COME AND WELCOME

(No. 3000)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1906.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 19, 1876.

"Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37.

[This Sermon is the 3000th that has been published in regular weekly succession since No. 1, "The Immutability of God," was issued in January, 1856. The Lord's-Day morning Sermons, with many of those preached in the evening, were published during Mr. Spurgeon's lifetime. The rest of the evening Sermons are now being issued and there are still sufficient unpublished manuscripts to last for some years. The whole of the 3000 Sermons are kept in stock, and any quantity of any of them can be obtained of the publishers, Messrs. Passmore a Alabaster, Paternoster Buildings, London, EC. No. 3000 has been especially selected in harmony with Mr. Spurgeon's custom of issuing, on such memorable occasions, a striking and simple Sermon that might be even more widely distributed than the ordinary issues. Those previously published have been as follows: Volume 17, NUMBER ONE THOUSAND—OR, "BREAD ENOUGH AND TO SPARE"; Volume 25, NUMBER 1500—OR, "LIFTING UP THE BRONZE SERPENT"; Volume 33, NUMBER 2000—OR, "HEALING BY THE STRIPES OF JESUS"; Volume 43, NUMBER 2500—OR, "ENTRANCE AND EXCLUSION." The publishers are always pleased to quote special terms for quantities, and to send post free to all applicants their Textual Index of over 2900 Sermons, and a full List of C. H. Spurgeon's books at reduced prices. It is almost needless to say that in the whole history of religious literature, there has never before been such an event as the issue of 3000 of one Preacher's Sermons in weekly numbers for nearly 52 years! It is a remarkable fact that more than 750 of these Sermons have been published since Dr. Spurgeon was "called Home" on January 31, 1892. Will all believing readers pray for the Lord's blessing upon the whole of the 3000 Sermons now issued?] [Thought you might enjoy this quote of the publishers—EOD]

WHILE I was trying to prepare a sermon for this evening, someone called at my door—I daresay the friend is here tonight, (I hope so)—and left this little note—"I entreat you to pray, especially this evening, for a most unhappy case— for one who is in great agony of mind, that God, in His Infinite Mercy, would send one ray of light into the dark soul. Please ask all the converted ones in your congregation to pray for me, that Grace may be restored to a most unhappy soul." Well, I am sure that all Christians here will earnestly pray that the light may break into the thick darkness and that the troubled spirit may find rest, but, after all, there is a very strong temptation to a heart in trouble to rest in the prayers of others rather than to go immediately to Christ for relief. Yet all the prayers in the world cannot, by themselves, help a man who is in despair. The light can never come into that dungeon except through one window—and that is a window through which the tearful eyes may always look—the window of everlasting love as revealed in the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

I thought that the text which I have selected might, by the blessing of the Spirit of God, be made the means of comfort, not only to that person who wrote to me, but to many others who may be seeking the Savior. There was also another circumstance which led me to select this text. A gentleman who pressed my hand very earnestly one day, said to me, "Do you remember preaching at the sawmills in the Old Kent Road?" I replied, "Yes." "I also remember it," he said, "indeed, I can never forget it. You preached from this text, 'There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles.' My comfort was that towards the close of the sermon, you said, 'I have preached upon this terrible no wise. Now, before I have done, I will preach upon a blessed no wise,' and then you began to talk to us about that text, 'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out,' and that message yielded me comfort which I have never lost."

Well, medicine that has worked so well in one case may, perhaps, be just as efficacious in another. And if the Holy Spirit blessed the text when it was only brought in at the end of a sermon, perhaps He will bless it even more, now that we set it in the very forefront of our discourse. No, we know that He will, for we have asked His blessing upon it and, therefore, we expectthe blessing to come. Dear Friend in trouble of soul, I hope it will come to you!

I. I am going to make five brief observations upon this passage, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." The first observation is that OUR TEXT IS FROM THE LIPS OF JESUS HIMSELF.

And because Christ Himself said it, we dare not doubt that it is absolutely true. Imagine that you see Him standing here just now—that same Jesus who fed the multitude and loved the souls of men even unto death. And then imagine that you hear these words from His lips which are like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. Oh, with what wondrous accents would He say, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out!" I can but feebly repeat what He must have uttered in the purest heavenly tones, yet I still pray you to remember that it is Jesus who still speaks to you, from His Word, even from Heaven! Do not dare to doubt this, or to question the truth of what He said. It was true before He died, but now that He has sealed His testimony with His most precious blood and proved His love to sinners by laying down His life for them, oh, do not doubt the truth of His utterance, but confide fully in Him who thus speaks to you from Heaven!

The message, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," must be true, for it fell from the lips of Jesus! And next, it is eminently consistent with His Character. You cannot conceive of Him as casting out a soul that came to Him! The scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman taken in the very act of adultery, yet He did not condemn her, but said to her, "Go, and sin no more."—

"His heart is made of tenderness; His heart melts with love."

He was sometimes angry, but it was with self-sufficient Pharisees and self-righteous hypocrites who flaunted their lies before His face—but He wept over the doomed city of Jerusalem. He had a gentle word for the woman in the city who was a sinner, and tender compassion for the little ones that were brought to Him. To those who would have driven them away, He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God." Look up into His face and then look upon His hands and His feet which still bear the scars of His passion and ask yourselves, "Is it consistent with the Character of Christ—with the heart of Christ—with the Person of Christ—with the great objective for which He came to this earth—for Him to cast out any soul that comes to Him?" No, the words of our text must be true, for Jesus uttered them and His whole life tallies with them!

Remember, too, that when Jesus spoke these words, He spoke as One who knew everything. If you and I make a promise, or a statement concerning our future mode of procedure, we may not be aware of the position in which we may one day be placed—and it may become impossible for us to keep the promise. Or the course of action which we thought we would surely follow may become too difficult for us. But our Lord Jesus Christ knew all things—all things about Himself and all things about sinners—and when He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," He included all possible contingencies with regard to Himself—if there can be any contingencies with Him—and all possible contingencies that have to do with those who come to Him. "He knew what was in man," and He also knew what was in His own heart and, therefore, when He spoke, He spoke deliberately and accurately—and with full knowledge of all the surroundings and circumstances of those who would come to Him!

Let me also remind you, Brothers and Sisters, that this message has been true up to now. What Jesus said to these Jews has stood fast for more than 18 Centuries. There is not a sinner, now living, who can bear testimony that he has come to Christ and that Christ has cast him out. There is not a soul in Hell that, with all the fully-developed sin of that dreadful place, dares, even in blasphemy, to say, "I came to Jesus and He cast me out." Nor shall there ever live in the universe one soul, however guilty and defiled, that shall be able to truthfully say, "I came to Him, but He shut up His heart of compassion against me and cast me out."

Well, if it is so—that Jesus spoke this message and, therefore, it is true. If it is just, like He and exactly according to His whole method of procedure, then let us believe it and let us plead it! If you want to come to Him, but have the haunting fear that He may, perhaps, cast you out, oh, lay hold upon Him and say to Him, "Lord, You have said, 'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.'" Remind Him of His own words! Plead His promise and you will never find Him run back from it, or revoke the word which has gone forth out of His lips! In your direst despair, when it seems as if He frowned upon you—when you call unto Him and yet receive no answer—when, as He spoke to the Syrophenician woman, He seems to give you harsh words instead of gracious promises—lay hold upon Him, grasp the hem of His garment and say to Him, "I will not let You go, for You have said, 'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.' Lo,

I come to You! I know You cannot lie—give me a welcome, or else I shall die. I know You cannot be false to Your word and here, if I perish, I will perish pleading the precious promise on which my soul would gladly stay herself!"

II. The next observation is this—THESE WORDS WERE SPOKEN IN THE SINGULAR. "Him that comes to

Me."

This is all the more remarkable because the first part of the verse is in the plural—"Allthat the Father gives Me shall come to Me."And, naturally and grammatically, the second clause should run, "and those that come to Me I will in no wise cast out." But it is not so worded. There is a change from the plural to the singular and Jesus says, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." And, I think, with admirable reason, for the Lord is always wise even in the choice of numbers and there is a motive for this change.

It may be this—here is personality recognized. You have been one of a crowd before, but you are all alone now. You used to think of a sort of national Christianity and say, "Yes, we are all Christians because we are Englishmen." But you know better than that now. You used to reckon that you might consider yourself a Christian because your father and mother were godly people—you belonged to a Christian family. But you know better than that now. You know that the mere hereditary faith which comes to men by natural birth is of no spiritual value, for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." "You must be born-again." You feel one by yourself—to use an old metaphor, you are like the wounded stag which retires into the glades of the forest to bleed and die alone. I daresay, when you now hear a sermon, if it is full of threats, you think that it is all meant for you. You have begun to read the Bible and to look for texts that may speak to you. And though, as yet, you have not lighted on a promise that seems like a lone star to shine especially for you, yet you are looking for such a promise and you hope that you will find it. At any rate, you are now cut loose from everything and everybody else—you feel yourself to be a separate individual that is to be judged, before long, before the bar of God and, you fear to be cast away forever beneath His wrath. Think now—Jesus puts this message in the singular—"Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," and you, also, are in the singular! Does not this message just suit your personality?

It is very possible that there is also in you a singularity suspected. You think that there never was anybody exactly like you. If you were like others, you would have hope, but there are certain points about your sin, certain aspects of your character and certain doubts and fears with which you are assailed which set you apart as a lot out of all catalogs. You feel that you are quite alone—you are the odd man or the odd woman. You cannot think that even the most general promises can relate to you. You consider that the act of indemnity exempts you from its operations—even if it does not exempt anybody else, it exempts you. It is for this very reason that Jesus Christ puts the matter as He does. He speaks to you odd people, to you solitary people, to you singularities, to you odds and ends of the universe and He says, "Him that comes to Me"—though such a man as he has never lived before—though he is the one exception to all rules, yet, "Him that comes to me"—any "him" in all the world "that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." What a blessed thing it is that thus, by using the singular number, Christ seems to meet our suspicions of being singular and calls the singular ones, the odd ones, to come to Him!

And here, too, perhaps, there may be a kind of desertion supposed. You think you could come to Christ if the friends of your youth were with you. You could come if a beloved teacher or a godly parent could pray with you. But, possibly, you have sinned yourself out of society—your transgressions have made you to be like the leper whom they put outside the camp and they will not allow you to come in among the tribes of Israel lest you should pollute the rest. Well, poor leper, you that are set apart—you that feel yourself to be given up even by those who once had some sort of hope concerning you—you for whom good people scarcely venture to pray because you seem to have committed the sin which is unto death—you have staggered their faith and disappointed all their hopes yet here still stands the text and it is addressed to you, deserted and alone as you are! If nobody will help you, and nobody will pray for you—if your tears of repentance must fall in secret—if everyone who hears about you thinks you are only a hypocrite, trying to whine yourself into favor—yet, still come to Christ all alone, for He has said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out!"

Perhaps this message is put in the singular for one more reason—emptiness confessed. Some people, when they come to Christ, bring with them a great deal that is not worth bringing. That is a false coming. But there are others who are so destitute that they feel that if they do come to Christ, they will have to come alone because they have nothing to bring to Him. Yet Christ does not say, "If you come to Me with good feelings. If you come repenting. If you come with this, or that, or another Christian excellence, I will in no wise cast you out." No! If you come to Christ as naked as you were when you were born and as naked as you will have to be when you go back to the earth—if you come with nothing whatever—as long as you come—Christ puts the word in the singular that it may mean you, and only you—bringing with you nothing but that which is your own, namely, your sin and your misery, your emptiness, your needs, your inability, your spiritual death and everything else which now crushes you well-near to despair—if you come, you, you, you, you, whoever you may be—if you come to Him, He will in no wise cast you out! Thus have we tried to say something which God may bless to the comfort of the singular ones.

III. Notice, next, that THE TEXT DESCRIBES THE PERSON COMING TO CHRIST WITH VERY

WONDERFUL SIMPLICITY. "Him that comes to Me" John Bunyan truly says, "That means any 'Him' in all the world." And I venture to say that it means anyone in all the world who does but come to Christ. In Christ's day there were some who came to Him doubtingly, like that man who said, "Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief," yet He did not cast them out! There were some who came to Jesus limping, for they were lame. There were some who came to Him with very great difficulty, for they were paralyzed in part of their bodies—but they did come to Him and He did not cast them out. And there were some who came blindly. They could not see who He was, nor what He was, but, nevertheless, they came to Him and He did not cast them out because they were blind. There were some who had to be carried to Him, yet, since it was with their own consent that they were carried, as long as they did but come, He did not cast them out! One man, you remember, came to Him through the ceiling—his friends had to take away the covering of the house to let him down into the Presence of Jesus. Well, if you get to Jesus over hedge or ditch, over the wall, or through the ceiling, or down the chimney—if you do but come to Him, it matters not how you come as long as you do but come!

IV. My fourth observation shall be this—THE TEXT CONTAINS AN ABSOLUTE NEGATIVE. "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out"

Indeed, it is more than one negative, for it might be rendered "I will not, notcast out," or, "I will never, never cast out." In our language, one negative cancels another, but in the Greek language, negatives strengthen one another. Indeed, we sometimes use similar expressions and do so very properly in order to make our meaning clear and forcible, as when we sing—

"The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, He will not, He will not depart to his foes. That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake, He will never, no never, no never forsake!"

The difficulty which many feel is this—perhaps they are not elect—and if they are not, then, even though they come to Jesus, He must cast them out. Now, that is supposing what never did occur, because no non-elect soul ever came to Jesus! But I need not go into that matter, for my text suffices without any explanation. Read the first part of the verse— "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." There Christ is speaking about election and with that subject distinctly before His eyes, not forgetting the Predestination of God and His eternal will and Purpose, Jesus, knowing what He was saying, said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." So, Predestination and Election cannot be inconsistent with the Truth of God in this text and, though you may sometimes fear that your ship will split on that rock, it really is not a rock in the harbor's mouth when Christ is the harbor! If you come to Him, you need not trouble about the secret decrees and purposes of God. There are such decrees and purposes, but they cannot, any one of them, be contrary to the Truth which Christ so explicitly declares here, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." In the prophecy of Isaiah, the Lord says, "I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you Me in vain." I have often blessed the Lord for that text—it does not tell us what God has said, but it tells us what He has not said, and that is, that He said not unto the seed of Jacob, "Seek you Me in vain." He never tantalizes us! He never bids us seek Him with the reserve in His own mind that we shall not find Him. So, speaking broadly, yet truthfully, Christ says, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." There is no secret purpose of God, nothing written in the great book of human destiny, nothing in the mysteries of eternity which can ever make this declaration of Christ untrue to you, or anyone else! "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

"I am not troubled about that matter," says one. "My difficulty is of a more practical kind. I can leave the mysteries, but there is something that I cannot leave, and that is my past sin." Well, Friend, when the Lord Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," He looked right down the centuries to the end of time. He did not say, "Him

that comes to me today, I will in no wise cast out." The declaration, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," is as true at this moment as it was when the words first fell from Christ's lips. He knew then, for He knew all things, what a sinner you would be and you were in His mind then, for that mind of His is Infinite and Divine! And He knew that there would be such a man, or such a woman, as you are—and that you would sin just as you have done. Yet, taking all that into consideration, He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

I do not know what your special sin may have been. Perhaps it would be wrong for me to try to guess, but this I do know, if you come to Christ, "though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." It may be that you have to mourn over long years of aggravated transgression—sins against light and sins against knowledge. I cannot read your life story and I do not want to read it—it is sufficient for me that Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." If you came to Him and He cast you out because of these long years of sin, His declaration would not be true. If you had lived as long as Methuselah. If you had sinned as grossly as Manasseh. If you had lived a life of dishonesty and unchastity, yet, if you really came to Him, He could not, being a true Christ, cast you away! If all the sins that men have ever committed could be laid to the charge of one poor sinner, yet if that sinner came to Christ, He could not cast Him away! The phrase, "in no wise," has such a wonderful sweep that it comprehends the grossest of crimes and the most heinous transgressions.

"Ah," says another, "it is not my past sins which trouble me so much as my present hardness of heart. My heart is like the nether millstone. My eyes never weep for sin. No, I can even think of sin almost without alarm." So, dear Friend, you judge yourself, but probably your judgment is a great mistake. Yet, even were it true, remember that Christ has not said, "Him that comes to Me, I will only cast out because his heart is hard," or, "because he refuses to weep." He has not put in any exception! He met your case when He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise—not even for that reason—cast out." If your heart is like iron, where will it ever be softened except in the furnace of His Love?

"Oh," says another, "I have been thinking of my sins and I have tried to repent." Yes, but you must remember that—

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

When a soul comes to Christ, then it gets repentance, it gets tenderness of heart, it gets all that it really needs! And all attempts to get these things beforeyou come to Christ are like trying to get the effect before you get the cause—to get the fruit before you get the root! O Soul, however old your condition may be, come to Christ, for He can cure you! A good deal of preaching has been addressed to persons of a certain character, and sinners who listen to that character-preaching, keep asking, "Is that our character?" In this way, their eyes are fixed upon themselves and their own characters, instead of upon Christ! That is a gospel which will do them no good. But Christ's Gospel turns a man's eyes away from his own character. It says to him, "Admit, once and for all, that your character is incorrigibly bad and that you deserve to be sent to the lowest Hell. But, that being the case, the Gospel still says to you, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.'" Some gospels might help a man if he could get a certain distance on the way to Heaven, but the good Samaritan came just where the poor wounded traveler was—and Jesus Christ comes to sinners just where they are, and just asthey are—hard-hearted, callous, thoughtless, careless, yet often conscious of all this and, strange to say, lamenting that they cannot lament, and crying, "I would feel if I could! I feel that it is a pain to think I cannot feel. I am sad to think I am not sad, and weary to think I am not weary." Well, then, Jesus says, "Just as you now are, come unto Me. Leave your care, just as it is, in My hands, and I will undertake it for you."

Did I hear somebody say, "Oh, but I am so ignorant"? Well, my dear Friend, so are all of us! The only difference between a very wise man and a very great fool is that the wise man knows that he is a fool, and the other does not. When all the knowledge of our wisest men is put together, it makes but a very small book compared with the vast volume that contains what they do notknow. Why, the most highly-educated man, now living, has only just gone to an A. B. C. school as yet, and as for those very learned divines—the D. D.s and the LL. D.s, and those doctors who think they know so much that they know better than the Bible—well, after all, their knowledge, as compared with what is yet to be known, is only the information of an ant or a magpie—nothing more! We are all fools together and what a mercy it is

that the Lord Jesus Christ does not require a lot of knowledge of us! It is to know Him that suffices us. To know yourself as a sinner and Christ as your Savior is all the knowledge you really need in order to find eternal life. Never let your ignorance stand in your way, for Christ virtually puts the matter thus, "Him that comes to Me—though He cannot read a letter in the Bible, and hardly knows that twice two are four—if he does but come to Me, I will in no wise cast him

out."

"Ah, yes," says another, "but I am so poor!" Well, that is the very last thing that you should ever mention as a hindrance to your coming to Christ, for His Gospel is especially preached to the poor. One of the proofs that He gave of His Messiahship was this, "the poor have the Gospel preached to them." And, oftentimes, He has "chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith," to be the "heirs of the Kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him." So that you cannot truly say that you are too poor to come to Christ.

"Ah," says another, "but I am so tried and troubled." Suppose you are? You do not imagine that the Lord Jesus Christ said, "Him that comes to me, I will not cast out unless he is tried and troubled," do you? Why, poor Soul, if there is one who could notbe left out, it is just the one who is most troubled! What is it that moves the heart of Jesus towards us? Nothing but His pity and love. And the more trouble you have, the more cause there is for His pity to display itself upon you. Instead of keeping back from Christ because you have so many troubles, come to Him to find comfort under them!

"Everybody has been so unkind to me," says one. "My heart is broken." Well, the Savior, who uttered our text, could truly say, "Reproach has broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none." So He understands all about you and He will bind up your broken heart! "Ah, but I am so despised, and slandered, and misrepresented." So was He. They called Him "a gluttonous man, and a winebibber." He is exactly the Savior you need. "Ah, but I have lost my husband and all my friends are dead and gone. I hardly know where to find my daily bread." Christ said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head." He can sympathize with you in the deep affliction of your poverty, so go to Him! You should go, above all others—you who have not a comfortable home, before whom the whole earth seems a desert—you who seem to have been turned out of Paradise and there is nothing before you but the land which brings forth thorns and thistles—it is in your ears that I would especially repeat the ancient promise, "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." You shall overcome all your enemies if you but come to Jesus Christ!

It is a sweet thing to think that the text is so comprehensive—"Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." Have you ever read Mr. John Bunyan's "Comeand Welcome" He very wonderfully expounds this text and, if I remember rightly, he makes the sinner say, "But I am so great a sinner." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have sinned against knowledge." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have been a thief." "I will in no wise cast you out." "I have been a fornicator and adulterer." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have been a murderer." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I cannot believe as I would." "I will in no wise cast you out." And he keeps on, page after page, supposing all things that he can well think of—but I will not keep on so long—I will just say this—Suppose what you like and though it is a fact, yet, still my text covers it—"Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out!"

V. My last observation is this, OUR TEXT PLEDGES OUR LORD'S PERSONAL ACTION. "Him that comes to

Me, I will in no wise cast out."

He does not say anything here about what His servants will do. Some of them look with disapproval at big sinners. They have been known to do so before now and some of them are still a little like that elder brother who said, "As soon as this, your son, was come, which has devoured your living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted calf." But Christ says to the prodigal, "I will not cast you out. Your brother may be unwilling to receive you, but I will welcome you."

Now, if the Lord Jesus Christ does not cast us out, it really does not matter who else wants to do so. So long as the Master of the feast does not reject us, we may keep our place at the table! It is a very suggestive thing that my text is in the very chapter which records the great feast when thousands sat down upon the grass and were fed by Christ. I daresay they were some very strange characters there that day. None of them were too good, but I expect that among that crowd of loafers around the Savior—for loafers many of them were, for they had followed for the sake of the loaves and that is just the meaning of the word, "loafer"—there were some fine gentlemen from Jerusalem who said, "Well, if that is the

Messiah, He has a pretty following, indeed!" On another occasion they called Him "a friend of publicans and sinners." And they said, "This Man receives sinners, and eats with them." He never denied it, He rather gloried in it! He said that He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that "they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He loved to have them about Him—loafers and vagabonds as they were. I do not read that He said to Philip, and Peter, and Andrew, "Now, look. We are going to give a feast, but it must be on the principle of the Charity Organization Society and we must not give anything to people who are undeserving." It is true that God gives to the unthankful and the unbelieving, but modern charity says, "That is wicked!" Well, I daresay there is a good deal to be said for that view of the matter, but Jesus Christ did not believe in that view. There were many undeserving people there and He fed them all! Christ did not feed any man there because he was good, but because he was hungry. He saw that they were tired and faint, so he multiplied the loaves and the fishes, and fed them till they were satisfied.

And today, Jesus Christ does not give His mercy to any man because he deserves it, or because there are any good qualities in the man that may merit the display of His Grace—He saves people because He loves to save the unworthy— and He would not have them perish. "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." That is His only reason and, blessed be His name that it is His only reason for saving sinners, because you and I, who are among the most unworthy persons who have ever lived, may come and sit at the feet of His Grace and know that He has pledged His personal honor and His own private Character for it that him that comes to Him, He will not cast out! If HE does not cast us out, who can? As He says, "I will in no wise cast you out," rest assured that all His servants and all His enemies, even if they wanted to cast us out, would be quite unable to accomplish the task!

When Jesus says, "I will not cast out Him that comes to Me," He means that He will let him stay with Him. If you get into Christ's family by simply trusting Him, you shall always be in His family. If you get into my Lord's house by simply trusting Him, you shall always be in His house! He will not cast you out, but He will receive you, pardon you, cleanse you, bless you. You shall have the power, the right, the authority to become a son of God—and you shall have the nature of a son, you shall receive the Spirit of adoption whereby you shall be able to cry, "Abba, Father." You shall have the blessings of a son—you shall be provided for, educated and trained for the skies. You shall not be denied any blessing or favor which is given to God's family. If you do but come to Christ, His Grace shall be free to you, His House shall be free for you, His city and His Kingdom shall cost you nothing, His heart shall be free for you and, by-and-by, His Heaven shall be free for you, for where He is, there shall you be also—and as He sits at His Father's right hand, so shall you sit down with Him upon His Throne!

I have known the time when if I had heard such a sermon as this, I think I would have leaped for joy to think that there was such mercy to be had by me! I would not have needed any fine speaking, or any display of oratory. I would only have needed to be assured that Jesus would receive me and I would at once have come to Him! And this I know—every truly hungry soul here will come and feed on this Truth of God tonight, and every thirsty soul will come and drink! But if there are any here who think they are good enough—if there are any who fancy that they have not sinned against God and so do not feel that they are in any great danger, or have any great needs—well, it will be according to the old rule, the full will loathe the loaded table, but to the hungry man even bitter things will be sweet!

I can only give you the Gospel invitation and leave it with the Lord to incline you to accept it. May you be led to come to Jesus by a spiritual act of faith this very hour!