you merchants who toil so much that
   the brain sometimes gives way, and He says, "Now, come. Come to Me and
   I will give you rest. You expect to get it when you retire from
   business and go to your country house--but even now, if you come to Me,
   you shall have a rest that no suburban retreat, no accumulation of
   wealth, no immunity from the strain of business can ever give you! I
   can make that heart beat at an easier rate. I can cool that hot blood
   that is now coursing through your veins at such speed. I can bathe your
   spirit in a sleep that shall be like an infant's slumber, soft and
   light--and I can do this for you while you are striving to be rich, or
   while you are poor, while your losses are great, while your friends are
   falling like autumn leaves and while your fears are howling in your
   ears like winter's winds! I can give you rest, perfect rest, if you
   come to Me." If you come to Him, believe what He says, trust Him
   entirely, rest and repose in Him and you shall get for your souls that
   Paradise which they so much need, of perfect peace! Having noticed the
   persons addressed and the invitation given, let us observe--

   III. OUR LORD'S DESCRIPTION OF THE BLESSING WHICH IS TO BE GIVEN TO
   SUCH WHEN THEY

   COME. "I will give you rest."

   The best word in all human language, next to, "God," and "Jesus," is
   that word, "rest." Different views of Heaven charm different people. No
   doubt Heaven is described under various metaphors so that every
   Christian may find some delight appropriate to himself. As for me,
   whether it is that I am constitutionally lazy or not, I do not
   know--there is no idea of Heaven which charms me like that of being at
   perfect rest in Christ Jesus, where--

   "Not a wave of trouble rolls

   Across the peaceful breast."

   This text seems to ring like a marriage bell in one's ears. "Come unto
   Me and I will give you rest." Oh, you will not care about it, you who
   do not labor, you who are never heavy laden and have got no more burden
   than you can carry--you will not care about it--but those who are stuck
   in the struggles of life, or that are oppressed with spiritual
   grief--they will be the persons who will find the sweetness of it! Yes,
   rest for the weary, rest for the toiler, rest for the heavy laden--
   this is, indeed, a blessing!

   And what is the rest which Jesus gives? Well, it is a spiritualrest
   which He bestows upon His people--a rest which rests them throughout,
   for when the mind gets rested, the very bodily frame seems to be
   sustained. While an agitated mind often brings the body into disease
   and lowers it into its grave--Jesus can give such a tonic to the entire
   system by the peace which He imparts--that the very lame shall be made
   to leap like a hart!

   Oh, what a peace this is--the peace which Jesus gives! He gives peace
   as to all the guilty memories of the past. These will haunt us. When
   the conscience is awakened, our dead sins seem to start up, wearing,
   each one, its ceremony, and each sin stands before us like a grim ghost
   claiming retribution And the awakened conscience, knowing right well
   that the wages of sin is death, becomes alarmed and the man says, "What
   must I do to be saved?" As if in your walk tonight there should
   suddenly open before you a pit in the very pathway which you were about
   to tread--how you would stand amazed and aghast! And then if another
   opened behind you, and then on either hand the earth began to rock and
   reel, how would you be astounded and dismayed!

   Such is the position of a man when conscience is suddenly quickened. He
   thought himself to be standing on the solid ground of his own good
   works--but suddenly all is gone. No good works appear. Sin is on either
   side. Hell is beneath him and the sword of Divine Justice, all
   unsheathed, is gleaming above his head! Ah, but Jesus Christ can show
   you how sin is forgiven! If you believe Him, He will tell you that He
   came into the world to suffer for the sins of all who trust Him--that
   He actually did bear all the punishment which was due from the hand of
   God to all the sinners who will trust in Him--and that God is so
   rigidly just, severely righteous, yet infinitely gracious in the pardon
   of those who will trust in Christ!

   Nor is it only the fear of the past, but the power of the present, from
   which this kindly rest exempts us! A man awakened, longs to escape from
   sin. As an iron net, his habits of sin surround him. He tugs and toils
   to escape from there, but the more he strives, the more thoroughly is
   he enveloped therein. His attempts at reformation from some sin are
   often successful, but any attempts to reform our nature and to overcome
   our inbred sin made by us in our own strength, must inevitably be a
   failure! Sin, indeed, will only become more exceedingly sinful the more
   we strive to bridle it unless we cry unto the Strong for strength! How
   often has a man said, "I cannot lead a better life. It is no use--you
   may exhort me if you please, but see what I have been, how I am tempted
   and how my passions drag me this way and that? There is no hope for
   me!" But Jesus steps in and says, "Come to Me and I will give you rest.
   I can change your nature. I can take away the heart of stone and give
   you a heart of flesh. I can give you tendencies and passions of quite
   another kind which shall combat with your old proclivities and
   ultimately overcome them. I can inspire in you a new hope. I can
   breathe into you a new and better life, for I am the Resurrection and
   the Life, and he that believes in Me, though he were dead, as you are,
   yet shall he live. And as to returning to your old sins, that shall not
   be, for he that lives and believes in Me shall never die. I will keep
   you and deliver you from the power of sin and Satan, and you shall be
   Mine even till life's end." Thus peace is given to us, both as to the
   guilt and as to the power of sin!

   But this is not all! Jesus can give peace and does give peace to all
   who come to Him as to the cares of this world. The righteous have their
   troubles. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." But there is a
   sacred art which Jesus teaches, which enables the Christian to rejoice
   in tribulation and to triumph in the midst of distress! Some of the
   happiest moments that God's people have ever had have been when neither
   sun nor moon appeared and when in the darkness they crept into the
   bosom of Jesus and nestled there! We are not dependent upon outward
   circumstances when faith is in exercise. Jesus shows us that His love
   is faithful, eternal, immutable love--and immediately we kiss the
   smiting hand and love it as well as the giving hand. Oh, you that are
   now the poor slaves of your daily cares, how happy would you be if you
   came to Jesus and trusted in Him! The cage would grow no larger. The
   income might become no richer. You might still be among the poor and
   the laboring ones, but you would have a rest in your condition, a
   satisfaction in your state which would make it better, though it
   changed it not! For it is all one to a man to have his estate brought
   up to his mind, or to have his mind brought down to his estate. It
   matters not, as long as he is content! It all comes to the same end and
   Christ, by a Divine baptism of His love, bathing us, covering us
   completely in the floods of His Divine Grace can give us, as to the
   cares of this world, a perfect rest!

   And, my Brothers and Sisters, if we come to Christ, we shall likewise
   get rest as to our desires. Thoughtful men find it difficult to rest.
   They go from one theory to another. When they think they have nestled
   for a while, a new difficulty comes and scares them from it. But he
   that believes in the Son of God has something upon which his mind may
   stand most stably, for as well is the teaching of Christ the most
   reasonable as it is also the most spiritual of doctrines! He that gets
   to know Christ, gets a fixed leverage for his soul on which to stand
   fast--let the world whirl as it may!

   He that gets Christ gets rest for his affections as well as for his
   understanding. The affections need something to love. We are always
   idolizing something or other, but those things either get broken in
   pieces, or else turn out to be our enemies. But he that gets the love
   of Jesus Christ supremely rests in his heart and he can sing--

   "Now rest, my long-divided heart! Fixed on this blissful center, rest."

   As I have already shown you, the conscience rests, so the understanding
   rests, the judgment rests, the affections rest and the whole powers of
   the man come to rest, even his desires--those insatiable things--those
   horse-leeches--those greedy, all-devouring things--these, too, are full
   when the man gets Christ, for he can then say--

   "All my capacious powers can wish, In You most richly meet--

   Nor to my eyes is light so dear, Nor friendship half so sweet."

   Yes, it is a perfect rest to every faculty of our nature that Jesus
   Christ gives us when we come to Him!

   And what, after all, is that portion of the rest which we see and
   experience here when compared with the fullness of which we shall enjoy
   hereafter? ' 'Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and
   I will give you rest. When the world passes away and all the fashion,
   thereof. When the pulse grows faint and few. When the eyes are glazing.
   When the eternal world begins to dawn upon the disembodied spirit, I
   will give you rest--rest when the elements dissolve with fervent heat,
   rest when the trumpet grows exceedingly loud and long and the dead
   arise from their graves--rest when the Great White Throne is set and
   the books are opened--when the dividing Voice separates the sheep from
   the goats! I will give you rest when Hell opens and the guilty descend
   to their doom. Rest while their smoke goes up forever and ever, and the
   vengeance of Almighty God is seen in the overthrow of all His enemies!
   I will give you rest--rest in the Father's bosom--rest at the right
   hand of God, rest in eternal union with Jesus, rest with the palm
   branch and the harp--rest in the everlasting vision of the blessed Son
   of God who is your trust and your all." Ah, Brothers and Sisters, what
   a rest is that--

   "To which our laboring soul aspires, With ardent pangs and strong
   desires!"

   It will be a rest from all sin! A rest from all temptation to sin! A
   rest from all painful memories about sin! A rest from all watchfulness
   against sin, from all liabilities of ever being led into it! A rest
   from secret sins, a rest from inbred sins, a total rest from every form
   of evil! It will be a rest from all the molestations of doubt and fear.
   A rest from every questioning as to our state before God! A rest from
   all the uprisings of natural depravity from an evil heart of unbelief.
   A rest from the attacks of Satan, the assaults of men without and of
   fiends from beneath--a rest, too, from daily toils--no more those hands
   to be rough with labor and that brow to be wet with sweat--no more the
   head to ache with thought and the heart to throb with dismay! A perfect
   rest from every species of toil that can bring distress, though we
   shall serve Him day and night in His Temple. It will be a rest from all
   care--no thoughts of those children and their little waywardnesses, no
   thoughts about the house and how to provide things honest in the sight
   of all men! A rest altogether from the engagements of the city and from
   the labors of the field! A rest completely from the toils which are
   allotted to the sons of men in this vale of tears. Oh, blessed rest! A
   rest from pain. A rest from death. A rest from fear. A rest with God. A
   rest, an eternal rest, which remains for the people of God!

   And this is for you, laboring and heavy laden one! This is for you, son
   of poverty! For you, daughter of sorrow! This is for the inmate of the
   poorhouse, the dweller in the alms room. This is for the crossing
   sweeper, this is for the toiling artisan. This is for the burdened
   merchant. This is for the care-worn statesman. This is for the minister
   who serves his Master till he is weary in his work! This is for us all
   if we have, by the Holy Spirit, through Divine Grace, been led to come
   to Jesus! That is the point. Do you believe on the Son of God? Dear
   Hearer, do you believe Jesus to have been God's Son, and to have died
   as the Substitute for sinners? And will you trust in Him as such,
   wholly and only? Will you venture on Him, and venture on Him now? If
   so, here is His promise, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." If you believe Him, you shall have salvation now! Obey Him! Be
   baptized as He commands you, and you shall thus have the blessing which
   God gives to all who trust in the slain Lamb of God!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN61-41.

   Verses 1-5. After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee,
   which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed Him,
   because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased.
   And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.
   And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near When Jesus then lifted
   up His eyes, and saw a great company come unto Him. They had been
   hearing Him all day and He had withdrawn a little from them, but they
   pursued Him up the hill--and I doubt not that as they toiled up the
   hill, they showed their faintness and their weariness which led the
   Savior to see how much they needed refreshment.

   5-7. He said unto Philip, Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?
   And this He said toprove him: for He, Himself, knew what He would do.
   Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient
   for them, that every one of them may take a little. Men's calculations
   concerning Divine things generally terminate in a deficit. Two hundred
   pennyworth is not sufficient. But Christ's calculations always
   terminate in a credit balance, as we shall see. "Gather up the
   fragments that remain, that nothing may be lost." We, at our best, fall
   short of the mark. Our blessed Master not only does enough, but in His
   House there is bread enough and to spare!

   8-10. One ofHis disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said unto
   Him, There is a ladhere, who has five barley loaves: and two small
   fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men
   sit down--Or lie down, as it is, for they were accustomed to do that at
   feasts, and Christ would have them take their ease as well as enjoy
   their refreshment. "Make the men recline."

   10. Now there was much grass in the place. So it was a splendid dining
   room! It was luxuriously carpeted! We learn from this that it was the
   Eastern spring time, for there is not much grass otherwise. And there
   was, therefore, in Christ's banqueting hall, a blue ceiling and a floor
   of green grass! What more could they need except the food?

   10-11. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus
   took the loaves--Common, coarse loaves of barley, not much esteemed,
   even then, as food.

   11. And when He had given thanks. Though out of doors and "in the
   rough," as we say, He did not forget that! I know some that fall to
   their meals like so many swine--and have not as much grace as chickens,
   that are sure to lift their heads whenever they take a drink, as if to
   bless God for every drop they receive! This gracious habit is going out
   of fashion among them.

   11. He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that
   were set down--Or reclining.

   11. And likewise of the fishes as much as they would. That is always
   one of the rules of Christ's feasting--as much as they would. According
   to your appetite, according to your will, according to your faith, so
   be it unto you!

   12. When they were filled--Had all they could desire.

   12. He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain,
   that nothing be lost. Economy in the midst of bounty! However much we
   have, we are never warranted in wasting a single crumb! They had as
   much as they would, but they were not allowed to throw away the
   fragments.

   13-14. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets
   with the fragments ofthe five barley loaves, which remained over and
   above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the
   miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that Prophet that
   should come into the world. Men are often convinced by the argument of
   selfishness. They had been fed and now they believed. But faith that
   depends upon a full stomach will despair when they get hungry again!
   Always beware of that religion which is in dependence upon loaves and
   fishes. You know how it was with the children of Israel--

   "Now they believed the Word, While rocks with rivers flow, Then with
   their sins they grieved the Lord, And He did bring them low."

   Oh, but we must not have a faith that depends upon what it can see, and
   upon what it can eat, and what it can drink! Oh, for the confidence in
   the blessed Person of the Lord, and in the spiritual riches which He
   can communicate!

   15. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him by
   force, to make Him a king, He departed again into a mountain, Himself,
   alone. What? Could He not have used His kingship for the best of
   purposes? Might He not easily have routed the Romans, restored Israel
   to all her glory, conquered the Gentiles, subdued the world and set up
   a glorious Church and state with Himself for the King, and Himself as
   the Head of the Church? Ah, that has been the idol of a great many and,
   like a will-o'-the-wisp, it has led many of the true people of God into
   bogs and sloughs where they were likely to be lost. But our Master knew
   better than this and was not to be tempted away from the true method by
   which His Church is to be set up in the world. Therefore, "He departed
   again into a mountain, Himself, alone."

   16-17. And when evening was now come, His disciples went down unto the
   sea and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum.
   And it was dark, and Jesus was not come to them. That is a sentence
   that I should think some very gloomy people might hang upon--and about
   which they might groan in unison, "It was now dark, and Jesus

   was not come to them." Have you never been in that condition? Dark,
   dark, dark, as to circumstances and as to feelings, and Jesus was not
   come to them. Now, something comes beside that.

   18. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. Misfortunes
   never come alone. An absent Savior, a roaring sea and a bellowing wind!
   What will they do now?

   19. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs,
   they saw Jesus. Here He is! Here is the first of their blessings. The
   first mischief is removed and the rest will soon go. They see Jesus!

   19. Walking on the sea. Oh, what a sight! A grander sight than to see
   Him on the land! And it is a more glorious sight to see Christ in the
   time of trouble than it is in the time of prosperity. He is always
   sweet, but He is more marvelous when they see Jesus walking on the sea.

   19. And drawing near unto the ship: and they were afraid. Afraid of
   their best Friend--trembling at their Deliverer!

   20. But He said to them, It is I. Do not be afraid

   21. Then they willingly received Him into the ship: and immediately the
   ship was at the land where they went. The sea and the winds knew how
   not only to spare the vessel, but to carry it instantaneously to the
   place where they wished to be! But how often have you and I been rowing
   about, 25 or 30 furlongs, and we did not seem to be getting out of the
   storm at all? But the moment Christ has come, we have been where we
   wished to be! Oh, glory be to His name--there is no difficulty that you
   can be in, dear Friends, but Christ can get you out of it in a moment
   and bring you where you should be!

   22-24. The following day, when thepeople which stood on the other side
   ofthe sea saw that there was no other boat there, save that one where
   into His disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with His
   disciples into the boat, but that His disciples were gone away alone
   (Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias near unto the place where
   they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks). When the
   people therefore sa w that Jesus was not there, neither His disciples,
   they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus. Was
   not that a pleasant sight? So it seemed, but it was not. "Seeking for
   Jesus." That is a good description of a man--seeking for Jesus. Yes,
   but they were only seeking for more bread! They looked at Him as a
   bread giver--and they were after Him for that.

   25. And when they had found Him on the other side ofthe sea, they said
   unto Him, Rabbi, when did You come here? They could not understand how
   He could have got there. Jesus answered them and did not answer them.
   Some of Christ's answers are evidently no answers at all. That is very
   often the best answer you can give.

   26. Jesus answered them and said-- What? Did He explain to them how 'He
   got there? No, He would not gratify their curiosity. He came not for
   that end. He therefore gave them a home stroke and said--

   26. Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek Me not because you saw the
   miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled. You
   are loafers--loaf-hunters. You seek not Me, but Mine. It is not for the
   good that I can give your souls, but it is that you may have another
   meal, that you are here. Yours is cupboard love. You come after what
   you can get.

   27. Labor not for the meat which perished, but for that meat which
   endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto
   you: for Him has God the Father sealed. Now, do you understand what
   Jesus meant? Seek after that which will feed your souls. Do not hunt so
   much after bread for the body. Yet the Savior puts it very curiously.
   This is a double-shotted perplexity--a singular, curious kind of word.
   You are not to labor for that which you cannot get without labor and
   you are to labor for that which you cannot get by labor! The Savior
   liked to put things in that sententious way, so that they might
   remember what He said. If they misunderstood Him, it was their own
   fault, for it is plain enough. God grant us Grace to practice the
   meaning of these words! Why are you so eager to get a bit of barley
   bread and a fish? Oh, that you were half as eager to come and get the
   Bread which comes from Heaven which will make a man live forever and
   which will be food to him as long as he lives!

   28. 29. Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work
   the works ofGod? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work
   ofGod--The chief work, the greatest work which you can do!

   29. That you believe on Him whom He has sent. This is the point. You
   would like Me to work miracles. You would be glad to have a very
   wonderful, mysterious experience, but this is the thing you ought to
   seek after--the grandest, greatest thing that you can have--"that you
   believe on Him whom He has sent."

   30. They said therefore unto Him, What sign show You, then, that we may
   see and believe You? What do You work? Are you not wonderfully struck
   with the patience of Jesus? These people had seen His miracles and they
   had eaten loaves and fishes, and yet they say to Him, "What sign show
   You, then, that we may see and believe You?" Oh, the matchless patience
   of the Lord and the marvelous provocations of men!

   31. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave
   them bread from Heaven to eat. They plainly hinted that they wanted
   more food.

   32-34. Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses
   gave you not that bread from Heaven; but My Father gives you the true
   bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from
   Heaven, and gives life unto the world. Then they said unto Him, Lord,
   evermore give us this bread. Not understanding Him and praying still
   for bread, but not far Grace.

   35-37. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread oflife. He that comes
   to Me shall never hunger. And he that believes on Me shall never
   thirst. But I say unto you, That you also have seen Me, but believe
   not. All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me and him that comes
   to Me, I will in no wise cast out. What a striking Truth of God that
   was, with which to reply to them! You only come after Me for bread, but
   you do not come after spiritual things. You do not believe in Me. But,
   even if you do not, I shall not be disappointed, and My work will not
   fail. God has an election of Grace and that election shall be carried
   out. "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." And then, as if
   to cheer them up again, He says, "Him that comes to Me I will in no
   wise cast out."

   38-41. For I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will
   of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will which has sent Me,
   that of all which He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should
   raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that
   sent Me, that everyone which sees the Son, and believes on Him, may
   have everlasting fife: and I will raise him up at the last day. The
   Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came
   down from Heaven. And there you see Christ has got no farther with them
   but to leave them murmuring! And I believe that often the true minister
   of God must expect to see no other result come of faithful testimony
   than for the people to murmur at him. But what if it is so? Will his
   Master blame him? No. No more than He blamed the Only-Begotten. It must
   be so that there may be a separation between the precious and the
   vile--that God's chosen may be drawn out! While such as believe not
   shall be judged and, in their own consciences, shall be condemned.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Great Teacher and Remembrancer

   (No. 3353)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   16, 1866.

   "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
   in My name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your
   remembrance, whatever I have said unto you." John 14:26.

   THE Savior, when He departed from this world, provided for all the
   needs of His people, not so much by giving them divers benefits, but by
   promising them the Presence of a gracious Person who should supply them
   all that their spiritual needs might demand. I trust there are many of
   us who know in some degree the value of the promise, "I will send the
   Comforter unto you," and that we know that when that Comforter comes,
   He brings us all good things. We have not to look in one place for
   quickening and in another place for comfort, in another for instruction
   and in a fourth for illumination. But when we receive the Spirit, we
   have all things in one! I may say of Him, as of Jesus Christ, "In Him
   dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." In Jesus it dwelt in a
   real human Nature, physical as well as spiritual, but in the Holy
   Spirit we have the same fullness of Deity, but He comes in and
   dwells--resides--in His people!

   Our Savior here directs us to one particular blessing, which the coming
   of the Holy Spirit would bring us, namely, that of Divine Instruction.
   In endeavoring to enter in some measure into the text, tonight--too
   briefly to enter into it fully--we shall, first of all remark that the
   text suggests to us--

   I. THE VALUE OF ALL THAT JESUS CHRIST HAS SPOKEN.

   For He tells us that the Holy Spirit shall "bring to our remembrance
   all things whatever He has said unto us."

   When the Savior was with His disciples, it is very possible that many
   of His choice sayings fell to the ground for lack of attention on their
   part They did not, perhaps, know that every word of His had a fullness
   in it that should have been treasured up by them as priceless. But now
   He tells them that it shall be the Holy Spirit's office to teach them
   all such Truth and to bring all their meanings to their remembrance.
   Brothers and Sisters, there is a great danger nowadays in not attaching
   sufficient importance to the teaching of Scripture. You will sometimes
   hear persons speak very disparagingly of doctrinal Truth and others
   will smile at anything like dispensational Truth. Some are inclined to
   throw experimental teaching in the background and some few speak very
   sadly about the practical Truth of God. But our Lord here speaks of
   "all things whatever I have said unto you," and He also speaks of the
   Spirit teaching us "all things." We may, therefore, believe that every
   Truth of God that is revealed in Scripture has its proper place and its
   importance. And we may gather this from the fact that Christ has taken
   the trouble to speak it We do not believe that He has uttered one
   foolish word--no more--not one useless word, for in the whole compass
   of His teaching there is not to be found a single passage which should
   have been left unsaid. There may be repetitions, but there are no
   redundancies. He may have taught the same Truth in several shapes, but
   He has never taught it once too often. He has never revealed a Truth
   which it were better to conceal, just as He has never concealed a truth
   which it would have been better to reveal. If my Lord has taught
   anything, it must be worth my while to learn it! If Christ lifts the
   veil, it is my privilege to look--and what He manifests to me I ought
   not to be slow to gaze upon.

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, in addition to the importance which
   must attach to these things because Christ has spoken them, there is
   this--that He now sends the Holy Spirit to teach them to us. If you say
   that any one part of the Truth of God is unimportant, you do as good as
   say that to that extent the Holy Spirit has come upon an unimportant or
   valueless mission! You perceive it is declared that He is to teach us
   "all things," but if some of these "all things" are really of such
   minor importance and so quite non-essential, then surely it is not
   worth while disturbing our minds with them.

   And so to that degree, at any rate, we accuse the Holy Spirit of having
   come to do what is not necessary to be done! And I trust that our minds
   recoil with holy repulsion from such a half-blasphemy as that. Beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, He teaches us "all things," because it is
   necessary for us to learn all things--and so He comes to bring to our
   remembrance not part, but, in turn, the whole of our Lord's wondrous
   teaching! That teaching is essential to our knowledge of Divine things,
   to our comfort and progress in spiritual things--that remembrance is
   part of our soul's discipline and advance.

   I wish that some of my friends would get this very simple and very old
   Truth of God into the depths of their minds and hearts, for then they
   would surely study a great many things that they now overlook--and I
   think they would not be so apt to excuse their own lack of diligence in
   the school of Christ, by saying, "Well, there are some all-important
   Doctrines. We have studied them and that is enough." Brothers and
   Sisters, when a boy goes to school, he may say, "If I learn arithmetic,
   I shall be able to be a tradesman and that is what I shall be. I do not
   want to read that dry Latin book. I do not care to read that book of
   poetry. It does not matter about my writing such a very elegant round
   hand." But the schoolmaster says, "My boy, you are put under my
   teaching to learn all things and it is not for you to pick and choose
   what class you will attend." Now, we are scholars under the tuition of
   the blessed Spirit and it is not for us to say, "I will learn the
   Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and when I know that, I shall not
   trouble my mind about Election. I shall not raise any question about
   Final Perseverance. I shall not enquire into the ordinances, whether
   Believer's Baptism or infant Baptism is right--I take no interest in
   these things--I have ]earned the essential matter and I will neglect
   the rest." You will not say this if you are an obedient disciple, for
   do you not know that the ministers of Christ have received a commission
   to teach all things that Christ has taught them, and do you think that
   our commission is frivolous and vexatious? Do you think that Christ
   would bid us teach you what it is no need of you to learn, or,
   especially, that the Holy Spirit would, Himself, come to dwell in the
   midst of His Church and to teach them all things, when out of those,
   "all things," there are, according to your vain supposition, some
   things that were quite as well, if not better, left alone? Brothers and
   Sisters, whatever the Lord has spoken as a Master concerns His
   servants! Whatever He has delivered as a Prophet, concerns His
   disciples--whatever He has spoken as a Friend, concerns us, His
   friends--and whatever He has taught us as Lord concerns everyone of us
   as members of His body, of His flesh and His bones!

   I must again reiterate this Truth of God. I do not think I can leave it
   without still trying to further impress it upon your minds. There is a
   tendency, among us all, I suppose, to choose some part of the Truth of
   God and attach undue importance to that, to the neglect of other
   Truths.

   It is a grave question if this is not the origin of various divisions
   which are to be found in the Church of Christ--not so much heresy, as
   the attaching of disproportionate importance to some Truth of God, to
   the disparaging or neglecting of others equally necessary. Some Brother
   speaking to me the other day, declared of a certain Truth, "You cannot
   have too much of a good thing." Whereupon I remarked, that a nose was a
   good thing, but it might be possible to so exaggerate it that you would
   spoil the beauty of the face. A mouth is a good thing and yet it may be
   very possible to have such a mouth that there would be no particular
   beauty about the visage, for the beauty of the man consists in
   proportion, and the beauty of Divine Truth consists in the proportion
   in which every part of it is brought into view. Now, there are some who
   exaggerate one feature and some another. There are some Brothers who
   are fond of what is called "the high side" of Doctrine. I am fond of
   it, too, very fond of it, but there is a temptation to bring that out
   and to neglect, perhaps, the practical part of the Gospel and to cast
   into the background, possibly, the invitations of the Gospel and those
   Truths which concern our usefulness in the world. Then, on the other
   hand, there are some who are so enamored of experience that nothing but
   experimental Truth will suit them--they must be always harping upon
   that one string and they look down with contempt upon those who hold
   fast Doctrinal Truth, which is very wrong--and shows that they have not
   yet been led into all the Truths of God!

   Alas, how many are so taken up with practical teaching that they grow
   legal for lack of having the salt of the Doctrines of Grace to keep
   them right. But oh, if it were possible for our minds to hold all the
   Truth of God, as far as a finite mind could grasp it! If we could but
   cast aside the prejudices of education and, perhaps, of constitution,
   too, and say to the Holy Spirit, "My Lord, I will bind myself neither
   to this party nor to that. I will subscribe neither to this formula nor
   to that. I am prepared to receive Your mind into my mind. I am prepared
   to give up much that I hold dear if You will show me that it is not
   according to Your will--and I am prepared to receive the Gospel from
   You, as You shall be

   pleased to show it to me!" It is allTruth and not some Truths of God
   that the Holy Spirit comes to teach! To teach His children Truth in all
   its harmony, Truth in all its parts, Truth, indeed, as a whole!

   But it may be said, "There must be some Truths which are not so
   essential as others!" That is granted. There are some Truths that are
   so vital to salvation and peace with God. And there are some others
   that do not vitally concern the regeneration and conversion of the
   soul--and upon these, men may be in error, and yet not risk their souls
   for all eternity. But still, even these Truths are part of the whole
   body of Truth, and the body cannot do without its head, its heart,
   though it might lose a limb. Yet is that a reason why I should chop off
   a limb, or consent to have it maimed, because I could still exist
   without it?

   I could exist without an eye. Shall I not, therefore, mind being
   blinded? There may be a bone in my body, possibly there are several,
   the use of which even the anatomist does not know. There are some
   nerves, especially nerves in connection with the organs of secretion,
   the use of which are not known to the best physiologists, but nobody, I
   suppose, would like to dispense with them because each man who thinks,
   must feel that that God who made the man knew best how to make him
   perfect and how to adapt him to the position in which he would be
   placed. There may be bones or nerves in the human system which will
   never be used but once in our lives--and yet if they were not there, we
   might not be able to get through that particular juncture. So is it
   with the Truths of Scripture. There may be a Truth which I shall never
   need to use and which may never have a practical turn to serve in my
   life, but once--and then if I do not happen to know that Truth just at
   that time, I may entail on myself a host of sorrows through my own
   ignorance--sorrows which I ought to have prevented.

   The Holy Spirit comes to teach all the Truth of God and I beg yet
   again, for the fourth time, to reiterate that all Truth must be
   necessary for you and for me, or else the Spirit of God would not have
   come to teach it to us, and that while we may give more prominent
   importance to the greater and more vital Truths, yet there is not one
   Truth in Scripture to which we are allowed to say, "Be still! Be
   quiet--we do not need you." Brothers and Sisters, how many of you might
   be happy if you did but study Doctrinal Truth! You go lean and starved
   through the world because your minister does not preach the Doctrines
   of Grace, does not give you the full weight of the Truths of the
   Sovereign Grace of God.

   Still, if you but studied them for yourselves, you might yet have
   bright eyes and an elastic, bounding footstep, and rejoice in the
   everlasting love of God which never leaves His people, but preserves
   and glorifies them in the end!

   And some, too, are always groaning from a sense of inward corruption
   and very properly studying their own hearts, but they might live
   gladsome, triumphant lives if they did but learn a little more of the
   liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free, and seek to drink in
   the precious Truths of our standing in Christ and our perfection in
   Him. It is the willful neglect or refusal to believe some majestic
   Truth of God that is the cause of nearly all our doubts and fears--and
   a great many other pieces of mischief that keep us from serving and
   honoring our Lord as He deserves to be served and honored by those who
   are not their own, but are bought with a price.

   This first point we may now leave, if the Holy Spirit will but bring it
   home with power to our souls, for this Truth of God, among others, must
   be taught us by Him. We now come to a second point which is clearly in
   the text, namely, not only the value of all Truth that our Lord Jesus
   Christ has spoken, but--

   II. THE NEED OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO TEACH US ALL THE TRUTH.

   But cannot an honest and a willing mind learn all the Truths of God
   that are in Scripture without the teaching of the Holy Spirit? I infer
   that it cannot from the fact that the Holy Spirit is provided. There i
   s nothing that is unnecessary in the Covenant of Grace--and the Divine
   Power is never unnecessarily exerted. It is constantly remarked of the
   miracles that there is not one of them that can be dispensed with--and
   God never interferes to do out of the course of Nature what might be
   done according to the ordinary laws of Nature. If the Christian were
   fully equipped to know and understand the Divine mind without the
   teaching of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit would not have been
   given. We should not find the Holy Spirit here unless it were necessary
   that He should be here. Even with Christ for a Teacher, mark--so that
   there was no fault in the Teacher--with Christ for a Teacher, the
   disciples did not learn these Truths without the teaching of the Holy
   Spirit! I infer, therefore, that much more is that teaching now
   necessary and that the Spirit of God should abide with us, to teach us
   Truth, and to bring the things which we have learned to our
   remembrance. And why? Is it not because there is a radical defect in us
   as disciples? Are we not frequently inattentive? Do we not sometimes
   feel a lack of interest in the Truths of God which we receive from the
   Word, which I may now call the lips of Christ? A child may be very
   plainly taught, but if you cannot get its attention, if you cannot
   catch its will and interest it, it will not learn much--that which you
   teach it will glide like oil over a slab of marble--it does not
   penetrate and permeate and, consequently, is not properly and
   thoroughly learned. And often on the Lord's-Day you will hear most
   delightful Truths, but if you are not interested in them, it does not
   catch your mind.

   And in reading Scripture, how seldom do we show as much interest as we
   do in reading a letter from a friend? With what glistening eyes will
   some persons read the will of their relatives--and they never forget
   what they read there because mind and heart are deeply interested.

   But alas, how often do we turn from these sacred pages without enough
   interest to learn what is in them! We are not so eager to drink in
   their spirit. We do not bring our souls up to the Truth and it is not
   any wonder, therefore, if we do not learn those Truths of God which are
   so spiritual that they can only be grasped by a soul in active, alert
   exercise!

   Besides this, we do not learn because of our ready prejudice against
   the special Truth we ought to learn. A great part of God's Truth is
   very unpalatable to human nature--to learn it is something like taking
   bitter medicine--people do not choose it with enthusiasm.

   There are some Truths which would always be unpalatable, even to
   Christians, Christians as they are, if it were not for the sugar which
   sometimes goes with the Truth, and but for this it would be very
   nauseous to them. There are some minds which seem, more than others, to
   kick against certain points of Divine Truth, either from their
   prejudices, their education, or the nature and force of their
   constitution--and it is only the Spirit of God who can irresistibly
   come and convince the understanding! Ah, Friends, when the scholar does
   not want to know, it needs a God to teach him--and sometimes our minds
   do not wish to know the Truth. I should not like to say a hard thing of
   God's people, but I believe there are many of them who do not want to
   know too much. I have often thought that it has been the case with
   myself, and I believe it is the case with others. There is an awkward
   Truth which, if it were learned, would throw us out of our present
   comfortable position and might even necessitate a change of our
   ecclesiastical connections if we were to know it--and so we do not want
   to know it! We do not read any book that might make us know it. We try
   to look at things on our own side if we can, and do not look fairly at
   the subject, nor enquire into it. It must, therefore, need the Spirit
   of God to teach us when a Truth of God is so unpalatable and we are so
   unwilling to learn it! Then, besides this, Beloved, when we recollect
   the intense spirituality of truth and how our carnal natures are always
   prone to adulterate it with our own predilections and the notions of
   the flesh. When all things around us bring the Truth of God down from
   its high spiritual atmosphere, where alone it can flourish, into the
   smoky, cloudy region of our materialism. When they bring down food
   worthy of angels to become poor bread even for mortals, then we see how
   desperately we need the Holy Spirit to help us as learners in the
   school of Christ!

   We seize the fair fruit of Divine Truth with a careless, hasty hands,
   mar its heavenly bloom, never knowing its richest beauty and
   essence--and then we feel how true of us are Paul's words, Inspired of
   the Holy Spirit, written to certain Christians, "Not as unto spiritual,
   but as unto carnal, and babes in Christ Jesus."

   These, then, are a few of the reasons why the Spirit of God is needed.
   There are plenty more, of which we will speak another day, but I think
   every Christian knows experimentally that he never does fully learn the
   Truth and hold it tenaciously except by the teaching and sustaining
   Grace of God the Holy Spirit. I like our young people to learn the
   Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith. It is a "form of sound
   words" that is well worth committing to memory, but even Christian
   people, when they know them, will find that unless those Truths are,
   one by one, brought home to the soul, they have only the shell of
   Truth, but do not know the life and inner essence of it. We must have
   everything we truly learn burnt into us by the Holy Spirit! It must be
   taught us sometimes by painful experience, at other times by blissful
   enjoyment--sometimes by a marvelous illumination, a light shining upon
   a passage in such a way that we see it as we never saw it before--and
   though we may have read it 20 times, we now for the first time in our
   lives see its true meaning and rejoice! Why, dear Friends, what is the
   ministry without the Spirit of God? Do you not often come and go, and
   find no comfort in attending a place of worship? And even the Bible,
   itself, without the Spirit of God is but a lantern without a light! And
   what is even the Mercy Seat, except the Holy Spirit is there, enabling
   us to drink into the very life and soul of the Divine teaching? It is
   not that Book as it is there on the paper--it is that Book as it must
   be written on the fleshy

   tablets of our heart which becomes to us the Word of God, the word of
   our salvation in which we rejoice and upon which we often feed!

   This second truth you know, and will never doubt, that we need the Holy
   Spirit to teach us Truth of God. The third thing that is in the text is
   this--the Holy Spirit is said not only to teach us, but--

   III. TO BRING TO OUR REMEMBRANCE THE TRUTH WHICH WE HAVE RECEIVED.

   Mark! The Holy Spirit does not now reveal fresh Truth beyond what is
   already in the Word of God. There is a special curse pronounced upon
   any who shall add to this Book--and you may rest assured that the Holy
   Spirit will not so transgress in a matter which He has peremptorily
   forbidden all His children to commit! When persons start up as
   Prophets, or Prophetesses, and tell us that they have had special
   visions from the Lord and they know what is going to happen next year,
   we always understand that their proper destination is Bethlehem
   Hospital [London insane asylum] and we begin immediately to shun them
   and their books! We are persuaded that the Holy Spirit makes no such
   fresh revelations to men, but teaches us what Christ taught, bringing
   all these things to our remembrance! What Christ has taught, and only
   that, it is His joyous work to make plain and clear and powerful to us!

   Why do we need to have the Truths of God thus spoken brought to our
   remembrance? Is it not that we often trust our memories not to forget
   these Truths, but, "he who trusts his own heart is a fool," and so is
   he who relies absolutely on his own memory. For anything bad, alas, we
   may trust it only too well--we are sure to recollect the thing far
   better forgotten. But if it is anything very good and soul-inspiring,
   memory has a paralysis in the fingers and cannot retain it in their
   grasp! You may remember a great many things in business--these are sure
   to write themselves deeply on the memory--but Divine things which
   concern the future state are often written so illegibly that they are
   very readily blurred, blotted out! We need the Holy Spirit to bring
   these things to our remembrance.

   And then, again, we are so constantly beset with cares that it is
   little marvelous that the things of God should slip away from us. You
   have but one day in the week, as it were, devoted to these things--one
   day of building and six of pulling down! With many it is one day's
   storing and six days' scattering. It is but a slight advance that we
   make towards Heaven. Believe me, it is one of the greatest joys of my
   heart to see you here so constantly at Prayer Meetings and on Lecture
   Nights. It always seems to me to be one of the best signs of vital
   godliness that can well be exhibited, except a holy life, to see people
   willing to come out to the weeknight services. Any hypocrite will come
   on Sundays, but to come on weekdays seems to me to be a favorable sign
   and a proof of sincerity. But even then how little do we get! Perhaps
   there is trouble in the family--from the first thing in the morning
   till the last thing at night it is nothing but hard work and there is
   the looking for the wherewithal we shall be clothed--and we do not
   always cast our care on Him who cares for us. So the thorns too often
   choke up the seed and did not the Holy Spirit bring these things to our
   remembrance, they might quickly slip away altogether.

   There is, again, Brothers and Sisters, another reason for needing to be
   reminded of these Truths of God, namely, because we forget what we do
   not thoroughly apprehend. I have a notion that as a rule, what a man
   thoroughly understands, through and through, he does not forget. When
   you have mastered a fact or truth, seen it from all points, grown
   familiar with it, it is not easy to let it slip. You may hold a joint
   of meat in your hand and be very hungry all the while. But cook your
   joint, eat it, and properly digest what you eat, and it is yours and
   hunger goes. The man who receives the Truth of God in the mere letter
   of it may quickly forget it, but he who has received it in the spirit,
   understood it, digested it, assimilated it, will never altogether lose
   its nourishing and power! When a Truth is understood, it is somewhat
   like it was with the boy from whom the priest took away his New
   Testament. "Ah," said the boy, "but what will you do with the 10
   chapters that I have learned by heart? You cannot take those away."

   Memory does not readily lose the things she really understands. And
   when the heart has penetrated into the marrow of the Truth of God and
   the Truth of God into the marrow of the heart, it abides! But, alas,
   with the most of Divine things, we do not seek to enter into them as we
   should. We hear them and that is all. We hear, but we do not understand
   and, therefore, the Spirit of God is needed to ring the bells of Heaven
   again and again in our ears and to make us hear the same Truth over and
   over again, bringing to remembrance what Christ has told us.

   If it is asked how He does this, the answer is that He does it by
   instrumentality, as well as by His own immediate action. He does it
   through the preaching of the Word! The Word of God brings to your mind
   the old Truths of God that you have heard ever since you were a boy, or
   girl and, thank God, they have not lost their preciousness, but are
   just as sweet to your ears now, as they were when you heard them from
   old Dr. So-and-So, who has now gone home to Heaven! Thank God you still
   love that Truth whenever it is brought to your remembrance. I like to
   use the same Bible always in my study, and to mark it so that I may
   afterwards know the places which once filled me with delight and
   comfort. And sometimes the good old Book which we have studied so long
   will thus bring things to our remembrance. Then there is communion with
   Christian Brothers and Sisters. Sometimes even an illiterate Christian
   Brother may set a Truth in such a light as you never saw it in before,
   just like some of those fine old pieces of architecture which are very
   fine from one point of view, but some day you are taken to another
   point and you say, "Well, I think it is even more beautiful from this
   place of revealing than from the other." So my conversation with
   Christian Brothers and Sisters often sheds for me a new light upon
   long-known and precious Truths. But over and above all this, I believe
   that the Holy Spirit does actually come into contact with our spirits,
   apart from human instrumentality, and that when we are walking by the
   way, sitting in the house, or in our chamber of prayer, flashes sudden
   light upon the Truth and so we learn what we knew not before and,
   turning to God's Word, we perceive it to be blest Truth that was always
   there, but which we had not seen until the Holy Spirit opened our eyes!
   Brothers and Sisters, if we do not experimentally know what it is to
   have the Truth of God as it is in Jesus brought to our remembrance by
   the Holy Spirit, we must not rest satisfied until we do, for this is
   one of the marks and evidences, as well as one of the privilegesof the
   child of God, that the Holy Spirit is his personal Teacher. "All your
   children shall be taught of the Lord," and again and again does the
   adorable Third Person of the Divine Trinity teach us the things of
   Christ and bring them constantly to our remembrance!

   I am sorry that I cannot enter more fully into this point for need of
   time, but we must now close with the last point which is a question for
   us all--

   IV. HOW FAR HAS THIS OFFICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BEEN PERFORMED IN US? I
   will first ask those of you who profess to be the people of God. Has
   the Holy Spirit taught you anything? Is that a hard question? It is one
   that was asked of old--"Have you received the Holy Spirit since you
   believed?" I am solemnly afraid that there are some professors who are
   content to have been convicted of sin, to have been led to trust in
   Christ, but who, after that, are utterly indifferent to the Holy Spirit
   as their Teacher. They sit in the House of God, but they do not apply
   their minds to learn the Truth. They pin their faith to somebody's
   sleeve and are content to believe according to the last speaker they
   hear, so that they will one day believe one thing, and another day
   another thing and so are carried about with every wind of doctrine!
   Brothers and Sisters, these things ought not to be! Receiving Christ as
   a Priest, we ought also to receive Him as a Prophet. And if we are
   quickened by the Holy Spirit, we ought also to seek to be illuminated
   and instructed by Him. Have you and I felt the Holy Spirit at work with
   us, endearing Doctrine and making it more precious to us? Have we,
   indeed, ever sought His influence, or have we, though professing
   Christians, lived thoughtlessly in this respect? Do you not think that
   if we have done so, we have grieved the Holy Spirit? What grieves a man
   more than to deny the importance of the office and work for which he
   lives? What should grieve the Holy Spirit more than this, among other
   things, to forget His office as our Instructor and to ignore altogether
   the great purpose for which He is to be found in the midst of the
   Christian Church at all times? Surely we should be seeking with all our
   prayers to pray, "Teach me, O God! And lead me in the plain Truth!" And
   we should long to sit with Mary at the Master's feet. Do you really
   study your Bibles, my dear Brothers and Sisters? Why you can scarcely
   bring out a magazine or a newspaper, nowadays, and make it pay, even
   with religious people, without a tale! It is one of the signs of the
   times that feeble fiction reading is as common among Christians as
   among others, and that our young disciples--young men and women both--
   must have a sensational novel in a religious form, or they will not
   read at all!

   Time was when Christian women, as well as men, read history, studied
   the fascinations of science and cultivated their best qualities of mind
   and heart. And Christian men in days past, in the Puritan and later
   ages, sought to be acquainted with solid literature, as well as with
   the Word of God. But it seems to be the last mark of the degeneracy of
   God's people that they must have their ears tickled with a straw and
   cannot read solid Truth. You need not wonder that we cannot breed men
   on chaff, or that they are blown about with every wind of Doctrine when
   this is the food on which they live. There are certain silkworms which
   grow the color of the leaves they feed on and you may depend upon it
   that those who live on this frivolous literature will lead frivolous
   lives, and those who take nothing but these milk-and-water tales will
   not be likely to have about them anything solid or robust, or anything
   vigorously real! Do not talk to me of reading such things! Brothers and
   Sisters, when you and I have read our Bibles through so as to find
   nothing there to interest us, it is

   high time that we asked God to teach us how to read them! It is a sign
   of a lack of Grace if the Bible is a dry Book. It is a dry Book, a very
   dry Book, to a graceless soul--but it has more in it than all the rest
   of the volumes in the world put together! And the more it is studied,
   the more will the interest of the student in it increase. Besides, we
   have such an abundance of other Christian literature that no Christian
   ought to say he is obliged to read the other poor stuff. We have no
   time to spare for this, when the soul is starving and dying for lack of
   knowledge! Let us pray the Holy Spirit to lead us into the Word of God
   and then give ourselves to its earnest and loving study.

   But this question will scarcely refer at all to some now present. My
   dear Hearers, are you among those who have no interest in these things?

   It is not likely that you should desire the Holy Spirit to instruct
   you. There are, I fear, some here who have no hope and are without God
   in the world. The mere statement of the fact ought to excite us all to
   prayer for such. But, alas, it is so commonly known that there are many
   out of Christ and without hope, that we do not feel distressed about it
   as we should. If there were fewer unregenerate sinners than there are,
   we would probably be more concerned about them. If there were only a
   dozen unconverted persons in the world, all the Church of God would be
   praying for their conversion, but because there are many millions of
   them, they are so common that we do not look upon them with the awe,
   the tenderness and the yearning sympathy which we ought to feel.

   There are some here to whom the Holy Spirit is an unknown Person, who
   have never been made alive unto God by Him and, consequently, cannot
   desire that they may be instructed by Him. Oh, that the blessed Spirit
   would come and convince them of their sin in not believing, which is
   the greatest of all sins--and the very sin of which the Spirit comes to
   convince men! "He shall convince them of sin because they believe not
   on Me." Oh, may He convince them of this sin and then may they
   understand that there is nothing for them to do, but that Christ has
   done it for them--and that all they have to do is to receive the
   finished work, to wear the finished robe, to look to Jesus Christ and
   to find life in the look! Pray for them, Brothers and Sisters, that the
   Holy Spirit may help their infirmities, that they may know Christ and
   may come to Him! May God bless the Gospel to them whenever it is
   preached! And when they are told that "the Son of Man came into the
   world to seek and to save that which was lost," may they cry unto Him
   and trust Him, for this is the vital part of the business and, trusting
   in Him, they shall enter into eternal life through Jesus Christ our
   Lord!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS9:26-32.

   The Jews thought that God must certainly save them. They thought they
   had a birth claim. Were they not the children of Abraham? Surely they
   had some right to it! This Chapter battles the question of right. No
   man has any right to the Grace of God. The terms are inconsistent. But
   that same Grace delights to save and bless even the perverse and
   rebellious who will yield to its blessed power!

   Verse 26. And it shall come to pass, that in theplace where it was said
   unto them, You are not My people; they shall be called the children of
   the living God. That in the very same place where their sins made it
   patent and palpable they were notGod's people--in that very same place
   shall men confess that they are the children of the living God! Oh,
   what has not Grace done?

   27-29. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, Though the number of
   the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be
   saved: For He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness:
   because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah
   said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been
   as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. God has a people, then,
   even in Israel with all its rejection! And He always will have, for He
   will never make the seed of Abraham to be as Sodom and Gomorrah! He
   will love His own and glorify Himself in the midst of His people.

   30. What shall we say then? Why, say this--

   30. That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have
   attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faih. For
   thousands of years they worshipped brutish idols and blocks and stones.
   Their philosophy was mixed with filthiness. Their lives were abhorrent
   to God. Even these, at last, have attained righteousness, even the
   righ-

   teousness which is by faith, for the Gospel being preached among the
   Gentiles, they have believed in Jesus and they are saved!

   31. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not
   attained to the law of righteousness. Israel followed after the law of
   righteousness with many ceremonies and external washings, wearing of
   phylacteries and bordered garments. Alas, poor Israel!

   32. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the
   works of the Law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. And God is
   determined that they that are of the Law shall not inherit it! He has
   made it a Sovereign Decree that the Believer shall be justified and
   saved, but no one else. They sought it not by faith, but as it were, by
   the works of the Law.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Old Testament "Prodigal"

   (No. 3354)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and
   humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto
   Him: and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and
   brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew
   that the Lord, He was God." 2 Chronicles 33:12,13.

   WHEN we wish to recommend a physician to a friend who is very ill, we
   are in the habit of mentioning certain cures which he has worked. And
   when we can produce several astonishing instances, we feel that we are
   going the right way to work to convince the judgment of our friend and
   to win his confidence in the doctor. Now, it is our impression that
   very many are anxious to be saved by the Grace of God, who,
   nevertheless, have not dared to trust the great Healer of souls. They
   know that they are in great danger, but they are reluctant to go to
   "the Beloved Physician." They are grievously afraid because of the
   greatness of their sins and they are filled with doubt and unbelief as
   to the possibility of their salvation on account of their singular
   sinfulness. Therefore, it struck me that if I could set before them a
   number of Scriptural instances of wonderful conversions, it might tend
   to encourage hope in Christ in their hearts and, under the blessing of
   the Holy Spirit, it might be the means of leading them to trust and try
   our Lord Jesus, out of whose very garments virtue flows. Perhaps, dear
   Friends, as you shall see how the Lord, the Healer, has looked on one
   and another, and restored them from the horrible disease of sin, you,
   too, who feel yourselves so far gone, may pluck up courage and say, "If
   He healed others, why should He not also heal me? I, too, will touch
   His garment's hem and see if He will not make me perfectly whole." How
   I wish that poor souls knew how ready my Lord Jesus is to save them!
   Then they would not stay back if they knew how eager He is to have
   mercy on the guilty! I pine within my soul to lead you to Jesus that
   you may be blest! That is the desire of my heart in introducing to you
   the case of Manasseh, whom I select from the Old Testament as a very
   prominent instance of glaring sin and of amazing Grace!

   We do not find many of what we can accurately call conversions in the
   Old Testament. It is a record of a dim dispensation in which we rather
   see the types of things than the things, themselves, but I should
   suppose that the priests, if they had been inspired to write what they
   often heard, would have been able to tell of many instances of deep
   conviction which would be made known in connection with the Sin
   Offerings and the Trespass Offerings--and they probably saw many
   instances of persons who henceforth led a new life and ceased from the
   sin which they had confessed over the victim's head. Of conviction,
   confession and conversion, they must have seen a great deal, but
   records we have none. On this account the story of the madly wicked
   king who was led to humble himself greatly before God is all the more
   valuable and it is matter for thankfulness that it is so remarkable!
   Every item of it reflects glory upon the amazing Grace of God and,
   indeed, compels us to exclaim, "Who is a God like unto You, passing by
   transgression, iniquity and sin?"

   We will waste no time on a preface, but come at once to the life story
   of Manasseh, and look, first, at his circumstances. Then consider him
   as a great sinner And afterwards, with greater comfort, view him as a
   remarkable convert First, let us notice--

   I. HIS CIRCUMSTANCES.

   A man's sin may be heightened by his position, or, on the other hand,
   the condition in which he is placed may suggest some alleviating
   considerations which, in all fairness, should be remembered. Now, with
   regard to Manasseh, we find that he was the child of an eminently godly
   father--the son of a king who, with all his mistakes, was sound in
   heart towards God. Hezekiah "worked that which was good, and right, and
   truth before the Lord his God." He was a man mighty in prayer and found
   deliverance thereby in the hour of great peril through the invasion of
   Sennacherib. Hezekiah

   was a man whose life was so precious in the sight of the Lord that in
   answer to his cries, He gave him a new lease on life and spared him yet
   another 15 years. It is a great thing for a youth to have a godly
   father to train his tender mind. And, even though such a parent should
   be taken away early, yet the privilege is an eminent one. As for
   Manasseh's mother, we cannot say with certainty that she was a godly
   woman, but let us hope that as her name was Hephzibah--"My delight is
   in her"--she, too, was delightful for grace and piety. Isaiah seems to
   have taken her name and to have applied it to the church--"you shall be
   called Hephzibah, for the Lord delights in you," and we may suppose
   that he would hardly have done so unless there had been some sweet
   associations therewith. Let us trust that Queen Hephzibah was, indeed,
   God's delight and, if so, Manasseh had the special favor of having two
   parents who would train him up in the way he should go. Such a happy
   start in life renders his later sin the more heinous!

   But, in all truthfulness, we have to mention, next, that he was a child
   born to his father in his later years, after his life had been
   lengthened by special license from above. He was the child of his
   parent's desire--an heir born after the father had expected to die
   childless and, therefore, it is not at all unlikely that he was a
   spoiled child. It is very possible that being highly prized, he was
   also greatly indulged and, if so, he was in special danger. Those
   children who are doted upon by their parents are greatly to be pitied,
   for they are apt to be allowed to have their own way--and a youth's own
   way is sure to be a wrong one! Fathers, in such cases, are apt to play
   the part of Eli, of whom we read that his sons made themselves vile,
   and he restrained them not. It was no wonder that Adonijah disturbed
   the dying moments of David when we read that, "his father had not
   displeased him at any time in saying, Why have you done so?" Nor need
   we marvel that Absalom almost broke his father's heart if this was the
   manner of his bringing up! Even though at 12 years of age Manas-seh
   could not have fully developed his character, yet it may have been
   warped by those early days of admiration and indulgence. Parents, take
   note of this--and you petted children do the same.

   Remember that Manasseh lost his father at twelve years of age. I do not
   know a greater trial for a family than for the head of the house to be
   taken away while the children are young. Just when the guiding,
   encouraging and restraining power of the father is needed, it is
   mournful to see it removed. How mysterious it seems to us when a large
   family loses the wise guide of the household at the very time when his
   influence is most needed by the growing boys and girls. Too often in
   such a case the young people have broken away from all restraint and
   the loss of their father has been the loss of everything. Manasseh, the
   prince who seemed born under such favorable circumstances for the
   production of a gracious character, was much to be pitied when the good
   king, his father, was called away and his tender son was left alone
   amid flatterers and idolaters!

   Remember, too, that Manasseh was placed in a giddy position as a child,
   for he mounted the throne at 12 years of age. A child upon a throne is
   a child out of its natural place. Such high and hard places are not for
   boys! Now and then such a child turns out to be a Josiah, the very
   delight of mankind, but the probabilities are very much against its
   being so. "Woe unto you, O land, when your king is a child." It is ill
   for a child to sway a scepter, but "it is good for a man that he bear
   the yoke in his youth." A fierce fire of temptation blazes around a
   youthful throne. Sycophants and flatterers are sure to surround a boy
   prince, pandering to his worst desires and arousing that part of his
   nature which most needs to be repressed. No doubt there were good
   people whom Hezekiah had gathered in his courts, but then they could
   not flatter as well as the evil party which had been repressed for
   awhile, but still remained strong in the land. Though Heze-kiah had set
   up the worship of God and had done his best to root out idolatry, yet
   the idolatrous party was far from being extinct and the common people
   were sadly careless and irreligious! Isaiah, in his opening Chapter,
   describes the condition of the land by saying, "Israel does not know,
   my people do not consider. 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." The nation was not steadfast like king
   Hezekiah--it worshipped Jehovah when compelled by royal authority--but
   it was ready enough to turn aside to its idols. The idolatrous
   party--which I might liken to the papists and the people who worshipped
   on the high places--who were the ritualistic party of the day, came
   around the young king, fawning, flattering and cajoling. By pleasing
   the taste of the boy-king, and indulging his vices, they undermined in
   his esteem the orthodox worshippers of God, whom I may call the
   evangelical school. He yielded himself up readily to their influence
   and when he was old enough, became the head of the idolatrous party,
   throwing his whole soul into it and, with all the might of his nature
   and the force of his authority, labored to stamp out the pure worship
   of the Most High God and to set up those debasing

   idolatries which his father Hezekiah had so much abhorred! Look at him,
   then, as a mere child placed in a condition of great danger, led astray
   at first and afterwards becoming a ringleader in iniquity.

   These are some of the circumstances of Manasseh's life. Now, I have a
   heavy task and one which saddens me, though it is concerning one who
   lived so many hundreds of years ago--I have mournfully to describe
   Manasseh as--

   II. A GREAT SINNER.

   If you will turn to the Second of Chronicles, Chapter 33, and will
   follow the verses, you will get a view of this atrocious offender. In
   the second verse we read, "He did that which was evil in the sight of
   the Lord. "That is a description of his life as a whole. Take his 55
   years' reign in the bulk, notwithstanding the repentance of his later
   years, it is a true estimate of it all to say that "he did evil in the
   sight of the Lord." He was a son of David, but he was the very reverse
   of that king who was always faithful in his loyalty to the one only God
   of Israel! David's blood was in his veins, but David's ways were not in
   his heart. He was a wild, degenerate shoot of a noble vine!

   No, the description of his life is more intensely black than the
   summary might suggest, for it is said that "he did evil in the sight of
   the Lord like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had
   cast out before the children of Israel." He seemed to have taken for
   his models the men whom God condemned to die for capital offenses
   against His Law! How deplorable that one who was cradled in piety must,
   notwithstanding, not be satisfied until the very scum of society, which
   God had skimmed off as from the pot and thrown away with detestation,
   should be his models and his tutors! Yet we have known young men to be
   doubly perverse--possessed, as it were, by the devil, if not by seven
   devils at once! We are all depraved, but in some that depravity
   manifests itself in an extraordinary love of low, coarse society and of
   everything that is irreligious and unlovely. I have in my mind's eye
   now--and it makes my heart melt as I remember it--sons of men with whom
   I have been glad to associate and who were always happy to aid me in
   the Lord's work, but now their sons find their most congenial company
   among the drunken and profane, the gamblers and debauchers--and if,
   perchance, they see their father's friend, they look aside or slink
   away, anxious to be unobserved by him, scarcely brooking to have it
   known that they know the man! This is the unhappiest thing that can
   occur to us parents. You who have buried your little children. You who
   have wept so bitterly when your dear babes were snatched from your
   bosoms may far prefer that sorrow to having your sons and your
   daughters live to dishonor your name by plunging into glaring sin!
   Manasseh was a son of this character and could his father have foreseen
   what he would live to do, he would have preferred death rather than
   have lived to be the sire of such a monster of iniquity!

   It is noted concerning him, in the next place, that he undid what his
   father had done. In the third verse we read, "He built again the high
   places which Hezekiah, his father, had broken down." I have known many
   a man who has had no respect for God who, nevertheless, has had such a
   regard for his father's memory that he would not scoff at things which
   his father held sacred. But this man had cast off all filial reverence!
   He cared not what his godly parent might have thought--he gloried in
   building up what his father had thrown down--and throwing down what his
   father had built up!

   This is a great evil, for a man, in order to be guilty of it, has to do
   violence to some of the strongest and best instincts of his nature. Is
   that your case, my Friend? Are you doing exactly that which you know
   would have broken your father's heart? Is your conduct such that your
   mother would have been brought to her grave by it had she been here?
   Are you fighting against the Lord God of your father? May the Lord in
   mercy stop your guilty hand lest the curse of Absalom come upon you!
   Turn not aside from your father's God! Follow in the godly footsteps of
   your mother and set not yourself to act contemptuously against that
   which was your parents' reverence.

   Manasseh next sinned in a great variety of ways, for, according to the
   third verse, he seemed eager to be meddling with all forms of idolatry.
   He was not satisfied with one false god, or one set of idolatrous
   rites, but he reared up altars for Baalim and made groves and
   worshipped the host of Heaven. Nor yet content with all this, he adored
   Moloch and passed his children through the fire in the valley of the
   Son of Hinnom. He heaped up vile idolatries, not only sending far and
   wide to find out what were the gods of the different nations, but
   reviving the old cast-off gods of the Canaanites whom God had destroyed
   for their crimes! One form of insult to the living God was not enough
   for him--he heaped together his rebellions! There are men to whom to
   sin with one hand is not sufficient--they must transgress with
   greediness. One vice does not content them--they cannot be satisfied to
   go to Hell except with four steeds to their chariot and

   these they drive like Jehu the Furious! They never seem content, except
   with all their might they are fighting against the Lord and pulling
   down His wrath upon their heads!

   These sins of Manasseh were not merely various, but some of them were
   peculiarly foul The worship of Baalim and Ashtaroth was associated with
   such abominations that one is sorry even to have known of them, and
   especially the ashe-ra, or symbols, wrongly translated "groves," were
   so lascivious that I shall not so much as hint at what they were. Such
   worship must have unutterably defiled the mind of the worshipper and
   rendered him fit for vice of the most degrading kind! Think of
   obscenity made into a religion--vice an ingredient of adoration. O God!
   That ever man should have come down to this! Worse, still, that a king
   of Judah and a son of Hezekiah should patronize and ordain orgies which
   polluted the mind beyond conception! It sufficed not that he adored the
   sun when it shined, and kissed his hand to the moon walking in her
   brightness--the sin of star worship was not enough--but he must set up
   graven images and worship the idols of the Philistines, of Egypt,
   Assyria and Tyre! The calves of Bethel did not sufficiently provoke the
   Lord, but the idols of Baal and the lewdness of Ashtaroth must defile
   the whole land from end to end! Instead of the holy worship of Jehovah,
   the worship of devils was ordained by the king's authority and Judah's
   land became a den of abominations!

   But Manasseh went to the utmost in evil and added gross impudence and
   insult to his crimes, so as to defy the Lord to His face, for, "he
   built altars in the House of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In
   Jerusalem shall My name be forever. And he built altars for all the
   host of Heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord." Oh, the
   infinite patience of the Most High, that He bore with such a daring
   insult as this! There were all the hills of Judah and the valleys
   thereof. Were they not enough for Manasseh's idols and their altars?
   Must the hill of Zion also be profaned? Was there no spot but that
   which the Lord had set apart for Himself and of which it had been said,
   "The Lord is there"? Must Jehovah's own courts be desecrated with the
   image ofjealousy? Must the altars to the hosts of Heaven be set up
   where only the Lord of Hosts should have been adored? Yet Manasseh
   dared to do this, carrying rebellion against the Lord to its utmost
   extent!

   Another proof of his inveterate sinfulness is found in his treatment of
   his children. He was not satisfied with sinning in his own person--his
   offspring must be handed over to the Evil One. "He caused his children
   to pass through the fire in the valley of the Son of Hinnom." Moloch is
   said to have been represented by a great hollow image made of brass,
   which was heated red hot and filled with fire till the flames came
   pouring forth from its mouth. Into the red-hot arms of this image some
   parents placed their babes, so that they were consumed alive--but
   others, like Manasseh, passed their children between those burning
   arms, so that they received "a baptism of fire."

   Nor is this all. Manasseh went to extremes in personal, deliberate sin,
   for it is said of him that for himself and on his own account, he
   "observed times"--that is, "lucky" and, "unlucky" days and he "used
   enchantments"--those different devices by which men think they can
   produce certain events or foretell them. "And he used witchcraft and
   dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards." It matters nothing
   whether these things were deceits by which he was duped, or were real
   dealings with demons--the sin is the same because in the man's intent,
   forbidden communion was carried on, such communion as is abominable in
   the sight of the Most High, and to be abhorred by every Believer!
   Whether true or pretended, attempts at necromancy, witchcraft and
   communion with spirits mark a mind far gone astray from God. Remember
   that such persons cannot enter Heaven, for, "without are dogs and
   sorcerers," and they are placed with whoremongers and liars who are
   declared to be shut out of the Holy City. Manasseh was eager and greedy
   in these detestable pursuits--he could never have enough of them.
   Witches, wizards, familiar spirits, enchantments, all sorts of cheats
   he trusted in--he who would not believe in God could freely yield his
   faith to lying wonders! How sad to see a mind capable of thought and
   reason bowed down at the feet of witches and mutterers of spells! How
   horrible to see a man making a league with death and a covenant with
   Hell! Still, if a man should have gone this length, he may yet be
   recovered out of the snare of the devil by Almighty Grace! Friend, if
   you have even wandered into this infamous wickedness, you need not
   despair, for Jesus lives to save the vilest of the vile!

   The picture is awful enough already, surely, you say. Yes, but we have
   other strokes to add, for Manasseh repeated these sins and exaggerated
   them each time. After one forbidden idol had been enshrined, he set up
   another yet more foul! And after building altars in the courts of the
   Temple, he ventured further and, "set a carved image, the idol which he
   had made, in the House of God, of which God had said to David and to
   Solomon, his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem,

   which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put My name
   forever." Thus he piled up his transgressions and multiplied his
   provocations.

   All this while he was leading thousands with him in his desperate
   course--both by his influence and authority he was compelling the
   nation to blaspheme! The whole land followed its king, save only a
   remnant cording to the election of Divine Grace--and these bore all the
   fury of Manasseh's wrath. The nation was prone to fall into idolatry
   and willingly went with the court! When the king bade them worship
   Baalim, they joyfully replied, "So would we have it!" And even when the
   most polluted emblems were set up for worship, the mass of the people
   greedily went after the abominations! A few wept and sighed in
   secret--and spoke often, one to another--but they had no power to alter
   the sad state of things, for the king was too strong for them. How sad
   to see a royal personage become a ringleader of iniquity! For princely
   example is infectious and its power for evil is boundless. Do I speak
   to one whose life leads others astray? Are you a man of mark? Are you
   placed in a position of influence? Are you a parent with children about
   you who will inevitably copy you? Are you the foreman in the workshop,
   or the head of a club, so that what you say and do becomes law to
   feebler minds than your own? Ah, you have the power to sin a hundred
   times at once, for you make others commit the sin in which you indulge!
   Your sin brings forth many at a birth and as by means of mirrors the
   image of an object can be multiplied, so is your sin reflected in
   scores of others! The voice of your evil life is repeated by a thousand
   echoes! Think of this and beware! Why should you destroy others as well
   as yourself? Do not be guilty of the blood of your neighbors! Do not
   murder your own children's souls! Consent not to be a jackal for the
   lion of the Pit, or a net in the devil's hand, for if you are such,
   your sin is infinite!

   Nor was this all, for though it is not recorded in the Chronicles, yet
   you will find in the Second Book of Kings, at the 21st Chapter, that he
   persecuted the people of God very furiously. "Moreover, Manasseh shed
   innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end of
   it to another." He was so zealous in carrying out his idolatries that
   he could not endure the sight of a man who would not bow before his
   images! He hated those ancient Nonconformists, those Protestants, those
   separatists, those Puritans--and he made laws to put them down so that
   the worshippers of Jehovah were "stoned and were sawn asunder, they
   wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted,
   tormented." We cannot vouch for the tradition that the Prophet Isaiah
   was put to death by Manasseh by being sawn in sunder, but terrible as
   is the legend, it is not at all improbable. Manasseh had his
   Bartholomew Massacre and his unholy Inquisition! He was a bloody
   persecutor during much of his long life and left marks of his reign of
   terror all over the land. Persecution is one of the most heinous of
   sins and greatly provokes the Most High, for the Lord has said
   concerning His people, "He that touches you, touches the apple of My
   eye." Manasseh did, as it were, thrust his finger into the eye of God!
   This was a Heaven-provoking crime! In these days the law does not allow
   the shedding of innocent blood, but there are people in the world who
   go as far as they can in persecution. There are modes of torture which
   can be used against a believing wife, such as will hardly be imagined!
   Children can be provoked and grievously afflicted by un-Christian
   parents. "Trials of cruel mocking," are mentioned by the Apostle--and
   they are very cruel and trying, too. We have known persons use towards
   brothers and sisters, and even towards children, such threats and modes
   of abuse and such taunts and jeers, that they have made their lives
   bitter as with heavy bondage! This is against God a very high offense.
   You cannot anger a man more than by ill-using his little ones! Touch
   his children and you bring the color into his face, directly, and the
   man's temper is up--and he who insults, and mocks and grieves God's
   children will one day find that the Lord will avenge His own elect
   though He bears long with them!

   Only one more touch to finish this dark picture--was there ever a
   blacker?--and it is this which is contained in the tenth verse--"And
   the Lord spoke to Manasseh, and to his people, but they would not
   listen." Manasseh refused warning. He did not sin without being
   rebuked. God did try the bit and bridle upon him, but they were of no
   use, for this wild horse took the bit between his teeth and dashed on
   in utter madness! He could not, he would not, bow before the loving
   admonition of the Most High! This makes sin to be exceedingly sinful,
   for, "He that being often reproved, hardens his neck, shall suddenly be
   destroyed, and that without remedy." Without rebuke, a man's sin may be
   far less than it must be after the rejection of admonitions from the
   mouth of God! To stifle conscience and refuse loving warning is to
   incur fearful guilt.

   Such was this Manasseh--the very chief of sinners! I feel certain that
   among those whom I address there is not a grosser sinner than he was.
   And I might almost say there never lived a worse! He has an evil
   eminence among the lovers of

   iniquity, and yet he was saved by Divine Grace! O you who hear these
   words or read them, never dare to doubt the possibility of your being
   forgiven! If such a wretch as Manasseh was brought to repentance,
   surely no one need despair! Now listen to what Almighty Grace,
   nevertheless, did for Manasseh, whom we will now think of as--

   III. A REMARKABLE CONVERT.

   His conversion began, or was worked at its commencement,
   instrumentally, by his afflictions. The king of Assyria came against
   him and he was unable to resist his assault. Sennacherib, a former king
   of Assyria, had invaded the land in the days of Hezekiah and the Lord
   had delivered His people, but there was no God to deliver Manasseh, and
   so the armies of Assyria overran the land and the royal idolater found
   his idols fail him. For fear of being captured in Jerusalem, he fled
   and concealed himself in a thorn brake, but was soon captured, or
   "taken among the thorns," and led in chains to Babylon. He seems to
   have been very severely handled by the king, who was, probably,
   Esarhaddon, king of united Assyria and Babylon, for he is spoken of as
   taken with hooks, such as large fish are taken with, or held by a ring
   such as is often passed through the noses of wild beasts. If this is
   only a figure, it represents Manasseh as regarded by the Assyrian king
   as an unmanageable beast to be subdued by rigor--even as a bull is
   managed by a ring in his nose. We are also told that he was loaded with
   double fetters of brass and was taken down to Babylon, to be kept in a
   close dungeon. The Assyrians were notoriously a fierce people and
   Manasseh, having provoked them, felt all the degradation, scorn and
   cruelty which anger could invent! He who had trusted idols was made a
   slave to an idolatrous people! He who had shed very much blood was now
   in daily jeopardy of the shedding of his own! He who had insulted the
   Lord must now be continually insulted himself. That which he had meted
   out was measured into his own bosom! He was the prodigal in actual
   life, in a far country, where he gladly would have filled his belly
   with the husks that the swine ate, but no man gave unto him. While fast
   chained in prison, the iron entered into his soul and his thoughts
   troubled him. How vain, now, to cry to Baal or Ashtaroth! The stars
   that peered through the grated bars of his dungeon upbraided him for
   his foolish worship and the sun and moon took up the tale of rebuke.
   Familiar spirits were familiar no longer and magic, with its lying
   wonders, could not release him! No, nor the witches and wizards with
   their enchantments.

   There he lies and fears that there he will lie and rot--but in his
   extremity, Infinite Mercy visits him and his soul finds vent for its
   misery in prayer "He sought the Lord God of his fathers." I admire the
   historian's words, he had dishonored his father as well as his God, but
   now he thinks of his godly ancestors and their holy faith. Surely his
   desire to return to his father's faith bore some likeness to that more
   spiritual resolve of the prodigal, "I will arise and go unto my
   father." It has often happened that men have been, by Divine Grace, the
   more readily led to God because He was their father's or their mother's
   God. Human love is thus dissolved in the nobler passion. Manasseh
   thinks, meditates, considers, reviews his life and loathes himself! He
   remembers how his father prospered by Jehovah's aid and, perhaps, also
   remembers the marvelous story of how Jehovah heard his father's prayer
   when he was near to die and raised him to life again. At any rate, in
   the dungeon he imitated his father, turned his face to the wall and
   wept sorely and prayed. "If," he said, "God saved my father's life,
   perhaps He may forgive my sin and bring me out of this horrible
   captivity." Thus hopefully he cried unto the Lord! O Friend, will you
   not also cry unto the God whom you have offended? Will you not say,
   "God be merciful to me a sinner?" Try, I beseech you, the power of
   prayer!

   But notice what went with his prayer, for, O Sinner, if you would have
   mercy of God, it must go with your-- "he humbled himself greatly." Ah,
   he had been a great man before--he was high and mighty Manasseh who
   would have his own way and dared defy the Lord to His face! But now he
   sings another song. He lies low as a penitent and begs as a sinner! How
   would he now use the language of his forefather David--"Have mercy upon
   me, O God, and blot out my transgressions." There is in the Apocrypha a
   book entitled "The Prayer of Manasses," which was probably composed to
   gratify the curiosity which would like to know how so great a
   transgressor prayed. Of course, it is spurious, but it contains some
   good and humble language almost meet for the lips of so great a
   penitent, though far more coherent and oratorical than his words are
   likely to have been. What a broken prayer Manasseh's must have been!
   And what groans, and sobs, and sighs were heard and seen by the great
   Father of Spirits, as His erring child sought His face in the gloomy
   cells of Babylon! Let such be your frame of mind, O Sinner. Be ashamed
   of your sin and folly! Confess it with mourning and abhor yourself on
   account of it. May the Holy Spirit bring you to this mind!

   Brothers and Sisters, the Lord heard Manasseh! Glory be to Infinite
   Grace, the Lord heard him! Blood-stained hands were lifted to Heaven,
   and yet the Lord accepted the prayer. A heart that had been the palace
   of Satan! A heart which had

   conceived mischief and brought forth cruelty! A proud rebellious heart
   humbled itself before God and the Lord pardoned and smiled upon the
   penitent and, as a testimony of His Infinite Mercy, He moved the king
   of Assyria to take Manasseh out of prison and restore him to his
   throne! The Lord does great marvels and shows great mercy unto the very
   chief of sinners! O that this might persuade some to test and try this
   gracious God! Manasseh had not such a clear revelation as you have--you
   have heard of God in Christ Jesus reconciling the world unto
   Himself--not imputing their trespasses unto them. Let the wounds of
   Jesus encourage you! Let His intercession for sinners cheer you! God is
   ready to pardon, and His heart yearn towards you. Come even now and
   seek His face, you vilest among men!

   Now, can you picture Manasseh going back from Babylon attended by a
   cohort of Assyrian soldiers? The poor Believers in Jerusalem have had a
   little respite while he has been in durance. Perhaps they even ventured
   to the Temple and restored the worship of Jehovah. At any rate, they
   crept out of the holes and corners in which they had laid hid and
   breathed more freely. But now it is rumored that the persecuting king
   is coming back--that the hunter of the souls of men is again abroad!
   What dread seized the minds of the timid among the godly and how
   earnestly the brave-spirited steeled their hearts for the conflict!
   More stoning, more sawing asunder! Can it be that these horrors are to
   be renewed? The righteous meet and sorrowfully plead with God that He
   would not permit the light to be quite quenched, nor give over His
   people like sheep to the slaughter. What a day of foreboding it must
   have been when the king came through the city gates! But perhaps some
   of them watched him--and when he passed by a shrine of Baal they
   noticed that he did not bow! The image of Ashtaroth stood in the high
   place, but they observed that he turned away his head as though he
   would not look in that direction! And what was their joy when they
   afterwards read his proclamation that from henceforth, Judah should
   worship Jehovah alone! What hanging down of the heads for the
   ritualistic, idolatrous party--but what joy among the evangelicals that
   the king, himself, had come over to their side--for now the Truth of
   God and the true-hearted would have the upper hand! What triumph was
   felt by the saints when the king sent the cleansers to the Temple to
   pull down the carved image! Then went up their hymns and they blessed
   the Lord with all their hearts, singing, "In Judah is God known! His
   name is great in Israel! There breaks He the arrows of the bow, the
   shield, and the sword, and the battle." O that such songs might be sung
   in the Church of Christ because of some of you!

   Manasseh also did his best to undo what he had done, and to restore
   what he had damaged, for those who are really converted show it
   practically. Restitution must be made for wrongs done, or repentance is
   a sham! All the evil we have done we must labor to remedy, or our
   penitence is only skin deep. That conversion which does not convert or
   turn the life is no conversion at all. One or two things remain to be
   said by way of practical address. First, dear Friends, adore Divine
   Grace. Never limit its power, but believe it able to convert the most
   abandoned! Believe that it can save you! Since our Lord Jesus always
   lives to intercede for those who come unto God by Him, He is able also
   to save them unto the uttermost! You cannot have too large ideas of
   Divine Grace, for where sin abounds, Grace does much more abound!

   But secondly, never turn it into an excuse for continuing in sin, for
   this case of Manasseh, with all its mercy, is still a sad one. Though
   we have seen how Grace gave it a good ending, yet, take it for
   all-in-all, it is a sad case and as a life, Manasseh's was wasted,
   misspent and full of wretchedness. Although he sought to mend matters,
   he could not fully undo what he had done. The people were nothing like
   as eager to follow the right as they were the wrong--and after many
   years of royal patronage of idolatry it was not easy for the masses to
   turn around, all of a sudden, and so the people sacrificed on their
   high places, though only to Jehovah, and their hearts still went after
   their idols.

   The last word is, seek for mercy, all of you. Do not neglect it because
   of its greatness, but rather hasten to receive it! Since we all need
   more mercy than we imagine, let us cry for it at once in hearty
   earnest! Let us come to the fountain which is opened for the house of
   David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and wash therein! Let us, by
   faith in Jesus' blood, wash and be clean! The Lord make us to do so,
   for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Life's Inevitable Burden

   (No. 3355)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 16,
   1867.

   "For every man shall bear his own burden." Galatians 6:6.

   IN pondering Scripture Truth, we must not strain metaphors, nor use
   figures of speech as though they were literal statements. You have an
   instance of the truth of this remark in this Chapter. In one verse the
   Apostle says, "Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the Law
   of Christ," while in the verse of our text, he says, "Every man shall
   bear his own burden." Still, he is not contradicting himself. He would
   be if he were speaking literally of burdens, but he is speaking
   metaphorically and, consequently, he uses the figure first in one way
   and then in another. It may be useful to us, Brothers, to learn never
   to draw arguments and doctrines from metaphors. Many do and there are
   many supposed doctrines which really have no better ground-work than
   mere metaphors. I remember hearing one contending against the
   chastening of God's people and he urged that the Church was the bride
   of Christ and that it was impossible that Christ, as the Husband of the
   Church, should in any way chasten or strike His own spouse, which would
   be a very reasonable thing to say of a man. If the metaphor ran on four
   legs, the argument might have been correct, but as no metaphor is
   intended so to do, and is only to be understood in the sense intended
   by the person employing it, the argument is fallacious and valueless! I
   have heard others say that true Christians are citizens of Heaven and,
   consequently, we ought not to exercise our votes in political matters!
   This is another piece of utterly illogical reasoning because we might
   as well say to Christians that they ought not to eat animal food as
   they form the Lord's flock, and sheep must not, and cannot, eat animal
   food! The fact is, the reasoning from metaphor is always risky and
   sometimes proves quite absurd!

   I mention this because I am quite sure that very much of it does
   prevail in the Christian world and that people use the language of
   Scripture in a manner in which they would not use the same language if
   found in other books. The Word of God is, however, not to be treated
   with less, but moreveneration in our reading and study of it, and yet
   in the same simple, common-sense fashion as that in which we would
   treat any other book. The truth is there are burdens which may be
   shared and which should be shared. The burden of grief, the burden of
   pecuniary need, the burden of heart trouble may sometimes be borne, but
   on the other hand, there are burdens which no man can share with his
   fellow, nor ought he even to thinkof sharing, but where each man must
   stand apart and alone before God--and no one can assist him.

   Of these burdens we shall speak tonight, and they shall be our first
   point. Then, lest we should become burdensome to you, we shall offer a
   few considerations which may tend to take out the weight of the burdens
   which we must unavoidably carry, each one for himself. And then we
   shall close by endeavoring to find something practical to be done
   tonight as the result of the text. First, then, we have to speak of--

   I. CERTAIN BURDENS WHICH EACH MAN WILL BE QUITE CERTAIN TO HAVE TO BEAR
   FOR HIMSELF.

   In speaking of the first three burdens which I shall have to mention, I
   shall address myself to you all, whether saints or sinners, for there
   are some Truths of God which are common to all men as men. And such is
   the first burden--the burden of original sin. The burden of our natural
   depravity, the burden of our fallen nature, the burden of our
   constitution which is perverted by evil--these we shall, each one of
   us, have to carry for himself. It may be said that this is not our
   burden, but Adam's--but the burden of the father, if he brings the
   whole household into poverty--becomes the burden of the family and each
   individual member of it. If the head should ache, it is no use for the
   hand to say, "It is no business of mine." There is, too, so vital and
   intimate a connection between the whole body of humanity, between Adam

   the head, and all the members of the body corporate, that Adam's Fall
   becomes ours, Adam's ruin our ruin and the taint in the blood is to be
   found in us all. Some of you are "dead in trespasses and sins" and,
   therefore, this burden is no more a burden to you than the heavy clods
   of the churchyard are to the bodies that lie beneath them. But if ever
   you are quickened by Divine Grace, you will soon find that "the body of
   this death," as Paul calls indwelling sin, is a very heavy burden to
   battle with and you will have to personally fight out the conflict
   within your own soul. You will have to call in the aid of Divine Power,
   or you will never get the victory, but--mark you--in the conquest of
   your own corruption, in the overcoming of your own besetting sins and
   of those evils which are more powerful in you than they are in others
   because you are constitutionally inclined to them--in that battle you
   will have to fight for yourselves! You may get some assistance from
   other people's experience, but still, the struggle and the conflict
   must be with you.

   Young people, never imagine that all the training in the world can rid
   you of your evil without an earnest struggle on your own part! Don't
   conceive that a mother's prayers will give you tenderness of conscience
   unless you also learn of Christ for yourselves. Do not conceive that
   the rebukes of a father can conquer that evil temper unless you
   struggle against it. And if you habitually have a tendency to pride, do
   not conceive that the preacher's homilies against pride can overcome
   pride in you! No, in the name of God you must go to the armory and ask
   for the sword of the Spirit, that you may personally, girded with
   Divine Strength, which you may obtain by earnest prayer, overcome in
   your own soul your besetting sins! In this respect, then, you will have
   to bear your own burden. I know I have to bear mine and I do not know
   that any of you could help me. And I believe that each one of you,
   quickened by Divine Grace, must feel there is something peculiar about
   your case--some sin, perhaps, which you would not like to whisper into
   another's ear-- perhaps only a sin of thought, but still it is a
   burden. I hope it will become more and more a burden to you, for the
   more burdensome it becomes, the more likely are you to conquer it! But
   you will have to bear it yourself and in the strength of the Holy
   Spirit you will have to conquer it, too, and get rid of it. You will
   have to pluck out the right eye and tear off the right arm. It were
   better for you, remember, to enter into life crippled and maimed than
   to keep these and be cast into eternal Hell! It is for you, in God's
   name, personally to do battle with your personal depravity!

   Each man must, each man alone can bear his own burden here. Again, each
   man must also bear his own burden of personal sin unless, (here comes
   in the grand and gracious proviso), unless the sin is blotted out or is
   utterly removed! Every man who has sin to carry must bear his own
   burden. There is no shifting the sin from you to a sponsor. No fellow
   creature can stand for you and take your offenses. The Lord Jesus
   Christ did take His people's sins, as He was their Covenant Head,
   Surety and Representative--and they who are in Christ are free from
   sin--their sin being utterly removed and having ceased to be, having
   been cast by the tremendous power of Christ into the depths of the sea,
   so that if they are sought for, they shall never be found against the
   Lord's people any more forever! But do remember, dear Hearer, that if
   you are not a pardoned soul, you have got a burden to carry and you
   will have to bear it. You will have to bear it now, for "he that
   believes not is condemned already." You will have to bear it when you
   come to die and you will have enough to do to die having this burden of
   sin pressing upon your heart. Worst of all, you will have to bear it
   when your spirit is disembodied and your naked soul is called before
   your Maker. Ah, it will be a dreadful thing to go there with the
   blackness and defilement of sin about you! And you will have to bear
   it, too, in the day of the Resurrection and in the solemn article of
   judgment! And then, last of all, you will have to bear your own burden
   in the eternal future--and there it will sink you, sink you, sink you
   beyond all hope of rescue or escape!

   Now, while there is life there is hope. "All manner of sin and iniquity
   shall be forgiven unto men. If we confess our sin, He is faithful and
   just to forgive us our sins," but unless the sin is removed, it must
   remain our own burden forever and forever! You will not get rid of it
   by joining a church. You cannot be rid of it by passing through rites
   and ceremonies. It will be no help to you to have been a citizen of a
   Christian nation, so-called, and to have worshipped in a Christian
   assembly. "Every man shall bear his own burden." We came through the
   gates of life into this world alone--we shall go back through the iron
   gates of death, each man alone. And the judgment, though crowds will be
   gathered, will be the judgment of so many individuals, each weighed in
   the scale, alone, either to hear the verdict that they are "accepted in
   the Beloved," or else to hear it said, "Tekel"--"You are weighed in the
   balances and found wanting." How I wish that all my hearers would lay
   this to heart! Do not try to hide away in the crowd, for God will
   search and bring you out individually and you shall be tested and tried
   apart from others! If you take ever so many sovereigns to the bank, it
   is not very likely you will pass one bad one, for they would very soon
   discover it. That might be done, however, on earth, but it

   could not be done in Heaven! "Every man shall bear his own burden," and
   if the burden of sin is upon him, it shall crush him beyond all hope!

   Once again, while thus speaking to both saints and sinners, "Every man
   shall bear his own burden" of the Law. By sin we do not escape from the
   Law. The Law of God is binding upon every man of woman born, unless, by
   being dead to the Law through Christ, he escapes from under its yoke
   and bondage. Now, the Believer is not under Law. Do not misunderstand
   me. I mean that he is not under Law in the sense in which the sinner is
   under it. He is not under its condemning power! He is not under Law,
   but he is under Grace! The principle of Law does not bind him--it is
   the principle of love which rules and governs his spirit. Now, every
   man who is under the Law is bound to keep it, and to keep it
   personally. Look, my dear Friends--you who have never fled to
   Christ--look where you are. The Law of God is such a Law that Adam
   failed to keep it, though innocent. How, then, shall you keep it while
   imperfect? It is a spiritual Law, a Law touching not only your actions,
   but your words and your thoughts--how can you keep it? And yet, if you
   keep it not, it brandishes its great whip with the thongs and brings it
   down upon the conscience with terrible effect. If you keep not the Law,
   remember the sentence, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all
   things written in the Book of the Law to do them." Happy is the man who
   has escaped from the territories of the Law of God and come into the
   dominions of Divine Grace! But so long as we are under the Law, its
   burden is ours and here comes in this grimly solemn Truth of God that
   it is a burden which each man must carry on his own shoulders, but
   carry it he cannot and, therefore, it will crush us and the curse of
   God must come upon us through the Law!

   And now we shall leave those three points which are common to all men
   and simply speak to Believers of the burdens which they have to carry
   and which they ought joyfully to shoulder, each man for himself!

   And first, my Brothers and Sisters, when we have been quickened and
   awakened, we shall find daily necessity for the confession of sin and
   here, "every man shall bear his own burden." A general confession may
   be very proper in the congregation, but it is only acceptable to God as
   it becomes an individual and particular confession in the case of each
   one using the words. Repentance is peculiarly a private and personal
   Grace. Lamentation for sin is a thing for one's own chamber--the
   husband apart, and the wife apart--the daughter apart and the mother
   apart. Into confession in its fullness, no two can enter. As far as the
   sin has been common they may confess together, but in so far as the
   guilt in each case is personal and particular, so must confession be.
   My dear Friends, let us not hesitate, whatever it may be that is upon
   our minds, tonight, to come and acknowledge it before our Father, who
   is in Heaven. We do not confess now like condemned criminals who
   confess before execution because they must--we confess like the
   returned prodigal, with our heads on our dear Father's bosom, conscious
   that we are forgiven, quite sure that His love is set upon us and that
   we shall not be driven from Him on account of sin, but hating sin all
   the more because of this love--and weeping bitterly because of that
   wondrous Grace which has had such compassion upon us! Let us be very
   marked in our acknowledgment of sin in private. I believe the Lord
   often withholds from His people a sweet sense of perfect acceptance
   until their confession shall be more precise--until they learn to "call
   a spade a spade," as we say, and so make a clean breast of the matter
   before the Most High.

   Further, my Brothers and Sisters, there is another burden we have to
   carry and which we must cheerfully shoulder, and that is the yoke of
   Christ Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me." And then He
   adds, "for My yoke is easy and My burden is light." We are bound to
   obey Christ. He is the Captain--we are His soldiers. There should be
   maintained in the Church a sacred military discipline--we should obey
   spontaneously the commands of our great Leader! He is our Shepherd, we
   must keep close to Him--walking in His footprints and delighting in His
   company. He is the Physician--we must follow His prescription, not
   hesitating, even though the draught He gives is very bitter. Perfect
   obedience is what Jesus Christ has a right to claim from us! Oh, that
   He would give us Grace that He might receive according to His rights!
   Is there any duty, my Brothers and Sisters, which you have not yet
   fulfilled and which presses upon your conscience? Or is there some
   other duty on which your conscience is but partially enlightened? Ask
   for a quickened conscience and when you obtain it, never tamper with
   it! Oh, to have a conscience quick as the apple of the eye, tender and
   delicate, that will not even bear the slightest dust of sin! Oh, to
   walk before God as Caleb did, of whom the Lord said, "My servant Caleb
   has followed Me fully." There were some of whom it was said, "They
   walked before the Lord, but not with all their heart, as did David."
   May we have the whole-heartedness of the most consecrated towards the
   Savior and whatever form the yoke of Christ may take, may we count it
   our highest joy to bear it! Since He carried our sorrow, let us be
   willing to carry out His commands to their utmost letter, desiring that
   not so much as a jot or a tittle shall be left unheeded of the Master's
   will!

   Further, Brothers and Sisters, I think we ought, each one of us, to
   feel that we have a burden of prayer to carry to the Mercy Seat. "Every
   man shall bear his own burden" in this respect. I wish we did this in
   our assemblies. I am afraid that you often let me pray, but some of you
   do not pray yourselves. I am afraid, too, that private prayer is
   neglected by a very large number of Christians--not that the form of it
   is absolutely renounced, but the vigor of it is not maintained. I wish
   I could say this without a blush concerning myself, but I do feel that
   very many of us do grievously fail here. We give the Lord some scanty
   five or ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, whereas our Puritan
   forefathers prayed sometimes for hours! But it would matter little
   about the time if we did but give the spirit. It is poor work,
   sometimes, our praying! Oh, that we wrestled with the Angel and
   prevailed! My Brothers and Sisters, we have, everyone of us, something
   to take before God in prayer--and we rob the Church of our
   contributions to her treasury of intercession if we do not put our
   share into it!

   Some of you ought to pray for the Sunday school more than you do. Some
   of you should bear in prayer the burden of the young of the
   congregation. The preacher has his burden of prayer--a heavy one. My
   Brothers and Sisters, the deacons and elders should be--I trust they
   are--peculiarly men of prayer! They have a burden to carry--a burden of
   prayer for the Church. And you aged fathers in our Israel and you, my
   dear Sisters who are matrons in our midst, it often seems to me to be
   peculiarly your office to be intercessors for the Church. It may be
   possible that many of you could not preach and could not be very
   serviceable in many active labors, but you can be the very strength and
   sinews of war for the Church militant by your prayers! No, no--it is
   not the whole Church praying that you are to think ofjust now, but you,
   yourself--praying--each man and woman taking his own share of the great
   common burden which we have to take before the Mercy Seat and leave
   there!

   So, too, must each of us take our own burden of witnessing for Christ
   All saints cannot witness to all Truth since nobody knows all the Truth
   of God but God! Some of our hyper-Calvinistic friends also know it all,
   according to their own understanding--but at any rate we think that
   nobody else does! Finite minds can only grasp part of the Truth. The
   Infinite alone can lay hold of the whole of Truth. If we were
   altogether Infallible in our knowledge of Doctrine, we should be God,
   for only God can know all things and know all things thoroughly--know
   all things without admixture of error. But wherein we do know, each man
   is called to bear testimony to the Truth he does know. There are many
   things that I do not know--why should I, then, pretend to be a witness
   to them? But there are some two or three things I do know. I am quite
   sure about them--and if I do not speak positively upon them, I shall
   fail to bear my burden before the Lord. And there is some one Truth of
   God, perhaps, my Brother, about which you have a little Light of God, a
   little more Light than your neighbors. Do not hide the Light of God!
   God does not ever light a lamp to put it under a bushel. If you have
   received, either by experience or research, any special Light which is
   peculiar to you--spread it that it may be, as it should be, the common
   property of the Church of God, to the Glory of God! I wish that
   Christians in these days thought more of bearing their witness. The
   Scottish people in years gone by attached great importance to the
   bearing of witness--testifying--standing out at all costs to give
   evidence to the Truth of God. But nowadays Truth is cast into the
   street as though it were worthless! And Christians will honor a Truth
   and hold it, and yet will put their finger to their lips and say, "For
   peace's sake, such a Truth is to be unspoken." No! Peace is precious,
   but it has its price, and is not to be purchased at any price! Truth
   first! "First pure, then peaceable." First, the Truth of God and then
   the peace of God. May we have both, but let us take care that we bear
   our own burden in witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ.

   Again, dear Brothers and Sisters, we have, each one of us, our own
   burden in the matter of caring for souls. You are placed, some of you,
   as working men amidst working men--your burden is manifestly your own
   class. Others of you move in other spheres. Do not forget that each
   sphere has its particular claim. You have ability? You have, then, a
   burden peculiar to a man of ability. You have wealth? There is a burden
   there. On the other hand, you live in obscurity. Your utmost sphere is
   your little children and your one or two rooms. Still remember that
   circles are prized not in proportion to their size, but in proportion
   to their roundness--and so we shall be honored and rewarded by Divine
   Grace--not according to the largeness of our sphere, but according to
   the way in which we have filled it for Christ! We must each bear the
   burden of our own sphere. Mother, no one else can be a mother to your
   children and do for them what you should do. Minister, if you are truly
   sent of God, no one can be a sponsor for you in your ministry--you must
   take

   that burden which God has put upon you, upon yourself! And you trader,
   merchant, working man--there is something which you, each of you, must
   do and however earnest all the rest of Christians may be, they cannot,
   by the surplus of their zeal, if there is any, by any possibility make
   up for a deficiency in your case! The timber may be very strong in one
   part of the vessel, but the strength of the timber there is no
   recompense for a rotten portion in another part of the keel-- it must
   be strong all over. We are all set, as it were, to forge a chain--and
   if the link that you shall forge is thoroughly strong and well welded,
   yet if I make a mess of my portion of the work, the chain will be
   injured all through! Let us remember this and discharge our own work in
   the strength of God, by the power of His Spirit, and we shall joy in
   ourselves by the Holy Spirit!

   I might thus enlarge upon these burdens, but they all come to the same
   effect. There is one more word, however, which will be addressed,
   perhaps, to half a dozen here--probably not so many. Sometimes, upon
   some men, God casts a burden which He never puts on others. The Prophet
   speaks of "the burden of the Lord." Probably we have all carried it at
   some time, but at any one particular time there will not be many who
   are bearing it. That burden may be something very extraordinary to
   others, though you have become so familiar with it that it seems
   ordinary to you. Perhaps tonight something is saying in your soul, "Go
   and speak to such an one." Do not violate that monition! Believe me,
   there is more in spiritual impulses than some people think! You have
   all read the old story of the Quaker who felt moved to ride into a
   certain town, some 10 or 12 miles off at the dead of night--and to go
   to a certain house. He did so. He found the house and knocked at the
   door. No one came to the door. He knocked again and when, at last, a
   man came downstairs and opened the door and asked him what he wanted.
   The Quaker said, "Perhaps you can tell me, for I do not know. The Lord
   has sent me to you, but what for I know not." Then the man produced a
   rope and said that just when the knock came to the door he was in the
   top room, planning to hang himself. God had evidently sent the Quaker
   just at that time to prevent him. If you and I were more obedient to
   these "burdens of the Lord" when they came, we might often do more good
   than we do. We must not be fanatical--there is a line to be drawn--but
   at the same time I am afraid we often check sacred impulses, which, if
   followed, might be fraught with the most blessed consequences! Do you
   feel called at this time, my dear Friend, to a work which you never
   undertook before? Consult not with flesh and blood! Do not be
   particular about asking help and assistance. "Every man shall bear his
   own burden." Go in the strength of God! If, like Gideon, you need a
   sign, take it, and when you have it and your heart has become like
   Gideon's fleece, wet clean through, even though it is with sorrow, so
   that you could wring it out, then go in this, your might, for if God
   has sent you, He will go with you. "As your days, so shall your
   strength be." This may be a word to somebody--I know not to whom--but
   it was a burden on me to say it--and there I leave it.

   Now we turn to the second Truth of this theme! And with much greater
   brevity-- II. SOME THINGS WHICH LIFT THE WEIGHT OF THESE PRESSING
   BURDENS. "Every man shall bear his own burden." It is not pleasant to
   be talked to all this long time about your being a burden-bearer, but
   perhaps these things will make it more pleasant. The first thing of
   which to remind ourselves is this-- that it is quite consistent with
   the Truth of God declared in our text, to remind you that Jesus Christ
   is the great Burden-Bearer for all His saints--that though, on the one
   hand, you will have to bear your own burdens, yet on the other hand
   Christ will bear all your burdens for you! Your burden of sin was laid
   upon Him as the scapegoat for your soul. That you know, and now your
   sin is put away! And now, tonight, whatever your burden is, come with
   it to your best Friend, the "Friend that sticks closer than a brother."
   Tell Him the cause of your complaint. The disciples of John, when their
   master's head was taken off, took up the body and "went and told
   Jesus." Come and tell Jesus what it is that vexes you tonight! It is
   said of one sick child, "They brought him to Jesus." Is your trouble a
   sick child, or is it you who is sick? Or what is it? Bring it to Jesus!
   All griefs either fly at His approach or else they change to joys! Or
   if they remain griefs, they minister to us an abundance of spiritual
   wealth--

   "Come, make your needs, your burdens known--

   He will present them at the Throne!

   And angel bands are waiting there,

   His messages of love to bear."

   You must remember that your burden is easy to bear when Christ is with
   you. When Jesus Christ has strengthened you with all strength in your
   inner man and put into you His own Omnipotence to be your succor, then
   shall the burden cease to be a burden to you any longer!

   This also may tend to lighten the pressure, that as every man has to
   bear his own burden, so every man has his own hope. I would be afraid
   to change with anybody else. I have sometimes thought, when I have been
   much desponding, that I wished I had half as good a hope as some of my
   Brothers and Sisters, but when I come to think it over--I do not
   know--I do not know--I would be as happy as the least in the Lord's
   family if I knew that I was really one of His, but I really should not
   like to change with any of the little ones, or the great ones, either,
   on the chance of their being His. No! I know my own hope and I will
   keep it!

   And, blessed be God, as we have our own burden, so we have our own joy.
   The most miserable and unhappy Christian in the world, when you come to
   get into his secrets, will tell you--he will let it out somehow--that
   he has a secret spring of joy which others have not. In fact, it is to
   be remarked that those who have deep griefs have generally
   proportionately deep joys! The man of superficial sorrow generally has
   superficial mirth--but the man whose heart has been bored through and
   through has a stream of joy springing up as from an artesian well that
   cannot be equaled for freshness by the mere land springs of superficial
   piety! Brothers and Sisters, we would not part with our joys nor with
   our hope. Though we have our sorrows to ourselves, yet we have our joys
   to ourselves, too! And, thank God, they cannot be taken away from us!

   So, too, the Christian has Christ all to himself. I have sometimes
   tried to think of that. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ, able to save ten
   thousand times ten thousand sinners--and yet He is all mine! All Christ
   is mine! Here He is feeding the millions of His saints, and yet there
   is not a single crumb upon His table but what is mine! Nor a grain of
   corn in the granary of my Brother Joseph but what belongs to me! All
   Christ belongs to each one of God's people! You have got a burden to
   yourself, but you have also got God to yourself--think of that! Have
   you ever remembered that if you were the only creature in the
   world--the only creature in the universe--if there were no angels and
   no other men--have you ever thought of what an inspection God would
   have of you and how He would see you through and through? Well, at this
   present moment and at all times, you are as much an object of His
   inspection as if that were the case! For multitudes of objects do not
   divide the exercise of Omniscience upon each one. The Infinite Mind of
   God is such that the Infinite Care of God belongs to every individual
   throughout the entire universe! Yes, you have a God to yourself! Oh,
   what infinite supplies you have, Christian! Talk of your expenses! Look
   at your income! Speak of your poverty! Look at your wealth! You talk of
   your weakness--now estimate your strength! You can cast the plumb line
   to the bottom of your sorrows and measure the Atlantic waves of your
   grief, but you cannot measure Heaven above, nor the earth beneath, nor
   the depths of Hell! If you could measure these, God is greater than
   them all! Oh, why, then, do you despond because of the big burden, when
   you have peculiar help, peculiar joy, peculiar hope and peculiar
   strength? Rest in God and be joyful!

   Once again, it is true that we, all of us, have a burden to carry, but
   then we have not to carry that burden long. You do not much pity a man
   who has to carry a load only during the twinkling of an eye. Well, the
   whole of life is not any more than that! Just think, my dear Friends,
   of eternity--and what is life? Imagine ourselves sitting down in Heaven
   in the midst of eternal blessedness, and what a moment life will seem!
   We shall know, then, what Paul meant when he said, "These light
   afflictions which are but for a moment." But for a moment! Oh, pluck up
   courage, Brothers and Sisters! You are nearer Home than you thought you
   were and every moment you are getting nearer! We find our horses
   quicken their speed when we turn their heads homeward and they drag
   their loads with speed. Now, your head is homeward, Christian, you--

   "Nightly pitch your moving tent, A day's march nearer home."

   Therefore, be of good comfort and let not the burden gall your
   shoulders.

   Once more. If you have a burden to yourself, remember that you will
   have your own place in Heaven which nobody else will have. You have
   your own sorrows, but you will have your own joys there! I think there
   is a note in the heavenly song for each one of us to take. I do not
   suppose that Mary Magdalene sings precisely the same note as the dying
   thief. There will be her lofty voice taking some of the treble notes
   and we shall have him, it may be, taking the deeper bass. I believe
   that if one of us should be absent, the choir of Heaven would not be
   complete. In the noblest orchestra all the in-

   struments and voices are needed for the completeness of the chorus, and
   so will it be in the orchestra of Heaven! Paul says that the saints
   that are gone before into Heaven are not perfect without us--that "they
   without us would not be made perfect." That is to say the company would
   not be complete, but gaps appear. So long as there is one soldier in a
   squad who has not arrived, the battalion is not completely formed. So
   we must each get there to perfect, to complete the number of the saints
   in Heaven! Well, then, Beloved, as we are, each one, to have a place
   and portion in Heaven, each a mansion to himself or herself, we may
   well be content to bear our burdens here alone. And now to close. What
   is-- III. THE PRACTICAL INFERENCE AND RESULT?

   I do not know what it may be, but oh, may God the Holy Spirit burn my
   text into your hearts! I do not want you to remember so much anything I
   have said--it does not matter about that--you can forgot it all! But I
   do want you to recollect this one Truth of God--especially you
   Christians--that "every man shall bear his own burden." There is
   something for each one of you to do for Christ. Oh, that notion that
   the minister can do it, that the united action of the Church can do
   it--it has ruined the Christian Church to a large extent! A personal,
   individual sense of responsibility is what we need--each Christian
   judging himself daily and hourly as to his capabilities, obligations
   and indebtedness to his Lord! Brother minister, you have got your
   burden to bear. Is there any new work you can undertake for Christ, or
   any old work that needs strengthening, into which you can throw
   yourself with greater zeal? Then I pray you do it! My Sister in the
   Lord, you have not done, perhaps, what you might do. Now say in your
   heart, before you leave the pew, "By God's Grace, I will do whatever I
   can." I can look round, round upon you here and see some who are really
   doing more than I could for a moment ask you to do, for you are "in
   labors more abundant."

   I thank God that there are such in this Church, but then I think of
   others. Oh, if all were like some, what a Church we would be! If all
   the vines in our vineyard bore such clusters as some of the vines do,
   oh, how the wine presses would burst with new wine! In the matter of
   liberality, the preacher must never judge--that is a matter for each
   man. "How much should you give unto your Lord?" In the matter of
   service, it is not for us to allot you your work, but what can you do?
   Now, what will you do tonight" "Oh, give me till the morning," says
   one. No! No! We have not an hour that we can afford to waste! Let us
   serve God today--we will leave tomorrow to care for itself. Now is the
   accepted time for service, as well as salvation! Serve Him now! Do
   something to forward His Kingdom and honor His name now! The only way
   to serve Christ in the future is to serve Him in the present, for the
   future never comes, or, if it does, it ceases to be future and is the
   living present.

   Now I ask you, you who are now washed in His cleansing blood, you who
   now bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus, you who have lain on
   His bosom, you who have been kissed with the kisses of His mouth, you
   who have been brought from under the apple tree and know how sweet His
   fruit is and how delightful His shadow is, you who are now one with
   Him, of His flesh and of His bones, you who expect soon to see Him, you
   who are longing to be with Him and hope to be caught up to dwell with
   Him, to see Him as He is, and to be like He is--I charge you by the
   roes and the hinds of the fields, by the lily beds wherein you had
   fellowship with your Lord, and by the garden of nuts wherein He has
   revealed Himself to you--I charge you, by His everlasting love, by the
   love you bear to Him, and by that sweet song you sang just now--

   "For He is mine, and I am His-- The God whom I adore! My Father,
   Savior, Comforter, Now and forevermore,"

   serve Him now! Serve Him forevermore and may the Lord bless you and
   make you blessed, and a great blessing to others, for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

David's Sublime Consolation

   (No. 3356)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 23,
   1867.

   "Although my house is not so with God; yet He has made with me an
   everlasting Covenant, orderedin all things and sure: for this is all my
   salvation, and all my desire, although He makes it not to grow." 2
   Samuel 23:5.

   NO GOLD but pure gold can stand the fire. And if a man's religion has
   been a pretentious sham, it is very likely to tumble to pieces under
   the rough hand of death. There have been a few hypocrites who have been
   able to brazen it out, even in the last solemn article, but these must
   always be the few. David, at any rate, was never the man who would play
   the hypocrite in the last extremity of death. You can see how true, how
   deep, how thorough his faith in God must have been, for his dying bed
   was by no means an enviable one. His dying pillow was stuffed with
   sharp thorns. His was a life which, although it had much of Divine
   Grace about it, yet had much of sinful nature, too. He was dying as we
   might not wish to die in some respects, but his faith triumphed as we
   may well desire that our faith may triumph, whatever the outward
   circumstances of our life or death may be! We shall go at once, and
   without further preface, to consider our text and notice in turn the
   Psalmist-King's grave lament. And then, blessed compensation, his
   glorious comfort. First, then, we shill ponder, and may the Holy Spirit
   make it greatly to profit everyone of us--

   I. DAVID'S GRAVE LAMENT.

   His house, he declares, was "not so" with God. And the numbers and the
   power of that house did not grow as he could have wished. Brothers and
   Sisters, there are some troubles that a man outgrows. There are some
   childish trials connected with our early Christian life which we,
   without effort, outlive and which in due course pass away. We shall not
   have to feel--thank God!--ever again the special perils of our youth
   and of our early manhood. When we have passed into riper years, we
   leave these things behind us. But there are some troubles which
   accumulate as we grow. For instance, there is the peculiar trouble
   alluded to in the text. There are, no doubt, multitudes of cares and
   trials connected with a family of little children, but every parent
   knows that the trials connected with little children are as nothing
   compared with the sorrows of those who have grown-up children that
   cause them heartache and heartbreak.

   We could better afford to bury them one by one in their infancy, than
   that they should live to dishonor their father's name and to blaspheme
   their father's God! The mother might be well satisfied to watch over
   their sick couches night after night and to weary herself as though she
   labored in the very fire for their sakes. We could well put up with the
   little mistakes, sturbornesses, follies and even sins of their earliest
   days. But the sting is when, having left our roof, they leave our
   teaching! When, having gone from our training, they do not abide in it,
   but plunge into sin and prove to us most sadly that Divine Grace does
   not run in the blood, but that natural depravity most certainly does.
   Now, this particular form of trial accumulates as we grow older. Some
   of us here have not yet come to it. May God grant that we never may,
   but I know there are some here whose hairs are plentifully sprinkled
   with gray, who have this as their daily cross to carry and who look
   back on all the troubles of their youth and say that they were as
   nothing compared with this--the house being amiss with God, the
   children being disobedient--the sons and daughters training up their
   children, but not in the nurture and admonition of the Lord! This is a
   trial which comes when the battle of life, as we think, is almost over
   and when we might naturally expect to take a little repose in the
   eventide of life, before the dawning of the everlasting morning! This
   seems to be one of the last thorns that is thrust into our rest. With
   some it has been a thorn which, as in the case of David, has pierced
   their heart in its last beats and throbs. I may be addressing some such
   tonight. At any rate, I am addressing a great many who have need to
   pray against this trial. Oh, it is a dreadful thing--a terrible thing
   to look for-

   ward to, but what must it be to bear, none can tell but those whose
   hearts have been wrung by the iron hand of such an affliction!--

   "How sharper than a serpent's teeth it is To have a thankless child."

   David had an Absalom and an Amnon, and a Tamar--of whom the less said
   the better--and outside his dying chamber door there was an Adonijah
   trying to upset his father's last will and testament. And although
   Solomon was, in some respects, a great deal better, yet he was not, in
   those days, all that might be wished.

   The fact is that, taken as a whole, they were a bad set. Was it any
   wonder that they should be such? David had himself very much to blame
   for it, for polygamy can never by any possibility work well. Jacob's
   trouble arose out of that and no doubt David's troubles began there,
   too. And this must have been the sting about it to David, that some of
   his children could quote their father's example for their sins! Not but
   what his life had had in it very many virtues, but children will cover
   their eyes and not observe those things when it does not suit their
   whim to see them. But if there is a fault in the parent, there is none
   more quick than the child to spy it out and to make the fall--the
   mistake of the parent which was pardoned, because wept over--to be the
   one outstanding mark of that parent's character and in that, alone, to
   imitate it.

   Now, my Brothers and Sisters, at such a time, when we are stung with
   such a trouble so near to us--for the troubles of our own house ought
   always to affect us more than any other--there we get our first
   comforts around the family hearth and there we must expect to have our
   sweetest joys and our deepest pangs! When, I say, we have this
   affliction and have in it that drop of gall of knowing that we,
   ourselves, are somewhat responsible for the whole matter and that we
   cannot throw it upon Divine Sovereignty, but must take some measure of
   it to ourselves--oh, it will be glorious faith if still, with all those
   pangs and griefs in their utmost bitterness, we can say, "Yet He has
   made with me an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure,
   for this is all my salvation and all my desire." Believe me, it is one
   thing to read that text, but quite another thing to feel it! And it is
   one thing to suppose ourselves under these circumstances, rejoicing in
   the Lord, but quite another thing to come into these depths--these very
   depths--with God's waves and billows going over us and yet, by joyous
   faith, to lift our head out of the waves and sing with bravest
   confidence in our God!

   Now we shall be allowed, since David's is but one case among many, to
   show that apart from the family--supposing that to be right--that there
   may still be other forms of poignant sorrow under which we may labor
   and in which our only relief will be to triumph in God's Covenant
   faithfulness to our souls!

   The trial to some of us will come possibly from the Church. The
   faithful minister makes the Church that he serves his family. The
   earnest deacon, the truly-called elder, considers the Church, too, to
   be his household. The excellent and devoted conductors of the Bible
   classes, and Sunday school classes will come in the faith and love of
   sanctified souls to look upon those under their charge as children
   committed to them as a sacred trust, to train and nurture in Christian
   life and conduct. And some of us can say, who have known it, that it is
   a grief that cuts very deep into the soul when the Church, or the
   class, or whatever our circle of service, is not so with God as we
   could desire! When we think of some who backslide. When we hear of
   some, as we have heard time and again, who fall into open sin and,
   worst of all, into cruel un-kindness to the very person who was the
   means of their conversion, but of whom it is not now possible for them
   to say anything too bad or too unkind because they think they have
   received further illumination, and have learned something which God
   grant they may unlearn--whenever these things occur and they occur very
   frequently in a large Church and occur very painfully in a small
   one--they throw the minister, they throw the Sunday school teacher,
   they throw the earnest worker of any sort flat on his face, and they
   make him shed many tears and cry out to God in the bitterness of his
   soul, "You do not make my Church grow. You do not make my Church to be
   as I would have it to be--like Yourself. You do not give me the sheaves
   which I long to reap, nor the souls to be saved which I long to win."

   It is a great and deep sorrow and it is a great blessing if, at such
   times, we can come back to this, "Yet He has made with me an
   everlasting Covenant." You know it is that precious Doctrine which is
   meant to keep us quiet when we are succeeding, for the Lord Jesus said
   to His Apostles when they came back overjoyed and said, "Lord, even the
   devils are subject to us"--"Ah, nevertheless, rejoice not in this. Do
   not make this the mainstay of your joy, but rather rejoice that your
   names are written in Heaven." Well, when it is not so with us as we
   would wish, but we have to experience the very

   opposite, I think that then I can hear our Lord saying, "Nevertheless,
   be not brokenhearted about this, but rather rejoice that your names are
   written in Heaven, that My Covenant with you is everlasting."

   Beloved, you may not have either of the two sorrows I have spoken of,
   but if you are a child of God, you will have fellowship with a third,
   namely, the inward state of your own soul

   In a certain very special sense, that is the definite household of
   everyone of us. These powers and passions, imaginings and emotions,
   thoughts and desires--these are, so to speak, the children of your
   house, and I am afraid that most of us will have to say, "Although my
   house is not so with God." I read a book the other day written by a
   Brother whom I very highly esteem and, indeed, reverence for his
   holiness, excellence and usefulness. But when I found him speaking of
   himself as living in perfect allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ and
   perfect love to Him--and as having continued so for 20 years without
   sin--I must confess that I thought he must either use language in a
   different way from that in which I use it, or else that he and I must
   have very different kinds of hearts, for I do not find it as he said! I
   believe I have sincerely strived to serve my Master, and have served
   Him so as to have had given me many seals of my service, but I never
   did serve Him in such a way as to be satisfied with my service! I never
   could dare to feel content with a prayer I ever prayed, or a sermon I
   ever preached! I have always cultivated the idea that if I were to feel
   satisfied, I would be proud--and that if I did feel content, I would be
   doing wrong--and so I have rather strived against the feeling of being
   satisfied with anything within me--but have tried to continually feel
   that I still have enemies to drive out of the Canaan of my heart and
   corruptions still to subdue, glorifying God for anything that I could
   see that was gracious, but trying, at any rate, to mourn and lament
   over what was my own--and there is a good deal of that--and I find, if
   anything, more of it now than ever, not that there is more, but as we
   grow in Grace I think we perceive it more clearly! A room is not more
   dusty when it is shut up than it is when the sun shines in through the
   little crevice in the shutter, where the beam of sunlight comes
   through. There is no more dust in that particular part of the room
   where the sun shines in than there is anywhere else, and yet how very
   full of dust that slanting sunbeam seems to be! The room is not more
   dusty there, but there is more light there than anywhere else. So it
   seems that the very coming in of light to the soul reveals more and
   more of the evil things, the spiritual ugliness that yet lurks there
   and which I fear will be there until the Lord takes us Home! It is very
   pitiable to see so many persons perfectly content to be so very
   imperfect, sitting down as though they--knowing they cannot here be
   absolutely perfect--have no desire to "grow in Grace, and in the
   knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." It does such persons
   good to hear a sermon on the Doctrine of Scriptural Perfection! If it
   does not make them angry with it, it does them good, for it makes them
   see that there is something better to be obtained in this world than
   they have ever yet dreamed and so stimulates their ambition! But for
   all that, I would still like to see a perfect man--and I would like to
   see Satan and he have a turn of conflict! And if Satan did not somehow
   or other get the better of him, I would be mistaken and surprised!

   For this I know, that when we are most watchful and most guarded,
   temptations will still overtake us and surely these men must have some
   tragically unguarded moments. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it will not do!
   "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
   death?" is as certainly the cry of the Christian as the rest of the
   sentence, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is, none the
   less, a sorrow to a truly sanctified soul, not to be sanctified
   perfectly. It is a most bitter grief to conceive that there should be
   any sin dwelling in him. It is his cross and his burden and, therefore,
   at such times when the burden is heaviest, it is a gracious thing for
   faith to be able to say, "Although my heart is not so with God as I
   would have it and I do not live so near to Him as I could desire, nor
   serve Him as I wish, yet still, for all that, I am a sinner saved by
   Grace, and He has made with me, unworthy me, an everlasting Covenant,
   ordered in all things and sure."

   The beauty of the comfort of the text is that it is set boldly,
   strikingly, upon so black a foil! In David's case a sorrow of the
   bitterest kind is associated with a joy of the sweetest description!
   What I am driving at is this--whether it is family trouble, Church
   trouble, or inward spiritual trouble arising from personal experience,
   it is the work, boast and glory of faith to be able to see light in the
   midst of the darkness, to find a way through the sea and a path through
   the desert-- and to sing--"Though this is not what I would have it, nor
   that, nor the other thing, nor a thousand things, yet has He made with
   me an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure"!

   I shall not stay to say anything about the latter part of the verse,
   namely, about the house not growing. David did not see his family grow
   in the estimation of the people, grow in strength, grow in numbers. It
   is a great sorrow not to see our families growing up in piety and
   advancing in holiness--a great grief not to see our Churches making
   steady progress--and a heavy trouble, most of all, not to see our own
   hearts growing in love and other Divine Graces, and so going onward
   towards ripe maturity of blessed character.

   Having thus spoken of David's great lament, we now turn with joyful
   relief to speak of--

   II. DAVID'S GLORIOUS COMFORT.

   As I said before, we will only give you a few plain, practical
   thoughts, praying the Holy Spirit to make them of Divine Power. The
   glorious comfort which David found lay in the Covenant which God had
   made with him. With David it was a Covenant of royalty for himself and
   for his seed, but we believed he also had a further vision of the
   Covenant of Grace. At any rate, we of the Gospel dispensation must do
   so, for though we shall not have earthly thrones, yet under Christ's
   Covenant we are made kings and priests unto God!

   Now, let us suppose ourselves to be sitting down alone, soliloquizing
   over all our griefs. There is a burden upon our mind and this thought
   crosses us--"Yet" I have a, "yet," to set over against my "although." I
   have a heavy, "although," to mar my prospects, but I have a delightful,
   inspiring, "yet," to shed its light upon them--"Yet has He made with me
   a Covenant."

   Observe, first, that this Covenant made with us is a Covenant of pure
   Grace. It would scarcely console Adam to think of the Covenant under
   which he was--the Covenant of Works. It would be very sorry consolation
   to think of the Covenant of Works now, for we have all broken it and
   all that remains to us of its provisions is its curse! But we rejoice
   to know that that Covenant of Works is, as far as we are concerned,
   fulfilled completely by Jesus Christ--and there remains nothing but
   God's side of it to be fulfilled! Christ undertook our side of it and
   He declared, "It is finished," when He gave up the ghost. Man's side of
   the Covenant of Grace is fulfilled and, therefore, the Covenant stands
   now solely and only as a Covenant of pure and unconditional promise on
   the part of God towards His elect people! A delightful thought is this,
   for on these terms it is truly a Covenant of Grace. "I will and they
   shall--I will give them a new heart, and a right spirit, and they shall
   walk in My ways. I will purge, and wash, and cleanse them, and they
   shall be clean." It is a Covenant without, "ifs," or, "buts," or,
   "perhapses," in it because its elements are unalloyed Grace--Grace,
   Grace, Grace, and not a single jot or tittle of merit in it! Now,
   Believer in Christ, you are under such a Covenant, a Covenant which is
   all promise to you and no threats! Ought not this to cheer and comfort
   you? These dark afflictions--what are they? You can say, as one of old
   said, "Strike now, Lord, if You will, for I am forgiven! Now do what
   You will with me, for I am Your child."--

   "If sin is pardoned, I'm secure! Death has no sting beside."

   Nor has life any, either, for the worst sting is gone, sin is removed
   and I am saved! Now, Lord, I leave everything in Your hands, making no
   conditions or stipulations, but will be pleased, or strive to be
   pleased, with all Your will provides, since I know that the threats are
   all gone and there remains for me nothing but promises full of
   boundless mercy which then shall be my heritage!"

   The next thought is, that this Covenant is made with me. Beloved, I
   cannot preach on this as I would, but I pray that the Holy Spirit may
   bring home to your souls both the power and sweetness of the thought,
   "Yet has he made with me an everlasting Covenant." The Doctrines in
   themselves are delightful, but it is the personal interest in and
   realization of the Doctrines that give real delight!. The Covenant--oh,
   yes, that is the Well of Bethlehem--but it is "within the gate." But a
   Covenant made with me. Ah, that is the water from the well rippling at
   my very lips! I drink it and am completely refreshed! It would be
   pleasant to hear of a Covenant made with ten thousand men, that they
   might be saved, and our common humanity might make us rejoice therein.
   A Covenant made with countless millions might well make us glad to
   overflowing, but, after all, it is not selfish, but only laudable as
   the law of self-preservation God has Himself implanted in us, for us
   most of all to rejoice in our own personal faith in Christ, our
   personal property in the Covenant of which He is the Surety! "Yet He
   has made with me." You know, sometimes, when I am thinking of God's
   mercy, trying to get a grip of my adoption and my acceptance in the
   Beloved, I find myself crying and at other times laughing. It seems
   such a wonder that an "heir of wrath" should be made an heir of
   Heaven--an enemy of God made to be His own Dear son to whom He has made
   absolute promises of Infinite Love and unutterable Grace! Surely this
   ought to make our hearts leap like the heart of a warrior when the
   battle has come to a close and the victory has been won! How joyous
   ought to be the Chris-

   tian's life! There ought to be a sacred exhilaration, a holy riot in
   our spiritual life at the thought that God has personally made with
   us--unworthy, sinful, but pardoned and accepted men and women--"a
   Covenant ordered in all things and sure."

   There is a very poor man in this place, just come from his labor. He
   has not even had time to go home to wash his face. He is very poor. If
   you could see his room, there is very little furniture in it and the
   wages he earns come to a very little. He has been poor for years and
   years. You, perhaps, would scarcely notice him. He is a mere drudge, a
   weight lifter, a carrier, one of the despised "masses" and yet God has
   made with him an everlasting Covenant! Why, what a contrast between the
   parties to this Covenant! Here is the Infinite and Eternal God with all
   the blazing splendor of His Deity--and He has made a Covenant with this
   poor despised child of poverty and toil! Well, now, if you come to
   think of it, there is no difference in spiritual need between the
   crossing-sweeper and the millionaire! They are only two frail mortals,
   with a little difference in their circumstances and surroundings, but
   there is no difference when they go to their last resting place, and
   they sleep in the lap of mother earth! And yet, with either or both,
   God is ready to make an everlasting Covenant--with such insignificant
   ones, with you and me! Oh, dear Christian Brothers and Sisters, here is
   the music of it--"with me." Now, may your faith lay her hand on the
   dear Savior's head afresh, look to Christ anew, see His blood flowing
   for you, wash again and feel that you are clean and then say, "Yet He
   has made with me an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and
   sure."

   It may increase our joy to remember the Person who has made this
   Covenant. If the Covenant had been made with men, it might have been
   kept, or it might not have been--for the surest treaties have been
   broken--and when men have been bound with fetters, the proverb has not
   always been proved true, "Fast bind, fast find," but men have slipped
   through a thousand nooses and have been untrustworthy even when solemn
   oaths and obligations have been used to bind them down! But God is
   true, so true that we might take His Word at once, and yet since He
   knew our unbelief, He has been pleased to give us "two immutable
   things, wherein it is impossible for God to lie that we might have
   strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us."
   He has done this, He who has not twice destroyed the earth with a
   flood, notwithstanding all her sins! He who settled the mountains and
   fixed the hills in their sockets has said that the mountains shall
   depart and the hills be removed, but that His love shall not depart
   from us, neither shall His Covenant be removed from us. He has said it
   whose power is equal to His Truth, whose love, with golden hands,
   encircles both His power and His faithfulness. He has said it who never
   knows the shadow of a change, the sun without a parallax and without a
   tropic. He has said it, the great I AM has made with us a Covenant of
   Grace!

   Then comes the thrilling Truth of God--"an everlasting Covenant" We
   must not, above all things, leave that out! It is the duration of the
   mercy which is always the great theme of joy to the Christian. I do not
   know where my brethren get their comfort from, who believe in a
   temporary Covenant of Grace. I am not disposed to controvert with them
   because if they like it and can get any comfort out of it, I am very
   glad that somebody should. But it is a kind of land I should never
   think of plowing, nor should I ever wish to add to my farm! I shall
   never be tempted to covet that as Ahab covets Naboth's vineyard. That
   system of theology seems to me to play fast and loose with Divine
   things and make man stronger than God--and so I am content not to
   desire its possession. I suppose I am a greater sinner than they and
   have more need of Grace and I come back to my Master's power alone to
   keep me, rather than depend on my own strength to keep myself. And here
   are my comfort and joy, that if God has made a Covenant with me, He has
   not done it for today or tomorrow and next week, or even next year, but
   for all eternity! When the hair turns gray, the Covenant will still be
   young! And when the pulse beats low and the death sweat shall stand on
   our brow, the Covenant will be as full of life as in our early days
   when first we knew the Lord. It is "an everlasting Covenant," and
   everlasting in the respect of its being made with me, not a Covenant
   which is everlasting, but which changes with persons and is first with
   one and then with another. "He has made with me an everlasting
   Covenant.'"

   Oh, Christian, rejoice! Do not be afraid of rejoicing in that Doctrine
   of the safety of the saints. Depend upon it, though some have used it
   to their own destruction and their end shall be terrible for having
   perverted the Truth of God to make it a cloak for sin, yet the children
   of God have always found that when they are most happy they can be most
   active! When they feel most safe they are most grateful and when they
   are most grateful they are most courageous and the most
   self-sacrificing! Do not be afraid of knowing that you are safe in
   Christ, for if your thoughts are troubled about your eternal security,
   you will not be able to give the integrity of your manhood and
   womanhood to the cause of God. But if you know that you are saved, if
   you are sure of it, if you know that your ship can never be driven on
   the rocks, if you can give your whole selves, body, soul and spirit
   unreservedly to God, out of no legal motives, but under the Divine
   constraints of gratitude, gratitude to eternal love--you are the man or
   woman who God the Spirit can make into a fine strong Christian! But if
   you are forever struggling and striving, now believing, now doubting
   and thinking that your safety depends on something you can do, and that
   the whole matter may possibly tumble down--you will get no joy out of
   your salvation and will forever be a self-seeker of a certain kind. But
   grasp the Truth of God that your salvation is finished once and for all
   and you can then say, no sing, "Now for the love I bear His name, my
   whole spirit, my whole time, talents, substance--all shall be laid upon
   the altar of Him who loved me and gave Himself for me."--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again,

   With love intense I burn--

   Chosen of Him ere time began,

   I choose Him in return."

   And now note, very briefly, indeed, that this everlasting Covenant is
   ordered and sure. This, too, should fill us with holy musing and sacred
   exultation. It is so ordered that Divine Justice is not infringed,
   while Divine Mercy is magnified! It is so ordered that the safety of
   the soul is secured, and yet the soul is delivered from its sin--so
   ordered that holiness excludes the sinful from Heaven and yet the
   sinful are admitted, having been washed in the precious blood of the
   Covenant. "Ordered in all things"--its great things and its little
   things! Every wheel and every cog of every wheel, was in the mind of
   the Divine Artificer and has been placed in its proper position to work
   out the Divine result! Ordered with regard to the past, the present and
   the future! Ordered with regard to Nature and to Providence--ordered
   with regard to my body and my soul--ordered as to the perfection of my
   Divine manhood before the Throne of God!

   It is ordered in all things and is, therefore, sure. It would not have
   been sure had it not been well ordered, but being well ordered and
   fixed according to the truest Law of God, there is no fear of any
   division of its parts or any dislocation of its members! It will never
   be a house divided against itself. You know that when a house has no
   order in it, nothing can be relied upon. Wills run contrary to one
   another and discord reigns. But there is nothing of the kind in the
   Covenant of Grace. There are no conflicting elements. All the elements
   are of one kind. Boasting is excluded. Human merit is cast out. It has
   Grace for its Alpha and Grace for its Omega. It has Grace for its
   foundation and the topstone shall be brought forth with shouts of,
   "Grace, Grace," unto it. Infinite Wisdom planned it and so the ideas of
   human fallibility and mistake have been excluded from it. "Ordered in
   all things and sure."

   Let our souls then fall back upon this Truth with the exclamation of
   David, "This is all my salvation and all my desire." If, indeed, God
   has made such a Covenant with me, then I am saved. I rest upon Christ
   whom God has said He has set forth to be a Covenant for the people--a
   Leader and Commander to the people. My dear Friends, are you all
   trusting in Christ alone? Is He all your salvation? Is He all your
   desire? I think that is one of the ways by which to discover the true
   sons of Zion from those that are not so--by seeing whether Christ is
   all their salvation! There are some who save a little corner for
   something else besides Christ. Beloved, it must come to this--if you
   and I are ever saved--that Christ as He is revealed in the Covenant of
   Grace must be all our salvation! He must be made unto us of God,
   wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption! Christ is ALL!
   Oh, what blessed Truth that is! How it drives all priestcraft out of
   the world! How it makes absurd and profane all pretended soul-saying
   ceremonies! How it brings us to the Savior, simply and alone to Him,
   "This is all my salvation"--what Christ has done for me and what God
   promises to give me as the result of what Christ has done in fulfilling
   the Covenant of Grace on my behalf--this is all my salvation!

   And now, Sinner, you who have never come to Christ, remember that this
   must be all your salvation if ever you are saved. And does not this
   cheer you? You thought you were to get some good feelings. You need
   not. You may come to Christ for them. "Oh," you say, "but I must
   repent." He is exalted on high to give you repentance. It is His work
   to give you repentance! Come to Him as you are, with nothing of your
   own, and rest wholly in Him. And you have then, in your soul, the true
   sign of God's electing love. If you rest wholly upon Jesus, do not
   trouble your head about either the glorious past or the glorious
   future, but rejoice now! To lay hold on Christ is to lay hold on
   everlasting love and to find a resting place that shall last you when
   the world has melted away like a moment's foam dissolves into the wave
   that bears it and is gone forever. Rest in God patiently--with your
   whole soul relying upon the merit of Jesus--and the everlasting
   Covenant is yours!

   And the text closes with saying--"and all my desire." "I do not want
   anything else to rest upon. But this one thing do I covet--no other
   source of joy than this." So David seems to say. Ah, but some of you
   Christian people cannot say, "This is all my desire" Your desire is to
   make a great deal of money! Your desire is to dress so that people may
   think you a person of great taste and refinement! Or your desire is to
   be respectable, or your desire is to be something far away from the
   thoughts of God! You smile, but it is really not at all a thing at
   which to smile. It is a great pity that so many whom we would hope to
   be Christian people do not find their chief delights in God and do not
   let their desires end in Him. This is a sad, sad thing. If there were a
   wife here who found her greatest pleasure in somebody else's company
   rather than her husband's, it would be a very great disgrace to her.
   And it is a terrible dishonor to a Christian when, in order to get his
   pleasures, he has to get out of the circle of communion with Christ! I
   have heard of such Christians. "Oh," they say, "well, we try to be
   circumspect and so on, as a matter of duty, but may we not enjoy
   ourselves?"

   Well, but where--where--where? You do not like to say where and I will
   not press the question, but there are some who enjoy themselves most
   when they are where Christ would not go--no, where Christ would not
   have them go and where they would not like Christ to come and find them
   there! Now, question yourselves whether you belong to Christ at all if
   that is the case, for our sweetest pleasures, if we are true
   Christians, we find when we are most conformed to Christ, doing His
   will most conscientiously in His sight, most denying ourselves and most
   completely giving up our own wills and wishes, after a carnal sort,
   that the will of Christ may reign in our mortal bodies to His Glory!
   "This is all my salvation and all my desire." Let others roam through
   the world as they may, but the soul of the Christian is satisfied at
   home. He can say, in the words of our hymn--

   "I need not go abroad for joy,

   I have a peace at home!

   My sighs are turned into songs,

   My heart has ceased to roam.

   Down from above the Blessed Dove

   Has come into my breast,

   To witness there eternal love,

   And give my spirit rest."

   So may it be with you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS3:9.

   Verses 9, 10. What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for
   we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under
   sin. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. There is
   none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all
   gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is
   none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher:
   with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under
   their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet
   are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And
   the way of peace have they not known.' There is no fear of God before
   their eyes. This is a description of man given by Prophets in the olden
   times. "Now," says Paul, "we know that what things soever the Law says,
   it says to them who are under the Law." So that this is a description
   of the Jews, a description of the people who had the Light of God, the
   best people that were then upon the face of the earth--and if these are
   the good people-- where are the Gentiles, the bad ones without the
   Light?

   19, 22. 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 Law
   there shall no flesh be justified in His sight for by the La w is the
   knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the Law is
   manifested, being witnessed by the La w and the Prophets--even the
   righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto alland upon
   all them that believe--for there is no difference. There is no
   righteousness of works on the face of the earth. The Law, itself,
   describes men as being sinful from their throat to their feet. Almost
   every member of the

   body is mentioned and described as being foul with sin! But, says Paul,
   there is another righteousness on the face of the earth--and that is
   the righteousness of God's Grace, which comes through believing in
   Christ!

   23, 31. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being
   justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ
   Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His
   blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
   past, through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time
   His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifer of him which
   believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what Law?
   Of works? No, but by the Law of faith. 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 not 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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Heedful Hearing

   (No. 3357)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 23, 1868.

   "Take heed, therefore, how you hear." Luke 8:18.

   It is implied in this verse that you do hear. A man cannot take heed
   how he hears if he does not hear at all. Hence, how great is the sin of
   a vast proportion of the inhabitants of this city who utterly forsake
   the ministry of the Gospel, who never hear it, or hear it but only now
   and then! We have frequently met with people who, before they came to
   this house, never attended any place of worship. They were taken there,
   they say, to be christened, or they went there to be married and they
   expected to be carried there, or somewhere like it, to be buried, but
   that was all their church going and all their respect for the worship
   of God. Unhappy they--to have the Light of God and to refuse to see--to
   have God's diamond lying, as it were, at their very feet, and yet to
   refuse to pick it up! The day will come when wasted Sabbaths will be a
   burning accusation against the inhabitants of this privileged, but
   wicked city! With churches in almost every street, with preachers of
   the Gospel to be found here and there declaring fully the saving Truth
   of God, it shall go harder with the citizens of London than with the
   inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day when the Lord comes to
   judge the quick and the dead! Do I address any who have merely dropped
   in here tonight, but who are not often hearers of God's Word? Ah, my
   dear Friends, you little know the sweetness of the Gospel, for if you
   did, "not tents of ease nor thrones of power" could tempt your feet
   away from the place where God specially reveals Himself on the Day of
   Rest!

   Do you think how unjustly you are treating your God? There are seven
   days in the week and He gives you six, but you rob Him of the seventh.
   You are like a man on the highway who met a beggar and seeing him to be
   in great need-- and having but seven pounds in his pocket, he gave the
   beggar six--and then the beggar knocked him down and stole the seventh
   from him! He was an ungrateful wretch--and what are you? You shall
   answer for yourselves.

   It is implied, again, in the text that a man hears the Gospel, for it
   does not matter much how you hear if it is not God's message, if it is
   not the Truth of God. The best way to hear a lie is not to hear it at
   all. The best way to hear preaching that is not according to God's
   Gospel is to hear enough of it to know what it is and then walk off and
   hear no more. But it is implied that you do hear the Gospel and here
   comes the enquiry--Do those who frequent places of worship invariably
   ask themselves the question--"Is the preacher a Gospel preacher? Does
   he preach according to the Holy Scriptures? Does he deliver to me the
   Truth of God, or is it a cunningly devised fable or invention of his
   own?" I fear that the most of our hearers only ask, "Is he a fluent
   speaker? Is he a high-soaring rhetorician? Can he pile his words, one
   upon another? Or is he amusing? Does he use many illustrations and
   metaphors? Will there be something to interest me?" Ah, but, my
   Hearers, if the bread is poisoned, it is of small concern that the
   baker makes it up into pretty loaves! If it is not a Gospel draught
   that is given you to drink, it is a small matter to you whether the cup
   is richly designed or not. Better that you have it in the poorest pot
   and drink from that, if it is from the river of the Water of Life, than
   that you receive untruth out of a golden cup! The chief matter with a
   hearer when he goes to a town to live and has to enquire, "Where shall
   I attend on the Lord's-Day?" should be this--"Where can I hear most
   concerning the Lord Jesus Christ? Where shall I hear a man who can
   touch my conscience? Where shall I hear the Truth that will be quick,
   powerful and sharp as a two-edged sword to my soul? Where may I hope to
   be saved? Where may I trust, being saved, that I may be helped on the
   road to Heaven?" All the rest is mere matter of taste, but this is a
   matter of the utmost importance! Is it the Gospel or not? If it is not
   the Gospel, let not your feet tread the floor! But if it is the Gospel
   of Jesus, then "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as
   the manner of some is."

   But now, these two things being granted--that we ought to hear and that
   it ought to be the Gospel--the text graciously counsels us, "Take heed
   how you hear." We purpose to handle our theme after this fashion.
   First, there is a caution implied in the text. Secondly, there are
   rules intended in it. And then again, there are strong reasons for it.
   First, there is--

   I. A CAUTION IMPLIED IN THE TEXT.

   "Take heed how you hear." The caution is that we should not think it a
   trifling thing to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. "Take heed"--as
   though you had to stop on the threshold and remember where you are.
   Take heed, take heed and remember, then, that it is no trifling thing
   to hear a sermon if it is a Gospel sermon! Some think it is a simple
   work to preach and child's play to sit and listen. When the great
   trumpet peals and the dead are awakened, they will think very
   differently! They will reckon that speech was never put to so noble a
   purpose as when it was used to bring men to reconciliation with their
   Maker--and that ears were never used to as good an end as when they
   were used attentively to hear what God the Lord would speak when He
   would bid the rebel come to Him and find mercy! The preacher, if he is
   what he should be, does not think it a light or easy thing to preach.
   It is said of Luther that he never feared any man and yet he declares
   that he never preached a sermon without his knees knocking together
   because he trembled lest he should be guilty of the blood of any of his
   hearers. This is the great burden of my life, lest I should miss
   anything that should be profitable to you. Lest, in dealing with God's
   Word, I should be like some untaught chemist's lad who is mixing
   medicines which were meant for restoring health, but who introduces
   poisons into them. No! But I would tell you all I know, tell you all
   God's Word as I have learned it and speak it honestly, affectionately
   and plainly, trusting thus to be clear of the blood of all men!

   But in proportion as it is solemn work to preach, it is also solemn
   work to hear. When men enter king's palaces, they become at once
   respectful, they regard their company, they pay marked attention to the
   head of the household--and should they not, when they come into the
   assembly of God's people to join in the worship of the Most High?
   Should they not, after the same sort, say, "How awe-inspiring is this
   place where the Gospel is preached! It is none other than the House of
   God, and the very gate of Heaven"?

   Because, then, it is no light and trivial thing to hear a sermon, take
   heed how you hear!

   Again, it is no easy thing to hear a sermon well, and hence the appeal
   of the text, "Take heed how you hear." The fool cannot hear it well. He
   lets it in one ear and out the other! The mere critic hears it, but
   without any profit to himself. Multitudes have heard hundreds, possibly
   thousands of sermons, but they have not been benefited thereby--they
   have let the golden stream run past them--and not one single drop of
   the precious treasure have they retained. The art of listening to the
   preaching of the Gospel is one of the highest arts in the world and
   conduces to the best results! Don't you suppose when you have come up
   those step, and taken your seats, that you are all ready for the
   sermon. No! No, it is not so! If you would have good fruit of it, there
   ought to be as much preparation on your part as on mine. Am I to pray
   that I may be a blessing to you, and are you not to pray that you may
   get a blessing out of the words? Are you to come flippantly, or even
   carelessly into these seats and sit down, and then hope to be edified?
   If so, indeed, you shall usually find your hopes disappointed! Take
   heed how you hear, because it is not a little thing, nor an easy thing,
   to listen to the Gospel of Jesus!

   Take heed how you hear, implies this caution--that it is no light thing
   to hear the Gospel irreverently, for on the bad hearing may hang not
   only the loss of the blessing which might have come, but the infliction
   of a punishment which shall be the greater for careless hearing. Men
   never listen to a Gospel sermon and remain as they were. They are
   either bettered by it or--shall I say worsened?--if there is such a
   word. It is not possible that the Gospel should have shined on those
   eyes without either giving light or increasing the blindness. I do not
   believe that any man has regularly sat under the sound of a Gospel
   ministry for three months without being either sensibly hardened or
   manifestly softened by it. You know how children's characters are
   formed, how day after day, and week after week, bring impressions for
   good or for evil upon their sensitive minds. And it is just the same
   with ourselves. Every Truth of God that passes before the camera of our
   soul leaves some degree of impression upon the sensitive plate of our
   character--and we are either blessed by it, or cursed by it, as the
   case may be. It must be either a savor of life unto life to us, or of
   death unto death. It is no light thing to have heard amiss!

   But there is also a sweet caution that springs out of the text if you
   think it over. "Take heed how you hear," for it may be a blessed thing
   to hear, and no one can tell the weight of mercy that may come from the
   hearing! I have heard of a child who used to lean forward so earnestly
   to catch every word--he told his mother it was because he had heard the
   preacher say that if there was a sentence in the sermon that was likely
   to save one soul, the devil would, if it were possible, be sure to get
   you to be inattentive while that was being said! Now the boy was right,
   and there was a great truth in it. If men did but always catch the Word
   of God, speaking after the manner of men, what chances there would be
   that that Word would be blessed to them! And what a blessing it would
   be! Why, there may be some here tonight--for there have been such here
   many nights--who have come in here having had a miserable life of it up
   till now and their wife and children a more miserable life, still, if
   it is possible, for they have been frequenters of the ale-house,
   spending their money in riotousness. But what if they should be sobered
   tonight by Divine Grace and get new hearts and right spirits--that
   would be blessed hearing--blessed for the family, for the wife and
   children, as well as for the man himself!

   There may have come in here some poor desponding men and women, ready
   to make away with themselves. Oh, perhaps in the hearing, tonight, the
   joy of the Lord may come to them and they may be saved! Many and many
   have found out that they were the children of God while they were
   hearing--found out that Christ was theirs, pardon of sin was theirs,
   Heaven was theirs! And they would never have found it if it had not
   been for hearingit! But while they were listening, God's Holy Spirit
   opened their hearts to perceive and receive what had all the while been
   written in the Scriptures!

   Oh, may it be a blessed night to some of you while you are here! Pray
   for it, people of God! "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
   avails much." Let your prayer go up that souls here may so hear the
   Word of the Gospel of salvation as being a great message from God and,
   therefore, may hear it with all their hearts and so listen to it that
   it may be salvation unto them according to the Master's promise,
   "Incline your ears and come unto Me: hear and your souls shall live."
   Now, and at somewhat greater length--

   II. THE TEXT IMPLIES SOME RULES AS TO HEARING.

   The text is multum in parvo--much in little. "Take heed how you hear,"
   means many things. Do not be alarmed when I say that we shall have
   seven points under this head. That you may remember them, I have put
   them in the order of the alphabet.

   "Take heed how you hear." That is, first, take heed that you hear
   attentively. And it will not burden your memories if I hook on to that
   word another like it--retentively--that heed that you hear attentively
   and retentively. I have heard of a poor idiot who was an excellent
   hand, idiot though he was, at carrying messages. And the way in which
   he did it was to deliver the message exactly as he had it, word for
   word. But he had a great peculiarity. While the person told him the
   message, he always stood with one hand closing one of his ears--and as
   soon as ever he had got the message, he put the other hand up and
   closed the other ear so that both ears were shut--and away he ran! When
   asked why he did it, he said that when the message came he did not want
   it to get out at one ear--and then when he had received it, he shut the
   other ear in order that it might not get out that way! Observe, fool
   though he was, there was wisdom in the action. I wish there were as
   much wisdom in some who would not like to be called fools, for they
   hear the Truth of God with one ear and it goes out the other! It were
   well if they took care not to let it escape them. Have your ears open
   with keen, attentive listen-ing--and then have both of them shut as
   being retentive to keep in the Truth you have received. But alas, many
   do not even hear at all. The Gospel is being preached, but they are
   thinking of a thousand other things. Distracting thoughts fill their
   minds.

   We all know how hard it is for the marksman to shoot a running deer.
   And how difficult it must be for the preacher to strike the running
   judgment and the moving, restless mind that is preoccupied with other
   things! But if we can get the whole mind fixed on the subject before
   us, as it should be, then we may hope to make an impression. Do labor,
   dear Friends, to whomever you may be listening, to put those
   distractions away--the thoughts of house and home and all besides,
   while the Gospel is operating upon your minds! And when you have heard
   it, try to store it up and keep it there. If it is good for today, it
   is good for tomorrow! And if it does not bless you today in the
   hearing, perhaps God may bless it to you in years to come. We have read
   of a man who was converted through a sermon, but he heard the sermon 70
   years before it was blessed to him! Mr. Flavel had preached it and the
   man was sitting, 70 years later, under a hedge in the

   United States. And he recollected that it was 70 years ago that day
   that he had heard the sermon--and God, then and there, blessed the
   sermon to him and he was saved! Hear, then, attentively and
   retentively!

   The second point is--hear believingly and, as all true belief ends in
   practice, hear obediently. That which we do not accept as being true
   can be of no service to us, especially in the economy of Divine
   Grace--where everything comes to us by faith--and where unbelief
   restrains the hand of God and keeps back the blessing. Faith, however,
   as I have said, must always be obedient if it is true. When you have
   heard the Word, put it in practice at once! What a grand close to a
   sermon that was after Paul had preached in the streets of Ephesus, when
   they brought out their books of witchcraft and made a pile of them in
   the street and burned them before the Apostle's face! Ah, it were well
   if men would bring out their sins, their hard thoughts of God, their
   fancied self-righteousness and everything contrary to the Divine will.
   It were blessed preaching, and blessed hearing, if such were the
   result--hear believingly and obediently!

   Thirdly, hear candidly and honestly. Too many are prejudiced against
   the Word. Prejudiced because they do not like the preacher, though I
   see not why they should not accept the Truth wherever it may be found.
   A man would prize a jewel, though he found it on a dust heap--and the
   Gospel of Jesus is to be valued, let who will proclaim it! Some make up
   their mind before they hear, that they will not receive it. This is
   neither honest to the Truth of God, nor to themselves. They show not
   wisdom, but folly here. But many will tell you that they cannot be
   expected to change their religion, as if they half-felt that if they
   were to think a little they must do so. Surely that religion that will
   not bear deep consideration must be a poor, poor thing! No, Sir, but
   hear what is to be said! Judge it by the Word of God. Judge it honestly
   and when you have done so, if it is not the Truth of God, cart it away
   to the winds! But if it is the Truth of God, then accept it and may God
   bless it to you! It is a pity that men are not more candid in hearing
   the Gospel and in applying it to themselves. How many, if they hear a
   Truth of God, will say, "I wonder how that will suit So-and-So," and
   immediately cast their eyes around the place to see if Mrs. So-and-So
   is there and wonder how she will like it. The old Roman said, "Lend me
   your ears," but I may say--keep your ears at home! Hear for yourselves.
   Constantly this process ought to be going on in the hearer's mind,
   "What has that Truth to do with me? That promise--is it mine? That
   threat--ought it to make me tremble? That caution--does it apply to me?
   That command--am I the man who ought to carry it out? Oh, for such
   candid, personal applications of Gospel Truth by each hearer to
   himself! We should then have blessed results.

   I have thus gone through three points. The fourth is--hear devoutly and
   hear sincerely. I reckon that but little good will come of the hearing
   which some people give when they hear of loaves and fishes being given
   away. If there are so many loaves to be given away on Sunday, a certain
   number of poor people will be sure to be there--a vile hypocrisy which
   cannot be too much condemned! Take heed, dear Hearers, that none of you
   ever hear with such low and sinister motives, but that you come to hear
   the Gospel as God's voice to us and, therefore, as in God's Presence
   with simple and lowly hearts, desire to know His Truth that you may
   sincerely live it! Never should there be mixed therewith anything so
   gross and carnal as that which brings some men and women to the House
   of God.

   Why, do not even some of you come merely because it is the custom to go
   somewhere, or because it looks respectable, as if the Lord's own
   worship were to follow and honor the fashion of the day? This is all
   mischievous and rotten as a motive! If I did not think it were some
   good to me to come to worship, or that it was my duty to God to do it,
   do you think I would do it to please my neighbors? No! Let my neighbors
   please themselves! The honest, upright man in these things remembers
   that religion is a personalthing and that to be the mere slave of
   fashion and custom of others is sinful degradation!

   Oh, I beseech you, lay aside that slavery of men's fashion! And when
   you do listen to the Gospel, let it be with a direct and devout feeling
   in your soul that you have come to worship God and to hear what the
   Lord God shall speak to you!

   I will not stay on any one point and, therefore, pass on to observe
   take heed that you hear earnestly and, therefore, spiritually. Some men
   get no blessing from the Gospel, but who wonders that they do not? They
   never put their hearts into it. Oh, I think if I were this night under
   conviction of sin and were seeking a Savior, I would listen with all my
   heart and soul to the preaching of Jesus Christ! Have you not known
   times, some of you, when you would have stood in the aisles by the hour
   to hear of Christ, if perchance you might have got rid of the burden of
   your sins? Ah, these are the men that get the blessing! But those who
   are half asleep and in their minds quite asleep, are not likely to
   receive the Word.

   How can it come to them with power? What probability is there that it
   will, when they themselves care not whether it will or not?

   And then, dear Friends--coming to the letter "F"--take care that you
   hear feelingly, asking the Lord to make the Word cut into your souls!
   Those get the blessing in whom the Word plows a furrow--not those to
   whom it is like whipping the water, no impression being made but for an
   instant. Oh, pray God that you may not get Gospel-hardened! Ask Him to
   make you tender under all threats and to keep you like a well-plowed
   field that is ready to receive the good seed when it is scattered upon
   it! Try if you can, and may God's Holy Spirit help you to be warned
   under the threats, to be cheered by the promises, to be comforted by
   every good Word of the Lord so that, feeling the power of the Word, it
   may be life and salvation to you!

   Again, "take heed how you hear," and mind that you hear gratefully and
   prayerfully. It is a privilege beyond all price to live in a land of
   Bibles, to be brought where the Gospel is proclaimed. Thank God for it.
   Do not be indifferent, lest He take the candlestick out of its place
   and leave you in the dark. Hear prayerfully! I wish it were a habit
   with you, when you get home, to take a few minutes in a quiet room and
   pray for a blessing upon what has been heard. We might expect to see
   great results if this were your constant practice, to pray after your
   hearing--and even before--to get the ground ready! And when the seed is
   sown, to rake it and water it, so that it may have congenial soil in
   which to take root. Ah, but how many come to hear the Gospel and then,
   all the way home, get into some idle company after the service and
   whatever Word of God might have been blessed, fails to produce any
   result, for the evil birds of the air have devoured the seed that fell
   upon such a hard highway!

   May God give you Grace to put in practice these seven hints that I have
   given you. "Take heed how you hear." And now, lastly, there are--

   III. CERTAIN OBVIOUS REASONS FOR TAKING HEED HOW YOU HEAR.

   And the first is because it is God's Word. Not everything that I say,
   or that any minister says, is God's Word. Hence you should take heed to
   separate between what is God's and what is ours. But wherein we speak
   according to Holy Scripture, it is as much God's Word as if God Himself
   spoke. And let me remind you that God's Word, whoever speaks it, is a
   much more solemn matter than a king's word! Where the word of a king
   is, there is power, but where the Word of God is, though a boy should
   speak it, there is Irresistible Power! It is better for you to hear
   God's Word from your fellow men than it would be to hear it from an
   angel, for God would have employed angels on such messages if they had
   been better. But because men can enter with greater sympathy into your
   feelings, God has not given this ministry unto angels, but has
   "committed unto us the word of reconciliation." It is better for you to
   hear it from us than it would be to hear it from one who should rise
   from the dead, for if not, God would bid them rise from the dead and
   preach to you. But remember, He would not send any from the dead to
   preach to Dive's kinsmen.

   He said, "They have Moses and the Prophets: let them hear them." I will
   go further and say it is better for you to hear the Word of God from a
   poor preacher than it is to hear it from God, Himself, for men did hear
   it from God, Himself at Sinai, and they prayed that He would no more
   speak with them, for the voice was too terrible. "You cannot see God's
   face and live," but in tender mercy He speaks through the lips of one
   like yourselves, who has passed through your sinnership, has fled to
   Jesus and can speak from living experience. Therefore "take heed how
   you hear," for though it is but a man that speaks, it is more than a
   king, or an angel, or one risen from the dead! It is, after all, the
   Voice of God, the King of kings, speaking through His
   ambassador--therefore despise it not!

   "Take heed how you hear" because it is most precious Truth which is
   proclaimed--Truth which may save your soul! The only chance, my
   unconverted Hearer, that you have of Heaven lies in the preaching of
   the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Do you know the story? God became Man that
   He might suffer what was due for human sin. And whoever trusts in Jesus
   Christ, the Substitute for sinners, shall be saved! If you rely simply
   and entirely upon Him, you shall live! Now, that is the Gospel. If ever
   you shall enter Heaven, it shall be through that gate. If ever you have
   true peace, it will be through that precious balm of Gilead. I beseech
   you, then, despise it not! This treasure is better than gold! No
   mention shall be made of coral or jewel in comparison with it. Oh, come
   and buy it without money and without price! But trifle not in that
   sacred market of a preached Gospel in which alone you can buy the
   salvation of your soul!

   Take heed how you hear, because it is by this Gospel that you will be
   judged. Paul says that Christ will judge the world and he adds,
   "according to my Gospel." The Gospel! The Gospel! You have heard that
   word till you have grown sick of it, but you shall see that word
   pointing the sword of Justice if you despise it! When God stands and
   holds out mercy to sinners, if they reject it, surely their destruction
   shall be the more severe! Oh, my dear Hearers, if you understand the
   Gospel of Jesus, I beseech you to so act towards it that you may not be
   afraid when the big books are opened and the thundering voice of the
   Judge shall read out the history of your life and shall pronounce your
   final and eternal destiny!

   Take heed how you hear, for many who heard the Gospel once are now
   among the lost Terrible reflection! These pews have held some whose
   spirits are now forever banished from hope! Take heed how you hear, for
   you may be sitting in such a seat--the successor of such an one--and
   you, also, may tread in his footsteps, despise the Truth of God and so
   die without hope!

   Take heed how you hear, for there are many nearing the end who will
   hear no more.

   Among the regrets that too often make dying such stern and crushing
   work is this, "I knew the Gospel, but I did it not. I was told of
   Christ, but I never trusted Him. I was pressed and persuaded and prayed
   to give my heart up to Him, but I put off a decision until now! My last
   few hours have come and 'tis enough for me to be thinking of the pain I
   suffer! I have no time to think upon eternal things and do such weighty
   business with a God who has now come so near to me, dressed in robes of
   wrath!" Oh, as you will prize your Sabbaths when they are over. As you
   will value the sermons when you cannot listen to any more of them,
   think well of them, now, and make this resolution--and God help you to
   make it in His strength--that you will never again read the Bible, or
   listen to Gospel preaching or Gospel talking, without the solemn desire
   of your whole soul that it may be made a saving blessing to you, that
   you may not perish while hearing the

   Word!

   Oh, I pray you take heed how you hear, for there are many in Heaven now
   who never could have been there if they had not heard the Word. And
   they were such as you are! Then why should not you find the way there
   by the same road which they, though wayfaring men, were able to tread
   without mistake? Children, recollect that--

   "Many dear children are gathering there, For of such is the Kingdom of
   Heaven." There are children in Heaven who were saved by hearing the
   Word in the Sunday school, saved by listening to it from this platform
   when they were but boys and girls! Dear Children, may you trust Jesus
   and become lambs in His flock. Young men and maidens, there are
   multitudes of your age who are among the choristers of the skies,
   making eternal melody before the Great White Throne, and they came
   there by hearing of the name of Jesus and trusting in Him! Will you not
   follow them? They were taken from you--some of you remember them when
   they died--you sat side by side with them in the class one Sunday, and
   the next Sunday they were in Heaven! Or you watched them fading slowly,
   like lilies broken a little at the stalk, and at last they withered.
   No, they withered not, except to our poor eyes, for they bloomed anew
   in Heaven!

   Will you not bloom there, too? If so, listen to the Word of Jesus and,
   above all, accept it, and accept it now! Trust Him whose hands were
   pierced! Rest in Him whose heart was smitten with a spear! He will save
   you! He rejects none who yield to Him--yield to Him now! And you, you
   men of business, 'tis hard work to get you away a little while from the
   desk and ledger, you are so absorbed and eaten up with many of the
   business cares of life! And you, working man, so apt to close your ears
   to anything about another world--yet hear me! There are merchants like
   yourselves and working men like yourselves who stand among the
   white-robed host and rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of glory!
   They are there, and if you ask them how, they will tell you that they
   washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! They
   found that precious blood by listening to the Gospel with attentive
   ears, and will you not be found there? Oh, what will it profit you if
   you gain the whole world and lose your own soul? Sirs, it will be bad
   business if you make ten thousand pounds and forever ruin your souls!
   It will be hard business, you working men, if you toil on, and on, and
   on, bricklaying and carpentering, and I know not what besides, and yet
   throw away your souls, your immortal natures! I beseech you, by every
   grain of sense you have, and all the wits that are within your brains,
   be wise and trifle not with your souls--your better part, your immortal
   part! As for your body, the worms will eat it, do what you may with it!
   But your soul--oh, I pray God that no undying worm may ever feed on
   that, but may you escape from that danger, safely be sheltered in
   Christ Jesus and be eternally blessed in Him!

   I have given you good enough reasons, then, for taking heed how you
   hear, but what is needed, is not reasons, but reason, or better
   still--Grace, the Grace of God! What is needed is not more argument,
   but the willingness to yield to

   those already felt. Oh, yield now to the saving Grace of God in Christ
   Jesus! Look to Him and be saved, I pray you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 TIMOTHY 2.

   Verse 1. You therefore, my son, be strong in the Grace that is in
   Christ Jesus. This is an exhortation to everyone of us, not only to
   have Grace, but to be strong in it. There are many professors who as
   long as they are just saved, are content. We are not content with being
   barely alive spiritually--we do not wish to spend our life shivering
   with cold, but we seek after comfort as well as existence--and we seek
   to be in health, as well as to be in life. So should it be with the
   Christian. He should pray, "Lord, make me strong in the Grace that is
   in Christ Jesus." Oh, that these words might be not merely an
   exhortation, but a Divine fiat, that as God said, "Let there be light,"
   so He may say to His children, "Be you strong," and then oh, how soon
   shall the weakest of us leap into immortal strength!

   2. And the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, the
   same commit you to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others
   also.So then, there is to be a succession of teachers in the Church,
   and these do ill who are always speaking against the ministry of God.
   Timothy receives his ministry from Paul--he is to commit it to faithful
   men and these are to hold it in custody to teach to others. But there
   are some who say that all Christians should be teachers. To which we
   answer, if the whole body were a mouth, where is the ear? The mouth is,
   after all, but a vacuum. If the whole body was a mouth, there would be
   no body at all! If all are to be shepherds, who are to be the sheep? If
   all are to sow, where are we to find the ground? No, Brothers and
   Sisters, we must be careful to pray God to continue the ministry in our
   midst, for without it we miss many blessings. "The same commit you to
   faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."

   3. You therefore endure hardships, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
   If you desire delicacy, join not the army. A soldier's calling is not
   to be linked with softness--and if you desire ease and comfort, join
   not the army of Christ, for a Christian's profession and these go not
   together!

   4. No man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life;
   that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier.So Timothy,
   as a Christian minister, is to act as the Roman soldier did! It was a
   law in Rome that no soldier was to plead in court for another as a
   lawyer, or to act in business for another as a bailiff, or to have
   anything to do, while a soldier, with either husbandry or merchandise.
   And so should it be with the men of God who have to preach the Word--
   and every Christian, indeed! Though he meddles with common things, he
   is to take care that he is not entangled by them, not to be caught, as
   it were, as game is entangled in a net. There is a way, you know, of
   making the actions of common life subservient to the purposes of Divine
   Grace. This is the Christian's business--let him take care that he is
   not entangled with the cares of this life.

   5. And also, if a man competes in athletics, he is not crowned except
   he strives lawfully. There were rules in the Grecian games. When they
   struck each other, the blow was not to be given except upon a certain
   part of the body, and if a man fought unlawfully, he could not get the
   prize. So there are laws, too, for the Christian ministry and also holy
   regulations for the great wrestling of Christians.

   6. The farmer that labors must be first partaker of the fruits. This is
   a law. No man has any right to be a partaker at all till he has first
   tasted of the fruits of the field. Until we have first tasted that the
   Lord is gracious, we cannot effectively or properly minister the things
   of God.

   7. 8, 9. Consider what I say; and the Lord give you understanding in
   all things. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised
   from the dead according to my Gospel Wherein I suffer trouble, as an
   evildoer, even unto bonds. But the Word of God is not bound. See how
   the Apostle comforts himself! Here he is in prison, but the Truth of
   God is free! He sits with the chains about his wrists, but the Word of
   God travels from nation to nation, from continent to continent, like
   the free spirit that dwells in it!

   10. Therefore Iendure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may
   also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal
   glory.Not that the sufferings of Paul had anything meritoriously to do
   with the salvation of the elect, but

   that by his earnest striving and suffering, the word of the Gospel was
   brought to their hearing--faith, then, came by hearing--and so they
   were saved.

   11, 12, 13. It is a faithful saying: For if we are dead with Him, we
   shall also live with Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him:
   ifwe deny Him, He also will deny us. Ifwe believe not, yet He abides
   faithful: He cannot deny Himself Glory be to God, the unbelief of man
   cannot make God break His promises! Christian, all your unbelief has
   not made God unfaithful to you! And Sinner, though you cast out the
   promises of God as being good for nothing, yet He will not therefore
   raise the recompense of reward, for Jesus will save others if He saves
   not you. "He abides faithful."

   14. Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the
   Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the
   subverting of the hearers. There are some Christians who want to have
   this exhortation given to them in these days, for they are always
   striving about words to no profit. Beware of these men, if you would
   not have your faith staggered!
     __________________________________________________________________

"Grace and Glory"

   (No. 3358)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 6, 1868.

   "The Lord will give Grace and Glory." Psalm 84:11.

   IT is very wise to look within ourselves to discover our own weakness
   and spiritual poverty, but it is very unwise to be always dwelling upon
   that weakness and poverty--and to forget that our strength does not lie
   there, nor are our riches to be found within ourselves! Let us look
   within to be humbled, but not to be made unbelieving. Look within, so
   as to be driven from all confidence in ourselves, but never so as to
   shake our absolute confidence in God. Our text, as it were, beckons us
   away from seeking the living among the dead, calling us up from
   searching for precious jewels amid dross and refuse, but directs us to
   the living God Himself--the overflowing Fountain of every good thing,
   our Father whose arm is not shortened that it cannot save, and whose
   ear is not heavy that He cannot hear us tonight! He--He-- Jehovah,
   Himself, the Infinite, Eternal, Everlasting, Inimitable I AM--He will
   give Grace and Glory, so that though you may think you have no Grace,
   He will give it to you, and though you may fear that you shall never
   obtain Glory, yet He can and will bestow it upon you! He will give
   Grace and Glory. The very first word of the text, I say, is a taking us
   away from leaning upon the broken reeds of our own self-reliance and a
   calling us away to the Rock of our salvation, where we may rest with
   security!

   "He will give Grace and Glory." That word, "give," also takes us off
   from our natural legality of self-trust. I think that we are all very
   apt to go back to the bondage of Mount Sinai. We are like those foolish
   Galatians! We are often "bewitched," so that we do not obey the Truth
   of God, but, having begun in the Spirit, we seek to be made perfect in
   the flesh and, being saved already by faith, we often try to be
   perfected by the works of the Law!

   "'Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, 'tis amazing," that after having
   felt the whip of legal bondage, we should wish to go back to the brick
   kilns of Egypt and to be slaves once more! The text says, "He will give
   Grace and Glory," which is the very opposite of wages and puts us on
   the footing of Grace and not on the footing of debt. Oh, it is a
   blessed thing to see a finger from the sky thus beckoning us away from
   underneath the quaking mountain, where even Moses confessed that he did
   altogether fear and quake! It is a blessed thing to be set free from
   the thunder and lightning, and the Voice as of a trumpet, and to be
   brought to the blood which speaks better things than that of Abel, and
   to hear God speaking concerning His great and unspeakable gifts to us!

   Now, in the spirit of these two thoughts, let us come to this text,
   which is very simple, extremely simple, but which is also exceedingly
   full of comfort if the Lord shall apply it to our hearts by the Holy
   Spirit.

   There are just two great and splendid gifts that God here declares He
   will bestow. First, the gift of Grace, and then next, the gift of
   Glory. We will take the first gift first in our meditations--

   I. GOD WILL GIVE GRACE.

   To whom will He give Grace? Broadly understood, we may say that He will
   give Grace to His own chosen ones. So is it in the Covenant of Grace.
   "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." Grace
   is a most Sovereign thing. God has the right to give it where He
   pleases and He takes care that the Sovereignty shall be seen. Some of
   His chosen ones have gone afar into sin, but He gives them Grace, for
   all that. Some of them may be on the very verge of destruction and come
   to the last hour of life--but still, He will give them Grace--and there
   is not one upon whom His electing love has set the broad arrow of the
   Kingdom, marking that man to be a vessel of mercy, who shall pass away
   without receiving Divine Grace! This is a broad statement and though
   there are some that cavil at it, yet rest assured that it is the Truth
   of God!

   Another statement we may also make as broadly, namely, that He will
   give Grace to all those who were specially redeemed by Christ As many
   as Christ has redeemed and purchased by His blood, shall be His, for we
   hear Him say, "The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."
   Christ loved His Church and gave Himself for it. The chosen are spoken
   of in this manner, "These are they who are redeemed from among men,"
   and although the redemption of Christ has its universal aspect very
   plainly taught in God's Word, and I hope we shall never try to take
   away the force of those universal passages--yet there is a special
   redemption besides. "He is the Savior of all men," says the Apostle,
   "especially of them that believe." Now, that special redemption is of
   such a kind that to all those who are concerned in it, He will give
   Grace. Not one whom Christ has thus redeemed from among men shall
   perish! Not one of His own blood-bought sheep shall be devoured by the
   wolf. Not one member of that body of His shall be maimed. Not one part
   of His bride, the Church, shall be destroyed! To every one of these, it
   is quite certain, He will give Divine Grace!

   And although some think that these two Truths of God are not practical,
   yet are they eminently so, for this, among other things, is one
   practical result--that we preach with holy confidence, with quiet
   confidence, that our preaching cannot be in vain since we do not cast
   the net at a chance, but believe that God will fill it and that when
   the Gospel is preached, it must be the savor of life unto life to many!

   "Other sheep have I," said Christ, "who are not of this fold: them also
   must I bring," and therefore do we preach, because they must be
   brought!

   As the farmer sows the corn broadcast, with all the freer hand because
   he knows there is a predestined harvest, even so do we. And as a
   fisherman who should have a Divine promise that he must catch fish
   would throw in the net and toil all night cheerfully because he knew he
   could not labor in vain, so is it with us. We know that if we are
   steadfast, unmov-able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, this
   is our comfort--that our labor is not in vain in the Lord! "He shall
   see His seed! He shall prolong His days and the pleasure of the Lord
   shall prosper in His hands." I take the expression of the text, then,
   without qualification--He will give Grace.

   But now, coming to ourselves--for we cannot tell, except by marks and
   evidences, who are those chosen and who are those specially
   redeemed--it may be said that the Lord will give Grace to every
   believing soul. If you will put your whole reliance upon the Atonement
   of Christ, He will give Grace to you. Though your faith should be so
   slender that it seems to you to be nothing but a bruised reed, He will
   not break your faith, but He will give you Grace--and though the
   spiritual life should seem to be so dim as to be nothing but as smoking
   flax, He will not quench it, but will give Grace. If you believe,
   though it is with the faith of despondency, you shall have Divine
   Grace! If you rest in Christ, though there should be much fear and much
   mistrust mingled with your reliance, yet He will give Grace. "'He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." It says nothing as to how
   much he believes, nor how little--"He that calls upon the name of the
   Lord shall be saved." It does not say how loud he is to call, but if
   his call is never so faint, yet if he does but call, He shall have
   Grace! "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out." It does not
   say whether he comes walking, or running, or crawling--if he does but
   come--he shall not be cast out! If you believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, then of you it shall be said, "The Lord will give Grace."

   The same may be said to every repenting sinner. If you abhor your sin,
   if you resolve in God's strength to give it up, if the sweetness has
   turned to bitterness, if it is like gravel between your teeth, then He
   will give you Grace, for when you are thoroughly sick of sin and self,
   then will He give you Grace to joy and rejoice in Christ!

   The same shall be said of all those who are prayerful. He will give
   Grace to all who seek it with earnest hearts through the Savior. At the
   Mercy Seat, whether you are a saint or sinner, if you draw near to God
   in sincere prayer, He has already given you some Grace and He will give
   you more. Every time that you go to God with true-hearted confidence in
   prayer, put this before you emblazoned in letters of gold, "He will
   give Grace."

   You shall not find that you wait upon God in vain, for He has not said
   in secret or dark places of the earth, "Seek you My face in vain." He
   will, to every prayerful one, give Grace.

   I might continue these instances as to different characters, but rest
   assured, dear Friend, if you are a Believer, and you use prayer and
   repentance, you shall find His promise true in all your conditions. If
   you go forth to work for God, He will give Grace. In the vineyard you
   shall find Him furnishing you with tools, yes, and giving you strength
   equal to your day. He will give Grace. And if you are laid aside from
   active service and made to toss to and fro upon the bed that grows
   harder every hour till the skin is broken and the bed becomes a misery,
   still He will give Grace. Perhaps you are untried at suffering, but He
   will give you Grace. Perhaps you are naturally of an impatient
   spirit--wait upon Him--He knows how to bring your spirit down one way
   and lift it up another! He will give Grace.

   Thus might I continue to take the text from its absolute sense and
   apply it to all the characters that are pictured in God's Word as
   having a part and lot in the blessedness of salvation--and we may say
   of each of these, "He will give Grace."

   But to turn the subject a moment, let us ask, What Grace will God give?

   He will give all manner of Grace. There is Grace not only in fullness,
   but in all variety treasured up in Christ Jesus. As our needs are many,
   so the forms in which Grace blesses us are many, and He will give Grace
   in all these forms! Do you mourn tonight your ignorance of the deep
   things of God? Do you feel yourself to be like a little child studying
   His A. B. C. book in God's great school? Then if you want to understand
   with all saints what are the heights and breadths, and to know the love
   of Christ which passes knowledge, He will give you Grace! He will give
   Grace to instruct. He will make you to know even as you are known. He
   shall give you His Holy Spirit who shall lead you into all the Truths
   of God and take of the things of Christ and show them to you. He will
   give instructingGrace!

   Perhaps tonight you are in some great dilemma. There is one difficulty
   on the right aide and another on the left. There are mountains behind
   and the rolling sea in front, and you say, "What shall I do?" "Stand
   still and see the salvation of God," for He will give you delivering
   Grace. If He does not give you money to fill your purse, He will give
   you Grace to help you to bear your poverty. If He does not give you
   health to bring you off your sickbed, He will give you Grace to make
   your bed in all your suffering, so that you shall bear it and yet
   rejoice in the Lord always! He will give Grace. If you will only wait,
   you shall have directing Grace. You shall hear a voice near you,
   saying, "This is the way; walk you in it." If you will do as David did
   when he said, "Bring here the ephod"--that was in order that he might
   ask of God's priests what he should do--if you will wait until Christ,
   God's great High Priest, takes the sacred Urim and Thummim, He shall be
   pleased to send the Light of God into your soul and you shall have
   directing Grace to guide you on your way! "He that trusts in his own
   heart is a fool, but He that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass
   him about."

   But you need, dear Friends, perhaps at this moment, not so much
   instruction and direction as comfort. It may be you are feeling greatly
   depressed. Your spirits have sunk very low, indeed. Well, He will give
   you Grace. The doctor can give medicine, but God can give Grace! A dram
   of Grace is often better than a pound of what the world can give in the
   form of cordials. Oh, what blessed revivals of spirit God can give to
   His downcast ones!

   I think it is one of the delights of the Spirit of God to comfort
   mourners. I know it is, for He might, if He had pleased, have taken the
   name of The Instructor, and Jesus might have spoken of Him as The
   Quickener, but yet it is so blessed to recollect that He did not do so,
   but that the name of The Comforter was especially His because we need
   most His comfort to strengthen and fortify us for all life's
   endurances. We need most the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and that is
   His main business, His gracious occupation--that in which He most
   delights to act--to comfort all that are tried and mourn!

   When a man has many titles, he will naturally choose to be best known
   by the one which he likes best. And the Holy Spirit uses this name of
   The Comforter, though He has many more names besides. Oh, you, then,
   who are troubled and distracted, tossed with tempest and not comforted,
   Jesus comes, and He says, "He will give you Grace," and if He does
   this, you need not wish to have your trouble removed, but, like Paul,
   be quite satisfied with the gracious promise, "My Grace is sufficient
   for you."

   Possibly, however, dear Friend, you are not troubled tonight. Beware of
   that! Be thankful and pray that you may not be. "Lead us not into
   temptation, but deliver us from evil." But it is possible that you now
   need Grace to lead you to make advances in inward sanctification--and
   though this may seem very difficult to you in the position in which you
   are placed, and burdened as you are with your inward corruptions, yet
   He will give Grace! You have a bad temper? Down with it! "I cannot,"
   you say. But He will give Grace. You have a proud spirit. Away with it!
   "I cannot conquer it," you say. He will give Grace. You have grown cold
   of late and lukewarm--you must be revived--you must recover from this
   backsliding. You say, "How?" He will give Grace! Grace is the one thing
   that is needed to put the Christian into a healthy state of soul! And
   the promise of the Lord which we are using tonight--and repeating so
   often in your ears--is just to the point--He will give Divine Grace.
   You must never say you cannot be as holy as So-and-So. Never tell me
   you cannot grow to be as patient as Job, or as believing as Abraham.
   Job received his patience and Abraham received his believing from God!
   He is not straitened in His gifts to us. He is as ready to enrich us as
   He was to enrich those ancient ones. Go to Him with child-like
   confidence, with this in your mouth, "He will give Grace."

   Now, it is not possible for me to state the case of everyone of my
   Brothers and Sisters now present. You may be lacking in strength or
   protection, or you may be needing correction and rebuke--but whatever
   your great need, His Grace will meet it and so the promise is suitable
   to every one of us, "He will give Grace." Come, you poor Hannah, you
   whose lips move in silent prayer because of some very painful domestic
   affliction. Tell the Lord what it is! There may be no change in your
   circumstances, but oh, if He gives you Grace, it will seem very
   different from what it was!

   Man of business, you have come here tonight having passed through a
   world of trouble during the day. You cannot get it out of your mind and
   somehow you cannot see how the Lord can alter it. Well, He may not, but
   He will give you Divine Grace and then the difference will be
   marvelous!

   Thus might I select the trouble of each one, but I am sure that
   whatever the wound is, this plaster will just fit it. The world's
   comfort is described by one of the Prophets thus, "The bed is shorter
   than that a man may stretch himself upon it, and the covering is too
   narrow for him to wrap himself in it." Ah, it is not so with my text!
   Now, stretch yourselves, you that have big troubles. "He will give
   Grace," is a bed quite long enough for you! Now, then, you that are
   most naked and deprived of warmth--rap this around you--surely this
   will set your soul a glow--"He will give Grace." "All necessary Grace
   will God bestow."

   Perhaps you are shivering tonight at the thought of the greatest enemy
   of all, namely, death! And as you are getting old, perhaps you fear his
   approach. Well, but Friend, He will give Grace and though you must die,
   yet Grace will enable you to go through the Jordan singing in its
   utmost depths, triumphing in the Grace which will surely bring you safe
   to the other side! He will give Grace--Grace of all sorts to those who
   earnestly seek it.

   But now, again--still shifting the kaleidoscope a little--taking the
   same thought only putting it in other lights. In what manner will God
   give Grace?

   Well, dear Friends, He will give it sufficiently. He will give you as
   much Grace as you need, though certainly none to spare. Each man shall
   have his omer full of manna every day. There shall be no lack in the
   Lord's camp! There shall be abundant Grace for abundant temptation or
   trial. And for those who are in many trials, there shall be Grace yet
   superabundant!

   The Lord will give His Grace seasonably. It shall always come just when
   we need it--

   "He is never before His time, He is never behind."

   Whenever your testing or trouble shall come, your Grace shall come,
   too, and when you arrive at the spot where you will have to put your
   back down to the burden, there shall the Grace be given that will
   strengthen your back to bear the load! You shall not meet with
   abounding Grace when you do not require it, but just as your days, so
   shall your strength be.

   God will also send this Grace of His readily. You shall not have to tug
   and strain to get it. You shall not have to labor and toil to win it.
   It shall drop upon you like honey falling from the comb! It shall come
   as freely to you as the water bubbles up from the great spring. He will
   be a very present help in time of trouble and be glad to deliver
   you--as glad to deliver you as you are to be delivered!

   And the Grace shall come to you constantly--not fitfully and only
   sometimes, but at all times! By night and by day. God shall never cease
   to bless you, for His mercy endures forever--

   "At home or abroad, on the land and the sea, As your days shall demand,
   shall your strength always be." If the earth should forget the Covenant
   which God made for it with the sun and moon. If seedtime and harvest,
   and summer and winter should pass away, as they must in the general
   conflagration, yet still the mountains may depart and the hills be
   removed, but the Covenant of His Grace shall not depart from you! Grace
   shall come to you constantly.

   But remember one thing. It will come to you mediately, that is to say,
   not direct from God immediately, but mediately through Christ. You
   shall get your Grace from Him in whom it has pleased the Father that
   all fullness should dwell. And, in another sense, you shall get it
   mediately through the use of means. "For this will I be enquired of by
   the house of Israel, to do it for them." He will give Grace, but you
   must pray for it! He will give Grace, but you must search the
   Scriptures to find it! He will give Grace, but you must observe Gospel
   ordinances--you must not be negligent of Baptism or the Lord's Supper!
   He will give Grace, but you must listen to the Word, and hear, and your
   souls shall live! He will give Grace, but you must get into communion
   with God and draw near to Him--have your times of quiet retirement, of
   still meditation, for although the Lord makes the conduit head to flow
   unto the marketplace, yet He expects His people to bring their pitchers
   there to get them filled! Though He spreads the table, yet He does not
   force the food into our mouths! We must come to the table and eat of
   the dainties which He has prepared. He is very liberal and gracious.
   Oh, be not straitened in yourselves, for you need never be straitened
   in Him! So we come back to the text. He will give Grace, but we must
   take care that we go to Him for it in His own appointed way.

   But now to close upon this first promised blessing, Who isit will give
   Grace? This brings us back in a circle to the spot from which we
   started. "He will give Grace." Oh, I want so to make each Believer
   cling to his God! He will give Grace. You will not get Grace from out
   of yourselves! It will never spring up within us apart from God. He
   will give Grace. You will not get Grace merely by using the means of
   Grace, as some do mechanically and who feel quite satisfied when they
   have had their morning prayer, or have been to the public service, if
   there is one, and have read their Bible Chapter, and so on, their
   hearts being really asleep all the time. No! You must go to God, for it
   is He who gives Grace and no one else can! And what a blessing it is
   that you do not need anyone to help you to come to Him! You can
   approach Him yourselves, through Jesus Christ! And He has promised, not
   by a priest, nor by any means of that kind, but by Himself, to give you
   Grace, so that you, tonight, who have not any Grace, if you come to
   God, you will get it! You will not get it by working and praying, and I
   do not know what, all in themselves, but if your mind can get right to
   the invisible God and ask Him for Grace, He will give it! Depend upon
   it, no man ever did sincerely seek the Grace of God but that, sooner or
   later, he had it. A man may be a long time seeking and he may anxiously
   look and not discover what he needs, but though the promise tarry, wait
   for it--it will come! God is faithful to His promise and He will in due
   time answer your prayers, for there it is on record, "He will give
   Grace." Do not blot the promise out of your heart, poor Soul, but cling
   and hang on to it! As a drowning man clings and hangs on to a plank, so
   do you to this Divine assertion, "He will give Grace."

   May the Lord apply those remarks, and now let us say a few words upon
   the second great promise-- II. HE WILL GIVE GLORY.

   He will "give Grace and Glory." That word, "and," seems very little as
   we hear it. It is nothing but a very common conjunction which is used
   so plentifully that it seems to carry no meaning in it at all! But in
   this case we would not take ten thousand pounds for these three letters
   which make this little word, "and." "The Lord will give Grace and
   Glory." Why, He has riveted the two things together--Grace and Glory!
   There are many who would like to take that diamond rivet out, but they
   cannot. The Lord does not say that He will give Grace and perdition. He
   does not say, on the other hand, that He will give Glory without first
   giving Grace. He has put the two together--and what God has joined
   together let no man put asunder!

   If we have Grace, we shall as surely have Glory, for the two are tied
   up in one bundle. These are twin stars that shine together and if you
   have shared His Grace, then His Glory cannot be denied. Grace shall
   flower into Glory as the bulb in the blossom! Grace shall rise as the
   fountain and Glory shall be its spreading river!

   If we possess the Grace, we shall not perish, but if we have it not, we
   must perish and never know the Glory! It is not possible that those
   shall be glorified who have not first of all been justified, and then
   sanctified--and where Grace does not reign in our hearts we shall not
   reign in Heaven!

   "He will give Grace and Glory." Now, the Glory that He shall give--oh,
   that we had the power to see it and to understand it! Eye has not seen,
   the ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to
   conceive the things which God has prepared for them that love Him! But
   He has revealed them unto us by His Spirit, "that we may search all
   things, even the deep things of God." We do, therefore, know a little
   of what that Glory is. The eye does not, the ear does not, but the
   enlightened soul taught of the Spirit of God does know what the Glory
   will be. So far as this we know, that the Glory which we who have
   obtained Grace are to receive is the Glory of Heaven--whatever Heaven
   may be, a place or a state, or both, as is most probable! Whatever may
   be meant by the streets of shining gold, the gates of pearl, the walls
   of jasper, calcedony, and sapphire. Whatever may be indicated by
   crowns, and palms, and harps of gold--whatever may be meant by the
   river of the Water of Life and trees that bear twelve manners of
   fruits--all this in perfection is the inheritance of those who have
   Grace in their hearts! Oh, you shall have the harps, you shall wave the
   palms, you shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the
   Kingdom of God! If there are degrees in Glory, as some say, yet this
   thing is very certain, that the very least of the saints will have
   Glory--and I do not see how the very greatest could have more.

   The very meanest, the very doorkeepers, if such there should be in the
   House of the Lord above, will have Glory! And I am sure we can say of
   Heaven that if we may but have the lowest place there, we will bless
   the Lord to all eternity! The Glory that God can give is the Glory of
   Heaven!

   In the next place, it is the Glory of eternity. Eternity! Oh, when we
   begin to speak of that word we know not how to speak! Eternity!
   Eternity! Eternity! It must expound itself. We are always confusing it
   with time, and speak of the "countless ages of eternity" as though
   there were any "ages," or could be anything like counting in eternity
   at all, which is of unending duration! Now, the Glory which Christ is
   to give us will be such a Glory as that. It will never know a pause,
   never draw near to a conclusion, never decline and we shall never grow
   weary of it--nor will it be weary of us. It is the Glory of eternity!

   Further, Brothers and Sisters, we are told by the Lord that the Glory
   which He will give to His people is the Glory of Christ "The Glory
   which you gave Me I have given them." Can you conceive how glorious
   Christ is, not only in His Nature originally, but now that He has
   obtained as a reward, a seat upon His Father's Throne and at His
   Father's right hand? Brothers and Sisters, whatever Glory Jesus may
   have, He will share it with us, when we shall be like He and when we
   shall see Him as He is. It is the Glory of Christ!

   And hence, to crown all, it is the Glory of the Father Himself, for
   Christ partakes in His Father's Glory, and even so shall we! Does not
   your heart long and pant to know by actual enjoyment what this Glory
   is? Oh, to get away from looking in the mirror and to have a view of
   Christ's face! To have the clouds and mists all swept away, and in the
   serene atmosphere of Heaven to behold the King in His beauty, and the
   land that is very far off!

   Why, this Glory is the Glory of perfect nature--spotless, s inless,
   incorruptible--a body that can know no weakness, or sickness, or decay!
   A soul that will not be capable of temptation, that cannot be fretted
   by care, nor distracted by trouble!

   It is the Glory of victory. The Glory which God will give His people is
   the Glory of bruising Satan under his feet shortly, the Glory of seeing
   the arrows and the bow, the sword and the shield of the devil forever
   broken in pieces! The Glory of seeing all the hosts of Hell confounded
   and put to the blush eternally by everyone of the saints in whom Christ
   shall reign forever!

   It is the Glory of perfect rest, perfect happiness and perfect
   security. It is the Glory of the foot upon the Rock, with the new song
   in the mouth and the goings established! It is the Glory of the
   blessed. He who knows what it is when the whole soul shall be as full
   of happiness as it can hold, shall float, swim, dive and plunge into
   seas of heavenly rest! It is when it shall not be possible for a man to
   have a wish ungratified, nor a desire unfulfilled! It is where every
   power shall find ample employment without weariness, and every passion
   shall have full indulgence without so much as a fear of sin--

   "Oh, happy hour, oh, blest abode, I shall be near and like my God! And
   every power find sweet employ In that eternal world ofjoy!"

   Do you not again say, "Why are His chariots so long in coming?" Why do
   You delay, Beloved? Be You as a roe or a young hart upon the mountains
   of Beza!

   And now, to close. The text says, "He will give Glory." So, then,
   although Glory is a reward and is often called so, yet still it is a
   gift! The rewards of Grace are of Grace. They are not legal rewards
   given to us because we deserve them. As one says, Christ first gives
   His servants Grace to serve Him, and then rewards them as if they had
   served Him in their own strength, though their service, indeed, is His
   work in them rather than their work for Him! It is a gift then. There
   is not a soul in Heaven that is there by merit. There is not a note of
   self-righteousness to mar the song of Free Grace before the Throne of
   God! It is all love, undeserved love, love without limit, love to be
   extolled throughout eternity!

   But it says that He will give Glory. Now, when will He give it? Ah,
   would not some of us like to know! If we could get a hold of some
   Prophetical work that would tell us when we were, all of us, going to
   get this Glory, I am sure we should pay the price with great readiness
   and cheerfulness. But we would be very unwise in so doing--and he is
   the wisest man who says--

   "My God I would not wish to see My fate with curious eyes."

   It is enough for you, Christian, that you will have Glory! And I will
   tell you one thing--you will have it before seventy year's time. There
   is very little probability with any one of you who have grown up to
   manhood or womanhood, that there will be a single exception to that
   statement! Well, that is not long, and that is the outside! Some of you
   will have it very soon. Ah, we should not wonder if it came to you
   before this year of Grace has gone that you will have reached the land
   of Glory! Others may be spared a little longer, but what is the
   difference in the time? It really seems to be no measurement at all.
   Life is only a span at the longest, and but a span even at the
   shortest--that it is much the same as compared with eternity. When we
   do but get to Heaven, we shall wonder that we thought anything about
   time at all. An hour with our God will make up for all its troubles.
   Yes, I suppose that but one sight of Christ will take away all the

   taste of the bitters of life from our mouths forever! We shall wonder
   how we ever could have fretted and worried ourselves with such little
   things as they were--such insignificant trifles and how these light
   afflictions which were but for a moment and are not worthy to be
   compared to the eternal weight of Glory--could have exercised such a
   depressing influence upon our spirits at times! If we could blush in
   Heaven, surely we would blush to think that we have been so impatient
   with tarrying a little while here!

   When shall we come to this Glory? Well, we shall come to it when our
   work is done. We shall not be kept out of the wage a moment after it is
   earned. We shall come to Glory when we are ripe for it. When the fruit
   is mellow, the farmer will gather it in. Some grow mellow soon, but
   some are naturally sour and they need to be long in the mellowing. We
   shall get to Heaven when we have really been tried in the furnace till
   there is no more need for the trying--when we have passed through the
   last crucible and have come out of it wholly sanctified--the process
   being complete.

   This much we know, that we shall go to Heaven just when God has
   purposed it. The devil himself, with all the hosts of Hell, cannot keep
   us back a moment longer than that! We shall go there just when Heaven
   will be most Heaven to us. We shall go there just when we should have
   chosen to go ourselves, if we had had the wisdom of God to choose for
   us. We shall go there just when Christ will be ready to welcome us and
   when we shall know that He has prepared a place for us. Let us be
   patient awhile then. Only let us hang hard upon this gracious promise,
   putting the Lord frequently in mind of it, "He will give Grace and
   Glory."

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, one more remark. If the Lord does give Grace
   and Glory to some of your friends, do not quarrel with Him about it. He
   said He would, and when He does, why should we complain? Did you ever
   see two persons praying against each other? Can you suppose such a
   thing as a Believer praying for one thing and Christ praying for
   another? Now, listen to them. There is a Believer praying over a
   friend, "Oh, God, spare him! Spare him, I pray You, I beseech You I
   entreat You! Spare him and let him yet live here." Listen! There is
   Christ praying, too, and He says, "Father, I will that they, also,
   which You have given Me, should be with Me where I am." The Believer
   wants his friends to be with him where he is! But Christ says, "Where I
   am." Now, when Christ's prayers and our prayers cross each other in
   this way, I put it to you, which shall win? When we pull one way and
   Christ pulls the other, what shall our choice be? Surely we shall say,
   "Oh, Lord Jesus, I would not compete with You for a moment! No, You
   have a dearer claim upon my friend than I have, for You have bought him
   with Your precious blood."

   It is hard to part, but let them go! If He has given your dear
   children, or your friends, or your partners in life, Grace now, when He
   proceeds to give them Glory you may weep, for, "Jesus wept," but you
   must not murmur, for that would be to deny Christ's claim to what He
   has purchased with His own precious blood!

   Oh, that all of you had Grace that you might all have Glory! Do not
   hope for Glory without Grace, but Jesus is willing to give it. Whoever
   trusts Him shall receive it. May it be the portion of us all, for
   Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Penitence, Pardon and Peace

   (No. 3359)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And, behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she knew that
   Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster
   box of ointment, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and she
   began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair
   ofher head, and kissed His feet and she anointed them with the
   ointment" Luke 7:37-38.

   THIS is a marvelously vivid Gospel incident. Every detail is plainly
   and forcefully set forth, so that we can picture the scene, making it
   live before us, without much mental effort. And yet, in some respects,
   there is a great reticence, a Divine delicacy, gloriously
   characteristic of so tender a book as the New Testament. The
   Evangelist--"the beloved physician," Luke--does not lay bare the minute
   particulars of this woman's life's sins, but delights to dwell rather
   upon the story of her penitence and its fair fruits, and so makes her
   to shine resplendently as a wonder of redeeming Grace! The symptoms of
   her soul's horrible malady he reveals in a single phrase--and that of
   general description--but upon the details of her gracious cure he
   delights to dwell.

   We will consider the life of this famous penitent, as the Holy Spirit
   shall help us, under three heads, and notice, first, her former
   character Then, her deed of love which showed her new character And,
   thirdly, our Lord's treatment ofher. Let us very briefly look at--

   THE WOMAN'S CHARACTER, to begin with, in order that we may see the
   horrible pit out of which she was

   taken.

   We do not know much about her. Romish expositors generally insist upon
   it that she was Mary Magdalene, but this appears to other writers to
   have been quite impossible. Certainly it does not seem probable that a
   woman possessed with seven devils should follow the trade of "a
   sinner." Demoniacal possession was akin to madness and it was
   frequently accompanied by epilepsy. And one would think that Magdalene
   was more fit to be a patient at an infirmary than an inmate of a
   reformatory. Some have even been so mistaken as to suppose this woman
   to have been Mary of Bethany, but this will never do. One cannot
   associate with the lovely household of Martha and Mary the horrible
   course of pollution implied in the vice which earned for this woman the
   special name of "a sinner." Besides, although both women anointed our
   Lord, yet the place, the time, the manner were all different. I need
   not stay to show you the difference, for that is not the point in hand.

   This woman was distinguished by the title of "a sinner," and her touch
   was regarded by Simon the Pharisee as defiling. We are all sinners, but
   she was a sinner by profession--sin was her occupation and probably her
   livelihood. The name in her case had an emphatic sense which involved
   shame and dishonor of the worst kind. The city streets wherein she
   dwelt could have told you how well she deserved her name. Poor fallen
   daughter of Eve, she had forsaken the guide of her youth and forgotten
   the Covenant of her God. She was one of those against whom Solomon
   warns young men, saying, "Her house inclines unto death, and her paths
   unto the dead." Yet as Rahab was saved by faith, even so was she, for
   Grace covers even a harlot's sins!

   She was a weel-known sinner. Ill-fame had branded her so that Simon the
   Pharisee recognized her as one of the town's unhallowed sisterhood. Her
   way of life was common town talk--persons of decent character would not
   associate with her--she was cut off from respectable society and, like
   a leper, put outside the camp of social life. She was a sinner marked
   and labeled. There was no mistaking her--infamy had set its seal upon
   her.

   She was one who had evidently gone a great way in sin, because our
   Savior, who was far from being prejudiced against her, as Simon was,
   and never uttered a word that would exaggerate the evil in anyone, yet
   spoke of "her sins which are many." She loved much, for much had been
   forgiven. She was the five hundred pence debtor as compared with Simon,
   who owed but fifty. It is not difficult to imagine her unhappy story
   because that story is so commonly repeated

   around us. We know not how she was first led into evil ways. Perhaps
   her trustful heart was deceived by flattering words and promises.
   Perhaps the treachery of one too dearly loved led her into sin and
   afterwards deserted her to loneliness and shame. Perhaps her mother's
   heart was broken and her father's head was bowed down with sorrow, but
   she became bold enough to pursue the sin into which she had at first
   been betrayed and became the decoyer of others. That long hair of hers,
   I fear, is rightly called by Bishop Hall, "the net which she was known
   to spread to catch her amorous companions." She was a sinner of the
   city in which she dwelt and, though her name is not mentioned, it was
   far too well known in her own day. She had lived an evil life we know
   not how long, but, certainly, she had greatly sinned, for her own
   flowing tears, as well as the Savior's estimate of her life, prove that
   she had been no ordinary offender. Let equal sinners be encouraged to
   go to Jesus as she did!

   But all her sin was known to Jesus. I mention this, not at all as a
   fact you do not know, but as one which any trembling sinner may do well
   to remember. If you have fallen into the same vice in a greater or
   lesser degree, whether others know it or not, Jesus knows all about it.
   Our Lord allowed her to wash His feet with her tears, but He knew well
   what those eyes had looked upon. When He allowed those lips to kiss His
   feet, He knew right well what language those lips had used in years
   gone by. And when He allowed her to show her love to Him, He knew how
   foul her heart had been with every unhallowed desire. Her evil
   imaginations and unchaste desires, her wanton words and shameless acts
   were all before the Savior's mind far more vividly than they were
   before her own, for she had forgotten much--but He knew all. With all
   her tender sense of sin, she did not apprehend all the heinousness of
   her guilt as the perfect mind of Jesus did--and yet though she was a
   sinner, a well-known sinner, and known best of all to the Savior to be
   such, yet, glory be to Divine Grace, she was not cast out when she came
   to Jesus, but she obtained mercy and is now shining in Heaven as a
   bright and special star to the glory of the love of Christ!

   When this woman stood in the house of Simon she was a believing sinner.
   We do not know how she became a convert, but, according to the harmony
   of the Gospels, this particular incident fits in just after Matthew
   11--that is to say, if Luke has written his story with the intent of
   chronological correctness--and if the harmonies are right, this passage
   comes in after the following blessed words, "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 of heart, and you shall
   find rest unto your souls, for My yoke is easy, and My burden is
   light." Did this woman hear this gracious invitation? Did she feel that
   she was laboring and heavy laden? Did she look into the face of the
   great Teacher and feel that He spoke the truth and did she come to Him
   and find rest? Doubtless her faith came by hearing--did she hear in
   some crowd in the street the sweet wooing voice of the Sinner's Friend?
   Was this the means of making "the woman that was a sinner" into the
   woman that anointed Jesus' feet? We are not informed as to the
   particular means, nor is it of any consequence. She was converted and
   that is enough--how it came about is a small matter. Perhaps even she,
   herself, could not have told us the precise words which impressed her
   mind, for many are most assuredly brought to Jesus, but the work has
   been so gentle, gradual and gracious that they feel themselves renewed,
   but hardly know how it came about! On the other hand, from the marked
   change in her character, it is highly probable that she did know the
   day, the hour and the precise means--and if so, dear were the words
   which called her from the ways of folly, sin and shame! I do not
   suppose that our Savior had, at that time, delivered the memorable
   parable of the prodigal son, but it may have been some similar
   discourse which won her attention when she made one of a crowd of
   publicans and sinners who drew near to hear the Lord Jesus. Pressing
   forward among the men to catch those silver tones, so full of music,
   she wondered at the Man whose face was so strangely beautiful and yet
   so marvelously sad--whose eyes were so bright with tears and whose face
   so beamed with love and earnestness. The very look of that mirror of
   love may have affected her! A glance at that holy countenance may have
   awed her and His tones of deep pity and tender warning--all these held
   her fast and drew her to abhor her sin and accept the joyful message
   which the great Teacher had come to proclaim! She believed in Jesus.
   She was saved and, therefore, she loved her Savior!

   When she came to the Pharisee's house she was a forgiven sinner. She
   carried an alabaster box in her hand with which to anoint Him because
   she felt that He had been a priest to her--and had cleansed her. She
   brought her choicest treasure to give to Him because He had bestowed on
   her the choicest of all gifts, namely, the forgiveness of sin. She
   washed His feet because He had washed her soul. She wept because she
   believed--and loved because she trusted. She was, when she entered the
   room, in a condition of rest as in her forgiveness, for men are seldom
   deeply grateful for mercies which they are not sure of having obtained.
   Though after that deed she rose a step higher and became fully assured
   of her acceptance,

   even at her first coming she was conscious of forgiven sin--and for
   that reason she paid her vows unto the forgiving Lord whom her soul
   loved.

   Our text begins with a, "behold," and it may well be so, for a forgiven
   sinner is a wonder to Heaven, earth and Hell! A forgiven sinner! Though
   God has made this round world exceedingly fair, yet no work of Creation
   reflects so much of His highest Glory as the manifestation of His Grace
   in a pardoned sinner! If you range all the stars around and if it is so
   that every star is filled with a race of intelligent beings, yet, I
   think, among unfallen existences there can be no such marvel as a
   forgiven sinner. At any rate, he is a wonder to himself and he will
   never cease admiring the Divine Grace which pardoned and accepted him.
   What a miracle to herself must this woman have been. For a case like
   hers she had seen no precedent and this must have made it the more
   surprising to her! When your case also appears to stand out by itself,
   alone, as a towering peak of Grace, refrain not from wondering and
   causing others to wonder. "All Glory to God," may some say, "I, whose
   name could not be mentioned without making the cheek of modesty
   crimson, I am washed in the blood of the Lamb! I who was a blasphemer,
   who sat on the drunkard's bench, who gloried in being an infidel and
   denied the Godhead of Christ, I, even I, am saved from wrath through
   Him! I who played a dishonest part, who respected not the laws of man
   any more than those of God, I who went to an excess of riot--even Iam
   made whiter than snow through faith in Christ Jesus!--

   "'Tell it unto sinners, tell, Iam, Iam saved from Hell.'"

   Let all know it upon earth and let Heaven know it--and let the loud
   harps ring in yon celestial halls because of matchless Grace! Behold,
   then, this woman's character, and remember--however fallen you may have
   been--the Grace of God can yet save you! Now, secondly, let us
   consider, at some length--

   II. THE DEED OF LOVE WHICH INDICATED HER CONVERSION.

   Her conduct as a convert was wide as the poles asunder from that of her
   unregenerate state--she became as evidently a penitent as she had been
   a sinner. One of the expositors upon this passage says that he cannot
   so much expound it as weep over it--and I think every Christian must
   feel very much in that humor. O that our eyes were as ready with tears
   of repentance as were hers! O that our hearts were as full of love as
   hers and our hands as ready to serve the forgiving Lord! If she has
   exceeded some of us in the publicity of her sin, yet has she not
   exceeded all of us in the fervency of her affection!

   Let us notice what she did. And the first of 12 matters to which I
   shall call your attention is the earnest interest which she took in the
   Lord Jesus. ' 'Behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she
   knew that Jesus sat at the table." She had a quick ear for anything
   about Jesus. When she heard the news, it did not pass in one ear and
   out the other, but she was interested in the information and
   immediately went to the Pharisee's house to find Him. There were
   hundreds in that city who did not care a farthing where Jesus was. If
   they heard the general gossip about Him, it did not concern them in the
   least--He was nothing to them. But when she knew it, she was in motion
   at once to come even to His feet! Jesus will never again be an object
   of indifference to a forgiven sinner. If the Lord has pardoned you, you
   will henceforth feel the deepest interest in your Savior and in all
   things which concern His Kingdom and work among men. Now, if you have
   to move to any place, you will want to know first, "Where can I hear
   the Gospel? Are there any lovers of Jesus there?" If you are informed
   about a town or country, the information will not be complete till you
   have enquired, "How is the cause of God prospering there?" As you look
   upon your fellow men, the thought will strike you, "How do they stand
   towards Christ?" When you attend a place of worship, it will not matter
   much to you whether the edifice is architecturally beautiful, or the
   preacher a learned man and a great orator--you need to know whether you
   can hear of Jesus in that place and be likely to meet with Him in that
   assembly! Your cry will be, "Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where
   You feed?" If you perceive a sweet savor of Christ in the place, you
   feel that you have had a good Sabbath, but if Jesus Christ is lacking,
   you consider everything to be lacking--and you groan over a lost
   Sabbath. A soul that has tasted Christ's love cannot be put off with
   anything short of Him--it hungers and thirsts after Him and any good
   word about Him is sweet unto the taste. Is it so with you?

   Notice, next, the readiness ofher mind to think of something to be done
   for Jesus.' 'When she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the
   Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster box of ointment"--she was
   quick and ready in her thoughts of service. She would not appear before
   the Lord empty, but the resolve to bring an offering and the selection
   of that offering were quickly made. She would get that alabaster box of
   aromatic ointment, the daintiest and costliest perfume that she had,
   and she would anoint His feet to do Him honor. Many minds are inventive
   for the things of the world, but they

   seem to have no quickness of thought in reference to the service of
   Christ--they proceed with dull routine, but never flash out with
   spontaneous deeds of love. This woman showed an original genius in her
   love. She was no copier of a former example--her plan of service had
   the dew of freshness upon it. Mary of Bethany did something like it,
   but that was afterwards--this was the woman's own original idea. Her
   thoughtful soul struck out this new path for itself. We need more
   contriving, inventing and planning for Christ! See how we act towards
   those we love--we consider what will please them and plot and plan some
   pleasant surprise for them. We put our heads together and ask, "What
   shall it be? Let us think of something new and original." That
   thoughtfulness is half the beauty of the act.

   Notice, thirdly, her promptness of action. She did not merely think
   that she had an alabaster box to give, but she took it at once and
   hastened to pour out its contents. Dear Friend, you have been saved by
   Grace and you have an alabaster box upstairs which you have long meant
   to bring down--but it is still there. Half-a-dozen times or more, when
   you have had your heart warmed by the love of Christ, you have felt
   that now was the time to bring out the box, but it still remains sealed
   up! You were so pleased with yourself for having such earnest feelings
   and generous resolutions that you stopped to admire yourself and forgot
   to carry out your resolutions! You have done nothing, though you have
   intended a great deal. Do you not sometimes feel as self-contented as
   if you had done something wonderful when, after all, you have only
   mapped out what you think you may possibly do at some future time?
   Indeed, it is a mighty easy thing to make yourself believe that you
   have really done what you have only dreamed about! This is wretched
   child's play and the woman before us would have none of it! She saw the
   occasion and she seized it. Jesus might not be in her city, again, and
   she might not be able to find Him for many a day. The thought struck
   her and she struck the thought while yet the iron was hot and fashioned
   it into a fact!

   Observe, in the fourth place, her courage. She knew that Jesus was at
   the table in the Pharisee's house. And she soon found Him reclining, in
   the Oriental fashion, with His feet near the door, for Simon was so
   uncivil that he was sure to give Him a poor place at the table. Seeing
   the Lord, she ventured in. It needed no small bravery for her to enter
   the house of a Pharisee, who, above all things, would dread to be
   touched by such a character! In her bad times she had seen the holy man
   gather up his garments and leave her a broad space on the streets, for
   fear that she should pollute his sacred person! She must have felt, as
   all penitent sinners do, an inward shrinking from the cold, hard,
   self-righteous professor of purity! She would have gone anywhere in
   that city rather than into Simon's house. It must have cost her a great
   struggle to face his frowns and severe remarks. Perhaps, however, I am
   wrong. Indeed, I think I am, for she was so full of the desire to show
   her love and to honor the Lord Jesus that she forgot the Pharisee! Yes,
   and if the devil had been there, instead of Simon, she would have dared
   even him in his den, to reach her Lord! Still, there was much courage
   needed for one so lowly in her penitence to be able to bear the cold,
   contemptuous look of the master of the house. Conscious that she had
   been a castaway from society, yet she courageously fulfilled her
   mission, fearless of cruel remarks and taunting charges. O poor, timid
   seeking Soul, the Lord can also give you the courage of a lion in His
   cause, though now you are timid as a hare!

   When, then, the penitent had reached the Master's feet, note well how
   one Grace balanced another and observe her humility tempering her
   courage. Her boldness was not forwardness nor indelicate
   impertinence--no, she was as bashful as she was brave! She did not
   advance to our Lord's head, or thrust herself where He would readily
   see her--much less did she presume to address Him--but she stood at His
   feet behind Him, weeping. She was probably but a little way in the
   room. She courted no observation. She was near Jesus, but it was near
   His feet, and weeping there. To weep at His feet was honor high enough
   for her--she sought no uppermost seat at the banquet. Ah, dear Friends,
   it is a blessed thing to see young converts bold, but it is equally
   delightful to see them humble! And they are none the worse for being
   very retiring if they have been great sinners.

   I have been very sorry when I have seen a lack of modesty where it
   ought to have superabounded. There is more Grace in a blush than in a
   brazen forehead, far more propriety in holy shamefacedness than in
   pious impudence. Good Bishop Hall says, "How well is the case altered!
   She was known to look boldly in the face of her lovers, and now she
   dares not behold the awful Countenance of her Savior! She had been
   accustomed to send alluring beams forth into the eyes of her paramours,
   but now she casts dejected eyes to the earth and dares not so much as
   raise them up to see those eyes from which she desired commiseration."
   Lowliness goes well with penitence. One would not wish humility to be
   corrupted into cowardice, nor courage to be poisoned into pride. This
   repenting sinner had both excellences in proper proportion and the two
   together put her exactly in the place where a woman that was a sinner
   ought to be when saved by Grace!

   We see before us our reclaimed Sister looking down upon the Lord's
   blessed feet. And as we mark her flowing tears, we pause to speak of
   her contrition. She gazed upon our Lord's feet and I wonder whether
   that sight suggested to her how her feet had wandered--and how
   travel-worn had become the feet of the Lord, who had sought and found
   her--

   "She knew not of the bitter way

   Those sacred feet had yet to tread,

   Nor how the nails would pierce, one day,

   Where now her costly balms were shed." But she saw those feet to be all
   unwashed, for Jesus had been neglected where He ought to have been
   honored. And she saw therein the memory of her own neglect of Him who
   had so freely loved her soul. She wept at the memory of her sins, but
   she wept over His feet. She grieved most because she had grieved Him.
   She wept because she had sinned so much and then wept because He had
   forgiven her so freely! Love and grief in equal measures made up those
   precious tears. The Divine Spirit was at work within her, dissolving
   her very soul, even as it is written, "He causes His wind to blow and
   the waters flow." And again, "He smote the Rock and the waters gushed
   out." Do you marvel that she stood and wept? Thinking of herself and
   then thinking of Him, the two thoughts together were far too much for
   her--and what could she do but both relieve her heart and express it in
   a shower of tears? Wherever there is a real forgiveness of sin, there
   will be real sorrow on account of it. He who knows that his sin is
   pardoned, is the man who most acceptably exercises repentance. Our hymn
   puts it on the right footing when it points, not to the horrors of
   Hell, but to the griefs of Immanuel, by which our pardon is certified
   to us as the deep source of sorrow for sin--

   "My sins, my sins, my Savior,

   How sad on You they fall!

   Seen through Your gentle patience,

   I tenfold feel them all.

   I know they are forgiven,

   But all their pain to me

   Is all the grief and anguish

   They laid, my Lord, on Thee." After admiring this woman's contrition,
   notice her love. The Holy Spirit took delight in adorning her with all
   the Divine Graces and she came behind in nothing--but she excelled in
   love. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He translated her act of anointing
   His feet, expressed it in the one word, "love." He said, "She loved
   much." I cannot speak much with you concerning love, for it is rather
   to be felt than to be described. Words have no power to bear the weight
   of meaning which lies in love to Christ. Oh, how she loved! Her eyes,
   her hair, her tears--herself--she counted all as nothing for His dear
   sake! Words failed her, as they fail us and, therefore, she betook
   herself to deeds in order to let her heart have vent. Alabaster box and
   ointment were all too little for Him--the essence of her heart was
   distilled to bathe His feet--and the glory of her head was unbound to
   furnish Him with a towel! He was her Lord, her All-in-All! If she could
   have laid kingdoms at His feet, she would have rejoiced to do so! As it
   was, she did her best and He accepted it.

   This love of hers led her to personal service. Her hands were the
   servants of her heart and did their part in the expression of her
   affection. She did not send the alabaster box to Jesus by her sister,
   or ask a disciple to pass it to Him, but she performed the anointing
   with her own hands, the washing with her own tears and the wiping with
   her own hair. Love cannot be put off with proxy service! She seeks no
   substitute, but offers her own person! I grant, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, that we can serve the Lord a great deal by helping others to
   serve Him, and it is right and proper to help those who are able to
   labor better and more widely than we can. But still, it is not right
   that we should rest content with that--we ought to be ambitious to
   render tribute to our Lord with our own hands. We cannot deny ourselves
   the pleasure of doing some little thing for our Beloved Lord. Suppose
   this loving woman had had a sister who loved the Master even as she
   did? And suppose, like a loving sister, she had said to her, "I fear it
   will be too heavy a task for you to face cold-hearted Simon--I will
   take the box and anoint our blessed Lord and tell Him that I did it for
   you--and so He shall know your love." Do you think she would have
   consented to the proposal? Ah, no, it would not have answered the
   purpose at all. Love refuses sponsors. She must anoint those blessed
   feet herself Now, dear Friends, you who hope that you have been
   forgiven, are you doing anything for Jesus? Are you, on your own,
   serving Him? If not, let me tell you, you are missing one of the
   greatest delights that your souls can ever know and, at the same time,
   you are omitting one of the chief fruits of the Spirit! "Simon, son of
   Jonas, do you love Me?" is the question, and if you wish to answer it
   with proof positive,

   then go, and with your own hands, feed the Savior's sheep! Surely you
   cannot love Him as you should, unless each day has its deed of love,
   its sacrifice of gratitude!

   Observe, next, that her service was rendered to the Lord Himself Read
   the passage and place an emphasis upon the words which refer to the
   Lord. "She stood at His feet, behind Him, weeping, and began to wash
   His feet, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His
   feet, and anointed them with the ointment." It was not for Peter, or
   James, or John that she acted as servitor. I have no doubt she would
   have done anything for any of His disciples, but at this time all her
   thoughts were with her Lord--and all her desire was to honor Him. It is
   a delightful thing for Christian people to lay themselves out
   distinctly for the Lord Jesus. There should be more ministering unto
   Him, more definite aiming at His Glory. To give money to the poor is
   good, but sometimes it is better to spend it upon Jesus more
   distinctly, even though some Judas or other should complain of waste--

   "Love is the true economist! She breaks the box and gives her all, Yet
   not one precious drop is missed, Since on His head and feet they fall."
   One is glad to serve the Church--who would not wait upon the bride for
   the bridegroom's sake? One is glad to go into the streets and lanes of
   the city to gather in poor sinners, but our main motive is to honor the
   Savior. See, then, how she who was once a harlot has become a zealous
   lover of the Lord and is ready to wash her Lord's feet, or perform any
   service which may be permitted her, if she may work a good work upon
   Him!

   Further, note that what she did, she did very earnestly. She washed His
   feet, but it was with tears. She wiped them, but it was with those
   luxurious tresses which were all unbound and disheveled that she might
   make a towel of them for His blessed feet. She kissed His feet and she
   did it again and again, for she did not cease to kiss His feet, or if
   she made a moment's pause, it was only that she might pour on more of
   the ointment. She was altogether taken up with her Lord and His work!
   Her entire nature concurred in what she did and awakened itself to do
   it well. True love is intense--its coals burn with vehement heat--it
   makes all things around it living. Dead services cannot be endured by
   living hearts!

   Furthermore, notice the woman's absorption in her work There she stood,
   anointing His feet with ointment and kissing them again and again.
   Simon shook his head, but what of that? He frowned and cast black looks
   at her, but she ceased not to wash His feet with her tears! She was too
   much occupied with her Lord to care for scowling Pharisees. Whether
   anyone observed her or not, or whether observers approved or censured,
   was a very small matter to her--she went quietly on--accomplishing the
   suggestion of her loving heart!

   And what she did was so real, so practical, s o free from the mere
   froth of profession and pretence. She never said a word--and why not?
   Because it was all act and all heart with her. Words! Some abound in
   them, but what wretched things words are with which to express a heart.
   As in a glass, darkly, can we see the reflection of a soul's love in
   its most passionate utterances?. Actions are far more loud and have a
   sweeter tone than words! This woman had done with speech, for the time
   being, at any rate, and tears and disheveled hair and poured-out
   ointment must speak for her! She was too much in earnest to call
   anyone's attention to what she was doing, or to care for anyone's
   opinion, much less to court commendation, or to answer the ugly looks
   of the proud professor who scorned her! This thorough oblivion of all
   except her Lord constituted, in a measure, the charm of her deed of
   love--it was wholehearted and entire loyalty which her homage revealed.
   Now, dearly Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, I do pray that you and I,
   as pardoned sinners, may be so taken up with the service of our Lord
   Jesus Christ that it may not matter to us who smiles or who frowns! And
   may we never take the trouble to defend ourselves if people find fault,
   or ever wish for anybody to commend us, but be so taken up with Him and
   the work He has given us to do, and with the love we feel to Him, that
   we know nothing else! If all others run away from the work. If all
   discourage us, or if they all praise us, may we take but small notice
   of them, but keep steadily to our loving service of Jesus! If Grace
   enables us to do this, i t will be greatly magnified.

   See, dear Friends, what Divine Grace made of "the woman that was a
   sinner." Perhaps you thought her worse than yourselves in her carnal
   state--what do you think of her as a penitent? What do you think of
   yourselves if you stand side by side with her? Do you not blush for
   very shame and ask for forgiveness of your Lord for the slenderness of
   your affection? Lastly, let us see--

   III. THE SAVIOR'S BEHAVIOR TO HER.

   What did He do? First, He silently accepted her service. He did not
   move His feet away, did not rebuke her, or bid her to leave. He knew
   that reflections were being cast upon His Character by His allowing her
   to touch Him, yet He did

   not forbid her, but, on the contrary, continued quietly enjoying the
   feast of repentance, gratitude and love which she spread for Him. He
   was refreshed by seeing such Grace in one who had before been so far
   from God. The perfumed ointment was not so grateful to His feet as her
   love was to His soul--for Jesus delights in love--especially in
   penitent love! Her tears did not fall in vain--they refreshed the heart
   of Jesus, who delights in the tears of repentance. The applause of a
   nation would not have solaced Him one-half as much as this woman's
   pure, grateful, contrite, humble love! His silence gave consent, yes,
   even approbation! And she was happy enough to be allowed to indulge
   herself in expressions of adoring affection.

   Then the Lord went a little farther, He turned round and looked at her,
   and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?" That glance of His must
   have encouraged her and made her heart dance for joy! As soon as ever
   those eyes of His lighted on her, she could see that all was right--she
   knew that whoever frowned, there were no frowns on that brow-- and she
   was filled with supreme contentment!

   Next, the Lord spoke, and defended her triumphantly, and praised her
   for her deed! Yes, and He went beyond that and personally spoke to her
   and said, "Your sins are forgiven you," setting a seal to the pardon
   which she had received and making her assurance doubly sure! This was a
   joy worth worlds--

   "Oh, might I hear Your heavenly tongue

   But whisper, 'You are Mine,'

   The heavenly word should raise my song

   To notes almost Divine."

   She had a choice blessing in hearing from His own lips that her faith
   was firmly based and that she was, indeed, forgiven! Then she received
   a direction from Him as to what to do--"Go in peace." A forgiven sinner
   is anxious to know what he may do to please his Lord. "Show me what You
   would have me to do," was Paul's prayer. So our Lord Jesus seemed to
   say, "Beloved, do not stay here battling with these Pharisees. Do not
   tarry in this crowd of cavilers. Go home in perfect peace and as you
   have made home unhappy by your sin, make it holy by your example."

   That is just, I think, what the Lord Jesus would have me say to my dear
   friends who have followed me in this discourse. You see what Grace can
   do--go home and let your family see it! If any of you are conscious of
   great sin--and have received great forgiveness--and, therefore, wish to
   show your love to Jesus, do what is on your heart! But at the same time
   remember that He would have you go in peace. Let a holy calm abide in
   your breast. Do not enter into the vain jangling and endless
   controversies of the hour. Do not worry yourself with the battles of
   the newspapers and magazines that are everlastingly worrying poor souls
   with modern notions. Go in peace! You know what you know--keep to that.
   You know your sin and you know Christ, your Savior! Keep to Him and
   live for Him. Go home into the family circle and do everything you can
   to make home happy, to bring your brothers and sisters to Christ and to
   encourage your father and mother if they have not yet found the Savior!

   Home is especially a woman's place. There she reigns as a queen! Let
   her reign well. Around the hearth and at the table, in the sweets of
   domestic relationships and quiet friendships, a woman will do more for
   the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ than by getting up to preach! In the
   cases of men, also, many who long to flash in public had better by far
   shine at home! Go home in peace and, by a happy, holy life, show to
   others what saints God can make out of sinners! You have seen what sin
   and the devil can do to degrade--go and prove what Grace and the Holy
   Spirit can do to elevate--and may many, cheered by your example, come
   and trust your Lord!
     __________________________________________________________________

Pleading With the Indifferent

   (No. 3360)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold, and see if there
   is any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the
   Lord has afflicted me in the day ofHis fierce anger." Lamentations
   1:12.

   THIS was the lamentation of Jeremiah. As he saw the desolation of the
   beloved city, as he marked the cruelties inflicted by the invaders upon
   the Jewish youth, children and maidens, and as he foresaw the long
   years of bitterness reserved for the captives in Babylon, he felt as if
   he were a peer in the realm of misery--indeed peerless. He stands
   foremost, a very emperor of grief, a king of sighs and tears. "Behold,
   and see," he said, "if there was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow, which
   is done unto me."

   But may there not have been griefs as great as those of Jeremiah? Is
   the language that flows from his lips strictly accurate? Like most of
   the periods which flow from abundant grief, is there not some
   exaggeration here? If we take the words out of the mouth of Jeremiah
   and put them into the mouth of Jesus--if we suppose them to be spoken
   by Him, as, hanging on the Cross He did bear the wrath of God for us,
   then there is no hyperbole, no exaggeration! The words may be read as
   they stand--and stand as we read them--and their fullest weight shall
   not outweigh the truth!

   This evening two things challenge our attention--an earnest
   expostulation--"Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?" And a
   solemn question--"Behold, and see, was there ever sorrow like unto my
   sorrow, which is done unto me?" First--

   I. AN EARNEST EXPOSTULATION.

   The Son of God has become Incarnate. He became Man out of love to men.
   But men loved Him not and though in Him was every perfection, they
   hunted and hounded Him to death! The story is told four times over by
   Inspired authority in this Book, but the mass of mankind feel no
   concern in it. I come here tonight and I say to many of you--does not
   the story of Jesus at all interest you? You heard it read just now, did
   it fall flat and stale upon your ears? Did you say to yourselves, "It
   is dry work to listen to that. There is nothing there to strike the
   attention. If I had taken up a newspaper and had read of some murder,
   my wits would have been all awakened, but in the hearing of this death
   of Christ, I feel not at all stirred." Well, then, I ask you--Why is
   this? Why is it so? If there is anything in all the world that ought to
   interest a man, it is the death of Christ! Yet I find men, learned men,
   spending year after year in sorting out butterflies, beetles and gnats,
   or in making out the various orders of shells, or in digging into the
   earth and seeking to discover what strange creatures once floundered
   through the boundless mire, or swam in the vast seas! I find men
   occupied with things of no sort of practical moment and which, to me,
   do not seem so wonderfully enchanting. Yet the story of God, Himself,
   who deigned to become a man and as a Man suffered, and bled, and died,
   is thought to be too small a trifle for minds to dwell upon it. O
   reason! Where have you gone? O judgment! Where have you fled? Men spend
   their strength on trifles, but on God Incarnate they turn their backs!

   It is strange that even the sufferings of Christ do not attract the
   attention of men, for generally if we hear any sad story of the
   misfortunes of our fellow creatures, we are interested. The newspaper
   is accounted more than usually interesting which contains full
   particulars of shipwrecks, the blowing down of houses, murders,
   shootings, killings and I do not know what! Everybody has felt he could
   read such a paper as that because it concerned his fellow men--what
   they had lost and what they had suffered. Everyone stops to hear the
   tale of the ancient mariner! Even the wedding guest is held while he,
   with the earnest eyes, tells how he suffered on the wide, deep,
   stagnant sea. And yet this story of a Man who came to our earth with no
   motive but love, and lived here to do nothing but good, and yet was so
   despised and rejected as

   to be nailed to a cross, and there made to die in the midst of jeers,
   sneers, pains and unknown agonies--this does not interest men! I
   marvel, and yet I marvel not at the strange indifference of this age to
   the wonders of Calvary! How is it Earth does not stretch out her hands
   and say, "Come and tell us of the God that loved us and came down to
   our low estate--and suffered for us men and for our salvation"? How is
   it that the crowds of this great city do not come and besiege our
   houses and say, "Tell us yet again this strange, mysterious story of
   the sufferings of the perfect Son of God"? It ought to interest us, if
   nothing more! Is it nothing to you, however? Is it nothing to you, all
   you that pass by?

   It ought to be more than interesting--it ought to excite our
   admiration. You cannot read of a man sacrificing himself for the good
   of his fellow creatures without feeling at once that you wish you had
   known that fine fellow! And you feel instinctively that you would do
   anything in the world to serve him if he still lives, or to help
   relatives left behind if he has died in a brave attempt. Who does not
   esteem, though you never knew him, the good man at Bethnal Green who
   perished but lately in the explosion at the firework factory? He rushes
   in to seek to rescue others and is found, at last, a handful of ashes
   bewailed by a weeping wife! One felt at once, "There was a man who had
   a soul beating beneath his ribs." But is no admiration to be given to
   the Son of God who left a Throne of Glory without bound and came here
   below to poverty, to shame, to a life of contempt and toil--and then
   voluntarily gave Himself up to a death which never could have been
   inflicted upon Him if He had not given Himself up to die? Jesus Christ
   had no motive in suffering but the good of men! Nothing selfish ever
   crossed His soul. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, it was pity that ruled His
   heart--pity, and only pity--and while we set up our statues in
   reverence of men who have loved their fellow men and speak of
   such-and-such a man as "a great philanthropist," is it nothing to you
   that Jesus should die for men and shall this greatest of all
   philanthropists, this first and chief of lovers of the race of men, be
   altogether forgotten? I would admire Him even if He had not saved me!
   If I had no share in His blood, I think I would love Him. The life of
   Christ enchants me! The death of Christ binds me to His Cross! Even if
   I were never washed in His blood and were even cast away into Hell, if
   that were possible, I still feel I must admire Him for His love to
   others! Yes, and I must adore Him, too, for His godlike Character and
   His godlike sufferings for the sons of men! But why, why is it that
   such a Christ, so lovely and so admirable, is forgotten by the most of
   mankind and is nothing to them?

   Now, my dear Hearers, there are some of you to whom I might put this
   question very closely. You have heard about Jesus very often. This
   pulpit is always ringing with His name. And you have admired what Jesus
   did. I know you have and if any spoke ill of Him, you would be very
   grieved--and you would be among the first to defend His name! And yet--
   and yet--is that all? Are you always going to be interested and to
   admire, but are you never going further? Is it, after all, to come to
   this, that it is nothing to you that Jesus should die? You have no
   interest in that death, no part, no lot in the salvation which that
   death brings to the sons of men! I am afraid that with some of you it
   will be so all your days. Fifteen years have I preached to some of
   you--15 years! And if those 15 years have not brought you to Christ, is
   there any reason to believe that 15 more years will do it? No, I fear
   that with some of you the harvest is past and the summer is ended--and
   you are not saved. There was a time when this voice did seem to cut
   into your soul and the Truths of God that were uttered awakened your
   conscience! But it is all nothing to you now. You could go to sleep
   under the sound of it and your soul does sleep under the sense of it!
   What? Will you be lost? Have you resolved to be lost with a Savior
   lifted up before you? Have you determined that you will never look to
   Him who is lifted up to save you from the serpent's bite? Shall Christ,
   the Water of Life, never be tasted by your lips? Do you elect to perish
   of thirst? Shall this Bread of Life be never eaten? Do you choose
   rather to starve than to come to Him? No, you tell me you hope one of
   these days. Ah, but I have no hope of you for any day but today! And I
   wish you, too, knew that procrastination is of all things fatal. I
   would sooner that you resolved to be damned than that you only said,
   "Tomorrow, tomorrow." For if today you resolved upon your ruin, you
   might be startled at the resolution--and you might be led to see your
   folly and awakened to amend your steps! But if you always say,
   "Tomorrow, tomorrow," it will be the will-o'-the-wisp that will tempt
   you into the fatal morass where souls have been lost by tens of
   thousands--as yours will be!

   Oh, why should I have to be always coming down these steps and into
   this pulpit, to say over and over and over again to you that Jesus
   died--and that if you trust Him you shall live? Why should it need to
   be repeated over and over? Great God of patience, such a story as this
   ought to be accepted of the heart at once! If You bear with men who
   reject it, we may well bear with them, too, but, oh, we pray You let
   them not go too far with Your long-suffering, nor venture too much

   upon Your patience, lest You lift Your hand and swear in Your wrath
   that they shall not enter into Your rest because they had the Gospel,
   but they counted not themselves to be worthy of it!

   One thing I would say to you, to all of you to whom it seems as yet to
   be nothing that Jesus should die--that personally to me it is something
   that He should die. It is more than something--it is everything--and I
   will tell you why. It is much to me that Jesus died, for I know I slew
   Him. I sang those verses just now and I sang them with some bitterness
   of soul, I was forced to feel--

   "'Tis I have thus ungrateful been."

   If it were not that I had sinned, as one of the race, there had been no
   need for Christ to die. But as it was sin that pierced and nailed Him,
   I had a share in His death. But then I know another thing--that by that
   death I am delivered from the very guilt that put Him to death! I have
   looked to Him and I am forgiven. Fleming tells us in a book of his,
   that a great culprit had been condemned to be hanged at Ayr. He had
   been a very great offender, but while he lay in prison, God granted him
   repentance and he was heard to say continually as they took him to the
   scaffold, "Oh, but He's a great for-giver! Oh, but He's a great
   forgiver!" And I have often felt as if I could stand and cry, yes, even
   dance and say it, "Oh, but He's a great forgiver! Oh, but He's a great
   forgiver!" My innumerable sins confessed to Him were blotted out, each
   one, and peace and joy bestowed where all before was fear and
   trembling! Now, there are hundreds in this house that could say the
   same. If I were to ask it, and this were the proper time, there are
   thousands within this dome who could rise and say, "I, too, can say
   that it is much to me that Jesus died, for though I slew Him, yet by
   His death I live, and by the blood which I drew from His veins I have
   been washed and made white." Now, if it is so much to us, we do
   sincerely wish, oh, unconverted ones, that Christ were as much to you,
   for we do think He ought to be! We desire that He should be! We pray
   that He may be and we tremble, even to horror, lest, after all, He
   should not be, for if Christ is nothing to you, it will be a hard dying
   for you, a hard dying--the bed shall be of iron and the pillow shall be
   cold as ice--and it will be hard passing into a disembodied state! It
   will be hard coming before God. It will be hard for when your body
   rises in the day of the Resurrection, when the trumpet sounds, and the
   sepulchers are burst open, and your body, linked to your soul again,
   shall stand before the flaming Throne of Christ! It will be hard for
   you--oh, so hard--throughout eternity! An eternity without Christ! An
   eternity without Christ! "Nothing to you, nothing to you," you say now,
   but how will it be when conscience shall remind you in eternity, "you
   heard of Christ, but you said He was nothing to you! You listened to
   earnest admonitions, but you said they were nothing to you." How will
   this stir the fire? How will this fan the flame? How will this prick
   your conscience and vex your spirit, that Jesus died, and inestimable
   mercies dropped from the Cross--pardons sealed with blood were
   distributed freely upon Calvary and broken hearts were healed--and sins
   were forgiven and the dead were raised and the lost were saved? But it
   was all nothing to you, nothing to you! Oh, before death comes--and he
   is on his way to some here present--on his way to meet them soon!
   Before death comes on the pale horse with Hell following at his heels,
   I beseech you, as you love your souls, look to the Crucified and be not
   satisfied till you can say, "He is everything to me! I slew Him, but He
   saved me! I looked to Him and I live!"

   May God bless this admonition and my heart shall be glad, indeed, if He
   will but do it. Oh, how little can I do for you, you unconverted ones,
   how little can I do for you! When I sometimes get a handshake from some
   of you, and you say, "Well, I have been hearing you for years, Sir, but
   I am not converted," I look hopefully upon you, but I cannot help, when
   I get away, reproaching myself in part and saying, "Have I preached to
   these people as I ought to?" You make me wake up at night to weep about
   you and to ask myself again and again, "What more can I say? How shall
   I put it? With what force and power can I deliver it, if perhaps I may
   reach their hearts?" Oh, I trust you may yet be brought--and God shall
   be praised and glorified world without end! Now, let us change to a
   second point--

   II. A SOLEMN QUESTION.

   The Lord Jesus Christ may be represented here as bidding men see if
   there is any sorrow like unto His sorrow which is done to Him. Now,
   observe, that it may be truthfully said that the sufferings of Jesus
   were altogether unique and by themselves. There were never any
   sufferings which could match His--and never was there such an
   illustrious sufferer put to such boundless shame. He was the eye of
   Heaven, the very sun and star of the bright world! It was the seraph's
   bliss to do Him homage. King of kings and Lord of lords was He, and the
   government was upon His shoulders! And His name was called Wonderful,
   The Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of
   Peace! All the hallelujahs of eternity rolled up at His august feet!
   But He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and
   acquainted with grief! And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He
   was despised and we esteemed Him not. They spat into His face. They
   plucked off His hair. They blindfolded Him. They struck Him with their
   fists. They scourged Him. The bloody scourges made the sacred drops
   roll. They gave Him a felon's death and then stood by and mocked His
   prayers and made jests about His groans and pangs! Never was One so
   high brought so low. "Behold and see if there were ever sorrow like
   unto My sorrow, which is done unto Me." Never One so innocent, so
   falsely accused. He had done no evil. He was no rival of Caesar. He
   said His Kingdom was not of this world. Instead of doing evil, He had
   done boundless good. His food and His drink were to do God's will. His
   delight was to help the poor, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick. He
   was all gentleness, all goodness. From both His hands He scattered His
   bounties lavishly among the graceless sons of men--and yet they said He
   was guilty of sedition and of blasphemy! He, seditious? He a
   blasphemer? Lying could go no farther! Bribed witnesses could not be
   made to agree! The lie was too massive even for those to compass who
   were willing to have compassed it! Oh, was ever grief like His--to be
   treated as a felon and put to death as though guilty--when all the
   while He did no sin, neither was deceit found on His lips!

   Remember, Beloved, that in our Savior's death there were aggravations
   of an extraordinary kind. Before He actually came to die, that dreadful
   night in Gethsemane had broken His already emaciated frame. There He
   sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. In two
   or three cases, other persons have sweat drops of blood, but they have
   invariably died. Our Savior did this and yet lived. Oh, how was the
   bitterness of His soul expressed in that awful overflow which fell upon
   Gethsemane's soil! Then, remember, He was led, deserted by His friends,
   without any comfort from His God, to be tried by Herod, by Pilate, by
   Caiaphas--to be scourged, beaten, probably several times with rods and
   scourges. God forsook Him--"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
   was the very depth of His agony and without one to pity, one to
   administer comfort, utterly forsaken, our Savior died with aggravations
   of agonies that were to be found in no other death!

   Still, the singularity of His death lies in another respect. There was
   never sorrow like the sorrow which was done unto Christ, because all
   His sorrow was born for others. Whatever you and I may suffer, we
   deserve it and, directly or indirectly, we may trace it to the fact
   that we are sinners. But He was not a sinner. In Him was no sin and
   neither suffering nor death could lawfully have been laid upon Him had
   He not made Himself the Substitute for His people. Behold, and see if
   there was ever sorrow like His sorrow! He bears the sin of many. He is
   numbered with the transgressors. He stands vicariously to endure what
   never could have been His if it had not been that He was a Surety and
   stood in His people's place.

   Now, I want your thoughts just one minute. What was it that Christ, as
   Substitute, had to endure? Answer-- Although it may not have been
   precisely what we ought to have endured, it must have been something
   equivalent thereto. Now, what ought one sinner to have suffered?
   Answer--Eternal misery in Hell! What, then, what then must have been
   the pangs which in Christ's case stood as the equivalent for the
   eternal agonies of one sinnefi But Christ died not for one sinner, but
   for tens of thousands, for countless multitudes, whom no one can
   number! Think, then, my Brothers and Sisters, what must have been the
   crushing blows which Jehovah laid on Him when those blows were to be an
   equivalent for the hells of ten thousand times ten thousand of those
   for whom He suffered! Of course, it were not possible for Him to have
   endured, even for one, if He had not been God! His Godhead gave Him an
   infinite capacity for misery and infused a boundless degree of misery
   into all the pangs He bore. You have no more idea of what Christ
   suffered in His soul than you have when you take up in a shell, a drop
   of seawater! What Christ suffered is utterly inconceivable! We are not
   just to think of Him as dying as another dies. His was a vast soul, so
   great a soul that it seemed to have all souls within it--and it had the
   capacity for suffering what all souls might have borne--and the whole
   of that vast Nature which God had given, that wondrous Nature which He
   Himself also essentially possessed--was put forth to make an Atonement
   for human sin. "Behold and see if there was ever sorrow like unto My
   sorrow, which is done unto Me."

   "Oh, let us now, instead of talking any more, sit down by meditation at
   the foot of the Cross and look up! 'Tis the King! 'Tis the King, but He
   is crowned with thorns! It is the Prince of Glory, but He is stripped
   naked to His shame! It is the Ancient of eternal days, but He bows His
   head to die! He is God, All-Sufficient, yet He cries, "I thirst"! He is
   the angel's darling, but He is despised and rejected of men! Hark, He
   fills Heaven with honor! His Presence gilds Heaven with light, yet
   there upon the Cross He is covered with darkness! And the music about
   Him is that of His own sighs, and cries, and groans. Was ever grief
   like Yours? Needless question! Needless question! All but shameful
   question, for were all

   griefs that ever were condensed into one, they were no more worthy to
   be compared therewith than the glowworm's tiny lamp with the
   ever-blazing sun!

   What then, Beloved, what then? If Christ is thus alone in suffering,
   what then? Why, let Him standalone in our love. High, high, high set up
   Christ in your heart! Now, Brothers and Sisters you have many objects
   of your affection, but oh, lift up my lord, your soul's Bridegroom,
   your spirit's Well-Beloved! Come now, if you have thought well of Him,
   think better of Him! If you have loved Him, oh, love Him more! Now, ask
   to have your heart inflamed, as with coals ofjuniper, which have a
   vehement heat, and let that heart be all His own! Oh, let there be no
   such love as your love to Christ! Let it pass the love of women! Let it
   go beyond a mother's love, a brother's affection, a father's
   tenderness! Love Him--you cannot match His love to you, but at least
   seek to let your little stream run side by side with the mighty river!

   If Christ is thus alone in suffering, Brothers and Sisters, let us seek
   to make Him, if we can, alone in our service. We do not do much for
   Christ, compared with what we should. Some have learned to give much,
   but yet what is our giving for such an one as He is? We only give what
   we can spare--how few of us ever pinch ourselves for Him? He smarted
   for us and gave up even His very garments for us, but we do not come to
   that. In the olden times they did--saints, martyrs and Christian
   missionaries made sacrifice of all and counted it no sacrifice out of
   love to Him. I wish we had more Marys who would break the alabaster box
   of precious ointment upon His dear head. Oh, for a little extravagance
   of love, a little fanaticism of affection for Him, for He deserves ten
   thousand times more than the most enthusiastic ever dream of rendering!
   If He is thus, Brothers and Sisters, so far beyond all others in His
   sorrow, let Him also be first and foremost tonight in our praise. If
   you have poetic minds, weave no garlands except for His dear brow! If
   you are men of eloquence, speak no glowing periods except to His honor!
   If you are men of wit and scholarship, oh, seek to lay your scholarship
   at the foot of His Cross! Come here with all your talents and yield
   them to Him who bought them with His blood! Come, here, you with much
   and yet with little--come with hearts so warm whom He loved so well--

   "Here then your music bring, Strike aloud each cheerful string! Mortals
   join the hosts above, Come and praise redeeming love."

   The Lord give us such a frame of mind as that, tonight, when we come to
   the breaking of bread, and His be the glory. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 69:1-21; MARK 15:15-23;
   LUKE23:26-33.

   We shall read together at this time a part of the 69th Psalm and
   afterwards two passages in the New Testament. Although there is no
   doubt that this Psalm is intended to describe a very large class of
   sufferers, we think it never had its full meaning perfectly carried out
   until our blessed Lord and Master suffered at the hands of men. We
   shall read the Psalm believing that it is full of Christ. It is
   absolutely certain that we have references hare to His Advent, His
   passion and His Resurrection.

   To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, a Psalm of David.

   Verse 1. Save me, O God, for the waters are come into My soul. The
   waves have not only teased the bank, but they have dashed over the
   bulwarks and there is a flood within, as well as a flood without.

   2. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am come into deep
   waters where the floods overflow Me. We had this text explained to us
   last Friday night when the traveler told us he saw a man sink in the
   mud, almost swallowed up by it, till by a very desperate grasp of the
   boat, he made his escape. Christ was, as it were, sucked in by the
   great deeps of His afflictions--as if He would quickly be swallowed up.

   3. I am weary of My crying: My throat is dried. He had been so long in
   the Garden in that awful agony, with strong crying and tears.

   3, 4. My eyes fail while I wait for My God. They that hate Me without a
   cause are more than the hairs of My head. See Him now in the street
   being led away to Mount Calvary--a vast multitude has congregated
   there, all eager to see Him die!

   4. They that would destroy Me, being My enemies wrongfully, are mighty.
   They have the Roman soldiers at their backs, while the mob applauds
   them.

   4. Then I restored that which I took not away. Christ did not take away
   our innocence, nor our safety, nor our honor, but He restored them all
   to us! He has made us clean! He has made us accepted in the Beloved! He
   has put a crown of pure gold upon our heads and set our feet upon a
   rock.

   5. O God, You know my foolishness and my sins are not hid from You.
   These words are not applicable to our Lord, except so far as they may
   refer to ourfoolishness and to oursin, which we know were all laid on
   Him. But one commentator says that He is here speaking according to the
   manner of the people. They called Him foolish. They charged Him with
   sin, but He appeals to Heaven, "Lord, You know whether I have been
   foolish, whether I have any sins or not." In that sense we might apply
   it literally to the Savior.

   6. Letnot them that wait on You, O Lord God ofHosts, be ashamed for My
   sake: let not those who seek You be confounded for My sake, O God of
   Israel "Let not the shame of My Cross destroy their faith. Grant unto
   them such confidence in Me that they may take up their cross daily and
   follow Me, that they may even learn to say with My Apostle, "God forbid
   that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

   7. Because for Your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered My
   face. It was for His Father's sake that He might bring honor to
   Jehovah, that He thus suffered reproach. "Shame has covered My
   face"--that face which is brighter than the sun and which angels desire
   to gaze upon!

   8. Ihave become a stranger unto My brethren. "Peter says he knows Me
   not. All of them have forsaken Me."

   8, 9. And an alien unto My mother's children. For the zeal of Your
   house has eaten Me up and the reproaches of them that reproached You
   are fallen upon Me. Every hard word that was spoken of the Father fell
   upon the Son--the iniquities which were rebellions against Jehovah all
   fell upon the Man of Nazareth!

   10. When I wept, and chastened My soul with fasting, that was to My
   reproach. That was scandal unto them.

   11. I made sack cloth also My garment; and I became a proverb unto
   them. Just as Michal said of David, "How glorious did the King of
   Israel become in the eyes of his handmaidens!" Out of mockery, so did
   they reproach Christ, "How glorious was the King of Israel, so daintily
   arrayed in a peasant's robe, or stripped naked upon His Cross."

   12. They that sit in the gate speak against Me. The judges who there
   dispensed justice. The merchants who there trade their wares. The
   idlers who were there to loiter, to hear the news--these all speak
   against Me.

   12. And I became the song of the drunkard. They made ballads of Him. We
   may understand that to mean they issued lampoons--every now and then
   there came out a caricature.

   13, 14. But as forMe, Myprayeris unto You, OLord, in an acceptable
   time: O God, in the multitude ofYourmer-cy hear Me, in the truth of
   Your salvation, deliver Me out of the mire, and let Me not sink: let Me
   be delivered from them that hate Me, and out of the deep waters.
   Imagine you hear your Master as He silently prays this prayer in the
   streets of Jerusalem--the mobs are hooting, but He is praying--women
   are weeping and He is weeping, too.

   15-20. Let not the flood overflow Me, neither let the deep swallow Me
   up, and let not the Pit shut her mouth upon Me. Hear Me, O Lord, for
   Your loving kindness is good: turn unto Me according to the multitude
   of Your tender mercies. And hide not Your face from Your Servant; for I
   am in trouble: hear Me speedily. Draw near unto My soul, and redeem it:
   deliver Me because of My enemies. You have known My reproach and My
   shame, and My dishonor: My adversaries are all before You. Reproach has
   broken My heart This is one of the most extraordinary verses in Holy
   Writ!

   20, 21. And I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity,
   but there was none; and for comforters, but I foundnone. They gave Me
   also gall for My meat; andin My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.
   Now, let us read the incidents in the history of Christ, of which this
   Psalm is a sort of prophecy and exposition.

   MARK 15:15-23.

   Verses 15-23. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released
   Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged Him, to
   be crucified. And the soldiers led Him away into the hall which is
   called Praetorium; and they called together the whole band. And they
   clothed Him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it
   about His head. And began to salute Him, Hail, King of the Jews. And
   they smote Him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon Him, and
   bowing their knees worshipped Him. And when they had mocked Him, they
   took off thepurple from Him, and

   put His own clothes on Him, andledHim out to crucifyHim. And they
   compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian whopassed by, coming out of the
   country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His Cross. And they
   brought Him unto the place called Golgotha, which is, being
   interpreted, the place of a skull. And they gave Him to drink wine
   mingled with myrrh: but He received it not. I shall have to show you
   that this was given to Him in mercy. The Romans always gave, before
   crucifixion, a cup of drugged wine, in order to lessen the
   sensibilities of the victim. In this case there was not only myrrh in
   the cup, but gall. A second cup of gall Christ did drink, but this cup,
   being intoxicating, He would not receive--when He had tasted it, He
   would not drink. He needed the possession of all His faculties--and in
   their clearest state--in order to do combat with the dreadful powers of
   darkness.

   LUKE23:26-33.

   Luke supplies some particulars which Mark has left out. Turn,
   therefore, to the 23rd Chapter of Luke and the 26th verse. Luke, also,
   tells us of Simon.

   Verse 26. Andas theyledHim away, theylaidhold upon one Simon, a
   Cyrenian, coming out ofthe country, and on him they laid the Cross,
   that he might bear it after Jesus. Now these are the things which Mark
   has not put in.

   27, 29. And there followed Him a great company of people, and of women,
   which also bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus turning unto them said,
   Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and
   for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in which they
   shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and
   the breasts which never gave suck This was accounted a curse, but their
   curses would seem blessings to them when compared with the curse of the
   dreadful slaughter at Jerusalem!

   30, 31. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall upon us;
   and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree
   what shall be done in the dry?If they do these things while yet the
   Jewish State is standing, what will they do when that State is broken
   up? If they do these things to innocent persons--a green tree--what
   will they do to the unhallowed person, the ungodly and the rebellious
   who are like dry, rotten trees? How will the flame lay hold on those
   branches out of which the sap of virtue has long ago been dried?

   32. And there were also two other, malefactors. It should be
   "others"--there should be an "s" there. 32, 33. Led with Him to be put
   to death. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary,
   there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand
   and the other on the left. Shall we refuse to take up our cross and
   follow the Lord Jesus Christ? I think not. If any ask us whether we
   will leave Him because of the fears which may be excited by the world's
   frowns, this shall be our answer--let us sing it--with regard to the
   world and all its temptations--

   "No, facing all its frowns or smiles, Counting its gain but loss!
   Outside the camp we take our place, With Jesus bear the Cross."
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Valiant Right Hand

   (No. 3361)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE OPENING OF THE EAST LONDON TABERNACLE, ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22,
   1872.

   "The right hand of tie Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord does
   valiantly." Psalm 118:16.

   THIS verse might full often have leapt from the lips of Believers in
   the olden times. This verse might have constituted part of the Song of
   Moses at the Red Sea, for how wondrously did God there overthrow the
   host of His enemies, when, after dividing the sea, Egypt was swallowed
   up in it, God, Himself causing the last foe of Israel to be swept away
   by the mighty waters! "Sing unto the Lord," they said, "for He has
   triumphed gloriously," and by the shores of the Red Sea they knew that
   "The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does
   valiantly." It was so in the wilderness when Joshua fought with Amalek
   and Moses held up his hands in prayer. It was so when they smote Sihon,
   king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Are not these things
   written in the Books of the wars of the Lord, and is it not said, "The
   Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name"? It was conspicuously so in
   the driving out of the Canaanites. When the people of Israel, untrained
   for war, marched into the land, they found that their enemies had
   chariots of iron and they were entrenched in cities that were walled up
   even unto Heaven--but yet all the Canaanites, the Hivites and the
   Jebusites could not stand against the twelve tribes of Israel! They
   fled before them like chaff before the wind! They were scattered like
   the clouds before the tempest! "Oh, praise you the Lord and magnify
   Him, for He cast out the heathen and He planted His people in their own
   land." The right hand of the Lord was that day exalted, for His right
   hand does valiantly!

   And was it not so throughout the period of the Judges? Time would fail
   us to tell you of Samson, of Gideon, of Barak and all those mighty men
   who were as weapons in the hands of Jehovah--javelins cast forth by
   Omnipotence! Truly in those days, also, the right hand of the Lord did
   valiantly! David, who penned this Psalm, knew this in his own
   experience, for he smote the Philistines hip and thigh with great
   slaughter. And long after David had slept with his fathers, others
   arose and God was with them--and the Lord did mighty deeds. Have you
   forgotten how the hosts of Sennacherib lay like the sere leaves of
   autumn when the breath of the archangel had blasted them? Right onward
   throughout the whole history of Israel, the foes of God had made
   headway for a while, for He put His hand, even His right hand, into His
   bosom. But when the Lord has risen and His people have chanted the
   solemn Psalm, "Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered," then
   they that hated Him have fled before Him! Into smoke have they been
   consumed like the fat of rams! Into smoke have they been consumed away!
   "The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does
   valiantly."

   But from those triumphs of physical might over warlike powers we turn
   our eyes to another field of battle--a spiritual one! And God who was
   mighty with weapons of war, we find mighty with the sword of the Spirit
   and with the weapons of the Gospel! And we claim the verse which is now
   before us as a song of the New Testament as well as a chant of the Old!
   The right hand of the Lord is this day exalted and still it does
   valiantly!

   We shall ask your attention not to a very lengthy sermon, but to these
   three points--The triumphs of the Lord Jesus; the triumphs of the
   Gospel in the Church; the triumphs of Grace in individual hearts. To
   all these, and I know not to which one more than another, the text is
   most appropriate.

   I. CONCERNING THE TRIUMPHS OF THE LORD JESUS IT MAY BE SAID, "The right
   hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does
   valiantly." He did not come as a Man of war, for He is the Prince of
   Peace. He came not here with sword, shield and buckler, but He came
   with a body fitted to suffer and with a heart that was made

   strong to endure. The Christ of God came in lowliness and in shame, to
   be despised and rejected of men, but for all that He fought great
   battles in the midst of His weakness and won for Himself wondrous
   spiritual victories. Observe, dear Friends, with holy adoration, how
   our Lord Jesus Christ met Satan in conflict, not once nor twice, but
   many times! In fact, throughout the Savior's life, the prince of the
   powers of the air assailed our Master. That was a glorious duel which
   was fought in the wilderness and on the lofty mountain, from which
   those two contending spirits had a view of the whole world! And on the
   pinnacle of the Temple, too. Sharp was the sword of Diabolus when he
   sought to smite the Savior under the fifth rib and make a full end of
   His innocence. But oh, how glorious the strokes of the Lord, Himself,
   with the sword of the Spirit, when He said, "It is written," and yet
   again, "It is written," and yet again, "It is written," and He chased
   the fiend away! And then triumphant angels came and ministered to the
   Conqueror amidst the loneliness of the desert. Oh, you Spirits, you
   might have sung that day, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the
   right hand of the Lord does valiantly." All through His life our Savior
   kept His vantage ground. The prince of this world assailed Him, but he
   made no dent upon His armor, much less wound upon His soul! He was
   tempted in all points--the darts flew so thick that they assailed Him
   from head to foot--but He was without a wound at the close of the
   conflict! He was tempted, but yet without sin. And you know how it came
   to the last tug of all in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oh, what a
   wrestling was that, when, as it were, the arch-fiend grappled close
   with Christ and gripped Him so that--

   "That desperate tug His soul might feel, Through bars of brass and
   triple steel."

   It brought the bloody sweat down the Master's face, but He did not
   relinquish His hold upon the foe and gave him such a fall that he never
   shall recover the defeat which he sustained amidst the olive trees of
   Gethsemane! And on the Cross, too, when he rallied his forces for the
   last time and assailed the Spirit of our Lord with all the malice of
   his infernal nature, there the great Michael, the true Archangel, set
   His foot upon the dragon's head--and though His heel was wounded--yet
   He broke that head! And the strength of the power of evil is gone
   forever! Its monarchy is finally destroyed. "The right hand of the
   Lord," though it was a pierced hand, "the right hand of the Lord,"
   though it had grasped a scepter of reed, "does valiantly"! "The right
   hand of the Lord is exalted."

   The same might be said, but we should go over the same ground, again,
   if we spoke of the conquests which our Lord achieved over sin in every
   shape and form. It mattered not how it approached Him--He repelled it!
   He overthrew it as far as He was personally concerned. And when the
   sins of His people were laid upon Him, oh, Brothers and Sisters, how
   dreadful was that hour, but how ought we to look back upon it with
   devout thankfulness! When the sins of His people came like an avalanche
   to crush Him, how gloriously did He sustain the load! With what
   wondrous power of angels did He suffer the wrath of God which was due
   for the sins of His people--

   "Bore all Incarnate God could bear, With strength enough, but none to
   spare."

   And when He had made Atonement forever for all His people's sins and
   brought in everlasting righteousness for all His chosen, and could say,
   "It is finished"-- when He gave up the ghost--then truly the right hand
   of the Lord was exalted and the right hand of the Lord had done
   valiantly! Brothers and Sisters, the Lord Jesus has this day conquered
   all our sins! There is not a transgression left to accuse His people!
   There is no record against them in God's book! He has perfected forever
   them that are set apart. The work is finished! Salvation is complete!
   The right hand of the Lord has done for us what we could not have done
   for ourselves! What the angels of Heaven would not have been so foolish
   as to have attempted, the Lord Jesus Christ has most surely completed
   for all Believers! Heaven rings this day with the joyful songs of His
   triumphant saints who tell how "the right hand of the Lord is exalted."

   Our precious Lord is to be praised in language like our text for having
   vanquished death as well as sin. Satan and sin He overthrew and
   virtually therein He conquered death. It did not seem as if He would
   vanquish death, my Brothers and Sisters, when He lay in the grave. The
   image of death was set as with a seal upon His brow! The Lord of Life
   and Immortality seemed, and was as really dead as any of the sons of
   Adam! The three days passed--the appointed time in which He should be,
   like Jonah, in the bowels of the earth. But on the third day He could
   not be held by the bonds of death. I think

   1 see Him, like another Samson who had been bound with cords, awakening
   from His slumber like a strong man refreshed, and He snaps the bonds of
   death, for it was not possible that He could be held by them! Then the
   stone was rolled away from the door of the sepulcher and out He came,
   resplendent in the glory of His Resurrection body! From that moment
   death has been destroyed! Children of God shall pass through the grave,
   but they cannot be confined in it. "Oh,

   death, where is your sting? Oh, grave, where is your victory?" Christ
   has forever taken away the gates of the Gaza of the grave, carried them
   far away where Satan can never bring them back, and death cannot
   restore his stronghold. Glorify the ever-living Christ, for His right
   hand is exalted!

   And the same was conspicuously true in the day when our Lord left this
   world and rose to the Father Our imagination can hardly depict that
   scene, when they who received Him after the Apostles had lost sight of
   Him, brought His chariot from on high to bear Him to His Throne. Oh,
   what an ascent was that, when flashed the eternal coursers up the
   celestial hills. For He comes, mighty to save! He went forth to battle,
   but He comes back from conquest to wear His well-earned renown. Do you
   not see at His chariot wheels the bound monsters? They must be dragged
   to the very gates of Heaven and then hurled down again! He has led
   captivity captive and received gifts for men. Oh, in that day of our
   Lord's ascending up on high, they who gazed upon the matchless
   spectacle of the returning King of kings must have said, if not in
   words, yet certainly in sense, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
   the right hand of the Lord does valiantly."

   In those victories, Beloved, you and I have a share. Satan was
   conquered for us! Sin was overcome for us! Death was bound for us--

   "Hell and our sins obstruct our course, But Hell and sin are vanquished
   foes! Our Savior nailed them to His Cross, And sang the triumph when He
   rose."

   Believe it and be glad of it! All your enemies are overcome! You still
   have to battle, but you fight with conquered foes. The dragon who is
   most dreadful to you carries a deadly wound about him. Your sins with
   which you have to contend from day to day are virtually slain. They
   have their death wound--they shall not be able to follow you into
   Heaven. Oh, rejoice in your Lord, conquer in His conquests, be
   victorious in His victory, overcome through the blood of the Lamb, and
   give Him all the glory of your triumph! Now, I pass on to note, in the
   second place, that our text is very applicable to--

   II. THE PERPETUAL TRIUMPHS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST.

   The Church began with feeble numbers, with small wealth. I might add,
   with comparatively little talent, but she was clothed with the Holy
   Spirit--she was, therefore, mighty! Let us just look at the history of
   the Church a minute or two, that our souls may be comforted with the
   prospect of the like victories in days to come. When first the Church
   was in the world like a new-born child, the dragon vomited forth
   torrents with the hope of drowning it. You know the rough weapons with
   which the world assailed the Church at first. The sword was unsheathed,
   prisons were put into use, the rack, unutterable torments, shame,
   reproach, every infernal art of persecution was pressed into the
   diabolical service to put down, if possible, the cause and Kingdom of
   Christ in the world. Now, only think for a minute what became of the
   continued attempts, the cruel attempts of the world against the Church,
   for the result conspicuously shows how the right hand of the Lord was
   exalted! The more they persecuted Israel in Egypt, the more they
   multiplied--and it was the same with the Church of God. They that were
   persecuted went everywhere preaching the Word. They might have tarried
   at home, perhaps, and been corn in the garner, but persecution broke
   down the door and they were thrown, like handfuls of wheat, broadcast
   over the nations--and everywhere the precious Seed sprang up! It was of
   no use killing the Christians--it was like the killing of the
   Hydra--the cutting off of one head made a hundred fresh ones spring up!

   Young men went to see the martyrdom of saints and as they saw their
   holy patience, they came to be Believers themselves, till dying
   Christians became the most powerful preachers of the Gospel and even
   the saints that believed were comforted by the sight of the death of
   the martyrs--they went to see how to die, they went to learn the way to
   give themselves up for Christ! The anvil never smites the hammer in
   return, but it breaks many hammers. It wears out the hammer. Here is
   the patience of the saints. God being in His Church, she has borne year
   after year, and God has forborne to avenge her, but she has triumphed!
   Her weak, feeble maidens and her illiterate men, her sons and her
   daughters who lifted not a hand in self-defense, have vanquished those
   that were armed to the teeth and had the power of Imperial Rome and of
   all empires at their back! "The right hand of the Lord," amidst the
   hosts of martyrs who wear the ruby crown in Heaven today, "is exalted,"
   for "the right hand of the Lord does valiantly."

   Then, at the same time, the Church was sent into the world to combat
   with the superstitions which existed in that age and, Brothers and
   Sisters, the superstitions of ancient Rome were very attractive, very
   venerable. They had existed

   through long ages. They were interwoven with the daily life of the
   people. Poetry, art, philosophy, all lent their power to maintain the
   old heathenism with which the Christian Church came in contact. I have
   no doubt whatever that the Pontifex Maximus of the day, if he had been
   told that in Paul he saw a rival, teaching a religion which would break
   down all the old altars and the temples of Rome, would have ridiculed
   the statement. And yet it was so, for where are the gods of old Rome
   today? Who worships Jupiter today? Who bows before Saturn, father of
   the gods? Or who pays reverence to Venus or Diana? These have gone--and
   what has smitten them and broken them in pieces? The stone cut out of
   the mountain without hands has dashed them all in pieces and broken
   their power like potters' vessels! And none shall set up these false
   gods again. Nor was it so in Rome, alone. In all countries, the Church
   of God has had a complete triumph. Weird superstitions woven with
   stories of magic which alarmed the multitudes have fled like the birds
   of night before the rising sun! No form of superstition which the enemy
   has been able to devise has had power to retain its hold where the
   Gospel has been fully preached. The superstition might seem to stand
   like the eternal hills, but Faith has said, "Who are you, great
   mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain," and the mountain
   of superstition has melted away! "The right hand of the Lord is
   exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly."

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, the Church has been assailed by heresies
   within herselfand if anything might have destroyed her, surely it would
   have been these! I will single out but one--the Arian heresy. You that
   are well read in Church History will know how very potent at one time
   the Arian heresy was in the ancient Church. The Divinity of our Lord
   became almost universally denied! He was a great man, a good man,
   perhaps the best of men, but they said that He was nothing more. It was
   a grand day when Athanasius declared that Christ was "very God of very
   God," and, finding himself alone, yet said, "I, Athanasius, against the
   world." It did seem an unequal combat, for there were monarchs on the
   side of the Arians--bishops and the power of the then Church, as well
   as the power of the world! But Arianism-- where is it now? The pure
   faith of God has flung it off like drops of rain that are cast off from
   the housetops and remain not! There may be some sleeping in the dens
   and corners of the earth, to hide their ignoble heads, but the heresy
   is dead for any power that it has in the Christian Church. And so shall
   every heresy die. As the eternal God lives, nothing is immortal but the
   Truth of God--nothing is eternal but the Gospel! The right hand of the
   Lord fights not for a lie, but it is lifted up and His arm is made bare
   for the truth of His Son Jesus Christ! And all along through the pages
   of Church History this is true--that the right hand of the Lord is
   exalted, and does valiantly in overthrowing error!

   But the Church had to suffer from something which excelled heresy
   because it was the aggregation of heresy, superstition and apostasy. I
   mean the spread of Popery. In the Middle Ages the night was sevenfold.
   There was scarcely light enough for the anxious seeker to see his Lord!
   And men were crushed by the Inquisition, by the practice of priestly
   confession, by the domination of priests, bishops and popes. And if any
   man had then bewailed the absence of the light, as some few did, and an
   angel had said to him, "Courage, my son. The day shall come in which
   all this system shall lose its power and the old Gospel shall come
   back"--I can imagine I hear the weeper say, "If the Lord should open
   windows in Heaven, could such a thing be?" But such a thing was! God
   found the man and gave him a heart of iron and a brow of brass--and
   Martin Luther's voice was heard ringing across these waters, saying,
   "Therefore is a man justified by faith, and not by the works of the
   Law." And other voices took up that strain till in regions where that
   Truth of God was an utterly unknown thing, it became familiar to the
   peasant at the plow and humble men and women, hiding away from the
   powers that would have destroyed them, cheered one another with the
   gladness of that Gospel sound! Oh, you know, Beloved, how God smote the
   church of Rome in those days gone by, and as you read the story of the
   Reformation, you can say, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted."

   Now, I shall not detain you with history. I shall bring you to today,
   for the truth of the olden times is fulfilled in your ears again this
   day. Wherever the Gospel is preached, the right hand of the Lord is
   exalted! We have seen it and, therefore, we speak what we know. If the
   Gospel of Jesus Christ is faithfully preached, no matter by whom--if it
   is the whole Gospel affectionately declared, prayed over, believingly
   delivered--it will always glorify God's name! I want you to notice in
   these days how the Lord's hand is exalted in some respects.

   First, in this respect--in awakening the attention of a negligent
   people to the Gospel. There is nothing in the world that makes so much
   stir as preaching Christ! You shall preach anything else you like and
   the people will sleep. But if you will preach Christ out and out
   simply, in plain Saxon, as Paul would have Him preached, not with
   wisdom of words, you shall find the people will come together! I know
   not why it is, but so it is, that even those who dislike the Gospel
   will

   come to hear it! And though sometimes they set their teeth together and
   curse the men that preach it, yet they come again--they cannot help it.
   A Gospel preacher has charms coming from his lips that bind themselves
   around men's hearts. And he holds them captives, unwilling at first,
   and afterwards joyful captives, to the power of the Word He preaches!
   There should be little need of advertisements with a simple, plain,
   bold Gospel preacher. You shall put him down a back street, you shall
   give him a passage down a court, you shall then do nothing more for him
   but let him speak to a handful of people--and the first news you will
   hear of him is that he is eccentric, that he is extraordinary, that he
   is a fool, that he is a madman! This is always good news! There is a
   man of God somewhere about when we hear that noise! Straightway people
   want to hear this enthusiast, this Methodist, this Presbyterian--and
   they rush to listen--and then it is that there is power felt by the
   people! They do not know what it is, but there is a something in it
   which seems to grip their hearts and hold them! It is nothing other
   than this--that the Lord has said of Christ that if He is lifted up, He
   will draw all men to Him! And where Christ is lifted up, people will be
   drawn to hear. They must hear! We need not ask them to come--they must
   come!. Where His body is, there will the eagles be gathered together!
   Where the Savior Christ is proclaimed, there shall they come who need
   to feed upon a Savior! Does philosophy achieve such a triumph as this?
   You call it a poor triumph. So it may be in itself, but in its ulterior
   results it is a very great one. There are wise men on the earth that
   would give their eyes and ears if they could but get the people to
   listen to them--but where Christ is not preached, there are generally
   more spiders than there are human souls. Put Unitarianism in the pulpit
   and you shall soon find how the pews begin to multiply in emptiness!
   Little else comes of it. A gospel with no Gospel has great power of
   dispersion, but it has little power of attraction--but the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ soon draws a multitude together and, "the right hand of
   the Lord is exalted."

   But you will still say this is little, and I shall confess it is
   comparatively little, but mark you, if the Gospel is preached, it does
   not end in coming and going to hear it, for soon that Gospel comes like
   an eagle from afar and pounces down on men's hearts and makes them a
   prey to its power! They that came to scoff, remain to pray! They that
   looked in from curiosity, remain to receive the Savior into their
   hearts! And those who came from enmity become converted into friends!
   Oh, how the right hand of the Lord was exalted in the days of Whitfield
   and Wesley! The stories of these two eminent men have been written
   lately by many loving pens--and I must confess I am always to read the
   narratives, however they may be written. Though I have read them many
   times, I can always read them again. Oh, it was wonderful when the
   whole land was asleep! The Church of England was asleep in the dark and
   the Dissenters were asleep in the light-- but there suddenly arose up a
   man who dared to stand upon his father's grave in the churchyard and to
   preach the Gospel! And then there came another, a twin seraph, with
   equal wings, who went into fields and began to proclaim the strange
   Doctrine of Faith as a saving Grace, the necessity of regeneration and
   the work of the Holy Spirit! Oh, those were brave days--the days of the
   early Methodists--when the time of the singing of birds was come and
   the land was full of the power of the Holy Spirit! And it is just so
   now. Anywhere where the Gospel is preached, and preached with the Holy
   Spirit sent down from Heaven, there are conversions, there are broken
   hearts, there are spirits held by Jesus' love, there are glad ones
   consecrating themselves to the Redeemer's service! "The right hand of
   the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly."

   And we have seen the truth of this in some of the very darkest parts of
   London. What a wonderful instance of what God's Grace can do can be
   seen by anyone who chooses to see it in such spots as Seven Dials,
   where God's love has blessed the earnest Evangelist. Or in Golden Lane,
   where a dear Brother of our own, labors amidst the poverty and sin of
   the masses. Why, when I have gone there to see my Brothers and Sisters
   meet together, the poorest of the poor--fruit sellers, men that were
   drunks and blasphemers, women that were thieves and harlots--and have
   heard them sing the praises of Jesus and rejoice in His dear name, I
   have felt "the right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the
   Lord does valiantly." And so here and all around! I need not quote
   instances, for you know them better than I do, of how lions are turned
   into lambs and ravens into doves, and the most unlikely spots in East
   London--that were deserts, salt lands and not inhabited, that looked as
   if they were cursed of God--have been made to rejoice and blossom, as
   the rose, when the preacher of the Gospel has come into the place and
   His master with him! Oh, yes, "the right hand of the Lord is exalted."

   But they say the Gospel has lost its power. I read the other day that
   some of us were the echoes of a dead Puritanism, that we were not
   abreast of the age and were preaching a faith that was practically
   dead! Sirs, they lie in their throats that say so, and some of them
   know it, for the Gospel is no more dead than they are, nor half as
   much! It lives and lives in all its energy! And they speak not the
   truth that dare to say it has lost its force. But it is
   unphilosophical! Hair-splitters do not care about it! Neological
   divines toss it out as a thing fit for old women! Glory be to God! If
   it suits old women, it will suit us and all kinds of people! But
   inasmuch as it is not philosophical according to their declaration,
   that word of God is fulfilled in our ears, "The foolishness of God is
   wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

   Then they turn round and say, "But look at those who preach
   it--uneducated men--men that are not of the higher classes of society,
   unskilled in the refinements, not able to always give the original word
   of the Scripture upon which they preach." Yes, Sirs, and it would be a
   difficult task for any man to prove that the early triumphs of the
   Gospel owed a solitary jot to education and learning! In looking at the
   inscriptions in the catacombs a few days ago, when in Rome, I could not
   help the observation continually coming to my lips that the early
   Christians must all, or almost all of them, have been so illiterate as
   scarcely to have been able to write their own names, for the most
   common words that are upon the slabs of stone that face the graves of
   the early Christians are badly spelt--and there are Greek letters and
   Latin letters intermingled, showing that they hardly knew how to finish
   a word in one language, but must piece it out with another, not knowing
   completely either the one or the other! Yes, but it was because God had
   put His Truth into the mouth of babes and sucklings, and established
   strength, that when the Church had conquered by such humble
   instrumentalities, and the Truths of God had been mighty when preached
   by such simple men, the right hand of the Lord was exalted, for the
   right hand of the Lord had done it--not the wisdom, nor the craft, nor
   the energy of man! God's arm was the more conspicuous because of the
   feebleness of the instrumentality! Much rather, then, will we glory in
   infirmities, because the power of God does rest upon us, for He it is
   that does valiantly! But now I must, in the third place, say a few
   words, and but a few, for time fails us, upon--

   III. THE TRIUMPHS OF GRACE IN INDIVIDUALS.

   Let us talk together. You remember, some of you who are this day
   converted, the time when first the Gospel had power over your soul I
   remember how I fought against it. A mother's tears would not move me,
   nor a father's earnest rebukes. I heard the Gospel, sometimes, and I
   was a little affected by it, but I threw it off! But I shall never
   forget when it came with power to my soul. I had no shield that could
   keep off its darts--the arrows of God found a ready way into my
   conscience--and they seemed to drink my very blood! My wound rankled
   and was corrupt. My soul refused to be comforted. Then, as I used to go
   up to my little chamber and bow my knees in prayer and come down more
   wretched than when I entered it, when I would search the Word of God to
   find comfort, but could not find it--then it was that he who knew me
   might have said, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted in that young
   man, for he was proud and lofty, and self-righteous, but now he lies in
   the very dust, and wonders that God lets him live, and marvels that
   there should be a Gospel for him, and can only half believe it true
   that such a wretch as he should ever be saved." Oh, I wish the Lord
   would come with power to some self-righteous ones that are here this
   afternoon! You are as good as your neighbors? Ah, suppose you are
   condemned with your neighbors, will that help you? To be lost in
   company is small benefit. Oh, but you have never done anybody any harm?
   No, except your God--and you have robbed Him of all the praise that was
   due to Him! And you have lived in this world just as you might have
   lived if there had been no God! Oh, proud Sinner, I cannot bring you
   down, but God can! Oh, for a blow from the mighty arm to level you and
   roll you, biting the dust in shame and self-abasement! Some of us know
   what that means. May you know it, too, and then you will say, though
   your heart is breaking as you say it, "The right hand of the Lord is
   exalted! He is good, but I am evil! He is great and I am nothing! He is
   infinitely holy, but I am shamefully impure! God be merciful to me a
   sinner! God save me for His Name's sake." It is in such a thing as this
   that the right hand of the Lord is exalted.

   But let me talk with you further, you that know the Lord. Beloved, do
   you remember when you sought to escape from the multitude of your sins?
   Do you recollect when they compassed you about like bees? You could not
   count your sins--you had forgotten them--they seemed dead and buried,
   but they all came to life, again, and they swarmed about you! They
   buzzed about you at your table. They stung you in your sleep, in your
   dreams. They stung you at your work. You had no peace because of your
   sins! And do you remember the place, the spot of ground, where you met
   with Jesus? Some of us recollect it to a yard. We looked to Him upon
   the Cross and the battle was over at once! One look to Jesus,
   Crucified, and the sins that compassed us about were destroyed in the
   name of the Lord--and the fires that threatened to devour us were
   quenched as a fire of thorns through the precious blood of Jesus! Do
   you remember it? Oh, let your soul go back to your spiritual birthday.
   Ring the bells of your heart, again, and hang out the streamers of your
   soul for that

   happy day when Jesus washed your sins away! Oh, Beloved, that day
   beyond all others, the right hand of the Lord was exalted, the right
   hand of the Lord did valiantly for you! It is a grand picture. I should
   like to see some artist attempt to sketch it, but he certainly must
   fail. I would like to hear some poet sing it, but I think that he could
   hardly reach the dignity of the argument. When Miriam and the daughters
   of Israel took their timbrels and went forth with the song and the
   dance to sing because Egypt had been destroyed, and Israel was free, do
   you know the note in that song that pleases me best of all is this,
   when they said, "The depths have covered them; there is not one of them
   left." Why, they looked upon the Red Sea and could not see a trace of
   their foes! And I think I hear them singing it, "The depths have
   covered them; there is not one, not one," and they answered each other,
   "Not one, not one, not one of them left." And so when you and I looked
   to Christ and saw His atoning Sacrifice like a mighty sea roll over all
   our sins--in that blessed day our spirits sang, "The depths have
   covered them; there is not one, not one, not one of them left." Every
   sin is gone, every transgression swallowed up in superabounding Grace.
   "The right hand of the Lord does valiantly."

   The same has been true, beloved Friends, in the many cases in which you
   and I have had to overcome our troubles. What sore afflictions have we
   passed through! Some to whom I speak, it may be, have had mountains of
   tribulation. Yes, Beloved, but when God has been with you, you have
   stepped from mountaintop to mountaintop without going down into the
   valley at all!

   And, beloved Friends, to close all, where there was much room for great
   enlargement, let me say, when you and I shall come to die--as soon,
   thank God, we shall, for it is a subject to be treated of with
   thankfulness--we shall find in our dying moments that "the right hand
   of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly." I
   might almost say that I came here from the grave, for it is in truth
   but a day or so since I went to bury one of the holiest men I ever knew
   and, I may add, the happiest man I ever saw in all my life! He fell
   asleep at a good old age, but as I stood by his bedside often in his
   last illness, I envied him. Covered from head to foot, as he said, with
   the boils of Job and the sores of Lazarus in one--with all his bones
   aching as though they were out of joint, yet he said to me--"What a
   happy thing it is to be here." And I said, "What a happy thing to be
   upon a dying bed?" "Yes," he said, "for I am with God, and God is with
   me, and Christ is mine and I am His, and it is the happiest day I ever
   lived." He had often said that in his lifetime, for I never knew him
   otherwise than rejoicing in his God. But I was glad to hear him, when
   his eyes were almost glazed with death, say, "It is the happiest day I
   ever lived." And just before he died, instead of expressing any regrets
   at the pain he was feeling, or at his departure, he turned round and
   said to his dear ones around the bed, "You seem all changed to me from
   what you were. I love you, but I have reached a higher stage than
   things that are seen. I have seen the King in His beauty in the land
   that is very far off--and I have heard words which it is not lawful for
   a man to utter." And they said, "Can you not tell us something of what
   you have seen?" He said, "You must pardon me. I am forbidden to tell
   you. But henceforth, I have done with all things here below, and I am
   taken up with the joy and glory of my Lord." "My bliss is so great," he
   said, "it kills me! I cannot live much longer through the excess of joy
   I feel!" In a few short minutes he had closed his eyes and was with
   God.

   The Negro said of his minister, "Sir, he is dying full of life!" So
   have I seen them die, full of life--the best of life! And I have then
   thought, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The
   right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does
   valiantly." Fear not! The last conflict shall be the chief of your
   victories this side the river! The Lord bless you and make you a
   blessing. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Fearing and Trusting--trusting and Not Fearing

   (No. 3362)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
   DECEMBER 15, 1867.

   "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You." Psalm 56:3.

   "I will trust, and not be afraid." Isaiah 12:2.

   I INTEND this evening to have two texts, though I shall not therefore
   have two sermons and so keep you a double length of time! Our first
   text, which will suffice to begin with, is in the 56th Psalm, at the
   3rd verse-- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You""

   David was one of the boldest of men. From his youth up, he was noted
   for his courage. As a youth he went, in simple confidence in God, and
   attacked the giant Goliath. Throughout life there was no man who seemed
   to be more at home in wars and battles--and less likely to be afraid.
   But yet this hero, this courageous man, says that he wassometimes
   afraid. And I suppose that there are none of us but must plead guilty
   to the impeachment that sometimes the brave spirit gives way and that
   we tremble and are afraid. It is a disease for which the cure is here
   mentioned, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You." When my soul
   suffers from the palsy of fear, I will lay hold upon the Strong One and
   get strength from Him--and so my fears shall all be cast out."

   To be afraid is, in some cases, a very childish thing. We sometimes
   expect to see our little children frightened and that they will not
   bear to be alone in the dark, but we are surely not afraid to be there!
   The more we are afraid, the more childish we become. Courage is manly,
   but to be afraid is to be like a child. It is not always so, however,
   for there are some great and sore dangers which may well make the very
   boldest man tremble.

   To be afraid is always a distressing thing. The heart beats quickly and
   the whole system seems to be thrown out of order. There have been known
   cases of men who have had to endure severe terror for several
   hours--and their hair has all turned gray in a single night. No doubt,
   too, there have been diseases which have brought men to their graves
   which have been caused by fright. Fear is always distressing and
   whether it is the fear of outward danger, or fear of inward sin, it is
   always a terrible thing to have to go mourning because of being afraid.

   And to be afraid, too, is always a weakening thing. The man who can
   keep calm in the midst of difficulty is better able to meet it. If he
   is at sea in a storm, if his mind is quiet, he is likely to steer his
   vessel safely through the danger. But if he is perturbed and cast down
   with agitated alarm, we can have but little confidence in him, for we
   know not where he may steer the boat! A man who is afraid often runs
   into worse dangers than those from which he seeks to escape. He plunges
   himself into the sea to escape from the river--and it is as though he
   fled from a lion--and a bear met him.

   To be afraid, then, is generally a very mischievous thing. And though
   sometimes exceedingly excusable, yet full often it is also exceedingly
   dangerous. David, however, here gives us the cure for fear, "What time
   I am afraid, I will trust in You."

   I shall not have time this evening to take all the fears and amazements
   which distress humanity, but there are four or five which we will
   mention and which may comprehend the others-- I. SOMETIMES WE ARE
   AFRAID OF TEMPORAL TROUBLES.

   If some of you have such a smooth path in life that you are untried in
   this respect, yet the great proportion of mankind have a hard fight to
   find bread to eat and garments with which they shall be clothed. And in
   the lives of the poor, especially, there must often be sad times when
   they are afraid lest they should not be able to provide things
   necessary and should be brought to absolute starvation. Such a fear
   must very often afflict those who are in extreme poverty. And you, too,
   who are in business, in this age of competition, you are, no doubt,
   frequently afraid lest, by a failure in this direction

   or in that, you should not be able to meet your engagements--and the
   good ship of your business should drive upon the rocks.

   Such fears, I suppose, fall to the lot of all young tradesmen when they
   are starting in business but, perhaps, there are a few older ones who
   have done longer and rougher work and are quite free from such times of
   anxious fear.

   And, Brothers and Sisters, even if we have none of these troubles about
   what we shall eat and what we shall drink, yet we have our domestic
   troubles that make us to be much alarmed. It is no small thing to see a
   child sick, or, still worse, to see your life's partner gradually
   fading away and to know, as some do, that the case is beyond all
   medical skill--and that she, who is so dear, must be taken away.

   And you wives, perhaps, are, some of you, dreading the hour when you
   may become widows and your little children may be fatherless. You have
   often been afraid as you have looked ahead to the calamity which seemed
   to overshadow you. God has not made this world to be a nest for us--and
   if we try to make it such for ourselves--He plants thorns in it so that
   we may be compelled to mount and find our soul's true home somewhere
   else, in a higher and nobler sphere than this poor world can give!

   Now, whenever we are tried with these temporal affairs, David tells us
   we are to trust in God. "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You." I
   will just do this--after having done my best to earn my daily bread and
   to fight the battle of life, if I find I cannot do all I would, I will
   throw myself upon the promise of God, wherein He has said, "Your bread
   shall be given you, and your water shall be sure." I will believe that
   my Heavenly Father, who feeds the ravens, will feed me, and that if He
   does not allow even the gnats that dance in the sunbeam to perish for
   lack of sustenance, He will not allow a soul that rests upon Him to
   perish for lack of daily bread. Oh, it is a sweet thing, though,
   perhaps, you may, some of you, think it a hard thing--it is a sweet
   thing when God enables you to leave tomorrow with Him and to depend
   upon your Father who is in Heaven!

   I speak to the tradesman and all who often have to do business in great
   waters, who seem to go from waterspout to waterspout and over whom all
   God's waves and billows seem to go--I believe you will find yourselves
   much stronger to do battle against these difficulties if it is your
   constant habit to commit all your cares to Him who cares for you. It
   will all go wrong with us, even in smooth waters, if we do not have God
   to be the Pilot. And as to rough weather, we shall soon be a wreck if
   we forget Him! I know of nothing more delightful to the Believer than
   every morning to commit the day's troubles to God and then go down into
   the world feeling, "Well, my Father knows it all." And then at night to
   commit the troubles of the day again into the great Father's hands and
   to feel that He has said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." It
   is sweet sleeping when you can have a promise for the pillow at your
   head! You know, perhaps, the good old story which is told of the woman
   on board ship who was greatly afraid in a storm, but she saw her
   husband perfectly at peace and she could not understand it. Her husband
   said he would tell her the reason, so, snatching up a sword, he pointed
   it at her heart. She looked at it, but did not tremble. "Well," he
   said, "are you not afraid? The sword is sharp and I could kill you in a
   moment." "No," she said, "because it is in your hands!" "Ah," he
   replied, "and that is why I am not afraid--because the storm is in my
   Father's hands and He loves me more than I love you!"

   A little child was at play in a lower room and as he played away by
   himself, amusing himself, about every ten minutes he ran to the foot of
   the stairs and called out, "Mother, are you there?" and his mother
   answered, "Yes, I am here," and the little lad went back to his sport
   and fun--and was as happy as happy could be--and until again it crossed
   his mind that his mother might have gone. So he ran to the stairs again
   and called, "Mother, are you there?" "All right," she said, and as soon
   as he heard her voice again, back he went once more to his play. It is
   just so with us. In times of temporal trouble we go to the Mercy Seat
   in prayer and we say, "Father, are You there? Is it Your hand that is
   troubling me? Is it Your Providence that has sent me this difficulty?"
   And as soon as you hear the voice which says, "It is I," you are no
   longer afraid! Oh, happy are they who, when they are afraid in this
   way, trust in the Lord!

   A second great fear, through which some of you have never passed, but
   through which all must pass who enter into Heaven, is a--

   II. FEAR CONCERNING THE GUILT OF PAST SIN.

   Do not tell me with regard to temporal troubles that they are sharp and
   bitter! Believe me, that trouble for sin is far more bitter and keen.
   Do you remember when God was pleased to awaken you from your long
   sleep--when you looked within and saw that you were all defiled, full
   of pollution and all manner of evil? Do you recollect how the thoughts

   pierced you like poisoned arrows--"God requires that which is pure."
   "For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account
   thereof at the Day of Judgment"? Do you recollect how it seemed as
   though Hell flared up right before you where you stood and it seemed as
   though there was only a step between you and death! The terrors of the
   Lord got hold upon you, and the very marrow of your bones seemed to
   freeze as you thought about an angry God and of how you, in your sins,
   without any preparation, could meet Him! Oh, it is not so long ago with
   some of us but what we recollect being startled in our sleep under a
   sense of sin! And all day long the common joys of men were no joys to
   us, and though before we had been sprightly and cheerful like
   others--yet our mirth was now turned into mourning and all our laughter
   into lamentation!

   Perhaps some of you are passing through this state of mind now. You are
   now conscious of your old sins. The sins of your youth are coming up
   before your remembrance. Now, if so, listen to what David says, "What
   time I am afraid, I will trust in You." Beloved, if you would ever get
   rid of the fear of your past sins, remember that the Lord Jesus Christ
   came into the world to suffer for the sins of all who will trust Him.
   All the sins of all His people were reckoned as upon Him and all that
   they should have suffered on account of those sins, Jesus Christ
   suffered in their place! The mighty debt, too huge for us to calculate,
   was all laid upon Him and He paid it to the last farthing! He was sued
   and summoned at the court of the Eternal Justice, for the sins of His
   people were reckoned as upon Him--and all that they should have
   rendered with hands and feet, and brow and side, He discharged--the
   whole tremendous debt that was due to God, the debt caused by the sins
   of all His people were paid by Him!

   Now, it is a blessed thing when sin burdens us to fly away to Christ
   and stand in spirit beneath the Cross--and feel that under that crimson
   canopy, no flash of Divine penalty shall ever fall upon us! "Smite me?
   Great God, You cannot, for have You not smitten the redeeming Christ on
   my account? Is it not recorded that for those who trust Him, Your Son
   is both Surety and Substitute? How, then, can You first sue the
   Substitute and then afterwards sue the person for whom the Substitute
   stood?" Faith thus clings to the Cross and feels, no--knows--that all
   is safe! I would God that some of you who are lamenting over the burden
   of your sins and are pressed down by it, would look to the Son of God
   pouring out His life and would trust Him, for then your sins would be
   gone in a moment! Only look on Jesus and though you had committed all
   the sins that are committable by mortal man, yet Jesus Christ can put
   them all away! If every form of iniquity were heaped upon you till you
   were dyed through and through with it, like the scarlet that has been
   lying long a-soak in the dye, yet let the crimson blood of Jesus come
   into contact with your crimson sins and they--

   "Shall vanish all away, Though foul as Hell before! Shall be dissolved
   beneath the sea, And shall be found no more!"

   Now, I know it is very easy when we do not feel our sins to trust in
   Christ, but the business of faith is to trust in Christ when you do
   feel your sins! Brothers and Sisters, it would be cheap faith to take
   Christ as the saints' Savior, but it is the faith of God's elect to
   take Him as the sinner's Savior. When I can see marks of Grace in
   myself, to trust Christ is easy--but when I see no marks of anything
   good, but every mark of everything that is evil and then come and cast
   myself upon Him and believe that He can save me, even me, and rest
   myself upon Him--this is the faith which honors Christ and which will
   save us! May you have it and such time as you are afraid of sin, may
   you trust in Christ! A third fear, which is remarkably common, is a--

   III. FEAR LEST WE SHOULD BE DECEIVED.

   Among the best and most careful of Believers this fear intrudes itself,
   "Lest, after having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."
   Lest, after having been united to the Church, I should prove to be a
   dead member and so be cut out of the living vine. All these fears have
   I met with. One has said, "I fear I was never chosen of God." Another
   has said, "I fear I never was effectually called." And yet a third has
   said, "I fear I never possessed the repentance that needs not to be
   repented of." Still others have confessed, "I am afraid my faith is not
   the faith of God's elect." Very frequently have I heard this, "I am
   afraid I am a hypocrite," which is one of the oddest fears in all the
   world, for nobody that isa hypocrite was ever afraid of it! It is the
   hypocrite who goes on peacefully, without fear, confident where there
   is no ground for confidence. But these fears abound and, in some
   respects, they are healthy. Better to go to Heaven doubting, than to
   Hell presuming! Better to enter into life crippled and maimed, than
   having two eyes and hands, and feet, to be cast into the

   destroying fire! We cannot say too much in praise of assurance--and we
   cannot speak too much against presumption. Dread that! Shun it with all
   your might!

   But when you and I are besieged by these doubts and fears--and I very
   often am--as to whether we are the children of God or not, what is the
   best thing for us to do? "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You."
   This is the shortcut with the devil! This is the way to cut off his
   head more readily than anyway else. Go straight to Christ! Do not stop
   to argue with Satan. He is a crafty old liar and he will be sure to
   defeat you if it comes to argument between you. Say to him, "Satan, if
   I am deceived, if all I have ever known up till now has been only head
   knowledge, if I am nothing but a mere hypocrite, yet now--

   "Black, I to the fountain fly Wash me, Savior, or I die!"

   It is a blessed thing to begin again--to be always beginning and yet
   always going on--for no man ever goes on to perfection who forgets his
   first love, his first faith and forgets to walk in Christ Jesus as he
   walked in Him at the first!

   Beloved, whatever may be the doubt that comes to you tonight, I beseech
   you remember it is still, "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise
   cast out." If you have been a backslider, weep over it. If you have
   been a great sinner, be sorry for it, but still remember, "All manner
   of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." And, "Where sin
   abounded, Grace does much more abound." The Gospel's voice is still,
   "Return, you backsliding children, for I am married unto you, says the
   Lord." "Come, now, let us reason together. Though your sins are as
   scarlet, they shall be as wool. Though they are red like crimson, they
   shall be whiter than snow." Come, come, come, you doubting ones,
   trembling and broken to pieces! Come again--a guilty, weak and helpless
   worm--and cast yourself into Jesus' arms!

   But we cannot tarry upon that. A fourth fear, which is frequent enough
   to cause Christians much distress, is--

   IV. A FEAR THAT WE SHALL NOT HOLD ON AND HOLD OUT TO THE END.

   Many thousands of God's saints are quite unnecessarily troubled with
   this. Remember that where God begins to work, He does not ask usto
   finish. He always completes His own work. If you have begun the work of
   salvation, you will have to carry it on, but if God has begun the good
   work in you, He will carry it on and bring it to its perfection of
   completeness in "the day of Christ." Yet there are thousands who say,
   "Should I be tempted, I might fall! Working as I do with so many
   others, none of whom fear God, but who sneer and ridicule at Divine
   things, I might, perhaps, turn aside and prove like one of them." It is
   very proper that you should have that fear, very proper that you should
   be distressed at it--

   "What anguish has that question stirred, If I should also go!"

   But, dearly Beloved, what time you are afraid, do not say, "I shall be
   able to hold out"--do not trust in yourselves, or you will trust a
   broken reed--but what time you are afraid, renew your trust in Christ!
   Go with the temptation which you now experience and which you expect to
   return tomorrow, to the Lord and He will, with the temptation, show the
   way of escape out of it. I remember a miner who had been a sad, drunken
   man, and a great blasphemer, but he was converted among the
   Methodists--and a right earnest man he was! But he seemed to have been
   a man of strong passions and, on one occasion when he was praying, he
   prayed that sooner than that he might ever go back to his old sins, if
   God foresaw that he would not be able to bear up under the temptation,
   He would take him to Heaven at once! And while he was praying the
   prayer in the Prayer Meeting, he fell dead! God had answered him. Now,
   if you are to be tried in the order of Providence in a way that you
   cannot bear and there is no other way of escape for you, God will take
   you clean away to where no temptation shall ever come near you! What
   time you are afraid, put your trust in Him and all will be well! The
   last fear I have to mention, and then I shall have done with my first
   text, is this--

   V. THE FEAR OF DEATH.

   There are some "who, through fear of death, are all their lifetime
   subject to bondage." But Christ came to deliver such--and where Christ
   works, He delivers us from that fear! Beloved, do you ever get afraid
   of death? You do, perhaps, when you feel very sick or when you are very
   ill and low spirited. You begin to look ahead and you say, "I have run
   with the footmen and they have wearied me. What shall I do when I have
   to contend with the rider on the pale horse? My trials have been so
   great that I have scarcely found faith enough to bear them! What shall
   I do in the last great trial of the swellings of Jordan?" Now, what
   ought you to do at the time you are afraid of dying, but to say with
   David, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You"? Oh, fear not to
   die! If you are in Christ, death is nothing! "But the pain, the dying
   strug-

   gle," you say. Oh, there is no pain in death! It is the life that is
   full of pain. Death? What is it? Well, it is but a pin's prick and then
   it is over. "Many lie a-dying for weeks or months together," say some.
   No! Say they live, for 'tis living that makes them full of pain and
   anguish, but death ends all that! Death is just the passing through the
   narrow stream that is the entrance in the fields where--

   "Everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers."

   To be afraid to die must be because we do not understand it, for if
   Believers know that to die is but to enter into the arms of Jesus
   Christ, surely they will be able to sing bravely with one good old
   saint--

   "Since Jesus is mine, I'll not fear undressing,

   But gladly put off this garment of clay!

   To die in the Lord is a Covenant blessing,

   Since Jesus to Glory, through death, led the way!" What time you are
   afraid of dying, trust in the living Savior, for in Him are life and
   immortality! Remember--

   "Jesus can make our dying bed

   Feel soft as downy pillows are,

   While on His breast we lean our head,

   And breathe our life out softly there." He will keep you where you
   shall sing--

   "Oh, if my Lord would come and meet,

   My soul would stretch her wings in haste--

   Fly fearless through death's iron gate,

   Nor fear the terror as she passed." You shall fear no fear and know no
   evil because He shall be with you! And you shall find that His rod and
   His staff do comfort you!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, I have taken you far, like a guide
   conducting a number of travelers up the first road on a mountain. And I
   think we have gathered something even there, but now I want you to go
   up still higher. I feel as if, in handling this text, we have been
   travelling third class to Heaven, but now I want you to get into the
   first class! Hitherto we have been going in a sort of parliamentary
   train, which will get to Heaven safe enough, but I want you now to take
   the express.

   My second text will let you know what I mean. It is in the 12th Chapter
   of Isaiah and the 2nd verse-- "I will trust and not be afraid."

   This is several stages beyond the first text. David says, "What, time I
   am afraid, I will trust in You." Isaiah says, "I will trust and not be
   afraid," which is far better! When David is afraid, He trusts in God,
   but Isaiah trusts in God, first, and then he is not afraid at all! I
   told you in the first case that there was disease and that faith was
   the remedy, but you know prevention is always better than cure. I have
   heard of a man who had serious chills and he was thankful to have a
   medicine which helped him through it. But his neighbor said he should
   not be very thankful for that, for he had a remedy which prevented him
   from ever having the malady! So with you who are doubting and
   fearing--it is a good thing that faith can bear you through it--but how
   much better it will be if you get a faith that does not have these
   doubts, that lives above these fears and troubles!

   Look! There are two vessels yonder, and a storm is coming on. I see a
   great hurrying and scurrying on the deck of one. What are they doing?
   They have a great anchor and they are throwing it out! The storm is
   coming and they want to get a good hold, for fear lest they should be
   driven on the shore.

   But on the deck of the other vessel, I see no bustle at all. There is
   the watch pacing up and down as leisurely as possible. Why are they not
   in a panic? "Ahoy there! Ahoy! What makes you so calm and assured? Have
   you got out your anchor? Look! Your comrades in the other vessel, how
   busy they are!" "Oh," says the watch, "but we had our anchor out a long
   while ago, before the storm came on and, therefore, we have no need to
   trouble, now, and hurry to throw it out."

   Now, you who are full of doubts, fears and troubles, you know the way
   to be safe is to throw out the anchor of faith! But it would be better
   if you had the anchor of faith already out so that you could trust in
   God and not be afraid at all!

   Let us take the fears which we have already mentioned over again. Faith
   saves from--

   I. THE FEAR OF TEMPORAL TROUBLE.

   The man who fully trusts in God is not afraid of temporal trouble. You
   have read, perhaps, the life of Bernard Palis-sy, the famous potter. He
   was confined for many years on account of his religion and he was only
   permitted to live at all because he was such a skillful workman that
   they did not want to put him to death. King Henry the Third of France
   said to him, one day, "Bernard, I shall be obliged to give you up to
   your enemies to be burned unless you change your religion." Bernard
   replied, "Your Majesty, I have often heard you say you pity me, but
   believe me I greatly pity you, though I am no king but only a poor
   humble potter. There is no man living that could compel me to do what I
   believe to be wrong--and yet you say you will be compelled--those are
   kingly words for you to utter!" And he could say this to the king, in
   whose hands his life was! Bernard was a very poor man. As I have told
   you, he used to earn his bread by making pottery. And he used to say,
   in his poverty, that he was a very rich man, for he had two things--he
   had Heaven and earth. And then he would take up a handful of the clay
   by which he earned his living. Happy man! Though often brought to the
   depths of poverty, he could say, "I will trust and not be afraid."

   Take as another example. Martin Luther. They came to Martin one day and
   they said, "Martin, it is all over with the Reformation cause, now, for
   the Emperor of Germany has sworn a solemn oath to help the pope." "I do
   not care a snap of my finger for both of them," he said, "nor for all
   the devils in Hell! This is God's work, and God's work can stand
   against both emperors and popes!" Luther was a man who trusted--really,
   intensely--and because of this he was not afraid. Is not that much
   better than being afraid, and then having to trust to banish the fear?
   Now, God is with me, and come what may--

   "Should earth against my soul engage,

   And hellish darts be hurled.

   Now I can smile at Satan's rage,

   And face a frowning world.

   Let cares like a wild deluge come,

   And storms of sorrow fall--

   I shall in safety reach my home,

   My God, my Heaven, my All." Oh, if we can all get to this brave
   assurance of faith, happy shall we be in the midst of the worst
   trouble! Faith also saves from the--

   II. FEAR CONCERNING PAST SIN.

   He is in a blessed state who is delivered from such fear because he who
   is not is not afraid. One of you knows a man, perhaps, who has got into
   debt and who owed a great deal. But some little time ago a friend paid
   all his debts for him-- and he has the receipt! Now, when he walks the
   streets, is this man afraid of the sheriff's officer? Does he fear that
   he shall be arrested? Why, no! He knows he shall not, because he
   carries the receipt with him! Every man who trusts Christ perceives his
   own sin, but he also perceives that Christ paid for all his sin. He
   that believes has the witness of his pardon in himself which he carries
   with him as a receipt and which eases his conscience and prevents his
   fears. Oh, if you can but know that Christ died for you! If you can but
   rest alone in Him so as to know that He is yours, then all the sins
   that you have ever committed, though you lament them, shall never cause
   you a moment's uneasiness, for they are drowned beneath the Red Sea of
   the Savior's blood and, therefore, you may say, "I will trust and not
   be afraid." As to that third fear which I mentioned--the fear lest we
   should be hypocrites, or--

   III. LEST THE WORK OF GRACE SHOULD NOT BE RIPENED IN OUR HEARTS--

   There is one way of getting rid of that fear entirely! If you take a
   sovereign across the counter, you may not know whether it is a good
   one--you may have some doubts about it. But if you get it straight from
   the Mint, I do not suppose you will have any suspicion of it at all! So
   when a man asks, "Is my faith right? Is my religion right?" If he can
   say, "I got it straight from the Throne of God by trusting in the blood
   of Jesus Christ"--then he will know that he received it from
   Headquarters--and there can be no mistake about it! A Christian has no
   right to be always saying--

   "Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His, or am I not?"

   He may be compelled to say it, sometimes, but it is far better for him
   to come just as he is and throw himself at the foot of the Cross and
   say, "Savior, You have promised to save those that believe! I believe,
   therefore You have saved me!" I know

   some think this is presumption, but surely it is worse than presumption
   not to believe God! And it is true humility to take God at His word and
   to believe Him.

   I think I once illustrated this Truth of God in this place in this way.
   A good mother has two children. Christmas is drawing near and she says
   to one of them, "Now, John, I shall take you out on Christmas Day to
   such a place and give you a great treat." She promises the same to
   William. Now, Master John says to himself, "Well, I do not know. I do
   not know whether my mother can afford it. Or perhaps I do not deserve
   it. I hardly think she will take me--it will be presumption in me to
   believe that she will."

   But as for little Master William, he is no sooner told that he is to go
   out on Christmas Day than he claps his hands and begins to skip--and
   tomorrow tells all his playmates that his mother is going to take him
   out on Christmas Day! He is quite sure of it. They begin to ask him,
   "How do you know?" "Why," he says, "Mother said so." Perhaps they
   mention some things that make it look rather unlikely. "Oh, but," he
   says, "my mother never tells lies and she told me she would take me,
   and I know she will!" Now, which of those children, do you think, is
   most to be commended--the bigger boy, who raised difficulties and
   suspected his mother's word? Why, he is a proud little fellow who
   deserves to go without the pleasure! But as for his little brother,
   William, who takes his mother at her word--I do not call him proud. I
   consider him truly humble--and he is the child who really deserves the
   mother's fondest love! Now, deal with God as you would have your
   children deal with you! If He says He will save you if you trust Him,
   then if you trust Him, why, He will save you! If He is a true God, He
   cannot destroy the soul that trusts in Christ! Unless this Bible is one
   great lie from beginning to end, the soul that trusts in Christ must be
   saved! If God is true, every soul that trusts in Jesus must be safe at
   the last. Whatever he may be and whoever he may be, if he trusts his
   soul with Christ and with Christ, alone, He cannot be cast away unless
   the promise of God can be of no effect! "I will trust and not be
   afraid."

   So, Brothers and Sisters, it will be with other fears--time fails us to
   mention them--whatever they may be. May you get into such a blessed
   state of confidence in the love of God, in the love of Christ's heart,
   in the power of Christ's arm, in the prevalence of Christ's plea, that
   at all times you may trust in Him and in nothing, whatever, be afraid!

   God bring us all up to this second platform and give us Divine Grace to
   stay there--and happy shall you be and have a foretaste of Heaven upon
   earth! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Witnessing at the Cross

   (No. 3363)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1913.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And one of the malefactors who was hanged, railed on Him, saying, If
   you are Christ, save Yourself and us. But the other answering rebuked
   him, saying, Do not you fear God, seeing you are in the same
   condemnation? And we, indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of
   our deeds; but this Man has done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus,
   Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom. And Jesus said unto
   him, Verily, I say unto you, today shall you be with Me in Paradise."
   Luke 23:39-43.

   THE dying thief was certainly a very great wonder of Divine Grace. He
   has generally been looked upon from one point of view only--as a sinner
   called at the eleventh hour and, therefore, an instance of special
   mercy because he was so near to death. Enough has been made of that
   circumstance by others! To my mind, it is by no means the most
   important point in the narrative. Had the thief been predestined to
   come down from the Cross and live for half a century longer, his
   conversion would have been neither more nor less than it was. The work
   of Grace which enabled him to die in peace would, if it had been the
   Lord's will, have enabled him to live in holiness. We may well admire
   Divine Grace when it so speedily makes a man fit for the bliss of
   Heaven! But it is equally to be adored when it makes him ready for the
   battle of earth. To bear a saved sinner away from all further conflict
   is great Grace. But the power and love of God are, if anything, even
   more conspicuous when, like a sheep surrounded by wolves, or a spark in
   the midst of the sea, a Believer is enabled to live on in the teeth of
   an ungodly world and maintain his integrity to the end! Dear Friend,
   whether you die as soon as you are born-again, or remain on earth for
   many years is comparatively a small matter--and will not materially
   alter your indebtedness to Divine Grace! In the one case the great
   Husbandman will show how He can bring His flowers speedily to
   perfection. And in the other He will prove how He can preserve them in
   blooming beauty despite the frosts and snows of earth's cruel winter!
   In either case your experience will reveal the same love and power.

   There are other things, it seems to me, to be seen in the conversion of
   the thief besides the one single matter of his being brought to know
   the Lord when near to death's door.

   Observe the singular fact that our Lord Jesus Christ should die in the
   company of two malefactors. It was probably planned in order to bring
   Him shame and it was regarded by those who cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify
   Him!" as an additional ignominy. Their malice decreed that He should
   die as a criminal and with criminals--and in the center, between
   two--to show that they thought Him the worst of the three. But God, in
   His own way, baffled the malice of the foe and turned it to the triumph
   and Glory of His dear Son, for had there been no dying thief hanging at
   His side, then one of the most illustrious trophies of His love would
   not have been gained! And we would not have been able to sing to His
   praise--

   "The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day-- And there
   have I, though vile as he, Washed all my sins away!"

   His enemies gave our Lord Jesus an opportunity for still continuing the
   seeking, as well as the saving of the lost! They found Him an occasion
   for manifesting His conquering Grace when they supposed they were
   heaping scorn upon Him. How truly did the Prophet in the Psalm say, "He
   that sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in
   derision," for that which was meant to increase His misery revealed His
   majesty! Moreover, though it was intended to add an ingredient of
   bitterness to His cup, I do not doubt that it supplied Him with a
   draught of comfort. Nothing could so well have cheered the heart of
   Jesus and taken His mind off, for just an instant, His own hitter
   pangs, as having an object of

   pity before Him, upon whom He could pour His mercy! The thief's
   confession of faith and expiring prayer must have been music to his
   Savior's ears--the only music which could in any degree delight Him
   amid His terrible agonies. To hear and to answer the prayer, "Lord,
   remember me when You come into Your Kingdom," afforded our Lord a
   precious solace. An angel strengthened Him in the Garden, but here it
   was a man, nailed up at His side, who ministered consolation by the
   indirect, but very effective method of seeking help at His hands.

   Furthermore, the longs-continued testimony and witness for Christ among
   men was at that time exceedingly feeble and ready to expire, but the
   thief's confession maintained it. The Apostles, where were they? They
   had fled. Those disciples who ventured near enough to see the Lord,
   scarcely remained within speaking distance. They were poor confessors
   of Christ, scarcely worthy of the name! Was the chain of testimony to
   be broken? Would none declare His Sovereign Power? No, the Lord will
   never let that testimony cease, and lo, He raises up a witness where
   least you would expect it-- on a cross! One just ready to die bears
   witness to the Redeemer's innocence and to His assured coming to a
   Kingdom! As many of the boldest testimonies to Christ have come from
   the stake, so here was one that came from a cross and gained for the
   witness the honor of being the last testifier to Christ before He died!

   Let us always expect, then, dear Friends, that God will overrule the
   machinations of the foes of Christ so as to get honor from them. At all
   times of the world's history, when things appear to have gone to pieces
   and Satan seems to rule the hour, do not let us despair, but be quite
   sure that, somehow or other, the Light of God will come out of darkness
   and good out of evil!

   We will now come close up to the dying thief and look, first, at his
   faith. Secondly, at his confession of faith. Thirdly, at his prayer of
   faith. And fourthly, at the answer of his faith. First, then, may the
   Holy Spirit help us concerning this dying malefactor, to consider--

   I. HIS FAITH.

   It was of the operation of the Spirit of God and there was nothing in
   his previous character to lead up to it. How came that thief to be a
   Believer in Jesus? You who carefully read the Gospels will have noticed
   that Matthew says (Matt 27:44), "The thieves also, which were crucified
   with Him, cast the same in His teeth." Mark also says, "They that were
   crucified with Him reviled Him." These two Evangelists plainly speak of
   both thieves as reviling our Lord! How are we to understand this? Would
   it be right to say that those two writers speak in broad terms of the
   thieves as a class because one of them so acted, just as we in common
   conversation speak of a company of persons doing such-and-such, when,
   in fact, the whole matter was the deed of one man of the party? Was it
   a loose way of speaking? I think not! I do not like the look of
   suppositions of error in the Inspired volume. Would it not be more
   reverent to the Word of God to believe that the thieves did both revile
   Jesus? May it not be true that, at the first, they both joined in
   saying, "If you are the Christ, save Yourself and us," but that
   afterwards, one, by a miracle of Sovereign Grace, was led to a change
   of mind and became a Believer? Or would this third theory meet the
   case--that at the first the thief who afterwards became a penitent,
   having no thought upon the matter, by his silence gave consent to his
   fellow's reviling so as fairly to come under the charge of being an
   accomplice therein--but when it gradually dawned upon his mind that he
   was under error as to this Jesus of Nazareth, it pleased God in
   Infinite Mercy to change his mind so that he became a confessor of the
   Truth of God, though he had at first silently assented to the blasphemy
   of his companion? It would be idle to dogmatize, but we will gather
   this lesson from it--that faith may enter the mind, notwithstanding the
   sinful state in which the man is found. Grace can transform a reviling
   thief into a penitent Believer!

   Neither do we know the outward means which led to this man's
   conversion. We can only suppose that he was affected by seeing the
   Lord's patient demeanor, or, perhaps, by hearing that prayer, "Father,
   forgive them, for they know not what they do." Surely there was enough
   in the sight of the Crucified Lord with the blessing of God's Spirit to
   turn a heart of stone into flesh! Possibly the inscription over the
   head of our Lord may have helped him--"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
   the Jews." Being a Jew, he knew something of the Scriptures, and
   putting all the facts together, may he not have seen in the prophecies
   a light which gathered around the head of the Sufferer and revealed Him
   as the true Messiah? Possibly the malefactor remembered Isaiah's words,
   "He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted
   with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was
   despised, and we esteemed Him not." Or, perhaps, the saying of David,
   in the 22nd Psalm rushed upon his memory, "They pierced My hands and My
   feet." Other texts which he had learned in his youth at his mother's
   knee may have come before his mind--and putting all these together,

   he may have argued, "It may be. Perhaps it is. It is. It must be. I am
   sure it is. It is the Messiah, led as a lamb to the slaughter." All
   this is but our supposition and it leads me to remark that there is
   much faith in this world which comes, "not with observation," but is
   worked in men by unknown instrumentalities. And so long as it really
   exists, it matters very little how it entered the heart, for in every
   case it is the work of the Holy Spirit! The history of faith is of
   small importance compared with the qualityof faith!

   We do not know the origin of this man's faith, but we do know that it
   was amazing faith under the circumstances. I very gravely question
   whether there was ever greater faith in this world than the faith of
   this thief, for he, beyond all others, realized the painful and
   shameful death of the Lord Jesus and yet believed! We hear of our
   Lord's dying upon the Cross, but we do not realize the circumstances
   and, indeed, even if we were to think upon that death very long and
   intently, we shall never realize the shame, weakness and misery which
   surrounded our Lord as that dying thief did, for he was suffering the
   pangs of crucifixion at the Savior's side and, therefore, to him it was
   no fiction, but a vivid reality! Before him was the Christ in all His
   nakedness and ignominy surrounded by the mocking multitude--and dying
   in pain and weakness--and yet he believed Him to be Lord and King! What
   do you think, Sirs? Some of you say you find it hard to believe in
   Jesus, though you know that He is exalted in the highest heavens. But
   had you seen Him on the Cross. Had you seen His marred Countenance and
   emaciated body, could you then have believed on Him and said, "Lord
   remember me when you come into Your Kingdom"? Yes, you could have done
   so if the Spirit of God had created faith in you like that of the
   thief! But it would have been faith of the first order, a jewel of
   priceless value! As I said before, so I say again--the vivid sympathy
   of the thief with the shame and suffering of the Lord rendered his
   faith remarkable in the highest degree!

   This man's faith, moreover, was singularly clear and decided. He rolled
   his whole salvation upon the Lord Jesus and said, "Lord, remember me
   when You come into Your Kingdom." He did not offer a single plea
   fetched from his works, his present feelings, or his sufferings--he
   cast himself upon the generous heart of Christ! "You have a
   Kingdom--You are going to it. Lord, remember me when You come into it."
   That was all. I wish that some who have been professors for years had
   as clear a faith as the thief--but they are too often confused between
   Law and Gospel, works and Grace-- while this poor felon trusted in
   nothing but the Savior and His mercy. Blessed be God for clear faith! I
   rejoice to see it in such a case as this, so suddenly worked and yet so
   perfect--so outspoken, so intelligent, so thoroughly restful!

   That word, "restful," reminds me of a lovely characteristic of his
   faith, namely, its deep peace-giving power. There is a world of rest in
   Jesus in the thief's prayer, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your
   Kingdom." A thought from Christ is all he needed! And after the Lord
   said, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise," we never read that the
   petitioner said another word. I did think that, perhaps, he would have
   said, "Blessed be the name of the Lord for that sweet assurance. Now I
   can die in peace." But his gratitude was too deep for words and his
   peace so perfect that calm silence seemed most in harmony with it.
   Silence is the thaw of the soul, though it is the frost of the
   mouth--and when the soul flows most freely, it feels the inadequacy of
   the narrow channel of the lips for its great water floods--

   "Come, then, expressive silence, muse His prase." He asked no
   alleviation of pain, but in perfect satisfaction died as calmly as
   saints do in their beds!

   This is the kind of faith which we must all have if we would be saved.
   Whether we know how we come by it or not, it must be a faith which
   rolls itself upon Christ and a faith which consequently brings peace to
   the soul. Do you possess such faith, dear Friend? If you do not,
   remember that you may die all of a sudden, and then into Paradise you
   will never enter! Look well to this and believe in the Lord Jesus at
   once! And now in the second place, we are going to look at this man's--

   II. CONFESSION OF FAITH.

   He had faith and he confessed it. He could neither be baptized nor sit
   at the Communion Table, nor unite with the Church below. He could not
   do any of those things which are most right and proper on the part of
   other Christians, but he did