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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 22: 1876
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

Pride Catechized and Condemned

   (No. 1271)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 2nd, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [1]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that
   thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou
   glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

   PRIDE GROWS APACE like other ill weeds. It will live on any soil. In
   the natural heart it flourishes, springing up without sowing, and
   growing without watering; and even in the renewed heart it all too
   readily takes root when Satan casts abroad a handful of its seed. Of
   all creatures in the world the Christian is the last man who ought to
   be proud; and yet, alas, we have had mournful evidence both in past
   history and in our own observation, and worst of all in our own
   personal experience, that Christian men may become lifted up, to their
   own shame. Paul set himself very earnestly to deal with this disease
   when he saw it raging among the Corinthians. He felt it needful to do
   so, for it was leading to other mischiefs of the most disgraceful kind.
   Pride and self-conceit had led the members of the church in Corinth to
   choose for themselves distinct leaders, and to arrange them selves
   under separate banners: the followers of this man thinking themselves
   better than the followers of that. Thus the body of Christ was divided,
   and all sorts of ill feeling, jealousy, emulation and envy sprang up in
   the church of God where all ought to have been mutual helpfulness and
   loving unity. Paul therefore earnestly, and with great wisdom, assailed
   the spirit of pride.

   Paul was well aware of one fact, namely, that pride is shallow and
   superficial. It cannot endure honest questioning, and so Paul tried it
   by the Socratic method, and put it through a catechism. He puts three
   questions to it in this verse, and these three all called upon his
   friends to go a little lower in their contemplation of themselves than
   their pride had before allowed them to go. Pride said, "I have such and
   such gifts"; but Paul replied, "what hast thou that thou didst not
   receive?" Thus he digged deeper and undermined pride. The receipt of
   those gifts from God it had forgotten altogether; therefore, by
   bringing that fact to mind the apostle took pride right under the root,
   and that is always the best way to destroyer a weed. To cut off the
   green top, and leave the crown of the root so that it may spring up in
   the next shower, or the next sunshine, is of no avail; but to go deep
   down and tear up the root is effectual: this Paul did with pride by
   reminding the vainglorious Corinthians that the gifts which they
   possessed were no ground of glory, because they had received them as
   alms from the charity of God.

   Another truth is also illustrated by Paul's procedure, namely, that
   pride is always inconsistent with the true doctrine of the gospel. You
   may use this test concerning any preaching, or teaching that you meet
   with: if it legitimately and logically leads a man to boast of himself,
   it is not true. Our chemists use litmus to discover the presence of
   acid in any liquid submitted to them, for the paper then takes a
   reddish tint; and you may use this as your test, that when a doctrine
   makes you red with pride it contains the acid of falsehood. That which
   puffs up is not of God, but that which lays the man low, and exalts
   Jesus Christ, has at least two of the tokens of truth. That which
   glorifies man cannot have been revealed by God, for he has said that no
   flesh shall glory in his presence. Such teaching may appear very
   lustrous with affected holiness, and very fascinating, with pretended
   spirituality, and there may be much in your fondest desires which
   inclines your heart towards it, as there always is in the novelties of
   the present day, but try it whether it be of God by the test which is
   here suggested. If with a sleek hand it brushes your feathers the right
   way, and makes you feel "What a fine fellow I am," you ought at once to
   flee from it. The very fact that it flatters you should be to you like
   a fog horn to warn you of danger. Say to every doctrine which fosters
   pride, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things
   that be of God and of truth, or thou wouldst not speak so well of me."

   My object this morning shall be to attempt to do with our own pride
   what Paul sought to do with that of the Corinthians, namely, to go a
   little deeper than we generally go when measuring our own abilities;
   and then I shall try to use the silver spade of the doctrines of grace,
   so that this hemlock of pride may be taken up by the roots. Looking at
   the text I notice, first, a question to be answered with ease— "Who
   maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst
   not receive?" secondly, a question to be answered with shame "Now if
   thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not
   received it?" and then, thirdly, I shall occupy your attention a few
   minutes with other questions which these questions suggest. May the
   Holy Spirit graciously bless the word.

   I. In a two-fold form the apostle gives us A QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED
   WITH EASE. There may be some who would be puzzled with these questions,
   but I do not suppose there are any such people present; at any rate,
   there are no such members of our church. When we are asked, "Who maketh
   thee to differ from another?" our answer is immediately, "God by his
   grace has made us to differ" and if we are asked, "What hast thou that
   thou didst not receive?" we reply, "We have nothing but our sin; for
   every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down
   from the Father of lights."

   We are the more glad to hear Paul say this, because he was what is
   nowadays styled a "self-made" man. It very frequently happens that a
   man who makes himself has very great respect for his maker. Is it not
   natural that he should worship his creator? Paul was a man who, as far
   as the Christian church is concerned, at any rate, had forced his way
   up without aid from others. He began in that church with no respect,
   but under very much suspicion. The brethren had heard that he
   persecuted the saints, so that at first they would scarce receive him;
   his name was a terror rather than a pleasure, but Paul, with that high
   spirit, that consecrated ardor, that indefatigable industry, that
   wondrous courage of his, backed, of course, by the grace of God, came
   to the front until he could honestly claim, without egotism, that he
   was "not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles, though," said
   he, "I be nothing." Paul was a man who had not been borne upon the
   crest of the wave into an eminent position, he did not wake up one
   morning and find himself famous, but he had put forth all his powers in
   the struggle of life, and labored with persistent energy year after
   year. When he persecuted the saints of God he did it ignorantly, in
   unbelief, and thought he did God service; and all his life long for him
   to know a thing to be right was to strive after it. He had been kept
   from self-seeking and deceit, he had been an intensely active,
   strong-minded, high-souled man, and he had done a grand life-work by
   which the church is still affected; and yet Paul himself had nothing
   whereof to glory. His testimony to his own indebtedness to God's grace
   is so plain, and given so many times over, that we cannot mistake it.
   He says distinctly, "By the grace of God I am what I am." He counted
   his own righteousness as worthless, and only desired that he might be
   found in Christ, arrayed in the righteousness which is of God by faith.
   Do we address to-day any self-made man, as the world calls men who have
   risen from the ranks? Have you taken credit to yourself, dear friend,
   for your success in life? Do you plume yourself upon your having risen
   by your own exertions"? Then cease from such boasting, and in the
   spirit of the apostle ask yourself the question, "Who maketh thee to
   differ, and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?"

   Our question is easy to answer, whether it be applied to natural gifts
   or to spiritual ones. There is a tendency to boast in natural gifts,
   but if questioned concerning them we must give the self-evident answer
   that any natural gifts we possess are not to be set to our credit, but
   were bestowed on us by God. Some gifts come to us as the result of
   birth, and of course in that matter we had no hand. It may be we were
   born of Christian parents, and that pedigree is one for which we shall
   always be thankful: we had sooner number our parents with the saints of
   God than with the peers of the realm: but truly, brethren, we should be
   foolish to boast of godly ancestors, for we had not the choosing of
   them Children of pious parents, you cannot look with disdain even upon
   those who are basely born, for you did not cause yourselves to be born
   any more than they did.

   From their birth some derive physical strength. It always seems to me
   to be a very insane thing for a man to glory in his animal force, for
   there can be no merit in it; yet there are some who do so. In the
   strength of those brawny limbs of theirs, and those powerful muscles,
   some vaunt themselves abundantly. Though the Lord taketh not pleasure
   in the legs of a man, yet some count it a very wonderful thing that
   they can outleap or outrun their fellows. O athlete, though thou be
   strong as Samson, or swift as Asahel, what hast thou that thou hast not
   received? Hadst thou been born with a tendency to consumption, or with
   some other hereditary weakness, couldst thou have prevented it? And now
   that thou art strong, art thou to be praised for that any more than a
   horse or a steam engine?

   The same is true of beauty of person, which too frequently is the cause
   of vanity. Beauty is often a snare on this account. What if thy
   features be delicately chiselled, what if thine eyes are bright as the
   morning, and thy countenance fair as the lily, what if there be a charm
   in thine every glance; what hast thou in all these for which to praise
   thyself? Jezebel also was fair to look upon, and is she to be praised?
   Is not thy beauty the gift of God? Bless thy Creator for it, but do not
   despise those who are less comely, for in so doing thou wilt despise
   their Maker. How often do we hear a laugh raised behind their backs
   against persons who are somewhat grotesque, or it may be deformed, but
   God made them, and who is he that shall dare to taunt the Maker with
   what he has done? What hast thou, O thou fairest among women; what hast
   thou, O thou comeliest among the sons of men, but what thou hast
   received? Cease, then, those mincing airs and tossings of the head.

   The same is true with regard to the rank which comes of birth. Some men
   are born— according to heraldic arrangements— noble. In what way is a
   new-born babe noble? Can true nobility arise out of anything but
   personal character? They are, however, born with the repute of
   nobility, and are at once regarded with respect. Are they not our
   future rulers? Through no deed or desert, or talent or heroism of their
   own, some are as it were by accident, or rather by the sovereign
   ordinance of providence, placed above others, wherefore then should
   they glory in what is so purely a matter of gift? O thou who art great
   and honorable amongst men, what hast thou but what thou hast received?
   Walk in lowly gentleness, and live with true nobility of character, and
   so make thy rank a blessing.

   Brethren and sisters, how much all of us owe in the matter of birth for
   which we sometimes take to ourselves credit. We have never fallen,
   perhaps, into the grosser immoralities, but should we not readily have
   done so if we had been huddled together in chambers where decency
   struggles for existence, or been compelled to take our walks abroad
   where blasphemy and vice contend with law and order, and are not to be
   subdued? If the worst of examples had been before us instead of the
   best, what might we not have become? We have sinned enough as it is,
   but very much of the fact that we have not sinned more must be laid
   rather to the account of our having commenced life under favorable
   circumstances than to any meritorious conduct of our own. In this
   respect, what have we that we did not receive? You have been honest,
   thank God for it: but you might have been a thief if your father had
   been so. You have been chaste and modest, be glad of it: you might not
   have been so had you been encompassed with other surroundings. You are
   at this time respected and reputable, and you carry on business in an
   upright manner; had you been as poor as some, you might have been
   tempted to as dirty transactions as they are chargeable with. In these
   common matters of morality we cannot tell how much we owe to birth, and
   how little to ourselves. Certainly self-applause ceases as we hear the
   question, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?"

   In the matter of talent there are very great differences. One man will
   very soon make his way in the world where others fail. Put him where we
   will, he will make his fortune; and his friends laughingly say that if
   he were transported to the desert of Sahara he would sell the sand at a
   profit. But who gave him that talent? What has he that he has not
   received? Another can study an art or a science and become proficient
   in it in a short time; as a boy he is a leader at school, and as a man
   he is eminent in his sphere; still, are not his wisdom and insight
   gifts from heaven? Another man has the gift of eloquence, and can speak
   well, while his fellow has the pen of a ready writer. In either of
   these gifts a man may take so much content as by-and-by to become
   vainglorious, but the truth taught in our text ought always to prevent
   that folly. "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" That which
   God gave to thee he might have withheld, and the man whom thou
   despisest might have had thy gifts: he would have been foolish to
   despise thee if thou hadst been without them, and thou art foolish now
   to despise him.

   What differences there are, too, as to what men are helped to make of
   themselves by education. Now-a-day there is a better opportunity of
   education for all ranks and conditions of men, for which I am earnestly
   thankful, and hope that true religion will be connected with the
   advantage; but all boys trained in the same school do not leave it
   equally educated. One is quick, and another dull; one manages to place
   himself foremost, and another is doomed to be in the rear. Whether the
   difference be in the original conformation of the man, or be the result
   of different teaching, the result must alike be subject for
   thankfulness to God, for whether it be natural talent or excellent
   education, both are received.

   Equally so is it with wealth. I may address some one to whom God has
   given large substance; but, my dear friend, in the course of the
   accumulation of that substance you have had plenty of evidence that "it
   is God that giveth thee power to get wealth." There was a time when you
   had little enough, and it was a singular providence which put you in
   the way of rising. There have been times, too, when a little turn of
   the scale would have sent you into bankruptcy, but the markets went the
   other way, and you were made. You have seen others who were ahead of
   you in the race of prosperity left far behind, and though God has
   prospered you I know there have been anxious moments when you have had
   to lift up your eyes to the Most High, and beseech him by his
   tenderness and mercy to help and deliver you. Well, inasmuch as this
   wealth is a blessing if you know how to use it rightly, ascribe the
   possession of it to God, who has made you his steward. Do you tell me
   that you have had a keener eye and exercised more industry than others,
   as well as a better judgment? True, but who gave you the judgment, and
   who gave you the health with which to be industrious? Many another man
   has been as industrious, and yet has failed; many another has been as
   willing to work, but he has been disabled by sickness; many another man
   has had as keen an eye, but alas, his judgment has been baffled by
   misfortune; another man began life with as clear a brain as you, but
   now he is confined in the asylum and you still are in possession of all
   your faculties. O sirs, never sacrifice to your own net and drag, and
   say, "We brought up these treasures from the deep"; but bless God who
   gave you all that you have of earthly things, for what have you that
   you have not received? I would that you felt more than you do that you
   are only stewards, that your possessions are lent to you to be used for
   God's glory and the good of others, and neither to be squandered nor
   hoarded for yourselves.

   But now, brothers and sisters, this is very emphatically true as to our
   spiritual gifts, and I invite you to consider this truth— "What hast
   thou that didst not receive?" There has long been a great doctrinal
   discussion between the Calvinists and the Arminians upon many important
   points. I am myself persuaded that the Calvinist alone is right upon
   some points, and the Arminian alone is right upon others. There is a
   great deal of truth in the positive side of both systems, and a great
   deal of error in the negative side of both. If I was asked, "Why is a
   man damned?" I should answer as an Arminian answers, "He destroys
   himself." I should not dare to lay man's ruin at the door of divine
   sovereignty. On the other hand, if I were asked, "Why is a man saved?"
   I could only give the Calvinistic answer, "He is saved through the
   sovereign grace of God, and not at all of himself." I should not dream
   of ascribing the man's salvation in any measure to himself. I have not
   found, as a matter of fact, that any Christian people care seriously to
   quarrel with a ministry which contains these two truths in fair
   proportions. I find them kicking at the inferences which are supposed
   to follow from one or the other of them, and sometimes needlessly
   crying to have them "reconciled;" but the two truths together, as a
   rule, commend themselves to the conscience, and I feel sure that if I
   could bring them both forward this morning with equal clearness I
   should win the assent of most Christian men. At this time, however I
   have to confine myself to the statement that all the grace we have is
   the gift of God to us, and I trust none will, therefore, suppose that I
   deny the other side of the question. I believe assuredly that we have
   nothing good in us but what we have received. For instance, we were
   dead in trespasses and sin, and we were quickened into spiritual life:
   my brethren, did that life spring out of the ribs of death? Did the
   worm of our corruption beget the living seed of regeneration? It were
   absurd to think so. God be praised for his great love wherewith he
   loved us, even when we were dead in sin, which led him to quicken us by
   his grace. We have been forgiven our great sins— wholly forgiven;
   through the precious blood of Christ we have been made clean. Did we
   deserve it? Does any man who professes to be a Christian say for a
   single moment that he deserved the ransom paid by Christ, and deserved
   the pardon of his sin? It would be monstrous blasphemy even to imagine
   such a thing. Oh no; "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that
   not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
   should boast." God forgave us freely; there could not possibly have
   been any quality in sin which could have called forth forgiving love.
   He had mercy upon us because he would have mercy upon us; not because
   we could claim anything at his hand.

   Everything, dear friend, that makes you to differ from the common
   sinner is the gift of God's grace to you. You know it is. You have
   faith in Christ: yes, but did not the Holy Spirit work it in you? Do
   you not cheerfully subscribe to the doctrine that faith is of the
   operation of God? You have repentance of sin, but was the repentance
   natural to you? Did you not receive it from him who is exalted on high
   to give repentance? Is not your repentance his gift? "Truly," one will
   say, "but then the same gospel was preached to others as to us."
   Precisely so. Perhaps the very sermon which was the means of your
   conversion left others as they were. What made the difference then? Do
   you reply, "We willed to believe in Jesus." That is true; an unwilling
   faith would be no faith: but then who influenced your will? Was your
   will influenced by some betterness of nature in you so that you can
   claim credit for it? I for one reject with abhorrence any such an idea.
   Do you reply, "Our will was influenced by our understanding, and we
   chose what we knew to be best." But then, who enlightened your
   understanding? Who gave you the light which illuminated your mind, so
   that you chose the way of life? "Oh," say you, "but our hearts were set
   towards salvation, and the hearts of others were not." That also is
   true, but then who set your heart that way, who was the prime mover?
   Were you or God? There is the question, and if, my dear brother, you
   dare affirm that in the matter of your own salvation you were the prime
   mover I am at a loss to understand you, and I hope there are few of
   your creed. Jesus is not Alpha to you. You do not love him because he
   first loved you. You were evidently not converted, or turned at all,
   but you turned yourself. You are not a new creature, but are your own
   new-creator. Do you look to see the same thing in others? Why, then, do
   you act as you do? Why do you pray the Lord to turn others if you
   believe that he did not turn you? Do you pray the Lord to convert your
   children? Why do you do it? If it is left entirely to them to be the
   prime movers, why pray to God about them? "Ah," says one, "God must
   treat all alike." I ask again, why do you pray for your children? You
   ask God to do a wrong thing in blessing your children in preference to
   other people, if it be true that he is bound to treat all alike. When
   you go practically to work these sentiments do not hold water. The man
   who knows that the Holy Spirit was first in his operations upon the
   mind, and who calls Christ Jesus the Alpha and the Omega of his
   salvation, is the man who can fairly go to the Lord, and pray for the
   conversion of this man or that; and he too is sure to give God all the
   glory of his salvation, and magnify and bless the grace of the Most
   High.

   Perhaps, my dear brother, there is a difference between you and other
   saints. I am sure there is reason for some saints to eclipse others,
   for some professors are very poor things indeed. Well, brother, you
   have a great deal more faith than others; where did you get it? If you
   received it from anywhere but from God, you had better get rid of it.
   Dear brother, you have more joy than some, and possibly you feel
   ashamed of your fellow Christians who are so doubting and sad: beware
   that you do not become vain of your joy, and remember, that if your joy
   is true joy you received it of the Lord. Are you more useful than
   others? You cannot help looking at certain professors who are idle, and
   wishing that you could stir them up. I know I do; I would put a sharp
   pin into their downy cushions if I could: but for all that who gives us
   activity, who gives us usefulness, who gives us zeal, who gives us
   courage, who gives us everything? If you, dear friend, get into such a
   condition that you begin to whisper to yourself, "I have improved my
   gifts and graces at a very noble rate, and am getting on exceedingly
   well in spiritual things," you will soon have to come down from your
   high places. If you register yourself A 1 at Lloyd's I will not sail
   with you, brother, for I fear your proud barque will tempt the tempest.
   I would rather sail with some poor Christian man whose weather-beaten
   vessel would go to the bottom if Jesus were not on board, for I am
   persuaded he is safe. "Blessed is the man that feareth always." Blessed
   is the man who lies low at the foot of the cross, and who, concerning
   everything that he has, whether temporal or spiritual, ascribes all to
   the Giver of all Good.

   Now we must pass on briefly to think of the second point.

   II. HERE IS A QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED WITH SHAME. "If thou didst
   receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" If
   any of us have fallen into vain glory, and we all have more or less
   done so, let us answer this question with confusion of face. Brother,
   sister, have you gloried in anything you have received? Then bethink
   you how wrongly you have acted, for you have robbed God of his honor.
   To glory in man is altogether inconsistent with glorying in God. Depend
   upon it every particle of praise we take to ourselves is so much stolen
   out of the revenues of the King of kings. Will a man rob God? Will a
   redeemed man rob God? Will a poor sinner snatched from between the jaws
   of death and hell by undeserved mercy, rob God? Lord have mercy upon
   us.

   When we boast we also leave our truthful position, and every Christian
   ought to be ashamed to stand anywhere but in the truth. When I confess
   myself to be weak, helpless, and ascribe all I have to grace, then I
   stand in the truth; but if I take even the remotest praise to myself, I
   stand in a lie. The Lord have mercy upon us if we have dared to act
   falsehood in his presence.

   Let us remember, too, that whensoever we prize ourselves highly we are
   sure to esteem our Lord less. Do you see any spiritual beauty in
   yourself? Then it is because you do not know what true beauty is? Do
   you say, "I am rich and increased in goods"? Then you know nothing, or
   very little, of what true wealth is. You have mistaken gilt for gold,
   and rags for raiment. I counsel thee buy of Jesus gold tried in the
   fire, and fine linen wherewith thou mayest be clothed. Depend upon it
   our judgment is very much like a pair of scales: if Christ goes up self
   goes down; and if self rises Jesus falls in our esteem. No man ever
   sets a high price upon self and Christ at the same time.

   "The more thy glories strike mine eyes
   The humbler I shall be,"

   is a rule without exception.

   Besides, if you and I have gloried in what we possess we have
   undervalued our fellow Christians, and that is a great sin. They are
   very dear to Jesus, and he accounts even their deaths precious. "Take
   heed that ye despise not one of these little ones that believe in me";
   but if we over-estimate ourselves the natural consequence is that we
   under-estimate others. Have I ever thought, "I am a rich man; and these
   poor people, though good Christians, are nobodies compared to me: I am
   of far more consequence to the church"? Have I conceived, because I
   have a measure of talent, that those holy men and women who cannot
   speak for Christ are of no great account? Or have I, because I happened
   to be an old, experienced Christian, snuffed out the young ones, and
   said "They are only a pack of boys and girls"? Is this the way to speak
   of those who were bought with the blood of Christ, and are members of
   Christ's body? It will not do for us to despise the meanest saint. I
   believe there are many who are now pushed into the background and
   shoved into any hole and corner whom Christ looks upon with special
   delight, and will place first when he comes. Verily I say unto you,
   "There are first that shall be last, and there are last that shall be
   first."

   Besides, all this honoring of ourselves generally puts us off from the
   right course as to our gifts, and makes us forget that these things are
   only lent us, to be used for our Master. It is required of stewards
   that they be found faithful, not that they vaunt themselves and deck
   themselves in their Master's goods. We have too much to do to afford to
   boast. Look at yonder young soldier who has just received his armor and
   his helmet. He has just entered the service. Look with what pleasure he
   sees his comely face reflected in his breastplate; how much he admires
   his plume, he thinks how grand he shall look in such gear. My dear
   fellow, all this while you have forgotten that to wear these things in
   the thick of the battle, where they will bear the dint of the sword, is
   what awaits you, and you do not consider that, not your gallant
   appearance, but your velour is what we want to see. When a man exalts
   himself because of what he possesses he does not act as a soldier of
   the cross should do.

   Here we will insert an illustration or two. There is a tendency in some
   to exalt themselves because God has placed them in office. They are
   ministers, deacons, elders, superintendents, or something. What mighty
   airs they give themselves! "Honour to whom honor is due"— they seem to
   have learned the text by heart, and to have seen a personal reference
   in it. Have you never seen the footmen of princes when they are playing
   the great man? What wonders of nature and art they often are. I was
   admiring one of them the other day, with all the reverence due. The
   vision of his pomp quite staggered me, for he was so gorgeous to look
   upon. I feel sure that his royal master was nothing like so striking,
   and certainly could not have been more pompous or aristocratic. While I
   was looking on with due wonder and reverence, somebody cruelly
   remarked, "What a flunkey!"— a most irreverent observation, and yet
   very natural. My brothers, whenever you and I, because we have our best
   clothes on, and are ministers, or deacons, or elders, act as if we were
   very great men, somebody or another is sure to call us flunkeys too;
   not perhaps exactly in so many words, but in language to the same
   effect. Do not let us expose ourselves to such contempt, and if ever we
   have done so, let us be rebuked at once by the thought of what we have
   seen in others.

   Some persist in boasting about their experience. This also is vanity.
   Suppose a man here, who is a great pedestrian, has been over the Alps
   and traversed Europe; here is his walking stick, and it boasts, "I am
   the most traveled walking stick in creation, I have smitten the craggy
   brows of the Alps and bathed myself in the Nile." "Well," says one,
   "but wherever you have gone you have been carried by a power beyond
   yourself." So let the man who boasts in experience remember that in the
   paths of peace he has gone nowhere except as the Lord's hand has borne
   him onward; he has been nothing but a staff in God's hands, and while
   he should be grateful he should never be proud.

   I was in a beautiful garden the other day, upon the rocks, where the
   choicest of flowers and tropical plants are growing: while all around
   the rocks are bare, with scarce a trace of vegetable life Now, suppose
   that garden were proud, and boasted of its fruitfulness. The answer
   would be, "Every basketful of earth had to be carried up to you, and
   you would not bear fruit now if it was not for the stream of water that
   is turned on, and tracked through many little mazes, and brought to the
   root of each plant you bear; you would be a rock again in a few months
   if you were left to yourself; therefore let the former of the garden
   rejoice in his work, but the garden itself may not glory." That is what
   the most fruitful believer would be if God let him alone— a barren
   rock, a wilderness.

   Suppose I address some Christian who is happy, and joyous, and
   cheerful, and has such dainty bits sent home to him out of the
   promises, such precious words from Scripture applied to his heart. Dear
   friend, are you apt to think that there is something specially good
   about you because you get all these remarkable enjoyments? Then let me
   disabuse your mind. It is your weakness which gets you these favors.
   When you are living in a hotel you will remark that certain persons
   have their dinners sent upstairs. What for? Oh, that is because they
   are ill. If you are well you must go down to the table d'hote with the
   rest; but if you are ill they will send it upstairs, and pay you extra
   attention. These very comforts that God gives you ought to make you
   enquire whether there is not something amiss with you, and instead of
   thinking you are strong and well you should search and see if there is
   not some weakness which the Lord in his mercy intends to remove by the
   double comforts which he gives to you. Nothing in the world ought to be
   a cause of self-exaltation; nothing that our God gives us ought to make
   us think highly of ourselves. Lower down, brother, lower down, and so
   you will rise. The way to heaven is downhill, not uphill. As Christ
   went down to the grave that he might come up again and fill all things,
   so must you go to the cross, and down to the grave of self and be
   buried with Christ, and learn the meaning of your baptism, and make it
   true that you are buried with him to all the world, and to yourself
   also, for so only can you rise into the fullness of the new life.

   III. OTHER QUESTIONS WHICH THESE QUESTIONS SUGGEST shall now, in the
   third place, occupy our attention. What are they?

   The first is this. Have I ever given to God his due place in the matter
   of my salvation?— a question that I may very well put, for I recollect
   when I was converted to God, and truly converted too, but I did not
   know that it was the work of the Spirit in my heart; I did not
   understand that it was the result of special grace. I had heard the
   gospel generally preached, but I had not learned the peculiar doctrines
   of grace; and I recollect very well sitting down and thinking to
   myself, "I am renewed in my mind, I am forgiven, I am saved: how came
   that about?" and I traced it to this, that I had heard the gospel, but
   as I knew that many never had an opportunity of hearing it, I saw
   special grace in my having had the opportunity to hear it. But then I
   said, "There are others who have heard it, but it was not blessed to
   them: how came it to be blessed to me?" and I cogitated for awhile
   whether it could be something good in me that made the gospel useful to
   me, for if so I deserved to have the credit of it. Somehow the grace
   which God had given me made me fling that theory to the winds, and I
   came to this conclusion, "It must be God that made the difference," and
   having got that one thought into my mind, the doctrines of grace
   followed as a matter of course. Only by experimentally knowing that
   there has been a special work of grace in your own soul, will you be
   likely to place the Lord where he should be in your creed, for some
   provide a very inferior place for the Lord in the matter of their
   salvation. With them man is very great, and God is made little of; but
   true theology makes God the very sun of the system, the center, the
   head, the first, and chief. Have you done so? If not, correct your
   views, and get a clearer view of the gospel of grace. May the Holy
   Spirit help you therein. To know the doctrines of grace will be much to
   your comfort, will tend to your stability, and will also lead you to
   seek the glory of God.

   The next question is this, Have I this morning the spirit of humble
   gratitude? How do I feel? Do I take God's mercy as a matter of course,
   and view my own gifts without thankfulness? Then I act like the brutes
   that perish, but let me pray this morning that humble, lowly gratitude
   may daily rule my spirit. Such gratitude will make you cheerful, it
   will make you earnest, it will in fact be an atmosphere in which all
   Christian graces will grow by the blessing of God's Spirit.

   Next, seeing I have been a receiver, what have I done towards giving
   out again? It cannot have been intended that I should receive and never
   give out, for if that be the case there is a sad lot for me. You know
   they used to make, and do still make, in the North of England,
   earthenware saving boxes for the children. You can put what you like
   in, but you cannot get it out any more until you break the box; and
   there are persons of that sort among us. Some have died lately, and
   their estates have been reported in the Probate Court. There was plenty
   put in to them, but you could never get anything out, and consequently
   they had to be broken up. I only hope when they were broken up the gold
   and silver went the right way. What a pity to be like money boxes, to
   be of no good until you are broken up. One would like to get and give
   at the same time. We ought not to be as a stagnant pond, a Dead Sea,
   which receives from rivers all the year round, but gives forth no
   stream in return, and so becomes a stagnant, putrid lake. Let us be
   like the great lakes of America, which receive the mighty rivers and
   pour them out again, and consequently keep fresh and clear.

   The next question is— Since what I have had I have received by God's
   grace, might I not receive more? Come; brothers and sisters, with
   regard to gracious things I want you to be covetous. Covet earnestly
   the best gifts. If you have had faith, why should you not have more? If
   God gave you hope, joy, experience, why not more? You are not
   straitened in him, you can be only straitened in yourself. Try to
   remove those hindrances, and ask the Lord to give you more grace.

   One other question— If all that Christians have they have received,
   sinner, why should not you receive as well as they? If it were true
   that Christians got these good things out of themselves, then you, poor
   sinner, might despair, for you know you have no good thing in you; but
   if the best of saints, the best Christian in heaven, has not anything
   but what he received, why should not you receive? To receive, you know,
   is never a difficult thing. I warrant you that out of all the people in
   London there is not a man but what could receive. Try it on the present
   occasion. Let it be a thousand pounds, and see how many among us would
   be unable to receive. If there be a person about who would not receive,
   I tell you who it is— it is the man who thinks himself so rich that he
   does not care to have any more. Even so the proud, self-righteous
   Pharisee cannot receive; but you poor, good-for-nothing, empty sinners
   can receive; and here is the mercy— "to as many as received him, to
   them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to as many as
   believed on his name." Open that empty hand, open that empty heart: God
   grant they may be opened now by his own divine Spirit, and may you
   receive, and then I know you will join with us in saying, "Of his
   fullness have all we received, and grace for grace."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Psalm 103 and 1 Corinthians 4.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 103 (Vers. 1.), 233, 235.
     __________________________________________________________________

A God Ready to Pardon

   (No. 1272)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 9th, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [2]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "Thou art a God ready to pardon." Nehemiah 9:17

   WHEN A MAN'S CONSCIENCE is so awakened to the existence of sin that he
   cannot perceive any plea for mercy within himself, it is his wisdom to
   look for a plea in the nature and character of God. Now, brethren, if
   we search ourselves through and through, we cannot find anything in our
   fallen nature which can recommend us to the Most High. If we think that
   we have a claim upon God's goodness, we are in darkness, and deceive
   ourselves. When the true light comes, it reveals our bareness of all
   merit or excuse, and shows that there is nothing in human nature but
   that which provokes the Lord. This is the fact as to our condition
   while we are unregenerate, and oftentimes the true believer, when
   darkness gathers around him, finds himself to be in much the same
   condition. His evidences burn dimly, the candle of the Lord seems
   quenched within his spirit, and, worst of all, the sun of divine favor
   is not discernible; then groping all around he can discover nothing in
   himself but that which causes him to sigh and groan, being burdened. In
   such a plight he should cast overboard the great anchor of faith, and
   escape from himself to his God. It were well for him always to do so,
   but especially in the cloudy and dark day. To whom should he turn for
   light but to the Sun of Righteousness? Where look for grace but to the
   God of all grace? Where for all but to the All in all? If what I am
   makes me despair, let me consider what God in Christ is and I shall
   have hope.

   That God is merciful becomes to sinners the first point upon which they
   can fix their hope: that the mercy of God endureth for ever affords to
   the saints a most blessed stronghold when inward sin assails the soul.
   But whence do we learn this supremely consoling truth? How do we know
   that God is merciful? I scarcely think we should have inferred from his
   works the readiness of God to show mercy. I have heard a great deal
   about the attributes of God in nature: I have, indeed, heard a great
   deal more than I have ever been able to see. To "go from nature up to
   nature's God" is a very common expression, but it is a very long step,
   mark you, from the highest Alp of nature to the footstool of the throne
   of God. It will be found much easier to go down from God to nature when
   you once know the Lord than ever it can be to ascend from the works to
   the Maker. It is more than questionable whether the best instructed
   mind could have discovered much of God's moral nature from the universe
   around— his goodness to obedient creatures we might have gathered, but
   his mercy to the guilty is there but dimly revealed. Look at this
   visible universe and you perceive that it is governed by certain fixed
   laws. If a man offends against these laws, do the laws bend, and make
   allowance for his mistake? Not so, they operate immutably, and every
   violation of them is avenged. The captain makes a mistake of a few
   points in his steering— there is a current which he has not perceived,
   or perhaps his compass itself is out of gear; anyhow, he is, without
   any fault on his part, drifted upon a rock. Does the rock move, or is
   it softened? or when the ship strikes is there some miracle by which
   the timbers are held together? Does some angelic hand undergird the
   ship and preserve the precious lives? No, amidst the howling of the
   pitiless storm the vessel breaks up, and those who struggle best are
   unable to survive the fury of the sea. Is there any sign of mercy here?
   Or take another case: the simple countryman, in his ignorance of the
   laws of electricity, is overtaken by a pelting storm, and to escape
   from the drenching rain he runs beneath some lofty tree to screen
   himself beneath its spreading branches. It is a law of nature that
   elevated points should attract the lightning: the man does not know
   this, he does not intend to defy his Maker's natural law, but for all
   that, when the death-dealing fluid splits the tree it leaves a
   senseless corpse at the foot thereof. The law does not suspend its
   operations though that man may be the husband upon whose life the bread
   of many children may depend, though he may have been one of the most
   guileless and prayerful of mankind, though he may have been utterly
   unconscious of having exposed himself to the force of a physical law of
   God, yet still he dies, for he has placed himself in the way of a
   settled law of nature, and it takes its course. There is scant trace of
   mercy here. Or it may be that a physician in the pursuit of discoveries
   which shall alleviate pain, with no ambition except to serve his fellow
   creatures, no mercenary motive swaying him, endeavors to penetrate into
   the secrets of nature, and imbibes or inhales a certain noxious drug or
   pernicious vapor. Will the noxious drug or destructive gas stay its
   deadly office because of the generosity of the motive of the man who
   exposes himself to its influence? Ah, not so, the precious life is
   sacrificed, and we hear the sad news that a great physician is no more;
   nature having stood fast and firm, and no mercy having been shown to
   the breaker of her laws. Now, seeing that these laws move on immutably
   like the great wheels of a mighty machine, and he that is entangled in
   those wheels is ground to powder, it does seem as if we had slight
   evidence of the mercy of God if we look to nature alone: certainly not
   enough to calm the conscience or allay the fears of the guilty. We
   admit that there are some tokens for good to the offender, even in
   nature, for does not the Lord teach man to set up his beacons upon the
   headland and anchor his light-ships near the sands, and has he not led
   us up to the formation of life-boats whereby multitudes of lives have
   been saved? In the case of death by lightning there is reason to
   believe that the death is more certainly painless than any other; and,
   again, loftiness need not remain a danger, for the lightning conductor
   has warded off the bolt of heaven from multitudes of elevated
   buildings. In the case of most poisons there are antidotes which save
   life if they are taken speedily enough, and even the poisons
   themselves, in certain compounds, turn out to be healing medicines. So
   there are traces of the pardon of offenses in the mitigating or the
   removing of penalties even under the iron rule of natural law. Never is
   a law changed, mark you, in nature, except in the few instances of
   miraculous interpositions; and in the moral universe never is a law
   changed at all, for heaven and earth shall pass away but not one jot or
   one tittle of the law shall fail. Still there are laws which counteract
   full frequently the roughness and the crushing power of other laws; and
   these, like their counterparts in the moral universe, prove that God is
   merciful. But, all this being allowed, the light which nature affords
   us is, upon this subject, rather conjecture than assurance. My
   brethren, let us thank God we are not left to mere guesses upon this
   point, we are not left to the sun and to the moon to give us light upon
   this matter; we have a more sure word of testimony whereunto ye do well
   if ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. We have
   this book of Holy Scripture written by the pen of the Holy Spirit,
   which tells us over and over again that the God whom we have offended
   is a God ready to pardon, a God whose mercy endureth for ever.

   I would call your attention to the expression, "a God ready to pardon,"
   not a God who may possibly pardon; neither a God who upon strong
   persuasion and earnest pleadings may, at length be induced to forgive;
   not one who, perchance, at some remote period after we have undergone a
   long purgation may manifest a mercy which is now in the background, but
   a God "ready to pardon,"— willing and more than willing— ready,
   standing prepared, or to use another Scriptural expression, "waiting to
   be gracious." We have a God who stands like a host at a festival, which
   is all provided and prepared, saying, "My oxen and my fatlings are
   provided, all things are ready, come ye to the suppers." Not only are
   all things ready but God himself is ready, his own heart and hand all
   ready to bestow pardon upon the guilty ones who come before him. There
   is forgiveness with him that he may he feared.

   This blessed truth, in the first place, was remarkably seen in the
   story of Israel, on that we will dwell; and secondly, it is equally
   true of the Lord at all times. May the Holy Spirit in mercy lead us to
   feel the power of mercy while we speak thereon.

   I. First, then, I shall ask your attention to THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AS
   SINGULARLY ILLUSTRATING THE READINESS OF GOD TO PARDON. Brethren, the
   Israelites seem to have been set forward as a picture of all God's
   people. As the foot of the altar was made of the looking glasses of the
   women, the polished brass of the mirrors being melted down, so it seems
   to me as if Israel was intended to be a looking-glass in which every
   one of us might look and see his own image. Full sure I am that when I
   speak of Israel you will perceive that the record speaks of you, and
   draws your portraits to the life.

   They were, in the first place, a people very specially favored, but
   they were a people as specially ungrateful. To what other nation did
   God give the oracles of his truth? What other tribes did he separate
   unto himself to be a people in whose midst he would show forth his
   glory? What other nation did he bring forth out of the house of bondage
   with a high hand and a stretched out arm? For what other people did he
   pour out of heaven the dread artillery of all his plagues, smiting
   their foes with judgments most terrible? For what other race did he
   divide the sea that he might lead them through the deep as through a
   wilderness? What other armies of men had food to eat which dropped from
   heaven? What other hosts were led and guided for forty years, and
   supplied without their own labor, without sowing or planting, or
   reaping, or gathering into barns? Surely the Lord himself was with
   them, and they were favored above all the rest of mankind. Who is like
   unto thee, O Israel, a people chosen of the Lord! But they were just as
   specially sinful. It scarcely seems to us as if any other nation ever
   existed who provoked the Lord so much, for they transgressed against
   light and love, against instruction and illumination, against wooing
   and warning, against entreaty and rebuke. They rebelled though they
   knew that they were highly favored, and were conscious that they were a
   distinguished and elect people. Their iniquities were committed against
   a God whose hand they had seen, and whose voice they had heard, as he
   spoke to them from the top of Sinai. They lived amid a blaze of
   miracles, and walked a pathway of marvels. God was in the camp, his
   glory shone forth between the cherubim and under the symbol of the
   fiery cloudy pillar his presence was revealed to them all. God was
   round about them for a wall of fire, and as the glory in their midst:
   and yet with the Lord before their eyes they refused to see him, and
   with all his wonders before them they refused to believe. You know,
   dear friends, that we are always particularly wounded by the unkindness
   of any to whom we have been specially attentive and generous. We
   complain, "It was not an enemy for then I could have borne it, but it
   was thou, a man, mine acquaintance, my friend." Hard is it to be
   injured by a child for whom you have endured much self-denial, and to
   whom you have rendered tenderest love. "Sharper than an adder's tooth
   is an unthankful child." After this fashion Israel offended, and,
   speaking after the manner of men, the Lord felt it keenly, he was
   grieved at his heart, because his great goodness to them had been so
   basely misused. He cries, "O that they had hearkened unto me," and in
   another place, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear O earth, I have nourished
   and brought up children and they have rebelled against me." Such is the
   language which Scripture puts into the mouth of the Lord, and yet he
   forgave his provoking people times without number— was he not indeed
   ready to pardon?

   Again, the Israelites were absolutely dependent upon God for
   everything, and yet they were proud. Read in the sixteenth verse, "They
   and our fathers dealt proudly." If any people in the world ought to
   have been humble, surely the Israelites were they. They had been slaves
   in Egypt, and lien among the pots in degraded bondage— brickmakers all
   of them. Their backs were raw with the lash of the slavedriver, and
   they cried out under the sore oppression. The Lord chose them in the
   ignorance and debasement which always come with slavery. When he
   brought them out they had no treasures but such as they had demanded of
   their former masters. Their stock of food was very slender, and they
   had to traverse the arid wilderness. Tied up in bundles on their
   shoulders, they carried a little food, but that was soon spent, and
   every day they had to receive bread fresh from God's own ovens, while
   as for water they would have perished had it not been for the rock
   whose streams followed them all their way. They were not a people
   addicted to commerce, they had no opportunities for hunting, there were
   no means for husbandry; and therefore, if day by day the manna had not
   fallen, they must have utterly starved. Yet though they were pensioners
   upon the daily charity of God, and were both fed and clothed by his
   bounty, still they were proud. I know some others who are much in the
   same condition, and perhaps they are proud too. Paupers and yet proud!
   Living on alms and yet boastful! Ah, brethren, but this in Israel was
   very provoking to God, even as it is in us. Those vagrant mendicants
   thought themselves somewhat, so that when they were a little tried they
   began to murmur against Moses, and to accuse their God of bringing them
   out into the desert to die. They hectored it very loudly, and with a
   high stomach, and thought themselves hardly put upon, and would not do
   this, and would do that, as though they were some great ones, while all
   the while they were no better than so many birds of the air, which have
   to gather what God's generous hand is pleased to scatter for their
   daily food. Was he not a God ready to pardon, to have mercy upon a
   proud people? Is it not always very hard to forgive a haughty spirited
   offender? If the offender will humble himself before you there is less
   difficulty; but if, being absolutely dependent upon you for everything,
   the offender nevertheless insults you with high words, it becomes very
   hard to keep your temper with him. Pride is irritating, yea abominable.
   O Lord, when thou didst forgive the haughtiness of thine erring people,
   thou wast indeed ready to pardon.

   These people, again, deliberately rebelled, for the sixteenth and
   seventeenth verses tell us they "hardened their necks, and hearkened
   not to thy commandments, and refused to obey." It was not that they
   made mistakes, it was not that they fell into errors or were misled;
   but they did not want to go right, and refused to know what God's will
   and mind were. They stopped their ears, and closed their eyes. When
   they asked that the words which the Lord spake from Sinai might not be
   spoken to them any more, it was but natural that they should dread the
   terror of the trumpet sound; but deep down in their hearts there was
   also a distaste for a law so pure, so holy. Their hearts were set on
   mischief, and they were not to be led in the way of obedience. They had
   a ready ear for Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who preached sedition, they
   were ready to be led into idolatrous ceremonies and lustful acts by
   Moabitish women; but before the Lord they were as bullocks unaccustomed
   to the yoke. Anybody and everybody they would hearken to except their
   God, but to him they had such small regard that they cast his
   ordinances and precepts behind their backs, and sinned again and again
   with resolute deliberation. They often went astray though often
   reproved. It was not mere error and mistake, but the set and current of
   their heart was towards evil. Deliberation adds greatly to the
   heinousness of sin, and it is a sad thing when we have to charge
   ourselves with this. The repetition of the same offense also shows a
   state of heart very near akin to determination, for it has all the
   appearance of a deliberate refusal to watch against temptation, and of
   a fixed resolve to treat the voice of God with indifference. Alas, that
   we should be so readily decoyed by the baits of evil, and so feebly
   held by the cords of goodness. Lord, when we provoke thee in this way
   be pleased to show thyself a God ready to pardon.

   More than this, we are told that the Israelites were unmindful of what
   the Lord had done for them: "Neither were mindful of thy wonders that
   thou didst among them." They were by this unmindfulness led into the
   great crime of unbelief. You think, my brethren, that if you had seen
   the Red Sea divided and Israel's hosts led through, while Pharaoh's
   army was drowned, you would have trusted God all your life. "Oh," say
   you, "if I had been present, and really gathered the manna and eaten
   it, I could not, I am sure, with such a demonstration before my eyes,
   have ever fallen into unbelief again." Well, I leave that question
   whether you would or not; having a very shrewd suspicion that your
   heart is by no means better than that of the ancient unbelievers. At
   any rate Israel soon fell back into her chronic unbelief. Within a few
   days after they had seen the whole host of Pharaoh destroyed, they
   began to murmur against God and against Moses; and though every day
   they ate the manna, and drank the miraculously given water, yet
   continually they asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?" and they were
   perpetually putting questions such as made Moses demand of them, "Is
   the Lord's hand waxed short?" They were cankered to the heart with
   unbelief. For a moment they had a sort of faith, but in another moment
   they relapsed into infidelity.

   "Now they believe his Word,
   While rocks with rivers flow;
   Now with their lusts provoke the Lord,
   And he reduced them low."

   The slightest peril, the slightest trouble to themselves, they began to
   think that now they were come to a difficulty out of which the Lord
   could not deliver them, and they cried, "Surely, he means to destroy
   us. He will never bring us into the promised land." Do you know any
   other people like this? I need to put out my hand to touch one of the
   same order. At any rate, since the Lord forgave his people Israel,
   though they angered him with their ungenerous mistrust, we see most
   clearly that he is "a God ready to pardon."

   Further on we read that these people committed in spirit an act of
   utter apostasy. They made unto themselves a captain to return to their
   bondage. They said they would go back to Egypt, since there was no hope
   of their ever conquering Canaan, for the Canaanites were too strong for
   them. What, back to slavery! Back to making bricks without straw!
   Leaving God and his tabernacle, and the glory of his presence. What
   think ye would they go back for? What was the attractive bait which
   lured them? They would return to their taskmasters for the sake of the
   leeks and the garlic, and the onions, the flavour of which was still in
   their mouths. Their soul lusted after the fleshpots of Egypt, and they
   would, to sit down by those savoury cauldrons, go back to the ignoble
   condition of slavery again, and leave the Lord and all his guardian
   care, and forego the goodly land, which was but a little way beyond. O
   foolish people! Ah, brethren, this is madness, but; alas is there not
   in us, even in us, an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
   living God, and have there not been times when we also have been
   tempted to return to the beggarly elements of the world, and seek
   content in the grovelling joys of earth?

   Perhaps it was worst of all that the Israelites did actually fall into
   shameful idolatry. They set up the figure of a calf to represent God;
   they compared their glory unto the image of an ox that eateth grass,
   and they said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee out of
   the land of Egypt." God was incensed at this, as well he might be,
   nevertheless at the entreaty of Moses he did not utterly destroy them.
   Oh, brethren, it is a shameful thing when we love the creature more
   than the Creator, and dare to set up anything which is dear to us in
   Jehovah's place. "Little children keep yourselves from idols," but if
   you have had idols, and have been forgiven, then you can see in this
   history, and in your own experience, that the Lord is ready to pardon.

   For a minute I desire to show you the opposite side, namely, the divine
   goodness. While God forgave this people he showed his readiness to
   pardon in the following ways. First, he continued while they were in
   all these sins to guide them both by night and by day. The nineteenth
   verse says, "Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in
   the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day,
   to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show
   them light, and the way wherein they should go." Only think of it, that
   very day they made a calf, when the sun went down the fiery pillar
   still lit up the camp. At that very hour in which they said "We will
   make to ourselves a captain, and go back to Egypt," the cloud was
   covering the camp, and screening them from the burning heat of the sun.
   They sinned beneath the shade of special mercy. Oh, if the Lord had
   said, "Now I will leave you, I will give you no more guidance. Since
   you will not follow my commandments, go which way you will," should you
   have wondered? If he had left them to faint in the heat of the day and
   grope in the darkness of the night would you have been surprised? Ah,
   but let us wonder to think that the Lord has guided us as pilgrims
   through this desert land: he has still been both sun and shade to us,
   even to this day, notwithstanding all our sin. Had he deserted us what
   countless evils had befallen us. Blessed be the mercy which faileth
   not.

   Another marvelously gracious fact was that he continued still to teach
   them. I am more surprised at this than at the other. Read the twentieth
   verse— "Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them." I should
   have thought he would have said, "Moses, take down the tabernacle, roll
   up the curtains, put away the ark, no more morning sacrifices, no more
   evening lambs. Aaron, go home, take off your breastplate, and your
   ephod, and all your garments, which were made for glory and for beauty.
   This people shall be taught no longer, they are incorrigible. It is in
   vain that I dwell among them and walk among them." No, but still he
   made known his ways among them, and maintained the testimony of his
   servant Moses, and gave them still those matchless types which set
   forth so fully the way of salvation. My brethren, bless ye also the
   Lord that though he has often smitten you, and given you the bread of
   affliction and the water of affliction, yet he has not taken away your
   teachers from you, nor quenched the light of Israel. Still doth his
   good spirit enlighten and instruct the people. Is he not a God ready to
   pardon?

   Nehemiah also notices that God did not stint them in their daily
   provisions, notwithstanding their offenses. "Yea," says he, "thou
   withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for
   their thirst." I am struck with wonder to think that God should have
   caused his manna still to fall. They provoked Moses and they set up
   Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but that very morning God's bread was in
   their mouths. They came up to speak against God and against his
   servant, but their tongues would have been cleaving to the roof of
   their mouths for thirst if that very morning they had not drunk of the
   water which God had given them. When dependent persons will persist in
   disregarding our remonstrances and violating our rules, we are driven
   to stop the supplies. But the Lord did not stop the supplies even in
   this urgent case. Would not famine and drought have brought them to
   their senses? If there had been no food for the women and children, and
   no drink for the strong men, would not that have tamed them? Even lions
   and savage beasts may be thus subdued. But no, their bread was given
   them, and their water was sure. Was he not a God ready to pardon?

   One other remark here, and it is this,— he did sustain them to the end
   and ultimately bring them into the land of promise. "Yea, forty years
   didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing:
   their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Their children
   also multipliedest thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them
   into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers
   that they should go in to possess it." Yes, and I know a people who,
   despite their sins, have already taken possession of many a gracious
   promise, so that they already dwell in the midst of covenant blessings.
   I know a people too who, notwithstanding their sins, shall enter into
   rest. "He shall surely bring them in," for he will bring his chosen
   into his glory, and they shall see his face with joy. Is he not a God
   ready to pardon?

   My tale is all too long for me to tell it. I must cease from this
   portion of the history and ask you to meditate upon it, and as you do
   so to admire our pardoning God.

   II. Secondly, IT IS EQUALLY TRUE THAT THE LORD AT ALL TIMES IS A GOD
   READY TO PARDON. It is true of him by nature, for mercy is an essential
   attribute of God. We must never think that our Lord Jesus died to make
   God merciful; on the contrary, the death of the Lord Jesus is the
   result of the mercy of God. When man sinned God was willing enough to
   pardon him, for the death of a sinner is no pleasure to him. Judgment
   is his strange work. The way in which the Lord came to Adam at the
   first showed his mercy. He came, if you remember, in the cool of the
   day,— not at the instant the crime was committed. God is not in a hurry
   to accuse man, or to execute vengeance upon him; he therefore waited
   until the cool of the day. He did not address rebellious man in the
   language of indignation, but he kindly said, "Adam, where art thou?"
   And when he had questioned the guilty pair, and convicted them, and the
   sentence was passed, it was terrible certainly, but oh how mildly
   tempered; the curse was as much as possible made to fall obliquely:
   "cursed is the ground for thy sake." Though the woman was made to feel
   great sorrows, yet those were connected with a happy event which causes
   the travail to be forgotten. There was tenderness in the dread
   utterances of an offended God, and mainly so because almost as soon as
   he declared that man must labor and die he promised that the "seed of
   the woman should bruise the serpent's head." Assuredly the Lord our God
   is by nature very pitiful and full of compassion.

   This truth is evident when we remember that God was abundantly ready to
   pardon, for he himself removed the impediment which lay in the way of
   forgiveness. Being judge of all the earth it was essential to him in
   that office that sin should never be treated as a light thing, but
   should be duly punished, lest others rush into it, hoping to escape
   judgment. For the good of all his creatures, as well as for the glory
   of his own character, God must not allow sin to go unpunished. The
   judge may be willing enough to pardon the culprit, but he is a judge,
   and as such he must condemn the guilty. The readiness of God to pardon
   was seen in this that at his own cost he provided a way by which his
   mercy might be consistent with justice. From his own bosom he took his
   only begotten Son, his own self, for he was one with him and God, in
   the person of his Son, suffered that which has honored justice,
   vindicated the law, and enabled God to be just and yet the justifier of
   the ungodly. Oh, as I see the adorable Father giving up his
   Well-beloved, to bleed and die for men, I know beyond all question that
   he is a God ready to pardon.

   And now, the atonement being made, and justice being unable any longer
   to offer any protest to boundless mercy, God stands ready to pardon. By
   the blood of his dear Son he is able to blot out offenses, through the
   sweet savor of the sacrifice of Jesus he smiles on guilty men. He
   delights now to blot into oblivion the transgressions of all them that
   seek his face.

   The Lord's readiness to pardon is very conspicuous to sinners, because
   he sends his message of love to them while they are yet in their sins.
   He presents perfect pardon through Jesus Christ to them, even while
   they are sinners, for "Christ died for the ungodly." I love to think
   that the gospel does not address itself to those who might be supposed
   to have helped themselves a little out of the mire, to those who show
   signs of lingering goodness, but it comes to men ruined in Adam and
   doubly lost by their own sin, it comes to them in the abyss where sin
   has hurled them and lifts them up from the gates of hell. "Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners." "The Son of man is come to seek
   and to save that which was lost." Jesus Christ's salvation is like the
   good Samaritan, it comes where the wounded man is, and pours in its oil
   and wine into his bleeding wounds.

   The readiness of God to pardon is to be seen in the fact that he makes
   no hard conditions with sinners. He does not say, "I will pardon if you
   suffer this or endure that penance; I will pardon if you perform this
   act of heroism or that deed of consecration." No, he himself says,
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Receive
   what is freely given— that is the gospel precept, and nothing else.
   Only confess thy transgressions, or, in other words, own thine
   emptiness, and then trust thy Savior, and thou art saved.

   That he is ready to forgive appears in this yet more glorious fact,
   that what God demands of man by the gospel he also works in him by his
   spirit; as for confession of sin he puts the words into the sinner's
   mouth, repentance he works in the sinner's heart, and saving faith his
   own Spirit creates in the sinner's soul. Is he not ready to forgive
   when even what might be called the condition of pardon in one light is
   under another aspect a gift of free grace?

   See ye not his readiness to forgive, when he accepts even the very
   lowest grade of the necessary graces? Of repentance, so long as it be
   sincere, he doth accept a tear or a sigh; of faith, though it be but as
   a grain of mustard seed, he doth accept it if it be but true. And
   notwithstanding all the faults that are in the sinner, though his heart
   be neither as tender as it ought to be, nor his knowledge so clear, nor
   his eye of faith so bright, nor his conversion so complete as it should
   be, yet God looketh not at any of these faultinesses except to forgive
   them. The ignorance and shortcoming God winketh at, and he only looks
   at what he can see of Christ in the sinner. The sinner's plea on his
   lip is, "for Jesus' sake," the sinner's hope in his heart is "for
   Christ's sake,"— and it is this that the Father looks at; when he sees
   that the poor trembling soul has embraced Jesus, his own dear Son, the
   Father puts the sin away at once without a word, and says, "Be of good
   cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace." Oh, he is indeed a God
   ready to pardon.

   Dear child of God, this text has a bearing upon you, and you can see it
   in your own self. Observe how the Lord chastens you. "Why is that?" say
   you. Why, because you have been offending him. You are his child, and
   he is your Father, and he desires to forgive you, but there is a
   hindrance. Have you never felt a difficulty about expressing
   forgiveness to your own child when he has done wrong again and again?
   There is no difficulty in your heart, for you love him well, but still
   you do not wish him to think lightly of the fault, and you are afraid
   that if you at once tell him that you forgive him he may, perhaps,
   think that he may transgress with impunity. Therefore you chasten him,
   so that after the chastening has been endured it may be safe for you to
   pardon— I mean safe as far as he is concerned. He will not be tempted
   to go into the sin through the readiness with which you forgive him,
   for he will remember the smarts which your love inflicted. Look upon
   your chastening as a proof that God is ready to forgive because he
   executes in wisdom that discipline which is necessary for a safe
   forgiveness.

   Think, too, how lightly he chastens.

   "He will not always chide,
   And when his strokes are felt,
   His strokes are fever than our crimes,
   And lighter than our guilt."

   That rod of his, ah, he never loves it. He doth not afflict willingly,
   nor grieve the children of men. But when he does use it, how quickly he
   puts it up again. Brethren, note how ready the Lord is to pardon us,
   for when we have sadly fallen he graciously sets us on our feet again.
   "He restoreth my soul." If you have wandered, like Noah's dove flying
   over the waste of waters, the Lord will receive you, even as Noah
   received the weary bird. He put out his hand at once and plucked her in
   unto him, into the ark, and even thus does the good Spirit pluck us in
   to himself. He fills our empty spirits again, revives our dying hope,
   relights the candles of our joy, and makes us once again what we had
   been, and perhaps more. And then he comes and restores to us his own
   presence, oh so soon. He says, "For a small moment have I forsaken
   thee, but in great mercy will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my
   face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting mercy will I have
   pity upon thee." Very loath is he to hide his face, but very swift is
   he to come on wings of mercy to restore joy to his mourners. Is he not
   ready to pardon?

   I have almost done when I have answered a question on the behalf of the
   unconverted, and the same on behalf of the children of God. A poor
   seeker says to me, "You tell us God is ready to pardon, why is it,
   then, that I have prayed so long for mercy and have not found it?" That
   was a question I asked once when my prayers went up to heaven, and
   seemed to smite upon a dome of brass, and were reverberated in my ears.
   Listen! Dost thou know to what God has promised to give pardon? To
   prayer! I think if thou wilt read aright he promised pardon to
   confession, to repentance, and to faith. Hast thou acknowledged thine
   iniquity? Wilt thou renounce thy sin? Hast thou believed on the Lord
   Jesus Christ? Come, wilt thou now trust Jesus Christ? Man, thou shalt
   have pardon now. But if thy prayers are unbelieving prayers thou art
   going the wrong way to work. Thou mayest as well hope to win heaven by
   thy works as by thy prayers, for indeed thy prayers are but a kind of
   work— salvation is by believing, not by praying. If faith be mixed with
   thy prayer, then wilt thou succeed. Believing is essential, and if thou
   believest thou shalt have mercy, now at once. "Still," says another, "I
   have believed in Jesus Christ, and I hope I am saved from guilt, but
   how is it if God is ready to pardon that I am still suffering from the
   result of sin." This, my friend, you must bear so long as God wills it.
   God does not make a man healthy if he has brought his body to sickness
   by sin, neither does he fill a man's pocket if he has spent his money
   in profligacy. This, my brother, is left to be a thorn in thy side; not
   as a token of anger, but because thou art not to be trusted with health
   or wealth, and God will not lead thee into temptation again. Accept
   this from the Lord's hand as a gentle chastening. Remember, if he save
   thy soul it little matters about the rest, for it will be better for
   thee to enter into life halt or maimed than to have all thy limbs, and
   all the world, and lose thy soul. Accept sickness, or whatever else
   comes, as the result of sin, and do not think it by any means proves
   that God has not pardoned thee— on the contrary it may be that he loves
   thee enough to chasten thee.

   A child of God now says to me, "If God is so ready to pardon, how is it
   I am still a sufferer, I am still poor, and so on?" Ah, my dear friend,
   perhaps that is not a rod at all, for remember "every branch that
   beareth fruit he purgeth it." Not because it did not bear, but to make
   it bring forth more fruit. You are God's child, and you have a cross to
   carry. Do not look at it as a token of anger. Was God angry with Simon,
   the Cyrenean, who carried Christ's cross after him? No, he was
   conferring an honor upon him.

   "Shall Simon bear the cross alone,
   And all the rest go free?
   No, there's a cross for every one,
   And there's a cross for me."

   Take it up, for "through much tribulation" we shall "inherit the
   kingdom." Look at addiction in this light, and you will see that there
   is nothing of anger in it.

   "But," says one child of God, "I am under a cloud. I cannot see the
   face of God. Why does he hide himself from me?" Not because he is
   unready to pardon, but, perhaps, because you are not ready to forsake
   the sin which he is aiming at. Perhaps you have not searched your heart
   yet. There is still hidden under the camel's furniture some idol or
   other. Make Rachel get up, and do you search even in the secret places.
   Cry, "Wherefore dost thou contend with me?" for, if like David and Job
   you have to say that you are chastened every morning and plagued every
   evening, there is a reason for it. If you have walked contrary to God
   he is walking contrary to you. Take your Achan and stone him, and then
   the Lord will come into the camp again. Tear down the idol and you
   shall have Jehovah's presence once more! But mark the word— whatever
   your experience may be, this is true— he delighteth in mercy, and he is
   a God ready to pardon. May the Holy Spirit bless this truth to your
   souls, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Nehemiah 9.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 907, 106 (Part II.), 101.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Oil of Gladness

   (No. 1273)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 16th, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [3]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy
   God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."
   Psalm 45:7

   WE KNOW THAT THE ANOINTING received by our Lord Jesus Christ was the
   resting of the Spirit of God upon him without measure. We are not left
   to any guesswork about this, for in Isaiah 61 we are told, "The Spirit
   of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me." Our Lord
   appropriated these very words to himself when he went into the
   synagogue at Nazareth and opened the book at the place wherein these
   words are written, and said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in
   your ears." The Apostle Peter also, in Acts 10:38, speaks of "How God
   anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power": so that
   we know both on Old and New Testament authority that the anointing
   which rested upon the Lord Jesus Christ was the unction of the Holy
   Ghost. Therefore, by the "oil of gladness" which we have before us in
   the text is intended the Holy Spirit himself, or one of the gracious
   results of his sacred presence. The divine Spirit has many attributes,
   and his benign influences operate in divers ways, bestowing upon us
   benefits of various kinds, too numerous for us to attempt to catalogue
   them. Amongst these is his comforting and cheering influence. "The
   fruit of the Spirit is joy." In Acts 13:52 we read, "The disciples were
   filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost." Wherever he comes as an
   anointing, whether upon the Lord or upon his people, upon the Christ or
   the Christians, upon the Anointed or upon those whom he anoints, in
   every case the ultimate result is joy and peace. On the head of our
   great High Priest he is joy, and this oil of gladness flows down to the
   skirts of his garments. To the Comforter, therefore, we ascribe "the
   oil of gladness."

   From this great truth we learn another, namely, the perfect
   co-operation of the three persons of the blessed Trinity in the work of
   our redemption. The Father sends the Son, the Son with alacrity comes
   to redeem us, and the Spirit of God is upon him; so that Father, Son,
   and Spirit have each a part in the saving work, and the one God of
   heaven and earth is the God of salvation. A very interesting subject is
   the work of the Spirit upon the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We see
   the Holy Ghost mysteriously operating in the formation and birth of the
   holy child Jesus, for by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost was he
   born of a woman. This work of the Holy Spirit was manifested to all
   believing eyes when the Lord Jesus came out of the waters of the Jordan
   after his baptism, and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested
   upon him. Before he was said to "wax strong in spirit," but afterwards
   he is described as "full of the Holy Ghost." Then was he led of the
   Spirit and inspired by his divine energy, and this was shown throughout
   the whole of his life, for the Spirit was with him in innumerable
   miracles and in the demonstration and power which followed his words,
   so that he spoke as one having authority, and not as the Scribes. In
   him was abundantly fulfilled the prophecy which saith, "And the spirit
   of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and
   understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge
   and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick understanding
   in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his
   eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with
   righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the
   meek of the earth." The Holy Spirit had also a peculiar interest in his
   resurrection, for he was "declared to be the Son of God with power,
   according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead."
   He was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." That
   same Spirit wrought even more fully when the Lord ascended up on high,
   and led captivity captive; then, succeeding his ascension, the gifts of
   the cloven tongues of fire and the rushing mighty wind were witnessed
   by his disciples, for the Spirit of God was given abundantly to the
   church in connection with the ascension of the Redeemer. Oh, how
   sweetly doth the Spirit co-operate with Christ at this very day, for it
   is he that takes of the things of Christ and reveals them unto us. He
   is the abiding witness in the church to the truth of the gospel, and
   the worker of all our gifts and graces. Jesus gives repentance, but the
   Spirit works it; faith fixes upon Christ, but the Spirit of God first
   creates faith and opens the eye which looks to Jesus. The whole of this
   dispensation through it is the peculiar office of the Spirit of God to
   be revealing Christ to his people, and Christ in his people, and Christ
   in the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, for a testimony
   against them. Blessed be the name of the Holy Spirit, that he is the
   divine anointing, and so proves his hearty assent to the great plan of
   redemption.

   We now come, however, more closely to the text. The Spirit of God is
   here considered in one of his influences or operations as "the oil of
   gladness": we shall speak of this in the following way. First, the
   saviour's anointing with gladness; secondly, the reason for the
   bestowal of this oil of joy upon him; and, thirdly, the manner of the
   operation of this sacred anointing upon ourselves.

   I. Let us carefully consider THE SAVIOR'S ANOINTING WITH GLADNESS. We
   are, perhaps, surprised to read of our Lord in connection with
   gladness. Truly he was the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief,
   yet this sorrowful aspect was that which he presented to the
   superficial outside observer; and those who look within the veil of his
   flesh know well that a mystic glory shone within his soul. Did not
   David say of him as the King of Israel— "His glory is great in thy
   salvation: honor and majesty hast thou laid upon him. For thou hast
   made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with
   thy countenance." I fully believe that there was never on the face of
   the earth a man who knew so profound and true a gladness as our blessed
   Lord. Did he not desire that his joy might be in his people that their
   joy might be full? Does not benevolence beget joy, and who so kind as
   he? Is it not a great joy to suffer self-sacrifice for beloved ones?
   And who so disinterested as he? Is there not sure to be happiness in
   the heart where the noblest motives are paramount and the sweetest
   graces bear sway? And was not this pre-eminently the case with our
   Lord? Let us see.

   The gladness of our Lord Jesus may be viewed, first, as the gladness
   which he had IN his work. The Son of God delighted in the work which
   his Father had given him to do. This delight he declared as God, in the
   old eternity! "Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written of
   me, I delight to do thy will, O God." This delight he had shown as man
   even before his great public anointing, for when he was yet a child he
   said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"
   Evidently, even while yet a youth, he anticipated with delight the
   great business which he had to do for his Father, and commencing in a
   measure to do it amongst the doctors in the temple at Jerusalem. But
   the day came in which he had reached the appointed age, and he at once
   went forth to John to be baptized by him in Jordan, being eager to
   fulfill all righteousness. Then the Spirit of God came down upon him,
   and he was openly and visibly anointed, and you see from the moment
   when he began to stand before the public eye, with what alacrity he
   pursued his life work. We find him fasting, but he has been speaking to
   a woman by the well's brink, and the joy which he has felt while
   blessing her has made him quite forget the necessity for food, and he
   tells his disciples "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." He felt
   great gladness in that woman's joy, as she believed in him, and in the
   expectation of yet more numerous converts from those who were flocking
   from Samaria, of whom he said "Lift up now your eyes, for behold the
   fields are white already unto the harvest." That joy in his work made
   him abhor all idea of turning from its awful consummation, and led him
   to say to Peter's suggestion "Get thee behind me, Satan." We see it
   also in such expressions as this, "I have a baptism to be baptised
   with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." We read that
   when the time came that he should be received up, he steadfastly set
   his face to go to Jerusalem. His frequent allusions to his own decease
   by a shameful death, all showed that he viewed with intense
   satisfaction the great object after which he was reaching. Once,
   indeed, his joy flowed over so that others could see it, when he said,
   "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast
   hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
   babes." "At that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit." Let it never be
   forgotten that we must not expect see in the life of Christ great
   ebullitions of manifest exultation, because he was sent on purpose to
   bear our sicknesses, and to be "stricken of God and afflicted." His
   deep joy was concealed by his many griefs, even as the inner glory of
   the tabernacle of old was hidden beneath coverings of badgers' skins.
   He was the sun under a cloud, but he was the sun still. If you have a
   small burden to carry, you may have an excess of strength which you can
   display in leaping or running, but if you have an enormous load to
   sustain your steady bearing of it may be an equally sure proof of your
   strength: so also, if your trials are light, your joyous spirits may
   vent themselves in smiles and songs, but if you are severely afflicted
   it will need all your joyfulness to keep you from sinking. Our blessed
   Lord had a load upon him infinitely transcending any weight of sorrow
   ever borne by the most burdened of his people, and it needed the
   wonderful joy which I feel sure we are justified in ascribing to him to
   balance the marvellous grief which he had to endure. The uplifting
   influence of this joy sufficed to bring him into a condition of calm,
   quiet, serene majesty of spirit. Nothing strikes you more in the Savior
   than the quiet peacefulness with which he pursues the even tenor of his
   way. Now, if he had not possessed great stores of secret joy his spirit
   would have been famished for want of sustenance. You would have found
   him constantly sighing and weeping; his words and tones would have
   become a terror to those around him, and his whole appearance would
   have appeared melancholy and depressing to the last degree, whereas his
   manner was cheerful and attractive— let the little children who
   thronged around him bear witness to that. He was a man of sorrows, but
   he was not a preacher of sorrows, neither do his life or his discourses
   leave an unhappy impression upon the mind. The fact, probably, is, that
   he was both the greatest rejoicer and the greatest mourner that ever
   lived, and between these two there was an equilibrium of mind kept up,
   so that wherever you meet him, with the exception of his agony in the
   garden, he is peaceful and serene. You neither see him dancing like
   David before the ark, nor yet like David bewailing the loss of one he
   loved with a "Would God I had died for thee." He does not, like Elijah,
   run before the king's chariot, nor lie down under the juniper to die.
   He neither strives nor cries, nor causes his voice to be heard in the
   streets; his peace is like a river, and his heart abides in the Sabbath
   of God.

   We see, then, that in his work our great High Priest was anointed with
   the oil of gladness above his fellows, but we also note that those who
   are his fellows do in their degree partake in this oil of gladness, and
   are enabled to feel joy in the work which is appointed them of the
   Lord. While our King is anointed with the oil of gladness it is also
   written of the virgin souls who wait upon his church, "With gladness
   and rejoicing shall they be brought, they shall enter into the King's
   palace." If any professing Christian man here is engaged in a work
   which he does not feel glad to do, I question if he is in his right
   place. Occasional fits of depression there may be, but these are not
   because we do not love the work, but because we cannot do it so well as
   we would desire. We are tired in the work, but not tired of it. The
   Lord loves to employ willing workmen. His army is not made up of
   pressed men, but of those whom grace has made volunteers. "Serve the
   Lord with gladness." Our Lord does not set us task work, and treat us
   like prisoners in gaol, or slaves under the lash. I sometimes hear our
   life-work called a task. Well, the expression may be tolerated, but I
   confess I do not like it to be applied to Christian men. It is no task
   to me at any rate to preach my Master's gospel, or to serve him in any
   way. I thank God every day that "to me, who am less than the least of
   all saints, is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles
   the unsearchable riches of Christ." You teachers in the school, I hope
   your labor of love is not a bondage to you! An unwilling teacher will
   soon make unwilling scholars. Yea, I know that those of you who serve
   the Lord find a reward in the work itself, and gladly pursue it. I am
   sure you will not prosper in it if it be not so. If you follow your
   work unwillingly, and regret that you ever undertook it, and feel
   encumbered by it, you will do no good. No man wins a race who has no
   heart in the running. In this respect the joy of the Lord is your
   strength, and as your Master was anointed with the oil of gladness in
   his work, so must you be. Yet, beloved fellow laborer, you will never
   be so glad in your work as he was in his, nor will you ever be able to
   prove that gladness by such self-denials, by such agonies, and such a
   death. He has proved how glad he was to save sinners, because "for the
   joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the
   shame." Blessed Emanuel, thou art justly anointed with the oil of
   gladness above thy fellows.

   We further note that our Lord had this oil of gladness FROM his work.
   Even while he was engaged in it he derived some joy from it, though it
   was but as the gleanings of the vintage compared with the after
   results. He did reap in joy as well as sow in tears, for many became
   his disciples, and over each one of these he rejoiced. It was
   impossible that the Good Shepherd should have saved so many sheep as he
   did without rejoicing when he threw them on his shoulders to bear them
   to the fold. Assuredly he rejoiced that he had found the sheep which he
   had lost. But the fullness of his joy was left till after he had
   ascended on high, then indeed was he anointed with the oil of gladness,
   and the voice was heard, "To forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold
   king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day
   of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart." My
   brethren, the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ now that he knows his
   beloved are securely his, and no longer the slaves of sin and heirs of
   wrath, is too great to be measured. He has redeemed unto himself a
   people in whom his soul delights. For them the price is fully paid, for
   them the penalty has been completely endured, for them all chains are
   broken, and for them the prison house is razed to its foundation: for
   them hath he bruised the serpent's head, for them hath he by death
   destroyed death, and led captive him that had the power of death, even
   the devil.

   "All his work and warfare done,
   He into his heaven is gone,
   And before his Father's throne
   Now is pleading for his own."

   He now continues to receive into his joy the multitudes whom the Spirit
   brings to him, for whom of old he shed his precious blood. You cannot
   conceive the gladness of Christ. If you have ever brought one soul to
   Christ you have had a drop of it, but his gladness lies not only in
   receiving them, but in actually being the author of salvation to every
   one of them. The Savior looks upon the redeemed with an unspeakable
   delight, thinks of what they used to be, thinks of what they would have
   been but for his interposition, thinks of what they now are, think of
   what he means to make them in that great day when they shall rise from
   the dead; and as his heart is full of love to them he joys in their
   joy, and exults in their exultation. Their heavens swell their
   Mediator's heaven, and their myriad embodiments of bliss, each one
   reflects his own felicity, and so (speaking after the manner of men)
   increases it, for he lives ten thousand lives by living in them, and
   joys unnumbered joys in their joys. I speak with humblest fear lest in
   any word I should speak amiss, for he is God as well as man, but this
   is certain, that there is a joy of our Lord into which he will give his
   faithful ones to enter, a joy which he has won by passing through the
   shame and grief by which he has redeemed mankind. The oil of gladness
   is abundantly poured on that head which once was crowned with thorns.

   Now, brethren, you, also, can be partakers in this joy. When he makes
   you in your little measure to be instrumentally saviours of others,
   then you also partake of his gladness, but as I have said before, you
   cannot know its fullness, for he is in this respect anointed with the
   oil of gladness above his fellows. "Who is this that cometh from Edom,
   with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel,
   travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in
   righteousness, mighty to save. I have trodden the winepress alone; and
   of the people there was none with me." Returning from the battle and
   the spoil he has a joy with which none can intermeddle, for his own
   right hand and his holy arm hath gotten unto him the victory.

   Again, our Lord Jesus has the oil of gladness poured upon him in
   another sense, namely, because his person and his work are the cause of
   ineffable gladness in others. Oh, I wish I had a week in which to talk
   upon this point— a week— one could scarcely enter upon the theme in
   that time! We sang just now—

   "Jesus, the very thought of thee
   With sweetness fills my breast."

   The oil of gladness upon him is so sweet that we have only to think
   upon it and it fills us with delight. There is gladness in his very
   name.

   "Exult all hearts with gladness
   At sound of Jesu's name;
   What other hath such sweetness,
   Or such delight can claim?"

   What gladness he created when here below. His birth set the skies
   ringing with heavenly music, and made the hearts of expectant saints to
   leap for joy. In after days a touch of the hem of his garment made a
   woman's heart glad when she felt the issue of her blood staunched, and
   a word from his lips made the tongue of the dumb to sing. For him to
   lay his hand upon the sick was to raise them from their beds of
   sickness, and deliver them from pain and disease. His touch was
   gladness then, and a spiritual touch is the same now. To-day to preach
   of him is gladness, to sing of him is gladness, to trust him is
   gladness, to work for him is gladness, to have communion with him is
   gladness. To come to his table, and there to feast with him, is
   gladness; to see his image in the eyes of his saints is gladness; to
   see that image only as yet begun to form in the heart of a young
   convert is gladness. Everything about him is gladness. All his garments
   smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Nothing comes within a mile of
   him but what it makes you glad to think that he has been so near it.
   The very print of his foot has comfort in it, and the wounds in his
   hands are windows of hope. I have known some who have had to carry a
   cross for his dear sake, and they have kissed and hugged that cross,
   and gloried in their tribulations because they were borne for him.
   Fellowship with him has turned the bitterest potion into generous wine.
   Beloved, if these distant glimpses are so precious, what must it be to
   see him face to face? I have tried to conceive it, and I protest that
   even in attempting the conception my spirit seems to swoon at the
   prospect of such supreme delight. Only to hear the music of his
   footfall on the other side the partition wall raises longings in my
   heart too strong, too eager to be long endured. What, death, art thou
   all that divides me from seeing my Lord? I would gladly die a million
   deaths to see him as he is and to be like him. What, a slumber in the
   grave for this poor body! Is that all I have to dread? Then let it
   slumber, and let the worms consume it, for "I know that my Redeemer
   liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and
   though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
   see God." Oh, what will it be to see him? To see HIM that loved us so,
   to mark the wounds with which he purchased our redemption, to behold
   his glory, to listen to that deal voice of his, and to hear him say,
   "Well done, good and faithful servant." To lie in his bosom for ever,
   truly neither eye hath not seen, nor ear heard the like of this bliss.
   More than the bride longs for the marriage day do we expect the bridal
   feast of heaven, but of all the dainties on that royal table there will
   not be one that will be equal to himself, for to see him will be all
   the heaven we desire. He is better than heaven's harp or angels, and
   the cause of greater gladness than streets of gold or walls of jasper.

   Brethren, can we share this power to distribute joy? Assuredly we can.
   If the Lord Jesus be with us we can give joy to others. I know some
   whose very presence comforts their fellows; their words are so full of
   consolation, and their hearts so overflowing with sympathy that they
   make gladness wherever they go. Ay, but the best of you, ye sons of
   consolation, are not anointed with the oil of gladness to the same
   extent as he was. Above his fellows, even above Barnabas the son of
   consolation; above the best and the tenderest sympathizers is he thus
   anointed, and from him there pours forth a continual stream of
   effectual consolation which becomes the oil of joy to those who wear
   the garments of heaviness. Thus much upon the first point, the Savior's
   anointing of gladness.

   II. Let us now consider THE REASON FOR THE BESTOWAL OF THIS ANOINTING
   UPON HIM? It is given in the text. He is anointed alcove his fellows,
   because it is said of him, "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest
   wickedness." The perfect righteousness of Christ has brought to him
   this gladness, because perfect holiness there must be before there can
   be perfect happiness. Sin is the enemy of joy. Let the sinner say what
   he likes, sin can no more dwell with real joy than the lion will lie
   down with the lamb. To be perfectly glad you must be perfectly cleansed
   from sin, for until you are so cleansed you cannot possess the oil of
   gladness to the measure that Christ possessed it. As the believer is
   delivered from the power of sin he is brought into a condition in which
   the joy of the Lord can more and more abide in him. Now, every way
   Jesus loved righteousness intensely and hated wickedness intensely. He
   died that he might establish righteousness and that he might destroy
   wickedness from off the face of the earth; therefore it is that he has
   greater gladness, because he had greater holiness. Moreover, you know
   that in any holy enterprise if the business succeeds the joy of the
   worker is proportionate to the trial it has cost him. In the great
   battle of righteousness our Lord has led the van, in the great fight
   against wickedness our Savior has borne the brunt of the battle,
   therefore, because he to the death loved righteousness and to the agony
   and bloody sweat strove against sin, the accomplished conquest brings
   him the greatest joy. He has done the most for the good cause, and
   therefore he is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows.

   Now, note there is another reason why he is anointed, and there is
   another view of the anointing. He is anointed above his fellows, which
   shows that those who are in fellowship with him are anointed too. You
   observed in our reading that the high priest had the oil poured on his
   head, but the sons of Aaron who were minor priests were sprinkled with
   this same oil mixed with the blood of the sacrifice. On Christ this
   anointing is poured above his fellows, and then upon his fellows in
   communion with himself there comes the sprinkling of the oil. We have
   our measure; he has it without measure. Now, beloved, Christ is
   anointed above his fellows that his fellows may be anointed with him.
   Even as he ascended above all things that he might fill all things, so
   is he anointed above his fellows that he may anoint his fellows; and
   through the power of the anointing we are told that his people come
   into the same condition of righteousness as himself. Turn to Isaiah
   61., which passage we have already had before us, and you find as
   follows— "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them
   beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
   for the spirit of heaviness; that"— mark this!— "that they might be
   called trees of righteousness". Now, observe, that we first read, "Thou
   lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness, therefore God hath anointed
   thee with the oil of gladness," and then we meet with the parallel with
   reference to ourselves, "The oil of joy for mourning, that they may be
   called trees of righteousness." He is anointed because he is righteous;
   we are anointed that we may be righteous, and thus in Christ we come
   into the condition in which it is safe for us to be glad, and possible
   for joy to dwell in us. To the unrighteous the oil of gladness cannot
   come, but to the righteous there ariseth light even in darkness. "There
   is no peace saith my God, unto the wicked." The holy oil was forbidden
   to be placed upon a stranger to God's holy house; and upon man's flesh
   it could not be poured, because man's flesh is a corrupt, polluted
   thing. This oil of gladness comes only on those who are born into God's
   Israel by regeneration, and are delivered from walking after the flesh;
   these the Lord makes to be as "trees of righteousness, the planting of
   the Lord, that he may be glorified." See then the two reasons why
   Christ has received the anointing, first because he is righteous
   himself; and secondly, that he may make others righteous. Therefore is
   the Spirit of the Lord God upon him that he may give the oil of joy to
   his own chosen, and make them righteous, even as he is righteous, glad
   as he is glad.

   III. We will now meditate upon THE MANNER OF THE OPERATION OF THIS OIL
   OF GLADNESS UPON US. Jesus is anointed with the oil of gladness above
   his fellows. Now, we have to show that his fellows are anointed with
   the oil of gladness too. Did not David say, "Thou anointest mine head
   with oil; my cup runneth over"? so that we can say of ourselves what we
   say of our Lord, we are anointed, for he was anointed. Now, in what
   respects does the anointing of the Holy Spirit give us gladness? I
   shall notice eight things, and touch but very briefly on each.

   First, we too, through Jesus Christ, are anointed to an office, "for he
   hath made us"— whisper it to one another in the joy of delight— "He
   hath made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever
   and ever." When the oil went on Aaron's head, you know how it ran down
   his beard, even Aaron's beard, unto the skirts of his garments, and now
   this day this anointing oil, which made the king and the priest, has
   fallen upon us too. Blessed be his name, shall we not be glad? It is
   very inconsistent with our position if we are not. Are you a king and
   do you not rejoice?

   "Why should the children of our King
   Go mourning all their days?
   Sweet Comforter, descend and bring
   Some unction of thy grace."

   May the gladness now come to you. You are priests to God. Shall the
   anointed priests serve their Lord with gloomy countenances? No: rejoice
   in the Lord always, all ye priests of his that are anointed to this
   blessed work. "Bless the Lord, O house of Israel: bless the Lord, O
   house of Aaron."

   We, too, are consecrated to the Lord, for the oil poured upon the
   priest was the oil of consecration. From that time forward he was a
   dedicated man; he could not serve anyone but God; he, above all the
   rest of the congregation, was the man of God for ever as long as ever
   he lived. So beloved, we have been consecrated: the Spirit of God has
   sanctified us and set us apart unto the Lord, as it is written, "Ye are
   not your own; ye are bought with a price." Our Lord said in his
   matchless prayer, "they are not of the world, even as I am not of the
   world." "Sanctify them," said he, "by thy truth, thy word is truth."
   Yes, blessed be God, we are consecrated men and women: we belong to the
   Lord, and are vessels for the Master's use, hallowed from all other
   uses to be the Lord's. "For I will be to them a God, they shall be to
   me a people." Does not this make you glad? Are you really set apart to
   be the Lord's own sons and daughters, and hallowed to be used by him in
   his service both here and hereafter, and do you not rejoice? O my soul,
   dost thou not feel the trickling of the consecrating oil adown thy brow
   even now, and does it not make thy face to shine and make thy heart
   happy, because thou art now the Lord's?

   Thirdly, by this oil we are also qualified for our office. You see the
   Spirit descended upon Christ that he might have the spirit of wisdom,
   and power, and so be strengthened and qualified to discharge his sacred
   work. Now, the Spirit of God is upon every believer in this sense.
   Remember how in his First Epistle, second chapter, and twentieth verse,
   John says, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all
   things," or "ye are able to discern all things." And further on, in
   that same chapter, he says, "This anointing teacheth you all things."
   Well, if we are to serve the Lord a main gift is knowledge, for how can
   we instruct the ignorant, or guide the perplexed, except we know
   ourselves? And it is this anointing which teaches us, and makes us fit
   for the service to which the Master has called us. Oh, does the Holy
   Spirit then lead us into all truth, and give us knowledge, and shall we
   not rejoice? Ignorance means sorrow, but the light of the knowledge of
   God in the face of Jesus Christ means joy. O brethren, will ye not
   bless God to-day for what the Spirit of God has taught you? If you do
   not, what must you be made of? for he has taught you such wonderful
   lessons so full of joy. Even if he has never taught you more than this,
   that whereas you were once blind now you see, he has taught you enough
   to make your heart rejoice as long as you live. Is he not the oil of
   gladness?

   Fourthly, the Spirit of God heals us of our diseases. The Eastern mode
   of medicine was generally the application of oil, and I should not
   wonder if in the course of years it should be discovered that the
   modern pharmacy, with all its drugs, is not worth so much as the
   old-fashioned method. Certainly, when the Holy Spirit spake concerning
   sick men, and advised that medicines should be used, and prayer for
   their restoration, he prescribed anointing with oil. I suppose that
   anointing with oil was mentioned because it was the current medicine of
   the times, but it could not have been injurious or altogether absurd,
   or the Holy Spirit would not in any measure have sanctioned it. I will
   not raise the question, however. But a frequent medicine of the olden
   time was, undoubtedly, anointing with oil, and it is well known that
   olive oil does possess very remarkable healing qualities. I have read
   in books of one or two instances of the bites of serpents having the
   venom effectually removed by the use of olive oil. It is more commonly
   used in countries where it grows than here, and it is in many ways a
   very useful medicine. Certainly the Holy Spirit is that to us. What
   wounds and bruises have been healed with this oil. Before the Spirit
   came they were putrefying, they had not been bound up nor mollified
   with ointment, but now this ointment, mixed after the art of the
   apothecary, with the costliest spices, has effectually healed us, and
   what remains of the old sores and wounds it continues still to heal;
   and so wonderful is its power it will ultimately take out every scar,
   and we shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing through its
   healing power. Shall we not, therefore, be glad and rejoice in the
   Lord, for if restoration to health makes us happy surely the renewal of
   our spiritual youth should make our hearts bound for joy?

   Thus also we are suppled and softened. Oil applied to the body supples
   and softens, and, believe me, brethren, nothing is more akin to joy
   than softness and tenderness of heart. If ever you meet with a
   hard-hearted proud man, he is not a happy man and if he should seem to
   be happy in his pride it is a dangerous and deadly happiness, and the
   sooner it is taken away the better. Where God dwells is heaven, and
   where does he dwell? With the humble and the contrite heart. That is a
   beautiful expression of David's, I have drank joy out of it, "Make me
   to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may
   rejoice." Oh, there is never a bone in manhood's system that knows how
   to rejoice till God has broken it, and when it is broken then comes the
   mighty Physician and applies the oil and restores the bone to
   infinitely more than its former strength, and then the bones which had
   been broken become each one so many new arguments for gratitude, and
   all our healed wounds become mouths of praise unto the Most High. We
   are thus softened and gladdened.

   By the oil of the Holy Spirit we are also strengthened. Oil well rubbed
   into the system was anciently assumed to be a great strengthener, and I
   suppose it was. Certainly the Holy Spirit is the strength of
   Christians, and where he is the strength there is sure to be joy. "The
   joy of the Lord is your strength."

   Oil, too, is a beautifier. The Easterns did not think themselves fit
   for their banquets till they had washed their face and anointed
   themselves with perfumed oil. They were very fond of locks dripping
   with oil and faces bright therewith. Certainly there is a beauty which
   the Spirit gives to men, which they can never obtain in any other way.
   Oh, the excellence of the character that is formed by the hand of the
   Spirit of God! It is a beautiful thing which even God himself delights
   to look upon; it is a thing of beauty, and in the most emphatic sense a
   joy for ever. He that is made comely with the comeliness which the Holy
   Spirit gives must be a happy man. Other beauty may bring sorrow, but
   the beauty of holiness makes us akin to angels.

   Once more, it becomes a perfume. When oil was poured on a man his
   presence scented the air around him, and when the Spirit of God is
   given to us it is perceived by other spiritual minds. Cannot you detect
   in a brother's prayer that he has been with Jesus? Do you not know by
   the lives of some of Christ's dear saints that he is very familiar with
   them? Do you not perceive that they have had a special anointing? The
   ungodly world cannot tell it, but saints discern it. The nostril of the
   wicked is only pleased by the leeks, and the garlic, and the onions of
   Egypt, but the believing nostril has been sanctified, and it perceives
   the delicate myrrh and cinnamon, and sweet calamus and cassia, which
   make up the anointing oil. The rare combination of sacred qualities
   which make up a holy character will be seen in the believer in whom the
   Holy Spirit displays his power, and as a consequence he will be glad at
   heart.

   Furthermore, I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear
   them now, for the time is spent. Therefore I will only say, I pray,
   brethren, that the anointing may be ours in all the various senses I
   have mentioned. I should like all of you to go away happy. You children
   of God, be as glad as ever you can be. I would to God that a sacred
   gladness rang through this house like a marriage peal: yet for all
   that, do not forget that Jesus has joy above you all. You may be very
   glad, but he is gladder still. You may sing his praises, but he leads
   the sacred orchestra of heaven. "In the midst of the congregation will
   I praise thee," saith he. Rejoice in his joy. I have often thought it
   did not matter any more what became of me so long as he is victorious.
   A soldier in battle, sorely wounded, lies bleeding in a ditch, but he
   hears the sound of the trumpets, and they tell him the commander is
   coming along, the King for whom his loyal heart is willing to bleed,
   and he enquires, "Have they won the day?" "Oh, yes," they say "he has
   won the day, and the enemy are flying before him." The soldier
   exclaims, "Thank God, I can die." It is the soldier's joy to die with
   victory ringing in his ears. Our Lord is glad, and therefore we are
   glad.

   "Let him be crowned with majesty
   Who bowed his head to death,
   And be his honor sounded high
   By all things that have breath."

   If it be so we will be content to say, like David, "The prayers of
   David, the son of Jesse, are ended." We have no more to pray for: we
   have done with the world, done with wishing, done with everything, if
   Christ reigns, and all things are under his foot. May this joy be
   yours. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Exodus 30:22-33; 29:5-7, 21;
   Psalm 45:1-8; Isaiah 61:1-3.

   The reader is earnestly requested to read these passages.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— Psalm 45 (Vers. I.), 438, 786.
     __________________________________________________________________

For the Sick and Afflicted

   (No. 1274)

   Delivered by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [4]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I
   will not offend any more: that which I see not teach thou me: if I have
   done iniquity, I will do no more." Job 34:31, 32

   EVEN WHEN ADDRESSING our fellow-men there should be a fitness about our
   speech; therefore Solomon represents the preacher as seeking out
   acceptable words, or words meet for the occasion. When we approach
   those who are high in authority this necessity becomes conspicuous, and
   therefore men who are petitioners in the courts of princes are very
   careful to order their language aright. Much more, then, when we speak
   before the Lord ought we to consider, as the text does, the meetness of
   our words. Some language must never be uttered in the divine presence,
   and even that which is allowed must be well weighed, and set forth with
   solemn humbleness. Hence Elihu does well to suggest in the text
   language that is "meet to be said unto God." May our lips ever be kept
   as by a watchful sentinel, lest they suffer anything to pass through
   them dishonorable to the Most High. In the divine presence— and we are
   always there— it is incumbent upon us to set a double watch over every
   word that comes from our mouth.

   Remember that thought is speech before God. Thought is not speech to
   man, for men cannot read one another's thoughts until they are set
   forth by words or other outward signs, but God who reads the heart
   regards that as being speech which was never spoken, and he hears us
   say in our souls many things which were never uttered by our tongues.
   Beloved, there are thoughts which are not meet to be thought before the
   Lord; and it is well for us, especially those of us who are afflicted,
   to be very watchful over those thoughts, lest the Lord hear us say in
   our hearts things which will grieve his Spirit, and provoke him to
   jealousy. O saints of God, since you never think except in the
   immediate presence of your heavenly Father, make a conscience of your
   every thought, lest you sin in the secret chambers of your being, and
   charge God foolishly. Elihu tells us what it would be proper for us to
   think and say, "It is meet to be said unto God, I have borne
   chastisement, I will not offend more: that which I see not teach thou
   me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more."

   We will use the text mainly at this time in reference to those who are
   being chastened; and afterwards we shall see if there is not teaching
   in it, even to those who, at present, are not smarting under the rod.
   Thirdly, we shall find a word in our text to those who are not the
   children of God, and, therefore, know nothing of the smarting rod of
   fatherly correction. Perhaps to them, also, God may speak through this
   text. O that his Holy Spirit may deign to do so.

   I. But first, dear friends, let us commune together upon the text in
   its more natural application as addressed TO THE AFFLICTED. The
   instruction of the wise man is for them especially, and there are three
   duties here prescribed for them, or rather three privileges suggested,
   which they should pray the Holy Spirit to enable them to enjoy.

   The first lesson is, it is meet for them to accept the affliction which
   the Lord sends, and to say unto God, "I have borne chastisement." We
   notice that the word "chastisement" is not actually in the Hebrew,
   though the Hebrew could not be well interpreted without supplying the
   word. It might exactly and literally be translated "I bear," or "I have
   borne." It is the softened heart saying to God, "I bear whatever thou
   wilt put upon me; I have borne it, I still bear it, and I will bear it,
   whatever thou mayest ordain it to be. I submit myself entirely to thee,
   and accept the load with which thou art pleased to weight me." Now, we
   ought to do this, dear friends, and we shall do it if we are right at
   heart. We should cheerfully submit, because no affliction from which we
   suffer has come to us by chance. We are not left to the misery of
   believing that things happen of themselves, and are independent of a
   divinely controlling power. We know that not a drop of bitter ever
   falls into our cup unless the wisdom of our heavenly Father has placed
   it there. We are not even left in a world governed by angels, or ruled
   by cherubim; we dwell where everything is ordered by God himself. Shall
   we rebel against the Most High? Shall we not let him do as seemeth good
   in his sight? Shall we not cover our lip in silence when we know that
   the evil is of the Lord? Shame upon us, if we be his children, if this
   be not the prevalent spirit of our mind— "It is the Lord, let him do
   what seemeth him good." Moreover, we should not only bear all things
   because the Lord ordains them, but because he orders all things for a
   wise, kind, beneficent purpose. He doth not afflict willingly. He takes
   no delight in the sufferings of his children. Whenever adversity must
   come it is always with a purpose; and, if a purpose of God is to be
   subserved by my suffering, would I wish to escape from it? If his glory
   will come of it, shall I not even crave the honor of being the agent of
   his glory, even though it be by lying passive and enduring in anguish.
   Yes, beloved, since we know that God can only grieve his regenerated
   creatures for some purpose of love, we should willingly accept whatever
   sorrow he pleases to put upon us. And we have his assurance, besides,
   that all things work together for our good. Our trials are not merely
   sent with a good object, but with an object good towards ourselves, a
   design which is being answered by every twig of our heavenly father's
   rod. "The cup which our Father hath given us, shall we not drink it?"
   It is healing medicine and not deadly poison, therefore let us put it
   to our lips without a murmur, ay, quaff it to its very dregs, and say,
   "Not as I will, but as thou wilt."

   A constant submission to the divine will should be the very atmosphere
   in which a Christian lives. He should put an earnest negative upon his
   self-will by crying, "Not my will," and then he should with holy warmth
   beseech the Lord to execute his purpose, saying, "The will of the Lord
   be done." He should throw the whole vigor of his soul into the Lord's
   will, and exhibit more than submission, namely, a devout acquiescence
   in whatever the Lord appoints.

   Beloved friends, we must not be content with bearing what the Lord
   sends, with the coolness which says, "It must be, and, therefore, I
   must put up with it." Such forced submission is far below a Christian
   grace, for many a heathen has attained it. The stolid stoic accepted
   what predestination handed out to him, and the Mahometan still does the
   same. We must go beyond unfeeling submission. We must not so harden our
   hearts against affliction as not to be affected by it. That
   chastisement which does not make us smart has failed of its end. It is
   by the blueness of the wound, says Solomon, that the heart is made
   better; and if there is no real blueness— if it be merely a surface
   bruise— little good will come of it. "For a season we are in
   heaviness," says the apostle, "through manifold trials," and not only
   the trial, but the heaviness which comes of it, is needful to us. God
   would not have his children become like the ox or the ass, which
   present hard skins to hard blows, but he would have us tender and
   sensitive. There is such a thing as despising the chastening of the
   Lord, by a defiant attitude which seems to challenge the Lord to draw a
   tear or fetch a sigh from us. Against this let us be on our guard.

   Neither, on the other hand, are we to receive affliction with a
   rebellious spirit. It is hard for us to kick against the pricks, like
   the ox which, when goaded, is irritated, and strikes out and drives the
   iron into itself deeper than it went before. We can easily do this by
   complaining that God is too severe with us. In this spirit we may "take
   arms against a sea of troubles;" but by opposing we shall not end them,
   but increase their raging. By a proud murmuring spirit we only bring
   upon ourselves trial upon trial; "the Lord resisteth the proud," and a
   high spirit challenges his opposition.

   Neither, dear friends, as believers in God, are we to despair under
   trouble, for that is not bearing the cross, but lying down under it. We
   are to take up our appointed burden, and carry it, and not sit down in
   wicked sullenness, and murmur that we can do no more. Some are in a
   very naughty frame of mind, their moody spirits mutter that if God will
   be so severe with them they must yield to it, but they have lost all
   heart, and all faith, and all they ask for is leave to die. A child of
   God must not repine. He has not yet "resisted unto blood, striving
   against sin"; and, if he had, still he should say, "Though he slay me
   yet will I trust in him." Since Jesus, the man of sorrows, never
   murmured, it ill becomes any of his followers to do so. We must in
   patience possess our souls. Perhaps you think it easier for me to say
   this than it would be to practice it; and yet, by Almighty grace, a
   saint can bear to the utmost of bearing, to the utmost of suffering he
   can suffer, to the utmost of loss he can lose, and even to the
   uttermost of death itself he can die daily, and yet triumph through the
   divine life, for God, that worketh in us to will and to do, is
   almighty, and makes our weakness strong.

   The Christian, then, is not to treat the cross which God puts upon him
   in any such way as I have described, but he is to accept it humbly,
   looking up to God, and saying, "Much worse than this I might reckon to
   receive even as thy child; for the discipline of thine house requireth
   the rod, and well might I expect to be chastened every morning." The
   child of God should feel that it is in very faithfulness that the Lord
   afflicts him, and that every stroke has love in it. Anything over and
   above the lowest abyss of hell is a great mercy to us. If we had to lie
   ill for fifty years and scarcely have a minute free from pain, yet
   since the Lord has pardoned our sins, and accepted us in Christ Jesus,
   and made us his children, we should be grateful for every pang, and
   still continue to bless the Lord upon our beds, and sing his high
   praises in the midst of the fires. Humbly, therefore, as sinners
   deserving divine wrath, we are bound to accept the chastenings of the
   Lord.

   We should receive chastisement with meek submission, presenting
   ourselves to God that he may do with us still as he has dealt with us—
   not wishing to start aside to the right hand or to the left: asking
   him, if it may be his will to remove the load, to heal the pain, to
   deliver us from the bereavement, and the like, but still always leaving
   ample margin for full resignation of spirit. The gold is not to rebel
   against the goldsmith, but should at once yield to be placed in the
   crucible and thrust into the fire. The wheat as it lies upon the
   threshing-floor is not to have a will of its own, but to be willing to
   endure the strokes of the flail that the chaff may be separated from
   the precious corn. We are not far off being purged from dross and
   cleansed from chaff when we are perfectly willing to undergo any
   process which the divine wisdom may appoint us. Self and sin are
   married, and will never be divorced, and till our self-hood is crushed
   the seed of sin will still have abundant vitality in it; but when it is
   "not I" but "Christ that liveth in me," then have we come near to that
   mark to which God has called us, and to which, by his Spirit, he is
   leading us.

   But we ought to go farther than this. We should accept chastisement
   cheerfully. It is a hard lesson, but a lesson which the Comforter is
   able to teach us— to be glad that God should have his way. Do you know
   what it is sometimes to be very pleased to do what you do not like to
   do? I mean you would not have liked to do it, but you find that it
   pleases some one you love, and straightway the irksome task becomes a
   pleasure. Have you not felt, sometimes, when one whom you very much
   esteem is sick and ill, that you would be glad enough to bear the pain,
   at least for a day or two, that you might give the suffering one a
   little rest? Would you not find a pleasure in being an invalid for a
   while to let your beloved one enjoy a season of health? Let the same
   motive, in a higher degree, sway your spirit! Try to feel, "If it
   pleases God it pleases me. If, Lord, it is thy will, it shall be my
   will. Let the lashes of the scourge be multiplied, if so thou shalt be
   the more honored, and I shall be permitted to bring thee some degree of
   glory." The cross becomes sweet when our health is so sweetened by the
   Spirit that our will runs parallel with the will of God. We should
   learn to say, in the language of Elihu "I have borne, I do bear, I
   accept it all." To be as plastic clay on the potter's wheel, or as wax
   in the modeller's hand, should be our great desire. That is the first
   business of the sufferer.

   The next duty is to forsake the sin which may have occasioned the
   chastisement. "It is meet to be said unto God, I have borne
   chastisement; I will not offend anymore." There is a connection between
   sin and suffering in every case. It would be very wrong for us to
   suppose that every man who suffers is therefore more guilty than
   others: that was the mistake of Job's friends— a mistake too commonly
   made every day: but it is right for the sufferer himself to judge his
   own case, by a standard which we may not use toward him. He should say,
   "Is there not some connection between this chastisement and sin that
   dwelleth in me?" And here he must not judge himself unrighteously, even
   for God, lest he plunge himself into unnecessary sorrow. There are
   afflictions which come from God, not on account of past sin, but to
   prevent sin in the future. There are also sharp prunings which are
   intended to make us bring forth more fruit: they are not sent because
   we have brought forth no fruit, but because we are fruitful boughs, and
   are worth pruning. "Every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth
   it, that it may bring forth more fruit." There are also afflictions
   which are sent by way of test, and trial, and proof, both for God's
   glory and for the manifestation of his power; as also for the
   comforting of others, that trembling saints may see how weak and feeble
   men can carry the heaviest cross for Christ's sake, and can triumph
   under it. We are not to be sure that every sorrow comes to us because
   of any sin actually committed; yet it will be best for us to be more
   severe with ourselves than we should think of being with others, and
   always to ask, "Is there not some cause for this chastisement? May
   there not be something of which God would rid me, or something which
   has grieved him which has caused him to grieve me?" Brothers and
   sisters, I charge you never be lenient with yourselves. The best of us
   are men at the best, and at our best we have much to mourn over in the
   presence of the Most High. It is good to be always dissatisfied with
   ourselves, and pressing forward to a something yet beyond; always
   praying that in us Christ's likeness may be completely formed. Thorns
   are often put in the nest that we may search for hidden evils. "Are the
   consolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thing with
   thee?" Has there been a defeat at Ai? May there not be an Achan in the
   camp? Has not a traitor concealed in some secret place a goodly
   Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold? Does not trial give a hint that
   there may be something amiss? Beloved, I ask myself and I ask you to
   look now, not only to your outward character, but to your more private
   life and to your walk before God, and see if there be not some flaw. Is
   there trouble in the family? Have you always acted towards the children
   and the servants as you should have done as a master and a father?
   Question yourself. The child is grieving you. Have you, good mother,
   always been as prayerful about that child as you should have been? May
   not your child's conduct to you be a fair reflection of your own
   conduct towards your heavenly Father? I do not mention any of these
   things to increase your grief, but in order that you may put your
   finger on the evil which provokes the Lord God, and may put it away.
   Have there been losses in business? Are you sure, brother, that when
   you were making money you always used it for God as you should? Were
   you a good steward? Did you give the Lord his full portion— the sacred
   tithe of all that you had? Or may you not have been too selfish— and
   may not that be the cause why you must now be reduced from wealth to
   comparative poverty? Is that so? Does the affliction scourge your body?
   Then has there been anything wrong with your habits? Has the flesh
   predominated over the spirit? Has there been a failure of the entire
   consecration of the vessel unto the Lord? Does the trial occur in the
   person of some dear one? You may not be conscious of any wrong there,
   but still look, dear friends! Search the whole of your conduct as the
   spies searched Canaan of old. If your sin be glaring, there is little
   need of a chastisement to point it out to you, for you ought to see it
   without that: but there may be a secret sin between you and your Lord
   for which he has sent you chastisement, and after this you must raise a
   hue and cry. You know I do not mean that the Lord is punishing you for
   sin as a judge punishes a criminal, for he will not do that; since he
   has laid the punishment of sin upon Christ, and Christ has borne it as
   a matter of punitive justice. He, as a father, chasteneth his child,
   but never without a cause. I am urging you to see whether there may not
   be some cause for the present painful discipline. Never fall into the
   mistake of some who suppose that sin in God's children is a trifle.
   Why, if there is any place where sin is horrible it is in a child of
   God. Hence the text puts it, "I will not offend any more." Sin is an
   offensive thing to God, he cannot bear it. I should dislike a plague
   spot on anybody's face, but I should tremble to see it most of all upon
   my own child's face. Sin is more visible in a good man than in any
   other. I may drop a spot of ink upon a black handkerchief and never see
   it, but on a white one you will perceive it directly, and see it the
   more because of the whiteness of the linen which it defiles. You, child
   of God, know that just in proportion as you are sanctified— in
   proportion as you live near to God— sin will be grievous to the Most
   High. It is gloriously terrible to live near to God. I wonder if you
   understand me, all of you. To walk as a favored courtier with a monarch
   is a very delicate matter. Favourites have to pick their steps; for
   though they stand near a king, they well know how soon they may fall
   from their high position. We serve a jealous God. That is a wonderful
   question, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among
   us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" God is that consuming fire.
   God is the everlasting burnings. Who among us shall dwell with him? The
   answer is, "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, he shall dwell
   on high. His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks": but it
   is only the man who is very jealous of himself who will be able to bear
   that fierce light which beats around the throne of God— that devouring
   flame which God himself is, as saith the apostle— "Even our God is a
   consuming fire." Caesar's wife must not only be without fault, but she
   must be above suspicion, and such must be the character of the child of
   God who, like Moses, lives in the inner circle— who stands on the
   mountain top— who knows what the peaks of Sinai mean, and what it is to
   be forty days in fellowship with the Most High.

   Beloved friends, I urge upon you a very close search into what the
   transgression may be which has brought correction upon you, for it may
   be in you an offense which would scarcely be sin in anybody else.
   Another person might fall into your fault as a sin of ignorance but
   since you know better the sin is all the blacker in you. The Lord will
   be sanctified in them that draw near unto him, and woe to them if they
   defile themselves.

   The third lesson in the text to the afflicted clearly teaches them that
   it is their duty and privilege to ask for more light. The text says,
   "That which I see not teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do
   no more." Do you see the drift of this? It is the child of God awakened
   to look after the sin which the chastisement indicates, and since he
   cannot see all the evil that may be in himself, he turns to his God
   with this prayer, "What I see not teach thou me."

   Beloved friends, it may be that, in looking over your past life and
   searching through your heart, you do not see your sin, for perhaps it
   is where you do not suspect. You have been looking in another quarter.
   Your own opinion is that you are weak in one point, but possibly you
   are far weaker in the opposite direction. In nothing do men make more
   mistakes than concerning their own characters. I have known a brother
   confess that he was deficient in firmness, when, in my opinion, he was
   about as obstinate as any man I knew. Another man has said that be was
   always wanting in coolness, and yet I thought that if I needed to fill
   an ice-well, I had only to put him into it. Persons misjudge
   themselves. Unfeeling people say they are too sensitive, and selfish
   persons imagine themselves to be victims to the good of others. So, it
   may be, you have been looking in one quarter for the sin, while your
   fault lies in the opposite point of the compass. Pray, then, "Lord,
   search me and try me, and that which I see not teach thou me."
   Remember, brethren, that our worst sins may lurk under our holiest
   things. Oh, how these evils will hide away— not under the docks and
   nettles of the dungheap— not they, but under the lilies and the roses
   of the garden. In the cups of the flowers they lurk. They do not flit
   through our souls like devils with dragons' wings; they fly as angels
   of light, with wings tinted as the rainbow. They come as sheep, and a
   very fat sort they seem to be, but they are wolves in sheep's clothing.
   Watch, therefore, very carefully against the sins of your holy things.
   In our holy things we are nearer to God than at any other time, and
   hence such defilement soonest brings upon us the stroke of our heavenly
   Father's rod. Perhaps your sin is hidden away under something very dear
   to you. Jacob made a great search for the images— the teraphs which
   Laban worshipped. He could not find them. No; he did not like to
   disturb Rachel, and Laban did not like to disturb her either— a
   favourite wife and daughter must not be inconvenienced. She may sit
   still on the camel's furniture, but she hides the images there. Even
   thus you do not like to search in a certain quarter of your nature; it
   is a very tender subject— something you feel very grieved about when
   anybody even hints at it: it is just there that the sin is harboured.
   My brethren and sisters, let us be honest with the Lord. Let us really
   wish to know where we are wrong, and heartily long to be set right. Do
   you think we all honestly want to know our errors? Are there not
   chapters of the Bible which we do not like to read? If there are— if
   any text has a quarrel with you, quarrel with yourself; but yield
   wholly to the word of God. Is there any doctrine which you almost think
   is a truth, but your friends do not believe it, and they might,
   perhaps, think you heretical if you were to accept it, and therefore
   you dare not investigate any further? Oh, dear friends, let us be rid
   of all such dishonesty. So much of it has got into the church that many
   will not see things that are plain as a pikestaff. They will not see,
   for truth might cost them too dear. They cover up and hide away some
   parts of Scripture which it might be awkward for them to understand,
   because of their connection with a church, or their standing in a
   certain circle. This is hateful, and we need not wonder if God smites
   the man who allows himself in it. Be true, brother! You cannot deceive
   God. Do not try it. Ask him to search you through and through. Let your
   desire be, "Refining fire go through my heart with a mighty flame that
   shall devour everything like a lie, everything that is unholy, selfish,
   earthly, that I may be fully consecrated unto the Lord my God." This is
   the right way in which to treat our chastisements. "If I have done
   iniquity, I will do no more. That which I see not, teach thou me."

   "Alas," says somebody, "we cannot say that we will do no more
   iniquity." Yes, we can say it a great deal more easily than we can
   practice it, and therefore it is a pity to say it except in the
   evangelical spirit, leaning entirely on the divine strength. He who
   says, "I will do no more iniquity" has there and then perpetrated
   iniquity if he has vowed in his own strength, for he has exalted
   himself into the place of God by self-confidence. Yet we must feel in
   our inmost hearts that we desire to depart from all iniquities. There
   must be an earnest and hearty intent that, as Paul shook off the viper
   into the fire, so will we, as God helps us, shake off the sin, whatever
   it may be, which brings us the trial, or that causes the Lord to take
   away the light of his countenance from us. Oh, how earnestly would I
   urge my dear tried brothers and sisters to seek after this excellent
   fruit of affliction. May it come to every one of us according as the
   affliction comes, that we may never miss the sweet fruit of this bitter
   tree. God bless you who are tried, and support you under your griefs;
   but, above all, may he sanctify you through tribulation, for that is
   the main point, and it little matters how sharp the flames if you are
   purified by the fire.

   II. And now, briefly, I am going to use the text for THOSE OF US WHO
   MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AFFLICTED. What does the text say to us if we are not
   afflicted? Does it not say this— "If the afflicted man is to say 'I
   bear,' and to take up his yoke cheerfully, how cheerfully ought you and
   I to take up the daily yoke of our Christian labor"? Brother, sister,
   do you ever grow weary? Does the Sunday-school tax you too much? Is
   that Bible-class becoming somewhat a heaviness? That house-to-house
   visitation— has it become a drudgery? That distribution of tracts— is
   there a great sameness and tedium about it? Now look, my brother, look
   at yonder dear saint of God who has been for months upon his bed till
   the feathers have grown hard beneath him. He shifts from side to side
   but finds no ease— no sleep at night, no respite by day. Would you like
   to change places with him? Yet hear how he praises God amidst his many
   pains, and abundant weaknesses, and poverty. Do you prefer your lot to
   his? Well, then, in the name of everything that is good, accept your
   portion with joy, and throw your soul into the Lord's service. The
   great Captain might say to you, "What! tired of marching! I will send
   you back to the trenches, and let you lie there till you feel sick at
   heart of your inactivity. What! weary of fighting! You shall be put
   into the hospital with broken bones and made to lie there and pine, and
   see what you think of enforced inactivity." If I have any message to
   give from my own bed of sickness it would be this— if you do not wish
   to be full of regrets when you are obliged to lie still, work while you
   can. If you desire to make a sick bed as soft as it can be, do not
   stuff it with the mournful reflection that you wasted time while you
   were in health and strength. People said to me years ago, "You will
   break your constitution down with preaching ten times a week," and the
   like. Well, if I have done so, I am glad of it. I would do the same
   again. If I had fifty constitutions I would rejoice to break them down
   in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. You young men that are strong,
   overcome the wicked one and fight for the Lord while you can. You will
   never regret having done all that lies in you for our blessed Lord and
   Master. Crowd as much as you can into every day, and postpone no work
   till to-morrow. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
   might."

   We have yet another remark for those that are strong. Should not the
   favors of God lead us to search out our sins? Chastisement acts like a
   black finger to point out our failures: ought not the love of God to do
   the same with its hand glittering with jewels? Lord, dost thou give me
   good health? Lord, dost thou spare my wife and my children to me? Dost
   thou give me of substance enough and to spare? Then, Lord, is there
   anything about me that might grieve thee? Do I harbour anything in my
   soul that might vex thy Spirit? Let thy love guide me that I may escape
   from these evils. It is a sweet text— "I will guide thee with mine eye.
   Be ye 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 thee." Your child only needs a glance of the eye, and he runs to
   you; but your horse and mule will not do that, you must put a bit into
   their mouths, and some of them must have very hard bits, and their
   mouths must be made very tender before they can be guided. You are men,
   do not be as the beasts are. Yet some of God's own children are very
   brutish. They will not obey his words, and so their God has to give
   them blows, for he will have his children obey him: if they will be
   drawn with cords of love so they shall be, but if they will not, they
   shall he driven with the rod. If you make yourselves horses and mules
   he will treat you like horses and mules, or you will have reason to
   think so; perhaps the best way to prevent you becoming altogether
   mulish is to treat you as if you were a mule, and so drive you out of
   it, by letting you see the effect of your folly. Let our mercies act as
   a sweet medicine, and then we shall not need bitter potions.

   Once again. Do you not think that while enjoying God's mercy we should
   be anxious to be searched by the light of the love of God? Should we
   not wish to use the light of the divine countenance that we may
   discover all our sin and overcome it. I know some Christians who will
   not come to this point. They have an ugly temper, and they say, "Well,
   you know, that is constitutional." Away for ever with such wicked
   self-excusing. It is idle to say, "I cannot help it, it is my
   temperament." Your temperament will destroy you, as surely as you live,
   if the grace of God does not destroy your temperament. If such excuses
   were permitted there is no crime, however abominable, for which
   temperament might not be pleaded. Thieves, harlots, drunkards,
   murderers might all set up this justification, for they all have their
   evil temperaments. Do you find in the law that any sin is excused upon
   the ground that it is "constitutional?" Do you find anything in the
   example of Christ, or in the precepts of the gospel, to justify a man
   in saying, "I must be treated with indulgence, for my nature is so
   inclined to a certain sin that I cannot help yielding to it: "My
   brother, you must not talk such nonsense. Your first business is to
   conquer the sin you love best; against it all your efforts, and all the
   grace you can get must be levelled. Jericho must be first besieged, for
   it is the strongest fort of the enemy, and until it is taken nothing
   can be done. I have generally noticed in conversion that the most
   complete change takes place in that very point in which the man was
   constitutionally most weak. God's strength is made perfect in our
   weakness. "Well," cries one, "suppose I have a besetting sin, how can I
   help it?" I reply, if I knew that four fellows were going to beset me
   to-night on Clapham Common, I should take with me sufficient policemen
   to lock the fellows up. When a man knows that he has a besetting sin it
   is not for him to say, "It is a besetting sin and I cannot help it," he
   must, on the other hand, call for heavenly assistance against these
   besetments. If you have besetting sins, and you know it, fight with
   them, and overcome them by the blood of the Lamb. By faith in Jesus
   Christ, besetting sins go to be led captive and they must be led
   captive, for the child of God must overcome even to the end. He is to
   be more than conqueror through him that has loved him. Let the love of
   God, then, lead you to search yourselves and say, "That which I see not
   teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do no more."

   III. The last remark I have to make is to THE UNCONVERTED. Perhaps
   there are some here who are not the people of God, and yet they are
   very happy and prosperous. They have all that heart can wish, and as
   they hear me talk about God's children being chastened, they say, "I do
   not want to be one of them, if such is their portion." You would rather
   be what you are, would you? "Yes," say you. Hearken! We will suppose
   that we have before us a prince of the blood who will one day be a
   king. He has been doing something wrong, and his father has chastened
   him the rod. There stands the young prince with the tears running down
   his cheeks; and over yonder is a street arab, who has no father that he
   knows of— certainly none that ever chastened him for his good. He may
   do what he likes— use any sort of language— steal, lie, swear, if he
   likes, and no one will chasten him. He stands on his head, or makes
   wheels in the streets, or rolls in the dirt, but no father ever holds a
   rod over him. He sees this little prince crying, and he laughs at him,
   "You don't have the liberty I do. You are not allowed to stand on your
   head as I do. Your father wouldn't let you beg for coppers by the side
   of the omnibuses as I do. You don't sleep under an arch all night as I
   do. I would not be you to catch that thrashing! I would sooner be a
   street-boy than a prince!" Your little prince very soon wipes his eyes,
   and answers, "Go along with you. Why, I would rather be chastened every
   day and be a prince and heir to a kingdom, than I would be you with all
   your fine liberty!" He looks down upon the ragged urchin with the
   greatest conceivable pity, even though he himself is smarting from the
   rod. Now, sinners, that is just what we think of you and your freedom
   from heavenly discipline. When you are merriest and happiest, and
   fullest of your joy, we would not be you for the world; when you have
   been electrified by that splendid spectacle at the theater, or have
   enjoyed yourself so much in a licentious dance, or, perhaps, in
   something worse, we would not be as you are. Take us at our worst— when
   we are most sick, most desponding, most tried, most penitent before
   God, we would not exchange with you at your best. Would we change with
   you, for all your mirth and sinful hilarity? No, that we would not! Ask
   the old woman in the winter time, who has only a couple of sticks to
   make a fire with, and has nothing to live upon but what the tender
   mercy of the parish allows her, ask her if she would change with Dives
   in his purple and fine linen. Look at her. She puts on an old red cloak
   to shelter her poor limbs, which are as full of rheumatism as they can
   be; the cupboard is bare, her poor husband lies in the churchyard, and
   she has not a child to come and see her. Ah, there she is. You say,
   "She is a miserable object." Here is the young squire in his top-boots,
   coming home from the hunt. He is standing in front of her. He might say
   to her, with all his large possessions and broad acres, "You would
   change with me, mother, would you not?" She knows his character, and
   she knows that he has no love to God, and no union to Christ, and
   therefore she replies, "Change with you? no, that I would not, for a
   thousand worlds."

   "Go you that boast of all your stores,
   And tell how bright they shine;
   Your heaps of glittering dust are yours,
   But my Redeemers mine."

   I have yet another word for you that fear not God. I wish you would
   reflect for a moment what will become of you one of these days. God
   loves his dear children very much: he loves them so much that Jesus
   died to save them, and yet he does not spare them when they sin, but he
   chastens them with the rod of men. Now, if he does so with his
   children, what will he do with you who are his enemies? If judgment
   begins at the house of God— if when his anger does but gently smoke it
   is so hot— what will it be when the winds of justice fan it to a
   furious flame? As when the fire sets the forests of the mountains
   burning, or as when the vast prairie becomes one sheet of fire, so
   shall it be in that dread day when God shall launch out all his
   vengeance against the sins of the ungodly. I beseech you, think of
   this. He spared not his own Son, but put him to a cruel death upon the
   tree for the sins of others: will he spare his enemies, think you, who
   have rebelled against him, and rejected his mercy, when he visits them
   for their own personal sins? "Beware, ye that forget God, lest he tear
   you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you."

   One only thought, for I must not send you away with that terrible
   warning and no gospel encouragement. Learn a lesson from the Lord's
   children. When his children are chastened they submit, and when they
   submit they obtain peace. Sinner, I pray you, learn wisdom; and if you
   have been troubled of late, if you have had trials from God, yield to
   him, yield to him. Old Master Quarles gives a quaint picture of a man
   who is striking at an enemy with a flail. The person assaulted runs
   right into the striker's arms, and so escapes the force of the stroke,
   and Quarles adds the remark, "The farther off the heavier the blow."
   Sinner, run in, run into God's bosom to-night. Say "I will arise and go
   unto my Father." God will not smite you if you come there. How can he?
   The Lord says, "Let him take hold of my strength." When that arm is
   lifted to scourge you, lay hold of it. Lay hold upon that arm of
   strength as it is revealed in Jesus Christ, for in him God hath made
   bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the people. Hang on the arm that
   else might smite you. Trust in the Lord, sinner, through Jesus Christ,
   the atoning sacrifice, and you shall find peace with him. Ask him with
   humble submission to put away the sin that has made you suffer, and has
   nearly cost you your soul. Pray him to search you, and find out the
   sin. Repent and believe the gospel. Forsake evil and cling to the
   Savior, the great Physician who heals the disease of sin, and you shall
   live. Come now to your Father's home. Those rags, that hungry belly,
   those swine and filthy troughs, those citizens that would not help you,
   that blandest of all citizens whose only kindness lay in degrading you
   lower than you were before— all these are sent to fetch you home.
   Believe it, soul, and say, "I will arise and go unto my Father, and
   will say unto him, Father I have sinned"; and while you are yet saying
   it you shall have the kiss of his love, the embraces of his affection,
   the robe of his righteousness, and the fatted calf of spiritual food,
   and there shall be merriment concerning you, both on earth and in
   heaven. The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Job 34.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 91, 701.
     __________________________________________________________________

One Greater Than the Temple

   (No. 1275)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 23rd, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [5]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the
   temple." Matthew 12:6

   OUR LORD INTENDED, of course, to assert that he himself was greater
   than the temple, but he used the most modest form of putting it. When
   in the interests of truth he is obliged to speak of himself his
   meekness and lowliness are always apparent in the mode in which he
   makes the personal allusion, and every one can see that he does not
   seek his own glory, or desire the praise of man. In the instance before
   us he says, "In this place is one," or, as some read it, "is something
   greater than the temple." He who is truly meek and lowly is not afraid
   to speak the truth about himself, for he has no jealousy about his
   reputation for humility, and is quite willing to be thought proud by
   the ungenerous, for he knows that he only speaks of himself in order to
   glorify God or promote truth. There is a native peculiarity in true
   lowliness which shows itself in the very form of its utterances, and
   wards off the imputation of boasting.

   We do not find the passage now before us in any other gospel but that
   of Matthew. It is so important, so sententious, and withal must have
   been so startling to those who heard it, that we should not have been
   astonished if we had found it in all the four evangelists. Only Matthew
   records it, and he most fittingly, since he is in some respects the
   evangelist of the Hebrews; for, as you know, he began his book by
   saying, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
   the son of Abraham," and he evidently adapted his gospel to the Jews.
   As the Jews would be the last to receive teaching which in any way
   lowered the temple, it is all the more remarkable that Matthew inserted
   our Lord's words in the gospel which he designed to be read by them.
   But, though the words occur but once, we must not, therefore, regard
   them as being any the less weighty, for the sentence comes with a
   preface which shows the force our Lord intends to throw into it. The
   declaration is prefaced by "I say unto you." Here is the authority
   before which we all bow— Jesus says it. He does not merely proclaim the
   truth, but he sets his personal stamp and royal seal upon it. "I say
   unto you"— I who cannot lie, who speak the things which I have received
   of my Father, upon whom the Spirit of God rests without measure,— I say
   unto you. He speaks as one having authority, and not as the scribes;
   with a verily, verily of certainty he teaches, and therefore let us
   unquestionably accept his declaration, "I say unto you, that in this
   place is one greater than the temple."

   Let us now meditate upon this truth, first observing the fact that our
   Lord is greater than the temple; secondly, remarking that he ought to
   be so regarded; and, thirdly, suggesting and urging home some few
   reflections which arise out of the subject.

   I. First, then, OUR LORD JESUS IS GREATER THAN THE TEMPLE. He is so
   manifestly because he is God, "God over all, blessed for ever." He who
   dwells in the house is greater than the house in which he dwells, so
   that as God our Lord Jesus is greater than the temple. It needs no
   arguing that it must be so: the divine must be infinitely greater than
   anything which is of human workmanship; the self-existent must
   infinitely excel the noblest of created things. The temple was many
   years in building. Its huge stones were quarried with enormous labor
   and its cedar beams were shaped and carved with matchless skill; and
   though no hammer or tool of iron was used upon the spot, yet by the
   strength of men were the huge stones laid each one in its place. It
   stood upon Zion a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, but still a work
   of men's hands, a creation of human strength and human wisdom. Not thus
   is it with the Christ of God. Of him we may truly say, "From
   everlasting to everlasting thou art God." "And Thou, Lord, in the
   beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are
   the works of thine hands." The temple being created, and having a
   beginning was a thing of time, and therefore had an end. The things
   which are seen, whether they be temples or taverns, are temporal, and
   must pass away. In due time the firebrand in the hand of the Roman
   soldier reduces to ashes a building which seemed as lasting as the rock
   upon which it stood. Go ye now to the place where once Zion stood, and
   mark well how the glory is departed, even as it departed from Shiloh of
   old. Deep down in the earth the base of the mighty arch which formed
   the ascent to the house of the Lord has been uncovered from the
   mountain of ruins, but scarce else will you find one stone left upon
   another which has not been thrown down. Though these masses of marble
   were so huge that it is an ordinary circumstance to find a stone
   twenty-four feet in length and nine feet in breadth, and sometimes they
   are even found forty feet in length, weighing as much as one hundred
   tons, yet have they been flung from the seats as stones are cast upon
   the king's highway. Thus has the temple disappeared, and thus shall all
   creation pass away, but thou O Lord abidest". "They shall perish; but
   thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a
   vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou
   art the same, and thy years shall not fail."

   The temple was no rival of Jehovah, but derived all its glory from his
   deigning to reveal himself therein. "Exceeding magnifical" as it was,
   it was far below the divine greatness, and only worthy to be called his
   footstool. If we were to dwell on any one of the attributes of his
   Godhead, it would be more and more clear that Christ is greater than
   the temple, but the point is one which none of us doubt. After all, the
   temple was but a symbol, and Jesus is the substance; it was but the
   shadow of which he is the reality. Albeit that every Hebrew heart
   leaped for joy when it thought of the tabernacles of the Lord of Hosts,
   and that this day every Jewish spirit laments the departed glories of
   Zion, yet was the holy and beautiful house a figure of good things to
   come, and not the very image of the covenant blessings. It was not
   essential to the world's well being, for lo! its disappearance has
   brought light and life to the Gentiles. It is not needful to true
   religion now, for the time is come when they that worship Jehovah adore
   him in no consecrated shrines, but worship him in spirit and in truth.
   But our Lord Jesus is truth and substance. He is essential to our light
   and life, and could he be taken from us earth's hope would be quenched
   for ever. Emmanuel, God with us, thou art greater than the temple!

   This fact it was necessary for our Lord to mention, in order to justify
   his disciples in having rubbed ears of corn together to eat on the
   Sabbath day. He said, "the priests in the sanctuary profane the
   Sabbath, and are blameless." They were engaged in the labors of
   sacrifice, and service all through the Sabbath-day, yet nobody accused
   them of breaking the law of the Sabbath. Why? Because the authority of
   the temple exempted its servants from the letter of the law. "But,"
   saith our Lord, "I am greater than the temple, therefore, surely I have
   power to allow my servants who are about my business to refresh
   themselves with food now that they are hungry, and since I have given
   them my sanction to exercise the little labor involved in rubbing out a
   few grains of wheat, they are beyond all censure. If the sanction of
   the temple allows the greater labor, much more shall the sanction of
   one who is greater than the temple allow the less. As the Son of God,
   Christ is under no law. As man he has kept the law, and honored it for
   our sakes, because he stood as our surety and our substitute; but he
   himself in the essence of his nature is the law maker, and above all
   law. Who shall arraign the eternal Son, and call the Judge of all the
   earth to account? "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker. Let the
   potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth."

   But now we must pass on to other meanings, and view our Lord in his
   blessed personality as the Son of man as well as the Son of God. He is
   greater than the temple, for he is a more glorious enshrinement of
   Deity. The temple was great above all buildings because it was the
   house of God, but it was only so in a measure, for the Eternal is not
   to be contained within walls and curtains. "Howbeit," says Stephen,
   "the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the
   prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house
   will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath
   not my hand made all these things?" How remarkably Stephen does, as it
   were, pass over the temple with a mere word; he merely mentions it in a
   sentence, "But Solomon built him a house," as if no stress needed to be
   laid upon the circumstance. It is remarkable that from the moment the
   temple was built true religion in Israel began to decline, and the
   abominable shrines of heathen idols were set up in the holy land. The
   glory of even an allowed ritualism is fatal to spiritual religion. From
   a pompous worship of the true to the worship of the false the step is
   very easy. When God dwelt in the tent, in the days of David, religion
   nourished far better than in the days when the ark abode in a great
   house garnished with precious stones for beauty, and overlaid with pure
   gold. Still within the holy of holies the Lord peculiarly revealed
   himself, and at the one temple upon Zion sacrifices and offerings were
   presented, for God was there. The presence of God, as you know, in the
   temple and the tabernacle was known by the shining of the bright light
   called the Shekinah between the wings of the cherubim over the ark of
   the covenant. We often forget that the presence of God in the most holy
   place was a matter of faith to all but the high priest. Once in the
   year the high priest went within the awful veil, but we do not know
   that even he ever dared to look upon the blaze of splendor. God
   dwelleth in light that no man may approach unto. The smoke of the
   incense from the priest's censer was needed partly to veil the
   exceeding glory of the divine presence, lest even those chosen eyes
   should suffer blindness. No one else went into the hallowed shrine, and
   only he once in the year. That symbolical pavilion of Jehovah is not
   for a moment to be compared with our Lord Jesus, who is the true
   dwelling-place of the Godhead, for "in him dwelleth all the fullness of
   the Godhead bodily." What a masterly sentence that is! None but the
   Holy Ghost could surely have compacted words into such a sentence,— "In
   him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." "God was in
   Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." The manifestation of the
   Godhead in Christ is not unapproachable, for we may freely come to
   Jesus: a voice out of the excellent glory bids us come boldly unto the
   throne of the heavenly grace. We cannot come too often, nor be too long
   in our approaches unto Jesus, the true mercy-seat. The atonement has
   been offered, and the veil of the temple, that is to say, the flesh of
   Christ, has been rent, and now we may approach the Godhead in Christ
   Jesus without trembling. Verily, as I think of God, incarnate God in
   Jesus Christ, and dwelling among the sons of men, I feel how true it
   is, "In this place is one greater than the temple."

   Another sense of the words is this— Our Lord is a fuller revelation of
   truth than the temple ever was. The temple taught a thousand truths of
   which we cannot now speak particularly. To the instructed Israelite
   there was a wealth of meaning about each court of the temple, and every
   one of its golden vessels. Not a ceremony was without its measure of
   instruction. If the Spirit of God opened up the types of the holy and
   beautiful house to him, the Israelite must have had a very clear
   intimation of the good things to come. Still there was nothing in the
   temple but the type: the substance was not there. The blood of bulls
   and goats was there, but not the atonement that taketh away sin. The
   smoke of the holy incense from the golden censor was there, but not the
   sweet merits of the great law-fulfiller. The seven-branched candlestick
   was there, but the Spirit of God was not yet given. The shewbread stood
   on the holy table, but food for souls could not be found in the finest
   of the wheat. The temple had but the types; and Christ is greater than
   the temple because in him we have the realities, or, as Paul calls
   them, "the very image of the things." "The figure for the time then
   present" had its uses, but it is by no means comparable to the actual
   covenant blessing. The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came
   by Jesus Christ. There were some truths, however, and these among the
   most precious, which the temple did not teach at all. I do not know,
   for instance, where we can read adoption in the symbols of the temple,
   or the great truth of our union with Jesus, and other priceless
   doctrines which cluster around the cross and the resurrection; but in
   the person of Jesus we read the exceeding riches of divine grace, and
   see by faith the inexhaustible treasures of the covenant. In Jesus we
   see at once "our Kinsman and our God." In the person of Christ we read
   the infinite eternal love of God towards his own redeemed ones, and the
   intimate intercourse which this love has established between God and
   man. Glimpses of this the temple may perhaps have given, for it did
   intimate that the Lord would dwell among his people, but only to eyes
   anointed seven times with the eye salve would these high mysterious
   doctrines have been visible. The fundamental truths of the everlasting
   gospel are all to be seen in Jesus Christ by the wayfaring man, and the
   more he is studied the more plainly do these matchless truths shine
   forth. God has fully revealed himself in his Son. There is in fact no
   wisdom needful to our soul's welfare but that which shines forth in
   him, and nothing worth the learning but that which the Spirit of God
   teaches us concerning him, for he is to the full "the wisdom of God."
   Know Christ and you know the Father. Does he not himself say, "he that
   hath seen me hath seen the Father"?

   Again, the Redeemer is greater than the temple, because he is a more
   abiding evidence of divine favor. God for ever dwells in Christ Jesus,
   and this is the eternal sign of his favor to his people. There were
   some things in the first temple which were rich tokens of good to
   Israel, but none of these were in the temple to which our Lord pointed
   when he uttered these words. Remember, he looked at Herod's temple, the
   temple which you may call the second, but which in some respects was
   more truly a third temple. In Solomon's temple there were four precious
   things which were absent in Christ's day. First there was the ark of
   the covenant, which precious chest was above all other things the token
   of Israel's high relationship to God, and the assurance of the Lord's
   grace to his covenanted people. The ark was lost at the Babylonian
   destruction of the city, and thus the Holy of Holies lost its most
   sacred piece of furniture: the throne of the great King was gone. There
   were no wings of cherubim above the mercy-seat of pure gold, no tables
   of stone engraved by the divine hand were within the golden coffer, and
   Aaron's rod that budded and the pot of manna were both gone. Now, in
   our blessed Lord you find the covenant itself and all that it contains,
   for thus saith the Lord, "Behold, I have given him for a witness to the
   people, a leader and commander to the people." His blood is "the blood
   of the everlasting covenant," and he himself is given for "a covenant
   of the people, for a light of the Gentiles," (Isaiah 42:6.). Jesus
   Christ is the covenant between God and his redeemed, he is its
   substance, its seal, its surety, its messenger, its all. In our Lord we
   see the fullness of covenanted blessing. His are the covering wings
   beneath which we dwell in safety; and his is the propitiatory, or
   mercy-seat, whereby we draw near to God. In him we see the tables of
   the law honored and fulfilled, priestly authority exercised with a
   living and fruit-bearing scepter, and heavenly food laid up for the
   chosen people. It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness
   dwell, and all the promises are yea and amen in him. Thus in Jesus we
   find what the temple had lost.

   The second temple also lacked the Shekinah. The throne being gone, the
   symbol of the royal presence departed too. The supernatural light did
   not shine forth within the holy place in Herod's temple. The glory had
   departed, or at least that particular form of it, and though the second
   temple became more glorious than the first because the Messiah himself
   appeared within it, yet it missed that symbolic splendor of which the
   Israelite was wont to say, "Thou that dwellest between the cherubim
   shine forth." But in our Lord Jesus we may always see the brightness of
   the Father's glory, the light of Jehovah's smile. Around his brow
   abides the light of everlasting love. Have you not seen the light of
   the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?

   They had lost also from the second temple the Urim and the Thummim.
   Precisely what the Urim and the Thummim may have been we do not know,
   but this peculiar mystery of blessing had a connection with the
   breastplate and with the high priest who wore it, so that when men went
   up to the temple to inquire, they received answers as from the sacred
   oracle, and whatsoever cases were spread before the Lord, an answer was
   given by the high priest, through the lights and perfections, or the
   Urim and Thummim with which the priest was girded. That was lost also
   after the Babylonian captivity. But in Jesus Christ the lights and
   perfection always abide, and if any man would know anything, let him
   learn of him, for he by the Eternal Spirit still guides his children
   into all truth, solves their difficulties, removes their doubts, and
   comforts their hearts, giving to them still light and perfection, each
   one according to their measure as he is able to bear it now, and
   preparing for each one the unclouded light and the spotless perfection
   of eternal glory.

   The second temple had also lost the sacred fire. You remember when the
   temple was opened the fire came down and consumed the sacrifice,— a
   fire from heaven, which fire was carefully watched both night and day,
   and always fed with the prescribed fuel, if indeed it needed to be fed
   at all. This the Jews had no longer, and they were compelled to use
   other fire to burn upon the altar of God, fire which they had probably
   consecrated by rites and ceremonies, but which was not the same flame
   which had actually descended from heaven. Behold, beloved, how far our
   Lord Jesus is greater than the temple, for this day is that word
   fulfilled in your ears— "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and
   with fire." He has given to his church now to be immersed in the fiery
   element of his Spirit. She dwells in the everlasting burnings of the
   divine power, the Lord himself has exalted her to this. Now are her
   lamps kindled by flame from heaven and her sacrifices are consumed by
   consecrated flames, while, around, that same Spirit is a wall of fire
   to preserve the chosen from their enemies. In the perpetual baptism of
   the Holy Ghost the saints find power and life. So that everything which
   of old was regarded as a special token of God's love to Israel, though
   missing from the second temple, is in reality to be found in Jesus
   Christ our Lord, and so he is greater than the temple.

   Furthermore, he is greater than the temple, because he is a more sure
   place of consolation. Brethren, when a guilty conscience wished for
   relief the man in the olden times went up to the temple and presented
   his sin offering; but you and I find a more effectual sin offering in
   our crucified Lord whenever our soul is burdened, for by it we are in
   very deed cleansed from sin. The Jew was not really cleansed, but only
   typically; ours is an actual and abiding deliverance from sin, its
   guilt, and its defilement. We have no more consciousness of it when the
   blood of Jesus Christ is applied to our souls. Oh, come ye evermore, ye
   burdened ones, to Christ's body as to a temple, and see your sin put
   away by his finished atonement, and then go your way comforted. The
   Israelites were wont to go to the temple in time of trouble to make
   supplication: it is very pleasant to think of heart-broken Hannah
   standing in the tabernacle before the Lord pouring out her silent
   complaint. Come, beloved, you too may speak in your heart unto the Lord
   whenever you will, and you will be heard. No Eli is near to judge you
   harshly and rebuke you sharply, but a better priest is at hand to
   sympathise with you, for he himself is touched with a feeling of our
   infirmity. Fear not, you shall obtain an answer of peace, and the
   blessing given shall bear the sweet name of Samuel, because you asked
   it of the Lord. To Jesus you may come as to the temple, when like
   Hezekiah you are made to smart by a blasphemous letter, or any other
   oppression: here you may spread the matter before the Lord with a
   certainty that the Lord, who is greater than the temple, will give you
   an answer of peace in reference to the trial which you leave in his
   hands. No doubt some went to the temple without faith in the spiritual
   part of the matter, and so came away unconsoled; but you, coming to
   Jesus Christ, with your spirit taught of God, shall find sure
   consolation in him.

   Only once more, our Lord is greater than the temple because he is a
   more glorious center of worship. Towards the temple all the Israelites
   prayed. Daniel prayed with his window opened towards Jerusalem, and the
   scattered in every land turned towards that point of the compass where
   Jerusalem was situated, and so they made supplication. To-day not Jews
   alone but Gentiles, men of every race, speaking every language under
   heaven, turn towards thee, "thou great Redeemer," the true temple of
   the living God. Myriads redeemed by blood in heaven, and multitudes
   redeemed by blood on earth, all make the Christ of God the center of
   their perpetual adoration. The day shall come when all kings shall bow
   before him, and all nations shall call him blessed. To him every knee
   shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that he is God to the glory
   of God the Father. Brethren, is not it sweet to think of Jesus as being
   at this very moment the central point to which all devout believers
   turn their eyes? Let the Mohammedan have his Keblah, and the Jew his
   temple, as for us we turn our eyes to the risen Savior, and with all
   the saints we offer prayer to God through him. Through him both Jews
   and Gentiles have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

   II. Now, secondly, and briefly, JESUS OUGHT TO BE REGARDED AS GREATER
   THAN THE TEMPLE.

   We ought to think of him then with greater joy than even the Jew did of
   the holy and beautiful house. The eighty-fourth Psalm shows us how the
   king of Israel loved the house of the Lord. He cries, "How amiable are
   thy tabernacles O Lord of hosts." But oh, my soul, how amiable is
   Christ! How altogether lovely is thy Redeemer and thy God. If the
   devout Israelite could say, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us
   go into the house of the Lord," and if at the sight of the temple he
   cried, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount
   Zion," how ought our heart to exult at the very thought of Jesus, our
   incarnate God! What intense pleasure, what rapture it ought to cause us
   to think that God in very deed does dwell among men in the person of
   his well-beloved Son! I wonder we are not carried away into
   extravagances of delight at this thought, and that we do not become
   like them that dream. I marvel that we are so cold and chill when we
   have before us a fact which might make angelic hearts thrill with
   wonder. God incarnate! God my kinsman! Bone of my bone, and flesh of my
   flesh! Surely if we were to dance as David did before the ark, we might
   scarcely need to excuse ourselves to the heartless Michals who would
   ridicule our enthusiasm. Oh, the bliss of knowing that God is in Christ
   Jesus!

   We ought also to consider our Lord with greater wonder than that with
   which men surveyed the temple. As I have already said, the temple was a
   great marvel, and would be so even now if it were still standing. Those
   huge stones were so well prepared by art, and were themselves so
   massive, that they did not need to be cemented together, and they
   fitted so closely that the thinnest knife could not be inserted between
   them, so polished and so compact were they. The house itself abounded
   with gold, silver, and precious stones; it was a treasury as well as a
   temple. For size it was remarkable too, if we consider the entire range
   of the buildings attached to it. The level space within which the
   actual temple stood is said to have been about one thousand feet square
   and it is asserted that it would have contained twice as many people as
   the huge Colosseum at Rome. The actual temple was but a small building
   comparatively, but its appurtenances and Solomon's porch, which
   surrounded the square on which it stood, made up a great mass of
   building, and the magnificent bridge which joined the lone hill to the
   rest of Jerusalem was a marvel of architecture; Solomon's ascent by
   which he went up to the house of the Lord was one of the sights which
   quite overcame the queen of Sheba. The brightness of the white marble,
   and the abundance of gold must have made it a sight to gaze upon with
   tears in one's eyes to think that man could erect such a house, and
   that it should be for the true God. I do not wonder at all that men
   were bidden to go round about her, tell the towers thereof, mark well
   her bulwarks, and consider her palaces. Neither are we astonished that
   invaders quailed before the strength of her defences, "They saw it, and
   so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away." The like of
   this temple was not to be seen on the face of the earth: neither the
   pyramids of Egypt, nor the piles of Nineveh, nor the towers of Babylon,
   could rival the temple of the living God at Jerusalem: but, my
   brethren, think of Jesus and you will wonder more. What are the huge
   stones? What are the delicate carvings, and what the cedar, and what
   the overlayings of gold, and what the veil of fine twined linen, and
   what all the gorgeous pomp of the ceremonials compared with God, the
   everlasting God, veiled in human flesh? Wonder, my brethren, wonder,
   bow low and adore. "Without controversy great is the mystery of
   godliness. God was manifest in the flesh."

   Being greater than the temple our Lord is to be visited with greater
   frequency. The males of Israel were to go up to the temple three tines
   in a year. "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house," says David: for
   they would be there always. Oh, my brethren, you may enjoy the
   happiness of these blessed ones, and dwell in Jesus always. You may
   come up to the Lord Jesus whensoever you will. All days are appointed
   feasts with him. You need not wait for the new moons or the Sabbaths,
   you may resort to him at all times. We that have believed do enter into
   a perpetual Sabbath, in which we may continually worship the Most High
   in the person of Christ.

   Let us also reverence him with still greater solemnity. The devout Jews
   put off their shoes from off their feet when they entered the temple
   enclosure. True, in our Lord's day, much of this solemnity had been
   forgotten and they bought and sold within the great enclosure around
   the temple the beasts and birds that were necessary for sacrifice; but
   as a rule the Jews always treated the temple with profound respect.
   With what reverence shall we worship our Lord Jesus? Let us never speak
   lightly nor think lightly of him, but may our inmost spirits worship
   him as the eternal God.

   Let us honor him also with higher service. The service of the temple
   was full of pomp and gorgeous ceremonies, and kings brought their
   treasures there. With what assiduity did David store up his gold and
   silver to build the house, and with what skill did Solomon carry out
   the details of that mighty piece of architecture. Come ye and worship
   Christ after that fashion. Bring him the calves of your lips, bring him
   your body, soul and spirit, as a living sacrifice; yea bring him your
   gold and silver and your substance for he is greater than the temple
   and deserves larger gifts and higher consecration than the temple had
   from its most ardent lovers. Surely I need not argue the point, for you
   who love him know that you can never do enough for him.

   So, too, he ought to be sought after with more vehement desire if he be
   greater than the temple. David said he "longed, yea even panted for the
   courts of the Lord." With what longings and partings ought we to long
   for Christ! In answer to her Lord's promise to come again the church
   cries, "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus." We ought to long more for
   the second advent of our Lord; especially ought we, if we mourn his
   absence from our own souls, never to rest until he reveals himself to
   us again. Oh, ye redeemed ones, love him so that you can no more live
   without his smile than the wife can live without her husband's love;
   and long ye for fellowship with him as the bride for the wedding day.

   Set your hearts upon him, and hunger and thirst after him. The Jew
   pined to visit Mount Zion, and with such pinings I bid you long for
   Jesus and for the time when you shall see him face to face.

   III. Now, we have to spend a few minutes in urging home one or two
   PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS which arise out of this subject.

   And the first is this: how carefully should the laws of Jesus Christ be
   observed. I believe that when you entered the temple by passing through
   the Beautiful Gate you saw a notice that worshippers should pass in on
   the right hand, and that afterwards they were to pass out on the left.
   I am quite sure that if the temple now stood, and any one of us could
   make a journey to Jerusalem we should be very careful to observe every
   order of the sanctuary, and if we found the porter at the gate said
   "you must take off your shoes," we should with gladness remove them, or
   if he bade us wash we would gladly enter the bath. Knowing that God
   dwelt there, had we been Israelites we should have been very attentive
   to every observance required of the law. Now, brethren, let us be
   equally attentive to all the laws of Christ, for he is greater than the
   temple. Never trifle with his commands, nor tamper with them. Remember,
   if you break one of the least of his commandments, and teach men so,
   you will be least in the kingdom of God. He is very gracious, and
   forgives, but still disobedience brings injury to our own souls. I
   beseech all Christians to search the Scriptures and see what Christ's
   mind is upon every moot point, whether it be baptism or church
   government, and when you know his will carry it out. Do not say of any
   precept, "That is non-essential," for everything that Jesus bids you do
   is essential to the perfection of your obedience. If you say it is not
   essential to salvation I am compelled to rebuke you. What, are you so
   selfish that you only think about your own salvation? and because you
   are saved will you kick against your Savior and say, "I do not care to
   do this because I can be saved even if I neglect it." This is not the
   spirit of a child of God. I pray you, dear friends, do what I anxiously
   wish to do myself, follow the Lord fully, and go step by step where he
   would have you go, for if you would obey temple rules much more should
   you obey the rules of Christ.

   The next reflection is how much more ought we to value Christ than any
   outward ordinance. It is not always that all Christians do this. There
   is a dear brother who loves Christ, and I can see Christ in him, I am
   sure I can; if I know anything about Christ at all in my own soul I see
   that he knows him too. Very well: but then he does not belong to my
   church! It is a pity; he ought to be as right as I am, and I wish he
   knew better. But at the same time his love to Christ is more to be
   esteemed than his correctness in outward things, for Christ is greater
   than the temple. I am not going to quarrel with any brother in Christ
   because he is somewhat in error about external ordinances, for he has
   the spirit if not the letter of the matter. I wish he had been baptized
   with water, but I see he is baptized with the Holy Ghost, and therefore
   he is my brother. I wish that he would observe the water baptism
   because Christ bids him, but still if he does not I am glad that his
   Master has given him the Holy Spirit, and I rejoice to own that he has
   the vital matter. Perhaps he does not come to the Lord's Supper, and
   does not believe in it. I am very sorry for him, for he loses a great
   privilege, but if I see that he has communion with Christ I know that
   Christ is greater than the temple, and that inward communion is greater
   than the external sign. Hence it happens that if we see Christ in
   persons with whose theology we do not agree, and whose forms of Church
   government we cannot commend, we must set the Christ within above the
   outward forms, and receive the brother still. The brother is wrong, but
   if we see the Lord in him, let us love him, for Christ is greater than
   the temple. We dare not exalt any outward ordinance above Christ, as
   the test of a man's Christianity. We would die for the defense of those
   outward ordinances which Christ commands, but for all that the Lord
   himself is greater than the ordinance, and we love all the members of
   his mystical body.

   Another reflection is this: how much more important it is for you that
   you should go to Christ than that you should go to any place which you
   suppose to be the house of God. How many times from this pulpit have we
   disclaimed all idea that this particular building has any sanctity
   about it. We know that God dwelleth not in temples made with hands, yet
   there may be some of you who come here very regularly, who have great
   respect for the place. If you did not go to any place of worship you
   would think yourselves very bad, and so you would be. If you never went
   on the Lord's day to the worship of God at all you would certainly be
   keeping yourselves out of the place where you may hope that God will
   bless you. But is it not a strange thing that you would not like to
   stop away from the temple, but you stop away from Christ, and while you
   go up to the outward sanctuary to the real Christ you have never gone.
   I am sure you would feel ashamed if anybody were able to say of you
   "There is a man here who has not been to a place of worship for twelve
   months." You would look down upon a man of whom that could be said.
   Yes, but if there be any reasons for coming to what you think the
   temple, how many more reasons are there for coming to Christ: and if
   you would think it wrong to stop away from the public place of worship
   for twelve months, how much more wrong must it be to stop away from
   Jesus all your life; but you have done so. Will you please to think of
   that?

   Now, had you gone to the temple, you would have felt towards it very
   great respect and reverence. And when you come to the outward place of
   worship, you are very attentive, and respectful to the place— let me
   ask you, have you been respectful to Christ? How is it that you live
   without faith in him? No prayer is offered by you to him, you do not
   accept the great salvation which he is prepared to give. Practically,
   you despise him, and turn your backs upon him. You would not do so to
   the temple, why do you do so to Christ? Oh, that you unconverted ones
   knew the uses of Christ. Do you remember what Joab did when Solomon was
   provoked to slay him. Joab fled, and though he had no right to go into
   the temple, yet he felt it was a case of necessity, and hoping to save
   his life he rushed up to the altar, and held by the altar's horn.
   Benaiah came to him with a sword, and said, "Come forth," and what did
   Joab say? "Nay," he said, "but I will die here;" and Benaiah had to go
   back and ask Solomon, "What is to be done?" and Solomon said. "Do as he
   hath said," and so he slew him right against the altar. Now, if you
   come to Christ, though the avenger of blood is after you, you will be
   safe. He may come to you and say, "Come forth," but you will reply, "I
   will die here." You cannot die there, for he shall hide thee in the
   secret of his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide
   thee, and with thy hand upon the blood-stained horn no Benaiah, and no
   devil, and no destroying angel can touch thee. Sinner, it is your only
   hope. You will be lost for ever, the sword shall pierce through your
   soul to your everlasting destruction; but fly now unto Christ the
   temple, and lay hold upon the altar's horn, and let this be on your
   mind—

   "I can but perish if I go,
   I am resolved to try;
   For if I stay away I know
   I must for ever die."
   "But if I die with mercy sought,
   When I've this altar tried,
   This were to die, delightful thought,
   As sinner never died."

   By faith, this morning, I put my hand upon the altar's horn. All my
   hope, dread Sovereign, lies in the blood of thy dear Son. Brethren in
   Christ, let us all lay our hands there once again. Poor sinner, if you
   have never done this before do it now, and say in your heart,

   "My faith doth lay her hand
   Upon that altar's horn,
   And see my bleeding Lord at hand
   Who all my sin has borne."

   Christ is greater than the temple, may his great benediction rest upon
   you. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Psalm 84 & 87.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 84 (Song II.), 820, 427.
     __________________________________________________________________

Unconditional Surrender

   (No. 1276)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, January 30th, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [6]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "Submit yourselves therefore to God." James 4:7

   THIS ADVICE SHOULD NOT NEED much pressing. "Submit yourselves unto
   God"— is it not right upon the very face of it? Is it not wise? Does
   not conscience tell us that we ought to submit? Does not reason bear
   witness that it must be best to do so? "Submit yourselves unto God."
   Should not the creature be submissive to the Creator, to whom it owes
   its existence, without whom it had never been, and without whose
   continuous good pleasure it would at once cease to be? Our Creator is
   infinitely good, and his will is love: to submit to one who is "too
   wise to err, too good to be unkind," should not be hard. If he were a
   tyrant it might be courageous to resist, but since he is a Father it is
   ungrateful to rebel. He cannot do anything which is not perfectly just,
   nor will he do aught which is inconsistent with the best interests of
   our race; therefore to resist him is to contend against one's own
   advantage, and, like the untamed bullock, to kick against the pricks to
   our own hurt. "Submit yourselves unto God"— it is what angels do, what
   kings and prophets have done, what the best of men delight in— there is
   therefore no dishonor nor sorrow in so doing. All nature is submissive
   to his laws; suns and stars yield to his behests, we shall but be in
   harmony with the universe in willingly bowing to his sway. "Submit
   yourselves unto God"— you must do it whether you are willing to do so
   or not. Who can stand out against the Almighty? For puny man to oppose
   the Lord is for the chaff to set itself in battle array with the wind,
   or for the tow to make war with the flame. As well might man attempt to
   turn back the tide of ocean, or check the march of the hosts of heaven
   as dream of overcoming the Omnipotent. The Eternal God is irresistible,
   and any rebellion against his government must soon end in total defeat.
   By the mouth of his servant Isaiah the Lord challenges his enemies,
   saying, "Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle? I
   would go through them, I would burn them together." God will be sure to
   overthrow his adversaries: he may in his infinite patience permit the
   rebel to continue for a while in his revolt, but as surely as the Lord
   liveth he will compel every knee to bow before him, and every tongue to
   confess that he is the living God. "Submit yourselves unto God." Who
   would do otherwise, since not to submit is injurious now, and will be
   fatal in the end? If we oppose the Most High, our opposition must lead
   on to defeat and destruction, for the adversaries of the Lord shall be
   as the fat of rams, into smoke shall they consume away. For the man who
   strives with his Maker there remains a fearful looking for of judgment
   and the dread reward of everlasting punishment. Who will be so
   foolhardy as to provoke such a result?

   "Submit yourselves unto God" is a precept which to thoughtful men is a
   plain dictate of reason, and it needs few arguments to support it. Yet
   because of our foolishness the text enforces it by a "Therefore," which
   "Therefore" is to be found in the previous verse,— "He resisteth the
   proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to
   God." His wrath and his mercy both argue for submission. We are both
   driven and drawn to it. The Romans were wont to say of their empire
   that its motto was to spare the vanquished, but to war continually
   against the proud. This saying aptly sets forth the procedure of the
   Most High. He aims all his arrows at the lofty, and turns the edge of
   his sword against the stubborn; but the moment he sees signs of
   submission his pity comes to the front, and through the merits of his
   Son his abounding mercy forgives the fault. Is not this an excellent
   reason for submission? Who can refuse to be vanquished by love? Who
   will not say as our hymn puts it—

   "Lord, thou hast won, at length I yield;
   My heart, by mighty grace compell'd,
   Surrenders all to thee;
   Against thy terrors long I strove,
   But who can stand against thy love?
   Love conquers even me."

   If resistance will only call forth the omnipotent wrath of God, but
   true submission will lead to the obtaining of his plenteous grace, who
   will continue in arms? I shall not tarry to carry the argument further,
   but aim at once to press home this precept upon you as God the Holy
   Ghost may enable me. I believe it to be addressed both to saint and
   sinner, and therefore I shall urge it home first upon the child of God,
   and say to all of you who love the Lord, "Submit yourselves to God;"
   and then we shall take a little longer time to say in deep solemnity to
   those who are not reconciled to God by the death of his Son, "Submit
   yourselves to God" if ye would be saved.

   I. To THE PEOPLE OF GOD, "Submit yourselves unto God." He is your God,
   your Father, your friend, yield yourselves to him. What does this
   counsel mean? It means, first exercise humility. We do well to
   interpret a text by its connection: now the connection here is "God
   resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble," and therefore
   the submission here meant must include humility, even if it be not the
   chief thing intended. Brothers and sisters, let us take our right place
   before God. And what is that? Is it the highest seat in the synagogue?
   Is it the place of those who thank God that they are not as other men
   are? I scarcely need reply, you who are the children of God will not
   dream of occupying such a position. If by reason of temporary
   foolishness you ever boast, I am sure, my dear friends, when you think
   over it in the watches of the night you are very much ashamed of
   yourselves, and would be glad to eat your own words. A pardoned sinner
   boasting! A debtor to sovereign grace extolling himself! It is
   horrible. Nothing can be more out of place than boasting upon the lips
   of a child of God. If I heard Balaam's ass speak I should impute it to
   a miracle that it should use the language of man, but that a man of God
   should use the braying of vanity is a miracle another way, not of God
   but of Satan. Is it not one of the fundamental truths of our faith that
   we are saved by grace? And what says the apostle? "Where is boasting
   then? It is excluded." The word "excluded" means shut out. Boasting
   comes to the door, it knocks, it pleads for admission, but it is
   excluded. Possibly through our unwatchfulness it gains a momentary
   entrance, but as soon as ever the grace of God within us ascertains
   that the intruder is within our gates it ejects him, shuts the door in
   his face, and bars him out, and in answer to the question "Where is
   boasting then?" free grace replies, "It is excluded, by the law of
   grace." If all the good we have has been given to us freely by divine
   favor, in what can we glory? If we possess the highest degree of
   spirituality, if our life be perfectly clear from any open fault, and
   if our hearts be wholly consecrated unto the Lord, yet we are
   unprofitable servants; we have done no more than it was our duty to
   have done. But, alas, we fall far short of this, for we have not done
   what it was our duty to have done, and in many things we fail and come
   short of the glory of God. The right position of a Christian is to walk
   with lowly humility before God, and with meekness towards his fellow
   Christians. The lowest room becomes us most, and the lowest seat in
   that room. Look at Paul, who knew far more of Christ than we do, and
   who served him far better. It is edifying to notice his expressions. He
   is an apostle, and he will by no means allow any one to question his
   calling, for he has received it of the Lord; but what does he say? "Not
   meet to be called an apostle." What can be lowlier than this? But we
   shall see him descending far below it. He takes his place among the
   ordinary saints, and he will not give up his claim to be numbered with
   them, for he has made his calling and election sure; but where does he
   sit among the people of God? He styles himself "less than the least of
   all saints." There is no small a descent from "not meet to be called an
   apostle" to "less than the least of all saints;" but he went lower yet,
   for at another time he confessed himself to be still a sinner, and
   coming into the assembly of sinners where does he take his position? He
   writes himself down as "the chief of sinners." This is submission to
   God, the true surrender of every proud pretension or conceited claim.
   If, my brethren, the Lord has called us to be ministers, let us ever
   feel that we are not worthy of so great a grace: since he has made us
   saints, let us confess that the very least of our brethren is more
   esteemed by us than we dare to esteem ourselves, and since we know that
   we are sinners let us look at our sins under that aspect which most
   reveals their heinousness, for in some respects and under certain
   lights there are evils in our character which make us guiltier than the
   rest of our fellow sinners. The stool of repentance and the foot of the
   cross are the favourite positions of instructed Christians.

   Such humility is not at all inconsistent with believing that we are
   saved, nor with the fullest assurance of faith, nay, not at all
   inconsistent with the nearest familiarity with God. Listen to Abraham:
   "I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, I that am but dust and
   ashes." He has drawn very near to the Lord, and speaks with him as a
   man speaketh with his friend, and yet he says "I am but dust and
   ashes." His boldness did not destroy his humbleness, nor his sense of
   nothingness hinder his near approach to the Lord. My dear brethren, we
   know that in Christ we are accepted, we know that we are dear to God
   and loved with an everlasting love, we know that he hears our prayers
   and answers us continually, we know that we walk in the light of his
   countenance; but still our posture should always be that of deep
   humiliation before the Lord, and in the attitude of complete submission
   we should sit at the Master's feet and say, "By the grace of God I am
   what I am." May the Holy Spirit work this gracious submission in every
   regenerated soul.

   Let us next observe that our text bears a second meaning, namely, that
   of submission to the divine will: that of course would strike you in
   the wording of the verse— "Submit yourselves therefore to God." Beloved
   Christian friends, be willing to accept whatever God appoints. Let us
   each pray to be

   "Simple, teachable and mild,
   Awed into a little child;
   Pleased with all the Lord provides,
   Wean'd from all the world besides."

   Is it indeed so with us? Are you not some of you very far from it? Are
   you quite sure that you are submissive to the divine will as to your
   rank in society? Have you accepted your position in the scale of
   worldly wealth? Are you satisfied to be sickly, obscure, or of small
   ability? Are God's appointments your contentments? Too many professors
   are quarrelling with God that they are not other than they are. This is
   evil, and shows that pride is still in their hearts, for were they
   conscious of their own deserts they would know that anything short of
   hell is more than we deserve, and as long as we are not in the pit of
   torment gratitude becomes us. It is a happy thing when the mind is
   brought to submit to all the chastisements of God, and to acquiesce in
   all the trials of his providence. Knowing as we do that all these
   things work together for our good, and that we never endure a smart
   more than our heavenly Father knows to be needful, we are bound to
   submit ourselves cheerfully to all that he appoints. Though no trial
   for the present is joyous, but grievous, yet ought we to resign
   ourselves to it because of its after results. Even the beasts of the
   field may teach us this. I read the other day of an elephant which had
   lost its sight: it was brought to the surgeon, and he placed some
   powerful substance upon the eye, which caused it great pain, and of
   course the huge creature was very restless during the operation. After
   a while it began to see a little, and when it was brought the next day
   to the operator it was as docile as a lamb, for it evidently perceived
   that benefit had resulted from the painful application. If such a
   creature has enough intelligence to perceive the benefit, and to accept
   the pain, how much more should we! Since we know that we owe infinite
   blessings to the rod of the covenant we ought to be willing to bare our
   own back to the scourge, and let the Lord do as he wills with us. Yea,
   I go beyond this, even if we did not know that good would come of it,
   we ought to submit because it is the Lord's will, for he has a right to
   do whatever he wills with us. Can you subscribe to this? As a true
   child can you make a complete surrender to your Father's good pleasure?
   If not, you have not fairly learned the mind of Christ. It is a great
   thing to have the soul entirely submitted to God about everything, so
   that we never wish to have anything in providence other than God would
   have it to be, nor desire to have anything in his Word altered: not one
   ordinance of the church of God, not one doctrine of revelation, not one
   precept or warning other than it is. We shall never be at rest till we
   come to this. It is essential to our happiness to say at all times,
   "Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt." Brothers and sisters,
   ought it not so to be? Who ought to rule in the house but the Father?
   Who should govern in the body but the Head? Who should lead the flock
   but the Shepherd? We owe so much to Jesus, and so entirely belong to
   him, that even were it put to the vote, all of us would give our
   suffrages so that the Lord Jesus should be King, Head and Chief among
   us; for is he not the Firstborn among many brethren? Submit, then, my
   brethren. Beseech the Holy Spirit to bow your wills to complete
   subjection. You will never be happy till self is dethroned. I know some
   of God's children who are in great trouble only because they will not
   yield to the divine will. I met with one, I believe a good sister, who
   said she could not forgive God for taking away her mother; and another
   friend said he could not see God to be a good God for he had made him
   suffer such terrible afflictions. Their furnace was heated seven times
   hotter by the fuel of rebellion which they threw into it. So long as we
   blame the Lord and challenge his rights, our self-tortured minds will
   be tossed to and fro. No father can let his boy bend his little fist in
   defiance, and yet treat that child with the same love and fondness as
   his other children, who submit themselves to him. You cannot enjoy your
   heavenly Father's smile, my dear brother or sister, till you cease from
   being in opposition to him, and yield the point in debate; for he has
   said that if we walk contrary to him he will walk contrary to us. It
   will be wise for you to cry, "My Father, my naughty spirit has rebelled
   against thee, my wicked heart has dared to question thee; but I cease
   from it now: let it be even as thou wilt, for I know that thou doest
   right." So the text means first humility, and then submission to the
   Lord's will. Lord, teach us both.

   It means also obedience. Do not merely passively lie back and yield to
   the necessities of the position, but gird up the loins of your mind,
   and manifest a voluntary and active submission to your great Lord. The
   position of a Christian should be that of a soldier to whom the
   centurion saith "Go," and he goeth, and "Do this," and he doeth it. It
   is not ours to question, that were to become masters; but ours it is to
   obey without questioning, even as soldiers do. Submission to our Lord
   and Savior will be manifested by ready obedience: delays are
   essentially insubordinations, and neglects are a form of rebellion. I
   fear that there are some Christians whose disobedience to Christ is a
   proof of their pride. It may be said that they do not know such and
   such a duty to be incumbent upon them. Ay, but there is a proud
   ignorance which does not care to know, a pride which despises the
   commandment of the Lord, and counts it non-essential and unimportant.
   Can such scorn be justifiable? Is that a right temper for the Lord's
   servant to indulge? Can any point in our Lord's will be unimportant to
   us? Can the wish of a dear friend be trivial to those who love him? Has
   Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments," and shall I treat
   them as matters of no moment? No, my Lord, if it were the lifting of a
   stone from the road, if it were the moving of a sere leaf, or the
   brushing away of a cobweb, if thou ordainest it, then it becomes
   important straightway,— important to my loving allegiance, that I may
   by my prompt obedience show how fully I submit myself to thee. Love is
   often more seen in little things than in great things. You may have in
   your house a servant who is disaffected, and yet she will perform all
   the necessary operations of the household, but the loving child attends
   to the little details which make up the comfort of life, and are the
   tests of affection. Let your love be shown by a childlike obedience,
   which studies to do all the Master's will in all points.

   I am afraid there are some who do not obey the Master because they are
   proud enough to think that they know better than he does; they judge
   the Lord's will instead of obeying it. Art thou a judge of the law, my
   brother? Art thou to sit on the judgment-seat and say of this or that
   statute of the law, "This does not signify," or, "That may be set aside
   without any loss to me"? This is not according to the mind of Christ,
   who did his Father's will and asked no questions. When next you pray,
   "Thy will be done in earth, even as it is in heaven," remember how they
   do that will before the throne of God, without hesitation, demur, or
   debate, being wholly subservient to every wish of the Most High. Thus,
   dear brethren, "Submit yourselves to God."

   The expression, however, is not well worked out unless I add another
   explanation, and perhaps even then I have not brought out its meaning
   fully. "Submit yourselves to God" by yielding your hearts to the
   motions of the divine Spirit: by being impressible, sensitive, and
   easily affected. The Spirit of God has hard work with many Christians
   to lead them in the right way, they are as the horse and the mule which
   have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle.
   There is the stout oak in the forest, and a hurricane howls through it,
   and it is not moved, but the rush by the river yields to the faintest
   breath of the gale. Now, though in many things ye should be as the oak
   and not as the rush, yet in this thing be ye as the bulrush and be
   moved by the slightest breathing of the Spirit of God. The
   photographer's plates are rendered sensitive by a peculiar process: you
   shall take another sheet of glass and your friend shall stand before it
   as long as ever he likes, and there will be no impression produced, at
   least none which will be visible to the eye; but the sensitive plate
   will reveal every little wrinkle of the face and perpetuate every hair
   of the head. Oh, to be rendered sensitive by the Spirit of God, and we
   can be made so by submitting ourselves entirely to his will. Is there
   not a promise to that effect?— "I will take away the stony heart out of
   your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh."

   Sometimes the Spirit of God whispers to you, "Retire to pray." At such
   times enter your closet at once. Remember how David said, "When thou
   saidst unto me, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face Lord
   will I seek." The Spirit of God will sometimes impel you to a duty
   which involves self-denial, which will take up much of your leisure,
   and will bring you no very great honor as a reward. Be not disobedient
   to his call, but go about your work speedily. Say with the Psalmist, "I
   made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments." The Spirit will
   at times urge us to deep repentance on account of faults in which we
   have been living, he will rebuke us for some ugly temper which we have
   indulged, or for some hard word which we have spoken against a brother,
   or because of the worldliness of mind into which we have fallen. Oh,
   brother, bestir thyself at such times, and examine and purge thy soul.
   Let a hint from the Holy Spirit be enough for thee. As the eyes of the
   handmaiden are towards her mistress, so let your eyes be to your Lord.
   The handmaid does not require the mistress to speak: it will often
   happen when she is waiting at table, and there are friends, the
   mistress nods or puts her finger up, and that is enough. She does not
   call out "Mary, do this or that," or speak to her loudly a dozen times,
   as the Lord has to do to us, but a wink suffices. So it ought to be
   with us; half a word from the divine Spirit, the very gentlest motion
   from him, should be enough guidance, and straightway we should be ready
   to do his bidding. In this matter it is not so much your activity as
   your submission to the Holy Spirit which is needed; it is not so much
   your running as your willing to be drawn by him. There is to be an
   activity in religion: we are to wrestle and to fight, but side by side
   with that we are to yield ourselves to the Spirit's impulse, for it is
   he that worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure; he
   striveth in us mightily, and if we will but resign ourselves, and no
   longer be obstacles in his divine way, he will carry us to greater
   heights of grace, and create in us more fully the likeness of Christ.
   "Submit yourselves unto God." Learn the sweetness of lying passive in
   his hand, and knowing no will but his: learn the blessedness of giving
   yourselves up entirely to his divine sway, for in so doing you will
   enter into heaven below.

   II. Now we come to that part of our discourse in which we must
   earnestly pray God the Holy Spirit to help us doubly. I desire now to
   address myself TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT SAVED, but have some desire to be
   so. I am thankful to God that there should be even the faintest wish of
   the kind. May it grow at once into an impetuous longing; yea, may that
   longing be fulfilled this very morning, and may you go out of this
   house saved. You tell me that you have been anxious about your soul for
   some time, but have made no headway. You have been putting forth great
   efforts, you have been very diligent in attending the means of grace,
   in searching the Scriptures, and in private prayer, but you cannot get
   on. It is very possible, my dear friend, that the reason is this, that
   you have not submitted yourself to God; you are trying to do when the
   best thing would be to cease from yourself, and drop into the hand of
   the Savior who is able to save you though you cannot save yourself: For
   a proud heart the very hardest thing is to submit. Do you find it so?
   "No surrender" is the stubborn sinner's motto. I have known men who
   would give their bodies to be burned sooner than yield to God. Their
   high stomach has stood out long against the Most High, and they have
   been little Pharaohs till the Lord has brought them to their senses.
   "Must I yield, must I bow at his feet?"— they could not brook such
   humiliation. If the gospel had tolerated their pride and given them a
   little credit they would have rejoiced in it; but to be tumbled in the
   dust, and made to confess their own nothingness they could not bear.
   "Submit" is wormwood and gall to haughty sinners, yet must they drink
   the cup or die. Hear then, ye stout-hearted, you can never be saved
   unless you submit, and when you are saved one of the main points in
   your salvation will be that you have submitted. I desire to whisper one
   little truth in your ear, and I pray that it may startle you: You are
   submitting even now. You say, "Not I; am lord of myself." I know you
   think so, but all the while you are submitting to the devil. The verse
   before us hints at this. "Submit yourselves unto God. Resist the devil,
   and he will flee from you." If you do not submit to God you never will
   resist the devil, and you will remain constantly under his tyrannical
   power. Which shall be your master, God or devil, for one of these must?
   No man is without a master: some power or other is paramount within us,
   either good or evil is supreme in our hearts; and if we will not be
   mastered by the good, the evil has already gained the sway.

   "How then am I to submit?" says one: "To what shall I submit, and in
   what respects?" Well, first, submit thyself, if thou wouldest be saved,
   to the Word of God. Believe it to be true. Believing it to be true,
   yield thyself to its force. Does it accuse thee? Confess the
   accusation. Does it condemn thee? Plead guilty. Does it hold out hope
   to thee? Grasp it. Does it command thee? Obey it Does it guide thee?
   Follow it. Does it cheer thee? Believe it. Submit thyself to him who in
   this blessed page proclaims himself the Savior of all such as will
   throw down the weapons of their rebellion and end their futile war by
   relying upon his power to save them.

   Yield thyself, next, to thy conscience. Thou hast quarelled with thy
   conscience, and thy conscience with thee. It persists in speaking, and
   thou desirest it to be quiet. After dissipation, in the lull which
   comes after a storm of evil pleasure, a voice is heard saying, "Is this
   right? Is this safe? Will this last? What will the end of this be?
   Would it not be better to seek some better and nobler thing than this?"
   God speaks often to men through the still small voice of conscience.
   Open thine ear, then, and listen. Thy conscience can do thee no hurt;
   it may disturb thee, but it is well to be disturbed when peace leads on
   to death. He was a fool who killed the watch dog because it alarmed him
   when thieves were breaking into his house. If conscience upbraid thee,
   feel its upbraiding and heed its rebuke. It is thy best friend;
   faithful are its friendly wounds, but the kisses of a flattering enemy
   are deceitful.

   God also sends many messengers. To some of you he has sent the
   tenderest of monitors. Hearken to their admonitions and regard their
   kind warnings, for they mean good to thy souls. Is it hard, O son, is
   it hard to submit when the message comes by a mother's loving lips,
   when her tears bedew each word she speaks? It must have been difficult
   for some of you in your young days to stand out against a mother's
   entreaties when she not only pointed you to heaven, but led the way;
   not only spoke of Jesus, but reflected his love in her daily walk and
   conversation. You have a sister, young man, whom you love and respect:
   you could hardly tell how much an object of admiration she is to you.
   Now, that letter of hers, which you turned into a joke; you did feel
   it, after all. Yield to its pathetic pleadings, yield to its tender
   entreaties. Remember, God has other messengers whom he will send if
   these loving ones do not suffice. He will soon send thee a sterner
   summons. If thou listen not to the gentle word, the still, small voice,
   he can send to thee by the rougher messengers of disease and death. Be
   not so foolish as to provoke him so to do.

   Moreover, submit yourselves to God, since he has, perhaps, already sent
   his messengers in sterner shapes to you. It was but a few days ago that
   you lost your old friend. Many a merry day you have spent together, and
   many a jovial night too; he was in as good health as yourself,
   apparently, but he was struck down, and you have followed him to the
   tomb. Is there no voice from that new made grave to you? Methinks your
   friend in his sudden end was a warning to you to be ready for the like
   departure! You have also yourself suffered from premonitory symptoms of
   sickness; perhaps you have actually been sick, and been made to lie
   where your only prospect was eternity; a dread eternity, how surely
   yours. You trembled to gaze into it, but the very tones of the
   surgeon's voice compelled you to do so. You feared that you would have
   to leave this body, and you could not help saying to yourself, "Whither
   shall I fly? My naked spirit, whither must it go when once it leaves
   the warm precincts of this house of clay?" It is not my business
   one-tenth as much as it is yours— but I charge you, hear the voice of
   these providences, listen to these solemn calls. The angel of death has
   stood at your bedside and pointed to you and said, "Young man, it is
   the fever this time and you may recover, but the next time you will
   never rise from the bed on which you lie: or, you have been rescued now
   from a dreadful accident, but the next time there will be no escape for
   you. Because I will do this, prepare to meet thy God."

   Above all, I pray you submit yourselves, if you are conscious of such
   things, to the whispers of God's Holy Spirit. God's Holy Spirit does
   not strive with every man alike. Some have so grieved him that he has
   ceased to strive with them, or does so very occasionally and then they
   so resist his strivings that they are never very long continued. The
   worst man that lives has his better moments, the most careless has some
   serious thoughts; there are lucid intervals in the madness of carnal
   pleasure. At such times men hear what they call "their better selves."
   It is hardly so. I prefer to call it the general reprovings of God's
   Spirit in their souls. He says to them, Is this right? Is this wise?
   This trifling, this time-killing, this depraving of the soul by
   allowing the bodily appetites to rule, this lowering of the man to the
   level of the brute, can this be right? Is there no eternity? Is there
   no immortality, no God, no judgment to come?" The Holy Spirit sometimes
   opens the man's eyes as he did the eyes of Balaam, and makes him see
   the certainty of the judgment day and the nearness of its approach. The
   man is led to anticipate the trumpet's sound which heralds the assize,
   the coming of the Judge upon his great white throne, the gathering of
   the multitudes of quick and dead, the opening of the books, the
   dividing of the throng, the driving away of the goats to their
   everlasting punishment, and the reception of the righteous to their
   everlasting joy. Oh, when you are made to feel all this, I pray you
   submit yourself to it. It costs some men a great deal of trouble to be
   damned. Many a man who blasphemes and talks infidelity, merely does so
   to conceal his inward struggles. Like the boy who whistles as he goes
   through the churchyard to keep his courage up, they talk blasphemy to
   divert their mind from its own fears. He who is most fierce in the
   utterance of his disbelief is not the greatest disbeliever. When the
   heathen offered children to Moloch they beat their drums to drown the
   cries of the victims, and even so these men make a great noise to drown
   the voice of conscience. The man knows better, and I charge him to let
   that better knowledge come to the front and lead him to his God and
   Father. It will be a blessed thing for him if it shall be so even this
   day. "Submit yourselves to God."

   If you ask me again, "In what respect am I to submit myself?" I answer
   as briefly as I can, first submit yourself by confessing your sin. Cry
   peccavi. Do not brazen it out and say "I have not sinned." You will
   never be pardoned while that is the case. "He that confesseth his sin
   shall find mercy." Sinner, choose between one of two things; judge
   yourself, or be judged of God. If you will judge yourself and put in a
   plea of guilty, then will the Great Judge grant you forgiveness, but
   not else. Condemn yourself and you shall not be condemned. Confess the
   indictment to be true, for true it is, and to deny it is to seal your
   doom.

   Next, honor the law which condemns you. Do not persevere in picking
   holes in it and saying that it is too severe, and requires too much of
   a poor fallible creature. The law is holy, and just, and good. Put thy
   lips down and kiss it, though it condemn thee, and say, "though it
   charges me with guilt and convicts me of deadly sin, yet it is a good
   law, and ought not to be altered, even to save me."

   Next, own the justice of the penalty. Thy sins condemn thee to hell: do
   not say "God is too severe; this is a punishment disproportionate to
   the offense." Thou wilt never be pardoned if thou thinkest so, but God
   will be justified in thy condemnation: the pride of thy heart will be a
   swift witness against thee. Confess with thy heart, "If my soul were
   sent to hell it is no more than I deserve." When thou hast confessed
   the guilt, and honored the law, and acknowledged the justice of the
   penalty, then thou art nearing the position in which God can be
   merciful to thee.

   Submit yourself, sinner— I pray you do it now— submit yourself to God
   as your king. Throw down your weapons; lower your crest and cast away
   those robes of pride. Surrender unconditionally and say, "Lord God, I
   own thee now to be king, no longer like stout-hearted Pharaoh will I
   ask, 'Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?' but like one
   brought to his senses I yield as reason and grace suggest." It will go
   well with you when you make a full capitulation, an unconditional
   surrender. Fling wide the gates of the city of Mansoul, and admit the
   prince Emanuel to rule as sole sovereign in every street in the city.
   Dispute no longer his sovereignty, but pray to be made a loyal subject,
   obedient in all things. Thou shalt find grace in the sight of the Lord
   if thou wilt do this.

   Furthermore, submit yourself to God's way of saving you. Now God's way
   of saving you is by his grace, not by your merits; by the blood of
   Jesus, not by your tears and sufferings. He will justify you by your
   simply trusting Jesus now. Your proud heart does not admire the Lord's
   way of salvation; you stand up and say, "How is this consistent with
   morality?" As if you were the guardian of morality, as if the King of
   Heaven and earth could not take care of the moralities without
   assistance from you. Who are you to be all of a sudden the champion of
   morality? How dare you dream that the thrice holy God will not take
   care of that? He bids you trust his Son Jesus; will you do so or not?
   If you will not, there is no hope for you; if you will, you are saved
   the moment that you believe,— saved from the guilt of sin by trusting
   Jesus.

   You must also surrender yourself at discretion to his method of
   operating upon you. One says, "I would believe in Jesus, sir, if I felt
   the horror and terror which some have experienced on account of sin."
   What do you demand of God that he should drag you through horrors and
   terrors before you will believe? Submit yourself to be saved in a
   gentler way. "But I read of one," says another, "who had a dream: I
   would believe if I saw a vision too." Must God give thee dreams? Must
   he play lackey to thee, and save thee in thy way? He tells thee
   plainly, "If thou believest on the Lord Jesus Christ thou shalt be
   saved." Wilt thou believe or no? For if thou dost not, neither dreams,
   nor visions, nor terrors, nor anything else can save thee. There is
   God's way, sinner: I ask thee, and perhaps thy answer will settle thy
   fate for ever, wilt thou follow that way or not? If thou wilt not, thou
   hast chosen thine own destruction; but if thou wilt have it, and wilt
   submit thyself to be saved by believing in Jesus Christ, it is well
   with thee. I know there are some in this place who feel ready to burst,
   for their broken hearts are saying, "I yield at once. Oh, if he would
   but save me." How glad I am to hear you say so, for "he giveth grace
   unto the humble." I recollect the time when I have stood and cried to
   God, "O God, if I must lie on a sick bed till I die, I care not if thou
   wilt but have mercy on me; if thou wilt but conquer my proud will, and
   make a new man of me, thou mayst do whatever thou pleasest with me;
   only save me from the guilt, the power of sin." It was when the Lord
   brought me down there that he enabled me to see life and salvation in
   Jesus Christ; and if he has brought you down to that point, sinner,
   then you have nothing to do but simply trust the Lord Jesus Christ, and
   you are assuredly saved.

   When he brings you to submit he has given you his grace. Submission to
   his divine will is the essence of salvation. Now, who will yield? Who
   will yield at once? The Master has come among us, the King himself is
   here, your Maker, your Redeemer: see the marks of his wounds, see the
   scars in his hands and feet and side! He asks of you, "Will you yield
   to me? Will you throw down your weapons? Will you end the war? Will you
   surrender at discretion?" If so, he gives you his hand and says, "Go in
   peace; there is peace between me and thee." Kiss the Son lest he be
   angry, and ye perish from the way, while his wrath is kindled but a
   little. I prayed the Lord to give me many souls, and I believe I shall
   have them this morning. I feel sure of it. Grant me this favor: if you
   submit yourselves to Christ let me hear of it, and do not delay to
   unite yourselves with those who rejoice to be led in triumph as the
   captives of his grace.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— James 4.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 181, 578, 654.
     __________________________________________________________________

Trial by the Word

   (No. 1277)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, February 6th, 1876, by

   C.H. SPURGEON,

   At the [7]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

   "Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him."
   Psalm 105:19

   JOSEPH WAS ALTOGETHER an extraordinary personage. He was a young man of
   great personal beauty, and he exhibited also a lovely character, full
   of gentleness, kindness, and truth. The grace of God had made him as
   beautiful in mind as nature had made him comely in person. He was also
   exceedingly thoughtful; perhaps at first rather more thoughtful than
   active, so that his brothers, not only because he had seen two
   remarkable visions, but probably because of his contemplative habits,
   said of him, "Behold, this dreamer cometh." He was the swan in the
   duck's nest; his superior genius and character separated him from the
   rest of the family, and none of them could understand him; he was,
   therefore, the object of their envy and hatred, so that they even
   proposed to murder him, and ultimately sold him for a slave. He was
   destined, however, for a nobler lot than theirs; they were to feed
   their flocks, but he was ordained to feed the world; they were to rule
   their own families, but he to govern the most ancient of empires. From
   the very beginning his supremacy in Israel had been foretold by a
   double dream. Their sheaves were seen to pay homage to his sheaf, while
   the sun and moon and eleven stars also made obeisance to him. This was
   the light which shone upon Joseph's early days, the star of prophecy
   which afterwards gilded his darkest moments and cheered him on while he
   endured affliction. You may rest assured, brethren, that wherever God
   gives extraordinary gifts or graces, and appoints an extraordinary
   career, he also appoints unusual trial. There is a verse— I think it is
   Cowper's— which says that

   "The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
   Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."

   To eminence of any desirable kind there is no royal road, but we must
   wade through tribulation to it. For Joseph to become prime minister of
   Egypt the path lay through the prison-house: to all true honor the road
   is difficult. Expect, then, dear friend, if God gifts thee, or if he
   graces thee, that he intends to try thee. Such a reflection will tone
   down thine exultation and prevent its degenerating into pride, and it
   will aid thee to gird up the loins of thy mind and stand in all
   sobriety, prepared for that which awaits thee. Look upon talents and
   graces, and high hopes of eminent usefulness as signs of inevitable
   tribulation. Do not congratulate yourself, and sing, "Soul, take thine
   ease; thou art happy in possessing such special gifts," but prepare to
   do the life-work to which thou art called. Thou art favored of the
   Lord, but do not look for the happiness of ease, carnal enjoyment, and
   human approval, for "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for
   when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord
   hath promised to them that love him."

   Joseph's worst trial happened to him when he was accused of attempting
   a foul assault upon his mistress. Who would not writhe under so
   horrible a charge? When he was put in prison, and his feet were made
   fast with fetters, he became exceedingly troubled, so that the iron
   surrounded his soul. How long he was in "durance vile," as a chained
   prisoner, we do not know, but it must have been some considerable
   period; and during those dreary months thoughts of his father and his
   fond love, memories of his cruel brothers, and reflections upon his sad
   lot, must have keenly wounded him. He was pained to remember how much
   his character had suffered from a woman's malicious falsehood, and most
   of all how much blasphemy the heathen had poured upon the name of God,
   whom he had represented in the house of Potiphar. Do you wonder that
   the iron entered into his soul?

   The word of the Lord tried him very severely. Alone, in darkness, in an
   uncomfortable cell, his limbs fretted with chains, no one to speak to
   him, every one condemning him as guilty of the basest treachery towards
   the man who had made him his confidential and favored servant— he found
   himself regarded as the offscouring of all things, and the object of
   ridicule to all who were about him. "The archers sorely grieved him,
   and shot at him, and hated him;" but, blessed be God, his bow abode in
   strength, and he overcame at the last.

   This morning we will commune together upon the trials of Joseph, and
   our own afflictions. Our first reflections shall be spent upon the
   importance of trial; secondly, we will consider the peculiarity of the
   believer's trial for "the word of the Lord tried him;" and thirdly, we
   will observe the continuance and the conclusion of the trial,— "until
   the time that his word came." May the ever blessed Spirit direct our
   meditations.

   I. First, let us dwell upon THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIAL. The Lord might
   easily have taken every one of us home to heaven the moment we were
   converted. Certainly his omnipotence was equal to the task of our
   immediate perfect sanctification. If the dying thief was rendered fit
   to be in Paradise the same day on which he believed, so might each one
   of us have been made ready to enter heaven; but it has not so pleased
   God. We doubt not that there are myriads before the eternal throne who
   have reached the abode of bliss without treading the winepress of
   affliction.

   "Babes hither caught from womb and breast,
   Claim right to sing above the rest;
   Because they found the happy shore,
   They never saw nor sought before."

   Theirs is a victory for which they never fought; they wear a crown
   though they never bore a cross. To sovereign grace these blessed ones
   will never cease to ascribe their bliss. But as for those of us who
   live to riper years, it will be written concerning all of us as of
   others who have gone before, "These are they who came out of great
   tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the
   blood of the Lamb." But why is it so appointed? Is this discipline of
   any use to us? The word here used is in itself a light upon the
   question, "The word of the Lord assayed him"— that would be the correct
   translation. The word of the Lord assayed Joseph as gold is assayed: it
   is a term best understood at the Mint, and among refiners. Trial in the
   Christian church is the Lord's fining pot, which is never off the fire.
   It has this excellent effect, that it separates the precious from the
   vile. As long as the church exists, I suppose she will have traitors
   amongst her number, for if Judas intruded under the watchful eye of the
   Chief Shepherd, we may be pretty sure that many a Judas will elude the
   far less watchful eyes of the minor shepherds. Because trial and
   persecution test men's professions, they are used as the winnowing fan
   in the Lord's hand, as it is written, "He will thoroughly purge his
   floor." In persecution, the mere professors, the camp-followers and
   hangers-on, soon flee away, for they have no heart to true religion
   when the profession of it involves the cross. They could walk with
   Jesus in silver slippers, but they cannot travel with him when his
   bleeding feet go barefoot over the world's rough ways, and therefore
   they depart every man to his own, and we may say of them "They went out
   from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
   would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they
   might be made manifest that they were not all of us." So that trial as
   a permanent institution is of much service to the church in promoting
   her purity, and we are bound to praise the Lord whose fire is in Zion
   and his furnace in Jerusalem.

   A similar process goes on in the individual soul. No Christian man is
   all that he thinks he is; our purest gold is alloyed. We have none of
   us so much faith as we impute to ourselves, nor so much patience, or
   humility, or meekness, or love to God, or love to men. Spurious coin
   swells our apparent wealth. It is amazing how rich and increased in
   goods we are till the Lord deals with us by a trial, and then full
   often we discover that we are naked, and poor, and miserable in the
   very respects in which we boasted ourselves. Oh, man, if thou be a
   child of God thou art like a house which he is building with gold, and
   silver, and precious stones; but by reason of thine old nature thou art
   mixing up with the divine material much of thine own wood, and hay, and
   stubble; therefore is it that the fire is made to rage around thee to
   burn out this injurious stuff which mars the whole fabric. If the Holy
   Spirit be pleased to bless thine afflictions to thee then wilt thou be
   daily led to put away the materials of the old nature with deep
   abhorrence and repentance, and thus shall the true work of God which he
   has built upon the sure foundation, stand in its true beauty, and thou
   shalt be builded for eternity.

   Every good man is not only tested by trial, but is the better for it.
   To the evil man affliction brings evil, he rebels against the Lord,
   and, like Pharaoh, his heart is hardened. But to the Christian it is
   good to be afflicted, for, when sanctified by the Spirit trial is a
   means of instruction to him, second to none in value. The rod of God
   teacheth us more than all the voices of his ministers. When the
   Christian has been passed through the fire, the assaying, by removing
   the dross, adds a new lustre to the gold. Brother, thou art not what
   thou shalt be, nor canst thou be what thou shalt be except through a
   measure of trial. Child, it is needful for thee to feel the weight of
   thy Father's hand, or thou wilt never behave thyself as a man. Thou
   must see his face veiled with frowns, and hear his voice in harshness
   chiding thee for thy transgressions, otherwise thou wilt always retain
   the follies of childhood. Our chastisements are our promotions. They
   are privileges more precious than the rights of princes. "It is good
   for me that I have been afflicted." Joseph could say this, and all the
   Lord's Josephs either own it now or will have to own it hereafter.

   Let us look a little more closely, and we shall see that trial did much
   for Joseph. First, it corrected the juvenile errors of the past. Far be
   it from me to find any fault with so admirable a youthful character;
   but it was youthful, and needed maturing. As a simple-hearted, trustful
   child, he certainly told his dreams quite as freely as it was wise to
   have done. Perhaps he thought that his brothers and his father would
   have been as gratified as himself, but even his father rebuked him, and
   his brothers were indignant to the last degree. It was natural that a
   boy of seventeen should be pleased with the thought of power and
   eminence, but such a feeling might have gendered evil, and therefore it
   needed to be toned down, and its eager expression kept within bounds.
   We find Joseph more self-possessed and more reticent by-and-by, and we
   read in after life that he restrained himself— ay, when the strongest
   passions were at work within him, and his own brother Benjamin was
   before him, he sacrificed his feelings to the dictates of prudence. We
   see no more boyish exultation, no more telling of his dreams: in
   quietness and confidence he found his strength. This he no doubt
   learned amid the sorrows of his prison-house.

   He was, perhaps, also in his early days too much in a hurry to realize
   the promised blessing. He would see the sheaves do obeisance to his
   sheaf at once, while he and his brethren were as yet but green corn,
   and the harvest had not come: hence the pleasure he had in the coat of
   many colors which his father's fondness put upon him. He thought the
   dream was being realized, no doubt, when that princely garment was put
   upon him, and he began in some measure to exercise the dignity which
   the Lord had promised him by reporting his brethren to his father,
   which action I do not condemn, but it, no doubt, made his brothers feel
   that he took too much upon himself, since they were many of them old
   enough to have been his father, and had families of their own. At any
   rate, he had not learned then, as he had to learn afterwards, during
   thirteen weary years, that visions tarry, and that we must wait for
   them, since the promise is not for to-day nor for to morrow, but abides
   until it reaches ripeness. God promiseth us great things which we see
   not as yet, and therefore we must with patience wait for them— we must
   not put on the coat of many colors yet, nor be hasty to rebuke our
   elder brothers, for we are not yet set on high by the hand of the Lord.
   Joseph had his royal coat in due time, and he had the fullest
   conceivable opportunity for reproving his brothers when in after days
   they went down into Egypt to buy corn, and their hearts smote them for
   all the wrong that they had done to him. In prison Joseph learned to
   wait: I do not know a harder or more valuable lesson. It is worth while
   to suffer slander and to feel the fret of fetters to acquire the
   patience which sits still and knows that Jehovah is God. To tarry
   awhile and not to pluck our fruit while it is yet green and sour, this
   is rare wisdom. To be instructed to leave the time as well as the form
   of the blessing in the hands of God is to have been to school with the
   best result.

   Joseph also learned in his trial much that was good for present use.
   For instance, he found by sweet experience that the divine presence can
   cheer us anywhere. If he had always been at home with his father,
   always his fathers darling, he would have known that the love of God is
   sweet to a favored youth, but no one would have been astonished at
   that. Even Satan would have said, "Well may he rejoice in thee, O Lord.
   Hast thou not set a hedge about him and all that he hath?" But he
   learned that God could be with him when he was sold for the price of a
   slave: with him when led as a captive across the desert, when he walked
   wearily by the camel's side with the Ishmaelites: with him in the slave
   mart to find him a master who might appreciate him; with him when he
   became a servant in the house, by blessing him, prospering him, and
   causing him to find favor in the eyes of his master till he became
   overseer of all that Potiphar had: and then, best of all, though some
   would say worst of all, he learned that God could be with him in a
   dungeon. He could not have known that if he had stopped at home, he
   must be brought into the thick darkness, that the brightness of the
   divine presence might be the more fully seen. There is nothing in this
   world so delightful as the light of God's countenance when all around
   is dark. You may tell me that the presence of Jesus is glorious upon
   Tabor's glorious mount, and I will not contradict you, though I have
   realized the poet's words—

   "At the too transporting light
   Darkness rushes o'er my sight."

   but give me the soft subdued light of God's love in adversity; Christ
   on the stormy waters for me: Christ in the midst of the furnace with
   his persecuted ones. Never does the Lord's love taste so sweet as when
   all the world is wormwood and gall. See how the mother presses her dear
   babe to her bosom when it is sick, or has had a bone broken. The little
   one may run about the house at other times, and the mother is pleased
   with it and loves it, but if you want to see all her tenderness, if you
   would read all her heart, you should see her when it scarcely breathes,
   when she fears that every moment will be its last. Then all the mother
   is revealed. How she fondles it, and what a store of sweet words she
   brings forth. So, if you would see all of God, you must know what deeps
   of trouble mean, for then the great heart, the glorious, infinite love
   comes welling over, and the soul is filled with all the fullness of
   God. It was worth while, I say, for Joseph to be falsely accused, and
   to be laid in irons, to learn experimentally the supporting power of
   the heavenly Father's smile.

   There, too, Joseph learned that temporal things are not to be depended
   upon. The indulgences of his father's house end in his being sold as a
   slave, and the coat of many colors is dipped in blood. His prosperity
   in the house of Potiphar also came to a sudden end, and from being an
   overseer he became a prisoner in irons. Now he knew that earthly good
   is not to be depended on, and therefore not worthy to be the object of
   pursuit to an immortal soul: he sees that all things beneath the moon
   change, waxing and waning as doth the moon herself, and he learns to
   look to something higher and more stable than circumstances and
   surroundings.

   Here, too, he was instructed in one sad truth, which we are all so slow
   to learn, namely, to "cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils,
   for wherein is he to be accounted of?" I do not think Joseph had
   learned that fully when he interpreted the dream of the butler. It was
   very natural, and therefore not to be censured that he should say,
   "Think of me when it shall be well with thee;" but when two whole years
   had passed and all the while he was forgotten, Joseph must have felt
   that, "Cursed is he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm." He
   ceased from man, and no longer looked for enlargement from that
   quarter. Cost us what it may, we are great gainers by any process which
   enables us to say, "My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my
   expectation is from him." It is a blessed thing when providence knocks
   away all the dog-shores, and lets the vessel launch into her true
   element. See how freely she floats upon the deep sea of God's
   everlasting love and immutable faithfulness. She is no more liable to
   decay from the dry rot of carnal confidence, but on the broad sea of
   divine power "she walks the waters as a thing of life" in joyful
   reliance upon the ever blessed God. Confidence in man seems bred in our
   bone, but it must be taken out of us, and happy shall the day be which
   sees us rid of all hope but that which stays itself upon the Lord
   alone.

   But, dear brethren, the chief use of trial to Joseph and to us is very
   often seen in our future lives. While Joseph was tried in prison God's
   great object was to prepare him for the government which awaited him.
   It was designed first to give him power to bear power: a rare
   acquirement. Solomon says, "As the fining pot to silver, and the
   furnace to gold, so is a man to his praise." Many a man can bear
   affliction, but few men can endure prosperity; and I have marked it,
   and you must have marked it too, that the most perilous thing in all
   the world is to step suddenly from obscurity into power. Have we not
   seen men, illiterate and unknown, suddenly introduced to the Christian
   pulpit, and made much of, and has it not frequently turned out that
   their names have been by-and-by prudently forgotten, for they were
   overthrown by the dizzy heights to which they were lifted? It is far
   better that a man should fight his way up to his position, that he
   should be assailed by enemies and distrusted by friends, and should
   pass through a probationary career. Even then he can only stand as the
   Lord holds him, but without it he is in especial peril. Hence the
   apostle says, "not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall
   into the condemnation of the devil." If I knew that some young man here
   present would be greatly owned of God in the future, and become in
   future a prince in our Israel, if by lifting up of this finger I could
   screen him from fierce criticism, misrepresentation, and abuse, I would
   not do it, because, severe as the ordeal might be to him, I am
   persuaded it is needful that he should pass through it in order to make
   him able to bear the giddy heights of the position for which God
   intends him. Joseph on the throne of Egypt, I know not what he might
   have been if first of all he had not been laid in the stocks. His feet
   learned to stand fast on a throne through having been set fast in a
   dungeon. His gold chain was worn without pride because he had worn a
   chain of iron; and he was fit to be the ruler of princes because he had
   himself been a servant among prisoners. Through his trial God gave him
   power to bear power, and this is a far rarer gift than the power to
   endure oppression and contempt.

   Joseph was also trained to bear the other dangers of prosperity. These
   are neither few nor small. Great riches and high positions are not to
   be desired. Agur's prayer is a wise one: "Give me neither poverty nor
   riches." Joseph was in great peril when he came to be lord over the
   land of Egypt, but during his time in prison he had been learning to
   spell out a mystery and answer a riddle. Practically, his
   interpretation of Pharaoh's dream was what he had been learning in
   prison, namely, that it is idle to boast of the fat kine, since the
   lean kine can soon eat them up, and it is unwise to be proud of the
   full ears, because the withered ears can soon devour them. Pharaoh saw
   in the dream the lean devouring the full-fleshed, but Joseph alone
   understood it. He saw his fat kine when he was in his father's house
   eaten up when he was sold as a slave; he saw his full ears when he was
   in Potiphar's house devoured by the withered ears when he was thrown
   into prison, and he now knew that there was nothing here below worth
   our relying upon, since on the chariot of all earthly good there rides
   a Nemesis, and every day is followed by a night. He was tutored to be a
   ruler for he had learned the prisoner's side of politics, and felt how
   hard it was for men to be unjustly condemned without trial. He foresaw
   that this could not be for ever endured, and that one day the
   long-suffering lean kine would be goaded to fury, and would eat up the
   fat ones that oppressed them. Hence Joseph's rule would be just and
   generous, for in this he would see the elements which would preserve
   law and order, and prevent the poorer sort from overturning everything.

   In the prison, too, he had learned to speak out. His whole course had
   been a rehearsal fitting him to be bravely truthful before the king.
   What temptation was there to him when he stood before Pharaoh to
   conceal his faith in God? To him, I say, who had risked life and lost
   liberty for God's sake? It would have been a very great temptation to
   an ordinary young man not to say anything about the one God in the
   presence of the head of the Egyptian superstitions, but this did not
   suggest itself to Joseph. Had he confessed his God in Potiphar's house?
   Did he not say to Potiphar's wicked wife, "How can I do this great
   wickedness, and sin against God"? He had stood to his God in prison,
   and told the butler and baker that "interpretations belong unto God":
   and now he stands before Pharaoh he does not flinch for a moment, but
   he says "God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." Why, brethren,
   have you ever thought of the moral courage of Joseph in interpreting
   that dream? All the soothsayers there who had tried to interpret it and
   could not— was it likely the heathen king would believe a youth who had
   been a slave and was fresh brought from a dungeon? When he foretold
   seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, it was a marvel that
   Pharaoh believed him. If the narrative had gone on to say, "Then the
   king said unto his servants, cast this man into prison and feed him
   with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction until we see
   whether his word shall come to pass," we should not have been at all
   surprised. The magicians naturally enough would be ready to say that he
   was set on to give this preposterous interpretation by persons
   interested in selling corn; or else they would urge that a man who
   dared to foretell events so utterly improbable had better be sent back
   to his prison house. But Joseph believed the word of the Lord, and he
   spoke with the accent of conviction, and Pharaoh believed also. Whence
   came this simple-minded courage? Whence this boldness? It was the right
   royal velour which doth hedge about a virtuous soul— or rather the
   fearlessness which follows from the fear of God. He stood forth and
   delivered his message, and the Lord established his word. He had been
   preparing for this in the day of his sorrow: like a good sword-blade,
   he had been passed through the fire and through the fire again, that
   now he might not fail in the day of battle. Oh, dear brothers and
   sisters, may you gain as much from tribulation as Joseph did, and you
   will do so if the Holy Spirit sanctifies them to you.

   II. We must pass on secondly to notice THE PECULIARITY OF THE TRIAL.
   According to the text, "the word of the Lord tried him." This might
   have escaped our observation if the Spirit of God had not placed it
   upon record. "The word of the Lord tried him." How was that? Potiphar
   tried him, and the chains tried him, but did the word of the Lord try
   him? Yes. But there is a previous question— how did he receive any word
   of the Lord? There was no Bible then; Moses had not lived, there was
   not even the book of Genesis,— what word of God had he? His dreams were
   to him the word of God, for they were communications from heaven; the
   instruction he received from his father was also the word of God to
   him, his knowledge of the covenant which God had made with Abraham and
   Isaac, and his father Jacob, was God's word to him. Moreover, the
   secret teachings of the Holy Spirit quickened his conscience and
   afforded him light on the way. When there was no written word the
   divine Spirit spoke without words, impressing truth upon the heart
   itself. All these were to Joseph the word of God. How did it try him?
   It tried him thus,— the word said to him in his conscience, "Thou shalt
   not commit adultery." Without that word he would not have been tried,
   for nature suggested compliance with his mistress's desires. The
   pleasure of ease, of wealth, of favor, were to be had through that
   woman's smile, but the word of God came in and said, "Thou shalt not,"
   and Joseph was tried. The test, however, he could bear: grace enabled
   him to flee youthful lusts and to cry, "How can I do this great
   wickedness, and sin against God?"

   The trial which arose out of his innocence must have again tested him
   by the word of God. There he is in prison— for what? Why, for an action
   so pure that had he been set on a throne for it he would have well
   deserved it. Do you not think that many questions perplexed him while
   he lay in prison? Would not the evil spirit say, "Were you not a fool
   after all? Do you not think that your chastity was mere superstition?"
   Thus would the purity of his heart be tried, and the word would search
   him, and test his hatred of sin. Would not the word of God try his
   constancy as it asked, "Do you now believe?" What problems were put
   before him— Is there a moral governor of the universe? If so why does
   he allow the innocent to suffer? Why am I in fetters, and the lewd
   woman in favor? Could not an omnipotent God deliver me? Why then does
   he leave me here? Could Joseph in the face of such questions still
   cling to the faithful word? He could, and he did; but the word tried
   him, and proved his constancy, his faith, and his integrity.

   Then, too, the word of the Lord which he had heard many years before
   would come to him and try him. His trembling heart would say, Has God
   ever spoken to you at all? Those dreams, were they not childish? That
   voice which you thought you heard in your heart was it not imagination?
   This providence of God which has prospered you wherever you have gone
   was it not after all good luck? Has the living God ever revealed
   himself to one who at length became a slave? Look at your fetters, and
   ask if you can be his child? And then I suspect that during the time in
   which Joseph was fettered the word of God had ceased to speak to him as
   of old: he did not dream nor interpret dreams, and that seems to have
   been the especial way in which the Lord revealed himself to him.
   Brother, do you know what it is to be tried by the cessation of
   comfortable communications? Did you ever live for a time without
   feeling any text of Scripture applied to your soul, without beholding
   any vivid flashes of the divine light, or any in-streamings of the
   Spirit's power through the word? If you have been so afflicted, you
   have been tempted to enquire, did the Lord ever speak to me at all?
   Have I been truly converted, or is it after all a myth? And these
   things which I have looked upon as communications from heaven, have
   they been after all nothing but the vapours of a heated brain? The word
   of God tried him, and he had to weigh himself in the balances of the
   sanctuary.

   The bright promise of future good would also try him. His fears would
   say "How is it possible that your brothers should pay homage to you?
   You are far away from your family and cannot hope to see them again— as
   for the sheaves that did obeisance to your sheaf, where are they? You
   are shut up and cannot come forth. Within these walls the jealous
   Potiphar has doomed you to die." The word of God would say to him then,
   "Can you believe me? Can you trust the Lord to fulfill his promises?"
   Oh, my brethren, it is easy for us to talk about this, but if we had to
   pass through the same ordeal, lying friendless in a dungeon under an
   accusation of guilt which we abhorred, far away from all we loved, we
   might feel the word of God to be a very trying thing, and perhaps the
   dark thought might even flit across our spirit, "Would God I had never
   heard that word but could have lived as the Egyptians do, for then I
   might have been dwelling in pleasure in Potiphar's house still. But
   this word of God into what trials has it dragged me, into what
   difficulties has it thrown me. Is it, after all, worth while to know
   it?" I remember once being very, very ill, and a man who had no
   godliness, but who was full of wicked wit, accosted me thus. "Ah, you
   see, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." "Yes," I said, "I am
   suffering greatly." "Well," said he with a sneer, "I can do very well
   without such love, so long as I get off such chastening." I burst into
   tears, and my very soul boiled over as I cried "If the Lord were to
   grind me to powder, I would accept it at his hands, so that I might but
   have his love. It is you who need to be pitied, for sound as your
   health may be and merry as you look, you are a poor creature, since you
   have missed the only thing worth living for." I let fly a volley at
   him, I could not help it. I felt forced to stand up for my Master.
   Joseph took the Lord's yoke upon him gladly, and found rest unto his
   soul. He counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the
   luxuries of Potiphar's house. Thus the word tried him and he was found
   upright.

   I have no doubt the word of the Lord tried Joseph in this way. That
   word seemed to say, "You thought you loved your father's God, Joseph,
   do you love him now? You have lost your father's house, you have
   forfeited the ease of Potiphar's household, you have sacrificed your
   liberty, and perhaps the next thing will be that you will be taken out
   to die, can you still hold fast to the Lord?" Joseph was firm in his
   allegiance, and prepared to follow the Lord at all hazards to the
   death. The word had come to him, and it tried his steadfastness. Now I
   may be addressing some young men who are getting into all sorts of
   trouble through being Christians. I congratulate you! Thus does the
   Lord train his bravest soldiers. I may be addressing some of you older
   men who are passing through storms of trial mainly because you hold
   fast your integrity. I congratulate you! Rejoice ye in this day and
   leap for joy, for you are only enduring trials which have fallen to the
   lot of better men than yourselves. Men do not put base metal into the
   furnace, they spend their assaying upon precious gold. I see in the
   fact of your trial some evidence of your value, and I congratulate you,
   my brethren, and pray the Lord to bear you up and bear you through,
   that like Joseph you may be of great service to Israel and bring glory
   to God.

   III. The last thought is THE CONTINUANCE AND THE CONCLUSION OF THE
   TRIAL. Trial does not last for ever. Cheer up; the tide ebbs out, but
   the flood will return again. Note the word "until." He who counts the
   stars also numbers your sorrows, and if he ordains the number ten your
   trials will never be eleven. The text says, "until"; for the Lord
   appoints the bounds of the proud waters, and they shall no more go over
   your soul when they reach the boundary of the divine "until." "Until
   the time that his word came"— the same word which tried Joseph in due
   time set him free. If the Lord gives the turnkey permission to keep us
   in prison there we must remain, until he sends a warrant for our
   liberation, and then all the devils in hell cannot hold us in bondage
   for an instant longer. My dear brother, I want you in your trouble to
   look entirely to God, whose word is a word of power. He speaks, and it
   is done. He has spoken trouble to you, but he can just as readily speak
   comfort to you. Never mind what the butler's word is. Do not entreat
   him, saying, "When it is well with thee speak a word for me." The
   butler's word will not avail, it is Jehovah's word you need, for "where
   the word of a king is there is power." It is a blessed thing to know
   that trouble comes direct from God, whatever the secondary agent may
   be. You must not say, "I could have borne it if it had not been for
   that wicked woman." Never mind the wicked woman, look to God as
   overruling her malice and everything else. He sends the trial, and
   therefore look to him to deliver you from it.

   "'Tis he that lifts our comforts high,
   Or sinks them in the grave."

   He shuts us up in prison, and he brings us out again.

   The time was in God's hands, and it was very wisely ordered. Suppose
   that the butler had thought of Joseph, and had spoken to Pharaoh about
   the interpretation of his dream, the probabilities are that when the
   courtiers of Pharaoh's court heard it they would have made the halls of
   the palace ring with laughter; and the magicians would especially have
   poured scorn on the idea that a slave boy who had been imprisoned for
   scandalous behavior knew more about interpreting dreams than the wise
   men of Egypt who had been brought up to the art and had gained high
   degrees in the profession. It would have been a theme of ridicule all
   over the land. It was the wrong time, and God would not let the butler
   recollect, because that recollection would have marred the plot and
   spoiled the whole business: but God's "until" came at the nick of time
   when Joseph was ready for court, and when Pharaoh was ready to
   appreciate Joseph. The hour needed its man, and here was the hour for
   the man. The straight way from the dungeon to the throne was not open
   until Pharaoh dreamed his dream,— then must Joseph come forth and not
   before. Oh, brother, sit still and wait. The deliverance you are
   craving for is not ripe yet; wait while the word tries you, for that
   same word will in due time set you free.

   The word set him free in a way which cleared his character, for never a
   whisper would be raised against him, and Potiphar would know the truth,
   even if he had not already guessed it. It set him free in a way which
   secured his eminence, and gave him the means of providing for his
   father and his household. He might have been liberated from prison
   before, and have remained only a common person, or gone back to be a
   slave to some new master; but now his liberation secured his
   emancipation from slavery and set him in the position which enabled him
   to provide for his father and his family in the land of Goshen, and so
   the sheaves did homage to his sheaf, and the sun and moon and eleven
   stars fulfilled the vision which he had seen so many years before.

   You see, brethren, there is a time of deliverance, and the time is
   fixed of God, and it is a right time: therefore we have quietly to wait
   for it. Doth not the husbandman wait for the precious fruits of the
   earth, and will not you tarry for the fruits of the promise? Be not
   impetuous. Hush those murmuring thoughts, never allow rash expressions
   to escape your lips. Bear on, young man, bear on. Ay, and greyheaded
   man, bear on, bear on. The anvil breaks the hammers in the long run;
   bear on, bear on. The rock breaks the billows, and is not itself
   broken. Bear the trials which come to you from God and from his word
   with joy and patience, for the end is not yet, but when it cometh it
   shall be everlasting joy.

   I think I hear some saying all round the place, "Ah, I see these
   believers are a very tried people, who would wish to be one of them?"
   Hearken, friend, and I will tell thee something. Joseph was not the
   only person in prison, and the righteous are not the only people who
   are afflicted. The chief butler was in prison, and the chief baker,
   too. I wonder whether the butler and baker are here, looking sadly
   to-day. If so, there is this difference between them and Joseph, that
   the Lord is not with them, but he is with Joseph, and that makes a vast
   difference, for

   "Stone walls do not a prison make,
   Nor iron bars a cage."

   If God is in the prison with Joseph, Joseph is happy, but it is not so
   with you tried worldlings. I wonder, O butler and baker, whether you
   have had any dream; I wonder what has passed through your minds this
   morning. Wherefore look you so sadly to-day? I am no interpreter of
   dreams, but perhaps I can unriddle yours. Was a vine before you in your
   dream? That true and living vine? Did it bud and blossom, and bring
   forth fruit before your eyes, and did you take of its clusters, and
   present its pure blood to the King? If so, you will be set free, your
   dream means salvation: for there is a vine of the Lord's own planting
   whose wine maketh glad the heart of man, and he who takes of its living
   fruit is accepted. Dost thou know how to take those clusters and to
   squeeze them out? If so, the King will rejoice in thee, for nothing is
   so dear to him as the fruit of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.

   But hast thou dreamed of cakes which thou hast made by thine own skill?
   Not fruits from a vine, living and full, but mere cakes, sweetened with
   thine own self-righteousness, baked in the oven of thine own zeal and
   industry, and dost thou hope to set these before the King? The birds of
   the air already peck at them, thou beginnest now to feel that thy works
   are not altogether what thou thoughtest them to be. Oh, if this be thy
   dream I tremble for thee, for thou wilt come to an ill end. I pray the
   Lord put that dream from thee, and teach thee something better.
   Salvation is of the Lord; whether for butler, or baker, or Joseph,
   redemption is by Jesus only. Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the
   Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength, and they that trust in him
   shall never be ashamed or confounded, world without end. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON— Genesis 39:1-7, 21-23; 40:1-8,
   23; 12:1-9.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"— 214, 750, 754.
     __________________________________________________________________

Reasons For Parting With Sin

   (No. 1278)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 13, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins
   are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red
   like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18.

   IT is the great joy of our heart that we do not labor in vain nor spend
   our strength for nothing. God is calling out from the congregations
   which gather here a people unto Himself who shall show forth His
   praise. Our heart is filled with adoring joy while we find company
   after company coming forward and saying, "We have found the Lord,
   because the Lord, in mercy, has found us." Unto the name of the Ever
   Merciful be praise forever and ever because His hand is stretched out,
   still, and the Spirit of the living God is not restrained among us!
   Still there is a bass to this music--there are some, and these not a
   few, who remain unblest where others are saved--this plot of ground is
   rained upon and another is not rained upon! The sun shines and hearts,
   like wax, are melted, but other hearts, like clay, are hardened.

   This last and saddest of results has happened to some for whom we hoped
   better things. The almost persuaded have, in fact, been our peculiar
   trial. Some of you, my Hearers, have remained under the sound of the
   Gospel now for years, not without impression, but without conversion.
   The arrows of conviction have wounded your feelings, but they have not
   slain your sins. Ah, how many have disappointed their best friends in
   this respect! They have manifested the most hopeful appearance at
   times. Their tears have glittered like the dewdrops of the summer's
   morning but, alas, their goodness has been like the morning cloud and
   the early dew in another respect, for they have vanished away and they
   are as dry and graceless as ever they were.

   Nor is this all. They are even worse than they were before, for they
   have added to their sin--they have increased their responsibility, they
   have diminished the sensitiveness of their conscience--and the
   probabilities are daily increasing that they will perish in their sin!
   How terrible that they should go from the invitation of the Gospel to
   the condemnation of the Judgment Seat--and that after having looked
   God's minister of mercy in the face! They will have to confront the
   Greater Minister of Justice, from whose face they will entreat the
   rocks and hills to hide them. Oh that these would come to their senses
   and reason with themselves! Then would they listen to the call of the
   text which invites them to talk with their Lord and receive His Grace.

   Among these persons there are some who, in their hearts, venture to lay
   the blame of their present condition upon God. They do not exactly say
   so, but they mean it. They would tremble to make the accusation in set
   terms. They would even think it blasphemy to do so! But this is the
   real intent of their thoughts. They complain that they cannot find
   peace with God, though they claim that they have used all means within
   their power and have been really earnest and prayerful. They go to hear
   the Gospel and love to hear it. They would be very sorry if they were
   not able to enter the place where their favorite minister preaches, for
   he affords them much delight and even when he rebukes them, they admire
   his boldness.

   But though they have heard the Gospel and have heard it continuously,
   and claim to have heard it with good intent, yet no happy result has
   come to them. They have heard and their souls do not live! They remain
   as they were, dead in trespasses and sin. It is not their fault, so
   they say, and we know, therefore, whose fault it must be! They have
   even prayed for salvation and have not found it. Their chambers can
   bear witness that sometimes they have bowed the knee in earnest
   supplication and have cried to God--and this not once or twice, but
   many times--and yet they still remain in their sins as undecided,
   unregenerate and unforgiven as ever.

   "Surely," say they, "this is a strange thing, that hearing the Gospel
   has not blessed us and that crying unto God has not brought us an
   answer of peace! What can be the cause?" It is obvious that something
   hinders. What can it be? The

   promises of God cannot fail! Why, then, are these seekers left in the
   dark? Some of these people are not anxious to know too much and they
   will not be pleased when I state the true reason for their continuing
   without hope. They impute it to the Sovereignty of God, or to some
   withholding of Infinite Love. They put the reason into some doctrinal
   shape or other and quote a text or two so as to look orthodox, but
   their meaning comes to this--it is God's fault that they are unsaved!
   It is certainly none of theirs.

   I wish that this bold way of stating their secret thought may convince
   them of the falsehood of it. At any rate, to such I speak! Listen to
   me, O you who declare that you would gladly be saved but cannot be! O
   you who say that you have been in earnest about salvation but God has
   not been moved by your entreaties! He bids you come near and reason
   with Him and end this quibbling! Come, now, and settle this matter and
   end the dispute! It is not God who shuts you out of mercy! He declares,
   on the contrary, that as far as He is concerned, He is a God ready to
   be gracious. And though your sins are as scarlet they shall be white as
   snow, though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool!

   He will not admit your insinuations against His Grace. In the plainest
   possible terms He denies your imputations. He declares that the
   hindrance lies on your side and not on His. And He invites you to
   reason with Him about it, that the truth may be clear to you. Come,
   now, and argue with Him, for I would speak on God's behalf and press
   His Word upon you. Oh, that this morning, while the argument goes on,
   your reason might be taught right reason and your conscience might be
   quickened to give assent to the Truth of God which, in God's name, I
   will declare to you! Oh that so by the Spirit's power, being subdued by
   the persuasion and reasoning which we would gladly use this morning,
   you may yield yourselves unto God, for thus He says to you, "If you are
   willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the land; but if you
   refuse and rebel you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of
   the Lord has spoken it."

   It is most certain that the real reason why men who have an earnest
   desire to be saved and have sincere religiousness of a certain sort do
   not find peace is this--they are in love with sin! Whether some one sin
   is secretly indulged, or many sins are unrepented of and unforsaken,
   they provoke the Lord with their trespasses and then hope to pacify Him
   with their prayers. Therefore it is altogether vain for them to tread
   God's courts! In vain they pray and in vain they attend religious
   ceremonies with the view of finding peace--for they have hidden the
   accursed thing in the midst of the camp-- they are harboring a traitor
   and until this accursed thing is destroyed and this traitor is driven
   out they cannot be acceptable to God!

   To all such, the Word of God says, "What have you to do with peace
   while your offenses are so many?" O, ungodly man, your heart can never
   rest in God while it goes forth after its idols! As long as you and
   your sins are at peace, God and your soul must be at war! Until you are
   ready to be divorced from sin you can never be married to Christ. God
   will give salvation and the pardon of sin, and give them freely to the
   very chief of sinners, but the sinner must confess and forsake his sin!
   The Lord graciously says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
   unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord and He
   will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly
   pardon."

   But He also says, "There is no peace, says my God, unto the wicked,"
   and His Word solemnly declares that, "God shall wound the head of His
   enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goes on in his
   trespasses." About this matter we will talk this morning, as the Lord
   shall help us, and may His Holy Spirit bless us.

   I. "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord." Let us have
   this matter out and hear what is to be urged in favor of God's demands.
   IT IS A REASONABLE THING THAT SIN SHOULD BE RENOUNCED. As soon as I
   make that statement, every conscience here agrees with it. It is most
   reasonable that if the rebel is pardoned, he should ground his arms and
   cease to be a rebel. Look at the demand, for a minute, and it will
   strike you as being founded in right. It is most reasonable that we
   should renounce sin--that our heart should loathe it, first, because it
   is most inconsistent to suppose that pardon can be given while we
   continue in sin.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, suppose God were to say to the ungodly man,
   "You may continue in your sin, and I will forgive you. You may go on in
   your rebellion and I will never punish you for it"? What would this be
   but granting license to sin and offering a premium to iniquity? How
   could the Judge of all the earth thus wink at iniquity? Would not the
   angels cease to sing, "Holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth," if the Lord
   could act in this manner? Where would His justice be? Where His
   righteousness?

   This were to make him--I speak with reverence--an accomplice in man's
   sin, a Justifier of transgression in the present and a promoter of
   iniquity in the future! Where would moral government be if the Lord
   bestowed His pardons upon

   those who persevere in transgression? Shall men fondle their sins and
   yet be in a state of Grace? Then might every adulterer and every thief
   say, "What does it matter? I am forgiven! I will defile myself and rob
   my neighbor, yet more and more." Only fancy what the effect would be
   upon our country if a proclamation were issued that from now on all
   manner of offenses against the law would be immediately forgiven and
   men might continue still to perpetrate them! We should hasten to
   emigrate from such a pandemonium!

   The wicked might approve of such a relaxation of the bonds of law, but
   it would be an awful curse to the righteous. If the Judge of all the
   earth could possibly forgive sin while men continue to indulge in it, I
   do not see how the world could be inhabited. It would become a den of
   beasts, wild and without restraint, raging against all goodness and
   even against themselves. The very pillars of society would be moved if
   sin could be, at the same time, indulged by the sinner and pardoned by
   the Lord. And what would be the effect upon the sinner, himself, if
   such could be the case? Say to a man--you are not to be punished for
   your sin and you may live in it. What worse turn could you do him?

   Why, Sir, this would, in some respects, be a new curse to him! Here is
   a bleeding wound in my arm. The surgeon says he will allow it to bleed,
   but he will remove my sense of faintness and pain. He will leave the
   mortal injury, but take away its attendant inconveniences so that I may
   bleed to death and not know it? I would decline to have it so! No, let
   me bear the pain, if that will the more persuade me to seek the binding
   up of my wound! We do not want to be delivered from the punishment of
   sin so much as from the sin, itself, for sin bears its punishment in
   our hearts.

   Suppose there were no Hell, no Lake of Fire into which the ungodly
   shall be cast? Yet let the wicked live together and indulge envy,
   revenge and malice and you will soon see that these passions would
   create Hell! Turn men down together and let them be selfish, ambitious,
   angry, lustful, jealous and envious--take away all the restraints of
   moral government and let their passions be indulged without a single
   hindrance. Oh, what a scene it would be! Imagine a den of wild beasts
   let loose upon one another--that would be a scene of peace and beauty
   compared with what this world would be if sin were patronized by a
   promise of pardon to the impenitent!

   Each man, also, would be hateful to himself. As long as he had sin
   within him it would be impossible for him to rest, his seething
   passions would boil against each other. Man is so constituted that sin
   means an unhealthy and unhappy condition. The machinery will not work
   easily unless it acts accurately. It is at once its glory and its
   burden that it is so. O mighty God, Your wisdom makes You append
   suffering to sin. It is well that we should feel it if we put our
   finger into the fire. It were a pity to take away the pain from the
   burning lest a man should sit by the fire and lose limb after limb and
   not be aware of it. In the same manner, also, it is most meet that the
   unhappiness caused by sin should give us warning of the mischief it is
   doing to us.

   We do not ask God to separate the suffering from the sin, (let them
   stand as they are), but we need to be severed from the sin and then the
   suffering will go as a matter of course. It is unreasonable, man, it is
   unreasonable that you should expect that God will allow you to remain
   impenitent and yet give you the kiss of forgiving love! It would be
   neither honorable to God, nor good to your fellow men, nor really
   beneficial to yourself. Is it not reasonable, too, that we should part
   with sin, because sin is so grievous to God? I never know how to
   express my feelings when I read this first chapter of the Prophet
   Isaiah.

   I have felt a heartbreaking sympathy with God when I have read those
   words, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have
   rebelled against Me." It is so very sweet to us to have our children
   love us in return for our kindness to them. They are to us a very great
   joy and comfort and we are very glad and thankful to God for their
   dutiful affection. But many a man has been ready to tear his hair when
   the boy that he rocked on his knee has treated him with wanton insult.
   With what sorrow and anguish has many a mother had to remember an
   ungrateful daughter? Such iron enters into the soul. Such draughts of
   gall embitter the inmost heart of life. And here is the good Lord, like
   David of old, crying, "O Israel, My son, My son!"

   To let us see how He regards sin, He describes Himself as calling the
   universe to witness to the ingratitude which has assailed Him. "Hear, O
   heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up
   children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner,
   and the ass his master's crib: but Israel does not know, My people do
   not consider!" There is another plaintive expression in one of the
   Prophets, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate," as though the
   Creator turned Pleader to His own creatures, and said, "Do not follow
   after that which so provokes Me, and is so

   detestable to Me." It is for our sakes that He is so grieved. We vex
   the Holy Spirit every time we go into sin, for He loves us much and
   cannot bear to see us so dreadfully hurting ourselves.

   Now, Sinner, is it not most reasonable that if you would find peace
   with God you should cease from that which provokes Him? Are you to go
   on vexing Him and yet expect Him to bless you? How would it be in your
   own case if you were a father? Would it not seem right and reasonable
   that the evil habit which vexed and broke your heart from day to day
   should be given up by your child? Would you not expect him to say, "My
   Father, I did not know I was grieving you so much as this. But now I
   know it, I turn from my folly: teach me how I may please you and do
   that which is right in your

   sight."

   A third reason why sin should be given up may also be found in the
   chapter before us, for I am strictly following the connection of the
   text. Should it not be given up because of the mischief it has already
   done to man? Look at yourself, unconverted man or woman, what happiness
   have your transgressions brought you? What peace has the love of sin
   produced in your spirit? What are you now? Why, according to your own
   confession, you are dissatisfied and ill at ease! Sometimes thoughts of
   death haunt you and make you so wretched that you hardly know how to
   live. The dread of Hell comes over you and you have often wished you
   had never been born. You know it is so. You are well described in the
   chapter before us--"The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint."

   What has made you so sick and sorry? What but your wrongdoing? If you
   could prove that some good had come to yourself through sin, even then
   you ought to give it up, for God's sake, since it grieves Him. But no
   good has ever come of it. Ills of every sort are its only offspring.
   Look, Prodigal, look at your rags and see what your harlots and your
   companions have done for you! Look at what the citizens of the far-off
   country have done for you--sent you into the fields to feed swine! In
   your degradation and your filthiness, ask yourself, is there not a
   cause? What has deprived you of the comforts of a father's house? What
   has made you ready to eat the husks to stop your craving hunger?

   If you were wise you would hate the sin which has served you so badly.
   You would long to shake it off as Paul shook the viper into the fire,
   and cry to God, "Deliver me from it, O Lord, by Your Son, Jesus Christ,
   for it is evil, only evil, and that continually, therefore cleanse me,
   O Lord!" Remember also, my Friend, that unless sin is repented of and
   forsaken, no act of yours, nor ceremony of religion, nor hearing, nor
   praying can possibly save you. Do you see what these Jews did? They
   brought expensive offerings. They said, "We will be very generous to
   the cause of God" and, therefore, they brought bullocks and rams and
   goats by the hundreds.

   And what does God say of it? "To what purpose is the multitude of your
   sacrifices unto Me? says the Lord. I am full of the burnt offerings of
   rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of
   bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When you come to appear before
   Me, who has required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no
   more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons
   and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is
   iniquity, even the solemn meeting." If their hearts had been right He
   would have accepted the smallest offer-ing--a pair of turtle doves or
   two young pigeons would have been acceptable to Him--but as long as
   they lived in un-cleanness, their sacrifices were vain oblations and
   their sweet smelling incense was an abomination unto Him.

   "Ah," you have said, "I have given to the cause of God and yet I have
   had no peace." Does God accept what is given by one who practices
   dishonesty, or lives in pride, or revels in vice? "Ah," you say, "but I
   have always attended the means of Grace." Yes, but suppose you go from
   the Tabernacle to the gin palace--will your coming here be acceptable
   with God? Suppose you go home to practice unholy living or continue in
   malice against your brother--can the Lord regard you? Suppose you go
   away from the assembly of the saints to find equally congenial company
   in the society of sinners? Then I say to you, in God's name, who has
   required this at your hands, that you should tread His courts?

   Does He need courtiers to surround His Throne whose garments stink of
   the dens of Belial? Does He need your hymns, O you who have been
   singing lascivious songs? Do you think He will endure it that men
   should rise from the bed of uncleanness and draw near to His altars? It
   is scandalous to decency! It is insulting to the infinite majesty of
   Heaven! And yet how many there are who are secretly doing this! Let the
   consciences of those who hear the Gospel and yet live in known sin
   attest the truth of my words!

   Does not reason itself teach them that God must be angered rather than
   pleased by the worship of those who live in sin? I heard to my deep
   sorrow, the other day, of one who will walk several miles to hear me
   preach, and yet in the place where he lives he is known to be a drunk!
   He glories in his admiration of the preacher and yet lives
   scandalously! O Sir,

   do you think the preacher gains by the admiration of such as you are?
   How much less can God be pleased with the adoration of men who live in
   open sin? Their worship is a dishonor to His blessed name! He calls
   your attendance at public worship the treading of His courts! It is
   nothing more than a mere trampling upon holy things and if you dream
   that there is anything acceptable in such conduct you are grievously
   mistaken!

   If you come here that you may repent of your sins and forsake them,
   come and welcome! But if you imagine that coming up to the worship of
   God will procure the condoning of your offenses, you dote on a
   falsehood! Be not so deluded by Satan, but cast away this lie from your
   right hand. "Well," said one, "but there must be something in prayer."
   Hear, then, from the Lord's own mouth what there is in prayer while you
   continue in sin. "When you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes
   from you: yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands
   are full of blood." Though I cannot say of you that your hands are full
   of blood, yet if they are full of any sin which you love in your heart,
   your sacrifice will be an abomination unto God.

   Do you dare to bow the knee, and say, "O God, forgive me my sin, though
   I mean to continue in it"? How dare you offer such an impudent petition
   to the majesty of Heaven! Is God to give you a dispensation--a permit
   to sin with impunity? Is He such an One as you are, that He should
   answer such a wicked prayer? "O God," you practically say, "give me a
   sense of peace with You and let me still be unholy." God will not hear
   such a request! I speak with reverence to His blessed name. God's holy
   Nature forbids that He should ever listen to such a blasphemous prayer!
   Alter it, and say, "Lord, help me to give up my sin. Lord, Help me to
   deal righteously with my neighbors. Help me to love my fellow men and,
   at the same time, grant me forgiveness for the past for Jesus' sake."

   If this is your heart-felt language, the heavenly Father meets you
   freely and says, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as
   white as snow." But if you reply to that gracious Word, "I am willing
   to accept the pardon, but am resolved to keep the sin," His reply to
   you will be, "Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My
   enemies." If you refuse and rebel, there is no mercy for you, but the
   sword shall devour you, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it!

   II. Thus have I reasoned upon one point. Let me now go further and
   declare that IT IS MOST REASONABLE THAT MAN SHOULD SEEK PURITY OF
   HEART. You ask for pardon and forgiveness--and in return God says to
   you, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from
   before My eyes, cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment;
   relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow." Is
   there not reason in this command? You practically say, "Lord, enter
   into amity and peace with me." The Lord replies, "There is no peace to
   the wicked: only as you become renewed in nature can there be any peace
   between us."

   Do you dare to ask God to commune with you while you are a lover of
   sin? Can two walk together except they are agreed? What communion has
   Christ with Belial, what fellowship has light with darkness? You cannot
   have amity with God till the evil of your doings is put away from
   before His eyes and this He will enable you to do. Do you refuse the
   work of His Grace? Do you decline to be purged from every false way?
   Then you also decline friendship with God! You ask the Lord to make you
   His child. When you pray, you call Him, "Our Father, which are in
   Heaven," but do you not see that it is unreasonable to expect to be
   enrolled in His family and yet remain the servant of Satan?

   What would the world say? "If this is one of God's children, what a
   Father He must be who has such a family!" As it is, the faults and
   imperfections of the Lord's children often cause men to blaspheme His
   name. But at any rate, His children desire to be clean from sin and He
   has not a child in the world that is in love with evil! This is one of
   the marks of His children--that they hate iniquity and that sin is a
   plague and burden to them. John says, "In this the children of God are
   manifest, and the children of the devil: whoever does not righteousness
   is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother."

   Shall the drunk, the liar, the oppressor, the revengeful, the pitiless,
   the greedy, the dishonest be called the sons of God? Shall fornicators
   and persons of unclean lives be called His children? True, He takes
   such into His household, by His mighty Grace, but He washes, cleanses
   and sanctifies them, making them new creatures in Christ Jesus. He
   receives them while they are sick with sin, but it is in order to their
   healing and if that healing is refused, they cannot become His children
   at all. You have asked to be a disciple of Christ in your prayers. I
   ask you again, how is it reasonable that you should be recognized as a
   disciple of Christ if you will not imitate His Character and if you do
   not desire to obey His commands?

   This man a disciple of Christ? And yet he remains an habitual drunk, or
   carries on a dishonest trade, or lives in un-chastity? Can he really be
   a Christian? Every hallowed name forbids it! Such a man is a servant of
   the devil, not of Jesus! You are the servant of whom you obey--there is
   no mistake about that matter. He that does sin is the servant of sin.
   If you yield yourselves unto evil, then you are the servants of evil
   and the wrath of God abides upon you! Often, too, you pray the Lord to
   take you to Heaven when you die and yet you intend to remain in your
   sins. Why this folly? Are you devoid of thought? What? Carry your sins
   into Heaven? Carry Hell into Heaven?

   Man, woman, have you any reason left in you to expect God to have it
   so? Shall even His own courts, where His Glory blazes forth with
   ineffable splendor, be defiled with that which His soul abhors? Shall
   His enemies be admitted to insult Him to His face in His own palace? It
   cannot be! Holiness will never allow such an intrusion! Heaven's
   portals are guarded by Omnipotence and cannot be invaded by His
   enemies--

   "Those holy gates forever bar Pollution, sin, and shame; None can
   obtain admission there But followers of the Lamb."

   Now, my Hearer, let us reason together, in God's name, while the Word
   of the Lord shows you what it is you must be willing to become as the
   result of salvation. Look at the portrait drawn by Isaiah--it pictures
   the truly pardoned man's life towards his fellow man. It sets him forth
   in those lovely colors in which the Spirit of God has adorned him. Read
   the 16th and 17th verses. The pardoned man has, by Grace, been washed
   and made clean. His life is pure, upright and commendable. He has put
   away the evil of his doings from before God's eyes, that is to say, he
   not only shuns open sin before the eyes of man, but he hates that,
   also, which is only seen by the eyes of God. He desires to be cleansed
   from secret faults and to be pure within.

   He has also, by Grace, been led to cease to do evil. He breaks off his
   sins by righteousness and flees from unholy habits. At the same time he
   learns to do well--he is not perfect yet, he is a scholar and he is
   learning--but with all his heart he studies to be practically holy and
   by Divine teaching he is instructed in righteousness. He seeks judgment
   and desires to deal faithfully with all, to be honest and upright and
   to walk in all integrity, true to the word he speaks, even when it is
   to his own loss. He counts his simple word to be as binding as another
   man's oath and scorns to profit by a falsehood. Nor is this all, the
   Grace of God teaches him to love his neighbor as himself and,
   therefore, he relieves the poor and oppressed and is the generous
   friend of the fatherless and the widow. In almsgiving and deeds of
   Christian love he abounds.

   Here is the portrait. Do you admire it? Do you wish to be made like it?
   God's Grace is willing to make you this! Are you willing that it should
   operate upon you? If, on the other hand, your hard heart cries out,
   "No, I want pardon and peace, but I do not wish to be renewed in
   heart," then the reply is--there is no peace for you. You are not to be
   saved by, or for, your good works, but God's salvation brings these to
   those in whom it works. God will not separate sanctifica-tion from
   justification, nor free remission from regeneration. Pardon must be
   followed by purity and Grace by the Graces. If any man will be forgiven
   his sin, he must also be renewed in nature and submit to be molded into
   the blessed likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been made
   willing that such should be your case?

   III. IF THE SINNER REMAINS IMPENITENT IT IS MOST UNREASONABLE FOR HIM
   TO LAY THE BLAME OF HIS NOT BEING FORGIVEN UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD,
   FOR GOD IS READY TO FORGIVE. Those who impute an unforgiving spirit to
   the Lord, lie, and know not the truth. God gives the master argument to
   confute that slander by saying--"Though your sins are as scarlet, they
   shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall
   be as wool."

   He is both willing and able to forgive! He is prepared to remove the
   ingrained sins of our nature. Scarlet dye was fixed in the very wool of
   the fabric before it was made up and so is sin inwrought into our
   being. We were sinners by nature before we were sinners by
   practice--but this deep-seated stain of our nature He is able to
   remove, so as to make us white as snow! Though your sins should be
   double-dyed as crimson was, though you should have sinned again and
   again and again, multiplying your transgressions, yet He is able to
   cleanse you!

   And though you should have continued long in sin, as the scarlet cloth
   lies long in the dye, and though your sins should be glaring and
   startling as scarlet and crimson colors are, yes, though they should be
   imperial sins, as though you had put on a royal robe to defy the
   Sovereignty of God, yet even these shall be forgiven perfectly by His
   Grace! Not only shall some of the more glaring color be taken out of
   our character, but the scarlet shall be white as snow and the crimson,

   red as it was, shall be as wool! And all this by the free, unmerited
   Grace of God! There is perfect pardon to be had by the most vile
   transgressor--immediate and irreversible pardon is freely given
   according to God's infinite mercy and abounding Grace to the very chief
   of sinners!

   He waits to bestow mercy on the sons of men and, therefore, if you do
   no have it, it is not because God is hard to appease. He delights in
   mercy! To the ends of the earth He proclaims, "Let us reason together,
   though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."

   IV. Here is the last point upon which we will argue. IT IS A REASONABLE
   THING THAT GOD SHOULD DEMAND, WITH THIS PARDON, OBEDIENCE TO HIS
   COMMAND. And what is that command? It is, "If you are willing and
   obedient you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and
   rebel the sword shall devour you." Great Lord, it seems most strange
   that men should be unwilling to be saved from their sins and unwilling
   to follow the direction of perfect love! Yet, so perverse is human
   nature, that till Your Grace makes men willing, they will never lay
   hold upon Your abounding mercy and transcendent forgiveness, but prefer
   to abide in their sins.

   Sinner, here is the great question--are you willing?" Willing for what?
   I am willing to be saved from Hell." Ah, who is not? What criminal is
   not willing to be saved from prison or the gallows? Are you willing to
   be saved from yourself, to be saved from loving the sin which now
   enthralls you? To be saved from finding pleasure in the unholiness
   which now enchants you? To be saved from the indulgence of evil
   passions which tyrannize over you? To be saved, in a word, from SIN?
   Are you willing?

   Some say that they are, but when it comes to the test and a sweet sin
   comes before them, like a painted Jezebel, they are bewitched by it.
   They fall into its arms and let Jesus go. Are you willing to give up
   any sin, for Christ, and every sin for Christ? The Lord demands this of
   you. Oh, may He also grant it to you, turning your heart of stone into
   a heart of flesh! May you be made truly willing to be saved from sin in
   God's way, that is, by simply believing in Jesus, believing in Jesus,
   not that you may merely get rid of the past, but be delivered from the
   present dominion of evil. If you are willing-- that is the point.

   His people shall be willing in the day of His power and if you are not
   willing, and live and die unwilling, you are none of His. Then it is
   added, "If you are obedient." Whenever the Lord saves a soul, He will
   make that soul obedient, for Jesus Christ will not take into His army
   soldiers who mutiny against His commands. "If you are willing and
   obedient." Obedient to what? Obedient to all Gospel precepts.
   "Repent"--let sin be hateful to you! "Repent and be con-verted"--that
   is, turn round to seek after other things and better things than you
   sought before. Are you willing to obey His command to love one another
   as Christ also has loved you? Are you willing to be obedient to the
   command, "Cease to do evil, learn to do well"?

   "Oh," one says, "I am willing enough to be obedient, but where is the
   strength to come from?" Ah, my blessed Lord does not ask you to find
   the strength--for that you may look to Him! If you are willing, He will
   grant you the power. No, in making you willing, He has already begun
   the work! If, this morning, He has made you truly willing to give up
   sin, His blessed Spirit will never leave you till sin is overcome!
   Jesus is able to cleanse you from the power of sin as well as from the
   guilt of it. The point is this--has He made you willing to be made
   holy? Are you, at this present moment, willing to be washed and
   cleansed?

   Do not answer this question till you have looked at it and marked the
   self-denial it will cost you. After doing so I fear that honesty will
   compel some of you to say, "I am not prepared to undergo the change
   which is here proposed." You know, my Hearer, that sin in some
   attractive form is very sweet to you, and while it is so there can be
   no hope of pardon for you. You think, perhaps, that I spoke sharply
   just now? The Lord knows I desire to speak in all gentleness of spirit,
   but I must be faithful to your souls and, by God's help, I will be. As
   I look round I am not so utterly ignorant of you all as not to know
   that there are some here who love to hear me preach and yet they love
   their sins. They know their characters are disgraceful and yet they
   pretend to believe that they are going to Heaven because they have a
   notional faith in Jesus.

   Now, Sirs, when you wake up in the Day of Judgment and find yourselves
   deceived, you will be forced to admit that I have not deceived you. I
   have never preached to you that you may live in sin if you only believe
   in Jesus! I have never preached that you shall be saved without being
   purified in heart! No, the salvation which this pulpit has proclaimed
   is not salvation in sin but Salvation from sin, not a license to evil
   but a deliverance from evil! The two-edged sword of our

   Gospel divides between men and sin--and slays all the hopes of the
   impenitent and disobedient. "Be not deceived, God is not mocked;
   whatever a man sows that shall he also reap." "Without holiness no man
   shall see the Lord" and this holiness is His gift to you!

   Deliverance from sin is not a work of the flesh, but a work of Grace!
   It does not spring from legal bondage, but from the gracious work of
   the blessed Spirit. But you must have it, you must have it! And if you
   will not have holiness, neither shall you have Heaven! There shall be
   no blotting out of sin unless there is a ransom from the dominion of
   sin. May God grant you Grace to be honest with yourself and honest with
   your God who, again, invites you to reason with Him and entreats you
   not to be so unreasonable as to continue in sin and, yet, expect
   forgiveness! He invites you to cast out that evil which is as much your
   enemy as it is His.

   He points to this stumbling block which lies at your door and bids you
   will to have it removed. He begs you to come to your senses and awake
   from your dreams. Your past sin He is fully prepared to obliterate
   forever, but it is your love of sin which lies in the way. O that you
   would, from your heart, give it up and follow after better things! May
   He help you, now, to say, "O Lord, I desire to be made pure and holy.
   Give me strength, I pray you, to overcome temptation and walk in the
   way of Your commandments. I want to be holy, even as You are holy. To
   will is present with me. Give me also power to do that which I would. O
   Lord, I would renounce my old sins, my constitutional sins, my once
   beloved sins. I do not ask to be tolerated in any one of them, but
   would be delivered from every false way, for Jesus' sake. Help me, O

   Lord."

   Your heavenly Father stands ready to help you, prepared to help you.
   Though you are as yet a great way off, He comes to meet you and opens
   His arms to embrace you. For the sake of the atoning Sacrifice of
   Jesus, He has passed an act of amnesty and oblivion for all the past!
   And He will rule over you for the future with the gentle scepter of His
   holy love. "If you are willing and obedient"--are you, indeed, so? May
   God grant you a subdued will and a submissive mind, for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 1. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--176, 459, 489.
     __________________________________________________________________

Amazing Grace

   (No. 1279)

   A SERMON DELIVERED

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and
   restore comfort unto him and to his mourners." Isaiah 57:18.

   THERE are a few objects in Nature which never cease to astonish the
   beholder. I think Humboldt said he could never look upon the rolling
   prairies without astonishment. And I suppose some of us will never be
   able to look upon the ocean, or to see the sun rise or set without
   feeling that we have before us something always fresh and always new.
   Now, I have been, not only for the love of it, but because of my
   calling of preaching it, a constant reader of Holy Scripture and yet
   after these 25 years and more I frequently alight upon well known
   passages which astonish me as much as ever. As if I had never heard
   them before, they come upon me, not merely with freshness, but even so
   as to cause amazement in my soul!

   This is one of those portions of Scripture. When I read the chapter
   describing the wickedness, the horrible wickedness of Israel--when I
   notice the strong terms which Inspiration uses and none of them too
   strong to set forth the horrible wickedness of the nation--it staggers
   me! And then to see mercy following instead ofjudgment! It overwhelms
   me! "I have seen his ways, and"--it is not added, "will destroy him,"
   or, "I will sweep him away"--but, "I will heal him." Verily, God's
   Grace, like the great mountains, cannot be scaled! Like the deeps of
   the sea, it can never be fathomed and, like space, it can never be
   measured!

   It is, like God Himself, wondrous, matchless, boundless. "Oh, the
   depths! Oh, the depths." I shall try to set forth the astounding Grace
   of God, as His Spirit shall enable me, by showing, first, that the
   sinner is beheld by God--"I have seen his ways." And yet the sinner is
   nevertheless the object of Divine mercy--"I will heal him: I will lead
   him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners."

   I. The text declares that THE SINNER HAS BEEN OBSERVED OF THE LORD.
   Many a man will relieve an unknown person in distress whom he would not
   think of helping if he knew his character. Some generous hearts are
   perpetually victimized this way--they deal out their money to those who
   are altogether unworthy--but if they knew of this unworthiness they
   would not be so free with their gifts. Now, the Lord is aware of the
   unworthiness of those to whom He deals out His Grace and it is the
   glory of that Grace that He pours it upon the utterly undeserving. He
   knows exactly what men are and yet He is kind to the evil and to the
   unthankful. He gives His Grace to those who, like Manasseh, and Saul of
   Tarsus, and the dying thief, have nothing but sin about them and
   deserve His hot displeasure rather than His gracious love.

   Notice, first, that God's Omniscience has observed the sinner. Man,
   while living in rebellion against God, is as much under his Maker's
   eyes as the bees in a glass hive are under your eyes when you stand and
   watch all their movements. The eyes of Jehovah never sleep. They are
   never taken off from a single creature He has made. He sees man--sees
   him everywhere--sees him through and through so that He not only hears
   his words but knows his thoughts! God does not merely behold his
   actions but weighs his motives and knows what is in the man as well as
   that which comes out of the man. One is often led to cry, "Such
   knowledge is too wonderful for me! It is high, I cannot attain unto
   it." That God should know all, even all the little things about man's
   sin is a dreadful thing for unpardoned souls to think of.

   I was reading, the other day, a very pretty observation upon one of our
   Savior's sayings and I cannot help telling it to you. You remember He
   says two sparrows are sold for a farthing and yet one of them does not
   light on the ground without your Father? But in another passage He
   says, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings? And not one of
   them is forgotten of God." Do you notice that? Two for a farthing--five
   for two farthings, so there is an odd one thrown in for taking a double
   quantity.

   Only a sparrow! Nobody cares about that odd sparrow, but not one of
   them is forgotten by your heavenly Father-- not even the odd sparrow!
   And so no stray thought of yours, no imagination, no trifle which you
   have quite forgotten, which, indeed, you never took any heed of, has
   escaped your heavenly Father's notice. The text is true to the fullest
   possible extent. "I have seen his ways." God has seen your ways at
   home, your ways abroad, your ways in the shop, your ways in the
   bedchamber, your ways within as well as your ways without--the ways of
   your judgment, the ways of your hope, the ways of your desire, the ways
   of your evil lusting, the ways of your murmurings, the ways of your
   pride. He has seen them all and seen them perfectly and completely!

   And the wonder is that, after seeing all, He has not cut us down, but
   instead of it, has proclaimed this amazing word of mercy, "I have seen
   his ways, and will heal him. I have seen all that he has done, and yet
   for all that I will not cast him from My Presence, but I will put My
   mercy and My wisdom to work with Divine skill to heal this sinner of
   the wickedness of his soul." While we were reading the chapter I could
   not help feeling that it was a chapter almost too strong to read in
   public! I looked it through and through, and I said, "Shall I read it?"
   Some of its allusions are so painful that one can think of them, but
   one would not like to explain them.

   Divine Wisdom could not find anything but vices which are scarcely to
   be mentioned, to describe the wickedness of the human heart. It is so
   foul a thing that He must compare it to the lewdness and filthiness of
   those who are given over to the utter rottenness of licentiousness. And
   yet, after so describing the character, the Lord says, "I have seen his
   ways, and will heal him. I have seen everything bad in his ways and I
   have perceived nothing good in them, but nevertheless, though I know
   all his conduct and see the filthiness of it all, yet will I come to
   him, and I will heal him."

   You noticed, while I was reading, that the persons described were a
   people who had scoffed at religion. "Against whom do you sport
   yourselves? Against whom make you a wide mouth and draw out the
   tongue?" They had made the name and honor of God the subjects of
   profane sport! They had ridiculed God's people--calling them
   hypocrites, fanatics, enthusiasts, or whatever else happened to be the
   cant names with which they bespattered saints in those days. They had
   jested at virtue and jeered at piety--and yet the Lord says, "I have
   seen his ways. I have heard his ungodly jests and taunting ridicule. I
   know his sarcasms. I know what falsehoods, what slanders he pours forth
   upon My own beloved people, and My wrath rises against those that touch
   My anointed. But for all that I will heal him. I have seen him put out
   his tongue at the name of Jesus. I have seen him behave exceeding proud
   when My Gospel has been the subject of conversation. But for all that,
   though I have seen his haughty ways, I will heal him." Oh, the splendor
   of this Grace! Is this the manner of men, O Lord God? Surely, high as
   the heavens are above the earth, so high are Your ways above our ways!

   These people seem to have been quite infatuated by sin. According to
   the Scriptures, you will see that they could not have enough of it.
   What mountain was there upon which Israel had not set up her altars?
   What stone was there, polished by the flow of the stream, which they
   had not consecrated to an idol? What giant oak was there throughout all
   Bashan under which they had not performed mystic and diabolical rites
   to the false god? The land was stained with the blood of their children
   offered to Loch! Yes, it reeked with their infamous sins, for in the
   worship of their false gods their orgies were full of lewdness and all
   manner of indescribable iniquities.

   Yet the Ever-Merciful says, "I have seen it. I have seen behind the
   door what they have done. I have seen in the high mountains what they
   have done. I have seen their abominations in the groves and thickets. I
   have seen how eager they are after sin--how they drink it down like
   Behemoth--who thinks to drink down Jordan at a draught. They add lust
   to lust in their pursuit of sin till they are maddened with it. I have
   seen that they are desperate sinners, but I will heal them, I will heal
   them."

   Oh Beloved, this text sounds so strangely good, so singularly gracious,
   so exquisitely merciful that it holds me spellbound! It is such a
   surprise. Just when the harsh drum begins to sound and war is about to
   let slip her dogs, there comes an unexpected pause, and meek-eyed Pity,
   with a thousand tears, steps forward and cries, "I still love them!
   Only let them renounce their ways and to My bosom they shall be pressed
   and their horrible sins shall be forgiven!" There is one expression I
   must dwell upon, because it is so remarkable. I should never have dared
   to use it if Inspiration had not employed it. It is that expression in
   verse nine, where the Lord says, "You did debase yourself even unto
   Hell"--even unto Hell!

   When a man debases himself down as low as the swine trough, that is low
   enough, and there are many who do that. The drunk goes lower than the
   sow, for no sow would habitually intoxicate itself. Few animals would
   even touch the defiling concoction! We talk of a man's being like a
   beast, but the beasts are hardly done by when we compare drunks with

   them! Men sink below the mere animal because, being capable of so much
   higher things, they make a more terrible descent when they yield
   themselves up to their baser appetites. Alas, there are vices of human
   nature from which the cattle of the field are exempt--man has debased
   himself below the creature over which he has received dominion! The
   Prophet says, "they debase themselves even unto Hell."

   I say a man does that when he defies his Maker and blasphemes his
   Savior--when after every other word he uses an oath and lards his
   conversation with profane expressions--as some do. What good can there
   be in such wanton wickedness? What is to be gained by it? I suppose the
   devil, himself, is not such a blasphemer as some people are whom we
   have the misery to hear, even in our streets, as we walk along. I
   suppose Satan has some method in his profanity, but they use it in mere
   lack of other words! Men sink to the level of the devil when they are
   unkind to their aged parents, or on the other hand, unnatural to their
   own offspring.

   What shall I say of the abominable cruelty of some men to their wives?
   I believe that if the devil had a wife, he would not treat her as many
   working men treat their wives. Creatures called men are frequently
   brought up before our police courts and the charges proved against them
   make us altogether disgusted with human nature! Would the fierce lion,
   the savage tiger, or the wild boar treat his mate so ill? O how many
   are thus debased unto Hell! Yet, yet, should this reach the ear of
   anyone who has thus debased himself, let him listen to this--"I have
   seen his ways. I have seen him debase himself even unto Hell. Yet will
   I heal him and lead him and restore comforts unto him."

   "Why," says one, "that seems too good to be true!" It does, and were
   you dealing with men it would be too good to be true! But you are
   dealing with One of whom it is written, "Who is a God like unto You,
   passing by transgression, iniquity and sin?" "For all manner of sin and
   of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." "The blood of Jesus Christ,
   His Son, cleanses us from all sin." I say, once more, I do not know how
   to put this declaration of Grace into words forcible enough! I stand
   astonished! I am not here to explain. I cannot explain it! I am here to
   set it forth, but I cannot even do that! It does so amaze me that God's
   electing love should cast its eye upon the very vilest of the vile and
   then, that He should say, "I have seen him. I know what he has done. I
   understand it all and yet, nevertheless, I mean to save him and save
   him, I will." Heaven itself shall be amazed that ever such a wretch was
   saved! And Hell itself shall tremble in its lowest deeps while it sees
   against what a gracious God it has dared to offend!

   But I must proceed to notice, next, that God had not only seen their
   ways in the sense of Omniscience but He had inspected their ways in the
   sense of judgment. He says, "I was angry and I hid Myself." O, Sinners,
   do not think, because we come, tonight, to preach free Grace and dying
   love to you and proclaim full pardon through the blood of Jesus, that
   therefore God winks at sin! No, He is a wrathful God and will by no
   means spare the guilty! As surely as fire consumes the stubble, so does
   His wrath burn against wickedness! And He will utterly destroy it from
   off the face of the earth, for, "God is angry with the wicked every
   day."

   Do not think that when these sinners of old worshipped idols, the Lord
   was careless as to what they did. Do not imagine that when they thrust
   out the tongue and mocked Him, He was indifferent and sat still as if
   He had been made of stone. Far from it! It provoked His holy mind, for
   He cannot look upon iniquity, neither shall evil dwell with Him. He is
   as a consuming fire against evil and will by no means tolerate it. And
   yet--and yet--He whom the angels call, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
   Sabaoth"--the jealous God, the God who revenges and is furious against
   sin--even He has said, "I have seen his ways and will heal him."

   Ah, if it were a matter of indifference to Him--if God were hardened so
   that He did not care about sin as some men are, or if He were only
   half-sensitive to sin as we are, I could understand His forgiving sin.
   But when I remember that sin, as it were, touches the apple of His eye,
   and moves His heart and vexes His Spirit, then I am amazed that in the
   same moment in which He denounces sin, He looks on the sinner and says,
   with tears of pity, "I have seen his ways, and will heal him. He is My
   child though he has played the prodigal. I hate his harlotry and the
   riotous living with which he has wasted his estate and Mine. I hate the
   swine trough and the citizens of the far-off country, but My child, My
   child, I love him still! And when he comes back to Me, I will receive
   him with a kiss, and I will say, 'Bring forth the best robe and put it
   on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and let us eat and
   be merry, for this, My son which was dead is alive again! He that was
   lost is found.'"

   I cannot trust myself to speak on this Godlike miracle of love--it is
   very wonderful to me and deeply touches my heart. Yet once more on this
   point. It was not only that God had seen and observed the rebel, and
   had judged the evil of

   his sin, but the Lord had tested him. If you read the chapter through
   you will see that God says that He had attempted to reclaim him by
   chastisements. He says, "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I
   angry and smote him. I hid Myself and was angry, and he went on
   stubbornly in the way of his heart." You see, then, that the Lord
   tested the man. He said to Himself, "Perhaps he does not feel the evil
   of sin. I will make him smart. These people have worshipped false gods.
   I will send a famine. I will send a pestilence. I will give them over
   into the hand of their enemies and then, perhaps, they will repent."

   And so God did this to Israel and the nation was brought very low. But
   what was the result? Did they turn under the chastening rod and confess
   their sin? Did they humble themselves before God? No! He says of the
   nation, "He went on stubbornly in the way of his heart." How often it
   happens that when the Lord commences a work of Grace on men He begins
   with some terrible judgment, laying them low that He may lift them up
   in due time. But how often these visitations end in disappointment! The
   man is sick--he lies suffering on the brink of eternity. He makes
   promises of reformation, but what happens when he recovers? Why, he
   forgets it all and is, if anything, worse than before!

   Or the man is brought low by his sin, even to beggary. How often have I
   seen this! A man of respectable parents shivering in his rags. But when
   he is in his poverty does he turn from his vices? No, he whines about
   his follies when he asks for a little help, and when he gets it, he
   spends the charity in drink and continues as degraded as ever he was.
   Worse and worse is the way of the wicked--even though their sorrows are
   multiplied. Ah, my Friends, all the afflictions in the world, apart
   from the Grace of God, will only harden men!

   When the Lord, in His mercy, sends sharp Providences to stir men up in
   their nests and make them feel that sin is an evil thing, the general
   result of it--no, the constant result of it, apart from Divine
   Grace--is that the man continues in his sin just the same as before, or
   only flies from one form of it to another. He is wounded by the goad,
   but he does not yield--he kicks against the pricks. He thinks that God
   has treated him very harshly. He drives himself farther off from God
   and runs into despair. He says there is no hope and, therefore, he may
   as well live as he likes--he may as well be hung for a sheep as for a
   lamb! And so he plunges deeper and deeper into rebellion.

   Yet notice the Grace of our text and be again astonished! This person
   had been chastened in vain and even hardened by affliction, and yet God
   says, "I have seen his ways. I have seen how he grows worse and worse.
   I have seen how he hardens his neck. I have seen what a brazen forehead
   he has and what a neck of iron he dares to lift up against Me. I have
   seen it all, but thus my eternal purpose runs--I will heal him, I will
   do it. I will let all the world see that Grace is stronger than sin and
   everlasting mercy is not to be cut short, even by infamous
   transgressions." Oh, the depths of Divine love! Truly it is past
   finding out!

   Now, before I go to the second part of the subject, I must say this. I
   am not speaking, now, of cases which happen now and then. Neither am I
   talking about men that lived years ago, like John Newton, the African
   blasphemer, or John Bunyan, the village rebel. No, I am talking about a
   great many here before me. To a great extent I am talking about myself
   I know that in me there was nothing that could have caught the eyes of
   God to merit His regard. I know that if I were not permitted to indulge
   in grosser vices, yet I went as far as I could--but would have gone
   infinitely farther if it had not been for His restraining Grace.

   And in my case I feel that it is as much the free sovereign undeserved
   mercy of God that I am, this night, saved, as that the poor thief, when
   dying on the Cross, received the promise, "Today shall you be with Me
   in Paradise." In every case, whether we have been moral or immoral,
   salvation is altogether a matter of pure favor! And in every case God
   has virtually said of us, "I have seen his ways. I cannot see anything
   good in him. I see only what I abhor, but, nevertheless, I will heal
   him."

   The tears may well stand in our eyes as we think of this. I am sure
   they do in mine. A poor half-witted man was asked by his minister how
   he came to be saved and he said, "It was between me and God. God did
   His part and I did the other." "Well," said the minister, "what part
   did you do?" The answer was, "God saved me and I stood in His way."
   That is the part, I must confess, in which I was most conspicuous. I
   was very stubborn and willful, and put from me the invitations of the
   Lord's love. I willed to remain a rebel, but He would not have it so.
   Did I not resist His Spirit? Did I not put from me His Gospel? Did I
   not resolve to abide in my self-righteousness and continue as I was?

   But He would not suffer it to be so and, at last, I was compelled to
   cry, "I yield to the all-conquering Grace of God and bless the hand
   that sweetly bows me to its mighty sway."

   II. Now we will turn to the second part of our discourse and pause
   awhile while you relieve yourselves with a cough. Notwithstanding all
   that we have said, THE CHOSEN SINNER IS THE OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY TO
   AN EXTRAORDINARY DEGREE. Thus says the Lord, "I have seen his ways, and
   will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and
   to his mourners." Notice how God speaks. Observe the tone and spirit of
   His declaration. "I will," says He! "I will, I will, I will." Now, "I
   will" and, "I shall" are for the king. No, in the highest sense they
   are only becoming when used by God Himself.

   It is not for you and for me to say, "I will." We shall speak more
   wisely if we declare that we will if we can. We will if--but God needs
   no "ifs." "I have seen his ways," He says. "I know what a rebel he is,
   but I will heal him. I know how sick he is, for from the crown of his
   head to the sole of his feet, nothing but bruises and putrefying sores
   are to be seen, but I will heal him." He speaks like a God--"I will."
   There is no condition expressed and there is no, "perhaps," or, "but,"
   because there is no condition. He does not say, "If he will." No, when
   God says, "I will," man will be made willing, be sure of that!

   He does not say, "I will, if man will do a part of it." No, but, "I
   will." But suppose that man would not? That is not to be supposed. The
   Lord knows how, without violating the human will, (which He never
   does), to so influence the heart that the man, with full consent
   against his former will, yields to the will of God and is made willing
   in the day of God's power! I always like to think, as I am preaching
   here, "Now, whether or not there will be anybody saved by the Gospel I
   preach does not depend upon whether they have come up here willing or
   unwilling, for the Lord has said, "My people shall be willing in the
   day of My power." There is a higher power than the human will, whatever
   power there may be in that--and there certainly is a very great
   power--neither do I wish to deny the fact. But there is a higher power
   than the will of man, else man were God and the will of man would be
   Omnipotence.

   The Lord knows how, by sacred arts of wondrous Grace, to make the stout
   free will of man yield itself to the perfect free will of God! And thus
   He takes the sinner captive and leads him in triumph to the feet of
   Christ! Glory be to God for this! If the salvation of men depended upon
   their being willing, and no prevenient Grace ever came to unwilling
   sinners, there is not one soul in all our race that ever would be
   saved, for we err and stray from God's ways like lost sheep! And if God
   waited till we came to Him of ourselves, He would wait in vain forever!

   No. The Good Shepherd goes after the sheep--follows it, tracks it,
   seizes it, throws it on His shoulders and carries it home rejoicing.
   We, tonight, bless that mighty Grace which did not stop for us to seek
   it, but sought us! It was like the dew which waits not for men, neither
   tarries for the sons of men, but comes in all its blessed cheering
   influences and makes the earth glad. Oh, mighty Grace of God, come in
   that way tonight to this crowd of poor sinners without, "ifs," "buts,"
   or conditions!

   Now, notice that this was the only good thing that could be done with
   Israel. There were two courses possible. Here is Israel bent on
   sin--here is God angry with that sin and hating it with all His heart.
   Israel can be destroyed--that is one thing and it is an easy matter.
   The Lord has only to call flood, fire, famine, fever, or war to sweep
   the nation away. But then, He is full of love and judgment is His
   strange work. What is to be done, then? He must either mend them or end
   them--one of the two! He cannot let them go on as they are--which shall
   it be, destruction or salvation?

   He looks at them and says, "I will heal them. That is what I will do
   with them. I cannot endure that they should act as they do. I will
   therefore set to work upon them as a physician does upon a sick
   patient. Though the case would be quite hopeless unless I were
   Omnipotent, I will bring my Omnipotent Love to bear on this foul,
   leprous, rotting, loathsome sinner and I will make him clean, pure, and
   lovely. I will heal him. I cannot leave him in My universe as he is,
   for he spreads infection all around. He defiles My sanctuary, he
   profanes My Sabbaths, he pollutes the very air he breathes. He must not
   be suffered to go on in this way. What must I do with him? I will not
   destroy him, but I will heal him."

   Oh, the wonder of Divine mercy that ever the Lord should say that! But
   do you not know that this is just the spirit which the Lord Jesus
   creates in the heart of His really consecrated servants towards the
   wicked and the fallen? Here they are in this world--we cannot put them
   out of it and we wouldn't if we could. We are very sorry whenever the
   majesty of Law requires the destruction of a single guilty life. What
   are we to do, then, with the criminal classes--with depraved men and
   fallen women? What are we to do with cannibals and heathens?

   In God's name we must cure them with the blessed Medicine which has
   cured us! Think of John Williams. He hears of Erromanga. What is there
   in Erromanga to induce John Williams to go there? Are they a hopeful
   sort of people? No,

   they are hideous cannibals--they devour men! Will they receive Mr.
   Williams if he lands? Will they listen to him with respect? Not they.
   The probabilities are that they will lift the war club and he will not
   escape with his life. What did that devoted missionary feel? "Those are
   the people that need me and to those I will go beyond all others." And
   so he went, and Williams, in landing at Erromanga, and in dying there,
   is a feeble type of Jesus coming to an ungodly and graceless world! Not
   because there was anything good in it, but because there was no good
   whatever--not because they would welcome Him, but because they were so
   fallen that would crucify Him!

   The sinfulness of man was his need of a Savior's coming and for that
   very reason Jesus came. Did He not say, "I am not come to call the
   righteous, but sinners to repentance. I am come as a physician and the
   physician has nothing to do with the healthy. His business lies with
   the sick and I am come, therefore, to deal with sin-sick souls"? What a
   wondrous thing this is that God should look upon sin and say, "I see it
   all, and I hate it all, but, nevertheless, I mean to heal the sinner
   and to lift him up from his degradation." May the Lord say that to you,
   dear Hearer, if you are still dead in sin.

   Now, notice how the Lord puts His hand to the work. He heals sin as a
   disease. He cannot look at it in any other light without destroying
   men. He says, "These creatures of Mine do not love Me. They must be
   diseased in their minds, I will heal them. They see no loveliness in My
   Son. They must be blind, I will open their eyes." Thus mercifully
   tracing our sin to its cause, the Lord manifests His Grace and heals
   the maladies of our nature. And, blessed be God, the disease that we
   suffer from is a disease which He knows all about, because the text
   says, "I have seen his ways."

   Oh Sinner, you will not have to tell God the symptoms of your
   complaint--He has seen your ways! He has seen right through your
   heart--and there is no physician so able to deal with a patient as the
   man who knows the constitution of the patient and knows his habits, and
   knows all his secret history! God knows all that and, because He knows
   it, it is a blessed thing that He--He, Himself--with that infinite
   knowledge says, "I will heal him." Who else but He would know enough to
   be able to heal a sinner of all the sin that lies concealed within him?
   And God does, in very deed, heal sinners.

   I daresay you have heard the common talk in the world. They say, "These
   evangelical ministers preach salvation for sinners--what is this but
   encouraging sin?" The gentlemen who make the observation are generally
   not particularly sweet themselves, but, however, we will say nothing
   about that, although it is an odd thing to hear accusations against the
   morality of the Gospel from gentlemen whose own morality is not of the
   most delicate kind! Still, we have a better answer. Suppose we open a
   hospital. Thank God there are many in London! Here is a fever hospital.
   Do you hear people objecting, "Oh, you are encouraging fever!"

   The only qualification for admission to a fever hospital is for a
   person to have a fever! If they have the fever they can come in. If it
   is a smallpox hospital, the only thing that is needed is that they
   shall have the smallpox and they may enter freely. Why don't you cry
   that this free statement of gratuitous admission will encourage
   contagious diseases. Fools! You know better! You know that the hospital
   is the enemy of the disease and men are received in sickness that they
   may be delivered from its power. You know that it is the same with the
   Gospel. We almost scorn to answer you, for you must be aware that to
   say that Jesus Christ is able to take the very vilest sinner and to
   save him, is to promote morality in the best manner , not immorality!

   What is salvation? Do you think we mean by that, the saving people from
   going down to Hell and letting them live as they lived before? We never
   meant anything of the sort! We mean that Jesus Christ heals people of
   the disease of sin, that is to say, He takes the sin away, changes
   their mind, renews their heart, makes them hate the sin which once they
   loved and leads them to seek after the holiness which once they
   despised! It is true He has opened a house for thieves, drunks and
   harlots--and set the door wide open and said, "Come and welcome!" But
   what for? Why, the sinner who enters comes to be no more a drunk, to be
   no more a thief, to be no more unchaste--for this objective is the
   guilty one invited to come to Christ--that he may have his heart
   renewed!

   He is not invited that he may have his putrid sores bound up and
   skinned over with some Madame Rachel stuff that may conceal the
   evil--but that the gangrene may be cut out and the ulcer may be
   removed--and the dire cancer may be torn up by the roots! This is what
   the Gospel is for and Jesus Christ proclaims, tonight, by these lips of
   mine, that however guilty you may have been, if you desire to be healed
   from the plague of sin, He can and will heal you upon your believing on
   Him! He says, "I have seen his ways, and I will heal him." Come and
   welcome! Come and welcome, you guiltiest of the guilty! Oh, may His
   infinite mercy do more than invite you! May it compel you to come in
   according to that

   message of His at the royal supper, "Go you out into the highways and
   hedges, and compel them to come in that My house may be filled." May
   His infinite mercy compel you to come!

   Then the text goes on to say, "/ will lead him also." The poor soul of
   man, even when healed, does not know which way to go! There is not a
   more bewildered thing in this world than a poor sinner when first he is
   awakened. Have you ever gone with a candle into a barn where a number
   of birds have roosted? Have you disturbed them? Have you not seen how
   they dart here and there and do not know which way to fly? The light
   confuses them. So it is when Christ comes to poor sinners. They do not
   know which way to go! They see a little, but the very light confuses
   them. Now, the loving Lord comes in and says, "I will lead him also."

   Oh, how sweetly does the Lord lead sinners, first to His dear Son, and
   bids them find in Him their All in All. Then He leads the sinner to the
   Mercy Seat and He says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you
   shall find." Then He leads the sinner to that grand old book, the
   Bible, and He says, "Read there, and as you read it I will open it up
   to you. I will open your eyes to see its hidden treasures and wonders,
   and lead you into all My Truth." "Come," He says, "I will lead you
   farther. I will lead you in your daily life. I will lead you as to how
   to act among the ungodly. Yes, I will lead you in the paths of
   righteousness for My name's sake."

   Now, is not it very wonderful--that God should lead men who formerly
   would not be led, men who, for years, went their own way and resisted
   all that His judgments and Providences could do to turn them? "Yes," He
   says, "I will lead them." And it is wonderful how readily men will be
   led when God's Grace renews them! I have seen the stout-hearted man who
   used to revile Christ and His people become a babe in Grace. The idea
   of ever going inside a place of worship, especially of a dissenting
   sort, would have put him in a temper! He would spit on the ground and
   curse at the very mention of such a thing! And yet that man has become
   the most earnest of Christians--the very man to go out and bring in
   others--and he has loved Christ more than many who were born and bred
   in the midst of religion!

   The Lord can make a little child lead a lion and can make the most
   obstinate rebel tender and sensitive beyond others. I heard a man pray
   once at a Prayer Meeting, and he did shout and hallow at such an awful
   rate that I did not enjoy his prayer a bit. A friend asked him, some
   time afterwards, whatever made him make such an awful noise in prayer.
   "Why" he said, "I have only been converted a very little time. I am the
   master of a vessel and I used to storm and rage and go on at the
   sailors. And now, when I get warm, I cannot help making a noise. I
   begin to shout and hallow as I did before when I served the devil."
   When I heard this, I said, "Well, I hope he will go on with it." I like
   to see the same zeal manifested in the cause of God that a man is
   accustomed to use in other things when he is really warmed up.

   We often see people who have been most earnest against Christ become
   most earnest for Him. Look at Saul of Tar-sus--you do not need a better
   instance. He is exceedingly mad against Christ and nobody can stop him,
   till the Lord says, "I have seen his ways, and I will heal him." And
   what short work God made of Saul of Tarsus! Three days made a perfect
   cure of his eyes--but I do not suppose it took three minutes to do the
   essential part of the healing in his soul! He is as full of enmity to
   Christ as ever his heart can be, but in a moment the light shines and
   he falls from his horse to the ground! And he hears the Voice, "Saul,
   Saul, why do you persecute Me?"

   He answers, "Who are You, Lord?" And the answer is, "I am Jesus whom
   you persecute." The man is changed in a shorter time than it takes to
   tell! It is all done. O Grace of God do the same to many here tonight
   and let it be seen that Your, "wills" and, "shalls," will stand against
   all human sin and all the obstinacy of the most corrupt heart! "I have
   seen his ways, and I will heal him. I will lead him also." Then there
   comes the last part of the text, "/ will restore comforts to him," for
   God begins by knocking our comforts away. He takes away the comfort we
   once had in our false peace and he makes us mourn for sin. But after a
   while He restores comfort to us.

   What sort of comfort? The comfort of perfect forgiveness, the comfort
   of complete acceptance. The Father sets a warm kiss upon the child's
   cheek and that is the comfort of Adoption. Whereas we were heirs of
   wrath, we become heirs of Heaven and have the comforts of hope. We
   receive the comfort of daily fellowship, for we are admitted to speak
   with God and to draw near to Him. The comfort of perfect security, for
   we are led to feel that whether we live or die it does not matter, we
   are safe in the arms of Jesus! The comfort of a blessed prospect beyond
   the grave in the land of the hereafter where the arbors shall never
   wilt. The comfort of knowing that all things work together for good.
   The comfort of having the angels for our servants and Heaven for our
   home!

   "I will restore comforts to him" and all this--all this to the man of
   whom it is said--"You did debase yourself even unto Hell." All these
   comforts for him! A crown in Heaven for one who, but for mercy, had
   been damned in Hell! A harp of everlasting music for hands that once
   delighted in lascivious music! New songs in Glory for lips that once
   used the blasphemous oath! The Presence of Jesus and the likeness of
   Jesus for one that often rolled in the mire with the drunk, or went
   into worse mire with the unchaste and the unclean. Proclaim it!
   Proclaim it! Proclaim it to the most despairing sinners--that if they
   will but come back, their heavenly Father will receive them in the name
   of Jesus!

   Go forth and proclaim it at the corners of your streets. Go and
   proclaim it in the dens and thieves' kitchens! Proclaim it in the
   prisons--yes, even in the condemned cell! Go to the very gates of Hell
   and tell it to every soul that is this side of the pit of Tophet and as
   yet out of its eternal fire--that if the wicked will but forsake his
   ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and turn unto the Lord, He
   will have mercy upon him and our God will abundantly pardon!

   Proclaim it to yourself, poor Sinner, you that trembles while I
   speak--you who would gladly sink through the floor because of your
   sense of sin! Your Father comes to meet you tonight! If you do not
   embrace Him, it is your fault, not His. His voice speaks and says,
   "Come, and welcome! Come, and welcome! Dear child of Mine, come to
   Me!"--

   "From the Cross of Calvary,

   Where the Savior deigned to die,

   What transporting sounds I hear

   Bursting on my ravished ears.

   Love's redeeming work is done,

   Come and welcome, Sinner, come." O Grace of God, bring in the great
   sinners, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 51. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--248, 49 SANKEY ("THE GREAT PHYSICIAN"), 219.
     __________________________________________________________________

An Objection and an Answer

   (No. 1280)

   A SERMON DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails anything, nor
   uncircumcision; but faith which works by love." Galatians 5:6.

   THE most prominent doctrine in Paul's teaching was that of
   Justification by Faith. He taught it so very plainly, so very boldly--I
   had almost said so very baldly--that it seemed necessary to the Holy
   Spirit that James should bear testimony to the necessity of holiness as
   the result of faith. Hence the Epistle of James is put into the sacred
   canon lest any should wrest and twist the language of Paul from its
   proper meaning. His great teaching--anybody can see this with half an
   eye--the great teaching of Paul is that we are saved by the Grace of
   God through faith in Jesus Christ. This doctrine has always been taught
   in the Church of God and it is, as Luther well put it, the standing or
   falling article--the test of a standing or a falling Church.

   A Church which holds this doctrine in its integrity, notwithstanding
   many errors, is still a Church of Christ, but the church which denies
   this, whatever else it may hold, is against Christ, and is not a Church
   of Christ at all. The great Reformation, for which we so often bless
   God, was brought about by this light. The Truth of God, which had been
   hidden in darkness, was held forth in the preaching and teaching of
   Protestant Reformers. For a long time after those eminent men had
   departed, the testimony of all the Protestant Churches to Justification
   by Faith was clear and unwavering. You can scarcely read a sermon of
   any of the immediate successors of the Reformers, but you will find it
   filled with the doctrine that man is justified through the
   righteousness of Jesus Christ, by faith in Him and not by the works of
   the Law.

   It was the same testimony which produced the revival in the last
   century, when Whitfield and Wesley awoke the slumbering masses of our
   population as they went forth through every town and hamlet preaching
   the Gospel. Whatever difference there might have been between those
   eminent Evangelists and their followers, they did not differ at all
   upon this point, that men are saved by believing in Jesus Christ--by
   resting upon the Atonement once offered for human sin upon the bloody
   tree of Calvary. And I rejoice, dear Friends, that this doctrine was
   never more clearly preached than now. As the time of the singing of
   birds has come and the Churches are waking up and expecting a blessed
   springtide, I thank God that there is this sign of its being a truthful
   work! Among other gracious signs it is conspicuous that Jesus Christ is
   preached and that faith in Him is declared to be of paramount
   importance.

   That it is so is evident from the opposition which has been aroused! I
   can hear the voice of the old growler--he is a gentleman that never has
   been absent when the banner of Christ has been unfurled. He is
   beginning, again, to whine and snarl, as he always did, and to bark at
   this doctrine, in particular, as not according to holiness, subversive
   of morality and mischievous in all its tendencies! I shall not attempt
   to stop his growling. His temper tells its own tale. He and his cronies
   do but display their natural disposition. If dogs delight to bark and
   bite, Dr. Watts has taught us to let them do so, "for 'tis their
   nature, too."

   I am not thinking of the cynical skeptic just now--my aim is to meet
   the sincere seeker. This objection takes the form of a difficulty in
   the minds of some who are anxious to find salvation. They say to
   themselves, "Can it be so? Is it possible that by simply believing on
   Christ, Himself, my soul can be saved? I can comprehend that this might
   be made a condition upon which God should pardon me, but that is not
   all I need. I need a new heart. I need a right spirit. It would be of
   little use for me merely to have my past sins forgiven. I need to
   become a better man. The salvation that I need is salvation from my
   sins, from temptations in the world and from the uprisings of my own
   naturally depraved heart. If I cannot get that, the mere pardon of sin
   is a very small business. I can understand, however, that God would
   pardon me upon my believing in Jesus. What I need to know is what
   effect my believing in Jesus will have upon me, personally--what change
   would accrue to my nature as the result of my believing."

   It is about that I want to talk--faith which works--faith which works!
   And I want to show something about how it works. It works "by love." To
   begin, then, I shall first attempt to answer the enquiry, "What is the
   faith which saves the soul?" And I venture to answer the question,
   first, by saying that it does not differ as a mental act from any other
   kind of believing. I fully admit that there is much about faith that is
   mysterious and of that I may speak presently. But if any man asked me
   what the act of believing is, I should not hesitate to reply, "I
   believe God just the same as I believe anybody else--believe Him as I
   believe my father, as I believe my mother, as I believe my wife. It is
   the same mind which believes and it is the same act of the mind that
   comes into operation. It is a rational assent. Faith is to believe what
   God says, to take it to be true, real, a matter of fact."

   Now, when I believe what a man tells me, I do not say to myself, "Well,
   that is now a piece of my creed," and so put it on the shelf and have
   done with it. A man tells me, for instance, in the middle of the night,
   that my house is on fire. You know what I should do. You know what you
   would do. You know what any sane man would do! But when you are told in
   God's Word that you are in danger of the wrath to come, do you believe
   what you read? No, you do not, or you would not be so cool as you now
   are. Your imminent peril would prompt instant action. I would to God
   that what men call faith in a religious point of view were as prompt in
   its proceedings as the common acts of faith which they exercise towards
   their fellow men!

   The fact is, the creed we profess comes often far--very far--short of
   the credit we give to our fellow creatures about the common affairs of
   life. Do you want to be saved? Believe God as you would believe the one
   that told you that your house was on fire! Believe God as you would
   believe your friend--believe Him actively, really, truly--for that is
   faith. God tells you that you have transgressed against Him, but that
   He wills not your death--that He has, therefore, sent His Son into the
   world to suffer in the place of sinners and that if you rely upon His
   Son you shall have immediate forgiveness and shall be saved. Believe
   that message! Believe it to be true! You ought to believe it, for God
   cannot lie.

   It is an indisputable fact that whatever God says, stands good. It is
   not contingent upon anything but His own will and He is without
   variableness or shadow of turning. What He says He means. Believe Him,
   then, whom you have not seen, as you would believe anyone whom you see
   daily. Give credit to the Word He has written as you would credit any
   word that is spoken to you. And if you do so believe, mark you, your
   faith will then resolve itself into an act of reliance. If I believe a
   man, when I am in trouble, and he says, "Now, Sir, leave that with me I
   will get you through"--I rely upon him to do it. I leave the matter in
   his hands and go my way.

   This is the very core of saving faith. It is to say, "Jesus Christ came
   into the world to save sinners. I am a sinner. I will trust Him to save
   me. He, on the Cross, made expiation for me and I am at peace. My heart
   rests on the Atonement which He has offered." It is dependence,
   reliance--or as the old Puritans used to say, "recumbency"--leaning
   upon a Friend because I have ceased to rely on myself. If He takes the
   burden, I stand aloof. His the weight, mine the relief, free from
   pressure, free from anxiety. That is faith, easy, artless
   faith--self-renouncing, God-honoring faith! It is unequivocal
   faith--faith taken in the simple common acceptance of the word, of the
   act, of the feeling. The very core, marrow, essence, soul of faith is
   reliance upon Jesus Christ, once offered for human sin, and now gone,
   covered with Glory, up to the right hand of God to represent sinners
   within the veil!

   And this reliance, wherever it is true, may also be described as an
   acceptance of what God has set forth as a propitiation for sin. God has
   given His Son. Let me put it in other words. God Himself, because He
   could not tarnish His justice, has descended to earth and taken up our
   Nature--He has worn the clay garb of our humanity. God Himself has
   suffered, has died upon the Cross as if He had been guilty. The Judge
   has taken the culprit's place and borne the vengeance due to the
   offender. He says, "Will you accept My Substitution? Shall it be so?
   Are you willing that I should be in your place, that you may be in
   Mine?"

   Sinner, I ask you, now--and let your heart reply--are you willing that
   the scourging of Christ should be in the place of your being scourged?
   Are you agreeable that by His stripes you may be healed? Are you
   willing that His blood should be shed instead of your blood--His death
   instead of your eternal death? You say--

   "My faith does lay her hand

   On that dear head of Yours,

   While like a penitent I stand

   And here confess my sin.

   You Say, "I am all too glad to take this Substitute, this blessed
   Substitute and to accept God's way of salvation." Very well! You are
   saved then and there! Believing God's testimony, relying on God's Son,
   accepting God's way of salva-tion--that is the faith that saves the
   soul!

   That is not faith which says, "I am saved because I believe I am." That
   may be a lie. It is not a faith that says, "I feel so happy and,
   therefore, I am saved." There are a great many that feel very happy,
   indeed, that will be lost. But it is a faith that goes upon principles,
   upon the Truths of God written in Scripture--not upon excitement nor
   upon feelings. God gives Christ to save men and Christ saves all who
   trust Him. I trust Him, therefore He saves me. I believe God gave me
   that trust, therefore I give all the glory to God! Having no works to
   boast of, I confess that I am saved through what Jesus did on my
   behalf. That is my first direction for your first dilemma.

   I want to answer a few objections against this being the way of
   salvation. Let me ask you, however, what on earth is the good of your
   objecting? If God has made this to be the way of salvation, your best
   plan is to accept it. What good will your objections do? "Can I not do
   as I will with My own?" would be God's response to your impertinence!
   As surely as this Book is God's Word, so surely are we taught there
   that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ. "He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved: he that believes not shall be damned." Now it
   is no use your kicking against it. There it stands and it will not be
   altered for anyone.

   Were this city starving and a man of wealth were to bring in bread and
   distribute it, any regulations he chose to make for the distribution,
   he surely would have a right to enforce! Nobody ought to quibble at it.
   God has made and fixed this fast and firm-- there is no other
   salvation. "There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby
   we must be saved." Man, do not object! We sometimes say to boys who go
   out to business and do not like the work, "It is no use quarrelling
   with your bread and butter." Surely the available supply of actual
   necessities ought to silence every murmur. What profit, I pray, Sir,
   can you expect to come of quibbling at God's Covenant, or challenging
   the propriety of His salvation which He has prepared before the face of
   all people?

   God has fixed it! He will not alter the thing that has gone out of His
   mouth. Leave your objections for something else! Write to the
   newspapers, if you please, about some public grievance, but to impugn
   with indignation, or bemoan with bitter complaints, God's way of
   salvation must be the most unprofitable, not to say the most
   impertinent and wicked way of wasting time! It is alleged that when we
   tell men to believe in Jesus and they will be saved, they will go on in
   sin--they will despise good works--they will, perhaps, grow immoral!
   The answer is this. Do they? Do they? I quoted a very homely proverb
   just now. I will quote another quite as homely. "The proof of the
   pudding is in the eating." And truly the proof of the doctrine is in
   the practical results.

   Do the people that believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, renouncing
   all trust in their good works, plunge deeper into sin and make this a
   reason for licentiousness? Answer honestly. Turn to the pages of
   history and see, on a large scale, the aspect of society. What do you
   think of the cavaliers of King Charles's day? They certainly were not
   Believers in justification by faith! I do not know, exactly, what they
   did believe in. But I suppose had there been a preacher of good works
   and the whole duty of man who adorned moral essays with graceful
   language, sparkling wit and aphorisms from heathen authors, these
   gallant gentlemen would have listened to the court preacher with a
   listless satisfaction and gone home to their ladies to tell what a
   profitable sermon they had heard.

   But where do you look for social virtue among men, holy living before
   God and noble sacrifices for the public good? Why, among your Puritans!
   Among the rough men that would do anything but sin, who feared no man's
   face in the day of battle and who feared God in the sanctities of their
   private chambers and the secret recesses of their own hearts! Around
   Cromwell's campfires at night there may be many disputes about
   doctrines but never a dispute about this question--that we are
   justified by faith in Jesus Christ! All the world knows that the men
   who cry up good works have not got any stock in hand, or even a sample
   to show--while those who preach up faith in Jesus Christ are,
   themselves, the very people whose biographies will bear to be written
   and who exhibit the very works which this doctrine is supposed to
   destroy!

   Judge, therefore, by facts! But if the doctrine of faith is such a
   wonderfully easy way of salvation and when it is accepted men just go
   on as they did before, why do not all the licentious people receive it?
   Why do you not hear in the theater and the saloon the song sung--

   "I do believe--I will believe--

   That Jesus died for me"?

   If Free Grace is such a potent factor in the merchandise of free
   living, why not introduce it more freely among your harlots? Why does
   it not find favor among the gay and giddy, the fast and frivolous? Do
   men do that? No! Because the world knows that our faith will not blend
   with their filth! If any man among you would like to come up here and
   say, "I, for one, believe in Jesus Christ and yet I lead a licentious
   life," he would become known as a hypocrite among the sensuous and the
   Sybarites! It is all very well to bribe false witnesses who say that it
   leads to that. You know it does not. The licentious are the last
   persons to talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ!

   Yet if it were so, if the expiation of Christ pleased in ever so small
   a degree, the Epicurean of the world, it would surely be one of the
   doctrines which the self-indulgent would seize upon with the greatest
   eagerness. No, Sir, the man that lives in vice and violates every
   precept of the Decalogue is just the man to make conscience of going on
   Good Friday to his church--there he takes the sacrament and believes
   that he, somehow or other, gets absolution! At our Agricultural Hall
   services and noonday Prayer Meetings they will sneer because, they say,
   it is encouraging hypocrisy instead of putting down immorality, and so
   on. Yes, we know where the talk comes from--from men who lack a
   morality of their own! If they were to look at their true lives it
   would suffice.

   Again, suppose we were to change the system of preaching and preach
   that men were to be saved by good works-- entirely by what they did.
   You say, "That would set them working!" Perhaps it would, or perhaps it
   would not--most likely the latter, for as a general rule it never has
   produced much result. Dr. Chalmers' experience was that he preached
   morality till he had not any moral people left--and he did not see
   anybody converted to Jesus Christ. I believe you may preach against
   sin, but if you do not, at the same time, proclaim the way of
   salvation, you prevent shame and leave men accusing one another and
   excusing themselves. Your model sermons would become monstrous
   travesties of honesty! In plain English, you would be preaching up
   selfishness.

   You say to these people, "Do this, that you may be saved." What is,
   then, to be the objective of their life? Self-salvation. That is the
   one thing they are to live for--that they may somehow merit Heaven. But
   it is a doctrine that will pay extremely well! If you happen to be a
   priest and want something that will really pay you for your services, I
   do not know anything better than to tell them that they will get to
   Heaven by their benevolent actions, their deeds of charity and
   especially their alms to the church! And, of course, you need to remind
   them that in their departing moments it will be extremely useful to
   leave a large sum of money for the benefit of the church and much to
   the advantage of their souls! Oh, it is an excellent plan of picking
   their pockets!

   If men give in that way, they are giving to God, they say. It is a
   bald-faced lie! They are giving to themselves-- seeking their own
   salvation. It is a pure system of selfishness from beginning to end and
   he that lives to save himself is living with a mean purpose! I wonder
   how he can look himself in the face, and say, "God made me, and yet I
   am not living to His glory, but I am living to save myself." I say,
   Sir, that if your system could be worked out and produce the best
   possible effect that could come of it, it would only be to reduce
   mankind into a race of self-seeking men, seeking, indeed, self in a
   very fine garb, but still seeking self.

   "How about faith?" you say. Why, faith in Jesus Christ saves us from
   self! We believe in Him and we are saved from that day, for we live not
   for self-salvation. We are saved and now, out of love to Him who saved
   us, we live unto His praise and glory, this being our grand
   motive--that we might glorify Him, not seeking a reward, but, "As you
   have loved me, O ever loving Lord, so would I love You!" This is
   something better than selfishness. This is, in fact, salvation from
   self, which is no mean part of salvation from our sins. Push the matter
   still closer home. I would like to ask another question. You say that
   to tell a big evil sinner that God forgives him on the spot when he
   believes in Jesus is to encourage him in sin.

   Come, then, and defend your hypothesis! Suppose that the man is led to
   believe that God has forgiven him, what will be the effect upon him?
   Think a little. Have you never heard of the effect of kindness upon
   men? Do you not believe in it? Some men are all for whips and chains.
   Flog them! Give them a term of penal servitude! Exile them! That is the
   law and it is supposed to be capable of working a wonderful reformation
   in their characters. But have you never heard of the effect ofkindness?
   I will tell you a story of a Quaker. Isaac Hopper was in the streets of
   Philadelphia and he heard a waiter swearing awfully. This waiter waited
   upon him in a hotel and he swore there.

   "Well," said Hopper, "I must stop this man's swearing." So he brought
   him up, (it was many years ago), before the Philadelphian court, which
   then had a law that anybody who cursed God should be fined. So Cain got
   fined. Some years afterwards Hopper was in Philadelphia and he saw
   Cain, not in the white cravat of the waiter, but in rags. He had
   evidently been living a life of drunkenness. Now Hopper had desired
   this man's good, so he said to the man, "Cain, you have not much
   improved since I saw you last."

   No, he had not and he had some bad ways. Hopper asked him if he did not
   remember when he had him brought before the Philadelphian court and
   fined for using bad language. Remember it?! He certainly did remember
   it! He should never forget the nasty trick that the Quaker had played
   on him. "Now," Hopper said, "Friend Cain, I meant your good. I really
   did desire your good." Cain said, "And I cursed at you dreadfully,
   afterwards." So Hopper put his hand into his pocket with all the
   calculation of business and he said, "Friend Cain, you were fined so
   much and the interest upon it since then is so much. I can assure you I
   only meant your good and now I give you this back."

   Then he proceeded to speak to him very kindly till big tears stood in
   Cain's eyes. And Cain said, "After all, Mr. Hopper, there is something
   better in the world than I thought there was." And it was the means of
   reclaiming the man. The fining did not do him good, as we generally
   believe it does on those of whom we speak as "worthless characters."
   Kindness--that's what set him right! A more remarkable case was that of
   Penel, the master of the lunatic asylum in Paris, in the days of the
   Convention. There were hundreds of people chained to the floor and
   Penel sued the Convention that they would allow him to set them loose.

   He proposed to let loose fifty furious savages first. Caithon, the
   president, said, "I will come down tomorrow and see these creatures.
   And if you are concealing any of the enemies of the republic, death to
   you at the guillotine." And when Caithon went down they howled at him,
   like so many wild beasts, and he said, "I think you are maddest of all
   of them, but you may do as you like, though I am sure you will be the
   victim of it." There was one English captain in the house who had been
   chained there 40 years--chained down to the ground because he had got
   one of his hands loose and had killed a keeper--a savage, morose beast
   of the worst kind that could be.

   Penel went to him and he said, "Captain, if I set you free will you act
   like a rational being?" "Ah, that I would," said the man, "but you are
   all afraid of me--all of you." "No, I am not," said Penel, "I have got
   these men here who could manage you very well, but I will trust you, if
   you behave yourself rationally." Oh, he would behave very well, that he
   would--the very man who killed his keeper! And when his chains were
   taken from him he strove to rise, poor man, but for many minutes he
   could not stand, because he had been chained down so long. At last he
   got up and looked up at the sky and could only say, "Beautiful!
   Beautiful! Beautiful!"

   And he became not only calm, quiet and tractable, but made himself a
   sort of superintendent over the rest. I believe Penel was the means of
   bringing all the poor creatures who had been let loose back to sober
   reason and something like reasoning obedience of the laws under which
   they lived--simply by kindness. And has that been done by madmen? Why,
   it has been done by some of us, who were worse than mad--mad with sin!
   We have trusted them, forgiven them, been kind to them and conquered
   them! And do you believe, if the everlasting God says to a sinner,
   "Now, you will destroy yourself if you go on. I am angry with your sin
   and though I hate your sin, I do not hate you. I have laid your sin on
   Christ. Believe it." And will you believe, if the man believes it--he
   will rise up to be worse than he was before?

   Human nature is bad enough, but, after all, this is not the way of man!
   The cords of love hold us and the bands of a man restrain us. I will
   ask you, Sir, that makes the objection, if you could be met on the
   Tabernacle steps tonight or at your own door by an angel, who should
   say to you, "I have brought you this scroll fresh from the hands of the
   Eternal God: on it is written, 'I have loved you with an everlasting
   love; therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn you, I have bought
   you with My precious blood: your sins, which are many, are all
   forgiven.'"--Sir, would the effect of that upon you be to make you live
   a worse life than you did before?

   You would be a devil--worse than a devil--if such were to be the
   consequence! But it could not be so. "I feel I must begin a new
   life"--that is what I want you to feel. And, therefore, I preach to you
   tonight, not as an angel with a scroll, but as a man, like yourself,
   with the Christ-inspired volume before me! Believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ and you shall have pardon for the past and you shall, with the
   reception of that pardon, find a change come over your nature which
   shall inspire you with nobler purposes and make you another man than
   you are at present! I might thus continue to

   speak, but I refrain. If the objection is not driven away by my feeble
   sentences, may God drive it away by His mighty Spirit!

   Now my closing effort shall be to show the comparative power of faith.
   Paul says that faith works. It works by love--not by dread or fear, but
   by love. Oh, blessed machinery is this! Love shall be the great
   communicator--the great band which connects the mighty engine of faith
   with our lives--faith which works by love. Do you ask how faith works
   by love? Why, when a man believes God's Testimony and sees that,
   notwithstanding all his offenses, God loves him and has provided His
   own dear Son to be a ransom for him, the man says, "My views of God are
   changed. I never understood that God was like this. I thought, surely,
   that He was very angry with me, that I should be utterly destroyed and
   that without remedy.

   "Has God given me His only-begotten Son and did that only-begotten Son
   bear for me what I ought to have borne? Then I cannot be His enemy. It
   was ignorance of what He is that made me indifferent to Him. My
   indifference begat insolence and that made me oppose Him. Love has come
   into my soul, now, and I see who God is. God is Love. God is Light and
   in Him there is no darkness at all." The man's mind is, by that very
   fact, changed in regard to God. And having effected this revolution of
   feeling, you have gone a long way towards changing the man's actual
   life. The next step after that is repentance. The man says, "Well, I
   struggled against a mighty God who had made Laws which I have broken
   and only knew that He would punish me. I feared the worst. I felt
   case-hardened. I said, 'I will go on, for there is no hope.'

   "But now I perceive that God has never done anything towards me for
   which I should hate Him. He has never viewed me in a malicious spirit,
   but He has always regarded me with an eye to my good. I hate myself to
   think that I should have offended Him. Wretch that I am, that I should
   have lived 40 years denying the existence of One who has never
   forgotten me a single day! Wretch that I am, that I should have taken
   that name in vain which is a name above every name--the name that is to
   be my everlasting joy. O, my Father, my Father, how could it be that I,
   Your child, should be Your foe? My Savior, my bleeding Savior, how was
   it that I could revile Your people, despise Your Cross and trample on
   Your blood? I grieve, for I have grieved You! I hate the sins that made
   You mourn, now that I see that You forgive--and I thank You."

   There is a change, you see, of the view the man takes of God and then a
   change in the views which he takes of his own actions--and he repents
   in dust and ashes when he discovers the love of God. Yes, and Faith
   works by love yet farther, for Faith leads to the foot of the Cross and
   says, "Look there." And the soul stands and looks up! And as it looks,
   it lives! And as it lives, it loves! And as it loves, it weeps! And as
   it weeps, it gazes upon Christ, again, and says, "Yes, He is the Son of
   God and yet the greatest sufferer that ever lived! He was offended, yet
   He died! He it is whose Laws were broken, yet the punishment of our sin
   was upon Him!

   And as we look into those wounds and read those griefs, and as our eyes
   begin to penetrate within His flesh to see the heartbreak which He
   endured. And as the ear catches the sound of, "Eloi! Eloi! Lame
   Sabacthani." And as our heart gazes into the side and sees His heart
   that was broken, we begin to love and weep--and love and weep again.
   And then we say to ourselves, "What should I do for Him who died to
   save my wretched soul?" Sin becomes hateful and we ask, "How can I
   please Him? How can I serve Him?" Then we wish we could die for Him and
   as He does not ask us to do that, we pray that we may live for Him.
   Love to Him becomes the strongest incentive, the mightiest impulse, the
   motive power that sways our entire being!

   Oh, I wish you felt it to be so in your own souls! It has been so in
   some of us and now, forever more, to us, to live is Christ! Now for the
   love we bear to His name, Christ has become the great object of our
   being! And so faith, leading us by the way of gratitude up to the
   standpoint of love, begets in us a desire to please Him and also a
   desire to imitate Him--for love, somehow, always grows like its object.
   You cannot love a thing without becoming something like it, in
   proportion to the force of love. And just in proportion as you love
   Jesus, you must become like He. Oh, Objector, would it hurt the world
   if men were to grow like Christ? Whatever you may think about the
   religion we have taken from His lips, I know you cannot speak against
   the life which He lived!

   And if faith in Him will make men like He--and it has made them like He
   and is making them like He every day--it cannot be an evil and a
   licentious thing! It must, in fact, be the greatest power for morality,
   the greatest strengthener of social law and order and the very best
   principle a patriot might desire to spread throughout the nation in
   which he lives!

   Talk no more about morality, I pray you. O bleeding Lamb, the best
   morality is love to You! And where is it but in those who trust You
   with their soul, their All in All?

   You will always find that those who thus, out of gratitude, desire to
   imitate Christ, inevitably become lovers of their fellow men. When we
   imitate Christ, we cannot be men-haters. To hate is not Christ, but the
   very opposite of Christ. Our blessed Lord and Master is no man-hater.
   When I listen to a cynic I know that Christ is not of his school. When
   I read the sharp and cutting satire. When I have heard men spoken of in
   terms which make them to be brutes--at least a few dozen generations
   back--I know that that doctrine was not learned of Christ. My Master,
   the Lord Jesus Christ, was the poor man's Friend!

   Never a syllable fell from His lips which would make a tyrant feel at
   ease in His despotism. Never did He utter a syllable that would make
   the oppressive master feel that he had any right to tread down his
   workmen. Never did He utter a line that would make the workman feel
   that he had the right to be envious of those who possess more talents
   or enjoy higher privileges than he had. His teaching was justice and
   His life was love. If you ask me for a man that all might respect--such
   a man as one would wish all men to be with whom we dwell--I can only
   commend you to the Person and Character of my Lord! And if you are to
   become imitators of Him, the husband will be the kindest husband and
   the most loving of fathers! The mother will be the most tender and
   amiable of mothers and of wives!

   If you have been forgiven by Christ and so love Him mightily and
   imitate Him diligently--well, you will be such men and women that no
   pastor need be ashamed to say, "They belong to my flock!" And no fellow
   Christians will need be ashamed to acknowledge you as one of their
   fraternity! Oh, Beloved, there is growing up in this country, I fear,
   more and more a feeling of alienation, the one from the other. I cannot
   speak, as some do, of "the good old times," for I believe the times
   were never so old as they are now and never so good. But I do grieve to
   see that different classes are positioned against each other. It will
   be ill for our country if this jealousy goes on, for rivalries provoke
   resentments.

   God has given us preeminence among the sons of men in many respects and
   if the house would not be divided against itself it would prosper. If
   we will, every one of us, resolve to love his neighbor as himself and
   to seek his brother's good, each one seeking and satisfied with that
   which is just and equal, whether occupying the higher or the lower or
   the middle place, from how many districts, manifold distractions would
   be averted! Yes, but if we will, each one do more, and be generous and
   kind and loving, we shall be benefactors, indeed, and bless our
   country! I do not know by what process we can be brought to do this so
   surely and so reasonably, as by our believing in Jesus Christ! Feeling
   gratitude and love to Him, then imitating Him, and then becoming like
   He, we shall verify, in our triumph over the world, the virtue of that
   faith whereby, alone, the victory can be won!

   One other remark. If you would have faith in Christ as the ground of
   justification, do not mix up this gift in your thoughts with anything
   else that has nothing at all to do with it. "Neither circumcision
   avails anything, nor uncircumci-sion." These outward distinctions are
   of no consequence. They might have made a great difference at another
   time and under other circumstances, but, "from now on know we no man
   after the flesh." "If any man is in Christ he is a new creature; old
   things are passed away; behold all things are become new." Now, there
   may be, and most likely there are, not a few of my hearers who are
   enquiring the way of salvation but cannot understand it because they
   distract themselves with thoughts about themselves that are totally
   irrelevant.

   I think I can read the thought which is just now passing through the
   minds of many of you. "Oh," you say, "I should like a few minutes
   conversation with the pastor!" And why? Have you any questions to ask?
   Is there any matter I have failed to make plain? Do you not understand,
   one and all of you, that, entirely irrespective of anything about your
   birth, your bringing up, or your business, the simple direction of the
   Gospel is, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Suppose I
   listened to you. It would not be very difficult for me to conjecture
   what everyone would have to say. "Well," says one, "I wanted to tell
   you, Sir, that I was trained in the Established Church and christened
   before I was three months old." That means nothing.

   "Alas, Sir!" says another, "You could not imagine the disadvantages of
   my childhood. My parents were no churchgoers. They never had me
   sprinkled or dedicated, or anything else. I was reared like a heathen."
   Well, that is no detriment--it means nothing. "Why, Sir," says one, "I
   could repeat the Catechism and I knew by heart all the collects before
   I was four years old." "Alas!" says another, "I never was taught
   anything." Know assuredly, my Friends, that there is but one salvation
   for white men, or black men, for Pharisees or publicans! When you
   believe in Jesus, you are born-again!

   Every trace of your former self is wiped out. I would that you counted
   yourselves dead and buried, that you might live the new life and say
   with the Apostle, "The life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
   of the Son of God."

   Some of you have been converted during the last few weeks. I hope a
   good many of you have. Some of you have been converted to God in this
   place. There are here present, I doubt not, those who have been brought
   to believe in Christ under various agencies piously and prayerfully
   conducted at this time in our metropolis. We greet you cordially. Our
   adversaries watch you narrowly. They say, "Well, but will they stand?
   Will they last?" "Is their conversion worth anything?" Now, I do pray
   that you who profess to have found Christ, do not make a sham of it. Do
   let it be salvation from sin that you have got. Salvation from Hell--is
   that what you want? That is not the salvation you ought to try after.
   It is salvation from sin. That will bring salvation from Hell!

   You know, every thief would like to get salvation from going to prison,
   but that would not be of any particular use to him. The salvation that
   is worth having is the salvation from thieving any more. Mr. Thief, if
   you get that, you will get salvation from prison, too! Salvation from
   Hell is not the issue, but salvation from sinning. Now let us see how
   you live, you converts. You go home, Sir, and growl at your wife. You
   go home, Madam, to be snappish with your servant. You go home,
   housemaid, to be slovenly in your duties. You go home, working man,
   resolved to give half a day's work for a whole day's wage. You go home,
   master, to act the tyrant over your men. Well, you have been converted,
   have you?

   I pray God to undo such a conversion and begin again with you! There
   are lots of people who need to be unconverted before they are
   converted--to have the rubbish they have built up themselves pulled
   down before Christ can begin. Suppose you have some freehold ground and
   it has an old remarkable building on it. With a new edifice in view,
   you must clear away every vestige of the former house. There are plenty
   of people who have a good-for-nothing conversion that needs sweeping
   away before God can do anything with them.

   Pray to the Lord in this way--"Lord, I beseech You save me from my sin.
   Let me have a perfect faith which works, not a faith that sends me to
   sleep, not a faith that gives me a dose of opium and says, 'There, your
   conscience was like an aching tooth and would not stop aching, but I
   have stopped it.'" Now, ask the Lord to extract that which causes
   pain-- to take away that which causes the mischief--not to give you
   quietness for a time. Ask for a right spirit and a new heart. Remember,
   you must be born-again. Though it is quite true as we say and sing,
   "Only believe and you shall be saved," yet if that, "only believing" is
   of a sort which merely asserts without intelligence of the mind,
   without emotion of the heart, there is nothing in it.

   It leaves you what you were before--it is not the faith, pure and
   simple, that will save your soul. Evidently it will not save you, for
   it has left you still slaves to your sin. True, real, childlike faith
   in Jesus Christ saves us because it works by love. The Lord grant you
   to possess this precious prize which we persistently preach--the faith
   which works by love.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 3:20. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--351, 544, 406.

   [The original title of this sermon was A Remonstrance and a Rejoinder]
     __________________________________________________________________

"Do You Love Me?"

   (No. 1281)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 27 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" John 21:16.

   This is a very short and simple text and some would think it very easy
   to say all that can be said upon it, but, indeed, it is a very large
   text and too full of meaning for me to attempt to expound it all. The
   words are few, but the thoughts suggested are very many There are
   subtle meanings, too, in the original Greek well worth considering, and
   allusions which deserve to be followed out. I intend, at this time, to
   confine myself to one point, and to ask your consideration of one
   thought only. May the Spirit of God prepare our hearts for our
   meditation and impress the Truth of God upon them. My one point is
   this--our Lord asked Peter whether he had a love to His Person. The
   inquiry is not concerning his love to the kingdom of God, or the people
   of God--it begins and ends with his love to the Son of God.

   "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" He does not say, "Do you now
   perceive the prudence of My warnings when I bade you watch and pray?
   Simon, son of Jonas, will you, from now on, cease from your
   self-confidence and take heed to My admonitions?" It is not even, "Do
   you now believe My doctrines? Do you now trust in One whom, the other
   day, you denied?" Neither is it asked, "Are you pleased with My
   precepts? Are you a believer in My claims? Will you still confess Me to
   be the Son of the Highest?" No, these matters are not brought under
   question, but the one inquiry is, "Do you love Me? Have you a personal
   attachment for Me, to My very Self?"

   He calls him by his old, unconverted name, Simon, son of Jonas, to
   remind him of what Grace had done for him and then He asks only about
   his love. The question deals with personal attachment to a personal
   Christ--and that is my sole subject. Observe that our ever wise and
   tender Savior questioned Peter about his love in plain terms. There was
   no beating about the bush. He went at once to the point, for it is not
   a matter about which ambiguity and doubt can be endured. As the
   physician feels his patient's pulse to judge his heart, so the Lord
   Jesus tested, at once, the pulse of Peter's soul. He did not say,
   "Simon, son of Jonas, do you repent of your folly?" Repentance is a
   very blessed Grace and very necessary, but it was wiser to look, at
   once, to Peter's love, because it is quite certain that if a disciple
   loves his master he will deeply grieve for ever having denied him.

   The Lord does not even ask His follower about his faith which might
   well have been put under question, for he had with oaths said, "I know
   not the Man." It would have been a highly important question, but it
   was answered when Peter avowed his love, for he who loves, believes,
   and no man can love a Savior in whom he does not believe. The Lord left
   every other point out of His question, or perhaps I ought, rather, to
   say concentrated every other point into this one in-quiry--"Do you love
   Me?" Learn from this fact that one thing is necessary--love to Jesus is
   the chief, the vital point to look to.

   This question the Lord asked three times, as if to show that it is of
   the first, of the second and of the third importance--as if it
   comprised all else and, therefore, He would again and again and again
   insist upon it--as orators dwell with repetitions and emphatic
   sentences upon topics which they would urge home upon their hearers.
   This nail was meant to be well fastened, for it is struck on the head
   with blow after blow. With unvarying tone and look, the Lord enquired,
   "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" It shows what weight our Savior
   attached to the matter of his love, that He asked him about that, about
   that only and about that three times over.

   When you are examining yourselves, look mainly to your hearts and make
   thorough inquisition into your love. Is Jesus really loved by you? Have
   you a deep attachment to His Person? Whatever else you trifle with, be
   earnest here! Remember that the Lord Jesus, Himself, asked the question
   and He asked it until He grieved Peter. So long as he was but
   recognized as a disciple, Peter must have felt ready to receive the
   severest possible rebuke and think himself gently treated. Therefore it
   was not easy to grieve him. Our Lord was slow at all times to cause
   pain to any true heart, yet on

   this occasion, for wise reasons, He reiterated His inquiry till He
   touched Peter's unhealed wounds and made them smart. Had he not made
   his Master's heart bleed? And was it not fit that he should feel
   heart-wounds himself? A threefold denial demanded a threefold
   confession--and the grief he had caused was fitly brought to his memory
   by the grief he felt.

   Now, this morning, if I press this question until I grieve some of you,
   till I grieve myself, also, I shall not be censurable for having done
   so. To comfort you would be a good work, but sometimes it may be better
   to grieve you. Not always is sweet food the best thing we can bring
   you--bitter medicine is sometimes more important. I shall not have
   pushed the question beyond its legitimate sphere if I should so present
   it as to stir your hearts even to anguish! True love has more or less
   of pain about it. Only the mere pretender passes through the world
   without anxious inquiry and heart-searching. Better far that you should
   be grieved today and be found right at last, than that you should
   presumptuously feel yourselves secure and be deceived in the end!

   We remarked that the question was put by our Lord Himself. What if the
   Lord Jesus should meet you today and should say to each one of you, "Do
   you love Me?" If the question came at the end of one of our sermons, or
   just as we had done teaching, I should not wonder if it startled us.
   Found, as we are, in His House, having just sung sweet hymns in His
   honor, having united in prayer and heartily joined in His worship, it
   would seem strange to be questioned as to our love to Him and yet it
   would not be unnecessary. Imagine, then, that your Lord has found you
   quite alone and is standing before you. Think of Him touching you with
   His hand and gently asking, "After all, do you love Me?"

   How would you feel under such a question? Would you not be struck with
   it and, perhaps, with shame begin to tremble and think over a dozen
   reasons why such a searching question was suggested to you just now?
   And if the Lord were to repeat it three times and each time put it
   distinctly to you, and to you only, would you not feel great searchings
   of heart? Yet would I have you so receive the question. Let it come to
   you now as from Jesus. Forget that it is spoken by the minister, or
   written in the text. Bear it only as spoken by Jesus, by that same
   Jesus who has redeemed you from death and Hell by His most precious
   blood!

   He addresses it to you rather than to others--is there not a cause?
   Singling you out of the company, He gazes on you fixedly and says,
   "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?"--you know why there is such
   cause to question you. Answer for yourself, alone, for He puts the
   enquiry only to you. Never mind Nathanael, now, nor Thomas, nor the two
   sons of Zebedee--"Do you love Me?" Really, truly does your heart beat
   true towards Jesus of Nazareth? Come, Peter, yes or no? You say, "Yes,"
   but is it so? Is it so? Is it so? I want the enquiry to come to my own
   soul and to yours this morning, as if Jesus really stood before each
   one of us and said, "Do you love Me?"

   May the Lord grant us Grace to make solemn enquiry as to this matter,
   to bear honest witness and to give a true answer which shall be the
   truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

   I. Our first observation shall be this--LOVE TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST
   MAY BE ABSENT FROM OUR HEARTS. Unhappy thought and yet most certainly
   true! Even in our hearts there may be no love for Christ! I know of
   nothing which can screen any one of us from the necessity of the
   question. Our gifts and apparent Graces may prevent our fellow
   creatures questioning us, but nothing should prevent our questioning
   ourselves, for certainly there is nothing which will prevent the Lord,
   Himself, from putting the enquiry to us.

   No outward religiousness renders this enquiry needless. Are we
   professors of religion? Are we very constant in attending to outward
   forms of worship? Do we enter very heartily into all the public
   exercises of God's House? Yes, but there are thousands who do that,
   hundreds of thousands who do that every Lord's-Day and yet they do not
   love Christ! My Brothers and Sisters, are not multitudes wrapped up in
   forms and ceremonies? If the service pleases the eyes and the ears, are
   they not quite content? Love to the Person of Christ has not occurred
   to the mass of avowed worshippers of Jesus!

   We know others to whom the end-all and be-all of religion is an
   orthodox statement of doctrine. So long as the preaching is according
   to the confession of faith and every word and act is piously correct,
   they are well pleased. But no love to Jesus ever stirs their
   hearts--religion to them is not an exercise of the heart at all--it is
   mere brain work and hardly that. They know nothing of the living soul
   going out towards a living Person, a bleeding heart knit to another
   bleeding heart, a life subsisting on another life and in love with it.
   We know Brothers and Sisters who carry this very far and if the
   preacher differs from them in the merest shade, they are overwhelmed
   with pious horror at his unsoundness-- and they will not hear him
   again--even if he preaches Christ most preciously in all the rest of
   his discourse, it is nothing, because he cannot say correctly their
   "Shibboleth."

   What is orthodoxy without love, but a catacomb to bury dead religion
   in? It is a cage without a bird! The gaunt skeleton of a man, out of
   which the life has fled! I am afraid that the general current of Church
   life runs too much towards externals and too little towards deep
   burning love to the Person of Christ. If you preach much about
   emotional religion and the heart-work of godliness, cold-blooded
   professors label you as rather mystical and begin to talk of Madame
   Guyon and the danger of the Quietist school of religion. We would not
   mind having a little spice of that, even if we were blamed for it, for,
   after all, the realizing of Christ is the grand thing! The faith which
   is most blessed is faith which deals most fully with the Person of
   Jesus Christ. The truest repentance is that which weeps at the sight of
   His wounds and the love which is most sweet is love to the adorable
   Person of the Well-Beloved.

   I look upon the Doctrines of Grace as my Lord's garments and they smell
   of myrrh, aloes and cassia. I look upon His precepts as His scepter and
   it is a rod tipped with silver. And I delight to touch it and find
   comfort in its power. I look upon the Gospel ordinances as the Throne
   upon which He sits and I delight in that Throne of ivory overlaid with
   pure gold. But oh, His Person is sweeter than His garments, dearer than
   His scepter, more glorious than His Throne! He, Himself, is altogether
   lovely, and to love HIM is the very heart's core of true religion! But
   perhaps you may not love Him, after all. You may have all the externals
   of outward religiousness and yet the secret of the Lord may not be with
   you. It will be vain to reverence the Sabbath if you forget the Lord of
   the Sabbath! It is vain to love the sanctuary but not the Great High
   Priest, vain to love the wedding feast but not the Bridegroom! Do you
   love ME? That is the question. "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love ME?"

   Nor, Brothers and Sisters, would the highest office in the Church
   render it unnecessary to ask the question. Peter was an Apostle and not
   a whit behind the very chief of them. In some respects he was a
   foundation stone of the Church and yet it was necessary to say to him,
   "Do you love Me?" There was once an Apostle who did not love the Lord.
   There was an Apostle who coveted 30 pieces of silver--a goodly price
   was that at which he sold his Master. The name of Judas should sound
   the death-knell of all presumptuous confidence in our official
   standing! We may stand very high in the Church and yet fall to our
   destruction! Our names may be in the list of religious leaders and yet
   they may not be written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So, my Brother
   minister, deacon, or elder--it is necessary to put to ourselves the
   question, "Do you love the Lord?"

   The enjoyment of the greatest Christian privileges does not render this
   question unnecessary. Peter and James and John were the three most
   favored of all the Apostles. They witnessed certain of our Lord's
   miracles which were done in secret and beheld by no other human eyes.
   They beheld Him on the Mount of Transfiguration in all His Glory and
   they saw Him in the Garden of Gethsemane in all His agony and yet,
   though thus favored, their Lord felt it necessary to ask of their
   leader, "Do you love Me?" O my Brother, you have had high enjoyments,
   you have been on Tabor, illuminated with its transporting light and you
   have also had fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, or, at any
   rate, you think you have.

   You are familiar, alike, with inward agonies and spiritual joys! You
   have been the friend of the Lord and eaten bread with Him and yet,
   remember, there was one who did this and yet lifted up his heel against
   Him! Therefore it is necessary to say to you, my Brother, "Do you love
   the Lord?" Do you really love Him, after all? For it is not certain
   that you do just because of what you have seen and enjoyed. It is easy
   to invent a remarkable experience, but the one thing necessary is a
   loving heart. Take heed that you have this.

   Nor, my dear Brothers and Sisters, does the greatest warmth of zeal
   prevent your necessity of this question. Peter was a red-hot disciple.
   How ready he was both to do and to dare for his Master! How impetuously
   he cried when he was on the lake of Galilee, "Lord, if it is You, bid
   me come to You on the water." What daring! What faith! What vehement
   zeal! And here, too, in the narrative before us, when the Lord was by
   that same Sea of Tiberias, Peter, in his headlong zeal, cannot wait
   until the boat touches the shore. He girds on his fisher's coat and
   plunges in to meet the Master whom he loves and yet, with that headlong
   zeal before Him, the Lord says, "Do you love Me?"

   Yes, young man, you are earnest in the Sunday school, you have sought
   the conversion of the little ones and succeeded above many! You
   encourage others and give impetus to every movement in which you
   engage. And yet you need to enquire whether you do, in very deed, love
   the Lord or not. Perhaps, my dear Brother, you stand up in the corners
   of the streets and face the ungodly throng and delight to talk of
   Jesus, whether men oppose or not. Yet are you sure you love Jesus? My
   Sister, you visit the poor and care for the needy. You lay yourself out
   to do good to young people and are full

   of warmth in all things which concern the Redeemer's cause. We admire
   you and hope your zeal will never grow less-- but for all that, even to
   you must the question be put--"Do you love the Lord Jesus?"

   There is a zeal which is fed by regard to the opinions of others and
   sustained by a wish to be thought earnest and useful. There is a zeal
   which is rather the warmth of nature than the holy fire of Grace. This
   zeal has enabled many to do great things and yet, when they have done
   all, they have been as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal because
   they did not love Jesus Christ! The most zealous actions, though they
   naturally lead us to hope that those who perform them are lovers of
   Jesus, are not conclusive evidence and, therefore, we must still
   enquire, "Do you love the Lord?"

   Yes, dear Friends, and I will go a little further--the greatest
   self-denial does not prove it. Peter could say, "Lord, we have left all
   and followed You." Though it was not very much, yet it was all Peter
   had and he had left it all for the good cause, without having gained
   any earthly good in return. He had been frequently abused and
   reproached for Jesus' sake and he expected to be reproached still more,
   yet he was loyal and willing to suffer to the end. Yet the Lord,
   knowing all that Peter had sacrificed for His sake, nevertheless said
   to him, "Do you love Me?" For sadly, strangely true it is that men have
   made considerable sacrifices to become professed Christians and yet
   have not had the root of the matter in them.

   Some have even been put into prison for the Truth of God and yet have
   not been sincere Christians. It is not for us to say, but it is to be
   feared that in the martyr days some have given their bodies to be
   burned, yet because they had not love, it profited them nothing. Love
   is essential. Nothing can compensate for its absence. And yet this
   precious thing may not be in your hearts! O God, I tremble as I
   remember that perhaps it is not in mine! Let each one hear the
   question, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" I must press the point
   still a little further. It is often necessary for us to ask this
   question because there are other points of religion besides the
   emotional. Man is not all heart--he has a brain and the brain is to be
   consecrated and sanctified. It is, therefore, right that we should
   study the Word of God and become well instructed scribes in the kingdom
   of Heaven.

   Peter went to college three years, with Jesus Christ for a tutor, and
   he learned a great deal--who would not from so great a Teacher? But
   after he had been through his course, his Master, before He sent him to
   his lifework, felt it necessary to inquire, "Do you love Me?" Brother,
   you may turn over the pages of your book. You may digest doctrine after
   doctrine. You may take up theological propositions and problems and you
   may labor to solve this difficulty and expound that text. You may
   answer the questions, till, somehow or other, the heart grows as dry as
   the leaves of the volume and the book-worm feeds on the soul as well as
   the paper, eating its way into the spirit. It is, therefore, a healthy
   thing for the Lord to come into the study and close the book and say to
   the student, "Sit still a while, and let Me ask you, 'Do you love Me?'
   I am better than all books and studies. Have you a warm, human, living
   love for Me?"

   I hope many of you are very diligent students--if you teach in the
   Sunday school you ought to be. If you preach in the streets or in
   cottage meetings you ought to be. How shall you fill others if you are
   not full yourselves? But, at the same time, look most of all to the
   condition of your heart towards Christ. To know is good, but to love is
   better. If you will study, you can solve all problems. Yet, if you love
   not, you have failed to comprehend the mystery of mysteries and to know
   the most excellent of sciences. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
   Look well, then, to the question, "Do you

   love Me?"

   Much of Christian life, also, ought to be spent in active labor. We are
   to be up and doing! If there was anything to do, Peter was the man to
   do it. He had gone forth to preach the Gospel and even the devils had
   been subject to him! Peter had worked marvels in Jesus' name and he was
   ordained to work yet greater wonders. Yet, despite all that Peter had
   done, his love needed to be examined. Even though those feet of Peter's
   had walked the sea, which no other man's feet had done, yet Peter must
   be asked, "Do you love Me?" He had just dragged that huge net to the
   shore with all that host of fishes, a hundred and fifty and three! With
   great skill and mighty effort he had drawn the whole catch on shore,
   yet this did not prove his love.

   There are preachers of the Gospel among us who have dragged a full net
   to shore--the great fishes have been many! They have been great and
   successful workers, but this does not prevent its being necessary for
   the Lord to examine them as to their hearts. He bids them put aside
   their nets for awhile and commune with Him. Shut up the Church Book.
   Fold up the membership roll and have done counting your fishes! Come
   into your chamber, Jesus means to ask you something! "In My name you
   have cast out devils, but did you love Me? You cast the net on the
   right side of the ship, as I told you,

   but did you love Me? You drew to shore that catch of fishes, but did
   you love Me?" Brothers and Sisters, this is the solemn fear, "Lest
   after having preached to others I myself should be a castaway." Lest
   after bringing others to Jesus and serving God well in the school, or
   in some other sphere, you should, nevertheless, make a dead failure of
   it, because you have not loved Jesus Himself!

   I must press the question again and again, and I pray the Holy Spirit
   to let its power be felt by every one of us. Possibly we may have been
   called to contend earnestly for the faith. And we may have been
   battling with the King's enemies on this side and on that and standing
   up for the Truth of God even as for dear life. It is well to be a good
   soldier of Jesus Christ, for this age needs men who are not afraid to
   bear reproach for speaking out the Truth of God with strong, stern
   words. But to this spirit it is most important that the question should
   come, "Do you love Me?" A man may be a very firm Protestant but may not
   love Christ. He may be a very earnest advocate of Divine Truth, but he
   may not love Him who is the Truth, itself! He may maintain Scriptural
   views as to Baptism and yet he may never have been baptized into
   Christ.

   A man may be a staunch Nonconformist and may see all the evils against
   which Nonconformity is a protest, but still he may be conformed to the
   world--and be lost, notwithstanding all his dissent! It is a grand
   thing for every Christian warrior to look well to this breastplate and
   to see that he can promptly reply to the question, "Simon, son of
   Jonas, do you love Me?" Putting all together, let me say to you,
   Beloved--however eminent you may be in the Church of God and however
   distinguished for services or for suffering--do not evade this
   question! Bare your heart to the inspection of your Lord! Answer Him
   with humble boldness while He says to you, again and again, even till
   He grieves you, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?"

   II. We will now turn to a second head. WE MUST LOVE THE PERSON OF
   CHRIST OR ALL OUR PAST PROFESSIONS HAVE BEEN A LIE. It is not possible
   for that man to be a Christian who does not love Christ. Take the heart
   away and life is impossible. Your very first true hope of Heaven came
   to you, if it ever did come at all, by Jesus Christ. Beloved, you heard
   the Gospel, but the Gospel, apart from Christ, was never good news to
   you. You read the Bible, but the Bible, apart from a personal Christ,
   was never anything more than a dead letter to you. You listened to many
   earnest entreaties, but they all fell on deaf ears until Jesus came and
   compelled you to come in.

   The first gleam of comfort that ever entered my heart flashed from the
   wounds of the Redeemer. I never had a hope of being saved until I saw
   Him hanging on the tree in agonies and blood. And because our earliest
   hope is bound up, not with any doctrine or preacher, but with Jesus,
   our All in All, therefore I am sure, even if we have only lately
   received our first hope, we must love Jesus, from whom it has come. Nor
   do we merely begin with Him, for every Covenant blessing we have
   received has been connected with His Person and could not be received
   apart from Him. You have obtained pardon, but that pardon was through
   His blood. You have been clothed in righteousness, but He is the Lord,
   your Righteousness. He is, Himself, your glory and your beauty.

   You have been cleansed from many sins by conversion, but it was the
   water from His opened side which washed you. You have been made the
   child of God, but your adoption has only made you feel more akin to the
   Elder Brother, through whom you are made heirs of God. The blessings of
   the Covenant are, none of them, separate from Christ, and cannot be
   enjoyed apart from Him any more than light and heat can be divided from
   the sun. All blessings come to us from His pierced hands and,
   therefore, if we have received them we must love Him. It is not
   possible to have enjoyed the golden gifts of His unbounded love without
   being moved to love Him in return. You cannot walk in the sun without
   being warmed, nor receive of Christ's fullness without being filled
   with gratitude.

   Every ordinance of the Christian Church, since we have been converted,
   has either been a mockery, or else we have loved Christ in it. Baptism,
   for instance--what is it but the mere washing away of the filth of the
   flesh and nothing more unless we were buried with Christ in baptism
   unto death? Like as He rose from the dead by the Glory of the Father,
   even so we, also, might rise to newness of life! The Lord's Supper,
   what is it? What but a common meal for the eating of bread and the
   drinking of wine, unless Christ is there? But if we have come to the
   Lord's Supper as true men and not as falsehearted hypocrites, we have
   eaten His flesh and drunk His blood--and is it possible to have done
   that and not to love Him? It cannot be!

   That communion with Christ which is absolutely essential to ordinances
   is also sure to produce in the heart love towards Him with whom we
   commune. And so, Beloved, it has been with every approach we have made
   towards God in all

   the long years of our Christian life. Did you pray, my Brother? Did you
   really speak with God in prayer? You could not have done it except
   through Jesus the Mediator. And if you have spoken to God through the
   Mediator, you cannot remain without love to One who has been your door
   of access to the Father. If you have made a profession of religion, how
   can it be a true and honest one unless your heart burns with attachment
   to the Great Author of salvation? You have great hopes, but what are
   you hoping for? Is not all your hope wrapped up in Him? Do you not
   expect that when He shall appear you shall be like He is?

   You are hoping to die triumphantly, but not apart from His making your
   dying bed soft as a pillow of down. You are hoping to rise again, but
   not apart from His Resurrection, for He is the first fruits of the
   Resurrection harvest. You expect to reign upon earth, but it is with
   Him. You do not expect a millennium apart from the King. You expect a
   never-ending Heaven, but that Heaven is to be with Jesus where He is
   and to behold His Glory. Since, then, everything that you have
   obtained--if, indeed, you have received it from the Lord--has Christ's
   name stamped on it and comes to you direct from His pierced hands. And
   it cannot be that you have received it unless you love Him.

   Now, when I ask the question, remember that upon your answer to it
   hangs this alternative--a hypocrite or a true man, a false professor or
   a genuine convert--a child of God or an heir of wrath. Therefore answer
   the enquiry, but answer it with deliberation. Answer it
   conscientiously, as though you stood before the bar of Him who now so
   tenderly enquires of you, but who will then speak in other tones and
   look with other glances, even with those eyes which are like a flame of
   fire. "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?"

   III. Our third consideration is this--WE MUST HAVE LOVE TO THE PERSON
   OF CHRIST OR NOTHING IS

   RIGHT FOR THE FUTURE. We have not finished life yet--a long pilgrimage
   may possibly lie before us. Now all will go right if we love Christ,
   but nothing can proceed as it should if love to Jesus is absent. For
   instance, Peter is called to feed the lambs and feed the sheep, but for
   a true pastor, the first qualification is love to Christ. I gather from
   this incident and I am sure I do not press it unduly, that Jesus
   Christ, meaning to make Peter a feeder of His lambs and sheep, acts as
   a tester to see whether he has the proper qualifications. And He does
   not so much inquire about Peter's knowledge or gifts of utterance, as
   about his love, for the first, second and third qualification for a
   true pastor is a loving heart.

   Now, mark, what is true of a pastor is true of every useful worker for
   Christ. Love is essential, my dear Friend. You cannot work for Christ
   if you do not love Him. "But I can teach in the school," says one. "No,
   not as school should be taught, without love to Jesus." "But I am
   connected with an interesting society, which is doing much good." "But
   you are not glorifying God unless you are connected with that society
   because you love Jesus Christ." Put down your tools, for you cannot
   work profitably in my Lord's vineyard unless your heart loves Him. His
   vines had better be untrimmed than be pruned by angry hands. Let the
   lambs alone, Sir, you will never rear them if your heart is hard and
   ungentle. If you do not love the Master, you will not love His work, or
   His servants, or the rules of His House--and we can do better without
   you than with you. To have an unloving worker grumbling about the
   Lord's House and vineyard would be distressing to the whole family.
   Love must be in the heart, or true service cannot come from the hands.

   Then, again, perhaps suffering lies before you--and if your heart is
   not true to Christ, you will not be able to patiently endure for His
   name's sake. Before long the time came for Peter to glorify God by
   death. Peter has to be girded and to be taken where he would not. Now,
   can he be fit for martyrdom if he does not love Jesus? Tradition says
   that he was crucified with his head downwards because he felt it too
   much honor to be put to death in the same position as his Lord. It may
   be so. No doubt he was put to death by crucifixion and it was his
   strong, deep love which made him more than a conqueror. Love makes the
   hero. When the Spirit of God inflames love, He inspires courage.

   See then, O Believers, how much you need love for the future. Young
   Christian, you will have to run the gauntlet before you enter Heaven. I
   do not care what sphere of life you occupy, you are very particularly
   favored if somebody does not mock at you and persecute you. Between
   here and Heaven you will be tried and, perhaps, your foes will be the
   men of your own household! Many will watch for your stumbling and even
   place stumbling blocks in your way. To walk steadily you will need to
   carry the fires of love in your heart. If you do not love Jesus
   intensely, sin will get the mastery over you. Self-denials and
   humiliations, which would be easy with love, will be impossible without
   it. Rightly to work or to suffer, or to die, we must love Jesus with
   all our hearts.

   Look, my Brothers and Sisters, if we have no love for Jesus Christ's
   Person, our piety lacks the adhesive element. It fails in that which
   will help us to stick to the good old way to the end and hold out to
   the end. Men often leave what they

   like, but never what they love. Men can deny what they merely believe
   as a matter of mental conviction, but they will never deny that which
   they feel to be true and accept with heartfelt affection. If you are to
   persevere to the end, it must be in the power of love. Love is the
   great inspiriting force. Many a deed in the Christian life is
   impossible to anything but love. In serving Christ you come across a
   difficulty far too great for judgment, far too hard for prudence, and
   unbelief sits down and weighs and calculates. But love, mighty love,
   laughs at the impossibility and accomplishes it for Jesus Christ.

   Love breaks through troops. Love leaps over walls and, hand-in-hand
   with Faith, she is all but Omnipotent! No, through the power of God
   which is upon her, she can do all things for Jesus Christ her Lord. If
   you lack love, your energy is gone. The force which nerves the man and
   subdues his foes is lacking. Without love, too, you are without the
   transforming force. Love to Christ is that which makes us like He is.
   The eyes of love, like windows, let in the Savior's image and the heart
   of love receives it as upon a sensitive plate until the whole nature
   bears its impression. You are like that which you love, or you are
   growing like it. If Christ is loved, you are growingly becoming like
   He. But without love you will never bear the image of the heavenly. O
   Spirit of God, with wings of love, brood over us till Christ is formed
   in us!

   My Brothers and Sisters, there is one other reflection--without love
   for Christ we lack the perfecting element. We are to be with Him soon.
   In a few more weeks or months, none of us can tell how few, we shall be
   in Glory. Yes, you and I. Many of us shall be wearing the white robes
   and bearing the palm branches. We shall only buy two or three more
   almanacs, at the outside, and then we shall keep no more reckoning of
   days, for we shall be where time, with its little eddies and currents,
   shall be forgotten in the eternal rainbow of the ages. But if we do not
   love Jesus, we shall not be where He is. There are none in Heaven that
   have not first learned to love Him here below. So we must have love for
   Jesus, the future imperiously demands it and, therefore, I put the
   question with all the greater seriousness and vehemence, "Simon, Son of
   Jonas, do you love Me?"

   IV. But now I will suppose I have received an answer from you and you
   are able to say you do love Jesus. Then my fourth and closing head must
   be, IF WE DO LOVE HIM, WHAT THEN? Why then, if we do love Him, let us
   do something for Him, for Jesus Christ replied to Peter the moment he
   said, "You know all things, You know that I love You"--"Feed My sheep."
   Very kind, it was, of the Savior, because He knew from His own heart
   that wherever there is love there is a desire for activity. Because
   Jesus loved so much, therefore it became His meat and his drink to do
   the will of His heavenly Father.

   And so thinks Jesus--"Peter loves Me and his heart will ache if I do
   not give him something to do. Go and feed My lambs, go and feed My
   sheep." Brother, Sister, if you love Christ, do not idle away this
   Sunday afternoon! If you love Christ, get to work! What are you doing?
   Attending the means of Grace and getting a good feed. Is that all?
   Well, that is doing something for yourself. Many people in the world
   are very busy at feeding--among the most active with knife and
   fork--but I do not know that eating a man's bread is any proof of love
   to him. A great many professing Christians give no proof of love to
   Christ except that they enjoy sermons. But now, if you love Jesus
   Christ as you say you do, prove it by doing good to others--"Feed My
   sheep."

   I see a company of Brethren met together to hold a conference and to
   grow in Grace. Very excellent, indeed--grow away, Brothers and Sisters,
   as fast as ever you can--I like to see you as a flower garden, all
   a-growing, all a-blowing. But when you have done all that, I pray you
   do not congratulate yourselves as though you had done a mighty fine
   thing, because there is nothing in it unless it leads you to work for
   others. To publish accounts of such happy gatherings is like telling
   the poor people of Whitechapel that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen had a
   fine banquet of turtle soup. Suppose I read that you have had a
   splendid series of meetings? Well, I am glad you enjoyed yourselves,
   but the point is this--if there is anything in it, get to work!

   If you love Christ, feed His sheep and lambs. If it is not all talk. If
   it is not all much ado about nothing. If it is not all fuss--get to
   soul-winning! Get down among the poor and needy! Get down among the
   lost and wandering! Get down among the dark and ignorant and hold forth
   Jesus Christ as the balm of Gilead and the Savior of sinners! After
   all, this is the test of how much you have grown in Grace--this is the
   test of your higher life--this is the proof of how much you have become
   like Jesus. What will you do for Him? For if you do not go, now, and
   feed His sheep and feed His lambs, it does not matter what you say or
   what you think you enjoy--you do not give that proof of love which
   Jesus asks for.

   I put it in this final word--when next you teach your classes, or your
   own families--do it for love of Jesus. Say to your heart, "I love
   Christ and now I am going to teach for love of Him." Oh, there will be
   a grand class this afternoon, my Sister! You will get on mightily if
   you teach for love of Him--every word you say will be powerful since it
   is suggested by love of Him! That girl who makes so much noise and
   troubles you so much, you will bear with her for love for Him. That
   restless young urchin, you cannot get the truth into him--you tell him
   many tales and when you have done he wants another. You will patiently
   give him another for the love of Christ.

   When you pray with the little ones, pray because you love them for
   Christ's sake. You are going to preach, do the preaching for love of
   Christ. We sometimes do it because it is our turn to do it, but it
   should never be so. You know how delightfully servants will wait upon
   you if they do it for love. You have been out for a few weeks and at
   last you come home. Look at the room! What a welcome it is before you!
   They have half destroyed the garden to bring in the flowers to make the
   table look nice for you! That supper--well, it is just the same supper
   that any Mary or Jane would have cooked, but see how it is put upon the
   table! Everything seems to say it is done for love of master and
   mistress, to show our affection and respect for them--and you enjoy it
   indescribably, because it tells of love!

   Now, tomorrow and as long as you live, do everything out of love to
   Christ! It will spread flowers over your work and make it look
   beautiful in His eyes. Put love's fingers to work, love's brains,
   love's eyes, love's hands--think with love, pray with love, speak with
   love, live with love and in this way you will live with power and God
   will bless you for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OFSCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 21. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--786, 787, 640.
     __________________________________________________________________

Conversions Desired

   (No. 1282)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 5, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed,
   and turned unto the Lord." Acts 11:21.

   THE Brethren who had dwelt together in Church fellowship at Jerusalem
   were scattered abroad by persecution which arose about Stephen. Their
   Master had told them that when they were persecuted in one city they
   were to flee to another. They obeyed His command and in the course of
   escape from persecution they took very long journeys--very long
   journeys, indeed, for that age of the world, when travel was
   exceedingly difficult. But wherever they found themselves, they began,
   at once, to preach Jesus Christ, so that the scattering of the
   disciples was also a scattering of good Seed in broader fields. The
   malice of Satan was made the instrument of the mercy of God.

   Learn from this, dear Brothers and Sisters, every one of you, that
   wherever you are called to go, you should persevere in making known the
   name and Gospel of Jesus. Look upon this as your calling and
   occupation. You will not be scattered, now, by persecution, but should
   the demands of business carry you into different countries, employ your
   distant travel for missionary purposes. Providence, every now and then,
   bids you remove your tent--take care that wherever it is pitched you
   carry with you a testimony for Jesus. At times the necessities of
   health require relaxation and change of air and this may take you to
   different places of public resort--seize the opportunity to encourage
   the Churches in such localities, by your presence and countenance, and
   also endeavor to spread the knowledge of Jesus among those to whom you
   may be directed.

   The position which you occupy in society is not an accidental one--it
   has not been decreed to you by a blind, purposeless fate--there is
   predestination in it and that predestination is wise--and looks towards
   a merciful end. You are placed where you are that you may be a
   preserving salt to those around, a sweet savor of Christ to all who
   know you. The methods of Divine Grace have ordained a happy connection
   between you and the people with whom you associate. You are a messenger
   of mercy to them, a herald of good tidings, an Epistle of Christ. The
   surrounding darkness needs you and, therefore, it is written, "Among
   whom you shine as lights in the world."

   You are intended to warn and rebuke some, to entreat and encourage
   others. To you the mourner looks for comfort and the ignorant for
   instruction. Let them never look in vain. Be the true friend of men,
   observe their condition before God and endeavor to reclaim them from
   their wanderings. If Joseph was sent to Egypt that he might save his
   father's house, you, also, are sent where you are for the sake of some
   hidden ones of the Lord's chosen family. If Esther was placed in the
   court of a heathen king for the deliverance of her nation, so are you,
   my Sister, called to occupy your present position for the good of the
   Church of Christ. Look to it, Brothers and Sisters, lest you miss your
   life's calling and live in vain. It would be a sad thing, indeed, if
   you who profess to belong to Christ should be "creation's blot,
   creation's blank," by having failed to work while it is called today.

   These good people of the early Church, however, with all their zeal,
   were somewhat narrow-minded and hampered by their national prejudices,
   for they preached at first to only Jews and it was very hard to make
   them see that the Gospel was meant for the whole race of man, Gentiles
   as well as Jews. Their Master had said, "Go you into all the world and
   preach the Gospel to every creature," and yet they began with preaching
   only to Jews. Words could not have been plainer and yet they missed
   their meaning. It is not to be wondered at, that some in our day are
   still unable to preach to men as men, when we see how slow the early
   saints were to learn the lesson.

   Brethren, if there is any narrowness about our spirit, let us pray the
   Lord to take it away. We shall not, of course, be shackled as these
   Jews were by boasting of our nationality, but perhaps there may be
   classes of society of whom we despair and, therefore, for whom we make
   no effort. We say, "It would be useless to attempt the conversion of
   such charac-

   ters. I feel myself quite able to talk to other persons and although I
   am placed in the midst of these people I cannot bring my mind to speak
   with them about spiritual things, for I feel hopeless of success."
   Beloved, may you be delivered from this snare and learn to sow beside
   all waters.

   The Gentiles, though they were, for awhile, passed over by the
   Brethren, turned out to be the most hopeful of all classes. From the
   Gentile fields they reaped harvests such as were never gathered in
   Judea. Antioch, with its Grecians, became famous among Christian
   Churches--there the Church of Christ first took its name amid a revival
   of religion when great multitudes believed and turned unto the Lord!
   God had, from of old, intended that the great majority of the election
   of Grace should be gathered out of those very Gentiles whom even the
   Apostles, themselves, scarcely ventured to address!

   Now then, my Brother, in the light of this incident, begin to work
   where as yet you have done nothing--begin to hope where up to now you
   have despaired. Throw out your best energies in that very direction in
   which you have felt most hampered, for there awaits you, to your own
   intense surprise, a success which will amply reward you. You need not
   restrict yourselves to lands familiar with the plow--invade the
   primeval forest, fell the ancient trees and clear the broad acres--that
   virgin soil will yield you harvests a hundredfold such as you will
   never find in fields where others have labored before you. If your
   spiritual mining has become a failure, open fresh lodes of the precious
   metal, for veins of treasure lie concealed in the unbroken ground.

   Launch out into the deep! Let down your nets for a catch and multitudes
   of fish shall crowd the net. It seems to me to be the obvious teaching
   of the text that wherever we are cast, we should try to do good, and
   that we may hope for the largest success among the most neglected
   portions of society. Coming closely to the text, I desire to press upon
   you, this morning, with great earnestness, the need of the conversion
   of men and the desirableness that we should have many converted here.
   And I shall suggest what we can do to produce that result. In all these
   I beg to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, without whose aid I shall only
   exhibit my own weakness and deaden those energies which I long to
   awake.

   These will be our heads--first, the end we aim at--that many may
   believe and turn unto the Lord. Secondly, the power by which this can
   be attained--"The hand of the Lord was with them." Thirdly, the
   desirableness of our objective and, fourthly, how we may promote its
   attainment.

   I. Let us speak upon THE END WHICH WE DESIRE. It may seem very
   commonplace, but it is, in fact, one of the grandest designs under
   Heaven. He who contemplates it has a higher aim than philosopher,
   Reformer, or patriot. He aims at that for which the Son of God both
   lived and died! We desire that men may believe, that is to say, first,
   that they may believe the testimony of Jesus Christ to be true, for
   there are some who have not attained as far as that. They reject
   altogether the Inspired Word and to them the Incarnation, the
   Redemption, the Resurrection, the Glory, the Second Advent, are so many
   old wives' fables.

   You to whom these Truths are the light of your lives can scarcely
   realize the power of unbelief of this kind and yet some men live and
   die in its gloom. We pray that they may be taught better and that the
   evidence of these great facts may be forced home upon them. Alas, there
   are many who profess to believe these things, but their only reason for
   doing so is that they have been taught so from their childhood and it
   is the current religion of the nation. They regard the Inspiration of
   Scripture, and so on, as matters about which it is not expedient to
   trouble themselves--they do not care one way or the other. They find it
   the easier and more respectable plan to admit the Truth of the Gospel
   and think no more about it. Such a vain complimentary belief is rather
   an insult to our holy faith than a thing to be rejoiced in.

   But, dear Friends, we need more than this faith of indifference which
   is little more than dishonest unbelief! We want men to believe for
   themselves because they are personally convinced and have felt in
   themselves the saving power of Christ Jesus. We pray that nominal
   Believers may treat the doctrines of Revelation, not as dogmas, but as
   facts--not as opinions, but as Truths of God--as surely facts as the
   events of history, as much truths as the actual incidents of everyday
   life. For, alas, the grand doctrines of the eternal Truths are
   frequently treated as venerable nonentities and have no effect whatever
   upon the conduct of those who profess to receive them because they do
   not realize them as matters of fact, or see their solemn bearings.

   It is shocking to reflect that a change in the weather has more effect
   on some men's lives than the dread alternative of Heaven or Hell! A
   woman's glance affects them more than the eye of God. We, therefore,
   desire to see men really and truly believing the facts of the Gospel in
   an honest, practical manner. We cannot, however, be content with this.
   We la-

   bor that those around us may savingly believe by putting their trust in
   the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the grand saving act-- the man brings
   his soul and commits it to Christ for safe keeping--and that entrusting
   of the soul to Jesus saves him. He makes the Savior, Trustee of his
   spiritual estates and leaves himself and all his eternal interests in
   those dear hands which once were nailed to the Cross. Oh, how we long
   to see the Holy Spirit bringing men to this, that they may believe in
   Jesus Christ by resting in Him and trusting upon Him!

   For this we live, for this we would be content to die that many might
   believe! The end we aim at is that men may so believe in Jesus that
   they may be altogether changed in their relation towards God, for "many
   believed and turned unto the Lord." What does that mean? It means that
   these heathen gave up their idols and began to worship the only living
   and true God! We desire, dear Hearers, that faith in the Lord Jesus may
   lead you to give up the objects of your idolatrous love--yourselves,
   your money, your pleasures, the world, the flesh, the devil--and there
   are some whose God is their belly and who glory in their shame. When a
   man believes in Jesus Christ he puts away his false gods and worships
   the great Father of Spirits--he makes no inferior objective the aim of
   his being--but from then on lives for the glory of

   God!

   This is a glorious turning, a complete conversion of the man's heart
   and soul. To turn to God means not merely to forsake the false god for
   the true, but to turn from the love of sin. Sin lies that way, but
   God's Glory lies in the opposite quarter. He who looks sin-ward has his
   back to God--he who looks God-ward has his back to sin. It is blessed
   conversion when men turn from the folly of sin to the Glory of God.
   With weeping and supplication do men so turn, confessing their
   wrongdoing, lamenting their transgressions, abhorring their evil lusts,
   desiring pardon and hoping for renewal of their nature.

   Precious in the sight of the Lord are the tears of penitence and the
   sighs of contrite hearts! We can never be satisfied with the results of
   our ministry unless faith leads man to hearty repentance towards God,
   an intense loathing of their sins and an actual forsaking of them. To
   turn to God means that from now on God shall be sought in prayer.
   "Behold he prays" is one of the indications of a true convert. The man
   who lives without prayer lives without God, but the man who has turned
   to God is familiar with the Mercy Seat. What a turning it is when the
   eyes are turned upward to seek the Lord--with the solemn glances of the
   eyes when none but God is near. To turn to God means to yield yourself
   obediently to His sway, to be willing to do what He bids, to think what
   He teaches, and to be what He commands.

   Faith is nothing unless it brings with it a willing and obedient mind.
   Willful rebellion is the child of unbelief-- sincere obedience is the
   offspring of humble believing. "They believed, and turned unto the
   Lord." We want men, indeed, to turn so that their whole life shall be a
   going towards God, growing more like He, a closer communing with Him,
   leading on to the soul's becoming perfectly like He and dwelling
   forever where He is. Now, dear Friends, when I speak thus of believing
   and turning unto God, some will say, "Well, but that must be a very
   easy matter, only to believe and turn." Yes, my Brothers and Sisters,
   it appears simple, but it is, none the less, vitally essential. "He
   that believes on the Lord Jesus has everlasting life; but he that
   believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed."

   You say, "Why make all this stir about it?" Because upon this
   apparently little matter depends the present and eternal condition of
   the sinner! To believe and to turn to God is to be delivered from the
   present dominion of sin and from the future punishment of it. To be
   without faith and without God is to be without joy here and without
   hope hereafter. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this is what you and I
   must aim at in all our attempts to influence our fellow men. It may be
   useful to reform them, but it is far better that Grace should
   regenerate them! God speed every effort to promote sobriety, chastity,
   thrift, honesty and morality--but you and I are sent for something more
   than this--our work goes deeper and is more difficult.

   It is not ours to wash the African, but to seek to change his skin. We
   do not so much pray that the lion may be tamed as that he may be turned
   into a lamb. It may be well to lop the branches of the tree of sin, but
   our business is to lay the axe at the root of the trees by leading men
   to turn to God. This is a change, not merely of the outward conduct,
   but of the heart! And if we do not see this result--if men do not
   believe and turn to God--we have labored in vain and spent our strength
   for nothing and in vain. If there are no believing and turning to the
   Lord, we may go to our secret chambers and bewail ourselves before God
   because none have believed our report and the arm of the Lord has not
   been revealed. There is the objective--aim at it, saying, "This one
   thing I do."

   Praying in the Holy Spirit and depending upon His power, push on with
   this one sole objective. Drive at it, you teachers in the Sunday
   school--do not be satisfied with instructing the children--labor to
   have them converted! Drive at it, you preachers--do not believe that
   you have done your work when you have taught the people--you must never
   rest till they believe in Jesus Christ! Pursue this end in every sermon
   or Sunday school address--throw your whole soul into this one
   objective. Yours must not be a cold inculcation of an external
   morality, but a warm enthusiasm for an inward regeneration. You are not
   to bring men to believe in themselves and so become self-made men, but
   to lead them to believe in Jesus and to become new creatures in Him.
   There is our end and aim--are we all alive to it?

   II. Secondly, let us consider THE POWER BY WHICH THIS CAN BE
   ATTAINED--"The hand of the Lord was with them." None ever believe in
   Jesus except those in whom God's arm has been revealed, for Jesus says,
   "No man can come to Me except the Father, which has sent Me, draws
   him." But, Brother ministers, in answer to prayer, that power has been
   revealed among His people and is with them still! His arm is not
   shortened that He cannot save, neither has He withdrawn it from His
   Church.

   Be encouraged while I suggest to you a few thoughts. The hand of God is
   upon many of our friends before we speak to them. It is most pleasant
   to me, when I am seeing inquirers, to observe how God makes ready the
   hearts of my hearers. I am studying a certain subject and praying to
   God for a blessing on it--and upstairs in a chamber, which I have never
   seen, one of my hearers is being made ready for my message. He is
   struck with a sense of sin, or troubled with uneasy thoughts, or
   rendered hopeful of better things--and thus he is being made ready to
   accept the Christ whom I shall preach to him! Yes, and ready to accept
   that particular form of the Gospel message which the Spirit of God gave
   me when I preached!

   There on a sick bed will lie a woman painfully exercised with the sad
   memory of her sinful life, in order that when she comes up to the House
   of God, every word may have power over her. Sickness and pain, shame
   and poverty, often produce a condition of mind most hopeful for the
   reception of the Gospel. A man well-to-do in circumstances has been
   ruined in business, he despairs of happiness below and, therefore,
   comes to hear the Gospel, made willing to seek his happiness above.
   Another has lately felt failures of bodily strength and so has been
   warned that life is frail--and thus he is prepared to listen to the
   admonitions which speak of eternity. Courage, minister of God! You are
   nothing, but the Almighty God is with you! When you lift your hand to
   build the House of the Lord, Omnipotence works with you and names your
   labor a success.

   Every revolution of those awful wheels, so ponderous that even the
   Prophet said, "O wheel!" is working to accomplish the objective which
   is near your heart. The stars in their courses fight for you! The
   stones of the field are in league with you! Eternal wisdom plans for
   you, infinite power works with you, boundless patience perseveres with
   you and almighty love will conquer by you! "The hand of the Lord was
   with them." What more do we need? Sow, Brother, for God has plowed! Go
   up and build, for God has prepared the stones and made ready the
   foundation!

   Moreover, the hand of the Lord is with His people in helping the
   teachers and preachers, themselves. There are strange impulses which
   come over us at times, which make us think and say what otherwise had
   never crossed our minds--and these work with power upon men's minds. If
   you will live to win souls it shall be given you in the same hour what
   you shall speak. You will often say to an inquirer what you would not
   have beforehand arranged to say, but God, who knows that inquirers
   heart better than you do, has prevented your saying what you would have
   liked to have said and has led you to say what you afterwards judged to
   be a mistake.

   My experience teaches me that we are often wise in our ignorance and as
   often foolish in our wisdom. We have frequently done best when we felt
   that we did but badly. If we will but trust God and be whole-hearted in
   the winning of souls we shall have a power assisting us in our speech
   of which the greatest orator in the world is not aware. Speak in the
   House of Commons for a party and you will have to look within for aid,
   but speak in the House of the Lord and you may look upward for
   spiritual aid. The poet invokes the fabled muses, but for you, O
   servant of the Lord, there is real help from a higher source! Think of
   this, you workers, and be encouraged!

   Besides Providence and the gracious help by which good men speak, there
   is a distinct work of the Spirit of God upon the hearts of men where
   the Gospel is preached. Not only is the Spirit in the Word, but over
   and above that, in His own elect, God works most effectually so His
   Truth is rendered Irresistible. Let us never forget where our great
   strength lies, for in this matter we must rely alone upon the Spirit of
   God. How often has God worked in the power of His Grace

   by making men feel the majesty of the Word? They come, perhaps, to hear
   the preacher out of the most idle curiosity. They look for something
   which shall amuse them--but the Truth of God comes home to them and
   searches their heart. Simple as the language is, "as if an angel spoke
   they hear the solemn sound," it goes through them like a dart and they
   cannot help feeling, "Surely God was there, and He spoke with me."

   The Spirit of God makes men remember their sins. They try to forget
   them, but sometimes they cannot. Sad memories steal over them and
   wholesome regrets fatigue their very souls. Men who have been giddy,
   careless and forgetful, have all of a sudden found themselves turning
   over the pages of their old diaries and with thoughtfulness reviewing
   the past. All this leads to repentance and faith! That same Spirit
   makes men see the beauty of holiness. They cannot help admiring it,
   though they are far from it. They are charmed with the loveliness of
   the Character of Jesus and begin to feel that there is something about
   it which they would wish to imitate. When the preacher proclaims the
   way of salvation the same Spirit leads men to admire it and to say
   within themselves, "There is something here which human wisdom could
   never have devised"--and they begin to long for a share in it! A wish
   takes possession of their heart, as though some strange bird from an
   unknown land had flown into their souls and had amazed them with a new
   song. They do not know where the desire came from, but they feel
   strangely bound to entertain the stranger.

   Sometimes the Spirit blows like a hurricane through men's hearts and
   they have been borne along by its power without the will to resist. As
   when a tempest rushes across the sea and drives the frail boat before
   it helplessly, so have I known the Divine Spirit sweep away the peace
   and quiet of the soul's self-righteousness, stir up the deeps of inward
   trouble, make the soul reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken
   man--and impel the heart forward to the iron-bound coast of
   self-despair where every false hope and vain-glorious trust has been
   wrecked forever. Glory be to God when this is the case, for then the
   soul is driven to cling to Jesus!

   Yes, Brothers, it is not the preacher and it is not altogether what the
   preacher says, but there is a power abroad, as potent as that by which
   the worlds were made. Unbelievers sometimes ask, "Where is your God?" O
   Sirs, if you once felt the power of the great Spirit, you would never
   ask that question! "Since the fathers fell asleep," they say, "all
   things continue as they were." But this they willingly are ignorant of,
   that new creations are being worked every day. That there are men and
   women alive in this world who are neither liars nor enthusiasts who can
   declare that upon their spirit the eternal power and Godhead has
   operated and changed them. It has conquered them and holds them as
   willing captives to its supreme majesty.

   Yes, Brothers, there is a hand of the Lord and that hand of the Lord is
   still with His people. If it is not, then we shall see no believing and
   no turning to God. But since it is still at work among us, let us work
   on, for as surely as we live we shall see great numbers converted to
   God and God will be glorified.

   III. Let us now dwell upon THE DESIRABLENESS OF CONVERSIONS. It is no
   new thing to you and to me to see many believing and turning to God.
   These 22 years God's hand has been stretched out--we have had no spasm
   of revival, we have not alternated between furious spurts and sudden
   lulls. But month by month, I think I might say Sunday by Sunday, souls
   have been saved and the Church has grown exceedingly and God has been
   glorified. What we have enjoyed we desire to retain--yes, we would have
   more! The Lord says to us what he said to the Church at Philadelphia,
   "Hold fast what you have, that no man take your crown," and our crown
   is the crown of soul-winning, which we must hold fast, for we cannot
   endure to lose it.

   This must be our crown, that we have preached the Gospel, both minister
   and church members, and have been all of us soul-winners. We desire
   this because, first of all, we desire to see the Truth of God,
   godliness, virtue and holiness extended. Who among you does not? Does
   not every good man wish others to be good, every honest man wish others
   to be honest? Does not every man who loves his family desire that other
   families should be well-ordered? Oh, then, if there were no nobler
   reason, you may desire that men may be converted, since conversion is
   the root of everything that is pure and lovely and of good report!

   You desire, too, that your fellow creatures should be happy, but there
   is no such happiness as that which springs out of reconciliation to
   God. The peace which you, yourselves, enjoy through pardoned sin must
   surely make you desire that others may possess the same. If religion
   is, indeed, a source of perennial joy to yourself, you are inhuman if
   you do not wish others to drink of it. Brothers and Sisters, as you
   would make eyes sparkle, as you would make countenances radiant with
   delight, as I know you would spread gladness on all sides--desire above
   all things that your children, your rela-

   tions, your neighbors, your friends, should be converted to God! Thus
   shall thorns and briars give place to myrtles and roses and deserts
   shall be turned into gardens of the Lord.

   You also desire conversion, I am sure, because you feel the dreadful
   hazard of unconverted men. You have not yet subscribed to the modern
   doctrine that these men and women around you are only two-legged cats
   and dogs and horses and will ultimately die out and cease to be. You
   believe in the God-given immortality of human souls--a heritage from
   which no man can escape, the noblest of all man's endowments--in itself
   the highest of all gifts, though sin may pervert it into the direst of
   all evils. You would have scant motives for desiring men's conversion
   if you did not believe that there is another and everlasting state.

   But, believing that men live hereafter and exist forever, you must, I
   am sure, be eager that men may escape from the wrath to come. Knowing
   the terrors of the Lord, you would persuade men. Judging that there is
   one of two things for them all, either, "These shall go away into
   everlasting punishment," or else, "The righteous into life eternal,"
   you can never rest until you feel convinced that those about you are
   partakers of life eternal. Look at any unconverted person and your
   sympathies should be awakened. If I saw tokens of fever, or marks of
   consumption in the face of anyone I loved, I should be struck with
   alarm. What, then, must I feel when I see damnation--as I do see it--in
   the face of every unbeliever?

   How is it that we are not more distressed than we are when men are
   perishing in their sins? Why, my Brethren, are we not more intent upon
   the conversion of men? Let these questions humble us and cause great
   searchings of heart. It is a shame to us that we have so little of the
   mind of Christ, so little compassion for men's souls. Moreover,
   Brothers and Sisters, self-preservation is a law of Nature and the
   Church can never preserve herself except by increasing from the world
   by conversion. Where are the preachers for the next generation? Today
   they are among the ungodly and we must labor to bring them to God.
   Where are the stones that are to make the next course in the walls of
   our Zion? They are not quarried yet and we must, by God's Grace,
   excavate them.

   We who now labor for the Lord will soon go our ways. Our thrones and
   crowns are waiting for us and the angels are beckoning us away. Who
   will fill our places? Who will bear the banner? Who will blow the
   trumpet? Who will wield the sword? We must find new champions in the
   ranks of the foe--they must be born unto God--and we must pray that
   this may be accomplished by our instrumentality. Seek conversions for
   Christ's sake. You know the agony and bloody sweat--shall these be
   spent in vain? You know the nailing to the Cross and the shriek of,
   "Why have You forsaken Me?" Shall these be unrewarded? You have thought
   over and trusted in the bitter pangs of your Redeemer's death--shall He
   not see of the travail of His soul?

   Shall He not be satisfied? These lost sheep are His sheep, for whom He
   shed His precious blood! These lost pieces of money are His money and
   they bear His image and superscription--shall they not be found? These
   lost sons spending their living in riotousness are His brothers,
   children of His Father--do you not desire, for Jesus' sake, that they
   should be brought home? Dear Friends, what joy it will be to yourselves
   if men believe and turn to the Lord by your means! I put that motive
   last and hope it will not be the strongest, but it may yet be one of
   the liveliest. What joy it will be to yourselves if you see many
   converted!

   Somebody has asked, "If the heathen are not evangelized, what will
   become of them?" I will put another question of a far more practical
   character. If you do not try to evangelize the heathen, what will
   become of you? Do not so much inquire about their destiny as your own
   if you have no care for their salvation! He who never seeks the
   conversion of another is in imminent danger of being damned, himself. I
   do not believe in any man's salvation who is wrapped up in self!
   Assuredly he is not saved from selfishness. I cannot believe in any
   man's possessing the Spirit of God who is indifferent to the condition
   of others--one of the first fruits of the Spirit is love. Even as
   flowers, at their very first blooming, shed their perfume, so do the
   saved ones, in their earliest days of Grace, desire the good of their
   fellows.

   I know that one of my earliest impulses, when I first looked to Christ
   and lost the burden of my sin, was to tell everybody around me of the
   blessings I had received, for I longed to make others as happy as I
   was. I fear that you who never try to win souls lack an essential part
   of the Christian character. I leave the question with your own
   consciences.

   IV. Fourthly, let us enquire, WHAT WE CAN DO TO PROMOTE CONVERSIONS.
   Conversion is God's work. It cannot be worked without His hand. Without
   Him we can do nothing. Our hands are far too puny for such a work. The

   power of the first disciples and our own lies in the fact mentioned in
   the text--"The hand of the Lord was with them." Still, there are
   certain circumstances under which that hand will work and there are
   hindrances which will restrain it.

   Let us think awhile. First, then, if sinners are to be converted we
   must distinctly aim at it. As a rule, a man does what he tries to do
   and not that which is mere by-play. The conversion of sinners is not
   one of those things which a man is likely to accomplish without
   intending it. Sometimes, in the Sovereignty of God, a preacher who does
   not aim at conversion may, nevertheless, be made useful, for God works
   as He wills. But as a rule, men do not win souls if they do not eagerly
   desire to do so. Fishing for men cannot be carried out by throwing in
   the net without caring whether fish are caught or not.

   Few traders become rich by accident--they generally have to plod and
   work hard for money--and to be rich in treasures of saved souls you
   must aim at it and labor for it. I am struck with astonishment as I
   think how many sermons are preached, how many Sunday school addresses
   are given, how many religious books are written of which you are quite
   sure that the intention was not immediate conversion. It is thought
   that in some unknown way these good things may accidentally contribute
   to men's salvation, but they are not aimed at as their present
   objective. Ah, Brother, if you want men to come to Christ you must
   preach Christ to them with all your heart--with this design--that they
   may immediately close in with Christ and at once give their hearts to
   Jesus!

   Yes, and you are to pray that they may do so through the present effort
   which you are making for their good. There is the target and if you
   continue to shoot into the air long enough an arrow may strike it. But,
   man alive, if you want to win the prize of archery you had better fix
   your eye upon the white and take your aim distinctly and with skill! If
   an individual would win souls, he must bend his whole soul to it and
   make it the objective of his whole energy. Next to that we must take
   care, if we would have souls won, that we press upon them the Truths
   which God usually blesses. Shall I read to you the verse before my
   text? Here it is--"They spoke unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord
   Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them."

   Now, if we do not preach Jesus Christ we shall not see souls saved.
   There are certain forms of doctrines which condemn themselves by
   working out their own extinction. Did you ever hear of a minister whose
   preaching leaned towards Unitarianism but what the congregation, sooner
   or later, began to diminish? Though many such preachers have been men
   of great ability, they have not, as a rule, been able to keep the dead
   thing on its feet! You shall go into our small towns and you may find
   an ancient chapel which was once an Independent, or a Presbyterian, or
   it may be a Baptist chapel. But if you see over the door, "Unitarians,"
   you have, as a rule, seen all that there is. There is neither church
   nor congregation worthy of the name--frequently the place is never
   opened at all and the grass grows knee deep on the path to the door.

   Even when these little places are used, you will generally find that
   they contain half a dozen nobodies who think themselves everybody as to
   intellect and culture. It is a religion of the utmost value to spiders,
   for those insects are able to spin their webs in the meeting houses
   without fear. Who ever heard, who will ever hear of a Unitarian
   Whitfield, or a Socinian Moody gathering 20,000 people to listen to a
   Christless Gospel? It is a phenomenon which never has been seen and
   never will be! Men's instincts lead them to turn away from a creed
   which contains so little which can solace the troubled soul.

   If we want souls saved, we must equally avoid the modern intellectual
   system in all its classes. "Oh," cries somebody, "you should hear the
   great Mr. Bombast. It is--Oh, I cannot tell you what it is, but
   something very wonderful! It is an intellectual treat." Just so. But
   how many conversions are worked by this wonderful display of genius?
   How many hearts are broken by fine rhetoric? How many broken hearts are
   healed by philosophy? So far as I have observed, I find that God does
   not save souls by intellectual treats. Certain views as to man's future
   are equally to be kept clear of, if you would be the means of
   conversion. Diminish your ideas of the wrath of God and the terrors of
   Hell--and in that proportion you will diminish the results of your
   work!

   I could not conceive a Bunyan or a Baxter, or any other great
   soul-winner, falling into these new notions. Or if he did, that would
   be an end to his success. Other crotchets and novelties of doctrine are
   also to be left alone, for they are not likely to promote your
   objective, but will most probably divert men's attention from the vital
   point. Dear Brothers, if you want a harvest, look well to your seed.
   Time was when gardeners threw all the little potatoes on one side for
   seed and then they had bad crops. Now I have seen them pick out the
   very best and put them by. "We must have good seed,"

   they say. If I had to sow my fields with wheat I would not take the
   tail corn. I should grudge no expense about seed, for it would be false
   economy to buy any but the very best. Go preach, teach and instruct
   with the best doctrine, even that of God's Word, for, depend upon it,
   though the result is not in your hands, yet it very much depends upon
   what you teach! O, eternal and ever blessed Spirit, guide Your servants
   into all Truth!

   Next to this, if you want to win souls for Christ, feel a solemn alarm
   about then. You cannot make them feel if you do not feel yourself.
   Believe their danger, believe their helplessness, believe that only
   Christ can save them and talk to them as if you meant it. The Holy
   Spirit will move them by first moving you. If you can rest without
   their being saved they will rest, too. But if you are filled with an
   agony for them, if you cannot bear that they should be lost, you will
   soon find that they are uneasy, too. I hope you will get into such a
   state that you will dream about your child, or about your hearer
   perishing for lack of Christ--and start up at once and begin to cry, "O
   God, give me converts or I die!" Then you will have converts--there is
   no fear about that--God does not send travail pangs to His servants
   without causing them to abound in spiritual children. There will be new
   births to God when you are agonizing for them!

   But, let me add, there must be much prayer. Delight to be at Prayer
   Meetings where the Brethren will not let the Lord go except He bless
   them, when a Brother prays, choking as he speaks, tears rolling down
   his cheeks as he pleads with God to have mercy on the sons of men. I am
   always certain that sinners are ordained to be blessed when I see
   saints thus compelled to plead with God for them. In your closets,
   alone, at your family altars and in your gatherings for prayer, be
   importunate and the hand of the Lord must and will be with you. Cry
   aloud and spare not, plead as for your lives and bring forth your
   strong arguments, for only by prevailing with God will you be enabled
   to prevail with men.

   Then there must be added to prayer direct personal effort on the part
   of all of you. Great numbers may be saved by my preaching if the Holy
   Spirit blesses it, but I shall expect larger numbers if you all turn
   preachers, if every Brother and Sister here becomes a witness for
   Christ. Are you lazy? Are any of you beginning to sleep? I charge you,
   wake up! By the love you bear to Jesus and by the love you bear to your
   fellow men, begin at once to seek the conversion of those who dwell
   around you. O my Beloved, do not become lukewarm! My heart fails me at
   the very thought! If you are earnest, I live--if you grow slothful, my
   spirit dies within me!

   Last of all, if you want to see many converts, expect them. "According
   to your faith so be it unto you." Look out for them. Believe that God
   will bless every sermon and go hunting, after the sermon, to see where
   the converts are. As a company of butlers and camp-followers generally
   follow every army--and after a battle go up to strip the slain--so if
   you cannot preach I would have you follow after the warriors to gather
   in the spoil. No one needed to urge the voracious spoilers to prowl
   over the field of Sedan or Gravelotte, but now it even seems necessary
   to persuade you to collect a far nobler prey.

   Come up! Come up, you servants of the Lord and divide the spoil with
   the strong! Christ has fought your battle. His arrows have been sharp
   in the hearts of the King's enemies--the two-edged sword has struck
   right and left--come up, you sons of Jacob, to the prey and gather in
   the converts as your spoil! Speak with the young converts, cheer the
   broken hearts, comfort the seekers and bring into His palace trophies
   for your Lord! Verily, I say unto you, if you look not for conversions,
   neither shall you obtain them! And you cannot blame the Lord--you are
   not straitened in Him--but in your own hearts!

   God bless you, Beloved, and may we have a larger increase to this
   Church during the next month than we have had for years past, that our
   God may have greater praise.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Acts 11. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--887, 450, 881.
     __________________________________________________________________

Conversions Encouraged

   (No. 1283)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 12, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But if from there you shall seek the Lord your God, you shall find
   Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When
   you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you, even in
   the latter days, if you turn to the Lord your God, and shall be
   obedient unto His voice; (for the Lord your God is a merciful God); He
   will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the Covenant of
   your fathers which He swore unto them." Deuteronomy 4:29-31.

   LAST Lord's-Day the title of my discourse was, "Conversions Desired"
   and my earnest prayer to God has been that the effect of this morning's
   sermon may be conversions accomplished. I cannot be happy unless I
   indulge the hope that some will, this morning, turn to God with full
   purpose of heart, led to do so by the power of Divine Grace. For this I
   sought the Lord and at this I resolved to aim. I asked myself, "What is
   the most likely subject in the hand of the Holy Spirit to lead men to
   the Lord? Shall I preach the terrors of the Lord, or shall I proclaim
   the sweetness of Divine mercy? Each of these has its proper use, but
   which will be most likely to answer our design today?"

   I remembered the fable of the sun and the wind. These rival powers
   competed as to which could compel the traveler to cast away his cloak.
   The wind blew boisterously and tugged at the garment as if it would
   tear it from the traveler's shoulders, but he buttoned it closer about
   him and held it firmly with his hands. The battle was not to the strong
   and threatening. Then the sun burst forth from behind a cloud, when the
   wind had ceased its blustering, and smiled upon the traveler with
   warmth of kindness until he loosened his cloak and, by-and- by, was
   glad to take it off altogether. The soft, sweet influence of the sun
   had vanquished where the storm had raged in vain.

   So I thought, perhaps if I preach the tender mercy of God and His
   readiness to forgive, it may be to my hearers as the warm beams of the
   sun to the traveler and they will cast away the garments of their sin
   and self-righteousness. I know that the arrows of love are keen and
   wound many hearts which are invulnerable to the sword of wrath. O that
   these sacred darts may win the victory this day! When ships at sea
   apprehend a storm they will gladly make for an open harbor, but if it
   is doubtful whether they can enter the port, they will rather weather
   the tempest than run the risk of being unable to enter the harbor's
   mouth.

   Some havens can only be entered when the tide happens to be at the
   flood and, therefore, the captain will not venture. But when the
   welcome signals are flying and it is clear that there is plenty of
   water and that they may safely run behind the breakwater, they hesitate
   no longer, but make sail for the shelter. Let seeking souls know, this
   day, that the Lord's harbor of refuge is open, the port of Free Grace
   can be reached, that there is sea room for the largest transgressor and
   love enough to float the greatest sinner into port! Ho, weather-beaten
   vessels, you may come and welcome! There is no need that even for a
   solitary hour you should run the risk of the tempest of almighty wrath!
   You are invited to find shelter and to enjoy it NOW!

   It is rather singular that having these ideas floating in my mind and
   desiring to preach Free Grace and abounding mercy, that I should have
   found my text in Deuteronomy. Why, that is a book of the Law and is
   plentifully besprinkled with terrible threats! And yet I find a Gospel
   theme in it, yes, and one of the very richest! As I read it I admired
   it for its connection as well as for its own fullness. It seems to me
   so pleasant to find this lily among thorns. As in the wintry months of
   the opening year one finds a crocus smiling up from the cold soil and
   in its golden cup offers a taste of the sunlight which summer will more
   fully bring, so amid the uncongenial pages of the Law I see this
   precious Gospel declaration which, like the spring flower, assures us
   that God's love is yet alive and will bring us happier times.

   My thoughts also likened this passage to the water which leaped from
   the smitten rock, for the Law is like a rock and the Pentateuch is hard
   and stern as granite. But here, in its very heart, we find a crystal
   spring of which the thirsty may drink! I likened the text, also, to the
   manna lying on the desert sand, the bread of Heaven glittering like a
   shining pearl upon the barren soil of the wilderness. Here amid the
   fiery statutes of the Law and the terrible judgments threatened by the
   God of Sinai, you see this manna of mercy dropped about your tents this
   morning, as fresh, I hope, to you as if but newly fallen. May you eat
   of it and live forever!

   Let us come to our text at once. The Lord, here, encourages sinners to
   turn to Himself and find abundant Grace. He encourages sinners who had
   violated His plainest commandments, who had made idols and so had
   corrupted themselves--and had, consequently, been visited with
   captivity and other chastisements--He invites them to turn from their
   evil ways and seek His face. I feel moved to say at the commencement of
   this discourse that if the text has any limited aspect, if it is to be
   regarded as uttered to any special character among transgressors, it
   peculiarly belongs to backsliders, for the people to whom it was first
   addressed were the people of God. They had set up idols and so had
   wandered. And it is to them, chiefly, though not to them exclusively,
   that these encouragements to repentance are presented.

   And probably there are some backsliders here who once stood in the
   Church of God, but have been cut off from there. Who once were very
   zealous and earnest in the cause of God, but have now become utterly
   indifferent to all religion. I charge such to take this text home to
   themselves. Take every syllable of it into your own heart, Backslider.
   Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the same--and may the text bring
   you to your knees and to your God! It gives you a pointed invitation to
   return from your wanderings and end your weary backslidings by coming,
   once more, to your Father's house, for He will not forsake you nor
   destroy you, nor forget the Covenant of Mercy which He has made on your
   behalf! Happy are you that you may return! Happy shall I be if you
   return!

   I thought I would lay special stress upon this, because the Lord,
   Himself, and His ministers with Him, rejoice more over one lost sheep
   that returns to the Shepherd of Souls than over 99 that went not
   astray! There is rejoicing when a man finds a treasure which he never
   had before, but it is scarcely equal to the joy of the woman who found
   the piece of money which was hers, already, but which she had lost.
   Glad is the house when the babe is born, but deeper is the joy when the
   lost son is found. My soul longs to see the Lord bring home His
   banished ones and to be the means of gathering His scattered ones!

   Still, the text is fully applicable to all sinners--to all who have
   corrupted themselves and done evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke
   Him to anger. The Ever Merciful encourages them to turn to Him with
   full purpose of heart by assuring them that He will not forsake them.
   There seems to me to be in the text three points which should induce an
   earnest seeking of His face at once, for here is, first, a time
   mentioned. Secondly, a way appointed. And thirdly, encouragement given.

   I. First, then, in the text there is A TIME MENTIONED. Look at it--"If
   from there you shall seek the Lord... When you are in tribulation, and
   all these things are come upon you, even in the latter days." The time
   in which the Lord bids you seek Him, O you unforgiven ones, is first of
   all, "from there," that is, from the condition into which you have
   fallen, or the position which you now occupy. According to the
   connection of the text, the offending Israelites were supposed to be in
   captivity, scattered among various nations, dwelling where they were
   compelled to worship gods of wood and stone, which could not see, nor
   hear, nor feel, nor eat, nor smell.

   Yet "from there"--from the unhallowed heathen villages, from their lone
   sorrows by the waters of Babylon, from their captivity in far-off
   Chaldea, they were bid to turn unto the Lord and obey His voice! Their
   surroundings were not to be allowed to hinder their prayers. Perhaps,
   dear Friend, at this time you are dwelling among ungodly relatives. If
   you begin to speak about religion, you are put down at once. You hear
   nothing that can help you in the way to better things, but very much
   that would hinder you. Nevertheless, do not delay, but, "from there,"
   even from there, seek the Lord, for it is written--"If you seek Him, He
   will be found of you."

   It may be you are living in a neighborhood where everything is hostile
   to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and injurious, even, to your morals. Time
   was, and you may remember it with regret, when you were a child upon
   the knee of a pious mother, when you spent your Sundays in the Sunday
   school, when the Bible was read in your house everyday. But now all
   these helps are taken from you and everything around is dragging you
   down to greater and yet greater sin. Do not, however, make this a
   reason for delay--as well might a man refuse to go to a physician
   because he lives in an unhealthy locality, or a drowning man refuse a
   lifeboat because a raging sea surrounds him! Hasten, rather than
   slacken your speed! Do

   not tarry till your position improves--do not wait till you move into a
   godly family, or live nearer to the means of Grace, for if you seek Him
   "from there" He will be found of you.

   But you will tell me that it is not so much your regret that others are
   ungodly among whom you dwell, but that you, yourself, are in a wretched
   condition of heart. You have followed after one sin and another until
   evil has become a habit with you and you cannot shake it off. Like a
   rolling thing before the whirlwind, you are driven on--an awful force
   impels you from bad to worse. Awake yourself, O Man, for immediate
   action! If you wait till you have conquered this evil force by your own
   strength--if you delay to turn unto God until you are free from the
   dominion of sin--then assuredly you will wait forever and perish in
   your folly. If you could vanquish evil by your own power you would not
   need to seek the Lord, for you would have found salvation in yourself,
   but be not so infatuated as to dream of such a thing!

   Today, "from there," from the place where you now are, turn your face
   to your Father who is in Heaven and seek Him through Jesus Christ.
   Remember that hymn which ought to be sung every Sunday in our
   assemblies--

   "Just as I am--and waiting not To rid my soul of one dark blot, To You,
   whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come."

   Every verse begins with, "Just as I am," and so must your prayers, your
   faith, your hope begin. The whole hymn commences, "Just as I am," and
   so must your Christian life be started. The Lord invites you as you are
   and where you are. Are you one of a godless family, the only one in the
   house who has felt any serious thought at all? Come, then, and tarry
   not, for the Lord invites you! Are you the one man in a large workshop
   where all the rest are irreligious? Admire His Sovereign Grace, accept
   the call and from now on be the Lord's! The Lord invites those of you
   who have gone to the ends of the earth in sin and brought yourselves
   into captivity by your rebellion. Today, even today, He bids you seek
   Him "with all your heart and with all your soul."

   With regard to the time of turning, it is well worthy of our notice
   that we are especially encouraged to turn unto the Lord if we are in a
   painful plight. Our text says, "When you are in tribulation." Are you
   sick? Have you felt ill for some time? Does your weakness increase upon
   you? Are you apprehensive that this sickness may even be unto death?
   When you are in such tribulation, then you may return to Him. A sick
   body should lead us the more earnestly to seek healing for our sick
   soul. Are you poor, have you come down from a comfortable position to
   one of hard labor and of scant provision? When you are in this
   tribulation then turn to the Lord, for He has sent you this need to
   make you see your yet greater necessity, even your need of Himself.

   The empty purse should make you remember your soul poverty, the bare
   cupboard should lead you to see the emptiness of all your carnal
   confidences and accumulating debts should compel you to calculate how
   much you owe to your Lord. It is possible that your trials are very
   bitter at this moment because you are expecting to lose someone whom
   you dearly love and this is like tearing half of yourself away. One
   dear child is hardly cold in the tomb and your heart is bleeding when
   you think of that loss--and now another is sickening and will follow
   the first. When you are in this tribulation, then be sure to seek the
   Lord, for His pitying heart is open to you and He will sanctify this
   grief to noblest purposes.

   Is it possible that I speak to one whose sins have become so open as to
   have been punished by the law of the land? Have you lost your
   character? Will none employ you any longer? When you are in this
   tribulation, then turn to your Lord, for He will receive earth's
   castaways and make criminals His sons! Have you suffered from the just
   verdict of society because you are vicious, dishonest and disreputable?
   Are you, at this time, despised and looked down upon? Yet even to you
   would I say, when you are in tribulation, when every door is shut, when
   all hands are held up against you--even then seek the Lord and He will
   be found of you! If your father scarcely dares to think upon your name.
   If you have been a grief to your sister's heart and have brought your
   mother's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, yet now, even in this
   shameful estate when you are in tribulation, turn to the Lord your God!

   Doubtless there are some people who will never be saved unless they
   come into tribulation. Their substance must all be spent and a mighty
   famine must come upon them. The citizens of the far country must refuse
   them aid and with hungry bellies they must stand at the trough and be
   willing to feed with the swine, or else it will never occur to them to
   say, "I will arise and go to my Father." No matter how deep your
   trouble, your safest and wisest course is to flee to God in Christ
   Jesus and put your trust in Him! Notice further, when you feel that the
   judgments of God have begun to overtake

   you, then you may come to Him. "When you are in tribulation and all
   these things--these threatened things--are come upon you."

   There are many in this world who feel as if their sin had at last found
   them out and had commenced to be a Hell to them. The Manslayer has
   overtaken them and is striking at them with terrible blows. "Ah," says
   one, "my great sins have provoked, at last, God, and all men may see
   what He has done to me, for He has removed my choicest mercies from me.
   I despised a father's instruction--that father is dead. I did not value
   my mother's tears--my mother sleeps under the sod. The dear wife who
   used to beg me to walk to the House of God with her--I slighted and
   treated her with unkindness-- and death has removed her from my bosom.
   The little child that used to climb my knee and sing its little hymns
   and persuade me to pray, has gone, too. God has found me out, at last,
   and begun to strip me. These are only the first drops of an awful
   shower of wrath from which I cannot escape.

   "Alas, while one mercy after another is removed, my former joys have
   been embittered and are joys no more. I go to the theater as I used to
   do, but I do not enjoy it. I see beneath the paint and the gilt and it
   seems a mockery of my woe. My old companions come to see me and they
   would sing me the old songs, but I cannot bear them. Their mirth grates
   on my ears--at times it seems to be mere idiotic yelling. I used to get
   alone and philosophize and dote upon many things which afforded me
   comfort, but now I find no consolation in them--I have no joy of my
   thoughts now. The world is dreary and my soul is weary. I am in the
   sere and yellow leaf and all the world is fading with me. What little
   joy I had before has utterly departed and no new joy comes. I am
   neither fit for God nor fit for the devil. I can find no peace in sin
   and no rest in religion. Into the narrow way I fear I cannot enter and
   in the broad way I am so jostled that I do not know how to pursue my
   course.

   "Worst of all, there is before me a dreadful outlook. I am filled with
   horrible apprehensions of the dread hereafter. I am afraid of the
   harvest which must follow the sad seed sowing of my misspent life. I
   have a dread of death upon me. I know not how near it may be, but it is
   too near, I know, and I am not prepared for it. I am overwhelmed with
   thoughts of the judgment to come. I hear the trumpet ringing in my ears
   when I am at work. I hear the messengers of God's justice summoning me
   and saying, 'Come to judgment, come to judgment, come away.' A fearful
   sound is in my ears and I-- where shall I go?" Hear, O Man, and be
   comforted, for now is the appointed time for you to seek the Lord, for
   our text says, "When all these things are come upon you, if you turn
   unto the Lord your God, He will not forsake you neither destroy you."

   There is yet one more word which appears to me to contain great comfort
   in it and it is this, "even in the latter days." This expression may
   refer to the latter days of Jewish history, though I can scarcely think
   it does, because the Jews are not, now, guilty of idolatry. I rather
   think it must refer to the latter days of any one of their captivities
   and in our case to the latter days of life. Looking around me I see
   that many of you are advanced in years and if you are unconverted I
   thank God I am as free to preach Christ to you as if you had been
   children or young men! If you have spent 60 or 70 years in rebellion
   against your God, you may return, "even in the latter days." If your
   day is almost over and you have arrived at the 11th hour, when the sun
   touches the horizon and evening shadows thicken, still He may call you
   into His vineyard and at the close of the day give you your penny! He
   is long-suffering and full of mercy, not willing that any should
   perish! And therefore He sends me out as His messenger to assure you
   that if you seek Him, He will be found of you, "even in the latter
   days."

   It is a beautiful sight, though it is mingled with much sadness, to see
   a very old man become a babe in Christ. It is sweet to see him, after
   he has been so many years the proud, wayward, self-confident master of
   himself, at last learning wisdom and sitting at Jesus' feet. They hang
   up in the cathedrals and public halls old banners which have long been
   carried by the enemy into the thick of the fight. If they have been
   torn by shot and shell, so much the more do the captors value them--the
   older the standard the more honor is it, it seems, to seize it as a
   trophy. Men boast when they have carried off--

   "The flag that braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze."

   Oh, how I wish that my Lord and Master would lay hold on some of you
   worn-out sinners, you who have been set up by the devil as standards of
   sin! O that the Prince of the kings of the earth would compel you to
   say, "Love conquers even

   me."

   I will not leave this head till I have said that it gives me great joy
   to be allowed to preach an immediate Gospel to you--a Gospel which bids
   you turn unto God and find present salvation! Suppose, for a moment,
   that the Gospel ran thus--"You, Sinner, shall be saved in 12 months
   time if you turn to God." Oh, Sirs, I should count the days for you
   till the 12 months were gone. If it were written, "I will be found of
   you in March, 1877," I should weary over you till the auspicious season
   arrived and say, "Maybe they will die before mercy's hour has struck!
   Spare them, good Lord!" Yes, and if it were true that God would not
   hear you until next Lord's-Day I should like to lock you up and keep
   you out of harm's way, if I could, till that time arrived, lest you
   should die before the promised hour.

   If there were any way of insuring your lives, though you had to give
   all that you have for your soul, you might be glad to insure your life
   till next Lord's-Day. But, blessed be God, the promise does not tarry!
   It is NOW! "Today if you will hear His voice." The Gospel does not even
   bid you wait till you reach your home, or get to your bedside--but here
   and now--in that pew and at this moment, if you seek Him with all your
   heart and with all your soul, the Lord Jesus will be found of you and
   present salvation shall be immediately enjoyed! Is it not encouraging
   to think that just now the Lord is waiting to be gracious?

   II. But now, secondly, let us look at THE WAY APPOINTED. To find mercy,
   what are we bid to do? "If from there you shall seek the Lord your
   God." We have not, then, to bring anything to God, but to seek Him. We
   have not to seek a righteousness to bring to Him, nor seek a state of
   heart which will fit us for Him, but to seek Him at once! Sinner, you
   have offended God. None but God can forgive you, for the offenses are
   against Himself. Seek Him, then, that He may forgive you. It is
   essential that you seek Him as a real existence and a true Person,
   believing that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently
   seek Him.

   It is all in vain to seek sacraments--you must seek Him. It is idle to
   go through forms of prayer, or to utter customary phrases of
   devotion--you must seek Him. Your salvation lies in God, Sinner, and
   your seeking must be after God. Do you understand this? It is not going
   to your priest or to your clergyman, or to your Bible or to your Prayer
   Book, or even to your knees in formal prayer--you must draw near to God
   in Christ Jesus--and He must be found of you as a man finds a treasure
   and takes it to be his own. "But where shall I find Him?" one asks.
   When they sought God of old they went to the Mercy Seat, for there the
   Lord had promised to speak with them. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ is
   that Mercy Seat, sprinkled with precious blood--and if you want to find
   God, you must seek Him in the Person of Jesus

   Christ!

   Is it not written, "No man comes unto the Father but by Me"? Jesus is
   the one Mediator between God and man-- and if you would find God, you
   must find Him in the Person of Jesus the Nazarene--who is also the Son
   of the Highest. You will find Jesus by believing Him, trusting Him,
   resting upon Him. When you have trusted Jesus, you have found God in
   Jesus, for He has said, "He that has seen Me, has seen the Father."
   Then have you come to God when you have believed in Jesus Christ. How
   simple this is! How unencumbered with subtleties and difficulties! When
   God gives Grace, how easy and how plain is believing! Salvation is not
   by doing, nor by being, nor by feeling, but simply by believing.

   We are not to be content with self, but to seek the Lord! Being nothing
   in ourselves, we are to go out of ourselves to Him. Being, ourselves,
   unworthy, we are to find worthiness in Jesus!

   We are also to grasp the Lord as ours, for the text says, "You shall
   seek the Lord your God." Sinners, that is a part of saving faith, to
   take God to be your God. If He is only another man's God, He cannot
   save you. He must be yours, yours, assuredly yours, yours to trust and
   love and serve all your days, or you will be lost. Now, mark God's
   directions--"If you seek Him with all your heart and with all your
   soul." There must be no pretence about this seeking. If you desire to
   be saved, there must be no playing and toying, trifling and feigning.
   The search must be real, sincere, earnest, fervent, intense and
   thorough-going or it will be a failure.

   Is this too much to ask? Surely if anything in the world deserves
   earnestness it is this! If anything ought to awake all a man's powers
   to energy, it is the salvation of his soul! You cannot win gold and
   attain riches without being in earnest in the pursuit--and what
   earnestness does this deserve? This obtaining eternal life, deliverance
   from eternal death, acceptance in the Beloved, endless bliss? Oh, men,
   women, if you sleep over anything, at any rate be awake here! If you
   trifle upon any matters of importance, yet here, at any rate, be
   serious, solemn and earnest. Here there must be no idling and no delay.
   Note that there is a repetition in the text. "If you seek Him with all
   your heart and with all your soul"--we must be doubly in earnest--heart
   and soul must be in the pursuit.

   Half-hearted seeking is no seeking at all. To ask for mercy from God
   and at the same time to be willing to be without it is a mere pretence
   of asking. If you are content to be put off with an inferior blessing,
   you are not seeking the Lord at all. I remember one who is now a member
   of this Church who, in a desperate fit of soul anxiety, said solemnly
   to one of us, "I will never go to work again. I will neither eat nor
   drink till I have found the Savior." And with that solemn resolve it
   was not long before he had found Him! Oh, Sirs, suppose you should be
   lost? Suppose you should perish while I am speaking? I know of no
   reason why your pulse should continue to beat, or your breath should
   remain in your nostrils-- and if at this moment you were to die--at
   that same instant you would plunge amidst the flames of Hell! Escape,
   then, at once!

   Even now make soul matters your sole concern. Whatever else you have to
   attend to, leave it alone and attend, first, to this chief thing, the
   salvation of your soul! If a man were in a sinking vessel, he may have
   been a student of the classics, but he will not think of his stopping
   to translate an ode of Horace! He may have been a mathematician, but he
   will not sit down to work out an equation--he will leap, at once, from
   the sinking vessel into the lifeboat, for his objective will be to save
   his life. And should it not be so as to our eternal life? My soul, my
   soul, this must be saved and with all my heart will I seek God in Jesus
   Christ that I may find salvation.

   The text further adds that we are to turn to Him. Did you notice the
   30th verse--"If you turn to the Lord your God." It must be a thorough
   turn. You are looking now towards the world--you must turn in the
   opposite direction and look God-ward. It must not be an apparent turn,
   but a real change of the nature, a turning of the entire soul--a
   turning with repentance for the past, with confidence in Christ for the
   present and with holy desires for the future. Heart, soul, life,
   speech, action--all must be changed. Unless you are converted you
   cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven. May God grant you such a turn as
   this and to this end pray, "Turn me and I shall be turned."

   Then it is added, "and be obedient to His voice," for we cannot be
   saved in disobedience. Christ has not come to save His people in their
   sins, but from their sins. "If you are willing and obedient, you shall
   eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be
   devoured with the sword." Do you see, my dear unconverted Hearers, what
   God's advice is to you? It is that you obey, now, His Gospel and bow
   before the scepter of His Son Jesus. He would have you admit that you
   have erred and entreat to be kept from erring again. Your proud
   self-will must yield and your self-confidence must be renounced. You
   must incline your ear and come unto Him, "Hear and your soul shall
   live."

   This His Holy Spirit will grant you Grace to do! This is the least that
   could be asked of you. You could not expect the great King to pardon
   rebels and allow them to continue in rebellion! He could not allow you
   to continue in sin and yet partake of His Grace. You know that such a
   course would not be worthy of a holy God. Do you feel inclined, at this
   moment, to turn to the Lord? Does some gentle power you have never felt
   before, draw you beyond yourself? Do you perceive that it would be well
   for you to be reconciled to your God and Father? Do you feel some
   inkling of regret, some spark of good desire? Then yield to the
   impulse! I trust it is the Holy Spirit within, working in you to will
   and to do of His own good pleasure. Yield at once--completely yield and
   He will lead you by a way you know not and bring you to Jesus, and in
   Him you shall find peace, rest, holiness, happiness and Heaven!

   Let this be the happy day. Bend before the Spirit's breath as the reed
   bows in the wind. Quench not the Spirit, grieve Him no more--

   "Lest slighted once, the season fair Should never return again."

   Beware lest bleeding love should never woo again, lest pitying Grace
   should never more entreat and tender mercy should never more cast its
   cords around you. The spouse said, "Draw me, we will run after
   You"--say the same. Behold, before you is an open door and within that
   door a waiting Savior! Will you perish on the threshold?

   ' III. Thirdly, the text contains VERY RICH ENCOURAGEMENTS. How does it
   run? "For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not forsake
   you'" Look at that, Sinner! "He will not forsake you." If He were to
   say, "Let him alone, Ephraim is given unto idols," it would be all over
   with you. But if you seek Him, He will not say, "Let him alone," nor
   take His Holy Spirit from you. You are not yet given up, I hope, or you
   would not have been here this morning to hear this sermon.

   I thought, when I woke this morning and saw the snow and pitiless sleet
   driven by a vehement wind, that it was a pity I had studied such a
   subject, for I would like to have the house crowded with sinners and
   they are not so likely to

   come out in bad weather. Just then I remembered that it was upon just
   such a morning as this that I found the Savior, myself, and that
   thought gave me much courage in coming here. I thought the congregation
   cannot be smaller than that of which I was one on that happy day when I
   looked to Christ. I believe that many will, this morning, be brought
   out and saved, for the Lord has not forsaken this congregation! I used
   to think He had given me up and would not show me mercy after so long
   seeking in vain. But He had not forsaken me, nor has He cast you off, O
   Sinner! If you seek Him with all your heart and soul, you may rest
   assured He will not forsake you.

   And then it is added, "Neither destroy you." You have been afraid He
   would. You have often thought the earth would open and swallow you. You
   have been afraid to fall asleep lest you should never wake again, but
   the Lord will not destroy you. No, rather He will reveal His saving
   power in you. There is a sweeter word, still, in the 29th verse--"You
   shall find Him if you seek Him." I wish I could sing and could
   extemporize a bit of music, for then I would stand here and sing those
   words--"You shall find Him if you seek Him." At any rate, the words
   have sweet melody in them to my ears and heart--"You shall find Him if
   you seek Him." I should like to whisper that sentence softly to the
   sick and to shout it to the busy. It ought to linger long in your
   memories and abide in your hearts--"You shall find Him if you seek
   Him." What more, poor Sinner, what more do you need?

   Then there are two reasons given--"For the Lord your god is a merciful
   God." Oh, guilty Soul, the Lord does not want to damn you! He does not
   desire to destroy you! Judgment is His strange work. Have you ever had
   to chasten your child? When you have felt bound to punish him severely
   by reason of a great fault, has it not been very hard work? You have
   said to yourself a hundred times over, "What shall I do? What shall I
   do to escape from the misery of causing pain to my dear child?" You
   have been driven to chasten him or you would not have done it. God
   never sends a sinner to Hell till justice demands it. He finds no joy
   in punishing. He swears, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure
   in the death of him that dies."

   Look at the judge when he puts on the black cap, does he do so with
   pleasure? No, some of our judges speak with choked utterance and with
   many tears when they say to the prisoner, "You must be taken to the
   place from where you came, there to be hanged by the neck till you are
   dead." God never puts on the black cap without His heart yearning for
   men! His mercy endures forever and He delights in it. Notice how the
   Lord teaches us His care even over the most guilty by the comparisons
   He makes. "What man of you," says He, "having a sheep gone astray, will
   not go after it until he finds it? What man of you, having a sheep that
   is fallen into a ditch, will not pull it out?" Any animal which belongs
   to us causes us concern if we lose it, or if it is in trouble. I
   noticed the other night how even the little kitten could not be missing
   without causing anxiety to the household. What calling and searching!

   Rougher natures might say, "If the kitten will stay out of doors all
   night, let it do so." But the owner thought not so, for the night was
   cold and wet. I have seen great trouble when a bird has been lost
   through the opening of a cage door and many a vain struggle to catch it
   again. What a stir there is in the house about a little short-lived
   bird! We do not like to lose a bird, or a kitten--and do you think the
   good God will willingly lose those whom He has made in His own image
   and who are to exist forever? I have used a very simple and homely
   illustration, but it commends itself to the heart. You know what you
   would do to regain a lost bird, but what will not God do to save a
   soul? An immortal spirit is better than 10,000 birds!

   Does God care for souls? Yes, that He does, and in proof thereof Jesus
   has come to seek and to save the lost. The Shepherd cannot rest while
   one of His flock is in danger. "It is only one sheep! You have 99 more,
   good man, why do you go and bother yourself about one?" He cannot be
   pacified. He is considering where that sheep may be. He imagines all
   sorts of perils and distresses. Perhaps it is lying on its back and
   cannot turn over, or it has fallen into a pit, or is entangled among
   briars, or the wolf is ready to seize it. It is not merely its
   intrinsic value to him, but he is concerned for it because it is his
   sheep, and the object of his care. Oh, Soul, God has such a care for
   man! He waits to be gracious and His Spirit goes forth towards
   sinners--therefore return to Him!

   Now dwell upon that last argument--"He will not forget the Covenant of
   your fathers." The Covenant always keeps open the path between God and
   man. The Lord has made a Covenant concerning poor sinners with His Son
   Jesus Christ. He has laid help upon One that is mighty and given Him
   for a Covenant to the people. He always remembers Jesus and how He kept
   that Covenant. He calls to mind His sighs, tears, groans and
   death-throes--and He fulfills His promise for

   the great Sufferer's sake. God's Grace has kept His Covenant on behalf
   of men! God is even eager to forgive that He may reward Christ and give
   Him to see of the travail of His soul!

   Now, listen to me, you who are still unconverted. What solid ground
   there is, here, for your hope! If the Lord were to deal with you
   according to the Covenant of Works, what could He do but destroy you?
   But here is a Covenant of Grace made in Jesus Christ on the behalf of
   sinners and all that believe in Jesus are partakers in that Covenant
   and are made partakers of the countless blessings which that Covenant
   secures. Believe in Jesus! Cast yourself upon Him and by the Covenant
   mercies of God you shall assuredly be saved! You have heard me preach
   like this before, have you not, a good many times? Yes, and I am,
   sometimes, fearful lest God's people should grow tired of this kind of
   sermon. But then you need it over and over again.

   How many more times will some of you need to be told this? How many
   more times must the great mercy of God be set before you? Are we to
   keep on inviting you, again and again and again, and go back with no
   favorable answer from you? I have been questioning myself in the night
   watches about this and I have said, "These people are unconverted. Is
   it my fault? Do I fail in telling them my Lord's message? Do I mar the
   Gospel? Well," I thought, "if it is so, yet I will charge them not to
   be partakers of my fault." Brothers and Sisters, God's mercy is so rich
   that even when the story of it is badly told, it ought to influence
   your hearts! It is so grand a thing that God should be in Christ
   reconciling the world to Himself by a wondrous Sacrifice, that if I
   stuttered and stammered, you ought to be glad to hear it! Or even if I
   told you in terms that were obscure, you ought to be so eager to know
   it that you would search out my meaning!

   In secret correspondence a cipher is often used, but inquisitive people
   soon discover it. Ought there not to be more interest taken in the
   Gospel? But, my Friends, I do not speak obscurely. I am as plain a
   speaker as one might meet in a day's march and with all my heart I set
   Christ before you and bid you trust Him! Will you do so this morning?
   Or will you not? See how dark it is outside, even at noon? God has hung
   the very heavens in mourning. Never fear, the sun will soon break forth
   and light up the day and even so--

   "Our hearts, if God we seek to know

   Shall know Him and rejoice!

   His coming like the morn shall be,

   As morning songs His voice.

   So shall His Presence bless our souls,

   And shed a joyful light;

   That hallowed morn shall chase away

   The sorrows of the night."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Deuteronomy 4. HYMN FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--199, 555, 40.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sealing of the Spirit

   (No. 1284)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 19, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the
   Gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you
   were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of
   our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto
   the praise of His glory." Ephesians 1:13,14.

   I HAVE taken the whole passage for the sake of completing the sense,
   but I have no intention whatever of preaching upon all of it.
   Practically I only need for the topic of this morning the following
   words--"In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that
   Holy Spirit of promise." The sealing of the Holy Spirit will be the
   subject of our meditation. There are many who have believed in the Lord
   Jesus Christ who are extremely anxious to obtain some token for good,
   some witness from God which shall render them quite sure that they are
   saved. They have not yet reached the full assurance of faith and they
   feel uneasy till they attain it. They feel that these matters are too
   important to be left at all uncertain and they, therefore, pine for
   some sure witness or seal.

   Men will not risk their estates and no spiritually sensible man will
   endure to have his soul and its eternal affairs in jeopardy for an
   hour--therefore this anxiety. It is true that by the way of faith only
   the fullest and best assurance may be reached, but many who truly
   believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are not yet aware of this and their
   trembling hearts crave for a testimonial from the Infallible God to
   certify them that they are, indeed, saved. Yes, and I conceive that
   even more advanced saints, who know more fully where their standing is
   and confess that they can only walk by faith, yet often sing with very
   great emphasis of desire--

   "Might I but hear Your hea venly tongue

   But whisper, 'You are Mine,'

   That cheerful word should raise my song

   To notes almost Divine."

   Though we can and do believe and can claim the privilege which belongs
   to those who have not seen and yet have believed, yet we would be glad
   to sometimes have a sight. We sometimes wish we could know by sure mark
   and evidence and token that our experience, after all, is a reality,
   and that we are, indeed, born of God--

   "O tell me that my worthless name

   Is engraved on Your hands!

   Show me some promise in Your Book

   Where my salvation stands!"

   Now, in the best sense, this seal which we seek after is to be had! No,
   it is manifestly seen by many of God's children. It does not supersede
   faith, but it rewards and strengthens it. There is a way by which God
   speaks to His own and assures them that they are His. There is a pledge
   and an earnest--and this is freely given to the people of God. May
   God's own Spirit enable me to speak aright upon this weighty subject.
   The text says, "After that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy
   Spirit of promise." And, therefore, first, I shall call your attention
   to the position of this sealing. Secondly, to the benefits which arise
   out of it. And thirdly, to the sealing itself, which, indeed, I shall
   endeavor to explain thoroughly.

   I. First, let us speak of THE POSITION OF THIS SEALING. We are desirous
   to get some confirming seal from God set upon our souls, some sure
   token that we are, indeed, His own people. That sealing we can have.
   God bestows it. But let us notice very carefully, lest we make a
   mistake, when that sealing comes. It does not come before believing.
   According to the text it is, "after that you believed, you were
   sealed." Now, there are hundreds of persons who are craving

   for something to see or to feel before they will believe in Jesus
   Christ. This is wickedness and the result of an unbelief which is most
   offensive in the sight of God.

   If you demand a token before you believe, you practically say that you
   cannot take God's bare Word for your comfort, that the sure Word of
   Testimony recorded in the Bible is not enough for you, that the solemn
   declaration of God may, after all, be false. At any rate, that you find
   it impossible to rest your confidence upon that, alone, and must see
   something else. If not a miracle, perhaps you demand a dream, or a
   strange feeling, or a mysterious operation. At any rate, if you do not
   see some sign and wonder, you declare that you will not believe. You
   do, in fact, say to God, "If You will not go out of Your way to give me
   what I ask, and to do for me what I demand, then I will call You a liar
   to Your face by refusing to believe You."

   Ah, my Hearer, this will not do! This is to provoke the Lord to
   jealousy and he that does this shall receive no token, whatever, except
   it be the sign of the unbelievers of Chorazin, for whom the Day of
   Judgment shall be more intolerable than for Sodom and Gomorrah. Note,
   also, that this sealing does not necessarily come at once with faith.
   It grows out of faith and comes, "after that you believed." We are not,
   in every case, sealed at the moment when we first trust in Jesus. I am
   persuaded that many who believe in Jesus enter into peace, directly,
   and perceive at once the blessed assurance which is involved in their
   possessing the Holy Spirit. But with many others it is not so.

   I have frequently been asked this question, "What is a person to do who
   believes in Jesus, but yet is not conscious of peace and joy, but is
   filled with such a conflict within that the utmost he can do is to
   cling to Jesus with trembling hope?"

   1 have replied, "If you believe in Jesus Christ you are saved. The best
   evidence that you are saved lies in the assurance of the Word of God
   that every Believer has eternal hope." Whether you feel that you are
   justified, or not, is not the point. You are to accept God's Word which
   assures you that everyone that believes is justified. You are bound to
   believe the Testimony of God apart from the supporting evidence of
   inward experience. And if it were possible for you to be a Believer by
   the year together and yet find no peace, still you would have no right
   to doubt what God says because you do not feel peace--you are bound to
   hold on to God's promise whether you enjoy peace or not.

   My firm belief is that where there is a real faith in the promise of
   God, peace and the other fruits of the Spirit come as a necessary
   ultimate consequence, but even then they are not grounds of faith--the
   Word of the Lord is the sole foundation upon which faith builds. Some
   people have a sort of confidence in God, but they are also looking out
   for confirming signs and they spoil the simplicity of their faith by
   having one eye on Christ and another eye on their peace of mind. Now,
   my Friend, this will never do. You are bound to believe in God as He is
   revealed in Christ Jesus unto salvation, altogether apart from peace,
   joy, or anything else.

   The witness of the Spirit within is not the ground nor the cause of our
   faith--faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I, being
   a sinner, believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners
   and I rest my soul upon Him, believing that He will save me. This is to
   be my standing, seal or no seal, token or no token. My dependence is
   not to be upon the seal of the Spirit, but upon the blood of the Son!
   The Spirit of God never takes the place of the Redeemer. He exercises
   His own peculiar office, which is to take of the things of Christ and
   show them unto us and not to put His own things in the place of Jesus.
   The foundation of our hope is laid in Christ from first to last and if
   we rest there we are saved.

   The seal does not always come with faith, but it follows after. I have
   said this because I am afraid lest in any way whatever you should leave
   the simple, plain and solid ground of confidence in the finished work
   of Jesus Christ and in that only. Remember that a man who believes in
   Jesus Christ is as truly saved when he does not know it as he is when
   he does know it--he is as truly the Lord's when he mourns in the valley
   of humiliation as when he sings on the mountaintop of joy and
   fellowship! Our ground of trust is not to be found in our experience,
   but in the Person and work of our Lord Jesus--

   "I dare not trust the sweetest frame But wholly lean on Jesus' name. On
   Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand."

   Note, also, as to the position of this sealing, that, while it is not
   the first, it is not the last thing in the Divine life. It comes after
   believing, but when you obtain it, there is something yet to follow.
   Perhaps you have had the notion that if you could once be told from the
   mouth of God, Himself, that you were saved, you would then lie down and
   cease from

   life's struggle. It is clear, therefore, that such an assurance should
   be an evil thing for you, for a Christian is never more out of place
   than when he dreams that he has ceased from conflict. The natural, fit
   and proper position for a soldier of Jesus Christ is to be at war with
   sin. We are wrestlers and our normal condition is that of "striving
   according to His working who works in us mightily." This side of
   Heaven, if there is a place for nest-building and ease-taking it is not
   the place for you--you are a pilgrim--and a pilgrim's business is to be
   on the road, pressing forward to the home beyond.

   Remember, if there are seats of ease, and no doubt there are, they are
   not for you since you are a runner in a great race, with Heaven and
   earth for witnesses. Cessation from watchfulness means ruin to your
   soul. The closing of conflict would show that you could never gain the
   victory! Perfect rest on earth would show that none remained for you in
   Heaven. Even if the Spirit of God seals you, what will it amount to? To
   the inheritance itself, so that you can say, "I have attained
   perfection"? Certainly not! To Brethren, the Scripture says, "Which is
   the earnest of our inheritance till the redemption of the purchased
   possession." This side of Heaven all you can obtain is an earnest of
   the perfection of which Heaven is made up--

   "There rest shall follow toil, And ease succeed to care: The victors
   there divide the spoil; They sing and triumph there."

   Here we must labor, watch, run, fight, wrestle, agonize! All our
   forces, strengthened by the Eternal Spirit, must be expended in this
   high enterprise, striving to enter in at the strait gate. When we have
   obtained the sealing, our warfare is not ended, we have only, then,
   received a foretaste of the victory for which we must still fight on.
   This is the true position of the sealing. It stands between the Grace
   which enables us to believe and the Glory which is our promised
   inheritance.

   II. We will notice, secondly, what are THE BENEFITS OF THIS SEALING and
   while we are doing so, we shall be compelled to state what we think
   that sealing is, though that is to be the subject of the third head.
   The sealing spoken of in the text does not make the promises of God to
   be true. Please notice that. This text has been preached upon as though
   it stated that the Spirit of God set His seal upon the Gospel and the
   promises of God. Well, dear Friends, it is true that the Spirit of God
   witnesses to the Truth of God and to the sureness of the promises. But
   that is evidently not intended here, for the text says not that the
   promises were sealed, but that, "you were sealed."

   YOU are the writing which has the stamp put upon it! YOU, yourselves,
   are sealed! It is not even stated that the Spirit of God seals up
   Covenant blessings as gold is sealed up in a bag and reserves them for
   the chosen Seed. The text tells us that Believers, themselves, are thus
   reserved and marked as the Lord's peculiar treasure--and it is upon
   Believers, themselves, that this seal of the Holy Spirit is set. No,
   Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Spirit does not make the promises
   sure--they are sure of themselves! God, who cannot lie, has uttered
   them, and therefore they cannot fail. Nor, my Brethren, does the Holy
   Spirit make sure our interest in those promises--that interest in the
   promises was sure in the Divine decree, before the earth was, and is a
   matter of fact which cannot be changed.

   The promises are already sure to all the Seed. The Holy Spirit makes us
   sure that the Word is true and that we are concerned in it, but the
   promise was sure beforehand and our interest in that promise was sure,
   too, from the moment in which it was bestowed upon us by the sovereign
   act of God. To understand our text, you must notice that it is bounded
   by two words, "In whom," which two words are twice given in this verse.
   "In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed." What is meant
   by, "In whom"? The words signify "In Christ." It is in Christ that the
   people of God are sealed! We must, therefore, understand this sealing
   as it would relate to Christ, since so far, and so far only, can it
   relate to us.

   Was our Lord sealed? Turn to John 6:27 and there you have this
   exhortation--"Labor not for the meat which perishes, 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." There is the clue to our
   text. "Him has God the Father sealed." For since our sealing is in Him,
   it must be the same sealing. Notice, then, first, that the ever-blessed
   Son was sealed on the Father's part by God's giving a testimony to Him
   that He was, indeed, His own Son and the Sent One of the Lord. As when
   a king issues a proclamation, He sets His seal to it to say, "This is
   mine," so when the Father sent His Son into the world, He gave Him this
   testimony, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

   He said this in words, but how did He give a perpetual testimony by a
   seal, which should be with Him throughout life? It was by anointing Him
   with the Holy Spirit. The seal that Jesus was the Messiah was that the
   Spirit of God rested

   upon Him without measure. Hence we read expressions like these--"He was
   justified in the Spirit." "He was declared to be the Son of God with
   power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the
   dead." "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is
   truth." Now, the Spirit of God, whenever it abides upon a man, is the
   mark that that man is accepted of God. We say not that where the Spirit
   merely strives at intervals, there is any seal of Divine favor, but
   where He abides it is assuredly so. The very fact that we possess the
   Spirit of God is God's testimony and seal in us that we are His and
   that as He has sent His Son into the world, even so does He send us
   into the world.

   Secondly, to our Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit was a seal for His
   own encouragement. Our Lord condescended to restrain the power of His
   Godhead, and, as a Servant, He depended upon the Father for support.
   When He began His ministry, He encouraged Himself thus--"The Spirit of
   the Lord is upon Me, because He has sent Me to bind up the
   broken-hearted." He found His stimulus of service, He found the
   authorization of His service, He found His comfort and strength for
   service in the fact that God had given Him the Holy Spirit. This was
   His joy!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, if we need to be encouraged for holy service
   by feeling quite sure that we are saved, where must we get that
   encouragement? Read in the First Epistle of John, the third chapter and
   24th verse where the seal of God is described--"Hereby we know that He
   abides in us by the Spirit which He has given us." Read also in the
   fourth chapter, verse 13, "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, because
   He has given us of His Spirit." So that as the seal which comforted our
   Lord and made Him to know, in times of depression, that He was, indeed,
   beloved of the Father, was that He had the Spirit of God! So to you and
   to me, Brothers and Sisters, the possession of the Spirit of God is our
   continuous encouragement, for by this we may know beyond all question
   that we dwell in God and God dwells in us.

   The seal answers a two-fold purpose. It is on God's part, a testimony,
   and to us an encouragement. But the seal is meant to be an evidence to
   others. The Father set His seal upon His Son in order that others might
   discern that He was, indeed, sent of God. John says, "I knew Him not:
   but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon
   whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the
   same is He which baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I saw, and bare
   record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:33).

   The Spirit, then, was, upon our Lord, the seal for recognition. And,
   Beloved, so must it be with us. We cannot be known by our fellow
   Christians except by the possession of the Spirit of God. Have you ever
   noticed how Peter claimed for the uncircumcised the rights of Church
   membership in the 15th of Acts in the eighth and ninth verses? He says,
   "God, which knows the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy
   Spirit, even as He did unto us, and put no difference between us and
   them, purifying their hearts by faith." So that to Peter, the
   possession of the Holy Spirit was the broad seal of Heaven which the
   Lord never sets upon a heart wherein there is no faith. The same
   argument had been felt in all its power by Peter when he said, "Can any
   man forbid water, that these should not be baptized which have received
   the Holy Spirit as well as we?"

   Paul used this as his test concerning the sons of men, for in Romans
   8:9, he says, "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 of His," plainly indicating that the absence of the
   Spirit is fatal, for the Divine signature is not at the bottom of the
   document. But if the Spirit of God is there, then all is right, for the
   Lord never puts His seal to anything which is not sound and true. Rest
   quite sure that where the Spirit of God abides, there the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ has been written on the heart and the man is saved.

   Further, the fourth effect of the seal upon Christ was that it was to
   the world a witness. The Spirit of God upon Jesus Christ was not
   recognized by the ungodly world to be, indeed, Divine, but they
   perceived and were astonished at a something about Him which they did
   not understand. He spoke with authority and not as the scribes and they
   confessed, "Never man spoke like this Man." They did not know what
   spirit He was of, but they knew they hated it and straightway they
   began to oppose Him. Now, Brothers and Sisters, if you have the same
   seal as your Lord which is described in the text as, "the Spirit of
   promise," the same result will follow! Men will wonder at you,
   misunderstand you and oppose you!

   And what is the reason? Never in this world did the Spirit of promise
   appear without opposition from the spirit of bondage. Isaac was the
   child of promise and did not Ishmael, who was born after the flesh,
   persecute him? The two seeds of the flesh and of the promise are at
   daggers drawn with each other! When the Lord sets His seal upon you by
   giving you the Spirit of promise, so that you are not under the Law but
   under Christ, the world will know it. They will not admire you, but
   they will strive against you to destroy you.

   Once more, the seal upon our Lord Jesus Christ was intended for a fifth
   reason, namely--for His perseverance even to the end. A seal is set
   upon a treasure which we mean to preserve and so was the precious
   Redeemer sealed. Now, you will say to me, "But dare we speak of Jesus
   Christ as being preserved by the Spirit of God?" My dear Brethren, we
   must never forget the wonderful self-denial of Christ in that He laid
   aside His own Divine power. And while He was in this world He said the
   Father was greater than He. And He became a Man so as to pray and to
   believe, and to depend upon the Father. Jesus Christ put Himself into
   such a condition while He was here that He relied upon the Spirit of
   God to uphold Him. Do you doubt it?

   Turn to the 42nd Chapter of Isaiah, verse one, and there you get it in
   express words: "Behold My Servant whom I uphold!" See how He puts
   Himself, as a Servant, to be upheld by the Lord. "My elect, in whom My
   Soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon Him: He shall bring forth
   judgment to the Gentiles: He shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause His
   voice to be heard in the street: a bruised reed shall He not break, and
   the smoking flax shall He not quench: He shall bring forth judgment
   unto truth." There can be no doubt that this is Christ for these very
   words are quoted concerning Himself.

   Now, what comes of the upholding of the blessed Spirit? "He shall not
   fail nor be discouraged until He has set judgment in the earth, and the
   isles shall wait for His Law." So that the Spirit of God upheld Christ,
   sustained Him and kept Him till His life's work was finished, without
   His failing or being discouraged. My Brothers and Sisters, this is how
   you and I must be kept! This is the seal which we need, which shall
   preserve us as the consecrated ones of God, so that when He comes, He
   shall find us under seal and not discouraged.

   Let me now recapitulate. Upon our Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God acted
   as a seal, namely, as God's testimony that He was His Son, as an
   encouragement to His own heart, as an evidence to others, as a witness
   to the world and as a help to perseverance, even to the end. The same
   benefits will the sealing of the Spirit confer upon us--"in Christ
   Jesus after that you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of
   promise."

   III. Thirdly, let us consider THE SEALING ITSELF. A great deal has been
   said on this point which has tended to foster superstition. Some have
   supposed that there is a separate act of the Spirit of God in which He
   seals Believers. It may be so, I will not raise the question. But I
   should be very sorry if any man here, living in sin, should,
   nevertheless, look back upon some time of religious excitement or
   enjoyment and say, "I am safe, for on that occasion I was sealed." And
   I should be very sorry to have any Brother or Sister take as the sure
   reason why they are saved, some remarkable experience which they
   underwent on a certain day, long past.

   A seal is for the present and is not a mere memory, but an object
   palpable now and before the eyes. I am afraid many have been deceived
   into carelessness by the notion of a sealing received long ago. Let us
   seek out the Truth of God. According to the text, as far as I can read
   it, here is a man who has believed in Jesus and he desires a seal that
   God loves him. God gives him the Spirit and that is all the seal he can
   wish for or expect. Nothing more is needed, nothing else would be as
   good. The very fact that the Spirit of God works in you to will and to
   do according to God's good pleasure, is your seal! You do not require
   anything beyond. I do not say that any one operation of the Holy Spirit
   is to be regarded as the seal, but the whole of them together, as they
   prove His being within us, make up that seal. It is better, however, to
   keep to the doctrine that the Spirit of God in the Believer is,
   Himself, the seal--

   "You are the earnest of His love, The pledge of joys to come, And Your
   soft wings, celestial Dove, Will safely convey me Home."

   Now, let us look at what the context tells us about this. If you read
   on, the Apostle tells us that wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
   God are part of the seal. Kindly turn to the chapter and follow out the
   Apostle's line of argument. He says, (verse 15), "Therefore I also,
   after I heard of your faith, etc., cease not to give thanks for you,
   making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and
   revelation in the knowledge of Him." See, then, if you have believed in
   Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God comes upon you and He gives you wisdom
   and revelation.

   Doctrines in the Word which you never understood before become clear to
   you--"the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." The blessings
   promised are more distinctly discerned and you see, "the hope of your
   calling, and the riches of the glory of the Lord's inheritance in the
   saints." The deeper Truths of God, which at first quite staggered and
   puzzled you, gradually open up to you and you see and appreciate them.
   More especially, you discover the Glory of

   Christ and see the exceeding greatness of the power with which the Lord
   works in the saints, "according to the working of His mighty power,
   which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him
   at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all
   principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that
   is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come." You
   drink deep into the blessed thought that Jesus is the Head over all
   things to His Church and you obtain some glimpses into the mysterious
   doctrine that the Church is His fullness, the fullness of Him that
   fills all in all.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, if we know these things aright, the Spirit
   has taught us, and the consequence of it is that we say to ourselves,
   "Certainly I must be a child of God, for I never understood the things
   of God before." How could I have learned them if I had not been taught
   of God. The Master seems to stand by our side and say, "Blessed are
   you, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you,
   but my Father which is in Heaven." If you have been made to see the
   abounding Grace of God, the grandeur of the plan of salvation and the
   choice beauties of the blessed Person of Jesus Christ, you have a sure
   seal upon your soul, for like the blind man in the Gospels you can say,
   "One thing I know, whereas I was blind now I see."

   Following on to the next chapter you will see that the Spirit of God
   works in every man who possesses in him life, and that life becomes
   another form of the seal. "You has He quickened who were dead in
   trespasses and sin." That life is of a new kind and has a renewing
   power so that men reject the course of this world and no longer fulfill
   the desires of the flesh and of the mind. This new life they trace to
   God who is rich in mercy, who in His great love with which He loved
   them, even when they were dead in sins, has quickened them together
   with Christ. They trace this life entirely to the Grace of God--"By
   Grace are you saved"--and they see that this life produces in them good
   works, "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good
   works."

   I need not explain how this life lifts us up to sit in the heavenlies
   with Christ, for most of you know all about it. You have received a
   life from above, a living and incorruptible Seed is in you. You have
   passed into a new world. You have feelings, desires, fears, hopes such
   as you never knew before--and thus your outward life is also
   changed--so that you follow after that which is according to the will
   of God. Now, Brethren, what can be a better seal to you that you are,
   indeed, saved, than this life which you feel within? This is the way in
   which the Spirit of God seals you--by making you partakers of the
   Divine life which never has resided in the unbeliever yet--and never
   can dwell in anyone apart from faith. To "as many as received Him, to
   them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to as many as
   believed on His name." "He that believes on the Son has everlasting
   life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life, but the
   wrath of God abides on him." So that wisdom and life, which are both
   sure results of the indwelling of the Spirit of God, are a seal to us
   that we are really saved.

   Go on a little further and you will notice upon the one seal a further
   mark, namely--fellowship. "You were without Christ, being aliens from
   the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of
   promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in
   Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood
   of Christ. For He is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken
   down the middle wall of partition between us." Those who have believed
   in Jesus Christ are led by the Spirit of God to love their fellow
   Christians and thus, "we know that we have passed from death unto life,
   because we love the brethren." Once we thought the godly a dull and
   melancholy set--at any rate we let them go their own way--and we were
   glad to keep aloof from them! But now we delight in their society,
   sympathize with their pursuits and are willing to share their
   persecutions.

   We count the saints of God the best company in the world. We would
   sooner sit down and talk half an hour with a poor, bed-ridden Christian
   woman, than be found in the courts of princes. This brotherly love
   becomes a seal of Grace within our hearts, for John tells us in his
   First Epistle, "Everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God." "If
   we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us"
   (1 John 4:7, 12). Even more striking is that which follows, namely,
   that we have fellowship with God. The Apostle speaks of us as
   reconciled unto God by the Cross, by which the enmity is slain, and he
   says of our Lord, "Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto
   the Father." I am following the course of the chapter.

   When you and I feel that we commune with God, that there is no quarrel
   between Him and us, that He is loved of us as we are loved of Him. When
   we feel that we can draw near to Him in prayer and speak to Him, that
   He hears us and deigns to grant us gracious answers of peace, these are
   blessed seals of salvation. Some of us can look back on times of

   fellowship with God, on seasons of prevailing prayer with Him and upon
   countless answers to our petitions. All these become to us Infallible
   tokens of Divine love!

   I shall not tire you if I bid you notice, for one moment, that the
   Apostle puts in next building up--"And are built upon the foundation of
   the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner
   stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an
   holy temple in the Lord." Are you not conscious, Believers, that you
   are being built up unto a divinely glorious form, after a high and
   noble model? It does not yet appear what we shall be, but you must be
   conscious that course upon course of precious stones have been built
   upon the foundation of your faith in Christ. Since you have known the
   Lord you have made a distinct advance. At times you are afraid you have
   only grown downwards, but you have grown! There is a something about
   you, now, which was not there 10 years ago.

   I am distinctly conscious, somehow, that 20 years ago I was not what I
   now am. I sometimes feel like a bird in the eggshell! I am chipping it
   away bit by bit. I believe it will break, one of these days, and the
   bird will come out. But I often feel my wings fretted and cramped by
   the shell. I want the life in me to be developed and set free! Do you
   never feel the same? Have you not felt as if you, yourself, were big
   with a far more glorious nature and longed for deliverance from flesh
   and frailty? These groans, aspirations, hopes and desires are all seals
   of salvation!

   You will never find the ungodly thus moved. These pangs are peculiar to
   life. You are not a finished structure, but a house in process of
   erection and you may be sure that one of these days the top stone shall
   be brought forth with shouts of, "Grace, Grace unto it." This building
   up through the Spirit of God is the seal of the Spirit. It is to you
   the evidence that God has begun a good work in you and is carrying it
   on. Last of all, the second Chapter of Ephesians finishes up by saying,
   "In whom you, also, are built together for an habitation of God through
   the Spirit." And this seems to me to gather up all that I have said
   before. The indwelling of the Spirit in the saints, in the whole of
   them united and in each one in particular, is a choice seal--

   "Do You not dwell in all the saints, And seal them heirs of Hea ven?"
   Yes, that is the manner of the sealing, according to the prayer of our
   hymn--

   "Jesus, my Lord, reveal In charms of Grace Divine, And be Yourself the
   sacred seal,

   That pearl of price is mine."

   If you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, you must be the Lord's!
   Will the Spirit of God dwell in any temple but that which God has
   consecrated? He may come upon men to strive with them for awhile, but
   He will never dwell in any heart that has not been cleansed with the
   blood of Jesus, nor can He possibly reside permanently in any soul
   which is defiled with self-righteousness and love of sin. No, Beloved,
   if the Spirit of God dwells in you, you need no dreams, nor angels'
   whispers, nor noises in the air. The indwelling Spirit is the only seal
   you need! I put it to you, Brothers and Sisters, what more do you need?
   What more could God give you?

   Suppose you were to meet on the road home, standing on the snow, an
   angel clothed in glittering white, and that he should say to you, "I
   have a message from God to you"? What if he should then mention your
   name and add, "You are one of God's chosen." That vision would comfort
   you for half-an- hour, I have no doubt, but many desponding spirits
   would not be comforted much longer, for Satan would say, "It was
   snowing, right? No doubt the flakes blew into your eyes or else you
   simply have a fine imagination." "Oh, but," you would say, "I heard him
   speak!" "Ah, you had noises in your head. You are becoming a fair
   subject for Bedlam Asylum!"

   I confess if you were to tell me the story, I should not make any bones
   about it, but should say, "You are not such a fool as to believe that,
   are you?" And you would find many other people of the same mind. Now
   there can be no doubt about the seal of the text. You have been taught
   of God what no one but the Spirit of God could have taught you. You
   have a life in you which no one but the Spirit could have given you--of
   that knowledge and that life you are perfectly conscious--you do not
   need to ask anybody else about them. A man may ask me whether I know
   So-and-So--I am the best witness whether I do or not. If I am asked,
   "How do you know you are alive?" Well, I walk about, that is all, and I
   am quite sure about it--I do not need any further evidence.

   The best seal to a man's heart must be that of which he is conscious
   and about which he needs not appeal to others. Give me a seal that is
   as sure as my own existence! I fail to see how God Himself can give me
   anything more sure than the

   gift of His Spirit working knowledge and life in me. "Oh," says one,
   "but if I could hear a voice." Suppose you did? Then the argument of
   fear would be that there are countless voices and one may be mistaken
   for another. You were in the street when you heard it. Perhaps it was a
   parrot or a starling in the upper window. Who knows? It is so easy for
   the ears to be deceived. Many a time you have said, "I know I heard
   So-and-So," when you did not hear him, but someone like him.

   I would not believe my own ears, if their evidence had to do with my
   soul, one half so readily as I would believe my own consciousness.
   Since knowledge and life and other things I have mentioned just now are
   all matters of consciousness, they are much better seals than anything
   could be which appealed like an angelic vision to the eyes, or like a
   mysterious voice to the ears! Here you have something sure and
   steadfast. If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you are His, but if He
   dwells not in you, you are none of His.

   Take this for the closing word--"Grieve not the Spirit of God, whereby
   you are sealed unto the day of redemption"--but love Him, honor Him and
   obey Him. So will the seal always be bright before your eyes. As to you
   who have not believed, I conclude with this--Do not ask for seals! You
   have nothing to do with seals, but with Jeans. "An evil and adulterous
   generation seeks after a sign." Believe in Christ Jesus, and when you
   have trusted Him, then shall there come signs, seals, marks! God bless
   you, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ephesians 1. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--168, 458, 728.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sihon and Og, or Mercies in Detail

   (No. 1285)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To Him which smote great kings: for His mercy endures fore ver: and
   slew famous kings: for His mercy endures forever: Sihon king of the
   Amorites: for His mercy endures forever: and Og the king of Bashan: for
   His mercy endures forever: and ga ve their land for a heritage: for His
   mercy endures forever: even a heritage unto Israel His servant: for His
   mercy endures forever." Psalm 136:17-22.

   THESE six verses iterate and reiterate the same fact. They rehearse and
   repeat the same reflection. Is the tautology tedious? Do the chimes
   weary you with their monotony? No. And this is a veritable charm in
   poetry. When the poet touches upon some important theme which
   illuminates his soul and kindles his nobler passions to a flame, he is
   very apt to dwell upon it with enthusiasm, inclined to pursue it with
   eagerness, to follow it up with feeling and echo it over and over again
   with strong and yet stronger emotion. Nobody feels that repetition is
   out of place in poetry, because in weal or woe, with pleasure or with
   pathos, we dwell on the theme which awakens our sympathy.

   This Psalm, of which the refrain is always the same--"His mercy endures
   forever," has in it several instances of this repetition. "To Him that
   made great lights," is followed by, "The sun to rule by day," and by
   the next, "The moon and stars to rule by night: for His mercy endures
   forever." The repetition is natural and secures attention. The words
   are musical as they strike on our ears and the style is not only
   allowable, but acceptable as a beautiful license of the poetic school.
   For my part, I like a repetition in the tune of a Psalm as well as in
   its language. There has sprung up a fashion in music, now, to quibble
   at repeats. I must confess, I do not feel of the same mind as some who,
   when the Psalm or hymn is given out, seem to say, "Now, let us go
   through it as quickly as ever we can, from beginning to end."

   I prefer to chew some of the words--to have them come over again--to
   get the flavor of them in my mouth, or rather, in my soul. For
   instance, an old tune like the one we have sung is none the worse
   because it gives us the repeat of "His loving kindness." Such a word as
   that you would like to keep on repeating, if it were necessary, a dozen
   times--

   "His loving kindness, His loving kindness, Oh, how good!"

   A repeat ought to be considered a beauty rather than a blemish in
   music. There is, moreover, a reason for every repetition in Scripture,
   for we may say of the ornaments of poetry, when we find them in the
   sacred Volume, that they are never mere ornaments. The repetitions,
   though elegant, are not merely flowers of rhetoric--they have a design.
   The Holy Spirit dwells upon a theme because He has an intention in
   doing so.

   My present purpose is to endeavor to show you why there should be six
   verses here when one verse might have sufficed. It is clear one might
   have been quite sufficient. Suppose it had run thus--"Who slew famous
   kings, Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, and gave their
   land for a heritage to His people: for His mercy endures forever." That
   would have comprehended all the sense, but the Holy Spirit did not
   judge that to be the best way of speaking, and so He divided it into
   six parts. He repeated it that there might be heard six times the
   refrain--"His mercy endures forever." Not, I think, merely for the sake
   of repeating that beautiful Truth of God so often, but for other
   reasons connected with the Truth of which He was writing. It is well to
   dwell long and to dwell deliberately, upon some of God's dealings with
   us. This is the theme on which I want to thread a few ideas.

   I. And, first, IT IS WELL TO DELIBERATE LONG OVER THE MERCIFUL SIDE OF
   GOD'S JUDGMENTS. One does not always see mercy in, He "slew mighty
   kings: for His mercy endures forever: and smote famous kings: for His
   mercy endures forever." It would have read more naturally if He had
   said, "Who smote mighty kings: for His justice endures forever: and
   slew famous kings: for His vengeance endures forever." The point to be
   brought out, however, was

   that there was mercy in these judgments. The Holy Spirit would have us
   know that there is mercy abroad in the world even--

   "When God's right arm is bared for war, And thunder clothes His mighty
   bar."

   The removal from the earth of these great oppressive kings, though it
   was terrible for them, was a great blessing! When tyrants die, nations
   have time to breathe. When great oppressors are cut off, it is as when
   a lion falls, or as when wolves are slain and the deer and sheep have
   time to rest. Who knows how often, in answer to the tear of the slave,
   God has been pleased to smite his tyrant master? Mercy, herself, had
   brushed the tear from her eye, and said, "Smite, O God!" Sometimes when
   we have read stories of oppression and tyranny, wrong and violence, the
   gentlest among us, who would not have hurt a hair of a man's head, have
   been the very first to express indignation and to marvel that God kept
   back the thunderbolt--that He did not pour vengeance on the adversary
   and deliver the injured and down-trodden.

   If you read all through history and see how dynasties have crumbled and
   empires have melted away--could you but discern the secret history of
   the nations and how much there was of robbery and oppression, injustice
   and cruelty--you would understand that when emperor after emperor was
   slain in battle, or overtaken by sudden death, and king after king was
   swept from the throne, it was because God's mercy endures forever! It
   was not mercy to the one man, perhaps-- to Nero, Caligula, Tiberius, or
   the like--but was it not mercy to the millions who had grown weary of
   their abominable rule? The sufferings of the helpless cried to God for
   redress. The moans and tears of serfs, vassals, prisoners and captives
   presented their wretchedness before Him--till His mercy linked hands
   with His wrath and He slew great and famous kings because His mercy
   endures forever!

   Read the pages of history, I say, with this sentiment in your mind, and
   you will often judge that what seemed to be a very severe retribution
   upon some man of eminence may turn out, after all, only to have been an
   act of mercy towards those who were under his power. Apply the thought
   another way. There are huge systems of power in the world and such
   there always have been--systems like Sihon, king of the Amorites, whose
   force and fame have held vast hordes and populations in terror. And the
   defenses of these systems have been strong as the walled cities of Og,
   king of Bashan. But since the day when Christ came into the world and
   gathered His 12 Apostles around Him, how many of these systems have
   been utterly destroyed?

   Ask, at this moment, where are the gods that were worshipped when Paul
   entered Athens and preached Jesus and the Resurrection? Where are all
   the gods that held sway over Greece and Rome when Peter and the rest of
   the fishermen were telling of our Lord Jesus Christ and the
   propitiation that He made for sin? They have passed away and they are
   not! And, since then, there have risen up great systems and schools of
   thought--in which human wisdom has opposed the Divine wisdom. Strong
   and mighty systems they have been, but the student of history knows how
   they have all passed away, one after the other.

   And in our own land there has passed away--I pray God never to
   return--the system of Popery more terrible than Sihon, king of the
   Amorites, or Og, king of Bashan! And now their ruined abbeys are
   scattered all over the land--ruins which make our souls rejoice as we
   look upon them, for we say, "Come, behold the works of the Lord! What
   desolation He has made in the earth." And here is another instance of
   how He can put His foes to flight. At this day there are other systems
   still standing, crushing down the people, darkening the night of Nature
   with a denser darkness of superstition-- turning a midnight of human
   depravity into a darkness that might be felt as in the plague of Egypt
   of old.

   But, as the Lord lives, as He has scattered falsehoods one after the
   other, so will He scatter all these systems! And the day shall come
   when we shall say, "Mohammed's crescent is forgotten now, for His mercy
   endures forever; and the pomp of anti-Christ has passed away and all
   his 'infallibility'; for the mercy of the Lord endures forever." One
   great error after another is brought down by the strong hand of the God
   of Jacob, for His mercy endures forever! And though, in each case,
   these things seem like judgments upon the people, yet are they
   judgments full of mercy, for it is a blessing when God smites any
   system which is contrary to Himself and to His Truth, contrary to His
   Son, contrary to the liberties and the rights of man and, above all,
   contrary to the Gospel life and the holy purity of the Church.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, there are other judgments yet to
   come--judgments which we, surely, are to look forward to with great
   hope as instances of the mercy of God. The day is coming when he who is
   more terrible than Sihon, king of the Amorites, shall be cast out.
   Christ, by His death, has broken the power of Satan, but Satan still
   holds sway, to a great

   extent, over the sons of men. As the Gospel spreads, his power shall
   lessen and, by-and-by, there shall come the time when he shall be cast
   into the Lake of Fire and his power shall cease. It will be a judgment
   upon him. But what an illustration it will be of how God's mercy
   endures forever! Then shall Satan lift "his brazen front with thunder
   scarred," receive his sentence and begin anew his Hell--and in that day
   the saints shall sing ,"His mercy endures forever!"

   And death, too, that terrible thing, that, also, is to be destroyed. It
   is the last enemy, but it is the last enemy that shall be destroyed.
   And when death, itself, shall cease to be, and the sepulcher shall be
   rifled of all its treasures, then shall we magnify and bless the Lord
   as Israel did when they thought of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og,
   king of Bashan, for His mercy endures forever! And when that last
   tremendous act of vengeance shall come and death and Hell shall be cast
   into the Lake of Fire and all the hosts of evil--even all that have
   done iniquity and have rejected Christ, shall be cast out forever from
   all hope and joy--in that dread day, while it shall be, to them,
   weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, it shall be to the
   righteous, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! For God and goodness, the right and
   the Christ have triumphed forever."

   Yes, even in the condemnation of the lost, it shall be a token of mercy
   to the universe that sin was not permitted to triumph, that evil was
   not allowed to have its sway, but that God overcame it at a mighty cost
   and, at last, shut it up within its proper bound, never to break forth
   again, for, "His mercy endures forever." We know not, Brethren, what
   may happen to ourselves, but we know what has happened and, in the
   light of the Truth of God I am now dwelling upon, we may now sing unto
   the Lord a new song! We have had our smiting and we have had our
   slayings. We have had sins within us slain that were mighty kings and
   we have had corruptions that were famous kings, but they have been
   brought down!

   We have had our idols broken and judgments have come upon our
   inventions. Oh, what a smashing of idols there has been with many a
   heart here present! How have you stood with tears in your eyes as your
   Dagon was made to fall before the ark of the Lord! You tried to set it
   in its place again, but you could not, for the Lord broke it to
   pieces--and He has taken away the gods in which you trusted and the
   things that your heart doted upon. The delight of your eyes and the joy
   of your spirit--He has taken these away, one by one--mighty kings that
   swayed you and famous kings that ruled your heart and mind and engaged
   the best of your affections. These have been slain because His mercy
   endures forever and, for my part, I would say, "O sword of the Lord,
   rest not! Return not to your scabbard if you are slaying my sin, if you
   are overcoming my corruptions! Go through me, Lord, and smite again,
   and if You break up the idols, break on!"--

   "The dearest idol I have known,

   Whatever that idol be,

   Help me to tear it from its throne

   And worship only Thee."

   Still would I say of every act of idol-breaking and of king-slaying
   within my soul, "His mercy endures forever, His mercy endures forever."
   Therefore these blows, therefore these trials, therefore these
   afflictions--they are sent, not in anger, but in His dear Covenant
   love--not to harm us, but to bless us. They are sent, not to impoverish
   us, but to make our inheritance wider and larger both here and in the
   world to come. This is our first thought. In the midst of judgments we
   should wait and watch till we see the mercy side of them, for then we
   shall sing, "Who smote great kings: for His mercy endures forever: and
   slew famous kings: for His mercy endures forever."

   II. Secondly, EACH MERCY DESERVES TO BE REMEMBERED. With what special
   point and emphasis each instance is put, "Sihon king of the Amorites:
   for His mercy endures forever: and Og the king of Bashan: for His mercy
   endures forever." Why not give them in the gross--Sihon and Og? Why
   not, as we commonly and vulgarly say, lump them together and thank God
   for them in the mass? No, no! They must come in detail--"Sihon king of
   the Amorites: for His mercy endures forever: and Og the king of Bashan:
   for His mercy endures forever."

   Why should they thus come in detail? Because every mercy we have
   received is undeserved. The Israelites did not deserve that God should
   smite Sihon, king of the Amorites, or Og, king of Bashan. It was a
   mercy so rich and gracious that it deserved to be recorded! In that
   very chapter, from which I read to you just now, where God smote Sihon,
   you will find that the children of Israel murmured, so that God sent
   fiery serpents among them. In that same chapter we have the record of
   His chastening them with fiery serpents and yet He is giving them
   victory over their foes! Oh, it brings tears into our eyes and fills us
   with humiliation when we remember that many of our choicest mercies
   have come to us just after our very blackest sins!

   It is not that the Lord gives us His mercy when we are walking
   consistently--when we are obedient, when we are what we ought to be.
   There would be great Grace in that, but the crowning mercy is that when
   we have gone out of the way--when we have gone down By-Path Meadow,
   when, like Peter, we have denied our Master--yet still some great mercy
   has been given to set us right again! Sihon, king of the Amorites, just
   when we had provoked the Lord, has come down upon us to destroy us. But
   the Lord has said, "No, I will smite My children, but I will not let
   you smite them. I will chasten them and send fiery serpents, but,
   Sihon, you must not touch them. Get back! If you dare lay a finger upon
   them, My jealousy shall burn and smoke against you, for they are My
   children and I will deliver them in the day of their afflictions." Oh,
   bless the Lord for each mercy because it has been so undeserved!

   Nor have we received a mercy that we could have dispensed with. Had God
   smitten Sihon, king of the Amorites, and then when Og came against them
   had said, "I have done enough for you and I will do no more," the
   nation would have been destroyed! No, Sihon, king of the Amorites, is
   no more. Bless the Lord for that. Yet if the Lord does not smite Og,
   king of Bashan, what will become of Israel? Thus each mercy is
   needed--why, then, should not each mercy have a separate song? When you
   are in present trouble, you think much of the present mercy.

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, when you have got through the trouble,
   why not think a great deal of the mercy afterwards? Then as it comes, a
   brand new mercy in a fresh dilemma, the more you need it, the more
   store you set by it. Why not set the same store by these mercies after
   you have received them and commemorate, in particular, the benefits
   which flow out of each? Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of
   Bashan shall be sung of, each one separately, because neither victory
   could be dispensed with. They were both necessary that Israel might
   enter into the promised land.

   Moreover, there was a peculiarity about each mercy. This was sure to be
   the case. You never had two mercies from God that were quite alike.
   There were some special circumstances which made a marked difference.
   Pluck the leaves from a tree--commonly speaking, they are alike, yet
   there are no two leaves veined exactly in the same manner. So, too,
   with mercies. There is some distinction if you look narrowly into them.
   Generally, when we are in deep waters, there is some peculiar feature
   to distinguish the trial and to identify it afterwards. I know that
   Monday's mercy will not do for Tuesday and I should be sorry if I had
   nothing but Tuesday's mercy to help me through Wednesday. His mercies
   "are new every morning: great is His faithfulness."

   Now, since they are all new, and each one separate, why could not each
   one be spoken of by itself? As God paints so many fresh pictures, why
   should we not set them in appropriate frames, saying of each one, "His
   mercy endures forever"? There is a specialty about each. Sihon is not
   Og and Og is not Sihon. Well may my text assign to each one its place
   in the song of praise! But if any mercy deserves to be rehearsed more
   distinctly than another, it is early mercy. The children of Israel had
   not got their hands into fighting yet. They had not crossed the Jordan.
   They had not entered Canaan where they were to be soldiers everyday.

   They were on this side of the Jordan and they had not learned war. They
   offered to Sihon and to Og to go quietly through their land and not so
   much as pluck a fruit from their trees, or drink a drop of water from
   their wells. But Sihon and Og were in an ill state of mind and they
   would not allow them to go peaceably through. There was a battle--the
   first of their battles--the commencement of their warfare and so they
   always looked back with happy and grateful memories to their first
   fights and their first victories. No doubt they remembered all about
   Adonibezek and about the king of Ai and all those other kings. But
   these were later--their first fights were with Sihon and Og.

   Oh, my dear Brothers and Sisters, I should like you to recall your
   first troubles--your first labors for Christ, your first trials and
   your first successes! You remember the first soul that you brought to
   Jesus--you cannot forget the little room where you began to work. You
   remember the half-dozen girls that you collected for the first time to
   form a class-- those two or three boys that you got into that little
   room down in the back slum. Now, remember your Sihon, king of the
   Amorites and your Og, king of Bashan and how God helped you over those
   beginnings! It was a great thing, you know, for you were not so big,
   then, as you are now.

   You begin to think (I am only saying out loud what your heart whispers
   to you)--you begin to think that you can do it. Why, you are a man of
   experience, are you not? And you, young man, why, you are a well
   developed minister now! You can do a great deal. We too often feel as
   if our experience had matured us into something far more important than
   we dreamed of in the first stage of our little career. It is a wicked
   feeling, but the vanity of our hearts will sometimes assert itself. Let
   us revert to the time when we were little in Israel and all unknown!
   Some of us were, perhaps, quite boys

   and girls, though we truly loved our Lord. We were weak and feeble.
   Nobody thought there was anything in us, or, if they did, we ourselves
   did not think so.

   We were all trembling and afraid. But, glory be to God, we overcame
   Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, the king of Bashan, and our early
   victories are fresh in our memories! Let us recall them, partly to
   humble us and partly to strengthen us. Let us, like David, say, "Your
   servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised
   Philistine shall be as one of them." The Lord who helped those young
   days will not forsake you now. Only trust Him with the same simplicity.
   Only distrust yourself as much as you did, then, and a little more.
   Only sink into the very dust of self-abasement and rise in all the
   grandeur of childlike confidence in God--and as He smote Sihon, king of
   the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, so will He make all your foes as
   driven stubble before your face.

   He will make you as a new, sharp threshing instrument, having teeth and
   you shall thresh the mountains and make them as chaff. Thus each mercy
   deserves to be specially remembered, for not one is deserved, not one
   is needless and every one has its peculiarity--but especially the early
   ones--they have a never-to-be-forgotten specialty.

   III. Thirdly, EACH MERCY DOES REALLY, IN ITSELF, DESERVE SEPARATE
   CONTEMPLATION. I will

   show you exactly why I think so. I go to visit a sick person. He has
   been in trouble. Let me suppose it is yourself who makes the visit, for
   I dare say you have done the same thing. Very soon after you enter you
   get an account of the trouble in pretty full details and then you have
   all the special circumstances related to you. "You see, my dear Sir, I
   should not have felt the loss of this dear child so much, only it is
   the second or the third I have lost. And then, you see, Sir, she was
   such a sweet girl." Or, "It was that dear boy upon whom I had set all
   my hopes."

   These little points are always mentioned as occasions of special grief
   or aggravations of a heavy sorrow. "My dear husband is taken away,"
   says the disconsolate widow. And, unwilling to mingle her tears
   indiscriminately with other weepers in like afflictions, she adds, "Ah,
   Sir, but in my widowhood there are pangs peculiarly bitter. Just after
   he had been toiling and struggling, with the tide against him, and we
   were beginning to get on more smoothly, he was taken away with a sudden
   stroke or a slow consumption before there was a proper provision made
   for these dear children. When they seemed to need a father's care and
   tenderness, it was then, just then, he was smitten, and I am left with
   a heart withered like grass."

   Then you meet another who has lost money and you hear of the failure
   that is likely to come on. And then there are certain details about the
   loss--about the person that was trusted--certain circumstances about
   the cruel manner in which he acted and the shameful way in which he
   betrayed confidences. You hear all that. Oh, I know all about it! I
   have heard it and, moreover, when I have got some trouble of my own, I
   think I generally find myself turning it inside out, like a child does
   a new dress, saying, "Look here," and showing every bit of it--every
   point of it--upside down, the right way up, the wrong side up and the
   wrong side out and all ways! You always do that, do you not, with all
   your troubles?

   Now then, dear Friends, ought you not to do the same with all your
   mercies? Do you not think so? If the Lord gave you nothing but
   troubles, then, I think, there might be some justification in dwelling
   so much upon them. But since there are so many mercies, would not it be
   wisdom to tell your friends, sometimes, all about those mercies with a
   sparkling eye and say, "They were manifold mercies. There was fold upon
   fold. See the goodness of the Lord in this thing. He sent that mercy
   just when I needed it--just when I most required it--and it came to me
   in such a beautiful way, too, and it was delivered to me by the very
   person that made it most acceptable. The way in which the gift was
   bestowed so sweetened it that I do not know how to praise the Lord
   enough for it."

   Oh, if only I heard Christians often saying one to another, "Have you
   heard what the Lord has done for me? Sit down a little while and let me
   fill your ears with the sweet tale of His loving kindnesses and His
   tender mercies." Is not this justice? Bare justice? If you will harp on
   your sorrows, you should, in a better sense, harp on your joys and
   bring out the best harp with all its ten strings--and touch all those
   strings with praise to Him who has done so much for you! Tell the world
   not only that He overcame your foes, but say, "To Him which smote great
   kings: for His mercy endures forever: and slew famous kings: for His
   mercy endures forever: Sihon king of the Amorites, for His mercy
   endures forever: and Og the king of Bashan: for His mercy endures
   forever."

   "We might tire people," says one. I am glad you are a little sensitive
   on that point, because you have been rather inconsiderate, sometimes,
   when you have been talking about your troubles. And I think you might
   be excused if you were to weary us occasionally by declaring your
   mercies! Oh, but the ears of saints are not tired with such themes as
   this! On the

   contrary, they are gladdened and made to rejoice. "Come and hear, all
   you that fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul!" I
   am sure the response of all God's people will be--"Let us hear it! Tell
   it to us, for we will rejoice with you and magnify the name of the Most
   High."

   IV. Fourthly, CONTINUED BENEFITS ARE A SPECIAL PROOF OF ENDURING MERCY.
   For God to slay Sihon, king of the Amorites, may hardly prove, by
   itself, that His mercy endures forever, though it does prove that He
   had mercy then. Therefore the inspired poet wisely strikes that string
   and before the note has died away upon the listening ear, He touches
   another. "Og king of Bashan," says He, "for His mercy endures forever."
   One, two, three, four, five, six succeeding stanzas--these mercies come
   quickly, one after the other, and so they show the continuance of the
   mercy, while the unbroken succession of wave upon wave in ceaseless
   regularity gives sanction to the chorus, "His mercy endures forever!"

   Thus, dear Brethren, were we in the habit of dwelling distinctly upon
   God's distinct mercies, do you not think we should have in our souls a
   firmer faith as to the endurance, the continuity, the everlastingness
   of the mercy of God? Oh, what the Lord did for us when we were babes in
   Grace! When we think of what He did then, we say, "His mercy endures
   forever." Then consider what He did for us when we were young men in
   Christ Jesus! "His mercy endures forever." Think of what He has done
   for us after we have grown to be fathers! "His mercy endures forever."
   And O you gray heads, tell of what the Lord has done for you, for when
   you put all four ages together you can say with peculiar emphasis, "His
   mercy endures forever."

   I wish I had a memory strong enough to remember all the mercies of God
   to me in the past year. They have been very many, very great, and taken
   one by one, they have been very sweet. As I look at them, one after the
   other, the evidence seems to accumulate till the argument becomes
   conclusive that "His mercy endures forever." It has endured all through
   the year! It was connected with all the years that went before! It is
   gathering fresh force in the year that is current! Therefore I may
   trust for the years that are yet to come that He who was yesterday so
   full of mercy and is, today, so full of Grace, will be forever the
   same!

   Do you not see that the striking of these bells, one by one--the
   bringing out of each mercy in its distinctness, one after the
   other--goes to illustrate the precious and ever-blessed Truth of God
   that His mercy endures forever? Let our hearts look forward with the
   calm confidence which must come to a soul that lives by faith and sings
   without fear--

   "For His mercies shall endure Ever faithful--ever sure."

   V. Fifthly, THE OVERRULING OF TRIALS IS A SUBJECT TO DWELL UPON WITH
   DELIGHT. Read the

   verses--"And gave their land for a heritage: for His mercy endures
   forever: even a heritage unto Israel His servant, for His mercy endures
   forever." The Israelites did not expect to have the territory of Sihon
   and Og. Their land was on the other side of the Jordan, but since Sihon
   and Og assailed them as unexpected foes, they got out of them
   unexpected territory.

   You and I have had, and we do have, unexpected trials. In looking back,
   we have suffered many trials which we did not anticipate, from unlikely
   quarters--from persons who ought to have been our friends, our helpers,
   our comforters. The result has shown that we have had unexpected
   advantages--our perils have proved pioneers of our progress. I want you
   to remember this, that you may sing the more sincerely, "His mercy
   endures forever."

   How many sins and how much unsuspected treachery of heart have we been
   led to discover through our troubles? Those vipers would have slept in
   our soul quietly--they would have bred disease there of the deadliest
   kind. But trouble came and we were put in such a state of trembling
   that we began to search. And as we searched we found the deadliest evil
   and we put it away. How many a vice has been discovered to us in the
   hour of trial? Whenever I hear of a Brother who thinks his corruptions
   are dead, I feel inclined to say, "Put him half-an-hour in the furnace
   and if he does not hear the dogs bark inside his soul, I am mistaken."

   There they are, sure enough. Depend upon that. As a general rule, he is
   possessed of most devils who thinks he has the fewest imperfections.
   Only let us get into trouble--be thrown into the sieve--and let the
   devil give us an extra shake or two, and there is enough of chaff or
   dust in us all to blind our eyes, or to fill them with tears when our
   Lord sends us repentance. This trouble must come and we must be
   thankful for the trouble since it winnows the wheat and makes us clean
   before the living God. Besides helping to cleanse us, how many times
   has trouble helped to instruct us? You may

   read the book all through, young man, and you may think that you know
   all about it, but your grandfather knows the meaning of texts that you
   cannot read yet.

   "Oh," you say, "I have been studying the commentators. I have been
   looking into them for the meaning of the passages." Yes, but there is
   another way of reading the commentators and it comes from experience.
   Experience is the grand way of getting texts written upon your heart.
   There are many texts that cannot be brought home to your own heart yet.
   A text of that sort must be brought home to you when you are in such a
   position as to need its application--it cannot be understood until
   then. You may have learned all about anchors, Sir, but you never know
   the value of a sheet anchor till you have gotten into a storm.

   You may read and hear, on shore, all about a tempest and you may have
   met with beautiful descriptions of it and think you know how it tosses
   the ship about. But I will guarantee you that a good heave or two will
   let you know more about sea-sickness and the effects of those mighty
   tempests that rouse the billows and rock the vessels than all the books
   you have ever read for sound instruction or seasonable entertainment!
   And how much has the Character of God been revealed to us in trouble?
   We do not know our friends till we fall into adversity! Neither is
   that, "Friend who sticks closer than a brother," truly prized by us
   till we are brought into trouble. Then we know His power to sympathize
   and to succor. Trials help to strengthen us.

   It is impossible for a Christian to be very strong--in certain ways, at
   any rate--unless he grapples with difficulties and endure hardships.
   There is no proving your courage and prowess in war unless you smell
   gunpowder and are exposed to the dread artillery. There is no learning
   to be strong in the battle unless you pass through trouble, depend upon
   it. My arm would soon weary if I had to lift the blacksmith's hammer
   for an hour or two and make horseshoes. I am afraid I should soon give
   up the business. But the blacksmith's arm does not ache, for he has
   been at it so many years and he rings out a tune on the anvil so
   joyfully does his strong arm do the work. Practice has strengthened
   him.

   And so, when we have become used to trial and trouble, faith is to us a
   far more simple matter than it was before. Then we become "strong in
   the Lord and in the power of His might." What shall we say, then?
   Thanks to Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, for
   teaching us war? No, but we will thank the Lord who has given "their
   land to be a heritage, even a heritage for Israel His servant: for His
   mercy endures forever."

   VI. Lastly, THE HAPPENING OF ALL THIS TO THE SAME PERSONS IS A FURTHER
   ILLUSTRATION

   THAT HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER. These six verses tell of great things
   done for Israel, all for Israel. That last verse is very sweet to
   me--"Even a heritage unto Israel His servant." What are the kings slain
   for? For Israel. What does Sihon die for? For Israel. Why does Og fall?
   For Israel. For whom is the heritage? For Israel. And who is Israel and
   what has Israel done to have all this?

   What have they done? Brothers and Sisters, it is a sad but gracious
   story. Israel! Israel! Why, that is the nation that made the golden
   calf and said, "These are your gods, O Israel." Israel! Why, these are
   the people who said, "Because there were no graves in Egypt have You
   brought us into this wilderness to destroy us?" Israel! Why, these are
   the people that took the daughters of Moab and committed lewdness with
   them. Israel! Why, these are the people who provoked the Lord, so that
   He said to His servant, Moses, "Let Me alone! Let Me alone, that I may
   destroy them," for they provoked the Lord to jealousy. Israel! Why,
   these are the people of whom God swore in His wrath that they should
   not enter into His rest. Yet it is the same nation! Their children have
   followed them! It is Israel, still, and God has done all this for
   Israel.

   Now, while you are thinking about Israel, just begin to think about
   yourselves. For whom has God done all this-- turned judgment into
   mercy, fought great battles on their behalf and given them a great
   inheritance of mercy and loving kindness and favor? Who is it for?
   Well, I will not mention anybody's name, but I will mention my own to
   myself, and as I mention it, I think--

   "O Grace, it is Your known love Into unlikeliest hearts to come." How
   amazing that You should do all this for such an one as I am.

   Brother, Sister, I can better understand God's mercy to you than I can
   His mercy to me! I know one who has, in distress, sometimes doubted the
   loving kindness of the Lord. I know one who has been proud, envious and
   worldly. I know one whose heart has been cold, dead, callous,
   careless--when it ought to have been tender and full of pity and full
   of

   love. I know one that is all imperfections, all faults. He seems, to
   himself, to grow worse, instead of better, everyday--at least he
   loathes himself more a hundred times than he used to do. And yet I know
   that the Lord loves that man. But why, I do not know, except, "even so,
   Father, for so it seems good in Your sight."

   And if you tell your own story and know your own hearts and your own
   lives, you will wonder and be astonished to the extreme of wonderment
   that the Lord should give a heritage to Israel--to you, His servant,
   truly His servant--but a poor, faulty servant to have such a heritage
   given him out of the abundance of the Grace of God. And why does He do
   it but that His mercy endures forever? Is there one of us who might not
   justly be in Hell before the clock ticks again if it were not that His
   mercy endures forever? The brightest saint here has no brightness but
   what God lends him, and He only lends it to him because His mercy
   endures forever!.

   Oh, bless His name, you children of His that live near to Him--you that
   have climbed to the highest stage of communion! Remember, you do not
   stand there because of anything in yourselves, but because His mercy
   endures forever! If you have conquered your sins--Sihon king of the
   Amorites--it is because His mercy endures forever. And if, today, you
   put your foot upon the neck of Og, king of Bashan, it is not because
   you are strong, but because His mercy endures forever. If you have
   grown in sanctification and begun to possess the land which God has
   given to be a heritage to His people, it is still because His mercy
   endures forever.

   And when death, itself, is dead, and you have passed beyond the gate of
   pearl and taken possession of the throne reserved for you with Christ
   at God's right hand, the only reason why you shall get there will be
   because His mercy endures forever. This is the song of every saved soul
   in this Tabernacle, as it shall be in the temple above, from now on and
   forev-ermore. I think it ought to be a great encouragement to those of
   you who are not God's people, if there are any such present, and there
   may be. Oh, how it ought to ring in your ears, "His mercy endures
   forever!" You are very old, but His mercy endures forever! You are very
   sick and near death, but His mercy endures forever! You have gone to
   the utmost extreme of sin, but His mercy endures forever!

   You have resisted His Spirit. You have stifled your conscience. You
   have been disobedient to Christ, but His mercy endures forever! You
   have indulged every evil passion. You have broken loose from every bond
   that ought to have held you to the way of right, but His mercy endures
   forever! The last day of your life is almost come, but His mercy still
   endures and will endure till you die. If death comes, we have no Gospel
   for the dead, but as long as you live, that mercy still endures--

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

   The returning Prodigal, trusting in Jesus Christ, shall find mercy. If
   you say, "Oh, but, Sir, my sins are strong, how can I master them?" The
   answer I shall give you is in the words of my text, "He slew great
   kings: for His mercy endures forever: yes, slew famous kings: for His
   mercy endures forever." Cannot God slay your sins? As for Satan and the
   world, He slew Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, for
   His mercy endures forever. If you say that you never can be holy and
   never can grow like His children, I know, "He gave their land to be a
   heritage: for His mercy endures forever: even a heritage unto Israel
   His servant: for His mercy endures forever."

   And why should He not, even thus, enrich you with sanctifying Grace?
   May God in His rich mercy abundantly bless you, that you may sing His
   praise forever. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Numbers 2121-35; Deuteronomy
   2:16-37,3:11. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--136, 196.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Weighty Charge

   (No. 1286)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 26 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Keep yourselves in the love of God." Jude 1:21.

   JUDE gives a very terrible picture of what will happen in the last
   days. He describes apostates and paints them in the blackest colors.
   And he then informs us that there will come, in the last time, mockers
   and with them separatists and sensualists, all of whom will assail the
   Church of the living God. It feels very natural, that after foretelling
   our adversaries and describing them, and so bidding us view the hosts
   assembled for the war, he should next instruct us how to prepare our
   defenses and set our forces in battle array. In the 20th and 21st
   verses of his epistle, Jude mentions the great Christian Quadrilateral,
   the four forts which must be well manned and carefully maintained if we
   would battle the advancing foe.

   I shall call your attention to the four important points, though I must
   do so with the utmost brevity. The Apostle says, "You beloved, building
   up yourselves on your most holy faith." Edification is a grand defense
   against the assaults of skeptics and heretics. These prey upon the
   ignorant and unestablished, but fail to overthrow those who are rooted
   and grounded in the Truth of God. We need to be continually built
   up--learning more, loving more--and living more the grand Truths of the
   Gospel. We must see to it that the foundation is right, for it will be
   useless, or worse than useless, to be built up upon false
   principles--it is "on our most holy faith" that the building must be
   based.

   We should be so established in the Doctrines of Grace as to recognize
   their holiness and to imitate them in our own lives. Only a "most holy"
   faith is safe for the soul and woe unto the man who rests content with
   any other. See, then, Brothers and Sisters, that to ward off the ills
   of these last times we must labor to know the Truth ourselves, and must
   endeavor to instruct our Brethren in them. Personal and mutual
   edification in the Church should be zealously maintained as one of the
   most valuable defenses against the invasion of error.

   The second most necessary defensive principle in the Church is
   devotion. "Praying in the Holy Spirit" is the weapon with which the
   hosts of the Lord will put to rout the armies of the alien. The prayers
   of saints are the mighty artillery with which the walls of our
   Jerusalem are protected. Supplication is a cannon which throws
   tremendous bolts against the advancing foe, as Sennacherib knew when
   Hezekiah pleaded with God. The prayers, however, must be deeply
   spiritual, written on the heart by the Holy Spirit and presented with
   energy of His creating. Formal, lifeless petitions are but a Chinese
   painted fortress--while praying in the Holy Spirit is an impregnable
   castle!

   Those "groans which cannot be uttered" are pieces of ordinance which
   make the gates of Hell tremble. But we must put our hearts under the
   influence of the blessed Spirit of God, to have this, and then lift
   them up in continued intercession before God. Then there can be no fear
   about the preservation of our minds from the error of the wicked. A
   praying Church soon tries the spirits of false Prophets and casts them
   forth as evil. I have far more faith in prayer than in controversy.
   Keep the Prayer Meetings going! Maintain private prayer with
   earnestness and we may laugh to scorn all the sophisms of unbelievers
   and deceivers!

   Jude next mentions as a third important matter the affections of the
   Church. If the hearts of the members of the Church are right, mockers
   and scoffers can do very little against them. "Keep yourselves in the
   love of God," for a warmhearted company of Christians who love the Lord
   with all their hearts and with all their souls, are not likely to be
   overcome by mockers and sensualists. Love to God will be as a wall of
   fire round about them. In dull, decaying Churches, errors spread like
   ivy on the crumbling walls of an old abbey. But life, zeal,
   earnestness, warm-heartedness throw off these evils even as a red-hot
   iron plate evaporates the drops which fall upon it. Love God and you
   will not love false doctrine. Keep the heart of the Church right and
   her head will not go far wrong. Let her abide in the love of Jesus and
   she will abide in the Truth.

   The fourth point to which he calls attention is the brightness of our
   expectancy. "Looking," says he, "for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
   unto eternal life." Expect that Christ will come and come with
   blessings undeserved, which shall display the mercy of God to us!
   Expect that when He comes it will be to end our conflicts, to tread
   Satan under our feet and to reveal and perfect that eternal life which
   He has already implanted in us! Looking forward to the sure coming of
   Christ, the Church will not be afraid of the great swelling words of
   men, nor dread their murmurings. She will have an answer to the
   tyrant's question, "Where is the promise of His coming?" She will
   reply, "Behold the Lord comes with 10,000 of His saints to execute
   judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of
   all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all
   their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against

   Him."

   First, "building," and then, "looking" from her watchtower, the Church
   will defy the powers of evil, confident of victory at the appearing of
   her Lord. Brethren, if the darkest times should come, if these four
   points are diligently maintained we shall be perfectly safe against the
   cunning assaults of the arch enemy! O servants of the living God, seek
   with all your hearts the edification of the saints! Keep your devotions
   warm, keep your affections pure and keep bright your expectancy, for so
   shall you stand fast in the tempest! In prospect thereof we may sing
   with Jude, "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to
   present you faultless before the Presence of His Glory with exceeding
   joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion
   and power, both now and ever. Amen."

   At this time we take the third of the four exhortations as our
   text--"keep yourselves in the love of God." This may refer, and I have
   no doubt it does, to mutual oversight. Christians are to labor to keep
   each other in communion with God. If they see a Brother grow cold in
   his attachment to the Lord, it is their duty to endeavor, by gentle
   rebukes, consolations and admonitions, to restore the heart of the
   backsliding one to a proper warmth. "Keep yourselves in the love of
   God," that is to say--exercise a mutual oversight and practice
   watchfulness over each other, lest any of you should, by little and
   little, lose your sense of the love of God. Let not the wolf steal here
   a lamb and there a sheep, and so diminish your numbers as a Church, but
   ask for the Spirit's aid that you may keep yourselves and your Brethren
   near to the great Shepherd, for so shall you be safe.

   Mutual oversight will not, however, be the theme of this morning's
   discourse. I must narrow the text down to a personal duty--let each man
   keep himself in the love of God. To many minds, this exhortation will
   appear to be somewhat unguarded. I am quite certain that if I were the
   author of the sentence, my very sound Brothers and Sisters would
   seriously object to it and would say, "We are kept by the power of God
   through faith unto salvation--to exhort us to keep ourselves is
   useless, carnal, and legal." To whom I reply--dear Brethren, I am not
   the author of the phrase and, therefore, if you have any quarrel with
   it, will you be so kind as to remember that your dispute is with the
   Holy Spirit and not with me? I find it in the Inspired Volume and I
   have no power or wish to blot it out!

   Moreover, I find in the Word of God many other exhortations against
   which the same objection may be brought and I do not intend, either to
   twist them to mean something else, or to avoid expounding them from
   fear of being thought unsound. With half an eye, one can see that while
   in Holy Scripture we are taught that we can do nothing without Christ,
   we are, at the same time, exhorted to do all sorts of things and are
   even bid to be perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect! If
   this is inconsistent it is the inconsistency of Scripture and I bow
   before it and leave others to quibble if they choose. All power to do
   good comes from the Holy Spirit and all will towards good is from the
   same source, yet are we bid to perform right things as freely as if we
   could and would do them of ourselves.

   Nor are the exhortations of the Word of God couched in guarded language
   and hedged round with limiting phrases. Holy Scripture seldom guards
   its own utterances, but speaks freely, and whereas men are so fearful
   lest they should be mistaken that they frequently interject parentheses
   and explanations and so spoil the effect of what they are saying, we
   find the Holy Spirit speaking out what He has to say and leaving it to
   the instructed minds of Believers, themselves, to remember those other
   Truths of God which balance the doctrine in hand. We are too fearful
   about Truth--she needs no armor--her naked beauty is better protection
   than a coat of mail.

   As no one thinks of wrapping the sun in a blanket on a winter's day, so
   we need not anxiously guard and protect the Truth of God--let it shine
   forth and it will be its own interpreter! Yet look at the connection
   and you will see that it lends no sanction to the proud idea that a man
   can keep himself apart from the Grace of God, for the sentence which
   precedes the text is, "praying in the Holy Spirit." Remember to keep
   yourselves, but do so by praying in the Holy Spirit,

   and so confessing that you are dependent upon His Divine power. The
   following sentence also lifts my text out of a legal atmosphere by
   saying, "Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
   life"--showing that your eyes are to be on Jesus and to the mercy of
   God and not to yourself--and by no means to any merit or power of your
   own.

   My Brothers, we must never be afraid to exhort one another because of
   the Scriptural doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit! This should
   urge us forward and by no means hold us back. We are not to feel
   ourselves muzzled and gagged when we preach practical precepts because
   we believe comforting doctrines. Let us speak the whole Truth with a
   gracious liberty, resting quite assured that the Lord can reconcile His
   own Truth in the hearts and experiences of His people and does not need
   us to be perpetually agitated with the fear of damaging His Truth, as
   if it were some delicate eggshell china which we might break with a
   touch, or a cobweb which would be swept away by the movement of our
   hand. Let us speak the Truth with all boldness as we ought to speak and
   say as the text does, "keep yourselves in the love of God."

   This implies, however, beloved Friends, that you are in the love of
   God. It is not an exhortation directed to every man, for some men are
   not in the love of God. It is directed to those of you who are in that
   love to keep yourselves in it. Let me, then, begin by enquiring, are
   you in the love of God? Not, are you an object of Divine benevolence,
   for that He exercises towards all His creatures--but do you know His
   love in Christ Jesus? Have you believed in Jesus Christ unto eternal
   life and seen the Father's love beaming in the face of Jesus? If you
   have believed it, you have also enjoyed it, for the love of God has
   been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto
   you--and you have been conscious of a joy superior to anything which
   this world can create.

   Well, then, continue to believe in that love so deep, so strong, so
   true! Abide, also, in the enjoyment of that love and pray for more. Do
   not lose the sense of it by careless living. If you have ever known
   that love, it is quite certain that you love God in return. Therefore
   continue to love the Lord. This is, probably, the particular meaning of
   the exhortation before us. The love of God in you is made manifest by
   the love which you have towards God--and the consequent affection which
   you feel to all His people. Endeavor, then, to always love God and to
   love Him more and more. Feed the sacred flame of Divine affection till
   it becomes an all-consuming fire. "Oh, love the Lord all you His
   saints." With all your heart, with all your soul and all your strength,
   love the Lord and love your neighbor as yourselves!

   Especially cultivate love unto all the saints, for this, also, is the
   love of God. "Let brotherly love continue." "Walk in love as Christ,
   also, has loved you." Keep yourselves in the love of God. You are in
   that love--you believe it, you enjoy it, you reflect it, you manifest
   it to others--then continue, both to believe and enjoy it and persevere
   in displaying and manifesting it in your love to God and your love to
   men. Two things this morning, and only two. The first will be motives
   for keeping ourselves in the love of God. And the second will be means
   to assist us in so doing.

   I. First, MOTIVES for "keeping yourselves in the love of God." It is as
   though a courtier, having gained the favor of his sovereign, should
   receive, upon his entrance into court, this good advice from a
   friend--"You are now, yourself, in your sovereign's favor, so act as to
   retain your position, that you may never be sent away from his presence
   and made to occupy a lower place. He is not capricious, but he is
   jealous, therefore be careful, so you may dwell in the light of his
   countenance."

   Believers are always God's servants, but they are not always smiled
   upon. Let them so live as never to lose that smile. When we go to the
   sunny south in the winter for our health, we are advised by the
   physician to keep ourselves as much as possible in the sun. We are told
   to let our rooms look towards the rising sun and to keep clear of
   sunless streets and courts. This is the advice of wisdom, for if you
   lodge in rooms upon which the sun never shines, you might as well be at
   home in our own chilly land. The sun is the great physician and, by
   basking in his beams, we find healing beneath his wings.

   It is even thus with the love of God, "Keep yourselves in it," sun
   yourselves in it all day long. The flowers teach us this, for when the
   sun shines upon them, they open themselves and turn their faces towards
   its light. They love him and they delight to be kissed by his beams
   and, therefore, they keep themselves as much as they can in his
   brightness. When trees are planted in a spot where the sun only reaches
   them in one direction, they put forth their boughs towards the sun's
   quarter and seek his beams. Do you the same! You are in God's love,
   continue in it, grow towards it, keep yourselves in it! Your Father
   loves you. Do not, like the Prodigal, go away from that love, or forget
   it, or slight it, or grieve it. Enjoy it, be warmed by it and be
   sanctified by it evermore.

   What is to be the motive for this? It is clear that all the motives
   which led you to desire God's love at first should lead you to keep in
   it. If it is to me--a poor broken-hearted sinner--of the utmost
   importance to find the love which heals my wounds, then, being healed,
   it is equally important that I should keep in that love lest I should
   be wounded again. If being my father's prodigal child, it was a great
   thing to get back and once more receive the kiss of love, and hear him
   acknowledge me as his son, it must be equally good for me to stay at
   home and never play the prodigal again. The true son abides in the
   house forever and dreads the very idea of going forth from it. You
   know, Beloved, with what earnestness you were formerly pleaded with
   that you should not rest without the love of God in Christ.

   Now, I have but a few minutes, this morning, to spend on any one
   argument and, therefore, I shall leave it to you to remember what those
   arguments were and to enforce them upon yourselves. That which is worth
   getting is worth keeping. If Divine love was worth seeking, even if you
   had been called to lay down your lives in the search, it must be
   equally worth retaining, cost what it may. I have heard that many who
   have been shrewd at making money, have not been able to keep a fortune
   after they have gained it. And I fear there are many Christians who,
   with much zeal, obtain a high degree of enjoyment of the love of
   God--and become very warm and earnest in the ways of God--but they
   cannot retain their fervor and, after a while, relapse into
   lukewarmness.

   Many get into the sunlight of full assurance, but they soon leave it
   and are darkened with doubts and fears. They are chilled with
   insensibility and indifference and so they do not keep themselves in
   the love of God as they should do. Let it not be so with you, but hear
   your Master's words, wherein He says, "Abide in Me." If love within the
   soul is worth the getting, it is worth the keeping--continue in it.

   Next, we should continue in God's love because it is His due. Brethren,
   that I should know that God loves me and should rejoice in it--and then
   should love Him in return--is His due under the Law. This is the
   substance of His Law to Israel, "You shall love the Lord your God with
   all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." And
   that because He had revealed His love to Israel--for the preamble of
   the Commandments runs thus--"I am the Lord your God that brought you
   out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage." He claims
   their love because of His love to them.

   Much more is it so under the Gospel. That matchless display of Divine
   mercy should exercise upon us a Divine influence. It should be
   permitted to melt, renew, restrain, constrain and govern us. Receiving
   its blessings and meditating upon its glories, we ought to be as much
   affected by it as wax by the flame. Touched with its flames of love,
   our hearts ought to burn with loving gratitude, as with coals of
   juniper. See God in the Gospel and not love Him? It is monstrous!

   Brothers and Sisters, if you have a part and lot in the Covenant of
   Grace, the love of God with all subduing power must and will hold you
   beneath its sway. That God's love should be felt and returned is a
   duty, but at the same time a privilege unbounded. Remember that God's
   Nature makes love to be His due. Such a Character as His engrosses the
   love of every intelligent and right-minded creature. Not to love such
   an one as God is, would be impossible to renewed hearts! He reveals
   himself as Father, Son and Spirit, and in each Divine Person displays a
   sacred form of matchless goodness, so that not to love Him is baseness
   and profanity.

   God's Nature claims it and our nature, also, cannot rest without it--I
   mean, of course, our regenerate nature. Grace has made us the children
   of God and true children must love their Father. It cannot be that the
   life of God is in your soul if there is no sense of the Divine love and
   no return of that love to Him from where it came. As the sparks seek
   the sun, who is the father of flame, so in warm affections and
   communing, the love of God in the soul seeks the God who gave it. You
   cannot be God's children and yet not love Him! Well, then, since Law
   and Gospel, since His Nature and your renewed nature, since Father, Son
   and Spirit all have claims upon your hearts, oh, if you love the Lord
   Jesus, "keep yourselves in the love of God."

   Remember, too, dear Brethren (and this is a strong argument) that love
   is the evidence of faith and the Grace by which faith operates. The
   faith which saves the soul is always attended by love. It is written,
   "Faith works by love." "Faith without works is dead," but faith without
   love is faith without works, therefore faith without love is a dead
   thing and cannot possibly save a soul. If you say, "I believe in Jesus
   Christ," my dear Brother, if that is true, you have proved it already
   by loving God. Therefore prove it, still, by loving on, even to the
   end! May the ever blessed Spirit help you to do so.

   Another argument lies here--the love of God is the spring of all our
   Graces. I include in the term, "the love of God," both God's love to us
   and our love to Him, for they are very much the same. Let me use one
   illustration--You have a burning-glass and hold it up before the sun
   till you focus the rays upon a piece of dry wood and set it on fire.
   Now, while you see the wood burning to ashes, will you tell me what it
   is that burns? Does the heat of the sun burn the wood or does the wood
   burn? The heat which you feel while the wood is burning, is it due to
   the sun or to the wood? Of course, at first, the fire is purely and
   simply the flame of the sun. But afterwards the wood, itself, begins to
   burn. The sun burns the wood and then the wood, itself, burns. Even so,
   the love of God comes into our heart and then our heart loves, too, and
   in both cases, "love is of God."

   No man is a Christian unless he, himself, loves God with his own heart,
   but yet our love to God is nothing more nor less than the refection of
   God's love to us--so that it comes to the same thing. The love of God,
   whether from Him to us or from us to Him, is, practically, one and the
   same thing. This, I say, we must retain in our souls, because it is the
   source of every virtue. No man can do anything aright if he does not
   love God. Without love to God, where is zeal for His Glory? Where is
   patient endurance for His sake? Where is cheerful obedience to His
   will? Without love to God where is true knowledge of God? Can any man
   know a God whom he does not love? Without love to God can any action be
   acceptable in His sight?

   Brothers and Sisters, if you have more love you will have more of every
   Grace--your love will be the test of the healthiness of your condition.
   When love burns, the whole of our nature blazes with holy fire, but
   when love smolders, every Grace is like a smoking flax. Love must be
   maintained as a primary necessity of the Divine life if we are, indeed,
   to glorify God. Keep yourself in the love of God, because though your
   love is all you can give, it is very little. Suppose you loved Christ
   more than any saint that ever lived, more than any Apostle or martyr?
   Yet I put it to you--What is the highest supposable love compared with
   the love of Christ to you?

   If you regard the excellency of the Character of God, does He not
   deserve a vastly more intense admiration and affection than we have, as
   yet, been capable of? Our whole heart is all too little, let it not be
   divided! Daily increasing in love, give Him all your affections.
   Consider that if you do not give Him all your love, you have given Him
   nothing. If you give your body to be burned and have not love to God,
   it profits you nothing. Though I should speak with the tongues of men
   and of angels, though I should traverse the whole world to preach the
   Gospel of Christ, though with dauntless courage I should brave the
   gates of Hell, yet if I loved not God what would it all be but a dead
   sacrifice which could not be accepted upon His altar? Keep yourselves,
   then, dear Friends, in the love of God, for it is the least you can do.

   Remember, too, that we must give the Lord our love, or else that love
   will go somewhere else. We are so created that we must love something
   or other. If the Ever-Blessed One does not win our love, the world, the
   flesh, or the devil will gain it. The worst witch in all the world is
   the world herself--and she soon casts her spell over the man who grows
   chill in his love to Jesus. You are hankering after some idol or other,
   my Brethren, if God is not all in all to you! If His love is not very
   sweet within you and if it does not cause you to love Him intensely,
   you will fall under the dominion, either of some lust or passion or
   corruption, or else your heart will be cankered and consumed with the
   rust of care, covetousness and worldliness. Your heart cannot be kept
   from loving--its only safety lies in keeping it in the love of God.

   As a motive for loving God, I should remind you that here lies
   happiness. Without an exception, this is the rule, that he who loves
   God most, is happiest. "But there must be exceptions," says one. "If a
   man is in prison, if he is on the eve of a cruel death, will love to
   God fill him with delight?" It has done so many a time! "But if a man
   rolls in riches, if he is blessed with good health and every comfort of
   life, surely he can be happy without the love of God in his soul."
   There is abundant evidence to show that it is not so, for the most
   favored children of this world become, before long, heart-sick of its
   joys. And the more honest among them have declared that they could find
   no satisfaction in all their possessions.

   It scarcely needs a Solomon to tell us that all the world, apart from
   the love of God, is "vanity of vanities." A Christian at his worst is
   really more to be envied than a worldling at his best! I would sooner
   have a dram of the love of God than be loaded down with the wealth of
   nations. When the soul is filled with the love of Christ, it seems
   lifted beyond ordinary manhood. It burns with holy fire and, as it
   glows, it mounts on wings of flames and soars towards Heaven! Love's
   feet are like hinds' feet, so that it treads upon the high places of
   the earth and leaves care and doubt below it, even as the hinds of the
   mountains leaves the marshes of the plains for those who cannot climb.

   The love of God breeds an enthusiasm and a sacred fervor within the
   soul which lifts men out of themselves and bestows on them a sort of
   celestial other-life, a Divine furore, by which the soul is borne up as
   on eagle's wings and triumphs in unspeakable joy! This makes them 10
   times stronger, braver, grander, happier than they were before. I
   suppose to make us equal to the angels, we have but to love God more.
   And to make us superior to the angels, as we shall be in Heaven, there
   will be nothing more needed than to fill us with a superior love to
   that which angels feel.

   Brothers and Sisters, this shall be my last argument. Get love to God
   and keep it, because it will make you like Jesus. Jesus Christ, your
   Lord and Master, dwelt in the love of God and was full of love to God.
   And, consequently, of love to men. This made it His meat and His drink
   to do His Father's will. The secret of the life of Christ lies in the
   supremacy of love within Him. He was, indeed, embodied Love--into His
   heart no selfishness, ambition, anger, wrath, or any gross or sinister
   motive had ever entered. The Prince of this world found nothing in Him,
   because God had everything in Him. Love shone in His eyes and spoke
   from His mouth.

   The Father's love upheld Him and His own love to the Father covered Him
   with zeal as with a cloak. Get love, much love, healthy love,
   sacrificing love and you will be like Jesus--and so you will be fit to
   dwell with Him in Heaven. Love is the very atmosphere of Paradise, it
   is the odor of the flowers of the new Eden. Put on your beautiful
   garments, O bride of Jesus, the garments of glory and beauty which
   become your rank--the garments which the Bridegroom's love has worked
   out for you! Gird on the sandals of love, which are fairer than the
   lily and more precious than the gold of Ophir. Robed in the love of
   Jesus, you shall shine as if you were clothed with the sun, while your
   love to Him shall make you fair as the moon in His sight!

   Wear love to Jesus as your jewels and your adornments and, when you put
   them on, take care you never lay them aside, but wear them evermore,
   for so shall the King greatly desire your beauty. These are some of the
   motives out of a mass, but having no time to mention them all, we must
   leave to your own instructed minds the easy task of arguing for love.

   II. Secondly, THE MEANS for calming out the exhortation of the text
   shall now be considered. "Keep yourselves in the love of God." I am not
   going to dwell upon prayer because that is in the sentence before my
   text. Nor will I, at this moment, insist upon the necessity for the
   Holy Spirit's aid in this work, for that Truth you all know and
   believe, and we have frequently dwelt upon it of late. The text does
   not make that doctrine prominent and, therefore, I forbear to enlarge
   upon it. Not because I undervalue it, but because, just now, it is not
   our theme.

   "Keep yourselves in the love of God"--how are you to do that? Well,
   first I should say, Brethren, endeavor to be full of that love at this
   present moment. If I were told that a city was about to be besieged and
   if I were commanded to keep the people supplied with provisions during
   the siege, I should lay in a plentiful store, at once, to provide for
   the famine. So, if you desire to continue in the love of God, have much
   of the love of God, now, and pray for more of it. Oh, to know the love
   of God as much as ever it can be known! Be greedy, be hungry, be
   covetous after it! Store it up, fill your soul full of it as a man
   would fill his storehouses and granary if he knew that a dearth would
   be in the land.

   Notice that just before my text these words occur--"You, Beloved,
   building," which means increasing and growing up. The way to keep
   yourselves in the love of God is to obtain more and more of it. Love is
   like a fire which, if it does not consume more fuel, burns low. You
   cannot stop where you are--to retain you must annex. Napoleon used to
   say, "Conquest has made me what I am and conquest must maintain me." O
   Christians, remember that you must advance or backslide! You must build
   higher and higher! Love must become more and more supreme in your
   souls, or you will decline. If you would remain warm, be warm now!

   Alas, what a little stock of love some Christians have! You may look
   into their hearts long before you can spy it out. They are true
   Believers and, therefore, there must be some love in their bosoms, but
   their cruse of oil is almost run out. There is just a little at the
   bottom, hardly enough to cover the wood of the barrel. We ought not to
   be in so evil a case, for if we have so little Grace in prosperous
   seasons, what shall we do in times of temptation and trial? If the
   heart is full to overflowing, there is a likelihood that its stores
   will hold out. But scant affection makes us fear that it is a transient
   emotion and not the love which is born from above.

   If you desire to keep yourself in the love of God, avoid everything
   that would dampen your love. Avoid sin, especially, for sin is the
   poison of love to God. Love of sin is the death of love to God! I mean
   by sin, not merely the grosser forms of vice, but everything which has
   a tendency to tarnish the virgin purity of your soul. I know some
   Christians who complain

   a good deal about their need of love to Jesus and the smallness of
   their faith, and so on. When I track them to their haunts, I find that
   they keep ill company and frequent amusements and assemblies where love
   to Christ is sorely wounded and almost slain. I put it to their own
   consciences whether they are ever likely to increase their love to
   Christ by going where His name is not adored and His cause is not
   befriended.

   I heard of one who professed to be a Christian, that he claimed to be
   able to attend the theater and yet to live very near to God. And I
   remembered the remark of a minister who said, "When I see great Grace
   in those who frequent the theater, I shall at once grow prize roses in
   my coal cellar." Just so! I shall cultivate not only roses, but palms
   and oranges in the vault under my house when that is the case! He who
   says that gay amusements help him to grow in the love of God utters a
   lie! Conscience condemns the worldly professor--he cannot come home
   from a place of amusement, where the ungodly congregate, without
   feeling, "I have been where I had no right to be."

   I am not now judging the outside world, but I am dealing with the
   members of our Churches who profess to be separated from the world. If
   a worldling loves worldly amusement, I do not wonder at it, nor wish to
   deny him his enjoyments. Just as one feels about the swine, that they
   ought to have their pig wash, for it suits them, but none of us want to
   share it, so say we of the unconverted and their frivolities! But the
   case is otherwise with the children of God! O man of God, run not with
   the multitude! Wantonness, chambering, lewdness and unclean mirth are
   not for you. No, "let them not be mentioned among you as becomes
   saints."

   I would also have you avoid, as much as possible, the company of those
   who deaden your spirituality. I like to drop into the house of the
   poorest Christian man whose conversation will edify me. But though a
   man may be richer than I am, and his company may be desirable to me in
   many ways, if I find, on coming out of his house, that he has
   insinuated doubts into my mind, or that his language has tainted the
   purity of my conscience, I am bound to avoid him. If business calls me
   into connection with him, I must go, or else I must go out of the
   world, but I will not seek, as my companion, any man who in any measure
   takes me off from keeping myself in the love of God.

   Neither should we read books which have an injurious effect upon the
   mind. I wish some of our younger friends would take good heed to this
   remark. You have little enough of the love of God in your souls--you do
   not need to pour cold water on it by emptying trashy novels upon it. Go
   not into the chill, cold air of irreligion and vanity! Brothers and
   Sisters, put everything aside that would hinder your loving God and
   knowing that He loves you. And if you have erred and you find out, this
   morning, that you have done so, do not be angry at my rebuke, nor yet
   be led to despair of your-self--for the times of your ignorance God
   winks at and forgives!

   Go to your heavenly Father and say, "O Lord, help me to make this the
   rule of my conduct--that whatever prevents my feeling that You love me,
   and prevents my loving You, I may withdraw from at once and have
   nothing more to do with it, for You have bid me keep myself in Your
   love." If you would love the Lord, meditate much upon what He is and
   what He has done for you. Your debts to Him are overwhelming--try to
   feel them and you will love Him because He first loved you. See your
   daily dependence, your hourly indebtedness and the patience, constancy,
   faithfulness and tenderness with which He cares for you! Here I need
   not enlarge, for you will not fail to do this if you are, indeed, the
   subjects of Divine Grace.

   Next, dear Friends, if you want to be kept in the love of God, follow
   earnestly the means of Grace. Do not neglect the hearing of the Word,
   nor the reading of it in private, nor secret prayer, nor the assembling
   of yourselves together. Come often to the Lord's Table--you will find
   it a very blessed means of quickening the pulse of your soul. There are
   God's appointed ordinances for stirring up your love--do not be so
   proud as to think you can do without them. I fear there are some
   Christians who are so busy in doing good that they do not allow
   themselves opportunities of getting good. Incessantly do I urge
   Christian people here to be engaged in some work for Christ and I would
   urge it again and again. But some of you young people ought not to
   absent yourselves from public worship in order to go and teach in
   ragged schools or elsewhere--you have not yet enough knowledge, nor
   enough strength to be able to bear the frequent loss of the instructive
   ordinances.

   And even those of you who can bear to go upon half rations will be wise
   not to do so, for a man who works so long every day that he does not
   sleep enough, or eat enough, will, in the long run, be less capable of
   labor than if he had attempted less and had taken more time for the
   feeding and resting of his body. Do remember that Martha, though she
   was very busy, was not so much commended as Mary, who sat at Jesus'
   feet. Be busy as Martha, but be devout as Mary and so

   will you keep your heart in the love of God! You will do this very
   much, too, by communing with the Lord. Never spend a day without
   hearing your Master's voice! Do not come down from your chamber to see
   the face of man till you have seen the face of God. Do not let week
   after week roll by without communion with Heaven.

   There is no trading like it--send the ships of prayer to the gold coast
   of communion with the Lord and they will come back to you with
   priceless treasures! Hold high communion with the supreme Invisible and
   your soul will be sure to love Him, for never man drew near to God
   without the love of God flowing into his soul. Then I would say next,
   if you would love God, be sure to work for Him. If I wanted a man to
   love me and I had my choice of two things, either to do something for
   the man or to let that man do something for me--if my sole object were
   to secure his love, I know which I would do--I would let him serve me.

   If you do a kindness for a man, he may be ungrateful and forget you,
   but if you let him do something for you, the more he does for you the
   more he will stick to you through life. For this reason, therefore, you
   will not only love God because of what He has done for you, but you
   will love Him because you have been allowed to do something for Him.
   Read the song of Deborah when she and Barak had chased away the
   adversaries. You do not read much in Judges about love to God, but at
   the end of her song you find it appearing--"So let all Your enemies
   perish, O Lord: but let them that love You be as the sun when he goes
   forth in his might."

   She felt that she loved God because she had bravely led, with Barak,
   the host of God, and love to God had been kindled while she was
   battling for Him. Go and teach the ignorant, visit the sick, help the
   poor and guide those that are out of the way--and though you thought
   you did not love Christ, you will soon discover that you do. Laziness
   is a bolster with which to suffocate love, but honest service of Jesus
   Christ is a platform upon which love shows herself in all her beauty
   and there, also, she gathers her strength. O love the Lord, all you His
   saints!

   And if you need yet another means of keeping in His love, then live in
   expectation of seeing Him. Nothing inflames a Christian's love more
   than feeling how much he owes in the past and how much he expects in
   the future. Jesus is coming! You are soon to be with Him! Perhaps
   before another week is over you will behold His face! Surely you feel,
   even now, the kindling of warm desire--a passion for Him springs up
   within your spirit and you long for the lagging days to fly-- that you
   may be in His arms! Keep yourselves thus in His love. May God help you
   so to do, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 15. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--766, 804, 811.
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Strengthening Words from the Savior's Lips

   (No. 1287)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL, 2, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said unto me, My Grace is sufficient for you: for My strength
   is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I rather
   glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 2
   Corinthians 12:9.

   PAUL, when buffeted by the messenger of Satan, addressed his prayer to
   the Lord Jesus Christ and not, as he usually did, to the heavenly
   Father. This is a somewhat remarkable fact, but it is clear from the
   passage before us. He says, "For this thing I besought the Lord
   thrice," and that the Lord, here, is the Lord Jesus is pretty clear
   from the fact that he says in the next verse, "that the power of Christ
   may rest upon me." His prayer was not directed to God, absolutely
   considered, nor does he speak of the power of God, but his prayer was
   directed to the Lord Jesus Christ and it was the power of the Lord
   Jesus Christ which he desired to rest upon him. It is an Infallible
   proof of our Lord's divinity, that He may be addressed in prayer! And
   this is one instance, with several others, which show us that we may
   legitimately present our petitions, not only to the ever-blessed
   Father, but also to His Son Jesus Christ.

   There seems to me to be a peculiar fitness in a prayer to Jesus when
   the temptation came from a messenger of Satan, because the Lord Jesus
   has endured the same temptation, Himself, and knows how to succor them
   that are tempted. Moreover, He has come to earth to destroy the works
   of the devil. In His lifetime He manifested peculiar power over unclean
   spirits and was constantly casting them out from those whom they
   tormented. It was one of His few rejoicing notes, "I saw Satan, like
   lightning, fall from Heaven." It was by the name of Jesus that devils
   were expelled after Christ had risen into Glory. "Jesus I know," said
   the spirits whom the sons of Sceva endeavored in vain to exorcise.

   Devils felt the power of Jesus and, therefore, it was wise and natural
   that the Apostle Paul should, when buffeted of Satan, turn to Jesus and
   ask Him to bid the evil spirit depart from him. Is it not a little
   remarkable, also, that this prayer was not only addressed to Jesus, but
   was offered in much the same manner as the prayer of our Lord in the
   Garden? The Apostle prayed three times, even as our Lord did when He,
   too, was sorely buffeted by the powers of darkness. Paul's
   thrice-repeated cry was intensely earnest, for he, "besought" the Lord
   thrice.

   And Paul, singularly enough, met with very much the same answer as his
   Master, for our Lord was not permitted to put aside the cup, (it could
   not pass away from Him unless He drank it), but an angel appeared unto
   Him strengthening Him. And so, in Paul's case, the trial was not taken
   away from him, but he was strengthened by kind, assuring words and by
   being led to see that God would be glorified by his enduring the trial.
   I see, then, the Lord Jesus reflected in His servant Paul as in a
   mirror! I hear the three-times repeated prayer, I mark the cup standing
   unremoved and I see the strength imparted in the midst of weakness!

   Our text fell from the lips of Jesus Christ, Himself, and if anything
   could make its language more sweet than it is in itself, it would be
   this fact, that He, Himself, delivered the words to His chosen Apostle.
   It is Jesus who says, in the words of the text, "My Grace is sufficient
   for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness." This Truth of God
   casts a soft, mellow light upon the words, helps us to interpret them
   and enables us to derive all the greater comfort from them. When Jesus
   speaks, a special charm surrounds each syllable.

   The exact tense of the Greek words are not easy to translate into
   English. The Apostle does not merely tell us that his Lord said these
   words to him 14 years ago, but the tense connects the past with the
   present, as if he felt that the answer was not simply something past,
   but something which continued with him in its consoling power. The
   echoes of what his Lord had said were still sounding through his soul!
   I should not miss the Apostle's meaning if I read it, "He has been
   saying to me, 'My strength is sufficient for you.'" The words had an
   abiding effect upon the Apostle's mind, not merely for

   the time reconciling him to the particular trouble which had afflicted
   him, but cheering him for all the rest of his life-- strengthening him
   in all future trials to glory in his infirmities and render praise to
   God.

   It is a sweet thing to have a text of Scripture laid home to the heart
   for present uses, but when God the Holy Spirit so applies a promise
   that it abides in the heart for the term of one's natural life, then
   are we favored, indeed! Elijah's meat gave him strength for 40 days,
   but what is that meat which endures unto life eternal? What bread must
   that be which feeds me through the whole period of my pilgrimage? Here,
   then, we have before us food which Jesus Himself provides, so nutritive
   that His Spirit can cause us to remember the feast to our dying day! O
   Lord, feed us, now, and give us Grace to inwardly digest your gracious
   Word.

   With this preface, which I beg you to remember during the discourse,
   since it indicates my line of thought, we now come to the text
   itself--a mass of diamonds, bright and precious! In the text we notice
   three things--first, Grace all-sufficient. Secondly, strength
   perfected. And, thirdly, power indwelling.

   I. In the text, even the most superficial observer notices a promise of
   GRACE ALL-SUFFICIENT. In the case of our Lord Jesus, the Spirit so
   rested upon Him as to be sufficient for Him at all times. Never did the
   Spirit of God fail to uphold the Man, Christ Jesus, under the most
   arduous labors, the most terrible temptations and the most bitter
   suffering. Therefore He completed the work which His Father gave Him to
   do and in death He was able to exclaim, "It is finished." The Lord,
   here, assures His chosen servant that it should be the same with
   him--"My Grace," said He, "is sufficient for you."

   To bring out the full meaning of these few words, I will give you four
   readings of them. The first is a strictly grammatical one and is the
   first sense which they bear. Taking the word translated, Grace, to mean
   favor or love--for that, also, is included in the word charts--how does
   the passage run? "My favor is sufficient for you." Do not ask to be rid
   of your trouble, do not ask to have ease, comfort, or any other form of
   happiness--My favor is enough for you. Or, as good Dr. Dodge reads it,
   "My Love is enough for you." "If you have little else that you desire,
   yet surely it is enough that you are My favored one, a chosen subject
   of My Grace. My love is enough for you."

   What a delicious expression! You do not need an explanation. Repeat the
   words to yourselves and even now conceive that the Well-Beloved looks
   down on you, and whispers, "My love is enough for you." If you have
   been asking Him three times to deliver you from your present
   affliction, hear Him reply, "Why do you need to ask Me anymore? My love
   is enough for you." What do you say to that? Do you not answer, "Yes,
   Lord, indeed it is. If I am poor, if You will me to be poor, I am
   content to be severely tried, for Your love is enough for me. If I am
   sick, so long as You will come and visit me and reveal Your heart to
   me, I am satisfied, for Your love is enough for me. If I am persecuted,
   cast out and forsaken, cheerfully will I bear it, if a sense of Your
   love sustains me, for Your love is enough for me. Yes, and if I should
   be left so alone as to have no one to care for me in the whole world.
   If my father and my mother should forsake me and every friend should
   prove a Judas--'Your love is enough for me.'"

   Do you catch the meaning, and do you see how Paul must have been
   comforted by it if he understood it in this primary and most natural
   sense? "O Paul, it is sufficient for you that I have made you to be a
   chosen vessel to bear My name among the Gentiles. It is enough for you
   that I have loved you from before the foundation of the world, that I
   redeemed you with My precious blood, that I called you when you were a
   blasphemer and injurious, that I changed your heart and made you love
   Me and that I have kept you to this day and will keep you, even, to the
   end by My inimitable love. My love is enough for you. Ask not to be set
   free from this buffeting. Ask not to be delivered from weakness and
   trial, for these will enable you the better to enjoy My favor and that
   is enough for you."

   We will now read our text another way, keeping to our authorized
   version, but throwing the stress on the first word--"My Grace is
   sufficient for you." What Grace is this? Note who it is that promises.
   It is Jesus who speaks, therefore it is mediatorial Grace, the Grace
   given to Jesus Christ as the Covenant Head of His people, which is here
   intended. Think of it a minute. It is the Head speaking to the member
   and declaring that His Grace is enough for the whole body. The
   anointing oil has been poured upon the Head that it may go down the
   beard and descend to the garments and, lo, one poor member of the body
   is mourning and complaining, for it is fearful of being omitted in the
   plenteous anointing. But the Head comforts it by saying, "My anointing
   is enough for you, since it is enough for all My members."

   It is the Head, Christ, in whom all fullness dwells, speaking to one of
   the members of His mystical body and saying, "The Grace which God has
   given to Me without measure on behalf of all the members of My body is
   sufficient for you as

   well as for the rest of them." Beloved, seize the thought! The Lord has
   given to Christ all that the whole company of His people can possibly
   need--no, more than that--for, "It pleased the Father that in Him
   should all fullness dwell." And of His fullness have we all received,
   and Grace for Grace, and from that fullness we hope, continually, to
   draw forever-more. This is the Grace which is sufficient for us!

   It greatly tends to help faith when you can see the relation that
   exists between the Redeemer and yourself, for Jesus is your Covenant
   Head, and God has been pleased to give Himself and all His infinite
   riches to the Lord Jesus Christ as your federal Representative. And as
   your Covenant Head, the Lord Jesus assures you that the stores laid up
   in Him on your behalf are sufficient for you. Can you limit the
   mediatorial power of Christ? Don't you know that God gives not the
   Spirit by measure unto Him? Be you, then, assured that Christ's Grace
   is sufficient for you!

   I will read the text again and this time put the stress in the center.
   "My Grace is sufficient for you." It is now sufficient. You are
   buffeted by this evil spirit, but My Grace is sufficient for your
   present need. Paul, you have been beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked
   and in perils often--and in all these My Grace has been sufficient--and
   now I tell you this present trouble, though it is somewhat different in
   shape from the rest, is, nevertheless such as I am well able to meet.
   My Grace is sufficient for you in this, also.

   The nearness of an object increases its apparent bulk and so the
   affliction under which we are at present laboring seems greater than
   any we have known before. Past trials appear, when we have passed them,
   to have been small things compared with present troubles and,
   therefore, the difficulty is to see the sufficiency of Grace for
   present and pressing afflictions. It is easy to believe in Grace for
   the past and the future, but to rest in it for the immediate necessity
   is true faith. Believer, it is now that Grace is sufficient! Even at
   this moment it is enough for you. Do not say this is a new trouble, or
   if you do say it, remember the Grace of God is always new!

   Do not complain that some strange thing has happened to you, or if you
   do, remember blessings are provided in the Grace of God to meet your
   strange difficulties. Tremble not because the thorn in the flesh is so
   mysterious, for Grace is mysterious, too, and so mystery shall be met
   by mystery. At this moment and at all moments which shall ever occur
   between now and Glory, the Grace of God will be sufficient for you!
   This sufficiency is declared without any limiting words and, therefore,
   I understand the passage to mean that the Grace of our Lord Jesus is
   sufficient to uphold you, sufficient to strengthen you, sufficient to
   comfort you, sufficient to make your trouble useful to you, sufficient
   to enable you to triumph over it, sufficient to bring you out of it,
   sufficient to bring you out of 10,000 like it, sufficient to bring you
   home to Heaven!

   Whatever would be good for you, Christ's Grace is sufficient to bestow!
   Whatever would harm you, His Grace is sufficient to avert! Whatever you
   desire, His Grace is sufficient to give you if it is good for you.
   Whatever you would avoid, His Grace can shield you from it if so His
   wisdom shall dictate. O child of God, I wish it were possible to put
   into words this all-sufficiency, but it is not. Let me retract my
   speech--I am glad that it cannot be put into words, for if so, it would
   be finite. But since we never can express it, glory be to God, it is
   inexhaustible and our demands upon it can never be too great! Here let
   me press upon you the pleasing duty of taking home the promise,
   personally, at this moment, for no Believer here need be under any
   fear, since for him, also, at this very instant, the Grace of the Lord
   Jesus is sufficient!

   In the last reading which I will give, I shall lay the emphasis upon
   the first and the last words--"My Grace is sufficient for you." I have
   often read in Scripture of the holy laughter of Abraham, when he fell
   upon his face and laughed. But I do not know that I ever experienced
   that laughter till a few evenings ago, when this text came home to me
   with such sacred power as literally to cause me to laugh! I had been
   looking it through--looking at its original meaning and trying to
   fathom it, till at last I got hold of it this way--"My Grace," says
   Jesus, "is sufficient for you," and it looked almost as if it were
   meant to ridicule my unbelief For surely the Grace of such a One as my
   Lord Jesus is, indeed, sufficient for so insignificant a being as I am!

   It seemed to me as if some tiny fish, being very thirsty, was troubled
   with fear of drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said to him,
   "Poor little fish, my stream is sufficient for you." I should think it
   is, and inconceivably more! My Lord seemed to say to me, "Poor little
   creature that you are, remember what Grace there is in Me and believe
   that it is all yours. Surely it is sufficient for you." I replied, "Ah,
   my Lord, it is, indeed." Put one mouse down in all the granaries of
   Egypt, when they were the fullest after seven years of plenty, and
   imagine that one mouse complaining that it might die of famine. "Cheer
   up," says Pharaoh, "poor mouse, my granaries are sufficient for you."
   Imagine a man standing on a

   mountain and saying, "I breathe so many cubic feet of air in a year. I
   am afraid that I shall ultimately inhale all the oxygen which surrounds
   the globe."

   Surely the earth on which the man would stand might reply, "My
   atmosphere is sufficient for you." I should think it! Let him fill his
   lungs as full as ever he can, he will never breathe all the oxygen, nor
   will the fish drink up all the river, nor the mouse eat up all the
   stores in the granaries of Egypt! Does it not make unbelief seem
   altogether ridiculous, so that you laugh it out of the house and say,
   "Never come this way again, for with a mediatorial fullness to go to,
   with such a Redeemer to rest in, how dare I, for a moment, think that
   my needs cannot be supplied?" Our great Lord feeds all the fish of the
   sea and the birds of the air--and the cattle on the hills, and guides
   the stars, and upholds all things by the power of His hand--how, then,
   can we be straitened for supplies, or be destitute of help?

   If our needs were a thousand times larger than they are, they would not
   approach the vastness of His power to provide. The Father has committed
   all things into His hands. Doubt Him no more! Listen, and let Him speak
   to you--"My Grace is sufficient for you. What if you have little Grace,
   yet I have much--it is My Grace you have to look to, not your own, and
   My Grace will surely be sufficient for you."

   John Bunyan has the following passage which exactly expresses what I,
   myself, have experienced. He says that he was full of sadness and
   terror, but suddenly these words broke in upon him with great power,
   and three times together the words sounded in his ears, "My Grace is
   sufficient for you; My Grace is sufficient for you; My Grace is
   sufficient for you." And "Oh! I thought," says he, "that every word was
   a mighty word unto me, as, 'My' and, 'Grace' and, 'sufficient' and 'for
   you.' They were, then, and sometimes are still, far bigger than others
   are."

   He who knows, like the bee, how to suck honey from flowers, may well
   linger over each one of these words and drink in unutterable content--

   "Have we forgot the Almighty name

   That formed the earth and sea?

   And can an all-creating arm

   Grow weary or decay?

   Treasures of everlasting might

   In our Jehovah dwell!

   He gives the conquest to the weak,

   And treads their foes to Hell

   Mere mortal power shall fade and die,

   And youthful vigor cease--

   But we that wait upon the Lord

   Shall feel our strength increase." II. Secondly, in the text we have
   STRENGTH PERFECTED--"For My strength is made perfect in weakness." Now,
   running the parallel, still between Jesus and Paul, remember, Beloved,
   that it was so with our Lord Jesus Christ. He was strong as to His
   Deity--in Him dwelt all strength, for He is the mighty God--but how was
   His strength as Mediator made perfect? The Scripture says, "Perfect
   through suffering." That is to say, the strength of Christ to save His
   people would never have been perfected if He had not taken upon Himself
   the weakness of human nature and if He had not, in that feeble nature,
   descended lower and lower in weakness. Had he saved Himself, He could
   not have saved us. But His giving up of all that He had made Him rich
   towards us. And His putting on of weakness made Him strong to redeem
   us.

   O Incarnate God, You could not redeem till You were swaddled as a Babe
   in Bethlehem! No, You could not redeem till You were made to bear a
   Cross like a felon! No, You could not perfect redemption till You did
   hang, a ghastly corpse, upon a gallows! No, it was even essential that
   You should be laid in the grave! Your work was not fulfilled till three
   days and nights You did abide in the heart of the earth among the dead!
   The Lord Jesus could say--"My strength is made perfect in weakness."
   This was to be realized in Paul and is to be fulfilled in all the
   saints. Of course the strength of God is always perfect--we do not
   understand that anything is necessary to make perfect the Divine
   power--but the words fell from the lips of Jesus as our Mediator and
   Representative--and it is His strength which is made perfect in
   weakness.

   In us this is true, first, because the power of Jesus can only be
   perfectly revealed in His people by bearing them up, keeping them and
   sustaining them when they are in trouble. Who knows the perfection of
   the strength of God till he sees how God can make poor puny creatures
   strong? Yonder is a timid, sickly woman who lives a life of agony.
   Almost every breath is a spasm and every pulse a pang. Each member of
   her body is subject to tortures of which others scarcely dream. But
   look at her cheerful patience! As much as possible, she conceals her
   pain that she may not distress others. You hear no mutter of complaint,
   but oftentimes she utters words as cheery as those which fall from
   persons in robust health. And when she must tell of her afflictions,
   she always speaks of them in such a tone that you feel she has accepted
   them at the Lord's hands with complete resignation and is willing to
   bear them as many years as the Lord may appoint.

   I do not wonder when strong men say strong things, but I have often
   marveled when I have heard such heroic sentences from the weak and
   trembling. To hear the sorrowing comfort others when you would think
   they needed comfort, themselves! To mark their cheerfulness when, if
   you and I suffered half as much, we should have sunk to the earth--this
   is worthy of note! God's strength is perfectly revealed in the trials
   of the weak. When you see a man of God brought into poverty and yet, in
   that poverty, never repining. When you hear his character assailed by
   slander and yet he stands unmoved, like a rock amidst the waves. When
   you see the gracious man persecuted and driven from home and country
   for Christ's sake and yet he takes, joyfully, the spoiling of his goods
   and banishment and disgrace--then the strength of God is made perfect
   in the midst of weakness!

   While the man of God suffers and is under necessities, distresses and
   infirmities, then it is that the power of God is seen. It was when tiny
   creatures made Pharaoh tremble that his magicians said, "This is the
   finger of God," and evermore God's greatest Glory comes from things
   weak and despised. This is equally true to the man, himself. God's
   strength is made perfect to the saint's own apprehension when he is
   weak. Brothers, if you have prospered in business all your lives and
   have had an easy path of it, I will tell you something--you do not know
   much about the strength of God. If you have been healthy all your lives
   and never suffered. If your families have never been visited by
   bereavements and if your spirits have never been cast down, you do not
   know much about the strength of God.

   You may have read about it in books and it is well you should! You may
   have seen it in others and observation is useful. But a grain of
   experience is worth a pound of observation and you can only get
   knowledge of the power of God by an experimental acquaintance with your
   own weakness--and you will not be likely to get that except as you are
   led along the thorny, flinty way which most of God's saints have to
   travel--which is described by the word, "tribulation." Great
   tribulation brings out the great strength of God! If you never feel
   inward conflicts and sinking of soul, you do not know much of the
   upholding power of God. But if you go down, down, into the depths of
   soul-anguish till the deep threatens to shut her mouth upon you--and
   then the Lord rides upon a cherub and does fly, yes, rides upon the
   wings of the wind and delivers your soul and catches you away to the
   third Heaven of delight--then you perceive the majesty of Divine Grace!
   Oh, there must be the weakness of man felt, recognized and mourned
   over, or else the strength of the Son of God will never be perfected in
   us!

   Thus have I given you two meanings of the text. Others see the strength
   of God in our weakness and we, ourselves, discover it when our weakness
   is most manifest. I think the term, "made perfect," also means achieves
   its purpose. Read it thus--"For My strength fully achieves its design
   in weakness." Brothers and Sisters, God has not done for us what He
   means to do unless we have felt our own weaknesses. As long as a
   portion of strength remains, we are but partially sanctified. When our
   Lord has accomplished in us what He is aiming, the result will be to
   empty us out and to make us discover the utter vanity of self.

   If the Lord ever takes you, like a dish, and turns you upside down and
   wipes you right out and sets you away on a shelf, then you will feel
   what He means you to feel--that is to say, you will feel as if you were
   waiting there for the Lord to take you down and use you and then, be
   sure, He will come, in due time, and use you for His honorable
   purposes, laying meat upon you for His hungry people and making you an
   ornament at His banquets of love. If you feel yourself to be a full
   dish, I will tell you what there is in you--you hold nothing but the
   slop and filthiness of depraved nature. The Lord will never use you
   till all that is poured out and you are wiped quite clean and put away
   with nothing of yourself remaining in you, wherein you may rejoice!

   All the saints who are ready to go to Heaven feel themselves to be less
   than the least. But those professors who are, by no means, ready for
   Glory are highly self conscious and feel that there is a great deal in
   them which is very commendable.

   Those who enter Heaven carry nothing of self with them, neither will
   any of us enter there so long as we talk proudly of our attainments.
   Those who claim to possess "the higher life" have been heard to boast
   of their purity, but those who enjoy the highest life in Glory cry,
   "Not unto us! Not unto us be glory!" It is a mark of fitness for Heaven
   when self is dead and Grace, alone, reigns. The strength of God is
   never perfected till our weakness is perfected. When our weakness is
   consciously and thoroughly felt, then the strength of God has done its
   work in us.

   There is yet another meaning. The strength of God is most perfected or
   most glorified by its using our weaknesses. Suppose the world had been
   converted to Christ by 12 emperors? The establishment of Christianity
   might have been readily accounted for without glorifying God. Imagine
   that Christianity had been forced upon men with the stern arguments
   which Mohammed placed in the hands of his first disciples--the glory
   would have redounded to human courage and not to the love of God. We
   wonder not that the gods of the heathen were dashed to the ground when
   the scimitars were so sharp and were wielded by such ferocious
   warriors. But when we know that 12 humble fishermen, without arms or
   armor, without patronage or prestige, without science or sophistry
   overthrew colossal systems of error and set up the Cross of Christ in
   their place, we adoringly exclaim, "This is the finger of God!"

   And so, the other day, when the Lord took a consecrated cobbler and
   sent him out to India, whatever work was done by William Carey was
   evidently seen to be of the Lord! If societies would send out
   distinguished scholars, it is thought by some that in all probability
   heathen intelligence would recognize abilities and genius and respect
   them. And, convinced by reasoning and influenced by talent, they would
   bow before superior Western culture! Yes, and so they would be
   converted by a conversion in which the Lord would not be glorified, but
   proud man would have the praise. In what way would that increase the
   Glory of God?

   God uses weakness rather than strength and so His power is revealed.
   All that you have that is strong, my Brothers and Sisters, will be of
   small service in this matter, for the Lord will not exalt your strength
   and make you proud of your attainments. Your weakness and infirmities,
   in all probability, the Lord will see fit to use, for He delights to
   take the base things and the things that are despised and use them to
   achieve His purposes--that the excellency of the power may be all His
   own.

   Let me notice, last of all, on this point, that all history shows that
   the great strength of God has always been displayed and perpetuated in
   human weakness. Brothers, what made Christ so strong? Was it not that
   He condescended to be so weak? And how did He win His victory? By His
   patience, by His suffering--that is to say, by those things wherein His
   human weakness appeared. Now, look at Christ mystical, namely, the
   Church. How has His Church ever been strong? Of course you reply, "By
   the strength of God!" I know it--but what has brought forth the
   strength of God so that it has been undeniably manifest and,
   consequently, operative upon mankind? Has it been the strength of the
   Church? No, but the weakness of the Church, for when men have seen
   Believers suffer and die, it is then that they have beheld the strength
   of God in His people!

   The sufferings of the saints have been the victories of the Truth of
   God! The martyrs led the van! They suffered most and, consequently, are
   the champions of the elect army. The weakness which allowed of their
   being destitute, afflicted, tormented, has been the battle-axe and the
   weapons of war with which the Lord has procured conquest for the
   Gospel. When one of the pastors of a Church in London was put to death
   in Smithfield one early morning, before the frost was melted by the
   sun, there stood around the stake a number of young people who had been
   accustomed to listen to his teachings. Strange thing for young
   Believers to be up so very early to see their pastor burned to death!
   What do you think they were there for?

   No idle curiosity could have brought them to such a spectacle! It is
   written that they went there to learn the way. Do you see? They saw him
   burn and came there with that intention--to learn the way to die for
   Christ, themselves! The church of Rome could do nothing with a people
   who, from the weakness which compelled them to suffer, gathered
   strength to die triumphantly! The weakness of the martyr, as he
   suffered, revealed the strength of God in him--which held him fast to
   his principles while he was gradually consumed by the cruel flames. Had
   not men been poor worms, capable of being crushed and capable of
   agonizing the upholding Grace of God, they could never have been so
   conspicuously revealed. Blessed be the name of the Almighty! He
   displays His might in our weakness even as He shone forth in the midst
   of the burning bush.

   He spoke, and lo, the heavens and the earth stood forth. A marvelous
   creation! But then there was nothing to oppose the fiat of His
   power--His all-powerful Word was not hampered by using weak
   instrumentalities. How, then, is God to show yet greater power? How
   shall Omnipotence or all kinds of power be seen? Why, Brothers and
   Sisters, He will not use His unfettered Word alone, but He will clog
   and encumber it by using infirm and weak instruments! He will, in the
   Kingdom of Grace, work by men compassed with infirmities--and achieve
   His purposes by agencies, in themselves, unfit for His ends--and then
   His power will be doubly seen!

   The celebrated Quentin Matsys had to make a well-cover in iron one
   morning. He was a master in the art of fashioning the metal and could
   shape it as though it were so much wax. His fellow workmen were jealous
   and, therefore, they took from him the proper tools. And yet with his
   hammer he produced a matchless work of art! So the Lord, with
   instruments which lend Him no aid, but rather hinder Him, does greater
   works of Grace to His own Glory and honor. He takes us poor nothings
   who are weak as water and uses us to accomplish His designs! And this
   is His almightiness gloriously displayed!

   Omnipotence, when it does what it wills by its bare Word is one thing,
   but when it takes weakness into league with it and performs its
   powerful deeds by means of weakness, it is quite another and by the
   weakness it doubly manifests itself.

   III. The most blessed part of the text remains--POWER INDWELLING. Dr.
   Adam Clarke here furnishes us, on the last part of our text, a most
   useful observation, "Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in infirmity,
   that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Now mark, the Greek word
   here used, interpreted, "rest," is the same word employed by John, when
   he says, "The Word was made flesh and," as the Greek runs, "tabernacled
   among us and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the only begotten of
   the Father, all of Grace and Truth."

   The passage before us means just this, "I glory in infirmities that the
   power of Christ may tabernacle in me." Just as the Shekinah light dwelt
   in the tent in the wilderness beneath the rough badger skins, so I
   glory to be a poor frail tent and tabernacle, that the Shekinah of
   Jesus Christ may dwell in my soul. Do you catch the thought? Is it not
   full of beauty? See, then, what he means--First, he puts the power of
   Christ in opposition to his own power because if he is not weak, then
   he has strength of his own. If, then, what he does is done by his own
   strength, there is no room for Christ's strength. That is clear, but if
   his own power is gone, there is space for the power of Christ. If my
   life is sustained by my own strength and my good works are done in my
   own strength, then there is no room for Christ's strength. But the
   Apostle found that it was not so and, therefore, he said, "I glory in
   my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may tabernacle in me."

   But what is the power of Christ? Let the text I quoted tell you--"The
   Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth."
   What power, then, was this which Paul expected to tabernacle in him but
   the power of Grace and the power of truth? It must be so, because God
   had said, "My Grace is sufficient for you." Paul catches at that
   promise and he cries, "this is the Truth of God and I rely upon it" and
   he, therefore, expects that the Grace of God and the faithfulness of
   God would tabernacle in him and shine forth within his soul. This is
   the power of Christ which he expected to rest upon him. What more could
   we desire?

   What is the power of Christ? I answer next, it is Christly power--the
   kind of power which is conspicuous in the life of Jesus. There was a
   power in Christ peculiar to Himself, as all can see who read the New
   Testament--a power unique and altogether His own. You know what the
   power of Alexander was--it was a power to command men, inspire them
   with courage for great enterprises and keep them in good heart when
   called to endure hardships. You know what the power of Demosthenes
   was--it was the power of eloquence, the power to stir the patriotic
   Greeks, to break the fetters of the Macedonian. But what was the power
   of Jesus? It was power to suffer, power to be made nothing of, power to
   descend to the very depths for love of God and love of men. There lay
   His power--in those five conquering wounds, in that majestic mournful
   face, more marred than that of any man--in that great agonizing heart
   which sent forth sweat of blood when men were to be pleaded for before
   the Lord.

   Love and patience were Christ's power! And even now these subdue the
   hearts of men and make Jesus the Sufferer to be Jesus the King.
   Therefore Paul says, "I glory in my infirmities that this same power
   may tabernacle in me. I triumph in weakness, in reproaches, in poverty,
   in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, that I may suffer,
   humble myself, be obedient and prove my love to God even as Jesus did.
   When I am weak then am I strong." He meant strong to prove his love by
   enduring the weaknesses and afflictions which he accepted for his
   Master's sake. What was this power of Christ? I

   answer again, it was a part of the "all power" which our Lord declared
   was given unto Him in Heaven and in earth-- "Go you, therefore, and
   teach all nations."

   Paul desired to have that power living in himself, for he knew right
   well that if he had to "go and teach all nations" he would have to
   suffer in so doing. And so he takes the suffering cheerfully, that he
   might have the power! Even as beneath the badger skins of the
   tabernacle, the Glory of the Lord shone forth, so the mighty converting
   power of Christ which dwelt in Paul was gloriously revealed while he
   endured reproaches and persecutions, sufferings and death for Jesus'
   sake. What was Christ's power again? I answer, to complete my sermon,
   His power lay in His weakness, His humiliation, His dependence upon
   God, His faith in God, His self-abnegation, His perfect consecration to
   the Father. And Paul says that he was made to suffer and to be weak,
   that this same power to become nothing, that God might be glorified,
   might rest in him!

   I have done when I say just this. Dear Brothers and Sisters, go home
   and never ask the Lord to make you strong in yourselves! Never ask Him
   to make you anybody or anything, but be content to be nothing and
   nobody! Next, ask that His power may have room in you and that all
   those who come near you may see what God can do by nothings and
   nobodies! Live with this desire, to glorify God! Sometimes when God
   honors us in His service, a great, "I" stands in the Lord's way.
   Tremble when you see a poor, weak preacher made useful in converting
   souls--then all the papers and magazines begin to blaze his name
   abroad! And silly Christians--for there are plenty of them--begin to
   talk him up as if he were a demigod and say such great things about him
   and describe him as wise, eloquent and great.

   Thus they do all they can to ruin the good Brother! If the man is
   sensible, he will say, "Get you behind me, Satan, for you smell not of
   the things that are of God" and, if God gives him great Grace, he will
   retire more and more into the background and lie lower and lower before
   his God. But, if you once get a man to feel himself to be great and
   good, either a fall will happen, or else the power of God will withdraw
   from him--or in some other way the Lord will make His people feel that
   His Glory He will not give to another.

   The best of men are flesh and blood and they have no power except as
   God lends them power. And He will make them know and feel this.
   Therefore, neither exalt others nor exalt yourselves, but beseech the
   Lord to make and keep you weakness itself, that in you, His power may
   be displayed. God grant it may be so, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Corinthians 11:5-24;
   12:1-9. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BBOOK"--909, 681, 745.
     __________________________________________________________________

Truly Eating the Flesh of Jesus

   (No. 1288)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 9, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you
   eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life
   in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and
   I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat, indeed, and
   My blood is drink indeed. He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood,
   dwells in Me, and I in him." John 6:53-56.

   OUR Lord Jesus did not, in this passage, allude to the Lord's Supper,
   as some, desiring to maintain their sacramental superstitions, have
   dared to affirm! I will not dwell upon the argument that there was no
   Lord's Supper at the time to allude to, though there is certainly some
   force in it, but I will rather remind you that with such an
   interpretation this passage would not be true. It must be confessed,
   even by the most ardent advocate of the sacramental meaning, that the
   expressions used by our Lord are not universally and, without
   exception, true if used in that sense, for it is not true that those
   who have never eaten the Lord's Supper have no life in them, since it
   is confessed on all hands that hundreds and thousands of children dying
   in childhood are, undoubtedly saved, and yet they have never eaten the
   flesh of Christ nor drank His blood, if the Lord's Supper is here
   meant.

   There have also been many others in bygone times who, by their conduct,
   proved that the life of God was in their souls, and yet they were not
   able to eat bread at the sacramental table, because of sickness,
   banishment, imprisonment and other causes. Surely there are some
   others, though I would not excuse them, who have neglected to come to
   that blessed commemorative ordinance, and yet, nevertheless, for all
   that, they are truly children of God. Would the highest of high
   churchmen send every Quaker, however holy and devout, down to the
   bottomless pit? If this should refer to the Lord's Supper, then it is
   certain that the dying thief could not have entered Heaven, for he
   never sat down at the communion table, but was converted on the
   Cross--and without either Baptism or the Lord's Supper--went straight
   away with his Master into Paradise!

   It can never be proved, indeed, is utterly false that no one has
   eternal life if he has not received the bread and wine of the communion
   table. But on the other hand, it is certainly equally untrue that
   whoever eats Christ's flesh has eternal life, if by that is meant
   everyone who partakes of the Eucharist, for there are unworthy
   receivers, not here and there, but to be found by the hundreds. Alas,
   there are apostates who leave the Lord's Table for the table of devils
   and who profane the holy name they once professed to love! There are
   also many who have received the sacramental bread and wine and yet live
   in sin--who increase their sin by daring to come to the table and who,
   alas, we fear, will die in their sins as many others have done.

   Unregenerate persons are very apt to make much of the sacrament and
   nothing of Christ. They think a great deal of the bread and wine of the
   (so-called) "altar," but they have never known what it is to eat the
   flesh and drink the blood of Christ. These eat and drink
   unworthily--carnally eating bread, but not spiritually eating the
   Redeemer's flesh--to them the ordinance is a curse rather than a
   blessing. Our Lord did not refer to the feast of His supper, for the
   language will not bear such an interpretation. It is evident that the
   Jews misunderstood the Savior and thought that He referred to the
   literal eating of His flesh. It is no wonder that they strove among
   themselves over such a saying, for, understood literally, it is
   horrible and revolting to the last degree!

   But far greater is the wonder that there are millions of people who
   accept so monstrous an error as actual truth and believe in literally
   feeding upon the body of the Lord Jesus! This is probably the highest
   point of profane absurdity to which superstition has yet reached--to
   believe that such an act of cannibalism as could be implied in the
   literal eating of

   the flesh of Christ could convey Grace to the person guilty of such a
   horror! While we wonder that the Jews so misunderstood the Savior, we
   wonder a thousand times more that there should remain upon the face of
   the earth men in their senses not yet committed to a lunatic asylum who
   endeavor to defend such a dreadful error from Holy Scripture and,
   instead of being staggered, as the Jews were, by so fearful a
   statement, actually consider it to be a vital doctrine of their
   faith--that they are literally to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink
   His blood!

   Brothers and Sisters, if it were possible that our Lord required us to
   believe such a dogma, it would certainly need the most stupendous
   effort of credulity on the part of a reasonable man--and the laying
   aside of all the decencies of nature. In fact, it would appear to be
   necessary, before you could be a Christian, that you should altogether
   divest yourself of your reason and your humanity! It were a Gospel
   certainly more fitted for savages and madmen than for persons in the
   possession of their senses and in the least degree removed from
   absolute barbarism! I greatly question whether the creed of the king of
   Dahomey contains a more unnatural doctrine.

   We are not required, however, to believe anything so impossible, so
   degrading, so blasphemous, so horrifying to all the decencies of life!
   No man ever did eat the flesh of Christ or drink His blood in a literal
   and corporeal sense. A deed so beastlike, no, so devilish, was never
   yet perpetrated, or could be. No, Brethren, the Jews were under an
   error--they made the mistake of taking literally what Christ meant
   spiritually. Judicially blinded as the result of unbelief, they
   stumbled at noonday as in the night and refused to see what was plainly
   set forth. The veil was on their hearts. Ah, how prone is man to
   pervert the Words of the Lord!

   I believe that if Christ had meant this word literally, they would have
   spirited it away, but such is the perversity of the human mind, that
   when He intended it spiritually then straightway they interpreted it in
   a grossly carnal manner. Let us not fall into their error, but may
   Divine Grace lead us to see that our Lord's Words are spirit and life.
   Let us not be held in bondage by the letter which kills, but follow the
   spirit which quickens. The spiritual meaning is clear enough to
   spiritual men, for to them belong spiritual discernment. But as for the
   unregenerate, these things are spoken unto them in parables, that
   seeing they might not see, and perceiving they might not understand.

   Our first head will be, what is meant, then, by eating the flesh and
   drinking the blood of Christ? And our second point of enquiry shall be,
   what are the virtues of this act?

   I. First, then, WHAT IS MEANT BY EATING THE FLESH AND DRINKING THE
   BLOOD OF CHRIST? It is a very beautiful and simple metaphor, when
   understood to refer spiritually to the Person of our Lord. The act of
   eating and drinking is transferred from the body to the soul and the
   soul is represented as feeding--feeding upon Jesus as the Bread of
   Life. Eating is the taking into yourself of something which exists
   externally, which you receive into yourself and which becomes a part of
   yourself and helps to build you up and sustain you. That something
   supplies a great need of your nature and when you receive it, it
   nourishes your life. That is the essence of the metaphor and it well
   describes the act and the result of faith.

   To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, first, we must believe
   in the reality of Christ--we must not regard Him as a myth, an
   imaginary personage, an invention of genius, or a conception of the
   Oriental mind, but we must believe that such a Person actually and in
   very deed lived and still lives. We must believe that He was God and
   yet condescended to be Incarnate on earth and here lived, died, was
   buried and rose again. "Except a man eat My flesh and drink My blood."
   It is a mode of expressing the actual existence and true materialism of
   our Lord's body and the sureness and truthfulness of His existence in
   human nature. You cannot be saved unless you believe in an historical
   Christ, a real Person--

   "A Man there was, a real Man,

   Who once on Calvary died,

   And streams of blood and water ran

   Down from His wounded side." That same actual Person has, in His own
   proper Personality, ascended to the skies. He is now sitting at the
   right hand of the Father and is ordained to descend, before long, to be
   the Judge of the quick and the dead. We should not use the terms, flesh
   and blood, unless we meant to indicate an actual Person--such language
   could not describe the creation of a dream, a phantom, or a symbol.
   Before all things, if you would be saved, you must believe in Jesus
   Christ, the Son of God, as having been really manifested in human
   nature among the sons of men. "The Word was made flesh and taberna-

   cled among us," and the Apostles declare that they beheld His Glory,
   the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and
   Truth.

   We must believe not only in the reality of the Savior, but in the
   reality of His Incarnation, acknowledging that while He was Divine, He
   was Human, also, that He did not assume human nature in outward
   appearance, as certain heretics have said, but that Jesus came in the
   flesh and, as such, was heard, seen, touched and handled. He was, in an
   actual body, really nailed to a tree, was really laid in the grave.
   Thomas did, in real deed, put his finger into the print of the nails
   and thrust his hand into His side. We must also believe that He did
   assuredly and in very deed rise again from the dead and that in His own
   real body, He ascended into Heaven. There must be no doubts about these
   foundational facts. If we would feed upon Christ He must be real to us,
   for a man does not eat and drink shadows and fancies.

   We must also truly believe in the death of the Incarnate Son of God.
   The mention of His flesh as eaten, apart from His blood which is drunk,
   indicates death. The blood is in the flesh while there is life. His
   death is more than hinted at in the 51st verse of John 6, where our
   Lord says, "And the bread that I will give him is My flesh, which I
   will give for the life of the world." Brothers and Sisters, we must
   believe in our Lord's death as it accomplishes the expiation of sin,
   for so faith feeds on His body as given for the life of the world.

   There are some who profess to believe in Christ's life and they hold
   Him forth as a great example who will save us from selfishness and
   other evils if we follow Him. Such is not the teaching of the text--the
   blessing of eternal life is not promised for following Christ's
   example, but for eating and drinking His flesh and blood, or, in other
   words, taking Christ into oneself! And the promise is not made for
   receiving His example or His doctrine, but His Person, His flesh, His
   blood--His flesh and blood as separated and, therefore, Himself as dead
   for us and made a Sacrifice for us. Just as in the peace-offerings the
   offerer sat down and feasted with the priest upon the victim which he
   had presented, so Jesus Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us and
   we are to feed upon Him as the Lamb of God, receiving Him in His
   sacrificial and propitiatory Character, into our souls.

   It is vain for us to hope for salvation apart from this! The Father
   sets Him forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood. If we
   refuse Him in this Character, Christ has become of no use to us. Christ
   the Exemplar cannot save you if you reject Him as the Christ who bowed
   His head to death, even the death of the Cross, suffering in His
   people's place. Christ as a King cannot save you unless you believe in
   Christ as a Victim. This is absolutely necessary to saving faith--
   unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, accept Him in
   His real Personality, offered as a Sacrifice for sin, you have no life
   in you!

   This is what is to be believed. But in order to eat, a man not only
   believes that there is bread before him and accepts that bread as being
   proper food for his body, but the next thing he does is to appropriate
   it. This is a great part of the act of feeding upon Christ. As a man,
   in eating, takes the morsels to himself and says, "This is bread which
   I believe nourishes the body and it shall now nourish me, I take it to
   be my bread," so must we do with Christ. Dear Brothers and Sisters, we
   must say, "Jesus Christ is set forth as a propitiation for sin, I
   accept Him as the Propitiation for my sin. God gives Him to be the
   foundation upon which sinners' hopes are to be built. I take Him to be
   the Foundation of my hopes. He has opened a fountain for sin and for
   uncleanness. I come to Him and desire to wash away my sin and my
   uncleanness in the fountain of His blood."

   You cannot eat, you know, unless you make the food your own. In fact,
   nothing is more especially a man's own than what he has eaten--his
   possession of it cannot be denied, nor can it be taken away from him.
   So you must take Christ to be as much your own as the bread you eat or
   the water you drink--He must, beyond question, be yours personally and
   inwardly. Looking up to Him upon the Cross, you have to say, "Savior of
   sinners, those who trust in You are redeemed. I also trust You as my
   Savior and I am, therefore, assuredly redeemed by Your most precious
   blood." Eating lies, in part, in appropriating food and so, unless you
   appropriate the flesh and blood of Christ to be your own personal hope
   and confidence, you cannot be saved.

   I have laid stress upon a personal appropriation, for each man eats for
   himself, not for anyone else. You cannot eat for anybody but yourself.
   And so, in taking Christ, you take Him for yourself. Faith is your own
   act and deed--nobody can believe for you, nor can you savingly believe
   for another. I say it with reverence--the Holy Spirit, Himself, cannot
   believe for us, although He can, and does, lead us to believe. And,
   indeed, if the Divine Spirit did believe for us, we should not obtain
   the promise, since it is not made to proxy faith, but solely and alone
   to personal believing. We are not passive

   in believing--we must be active and perform the personal act of
   appropriating the Lord Jesus to be our soul's meat and drink.

   This believing in Jesus and appropriating Him go far to explain what is
   meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Eating and drinking
   also consist principally in receiving. What a man eats and drinks, he
   appropriates to himself, and that not by laying it on one side in a
   treasury or casket, but by receiving it into himself. You appropriate
   money and you put it in your pocket--you may lose it. You secure a
   piece of land and you put your hedge about it, but that hedge may be
   broken down. But when you receive, by eating and drinking, you have
   placed the good things where you will never be robbed of them! You have
   received them in the truest and surest sense, for you have real
   possession and enjoyment in your own person.

   Now, to say, "Christ is mine," is a blessed thing. But to really take
   Christ into you by the act of faith is the vitality and the pleasure of
   faith! In eating and drinking, a man is not a producer, but a
   consumer--he is not a doer or a giver, for he simply takes in. If a
   queen should eat, if an empress should eat, she would become as
   completely a receiver as the pauper in the workhouse. Eating is an act
   of reception in every case. So it is with faith--you have not to do, to
   be, or to feel, but only to receive! The saving point is not a
   something which comes forth of you, but the reception of a something
   imparted to you. Faith is an act which the poorest sinner, the vilest
   sinner, the weakest sinner, the most condemned sinner may perform
   because it is not an act requiring power on his part, nor the going
   forth of anything from him, but simply the receiving into himself!

   An empty vessel can receive and receive all the better because it is
   empty. Oh Soul, are you willing to receive Jesus Christ as the free
   gift of Divine mercy? Do you, this day, say, "I have so received Him"?
   Well then, you have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood! If you have
   received the Incarnate God in your soul, so that you now trust in Him
   and in Him alone, then you have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood!

   The process of eating involves another matter which I can hardly call
   part of it, but yet it is indissolubly connected with it, namely, that
   of assimilation. What is received, in eating, descends into the inward
   parts and is there digested and taken up into the body. Even so, faith
   takes up and absorbs into the man the heavenly Bread, Christ Crucified.
   "The Word preached," we read in one place, "did not profit them, not
   being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Now, in the original,
   there is the idea of food taken into the body, but never getting mixed
   with the gastric juices and, consequently, remaining undigested,
   unassimilated, unprofitable and even injurious. Faith is to the soul
   what the gastric juices are to the body--as soon as Christ is received
   into the man, faith begins to act upon Him--to extract nutriment from
   His Person, work and offices. And so Christ becomes taken up into the
   understanding and the heart, builds up the entire system of manhood and
   becomes part and parcel of the renewed man.

   Just as bread, when it is eaten, becomes dissolved and absorbed and
   afterwards is turned into blood and flows through all the veins and
   goes to make up the body, even so is Christ the soul. He becomes our
   life and enters mysteriously into vital union with us. As the piece of
   bread which we ate yesterday could not, now, be taken away from us,
   because it is a part of ourselves, even so does Jesus become one with
   us. You ate the bread yesterday and whereabouts it is now no
   philosopher can tell. Part of it may have gone to form brain and other
   portions to make bone, sinew and muscle. But its substance is taken up
   into your substance, so that the bread dwells in you now and you in it,
   since it makes up your bodily house.

   This is to feed upon Jesus Christ--to take Him in so that your life is
   hid with Him, till you grow to be like He--till your very life is
   Christ and the great fact that Jesus lived and died becomes the
   mightiest Truth of God under Heaven to your mind--swaying your whole
   soul, subduing it to itself and then elevating it to the highest
   degree. "For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge
   that if One died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all,
   that they which live should not, from now on, live unto themselves, but
   unto Him which died for them, and rose again." Even as flowers drink in
   the sunlight till they are tinted with rainbow hues, so do we receive
   the Lord Jesus till we become comely with His comeliness and He lives,
   again, in us! This it is to eat His flesh and drink His blood.

   But now I will make a series of remarks, somewhat out of order, with
   the view of setting forth this mysterious eating and drinking in a
   clearer manner. Observe that Christ is as necessary to the soul as
   bread is to the body. Meat and drink are absolutely requisite--and so
   you must have Christ, or you cannot live in the true sense of that
   word. Take away food from the body, it must die--deny Christ to a man
   and he is dead while he lives! There is in us a natural desire after
   meat

   and drink, an appetite which springs out of our necessity and reminds
   us of it--we must labor to feel just such an appetite after Christ!
   Your wisdom lies in your knowing that you must have Jesus to be your
   personal Savior and in acknowledging that you will perish if you do not
   receive Him! And it is well with you when this knowledge makes you
   crave and pine and pant for Him. Hunger after Him! Thirst after Him!
   Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Him, for He will fill
   them.

   Meat and drink do really satisfy. When a man gets bread and water,
   having eaten enough, he has what his nature requires. The need is real
   and so is the supply. When you get Christ, your heart will obtain
   exactly what it needs. You do not, yourself, fully know what the needs
   of your soul are, but rest assured that known or unknown, your
   necessities will all be supplied in the Person of Jesus Christ. And if
   you accept Him, as surely as meat and drink stop hunger and thirst, so
   surely will He satisfy the cravings of your soul. Dream no longer of
   any satisfaction apart from Him and ask for nothing beyond or beside
   Him. Christ is All and more than all! He is meat and drink, too. Be
   content with Him and with nothing short of Him. Hunger after Him more
   and more, but never leave Him to spend your money for that which is not
   bread and your labor for that which satisfies not.

   Beloved, a hungry man never gets rid of his hunger by talking about
   feeding, but by actually eating. Therefore do not so much talk about
   Christ as actually receive Him. Look not on supplies of food and say,
   "Yes, these will satisfy me--oh, that I had them," but eat at once. The
   Lord beckons you to the banquet, not to look on, but to sit down and
   feast! Sit down at once! Ask not for a second invitation, but sit down
   and feed on what is freely presented to you in the Person of our Lord
   Jesus Christ. You need Him to be formed in you the hope of Heaven--but
   this can never be unless you receive Him into your inmost soul.

   In healthy eating there is a pleasure. No healthy person needs to be
   flogged to make him eat, for the palate is conscious of pleasure while
   we are feeding--and truly, in feeding upon Jesus there is a delicious
   sweetness pervading the whole soul. Right royal are His dainties!
   Nothing can more delight immortal banqueters than Jesus delights
   Believers! He satiates the soul. A thousand heavens are tasted in the
   Savior's body and blood. If ever you lose your relish for Christ, rest
   assured that you are out of health. There can be no surer sign of a sad
   state of heart than not to delight in the Lord Jesus Christ. But when
   He is very sweet to your taste. When even a word about Him, like a drop
   from the honeycomb, falls sweetly upon your tongue--then there is not
   much the matter with you--your heart is sound at the core. Even though
   you should feel faint, it is a faintness of Nature, and not a failure
   of Grace! And if you feel sick, if it is sickness after Him whom your
   soul loves, it is a disease which it were well to die of!

   Eating times as to our bodies come several tines a day--so take care
   that you partake of the flesh and blood of Jesus often and often. Do
   not be satisfied with yesterday's receiving of Jesus, but receive Him
   again today. Do not live upon old fellowships and experiences, but go
   to Jesus hourly and be not content till He fills you again and again
   with His love. I wish that we could become spiritually like certain
   animals that I know of which stand in the stall and eat all day long
   and half through the night, too. Here I would gladly possess the
   appetite of the horse-leech and never feel that I must pause! Happy is
   that Christian who can eat abundantly of heavenly meat, as the spouse
   bids him, and never cease eating while Christ is near, but feed on and
   on till far into the night--and then awake with the dawn to feed on the
   Bread of Heaven!

   It is well to have set tines for eating. People are not likely to
   flourish who pick up their food just as they can and have no regular
   meals. It is well to have settled times when you can sit down to the
   table and take your food properly. Assuredly, it is wise to have
   appointed periods for communing with Christ, for meditating upon Him,
   for considering His work and for receiving His Grace. You know with
   children it is, "little and often," and so with us, let it be line upon
   line, and precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. A bit
   between regular meals often comes very sweet to a laboring man and so,
   though you have special seasons for getting alone with Christ, do not
   deny yourself a snatch by the way. Get a wafer made with honey between
   meals, and lay it on your tongue to sweeten your mouth--a choice
   thought, a Scripture text, or a precious promise about Jesus.

   I am sure there is one thing I can say about this feeding upon Christ
   that never was a man guilty of gluttony in feeding upon Christ's flesh
   and blood. The more you eat of Christ, the more you will be able to eat
   of Him. We readily weary of any other food, but never of this heavenly
   bread! We are often in an ill condition in reference to our Lord
   because we

   have not had enough of Him, but we can never have too much. When we
   receive Him to the full, we still find that He enlarges our capacity
   and we are all the more able to enjoy His preciousness.

   Observe that the text tells us that the Believer is to eat His flesh
   and drink His blood, for observe that Christ is meat and drink, too, He
   is All in All, and All in One. A man must not only eat Christ, but he
   must drink Christ--that is to say, he must not receive Christ one way,
   only, but all ways, and not a part of Christ, but all of Christ--not
   merely Christ's flesh as Incarnate, but Christ's blood as the
   slaughtered Sacrifice and bleeding Lamb. You must have a whole Christ
   and not a divided Christ! You have not truly received Christ if you
   have only said I select this and that virtue in Him. You must open the
   door and let a full Christ come in to take possession of your soul.

   You must receive not merely His work, offices, Graces, but Himself, His
   whole self. Those receive no Grace at all who reject the blood of
   Christ, for that has special mention. Oh, what hard stings I have heard
   said, even of late, about those that preach the blood of Christ! Let
   them say on if they will, it is at their peril! But as for me, my
   Brothers and Sisters, I hope I shall deserve their censures more and
   more and preach the blood of Christ yet more abundantly, for there it
   nothing that can give satisfaction to the soul and quench that fierce,
   strong thirst which is aroused within our nature, but the blood of
   Jesus as of a Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world!

   Beloved, it is one sweet thought that the flesh and blood of Christ is
   food suitable for all conditions. This suits babes in Grace and is
   equally suitable for old men. This suits sick Christians--they cannot
   have a daintier morsel--and this suits Christians in the full vigor of
   their strength. This is meat for morning and meat for night and meat
   for midday! This is meat to live by and meat to die by--yes, he that
   eats it shall never see death! This is meat for feast days and this is
   meat for days when we mourn and sorrow. This is meat for the wilderness
   and meat for the royal gardens--meat, I was about to say, for Heaven
   itself--for what better food shall our souls find, even there, than His
   flesh and blood? And remember all the Lord's people are free to eat
   it--yes, and every soul that hungers for it is welcome! No one needs to
   ask whether he may have it. It is set forth to be food for all
   believing souls, whatever their previous character may have been. Come
   and welcome, come and welcome, hungering, thirsting souls! Come eat His
   flesh and drink His blood!

   Thus have I tried to set forth, in broken accents, what it is to eat
   His flesh and drink His blood. It is to take a whole Christ into you by
   trusting yourself entirely to Him as a man trusts his life to the bread
   he eats and the water he drinks. How do you know bread will feed you?
   How do you know water will sustain you? Well, you know by
   experience--you have tried them--you have found that bread and water
   are good for you. Why do you not take plaster of Paris? Why do you not
   drink vitriol? You know better!

   You know you can trust bread to build you up and water to refresh you
   and, even so, you do not take in priestcraft and false doctrines, but
   the blessed Person and work of Jesus Christ in His life and in His
   sacrificial death. You take these in, for you feel that you can feed
   upon them--these are the dainty provisions that your soul loves!

   II. Now let us briefly consider WHAT ARE THE VIRTUES OF THIS EATING AND
   DRINKING OF CHRIST. Turn, now, to your Bibles, and in the 53rd verse
   you find that this act is essential. "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
   except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you
   have no life in you." It is essential, for if you have no life in you,
   you have nothing that is good. "No life in you."

   You know the modern theory that there are germs of life in all men
   which only need developing. Universal Fatherhood spies some good in all
   of us and what he has to do is to educate it and bring it out. This is
   the philosophical notion, but it is not Christ's way of putting it! He
   says, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood,
   you have no life in you." No, not an atom of true life! There is no
   life to be educated. The sinner is dead and in him there is no good
   thing whatever. If ever there is to be any good thing it will have to
   come into him--it must be an importation-- and it can never come into
   him except in connection with his eating the flesh and drinking the
   blood of Christ!

   But suppose a man has many convictions of sin? He begins to see the
   evil of sin and he dreads the wrath to come. This is hopeful, but I
   solemnly remind any of you who are in this state, that unless you eat
   the flesh of the Son of Man you have no life. Until you have believed
   in Christ, you have no life. Until you have washed in His precious
   blood, you are still dead in sin. Oh, do not be satisfied because you
   feel some legal convictions! Do not sit down in thankfulness because
   you are somewhat disturbed in mind! You never must be satisfied until
   you have received Christ! You have NO LIFE in you till you have
   received Christ!

   But perhaps you have attended upon ceremonies. You may have been
   baptized and taken the sacrament. Yes, but if you have never eaten
   Christ, taken Him into you, you have no life in you! You are dead while
   you live! Now, here is a proof in our text that life does not mean,
   existence, as people now talk, who, when they read that, "the sinner
   dies," say that means that he goes out of existence. Ungodly men have
   an existence in them, but that is a very different thing, indeed, from
   eternal life--and you must never confuse existence with life or death,
   with non-existence--they are very many leagues apart from one another!

   The unconverted man, not having Christ, has no life in him at all. You
   members of the Church, have you life in you--real life? You have not if
   you have not eaten the flesh of Christ! You may have been many years,
   professors, but did you ever eat Christ and drink Christ? If not, you
   have NO life in you! You may be excellent moral people. Your characters
   may be patterns to others. There may be everything that is beautiful
   about you. But if Christ is not in your heart, you are the child of
   Nature, finely dressed, but dead. You are not the living child of
   Grace--you are the statue beautifully chiseled, but, like the cold
   marble, there is no life in you! Nothing but Christ can be life to the
   soul and the highest excellencies to which human nature can reach apart
   from Him fall short of salvation. You MUST have Jesus, or death abides
   in you and you abide in death!

   That is the first virtue of feeding upon Christ, it is absolutely
   essential. Now, secondly, it is vital. Read the next verse--"Whoever
   eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, has eternal life; and I will raise
   him up at the last day." That is to say, he has been quickened by
   receiving into himself a whole Christ--he is, therefore, alive! Though
   he may be, sometimes, led to doubt it by his state of heart, yet if he
   has really received Christ, he has been quickened from the dead and is
   alive! And what is more, he always shall be alive, for he "has eternal
   life." Now, a life that can possibly die out is evidently not eternal
   life and the life which the Arminian gets as the result of his faith,
   according to his own statement, is not eternal life because it may come
   to an end.

   Good soul, I know if he has really believed in Jesus, he will sweetly
   find out his mistake and his life will go on living under temptation
   and trial, for it shall be in him, "a well of water springing up unto
   everlasting life." It shall be, "a living and incorruptible seed which
   lives and abides forever." Oh, let us believe the precious doctrine of
   the Final Perseverance of the Saints! "He that eats My flesh and drinks
   My blood HAS eternal life." He has it now! It is a life that shall last
   as long as God, Himself--eternal as Jehovah's Throne!

   And then, as to the body, that will die, will it not? Yes, but such is
   the power of the life which Christ puts into us, that the body, itself,
   shall rise again! We have our Lord's pledge for it--"I will raise him
   up at the last day." As yet the body is dead because of sin, though the
   spirit is life because of righteousness--but there is a redemption
   coming for this poor frame--and for this material world in which we
   dwell. When Christ shall come, then the creation shall be delivered
   from the bondage under which it was placed and our material bodies,
   with the rest of creation, shall be emancipated! The bodies of the
   saints will be delivered from all imperfection, corruption and
   defilement! We shall live, again, in the glorious image of Christ and
   the Lord shall fulfill His gracious Word, "I am the resurrection and
   the life; he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he
   live." This eating and drinking of Christ, then, is vital.

   In the third place it is substantial, "for My flesh is meat, indeed,
   and My blood is drink, indeed." This is opposed to the unsubstantial
   character of symbols. The Jewish feasting was a mere shadow, "But,"
   says Jesus, "My flesh is meat, indeed." This is also said in
   contradistinction from carnal food. Carnal food, being eaten, only
   builds the body and then disappears, but it cannot touch the soul. But
   feeding upon Christ, the soul is fed and fed unto life eternal, so that
   Jesus claims to be, "meat indeed."

   Do you ever attend a ministry where the preacher preaches anything and
   everything but Christ? Do you get fed? Well, if you are of a windy
   sort, you may get blown up with the east wind as wild asses are when
   they snuff it up. But I know, if you are a child of God, it does not
   matter who preaches, or how poor his language--if he preaches Christ
   you always feel as if you were fed--your soul is satisfied with marrow
   and fatness when Christ is the subject! There is no such meat for the
   soul as Christ--and the sweetest refreshment is from the weakest parts
   of Christ--for God's strength is perfect in His weakness!

   You say to me "What do you mean?" Well, our Lord in the text says, "My
   flesh is meat, indeed," not, "my Godhead." "My blood is drink indeed,"
   not My Resurrection and Ascension. Not, "My Second Advent," but My
   weakness as a Man, My death as a Man, My sufferings, My griefs, My
   groans--these are the best food for Believers. Do you not find it

   so? O I rejoice to hear of Christ as coming a second time, but there
   are times when that doctrine does not yield me an atom of comfort! The
   brightest stars that charm the day for a poor benighted pilgrim are
   those which burn around the Cross! Strange that we should turn to that
   spot where sorrow culminated to find our purest comfort, but it is
   so--"My flesh is meat, indeed"--Christ in His weakness! "My blood is
   drink, indeed"--Christ pouring out His soul unto death! This is the
   truest and best food of the heart!

   Now, Brethren, if you want to grow in Grace, feed on Christ! If you
   would become strong in the Lord, feed on Christ! If you want a
   something that will build you up in all parts permanently and well,
   feed on Christ, for other things are meat and drink, but His flesh is
   meat, indeed, and His blood is drink, indeed! Substantial fare is this!
   And, lastly, another virtue of this feeding is that it produces union.
   Notice the next verse--"He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood,
   dwells in Me, and I in him." How wonderful is that word--"dwells in
   Me." You get, by taking Christ into you as a whole Christ, to live in
   Christ and Christ in you!

   There is this difference between the two privileges--to live in Christ
   is the peace of Justification. You believe in Him, you trust yourself
   with Him, you feel that you died with Him and that you rose with
   Him--that you have gone to Heaven with Him--and, therefore, you are
   accepted in Him and so you live in Him! For Him to live in you is
   another thing, namely, the peace of Sanctification, for when you have
   fed on Jesus, He enters into you and abides in you, living, again, in
   you. He speaks through your lips, loves with your heart, looks through
   your eyes, works with your hands and witnesses among the sons of men by
   your tongue--He lives in you! Oh, wondrous union! Blessed union!

   The next verse makes it more wonderful, still, for it says "As the
   living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats
   Me, even he shall live by Me." Three living things--the living Father,
   the living Son and, then, the living Believer. There is the Father with
   life in Himself as God. Then there is the Son as Mediator, God-Man,
   deriving life from the Father. And then the Believer, taking the life
   which came from God through Jesus Christ. O blessed union is this, not
   merely with Jesus, but through Jesus with the Father! So that Christ
   says, "I live, and because I live, you shall live also." He lives by
   the Father and we live by Him--and all this because we receive Him and
   feed upon Him!

   Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, I charge you, open your mouth wide after
   Christ and take Him into your very self! Give Him a lodging in your
   heart, yes, let Him dwell forever in the best pavilion of your nature,
   in the rarest place of your soul! Hunger after Him! Feed on Him
   everyday and when you have done so, and He dwells in you and you in
   Him, then tell others about Him and spread His dear name abroad, that
   hungry, perishing sinners may know that there is corn in Egypt and
   bread to be had in Jesus! And may many come and eat and drink of Him as
   you have done. I charge you, Brothers and Sisters, remember this, and
   the Lord bless you, for His name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 6:26-65. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--410, 819, 613.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Heart Full and the Mouth Closed

   (No. 1289)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And I will establish My Covenant with you; and you shall know that I
   am the Lord: That you may remember, and be ashamed, and never open your
   mouth anymore because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for
   all that you have done, said the Lord God." Ezekiel 16:62, 63.

   A VERY extraordinary chapter this 16th of Ezekiel! A minister could
   scarcely read it in public--he certainly would not like to explain its
   metaphors to a general audience, nor are we called upon to do so. To
   read it in private is another thing. And to have it read for you by the
   Holy Spirit and to be made to see and to feel its meaning, not merely
   as describing the Israelites, but as very much setting forth yourself,
   is a very different matter. Believe me, it is a lesson which, if it is
   well learned, will never be forgotten. It is a part of the Holy
   Spirit's business to convict us of sin and when He takes a chapter like
   this and puts us through our paces, verse by verse, and makes us eat
   the bitter herbs which each verse con-tains--and as He makes us feel as
   if we were drinking the water into which the dust of our idols had been
   cast when they had been broken and ground down, like the golden calf of
   the Israelites--when He makes us feel the grit between our teeth in
   every drop we drink, I say it is a lesson well worth receiving and one
   that is likely to stick by us all our days.

   There are two very amazing things in this chapter. Which is the more
   amazing is hard to tell. The first is the extraordinary sin of Israel.
   God speaks of it in the strongest imaginable language. He represents
   Judah's sin as being greater than the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah,
   though both Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed for their
   abominations. He compares Judah's backslidings to the lewdness of a
   woman who forgets her marriage vows and sins blatantly with many
   lovers, adding filthiness to filthiness. And so He makes sin to appeal
   exceedingly sinful, as a violation of the heart's love to God and the
   soul's chastity towards the Most High. A very dreadful thing is sin as
   set forth in this chapter!

   The other amazing thing is God's Grace--how, when He began with Israel,
   He found her like an infant cast out in her blood, naked and unwashed.
   And He took her up in all her filthiness and said to her, "Live," and
   washed, cleansed and clothed her. He hung her ears with jewels and when
   she grew to riper years she turned aside from Him--turned His mercies
   into occasions of provocation and made His blessings to be instruments
   of sin. He describes Himself as pardoning her again and again and yet
   she continued to invent new sins, looking down, all the while, upon her
   sisters Sodom and Gomorrah and reckoning herself very superior to them.
   And yet she was behaving worse then they and going deeper and deeper
   into rebellion against the Lord.

   Yet His mercy follows her. His love still pursues her and He makes the
   chapter to culminate in mercy with such words as these--"Nevertheless I
   will remember My Covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I
   will establish unto you an everlasting Covenant. And I will establish
   My Covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the Lord: that you
   may remember, and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because
   of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have
   done, said the Lord God." Two words, if you can learn them, will teach
   you the deepest practical wisdom--sin and Grace. No one ever measured
   either of them--except One, and He, when He measured them, was in a
   bloody sweat and poured out His soul unto death.

   George Herbert quaintly sings--

   "Philosophers have measured mountains, Fathomed the depths of seas, of
   states, and kings. Walked with a staff to Hea ven, and traced
   fountains, But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to
   measure it does more behoove: Yet few there are that sound them---- Sin
   and Love."

   Only our suffering Lover, the Lord Jesus Christ, knows the two to their
   perfection. May we be helped to enter a little further into the double
   secret while we commune together. The first exercise to which I shall
   invite you is this--let us think of the condition into which the Grace
   of God has brought all Believers. God is pacified towards them. "When I
   am pacified toward you for all that you have done, said the Lord God."
   Then, secondly, let us think of the knowledge which has been imparted
   thus to all Believers--they know the Covenant, they know the Lord and
   they know themselves. And they are made to remember and to be ashamed.
   Finally, in the third and principal place, let us dwell upon the
   silence which, from now on and forever is induced in all Believers.
   "You shall never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I
   am pacified toward you for all that you have done."

   I. So, then, first of all, let us review THE BLESSED CONDITION INTO
   WHICH EVERY BELIEVER IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HAS BEEN BROUGHT BY THE
   SOVEREIGN ACT OF GOD'S MERCY. He has been brought into such a condition
   that God can say to him, "I am pacified toward you for all that you
   have done." The Hebrew word which here sets forth forgiveness and
   pardon properly signifies to cover a thing with that which adheres and
   sticks to the thing covered--not with dry dust or leaves, which could
   be easily removed--but with glue or pitch, so that the thing hidden
   cannot easily be brought to sight again.

   The same word is used concerning Noah's ark. "You shall pitch it, or
   cover it, within and without with pitch." All the planks were to be
   covered with the pitch--not with a filmy paint that might barely color
   them, but with a thick pitch--a sticky substance which would adhere to
   the substance of the wood and penetrate it and cover it altogether.
   When God forgives our sin, He covers us as completely as the wood of
   the ark was covered within and without with pitch. Our sin is covered
   and hidden right away from His observation. Child of God, I beg you to
   think of this for a moment! God is pacified towards you because your
   sin is covered--all of it--yes, it is all gone.

   As far as God is concerned, your sin has ceased to be. He laid it on
   Jesus Christ, your Substitute, and He took it and bore the penalty for
   it--no the thing, itself, He, as your scapegoat, carried your sin right
   away and it is lost in the wilderness of forgetfulness. Into the depths
   of the sea He has cast your iniquities. In His own tomb He has buried
   your offenses. What said the Scripture? "He has finished transgression
   and made an end of sin." Grand work! Made an end of it. And if there is
   an end of it, why there is an end of it and it has gone! This day, O
   believing child of God, there is fulfilled towards you that gracious
   word--"In those days, and in that time, said the Lord, the iniquity of
   Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of
   Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I
   reserve."

   Through faith in Jesus, your transgressions are all removed as far from
   you as the east is from the west. The depths have covered your
   sins--there is not one of them left. The Lord is pacified for all that
   we have done so that no ground of quarrel remains. O Believer, God is
   pacified towards you, for your sin is covered! It is put away, all of
   it and altogether! Since you have believed in Jesus Christ, your sin
   has not become dimly visible--neither by searching may it be seen as a
   shadow in the distance, but God sees it no more, forever! He has not
   merely taken away some of its results, some of the fiercer judgments
   that might have broken forth had not Christ intervened, but He has
   utterly removed all the penal consequences of it.

   The sin is covered in the most emphatic sense. God has turned away all
   the fierceness of His anger and you may say, "O God, I will praise You,
   for though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You
   comfort me." The many, the countless hosts of sin that you have
   committed since your childhood are all scattered as a cloud and the one
   black sin, which cost you more regret than many scores of others, has
   been removed as a thick cloud! The one repeated sin which grew into a
   habit which seemed as though it mastered you completely and brought you
   into utter bondage--it, too, has died into the tomb of the great
   Substitute. They are all gone--no enemy remains. In the sepulcher of
   Christ they are buried never to rise. Not one of these dead things
   shall live, for the efficacy of the death which slew them is eternal!

   They cannot rise against you from the grave. No, not one of them, while
   sun and moon endure--no, while God endures, for He said it--"They shall
   not be mentioned against you anymore, forever." "Who can lay anything
   to the charge of God's elect?" It is divinely sweet to think of this!
   God is pacified towards His people for all that they have done,
   altogether pacified, for their sins have ceased to be! And this is not
   occasionally true, but always true--not only so in happier moments,
   when we enjoy a sense of it, but always, whether we have a sense of it
   or not!

   The standing of a Believer does not depend upon his recognition of his
   standing. There are times when, if he could have all the world for it,
   he could not read his title clear--no, he could not spell the capital
   letters of that title. There are

   times when he sees his sin, but cannot see his pardon--yet he is
   pardoned for all that--pardoned while self-condemned! The Israelites,
   when they were inside their houses, could not see the blood sprinkled
   on their doorposts. How could they? By what strange process would they
   be able to see the blood outside the door while they sat within at the
   table? No, and it was not their seeing the blood that saved them, for
   if you turn to the Book of Exodus you find the Lord saying, "When I see
   the blood I will pass over you."

   God always saw the blood--that was the main point in the matter and,
   therefore, it was sprinkled where the destroying angel could see it as
   he flew upon his errand of wrath. Glory be to God, when I cannot see
   the blood of Christ, myself, my God can see it! If I have ever looked,
   by an act of faith, to the Lord Jesus, I am saved! If I am resting in
   Him, I am forgiven. And when my eye of faith is dim and my sense of
   rest in Christ is overloaded with a yet deeper sense of my own
   unworthiness, my standing is still not altered, my security is not
   affected, the pacifying of the Lord towards me is not changed one jot
   or tittle. At all times, in the dark as well as in the light, when I am
   downcast as well as lifted up, the Lord is pacified towards His people.

   I would to God that the Lord's people grasped this more fully and lived
   in the power of it more completely! May God grant we may! O my Soul,
   sinful and unworthy though you are, there is a peace established
   between you and your God which never will be broken--a league which
   never will be violated! God has thoughts of peace towards you. Does not
   the word so mean? When I am pacified-- "when I am peace-ified"--"when I
   have made peace towards you." God thinks of nothing but peace towards
   His children. "Peace, peace," He said. He is the God of peace, the
   fruit of His Spirit is peace. The very name of His Son is peace! The
   Heaven to which He is bringing us is everlasting peace and even now the
   peace of God which passes all understanding keeps our hearts and minds
   through Jesus Christ!

   The Believer goes forth with joy and is led forth with peace. His
   heart, his mind, his conscience are filled with peace towards God.
   There is peace, there is nothing but peace, between my soul and God!
   Oh, what a joyous thought this is! Grasp it, Christian, and let your
   spirit exult in it! And all this, remember, is written in our text
   concerning a people who had plunged into wondrous sins! I have already
   remarked that I could not explain all that God has said about Israel in
   this chapter--it would be improper. Nor do I think any man ought to try
   to tell another all the evil which he has seen in himself. Sometimes we
   tell to our fellow Christians about our own sense of unworthiness, but
   you are not always speaking to edification.

   It has happened to me, sometimes, that the Brother to whom I have
   spoken of myself has not believed a word I have said. He has looked me
   in the face and he has said, "You are not well, I fear. I am sorry to
   see you so low in spirits." Indeed, I only spoke the truth and did not
   tell him one-half of the unworthiness I felt. But he did not know the
   wormwood and the gall, nor ought I to have wished to make him drink of
   my cup. That same Brother, perhaps, has come to me with his story of
   his own failures and transgressions and sins--and then it has been my
   turn to wonder. I have looked at him and I have said--"Bless you! I
   wish I were half as good as you are and half as faithful in my Master's
   service." Every man must bear his own burden. My friend does not know
   my humiliation before God, neither do I see any unworthiness in my
   friend compared with to what he sees and feels.

   We need not tell our neighbors all that we feel about ourselves anymore
   than this chapter can ever be explained to every carnal ear. But oh,
   Brothers and Sisters, no man living has ever exaggerated his own sin or
   thought too meanly of himself! There does not live beneath Heaven any
   man whose sense of sin is as deep as the sin really is! I find, when I
   am talking with enquirers, and they are overburdened with a sense of
   sin, that the only thing to say to them is, "It is all true, every bit
   you are saying." "Oh, but," they say, "you do not know." "No," I say,
   "nor yet do you. You are 10 times worse than you think you are." "Oh
   Sir, but I feel myself to be utterly lost." "Yes, and so you are. You
   are only feeling the truth." "But I feel as if I were driven to
   despair." "And so you ought to be, for if you are looking to yourself,
   there is nothing but despair for you."

   Do not interrupt the young convert when he begins to say that he is
   distressed by a sense of sin. And if he describes sin in dreadful
   terms, let him go on to do so, for the more he abhors sin, the better.
   The trembling penitent is near the truth, for his sin is, indeed, great
   and terrible. If you make him out to be a little sinner, you will next
   offer him a little Savior, a little Christ and a little Gospel. No, let
   him go on with that sense of sin. I would even pray God to make him
   feel it more and more! Meanwhile it is your privilege to present to him
   an infinite Atonement and a God willing and able

   to forgive. Tell him that God sent not His Son into the world to save
   the righteous, or to call those to repentance who have no sin to be
   repented of.

   Tell him that the whole scheme of redemption is so magnificent because
   it deals with an infinite evil and it is made to a grand scale because
   the mischief it has to deal with is hideous beyond all conception. If a
   man feels sin to be unutterably horrible, so much the better. Do not
   try to get low thoughts of sin, but be humbled in the dust, for then
   Christ is glorified. The greatness of the sin reveals the greatness of
   the redeeming sacrifice and the direful nature of the disease declares
   the Divinity of that Physician's skill who is able to put it all away.
   Child of God, return with grateful restfulness to the memory of your
   complete deliverance from the wrath of God due to sin! God is pacified
   towards you concerning all your sin thus described in all its
   heinousness, hideousness and horror. Whatever conception of it you have
   now obtained, and it may be a very, very alarming one, yet in all its
   terribleness God is pacified towards you concerning your sin! Although
   your conception may fall far short of the truth, yet, as far as that
   whole truth about sin is concerned, God is pacified towards you in the
   Person of His dear Son.

   I wonder what God's thought of sin is. He has thrown some little light
   upon it in this chapter, but when He hung up His dear Son upon the
   tree, then He declared sin to be a monster, indeed! When God, Himself,
   bore the pangs of death that He might save His creatures from sin. When
   all the waves and billows of sin's stormy deep rolled over the
   Incarnate God and when He said, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken
   Me?" what must His thoughts have been concerning sin! But God never
   thought worse of sin than it is. He only thought the truth and it is as
   sin is in its truth--and as Jesus felt it in its truth when He bore it
   on the tree--it is as in that true idea of sin that He has put it all
   away and He is pacified towards us today.

   Come, dear children, come into your Father's bosom, He is pacified
   towards you. Come back, you wanderers, come home, you troubled ones!
   The great and glorious God, who is exceedingly angry at sin, whose
   whole Nature boils like a cauldron against everything that is evil--is
   nevertheless pacified, completely pacified--even towards the ungodly
   and the guilty, through Jesus Christ our Lord! And when you come
   believing in Him who died for the ungodly and resting in Him who was a
   Sacrifice for sinners, you shall feel that He is pacified towards you
   and all is well. There is our blessed standing--God help us to rejoice
   in it!

   II. We pass on, secondly, to notice WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED IN THE PROCESS
   OF REACHING THIS

   PEACEFUL STANDING. We have learned three things. I do not say that all
   Christians have clearly discovered them, I wish they had. But I do know
   some Christians who have learned these very points thoroughly. First we
   have learned salvation by a Covenant. "I will establish My Covenant
   with you." He who knows how to pronounce the word, "covenant," is on
   the road towards being a thorough theologian! Salvation by Covenant!
   The thought is charming, for we were lost by a Covenant.

   Father Adam stood for us and represented us in the old Covenant of
   Works. If Adam will keep that Covenant, he and all his children shall
   be blest. Alas, our foundation was too frail! Our first parent was not
   able to bear the responsibility of the Covenant and, therefore, he
   fell--and we all fell in him to our fatal cost. Some have inquired,
   "Was this just?" Do not raise that question, because that is the
   loophole of your hope! The devils, when they fell, fell each one for
   himself, and so they could never rise again! But we fell by another in
   a Covenant made with Another. Here, then, was the way to restore us
   again!

   As we sinned representatively it was possible for us to satisfy the Law
   by a Representative! Here was the opening for the way of salvation! By
   a second Covenant Head, man may be redeemed, and therefore Jesus Christ
   comes, the second Adam, and God makes a Covenant with Him, which
   Covenant runs thus--"If He will bear the penalty of sin--if He will
   keep the Law, then all that are in Him shall be delivered from every
   sin! And the righteousness of the second Adam shall be imputed to them
   and they shall be loved and blessed as if they were righteous." Oh,
   matchless mystery of love! Have you ever learned this?

   Some of you young people who have lately been converted, have you ever
   learned the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace? Have you seen what it is
   to be in Christ and accepted in Christ because the Lord has made Him to
   be a Covenant for His people--a Leader and Commander to His people? And
   have you nestled down beneath our Lord's perfect Atonement and His
   perfect Righteousness, and said, "These are mine, for He is my Adam and
   I am in Him. And God saves me now, not because of what I did or am, but
   because of what my Covenant Surety was and is. I am saved through Him.
   My

   standing is in Him"? He who understands this Covenant has learned
   something very full of consolation, for he knows that it is a Covenant
   which he cannot break, for it was not made with him, personally, but
   made for him in his great Substitute and Surety, Christ Jesus.

   Christ has not broken the Covenant and only He could do so. He kept it
   and, therefore, the promise is sure to all His people. And it is a
   Covenant "ordered in all things, and sure"--a Covenant from which God
   will never turn aside. "My Covenant I will not break," He said, "nor
   alter the Word that has gone out of My lips." HE has sworn by Himself,
   because He could swear by no greater--by two immutable things wherein
   it is impossible for God to lie, that He might give strong consolation
   to the heirs of the promise. Certain Brethren tremble when they hear us
   thus discourse upon the Believer's privilege and security, but we
   cannot help that. Isaac lives at home and rejoices in his birthright
   and if Ishmael and his mother love slavery better, they must have it.

   Nevertheless, what said the Scripture? "Cast out the bondwoman and her
   son, for the son of the bondsman shall not be heir with my son, even
   with Isaac." As for those who are the children of the promise and
   inherit through the promise, their name is Laughter, as the name of
   Isaac was. And they shall rejoice, for they are the true heirs--neither
   shall they ever be driven out, for in Isaac was the seed to be called
   forever. So said the Lord, and so shall it stand. It is a blessed thing
   to learn the Covenant of Grace!

   The next thing we have learned while reaching our happy condition of
   peace with God is the lesson that Jehovah is, indeed, God. Read those
   solemn words, "You shall know that I am the Lord." To be saved in a way
   that makes us know that God is God is to be taught aright. I believe
   that this is one of the lessons least known throughout the Church and
   in the world it is not known at all. That God is God is easy to say but
   hard to know. I learned it when the Lord brought me to Himself and I
   have been learning it more and more in many ways as He has taught me
   and brought me to bow before Him. I have learned His justice and if
   ever I hear men talking about the injustice of everlasting punishment
   for sin, I have found no echo in my conscience to that observation
   because, if I could be lifted up into God's place, I feel that the very
   first thing I should have to do would be to eternally condemn such a
   guilty thing as I myself have been and am.

   As I have judged my own soul, I have had to pronounce over it that very
   sentence which God pronounces over all the ungodly--"Depart from Me,
   you workers of iniquity." I have had to say, "Amen," in my soul to all
   the Divine denunciations of evil. I have thus, in my conscience,
   learned that He is a just God, and thus has one of the great attributes
   of Deity been known to me. I have also been made to learn His
   sovereignty. I remember the time when I thought that if God saved
   everybody in the world but me I could not blame Him. I have to come to
   His feet and feel, "I have no rights, and make no claims."

   Shaking my hands free of anything like an appeal to what I am as His
   creature, or as His servant, I have felt that I have forfeited all the
   rights of creatureship by my sin and I have put myself absolutely at
   His disposal, beseeching Him to reveal His undeserved favor to me. My
   ears have even been tutored to find music in that awful declaration, "I
   will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
   on whom I will have compassion." But, oh, this doctrine does not seem
   to be known by a large number of people! They will not come to it--they
   cannot bite the dust nor bow so low as that. "Man is a noble creature
   and his rights must be considered." "God must deal alike by all."

   Many are these proud and arrogant boasts, which, to my soul, read like
   blasphemy! And yet men calling themselves Christian ministers give
   utterance to them! This I know, that He is God and does as He pleases
   with His Grace. He taught me this before He stretched out the silver
   scepter and said, "I am pacified towards you." And oh, how we have to
   learn His power. The power of God is seen by the natural eye, in some
   measure, in storms and tempests, but, believe me, it is never seen with
   the inner eye by any man so well as when the Lord overcomes his sin! He
   has seen his sin and he has felt no more able to grapple with it than
   the sear leaf with the hurricane--and yet the Lord has suddenly stopped
   the fury of that sin and delivered the man, so that he has said--"Now I
   know that You are God, for who but God could have done this for me? Who
   but Yourself could have chained my imperious passions and broken the
   iron yoke from off my neck?" Then has the man felt the Omnipotence of
   Jehovah!

   Above all we learn that precious word, "God is Love," but there is no
   understanding it until you are actually broken down under a sense of
   sin and are led to see that your sin deserves the hottest Hell. Then,
   when you hear the Lord say, "But, nevertheless, for My own sake have I
   forgiven you, and through Jesus Christ My Son have I put all this sin
   of yours away: it shall never be mentioned against you anymore,
   forever"--then the eyes look up and says "Love! I have heard of

   You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You!" Such love!
   Such matchless love! Such amazing love! One cannot talk about it
   without longing to get away to some secret place to pour out your soul
   before God with tears instead of words, to think that He should forgive
   so freely, so richly and so completely forgive!

   If you would know the Godhead, you must behold it in the Person of
   Jesus Christ while you look up to Him and see Him through your tears.
   In Him you see yourself crucified as a rebel and a traitor, deserving
   nothing but wrath. And then in Him you see God over all exalted,
   dispensing mercy, not because of man's merit, or even because of man's
   prayers or tears, or anything like goodness in man--but simply because
   He wills to do it--to display the majesty of His stupendous Grace in
   passing by transgression, iniquity and sin.

   The third lesson which is connected with our deliverance is this, "That
   you may remember and be ashamed." We have learned ourselves. To
   remember and to be ashamed--that is not comfortable. Who likes to
   remember and be ashamed? Some of you good people can remember your
   whole lives, but you do not feel at all ashamed. Why should you? With
   so much of your own excellence to glory in, why should you be ashamed?
   But, remember, if the Lord is ever pacified towards you, you will
   remember and you will be ashamed--so that no good can come from the
   self-contentment which you are so loath to lose. You will be ashamed if
   ever you are pardoned. You will be ashamed at being unable to discover
   any excuse for your sin.

   Once you could have found 20 excuses and had your choice of them. But
   now that the Lord has forgiven you, you cannot find one. And as you
   turn them all up--those old excuses of yours--those fig leaves of yours
   with which you once hoped to cover your nakedness, you despise them and
   think you never saw such flimsy things! You are doubly ashamed to think
   that you ever invented such excuses--ashamed to think that you could
   have been such a fool as to dream that there was any reason in your
   excuses--that what made sin worse should have seemed to you at any time
   to make it better! You are ashamed, now, to think how it was that you
   lived all those years in sin and unbelief.

   I was utterly amazed to think that I had not believed in Jesus Christ
   long before. Was that all--to trust in Christ? Why, I had been going
   all round the world to do something and feel something, and be
   something--and there it was--I was to be nothing! Christ was to be
   everything and I was to be thus saved! I was just to take salvation
   freely as a gift to me. I was ashamed. I could not invent an excuse for
   having remained in unbelief, though until the Lord was pacified with me
   I stubbornly said, "You know I cannot believe." I had hosts of excuses,
   while I was unforgiven, but they were all gone when Mercy forgave me.

   Have you ever tried to put two things straight before your eyes--your
   own life and God's Character--you before God and God before you? Have
   you not felt that you could not look at them both, for you were ashamed
   and could not comprehend them? You used to say, "Oh, that sin was the
   result of my upbringing, that was the product of bad example." Or you
   passed it off by saying, "Ah, I made a mistake that time." Now that you
   are saved your conduct seems to you to have been all mistakes, all
   blunders, all mischiefs, all bad, all horrible! You are ashamed, do not
   know what to say, you cannot defend yourself. Oh, what a blessed thing
   it is when a man is so ashamed that he cannot speak for himself
   anymore, but leaves Jesus Christ to speak for him--when he is so
   ashamed that all he can do is to sit still and admire, and wonder, and
   adore, and love, and bless, and praise, and magnify God for such
   unexpected mercy!--

   "Why was I made to hear Your voice, And enter where there's room, While
   thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"

   Why, did You love me? Why did You bear with me so long? Why was I
   gently led to yield myself to Your sway? Why were my eyes opened? Why
   was I not left to willful blindness as others were? I thought once I
   could have explained it, but now I cannot, for it is past finding out.
   "O God, I am ashamed. Your very love confuses me as much as my sin
   does. I am in a maze, I am perplexed, I am astounded!" Thus is the Word
   fulfilled. "You shall remember and be ashamed." My Brothers and
   Sisters, I hope the Lord, when He brought you to know Himself, taught
   you these three things--your standing in the Covenant, His own Glory as
   the God of that Covenant and your own less-than-nothingness as He
   utterly perplexes and astounds you, both with your guilt and with His
   mercy.

   III. The last thing is this--THE SILENCE WHICH IS FOREVER INDUCED. "You
   shall never open your mouth anymore because of your shame." It takes a
   great deal to fill a man's mouth and almost as much to shut it. Some
   men's mouths never will be filled till the sexton gives them a spade
   full of dirt, for their greed is insatiable and half the world

   would not be enough for them. Some men's mouths never will be stopped
   except by the coffin lid. Their motto is, "While I live I'll crow." And
   so they will, for boasting is bred in their bones and it will come out
   of them. Though they have nothing to boast of, yet as long as they
   breathe, they will brag.

   But when God saves a man, He takes means to end his self-exaltation
   most effectually, so that he will never open his mouth anymore in his
   own praise. He stops him from all boasting about what he is and what he
   has been and what he thinks he shall be. If you find any man talking
   about how excellently he has lived and what a commendable person he has
   been, you may be sure that God has never been pacified towards him!
   When a man cries, "But is not our morality something? Is there not a
   great deal to be said in favor of those who are sober and
   righteous?"--you may know that God has never been pacified towards that
   man, for if it were so, he would never open his mouth anymore about his
   morality.

   He would be as ashamed of his morality as other men are of their
   outward sins, for he would see it to be a poor imperfect thing at best.
   Our morality is a very pretty thing when people look at it who are in
   the blindness of Nature. But when we bring our morality under the
   microscope and look at it as God looks at it, what a horribly immoral
   thing this so-called morality is! You begin to look below the surface
   and you discover that a certain man refrained from outward sin, not
   because he would not have delighted to do wrong, but because he was a
   little too shrewd and did not want to injure his own interests. He was
   not such a fool as to fall into vulgar sin, that is to say, his
   selfishness saved him.

   Sometimes the man who did actually transgress had more generous
   impulses than the other who did not sin, because his sneaking
   selfishness kept him within the lines of outward consistency. When you
   come to look at very much of morality, it will not bear inspection. It
   is a very pretty thing, like the moss and the fungus growing out of
   putridity--a very pretty thing until you understand where it came from!
   If any man who believes himself to have been moral and sinless will
   only begin to look at the reasons why he has been so innocent, and
   search himself, he will often discover that inside all that purity of
   his there has been a mass of pride, self-conceit, self-seeking,
   indifference to God and every detestable thing imaginable! When the
   Lord shows a man all this and casts him down into the ditch till he
   abhors himself--and then cleanses him in the precious blood till He is
   pacified towards him--he will never open his mouth about that matter
   anymore!

   Neither will a man who has been cleansed in this way open his mouth
   anymore against Divine Sovereignty. It seems to some minds to be a very
   fine thing to talk about the rights of moral agents and rail at all
   idea of the Lord exercising the prerogatives of Kingship. They love to
   go to the verge of blasphemy to show that they are not so foolish as to
   be Cal-vinistic. When the spiritual dandy hears the Biblical doctrine
   that he has sinned against God and that if he is to be saved it must be
   all of Grace, he is too fine a fellow to believe the Truth of God! He
   does not want to enter Heaven like a criminal, or to receive pardon
   like a convict! He inclines to a more genteel Gospel.

   Now, if the Lord is pacified towards that man, you will never hear
   another word of that sort from him. "Oh, no," he will say, "let the
   Lord live forever and let Him be King." He is the man above all others
   who loves to hear of God as absolute! He knows how gracious, how
   strong, how truly good He is. He has heard the language of Paul ringing
   in his heart as well as in his ears--"No, but O, man, who are you that
   replies against God?" And he has answered, "I dare not reply, for I am
   less than nothing! And I would not reply if I could, for I love God and
   I bless His name." One of the sweetest notes that ever falls upon that
   man's ears is--"The Lord reigns." He loves to think that Jehovah reigns
   and if it were in his power to restrict His reign and abridge His
   absolute authority, he would not do so. He wishes Him to be King
   forever and sit as Lord upon the floods, world without end! In that
   matter, then, the man's mouth it shut forever.

   So, also, dear Friends, this way of salvation shuts a man's mouth as to
   all murmuring and complaining against God upon any score whatever, for,
   says he, "If the Lord has pardoned me, let Him do what He wills with
   me." Our proud flesh exalts itself against the will of the Lord and
   says, "It is hard that you should always be poor when you would have
   done so much good with money. It is hard that you should be so often
   ill while you are so useful. It is hard that you should have so little
   talent, when God knows that if you had great abilities you would have
   been so zealous and led the van in the Church of Christ, for you love
   Him so much."

   Ah, dear Friends, but when Grace forgives us we never talk so! We say,
   "No, my Lord, I am so unworthy that if You favor me to be a doorkeeper
   in Your house I will be grateful for it. If I am permitted, at the
   last, to get inside the gates of Heaven to sit among Your children, as
   the meanest of them, I shall be forever grateful to Your mighty love
   and bless Your gracious name. I have no quarrels to pick with You. I
   have no demands to make of You. 'Not as I will, but as You

   will.' If I can glorify You on a bed of sickness, I will lie there and
   cough to Your Glory! If I can glorify You in a mud cottage, I will
   dwell there and starve on a few pence a week to Your Glory! If I can
   honor You in rags, or in the poorhouse, so let it be. Yes, if in death
   it will honor You for me to have a pauper's funeral or none at all, so
   let it be. I belong to You from this day forth. I am such a sinner, so
   forgiven and so indebted to Almighty Grace that I can never open my
   mouth anymore to find fault, for You have dealt so kindly and so
   lovingly with me."

   May that spirit rest upon you, beloved Friends. Now, I wish I could
   hope that all of you had tasted of the Grace and love of God as some of
   us have done. But I dare not flatter you. I fear that many of you are
   utter strangers to this matter. It ought to encourage everyone here who
   has not found peace with God, to hear us tell of what we feel of our
   own sinful-ness, because, Sinner, where one sinner gets through, there
   is room for another! If there is a prison door and that door is broken
   down and one gets out, another man who is in the same prison may safely
   say, "Why should I not escape, too?"

   Supposing we were all beasts in Noah's ark and we could not get down
   from the ark to the ground except by going down that slanting ramp
   which most of the painters have sketched when they have tried to depict
   the scene. Well, we must go down that ramp. Are you afraid? Are you,
   sheep and hares, afraid that the ramp will not bear you up? Listen,
   then! I am an elephant and I have come down out of the ark over that
   ramp and, therefore, it is sure that all of you who are smaller than I
   am can come down, too. There is strength enough to bear up the hare and
   the coney, the ox and the sheep, for it carried the elephant! The way
   down has been trod by that heavy, lumping creature--it will do for you,
   whoever you may be.

   Ever since the Lord Jesus Christ saved me, I made up my mind to one
   thing, namely, that I should never meet another person who was harder
   to save than I. Somebody said to me, once, when I was a child, when it
   was very dark and I was afraid to go out, "What are you afraid of? You
   won't meet anything uglier than yourself." Surely as to my spiritual
   condition that is true! I never did meet anything uglier than myself
   and I never shall. And if there is a great, big, black, ugly sinner
   here, I say, Sinner, you are not uglier than I was by nature, and yet
   the Lord Jesus Christ loved me! Why should He not love you, too? I tell
   you, that though Jesus Christ is Omniscient, and it is saying a great
   thing to say what He could not see, yet I do venture to say that Jesus
   Christ could not see anything in me to love.

   What if He cannot see anything good in you? Then we are on a par and
   yet I know He loves me, why not you? That He loves me I know. Bless His
   name, I know He loves me and I love Him, too. If He loved me when there
   was nothing in me to love, why should He not love you when there is
   nothing in you to love? Oh, turn that ugly face towards the lovely
   Savior and trust Him! I put it in a pleasant way and you smile, but I
   want to get it into your hearts. I want some poor, trembling sinner to
   say, "I shall remember that. I do think myself an ugly sinner, but I
   will come to Christ and trust

   Him."

   If you do, you will never regret it, but you will bless God forever and
   ever, and so shall I! And when we get to Heaven we will talk about it
   and we will say, "Here we are, a pair of huge, horrible sinners. We
   came to Jesus Christ and He took us in and, blessed be His name, we
   will praise Him as long as ever we live." That we will, I guarantee
   you! Do you not feel sure of it? God bless you, for Christ's sake.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 51. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--51,546.
     __________________________________________________________________

Godly Fear and Its Goodly Consequence

   (No. 1290)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence and His children shall ha
   ve a place of refuge." Proverbs 14:26.

   IN the Book of Proverbs you meet with sentences of brief wisdom, which,
   to all appearances, belong entirely to this world and pertain to the
   economy of the life that now is. I do not know whether it is true, but
   it was said that years ago our friends in Scotland had a little book
   widely circulated and read by all their children which consisted of the
   Proverbs of Solomon. They say that it was the means of making the
   Scots, as a generation, more canny, shrewd and wiser in business than
   any other people. If it is so, I should suggest that such a book be
   scattered throughout England as well and, indeed, anywhere and
   everywhere!

   The book might have been written, at least some parts of it, by
   Franklin or Poor Richard, for it contains aphorisms and maxims of
   worldly wisdom, compact but profound, sometimes poetic, but always
   practical. Has it never surprised you that there should be such
   sentences as these in the Book of Inspiration--secular proverbs, for so
   they are--secular proverbs intermixed with spiritual proverbs--the
   secular and the spiritual all put together without any division or
   classification? You might have expected to find one chapter dedicated
   to worldly business and another chapter devoted to golden rules
   concerning the spiritual life!

   But it is not so. They occur without any apparent order, or, at any
   rate, without any order of marked division between the secular and the
   spiritual--and I am very glad of it. The more I read the Book of
   Proverbs, the more thankful I am that there is no such division,
   because the hard and fast line by which men of the world and, I fear,
   some Christians, have divided the secular from the spiritual, is
   fraught with innumerable injuries. Religion, my dear Friends, is not a
   thing for Churches and Chapels alone. It is equally meant for
   countinghouses and workshops, for kitchens and drawing rooms.

   The true Christian is not only to be seen in the singing of hymns and
   the offering of prayers, but he is to be distinguished by the honesty
   integrity, the courage and the faithfulness of his ordinary character.
   In the streets and in the marketplaces, or wherever else the Providence
   of God may call him, he witnesses the good confession. It is easy to
   secularize religion in a wrong sense. There are many, I doubt not, that
   desecrate the pulpit to worldly ends. How can it be otherwise, if
   "livings" are to be bought and sold? I cannot doubt that the sacred
   desk has been a place simply for earning money, or for gathering
   fame--and that sacred oratory has been as mean in the sight of God as
   the common language of the streets.

   I do not doubt that many people have put religion as a show-card into
   their business and have tried to make money by it. Like Mr. By-Ends,
   they thought that if, by being religious, they could get a good
   smile--if, by being religious they could be introduced into respectable
   society--if, by being religious they would bring some excellent
   religious customers to their shop and if, indeed, by being religious
   they could get themselves to be esteemed, it would be a very proper
   thing to do! Now, this is making religion into irreligion! This is
   turning Christianity into selfishness! This is the Judas spirit of
   putting Christ up for pieces of silver and making as good a bargain as
   you can out of Him--and this will lead to damnation and nothing short
   of it--in the case of anybody who deliberately attempts it.

   Woe to that man! He is a son of perdition. Better for him he had never
   been born! Instead of profaning the spiritual, the right thing is to
   spiritualize the secular till the purity of your motives and the
   sanctity of your conscience in ordinary pursuits shall cause the
   division to vanish. Why, there should be about an ordinary meal, enough
   religion to make it resemble a sacrament! We should wear our garments
   and wear them out in the service of the Lord until they acquired as
   much sanctity as the very vestments of a consecrated priesthood!

   There should be a devout spirit in everything we do. "Whether you eat
   or drink, or whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus,
   giving thanks unto God and the Father by Him." No, it is not a less
   holy thing to be the Christian merchant than to be the Christian
   minister. It is not a less holy thing to be the mother of mercy to your
   own children than to be the sister of mercy to the sick children of
   other people in the hospital ward. It is not a less sacred thing to be
   the married wife than it is to be the virgin consecrated to Christ.

   Wherever you are, if you discharge the duties of your calling as in the
   sight of God, you can, by prayer and thanksgiving, saturate your lives
   with godliness and make every action drip with sanctity, till, like
   Ashur of old, it shall be said of you that you have dipped your foot in
   oil. So shall you leave the mark of Grace wherever your footstep is
   put. Let us endeavor to be so minded and refrain from sorting out our
   actions, saying to ourselves, "In this thing I am to be a Christian--in
   the other thing I am to be a businessman." "Business is business," says
   somebody. Yes, I know it is, and it has no business to be such business
   as it very often is.

   It ought to be Christianized and the Christian that does not
   Christianize business is a dead Christian--a savorless salt and with
   what shall such salt be savored when the salt, itself, has lost its
   flavor? Mix up your proverbs. Be as practical as Poor Richard counsels
   and then be as spiritual as Christ commands. You need not be a fool
   because you are a Christian! There is no necessity to be outwitted in
   business. There is no necessity to be less shrewd, less sharp. There is
   no necessity to be less pushing because you are a Christian. True
   religion is sanctified common sense and if some people had got a little
   common sense with their religion--and some others had got a little more
   religion with their common sense-- they would both be the better for
   it.

   This Book of Proverbs is just this common sense, which is the rarest of
   all senses, saturated and sanctified by the Presence of God and the
   power of the Gospel ennobling the pursuits of the creature. Let this
   suffice by way of introduction. Now we are going to plunge into the
   text. "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence and His children
   shall have a place of refuge."

   I. WHAT IS THIS FEAR OF THE LORD? The expression is used in Scripture
   for all true godliness. It is constantly the short way of expressing
   real faith, hope, love, holiness of living and every Grace which makes
   up true godliness. But why was fear selected? Why did it not say,
   "Trust in God is strong confidence"? Has not religion been commonly
   described by faith rather than by fear? In legal indictments it is
   said, sometimes, of a man, that he, "not having the fear of God before
   his eyes," did such-and-such.

   Why is the fear of God selected? One would say that, according to the
   general theology of this period, we ought to have selected faith. But
   the Spirit of God has not given us the phrase--faith in God. He puts
   fear, because, after all, there is a something more tender, more
   touching, more real about fear than there is about some people's faith,
   which faith may very readily verge upon presumption! But in speaking of
   fear, we must always discriminate. There is a fear with which a
   Christian has nothing to do. The fear of the slave who dreads a
   taskmaster, we have now escaped from. At least we ought to be free from
   such bondage, for we are not under the Law, which is the taskmaster,
   but we are under Grace, which is a paternal spirit and has given us the
   liberty of sons.

   Brothers and Sisters, if you labor under any dread of God which amounts
   to a slavish fear of Him, do not cultivate it! Ask God to give you that
   perfect love of which John tells us casts out fear, because fear has
   torment. Do not be afraid of God, whatever He does with you. The kind
   of fear commended in the text is not such as appalls the senses and
   scares the thoughts. It is a fear that has not anything like being
   afraid mixed with it. It is quite another kind of fear. It is what we
   commonly call filial fear of God, like the child's fear of his father.

   Just think for a minute, what is a child's fear of his father? I do not
   mean an evil child, a child that is obstinate, but a young man who
   loves his father--who is his father's friend, his father's most
   familiar acquaintance. Thank God, some of us have children whom we can
   look upon as near and dear friends, as well as dutiful sons and
   daughters to whom we can speak with much confidence and love. What is
   the fear that a well-ordered, well-disciplined, beloved child has of
   his own

   father?

   Well, first, he has an awe of him, which arises out of admiration of
   his character. If his father is what he should be, he is to that son a
   real model. The youth looks upon what his father does as exactly what
   he would like to do and what he aims to copy. His judgment is, to his
   son, almost infallible. At any rate, if he sees reason to differ from
   his father, he is a long while before he brings himself to prefer his
   own judgment. He has seen his father's wisdom in other matters so often

   that he mistrusts his own apprehension and would rather trust to what
   his father tells him. He has a profound conviction that his father is
   good, kind, wise and could not do anything, or ask him to do anything
   which would not promote his own good.

   So he feels a sort of awe of him--a fear of him--which prevents his
   questioning what his father does as he would have questioned anybody
   else. He is prone to conjecture that his father may have got some
   reason behind him that would explain what he does not understand. He
   would not give another person credit for having that concealed virtue,
   but he has such an esteem for his father--his dear father--that he
   fears to raise any questions about his father's character, his conduct,
   or his conclusions. In fact, that character so rules his admiration and
   commands his respect that he does not think of questioning it.

   Well, now, dear Friends, how far higher must be our fear of God in this
   view of the matter? How could we question Him? No, whatever He does, we
   say, "It is the Lord. Let Him do what seems good to Him." Like Aaron,
   when his two sons were stricken down and, that, as a summary punishment
   of their transgression, it should be said of us, as it was recorded of
   him--"He held his peace." Aaron could not say anything against God,
   however severe the stroke was. So, Brothers and Sisters, we cannot
   judge God. I hope we have given up folly. We ought to be afraid to do
   it. Sometimes terrible horror takes hold upon me, when I, now and then,
   meet with a Brother or Sister (I hope in Christ) who will tell me that
   God has taken away a dear child and they cannot forgive Him.

   "That cannot be right, Sir." Oh, it is a dreadful thing for us to get
   into such a state of heart that we question anything that God does!
   No--"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Is it meet, do you
   think, to imagine that our heavenly Father can do anything that is
   unkind or unwise towards us? It is not possible! The Lord has done it!
   Let that be your ultimatum. We fear Him too much to question what He
   does. Our reverence of Him makes us jealous of ourselves.

   A child, also, without any fear of his father in the wrong sense, is
   sure to be very deferential in his father's presence. If his father is
   in the way and if quiet is needed in the house, he will take his shoes
   off his feet and be very quiet lest his father should hear and he
   should disturb the unruffled calm. He watches carefully and studiously
   guards his conduct lest anything he does amiss should reach his
   father's ear and grieve his father's heart.

   Now it would be very wrong for a child merely to restrain himself in
   his father's presence out of respect for him and then break the bounds
   with unbridled licentiousness in his father's absence, as I fear many
   do. But you and I need not fall into this danger because we are always
   in the Presence of our heavenly Father in every place. Who among us
   that fears God as he ought would wish to do anything, anywhere, which
   is wrong and offensive to Him, seeing that--

   "Wherever we roam, wherever we rest, We are surrounded, still, with
   God"?

   Unwise daring were the person that could insult a king to his face and
   commit trespass in his presence! A sense of the Presence of God, a
   conscience that prompts one to say, "You, God, see me," fosters in the
   soul a healthy fear which you can easily see would rather inspirit,
   than intimidate, a man! It is a filial, childlike fear, in the presence
   of one whom we deeply reverence, lest we should do anything contrary to
   his mind and will. So, then, there is a fear which arises out of a high
   appreciation of God's Character and a fear of the same kind which
   arises out of a sense of His Presence.

   Further, every child, of the sort I have described, fears at any time
   to intrude upon the father's prerogative. When he is at home he feels
   that there are some points in which he may take many liberties. Is it
   not his own home? Has he not always been there? But there are some
   things of which, if they were suggested to him to do, he would say,
   "Why, it is impossible. Only my father may do that! I cannot give
   orders as if I were the master! I cannot expect to govern! I am here
   and I am glad to be here, but I am under my father. I must not presume
   to exercise the control to which he has an exclusive right."

   Now, that is one of the fears which a child of God has. "No," he says,
   "how should I venture to stand in the place of God? God bids me--it is
   not for me to object or to ask, 'Shall I or shall I not?' That were to
   usurp the place of ruler, to be a master to myself, to ignore the fact
   that the Lord, alone, is the Ruler. Such a thing God appoints--then it
   is not for me to wish the appointment different. Should it be according
   to my mind? Am I the comptroller? Is Divine Providence put under my
   supervision? No," says the child of God, "I cannot do anything so
   inconsistent with a dutiful allegiance."

   There are some things which he feels would be arrogating a position
   unbecoming altogether in a creature and much more unbecoming in a
   creature that has received the spirit of fear whereby he cries, "Abba,
   Father." O Brothers and Sis-

   ters, it is well to have a fear of getting to feel great--a fear of
   getting to feel good--a fear of getting to feel anything that should
   violate your fealty or disregard the worshipful reverence you owe to
   the Most High! That would be as if you took sinister license because
   you were given a sacred liberty, or refused to do homage because you
   had received favor!

   Oh no, the virtuous child does not thus slight his indulgent father!
   Neither must we ever think irreverently of our Covenant God. Holy fear
   leads us to dread anything which might cause our Father's displeasure.
   A good child would not do anything which would make his father feel
   vexed with him. "It vexes me," he says, "if it vexes my father." So let
   there always be with us a fear to offend our loving God. He is jealous,
   remember that! It is one of the most solemn Truths in the Bible, "The
   Lord your God is a jealous God."

   We might have guessed it, for great love has always that dangerous
   neighbor, jealousy, not far off. They that love not have no hate, no
   jealousy--but where there is an intense, a definite love like that
   which glows in the bosom of God, there must be jealousy! And oh, how
   jealous He is of the hearts of His people! How determined He is to have
   all their love! How I have known Him to take away the objects of their
   attachment, one after another--break their idols and deprive them of
   their precious vanities--all to get their hearts wholly to Himself,
   because He knew it would never be right with them while they had a
   divided heart.

   It was injurious to themselves and so He is jealous of that which
   injures them and jealous of that which dishonors Him. Let us have this
   holy fear very strong upon us and we shall avoid anything which might
   grieve the Spirit of God. A true child of the kind I have tried to
   describe--and I hope there are some about--is always afraid of doing
   anything which might cast a suspicion upon his love and his respect to
   his father. If he feels that he has done something which might appear
   discourteous, or be interpreted as akin to rebellion, he is eager to
   explain, at once, that he did not mean it. Or, if he has made a
   mistake, he is eager, at once, to rectify it and would say, "Father, do
   not read my conduct severely. I love you with all my heart. I may have
   erred. I have erred. I beg to express my deep regret and repentance."

   He could not bear it that his father should think, "My child has no
   esteem for me, no respect for me, no love for me." It ought to go hard
   with every Christian when he thinks he has given God cause to doubt his
   love. I should suspect he has, when he finds cause to suspect it
   himself. When you say in your soul, "Do I love the Lord or not?"--just
   think whether God may not be saying it--whether Jesus Christ, the
   Ever-Blessed, may not feel cause, next time He meets you, to say to
   you, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me? Indeed, do you love Me?"

   Three times He may have to put that question because you have given Him
   a treble cause for mistrusting you, as to whether, indeed, your heart
   is right before Him. We know that the Lord knows all things and He
   knows that we love Him. We fall back on that, but still, we would not
   so act that the action should look as if we did not. We do not want so
   to think, or speak, or do anything that should give just cause for
   suspicion to the All-Wise One as to the reality of our professions of
   love. Fear, then--this blessed fear--is what we must all cultivate. May
   the Lord grant that we may have it, fully matured and fitly exercised,
   for "blessed is the man that fears always."

   II. But, now, giving our meditation a more cheerful turn, let us follow
   the teaching of our text. It says that this fear has strong confidence
   in it. WHEREIN IS THAT CONFIDENCE SEEN? The history of men that have
   feared God may, perhaps, enlighten us a little on this matter. It is
   written concerning Job that he was a man that "feared God and eschewed
   evil." Satan was permitted to tempt him and he came into deep trouble,
   but how blessed was the confidence of Job in all his trouble! How brave
   a thing it was to say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
   blessed be the name of the Lord!" How grand it was of him to say in
   answer to his wife, "What? Shall we receive good at the hand of the
   Lord and shall we not receive evil?"

   Best of all, that was one of the noblest resolves that ever mortal
   uttered, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." A man up to his
   neck in trouble--no, with the billows going over him--and yet his
   confidence in God is not moved--no, not for a single moment! He
   declares that if God does not set him right, now, while he lives, yet
   he believes that his God, his Kinsman, lives and that, if he dies, yet
   after his death, God would avenge him. "I know," says he, "that my
   Defender lives, and though after my death the worms devour this body,
   yet in my flesh shall I see God and I shall get right somehow."

   He feels sure about that, so his confidence is strong, and it lessens
   not in time of trouble. You see the same implicit confidence in
   Habakkuk. He draws a dreadful picture--"Though the fig tree shall not
   blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive
   shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut
   off from the fold, and

   there shall be no herd in the stall." He foresees the full stress of
   the calamity and prophecies that it shall come to pass. "Yet," he said,
   "will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation."
   That was the simple consequence of his fear of the Lord. He feared and,
   therefore, trusted. He knew the grandeur of the Divine Character. He
   trembled to impute wrong or unfaithfulness to God--he feared Him too
   much to have one hard thought of Him or to utter one mistrustful word
   about Him--in the grandeur of that fear he felt a strong confidence!

   Both Job and Habakkuk experienced and even tested this! And there are
   many schooled in the same school, who have spoken after the same
   valiant fashion when all God's waves and billows have gone over them.
   That confidence will not only appear in time of trouble, but it will
   appear in acts of obedience. The Lord calls His people to obey Him and
   sometimes obedience requires great self-denial. We may have to
   surrender what we greatly prize for Christ's sake. It is not always
   easy to be confident in doing that which demands quick decision. We may
   be prone to parley or to do as though we were driven, yielding to stern
   compulsion, rather than surrendering with sweet submission. But to do
   it with strong confidence can only come to us from having the fear of
   God before us.

   Now, Abraham feared the Lord with all his heart and when the Lord said,
   "Take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him
   up for a burnt offering upon a mountain which I will tell you of--if he
   had not feared God wonderfully and dreaded to do anything that would
   look like rebellion against His orders, he would have said, "What?
   Commit murder?"--for it will come to that--"Slay my own dear child?"
   But no, though he could not understand it, he felt sure that God had
   some meaning in it--that God could not be ordering him to do what was
   wrong-- that there must be a way by which it would be made right.

   Besides, he remembered that in Isaac was his seed to be called and his
   descendants were to come out of Isaac. How, then, can God keep His
   promise? How can He fulfill the Covenant? This did not distress
   Abraham, but being, "strong in faith, he staggered not through
   unbelief." Therefore he rose up early in the morning and prepared the
   wood. I have looked with tears at the spectacle of that old man, far
   advanced in years, preparing the wood and then putting the wood upon
   Isaac. And then going with him and telling the servants at the bottom
   of the hill that they must stay lest they should interrupt the
   consummation of that wondrous deed of faith.

   And then Isaac says to him, "My father, behold the fire and the wood,
   but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" It must have brought the
   heart of Abraham into his mouth! Still, he seemed to swallow that
   dreadful thought and he said, "My Son, God will provide Himself a
   lamb." And so he takes him and lays him on the altar and draws a
   knife--going through with it--right through with it, to the very last,
   with wondrous heroism--till the Lord stopped his hand. But for his deep
   fear of God, he never would have had the confidence to go through with
   such an act of obedience! Although the Lord does not call you and me to
   such strong tests as that, yet He does try our faith.

   I have known, sometimes, when a man, in order to do his duty, has had
   before him what appeared to be a terrible dilemma--"I shall have to
   give up my employment! If I do that, what is to become of my children?
   Were I a single man I would do it without hesitation. I would face
   poverty. I would go down to the docks to ask for day labor. But there
   are the children. The children--what is to become of the children?" You
   see, you cannot feel like Abraham, who gave up his darling child for
   God. You are staggered. Yes, but if your fear of God is very strong,
   you will say, "I cannot make a compromise with any sin. I cannot
   persevere with that sinful line of business in which I am engaged. Is
   this the ultimatum? Then it admits of no alternative. If God should
   leave me and my little children to starve, yet I must put all into
   God's hands. It is His to provide, not mine. He does not allow me to do
   a wrong thing under any circumstances. So here goes for God and for
   righteousness."

   If you have got a great fear of God, that is what you will do. But if
   you have not the reverence, you will not have the confidence. For lack
   thereof, you will timorously shrink back into the sin which galls you.
   May God give you the heroic confidence which springs of a deep fear of
   Him. The same confidence, the same loyalty to God will develop itself
   when persecution is involved. There are, in this world, men who hate
   true religion. And the experiences which occur to true Believers are,
   consequently, often very painful. If we have much fear of God, we shall
   have strong confidence, but if we have not the fear of God, then the
   fear of man will make us waver.

   Look yonder--Nebuchadnezzar's image of gold on the plains of Dura! A
   great many people stand about the colossal figure who are of the race
   of Shem, monotheists--that is to say, believers in one God--not
   polytheists, whose creed might excuse their idolatry. Listen, now! At
   the sound of flute, harp, sackbut and all kinds of music, the herald
   proclaims

   that whoever will not bow down and worship the image that
   Nebuchadnezzar, the king, has set up, shall be cast into a burning
   fiery furnace! How quickly does this recreant race of Protestant people
   swallow their principles! See how they succumb, with their heads in the
   dust, worshipping the golden image!

   They had not much fear of the one God and so they break all His Laws.
   They have more fear of Nebuchadnezzar and his furnace than they have of
   Jehovah the God of Israel! But here are three young men, captives in
   Babylon, who stand before the king. And when asked why it is that they
   have not worshipped his gods and the image which he has set up, they
   declare that they will not worship his god or fall down before his
   image. They speak positively. They say, "Our God, whom we serve, is
   able to deliver us, but, if not, be it known unto you, O King, that we
   will not worship your gods or the image which you have set up."

   Look at the king's fury! See how the devil lights up his face with
   lurid glare! Look how a legion of devils possesses him! "Heat that
   furnace seven times hotter than it has known," he says, "and cast these
   daring rebels therein." The men are calm, unrushed by his rage, unmoved
   by his threats. They do not even take off their hats to him. There they
   stand, in their clothes and their hats, calm and quiet. They defy the
   king, because who needs have a fear of Nebuchadnezzar that has a fear
   of Jehovah? Who needs fear a king that fears the King of kings? So they
   consent to be put into the furnace, for in the fear of the Lord there
   is strong confidence.

   It was bravely done by old Hugh Latimer, when he preached before Henry
   the Eighth. It was the custom of the Court preacher to present the king
   with something on his birthday and Latimer presented Henry VIII with a
   pocket handkerchief with this text in the corner, "Whoremongers and
   adulterers God will judge!" A very suitable text for bluff Henry! And
   then he preached a sermon before his most gracious majesty against sins
   of lust. And he delivered himself with tremendous force, not forgetting
   or abridging the personal application. And the king said that next time
   Latimer preached--the next Sunday--he should apologize and he would
   make him so mold his sermon as to eat his own words.

   Latimer thanked the king for letting him off so easily. When the next
   Sunday came, he stood up in the pulpit and said--"Hugh Latimer, you are
   this day to preach before the high and mighty prince Henry, King of
   Great Britain and France. If you say one single word that displeases
   His Majesty he will take your head off. Therefore, mind what you are
   at." But then he said, "Hugh Latimer, you are this day to preach before
   the Lord God Almighty who is able to cast both body and soul into
   Hell--and so tell the king the Truth of God outright." And so he did.

   His performance was equal to his resolution. However, the king did not
   take off his head. He respected him all the more. The fear of the Lord
   gave Latimer strong confidence, as it will any who cleave close to
   their colors--

   "Fear Him, you saints, and you will then Have nothing else to fear."

   Drive right straight ahead in the fear of the everlasting God and
   whoever comes in your way had better mind what he is at! It is yours to
   do what is right and deny everything they devise that is wrong. God
   will bless you and you shall praise Him! Moreover, this fear of God
   declares itself in other things besides braving trouble and enduring.
   It will be a tower of strength to you when you stand up to bear witness
   to the Truth of God. Have you anything to say for Jesus? You will say
   it in a very cowardly and in a sneaking manner if you have not a great
   fear of God. But if you fear God much, you will be like Peter and John,
   of whom, when the council saw them, it is said, "they wondered at their
   boldness."

   The fear of God will make you bold in speaking God's Word! Or should
   you fall down in sheer exhaustion, instead of standing up in sound
   enthusiasm, the fear of God will prove a potent restorative. Even if
   you are overthrown, for a time, you shall overcome at the last. In the
   Book of Micah we read, "Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy, for though I
   fall, yet shall I rise again." He that really fears God expects to
   conquer even though, for a time, he seems to be defeated. This fear
   will come out gloriously in confidence in the hour of death. If we fear
   God we shall, like Stephen, fall asleep, even if it is amid a shower of
   stones. Glorious is the confidence with which Christians depart from
   this life when they can depend on the God whom they fear with reverence
   and serve with readiness!

   III. I must hasten on to notice, in the third place, though not to
   dwell upon it as I could wish--UPON WHAT IS THIS CONFIDENCE BUILT? The
   fear of the Lord brings strong confidence, but why? Why? Because they
   that fear God know God to be infinitely loving to them, to be immutable
   and unchangeable, to be unsearchably wise and Omnipotently strong on
   their behalf! How can they help having confidence in such a God? They
   know, next, that a full atonement has been made for their sins. Jesus
   has borne the wrath of God for them--how can they help being confident?
   They know

   that this same Jesus has risen from the dead and lives to plead for
   them--and in their ears they can hear the almighty pleas of Jesus ever
   speaking in their favor.

   How can they help having confidence? They believe that this same Jesus
   is Head over all things to His Church and Ruler of Providence. How can
   they help being confident in Him? To Him all power is given in Heaven
   and in earth! They believe that everything is working together for
   their good! I ask again, how can they help being confident? They
   believe that the Spirit of God is in them--dwells in them! What
   confidence can be too staunch and steadfast for men who know this to be
   true? They know that there is a mysterious union between them and the
   Son of God! They know that they are members of His body, of His flesh
   and of His bones.

   What confidence can be too implicit? They know that there are two
   immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie--His promise
   and His oath whereby He has given them strong consolation. With such
   strong consolation they may well have strong confidence--

   "The Gospel bears my spirits up; A faithful and unchanging God Lays the
   foundation of my hope In oaths and promises and blood." Oh, what
   unwavering confidence may be based on this firm foundation which God
   has laid for His people! But time fails me. I cannot enlarge upon it.

   IV. Let me, therefore, close with a fourth reflection--HOW THIS
   CONFIDENCE AND THIS FEAR ARE FAVORED OF GOD! Observe the promise. "His
   children shall have a place of refuge." So, then, you see that those
   who fear God and have confidence in Him, are His children! They have a
   childlike fear and then they have a childlike confidence-- and these
   are the marks that they are His children. And what a favor is this! "To
   as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
   God." Oh, dear Friends, there is a Heaven lying asleep inside those
   words--His children. There is eternal Paradise couched within that
   word--Abba, Father.

   If you know how to say it with the spirit of adoption, you have the
   earnest of the inheritance within you--you have got a Heaven, a young
   Heaven within your spirit! Oh, be glad! To be a child of God is greater
   than to be an angel! Why, were Gabriel capable of envy, he would envy
   you who are the children of the Most High, however poor or sick or
   downcast you may be. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has
   bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God." "His
   children shall have a place of refuge." Take heart, for this is a grand
   thought for you that fear Him and confide in Him--you shall have a
   place of refuge!

   There is Noah. All the world is about to be drowned. In vain might one
   climb to the tops of the mountains, for the waters will cover their
   highest pinnacle. Must Noah be drowned, then? Is his destruction
   inevitable? No, but there is an ark for him. God will not pull up the
   floodgates of Heaven till Noah is shut in the ark. There is Lot--evil
   Lot. He has been acting very badly and has got away down there in
   Sodom. Still, he is a child of God. He is vexed with the filthy
   conversation of the wicked, proving that he has some fear of God in his
   heart. Well, what does the Lord say? "Haste you," He says, "for I
   cannot do anything till you have come out here."

   Lot must get to Zoar. There must be a little city to shelter Lot! God
   cannot burn Sodom and Gomorrah till He has got Lot safe out of the way.
   He must find a refuge for His children! Well, there are His people down
   in Egypt. God is going to smite the firstborn and He has loosed an
   angel to do it. And that angel is swift in His message--swift to do His
   bidding and he will slay the firstborn of Israel as well as of Egypt
   when he goes upon his terrible errand. He will make no distinctions.
   Yes, but there are the blood marks over the door and the angel sees
   that the bloody sacrifice has been offered in that house--and he passes
   by. God's people must have a place of refuge and He found them one in
   Egypt when the angel was let loose and the Angel of Death was there.

   So it happened all along through Scripture history. God sent a famine
   into the land and after the famine some that had fled the country came
   back. And, among them, Naomi and Ruth. What is to become of Ruth? She
   has been a heathen! But she has come to fear God. She has put her trust
   under the shadow of the Almighty's wings. What is to become of Ruth?
   Well, she must go and glean in the fields of him who is next of kin and
   she found a place of refuge in his bosom. God takes care, you see, of
   those that fear Him and have confidence in Him. But there is another
   great famine and all the country is barren for three years long.

   According to the Word of God, there is neither dew nor rain and there
   is no food. But there is one man, there, who fears the Lord above all
   the rest, and that is Elijah. Well, he must have a place of refuge!
   There, you see, by the brook Cherith He sits him down and ravens that
   were more likely to rob him, than to feed him, come to bring him bread
   and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening! I heard,
   some time ago, of a poor woman who was very hard pressed for food. But
   she remembered the promise of God and she knelt down and appealed to
   Him that He would provide her bread. Just afterwards a friend came in
   who brought a loaf of bread to her.

   The friend told her that this loaf of bread was bought for her husband,
   but her husband was not well and he was unable to eat it because they
   found that a mouse had been eating it. And it so turned him that he
   could not eat the bread. But the loaf was not hurt, "And," said the
   friend, "I dare say you will eat it. I have cut away the part that the
   mouse touched." Oh, yes, God can make a mouse do it, or a raven do it!
   His people shall have a place of refuge! When the brooks are dried up
   and the ravens are gone, there is a widow woman over there who has to
   sustain Elijah and that woman's cruse is nearly empty--and her barrel
   of meal nearly all spent. Still, her house is the place of refuge for
   Elijah and God provides for him there.

   When the Lord Jesus was here, He knew that Jerusalem was to be
   destroyed and He knew that His disciples were to be there. If history
   is to be believed--and I suppose it is--no Christians perished in the
   destruction of Jerusalem, yet they were very numerous. There is no
   mention of them by Josephus. They were all gone away, many of them to
   the little city called Pella, and other places beyond the river Jordan
   because Jesus told them when they saw Jerusalem compassed with armies,
   they might know that its desolation was near. So He counseled such as
   were in Judea to flee to the mountains. Thus when that destruction
   came, which was the most terrible calamity that ever happened on the
   face of the earth, His people had a place of refuge.

   And now, Brothers and Sisters, whatever is going to happen--and there
   are some that predict dreadful things--as for me, I do not know what is
   going to happen and, which is another thing, I do not care--His people
   shall have a place of refuge. "Though the earth is removed, and though
   the mountains are carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters
   thereof roar and are troubled, though the mountains shake with the
   swellings thereof. There is a river, the streams of which shall make
   glad the City of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most
   High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall
   help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were
   moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of Hosts is
   with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

   If it should ever come to this--that the whole earth should rock and
   reel, or burn and smoke and seethe, or burn, like a cauldron, into one
   boiling mass--if there is no room for God's people on the earth to find
   a refuge, He will find a refuge for them in the clouds. They shall be
   caught up together to meet the Lord in the air! But, somehow or other,
   His people shall have a place of refuge. His children shall have a
   place of refuge. Lay hold on that! There is a refuge for you somewhere,
   Christian, even in the matter of ordinary Providence! And there is
   always a Mercy Seat for you to go to. There is always the bosom of
   Christ for you to fly to! The fear of the Lord does not drive you from
   Him. It drives you to Him and when it drives you to Him you have got a
   place of refuge!

   I find that Moses Stewart reads the text differently from anybody else
   and I am not sure that he is wrong. He says the text means that the
   children of those that fear God shall have a place of refuge and, if
   so, this is not the only passage of Scripture that proves it. There are
   many precious texts that speak of our children. Let us try to grasp the
   promise for our children as well as for ourselves and pray for them
   that they may have a place of refuge. There are some Believers going to
   be baptized tonight. I hope they have got a firm grip of that Gospel
   promise that Paul uttered, where he says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ and you shall be saved, and your house."

   The jailer did, you know, and we find that it is said, "He was baptized
   and all his house." And for this reason--that he believed in the Lord,
   rejoicing with all his house. Oh, we can never be satisfied till we see
   all our house converted and all our household baptized--and all those
   that belong to us belonging, also, to the Lord our God, for thus it is,
   "His children shall have a place of refuge." May God bless you, dear
   Friends, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMONS--Psalm 38.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Best Burden for Young Shoulders

   (No. 1291)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." Lamentations
   3:27.

   YOKE-BEARING is not pleasant, but it is good. It is not every pleasant
   thing that is good, nor every good thing that is pleasant. Sometimes
   the goodness may be just in proportion to the unpleasantness. Now, it
   is childish to be always craving for sweets--those, who by reason of
   use have had their senses exercised, should prefer the wholesome to the
   palatable. It ought to reconcile us to that which is unsavory when we
   are informed that it is good! A little child is not easily reconciled
   that way, because, as yet, he cannot think and judge. But the man of
   God ought to find it very easy to quiet every murmur and complaint as
   soon as he perceives that, though unpleasant, the thing is good.

   Since, my dear Friends, we are not very good judges, ourselves, of that
   which is good for us anymore than our children are, and since we expect
   our little ones to leave the choice of their diet with us, will it not
   be wise of us to leave everything with our heavenly Father? We can
   judge what is pleasant, but we cannot discern that which is good for
   us. But He can judge and, therefore, it will be always well for us to
   leave all our affairs in His hands and say, "Nevertheless, not as I
   will, but as You will." Since we are quite certain upon Scriptural
   authority that whatever the Lord sends to His people will work out for
   their benefit, we ought to be perfectly resigned to the Lord's will.

   No, much more--we ought to be thankful for all His appointments even
   when they displease the flesh--being quite certain that His will is the
   best that can be and that if we could see the end from the beginning it
   is exactly what we should choose if we were as wise and good as our
   heavenly Father is. Our shoulders bow themselves with gladness to the
   burden which Jesus declares to be profitable to us! This assurance from
   His lips makes His yoke easy to bear. Our text tells us of something
   which, though not very comfortable, is good--"It is good for a man that
   he bear the yoke in his

   youth!"

   The illustration is drawn from cattle. The bullocks have to bear the
   yoke. They go in pairs and the yoke is borne upon their shoulders. The
   yoke is somewhat burdensome. If the bullock is not broken when it is
   young, it will never make a good plowing ox. It will be fretted and
   troubled with the labor it will have to do. It will be very hard work
   to drive it and the farmer will accomplish but little plowing. It is
   good for the bullock to be brought into subjection while it is
   young--and so it is with all sorts of animals--the horse must be broken
   while he is a colt. And if a certain period of that horse's life is
   allowed to pass over without its being under the trainer's hand, it
   will never make a thoroughly useful horse.

   If you want to train a dog you must take him while he is young and
   teach him his work. That is the metaphor. It is just so with men. It is
   good for us that we are broken while we are yet young and learn to bear
   the yoke in our youth. If you take the text naturally as uttering a
   truth of ordinary life, it is still worth considering. Even apart from
   the Grace of God and apart from religion, it is a great blessing for a
   man to bear the yoke in his youth! That is to say, first, it is good
   for us when we are young to learn obedience. It is half the making of a
   man to be placed under rule and taught to bear restraint.

   When young people grow older they will have to be very much a law unto
   themselves. There may be no father living to warn them lovingly and no
   mother to gently guide them. Young people will be older people and
   govern themselves-- and no one is fit to do that till he has learned to
   be obedient. The proverb is, "boys will be boys," but I do not think
   so-- they will be men if we let them have time. And unless they learn
   self-restraint and habits of obedience while they are boys, they are
   not likely to make good men. He who cannot obey is not fit to rule--he
   who never learned to submit will make a tyrant when he obtains power.

   It is good that every child should be broken in, delivered from his
   foolish self-will and made to feel that he has superiors, masters and
   governors. Then, when it shall come his turn to be a leader and a
   master, he will have the more kindly

   empathy to those who are under him. Be you sure of this, that if he
   does not learn the drill of obedience he will never be a good soldier
   in the battle of life.

   It is good for young people to bear the yoke, too, in the sense of
   acquiring, in their early days, knowledge. If we do not learn when we
   are young, when shall we learn? Some who have begun to study late in
   life, have yet achieved a good deal, but it has been with much
   difficulty. If you do not use the machinery of the mind in youth, it
   gets rusty. But if it is used from the very first and kept continually
   in action and well oiled, it will go on easily throughout the whole of
   life. Our early days are favorable to the acquirement of knowledge and
   every lad that is an apprentice should make the best of his
   apprenticeship--he will never make much of a journeyman if he does not.

   Every man that is starting in life, while he is yet young, should do
   all that he possibly can to acquire full equipment, for if he does not,
   he will know the absence of it sooner or later. If a man starts upon
   life's voyage and has left his anchor at home, or forgotten his
   provisions, he will find out his deficiencies when he gets to sea. And
   when the storm begins to howl through the cordage he will wish that he
   had listened to the dictates of prudence and had been better prepared
   for life's perilous voyage.

   It is good for young people, too--we are now talking about the natural
   meaning of the passage--good for them that they should encounter
   difficulties and troubles when they begin life. The silver spoon in the
   mouth with which some people are born is very apt to choke them. There
   are hundreds of people who have never been able to speak out because of
   that dreadful silver spoon! It is not every man that is the richer in
   the long run, even in mere gold and silver, for having commenced with
   capital. I believe you will generally find that the rich men who have
   been, "self-made," as they call it, came to London with a half-crown in
   their pockets.

   I have noticed that thirty pence is about the amount they leave home
   with and that half-crown, neither less nor more, becomes the nest egg
   of a fortune. Young men who begin with thousands of pounds often end
   with nothing at all. It is good for a man that he should have a rough
   battle when life begins--that he should not be lapped in dainty ease
   and find everything arranged according to his will--he will never
   develop his muscles, he will never make a man--unless there is hard
   work for him to do. Those long hours, that stern thinking, those weary
   bones and all that, of which young people, nowadays, are very apt to
   complain about--though they do not work half as hard as their fathers,
   nor above a tenth as hard as their grandfathers--all these things,
   within reason and measure, help to make men, and I only hope that the
   easier times, which are now happily in fashion, may not breed a softer
   and a less manly nature among our young men.

   It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke of labor, trial and
   difficulty in his youth. And if we could lift the yoke from every weary
   shoulder it would not be wise to do so. Many a man who has succeeded in
   life is very thankful to God that he had, in his early years, to bear a
   little poverty and to work hard and toil, for he never would have come
   to be what he is if it had not been for the strengthening and educating
   influence of trial.

   It is not, however, my business to preach about these matters at any
   length. I am not a moral lecturer, but a minister of the Gospel. I have
   fulfilled a duty when I have given the first meaning to the text and
   now I shall use it for nobler ends.

   I. First of all, IT IS GOOD TO BE A CHRISTIAN WHILE YOU ARE YOUNG. It
   is good for a man to bear Christ's yoke in his youth. I shall not ask
   you to pardon me if I speak here as one who has tried and proved it.
   Surely I may do so without egotism, for it is not my own honor, but
   God's, that I shall speak of! What the Lord has worked in me--of that I
   will speak.

   At 15 years of age I was brought to know the Lord and to confess Him
   and I can, therefore, speak as one who bore the yoke in his youth. And,
   young people, if I have never to address you again, I should like to
   say to you it has been good for me. Ah, how good, I cannot tell you,
   but so good that I earnestly wish that every one of you would bear my
   Master's yoke in his youth! I could not wish you a greater blessing!
   For, see, first, the man whose heart is conquered by Divine Grace early
   is made happy soon. That is a blessed prayer in the Psalm, "O satisfy
   us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our
   days."

   Very few people, if they understood it, would wish to postpone
   happiness. Young hearts generally ask to be happy now. To have sin
   forgiven is to be unloaded now of that which is the prime cause of
   sorrow. To receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith is to be
   clothed with peace now. To be reconciled to God is to have a spring of
   consolation within your soul now. To know yourself to be God's child is
   to have the greatest joy out of Heaven and to have it now. Who would
   wish to postpone it? Young Christians may die, but it is of small
   consequence if they do, for being early in Christ,

   they will be early in Heaven! Who would not wish to be safe as soon as
   possible? Who desires to tarry in the land of peril, where a point of
   time, a moment's space, may shut you up in Hell?

   To be early secured from the wrath to come--early endued with a sense
   of security in Jesus Christ--why, surely it does not need many words to
   prove that this is good! Besides, while early piety brings early
   happiness, let it never be forgotten that it saves from a thousand
   snares. There are things which a man knows, who has lived long in sin,
   which he wishes he could forget! God's Grace rinses your mouth after
   you have been eating the forbidden fruit, but the flavor is very apt to
   linger and to return. Songs which are libels upon God and upon decency,
   once heard, will attack you in the middle of a prayer and words which,
   if you could forget them, you might be willing to lose your memory for
   that purpose, will invade your most hallowed seasons.

   It is a great mercy that if a man is 70 or 80 years of age, yet if he
   shall believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, he shall be saved! Eleventh
   hour mercies are very sweet. But what a double privilege it is to be
   set to work in the vineyard while yet the dew is on the leaves and so
   to be kept from the idleness and the wickedness of the market place in
   which others loiter so long! It is good for a man to bear Christ's yoke
   in his youth because it saves him from having those shoulders galled
   with the devil's yoke. It preserves him from the fetters of that
   pitiful slavery into which so many are brought by habits long acquired
   and deeply seated. Sins long indulged grow to the shoulders--and to
   remove them is like tearing away one's flesh. Be thankful, young
   people, that the Savior is ready to receive you while you are yet young
   and that He gives you the promise, "They that seek Me early shall find
   Me."

   Happy are they who entertain the Redeemer in the morning and so shut
   out the evil spirit all day long! There is this goodness about it,
   again, that it gives you longer time in which to serve God. If I were
   taken into the service of one whom I loved, I should like to do him a
   long day's work. If I knew that I could only work for him one day, I
   should strive to begin as soon as the gray light of dawn permitted me
   to see and I would continue at work far into the evening, cheerfully
   active, so long as a glimmer remained. If you are converted late in
   life you can only give to our Lord Jesus the shades of evening.

   Blessed be His name, He will accept eventide service, but still, how
   much better to be able to serve the Lord from your youth up, to give
   Him those bright days while the birds are singing in the soul, when the
   sun is unclouded and the shadows are not falling! And then to give Him
   the long evening, when at eventide He makes it light and causes the
   infirmities of age to display His power and His fidelity. I think I
   know of no grander sight than that of a gray-haired man who has served
   the Lord Jesus from his youth up! There is this goodness about it yet
   further, that it enables one to be well established in Divine things.
   "They that are planted in the courts of the Lord shall flourish in the
   courts of our God."

   A tree transplanted takes a certain time to root, but when it becomes
   well established it produces abundant fruit. There must be time for
   striking root in Divine things. Everything in the kingdom of Grace is
   not to be learned in 10 minutes. I bless God that a man who has
   believed in Jesus only one second is a saved man--but he is not an
   instructed man--he is not an established man. He is not trained for
   battle nor tutored for labor. These things take time. When we are
   converted, we go to Christ's School. We sit at His feet and learn of
   Him.

   Now, who is the best scholar? All other things being equal, I should
   expect to find the best scholars in school to be those who come early.
   Eleven o'clock scholars do not learn much. Evening scholars, with a
   good master and great diligence, may pick up something, but scarcely so
   much as those who have been at the school all day! Oh, how blessed it
   is to begin to know Christ very early because then you can go on
   comprehending with all the saints the heights and depths of that which
   surpasses knowledge! No fear that you will ever exhaust this knowledge.
   It is so infinitely great and blessed that if we lived 7,000 years in
   the world, there would still be more to know of Christ and we should
   still have to say, "Oh, the depths."

   We need not be afraid, therefore, if we are converted when we are 10,
   or 15, or 20 years of age, we shall live to wear out the freshness of
   religion. Ah, no, we shall love it more and understand it better and,
   by God's Grace, practice it more fully as the years roll over us!
   Therefore it is good to begin soon. And then, let me say, it gives such
   confidence in later life to have given your heart to Jesus young. I am
   glad to see some boys and girls here tonight. Now, my dear Children,
   God may spare you to become old men and old women and when your hair is
   gray and you are getting feeble and you know that you will soon die, it
   will be very delightful to be able to say, "O Lord, I have known You
   from my youth, and up to now have I declared Your wondrous works. Now,
   also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not."

   There will be much force in the plea, for if we have a faithful
   servant, we do not cast him off when he grows old. "Ah," you say, "he
   cannot do much, now. The old man is getting very feeble. He cannot see
   or hear as he used to do and he is slow in his movements. But then, you
   see, the good old fellow has been in our family ever since he was a boy
   and you do not think we are going to turn him out now?" No, the Lord
   will not cast off His old servants. He will not say to them "I have had
   the best of you. I have had your young days and I have had your middle
   life. But now you may go begging and take care of yourself." No, that
   is how the Amalekite or the Ishmaelite might talk, but the God of
   Israel never forsakes His people! He says, "Even to your old age I am
   He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you; I have made you; and I
   will bear; even I will carry and will deliver you."

   O, you who have given yourselves to Jesus through His rich and
   Sovereign Grace while you are young, I know you feel it a sweet plea to
   urge with God--"Now, Lord, forsake me not." So, then, young people, if
   you would lay by a precious treasure of consolation when those that
   look out of the windows are darkened. If you would have strength for
   the time of weakness. If you would have comfort for the day when the
   mourners go about the streets. If, above all, you would be supported
   when you are going Home, yield yourselves to Jesus now! Oh, that this
   very night you may bow your shoulders to the easy yoke of the meek and
   lowly Savior! So shall you find rest unto your souls.

   II. I shall now give another meaning of the text. May the Holy Spirit
   bless it. Secondly, IT IS GOOD FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS THAT THEY BEAR THE
   YOKE OF JESUS. What do we mean by that? A good number of you have been
   lately converted, and to you I speak most earnestly. It will be for
   your good as long as you live, to render to Jesus complete obedience at
   the very first. Some Christians, seem to me, to start to Canaan all in
   a muddle. They do not begin their pilgrimage in the right pilgrim
   fashion. Every young Christian, when he is converted, should take time
   to consider, and should say to himself, "What am I to do? What is the
   duty of a Christian?"

   He should also devoutly say to the Lord Jesus, "Lord, show me what You
   would have me to do," and wait upon the Holy Spirit for guidance. Two
   young lads were not long ago converted to God--one of them attended
   here, the other at another place of worship. They talked to each other
   about what was the right way of confessing Jesus Christ. They did not
   quite know, but they meant to find out. They borrowed the keys of a
   neighboring Independent Chapel and went inside and spent some hours,
   day after day, reading together the New Testament and turning to every
   passage which refers to Baptism. The result was that they, both of
   them, came and were baptized in this place.

   I wish that all Christians, in commencing, would look at that ordinance
   and at every other point in dispute and see what is God's mind about
   it. Search the Scriptures and see for yourselves. Do not say, "I have
   always been with the Episcopalians and, therefore, I ought to do as
   they do." Or, "I have always been with the Baptists," or "with the
   Wesleyans." My dear Friends, these people cannot make rules for us!
   Here is our guide--this Bible! If I want to go by the railway, I use
   Bradshaw, and do not trust to hearsay. And if I want to go to Heaven I
   must follow the Bible.

   There is another book which people will ask you to attend to. Well, we
   will say nothing against that book, only it is not the book. The book
   is this volume, the blessed Bible! You should begin by feeling, "My
   Lord has saved me. I am His servant and I mean, at once, to take His
   yoke upon me. I will, as far as ever I can, do what He would have me
   do. There are some sins into which I shall most likely fall. Watch as I
   may, I shall sometimes make a slip, but here are some things which I
   can be right about and I will take care that I am right about them."

   Now, if you young people begin conscientiously studying the Word of God
   and desiring, in everything, to put your feet down where Christ put His
   feet, I am sure it will be good for you. You will grow up to be healthy
   Christians and men and women of no ordinary stature. But if you do not
   begin with searching the Word and take your religion second-hand from
   other people and do what you see other people do, without searching,
   why, you will lack that noble independence of mind and courage of
   spirit and, at the same time, that complete submission to Christ which
   make up the main elements of a noble-minded Christian!

   It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth, in the next
   place, namely, by attaining clear instruction in Divine Truth. We ought
   to go to the Lord Jesus Christ to learn of Him, not merely about
   ordinances and actions, but about what to think and what to believe.
   Oh, how I wish that every one of us had begun, with regard to our
   doctrinal sentiments, by presenting our minds to Christ like a sheet of
   clean paper for His Holy Spirit to write the Truth of God on! Alas, we
   begin with many a line upon us written by the pen of prejudice! Dear
   Friend, if you are converted to God, you are now to sit at the feet of
   Jesus to learn everything from Him--not to take your views to Him!
   Those are common ex-

   pressions, "my views," and, "my opinions," and, "I am of such a
   persuasion." Beloved, be persuaded by Christ, for that is the only
   persuasion worth following.

   Take your views from Him--no other views of eternal and heavenly things
   are worth having. "Oh," says one, "but then they might not happen to be
   your views." Just so and I do not ask you to take my views! On the
   other hand I charge you before God never to believe anything because I
   say it, but to listen only to my Master and yield your faith only to
   the Infallible Word of God. We urge this upon you, because, even if you
   believe the Truth of God because we say it, you have not believed it in
   the right way. Truth is to be received because it is true and because
   Jesus Christ's authority proves it to you to be true, not because any
   poor mortal who happens to preach is supposed to possess authority to
   decide such questions. We have no authority to assert anything to be
   the Truth of God upon our own ipse dixit. We are simply the trumpets at
   the lips of Christ when we speak with power. And sometimes, alas, we
   blow our own trumpets instead of leaving Jesus Christ to blow through
   us--and then we are worse than useless. I charge you bear the yoke in
   your youth by studying hard to know what is the way, the truth, and the
   life from the lips of Jesus Christ, Himself, being taught of the Spirit
   of God! It is good for you to do this.

   It is also good for young converts to bear the yoke by beginning to
   serve Jesus Christ early. I like to see mothers, when they brings their
   little ones to the House of God, put a penny into its hand and teach it
   early to contribute to the cause of Christ. And when people are
   converted, there is nothing like their having something to do very
   soon. Not that they are to attempt to do the major things which belong
   to the more advanced and instructed, for, concerning some of these, we
   should apply the rule, "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride,
   he falls into the condemnation of the devil."

   But there is work for every Believer to do in Christ's vineyard! There
   is work for children, there is work for young men, work for young women
   and it is good to begin early. The Lord Jesus Christ, who was so
   pleased with the widow's mite, is very pleased with a child's love to
   Him. We big people are very apt to think, "What can a little girl do
   for Jesus?" Oh, but if that little girl does not do something for
   Jesus, now that she is saved, she will very likely grow up to be an
   idle Christian and not serve God in later years as she should.

   I like to see the little trees which they put into our gardens, you
   know, the little pyramids and other dwarf trees. I like to see them,
   even from the first, bear just a little fruit. I think, sometimes, that
   pears, when there are only one or two on the tree, are far finer in
   flavor than those on the big tree which too often have lost in quality
   what they have gained in quantity. That which is done for Jesus Christ
   by young Christians, by weak Christians, by timid Christians, often has
   a very delicate flavor about it, precious to the taste of Jesus. It is
   good to begin serving Him in our youth.

   "Ah," says one, "I shall begin when I can preach." Will you? You had
   better begin reciting a letter to that young friend with whom you went
   to school. You had better begin by dropping a tract in an area, or by
   trying to speak to some young person of your own age. Pride will prompt
   you to wish to be great, but love to Jesus will teach you that the
   small things are acceptable with Him. It is good for young men--good
   for young women--that as soon as they are converted to God they should
   bear the yoke of service.

   It is also good, when we begin to serve God, that we should bear the
   yoke in another sense, namely, by finding difficulties. If it were in
   my power to make the way of serving Christ very easy to every young
   Christian here, I would not do it. If it were possible to make all
   Sunday school work pleasant, I would not do it. If it were possible to
   make standing up in the open air to preach a very easy thing, I would
   not make it so! It is good for you that you bear the yoke. It is good
   that your service should involve self-denial and try your patience. It
   is good for you that the girls should not be very orderly and that the
   boys should not be very teachable when you get them in the class.

   It is good for you that the crowd should not stand still and listen
   very meekly to you and that infidels should put ugly questions to you
   when you are preaching in the street. It is good, I know, for the young
   minister to encounter curious Church members and even to meet with an
   adversary who means to overthrow him! It is a good thing, for a true
   worker, for the devil to labor to put him down because if God has put
   him up, he cannot be put down, but the attempt to overthrow him will do
   him good, develop his spiritual muscles and bring out the powers of his
   mind!

   A very easy path would not be profitable to us. Consider David, after
   Samuel had put the oil on his head and anointed him to be the future
   king of Judah--it would have been a very bad thing for him to have
   waited in inglorious ease and slumbered away the interval. But take
   David and send him into the wilderness to keep the sheep. Bring him to
   Saul's court and let Saul throw a javelin at him--send him to fight
   with Goliath! Banish him, afterwards, to the tracks

   of the wild goats and compel him to live in the dens and caves and make
   him fight for his life--and by this process you will educate a hero,
   fit to rule Israel!

   He comes to the throne no longer a youth and ruddy, but a man of war
   from his youth up, and he is, therefore, ready to smite the Philistines
   or the children of Ammon as the champion of the Lord of Hosts! It is
   good, then, to bear the yoke in the sense of undertaking service for
   Jesus and finding difficulty in it. And it is good, yet further, to
   meet with persecution in your youth. If it were possible to take every
   young Christian and put him into a pious family and not let him go into
   the world at all, but always keep him in his mother's lap--if it were
   possible to take every working man and guarantee that he should only
   work in a shop where they sing Psalms from morning to night, where
   nobody ever swears, where nobody ever utters a word of chaff against
   him--why, I say, if it were possible to do this, I do not know that it
   would be wise to do it!

   To keep people out of temptation is exceedingly proper and none of us
   have any right to put a temptation in another's way. But it is good for
   us to be tempted, sometimes, otherwise we should not know the real
   condition of our hearts and might be rotting with inward pride while
   blooming with outward morality. Temptation lets us know how weak we are
   and drives us to our knees. It tests our faith and tries our love--and
   lets us see whether our Graces are genuine or not. When religion puts
   on her silver slippers and walks out with her golden earrings,
   everybody is quite content to go with her. But the honest, hearty
   Christian will follow Jesus Christ's truth when she goes barefoot
   through the mire and through the slough--and when her garments are
   bespattered by unholy hands.

   Herein is the trial of the true and the unmasking of the deceitful. It
   would not be good for us to be kept from persecution, slander and
   trial--it is good for a man that he bear this yoke in his youth. A
   Christian is a hardy plant. Many years ago a pine tree was brought to
   England. The gentleman who brought it, put it in his hothouse, but it
   did not develop in a healthy manner. It was a spindly thing and,
   therefore, the gardener, feeling that he could not make anything of it,
   took it out and threw it upon the dunghill. There it grew into a
   splendid tree, for it had found a temperature suitable to its nature.

   The tree was meant to grow near the snow. It loves cold winds and rough
   weather--and they had been sweating it to death in a hothouse. So it is
   with true Christianity. It seldom flourishes so well in the midst of
   ease and luxury as it does in great tribulation. Christians are often
   all the stronger and better because they happen to be cast where they
   have no Christian companions or kindly encouragements. As liberty
   usually favors the hardy mountaineers whose rugged hills have made them
   brave and hardy, so does abounding Grace, as a rule, visit those who
   endure the great fight and through much tribulation inherit the
   kingdom.

   Once more, I believe it is good for young Christians to experience much
   soul-trouble. My early days of thoughtfulness were days of bitterness.
   Before I found a Savior, I was plowed with the great subsoil plow of
   terrible convictions. Month after month I sought, but found no hope. I
   learned the plague of my heart, the desperate evil of my nature and at
   this moment I have reason to thank God for that long wintry season. I
   am sure it was good for my soul. As a general rule there is a period of
   darkness somewhere or other in the Christian life--if you do not have
   it, at first, it is probable you will not endure it then--but if you do
   not have it at first it is just as likely you will pass through the
   cloud at some other time.

   It is well to have it over with. It is good for a man, that he bears
   the yoke in his youth. Some friends seem to have found a patent way of
   going to Heaven. If their way is the right one, I am sure I am very
   much delighted, but I am rather dubious, for I meet with those who have
   tried the high-level railroad and are greatly discouraged because the
   train does not run so smoothly as they expected. They have been living
   a whole fortnight--well, not quite without sin--but very near it. They
   have triumphed and conquered altogether, and gone up in a balloon for a
   fortnight. Of course they have to come down again--and some come with
   an awful fall!

   The best of them come, and say, "Dear Pastor, I am afraid I am not a
   child of God. I feel so wretched and yet I feel so happy and holy. I
   have said, "Yes, you see you went up and so you had to come down. If
   you had kept down you would not have had to come down." That going up
   in a balloon to the stars frightens me about some young people. I wish
   they would continue humbly to feel that they are nothing and nobody and
   that Christ is everything. It is much better, on the whole, that a man
   should be timid and trembling than that he should, early in life,
   become very confident. "Blessed is the man that fears always" is a
   Scriptural text--not the slavish fear, nor yet a fear that doubts God,
   but still a fear.

   There is a difference between doubting God and doubting yourself. You
   may have as much as you like of the last till you even get to
   self-despair, but there is no reason whatever why you should doubt the
   Lord! "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth," to be
   made to feel the weight of sin and the chastening hand of God--and to
   be left to cry out in the dark and say, "Oh, that I knew where I might
   find Him, that I might come even to His seat." These ordeals are of
   essential service to the newborn Believer and prepare him, alike, for
   the joys and the sorrows of his spiritual career.

   III. I am going to finish with this last head. Practically, Brothers
   and Sisters, WE ARE, ALL OF US, IN OUR YOUTH. I see some gray heads and
   bald heads here and, yet they belong to persons in their minority. My
   dear Brother, though you are 70 and more, yet you have not come of age
   in the heavenly kingdom, for if you were of age you would have your
   estates. None of us will come of age till we enter Heaven. We are still
   under tutors and governors because we are, even now, as little
   children. We have not come to that period in which we are fit for all
   the joys of Heaven, for if we were, we should be taken Home to our
   Father's house to enjoy our inheritance at once. We are still in our
   youth.

   Well, it is good for us, at this present time, that we should bear the
   yoke and continue to bear it. It is good, my dear Brothers and Sisters,
   that we, who have gone some distance on the road to Heaven, should
   still have something to bear, because it enables us to still honor
   Christ! If we do not suffer with Him, how can we have fellowship with
   Him? If we have no crosses to carry, how can we commune with our Lord,
   the chief Cross-Bearer? Let us be glad that we are not spared
   tribulation, that we are not screened from affliction, but are
   permitted to glorify God by patience, by resignation and by
   unstaggering faith.

   Do not ask the Lord that you may have no trouble, but rather remember
   you have only a little while in which you can be patient--only a little
   while in which you can be a cross-bearer and, therefore, it behooves
   you to use each moment well. A few more revolving suns and you will be
   where there is no more cross to carry, no sorrow to bear and,
   therefore, where there is no room for patience and no opportunity of
   being acquiescent in the Divine will. Be content to bear the yoke now,
   for it is but a little while and this honor will be no longer yours. It
   is good for us all to bear the yoke, too, because thus old Adam is kept
   in check. A wonderfully vivacious thing is that old Adam. He has been
   reported dead a good many times, but to my certain knowledge he is
   still very brisk!

   When we are in trouble, proud old Adam often seems to be quiet and does
   not so well succeed in keeping us from prayer and, consequently, in
   time of trouble, we often enjoy our very sweetest seasons of devotion.
   By the Lord's goodness we escape the trial, but, alas, old Adam soon
   lifts up his proud head again! He says, "Ah, you are a favorite of
   Heaven. Your mountain stands firm. Your affliction has been sanctified
   to you and you have grown in Grace very wonderfully. The fact is, you
   are a very fine fellow."

   Yes, that is old Adam's way, and whenever he sees an opportunity, he
   will return to his old game of flattery. Whenever you are tempted to
   bargain, say to yourself, "I know you, old Adam. I know you and will
   not yield to your crafty devices." What happens when we become
   self-satisfied? Why, the yoke returns upon our shoulders heavier! We
   fall into another trouble and then old Adam is up in the stirrups,
   again, and begins to grumble and rebel. The flesh begins proudly to
   despair, whereas a little while before it was boasting! Trials, in the
   hands of the Holy Spirit, are a great help to overcome corruptions. It
   is a very hard matter for a man to be rich and prospering in this
   world, to be at ease and have a long stretch of health--to have
   everything exactly as he likes--and yet to be a Christian!

   When the road is very smooth, many fall, but when the way is rough
   there is good grip for the feet and we are not so likely to stumble.
   When trials come, they whip us home to our heavenly Father! Sheep do
   not stray so much when the black dog is after them--his barks make them
   run to the shepherd! Affliction is the black dog of the Good Shepherd
   to fetch us back to Him, otherwise we should wander to our ruin! We are
   not better than David and we may honestly confess as he did, "Before I
   was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept Your Word." Therefore
   it is good for us, spiritually, young people, even though old as to the
   flesh, that we should bear the yoke while we are still in our youth.

   Besides, dear Friends, it makes you so helpful to others to have known
   affliction. I do not see how we can sympathize if we are never tried,
   ourselves. I know a beloved Brother who is, perhaps, 50 years of age,
   who never had a day's sickness, and he told me he scarcely knew what
   physical pain was except when a heavy person trod on his toes! Well,
   now, he is a good Brother--but when he tries to sympathize with another
   it is like an elephant picking up a pin, or Hercules with a cane--he
   does do it, by God's Grace, but it is a thing to be wondered at. If you
   tell him that you feel very low in spirits, he looks at you and tries
   to say very kind things, but he does not understand your despondency.

   Now, it would be a great pity for a Christian minister to be lacking in
   the power to sympathize, would it not? Oh, thank God for troubles,
   because they make the heart tender and they teach the lips the art of
   consolation! You can be a Boanerges without trouble, but you never can
   be a Barnabas! You may be a son of thunder, but you will never be a son
   of consolation. As we wish to serve others, let us thank God that He
   qualifies us to do so by making us bear the yoke in our youth.

   Once more, is it not good to bear the yoke while we are here, because
   it will make Heaven all the sweeter? Oh, how sweet Heaven will be to
   that bedridden woman who has lain, these 20 years, upon her weary couch
   and scarcely had a night's unbroken rest! What rest Heaven will be to
   her! I know a good man within two miles of this place who has laid 18
   years without moving. I do not know a happier man than he is! It is a
   treat to see him, but still, what a change it will be--from that bed
   from which he cannot rise--to stand on the sea of glass and forever
   wave the palm branch and draw forth music from the celestial harp! What
   a transformation!

   How great the change for a poor Christian woman dying in a workhouse,
   to be carried by angels into Abraham's bosom! What a change for the
   martyr standing at the stake, burning slowly to death, and then rising
   to behold the Glory of his Lord! What a change for you, dear old
   Friend, with all those aches and pains about you, which make you feel
   uneasy even while you are sitting here! Ah, Graybeard, you will be
   young soon! There will be no wrinkles on your brow! You will not
   require those spectacles! You will not need that staff to lean
   upon--you will be as strong as the youngest here!

   As you stand before the Throne of God, you will scarcely know yourself
   to be the same old woman you used to be, or the same sickly man you
   were a little while ago. You will be stripped of the house of clay and
   your young soul will leap up from the old body and be present with the
   Lord! And then the grave will be a refining pot in which the dross of
   the flesh will be consumed and, by-and-by, your body will rise, no
   longer old and haggard and worn, but full of beauty, like your Master's
   glorious body!

   This should give joy to you at all times--it must be good for you to
   bear the yoke, seeing Heaven will, by that means, be made more fully
   Heaven to you when once you reach its everlasting rest--

   "The way may be rough but it cannot be long So let's smooth it with
   hope, and cheer it with song."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Lamentations 5. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--750, 748.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Soul-Winner

   (No. 1292)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 20, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that wins souls
   is wise." Proverbs 11:30.

   I HAD very great joy last night--many of you know why, but some do not.
   We held our annual meeting of the Church and it was a very pleasant
   sight to see so many Brothers and Sisters knit together in the
   heartiest love, welded together as one mass by common sympathies, and
   holding firmly to, "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism." Think of a
   Church with 4,900 members! Such a community has seldom been gathered in
   any age and in the present century it is without parallel. "O Lord, You
   have multiplied the people and increased the joy. They joy before You
   as the joy of harvest."

   It brings tears into one's eyes to look upon so many who declare
   themselves to be members of the body of Christ. The hope that so many
   are plucked as brands from the burning and delivered from the wrath to
   come is, in itself, exceedingly consoling, and I felt the joy of it
   while communing with my Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus. On
   thinking it over afterwards, however, it seemed to me that there was a
   higher joy in looking at a body of Believers than that which arises
   from merely regarding them as saved. Not but what there is a great joy
   in salvation, a joy worthy to stir the angelic harps! Think of the
   Savior's agony in the ransom of every one of His redeemed! Think of the
   work of the Holy Spirit in every renewed heart! Think of the love of
   the Father as resting upon every one of the regenerate!

   I could not, if I took up my parable for a month, set forth all the
   mass of joy that is to be seen in a multitude of Believers if we only
   look at what God has done for them, promised to them and will fulfill
   in them. But there is yet a wider field of thought and my mind has been
   thinking about it all day--the thought of the capacities of service
   contained in a numerous band of Believers, the possibilities of
   blessing others which lie within the bosoms of regenerate persons! We
   must not think so much of what we already are, as to forget what the
   Lord may accomplish by us for others! Here are the coals of fire, but
   who shall describe the conflagration which they may cause?

   We ought to regard the Christian Church not as a luxurious hostelry
   where Christian may, each one, dwell at his ease in his own inn, but as
   a barracks in which soldiers are gathered together to be drilled and
   trained for war. We should regard the Christian Church not as an
   association for mutual admiration and comfort, but as an arm with
   banners, marching to the fray to achieve victories for Christ! To storm
   the strongholds of the foe and to add province after province to the
   Redeemer's kingdom!

   We may view converted persons, when gathered into Church membership, as
   so much wheat in the granary. And we thank God that it is there and
   that so far the harvest has rewarded the sower--but far more
   soul-inspiring is the view when we regard those Believers as each one
   likely to be made a living center for the extension of the kingdom of
   Jesus! Then we see them sowing the fertile valleys of our land and
   promising, before long, to bring forth some 30, some 40, some 50 and
   some a hundredfold! The capacities of life are enormous--one becomes a
   thousand in a marvelously brief space. Within a short time a few grains
   of wheat would suffice to seed the whole world and a few true saints
   might suffice for the conversion of all nations!

   Only take that which comes from one ear, store it well, sow it
   all--again store it next year and then sow it all again--and the
   multiplication almost exceeds the power of computation! O that every
   Christian were thus, year by year, the Lord's seed corn! If all the
   wheat in the world had perished except a single grain, it would not
   take many years to replenish all the earth and sow her fields and
   plains. But in a far shorter time, in the power of the Holy Spirit, one
   Paul or one Peter would have evangelized all lands! View yourselves as
   grains of wheat predestinated to seed the world! That man lives grandly
   who is as earnest as if the very existence of Christianity depended
   upon himself and is determined that to all men within his reach shall
   be made known the unsearchable riches of Christ! If we, whom Christ is
   pleased to

   use as His seed corn, were only all scattered and sown as we ought to
   be, and were all to sprout and bring forth the green blade and the corn
   in the ear, what a harvest there would be!

   Again would it be fulfilled, "There shall be an handful of corn in the
   earth upon the top of the mountains"--a very bad position for it--"the
   fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall
   flourish like grass of the earth." May God grant us to feel, tonight,
   some degree of the Holy Spirit's quickening power while we talk
   together, not so much about what God has done for us, as about what God
   may do by us and how far we may put ourselves into a right position to
   be used by Him.

   There are two things in the text found laid out with much distinctness
   in its two sentences. The first is--the life of the Believer is, or
   ought to be, full of soul-blessing--"The fruit of the righteous is a
   tree of life." In the second place--the pursuit of the Believer ought
   always to be soul-winning. The second is much the same as the first,
   only the first head sets forth our unconscious influence, and the
   second our efforts which we put forth with the avowed object of winning
   souls for Christ.

   I. Let us begin at the beginning, because the second cannot be carried
   out without the first. Without fullness of life within there cannot be
   an overflow of life to others. It is of no use for any of you to try to
   be soul-winners if you are not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can
   you serve the Lord with your lips if you do not serve Him with your
   lives? How can you preach with your tongues, His Gospel, when with
   hands, feet and hearts you are preaching the devil's gospel and setting
   up Antichrist by your practical unholiness? We must first have life and
   bear personal fruit to the Divine Glory and then out of our example
   will spring the conversion of others!

   Let us go to the fountain head and see how the man's own life is
   essential to his being useful to others. THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER IS
   FULL OF SOUL-BLESSING. This fact we shall consider by means of a few
   observations growing out of the text and first let us remark that the
   Believer's outward life comes as a matter of fruit from him. This is
   important to notice. The fruit of the righteous--that is to say, his
   life--is not a thing fastened upon him--it grows out of him. It is not
   a garment which he puts off and on, but it is inseparable from himself.
   The sincere man's religion is the man, himself, and not a cloak for his
   concealment.

   True godliness is the natural outgrowth of a renewed nature, not the
   forced growth of pious hothouse excitement. Is it not natural for a
   vine to bear clusters of grapes? Is it not natural for a palm tree to
   bear dates? Certainly, as natural as it is for the apples of Sodom to
   be found on the trees of Sodom and for noxious plants to produce
   poisonous berries. When God gives a new nature to His people, the lily
   which comes out of that new nature springs spontaneously from it! The
   man who has a religion which is not part and parcel of himself will,
   by-and-by, discover that it is worse than useless to him.

   The man who wears his piety like a mask at a carnival, so that when he
   gets home he changes from a saint to a savage, from an angel to a
   devil, from John to Judas, from a benefactor to a bully--such a man, I
   say, knows very well what formalism and hypocrisy can do for him and he
   has no vestige of true religion! Fig trees do not bear figs on certain
   days and thorns at other times--they are true to their nature at all
   seasons. Those who think that godliness is a matter of vestment and has
   an intimate relation with blue and scarlet and fine linen--are
   consistent if they keep their religion to the proper time for the
   wearing of their sacred pomposities. But he who has discovered what
   Christianity is, knows that it is much more a life than an act, a form,
   or a profession!

   Much as I love the creed of Christendom, I am ready to say that true
   Christianity is far more a life than a creed. It is a creed and it has
   its ceremonies, but it is mainly a life--it is a Divine spark of
   Heaven's own flame which falls into the human bosom and burns within,
   consuming much that lies hidden in the soul and then, at last, as a
   heavenly life, flames forth so as to be seen and felt by those around.
   Under the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit a regenerate person
   becomes like that bush in Horeb which was all aglow with Deity. The God
   within him makes him shine so that the place around him is holy ground
   and those who look at him feel the power of his hallowed life.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, we must take care that our religion is more
   and more a matter of outgrowth from our souls. Many professors are
   hedged about with, "You must not do this, or that," and are driven
   onward with, "You must do this and you must do that." But there is a
   doctrine, too often perverted, which is, nevertheless, a blessed Truth
   of God and ought to dwell in your hearts. "You are not under the Law
   but under Grace." Therefore you do not obey the will of

   God because you hope to earn Heaven, or dream of escaping from Divine
   wrath by your own works, but because there is a life in you which seeks
   after that which is holy, pure, right and true--and cannot endure that
   which is evil.

   You are careful to maintain good works, not from either legal hopes or
   legal fears, but because there is a holy thing within you, born of God,
   which seeks, according to its nature, to do that which is pleasing to
   God. Look to it more and more so that your religion is real, true,
   natural, vital--not artificial, constrained or superficial. We all need
   a religion which can live either in a wilderness or in a crowd. We need
   a religion which will show itself in every walk of life and in every
   company. Give me the godliness which is seen at home, especially around
   the fireside, for it is never more beautiful than there! Give me the
   godliness that is seen in the battle and tussle of ordinary business
   among scoffers and gainsayers as well as among Christian men. Show me
   the faith which can defy the lynx eyes of the world and walk fearlessly
   where all scowl with the fierce eyes of hate or where there are no
   observers to sympathize and no friends to judge leniently! May you be
   filled with the life of the Spirit and your whole conduct and
   conversation be the natural and blessed outgrowth of that Spirit's
   indwelling!

   Note, next, that the fruit which comes from a Christian is fruit worthy
   of his character--"The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life." Each
   tree bears its own fruit and is known by it. The righteous man bears
   righteous fruit--and do not let us be at all deceived, Brothers and
   Sisters, or fall into any error about this--"he that does righteousness
   is righteous," and--"he that does not righteousness is not of God,
   neither he that loves not his brother." We are prepared, I hope, to die
   for the doctrine of Justification by Faith and to assert before all
   adversaries that salvation is not of works. But we also confess that we
   are justified by a faith which produces works and if any man has a
   faith which does not produce good works, it is the faith of devils!

   Saving faith appropriates the finished work of the Lord Jesus and so
   saves by itself, alone, for we are justified by faith without
   works--but the faith which is without works cannot bring salvation to
   any man! We are saved by faith without works, but not by a faith that
   is without works, for the real faith that saves the soul works by love
   and purifies the character! If you can cheat across the counter, your
   hope of Heaven is a cheat, too! Though you can pray as prettily as
   anybody and practice acts of outward piety as well as any other
   hypocrite, you are deceived if you expect to be right at last! If as an
   employee who is lazy, lying and loitering. Or if, as an employer you
   are hard, tyrannical, and unchristian-like towards your men, your fruit
   shows that you are a tree of Satan's own orchard and bear apples which
   will suit his tooth!

   If you can practice tricks of the trade and if you can lie--and how
   many do lie every day about their neighbors or about their goods?--you
   may talk about being justified by faith all you like, but all liars
   will have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!
   And among the biggest liars you will be, for you are guilty of the lie
   of saying, "I am a Christian," whereas you are not! A false profession
   is one of the worst of lies, since it brings the utmost dishonor upon
   Christ and His people. The fruit of the righteous is righteousness--the
   fig tree will not bring forth thorns, neither shall we gather grapes
   from thistles. A tree is known by its fruit, but we cannot judge men's
   hearts and must not try to do so. We can judge their lives and I pray
   God we may all be ready to judge our own lives and see if we are
   bringing forth righteous fruit, for if not, we are not righteous!

   Let it, however, never be forgotten that the fruit of the righteous,
   though it comes from him naturally--for his newborn nature yields the
   sweet fruit of obedience--yet it is always the result of Grace which is
   the gift of God! There is no Truth of God which ought to be remembered
   more than this, "In Me is your fruit found." We can bring forth no
   fruit except as we abide in Christ! The righteous shall flourish as a
   branch and only as a branch! How does a branch flourish? By its
   connection with the stem and the consequent flowing in of the sap. And
   so, though the righteous man's righteous actions are his own, yet they
   are always produced by the Grace which is imparted to him and he never
   dares to take any credit for them! He sings, "Not unto us, but unto
   Your name give praise."

   If he fails, he blames himself--if he succeeds, he glorifies God!
   Imitate the righteous man's example--lay every fault, every weakness,
   every infirmity at your own door. And if you fall in any respect short
   of perfection--and I am sure you do--take all that to yourself and do
   not excuse yourself. But if there is any virtue, any praise, any true
   desire, any real prayer--anything that is good--ascribe it all to the
   Spirit of God! Remember, the righteous man would not be righteous
   unless God had made him righteous. And the fruit of righteousness would
   never come from him unless the Divine sap within him had produced that
   acceptable fruit. To God, alone, is all honor and glory!

   The main lesson of the passage is that this outburst of life from the
   Christian, this consequence of life within him, this fruit of his soul
   becomes a blessing to others. Like a tree, it yields shade and
   sustenance to all around. It is a tree of life, an expression which I
   cannot fully work out tonight as I would wish, for there is a world of
   instruction compressed into the illustration. That which to the
   Believer, himself, is fruit, becomes to others a tree! It is a singular
   metaphor, but by no means a lame one. From the child of God there falls
   the fruit of holy living, even as an acorn drops from the oak. This
   holy living becomes influential and produces the best results in
   others, even as the acorn becomes itself an oak and lends its shade to
   the birds of the air.

   The Christian's holiness becomes a tree of life. I suppose it means a
   living tree, a tree calculated to give life and sustenance to others. A
   fruit becomes a tree! A tree of life! Wonderful result this! Christ in
   the Christian produces a character which becomes a tree of life. The
   outward character is the fruit of the inner life--this outer life,
   itself, grows from a fruit into a tree and as a tree it bears fruit in
   others to the praise and glory of God. Dear Brothers and Sisters, I
   know some of God's saints who live very near to Him and they are
   evidently a tree of life, for their very shadow is comforting, cooling
   and refreshing to many weary souls.

   I have known the young, the tried, the downcast, go to them, sit
   beneath their shade and pour out their troubles and they have felt it a
   rich blessing to receive their sympathy, to be told of the faithfulness
   of the Lord and to be guided in the way of wisdom. There are a few good
   men in this world whom to know is to be rich. Such men are libraries of
   Gospel Truth but they are better than books, for the Truth of God in
   them is written on living pages. Their character is a true and living
   tree--it is not a mere post of the dead wood of doctrine, bearing an
   inscription and rotting at the same time, but it is a vital, organized,
   fruit-producing thing--a plant of the Lord's right hand planting!

   Not only do some saints give comfort to others, but they also yield
   them spiritual nourishment. Well-trained Christians become nursing
   fathers and nursing mothers, strengthening the weak and binding up the
   wounds of the brokenhearted. So, too, the strong, bold, generous deeds
   of large-hearted Christians are of great service to their fellow
   Christians and tend to raise them to a higher level. You feel refreshed
   by observing how they act--their patience in suffering, their courage
   in danger, their holy faith in God, their happy faces under trial--all
   these nerve you for your own conflicts. In a thousand ways the
   sanctified Believer's example acts in a healing and comforting way to
   his Brothers and Sisters and assists in raising them above anxiety and
   unbelief.

   Even as the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the
   people, so the words and deeds of saints are medicine for a thousand
   maladies. And then, what fruit instructed Believers bear! They are
   sweet to the taste of the godly. We can never trust in men as we trust
   in the Lord, but the Lord can cause the members to bless us in their
   measure, even as their Head is ever ready to do. Jesus, alone, is the
   Tree of Life, but He makes some of His servants to be, instrumentally
   to us, little trees of life by whom He gives us fruit of the same sort
   that He bears Himself, for He puts it there and it is Himself in His
   saints causing them to bring portly golden apples with which our souls
   are gladdened! May we, every one of us, be made like our Lord and may
   His fruit be found upon our branches!

   We have put into the tomb, during the last year, many of the saints who
   have fallen asleep. Among them there were some of whom I will not, at
   this moment, speak particularly--whose lives, as I look back upon them,
   are still a tree of life to me. I pray God that I may be like they!
   Many of you knew them and if you will only recall their holy, devoted
   lives, the influence they have left behind will still be a tree of life
   to you. They, being dead, yet speak! Do you hear their eloquent
   exhortations? Even in their ashes live their accustomed fires--kindle
   your souls in their warmth. Their noble examples are the endowments of
   the Church! Her children are ennobled and enriched as they remember
   their walk of faith and labor of love.

   Beloved, may we, every one of us, be true benedictions to the Churches
   in whose gardens we are planted. "Oh," says one, "I am afraid I am not
   much like a tree, for I feel so weak and insignificant." If you have
   faith as a grain of mustard seed you have the commencement of the tree
   beneath whose branches the birds of the air will yet find a lodging.
   The very birds that would have eaten the tiny seed come and find
   lodgment in the tree which grows out of it! And people who despise and
   mock you, now that you are a young beginner, will one of these days, if
   God blesses you, be glad to borrow comfort from your example and
   experience!

   But one other thought on this point. Remember the completeness and
   development of the holy life will be seen above. There is a City of
   which it is written, "In the midst of the street, thereof, and on every
   side of the river was there the tree

   of life." The tree of life is a heavenly plant and so the fruit of the
   Christian is a thing of Heaven! Though not transplanted to the Glory
   Land, it is getting fit for its final abode. What is holiness but
   Heaven on earth? What is living unto God but the essence of Heaven?
   What are uprightness, integrity, Christ-likeness? Have not these even
   more to do with Heaven than harps and palms and streets of purest gold?
   Holiness, purity, loveliness of character--these make a Heaven within a
   man's own bosom! And even if there were no place called Heaven, that
   heart would have a heavenly happiness which is set free from sin and
   made like the Lord Jesus!

   See, then, dear Brothers and Sisters, what an important thing it is for
   us to be, indeed, righteous before God, for then the outcome of that
   righteousness shall be fruit which will be a tree of life to others and
   a tree of life in Heaven above, world without end. O blessed Spirit,
   make it so and You shall have all the praise!

   II. This brings us to our second head. THE PURSUIT OF THE BELIEVER
   SHOULD BE SOUL-WINNING. For

   "he that wins souls is wise." The two things are put together--the life
   first, the effort next--what God has joined together let no man put
   asunder. It is implied in our text that there are souls which need
   winning. Ah me, all souls of men are lost by nature! You might walk
   through the streets of London and say of the masses of men you meet
   upon those crowded pavements with sighs and tears--"Lost, lost, lost!"
   Wherever Christ is not trusted--the Spirit has not created a new heart
   and the soul has not come to the great Father--there is a lost soul.

   But here is the mercy--these lost souls can be won! They are not
   hopelessly lost! Not yet has God determined that they shall forever
   abide as they are. It is not yet said, "He that is filthy, let him be
   filthy, still," but they are in the land of hope where mercy may reach
   them--for they are spoken of as capable of being won! They may yet be
   delivered, but the phrase hints that it will need all our efforts. "He
   that wins souls." What do we mean by that word, win? We use it in
   courtship. We speak of the bridegroom who wins his bride and sometimes
   there is a large expanse of love, many a pleading word and much wooing
   before the valued heart is all the suitor's own.

   I use this explanation because, in some respects, it is the very best,
   for souls will have to be won for Christ in this fashion that they may
   be married to Him. We must woo the sinner for Christ--that is how
   hearts are to be won for Him. Jesus is the Bridegroom and we must speak
   for Him and tell of His beauty, as Abraham's servant, when he went to
   seek a wife for Isaac, acted as a wooer in his stead. Have you ever
   read the story? Then turn to it when you get home and see how he talked
   about his master, what possessions he had and how Isaac was to be head
   of it all, and so on. And then he finished his address by urging
   Rebecca to go with him.

   The question was put to her, "Will you go with this man?" So the
   minister's business is to commend his Master and his Master's riches
   and then to say to souls, "Will you be wedded to Christ?" He who can
   succeed in this very delicate business is a wise man! We also use the
   term in a military fashion. We speak of winning a city, a castle, or a
   battle. We do not win victories by going to sleep. Believe me, castles
   are not captured by men who are only half awake! To win a battle
   requires the best skills, the greatest endurance and the utmost
   courage. To storm fortresses which are regarded as almost impregnable,
   men need to burn the midnight oil and study well the arts of attack.
   And, when the time comes for the assault, not a soldier must be a
   laggard, but all force of artillery and manhood must be brought to bear
   on the point assailed.

   To carry a man's heart by main force of Grace. To capture it. To break
   down the bars of brass and dash the gates of iron in pieces requires
   the exercise of a skill which only Christ can give! To bring up the big
   battering rams and shake every stone in the sinner's conscience. To
   make his heart rock and reel within him for fear of the wrath to come.
   In a word, to assail a soul with all the artillery of the Gospel needs
   a wise man and one awakened to his work! To hold up the white flag of
   mercy and, if that is despised, to use the battering ram of threats
   until a breach is made and then, with the sword of the Spirit in his
   hand, to capture the city, to tear down the black flag of sin and run
   up the banner of the Cross needs all the force the choicest preacher
   can command and a great deal more!

   Those whose souls are as cold as the Arctic regions and whose energy is
   reduced to the vanishing point are not likely to take the city of
   Mansoul for Prince Emanuel. If you think you are going to win souls,
   you must throw your soul into your work just as a warrior must throw
   his soul into a battle--or victory will not be yours. We use the words
   "to win" in reference to making a fortune and we all know that the man
   who becomes a millionaire has to rise up early and sit up late and eat
   the bread of carefulness. We know it takes a deal of toiling and saving
   and I know not what, besides, to amass immense wealth.

   We have to go in for winning souls with the same ardor and
   concentration of our faculties as old Astor of New York went in to
   build up that fortune of so many millions which he has now left behind
   him. It is, indeed, a race, and you know that in a race nobody wins
   unless he strains every muscle and sinew. They that run in a race all
   run, but only one receives the prize--and that one is generally he who
   had more strength than the rest. Certainly, whether he had more
   strength or not, he put out all he had and we shall not win souls
   unless we imitate him in this. Solomon declares in the text that, "He
   that wins souls is wise," and such a declaration is all the more
   valuable as coming from so wise a man.

   Let me show you why a true soul-winner is wise. First, he must be
   taught of God before he will attempt it. The man who does not know that
   he was once blind but now he sees, had better think of his own
   blindness before he attempts to lead his friends in the right way. If
   not saved yourself, you cannot be the means of saving others! He that
   wins souls must be wise unto salvation, first, for himself. That being
   taken for granted, he is a wise man to select such a pursuit. Young
   man, are you choosing an object worthy to be the great aim of your
   life? I do hope you will judge wisely and select a noble ambition. If
   God has given you great gifts, I hope they will not be wasted on any
   low, sordid, or selfish design.

   Suppose I am now addressing one who has great talents and has an
   opportunity of being what he likes--of going into Parliament and
   helping to pass wise measures--or of going into business and making
   himself a man of importance? I hope he will weigh the claims of Jesus
   and immortal souls as well as other claims. Shall I addict myself to
   study? Shall I surrender myself to business? Shall I travel? Shall I
   spend my time in pleasure? Shall I become the principal fox hunter of
   the county? Shall I lay out my time in promoting political and social
   reforms?

   Think them all over, but if you are a Christian man, my dear Friend,
   nothing will equal in enjoyment, in usefulness, in honor and in lasting
   recompense the giving yourself up to the winning of souls! Oh, it is
   grand hunting, I can tell you, and beats all the fox hunting in the
   world in excitement and exhilaration! Have I not sometimes gone with a
   cry over hedge and ditch after some poor sinner and kept well up with
   him in every twist and turn he took till I have overtaken him, by God's
   Grace, and been in at the death and rejoiced exceedingly when I have
   seen him captured by my Master? Our Lord Jesus calls His ministers,
   fishermen, and no other fishermen have such labor, such sorrow and such
   delight as we have!

   But what a happy thing it is that you may win souls for Jesus and may
   do this though you abide in your secular callings. Some of you would
   never win souls in pulpits--it would be a great pity if you tried--but
   you can win souls in the workshop, in the laundry, in the nursery and
   in the drawing room. Our hunting grounds are everywhere--by the
   wayside, by the fireside, in the corner and in the crowd. Among the
   common people Jesus is our theme and among the great ones we have no
   other. You will be wise, my Brothers, if for you the one absorbing
   desire is that you may turn the ungodly from the error of their ways.
   For you there will be a crown glittering with many stars which you
   shall cast at Jesus' feet in the day of His appearing!

   Further, it is not only wise to make this your aim, but you will have
   to be very wise if you succeed in it, because the souls to be won are
   so different in their constitutions, feelings and conditions--you will
   have to adapt yourselves to them all! The trappers of North America
   have to find out the habits of the animals they wish to catch--and so
   you will have to learn how to deal with each class of sinners. Some are
   very depressed. You will have to comfort them. Perhaps you will comfort
   them too much and make them unbelieving! Therefore, possibly instead of
   comforting them, you will need, sometimes, to administer a sharp word
   to cure the sulkiness into which they have fallen.

   Another person may be frivolous. If you put on a serious face you will
   frighten your bird away--you will have to be cheerful and drop a word
   of admonition as if by accident. Some people, again, will not let you
   speak to them, but will talk to you. You must know the art of putting a
   word in edgeways! You will have to be very wise and become all things
   to all men--but your success will prove your wisdom. Theories of
   dealing with souls may look very wise, but they often prove to be
   useless when actually tried. He who, by God's Grace, accomplishes the
   work, is a wise man, though, perhaps, he knows no theory whatever. This
   work will need all your wit and far more--and you will have to cry to
   the great Winner of Souls above to give you of His Holy Spirit.

   He that wins souls is wise because he is engaged in a business which
   makes men wiser as they proceed with it. You will bungle at first and,
   very likely, drive sinners off from Christ by your attempts to draw
   them to Him. I have tried to move some souls, with all my might, with a
   certain passage of Scripture, but they have taken it in an opposite
   light to what it was intended and have started off in the wrong
   direction. It is very difficult to know how to act with bewildered
   enquir-

   ers. If you want some people to go forward you must pull them
   backwards. If you want them to go to the right you must insist upon
   their going to the left, but, by God's Grace, they go to the right
   directly. You must be ready for these follies of poor human nature!

   I know a poor aged Christian woman who had been a child of God 50
   years, but she was in a state of melancholy and distress from which
   nobody could awaken her. I called several times and endeavored to cheer
   her up, but generally, when I left she was worse than before. So the
   next time I called to see her I did not say anything to her about
   Christ or religion. She soon introduced those topics herself and then I
   remarked that I was not going to talk to her about such holy things,
   for she did not know anything about them. I told her she was not a
   Believer in Christ and had been, no doubt, a hypocrite for many years.
   She could not stand that and asserted, in self-defense, that the Lord
   above knew her better than I did and He was her witness that she did
   love the Lord Jesus Christ! She scarcely forgave herself, afterwards,
   for that admission, but she could never talk to me quite so
   despairingly anymore!

   True lovers of men's souls learn the art of dealing with them and the
   Holy Spirit makes them expert soul surgeons for Jesus. It is not
   because a man has more abilities, nor, altogether because he has more
   Grace, but the Lord makes him to love the souls of men intensely--and
   this imparts a secret skill--since, for the most part, the way to get
   sinners to Christ is to love them to Christ. Beloved Brothers, I will
   say once more, he who really wins souls for Jesus, however he wins
   them, is a wise man. Some of you are slow to admit this. You
   say--"Well, So-and-So, I dare say, has been very useful, but he is very
   rough." What does his roughness matter if he wins souls? "Ah," says
   another, "but I am not built up under him." Why do you go to hear him?
   To get built up?

   If the Lord has sent him to pull down, let him pull down! And you go
   elsewhere for edification, but do not grumble at a man who does one
   work because he cannot do another! We are also too apt to pit one
   minister against another and say you should hear my minister. Perhaps
   we should, but it would be better for you to hear the man who edifies
   you and let others go where they, also, are instructed. "He that wins
   souls is wise." I do not ask you how he did it. He sang the Gospel and
   you did not like it, but if he won souls he was wise! Soul-winners all
   have their own ways and if they do but win souls they are wise.

   I will tell you what is not wise and will not be thought so at the
   last, namely, to go about the Churches doing nothing, yourself, and
   railing at all the Lord's useful servants. Here is a dear Brother on
   his dying bed. He has the sweet thought that the Lord enabled him to
   bring many souls to Jesus and the expectation when he comes to the
   gates that many spirits will come to meet him. They will throng the
   ascent to the New Jerusalem and welcome the man who brought them to
   Jesus! They are immortal monuments to his labors. He is wise. Here is
   another who has spent all his time in interpreting the prophecies, so
   that everything he read of in the newspapers he could see in Daniel or
   Revelation.

   He is wise, so some say, but I had rather spend my time in winning
   souls! I would sooner bring one sinner to Jesus Christ than unpick all
   the mysteries of the Divine Word, for salvation is the thing we are to
   live for! I would to God that I understood all mysteries, yet chief of
   all would I proclaim the mystery of soul-saving by faith in the blood
   of the Lamb! It is comparatively a small matter for a minister to have
   been a staunch upholder of orthodoxy all his days and to have spent
   himself in keeping up the hedges of his Church. Soul-winning is the
   main concern! It is a very good thing to contend earnestly for the
   faith once delivered to the saints, but I do not think I should like to
   say in my last account, "Lord, I have lived to fight the Romanists and
   the State Church and to put down the various erroneous sects, but I
   never led a sinner to the Cross." No, we will fight the good fight of
   faith, but the winning of souls is the greater matter--he who attends
   to it is wise!

   Another Brother has preached the Truth of God, but he did so polish up
   his sermons that the Gospel was hidden. Never a sermon was fit to
   preach, he thought, until he had written it out a dozen times to see
   whether every sentence would be according to the canons of Cicero and
   Quintillian--and then he went and delivered the Gospel as a grand
   oration. Is that wise? Well, it takes a wise man to be a thorough
   orator, but it is better not to be an orator if fine speech prevents
   your being understood! Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than
   souls be lost! What we need is to win souls and they are not to be won
   by flowery speeches! We must have the winning of souls at heart and be
   red hot with zeal for their salvation--then, however much we blunder,
   according to the critics--we shall be numbered among those whom the
   Lord calls wise!

   Now, Christian men and women, I want you to take this matter up,
   practically, and to determine that you will try, this very night, to
   win a soul. Try the one next to you in the pew if you cannot think of
   anybody else! Try on the way home. Try with your own children. Have I
   not told you of what happened one Sunday six months ago? In my sermon I
   said, "Now, you mothers, have you ever prayed with each of your
   children, one by one, and urged them to lay hold on Christ? Perhaps
   dear Jane is now in bed and you have never yet pleaded with her about
   eternal things. Go home tonight, wake her up and say, "Jane, I am sorry
   I have never personally told you about the Savior and prayed with you,
   but I mean to do it now." Wake her up and put your arms round her neck
   and pour out your heart to God with her!

   Well, there was a good Sister here who had a daughter named Jane. What
   do you think? She came on Monday to bring her daughter Jane to see me
   in the vestry, for when she woke her up and began, "I have not spoken
   to you about Jesus," or something to that effect, "Oh, dear Mother,"
   said Jane, "I have loved the Savior these six months and wondered why
   you had not spoken to me about Him." And then there was such kissing
   and rejoicing! Perhaps you may find that to be the case with a dear
   child at home, and, if you do not, so much the more reason why you
   should begin at once to speak! Did you never win a soul for Jesus? You
   shall have a crown in Heaven, but no jewels it! You will go to Heaven
   childless! And you know how it was in the old times, how the women
   dreaded lest they should be childless!

   Let it be so with Christian people! Let them dread being spiritually
   childless! We must hear the cries of those whom God has given to be
   born unto Himself by our means. We must hear them, or else cry out in
   anguish, "Give me converts or I die!" Young men, old men and Sisters of
   all ages, if you love the Lord, get a passion for souls! Do you not see
   them? They are going down to Hell by the thousands! As often as the
   hand upon the dial completes its circuit, Hell devours multitudes! Some
   of them ignorant of Christ and others willfully rejecting Him! The
   world lies in darkness--this great city still pines for the light!

   Your own friends and kinsfolk may be dead before this week is over. Oh,
   if you have any humanity, let alone Christianity, if you have found the
   remedy, tell the diseased about it! If you have found life, proclaim it
   to the dead! If you have found liberty, publish it to the captives! If
   you have found Christ, tell of Him to others! My Brothers in the
   college, let this be your choice work while studying, and let it be the
   one objective of your lives when you go forth from us. Do not be
   content when you get a congregation, but labor to win souls and, as you
   do this, God will bless you. As for us, we hope during the rest of our
   lives to follow Him who is The Soul-Winner and to put ourselves in His
   hands who makes us soul-winners, so that our life may not be a long
   folly, but may be proven, by results, to have been directed by wisdom!

   O you souls not won to Jesus, remember that faith in Christ saves you!
   Trust in Him! May you be led to trust in Him for His name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 10. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--906, 957.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Unknown Ways of Love

   (No. 1293)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 14, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do you know not now; but you
   shall know hereafter." John 13:7.

   THESE words of our Lord were spoken in answer to Peter's exclamation of
   surprise, "Lord, do You wash my feet?" It was a very natural expression
   of astonishment and one which deserved no censure, but, at the same
   time it was not a very wise remark, for, although it was a marvelously
   condescending act for the Lord Jesus to wash His disciples' feet, He
   had already performed a greater condescension by coming upon the earth,
   at all, in the form of a man. For the Son of the Highest to dwell among
   mortals in a human body, capable of being girt about with a towel and
   able to take a basin and pour water into it, is a far greater marvel
   than that He should, being a Man, leave the supper table and act as a
   menial servant by washing His disciples' feet.

   Had Peter understood what his Master had prophesied and explained to
   him, namely, the Lord's approaching sufferings and death, he would have
   seen that for his Master to take a towel and basin was little compared
   with His having our iniquities laid upon Himself and being made a
   Sacrifice for sin! It surprises you much to see the Lord of Glory wear
   a towel--does it not amaze you, still more, to see Him clad in the
   purple robe of mockery? Are you not still more astonished to see His
   clothes stripped from Him and to hear Him cry upon the Cross, "I can
   see all My bones: they look and stare upon Me"?

   It is amazing that He should take the basin in the upper room, but
   surely it was more extraordinary that He should take the cup in the
   garden and drink in its full bitterness till He sweat, as it were,
   great drops of blood falling to the ground! To wash the disciples' feet
   with water was certainly a surprising action, but to pour out His
   heart's blood to wash us all was by far the greater, for this involved
   His death, His making His grave with the wicked and His being numbered
   with the transgressors! The expression of Peter is thus seen to be very
   natural, but not very profound.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, do you not think it very likely that our
   pretty pious speeches which strike us as very proper, seem, to our
   friends, to be very commendable, will, one of these days, appear to be
   mere baby prattling and do even now appear so to the Lord Jesus? Those
   choice sayings and holy sentences which we have read with admiration
   and greatly valued--even those are not like the Words of Jesus for
   solid intrinsic weight and worth but may, in other lights, appear far
   less beautiful than they do now. I have, myself, proved in different
   humors and frames of mind that the very things which struck me as being
   so very deep and gracious have at other times appeared to be one-sided,
   shallow, or questionable. We know in part and prophesy in part--our
   highest attainments, here, are those of little children, and even for
   the close student--the deeply experienced Christian, the venerable man
   of years and the graciously anointed instructor of the Churches, there
   is no room for boasting.

   Note, next, that our Savior answered Peter's speech in the words of the
   text which are as admirable for their tone as for their matter. Which
   should we admire the more in this reply, its meekness or its majesty?
   To Peter's ignorant simplicity how gentle He is! "What I do you know
   not now; but you shall know hereafter." And yet how royally He
   confronts Peter's objection and how distinctly His majestic Personality
   puts down the too conspicuous individuality of Peter! "What I do you
   know not now."

   How perfect the blending of the majesty and the meekness! Who shall
   tell which of the colors is better laid on? This is always the way of
   our Lord Jesus! You shall find, through life, Beloved, that whenever
   Jesus Christ comes to rebuke you, He will do so powerfully but gently.
   He will speak as a Friend and as a King. You will feel both His love
   and His authority and acknowledge the power of both His goodness and
   His greatness. His smile shall not make you presume, nor shall His
   royal glance cause you to tremble. You will find His left hand
   supporting you while in His right you see His imperial

   scepter. Blessed Savior, are You more meek or more majestic? We cannot
   tell, but certainly to our hearts You are both kind and kingly, sweet
   and sovereign, gracious and glorious!

   I. Let us now come to the words themselves. We have looked at the
   occasion of them and at the manner of them. We will now weigh their
   matter. The words, themselves, have suggested to me many thoughts and
   among them, first, that IN OUR LORD'S DOINGS THERE IS MUCH WHICH WE
   CANNOT UNDERSTAND. Our text is not merely true about the washing of the
   feet, but it is true concerning all that our Lord does--"What I do you
   know not now." We may know the external part of what He does, or think
   we do, but there is more in His actions than any of us can conceive.
   The external is not all--there are wrapped up, within, other mercies
   which we perceive and yet greater mercies as yet unknown to us.

   You traverse the soil of Canaan, drink of its rivers and are refreshed
   by its corn and wine and oil, but the goodly land has hidden
   riches--its stones are iron and out of its hills you may dig brass. The
   brooks of which you drink derive their coolest waters from springs
   which have tapped "the deep which lies under." If you know, in some
   measure, what Jesus does, the whole mystery is not altogether laid bare
   to your eyes. There are folds of His manifold Grace which, as yet, are
   unopened. The work of Jesus is beyond you--it is lower than your fall,
   higher than your desire--it surpasses you and is altogether too high
   for you! You simply cannot attain to its measurement. Who can, by
   searching, find it out unto perfection? Our lack of knowledge of the
   Divine doings is a wide subject and I shall not attempt to explore its
   boundaries, but shall restrain myself by the text.

   Brothers and Sisters, there are many things that God does which we
   cannot understand, now, and probably never shall. For instance, why did
   He permit evil, at first, and still tolerates it? To this enquiry the
   Divine answer would be "What I do you know not." Leave that alone! It
   is our highest wisdom to be ignorant where God has not enlightened us.
   It is great folly to pretend to know when we do not--there lives not a
   man, nor ever will live a man--who has even an approximation to an
   understanding of the dread mystery of the existence of moral evil! The
   bottom of this abyss no mind can reach! He is foolhardy who ventures on
   the plunge. Let this dread secret alone! You cannot endure the white
   heat which burns around it!

   Many a man has lost the eyes of his reason while trying to peer into
   this fiery furnace. What have you to do with that which God conceals
   from you? It is God's business, not yours! The thing was done before
   you were born and He who permitted it can answer for Himself if He
   cares to do so. And, with regard to predestination--that God ordains
   all things and has before His eyes the chart of everything that has
   been, is, or shall be--is most true! But who knows the depths of
   foreknowledge and destiny? To sit down and pluck the eternal purposes
   to pieces, to question their justice and impugn their wisdom is both
   folly and audacity!

   Here the darkness thickens and out of it comes forth the
   proclamation--"What I do you know not." The things which are revealed
   belong to us and to our children--but as to the unrevealed, if it is to
   the Glory of God to conceal a thing, let it be concealed! Jesus has
   torn the veil of the Holy Place and into the secret of Divine love you
   may now freely enter. But other veils, which He tears not, you may not
   touch. Some Truths of God are closed up from our understanding, even as
   the Ark of the Covenant was shut against prying eyes. Let us not
   violate their sanctity lest we meet the doom of the men of Bethshemesh,
   but let us zealously guard them as priceless treasures that we may
   obtain the blessing which rested upon the house of Obededom.

   The same remark applies to the great designs of God in Providence. He
   is pleased, in prophecy, to tell us what He has meant by His Providence
   and, perhaps, it will be one of the enjoyments of the future state to
   see the hand of God in the whole current of history. But while
   incidents are occurring, we must not expect to understand their drift
   and bearing. The wonderful tapestry of human history, all woven in the
   loom of God's infinite wisdom, will astonish both men and angels when
   it is complete! But while it is yet unfinished, it will not be possible
   for us to imagine the completed pattern. From between those wheels of
   Providence, which are full of eyes, I hear a voice which said, "What I
   do you know not now."

   So we will confine ourselves to the loving acts of the Lord Jesus
   Christ, since what the Lord was doing with Peter was not very
   mysterious, nor a deed of transcendent power, nor of stern justice. He
   was humbly girding Himself with a towel and pouring water into a basin
   to wash his followers' feet. It was a very simple matter and evidently
   a very gracious, kind and condescending act. And yet, even concerning
   that, Jesus said, "What I do you know not now." My

   Brothers and Sisters, even the acts of our Lord Jesus Christ in His
   loving condescension we do not fully understand. Ah, think a
   minute--how can we? Does not our Lord's love always surpass our
   knowledge, since He, Himself, is the greatest of all mysteries? Let me
   read these words to you--"Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all
   things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God;
   He arose from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel,
   and girded Himself."

   Do you understand the higher and the lower points of this transaction?
   You must comprehend them both before you can see what He has done.
   "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands."
   Can you see the glory of this? Jesus, our Lord, was conscious that His
   Father had made Him Head over all things to His Church and that He had
   laid the government upon His shoulders and given Him the key of David
   that He might open and no man shut, and shut and no man open. He knew,
   assuredly, that at His belt swung the keys of Heaven, death and
   Hell--and that having fulfilled the commission of the Eternal God, He
   was about to return to His Throne.

   Have you grasped the idea? Do you perceive the Glory of which Jesus was
   conscious? If you have done so, then descend by one long sweep--He,
   this Lord of All, having all things in His hands, takes off His
   garments, foregoes the common dress of an ordinary man, and places
   Himself in the undress of a servant! He wears a towel that He may wait
   upon His own disciples! Can you follow Him from such a height to such a
   depth? A superior in the East never washes an inferior's feet--Christ
   acts as if He were inferior to His friends! He acts as if He were
   inferior to those poor fishermen-- those foolish scholars who learned
   so slowly and with whom He had spent so much time and yet they did not
   know Him--those 12 men who soon forgot what they knew and needed Him to
   explain, again and again, line upon line and precept upon precept!
   Having loved them to the end, He stoops to the extreme of stooping and
   bows at their feet to cleanse their defilement! Who, I say, can compute
   the depth of this descent?

   You cannot know what Christ has done for you because you cannot
   conceive how high He is by Nature! Neither can you guess how low He
   stooped in His humiliation and death. With an eagle's wing you could
   not soar so high as to behold Him as God over all, blessed forever,
   sitting at the right hand of the Father, the adored of cherubim and
   seraphim! Nor could you dive, even if you dared to take a plunge into
   the abyss, until you reached the depth of, "My God, My God, why have
   You forsaken Me!" And yet, you must somehow know the interval--I was
   about to say, "the infinity"-- between these two points of height and
   depth before you can know what Jesus has done for you!

   Moreover, think awhile. Was anything that Jesus did understood while He
   was doing it? He is born a Babe in Bethlehem, but who knew what He did
   in the manger? A few shepherds and two or three favored saints
   discerned the Savior in the Babe, but to the mass of mankind He was
   unknown. God came on earth and angels sung His advent, but O Earth,
   your Lord might have said to you, "What I do you know not now"! He
   lived here the life of a carpenter's son--that life was the most august
   event in all human history--but men knew not what it was or what it
   meant! "The world knew Him

   not."

   He came forward to preach the Gospel--did they know who it was that
   spoke as never man spoke? Did they comprehend what He spoke? Ah, no. He
   was hid from their eyes! At last He laid aside the life He had so
   strangely taken--who knew the reason of His death upon the Cross? Did
   even His disciples know, though He had told them? When the earth shook
   and graves were opened by His last cry, did even His own followers
   understand what a Sacrifice had been offered? No, and until the Spirit
   was poured upon them from on high they did not comprehend that it
   behooved Christ to suffer. He could say to each of His own disciples,
   of all that He had done, "What I do you know not now."

   This is true, too, of every separate gift which our Lord's love has
   given to His people. You have been justified in Jesus Christ, but do
   you fully know the wondrous righteousness with which Justification by
   Faith has endowed you? You are accepted in the Beloved, but did any one
   of you ever realize what it is to have full acceptance with the Father?
   I know you have realized the fact and rejoiced in it, but have you
   known, yes, can you know the full sweetness of its meaning? You are one
   with Christ and members of His body! Do you comprehend that? You are
   joint heirs with Christ! Do you know the full significance of that?

   He is betrothed to you in an everlasting marriage! Do you know what
   that means? Ah no, these wonders of His love, we hear of them and we
   believe them, but, "What I do," He said, "you know not now." Our Lord
   is doing great things by way of preparing us for a higher state of
   existence! We shall soon be rid of this vile body and be released from
   this narrow world--we are going to a sphere more suited for our
   Heaven-born life where we shall be the comrades of angels and

   commune with the spirits of the just made perfect--and serve the Lord
   day and night in His temple. But what Glory shall be, we do not know,
   for the ear has not heard it, nor the eye beheld it, nor the heart
   conceived it. As for the preparations which are going on within us to
   make us ready for this sublime condition, we know that they are being
   carried on, but we cannot, as yet, see their course, their separate
   tendencies and their ultimate issues.

   The instrument does not comprehend the tuner. The tuner fetches harsh
   sounds from those disordered strings, but all those jarring notes are
   necessary to the harmonious condition which he is aiming to produce. If
   the discords were not discovered, the music of the future would be
   marred. My Brothers and Sisters, concerning all that Christ has done it
   is true, "What I do you know not now." Oh, if His work were little, we
   could measure it! If His love were scanty, we could know it! If His
   wisdom were finite we could judge it! But, where everything is past
   finding out, who can pretend to know?

   Remember, that in our salvation Christ, Himself, is the sum and
   substance. In it every attribute of His Divinity is brought into
   exercise to the fullest. He makes it His Glory, counting our salvation
   to be His coronet and crown jewels and, therefore, it is not at all
   marvelous that we should not know what He does.

   II. Our second thought is a sweet one. OUR LACK OF UNDERSTANDING DOES
   NOT PREVENT THE EFFICACY OF OUR LORD'S WORK. "What I do you know not
   now." Peter does not know what Christ is doing when He washes his feet,
   but the Master washes them just as clean whether Peter understands it
   or not. Jesus did not say, "There, Peter, you do not understand what I
   am doing by washing your feet, and so I shall not wash them until you
   do." No, no. He moves on with the basin and towel and washes them
   clean, though Peter does not know why.

   Is not this a great mercy, Brothers and Sisters, that the blessings
   which Christ bestows upon us are not dependent for their efficacy upon
   our capacity to understand them? Just look out a little in the world
   and see how true this is. A mother has her little child on her lap and
   she is washing its face. The child does not like the water and it
   cries. Ah, Babe, if you could understand it, you would smile! The child
   cries and struggles in the mother's arms, but it is washed all the
   same-- the mother waits not for the child to know what she is doing,
   but completes her work of love. So is the Lord often exercising Divine
   acts upon us and we do not appreciate them, neither are we pleased.
   Perhaps we even strive against His work of love, but for all that, He
   perseveres and turns not away His hand because of our crying.

   Does the tree understand pruning? Does the land comprehend plowing? Yet
   pruning and plowing produce their good results. The physician stands at
   the bedside of the patient and gives him medicine, medicine which is
   unpalatable and which, in its operation, causes the patient to feel
   worse than he was before. The sufferer cannot understand this and,
   therefore, he draws unhappy conclusions. But the power of the medicine
   does not depend upon the patient's understanding its qualities and,
   therefore, it will do him good, though it puzzles him by its strange
   manner of working. If a fool eats his dinner, it will satisfy his
   hunger as much as if he were a philosopher and understood the processes
   of digestion. This is a great mercy, for the most of men can never
   become philosophers!

   It is not necessary for a man to be learned in the nature of combustion
   in order to be warmed by a fire. A man may be ignorant of the laws of
   light and yet be able to see. He may know nothing of acoustics and yet
   be quick of hearing. A passenger who does not know a valve from a
   wheel, enters a carriage at the station and he will be drawn to his
   journey's end by the engine as well as if he were learned in mechanics.
   It is the same in the spiritual as in the natural world. The efficacy
   of spiritual forces does not depend upon our capacity to understand
   them.

   I have mentioned this very simple fact because it really is necessary
   for us to remember it. We are so knowing, or think we are--we think it
   so essential that we should form a judgment of what the Lord is doing.
   Ah, dear Brothers and Sisters, there are more essential things than
   this! It is better to trust, to submit, to obey, to love, than to know.
   Let the Lord alone! He is doing rightly enough, be sure of that. Is He
   to be questioned and questioned again by us? Are we to judge His
   judgment? Dare we demand answers to our impertinent enquiries and say,
   why this and why that, and why the other? Were He a God if He would
   submit to such examination? If we call ourselves His disciples, how can
   we justify a spirit which would arraign our Lord? Be still and know
   that He is God!

   What more would you know? Remember that the things which you understand
   are for your good, but they can only bring you a small amount of
   benefit because they must be, in themselves, small, or you would not be
   able to measure them. When a great, deep good is coming to you, you
   will not be able to comprehend it, for your comprehension is narrow.
   Yet it will be none the less but all the more a blessing because you
   know it not! Joseph is gone and here is his bloody

   coat! "Without doubt he is torn in pieces! All these things are against
   me! Ah, how my heart is broken with the loss of my darling child. I
   cannot understand it. It cannot be right."

   So talks poor Jacob, but it was right, all the same for that! Joseph
   was on the sure road to Pharaoh's throne and to providing for his
   brethren in the land of Egypt. So it is with you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, under your present trial and affliction. You cannot understand
   it now, but that does not make a pennyworth of difference! It is
   working out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!
   Be content to let faith rule and knowledge wait--and what you know not
   now you shall know hereafter.

   III. A third thought is that OUR NOT BEING ABLE TO KNOW WHAT THE LORD
   DOES SHOULD NEVER

   SHAKE OUR CONFIDENCE IN HIM. I hope, dear Brothers and Sisters, our
   faith in Christ does not rest upon our capacity to understand what He
   does! If so, I fear it is not faith at all, but a mere exercise of
   self-conceited carnal reason. Some things which the Lord has done bear
   upon their very forefront the impression of His infinite love, but I
   hope you know enough of Him, now, to be able to believe that where
   there are no traces of love apparent to you, His love is as surely
   there. I rejoice in that part of my text which runs thus, "What I do."
   This washing of the feet was not being done by Bartholomew, or
   Nathanael--it was the personal act of the Lord, Himself.

   Now, when the Master and Lord is doing it, who needs to raise a
   question or to suggest enquiry? It must be right if He does it--to
   question His conduct would be an insult to His majestic love. Do you
   know Christ? Then you know the Character of His deeds. Do you know your
   Lord? Then you are sure that He will never act unkindly, unbecomingly,
   or unwisely. He can never send a needless sorrow, or wantonly cause a
   tear to flow. Can He? Here, then, is the question-- not, "Why is it
   done?--but, "Who is doing it? And if the Lord is doing it, we can have
   no doubt about the excellence of His design. We believe that He is
   right when we cannot see that He is so. If we do not trust Him far
   beyond what we know, it will show that our confidence in Him is very
   limited.

   When a person only obeys another because he chooses to obey and sees it
   a proper thing to do, he has not the spirit of implicit obedience at
   all. And when a person only confides in another as far as he can see
   that he is safe, he is a stranger to implicit confidence. Confidence
   has its sphere beyond the boundaries of knowledge. Where judgment
   ceases, faith begins. "What I do you know not now." Ah, You most
   beloved of our souls, You spoke the Truth in that, but we can reply to
   You that we know and are sure that what You do is supremely good.

   IV. Fourthly, OUR LACK OF UNDERSTANDING AS TO WHAT OUR LORD DOES
   GENERALLY SHOWS ITSELF MOST IN DEFERENCE TO HIS PERSONAL DEALINGS WITH
   OURSELVES. "What I do you know not

   now" refers to His washing Peter's feet. Brothers and Sisters, if there
   is anything which we are not likely to understand thoroughly well, it
   is that which has to do with ourselves. We are too close home to see
   clearly. In this case the looker-on sees more than the player. We
   generally form a better opinion of the character, position and needs of
   another than we do concerning ourselves.

   It is said of Moses' face that everyone saw it shine but one man--and
   that was Moses--for he could not see his own countenance. So, also, if
   a man's face is black, it is black to everybody but himself--he does
   not see his own spots. We cannot form accurate estimates of ourselves
   and so we must not expect, when Christ is personally dealing with us,
   that we should be able to understand what He does to us. Besides, if
   the Lord is dealing with us in an afflicting way, we are generally in
   an unfavorable state of mind for forming any judgment at all, being, as
   a rule, too disturbed in mind by the affliction, itself.

   When a hospital patient is under the knife, he is a poor judge of the
   necessity of the operation or the skill of the surgeon. Later, when the
   wound has healed, he will judge better than he can do when the knife is
   just cutting through nerve, and sinew and bone. Judge nothing before
   the time! You are not in a condition to judge and therefore do not
   attempt it. When you are smarting under the rod, your opinions,
   estimates and forecasts are about as much to be depended upon as the
   whistling of the wind or the dashing of the waves. Cease from judging,
   calculating and foreboding--believe that He who ordains our lot orders
   all things in kindness and wisdom!

   I do not wonder that Peter was puzzled and could not understand his
   Lord's procedure, for it is always a hard thing for an active and
   energetic mind to see the wisdom of being compelled to do nothing. Here
   is a man who can drag a net to the shore full of big fishes and,
   instead of using his strength, he is made to sit still and do nothing!
   Peter, the hardy, vigorous worker, must sit down like a gentleman, or a
   cripple, and do nothing. He does not understand. He has been very

   useful and he thinks he could be useful now. He could, at any rate,
   wait at the table, or carry the basin, or wash his fellows' feet if it
   must be done. But he is bound to sit still and do nothing and he does
   not understand it.

   Brothers and Sisters, the hardest work a man has to do, who wants to
   serve the Lord Jesus, is to stand aside in forced inactivity and take
   no share in what is going on! It is hard to be put on the shelf among
   the cracked crockery and to be of no more use than a broken vessel
   while yet you feel you could be useful if you had but strength to leave
   your chamber. The proud idea that you have been wonderfully useful
   tempts you to repine at being laid among the lumber! And you feel it to
   be a very mysterious business altogether.

   Then, what is worse, not only can Peter not do anything, he is a
   receiver from others and must be waited on by them, and chiefly by his
   Master, whom he, at other times, loved to serve! To have his feet
   washed must have appeared, to a hardy fisherman like Peter, a strange
   luxury. He would say, "Cannot I do it myself? I am not used to be
   waited on." To sit there and, while doing nothing, to be also
   engrossing the care of another, must have been a unusual position to
   him. It is very unpleasant for an active man to be unable to work and
   to be dependent upon others for every little detail and necessity of
   life. To borrow other people's strength and tax other people's care is
   not desirable.

   To stand in need of anxious prayers and to awake pitying thoughts,
   seems strange to those who have been accustomed to do rather than to
   suffer. "Why," you seem to say, "I have prayed for them. I have worked
   for them! Are they, now, to pray and work for me? I have fed the sheep.
   Are the sheep going to feed me? I have washed the saints' feet. Are
   they going to wash mine? Am I to be dependent upon others and not be
   able to lend a hand or lift a finger"? Ah, well, we must not ask
   questions, but we are very apt to do so. We do not know, and we become
   inquisitive, but the Savior says, "What I do you know not now."

   All the while there is very prominent in our minds a sense of
   insignificance and unworthiness which makes our receipt of favors the
   more perplexing. "What?" asks Peter, "I, unworthy Peter, shall I be
   washed by the Lord Jesus Christ"? So it seems to us unworthy sinners,
   "Why should God's people be thinking about me and careful about me? Why
   has the Lord, Himself, deigned to make my bed in my sickness? Why has
   His blessed Spirit condescended to be my Comforter, applying precious
   promises to me? Why all this to me?" We do not comprehend it. We are
   lost in wonder and it is no marvel that we are. Yet, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, if our eyes are opened, the Lord's afflicting dealings are not
   so wonderfully mysterious, after all, for we need purging and cleansing
   even as Peter needed his feet washed.

   We greatly need the sacred purging of Jesus' love for the removal of
   daily defilement. Sometimes trials in business, sad bereavements, acts
   of ingratitude, pains of sickness, or depressions of spirit are just
   the basin and the water and the towel in which our Lord is washing our
   feet. We are clean through the blood of Jesus, but the daily cleansing
   we still need. It is a wonder that some of us are ever out of the
   furnace, for our dross is so abundant. I shall not be surprised if I
   find myself often under the flail, for the straw and the chaff are
   plentiful in me. Some metals are so apt to rust that it is no wonder
   that they are often burnished. Some soils need a deal of plowing--they
   are very apt to cake and grow hard--and therefore must be broken up.

   So it is with us. There is a need for what the Lord is doing. In
   Peter's case there was a need of fellowship, for our Lord said, "If I
   wash you not you have no part with Me." You cannot have fellowship with
   Christ unless He does this or that for you. No, especially unless He
   tries you, for how shall you know the suffering Savior unless you
   suffer, yourself? Communion with the afflicted Redeemer is promoted by
   our personal afflictions. There was a need, yet again, for Peter and
   the rest to learn the lesson of washing their Brothers' feet by seeing
   the Lord wash theirs. No man can rightly wash another's feet till his
   own feet have been washed by his Savior.

   It is, in the kingdom of Christ, a law that there must be experience
   before there can be expertness. You must be comforted or you can not
   comfort. You must find mercy, yourself, or you can not lead others in
   the search. You must be washed or you cannot wash. Thus there were good
   reasons for our Lord's act, but they were not seen by Peter, nor do the
   motives for our Lord's dispensations towards us always appear upon the
   surface. When Jesus, Himself, is dealing with us, especially if it is
   in a way of trial, we do not understand it and He has need to say,
   "What I do you know not now."

   V. Our last thought for the present is--UPON THIS POINT AND UPON MANY
   OTHERS WE SHALL, ONE DAY, BE INFORMED. "What I do you know not now, but
   you shall know hereafter." That, "hereafter," may be very soon. Peter
   knew within a few minutes what Jesus meant, for He said to him, "Know
   you what I have done unto you? If I, your Lord and Master, have washed
   your feet, you ought, also, to wash one another's feet." Thus the light
   was not long

   in breaking. Why are you in such a hurry, when you are in trouble, to
   begin spelling out an evil reason for God's dealings, when, if you will
   but wait, you shall know the right reason in a short time?

   A child is in an ill temper because there has been a rule made by the
   father and not explained. And so it sits down and sulks and thinks of
   some unkind, ungenerous motive on the father's part. In a minute or
   two, after it understands it all and has to eat its own words, it
   confesses, "How bad of me to impute such unkindness to my dear loving
   father, who is always seeking my good." If you will get reasoning in
   haste about your Lord's dispensations, you will have to take all your
   reasoning back and you will have to afflict your soul for being so
   hasty. Therefore wait awhile, for, "you shall know hereafter," and
   that, "hereafter," may be very near.

   Peter understood his Master's washing his feet better, after his sad
   fall and threefold denial. I should not wonder that when the Lord
   turned and looked upon Peter--and he went out and wept bitterly--the
   penitent disciple said to himself, "Now I begin to see why my Lord
   washed my feet." When he perceived how badly he needed washing, he
   would prize the token which his Lord had given him. He saw his own
   frailties and imperfections as he had not seen them before, for he had
   said, "Though all men should be offended, yet will I never be
   offended," but after his sad denial he knew himself to be as apt to err
   as the rest of the Brothers.

   At a certain point of your experience you will possibly discover the
   explanation of your present adversity. After the Lord had met with
   Peter at the sea and had said to him, "Feed My sheep," and, "Feed My
   lambs," another method of explanation was open to him. When Peter began
   to be a pastor and to deal with the souls of others, he would clearly
   see why his Master washed his feet, for he would find that he had much
   to do of the same kind of service. Often does our work for Jesus unfold
   the work of Jesus and we know our Lord by being called to follow in His
   footsteps. Yonder in Heaven, best of all, Peter understands why the
   Master washed his feet and surely, sometimes, Peter must inwardly smile
   to think of what he once thought and said.

   Peter sings amid the heavenly throng, "Unto Him that loved us and
   washed us from our sins in His own blood." And then he thinks to
   himself, "In my folly, in the days of my flesh, I said unto Him, 'You
   shall never wash my feet.' I loved Him when I said it, but what
   monstrous folly lay in my speech!" Ah, he understands it, now, and we
   shall understand as he does, soon! All things will be clear when we
   once pass into the region of Light. I anticipate the blessed
   confidences of Heaven! How blessed will be those familiar Revelations
   of mysteries so long obscure! What sweet communications there will be
   between God and His people in the world to come! I look forward to the
   time when we shall see the knots untied and the riddles all
   explained--then shall we see the good of apparent evil--and the life
   which lay in the bosom of death.

   Could we hear the stories of pilgrims who have reached Home, they would
   run like this--"I was traveling a pleasant road, blessing God for so
   delightful a pilgrimage, but suddenly a huge rock fell across my path
   and I had, with regret, to turn back and traverse a more rugged road. I
   never understood why until I came home to Heaven and now He tells me,
   'Child, there was a precipice but a little way in front and you would
   have been dashed to pieces and, therefore, I blocked up your way.'"

   Another who has reached the desired haven will tell us, "The vessel in
   which I sailed was wrecked. She struck upon a rock and on a broken
   fragment of her timbers I swam to shore. I could never comprehend the
   reason for this calamity till now. now I learn that the ship was being
   steered by evil hands to a shore where I would have been made a slave
   and kept in lifelong captivity, and there was no way of deliverance but
   by dashing the boat to shivers and landing her passengers where they
   would be free."

   Brothers and Sisters, you will bless God in Heaven more for your
   sorrows than your joys! When you once ascend the celestial hills you
   will see that the best blessings came to you in the roughest garments.
   Your pearls were found in oyster shells and your jewels were brought
   out of Egypt. Sickness, trial, adversity, bereavement and pain have
   been more truly angels of God to you than your wealth, your health,
   your strength, your comfort--infinitely more so than your laughter and
   your ease! O Brothers and Sisters, we shall know hereafter! Well, as we
   shall know hereafter, we may leave the knowing till then--and give all
   our attention, now, to obeying and trusting!

   I have done when I have added a warning to those out of Christ. There
   are some in this congregation who do not know my Lord. I have been much
   exercised in my mind about you while I have been confined to my chamber
   and unable to address you. And my prayer has been that the Holy Spirit
   would bless to your conversion the messages of my Brothers who have
   kindly occupied this pulpit. If you still remain unconverted, I would
   like to say to you that you do not know

   what God has been doing with you and you do not know what He is doing
   with you now--but you will know hereafter. You have Sabbath days, but
   you do not know their value--you will value them differently,
   by-and-by, when you lie dy-ing--and especially when you are called
   before the Judgment Seat of God!

   You have your Bible and you neglect it--you do not know that God has
   sent a love letter to you in that form--you will know it when you stand
   before His awful bar! Some of you have been pleaded with very often and
   earnestly entreated to lay hold on eternal life--and the Lord has
   backed up our entreaties by sending sickness to you and personal
   trouble. Well, you have not known much about it and you have not wished
   to know--but you will have to know hereafter! If you die without
   Christ, you will wake up in eternity and cry, "Ah me, that ever the
   Lord should call me and I refuse! That He should stretch out His hand
   and I should disregard." In Hell it will be an awful discovery, "I was
   the subject of Gospel invitations, I was the object of earnest
   entreaties, but I continued in my sin and here I am, eternally lost!"

   What I earnestly desire should happen would be that you should, this
   morning, find out what the Lord has done for you and should understand
   it and should open your eyes and say, "Here am I, a man who has lived
   long in sin and I have been spared on purpose that God might save me
   before I die." Or perhaps it will take this form--"Here I am, a young
   man, and I came in here this morning with no precise motive, little
   knowing what God was about to do with me. But I know it now. He has
   brought me here that I may, this morning, believe in Jesus and give my
   heart to Him!"

   O hearers of the Gospel, if you once come to know what God has really
   done with you and for you, you will hardly forgive yourselves for your
   conduct towards Him! You will say, "Did He really love me so and redeem
   me with such a price? And have I been so unkind and thoughtless towards
   Him?" You will upbraid yourselves and chasten yourselves and grieve to
   think you should have treated so good a Friend so terribly! O may the
   Divine Spirit, this morning, open your eyes to know what the Lord Jesus
   does for you and His Grace shall be magnified in you! Amen and amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 13:1-17. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--327, 689, 778.

   MR. SPURGEON requests his friends to unite with him in thanking the
   ever-merciful Father for permitting him, again, to leave the bed of
   sickness and preach the Word to the great congregation. He also
   entreats his kind readers to pray for him whenever the sermons are
   useful to themselves, for the preacher growingly needs to be upheld by
   Grace in answer to the supplications of the Lord's people. Pray that
   affliction may be sanctified, physical strength given to preach the
   Gospel and, above all, the unction of the Holy Spirit to make the Word
   effectual in the heart of saints and sinners.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Anchor

   (No. 1294)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 21, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
   the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two
   immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might
   ha ve a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon
   the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
   both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil;
   where the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High Priest
   forever after the order of Melchisedec." Hebrews 6:17-20.

   FAITH is the Divinely-appointed way of receiving the blessings of
   Grace. "He that believes shall be saved," is one of the main
   declarations of the Gospel. The wonders of creation, the discoveries of
   Revelation and the movements of Providence are all intended to create
   and foster the principle of faith in the living God. If God reveals
   anything, it is that we should believe it. Of all the books of Holy
   Scripture it may be said, "these are written that you might believe and
   that believing you might have life." Even if God conceals anything, it
   is that we may be able to confide in Him since what we know yields but
   little space for trust compared with the unknown.

   Providence sends us many different trials, all meant to exercise and
   increase our faith and, at the same time, in answer to prayer, it
   brings us varied proofs of the Divine faithfulness which serve as
   refreshments to our faith. Thus the works and the Words of God
   cooperate to educate men in the Grace of faith. You might imagine,
   however, from the doctrine of certain teachers, that the Gospel is,
   "Whoever doubts shall be saved," and that nothing could be more useful
   or honorable than for a man's mind to hang in perpetual suspense, sure
   of nothing, confident of the truth of no one, not even of God, Himself!

   The Bible raises a mausoleum to the memory of its heroes and writes
   upon it as their epitaph, "these all died in faith." But the modern
   gospel derides faith and sets up, instead, the new virtue of keeping
   abreast with the freshest thought of the age! That simple trust in the
   truthfulness of God's Word, which our fathers inculcated as the basis
   of all religion, would seem to be at a discount, now, with "men of
   mind" who are able to cope with "modern thought." Shame upon professed
   ministers of Christ that some of these are worshipping at this shrine
   and are laboring after the repute of being intellectual and
   philosophical by scattering doubts on all sides!

   The doctrine of the blessedness of doubt is as opposed to the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ as darkness is to light, or Satan to Christ, Himself! It
   is invented as a quietus to the consciences of those proud men who
   refuse to yield their minds to the rule of God! Have faith in God, for
   faith is, in itself, a virtue of the highest order! No virtue is more
   truly excellent than the simple confidence in the Eternal which a man
   is helped to exhibit by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. No, not only is
   faith a virtue in itself, but it is the mother of all virtues! He that
   believes becomes strong to labor, patient to suffer, fervent to love,
   earnest to obey, zealous to serve!

   Faith is a root from which may grow all that can adorn the human
   character. So far from being opposed to good works, it is the
   ever-flowing fountain from where they proceed. Take faith away from the
   professed Christian and you have cut the sinew of his strength. Like
   Samson, you have shorn him of his locks and left him with no power
   either to defend himself or to conquer his foes. "The just shall live
   by faith"--FAITH is essential to the vitality of Christianity and
   anything which weakens that faith weakens the very mainspring of
   spiritual power!

   Brothers and Sisters, not only does our own experience teach us this,
   and the Word of God declare it, but the whole of human history goes to
   show the same Truth of God. Faith is force! Why, even when men have
   been mistaken, if they

   have believed the mistake, they have displayed more power than men who
   have known the truth, but have not heartily believed it. The force that
   a man has in dealing with his fellow men lies very much in the force of
   conviction which his beliefs have over his own soul. Teach a man the
   Truth of God so that his whole heart believes in it and you have given
   him both the fulcrum and the lever with which he may move the world.

   To this very moment the whole earth is tremulous like a mass ofjelly
   beneath the tread of Luther, and why? Because he was strong in faith!
   Luther was a believer in the Word of God and the schoolmen with whom he
   had to contend were mere disputers. The priests, cardinals and popes
   with whom Luther came into contact were mere traders in dead
   traditions! Therefore he smote them hip and thigh, with great
   slaughter. His whole manhood believed in what he had learned of
   God--and as an iron rod among potters' vessels, so was he among the
   pretenders of his age! What has been true in history all along is most
   certainly true now. It is by believing that we become strong--that is
   clear enough.

   Whatever supposed excellencies there may be in the much vaunted
   receptive condition of the mind, the equilibrium of a cultured
   intellect and the unsettled judgment of "honest" disbelief, I am unable
   to discern them. And I see no reference to them in Scripture. Holy Writ
   neither offers commendations of unbelief, nor presents motives nor
   reasons for its cultivation. Experience does not prove it to be
   strength in life's battle, or wisdom for life's labyrinth. It is near
   akin to credulity and, unlike true faith, it is prone to be led by the
   nose by any falsehood.

   Unbelief yields no consolation for the present and its outlook for the
   future is by no means comforting. We discover no intimation of a
   sublime cloud land, where men of self appreciating brain power will
   eternally puzzle themselves and others. We hear no prophecy of a
   celestial hall of science were skeptics may weave fresh sophistries and
   forge new objections to the Revelation of God. There is a place for the
   unbelieving, but it is not Heaven!

   Coming to our text, whose tone is far removed from all uncertainty, we
   see clearly that the Lord does not desire us to be in an unsettled
   condition but would put an end to all uncertainty and questioning. As
   among men a fact is established when an honest man has sworn to it, so,
   "God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the
   immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Condescending to
   the weakness of human faith, He, Himself, swears to what He declares
   and thus gives us a Gospel doubly certified by the promise and oath of
   the everlasting God! Surely angels must have wondered when God lifted
   His hand to Heaven to swear to what He had promised and must have
   concluded that from then on there would be an end of all strife because
   of the confirmation which the Lord thus gave to His counsel.

   In working out our text, I must direct you to its most conspicuous
   metaphor. This world is like a sea--restless, unstable, dangerous,
   never at one stay. Human affairs may be compared to waves driven with
   the wind and tossed. As for ourselves, we are the ships which go upon
   the sea and are subject to its changes and motions. We are apt to be
   drifted by currents, driven by winds and tossed with tempests. We have
   not yet come to the true terra firma, the rest which remains for the
   people of God. God would not have us carried about with every wind and,
   therefore, He has been pleased to fashion for us an anchor of hope most
   sure and steadfast, so that we may outride the storm.

   I shall not attempt to preach from the whole of the great text before
   us, for it would require seven years, at least, and a Dr. John Owen, or
   a Joseph Caryl to bring forth a tenth of its meaning! I am simply going
   to work out the one set of the Truths of God suggested by the image of
   an anchor and may God grant that all of us, this morning, who know the
   meaning of that anchor may feel it holding us fast by its grip within
   the veil! And may others who have never possessed that anchor, before,
   be enabled to cast it overboard this morning, for the first time, and
   feel throughout all the rest of their lives the strong consolation
   which such a holdfast is sure to bestow upon the believing heart!

   I. First, let me call your attention to THE DESIGN OF THE ANCHOR of
   which our text speaks. The design of an anchor, of course, is to hold a
   vessel firmly to one place when winds and currents would otherwise
   remove it. God has given us certain Truths which are intended to hold
   our minds fast to truth, holiness, perseverance--in a word, to hold us
   to Himself. But why hold the vessel? The first answer which would
   suggest itself would be to keep it from being wrecked. The ship may not
   need an anchor in calm waters, when upon a broad ocean a little
   drifting may not be a very serious matter. But there are conditions of
   weather in which an anchor becomes altogether essential. When a gale is
   rushing towards the shore, blowing great guns and the vessel cannot
   hold her course and must surely be driven upon an iron-bound coast,
   then an anchor is worth its weight in gold!

   If the good ship cannot be anchored, there will be nothing left of her
   in a very short time. Except for, here and there, a spar, the gallant
   vessel will go to pieces and every mariner drowned. Now is the time to
   let down the anchor, the best

   bow anchor, if you will, and let the good ship defy the wind. Our God
   does not intend His people to be shipwrecked-- shipwrecked and lost
   forever--however, they would be if they were not held fast in the hour
   of temptation. Brothers and Sisters, if every wind of doctrine whirled
   you about at its will, you would soon be drifted far away from the
   Truth as it is in Jesus--and concerning it you would make shipwreck!

   But you cost your Lord too dear for Him to lose you! He bought you at
   too great a price and sets too great a store by you for Him to see you
   broken to pieces on the rocks. Therefore He has provided for you a
   glorious holdfast, that when Satan's temptations, your own corruptions
   and the trials of the world assail you, hope may be the anchor of your
   soul, both sure and steadfast. How much we need it! For we see others
   fall into the error of the wicked, overcome by the de-ceivableness of
   unrighteousness and left forever as castaways. "Having no hope and
   without God in the world."

   If you have done business on the great waters for any length of time,
   you must be well aware that were it not for everlasting Truths of God
   which hold you fast, your soul had long since been hurried into
   everlasting darkness and the proud waters had long before this have
   gone over your soul! When the mighty waves have lifted themselves up,
   your poor boat has seemed to go down to the bottom of the mountains!
   And had it not been for unchanging love and immutable faithfulness,
   your heart had utterly fainted. Nevertheless, here you are, today,
   convoyed by Grace, provisioned by mercy, steered by heavenly wisdom and
   propelled by celestial power! Thanks to the anchor, or rather to the
   God who gave it to you, no storm has overwhelmed you! You are under way
   for the port of Glory!

   An anchor is also needed to keep a vessel from discomfort, for even if
   it is not wrecked, it would be a wretched thing to be driven here and
   there, to the north and then to the south, as winds may shift. Unhappy
   is he who is the creature of external influences, flying along like
   thistledown in the breeze, or a rolling thing before the whirlwind! We
   require an anchor to hold us so that we may abide in peace and find
   rest unto our souls. Blessed be God, there are solid and sure Truths,
   infallibly certified to us, which operate powerfully upon the mind so
   as to prevent its being harassed and dismayed!

   The text speaks of, "strong consolation." Is not that a glorious
   word--we have not merely consolation which will hold us fast and bear
   us up against the tempest in times of trouble, but strong consolation
   so that when affliction bursts forth with unusual strength, like a
   furious tornado, the strong consolation, like a sheet anchor, may be
   more than a match for the strong temptation and may enable us to
   triumph over all! Very restful is that man who is very believing--

   "Hallelujah! 1believe! Now the giddy world stands fast, For my soul has
   found an anchor Till the night of storm is past."

   An anchor is needed, too, to preserve us from losing the headway which
   we have made. The vessel has been making good way towards port, but the
   wind changes and blows in her teeth. She will be borne to the port from
   which she started, or to an equally undesirable port, unless she can
   resist the foul wind! Therefore she puts down her anchor. The captain
   says to himself, "I have got so far and I am not going to be drifted
   back. Down goes my anchor and here I stop." Saints are sometimes
   tempted to return to the country from where they came--they are half
   inclined to renounce the things which they have learned and to conclude
   that they never were taught of the Lord at all.

   Alas, old Adam and Satan endeavor to drive us back! And were it not for
   something sure to hold to--back we would go! If it could be proven to
   be, as certain cultivated teachers would have us believe, that there is
   nothing very sure, although black is black, it is not very black, and
   though white is white, it is not very white. If it could be proven that
   from certain standpoints there is no doubt black is white and white is
   black. If it could be proven, I say, that there are no Divine
   certainties, no infallible Truths--then we might willingly surrender
   what we know or think we know, and wander about on the ocean of
   speculation--the waifs and strays of mere opinion! But while we have
   the Truth of God taught to our very souls by the Holy Spirit, we cannot
   drift from it, nor will we, though men count us fools for our
   steadfastness!

   Brothers and Sisters, aspire not to the charity which grows out of
   uncertainty! There are saving Truths of God and there are "damnable
   heresies." Jesus Christ is not yes and no. His Gospel is not a cunning
   mixture of the gall of Hell and the honey of Heaven flavored to the
   taste of bad and good. There are fixed principles and revealed facts.
   Those who know anything experimentally about Divine things have cast
   their anchor down and, as they hear the chain running out, they
   joyfully say, "This I know and have believed. In this Truth I stand
   fast and immovable. Winds may blow and crack their

   cheeks, but they will never move me from this anchorage! Whatever I
   have attained by the teaching of the Spirit, I will hold fast as long
   as I live."

   Moreover, the anchor is needed that we may possess constancy and
   usefulness. The man who is easily moved and believes this, today, and
   that, tomorrow, is a fickle creature. Who knows where to find him? Of
   what use is he to the younger sort and the feeble folk, or, indeed, to
   anyone? Like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed, what
   service can he render in the work of the Lord and how can he influence
   others for good? He believes not! How can he make others believe? I
   believe that the orthodox disbeliever is more largely a creator of
   infidelity than the heterodox Believer-- in other words I fear that the
   man who earnestly believes an error has a less injurious influence upon
   others than the man who holds the Truth of God in indifference and
   secret unbelief.

   This man is tolerated in godly company, for he professes to be one of
   ourselves and he is, therefore, able to stab at Piety beneath her
   shield. The man knows nothing, certainly, but only hopes and trusts.
   And when defending Truth, he allows that much may be said on the other
   side, so that he kisses and stabs at the same time. Our God has
   provided us an anchor to hold us fast lest we be shipwrecked, lest we
   be unhappy, lest we lose the progress we have made and lest our
   character should become unstable and, therefore, useless. These
   purposes are kind and wise! Let us bless the Lord who has so graciously
   cared for us.

   II. Secondly, I invite you to consider THE MAKE OF THE ANCHOR. "That by
   two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we
   might have a strong consolation." Anchor-making is very important work.
   The anchor-smith has a very responsible business, for if he makes his
   anchor badly, or of weak material, woe to the shipmaster when the storm
   comes! Anchors are not made of cast iron, not of every kind of metal
   that comes to hand, but they are made of worked iron, strongly welded
   and of tough, compact material which will bear all the strain that is
   likely to come upon it at the worst of times. If anything in this world
   should be strong, it should be an anchor, for upon it safety and life
   often depend.

   What is our anchor? It has two great blades or flukes to it, each of
   which acts as a holdfast. It is made of two Divine things. The one is
   God's promise, a sure and stable thing, indeed! We are very ready to
   take a good man's promise, but perhaps the good man may forget to
   fulfill it, or be unable to do so--neither of these things can occur
   with the Lord-- He cannot forget and He cannot fail to do as He has
   said! Jehovah's promise, what a certain thing it must be! If you had
   nothing but the Lord's bare Word to trust to, surely your faith should
   never stagger. To this sure word is added another Divine thing, namely,
   God's oath.

   Beloved, I scarcely dare speak upon this sacred topic! God's oath, His
   solemn assertion, His swearing by Himself! Conceive the majesty, the
   awe, the certainty of this! Here, then, are two Divine assurances,
   which, like the flukes of the anchor, hold us fast. Who dares doubt the
   promise of God? Who can have the audacity to distrust His oath? We have
   for our anchor two things, which, in addition to their being Divine,
   are expressly said to be Immutable--that is, two things which cannot
   change! When the Lord utters a promise, He never runs back from
   it--"the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Has He said
   and shall He not do it? Has He promised and shall it not stand fast? He
   never changes and His promise abides from generation to generation!

   Then comes the oath, which is the other Immutable thing. How could that
   be altered? God has pledged the honor of His name and it is not
   supposable that, under such circumstances, He will retract His
   engagements and deny His own declarations! Ah, no--

   "The Gospel bears my spirit up. A faithful and unchanging God Lays the
   foundation for my hope In oaths, and promises, and blood."

   Notice, next, of these two things that is said--"Wherein it is
   impossible for God to lie." It is inconsistent with the very idea and
   thought of God that He should be a liar! A lying God would be a mistake
   in language, a self-evident contradiction! It cannot be, God must be
   true--true in His Nature, true in His thoughts, true in His designs,
   true in His acts and assuredly true in His promises and true in His
   oaths. "Wherein it is impossible for God to lie." Oh, Beloved, what
   blessed holdfasts have we here! "If hope cannot rest on such
   assurances, what could it rest upon? But now, what is this promise, and
   what is this oath? The promise is the promise given to Abraham that his
   seed should be blessed and in this seed should all nations of the earth
   be blessed, also."

   To whom was this promise made? Who are the "seed"? In the first place,
   the Seed is Jesus, who blesses all nations. And next, our Apostle has
   proved that this promise was not made to the seed according to the
   flesh, but to the seed according to the spirit. Who, then, are the seed
   of Abraham according to the spirit? Why, Believers! For He is the
   father of the faithful and God's promise, therefore, is confirmed to
   all who exhibit the faith of believing Abraham! To Christ, Himself, and
   to all who are in Christ, is the Covenant made sure, that the Lord will
   bless them forever and make them blessings.

   And what is the oath? That may refer to the oath which the Lord swore
   to Abraham after the Patriarch had offered up his son, for which see
   the 22nd chapter of Genesis. But I think you will agree with me if I
   say it more probably refers to the oath recorded in the 110th Psalm
   which I would have you notice very carefully--"The Lord has sworn, and
   will not repent, You are a priest forever after the order of
   Melchisedec." I think this is referred to because the 20th verse of our
   text goes on to say, "Where the Forerunner is for us entered, even
   Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Mel-chisedec."

   Now, Beloved, I want you to see this anchor. Here is one of its
   holdfasts--God has promised to bless the faithful-- He has declared
   that the seed of Abraham, namely Believers, shall be blessed and made a
   blessing. Then comes the other arm of the anchor which is equally
   strong to hold the soul, namely, the oath of the priesthood, by which
   the Lord Jesus is declared to be a Priest forever on our behalf--not an
   ordinary priest after the manner of Aaron, beginning and ending a
   temporary priesthood--but without beginning of days or end of years,
   living on forever! Jesus is a Priest who has finished His sacrificial
   work, has gone in within the veil and sits down forever at the right
   hand of God, because His work is complete and His Priesthood abides in
   its eternal efficacy!

   This is a blessed anchor to the soul--to know that my Priest is within
   the veil! To know that my King of righteousness and King of peace is
   before the Throne of God for me, representing me and, therefore, I am
   forever secure in Him. What better anchor could the Comforter, Himself,
   devise for His people? What stronger consolation can the heirs of
   promise desire?

   III. We have no time to linger, though tempted to do so and, therefore,
   I ask you to advance in the third place to notice OUR HOLD OF THE
   ANCHOR. It would be of no use for us to have an anchor, however good,
   unless we had a hold of it. The anchor may be sure and may have a
   steadfast grip, but there must be a strong cable to connect the anchor
   with the ship. Formerly it was very general to use a hemp cable, but
   large vessels are not content to run the risk of breakage and,
   therefore, they use a chain cable for the anchor. It is a grand thing
   to have a solid substantial connection between your soul and your
   hope--to have a confidence which is surely your own--from which you can
   never be separated!

   Our text speaks plainly about this laying hold of the anchor in the end
   of the 18th verse--"That we might have a strong consolation, who have
   fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." We must
   personally lay hold on the hope. There is the hope, but we are bound to
   grasp it and hold it fast. As with an anchor, the cable must pass
   through the ring, and so be bound to it. So must faith lay hold upon
   the hope of eternal life. The original Greek signifies "to lay hold by
   main force and so to hold as not to lose our hold when the greatest
   force would pull it from us." We must take firm hold of the firm Truth
   of God!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, as some men have a cloudy hope, they would
   seem to have a very doubtful way of laying hold upon it. I suppose it
   is natural it should be so. For my part, I desire to be taught
   something certain and then I pray to be certain that I have learned it.
   Oh to get such a grip of the Truth of God as that old warrior had of
   his sword, so that when he fought and conquered he could not separate
   his hand and his sword, for his hand clung to his sword as if it were
   glued to it! It is a blessed thing to get hold of the doctrine of
   Christ in such a way that you would have to be dismembered before it
   could be taken from you, for it has grown into your very self! Mind you
   have a sure hold of your sure anchor!

   "Well," says one, "but may we lay hold upon it"? My answer is, the text
   says it is "set before us"--to, "lay hold of the hope set before us."
   You may grasp it for it is set before you. If any of you were very
   faint and hungry and came to a person's house and he said, "sit down,"
   and you sat down at the table. And when you sat there, the master set
   before you a good joint of meat and some very pleasant fruits and the
   like, you would not long question whether you might eat them, but would
   infer your liberty to do so because the food was set before you!

   Assuredly this is the welcome of the Gospel! The hope is set before
   you! For what purpose is it so set? That you may turn your back upon
   it? Assuredly not! Lay hold upon it, for wherever Truth of God is met
   with, it is both our duty and our privilege to lay hold upon it. All
   the guarantee that a sinner needs for laying hold on Christ is found in
   the fact that God has set Christ forth to be a Propitiation for our
   sins. Christian, you are in a storm--here is an anchor! Do you ask,
   "May I use that anchor"? It is set before you for that very purpose! I
   guarantee you there is no captain here but what if he were in a storm
   and saw an anchor set before him, he would use it at once and ask no
   questions. The anchor might be none of his, it might happen to be on
   board as a piece of merchandise--he would not care an atom about that!
   "The ship has got to be saved. Here is an anchor, over it goes." Act
   thus with the gracious hope which God provides for you in the Gospel of
   Jesus Christ! Lay hold on it now and evermore

   Now, notice that our hold on the anchor should be a present thing and a
   conscious matter, for we read, "which hope we have." We are conscious
   that we have it. No one among us has any right to be at peace if he
   does not know that he has obtained a good hope through Grace. May you
   all be able to say, "which hope we have" As it is well to have a cable
   made of the same metal as the anchor, so it is a blessed thing when our
   faith is of the same Divine Character as the Truth of God upon which it
   lays hold. It needs a God-given hope on our part to seize the God-given
   promise of which our hope is made! The right mode of procedure is to
   grasp God's promise with a God-created confidence. Then you see that
   right away down from the vessel to the anchor the holdfast is all of
   one piece, so that at every point it is equally adapted to bear the
   strain.

   O to have precious faith in a precious Christ! A precious confidence in
   precious blood! God grant it to you and may you exercise it at this
   very moment!

   IV. Fourthly, and very briefly, let us speak of THE ANCHOR'S HOLD OF
   US. A ship has hold upon her anchor by her chain cable, but at the same
   time the most important thing is that the anchor keeps its hold upon
   the ship and so, because it has entered into the ground at the bottom
   of the sea, holds the vessel hard and fast. Brothers and Sisters, do
   you know anything about your hope holding you? It will hold you if it
   is a good hope. You will not be able to get away from it! Under
   temptation, depression of spirit, trial and affliction you will not
   only hold your hope--that is your duty, but your hope will hold
   you--that is your privilege! When the devil tempts you to say, "I will
   give it all up," a power unseen will speak out of the infinite deeps
   and will reply, "But I shall not give you up. I have a hold of you and
   none shall separate us."

   Brothers and Sisters, our security depends far more upon God's holding
   us than our holding onto Him! Our hope in God, that He will fulfill His
   oath and promise, has a mighty power over us--far more than equal to
   all the efforts of the world, the flesh and the devil to drag us away.
   How is it that our Divine anchor holds so fast? It is because it is, in
   its own nature, sure--"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
   both sure and steadfast." It is, in itself, sure as to its nature. The
   Gospel is no cunningly devised fable--God has spoken it. It is a mass
   of fact. It is pure, unalloyed Truth with the broad seal of God,
   Himself, set upon it.

   Then, too, this anchor is "steadfast" as to its hold. It never moves
   from its lodgment. It is sure in its nature and steadfast when in use
   and, therefore, it is practically safe. If you have believed in Christ
   unto eternal life and are expecting that God will be as good as His
   Word, have you not found that your hope sustains you and maintains you
   in your position? Brothers and Sisters, the result of the use of this
   anchor will be very comfortable to you. "Which hope we have as an
   anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." It will not prevent your
   being tossed about, for a ship at anchor may rock a good deal and the
   passengers may be very seasick, but she cannot be driven away from her
   moorings!

   There she is and her passengers suffer discomfort, but they shall not
   suffer shipwreck. A good hope through Grace will not altogether deliver
   you from inward conflicts, no, it will even involve them! It will not
   screen you from outward trials--it will be sure to bring them! But it
   will save you from all real peril. I may say to every Believer in Jesus
   that his condition is very like that of the landsman on board ship when
   the sea was rather rough and he said, "Captain, we are in great danger,
   are we not"? As an answer did not come, he said, "Captain, don't you
   see great fear?" Then the old seaman gruffly replied, "Yes, I see
   plenty of fear, but not a bit of danger."

   It is often so with us. When the blinds are out and the storms are
   raging there is plenty of fear, but there is no danger. We may be much
   tossed, but we are quite safe, for we have an anchor of the soul both
   sure and steadfast which will not move. One blessed thing is that our
   hope has such a grip of us that we know it. In a vessel you feel the
   pull of the an-

   chor and the more the wind rages the more you feel that the anchor
   holds you. Like the boy with his kite--the kite is up in the clouds,
   where he cannot see it, but he knows it is there, for he feels it pull.
   So our good hope has gone up to Heaven and it is pulling and drawing us
   towards itself. We cannot see our anchor, it would be of no use if we
   could see it-- its use begins when it is out of sight--but it pulls and
   we can feel the heavenly pressure!

   V. And now, lastly, and best of all, THE ANCHOR'S UNSEEN GRIP, "which
   enters into that within the veil." Our anchor is like every other, when
   it is of any use it is out of sight. When a man sees the anchor, it is
   doing nothing, unless it happens to be some small stream anchor or
   grapnel in shallow water. When the anchor is of use it is gone--there
   it went overboard with a splash! Far down there, all among the fish,
   lies the iron holdfast, quite out of sight. Where is your hope,
   Brothers and Sisters? Do you believe because you can see? That is not
   believing at all! Do you believe because you can feel? That is feeling,
   it is not believing! But "blessed is he that has not seen and yet has
   believed."

   Blessed is he who believes against his feelings, yes, and hopes against
   hope! That is a strange thing to do, hoping against hope, believing
   things impossible and seeing things invisible. He who can do that has
   learned the art of faith! Our hope is not seen, it lies in the waves,
   or, as the text says, "within the veil." I am not going to run the
   figure too closely, but a mariner might say that his anchor is within
   the watery veil, for a veil of water is between him and it and so it is
   concealed. Such is the confidence which we have in God, whom having not
   seen we love--

   "Let the winds blow, and billows roll,

   Hope is the anchor of my soul

   But can I by so slight a tie,

   An unseen hope, on God rely?

   Steadfast and sure, it cannot fail,

   It enters deep within the veil,

   It fastens on a land unknown,

   And moors me to my Father's Throne." Although our anchor is gone out of
   sight, yet, thank God it has taken a very firm grip and "entered into
   that which is within the veil." What hold can be equal to that which a
   man has upon his God when he can cry, "You have promised, therefore do
   as You have said"?

   What grasp is firmer than this, "Lord, You have sworn it, You can not
   run back. You have said that he that believes in You is justified from
   all sin. Lord, I believe You, therefore be pleased to do as You have
   said. I know You cannot lie and You have sworn that Christ is a Priest
   forever. I am resting in Him as my Priest who has made a full atonement
   for me. I therefore hold You to Your oath--accept me for the sake of
   Jesus' sacrifice. Can You reject a soul for whom Your own Son is
   pleading? He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto You
   by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for me! My Lord, this
   is the hold I have upon You! This is the anchor which I have cast into
   the deep mysterious attributes of Your wondrous Nature! I believe You
   and You will not make me ashamed of my hope." Oh, Brothers and Sisters,
   what a hold you have upon the living God when you rely on His oath and
   promise! Thus you hold Him as Jacob held the Angel and the blessing you
   will surely win at His hands!

   Note next, that when an anchor has a good grip down below, the more the
   ship drags, the tighter its hold becomes. At first, when the anchor
   goes down, perhaps it drops upon a hard rock and there it cannot bite,
   but, by-and-by, it slips off from the rock and enters into the bottom
   of the sea. It digs into the soil and, as the cable draws it on, it
   goes deeper and deeper till the anchor almost buries itself. And the
   more it is pulled upon, the deeper it descends. The anchor gets such a
   hold, at last, that it seems to say, "Now, Boreas, blow away, you must
   tear up the floor of the sea before the vessel shall be let go."

   Times of trouble send our hope deep down into fundamental Truths of
   God. Some of you people who have never known friction, you rich people
   who never known need, you healthy folks who were never ill a week--you
   have not half a grip of the glorious hope that the tried ones have!
   Much of the unbelief in the Christian Church comes out of the easy
   lives of professors! When you come to rough it, you need the solid
   Gospel! A hard-working hungry man cannot live on your whipped creams
   and your fine drinks--he must have something solid to nourish him--and
   so the tried man feels that he must have a Gospel which is true--and he
   must believe it to be true, or else his soul will famish!

   Now, if God promises and swears, have we not the most solid of
   assurances? The firmest conceivable faith is no more than the righteous
   due of the thrice holy and faithful God. Therefore, Brothers and
   Sisters, when greater trouble comes,

   believe the more firmly! And when your vessel is tossed in deeper
   water, believe the more confidently! When the head is aching and the
   heart is palpitating. When all earthly joy is fled and when death comes
   near, believe the more! Grow surer and surer that your Father cannot
   lie, yes, "Let God be true and every man a liar." In this way you will
   obtain the strong consolation which the Lord intends you to enjoy.

   The text concludes with this very sweet reflection, that though our
   hope is out of sight, we have a Friend in the unseen land where our
   hope has found its hold. In anxious moments a sailor might almost wish
   that he could go with his anchor and fix it firmly. That he cannot do,
   but we have a Friend who has gone to see to everything for us! Our
   anchor is within the veil--it is where we cannot see it--but Jesus is
   there and our hope is inseparably connected with His Person and work!
   We know of a certainty that Jesus of Nazareth, after His death and
   burial, rose from the grave and that 40 days afterwards, in the
   presence of His disciples, He went up into Heaven and a cloud received
   Him!

   We know this as an historical fact and we also know that He rose into
   the heavens as the comprehensive Seed of Abraham in whom are found all
   the faithful. As He has gone there, we shall surely follow, for He is
   the first fruits of the full harvest. According to the text, our Lord
   Jesus has gone within the veil as our High Priest. Now, the High Priest
   within the veil is in the place of acceptance on our behalf. A
   Melchisedec High Priest is one who has boundless power to bless and to
   save unto the uttermost. Jesus Christ has offered one bloody Sacrifice
   for sin, namely, Himself, and now He sits down at the right hand of God
   forever, even the Father. Brothers and Sisters, He reigns where our
   anchor has entered! We rest in Christ's finished work, His Resurrection
   power and His eternal Kingship. How can we doubt, after this?

   We are next informed that Jesus has gone within veil as the Forerunner.
   What is a forerunner if there are not others to run after him? Jesus
   has gone to lead the way! He is the pioneer, the leader of the great
   army, the first fruits from the dead! And if He has gone to Heaven as a
   forerunner, then we who belong to Him will follow after! Should not
   that reflection make our hearts glad? We are told next that as the
   Forerunner our Lord has for us entered--that is entered to take
   possession in our name. When Jesus Christ went into Heaven, He did, as
   it were, look around on all the thrones and all the palms and all the
   harps and all the crowns, and said, "I take possession of all these in
   the name of My redeemed. I am their Representative and claim the
   heavenly places in their names."

   As surely as Jesus is there, the Possessor of all things, so shall we,
   also, each one, come to his inheritance in due time! Our Lord Jesus, by
   His intercession, is drawing us to Heaven and we have only to wait a
   little while and we shall be with Him where He is. He pleads for our
   Home-bringing and it will come to pass before long. No sailor likes his
   anchor to come home, for if it does so in a storm, matters look very
   ugly. Our anchor will never come home, but it is drawing us Home! It is
   drawing us to itself, not downwards beneath devouring waves, but
   upwards to ecstatic joys! Do you not feel it? You who are growing old,
   do you not feel its Home-drawings?!

   Many cords hold us here, but they are getting fewer with some of
   you--the dear wife has faded away, or the beloved husband has gone.
   Many of your children have gone, too, and a host of friends. These are
   all helps to draw you upward. I think at this very moment you must feel
   as if your boat were about to change by some magic power from a ship,
   which floats the waters to an eagle which can fly the air! Have you not
   often longed to mount while singing--

   "Oh that we now might grasp our Guide! Oh that the word were given!
   Come, Lord of Hosts, the waves divide, And land us all in Hea ven!"

   My cable has grown shorter of late, a great many of its links have
   vanished. I am nearer my hope that when I first believed. Every day
   hope nears fruition! Let our joy in it become more exultant. A few more
   weeks or months and we shall dwell above! And while we shall need no
   anchor to hold us fast, we shall eternally bless that Divine
   condescension which produced such a holdfast for our unstable minds
   while tossed upon this sea of care!

   What will those of you do who have no anchor? A storm is coming on! I
   see the lowering clouds and hear the distant hurricane! What will you
   do? May the Lord help you at once to flee for refuge to the hope set
   before you. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORESERMON--Hebrews 6. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   IN BOOK"--230, 193, 632.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Lord's Humanity a Sweet Source of Comfort

   (No. 1295)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man,
   and he strengthened me." Daniel 10:18.

   WE are not able, as yet, to bear the full revelation of Divine things.
   If any intellect had been strong enough, if any heart had been pure
   enough to see the exceeding glory of the Covenant angel, surely Daniel
   possessed such a head and heart. But even he fell upon his face and was
   cast into a dead swoon, for he was unable to bear the sight of the man
   clothed in linen, whose "body was like the beryl, and his face as the
   appearance of lightning." We ought to be thankful that our God has
   revealed no more. The Word of God is as excellent in its darkness as in
   its brightness. Had it unveiled more, its discoveries would have been
   no more beneficial--perhaps they had been less profitable. As it is,
   there is far more within this Book than you and I have seen as yet, and
   we need not wish that more had been written. If we entertain such a
   desire, our loving Lord may silence us with the words, "I have many
   things to show unto you, but you cannot bear them now."

   It appears from our text that, when weighed down under a sense of the
   Divine Presence, the readiest method of consolation is found in the
   touch of a certain sublime, mysterious, human hand. I know it is very
   usual to say that the personage who appeared to Daniel was the angel,
   Gabriel, but I cannot bring myself to believe that he is the angel of
   this chapter. Surely this glorious Being was that uncreated Messenger
   of the Covenant who, though not born into our nature in Daniel's day,
   yet took upon Himself the similitude of a man for a time, as He had
   done before, when on special occasions He appeared to others of the
   saints before His actual Incarnation!

   Even if we grant that an angel was the person who touched Daniel, still
   the truth which I wish to bring out will be none the less clear,
   namely, that even if an angel should wish to comfort us, he must assume
   a visible human form and he must lay upon us a sympathetic hand like
   our own so that there shall be, at any rate, "the appearance of a man,"
   or otherwise we shall not be strengthened. If this is granted as true,
   I shall not insist upon the text immediately referring to Christ, but I
   shed the general principle and say this--comfort is best brought to men
   by a man and if we are to be strengthened, the touch of "one like the
   appearance of a man" is needed.

   Therefore we may, without difficulty, rise to the reflection that it is
   always to us the richest and highest comfort, as Believers in Christ,
   that the Lord Jesus is a Man and when He strengthens us, it is full
   often by laying His human hand upon us. He reveals His kinship with us
   and our spirit is consoled and strengthened by a sense of His union
   with us. My one objective is, by the Spirit's aid, to draw water from
   the ancient well of our Lord's humanity. The Son of God is also the Son
   of Man. We, none of us, doubt His Deity and, therefore, we shall be
   able to spend all our time in this sermon in musing upon His Manhood
   and the joys contained in that Truth of God.

   Jesus is God. But Jesus was born, Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose
   again and Jesus is in Heaven, as a Man. He is God and Man in one
   Person, but there is no confusion of Natures. He is neither a deified
   man nor a humanized God. His Godhead is altogether Godhead and His
   Manhood altogether manhood. We must not divide the Person, nor confuse
   the natures. He is as truly Man as if He were not God and as truly God
   as if He had never assumed the nature of man. It is of His Manhood that
   we are now about to speak. We shall not attempt to prove it, but shall
   simply endeavor to show how the touch of the hand of Jesus, the Man,
   strengthens us.

   I. And, first, dear Friends, does it not cheer us WHEN WE LABOR UNDER A
   SENSE OF LONELINESS? If we are true to Him, we are strangers and
   sojourners with Him, as all our fathers were. Before His Cross we find
   ourselves to be strangers in this land, even as He was, for as the
   world knew Him not, so it knows us not, and as it placed Him outside
   the camp, so, also, does it make aliens of us. It is sweet to feel,
   when walking the separated path, "I am a stranger with

   You"--a stranger in the world as You are, an exile as You were. In such
   solitude the Manhood of Jesus is a delicious cordial!

   Some feel alone because they are the only ones of their house who serve
   the Lord. How you wish it were otherwise! It is your daily prayer that
   all your kindred may be followers of Christ, but they are not so.
   Perhaps they openly oppose you and make your life unhappy through their
   hard speeches. Well, there is a Friend that sticks closer than a
   brother! There is a Brother who will hear what you have to say, no, who
   knows all that is in your heart before you utter it! He is the antitype
   of Joseph and He knows what it is to be separated from His Brethren. Of
   all that ever lived He was the loneliest, by far, and therefore He
   sympathizes with the forsaken ones.

   The child of God, as he grows in Grace, becomes more lonely under
   certain aspects, just as the higher mountains have fewer familiarities,
   till Mont Blanc speaks to no equal in his awful height, but communes
   only with himself. They that serve God much and well--and draw near to
   His innermost Presence--in that proportion draw away from men, as to
   deriving comfort from them. But, oh, there are no heights to which
   Jesus has not risen, no attainments which He has not surpassed! That
   glorious Man is with you--with you in the singleness of heart with
   which you serve your God! He is with you in the perfect consecration
   which the Holy Spirit has given you, with you in the intimate
   fellowship of your soul with the Eternal Father! In your highest flight
   of ecstasy there is still a Man at your right hand, saying, "Fear not,
   for I am with you: be not dismayed, for I am your God."

   It falls to the lot of some Christians to stand alone in their
   contention for the faith. Perhaps there is made known to them what has
   not been revealed to others, or which, being revealed, others have
   refused to see--or seeing have been afraid to declare. In such cases
   true-hearted men find themselves standing very much alone, at least for
   a time. They have a treasure which others do not prize and they are
   bound to show it, for to this end was the treasure placed in their
   earthen vessel. God has not committed it to them for themselves, alone,
   but He has put them in trust with the Gospel for the good of others and
   they must speak it out. If, when they do so, they hear no sympathetic
   answer, but are met in the spirit of controversy and unkind rebuke, it
   is blessed for them to know that "the faithful and true Witness" is the
   champion of every honest testimony.

   He stood alone as our atoning Sacrifice and into that loneliness we
   never intrude, but in all other work He is our companion, even He who
   is called, "the Man Christ Jesus," and, therefore, we shall be cheered
   by His Presence if we find ourselves without earthly helpers. Oh, if we
   had our choice between having an angel to always live in our house and
   to know our secrets, or to have the Man Christ Jesus to be our constant
   Friend, we should not deliberate in our choice but choose our Lord's
   company at once! An angel would often afflict us--we would be afraid to
   confess our littleness to him. We would fear that he would think them
   meanness. His unsuffering nature we would suspect of contempt--and we
   would be ill at ease in his presence. But such a feeling as that does
   not cross our mind when we have to deal with One who is touched with
   the feeling of our infirmities!

   We know our Lord to be true Man and, therefore, we speak to Him with
   familiarity and make Him our heart's dearest companion. Lonely One,
   take care that you have no secrets apart from Jesus! Love your
   loneliness rather than seek to escape from it, if it brings you nearer
   to Him! You will do well to be always ready for Christian fellowship,
   yes, and to seek it--but do not live on it--for fellowship with Jesus
   is sweeter than fellowship with saints! I know that fellowship with
   saints is poor stuff if it come not through fellowship with the saints'
   Master. When communion comes from His hands and we come to the feast in
   His company, then every Brother and Sister who sits at the table adds
   to our enjoyment.

   But if we approach the table to see them and forget Him, then everybody
   adds to our discomfort and forms another veil to hide the Lord. Cling
   to the Christ of the Garden and the Cross, and find, O lonely One, your
   sweetest joy in the thought that He is a Man such as you are. Sing with
   me those sweet lines--

   "When gathering clouds around I view,

   And days are dark and friends are few,

   On Him I lean, who not in vain

   Experienced every human pain.

   He sees my needs, allays my fears,

   And counts and treasures up my tears."

   II. How sweet it is to feel the touch of the humanity of Christ WHEN WE
   ARE HUMBLED IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. I know not, Brethren, whether you
   are often favored to behold the shining of the Divine Glory and to feel
   the warmth of it in your own soul. This I know--if you are, you find it
   a wearing and breaking joy. If we had more of it, it might be a
   destroying delight, for "even our God is a consuming fire," and when we
   come nearest to Him and best understand that He is Love, the glory of
   that love overcomes us! We cannot eat much honey, neither can we endure
   much sensible enjoyment of the Divine Glory--I mean much comparatively,
   for, of course, it is much to us, but it is not much compared with what
   He could reveal if we were able to endure it.

   Have you ever felt what it is to be as if you were not--to see your
   comeliness turned into corruption, your excellency all despoiled and
   yourself not only lying low in the Presence of God, but being as if you
   had no being at all--as if you had no separate existence in the
   Presence of such wondrous majesty, such awe-inspiring love? You feel no
   dread, far from it! And no unhappiness, but the very reverse--you,
   yourself, seem gone, and God is All in All. A blessed extinction of
   self makes room for Infinite Love! There is not one Covenant blessing
   but what, if we understood it, would have this humbling effect upon us!

   Every gift which God bestows upon His chosen, if rightly understood and
   truly grasped, would make us say with Abraham, "I that am but dust and
   ashes," or make us sit down with David and exclaim, "Why this to me? Is
   this the manner of man, O Lord God?" Now, at such times of
   self-annihilation, it is strengthening to the mind, which is almost
   ready to expire beneath the load of heavenly Glory, to feel the touch
   of that hand and to perceive that He who is our God is also very near.
   It is bliss to me, to perceive that the Creator has become one with the
   creature, for Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem. Jesus ate, drank,
   slept, wept, bled and died--and now He sits at the right hand of the
   Father! And so, notwithstanding the awe which crushes me, I see an
   infinite condescension--no, I perceive a near kinship which draws me
   close to God. Himself, so that I say, "My Father," and with the next
   breath, "My Brother, my Friend, my Husband, my

   Best-Beloved."

   I wonder what we should have done if we had known so much of God and
   had not known Christ! I suppose I am speaking paradoxically and saying
   what I should not say, for we never could have known God, except in
   Jesus Christ, in such a way as we do know Him. But if such a thing had
   been possible, it must have been destructive to us. But now, God in
   Jesus Christ, how blessed! God out of Christ, we know nothing of, nor
   need we. Luther used to say, "I will have nothing to do with an
   absolute God." Beware of attempting to deal with God apart from the
   Mediator, for no man comes unto the Father but through His Son, Christ
   Jesus. Thus have we felt the touch of the human hand strengthening us
   when we have fallen prostrate under a deep sense of the Glory of God.

   III. Thirdly, Brothers and Sisters, and here, perhaps, you Sisters take
   precedence over us--IN SORROW--oh, how blessed it is to feel the touch
   of the man's hand! Bodily pain is the portion of many of God's people.
   They are seldom long without it. Weakness, constant weakness, keeps
   many of God's precious ones tied to the bedchamber or to the house and
   often the beloved means of Grace are taken from them because of their
   inability to come up to the assembly of God's saints. Others endure the
   affliction of poverty--with all their economy and industry, they find
   it difficult to provide things honest in the sight of all men.

   Some true Christians are naturally of a somber temperament and, to
   them, even summer weather has a wintry aspect. The Lord has allotted to
   each one of His children a cross to carry and His loving wisdom led Him
   to do so. Those who are, for the most part, without trial, are usually
   the weakest in the Church of God. They are usually the least spiritual,
   the least instructed in experimental truth and altogether the least
   knowledgeable in Divine things. We have our sorrows, but have we not
   found, by actual experience, that the choicest consolation for sorrow
   is the fact that Jesus Christ knows all about it and is with us in it!

   How often has that verse run through my soul like a trumpet note to
   urge me onward when otherwise I should have retreated from the
   battle?--

   "In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows had a part.
   With boldness, therefore, at the Throne Let us make all our sorrows
   known." There is no abyss of grief into which Jesus has not descended!
   Sickness of body and pangs of soul, bereavement, poverty, scorn,
   slander, desertion, treachery--He knows all these things! Malice, Envy,
   Contempt and deadly Hate all shot their

   fiery darts against Him. He has sounded the deeps of the ocean of
   sorrow. Did He not say that He was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto
   death? And did not the sweat of blood which covered His face show how
   terrible were the inward agonies through which His soul was passing?
   Prince of Sorrow are You, O Jesus! Emperor in the realm of woe, are
   You, O Christ! You could say far more truly than the Prophet of old, "I
   am the Man that has seen affliction."

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, our bitter cup is sweetened, for His dear
   lips have touched the brim! No, He has drained it to its dregs! Now,
   Brethren, our hard sorrow is softened because it is only a piece from
   that loaf of which He ate the most, Himself. Well may we be satisfied
   to go through the valley of tears, for it is "the King's vale" and all
   along it we can track His footprints. We know them, for they show the
   marks of the nails! They are the footprints of the Crucified! Joined
   with us in every grief and woe, He is always at our side when our
   hearts are heavy. He carried up to Heaven the same human heart which
   was pierced below--and there He remembers Calvary and all the griefs He
   suffered on our behalf. He still sympathizes with us.

   I delight in that thought of one of our hymn writers, where he says--

   "Yet even after death His heart For us, its tribute poured."

   After our Lord was dead, His heart yielded blood and water for our
   sakes, so that after death He was still in sympathy with us. Jesus
   still gives His heart to His people! Glory be to His name! Who among
   you will refuse to shoulder your cross, now? Did you lay it down just
   now and say, "I can carry it no longer. I must give up in despair"?
   Why, He carries the heavier end for you! Put your shoulder to the
   burden which He consecrates by His fellowship. It will grow light when
   you think that He once carried it!

   When Alexander's troops were on long marches, that which cheered them
   was that Alexander always walked as far as they. If they were very
   thirsty in the broiling sun and if any water was to be found, of course
   they brought it first to Alexander. Should they not, first, consider
   their king? But he nobly put the cooling draught on one side and said,
   "as long as a sick man needs water, Alexander will go without." This
   made each warrior strong, for his king fared as he fared! Let this
   strengthen us tonight. Jesus Christ puts His hand upon us and says,
   "Fear not. I am with you in your sorrow. My heart is as your heart,
   therefore be of good cheer."

   IV. I will not dwell long on any one thought, but leave you to dilate
   upon it. The fact that Jesus Christ is a Man such as we are, should
   greatly comfort us in ALL OUR STRUGGLES. It seems hard, this battle of
   life, this "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the
   many"--this fighting against sin, this contention against inbred
   corruption, this warring against spiritual wickedness in high
   places--and we are apt to think sometimes, "Can we ever win? Is not the
   battle too difficult?"

   In such moments look at yonder Man who sits upon the Throne of God! He
   is the typical Man, the representative to us of what manhood should be,
   no, of what, through His Grace, it is! He wrestled hard, as hard as you
   do, but He won the victory! You are tempted. Does that cause you doubt?
   He was "tempted in all points like as we are." Yet He did not sin. Are
   you distressed by the contentions of godless men? "Consider Him who
   endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be
   weary and faint in your minds." The struggle is not so hard with you as
   it was with Him. You have an easier battle to fight and you have the
   promise that, as your days, your strength shall be.

   Now, as He overcame, finding strength enough for His conflict, He is to
   you a living prophecy of what you shall do through Him. Yes, Brothers
   and Sisters, you shall trample sin beneath your feet, you shall take
   the strongholds of the adversary and Grace shall reign within your
   heart! The world, the flesh and the devil, that trinity of evils, shall
   be overcome by you! You shall be a conqueror, no, listen--"More than a
   conqueror through Him that loved you."--

   "As surely as He overcame, And triumphed once for you, So surely you
   that love His name, Shall triumph in Him, too."

   "Did a man ever do that?" asked a bold spirit concerning some renowned
   achievement, "for if one man did it, another man shall." It was a brave
   speech! But let us apply it to Christ for a moment. Did He, a Man, live
   in the midst of this world amid fierce temptations--and did He come out
   of that scorching furnace with not so much as the smell of fire upon
   Him? Then the eternal God can work the same in other men and we may
   believe, no, we may be confident that the victory shall be unto us
   through the blood of the Lamb. Be of good courage, O sons of men, for
   the Son of Man has won

   the victory! Throw not away your confidence. Let not your swords be
   laid aside. Jesus, Jesus the representative Man, has conquered!

   And, therefore, those who are in Him, "strengthened with all might by
   His Spirit in the inner man," shall conquer also! Herein is comfort.

   V. Further, Brothers and Sisters, in the fifth place, what a blessed
   thing it has been to look at the Manhood of Jesus

   Christ AT TIMES WHEN WE HAVE BEEN DECEIVED IN OUR BRETHREN. Our natural
   tendency to idolatry

   tempts us to confide in man. Among religious people there always has
   been a tendency, much to be deplored, to lean a good deal upon men of
   eminence--upon ministers, leaders and men of experience. We get a great
   deal of good from them, blessed be God, and, therefore, we conceive a
   high opinion of them as, indeed, we may rightly do if we attribute all
   that is praiseworthy to the God who gave it.

   But every now and then we pass beyond the proper confidence which a
   younger brother may place in an elder and we pin our faith to the man's
   sleeve and make our hope, in a measure, dependent upon his sincerity.
   This is the peculiar sin of young Christians, but I have sometimes met
   with it in simple-hearted persons, even in extreme old age. The "dear
   minister," the "venerable man of God"--they have looked far too much to
   him. Alas, there has come a discovery that man is only man and that
   some men are not saints though they talk in a saintly manner! There has
   been the explosion of a profession, the total casting down of an idol
   and the breaking of it to pieces--and at such times the faith of many
   has been grievously staggered--even those who are somewhat more
   established have, nevertheless, received a grievous blow.

   We have seen Judas again, and Demas, and Hymenaeus, and Philetus, and
   old Ahitophel rising from the dead and we have been filled with grief.
   At such times it is most cheering to remember that there is one Man who
   will never deceive us! There is One who has not uttered a promise which
   He will not fulfill, nor won from us a confidence which He will not
   more than justify! It is such a blessed thing to see Jesus standing
   there--honesty, integrity, uprightness, Righteousness Incarnate, truth
   His very Nature with no sinister motives or desires to make Him subtle
   for His own gain, but altogether disinterested--living for the glory of
   God and the good of His people.

   To get back into His bosom, again, and to nestle there and
   feel--"Child, here is a heart that is ever warm with true love. You are
   safe here"--this is rest, indeed! To get back to Jesus and say, "Now am
   I neither of Paul, nor of Apollos, nor of Cephas, but of Christ." To
   hear the news of religious strife in this denomination and that and,
   amidst the clashing elements of different ecclesiastical parties, to
   say, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" and, clinging to Jesus, to
   feel, "But this is not vanity, this is reality, this is truth!" Oh, to
   stay with Jesus, Brothers and Sisters!--never to stir away from Him and
   to feel that the truth which you can trust, the integrity on which you
   can rely is embodied in the Man, Christ Jesus!

   Is not man the meanest thing in all creation? Do you not feel him to be
   so when he deceives you? But, then, when you look at Jesus, how manhood
   rises in your esteem! After all, He is capable of something grand and
   glorious! And you bless the Lord Jesus who has, by the sublime
   perfection of His Character, redeemed our nature from its frightful
   degradation!

   VI. Again, I hope I shall not weary you. Surely I may continue to draw
   out the silken threads of such a subject. Children of God will find the
   doctrine of Christ's Humanity to be wonderfully comfortable to them IN
   SEASONS OF DOUBT. Many of you are free from grievous doubts and I would
   be the last to sow them in your minds. I love Cowper's picture of the
   poor woman with her pillow and bobbins who only knew her Bible, true,
   and left all the philosophies in the world to those who cared for them.

   But there is a class of disciples like Thomas who think much and are
   apt to doubt much. They do not love doubts-- they hate them, yet their
   doubts often go very deep and undermine the most precious doctrines.
   The men are really steadfast in the faith, but it costs them many
   exercises and painful questions. They ask, "How is this?" And, "Why is
   that?" Perhaps they have more brains than heart. I suppose many of us
   get into that condition and, do you know, to me a sight of my Lord is
   my great security--a sheet anchor which has held me fast in times of
   skepticism and doubt. I cannot doubt when I see Him! When I turn over
   the Bible and read of His Character, I find it impossible to be a
   disbeliever! If any man invented the Character of Christ, I will
   worship him--He must be Divine to have created such perfection!

   It seems to me that if the life of Jesus were not a fact, the very
   fiction would be a creation demanding perfect holiness in the inventor.
   Who but a perfectly holy being could have conceived a Character like
   that of our Lord and Master? Every other character has its flaw. Man
   may be likened to a statue I once saw in Cambridge, which I think is in
   Trinity

   College library now--a statue of Byron. I remember looking at it from
   one point of view and the gentleman who showed it to me said, "There,
   Sir, there is the poet!" Yes, and a noble face it is, full of high
   thought, rare imagination. You admire the man.

   "Come round to this point," said my conductor, "for there is the man
   who dared defy the Deity." You could see at once the semi-maniac Byron,
   lost to all pure and devout emotion. The artist had sketched the
   duplicate man, the true Byron, a man both great and wicked! Now, if
   some artist, able to exhibit the whole truth could thus set you forth
   in marble, your friends might go to ever so many points and say,
   "Beautiful! Beautiful! Admirable! Commendable! Lovely!" and so on. But
   when they came to some one point (and some of us may be very thankful
   that people do not get to that point) they would exclaim, "Alas," and
   they would not like to say much more. They would feel the conviction
   that things are not altogether what they seem to be and that flaws are
   discoverable in those they most admire.

   It is not so with Jesus. Survey Him, before and behind, on the right
   and on the left. Come upon Him at midnight. Look at Him in midday.
   Watch Him as a Child, see Him as a Man. Look at Him alone. Behold Him
   in company. See Him in His pomp as He rides through Jerusalem. See Him
   in His shame as they hound Him to His death. From every point He is
   perfect, absolutely perfect! You cannot improve Him, you cannot hint at
   a fault in Him! This is, to candid minds, a solid establishment,
   rendering it hard to be a doubter. And it becomes to Believers, who
   love their Lord and Master, a blessed chain which holds them fast so
   that they cannot give up the Truth of God they have received, for they
   have not followed cunningly devised fables.

   If Peter and James and John, when they saw their Lord transfigured,
   were convinced, so are we, also, when we view His human life on earth,
   for His whole career is the transfiguration of humanity--a wonderful
   display of how poor human nature's garments can be made whiter than any
   fuller can make them--how the brightness of manhood can excel the glory
   of the sun at noonday! This consoles us amidst the battle of doubtful
   thought.

   VII. Further, dear Brothers and Sisters, how blessedly the touch of our
   Redeemer's human hand COMFORTS US IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. Unless the
   Lord comes, "It is appointed unto all men, once, to die." In the
   presence of death and the grave, when we really get to look at them,
   there is hardly one among us who does not begin to ask himself, "Is it
   all right?" Must we die? We shrink back--we cannot bear it. "Shall I
   rise again? If, after my skin, worms devour this body, shall I, in my
   flesh, see God? Does it seem likely? Is it possible? Can these dry
   bones live?"

   We have read the burial service many times and heard it read over our
   friends. We have thought that we believed in the Resurrection, but when
   it comes to ourselves, and we are about to die and sickness tells upon
   us, then we ask the question over again, "Shall we rise? And is it
   true? Is it really true?" Often and often have I put myself through my
   paces over that question and this is where I always land--I know that
   the Man, Christ Jesus, rose from the dead. I am sure of that. How do I
   know it? No fact in human history was ever better attested or even so
   well attested as this--that Jesus, who was crucified, did truly rise
   from the dead.

   The witnesses are so many. Read Paul's summing up of the evidence in
   Corinthians. He shows that sometimes Christ was seen by one disciple
   alone, then by 12 and, on one occasion, at any rate, by 500 witnesses
   at once. Jesus showed Himself alive by indisputable proofs--we are sure
   that He rose from the dead. Well, then, I know that I shall, too, for
   the Apostle, by inspiration, has put the two things together--"If
   Christ rose not, then is there no resurrection of the dead. But if
   Christ rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no
   resurrection of the dead?" One man has broken from the prison of the
   grave and, therefore, so will all who are like He!

   Brothers and Sisters, in the gaze of mortality we shall escape from
   this city, for our Samson rose in the morning and took away the gates,
   posts, bars and all, and carried them to the top of the hill! The gates
   of the grave are open--pass through, you redeemed of the Lord! He has
   rent away the bars of the sepulcher, it is a dungeon no longer! The
   tomb is now a bedchamber where you shall sleep a little while, till
   your body shall be prepared for the Lord's embrace--

   "What, though our inbred sins require Our flesh to see the dust, Yet as
   the Lord our Savior rose, So all His followers must."

   VIII. Once more. Children of God, the Manhood of Christ ought to be a
   great comfort to you WHEN YOU ARE SEEKING TO DO GOOD AMONG YOUR FELLOW
   MEN. This is an awful world, this world of human beings. If you ride
   along the main streets, it looks to be a very respectable city. But
   just go down the side streets! And from these, turn

   into the courts and alleys. Enter Jack Ketch, or Tiger Bay. Visit those
   regions where the means of livelihood are sin, where drunkenness is the
   chief delight, where debauchery has ceased to be pleasure and has
   become an occupation-- where every villainy is transacted unblushingly.
   Oh, God! When we think of what humanity is, even where Christianity
   keeps it within bounds, and then think of what it is when left to
   itself to bow down before blocks of wood and stone, and offer orgies of
   vice as the adoration of God, we might justly say, "Oh, it is a foul
   thing! Let it alone! It scarcely deserves

   pity."

   If we could but entertain the comfortable notions of the Corinthian
   Brethren and believe that the world is not to be converted, how relaxed
   we might be! We could sit down and care no more for this poor earth,
   because the Lord Jesus is coming and the thing will end--and there is
   nothing for us to do but to pull here and there a man off the sinking
   ship, for the kingdoms of this world are never to become the kingdoms
   of our Lord and of His Christ--and He is never to have dominion from
   sea to sea. At any rate, not by the ordinary method of the proclamation
   of the Gospel--and we may as well go to bed and enjoy ourselves, for
   effort is needless where success is hopeless.

   So they tell us, and if I could believe them, I could sleep more
   soundly at nights. But I believe that the world is to be converted to
   God and that here, on this battleground, and by the same weapons with
   which the fight began, the conflict will be fought out to the glorious
   end! And I believe sin shall be trodden down by the Lord's people, who
   will win the victory through His blood! Still, look at fallen human
   nature. Whitefield used to say that it was half beast and half devil.
   He was very near the mark, but I question whether both beast and devil
   are not slandered by being compared with man when he is left to
   himself!

   Fallen man is a horrible creature and each one of us may see a specimen
   in his own natural heart. But, oh, Brothers and Sisters, let us gird up
   the loins of our minds and be encouraged! Let us look beyond the Fall
   and see what humanity once was and what it may yet become! Jesus took
   human Nature upon Him and thereby did it the highest honor--an honor
   which has more than rolled away its reproach. Though free from sin, yet
   His Nature was human. And in assuming such a Nature, Jesus showed the
   value which He set by our race. He thought it worth His while to live,
   to suffer, to bleed, to die for such poor things as we have been
   speaking of. He thought it worth His while to preach to a woman who had
   had five husbands and was still living in sin.

   He thought it worth His while to permit His feet to be washed by a
   woman who had been a sinner. Worth His while to mix with tax collectors
   and sinners--the common vulgar people of the great cities, for He was a
   physician--and He had come to heal the sick. Never let us give way, for
   a solitary moment, to the proud feeling that anybody is below us, or
   that any human being is so mean that he is not worth looking after--and
   so bad that it is really of no use to hope to benefit him. Have I not
   heard it insinuated with regard to fallen women, "Oh, it is very
   melancholy work to have to do with them and probably it would be better
   to let them alone"?

   "And these children in the streets," say some, "these waifs and
   strays--would it not be better to let those eminent Christian
   dignitaries, the parochial authorities, instruct them in the poorhouse?
   Would it not be better to let the grosser evils alone? They are so
   hideous! Drunkenness, poverty, uncleanness--they so abound in this
   great city that one runs great risks and undergoes much pollution in
   coming near them." Very superior beings, sometimes, talk in this
   fashion. I mean, rather to say, that conceited coxcombs thus speak! Is
   there one being on the face of the earth so degraded that you and I
   might not have been more degraded, still, if the Lord's Grace had been
   withheld? Does there live on the face of the earth one incarnation of
   wickedness that can possibly excel what we might have been if exposed
   to the same influences and denied the restraints of love?

   How, then, can we talk of sinners as being beneath us? Jesus Christ
   stoops, indeed, but for you and me it is almost impossible to stoop,
   for we are already down so low that we are near to the very lowest--and
   there is no great stoop possible on our part. This always cheers me. If
   my Master would give me a house full of convicts who had been
   imprisoned many times and given over as hopeless, I should feel great
   confidence in preaching the Gospel to them, because I should think,
   "Now, I am in the very place in which my Master would have chosen to
   place His pulpit." Did He not come to save us, who are convicts under
   the Law of God? And, if He has done that, let us never despair of the
   worst of felons! Never despair of a creature for whom Jesus died! Never
   despair of a creature, the likes of which you may see by myriads before
   the eternal Throne, singing, "We have washed our robes and made them
   white in the blood of the Lamb." City mission-

   ary, Bible woman, Brother, Sister, you who work among the lowest of the
   low--let the Master's hand touch you and give you strength!

   Now, I have done when I have said a few inviting words to those here
   present who do not know much of the Redeemer and have not yet believed
   in Him. Do you feel yourselves guilty before God? Do you wish for
   mercy? Come, then, and come NOW, for Jesus Christ, a Man like
   yourselves, invites you! Remember, you cannot go to God without a
   Mediator, but you may go to Christ without a mediator and you may go
   just as you are. You need no introduction to Jesus! I know that you can
   go and tell another man like yourself your sins, for some are so
   foolish to do so. They confess their sins to the priests, as Judas did,
   but you know Judas then went and hanged himself, which was a very
   likely thing to do after such a confession.

   But if you will go and tell your sins to Jesus, who is a Man, and
   something more than a Man, He will hear your story and it will not
   pollute His ear. He will listen to it and He will do more--He will
   effectually absolve you. Have you not felt, now, that you have grown up
   to be big fellows, that you wished you were boys again, so that you
   could go at night and tell mother all that you had done wrong during
   the day, so that mother might kiss you and you would go to bed feeling
   that everything was right again? Well, there is no mortal to whom you
   can go for such forgiveness, now, but the Lord Jesus Christ--who will
   be to you all that your mother was when you were a child.

   Go and tell Him all about it and ask Him to wash you in His blood and
   cover you with His Righteousness--and He will forgive you as freely as
   your own kind mother would have done! Jesus Christ will feel for you,
   for He knows all your temptations and weaknesses. If there is any sort
   of excuse to be made for you, He will make it. He did that for His
   murderers when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what
   they do." For that which cannot be extenuated at all, He has something
   a great deal better than an excuse--namely, His own atoning Sacrifice.
   He will tell you, "Simply trust Me and I will save you."

   Do not be afraid to come and tell Him all about your case. He will not
   spurn you! Did He ever spurn a sinner, yet? The dogs eat the crumbs
   under His table and He never drives them away. Dog of a sinner, you may
   come to His feet and He will make something better than a dog of you!
   But you tell me, "The Man, Jesus, is in Heaven." So much the better,
   for if He were here on earth in this Tabernacle, then He would not be
   over in Seven Dials and Golden Lane and over in North and East London,
   or away there in Scotland and Ireland, or across the seas! But, being
   in Heaven, He is within equal reach of us all, wherever we may be! And
   whoever darts a thought after Him, or a wish towards Him--above all,
   whoever trusts Him--shall find in Him eternal life!

   Sinner, you have not to deal with an absolute God! You have to deal
   with God in Jesus, the Man! Come, then, to Him, for He has come to you.
   The Ladder, Christ Jesus, you know, has its foot on earth and its top
   in Heaven. The higher we ascend, the more we shall delight to think of
   the Glory of Christ. But our first business is to think of the foot of
   the Ladder and I want you, tonight, to know that its foot stands on
   earth, just in front of you. Jesus was such as you are--not sinful,
   that He could not be--but in all else like you. He was poor and
   suffering as you are. Now, put your foot on the first rung of the
   Ladder, His Manhood and His bloody sacrifice upon the Cross.

   Trust that and you shall climb till you ascend where the full Deity of
   the Incarnate Savior blazes forth! And you shall rejoice in His Second
   Advent and all the splendors of His future reign. Tonight you may leave
   those higher things alone. Begin at the bottom of the Ladder and
   commence to climb! The Lord help you! The Lord bless you! May He lay
   His hand on you at this moment, poor Sinner! That will melt your heart!
   That will cheer your spirit! That will give you life from the dead! May
   He do it for His name's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Daniel 10. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--820, 260, 761.
     __________________________________________________________________

Gone, Gone Forever

   (No. 1296)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 28, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone." 1 Kings
   20:40.

   THE parable which the Prophet acted before Ahab was simple and natural.
   A soldier in the heat of the fight was charged by an officer to take
   care of an important prisoner. "Keep this man," he said, "and if you
   allow him to escape, your life shall answer for it, or you shall pay a
   talent of silver." The soldier's one business from that moment was to
   look after his captive. He had received command to do so from his
   superior officer and his first and last work was to see that the
   prisoner was safely kept. However, he had other things to do belonging
   to himself--his family and the like--and turning his thoughts in that
   direction, he forgot his charge, and the prisoner very naturally seized
   the opportunity to escape. And so the soldier exclaims, "While I was
   busy here and there, he was gone."

   The neglectful guard had no cause to be surprised that such was the
   case, but he was not prepared to bear the penalty and, therefore, he
   came before the king to ask that he might be pardoned for his neglect.
   The king replied at once, "You have stated your case and decided it.
   Your own carelessness has lost us the captive and you know the
   penalty." This story was originally told in order to touch the
   conscience of King Ahab, who had allowed Benhadad, king of Syria, to
   escape when Providence had put the cruel monarch into his hands on
   purpose that he might receive his doom. Ahab is no more, but this
   Scripture is not, therefore, like a spent shell, there is truth and
   power in it!

   Its teaching is applicable to us, also. Ahab is gone to his account and
   the dogs have licked his blood. We may forget the guilty monarch and
   incline our own ears and hearts to hear what the parable may have to do
   with us. We, too, have received a charge--have we neglected it? We have
   had time and opportunity within our keeping--have they gone? Let us
   search and see whether it is so or not. When the rebellious king had
   received this warning he went to his house heavy and displeased and it
   may be that the subject of this morning will be far from agreeable to
   many--it will be well for their souls if they become heavy with the
   burden of repentance and displeased with themselves.

   Oh that the Spirit of God would speak home to all our hearts and save
   us from a course of life which may cost us a thousand bitter regrets!

   I. And first, let us think of THE OBLIGATION which the text suggests,
   that we may solemnly admit that we are under a higher obligation,
   still. This man, being engaged in warfare, was bound to obey the orders
   of his superior officer. That officer put into his custody a prisoner,
   saying, "keep this man," and from that moment he was under an
   obligation from which nothing could free him. It is a law of discipline
   in the army that what a man is bid to do by legitimate authority, he
   must do, and, therefore, the man's chief business was to detain his
   captive till he could hand him over to the officer.

   Dear Friends, you and I are under personal obligation, from the moment
   of our entrance upon years of responsibility, and that obligation is
   this--to serve, honor and glorify God. Every man is bound to serve his
   Creator and live to His Glory. That this is most just is clear as the
   sun in the heavens if we will but think a little. Alas, it is a subject
   upon which some men have never thought, nor will they care to think. Of
   themselves they have been more than a little thoughtful. Their duty to
   their neighbor, they have, also, in some measure considered. But their
   obligation to God does not seem to have ever crossed their minds!

   They forget God and live, in fact, as if there were none, or as if they
   were not bound to serve Him. The practical language of their life is
   like that of Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?"
   They would not be unjust to a neighbor, but they practice constant
   injustice towards their Maker! The Prophet asks, "Will a man rob God?"
   But, alas, thousands of lives are one long robbery of the Almighty, one
   perpetual disregard of claims founded upon eternal justice! That we are
   bound to serve God is clear, because we derive our being from Him. We
   would never have existed if it had not

   been for His power. We would cease to exist at this instant if that
   power did not sustain us in being! Surely that existence which was
   originated by God should be spent to His honor and the being which
   hourly depends upon Him should be used for His Glory!

   Children owe obedience to their parents and much more do creatures owe
   a debt to their Creator--that debt is a consecrated life--a debt which
   is always due since the life is daily being maintained by fresh Divine
   power. It was for this end that the Almighty made us and for nothing
   short of this, that we might glorify God and enjoy Him forever. When a
   man fashions a vessel or a tool, it is that it may answer the purpose
   for which he designed it. And if it does not answer his design, he
   casts it away. What man will keep a horse or a cow if it yields him no
   benefit? And if a dog never acknowledged you as its master, who among
   you would long call it your own? God has made us that we may glorify
   Him and if we do not honor Him we miss the end and object of our being.

   I care not what you do nor what you are--though you should be owners of
   a score of counties, if you love not God your soul is poor and
   degraded. Though men should set you on a column high in the air and
   account you a hero, if you have not lived for God, you have lived in
   vain. As the vine which yields no cluster is useless, so is a man who
   has not honored God. As an arrow which falls short of the mark, as a
   fig tree which yields no figs, as a candle which smokes but yields no
   light, as a cloud without rain and a well without water, is a man who
   has not served the Lord! He has led a wasted life--a life to which the
   flower and glory of existence are lacking. Call it not life at all, but
   write it down as animated death!

   To the service of God a thousand voices call us all. I know not where
   we can walk without hearing those impressive calls. Lift up your eyes
   to the midnight sky and every star exclaims, "We shine to Jehovah's
   praise--do you?" Cast your eye upon the fields bespangled with living
   jewels, for each flower whispers, "I bloom to the great Maker's
   praise--do you?" Listen to the birds, whose tuneful choirs are occupied
   with the praises of the Lord, and they enquire of you, "Have you no
   music for the Lord?" The very dust that is borne in the air moves
   according to His laws! And it asks us why we disobey everything above,
   beneath, around, majestic or minute! If we will but listen, they all
   says to us, "We are all the servants of the Most High, why wait you not
   within His courts?"

   Man's obligation to serve his Maker is even greater than that of any
   other of the creatures around him, for he is the Maker's masterpiece in
   which Divine skill is seen to perfection. His body was curiously worked
   by the fingers of Infinite Wisdom and as for his soul, it is of the
   loftiest order of created things and is akin to angels, so that if any
   created being ought to serve the Lord by whom it lives, man is that
   creature! Moreover, standing first in the scale of visible beings,
   having dominion over all the works of God's hands, man should be first
   in loyalty to the great King. To him the laborious ox bows its willing
   neck! For him the horse foregoes the wild freedom of the plains! To him
   the sheep yield their fleece for his covering and their flesh for his
   food!

   For man the fish leap from the stream and the birds drop from the wing.
   He has dominion over all the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air
   and reigns as God's vicegerent over the brute creation--all this and
   yet this exalted being forgets the Sovereign who has lent him His
   authority and denies the homage which is due to his liege Lord!
   Brothers and Sisters, it ought not to be so--gratitude exclaims against
   the revolt of a being so highly favored! A great argument for our
   obligation to glorify God is found in the fact that in this service men
   find their highest honor and their truest happiness. To serve some
   beings would be degrading--to be the vessel of the devil is to bring
   upon yourself disgrace and sorrow. But to serve the Lord is more
   honorable than to wear a prince's ermine and, as for happiness, the
   angels find it Heaven and redeemed spirits acknowledge it to be their
   bliss, while those on earth who most fully do the will of the Lord
   confess themselves to be the happiest of men!

   It is a seraph's glory that he gives glory to God and there we must
   find ours. Friend, you and I are so constituted that we never can be
   right unless we run in the groove of obedience to the great First
   Cause! This is the orbit in which we can safely move--all else is chaos
   and leads to misery. Wander out of the way of God's honor and you
   stumble among the dark mountains and lose yourself amidst tangled
   briers and piercing thorns. If, then, it is man's health, happiness and
   honor that he should serve God, surely his duty lies in that direction
   and it is the height of folly to neglect it. Let this, also, never be
   far from our memories, that there is a day coming when we must, all of
   us, give an account of our lives. And the account will be based upon
   this enquiry--How have we served and glorified God?

   In that tremendous day, whose awful splendor shall cause the pomp of
   kingdoms to turn pale, the one great question will be, "How have you
   lived in reference to God?" Remember our Lord's own description of the
   Judgment. He makes service rendered to Himself the test and
   touchstone--"I was hungry and you gave Me meat. I was thirsty and you
   gave Me drink." What you did for Him, or what you did not do for Him,
   will be the hinge on which Judgment shall turn. True, your actions
   towards your fellow men enter into that account, for the clothing of
   the naked and the giving of drink to the thirsty are introduced as
   evidence of service done for the Lord. So, then, these deeds were done
   as unto Him and were part and parcel of that service which is His due.

   If there is nothing done unto the Lord. If to the Lord no reverence is
   rendered. If to the Lord no love is returned, then there can be no
   sentence for you but this, "Cast the unprofitable servant into outer
   darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." I would
   leave this point, but I think I hear the enquiry--"Are we, then, to
   leave our business, shut up our shops, forsake our families, betake
   ourselves to solitude and spend our time in prayer and devotion?" I did
   not say that! I have not even hinted at such folly! I said that you are
   under obligation to serve God--surely this does not imply that you are
   to avoid those services? When the Lord bade Jonah serve Him in Nineveh,
   was it not flat rebellion which led him to flee into Tarshish?
   Certainly that was not the way to keep the command!

   In your own callings, where God has placed you, you are to glorify Him.
   It is not fighting a battle for a man to run out of it, to avoid the
   contest and the trial which comes out of it--yet that is exactly what
   it comes to when a man gets to a monastery or a woman to a nunnery!
   Thus duty is shirked under the pretence of more easily fulfilling it
   and God's Glory is sacrificed under the plea of promoting it! Did He
   make men to be immured in cells, or women to be buried alive in
   religious prisons? 'Tis an ill use to which to put an intelligent being
   and a sheer waste of the Creator's revenues. You cannot win the battle
   by quitting the field!

   Stand where your Captain has placed you! Fight in His strength and
   endure till victory crowns you. There is a way of glorifying God in
   your present position whatever it may be. A merchant or a working man,
   a mistress or a nurse girl, a king or a pauper has, each one, a work to
   do! We are, or ought to be, all servants in the one great house, doing
   this or that as the Master appoints, and all equally glorifying God as
   His Grace enables us. Our service to God lies not out of the way of
   daily life, but in it! See to it, then, that you are diligent therein.
   "But are we not to serve our fellow men?" Who said you were not to?
   There are two tables of the Law--the first contains the precepts
   towards God, the second the commands towards men--but they are both
   God's Law.

   He that does good to his fellow men for God's sake is serving God! In
   fact, this is one of the noblest ways in which men serve God--when they
   pursue the good of their fellows that thereby God may be glorified.
   Still, man is not our master, but our fellow servant. The Lord has an
   undivided right to us, to every motion of ours, to every faculty of our
   mind and every capacity of our entire nature, for, "it is He that made
   us, and not we, ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His
   pasture."

   II. Secondly, our text contains A CONFESSION--"He was gone." The man
   was under obligation to take care of his prisoner, but he had to
   confess that he was gone. I anxiously desire to deal with your
   consciences as I will deal with my own while I ask how many of us have
   to confess that though under obligations to God we have not fulfilled
   them? Alas, it may be said of many, an opportunity for glorifying God,
   "It is gone." First, we have lost many opportunities for serving God
   which arise out of the periods of life. We were children and when the
   little child brings Jesus its, "Hosanna," its early praises are very
   sweet to Him.

   Ah, boys, below here, and children all around me, I hope you will not
   have to say, "My childhood is gone. I cannot praise Jesus with a girl's
   voice or a boy's tongue, now, for my childhood passed away in
   disobedience and folly. Oh, how lovely would I have looked in Christ's
   eyes if I had served Him as a child, but it is too late, now, the bud
   is withered, the early dew is dried up and my morning sacrifice is not
   offered." As for you, young men and women, it is a great thing to serve
   God in your youth. There is a fire and vigor and elasticity of life
   about our earliest manhood which we lose when we arrive at the prime of
   life--and Jesus deserves to have us at our very best. It is a glorious
   thing to give our brightest days to Jesus, but I know there are some
   here who have already to look back upon early manhood wasted and gone--
   gone forever!

   Then we come upon another period in which we become heads of households
   with a family of children about us. Here are golden opportunities. The
   young trees can be bent, the pliant branches can be inclined this way
   or that while yet

   young, but they soon grow beyond our culture. Ah, men and women who
   have lived without God all the time that you have had children under
   your roof--and now they have all grown up without the fear of God--with
   what grief must you confess your opportunities gone from your grasp!

   You cannot influence your children, now. That opportunity is gone past
   recall. You cannot talk to your son now, as you might have done when
   you could take the fair-haired boy upon your knee and kiss him and tell
   him of Jesus. Your daughter is a mother, herself, now, and you cannot
   speak to her as you could have done when she was a child at home. Those
   days of instruction and persuasion are gone. Perhaps I address some who
   were once in business and had considerable influence over a large
   number of workmen and others, but they have now retired from active
   engagements, for the infirmities of age have come upon them.

   It is a sad fact if, upon looking back, they are obliged to say, "A
   thousand chances of doing good are gone. I am out of that condition and
   position which afforded me such means of usefulness and now I mourn
   that I did not avail myself of them." Ah, my dear Friend, it is sad for
   you, if you have to look back so far, and to admit that your talent was
   buried in the earth and brought in no interest for Jesus. Another form
   of regret may arise out of the changes of our circumstances. A man had
   once considerable wealth, but a turn of Providence has made him poor.
   It is a very unhappy thing if he has to confess, "I did not use my
   substance for God when I had it. I was an unfaithful steward and wasted
   my Master's goods. And now I am no longer trusted by Him. My property
   is gone."

   Another may have possessed considerable ability of mind, but through
   sickness or declining vigor he may not be able, now, to do what he once
   did. It is grievous if he has to say, "Oh that I had spoken for Christ
   when I could speak! Oh that I had used my brain for Him while yet my
   thoughts were clear and my perceptions quick. But now, alas, my
   capacity is gone." To rue a change and to remember that you neglected
   to use your opportunity must be very painful and, yet, it falls to the
   lot of very many. He is poor, indeed, who once was rich and used not
   his wealth for God! And he is fallen, indeed, who, when he stood aloft,
   used not his standing for his Maker's praise.

   Remember also, dear Friends--I must ask each one to take it home to
   himself--the time which has not been employed in Christ's service is
   gone. If you have not lived unto God, how many years have now gone with
   some of you? I pray you, now, to number the years which have rolled
   away. Your candle is burning low in the socket and as yet your work is
   not begun! Time is going and eternity approaching! Will you never
   awake? As time has gone, so, also, have many persons gone to whom we
   might have been useful. Thousands have passed away during our short
   span of life. Have you not had to say, "I ought to have spoken to
   So-and-So who was in my employment, but he died without hope before I
   had warned him--and he is gone where no word of mine can ever reach
   him!"

   Oh, how many have passed away since I first began to address this
   audience? And if I could charge myself with unfaithfulness to you in
   preaching the Word of God, how would I have to regret each funeral and
   to remember each tomb and say, "There lies one for whom I can render no
   acceptable account at last, for I have been unfaithful and kept back
   the Truth of God." I thank God that I, by His Grace, have not this to
   burden my heart! Do not let it be so with any of you! Sometimes,
   however, the confession of the thing gone concerns noble ideas and
   resolves. You had great ideas and if they had but been embodied in
   action, something good would have come of them. But where are the
   ideas, now? Were they not smothered in their birth?

   You resolved to do great things--the plans were thoroughly arranged and
   your whole heart was eager to carry them out--but delay chilled the
   goodly purposes till they all died of cold--and they lie buried in
   forgetfulness. You dreamed well, but there you stopped! As for actual
   work for the Lord, you had other fish to fry and, therefore, you cast
   out your net for them. You suffered the season for activity to go by
   and so your excellent ideas and resolutions melted into thin air and
   they are gone! Yes, and there may be some here from whom a vast wealth
   of opportunity has passed away. They have been blessed with great means
   and large substance--and if these had been laid out for Jesus Christ
   year after year--many a lagging agency would have been quickened and
   many a holy enterprise which has had to be suspended for lack of means
   might have gone on gloriously!

   They could have supplied the sinews of war in the form of money, but
   they have stinted the Lord's bank and kept the work small and
   struggling. Their gold and their silver, according to their profession,
   belonged to Christ, but they have kept them to themselves. What account
   will they render for this? I am sure that I cannot tell! Let them look
   to it! Others have possessed mental endowments. They were men of clear
   thought and fluent speech--and they could have led the way

   in many good works, but they have kept in the rear and lived in
   indolence. How will they answer for this? I would not be in their
   places for the world! O my God, if I had a hair upon my head that I had
   not consecrated to You, I could not dare to live, lest I be found at
   heart a traitor to You!

   Yet are there hundreds but I must not judge them--their Master will
   judge them at the last, who call themselves Christians--whose
   consecration does not go so deep but what you might peel it off with
   your fingernail. Scratch a Russian, they say, and you find a
   Tartar--and so there are some professors who need but a slight brushing
   and you will find unconsecrated self beneath! They have not given
   themselves up in deed and of a truth unto God. It cuts me to the quick
   to remember that I have met with men whose possessions have amounted to
   millions. These are they who have given me an earnest grip of the hand
   and thanked me for the Gospel I have preached. They have expressed the
   deepest interest in the Lord's work and yet they have known its needs
   and have given nothing to carry it on. And they have even passed into
   eternity and left nothing of their substance to assist the cause which
   they professed to love!

   The smallness of the gifts of some religious rich men staggers me
   beyond expression! I know not how to comprehend them! Are they
   hypocrites? Or do they misunderstand their position? He who does great
   wonders knows how to save, but I remember, also, that He whose fan is
   in His hand and who will thoroughly purge His floor, knows how to judge
   between hypocritical profession and real consecration to His service!
   That barren fig tree of which we read this morning and that servant who
   wrapped his talent in a napkin--those parables mean something--and they
   mean much to any of you who have large talents committed to your trust,
   but who are doing next to nothing in your Master's service.

   Worst of all, Brothers and Sisters, what will be the cry of a man when
   he comes to die, when, dying, he looks back upon his whole life and
   says, "I was busy here and there and I did nothing for Christ! My life
   is gone"? And then he looks into the dim future and, seeing no
   brightness there, he cries, "Woe is me, my soul is lost! I tried to
   gain the world and I have lost my soul! Everything that I did with so
   much toil and effort now turns out to be mere trifling, for my soul is
   lost forever and all is lost forever. Would God I had never been born,
   for what a dreadful thing to have been born and to have lived and
   missed the objective for which I was created!"

   May this dreadful ruin of soul, life and everything never happen to any
   one of you, and yet, it may.

   III. Thirdly, we have before us THE EXCUSE which was made--"As your
   servant was busy here and there, he was gone." The excuse is, "I was so
   busy," which, first of all, is no excuse, because a soldier has no
   business to have any business but that which his commander allots to
   him. His sole duty was to watch his prisoner and the one great business
   of every man here below is to glorify God. "But have we no secular
   business?" you ask. I have already told you that you are to glorify God
   in your daily business and by that business. You will not need to sell
   a yard of calico or a pound of sugar the less because you seek God's
   Glory!

   You will not, probably, need to spend five minutes less in your worldly
   business in order to serve God. Consecrate all that you do by doing it
   unto Him and then do as much as you like. It may make a difference in
   your mode of doing it--it should do so where that mode is not what it
   should be--but you can serve God in and by your common calling.
   Religion does not interfere with work, but sanctifies it! So, being
   busy is no excuse for being ungodly. When the man said he was, "busy
   here and there," he cut away the only excuse he could have had, because
   that showed he had ability. If he had said, "I was sick and could not
   stir. I had lost an arm and could not hold the prisoner. I was smitten
   with a fit and was unconscious"--there would have been an excuse!

   But no, he was "busy here and there," and if he could do one thing he
   could have done another thing. If he had ability enough in one way, why
   did he not turn that ability to use in the way which his duty required?
   Then, again, what he had done was evidently done to please himself. He
   was "busy here and there." Who told him to be "busy here and there"? He
   set himself work which was not cut out for him. Very well, then, he was
   serving himself instead of his Master. He was robbing his Lord of his
   time and ability in order to give it to himself, making himself his own
   king and casting off his allegiance to the Lord.

   Still, he says he was, "busy." Now let us see what he has accomplished.
   Here is a man who has been busy all his life and what has he done?
   Done? He has made a good deal of money! That is something, is it not?
   He has collected a great store--for himself. Not having served the
   Lord, but having lived to make money, he has evidently thought more of
   gold than of God and so he has been an idolater, and has thought less
   of his Maker than of his own pocket! He has despised the

   Lord and preferred his own gain. That is clear--and what is this but to
   rebel against the Most High? What a poor thing hoarding money is!

   When you are dead what can your wealth do for you? Yes, those horses
   will have more plumes on their heads and there will be more men in
   shabby black to get you off the empty hearse. There will be more
   drinking at the public house on the way home from your funeral. No
   doubt there will be more tomfoolery over you than there would have been
   if you had been a poor villager and had been decently borne on men's
   shoulders to your grave. And there will be more quarrelling among your
   heirs and, perhaps, a longer lawsuit over your property and more
   pickings for the lawyers than there would have been had you heaped up
   less of the yellow earth. To have it said, "he died worth an immense
   sum," is the consummation, in a great number of cases, but what is
   that? Is the dead man better off for having been a millionaire?

   To use money rightly is a pleasure, but to die and leave it all unused
   is utter misery. To heap it up for others to squander is poor work. I
   had as soon break stones on the road! To be the devil's rake that
   another may be his pitchfork is a poor ambition. Yet this is the story
   of many men--they are busy here and there for selfish ends--and all
   hope of serving God is gone. I hear one of you say, "My departed friend
   was not busy about wealth--he sought the love and honor of his fellow
   citizens and aspired to honor." Yes, but if he served not the Lord it
   is clear that he loved the praise of men better than the praise of God!
   And what good can that do him, now that he lies in the cold grave?
   There was a record of his name in The Times and many people said,
   "Another eminent man is gone," but what of that? What is honor when a
   man lies stark and stiff within his winding sheet?

   Here is another man who says, "But I have lived for learning. I have
   sought after knowledge, as for hidden treasure." But, my dear Friend,
   if you have not lived for God, you have thought every knowledge worth
   having but the knowledge of the Most High! You have arranged and
   classified the different orders of flies and beetles, or put into
   scientific order the flowers of the field and the stars of the
   firmament. I do not decry your knowledge, on the contrary, I value it,
   but how is it that you neglect its highest branch? Science of every
   kind may wisely be sought after, but not at the expense of serving God!

   The naturalist can readily serve God in his researches and discoveries.
   Every science can be used for God's Glory, but if the science is
   pursued apart from the glory of God, it is as insulting as if a man
   should say, "Great God, Your creatures I wish to understand, but as for
   Yourself, I care not to know or honor You." Is not this a grievous
   fault? What has the man who has forgotten his God been doing? Well,
   some men cannot give half so good an account as I have already given.
   Doing? Why, some of them have lived for seeking pleasure and killing
   time! Too many in this luxurious city are only clothes horses for
   tailors and milliners, or shall I call them patent digesters,
   dissolving daily great stores of good meat and drink, and so on. Their
   one question in the morning is, "How shall we amuse ourselves today?"

   A rat lives a better life than the mere gentleman about town who has
   nothing to do--at least the rat does not consume so much--and having no
   conscience, it has not so much to answer for. This creature, six feet
   in his boots, has not the sixth part of anything good to recommend him!
   His soul seems to be of no use to him but to act as salt to keep his
   body from corrupting! It is an awful thing to be a man and yet no man!
   There are plenty of such about. For all the good they are, you might
   cut better men out of brown paper--they are all sham and show.

   Alas, this is true of women as well as men, for the Scripture says,
   "She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives." But what are some
   busy about? Alas, they are even worse than the poor fools I have just
   now described, for their pleasure is found in vice--they are busy in
   indulging their vile passions and eternity, alone, will reveal the
   characters ruined and the lives blasted by their wickedness! They are
   gentlemen all the same, you know, and, having plenty of money, they can
   marry any man's daughter. Shame that it should be so. Ah me, what a
   wretched thing it will be to them to have lived a rotten life and to
   have been busy only about how to indulge base passions at the cost of
   others' souls!

   Some who think themselves a better sort, have lived to criticize
   others. They find fault with the way in which earnest men are serving
   God. They tell how things ought to be done though they never do
   anything themselves. They show the mistakes of the virtuous and
   successful. They weave plans and projects which they never carry out.
   They look into the future and see what is going to happen and into the
   past and see what ought to have happened! They spin fine theories and I
   know not what--where can be the good of all this? And yet in such
   things many a life has been frittered away, laboriously wasted in
   scheming how to do nothing at all!

   Oh, may that never be your lot, to be busy here and there and thus to
   let life leak away while none of its work is done! Oh that I could
   speak with a voice which could reach every heart! I grudge the smiles
   which I caused just now, but I only created them that they might help
   me to thrust graver thoughts into your minds. Brothers and Sisters, is
   it not a sad thing to have neglected that which is evidently the main
   business of life? If I am God's creature, I must have been meant to
   serve God! And if I have not served Him, even as a creature, I have not
   done what I was meant for! But if I profess to be a Christian, then the
   thing assumes a more solemn form--have I professed to be bought with
   Jesus' blood and not to be my own? And have I lived as if I were my
   own?

   I profess to be filled with the Spirit of God by being regenerate. Have
   I lived like one who has been born again? If I have been baptized upon
   a profession of my faith, I gave myself up to be buried in the water
   professing that I was dead to the world--have I been dead to the world?
   I said that I was going to live in newness of life as one risen from
   the dead-- have I so lived? Oh, professing Christian men, have you been
   true to your professions, or have those professions been only lies?
   Conscience, answer me, I charge you! O Spirit of God, quicken
   conscience in everyone here, so that none may be hardened through the
   deceitfulness of sin!

   To serve God is the only thing worth living for and when we lie upon
   the sick bed and begin to look into the future, we judge it to be so.
   It makes a good man greedy to serve God when he thinks that his life
   will soon be over! He condemns himself for every wasted hour and
   laments that his every faculty has not been spurred to the uttermost in
   the service of Him who bought him with His blood! I have never, yet,
   heard regrets from dying men that they had done too much for Christ, or
   lived too earnestly for Him, or won too many souls, or given too much
   of their substance to the cause of God! I have heard the regrets which
   all lie the other way! God save us from them for His mercy's sake!

   Fourthly, there remains THE UNALTERABLE FACT, "While I was busy here
   and there, he was gone." Could you not seize him again? "No, he is
   gone." Is there no making up for past neglect? No recapturing the
   missing one? No, he is gone, clean gone. I want you all to remember,
   this morning, that if any portion of life has not been spent in God's
   service, it is gone. Time past is gone. You can never have it back
   again--not even the last moment which just now glided by! Go, gather
   the morning dew which has been exhaled by the sun! Go, gather the
   clouds which yesterday poured forth their rain! Go, gather the sunbeams
   which fell upon the earth last summer! If you cannot accomplish any of
   those tasks, do not even hope to recover the time which has departed.
   It is gone--Omnipotence itself cannot give it back to you!

   With the time, remember, your life has gone and there is no living it
   over again. We have, sometimes, been foolish enough to say, "Oh if I
   could live my life over again!" Why say it? You cannot live it over
   again. It is gone! Whatever Omnipotent Grace may do, it cannot alter
   your past life. It will be eternally what you have made it. When you
   set your seal on the moments, like hot wax, the seal is there forever!
   What your life has been, the truth reports it forever! Throughout
   eternity it will not be possible for you to change the complexion of a
   single moment in which you have lived. You cannot alter the past,
   though you should forever sigh. "Oh, that I had availed myself of that
   opportunity! Oh, that I had, then, been self-denying! Oh, that I had
   abounded in work which glorified Christ." You cannot recall an act, nor
   unsay a word, nor revoke a negligence.

   Remember, also, that future diligence will not be able to recover
   wasted time. You may hold your next captive, but you cannot get back
   the prisoners that have already escaped you. Young man, you are not yet
   25 and there is a grand time before you. Use it, use it well! But you
   cannot get back the years between 15 and twenty-five. They are gone,
   and if misspent, are gone forever. A man of 60 may yet do something,
   but what of the long wasted years already past? I suppose Luther was
   past 40 before he began his life work and yet he accomplished a
   splendid result for Christ. But even Luther could not get back his
   years of unregeneracy and superstition!

   Time is on the wing. Use it now. Do not loiter, for you can pluck no
   feather from the wing of time to make it loiter, too. It flies and if
   you would use it, use it now! Awake yourself and sleep no longer! If
   you would, indeed, be true to God who made you and to Christ who bought
   you with His precious blood, use yourself now to the fullest
   conceivable extent for the glory of your Lord and Master.

   How shall we conclude? This sermon sweeps like a rough north wind right
   through us all. What shall we do? I will suggest to you what to do. Let
   us all fly to Jesus who can forgive the guilt of the past! Is there one
   man or woman here who can say, "I have nothing to confess. No
   negligence can be laid at my door"? I must plainly declare that I am
   not one. I have much to mourn over. Friends, I will be chief mourner
   and I will lead the way to the Cross. There let us bemoan

   ourselves before our Savior. His precious blood can make us clean! We
   will look to it. We will trust in its merits. We are clean if we
   believe in Him. That Righteousness of His, without a flaw, can cover
   us! Let us put it on and stand accepted in the Beloved.

   When this is done, what next? Let us come to Christ, again, and ask Him
   to heal us of the lethargy of disobedience which has taken hold on us
   so long. Some of us have forgotten our God. We have lived as if we were
   under no obligations to Him and even those of us who have been
   quickened by His Holy Spirit have not served Him as we should. Lord,
   let Your precious blood heal us now, that we may think only of You and
   of Your Glory! And may we, from now on, live for You alone!

   Once more, let us come to Christ that we may feel new motives and
   receive new inspirations. Have you never heard of men who have had a
   mighty turn? They have met with something which has given a life-long
   twist to their nature so that they are new men. You knew them very well
   one day, but when you met them the next time, you scarcely recognized
   them! They had become so changed and so absorbed by a subject of which
   they began to talk, at once, to you. You thought them strange, but I
   wish we were, each one, strange in that same way! I would that my Lord
   Jesus Christ would meet every one of you this afternoon and reveal
   Himself to you!

   I do not ask that you should see Him with your bodily eyes, but I wish
   your spiritual eyes might be opened that you might see Him, and that He
   would show you His hands, His feet and His side, and say to you, "I
   have loved you with an everlasting love, and I have given Myself for
   you. Behold, I lay upon you these, My pierced hands. You are Mine and,
   therefore, I charge you live as one that is alive from the dead. From
   now on, as surely as My Father sent Me into the world so I send you."

   May this happen to each one of us and then we shall lead new lives--and
   those lives will be so much to God's Glory that men will take knowledge
   of us that we have been with Jesus in some new and strange way, and
   have learned of Him! God bless you to this end, for Christ's sake Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 13:1-9; Luke 19:12-26; 1
   Kings20:35-43. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--196, 645, 769.
     __________________________________________________________________

My God

   (No. 1297)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 30, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My God." Psalm 91:2.

   IF YOU were to find honey in a tree and should wish to give some of it
   to your friends, I can imagine you cautiously taking it up in your
   hands, carrying it very carefully--and yet, when you reached the
   company, you would find, to your sorrow, a large part of it would have
   oozed out between your fingers--so that you had failed to convey to
   others what was so delicious to yourself. I fear I shall be in the same
   condition when this sermon is done and, therefore, I am the more eager
   to assure you at the beginning that the honey which I wish you to
   partake of is, indeed, of the very richest kind! My text has been, to
   my own heart, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb!

   Have you ever been in the Alps, or in some other region where the
   scenery is peculiarly impressive? And has there happened a singular
   conjunction of sun and cloud, of brightness and shadow which has made
   the view before you to be transcendently sublime, or surpassingly
   beautiful? If so, when you have reached your companions, you have tried
   to tell them what you have seen, but in proportion as the scene has
   been exquisite and charming, you have been conscious of your inability
   to convey to them any satisfactory idea of the spectacle. If it had
   been a commonplace affair you could have accomplished the description
   and conveyed your impression of it to other minds.

   But because of its being so altogether superior and out of the common
   way, you have failed, after the most earnest endeavors, to succeed, and
   you have exclaimed, "Ah, you should have been there, yourselves! Had
   you seen with your own eyes, you would then have understood my
   descriptions. But now the task of description is hopeless. Had you been
   there you would have known that I do not exaggerate! On the contrary,
   you would have felt that when I had spoken under the greatest
   excitement, I fell far short of the admiration which the scene
   awakens."

   It happens to me in happy hours that a text of Scripture becomes
   peculiarly delicious to my heart, even as marrow and fatness to the
   feaster--and these two words have been so. They filled my spirit with
   sweetness even to the fullest! But I fear that I cannot convey that
   sweetness to you. I have seen, in these two words, such a wonderful
   display of Divine condescension, of the Lord's favor to His chosen, and
   of the intense delight which springs out of that condescension and
   favor that had I but been in the pulpit at the time, I could have
   preached with freedom, but now I do not find it so easy. Expression
   limps today where enjoyment leaped yesterday!

   However, may God the Holy Spirit help you to see in the text what I
   have seen in it, even if I cannot point it out to you! And then our
   meditation will be remarkably delightful and profitable to us. May the
   Spirit of God bring fullness of meaning out of the text to your
   understanding and to your hearts. And may we all rejoice together as we
   go out of this Tabernacle, each one of us saying, "The Lord is my
   portion, said my soul."

   I. First let us think of these TWO WORDS TOGETHER. And to get at them,
   let us see when they have occurred in sacred history. Let us consider
   some of the more remarkable and special occasions upon which children
   of God have used these two words together and have said, "My God."
   First, this is the young convert's early confession. The first instance
   we will give is Ruth, who lovingly said to Naomi, "Where you dwell I
   will dwell: where you go I will go: where you lodge I will lodge: your
   people shall be my people, and your God my God."

   That last resolution was the avowal of a spiritual change. She might
   have been determined to lodge and to abide with her mother-in-law and
   there would have been but little in it. But when it came to this--"Your
   God shall be my God," then there was hope that she had been delivered
   by the Grace of God from the bondage of idolatry and had come to put
   her trust under the wings of Jehovah, the living God! Ah, dear young
   converts, if the Lord has revealed your sinful state to you and has led
   you to Jesus Christ to find life and salvation, you will come forward
   and give yourself to the Lord and declare, "I will be Your servant, for
   You are my God."--

   "Lord, You are mine, forever mine, My heart is filled with joy Divine!
   Henceforth You shall my treasure be, And I will find my all in Thee."
   You will next give yourself to the Church according to the will of God
   and you will tell the Church that you do so because from now on the God
   of the Church and the God of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be your God.
   You mean to dwell with the Lord's people and live and die with them,
   for their God is your God. Some of you have lately been converted, or
   profess to have been so. I trust your profession is thoroughly
   truthful, but be sure you examine yourselves. Have you taken God to be
   your God? Not to be a mere name to you, nor as a sacred word to sing
   about and pray about--but as truly God to you? Is God, in very deed,
   your God? If He is, He will rule your soul, He will dominate your whole
   spirit and sway His scepter over your whole heart.

   No man is truly converted until God takes His right place in
   relationship to him. The wicked forget God. The men of Belial defy God.
   The infidel denies God, but the child of God acknowledges God, submits
   to His authority and gives Him the throne of his heart. He does not
   give the Lord a secondary place and permit self to be first, for that
   would be to deify self and insult the Lord! He makes God to be God,
   that is first and sole in authority and power! This is a sure index of
   true conversion--when God is God in your soul. As I have already said,
   God is not God to a great many--He is but a name and nothing more to
   them. But when He becomes God and it is a great word, that--when He
   takes the place which the Creator, the Redeemer, the God should
   occupy--then is the soul converted, indeed!

   Now, whether we were converted yesterday, or have known the Lord for
   20, 30, or 40 years, I trust we can address our mother, the Church, and
   say as Ruth said to Naomi, "Where you lodge I will lodge: your people
   shall be my people, and your God my God." These words, in the next
   place, may be regarded as the statement of the Christian's belief--I
   mean, here, not merely his first confession of it, but his later
   statement of it. Here is our creed and our confession of faith! Take
   Thomas for the illustration. He has been very skeptical. Poor Thomas!
   He seems to have had too much brain and too little heart. He was always
   for fighting his way through intricate questions and for answering
   tough objections. If her were alive, now, if the Grace of God had not
   improved him, he would have been a "modern thought" Divine, a critical
   Brother suggesting more problems than all the rest of us could solve!

   He must have tokens, marks and evidences, or else he will not believe!
   But he is highly indulged and the Savior permits him to put his finger
   into the prints of the nails and his hand into His side! And when he
   has done so, Thomas, by a strange but blessed logic infers the Deity of
   Christ from His wounds! He was the first, I believe, who had ever done
   so, but certainly not the last. And having, from the very wounds of his
   Lord's body inspected His Deity, Thomas exclaimed, "My Lord and my
   God!" In this plain, decided testimony to our Lord's Divinity, we all
   unite! It is the heartfelt confession of faith of every Christian in
   reference to the Lord Jesus! There is no room for two opinions on that
   point!

   If there are any professing Christians in this world who do not call
   Christ, their God--well, Brothers and Sisters, we are sorry for them
   and pray the Lord to give them spiritual life and light. But as for us,
   the Man who bled on Calvary is "very God of very God" to us, and that
   in the broadest and deepest sense. As the angels bow before Him, so,
   also, do we! We count Him "worthy to receive Divine honor and power."
   There are many differences of opinion in the Church of God which may be
   tolerated, but this is beyond all controversy and can never be a moot
   point! Here our protests against error must be firm and unmistakable.

   I admired a remark that was once very merrily made by good William
   Gadsby when a Unitarian chapel had been erected near a Baptist place of
   worship. The story has been told to me that someone in the vestry was
   greatly mourning over the circumstance and saying what a sad opposition
   it was. Gadsby said, "Well, man, I do not see any opposition in it."
   "But surely it is a great opposition, Mr. Gadsby. They deny the Deity
   of Christ." "Why, man," said Gadsby, "that is no opposition! Suppose
   you kept a baker's shop and sold good bread, and a man came and opened
   an ironmonger's shop opposite, would you call that an opposition?
   Certainly not, it is a different line altogether."

   And so it is. Where we preach the Deity of Christ, that is one line of
   things. But where that is denied, we cannot regard it as another form
   of Christianity! It is a different thing, altogether, quite as
   different as iron would be from bread. The Socinian is nearer akin to
   the Mohammedan than to the Christian. He who does not acknowledge the
   Deity of Jesus disowns Him altogether. I cannot see how Jesus Christ
   can be anything but one of two things--either the Son of God or else a
   gross impostor who allowed his disciples to think him Divine--and used
   the virtues of his character to support his

   claim. All the worse an impostor because he had a fine moral sense and
   yet employed even virtue's self to aid his blasphemous ambition. He
   must have been either God or an arch-deceiver!

   Brothers and Sisters, we will have no mincing of matters about that
   point! Charity is all very well, but the Truth of God comes first.
   "First pure, then peaceable," is a good barometer for our judgment on
   such points. On the matter of our Lord's Godhead we cannot, for an
   instant, hesitate--we do not merely believe Jesus Christ to be God, but
   we risk our eternal future upon that Truth of God! I am a lost man, I
   know, and for me there can be nothing but eternal destruction from the
   Presence of the Lord if the Savior, Jesus Christ, is not Divine! But He
   is Divine! This we will maintain in the teeth of all men as our
   confession of faith--Jesus Christ, the Son of the Highest, very God of
   very God, is my Lord and my God. Thus, my God is the first and last
   confession of faith of those who are under the New Covenant. It is the
   utterance, both of the babe in Grace, and of the more advanced
   Christian.

   Furthermore, my Brothers and Sisters, the words, "My God," have often
   been used to declare the determination of the Believer when he has been
   surrounded by opponents and persecutors. Grandly did old Micaiah use
   this expression when the false priests were round about him! Prophets
   who pretended to be inspired delivered their oracles and old Micaiah
   said, "As the Lord my God lives. Whatever my God says unto me that will
   I speak." Neither less nor more did he speak, because he believed in
   Jehovah as being his God and submitted himself entirely to Jehovah's
   sway. The false priests worshipped Baal, Moloch and Ashtaroth--but old
   Micaiah cared not what they worshipped--he knew who was his God and he
   avowed his God to their teeth.

   O, you who call yourselves the people of God, be always ready to stand
   up for Jehovah in whatever company you may be, for there are many gods
   and many lords in our land at this time--and multitudes of professed
   Christians have turned aside from worshipping the God of Israel! They
   have set up new gods and the Eternal is despised. The Old Testament,
   they tell us, is an uncouth and harsh Revelation! The God of Abraham,
   Isaac and Jacob is not at all the God of their fancy, for He is too
   terrible, too severe, too righteous, too just! They want a milder,
   gentler God and they pretend that Jesus Christ has revealed quite a
   different Deity from the God of the Old Testament. Ah, Brothers and
   Sisters, in this they greatly error, for the Lord changes not and is
   the same today under the Gospel as He was yesterday under the Law!

   We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, "the God of the
   whole earth shall He be called." We worship the God of Israel, the God
   who made the heavens and the earth, the God who divided the Red Sea,
   the God who spoke in thunder from Sinai! We believe that Jesus Christ
   has not come to reveal to us a new Deity, but to declare unto us the
   God who is from the beginning! Ours is the song of Zacharias--"Blessed
   be the Lord God of Israel; for He has visited and redeemed His people,
   and has raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His
   servant David; as He spoke by the mouth of His holy Prophets, which
   have been since the world began." "This God is our God forever and
   ever! He shall be our guide even unto death."--

   "The God of Abraham's praise is Who reigns enthroned above, Ancient of
   e verlasting days, And God of love! Jehovah, Great I AM! By earth and
   Heaven confessed, I bow, and bless Your sacred name, Forever blest!"

   The words, "my God," may well express the secret vow of the Believer as
   he consecrates himself to the Most High--of this we have an instance in
   the life of Jacob. He said, "If God will be with me, and will keep me
   in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put
   on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace: then shall the
   Lord be my God." We have each said that, I hope, many times, when we
   have renewed our vows unto the Lord. Though we have known the Lord for
   20 or 30 years, yet, as we have needed Him anew in time of trouble, or
   as He has revealed Himself to us afresh in a way of deliverance, we
   have laid hold upon Him by faith, over and over again, and said, "Yes,
   He is my

   God."

   Have you ever felt your heart full to overflowing while thinking over
   such a text as this, "My Beloved is mine and I am His"? I do not know a
   more delightful contemplation for a quiet hour alone than to weigh each
   syllable of that prom-

   ise, "I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Look it over,
   turn it over, taste it, feed on it, digest it and see the mutual
   possession, even as in those other texts, "The Lord's portion is His
   people," and, "The Lord is my portion, said my soul." Christ is ours
   and we are Christ's! You cannot, dear Friend, do better than oftentimes
   hand over, again, the title deeds of your soul to God, yes, not of your
   soul, only, but of everything you have! For if you make an inventory of
   all you have to the last penny, it is your Lord's. Even so is the Lord
   altogether yours and you should often renew your grasp of Him. Take Him
   to be your only Lord and God as long as you live and, while others
   boast in their treasures, be it your joy to cry, "Whom have I in Heaven
   but You? And there is none upon the earth that I desire besides You!"
   Thus with two words, "My God," we avow our faith both in the presence
   of our enemies and before our Lord, Himself.

   But I cannot linger here. I must have you notice, next, that these
   words, "My God," have sometimes afforded the deepest possible comfort
   to children of God in times of terrible trouble. When our dear Lord and
   Master was in His greatest woe--when all the waves and billows of
   Judgment were going over His soul--the exclamation which came from Him
   at the climax of His grief was, "My God! My God." True, it was attended
   with the question, "Why have You forsaken Me?" but still, as with a
   two-handed grip, He seemed to get a hold of God when He said, "My God!
   My God!" Driven to extremity, He settled His heart on that one point.
   There was the anchor hold of His hope, "My God, My God."

   He did not say, "My disciples." They had all forsaken Him. He could not
   call on His mother and siblings--they were powerless to console. No
   arm, angelic or human, could minister to His aid. He was alone in the
   grasp of Death, unsupported and unsustained, forsaken of earth and
   Heaven, and left a prey to the powers of darkness, but this--this was
   the cry which kept Him alive and gave Him strength to bear, even to the
   end! "My God," He said, "they have not robbed Me of You! My God, I will
   still appeal to You! Though You hide Your face and seem to forsake Me,
   yet I know You are still Mine and I hold fast to You to the end! My
   God! My God!"

   You will never have to use those words in so dire an extremity of woe!
   But if you ever come into deep waters, may you have Grace to say, "My
   God," for if you do, you will soon be enabled to shout, "It is
   finished." "My God," is a love note in days of peace and a war cry for
   hours of battle! It is mighty in times ofjoy, but it is still more
   potent in nights of sorrow. The man who can say, "My God," is a match
   for Death and Hell! By that watchword he shall master sin and overthrow
   all the hosts of the world, the flesh and the devil. In this sign you
   may conquer! The watchword of victory is, "My God."

   Once more. Those words have been heard in cases precisely the opposite
   of deep distress. When very marvelous deliverances have been enjoyed,
   the expression, "My God" has frequently come from the lips of those who
   have experienced them. When Miriam took her timbrel and went forth in
   the dance because God had overthrown Pharaoh and his hosts, she sang a
   song which Moses had composed for her. And you will remember that one
   of the verses was--"He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation;
   my father's God, and I will exalt Him." She had never reached that
   point, "He is my God," until Pharaoh's hosts and his chosen captains
   had been drowned in the Red Sea--then she felt proud that she had such
   a God--and her faith exulted as she beheld His arm made bare!

   Think, also, of Daniel and that happy moment when he exultingly called
   Jehovah his God. When the Prophet had been all night in the lion's den,
   Darius comes, and with a plaintive cry he asks if Daniel yet lives. He
   is afraid the lions have devoured him. Do you notice Daniel's answer?
   He says, "My God has sent His angel and has shut the lions' mouths."
   You do not wonder that he said, "My God," do you? I do not think he
   could have coolly said, "God--God has sent His angel." He could not
   have spoken so coldly! The deliverance he had experienced, the great
   goodness of God in keeping him alive that night in the lions' den, made
   him feel that he must, with arms of love and faith, embrace the
   Omnipotent Preserver and call Him, "My God."

   Beloved, if you have experienced joyous deliverances of the same order,
   you have learned to say, "My God." If you have seen your sins drowned
   in the Red Sea, you have said, "My God." And if the lions have been
   chained and you have escaped their jaws, you, too, have said, "My God."
   I earnestly hope that if the trouble which has now come upon you should
   prove to be sharper and more grievous than any before, it may turn out
   to have been sent in order that you may say, "My God," with a deeper
   emphasis, and feel your soul more fully filled with the blessed meaning
   of those two matchless monosyllables!

   So much, then, about the times when these words have been used. May the
   Spirit of God lead us to those specialties of experience in the midst
   of which these words shall become the frequent language of our hearts.

   II. Briefly let us notice, in the second place, what this FIRST WORD,
   "MY"--"MY God," means. In what sense and respects can God be mine? He
   fills Heaven and earth--can I call Him mine? "His tender mercies are
   over all His works." I cannot set a hedge around His benevolence, or
   claim a monopoly of His compassion, can I? How, then, can I call Him
   mine? He is so inconceivable! He is boundless in Nature! His every
   attribute is Infinite! A man may call a province his own, for if it is
   within his compass, he can travel over it, or sail round it.

   An emperor may call thousands of square miles his own, but still, the
   eagle's pinion or the dove's light wing can soar from boundary to
   boundary of his empire! The broadest dominion may be mapped and
   measured. But how can I call that mine which I cannot even conceive? If
   my thought cannot compass it, shall my heart possess it? Yes, yes, so
   the text says! "My God." Love possesses what reason cannot even look
   upon! Still, what does this mean, this daring appropriation? Why, it
   must mean, this, among other things--first, that I acknowledge Him to
   be my God. Whatever gods others may have, Jehovah is God to me! To
   whomever Jehovah may be a name, he is God to me, and, as Father, Son
   and Spirit, three Persons in one blessed Unity, I adore Him!

   He may be despised and rejected. There may be other names set up in
   competition with Him, but to me--to me--He is the only God! I wish that
   you in this assembly may all say at once, most heartily and
   distinctly--"Let others do as they will, but as for me and my house, we
   will serve the Lord." I hope you will avow yourselves, this day, to be
   His people and take the God of Israel, the God and Father of your Lord
   Jesus Christ, to be your God! That is a part of the meaning. There is
   an acknowledging the Lord to be our God.

   But, next, the words imply a personal recognition of Him. Venus and
   Jupiter and Bacchus--those ancient deities of Greece and Rome--we have
   all talked about them as myths and fictions. But as actual gods we
   ignore them--they are no gods to us! Some of us read classical books in
   our boyhood. I am sure they have done us more harm than good, but we
   have read them and, therefore, we know all about the imaginary history
   and doings of those most disgusting gods and goddesses. But we are very
   well aware that they are dreams and falsehoods--we know no such
   beings--they are nothing to us! We have heard, also, of Juggernauts,
   and of the thousands and millions of gods of the Hindus, but we have no
   acquaintance with them.

   I have felt thankful when I have seen likenesses of Krishna and Siva,
   that they were no relations of mine! There is one god with an
   elephant's head and another god with a cat's head. I am delighted to
   think that I was never on speaking terms with such monsters and could
   never call them mine! If they are gods to others they are not so to
   us--we know them not, their names we despise--and their pretensions we
   detest. But, Brothers and Sisters, we know our God! It is true we have
   not seen Him at any time. "You saw no similitude," said He, when He
   spoke to His people from the top of Sinai. We have neither heard His
   voice at any time, nor seen His shape. Yet as spirits speak to spirits
   we have been cognizant of the action of the Spirit of God upon our
   spirits!

   You and I know that we have often been moved by one another's spirits.
   This very night, while I am speaking, my spirit is known of your
   spirit, and you are recognizing my spirit while I speak. In much the
   same way the Holy Spirit, by His mysterious operations, has come into
   contact with our spirits so that though we know Him not by sight,
   hearing, taste, or smell--all of which deceive us--yet we recognize Him
   by an inner and Infallible sense which was created in us at our
   regeneration by the hand of God! That there is a God we know by
   spiritual perception. He has opened our ears so that we hear His voice.
   He has given us new sight by which we perceive Him and are even more
   assured of His Presence than we could be if we had the evidence of our
   eyes and ears!

   He is not a God in cloudland to us, He is intensely real and true! He
   is a God with whom we speak. He is a God who calls Himself our Friend,
   our Father--a God who invites us to come and reason with Him--a God who
   assures us of the love of His heart! He is a God who tells us His
   secrets, for, "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." O
   men of the world, we are as sure of the existence of God and of His
   being ours as ever you can be sure of your gold or your lands! And we
   are as truly acquainted with Him as you are with your friends!
   Therefore it is that He is no longer simply God to

   me, but He is "My God."

   Just as when I know a man by familiar communion, he is not merely a
   friend, but he is, "my friend," so has it come to pass between God and
   us and by each Believer, He is fitly styled, "My God." I hope the
   matter has proceeded further than that. We not merely know that He is
   God and have not only recognized His Divine existence, but we have come
   into a relationship with Him. There is a natural and necessary
   relationship between God and His creatures, but it is not always

   recognized. When it is discerned by the soul, because the Spirit of God
   illuminates the heart, man rises into a new relationship to God and
   feels as he never felt before. For instance, he comes into the
   relationship of a pardoned child. Oh, if you have ever been forgiven,
   you will know Him that forgave you, and you will say, "My God."

   If you feel the Spirit of adoption, now, within your heart, you will
   know who adopted you and you will cry, "My God, my Father." You receive
   of His bounty according to the gift of His Grace from day to day and,
   therefore, while consciously receiving abundant mercies from the Lord,
   you learn to say, "My God will supply all my needs according to His
   riches in Glory by Christ Jesus." The heart of the matter lies in
   this--"My God" means that we have appropriated Him to ourselves. We
   take Him by a daring act of faith to be, from now on, God to us, and
   all that He is we take to be ours forever and ever!

   May we do this? Brothers and Sisters, may we do this? Ah, yes,
   appropriating faith is warranted in the Covenant, for the Covenant runs
   thus, "I will be their God and they shall be My people." It is
   justified, also, by the act of God, for did He not give His Son? And
   when He gave His Son to redeem us, could He withhold anything from us?
   Did He not, in that act, virtually give us Himself, for Christ is in
   the Father and the Father is in Him--and He that has received Jesus has
   received the Father! Say, "My Savior," and you need not be afraid to
   say, "My God"! Moreover, not merely does the Covenant guarantee it and
   the act of God justify it, but there is the witness of the Spirit
   within us which has taught us our right to say, "My God."

   When we have said unto the Lord, "You are my God," the Holy Spirit has
   not chided us, nor smitten our conscience, nor rebuked us for
   presumption, nor humbled us for pride on that account! But, on the
   contrary, peace has followed-- calm rest, holy joy, quiet trustfulness
   and assured confidence--all of which are the true fruits of saying, "My
   God," and at the same time the genuine works of the Spirit of God. Thus
   we know that we have not erred when we have made this claim. Moreover,
   dear Friends, we may expect our confidence and assured appropriation to
   become stronger and stronger as life goes on. We have not been wrong in
   saying, "My God," for we have grown into saying it more and more in
   proportion as the Lord has sanctified us.

   As we conquer sin, we say, "My God," more assuredly, and as we grow in
   Grace we say, "My God," with greater confidence. Therefore it cannot be
   wrong. We expect, in Heaven, to say, "My God," still more positively.
   Beloved, how boldly we shall say it there! No sin, no doubts, no clouds
   to divide us from Him! Then shall we know that the Infinite Jehovah is
   ours to enjoy forever and ever! Oh, it is not crowns of gold, it is not
   music of sweetest harps, it is not palm branches or white robes of
   victory that our souls will most delight themselves in--we shall
   triumph in "God our exceeding joy!" "At His right hand are pleasures
   forevermore."

   We shall, in Heaven, always find it bliss to say to ourselves, "God is
   mine." What God does is great, what God has is great, but what God is,
   is far more than what He does or has, because He can do and have
   infinitely more than He ever has done or has created! Yet it is God,
   Himself, and what He is which is ours forever! In grasping the Lord by
   faith and saying, "He is mine," what a sweep the soul has made! It has,
   as it were, encompassed eternity, set its own seal upon infinity and
   appropriated all sufficiency!

   III. Finally, let us spend two or three minutes upon the LAST WORD--"My
   GOD." "GOD! What does it mean? Ah, now, you have asked me a question
   which I cannot answer! The wise man was asked, "What is God?" And he
   requested that he might have a day to consider his answer. When the sun
   had set, he said that he must have three days, for in thinking of it,
   the subject grew. They gave him three days and when these were over he
   demanded six days more, for the subject was greater than ever. When
   they called upon him at the six days' end, he claimed 12 days more, for
   the subject was still beyond him. They bade him take the 12 days and
   they would hear the result of his thoughts. The next time he said that
   he must have a month, and, at the month's end, he gave them no
   information, but assured them he must have a year. When the year was
   over he confessed that he should need a lifetime--he should never be
   able to tell them what God was so long as he lived!

   There is no defining the Incomprehensible One! Yet, Brothers and
   Sisters, you and I can call Him, "My God." Let us reflect upon His
   being ours as to His Nature, His Person, His Essence. There is Father,
   Son and Holy Spirit--Three in One. Then the Father is my God--He has
   loved me, He has chosen me, He has begotten me, He has provided for
   me--He is my Father, my All. Then, too, the adorable Son is
   mine--Jesus, the Redeemer, the Prophet, Priest and King. The
   Intercessor, the Judge--He is mine. Then the Holy Spirit is mine--the
   Instructor, the Quickener, the Sanctifier, the Com-

   forter. Dew, fire, wind, dove--whatever the metaphor under which He
   veils Himself--He is mine. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit--to
   these beloved and glorious of the one undivided Godhead, Faith says,
   "My God."

   When I have thought of the blessed Persons, let me think of His
   attributes. Omniscience is mine--the Lord knows everything for me.
   Omnipotence is mine--He will do everything for me. Justice is mine,
   reconciled to me by the death of Jesus. Mercy is mine, enduring
   forever. Truth is mine--He will keep His promise. Immutability is
   mine--He changes not and, therefore, I am not consumed. Rehearse all
   the attributes peculiar to the Divine Nature and say unto the Lord,
   "You are my God and therefore all Your blessed perfections and glorious
   attributes are mine." Think of Him, again, in what He has done, as well
   as in what He is. As Creator He is my Creator--not merely as creating
   me, but as making "all things" for me--that I may richly enjoy them.

   Whatever I look upon I may enjoy because He made it. He has made all
   things holy and the curse which sin engendered He has removed through
   the death of His Son. And now, as I traverse the world, I may delight
   myself in the works of the Creator and say, "These are Your glorious
   works, Parent of good, Almighty. And You give them to me that I may see
   You in them and enjoy them to Your honor." The Lord is also our
   Redeemer and the Believer calls Him, "my Redeemer," and, "my God." It
   was my God that poured out His life unto death upon the bloody tree. My
   God has loved me and given Himself for me. The Lord is, moreover, the
   Sanctifier. He carries on the work of Grace in the soul and in this He
   is my God. He is the God of Providence and rules all things according
   to His will--and in that Character He is my

   God.

   The Lord Jesus Christ will come to judge the world--and Heaven and
   earth shall pass away before the Glory of His face. But He that shall
   make Heaven rock and reel is my God--and He that shall make the rocks
   run like rivers and the stars fall like withered leaves from the tree
   is my God, the God of my salvation! Oh, is it not blessed to think of
   God in any light or aspect under which you are able to conceive Him and
   then be able to say at the end of it all, "He is my God in all His
   works and in all His relationships, in all His attributes and all His
   glories"? To me it is the utmost bliss at this moment to claim, with
   each one of my Brothers and Sisters, that He is my God. Do you know, if
   you could once say this--and I wish that every man, woman and child in
   this house, could, from the heart say, "My God"--if you could say this,
   it would sweeten so many things to you!

   This Bible--how you would love this precious Bible, for then you would
   say, "It is my Book now, because it is my Father's Book--my God's
   Book." You would value every line of it! There would be a new sweetness
   in every single verse because it is your Father's handwriting, inspired
   by His own Spirit--that Spirit which belongs to you and it tells you of
   your own Savior--the Savior who loves you and who gave Himself for you.
   If you could call God your own, you would love the Sabbath supremely,
   because you would say, "It is my day because it is the Lord's day--the
   day of my risen Savior. He has taken it to Himself and enclosed its
   hours for His own--and from now on I prize its earliest and its latest
   moments because they are His."

   A sense of the Lord's being yours would make you love His people, too.
   When I first came to London from the village where I formerly preached,
   I was very glad to see anybody who came from that region. And if I had
   seen a dog wag its tail that I had once seen in that village I should
   have been pleased! I should have loved anybody for the sake of the dear
   old place and, surely, when you can say, "My God," you love all the
   Lord's people! Many a young Christian has been deceived by hypocrites
   because of his love to Christians--and that love is sometimes ruined by
   ill deeds. But where there is overflowing love to the Father, there
   will be affection for the family. Be it ours to show it!

   If you see in any man anything that is like Christ, love him for it! If
   he is not all you would like him to be, remember that you, also, are
   not all you ought to be. Surely if Jesus Christ loves a man, you should
   love him, too. Seek your Brothers' and Sisters' good and aim at
   benefiting them because are one of Christ's members. Love for Christ's
   sake all those who can say, "My God."

   I do not know, but I seem to, myself, to have talked away and to have
   missed my aim and objective altogether, compared with what I have felt
   while meditating in private upon these dear and blessed words, "My
   God." It is a deep well, but the water is cool and sweet if you can
   draw it up. "My God"--there is more than satisfaction in the words! If
   you have no money, never mind, you are rich if you can say, "My God."
   If the husband is buried. If the children have gone home to Heaven, do
   not despair, your Maker is your Husband, if you can cry, "My God." If
   your friends have forsaken you, if those who ought to have sustained
   you have been cruel and unkind to you, He changes not, and He bids you
   call

   Him, "My God." If the unkindness of men drives you to say, "My God,"
   you will be a gainer by it! Anything which weans from earth and weds to
   Heaven is good!

   I saw, yesterday, a park in which they were felling all the trees. And
   yet there were the poor cranes building on elms that were marked to be
   cut down. I thought to myself, "You foolish birds, to be building your
   nests there, for the woodman's axe is ringing all around and the tall
   elms are tumbling to the ground." We are all apt to build our nests on
   trees that will be cut down. We get to love the creature and to say,
   "My this," and, "My that." And from this weakness our sharpest sorrows
   arise. If you build nowhere but on the Tree of Life, which never can be
   felled--if you build nowhere but on the Rock of Ages which can never
   crumble--happiness will be yours of a safe and lasting kind. But you
   can only do this by saying, "My God"!

   Now, I dare say there are some unconverted people here who wonder what
   we are making all this fuss about. They have their own hoarded
   treasures and cherished possessions. They see no beauty in God that
   they should desire Him. No, but let me tell you--you who have no God
   and no Savior--the day will come when you would give your eyes, no, you
   would give your very lives, if you could say, "My God." Men have been
   worth thousands of pounds and when they have lain a-dying without God
   they have said of their gold, "It will not do!" They have had their
   moneybags brought to the bed and pressed them to their heart and said,
   "They will not cheer my soul, they will not calm my spirit."

   If you do not die crying out, "Woe is me that I die without God," yet,
   at any rate, after death, when you shall have risen from the dead and
   you see the Judge--and you stand as a criminal before His bar--you will
   think yourself ten thousand times ten thousand fools in one that you
   ever lived and died without God and without Christ! How will infinite
   anguish rip your heart while you have to confess, "I tried to gain the
   world, but lost my soul! I am a fool of the worst order! Alas! That I
   should be such a maniac!"

   O Sinner, I wish you would go to Jesus! May God's Spirit lead you to
   Jesus tonight! Cry mightily to God that He would give Himself to you
   through Jesus Christ, the Savior! He will do it, for He waits to be
   gracious. Try Him! And God bless you all, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 37. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--774, 198.
     __________________________________________________________________

Gathering to the Center

   (No. 1298)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 4, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They came to Him from every quarter." Mark 1:45.

   THE fact as it stands is well worthy of our notice and offers
   considerable encouragement to us. The multitudes came to hear our Lord
   and to see His miracles. He could not be hidden--wherever He appeared a
   congregation soon assembled. Indeed, the crowds became too large and
   too pressing, "insomuch that they trod one upon another." Few preachers
   suffer from our Lord's difficulty, but it was a frequent necessity with
   Him to use means to diminish the crowds and, therefore, He repaired to
   desert places, or took boats and crossed the sea. I gather from this,
   dear Friends, that notwithstanding the holiness of our Lord's doctrine
   and the way in which it runs counter to the desires of the carnal
   heart. Notwithstanding the plainness of His rebukes and the way in
   which He lays pride in the dust, there is a remarkable attractiveness
   to all kinds of men in the teaching of the Lord Jesus.

   If we would find a topic calculated to interest the masses, we need not
   go abroad for novelties--the old, old Gospel will best collect the
   eager anxious throng. Other things being equal, you shall find that
   more men will be drawn together to hear of Christ than to listen to any
   other topic. And this will continue year after year while other
   subjects have lost what temporary interest they once possessed. Give a
   man any other theme you please and let him expound upon it three or
   four times a week in the same place, to the same audience, and it will
   not be long before his hearers will be weary and he, himself, will be
   worn out.

   I do not believe it would be possible to retain, year after year, a
   mass of attentive hearers, and send them away longing for more, with
   any theme except Jesus Christ and Him crucified! If you bring Jesus
   forth, the people will continue to come to Him from every quarter, for
   the prophecy of Jacob is still true, "To Him shall the gathering of the
   people be." The attraction in the instance before us was not only Jesus
   preaching, but Jesus displaying His healing power. The works which He
   did bore witness of Him until the people asked, "What thing is this?
   What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the
   unclean spirits and they obey Him." The news of lame men leaping and
   lepers cleansed brought the people together. Even thus, let but Jesus
   be in any congregation manifesting His saving work--Jesus breaking hard
   hearts, Jesus binding up broken spirits, Jesus reclaiming the outcasts,
   Jesus gathering the lambs in His bosom, Jesus in action--then be sure
   of this, the people will come together till you will have to cry "Who
   are these that fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows?"

   The best advertisement for Jesus is the personal testimony of every
   soul whom He has blessed! To blaze abroad His fame you need hire no
   hack writers or mercenary tongues--they shall speak best of Him who
   tell about the things which they have done touching the king, whose
   tongues are as the pens of ready writers because their hearts dictate
   the matter. They have experienced His power and, therefore, they cannot
   but speak what they have seen and felt! Jesus Christ, healing and
   spoken of by those whom He had healed, drew multitudes to Himself in
   the olden times. And I gather from this the expectation that if any of
   us will preach Christ in Christ's way, accompanied by Christ's power in
   the healing of men, we shall, even in desert places, see the people
   coming together! And all the more so because He has been lifted up upon
   the Cross and, therefore, will draw all men unto Him.

   But, dear Friends, there was an inner circle. The mere hearers did but
   come to Him in the lowest sense. I do not think Jesus Christ set much
   store by drawing multitudes around Him to listen to His words or look
   upon His miracles. I am sure He did not, for He sought to avoid such
   popularity and, therefore, He forbade the leper to speak of his cure
   and He withdrew Himself to escape from the people. If He had considered
   that success was to be measured by the size of His audience, He would
   have remained where the crowds were assembled. But He formed a more
   accurate judgment and knew

   that as the heap upon the threshing floor contains abundance of chaff,
   even so in the great gatherings of mere hearers, there are multitudes
   whose adherence is of little value.

   Beloved, if men only come together to hear the Gospel, our work will
   end in dreary disappointment and the gatherings on the Sabbath will
   prove to be wretched wastes of time! But my text can be carried, as a
   matter of fact, very much further, for disciples came to Jesus from
   every quarter in a far better sense. He called, by His mysterious
   power, one and another who became His followers and they came to Him in
   the best sense. We read that He went into a mountain and called whom He
   would and they came to Him--this was a better coming. Of them it may be
   said, "They came to Him from every quarter."

   It is very beautiful to see what a mixture Christ's disciples were.
   There were fishermen, but they were not all of that class, for there
   was among them a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews. There was a
   devout Nathanael, but there was also a publican to whose house
   salvation came. They were not all of the lower ranks, for among the
   holy women who ministered to him were some from Herod's court. And one
   who is called, "the beloved physician," followed Him as his Lord. They
   were not all of commendable characters, for a woman that was a sinner
   was His true disciple, but there were others against whom no moral
   fault has ever been alleged. They came to Him drawn by His mysterious
   power from every portion of the land, from every condition and rank,
   from many phases of mind and types of character--"they came to Him from
   every quarter."

   That is the matter of fact--I am now going to use the fact typically. I
   believe that as it was literally true that men came to hear our Lord
   and others came to believe on Him from every quarter, so it still
   is--and unto the Lord Jesus Christ men and women, in the preaching of
   the Gospel, are still coming from every quarter.

   I. I will begin with the exterior ring again. OF THE OPEN OR
   PROFESSIONAL COMING TO CHRIST it may be said with a great deal of
   sorrow, "They came to Him from every quarter." The Gospel, when it is
   preached, draws many to itself who are not saved by it. The kingdom of
   Heaven is like unto a net which men cast into the sea and it gathers
   fish of every kind. There is a day coming in which they will put the
   good into vessels and cast the bad away, but throughout this
   dispensation there will be every kind in the net. Tares will grow with
   the wheat and fruitless branches will be in the vine.

   Men come to Christ by the avowal of Christianity, by the appropriation
   of its ordinances and the subscribing of its creed--and in this sense
   they still come to Him from every quarter. You must not imagine that in
   this Church all who have come to Christ nominally have really come. Do
   not indulge such a delusion, for if you do, you will certainly be
   deceived! You may belong, my dear Brothers and Sisters, to some little
   Bethel or select Ebenezer, but do not indulge the hope that all who
   professedly come to Christ, even there, though they are all so
   admirably sound and orthodox, have, all of them, really come to Jesus,
   for even there a mixture will be found. "Many are called and few are
   chosen." You shall take any 12 you will, but you cannot be sure but
   what one of them is a devil, for among the 12 selected by the Master,
   Judas Iscariot was found. They come to Christ from every quarter--from
   the land of hypocrisy and formality as well as from the country of
   sincerity.

   Many came to Christ in His day and followed Him from the lowest of
   motives. Loaves and fishes were good bait, then, and they still are. We
   have not many of these attractions in this Church, but in certain
   quarters there are large loaves of very choice bread, exceedingly well
   buttered. And there are fishes, too, of the best kind--great fishes
   well cured, whose savory smell is dear to many. A taste for the Church
   loaves and fishes is pretty common, still, so that many come to the
   Church and, nominally to Christ, from the quarter of the land called
   selfishness. And so they make a gain of godliness. Some came to our
   Lord merely to receive benefits to their bodies--they brought a blind
   eye to be healed, or a withered arm to be restored--but they obtained
   no spiritual gifts. Thus do many derive benefit from the religion of
   Jesus of a moral and mental kind, but they miss the nobler gifts of the
   spiritual life.

   No doubt many are charmed by Christian society, by the comforts of
   religious worship and by the degree of respectability which arises out
   of a profession--but they are not saved souls. We must not wonder when
   the loaves grow small and are only made of barley. And the fishes
   decrease in number if the mere hangers-on show us their true quality
   and disappear. He who comes to Christ for what he can get of worldly
   goods will leave Him when poverty and shame lie in the way. A number
   came to Christ out of admiration of His eloquence, for He spoke as
   never man spoke, and it is no wonder

   that a woman of the multitude exclaimed in admiration, "Blessed is the
   womb that bore You and the paps that gave You

   suck!"

   How true, however, was our Lord's reply, "Blessed are they that hear
   the Word of God and keep it." He turned her mind to something better
   than admiration, namely, believing reception! But with such a Speaker
   and with such gracious matter it was no marvel that among His followers
   were found admirers of the Speaker as well as believers in the Savior.
   We must not wonder if we still find that some profess to come to Christ
   because He is eloquently set forth by His ministers, or because the
   poetical beauties of the Bible and the natural charms of religion win
   their tastes and hold them with their spell. But it is a poor coming
   which arises from this and nothing more!

   A large number came to our Lord like the region of transient
   enthusiasm. "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go," said one, but he
   failed to do so. There were stony-ground hearers in those days whose
   blade of promise, because it had no depth of earth, sprang up very
   speedily, but as speedily withered away. Do not be astonished, Brothers
   and Sisters, if the stony-ground hearers perplex and disappoint us!
   They still come to Jesus from Pliable's country and come only to go
   back to their own place. There were those who came to Jesus Christ
   through misunderstanding His Character. If they had known Him better,
   they would not have followed Him as far as they did. And they proved
   this, for when they discovered more, they went back and walked no more
   with Him.

   When He began to unveil certain parts of the Truth of God concerning
   Himself which had been hidden before, they said, "This is a hard
   saying, who can bear it?" When His Cross became more apparent and their
   vision of an earthly kingdom grew more and more dim, they proved that
   they had followed Him under an error, for they went their way. And no
   doubt many, today, profess the name of Jesus who are not aware what
   discipleship really involves. They do not know Him nor His Cross, nor
   the Truths of God He came to teach, and we may expect to see these go
   back when fuller discoveries shall startle them. They came to Him from
   every quarter.

   Brother minister, friend working in the Sunday school, laborer for
   Christ in any low district--you may fairly expect that the people will
   come to Christ--but do not expect that they will all come from the land
   of honesty and truth! Do not count all fish that come to the net, or it
   may happen that your sure disappointment will dampen your zeal and
   diminish your confidence in the Gospel. Expect to take good fish in
   your net, but reckon upon finding the dog fish there, too, breaking
   your lines and attacking your other fish. Out of the best haul a
   fisherman ever makes there is something to throw away. When you sow
   good seed, look for wheat to spring up, but be not surprised if tares
   spring up, also! Just now the sun and the showers are making the corn
   grow fast, but the weeds are growing, too. It must be so.

   Those influences which cause the good to be more lively appear to awake
   the energies of the Evil One. Whenever the devil is asleep, the Church
   is asleep, but whenever the Church wakes, the devil wakes, too. Every
   worker for Christ may reckon on mixed results--and when they come he
   must not despair as though some strange thing happened to him. Yet let
   us be thankful that many came to Jesus from the land of sincerity, men
   convinced that He was the Christ, men like the disciple to whom He
   said, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not
   revealed this unto you." Some, in coming, gave Him their whole hearts
   and from then on sat at His feet and received His words.

   Some of the best were with Him, though there were some of the worst.
   Grateful hands were there which could break an alabaster box and pour
   it out for His sake, as well as cruel hands which could clutch the
   blood-stained pieces of silver--the price of His betrayal. I leave that
   point when I have asked you from what quarter you came. Are you true
   men, or spies? Do you come from the assemblies of deceit, or from the
   abodes of sincerity? Search and look! "Examine yourselves whether you
   are in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you not, your own selves,
   that Jesus Christ is in you, except you are reprobate?" I pray God this
   none of us may be found reprobate in that day!

   II. Secondly, we will advance to something nearer and better. OF THE
   FIRST REAL SPIRITUAL COMING TO CHRIST BY FAITH it may be said, in the
   words of the text, "They came to Him from every quarter." Let me here
   employ an illustration. Seeking rest and health last week, I seated
   myself, for a little while, near a very rustic church which stands
   empowered in the woods. As I sat there I moralized upon the various
   paths which led up to the church porch. Each trail through the grass
   came from a different quarter, but they all led to one point. As I
   stood there, this reflection crossed me--even thus, men come to Christ
   from all quarters of the compass--and if, indeed, saved, they all come
   to

   Him.

   There is a path yonder which rises from a little valley. The little
   church stands on the hillside. There is a brook at the bottom and
   worshippers who come from the public road must cross a rustic bridge
   and then ascend the hill. Such comers rise at every step they take.
   Many burdened ones come to Christ from the deep places of
   self-abasement--they know their sinfulness and feel it--their
   self-consciousness has almost driven them to despair! They are down
   very low and every step they take to Christ is a step upwards. They
   have a little hope as they look to Him and then a little more, till it
   comes to a humble trust. Then from a feeble, trembling trust, it rises
   to a simple faith and so they advance, till, when they stand near to
   Jesus they reach to the full assurance of faith. Thus from soul
   distress and self-despair they come to the Lord Jesus and He receives
   them graciously.

   Through the churchyard there was another path and it ran uphill from
   where I stood and, therefore, everyone who came that way descended to
   the Church door. These may represent the people who think much of
   themselves. They have been brought up in morality and lived in
   respectability in the town of Legality. They have never turned aside to
   the grosser vices and are among the models of behavior. Every step
   these good people take towards Christ is downward-- they think less of
   themselves and still less until regret leads to repentance, repentance
   to bitter grief--and grief leads to self-abhorrence. So they come down
   to the level where Jesus meets with sinners, by admitting they are
   nothing and that Christ is all.

   The two paths which I have mentioned were supplemented by a third which
   led through a thick and tangled forest-- a narrow way wound between the
   oak trees and the dense underbrush. And I noticed that it led over a
   boggy place through which stepping stones had been carefully placed for
   the traveler, that he might not sink in the mire. Many a seeker has
   found his way to Jesus by a similar path. Dark with ignorance and
   thorny with evil questions, the path winds and twists about and leads
   through the Slough of Despond where a man had better pick his steps
   very carefully or he may sink in despair. Those whom Divine Grace
   leads, arrive at rest in Christ, but it is through the woods and
   through the slough.

   Once more, I recognized another path which came in from the farmer's
   fields--through lands where the plow and the sickle are busy, each in
   its season--so that those who come from that quarter to worship come
   across the place of toil and may fitly represent those who are full of
   earnestness and effort and have as much need of Jesus as any. They do
   not know, yet, the way of salvation, but they follow after
   righteousness by the Law and strive to enter in at the strait gate in
   their own strength. But if they ever come to Christ, they will have to
   leave those fields and the plow and sickle of their own strength--and
   submit to receive Jesus as their All in All.

   Now, do not suppose that the trails which I have mentioned are the only
   ones. There is only one Christ, but many are the quarters from which
   men come to Him. It would be impossible to describe all the ways by
   which men come to Christ and all the quarters from which they come. To
   our first believing we are all led by the Spirit of God, but very
   singular are the experiences of God's people and, perhaps, each man has
   a road peculiar to himself. We do not know all the ways by which souls
   arrive at Christ, but there is this mercy--He knows the ways by which
   His redeemed are coming to Him and He knows where they are.

   I remember being at Wootton-Under-Edge, in Mr. Hills' garden, and being
   informed that on the Sabbath morning the quaint old gentleman would go
   into his garden and watch the people coming to the Meeting House. He
   would sit in his garden with his telescope, in the center of an
   amphitheatre of hills, and observe the country people coming down and
   look for any peculiar action. He then might mention it in his sermon,
   very much to the astonishment of the persons concerned! Our Lord Jesus,
   sitting in the center to which His redeemed are coming, sees them all,
   even when they are yet a great way off. If we can conceive a soul
   millions of miles off from Him, as far off as a comet is gone from the
   sun when it wanders to its utmost tether, yet our Lord Jesus Christ
   knows where the wanderer comes from and notes the time when the turning
   begins and the hour when the face is set towards Himself!

   He can spy out Grace in a man's heart long before the man, himself, is
   conscious of it, and long before the most hopeful minister in the world
   could see a trace of Divine life in the soul. What a mercy this is!
   They come to Him from every quarter and He knows where they come from
   and how far they are on the road! Let us pray for all who are coming to
   Christ, as well as for those who have actually laid hold upon
   Him--"Lord Jesus, we pray You help those who are coming Your way. Draw
   them till they come nearer. Far away as they are, yet make them near."
   We do not always know when

   men are coming, but when we perceive some little desire in that
   direction, let us imitate the great Father in the parable and run to
   meet them and see if we can help them on the journey.

   Perhaps they need another stepping stone to be placed for them and we
   may drop one where their feet can reach it, or like Help, in "Pilgrim's
   Progress" we may help them out from the slough into which they have
   slipped. Do this for Christ's sake! Remember that of all who come to
   Christ from every quarter, never one was disappointed with Him yet.
   They come from various regions, drawn by the hope that Jesus will
   supply their needs--and He does supply them. All sorts of people who
   come to Christ, believingly, find in Him all that is needed to meet
   their peculiar cases. Sweet, also, is the thought that He never casts
   out a sinner, come from where he may. They arrive from different
   quarters, but He has no prejudice against Galilee or Judea, or Tyre or
   Sidon--He receives all comers!

   The elder in the Book of Revelation asked a deeply interesting
   question, "From where did they come?" and, blessed be God, it is one
   which will never be answered to the prejudice of anyone who draws near
   to Jesus by faith! O Sinners, you may come from the thieves' kitchen,
   or from the convicts' cell! You are as welcome to Jesus as those who
   come from homes of virtue. You may come from the seat of the scorner.
   You may come from the bench of the drunk and if you come you shall
   receive a hearty welcome! You, too, O hopeful ones, may come from the
   home of piety and from the school of truth--and when you come, you will
   find the gates set wide open to receive you!

   Come from the tents of Jacob, or from the tents of Kedar. Come from the
   holy mountain or from the lonely wilderness and you shall, all alike,
   find that He will in no way cast you out! It is a very pleasant
   reflection to us that when needy souls draw near to Jesus they cause
   Him no sorrow, but rather bring Him joy. All His redeeming work is
   done. He has only to receive the recompense due to Him. They come, says
   one, with the burden of their sins and lay them upon Him. I answer,
   this is only true in a certain sense and must not be misunderstood. It
   is a great joy to think that no burden can come on our Lord's
   shoulders, now--no man can lay sin upon Christ anymore--it was laid on
   Him by the Father long ago. And, since He has made full atonement for
   it, not a particle of it remains!

   Each redeemed one has cost Christ His life, already, and therefore, as
   each one actually comes, He costs Him nothing! On the contrary, He sees
   in each one the recompense for the travail of His soul. If we saw
   sinners coming by thousands to Christ and knew that He would have to
   bear the chastisement of their peace and be bruised, again, for their
   iniquities, we might well be sorrowful! But it is not so--He has
   finished the atoning work! Agony and pain are all over and now, as the
   redeemed come to Him, they gladden His heart! They increase His praise,
   they reward His pains. Oh that they would come in troops, like the
   flocks of Carmel for number! I may say in rustic language, "the more
   the merrier!" Let them gather from every quarter, each one bringing
   with him a crown of love for the Redeemer's brow!

   Brothers and Sisters, there is no fear that the multitudes will cease
   to come from every quarter. The Greek word might be rendered, "They
   kept on coming to Him from every quarter." Even thus it is now. They
   are coming, they always will be coming, there will never be a time when
   they will not come! In the prophetic words of the 22nd Psalm, we are
   told that, "they shall come." We fall into a dull state at times and
   but few are converted, yet the Lord revives us by His Spirit and
   thousands are saved! We had notable evangelists among us preaching the
   Gospel and some persons imagined that when they were gone we should see
   no more of the work, but it is not so, sinners are still coming to
   Jesus and they will come.

   The question for each one of my hearers is this--Am I coming, or have I
   come to Jesus? They came from every quarter--have I come? You strangers
   from beyond the sea. You good people from the country, are you coming
   to Jesus? You Londoners who regularly hear the Gospel in this house,
   are you coming? You who only occasionally listen to it, are you coming
   to Jesus? God grant that it may be said this morning of this mixed
   assembly, "They came to Jesus from every quarter!"

   III. Thirdly, since coming to Christ is not a matter of once in your
   life and the Scripture says plainly, "Unto whom coming," to show us
   that the Christian is always coming to Christ, we will, therefore,
   follow out our point in reference

   to THE DAILY COMINGS OF SAVED SOULS TO JESUS. Here, too, they come to
   Him from every quarter. Let us

   think a minute. This morning the desire of every renewed soul here has
   been to come to Christ--and I hope that desire has been fulfilled to us
   all. If so, we have come to Him from every quarter! You who are very
   poor have forgotten your poverty this morning and found exceedingly
   great riches in Him. And, on the other hand, I trust that you who are
   wealthy have forgotten your worldly treasures and rejoiced to be only
   rich in Him.

   If you have had a trying week, a perplexing week, a week of losses and
   crosses, you have, nevertheless, approached Him from that quarter and
   found Him a sure solace for your cares. Another has had a week of
   prosperity and success, but you, too, have not been content till you
   could leave the best things of earth to embrace the Lord from Heaven.
   From all points of experience you have come. Among the number of God's
   people here, this morning, who have had communion with Christ, what a
   variety of outward circumstances would be found in the quarters from
   which they have come! Men and women come to our Lord from every quarter
   as to mental pursuits. The great student, the critic, the profound
   mathematician, the acute philosopher--all these, when taught of the
   Holy Spirit, delight to come to Jesus for rest!

   I am sure I speak their mind when I say it is a great relief on Sunday
   to have done with puzzling problems and feed upon the simplicities of
   Jesus. I have heard say that men of great minds, when they come to hear
   a sermon, if they detect an attempt at something very fine on the part
   of the preacher and meet with displays of mere intellect, they turn
   away disappointed and say, "We have had enough of this all week." The
   Sabbath is a day of rest and that minister breaks the Sabbath in spirit
   who leads the people into the bondage of human wisdom instead of
   setting before them the Lord Jesus in whom, alone, they can find rest
   for their souls.

   There are a few, blessed be God, who come to Jesus from the quarter of
   human culture and are delighted to come! These find more in Jesus
   Christ simply preached than the most capacious mind can take in.
   Blessed be God, thousands who are not philosophers or mathematicians
   are doing the same! Their thoughts are not very deep or penetrating,
   but they come to Christ in deed and of a truth and receive Him gladly.
   It is astonishing what a great deal of Christ some very ignorant people
   can take in! Converse with a godly old shepherd--the man may scarcely
   know his letters--but listen how he speaks of Divine things!

   Go and sit with a poor Christian woman in her cottage who never went
   beyond the village, and never will, unless an inhospitable sect should
   forbid her bones to be laid in the public graveyard with congenial
   rites--but she knows her Sav-ior--and many a memorable fact will she
   tell you concerning Him! These Grace-taught saints know more about
   Christ, though the world calls them ignorant, than the most learned men
   can possibly know by human teaching! Thus you see they come to Jesus
   Christ from every quarter of mental condition.

   And I thank God they come to Christ from all points of theological
   thought. My Brother over yonder, who loves the eternal purposes, how
   readily he comes to Jesus from considering the Covenant and the
   everlasting decrees of Grace. It is pleasant to come over the eternal
   hills to Jesus! My other Friend, over yonder, does not love this way. I
   wish he did. He dwells mainly upon the responsibility of man and upon
   the great love of God to all mankind, yet he comes to Jesus across the
   plains of infinite benevolence and delights to see in Jesus the
   sinner's All in All. John Wesley sings--

   "Jesus, lover of my soul." And Toplady, who viewed things from another
   point of view, sings--

   "Rock of Ages, cleft for me."

   They come from every quarter! Thank God that it is so! Different lines
   of thought about the Truth of God meet in Jesus, even as all great
   railways meet in London.

   I trust we have come to Christ from every quarter of our own spiritual
   experience. We have been cast into the deeps, but, "out of the depth,
   have I cried unto You, O Lord, and You heard me." Upon the heights,
   also, we have stood, but there we have sung, "You make my feet like
   hinds' feet. You make me to stand upon my high places." We have exulted
   in God and we have comforted ourselves in God! We have delighted
   ourselves in the light of His Countenance and we have also rejoiced
   under the shadow of His wings. From all quarters of emotion we have
   turned to the Beloved of our souls. And so from different
   characteristics of mind have souls come to Christ. Mary is
   contemplative and for her there is a seat at the Master's feet. Peter
   is active and for him there are sheep to be fed and lambs to be tended.

   In our Lord, persons of various dispositions can all find what they
   need. The loving mind which dives deep and is a little inclined to the
   mystic school can find, in Jesus, the fullest scope, even as Madame
   Guyon did. Warm hearts need no other fuel for their flame than the love
   of Jesus--see how that theme kept George Herbert in a perpetual glow!
   And you, too, my Brothers and Sisters, active and energetic, you who
   spend and are spent in philanthropic works and deeds of devotion to
   God, you find in Jesus Christ all that can sustain your ardor and
   sanctify your activities. From every quarter saints come to our Lord as
   to a living well and never come in vain!

   It makes my Lord so much the more precious to me when I remember that
   He is so precious to multitudes of others. 'Tis true, He is so
   necessary and so satisfying to my own soul that He seems as if He had
   been prepared on purpose for me! Infinite wisdom could not devise a
   Savior who suited my case more fully! It does, however, increase my joy
   in Him that thousands, and tens of thousands, think the same, each one
   for himself! Tradition says of the manna that it tasted just as every
   man desired and was grateful to every palate--it is so with the Bread
   of Heaven--it has a choice adaptation to each Believer's need and a
   fullness to supply the necessities of each tried heir of the kingdom!
   You may have a whole Christ to yourself and yet millions of happy
   spirits are doing the same and living upon His inexhaustible stores!
   Rejoice, my Brothers and Sisters, in this, for to the generous heart
   this piles up the ecstasy and gives us Heaven upon Heaven in the fact
   that so vast a number, as well as ourselves, find their all in Jesus.

   Not only do we come to Him, but Grace brings other Believers to Him
   from every quarter. Let it be one of our aims always to be
   path-makers--to clear the ways for our Brethren to come nearer to our
   Lord. When we see them coming from the woods, let us show them the way
   over the trail. Or if they find it hard to climb the steep ascent from
   the valley, let us lend them a hand. If we fear that they are too high
   up, let us show them the way down by walking humbly, ourselves.
   Wherever they are, let it be our endeavor to bring them to Christ! Our
   Lord Jesus is the common meeting place of saints--let us commune with
   all who commune with Him.

   Let us maintain holy communion with those who love Him and we shall be
   blessed thereby. My Brother knows something about my Lord that I do
   not--and I know something about Him which he has not yet
   learned--therefore we can aid each other by holy communion. In the
   olden times, "they that feared the Lord spoke often, one to another,"
   and I know it was good talk, for God, Himself, listened to it. It is
   said that "the Lord listened and heard," and He thought so much of what
   was spoken that He made a volume of it, "and a book of memorial was
   written for them that feared the Lord and thought upon His name."

   IV. Lastly, Brothers and Sisters, my text is full of THAT GREAT
   GATHERING WHICH IS APPROACHING NEARER EVERY MOMENT, and which will be
   complete when--

   "All the chosen race Shall meet around the Throne, Shall bless the
   conduct of His Grace And make His wonders known." Saints come to Jesus
   in Glory from every quarter! He is the center of the Church. Many have
   reached the Lord, up yonder, and are now bowing before His Throne. Men
   of every age are there, from Adam to Moses, from Joshua to the time of
   the kings and the Prophets--and even to this hour they continue to come
   to Him. They come from every quarter of the globe and from every race
   and tribe. What a gathering it must be! Heaven is cosmopolitan and
   Christ has abolished all distinction between Jew and Gentile,
   barbarian, Scythian, bond or free--they all meet in Him and He is All
   and in all.

   What a mixed company and yet how uniform in their joy and in their
   satisfaction in Him. David said, "I shall be satisfied when I awake in
   His likeness." You are not David, but you can say the same! Yes, we
   shall meet in Him from every quarter! The main point to dwell upon is
   that they, wherever they hail from, all come to Him. It is a very
   pleasant prospect to think of meeting our fellow servants in Heaven.
   But it must never be allowed to bear comparison with the prospect of
   meeting the Master. Of course we shall see them all. Old John Ryland
   said most quaintly--

   "They all shall be there, the great and the small; Poor I shall shake
   hands with the blessed St. Paul," and no doubt we shall! Like peers we
   shall sit in that royal house of lords! We, each one, shall take his
   own seat in that parliament of kings, for He has "made us kings and
   priests unto God."

   What companions we shall have! What most high and solemn communion with
   the best and purest spirits that ever scattered light over the darkness
   of this world! But here is the point, we shall be with Him. We shall
   not care much, I believe, about anything else compared with being with
   Him where He is and beholding His Glory. This is Heaven to me! We shall
   come to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn--but then,
   since Christ is in them all and they are all members of His body, it
   will be only another form of coming to Him and, will, by no means
   interfere, but rather enlarge our fellowship with our glorious Head!

   I would like to say, just to finish, that I believe this idea of coming
   to Christ from every quarter is capable of an expansion which I leave
   for you to think upon and will not, therefore, explain at length. The
   day comes when the Lord Je-

   sus will "gather together in one, all things which are in Him, both
   which are in Heaven and which are on earth." Then shall He head up all
   the things which are in Him and these shall come to Him from every
   quarter. Of this, His mysterious Person is the prophecy and foretaste!
   Is it not wonderful what a gathering up of everything there is in the
   Person of our blessed Lord? The material universe has a part in Him,
   for He was born into that flesh and blood which links us to the
   inanimate matter beneath our feet.

   With mind in its lower form He is akin, for He had and has a human
   soul. To spirits He is Brother, for He is the Head of the spiritual
   seed. To crown all, with God, Himself, He is one! God, considered in
   His absolute Godhead, stands alone, and a gulf divides Him from all
   creatures. But God in Christ Jesus takes the whole sweep of creation
   into Himself and when you shall behold Him in the ages to come, this
   will more and more clearly appear to you. The glorious Christ of God
   brings all creation to a focus and unites it in one, around His Person.
   We shall understand this better, by-and-by. Meanwhile it is sweet to
   muse upon it.

   I saw a scene depicted upon a painted window of the Church of St.
   Etienne, in Lyons, which struck me very much. It represents our Lord
   after the temptation in the wilderness, when He was with the wild
   beasts, and the angels ministered unto Him. The angels are depicted as
   bringing Him fruits and drinks, bread and meat and making harmony on
   instruments of music. Above Him the sun shines softly upon Him. Over
   His head is a tree bearing fruit, the branches of which seem to bow to
   Him, laden with mellow refreshment. At His feet a little stream warbles
   as it flows and causes the grass and the wild flowers to flourish
   around Him. While the flowers are blooming for Him beneath, tender
   doves above Him are cooing with delight and birds of the air are
   pausing to sing to Him.

   A gentle fawn is fearlessly drinking from the brook close to His hands,
   while a lion, humbly lying down before Him, is paying Him homage. A
   rabbit is feeding at ease right by the wild beast. Everything is happy,
   peaceful and at home. The angels and the rabbits, the lion and the
   gazelle, the heavens above and the flowers beneath all meet in
   Him--even the sun seems to have, himself, become a lovely flower and
   turns to the yet greater light! Jesus is the center of them all! I
   admire the artist's thought--it has truth within it. Our Lord has
   blessed and consecrated the very earth, for it felt the impressions of
   His holy feet. And the water of the river is no longer common or
   unclean, for was He not buried in Baptism there? Every sunbeam is now
   gracious, for the sun has looked on HIM!

   The lower creatures, too, are to be treated tenderly, for He loved
   them. They came to Him from the time when the oxen fed from His manger
   where He lay as a Baby to the day when the ass was not divided from her
   foal when He rode through the streets of Jerusalem. Let us treat all
   things reverently, for He condescended to think of them all. From the
   angels down to the waves of the sea and the clay of which He made
   healing ointment, all things in their spheres ministered upon Him and
   so they came to Him from every quarter! And the day comes when the
   creatures emancipated from the bondage to which they have been
   unwillingly subjected shall find redemption in Him (Rom. 8:21)!

   To Him shall they come from every quarter--as many as are in Him--and
   both the lowest material and the loftiest spirit shall rejoice in the
   new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells. Then shall
   dragons and all deeps, mountains and all hills, beasts and all cattle,
   creeping things and flying fowl, kings of the earth and all people
   praise the name of the Lord! And the heavens and the Heaven of heavens,
   angels, sun and moon and stars of light shall magnify His Glory! Then
   shall the trees of the forests rejoice before the Lord! Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Mark 1:9. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--416, 425, 436.
     __________________________________________________________________

Love's Birth and Parentage

   (No. 1299)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 11, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "We love Him, because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19.

   VERY simple words, but very full of meaning. I think I might say of
   this sentence what the poet says of prayer--it is "the simplest form of
   speech that infant lips can try"--and yet it is one of the "most
   sublime strains that reach the Majesty on high." Take a little
   believing child and ask her why she loves the Savior, and she will
   reply at once, "Because He loved me and died for me." Then ascend to
   Heaven where the saints are perfect in Christ Jesus and put the same
   question and with united breath the whole choir of the redeemed will
   reply, "He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood."
   When we begin to love Christ, we love Him because He first loved us.
   And when we grow in Grace till we are capable of the very highest
   degree of spiritual understanding and affection, we still have no
   better reason for loving Him than this, "Because He first loved us."

   This morning, in trying to preach from the text, I would pray the Holy
   Spirit that every person here may first feel it. It is wonderful, the
   difference between a text read and heard and a text felt within the
   soul. Oh, that you, this morning, may be able to say from your hearts
   because you cannot help saying it, "We love Him." If I were to say no
   more, but sit down in silence--and if you were all to spend the next
   three quarters of an hour in exercising the emotion of love to God--it
   would be time most profitably spent! It is, beyond measure, beneficial
   to the soul to take her fill of love with the Lord Jesus. It is the
   sweet cure for an her ailments for her to have leisure to delight
   herself in the Lord and faith enough to dwell at ease in His
   perfections. Be sure, then, to let your hearts have room, scope and
   opportunity for indulging and inflaming the sacred passion of love to
   God.

   If the second part of the text shall also be made equally vivid to you
   by the power of faith--"He first loved us"-- your hearts will be
   satisfied as with marrow and fatness! If the exceeding love of God in
   Christ Jesus shall be shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit,
   you will need no sermon from me--your inward experience will be better
   than any discourse! May your love, like a drop of dew, be exhaled and
   carried up into the boundless Heaven of God's love. May your heart
   ascend to the place where your treasure is and rest itself upon the
   heart of God! Blessed shall you be if, in your hearts, Christ's love
   and yours shall both be fully known and felt at this moment! O, blessed
   Spirit, cause it to be so!

   Thus should we have the text in action--and that is a thousand times
   better than the mere quiet letter. If you have visited the picture
   galleries at Versailles, where you see the wars of France from the
   earliest ages set forth in glowing colors upon the canvas, you cannot
   but have been struck with the pictures and interested in the terrible
   scenes. Upstairs in the same palace there is a vast collection of
   portraits. I have traversed those galleries of portraits without much
   interest, only here and there pausing to notice a remarkable
   countenance. Very few persons linger there--everybody seems to walk on
   as quickly as the polished floors allow.

   Now, why is it that you are interested in the portraits downstairs and
   not by those upstairs? They are the same people. Very many of them are
   in the same dress. Why do you not gaze upon them with interest? The
   reason lies here--the portrait in still life, as a rule, can never have
   the attraction which surrounds a scene of stirring action. There you
   see the warrior dealing a terrible blow with his battle-ax, or the
   senator delivering an oration in the assembly, and you think more of
   them than of the same bodies and faces in repose. Life is impressive!
   Action awakens thought! It is just so with the text. Look at it as a
   matter of doctrinal statement--"We love Him, because He first loved
   us"--and if you are a thoughtful person you will consider it well. But
   feel the fact itself, feel the love of God--know it within your own
   soul and manifest it in your life--and how engrossing it becomes!

   May it be so by the power of the Holy Spirit this morning! May you be
   loving God while you are hearing and may I be loving Him intensely
   while I am preaching! With this as an introduction, I shall use the
   text for four purposes. First,

   for doctrinal instruction. Secondly, for experimental information.
   Thirdly, for practical direction. And fourthly, for argumentative
   defense.

   I. We shall use the text, briefly, for DOCTRINAL INSTRUCTION--and one
   point of doctrinal instruction is very clear, namely, that God's love
   to His people is first. "He first loved us." Now, be sure of this point
   of doctrine, because forgetfulness about it is connected with much
   error and with more ignorance. The love of God to us precedes our love
   to God. According to Scripture it must be first in the most eminent
   sense because it is eternal. The Lord chose His people in Christ Jesus
   from before the foundations of the world. And to each one of His people
   that text may be applied--"Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
   love."

   His mercy is from everlasting to them that fear Him. From all eternity
   the Lord looked upon His people with an eye of love and, as nothing can
   be before eternity, His love was first. Certainly He loved us before we
   had a being, for did He not give His Son to die for us nearly 1900
   years ago, long before our infant cries had saluted our mother's ears?
   He loved us before we had any desire to be loved by Him, yes, when we
   were provoking Him to His face and displaying the fierce enmity of our
   unrenewed hearts! Remember "His great love with which He loved us, even
   when we were dead in sin." "God commends His love toward us, in that,
   while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." When we had not as yet
   one throb of spiritual feeling, one pulse of hope, or one breath of
   desire, the Lord loved us even then!

   The love of God is before our seeking. He draws us before we run after
   Him. We do not seek that love--that love seeks us. We wander further
   and further from it, resist it and prove ourselves unworthy of it. Our
   nature and our practice are such that they offer nothing congenial to
   Divine love. But the love of God arises in its freeness and stops our
   mad career by its power over the conscience and the will. "You have not
   chosen Me, but I have chosen you," is the voice of Sovereign Grace! Let
   our response be, "By the Grace of God we are what we are!"

   The Lord's love is before any repentance on our part. Impenitent
   sinners never would repent if God did not love them first. The Lord
   hates sin, but yet He loves sinners. He compassionately loved us when
   sin was pleasant to us, when we rolled it under our tongue as a sweet
   morsel, when neither the thunders of His Law nor the wooing of His
   Gospel could persuade us to turn from it. When in our bosoms there were
   no convictions of sin, when there were no evangelical lamentations
   because of offenses against a gracious God, He loved us!

   Today, Brothers and Sisters, we are possessors of faith in Jesus
   Christ, but our faith in Jesus Christ did not come before His love. On
   the contrary, our faith rests in what that love has done for us of old.
   When we were unbelieving and hard of heart. When we resisted the
   testimony of the Holy Spirit and put from us the Word of eternal life,
   even then the Lord pitied us and had mercy upon us--and continued,
   still, to invite, to entreat, to persuade--until, at last, the happy
   hour came when we believed and entered into a sense of His love.

   There are many things about you now, Beloved of the Lord, which are the
   objects of Divine approbation, but they were not there at first. They
   did not precede Divine love, but are the fruits of it. To use an old
   English word which has somewhat lost its meaning, the love of God is
   preventing love--it goes before any right motions of the soul--and in
   order of time it is first, before any desires, wishes, aspirations, or
   prayers on our part. Are you devout today? Yet He loved you not at the
   first because you were devout, for originally you were not so! His love
   was before your devotion. Are you holy today? Blessed be His name for
   it! But He loved you when you were unholy. Your holiness follows His
   love--He chose you that you might be holy.

   You are becoming like He by the sanctifying influences of His blessed
   Spirit and He loves His image in you, but He loved you when that image
   was not there. Yes, He looked on you with infinite compassion when you
   were heirs of wrath even as others--and the image of the devil was
   conspicuous, both upon your character and your nature. However early in
   life you began to love the Lord, His love was first. This is very
   amazing, but, blessed be His name, we know that it is true and we
   rejoice in it! The fact is that the love of God, as far as we know
   anything about it, had no reason derived from us upon which to ground
   itself. He loved us because He would love us, or, as our Lord put it,
   "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

   He had reasons in His own Nature. Good reasons fetched from the best
   conceivable place, namely from His own perfections. But those reasons
   He has not been pleased to communicate to us. He bids us know that He
   will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and will have compassion on
   whom He will have compassion. Thus He tries the loyal submis-siveness
   of our hearts and I trust we are able to bow in reverent silence to His
   righteous will. Divine love is its own cause

   and does not derive its streams from anything in us. It flows
   spontaneously from the heart of God, finding its deep well-springs
   within His own bosom. This is a great comfort to us, because, being
   uncreated, it is unchangeable! If it had been upon us because of some
   goodness in us, then when the goodness was diminished the love would
   diminish, too. If God had loved us second and not first, or had the
   cause of the love been in us, that cause might have altered and the
   supposed effect, namely, His love, would have altered, too.

   But now, whatever may be the Believer's condition today--however he may
   have wandered and however much he may be groaning under a sense of
   sin--the Lord declares, "I do earnestly remember him, still." The Lord
   did not love you at first because you had no sin--He foreknow all the
   sin you would ever have--it was all present before His sacred mind and
   yet He loved you, and He loves you, still. "I am God. I change not,
   therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." O blessed love of God,
   since You are first, we will give you the first place in our thoughts,
   the highest throne in our hearts, the royal position in our souls! We
   glorify You, for You are first!

   Another part of the doctrine of the text is this, that the love of God
   is the cause of our love to God. A thing may be first and another
   second, and yet the first may not be the cause of the second. There may
   be no actual link between the two-- but here we have it
   unmistakably--"We love Him because He first loved us," which signifies
   not merely that this is the motive of which we are conscious in our
   love, but that this is the force, the Divine power, which created love
   in us. I put it to you, should we have loved God had He not first given
   His Son to die for us? Had there been no redeeming Sacrifice should we
   have had any love to God? Unredeemed men, left to go on like fallen
   angels in their sin, would have had no more love of God than fallen
   angels have. How could they?

   The great foundation of love is the Son given to redeem. God gives His
   Son and so reveals His own love and creates ours. Is not His love seen
   to be the cause of ours when we remember Calvary? But He might have
   given His Son to die for men, Beloved, and yet you and I might not have
   loved Him because we might not have been aware of the great fact. It is
   no small Grace on God's part that, "to you is the Word of this
   salvation sent." While the heathen have never heard it, by the
   arrangement of His gracious Providence you have been favored with the
   good news! You have it in your homes in the form of the Holy
   Scriptures! You hear it every Sunday from the pulpit. How would you
   have ever come to love Him if He had not sent His Gospel to you?

   The gift of His Son, Jesus, and the Providence which leads the herald
   of mercy to the saved one's door, are evident causes of man's love to
   God. But more than this, Christ died and the Gospel is preached--and
   yet some men do not love Him. Why not? Because of the hardness of their
   hearts. But others do love Him--shall I trace this to the natural
   better-ness of their hearts? I dare not and much less do they! There is
   no Believer who would ask me to do so in his own case. I must trace it
   to the influence of the Holy Spirit, going with the Revelation of the
   love of God in Christ Jesus, affecting the heart and creating faith and
   love and every Grace in the soul! Beloved, if you love God, it is with
   no love of yours, but with the love which He has planted in your bosom!

   Unrenewed human nature is a soil in which love to God will not grow.
   There must be a taking away of the rock and a supernatural change of
   the barren ground into good soil. And then, as a rare plant from
   another land, love must be planted in our hearts and sustained by
   Divine power or else it never will be found there. There is no love to
   God in this world that is of the right kind except that which was
   created and formed by the love of God in the soul! Put the two Truths
   of God together--that the love of God is first, and that the love of
   God is the cause of our love--and I think you will be inclined, from
   now on, to be Believers in what are commonly called the Doctrines of
   Grace.

   To me it is very wonderful that they are not received by all Churches
   because they are practically acknowledged by all Christians when on
   their knees! They may preach as they like, but they all pray according
   to the Doctrines of Grace and those doctrines are so consistent with
   the Christian's experience that it is notable that the older a Believer
   becomes-- and the more deeply he searches into Divine Truths, the more
   inclined he is to give the whole of the praise of his salvation to the
   Grace of God--and to believe in those precious Truths which magnify,
   not the free will of man, but the free Grace of the Ever Blessed! I
   need no better statement of my own doctrinal belief than this, "We love
   Him, because He first loved

   us."

   I know it has been said that He loved us on the foresight of our faith
   and love and holiness. Of course the Lord had a clear foresight of all
   these--but remember that He also had the foresight of our absence of
   love, and our lack of faith, and our wandering, and our sins! And
   surely His foresight in one direction must be supposed to operate as
   well as His

   foresight in the other direction! Remember, also, that God Himself did
   not foresee that there would be any love to Him in us arising out of
   ourselves, for there never has been any and there never will be! He
   only foresaw that we should believe because He gave us faith. He
   foresaw that we would repent because His Spirit would work repentance
   in us. He foresaw that we should love because He worked that love
   within us!

   Is there anything in the foresight that He means to give us such things
   that can account for His giving us such things? The case is
   self-evident--His foresight of what He means to do cannot be His reason
   for doing it! His own eternal purpose has made the gracious difference
   between the saved and those who willfully perish in sin. Let us give
   all the glory to His holy name, for to Him all the glory belongs. His
   preventing Grace must have all the honor.

   II. Secondly, we shall use the text FOR EXPERIMENTAL INFORMATION.
   First, we learn that all true Believers love God. "We love Him," and we
   all love Him for one reason, "because He first loved us." All the
   children of God love their Father. I do not say that they all feel an
   equal love, or that they all feel as much love as they should. Who
   among us does? I will not say that they do not, sometimes, give cause
   to doubt their love. No, I will urge that it is well for them to
   examine, even as Christ examined Peter, and said, "Simon, son of Jonas,
   do you love Me?" But there is love in the heart of every true-born
   child of God--it is as necessary to spiritual life as blood is to
   natural life.

   Rest assured there has never been born into the kingdom of God one
   solitary individual destitute of love for God. You may be deficient in
   some virtues, (you should not be), but yet the root of the matter may
   be in you. But if you are without love, you are as a sounding brass and
   as a tinkling cymbal. Whatever your outer works, though you give your
   body to be burned and all your goods to feed the poor, yet, if there is
   no love to God in your soul, the mark of God's sheep is not upon you
   and your lot is not the lot of His children. Rest assured that whoever
   is born of God loves God!

   Observe carefully the kind of love which is essential to every
   Christian--"We love Him, because He first loved us." Much has been said
   about disinterested love to God. There may be such a thing and it may
   be very admirable, but it is not mentioned here. I trust, Beloved, we
   know what it is to love God because of His superlative excellence and
   goodness. Surely the more we know Him the more we shall love Him for
   what He is. But unless we love Him because He first loved us, whatever
   other sort of love we may have or think we have, it does not prove us
   to be children of God. This is the love we must have! The other form of
   love, if it is true, will grow up in us afterwards. That, however, is
   not essential nor need we unduly exalt it--loving God because He first
   loved us is sufficient evidence of Grace in the soul.

   Gratitude has been vilified as a mean virtue, but, indeed it is a noble
   emotion and is one of the most forcible of spiritual motives! Let a man
   love God admiringly because of what He is, but yet there must run, side
   by side with it, this grateful love of God because He first loved him,
   or else he lacks that which John says is to be found in all the saints!
   Beloved, do not vex yourselves about any supposedly higher degrees, but
   see to it that you love Him because He first loved you. You may not be
   able to rise into those heights into which others of your Brethren have
   ascended because you are as yet only a babe in Grace, but you are safe
   enough if your love is of this simple character--that it loves because
   it is loved.

   Within this humble form of love, which is so essential, there dwells a
   gracious sense of unworthiness necessary to a true Christian. We feel
   that we did not deserve the love which God sheds upon us. This humility
   we must have or we lack one mark of a child of God. There is, also, in
   this lowly form of gracious affection, a clear recognition of the fact
   that the Lord's love is graciously bestowed--and this, also, is
   essential to a Christian and becomes to him the main source of his
   obedience and affection. If a man only loves me as much as I deserve to
   be loved, I do not feel under any very strong obligations and,
   consequently, do not feel any very intense gratitude. But because the
   Lord's love is all of pure Grace and comes to us as utterly
   undeserving, therefore we love Him in return. See whether such a
   humble, grateful love towards God dwells in your hearts, for it is a
   vital point.

   Love to God, wherever it is found, is a sure evidence of the salvation
   of its possessor. If you love the Lord in the sense described, then He
   loved you first and loves you now. You need no other evidence but this
   to assure yourself that you abide in the love of God--that you love
   Him. I was told by a venerable Brother some little time ago a story of
   our famous preacher, Robert Hall. He charmed the most learned by the
   majesty of his eloquence, but he was as simple as he was great--and he
   was never happier than when conversing with poor Believers upon
   experimental godliness. He was accustomed to make his journeys on
   horseback and having been preaching at Clipstone he was on his way home
   when he was stopped by a heavy snowfall at the little village of
   Sibbertoft.

   The good man who kept the "Black Swan," a little village hostelry, came
   to him and besought the preacher to take refuge beneath his roof,
   assuring him that it would give him great joy to welcome him. Mr. Hall
   knew him to be one of the most sincere Christians in the neighborhood
   and, therefore, got off his horse and went into the little inn. The
   good man was delighted to provide him a bed, a stool and a candlestick
   in the prophet's chamber, for that rustic inn contained such an
   apartment. After Mr. Hall had rested awhile by the fire, the landlord
   said. "You must stay here all night, Sir, and if you do not mind I will
   call in a few of my neighbors, and if you feel that you could give us a
   sermon in my taproom they will all be glad to hear you."

   "So let it be, Sir," said Mr. Hall, and so it was! The taproom became
   his cathedral and the, "Black Swan," the sign of the Gospel banner! The
   peasants came together and the man of God poured out his soul before
   them wondrously. They would never forget it, for to hear Mr. Hall was
   an event in any man's life! After all were gone, Mr. Hall sat down and
   there came over him a fit of depression out of which he strove to rise
   by conversation with his host. "Ah, Sir," said the great preacher, "I
   am much burdened and am led to question my own condition before God.
   Tell me now, what do you think is a sure evidence that a man is a child
   of God." "Well, Mr. Hall," said the plain man, "I am sorry to see you
   so tried. You doubt yourself, but nobody else has any doubt about you.
   I hope the Lord will cheer and comfort you, but I am afraid I am not
   qualified to do it."

   "Never mind, Friend, never mind, tell me what you think is the best
   evidence of a child of God?" "Well, I should say, Sir," said he, "if a
   man loves God, he must be one of God's children." "Say you so," said
   the mighty preacher, "then it is well with me!" And at that signal he
   began to magnify the Lord at such a rate that his hearer afterwards
   said that it was wonderful to hear him, as for about an hour he went on
   with glowing earnestness, declaring the loveliness of God! "O Sir,"
   said he who told the tale, "you should have heard him! He said, 'Love
   God, Sir? Why I cannot help loving Him! How could I do otherwise?'

   "And then he went on to speak about the Almighty and His love and
   Grace, extolling the Lord's greatness, goodness and glory in
   redemption, and all that He did for His people, till he said, 'Thank
   you, thank you, my Friend. If love to Him is an evidence of being God's
   child, I know I have it, for I cannot help loving Him! I take no credit
   to myself. He is such a lovely Being and has done so much for us that I
   should be more brutish than any man if I did not love and adore Him.'"
   That which cheered that good and great man's heart may, perhaps, cheer
   yours. If you are loving God, you must have been loved of God! True
   love could not have come into your heart in any other conceivable way!
   And you may rest assured that you are the object of His eternal choice!

   But oh, if you do not love God, dear Hearer, I invite you to think, for
   a minute, upon your state! Hear of God and not love Him? You must be
   blind! Know anything about His Character and not adore Him? Your heart
   must be like the heart of Nabal when it was turned into stone! See God
   in Christ, bleeding on the Cross, for His enemies and not love Him? O
   Hell, you cannot be guilty of a worst offense than this! Here is love,
   shall it have no acknowledgment? It is said that a man cannot feel that
   he is loved without, in some measure, returning the flame. But what
   shall I say of a mind which beholds Christ's love but feels no love in
   return? It is brutish! It is devilish! God have mercy upon it! Breathe
   the same prayer, O unloving heart, and say, "Lord, forgive me and by
   Your Holy Spirit renew me and give me, from now on, to be able to say,
   'I, also, in my humble fashion, love God because He first loved me.'"

   III. Thirdly, we shall use the text as a matter OF PRACTICAL DIRECTION.
   I earnestly trust that there are some here who, although they do not
   love God at present, yet desire to do so. Well, dear Friend, the text
   tells you how to love God. You say, perhaps, "Oh, I shall love God when
   I have improved my character and when I have attended to the external
   duties of religion." But are you going to get love to God out
   ofyourself? Is it there, then? "No," you say. How, then, will you get
   it from where it is not? You may go often to an empty iron safe before
   you will bring a thousand pound note out of it! And you may look a long
   time to your own heart before you will bring out of it a love to God
   which is not there!

   What is the way by which a heart may be made to love God? The text
   shows us the method of the Holy Spirit. He reveals the love of God to
   the heart and then the heart loves God in return. If, then, you are
   awakened, this morning, to desire to love God, use the method which the
   text suggests--meditate upon the great love of God to man, especially
   upon this, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son
   that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life." See clearly that you, by faith, trust your soul with Christ, and
   perceive that it is vast love

   which sets before you such a way of salvation in which the only thing
   required of you is that you be nothing and trust Christ to be
   everything--and even that faith He gives you as a gift of His Spirit,
   so that the plan of salvation is all of love.

   If you want to repent, do not so much consider your sin as the love of
   Jesus in suffering for your sin! If you desire to believe, do not so
   much study the doctrine as study the Person of Jesus Christ upon the
   Cross! And if you desire to love, think over perpetually, till it
   breaks your heart, the great love of Jesus Christ in laying down His
   life for His worthless foes! The love of God is the birthplace of holy
   love! Not there in your hearts where you are attempting an absurdly
   impossible feat, namely, to create love in the carnal mind which cannot
   be reconciled to God! But there in the heart of Jesus must love be born
   and then it shall come down to you. You cannot force your mind into the
   condition of believing even a common thing, nor can you sit there and
   say, "I will love So-and-So," of whom you know nothing.

   Faith and love are second steps arising out of former steps. "Faith
   comes by hearing," and love comes by contemplation. It flows out of a
   sense of the love of Christ in the soul even as wine flows from the
   clusters in the winepress. Go to the fragrant mystery of redeeming love
   and tarry with it till in those beds of spices your own garments shall
   be made to smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia! There is no way of
   sweetening yourself but by tasting the sweetness of Jesus Christ! The
   honey of His love will make your whole nature to be as a
   honeycomb--every cell of your manhood shall drop sweetness.

   Brothers and Sisters, if we wish to sustain the love we have received,
   we must do the same thing. At the present moment you are loving God and
   desire, still, to love Him. Be wise, then, and feed love on love--it is
   its best food. This is the honey which will keep your sweetness sweet.
   This is the fire which will keep your flame flaming. Could we be
   separated from the love of Christ, our love would die out like a lamp
   in yonder streets when cut off from the main. He who quickened us into
   the life of love must keep us alive or we shall become loveless and
   lifeless. And if, perhaps, your love has grown somewhat cold. If you
   long to revive it, do not begin by doubting God's love to you--that is
   not the way of reviving, but of weakening love!

   Believe in Divine love, my Brothers and Sisters, over the head of the
   coldness of your heart! Trust in Jesus Christ as a sinner if you cannot
   rejoice in Him as a saint, and you will get your love back. You see the
   flowing fountain, how it gushes with a constant stream? And here I
   bring a pitcher and set it down so that the stream rushes into it and
   fills it till it overflows. In this manner our souls ought to be filled
   with the love of Christ. But you have taken away your pitcher and it
   has become empty. And now you say to yourself, "Alas, alas, there is
   nothing here! What shall I do? This pitcher is empty." Do? Why do what
   you did at first--go and set it under the flowing stream and it will
   soon be full again! It will never get full by your removing it into a
   dry place.

   Doubting is the death of love. Only by the hand of faith can love be
   fed with the Bread of Heaven. Your tears will not fill it. You may
   groan into it, but sighs and moans will not fill it. Only the flowing
   fountain can fill the vacuum. Believe that God still loves you, even if
   you are not a saint. Believe in the mighty love of Christ towards
   sinners and trust yourself with Him! And then His love will come
   pouring in till your heart is again full to overflowing. If you want to
   rise to the very highest state of love to Christ. If you desire
   ecstatic joy, or to be perfectly consecrated. If you aim at an
   Apostle's self-denial, or at a martyr's heroism, or if you would be as
   like to Christ as the spirits are in Heaven--no tool can engrave you to
   this image but love! No force can fashion you to the model of Christ
   Jesus but the love of Jesus Christ shed abroad in your soul by the Holy
   Spirit. Keep to this, then, as a matter of practical direction. Dwell
   in the love of God to you that you may feel intense love to God.

   Once more, as a practical direction, if you love God show it as God
   showed His love to you. You cannot do so in the same degree, but you
   may in the same manner. God loved the worthless. You love the
   worthless. God loved His enemies. You love your enemies. The Lord loved
   them practically. Love not in word, only, but in deed and in truth. He
   loved them to self-sacrifice, so that Jesus gave Himself for us. You
   love to self-sacrifice, also. Love God so that you could die a thousand
   deaths for Him. Love Him till you make no provision for the flesh, but
   live only for His Glory. Let your heart burn with a flame that shall
   consume you till the zeal of God's house shall have eaten you up. "We
   love Him, because He first loved us," therefore let us love Him as He
   loved us! Let His love be both motive and model to us--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again, With love intense I burn. Chosen of
   Him before time began I choose Him in return."

   IV. Our text suggests to us AN ARGUMENTATIVE DEFENSE. You will see what
   I mean when I observe, first, that our love to God seems to need an
   apology. We have heard of an emperor casting eyes of love upon a
   peasant girl. It would have been monstrous for her to have first looked
   up to him as likely to be her husband! Everybody would have thought her
   to be bereft of her senses had she done so. But when the monarch looked
   down upon her and asked her to be his queen, that was another thing.
   She might take leave to love from his love!

   Often does my soul say, "O God, I cannot help loving You, but may I?
   Can this poor heart of mine be allowed to send up its love to You?
   I--polluted and defiled, nothingness and emptiness and sinfulness--may
   I say, 'Yet do I love You, O my God, almighty as You are'? 'Holy, holy,
   holy,' is the salutation of the seraphim, but may I say, 'I love You, O
   my God'?" Yes, I may, because He first loved me! There is love's
   license to soar so high--

   "YetI may love You, too, OLord, Almighty as You are, For you have
   stooped to ask of me The love of my poor heart!"

   Then, again, if any should enquire of us as they did of the spouse,
   "What is your Beloved more than another beloved, O you fairest among
   women? What is your Beloved more than another beloved, that you do so
   charge us? What is this passion that you have for God, this love you
   bear to His Incarnate Son?" We have a conclusive argument as against
   them, even as we had a quietus for our own fears. We reply, "We love
   Him, because He first loved us. And if you did but know that He loved
   you. If you did but know that He had done for you what He has done for
   us, you would love Him, too. You would not need to ask us why--you
   would wonder why you do not love Him, too."--

   "His love, if all the nations knew, Surely the whole world would love
   Him, too." We shall not need, to all eternity, any other defense for
   loving God than this, "Because He first loved us."

   Here is, also, an argument for the lover of the old orthodox faith. It
   has been said by some that the Doctrines of Grace lead to
   licentiousness, but our text is a most excellent shield against that
   attack. Brothers and Sisters, we believe that the Lord loved us, first,
   and most freely--not because of our tears or prayers, nor because of
   our foreseen faith, nor because of anything in us--but first! Well,
   what comes out of that? Do we, therefore, say, "If He loved us when we
   were in sin, let us continue in sin that Grace may abound," as some
   have wickedly said? God forbid! The inference we draw is, "We love Him,
   because He first loved us."

   Some can be swayed to morality by fear, but the Christian is sweetly
   drawn to holiness by love. We love Him, not because we are afraid of
   being cast into Hell if we do not--that fear is gone--we who are
   justified by God can never be condemned! Nor because we are afraid of
   missing Heaven, for the inheritance is upon as many of us as are joint
   heirs with Jesus Christ. Does this blessed security lead us to
   carelessness? No, but in proportion as we see the greatness and the
   infinity of the love of God, we love Him in return! And that love is
   the basis of all holiness and the groundwork of a godly character. The
   Doctrines of Grace, though often maligned, have proved in the hearts of
   those who have believed them, the grandest stimulus to heroic virtue!
   And he who affirms otherwise knows not what he says!

   Last of all, here is a noble argument to silence a gainsaying world. Do
   you see what a wonderful text we have here? It is a description of
   Christianity! Men say they are weary of the old faith and beg us to
   advance with the times--how shall we reply to them? They need something
   better, do they? The philosophers who pander to the age are going to
   give it a better religion than Christianity? Are they? Let us see. We
   shall, however, wait very long before their false promises will
   approximate to fulfillment. Let us rather look at what we have already.

   Our text is a circle. Here is love descending from Heaven down to
   man--and here is love ascending from man to God--and so the circle is
   completed. The text treats only of love. We love the Lord and He loves
   us. The text resembles Anacreon's harp which resounded love. Here is no
   word of strife, selfishness, anger, or envy! All is love and love
   alone. Now, it comes to pass that out of this love between God and His
   people there grows, (see the context of my text), love to men, for, "he
   that loves God loves his brother, also." The ethical essence of
   Christianity is love and the great master doctrine that we preach when
   we preach Jesus Christ is this--"God has loved us, we love God--and now
   we must love one another."

   O you nations, what Gospel do you desire better than this? This it is
   that will put aside your drums, your cannons and your swords! When men
   love God and love each other, what need for all the bloodstained
   pageantry of war? And this

   will end your slavery, for who will call his brother his slave when he
   has learned to love the image of God in every man? Who is he that will
   oppress and domineer when he has learned to love his God and love the
   creatures God has made? Behold! Christianity is the Magna Charta of the
   universe! Here is the true, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," which
   men will seek for in vain in politics! Here is the sacred Communism
   which will injure no man's rights, but will respect every man's griefs
   and succor every man's needs! Here is, indeed, the birth principle of
   the golden age of peace and joy, when the lion shall eat straw like the
   ox and the weaned child shall play on the cockatrice's den!

   Spread it, then, and let it circulate throughout the whole earth--God's
   love first, our love to Him, next! And then the universal love which
   shuts not out a man of any color, of any class, or of any name--but
   calls upon itself to love both God and man because God is loved! The
   Lord bless this meditation to you, by His Spirit, for Christ's sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 John 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--19, 248, 810.
     __________________________________________________________________

Life's Need and Maintenance

   (No. 1300)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 18, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "None can keep alive his own soul" Psalm 22:29.

   WE must commence by noticing the connection so that we may arrive at
   the first meaning of the words. There is a day coming when the true God
   will be acknowledged as Lord and God by all mankind, for the 27th verse
   tells us--"All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the
   Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before You." In
   that day the greatest of men will bow before Him. The verse from which
   we cull our text says, "All they that are fat upon earth shall eat and
   worship." The prosperous ones, those who have grown rich and great,
   shall receive good at the hands of the Savior and shall rejoice to
   adore Him as the Author of their fatness! Kings shall acknowledge Him
   as their King and lords accept him as their Lord.

   Then shall not only the riches of life, but the poverty of death, also,
   render Him homage, for as men shall go down to the dust of the grave,
   in their feebleness and weakness they shall look up to Him for strength
   and solace, and shall find it sweet to worship Him in death. Men shall
   know that the keys of death are in His hands. "All they that go down to
   the dust shall bow before Him," and it shall be known all the world
   over that the issues of life are in the hands of Jesus Christ. They
   shall understand that He is appointed as Mediator to rule over all
   mortal things, for the government shall be upon His shoulders. He shall
   open and no man shall shut, and shut and no man shall open, for it is
   His Sovereign prerogative to kill and to make alive. "None can keep
   alive his own soul."

   I pass on from this meaning with the hopeful belief that this
   dispensation is not to end, as some suppose, without the conquest of
   the world to Christ. Surely "all kings shall bow before Him, all
   nations shall serve Him." The shame of the Cross shall be followed by
   honor and glory--"men shall be blessed in Him, all nations shall call
   Him blessed." The conviction grows with me every day, the more I read
   the Scriptures, that the disheartening views of some interpreters are
   not true, but that before the whole of prophecy shall be worked into
   history, the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our
   Lord and of His Christ.

   Leaving this, we come to consider a more spiritual meaning which we
   believe to be as truly the sense of the passage as the other. You will
   notice, if you read the Psalm carefully, when you come to its close,
   that our Savior seems to delight Himself in being made food for the
   saved ones among the sons of men. In the 26th verse He says, "The meek
   shall eat and be satisfied." Here, He is thinking of the poor among
   men, to whom He has ever been the source of abounding comfort. To them
   His Gospel has been preached and thousands of them have found, in Him,
   food for their souls which has satisfied them, filled their months with
   praise and made their hearts live forever.

   The poor from the highways and hedges feast to the full at His royal
   table! Yes, the blind, the cripple and the lame-- the very beggars of
   the streets--are among His household guests! Christ is very mindful of
   the poor and needy. He redeems their soul from deceit and violence, and
   their blood is precious in His sight. Especially do the poor in spirit
   feed on Jesus. Over them He pronounced the first benediction of the
   Sermon on the Mount and of them He declares, "theirs is the kingdom of
   Heaven." What a feast do poor perishing spirits enjoy in Jesus when His
   flesh becomes to them meat, indeed, and His blood is drink, indeed!

   Nor is this all the feeding upon Christ, for in the 29th verse we hear
   of it again. Not only the poor feed upon the Bread of Heaven, but the
   great, the rich and the strong live upon Him, too--"all they that are
   fat upon earth shall eat and worship." There is no other way of life
   for them, for, "none can keep alive his own soul." The saints, too,
   when they have grown in Grace. When they have satisfied their hunger
   and are fat and flourishing in the courts of the Lord's House, must
   still eat of the same heavenly food. The fat need Jesus as much as the
   lean, the strong as much as the feeble, for none

   can do without Him--"none can keep alive his own soul." Thus the rich
   and the poor meet together and Jesus is the Food of them all. The empty
   and the full, alike, draw near to the Redeemer's fullness and receive
   Grace for Grace.

   Among those who feel their need of Jesus, there are some of a mournful
   type of character who count themselves ready to perish. They dare not
   number themselves among the meek who shall eat and be satisfied, much
   less could they think of themselves as the fat upon earth who shall eat
   and worship. No, they stand back from the feast as utterly unworthy to
   draw near. They dare not believe themselves to be spiritually alive
   unto God. They reckon themselves among those that go down into the Pit.
   They bear the sentence of death in themselves and are prisoners under
   bondage through fear. Their sense of sin and personal unworthiness is
   so conspicuous--and so painful--that they are afraid to claim the
   privileges of the living in Zion.

   They fear that their faith is expiring, their love is dying out, their
   hope is withered and their joy departed. They compare themselves to the
   smoking flax and think themselves to be even more offensive than the
   nauseous smell given forth by the smoking wick. To such comes the Word
   which precedes my text--"They that go down to the dust shall bow before
   Him." Christ shall be worshipped, even by them! Their last moments
   shall be cheered by His Presence. When, through depression of spirit,
   through the assaults of Satan and through inability to see the work of
   the Spirit in their souls, they shall be brought so low as to be down
   to the dust, they shall be lifted up from their misery and made to
   rejoice in the Lord, their Redeemer, who will say to them--"Shake
   yourself from the dust. Arise and sit down. Loose yourself from the
   bands of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion."

   When souls are thus brought down, they begin to learn for themselves
   that, "none can keep alive his own soul." A poor broken-hearted spirit
   knows this, for he fears that the inner filth within his soul is at its
   last gasp, and he is afraid that his faith, love and all his graces
   will be as bones scattered at the grave's mouth. But then he learns
   what I trust we shall believe at this time without such a painful
   experience to teach it to us, namely, that none of us can keep our own
   soul alive, but that we must have food continually from above and
   visitations of the Lord to preserve our spirits. Our life is not in
   ourselves, but in our Lord!

   Apart from Him we could not exist spiritually, even for a moment. We
   cannot keep our own soul alive as to Divine Grace. That is to be the
   subject of this morning's meditation and may the Holy Spirit render it
   profitable to us!

   I. The first point of consideration out of which the rest will come is
   this--THE INNER LIFE MUST BE SUSTAINED BY GOD. We are absolutely
   dependent upon God for the preservation of our spiritual life. We, all
   of us, know that none of us can make his own soul live. You have
   destroyed yourself, but you can not make yourself live again. Spiritual
   life must always be the gift of God--it must come from without--it
   cannot arise from within. Between the ribs of death, life never takes
   its birth. How could it? Shall the ocean beget fire, or darkness create
   light? You shall go to the morgue as long as you please, but, unless
   the trumpet of the Resurrection shall sound there, the dry bones will
   remain in their corruption. The sinner is "dead in trespasses and sins"
   and he will never have even so much as a right desire towards God, nor
   a pulse of spiritual life, until Jesus Christ, who is "the Resurrection
   and the Life," shall quicken him.

   Now, it is important for us to remember that we are as much dependent
   upon the Lord Jesus and the power of His Spirit for being kept alive as
   we were for being made alive in the first place. "None can keep alive
   his own soul." Do you remember when you first hung upon Christ for
   everything? That same dependence must be exercised every day of your
   life, for there is need of it. You remember your former nakedness, your
   poverty, your emptiness, your misery, your death, apart from Christ?
   Remember that the case is not one whit better if you could now be
   separated from sin. If now you have any Grace, or any holiness, or any
   love, you derive it entirely from Him and from moment to moment His
   Grace must be continued to you. For if connection between you and
   Christ should by any possibility be severed, you would cease to live
   spiritually. That is the Truth of God we want to bring forward.

   Here let us remark that this is not at all inconsistent with the
   undying nature of the spiritual life. When we were born-again there was
   imparted to us a new and higher nature called the spirit. This is a
   fruit of the Spirit of God and it can never die. It is an
   "incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever." When it is
   imparted to the soul it makes us partakers of the Divine Nature. And it
   keeps us, so that the Evil One touches us not so as utterly to destroy
   us. Yet this fact is quite consistent with the assertion that we cannot
   keep our own soul alive, for it is because the Lord keeps us alive. The
   newborn nature is safe because the Lord protects it--it survives the
   deadly influences of the world because the Lord continues to quicken
   it.

   Our new nature is united to the Person of Christ and we live because He
   lives. We are not kept alive by independent power, but by perpetual
   renewal from the Lord. This is true of every man living. "None can keep
   alive his own soul"-- no, not one. You young people think, perhaps,
   that old Christians get on better than you do. You imagine that their
   experience preserves them, but, indeed, they cannot keep their own
   souls alive anymore than you can! You tried and tempted ones sometimes
   look with envy upon those who dwell at ease, as though their
   spirituality was self-supporting! But no, they cannot keep their own
   souls alive anymore than you can! You know your own difficulties, but
   you do not know those of others. Rest assured, however, that to all men
   there are these difficulties and that no man can keep his own soul
   alive.

   This is the Truth of God at all times--at no one moment can we keep
   ourselves alive. While sitting in this House of Prayer you may dream
   that assuredly you can keep yourself here, but it is not so. You might
   sin the foulest of sins in your heart while sitting here! And you might
   grieve the Holy Spirit and cloud your life for years while worshipping
   among the people of God. You are not able to keep your own soul alive
   in your happiest and holiest moments! From your knees you might rise to
   blaspheme and from the Communion Table you might go to the seat of the
   scorner if you were left to yourself--

   "All our strength at once would fail us, If deserted, Lord, by You.
   Nothing, then, could use us, Certain our defeat would be And those who
   hate us Their desires would see."

   I seldom find myself so much in danger as when I have been in close
   communion with God. After the most ecstatic devotion, one is hardly
   prepared for the coarse temptations of this wicked world. When we come
   down, like Moses from the mountain, if we encounter open sin we are apt
   to grow indignant and break all the commandments in the vehemence of
   our wrath. The sudden change from the highest and holiest
   contemplations to the trifles and vexations of earth subjects the soul
   to so severe a trial that the poet did well say--

   "We should suspect some danger near When we perceive too much delight."
   Even when our delight is of a spiritual kind we need to be on our guard
   after having been filled with it--for then Satan avails himself of the
   opportunity. We are never safe unless the Lord keeps us.

   If we could take you, my Brothers and Sisters, and place you in the
   society of saints. Give you to keep perpetual Sundays, make every meal
   a sacrament and set you nothing to say or do but what should be
   directly calculated to promote the glory of God, yet even then you
   could not keep your own soul alive! Adam in perfection could not keep
   himself in Paradise! How can his imperfect children be so proud as to
   rely upon their own steadfastness? Among angels there were those who
   kept not their first estate. How shall man, then, hope to stand unless
   he is held up? Why is this? How do we know that our text is true?

   We gather arguments from the analogies of Nature. We do not find that
   we can keep our own bodies alive. We need Divine preservation, or
   disease and death will deftly make us their prey. We are not
   self-contained as to this mortal existence, any one of us, no, not for
   five minutes can we live upon ourselves. Take away the atmospheric air
   and who could keep himself alive? The heaving lungs need their portion
   of air and if they cannot be satisfied, man soon becomes a corpse!
   Deprive us of food--leave us for a week without meat or drink--and see
   if we can keep our natural body alive. Take away from us the means of
   warmth in the time when God's cold rules the year and death would soon
   ensue.

   Now, if the physical life is not to be sustained by itself, much less
   can the higher and spiritual life! It must have food. It must have the
   Spirit to sustain it. The Scriptures present to us this figure of the
   body which dies if severed from the vital organs, and of the branch
   which is dried up if cut off from the stem. Toplady versifies the
   thought and sings--

   "Quickened by You, and kept alive, I flourish and bear fruit. My life,
   I from Your sap derive, My vigor from your root. "I can do nothing
   without You!

   My strength is wholly Yours. Withered and barren should I be If severed
   from the Vine."

   Yonder lamp burns well, but its future shining is dependent upon a
   fresh supply of oil. The ship in rapid motion borrows force from the
   continuance of the wind, but the sails hang idle if the gale ceases.
   The river is full to the bank, but if the clouds should never again
   pour out their floods it would become a dry trail. All things depend on
   others and the whole upon the Great Supreme! Nothing is self-sustained!
   Unless God, Himself, sustains it, no being exists. Even immortal souls
   are only so because He has set His seal upon them and declared that
   they shall inherit eternal life, or in consequence of sin shall sink
   into everlasting punishment. Hence we are sure that "none can keep
   alive his own soul."

   But we need not rely upon analogy, we can put the matter to the test.
   Could any Believer among us keep any one of His graces alive? You,
   perhaps, are a sufferer and, up to now you have been enabled to be
   patient. But suppose the Lord Jesus should withdraw His Presence from
   you and your pains should return again? Ah, where will your patience
   be? Or, I will suppose you are a worker and you have done great things
   for the Lord. Like Samson you have been exceedingly strong. But let the
   Lord be once withdrawn and leave you to attempt His work alone and you
   will soon discover that you are as weak as other men and will utterly
   fail!

   Holy joy, for instance, take that as a specimen. Did you rejoice in the
   Lord, this morning, when you awoke? It is very sweet to wake up and
   hear the birds singing within your heart. But you cannot maintain that
   joy, no, not even for an hour, do what you will. "All my fresh springs
   are in You," my God, and if I am to joy and rejoice, You must anoint me
   continually with the oil of gladness! Have you not, sometimes, thought
   in the morning, "I feel so peaceful and calm, so resigned to the Divine
   will. I think I shall be able to keep up this placid spirit all day
   long." Perhaps you have done so and, if so, I know you have praised God
   for it. But if you have become perturbed, you have learned, again, that
   to will is present with you, but how to perform that which you would,
   you find not.

   Well, if for any one fruit of the Spirit we are dependent upon the
   Lord, how much more will this be true as to the essential life from
   which each of these Graces springs? This Truth of God is equally
   illustrated by our need of help in every act of the Divine life. Dear
   Friends, have you ever tried what it is to perform any spiritual act
   apart from the Divine power? What a dull, dead affair it becomes! What
   a mechanical thing prayer is without the Spirit of God! It is a
   parrot's noise and nothing more! It is a weariness, a slavish drudgery.
   How sweet it is to pray when the Spirit gives us feeling, unction,
   access with boldness, pleading power, faith, expectancy and full
   fellowship! But if the Spirit of God is absent from us in prayer, our
   infirmities prevail against us, and our supplication loses all
   prevalence.

   Did you ever resolve to praise God and come into the congregation where
   the sweetest Psalms were being sent to Heaven? Could you praise God
   till the Holy Spirit came like a Divine Wind and loosened the fragrance
   of the flowers of your soul? You know you could not! You used the
   sacred Words of the sweet singers of Israel, but hosannas languished on
   your tongue and your devotion died. I know that it is dreadful work to
   be bound to preach when one is not conscious of the aid of the Spirit
   of God! It is like pouring water out of bottomless buckets, or feeding
   hungry souls out of empty baskets! A true sermon such as God will
   bless, no man can preach of himself! He might as well try to sound the
   archangel's trumpet. We must have You, O blessed Spirit, or we fail! O
   God, we must have Your power, or every action that we perform is but
   the movement of a robot and not the acceptable act of a living,
   spiritual man!

   Have you ever, dear Friends, had to know that you cannot keep alive
   your own soul by your own blundering and failures when you have
   resolved to be very wise and correct? Did you ever get into a
   self-sufficient state and say, "Now, I shall never fall into that
   temptation, again, for I am the burnt child that dreads the fire"? And
   yet into that very sin you have fallen! Have you not said, "Well, I
   understand that business. There is no need to wait upon God for
   direction in so simple a matter, for I am well up in every particular
   relating to it and I can manage the affair very well"? And have you not
   acted as foolishly in the whole concern as the Israelites did in the
   affair of the Gibeonites, when they were deceived by the old shoes and
   clothes and the moldy bread, and asked no counsel of the Lord? I tell
   you, our strength, whenever we have any, is our greatest weakness! And
   our fancied wisdom is our real folly.

   When we are weak we are strong! When, in a sense of entire dependence
   upon God, we dare not trust ourselves, we are both wise and safe! Go,
   young man, even you who are a zealous Christian--go without your
   morning prayer, into the house of business--and see what will befall
   you! Venture, my Sister, down into your little family without having

   called upon God for guidance and see what you will do! Go with a strong
   resolve that you will never be guilty of the weakness which dishonored
   you a few days ago--and depend upon the strength of your own will and
   the firmness of your own purpose--and see if you do not, before long,
   discover to your shame how great your weakness is! No, try none of
   these experiments, but listen to the Word which tells you, "None can
   keep alive his own soul."

   And now, should any think that he can keep his own soul alive, let me
   ask him to look at the enemies which surround him. A sheep in the midst
   of wolves is safe compared with the Christian in the midst of ungodly
   men! The world waylays us, the devil assaults us! Behind every bush
   there lurks a foe. A spark in mid ocean is not more beset, a worm is
   not more defenseless. If the sight of foes without are not enough to
   make us confess our danger, look at the foes within. There is enough
   within your soul, O Christian, though you are one of the best of
   saints, to destroy you in an hour unless the Grace of God guards you
   and keeps your passions in check--and prevents your stubborn will from
   asserting its own rebellious determinations.

   Oh, what a powder keg the human heart is, even at its best! If some of
   us have not been blown up, it has been because Providence has kept away
   the sparks, rather than because of there being any lack of powder
   within. Oh, may God keep us, for if He leaves us, we need no devil to
   destroy us--we shall prove devils to ourselves--we shall need no
   tempters except the lusting after evil which now conceals itself so
   craftily within our own bosom! Certainly, dear Brothers and Sisters, we
   may be quite sure that "none can keep alive his own soul" when we
   remember that in the Gospel, provision is made for keeping our soul
   alive! The Holy Spirit is given that He may continually quicken and
   preserve us--and Jesus Christ, Himself, lives, that we may live, also.

   To what purpose would be all the splendid provisions and the special
   safeguards of the Covenant of Grace for the preservation of the
   spiritual life, if that spiritual life could preserve itself? Why does
   the Lord declare, "I, the Lord, do keep it," if it can keep itself? The
   granaries of Egypt, so full of corn, remind us that there is a famine
   in the land of Canaan! The treasures laid up in Christ Jesus assure us
   that we are in need of them! God's supplies are never superfluous, but
   are meant to meet real needs. Let us, then, all acknowledge that no man
   among us can keep alive his own soul.

   II. This brings me, secondly and briefly, to notice that THIS TRUTH
   BRINGS GLORY TO CHRIST. "None can

   keep alive his own soul." Weak-minded professors are prone to trust in
   man, but they have, here, an evident warning against such folly! How
   can they trust in a man who cannot keep alive his own soul? Shall I
   crouch at the feet of my fellow man and ask him to hear my confession
   and absolve me when I know that he cannot keep alive his own soul?
   Shall I look up to him and call him, "father in God," and expect to
   receive Divine Grace from the laying on of his hands, when I learn that
   he is a weak, sinful being like myself?

   He cannot keep alive his own soul! What can he do for me? If he lives
   before God, he has to live upon the daily charity of the Most
   High--what can he have to give me? Oh, look not to your fellow virgins
   for the oil of Grace, for they have not enough for themselves! And
   whatever name a man may dare to take, whether it is priest, "Father,"
   or Pope-- look not to him--but look to JESUS in whom all fullness
   dwells! The Glory which accrues to Christ from our daily dependence is
   seen in His becoming to us our daily Bread. His flesh is meat, indeed,
   and His blood is drink, indeed! And we must feed upon these continually
   or die! Eating is not an operation to be performed only once, but
   throughout life, and so we have to go to Jesus again and again and find
   sustenance in Him as long as life lasts.

   Beloved, we honored our Master when He first saved us--and through
   being daily dependent upon Him we are led to honor Him every day. If
   our hearts are right, we shall honor Him more and more every day, as we
   more and more perceive our indebtedness to Him. He is our daily Bread
   upon which we feed continually, and the Living Water of which we
   continually drink. He is the light which everlastingly shines upon us.
   He is, in fact, our All in All daily to us and all this prevents our
   forgetting Him. As at the first He saved us, so He still saves us! And
   as at the first we prized Him, we still prize Him. More than that, as
   our life is maintained, not only by Him, but by our abiding in union
   with Him, this leads us to abide in love towards Him. Union is the
   source of communion and love.

   The wife remains a happy wife by loving fellowship with her husband.
   When the betrothed one is married to her beloved, the wedding day is
   not the end of it all. The putting on of the ring is the beginning, not
   the end. And so, when we believe in Jesus, we are saved, but we must
   not idly feel, "it is all done, now." No, it is only just begun! Now is
   the life of dependence, the life of faith, the life of obedience, the
   life of love, the life of union commenced and it is to be continued
   forever! This makes us love, honor and adore our Lord Jesus, since we
   only live by being one with Him. We have, also, to

   remember that our life is daily supported by virtue of what the living
   Redeemer is still doing for us, as well as by receiving the fruit of
   His death and of our spiritual union with Him.

   He ever lives to make intercession for us and, therefore, He is "able
   to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him." The life of
   the ascended Redeemer is intimately bound up with our life--"Because I
   live, you shall live, also." How this honors Christ, for we are thus
   led to realize a living Savior, and to love Him as a living, breathing,
   acting Person. It is a pity when men only think of a dead Savior, or of
   a baby Savior carried in the Virgin's arms, as the Church of Rome does.
   It is our joy to have a LIVING Christ, for while He lives, we cannot
   die! And while He pleads, we cannot be condemned! Thus we are led to
   remember Him as a living Savior and to give Him honor He is due.

   But oh, my Brothers and Sisters, what must be the fullness of Christ
   when all the Grace which the saints have must come out of Him and, not
   merely all they have had, but all they obtain every day comes from Him?
   If there is any virtue. If there is any praise. If there is anything
   heavenly. If there is anything Divine--all this of His fullness have we
   received and Grace for Grace! What must be that power which protects
   and preserves millions of saints from temptation and keeps them amid
   perils as many as the sands of the sea? What must be that patience
   which watches over the frail children of God in all their weaknesses
   and wanderings, in all their sufferings, in all their infirmities? What
   must be His Grace which covers all their sins and what His strength
   which supports them under all their trials? What must the Fountainhead
   be, when the streams which flow to any one of us are so deep that we
   cannot fathom them, so broad that we cannot measure them?

   Yet millions of happy spirits are, each one, receiving as much as any
   one of us may be, and still there is a fullness abiding in Christ the
   same as before, for it has pleased the Father that in Him should all
   fullness dwell! Not a saint lives a moment apart from Him, for, "None
   can keep alive his own soul." The cries of babes in Grace and the
   shouts of strong men who divide the spoil all come from the life which
   He lends and the strength which He gives! Between the gates of Hell and
   the gates of Heaven in all those pilgrims whose faces are towards the
   royal city--all the life is Christ's life and all the strength is
   Christ's strength--and He is in them, working in them to will and to do
   of His own good pleasure! Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus who
   thus supplies all His people! Does not this display the exceeding
   riches of His Grace?

   III. Thirdly and practically, THIS SUBJECT SUGGESTS THE PATH OF WISDOM
   FOR OURSELVES. "None

   can keep alive his own soul." Then, my dear Brothers and Sisters, what
   manner of persons ought we to be? Let me have your earnest thoughts on
   this point for a minute. Do not let anyone among us look back to a
   certain day and say, "On that occasion I was regenerated and converted,
   and that is enough." I fear that some of you get into a very bad
   condition by saying, "If I can prove that I was converted on
   such-and-such a day, that will do."

   This is altogether unjustifiable talk! Conversion is a turning onto the
   right road--the next thing is to walk in it. The daily going on in that
   road is as essential as the beginning if you would reach the desired
   end. To strike the first blow is not all the battle--to him that
   overcomes the crown is promised! To start in the race is nothing. Many
   have done that who have failed! But to hold out till you reach the
   winning post is the great point of the matter. Perseverance is as
   necessary to a man's salvation as conversion. Remember this, you not
   only need Grace to begin with, but Grace with which to live in Christ
   Jesus.

   Learn, also, that we should diligently use all those means whereby the
   Lord communicates fresh support to our life. A man does not say, "Well,
   I was born on such-and-such a day, that is enough for me." No, the good
   man needs his daily meals to maintain his existence. Being alive, his
   next consideration is to stay alive and, therefore, he does not neglect
   eating nor any operation which is essential to life. So you, dear
   Friends, must labor for the meat which endures to eternal life--you
   must feed on the Bread of Heaven. Study the Scriptures daily--I hope
   you do not neglect that. Be much in private prayer--your life cannot be
   healthy if the Mercy Seat is neglected. Do not forsake the assembling
   of yourselves together, as is the manner of some. Be eager to hear the
   Word of God and endeavor both to understand and practice it.

   Gather with God's people in their many spiritual meetings, when they
   join in prayer and praise, for these are healthful means of sustaining
   the inner life. If you neglect these, you cannot expect that Grace will
   be strong within you--you may even question if there is any life at
   all. Still, remember that even if a man should eat and drink, that
   would not keep him alive without the power of God! Many die with whom
   there is no lack either of air or food. You must, therefore, look
   beyond the outward means, to God, Himself, to preserve your soul. Let
   it be your daily prayer, "Oh Savior, by whom I began to live, daily
   enable me to look to You that I may draw continuous life from Your
   wounds and live because You live." Take these things home and practice
   them.

   Keep, dear Friends, also, clear of everything which has a tendency to
   destroy life. A sane man does not willingly take poison. If he knew it,
   he would not touch the cup in which it had been contained. We are
   careful to avoid any adulteration in our food which might be injurious
   to life and health. We have our chemists busily at work to analyze
   liquids, lest inadvertently we should imbibe death in the water which
   we drink. Brethren, let us be equally careful as to our souls! Keep
   your chemist at work analyzing the things of this life. Let conscience
   and understanding fit up their laboratory and prove all things. Analyze
   the sermon of the eloquent preacher lest you drink in novelties of
   doctrine and falsehoods because he happens to put them prettily before
   you.

   Analyze each book you read lest you should become tainted with error
   while you are interested with the style and manner, smartness and
   elegance of your author. Analyze the company you keep. Test and try
   everything lest you should be committing spiritual suicide, or
   carelessly squandering life away. Ask the Lord, the preserver of men,
   above all things, to keep you beneath the shadow of His wings that you
   may not be afraid of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the
   destruction which wastes at noonday. Because His Truth has become your
   shield and buckler, you are safe. Watch your life carefully, but look
   to Jesus Christ from day to day for everything.

   Do not become self-satisfied so as to say, "Now I am rich and increased
   in goods." If ever a child of God imitates the rich man in the parable
   and says, "Soul, take your ease, you have much goods laid up for many
   years," he is a fool as much as the rich man was! I have known some
   become very exalted in spiritual things. The conflict is almost over
   with them--temptation has no power, they are masters of the
   situation--and their condition is of the most elevated kind. Well,
   ballooning is very pleasant to those who like it, but I think he is
   safest who keeps on the ground! I fear that spiritual ballooning has
   been very mischievous to a great many and has altogether turned their
   heads. Their high conceit is falsehood.

   After all, my Friend, to tell you the truth very plainly--you are no
   better than other people, though you think you are and in one point I
   am sure you miserably fail--humility. When we hear you declare what a
   fine fellow you are, we suspect that you wear borrowed plumes and are
   not what you seem. A peacock is a beautiful bird, what can be more
   brilliant? But I am not enraptured with his voice, nor are you! And so
   there may be fine feathers about certain people, perhaps a little too
   fine, but while they are showing themselves off, we know that there is
   a weak point about them and we pray that it may not cause dishonor to
   the cause of Christ. It is not our part to be hunting about for the
   failings of our fellow Christians, yet boasting has a tendency to make
   us examine the boaster!

   The practical thing is to believe that when we are proud, ourselves,
   there is something wrong with us. Whenever we stand before the mirror
   and think what fine fellows we are, we had better go, at once, to the
   Great Physician and beseech Him to give us medicine for our vanity! Mr.
   Peacock, you are certainly very handsome, but you should hear yourself
   croak! Professor, there are fine points about you, but there are sorry
   ones, too! Be humble and so be wise. Brother, if you get an inch above
   the ground you are just that inch too high! If you have anything apart
   from Christ--if you can live five minutes on past experience--if you
   think that you can live on yesterday's Grace you are mistaken!

   You put the manna away so very carefully. You stored it up in the
   cupboard with such self-content. Go to it tomorrow morning, instead of
   joining the rest of your Brethren in gathering the fresh manna which
   will fall all around the camp. Go to the cupboard where you stored up
   yesterday's manna! Ah, as soon as you open the door you close it again!
   Why did you shut that door so quickly? Well, we need not look inside
   the cupboard--the smell is enough! It has happened as Moses foretold
   it--it has bred worms and it stinks as he said it would. Cover it up as
   quickly as you can. Dig a deep hole and throw it all in and bury it!
   That is the only thing to do with such rottenness. Day by day go to
   Christ and you will get your sweet manna. But begin to live on past or
   present attainments and they will breed worms and stink as sure as you
   are a man. Do not try it, for, "none can keep alive his own soul."

   IV. Last of all, THIS SUBJECT INDICATES A WAY OF USEFULNESS for
   everyone here present who is a child of God. I think the great business
   of the Christian's life is to serve God and he can do that, mainly, by
   aiming at the conversion of sinners! It is a grand thing to be blessed
   of God to turn sinners from the error of their ways. But listen,
   Brothers and Sisters, there is equally good work to be done by helping
   struggling saints. The old Roman said he thought it as much an honor to
   preserve a Roman citizen as to slay an enemy of his country--and he was
   right. There is as much acceptance before God in the work of
   instrumentally preserving souls, alive, as in being made the means of
   making souls to live in the first place.

   The upholding of Believers is as necessary an exercise for Christian
   workers as the ingathering of unbelievers. I want you to think about
   this. If there is a person nearly drowned, a man will leap into the
   water to bring him out. And he gets great credit for it and deserves
   it. And so when a man saves a soul from death by earnest ministry, let
   him be glad and thank God. But if a man is starving and ready to die,
   and you give him bread. Or if he is not reduced to that point, but
   would have been so had you not interfered, you have done as good an
   action in preserving life as the other friend who snatched life from
   between the jaws of death! You must never think little of the work
   which instructs the ignorant Christian, which clears the stumbling
   blocks out of the way of the perplexed Believer, which comforts the
   feeble-minded and supports the weak. These necessary works must be
   done, while soul-saving must not be left undone!

   Perhaps some of you never will be the means of the conversion of many.
   Then try to be the means of comfort to as many as you can. To be the
   means, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, of nurturing the life which God
   has given, is a worthy service and very acceptable with God. I would
   urge the members of this Church to watch over one another. Be pastors
   to each other! Be very careful over the many young people that have
   come among us and, if you see any backslide--in a gentle and
   affectionate manner endeavor to bring them back. Do you know any
   despondent ones? Lay yourselves out to comfort them! Do you see faults
   in any? Do not tell them of them hastily, but labor, as God shall help
   you, to teach them a better way. As the Lord often preserves you by the
   help of others, so in return seek to be, in God's hands, the means by
   which He shall keep your Brethren from going astray, from sinking in
   despair, or from falling into error.

   I hold it out to you as a good and blessed work to do--will you try to
   accomplish it? Now, if you say, "Yes," and I think every Christian,
   here, says, "Yes," then I am going to speak to you concerning the
   collection, Brothers and Sisters. This is Hospital Sunday and we must
   contribute our full share! Do you see any connection between this
   subject and the collection? I think I do. Here are these poor sick
   folks who will die unless they are carefully looked to, unless medicine
   and a physician's skill are provided for them. I know you are ready,
   enough, to look after sick souls--the point to which I have brought you
   is one which involves such readiness.

   Well, now, he who would look after a sick soul will be sure to care for
   a sick body! I hope you are not of the same class as the priest in the
   fable who was entreated by a beggar to give him a crown. "By no means,"
   said the reverend father, "why should I give you a crown?" "Will you
   give me a shilling, Holy Father?" No, he would not give him a shilling,
   nor even a penny. "Then," said he, "Holy Father, will you, of your
   charity, give me a farthing?" No, he would not do anything of the sort.
   At last the beggar said, "Would not, Your Reverence, be kind enough to
   give me your blessing?" "Oh yes, my Son, you shall have it at once!
   Kneel down and receive it." But the man did not kneel down to receive
   it, for he reasoned that if it had been worth a farthing the "holy
   father" would not have given it to him. And so he went his way.

   Men have enough practical sense to always judge that if professed
   Christians do not care for their bodily needs, there cannot be much
   sincerity in their zeal for men's souls. If a man will give me
   spiritual bread in the form of a tract, but would not give me a piece
   of bread for my body, how can I think much of him? Let practical help
   to the poor go with the spiritual help which you render to them! If you
   would help to keep a Brother's soul alive in the higher sense, be not
   backward to do it in the more ordinary way. You have an opportunity of
   proving your sincerity and gratifying your charity, for the boxes will
   go round at once!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 22. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--103 (VER. III), 407. 668.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Prince and a Savior

   (No. 1301)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 25, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Him has God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior,
   for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." Acts 5:31.

   THE same fact appears very differently to different people. Our Lord
   Jesus, having risen from the dead, was exalted with the right hand of
   God. To the Jewish priests and rulers this was a dreadful announcement.
   They could not endure to hear that Jesus, whom they slew and hanged on
   a tree, was yet alive. As the murderer is startled at the apparition of
   the ghost of the man he has slain, so were these rulers altogether
   dismayed at the idea that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had nailed to
   the Cross, was risen from the grave. And they were astounded at the
   very thought that He, whom they had put to death with all the shame
   that they could devise, was with the full might and majesty of God
   exalted to the highest heavens. They were cut to the heart by the
   announcement as though a sword had cut them in two, dividing their very
   bones. Full of indignation, they consulted how they could compass the
   death of those who had brought such evil tidings to their ears.

   The fact had a very different effect upon the Apostles. They were the
   friends of Jesus and witnesses to His majesty. And when they were
   certain that, though they had seen Him laid in the grave, He had risen
   and had ascended, and was now sitting at the right hand of God, even
   the Father, it filled them with the greatest boldness and consolation!
   They might well speak in such a name, for it was assuredly Divine! He
   who had conquered death and opened the gates of Heaven must be able to
   take care of His own followers and, therefore, with delight and
   courage, they bearded His enemies in their dens! There was no need for
   trembling--who could harm them? They blushed not--there was nothing to
   blush at, for it was a triumphant cause! They feared not--there was
   nothing to fear, for the name high over all in Heaven, earth and Hell
   would surely protect them from all peril! What was to the rulers a
   source of dismay was to the Apostles a cause of courage!

   Let now enquire of you all how this fact of the exaltation of Christ
   impresses you? What do you think of Christ? As time would fail me to
   press this enquiry upon all classes in this assembly, I shall confine
   myself to those who have not yet found peace with God--and shall set
   the Ascended One before them that in Him they may find salvation! That
   is to be my subject--I want, this morning, to discover seekers! And by
   the help of God's Holy Spirit I want to encourage them, to direct them
   and, if possible, may this be the last morning in which they shall be
   called seekers and the first day in which they shall be finders! And
   may they, this day, know how sweet Christ is to those who find Him and
   how inestimably precious His salvation is to those who receive it by
   faith in Him!

   I should be very glad, this morning, if we could get down to business,
   for a great deal of hearing is not earnest hearing, but mere playing at
   hearing. Too many of you have ears to hear and yet do not truly hear.
   The Word of God reaches the outward ear and goes no further because you
   do not listen heartily and with earnestness. Thousands of hearers are
   like spectators at a banquet who come into the gallery and look down
   upon the guests who are feasting below--but they never taste a morsel,
   themselves. For them there are no dainties for actual tasting! They
   look at the oxen and the fatlings. They see the enjoyment of the
   feasters. Sometimes they even feel their own mouths watering for the
   good things and they almost envy those who are banqueting. But they do
   not seek a place at the loaded tables for themselves--they remain
   lookers-on.

   I pray this morning, and may God hear the desire of my soul, that you
   may all become partakers of the exceeding Grace of God in Christ Jesus
   at this moment! May you who have fed, feed again as you see the feast
   prepared in Christ! And may you who have never ventured to "taste and
   see that the Lord is good," approach the provisions of love this
   morning and be fed with bread to the fullest! I want to see an end of
   mere wishes and desires! I want to rejoice over the

   commencement of actual faith and realized salvation! Let's get down to
   business and let us have no more talk or delay! I long to see you saved
   and saved at once, or perhaps you may never be saved at all!

   Seeker, you know right well that if you are ever to be saved your
   salvation lies in Jesus Christ. "There is none other name given under
   Heaven whereby we must be saved." And you know that it is so! The point
   is to obtain the salvation which is in that name and so to lay hold of
   Christ, that what is stored in Him may become your own! May the Spirit
   of God bless you, now, so that while we speak to our text you may be
   led by it to actual salvation in Christ Jesus!

   I. First, then, let me invite you to NOTE HIS TITLES and learn their
   meaning. He is called, "a Prince and a Savior." You must know the
   Savior or you cannot be saved. It is important to you to understand the
   Nature and Character of Him whom the lord has set forth to be the only
   salvation of guilty men. The Lord Jesus is here described to you under
   two instructive names which comprehend within themselves the moat of
   His offices and relationships. Consider him now with deep attention.

   He is called a Prince first. This tells you that He is receiving honor
   at this time as the reward of His sufferings on earth. While He was
   here below, He was treated by His rebellious subjects as if He had been
   a felon. What a mass of presents the Prince of Wales has brought home
   from his foreign travels! But when the Prince of Glory visited His
   dominions here below what did He take home with Him except His wounds?
   "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." The shame and the
   rejection are now ended, and in Glory, yonder, our Lord Jesus is
   manifestly a Prince-- reverenced, obeyed, and honored! Every angel in
   Heaven delights to sing, "You are the King of Glory, O Christ!"

   The highest powers and potentates of the spiritual kingdom bow before
   Him and hail Him--joyfully hail Him--as Lord over all, blessed forever!
   His dominion extends over all creation. All things are put under His
   feet. He is the Prince of the kings of the earth, yes, He is Lord of
   All! Think of Him, then, O seeking Sinner, in this honorable estate!
   Let your mind conceive of Christ as worthy of all the homage and
   reverence that you can ever pay to Him! Do not approach Him without
   serious thought and careful reverence, for though He is condescending
   and gentle, yet is He a Prince to whom honor and obeisance must be
   paid!

   The title of "Prince," in our Lord's case, signifies not only honor,
   but actual power. His is no nominal princedom-- He has both glory and
   strength! Unto Him is given the mediatorial kingdom which includes all
   power in Heaven and in earth, so that He is well styled, "the Blessed
   and only Potentate."--

   "His hands the wheels of Nature guide With an unerring skill, And
   countless worlds, extended wide, Obey His sovereign will."

   Was it not said of old, "The government shall be upon His shoulders and
   His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The
   Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace"? He is the Prince of the house
   of David! He opens and no man shuts. He shuts and no man opens. There
   is no boundary to the power of Christ! If you seek His salvation, think
   of Him as Almighty and remember that His power is now employed for the
   salvation of those who trust in Him.

   He is exalted on high to be a Prince that He may give repentance and
   forgiveness of sins--so that the power which you see in Him is
   available for your salvation! Is not this encouraging? Does not this
   remove those fears which are suggested by your own feebleness? I desire
   that you may be led by the power of the Holy Spirit to conceive of our
   glorified Lord with the reverence which His honor deserves and with the
   confidence which His power should command. Remember, too, that a Prince
   signifies one who has dominion. And if Christ is to be yours, today,
   you must let Him have dominion over you. "He must reign."

   He claims to be Master and Lord to those who ask salvation at His
   hands--and is not the claim a just one? Whom should we serve but the
   Lord who became a servant for our sakes? It must be so, or salvation is
   impossible! Those who serve sin are not saved, nor can they be unless
   by being brought to serve the Christ of God--

   "This know, nor of the terms complain. Where Jesus comes, He comes to
   reign. To reign, and with no partial stray. Lusts must be slain that
   disobey. " You must accept Jesus to be Leader and Commander to you or
   you cannot win the battle of life! You must yield Him loving obedience,
   or He will not be married to your souls. His dominion is sweetly
   tempered by love, so that, as the Prophet

   writes, "You shall call Me no more Baali," that is, "My Lord," with a
   hardness of rulership, but Ishi, "My Lord," because you are My man, My
   husband.

   Even so Jesus is our Head and Lord, but His rule is that of supreme
   affection. There must be obedience to Jesus if there is faith in Him,
   for true faith works by love. Will you render it? Thus, Christ Jesus
   our Prince is crowned with honor and clothed with power--and He rightly
   claims and exercises dominion. I pray, dear Hearer, that you may pay
   homage before Him at once as your Prince. The other title of the text
   is, a "Savior," and this name, it seems to me, should be very
   delightful to every seeking soul. Struggling into light and prizing
   every ray of hope, it must be sweet to you to know that the Son of God
   is still a Savior, though manifestly a Prince!

   Observe here the perseverance of the Lord's love. He was a Savior here
   below. He is a Savior now that He has reached His Throne. We read of
   Him while on earth, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that
   which was lost." And now that He has gone, we still hear concerning
   Him, "He is able, therefore, to save them to the uttermost that come
   unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them."
   He has not paused in His blessed work of love! "He is the Savior of the
   body." Savior He was when He wore the garment without seam and
   traversed the weary leagues of Palestine. Savior He is now that He is
   girt about with a golden belt and sits upon the Throne! And Savior He
   shall be in His Second Advent, for which we look, even the glorious
   appearing of our God and Savior!

   Savior He was when He wept over Jerusalem. Savior He is, still, though
   His eyes are like a flame of fire. And Savior shall He be to His own
   redeemed when, before His glance, this earth shall flee away. Look up
   to Him under that aspect, O you who seek Him! Remember that our exalted
   Lord is a Savior in virtue of the prevalence of the work which He
   achieved while here below. When He dwelt here among men, He was able to
   save, but His salvation was not complete, for He had not yet said, "It
   is finished." Now His redeeming work is done and saving is a simple
   matter to Him. Never did He so well deserve the name of Savior as when
   He climbed to His Throne.

   The ransom price has all been paid and now, O Jesus, You are Savior,
   indeed! The head of the serpent has been broken beneath Your heel--You
   are Savior, indeed! The gates of the grave have been burst, the
   sepulcher is bereaved of its prey and the Resurrection is brought to
   light--You are, from now on, a Savior to the uttermost, O Jesus! "By
   Your agony and bloody sweat, by Your Cross and passion, by Your
   precious death and burial," you have finished salvation and now our
   spirits stall rejoice in God our Savior! I pray that you who seek Him
   may have Grace, this morning, to see Him in the light of a Savior, as
   still pursuing the work of saving souls, but yet pursuing it only to
   apply the Atonement which His death completed. Look at him, O you ends
   of the earth, as the Savior, for such He is, and there is none else!

   If He is a Savior, remember, this shows to trembling hearts how
   approachable He is. You might be abashed at coming to a Prince, but you
   may be encouraged in coming to a Savior! O you that would be rid of
   your sin, do you fear the Prince? Well may you, for He can punish you!
   But fear not, for the Savior will forgive you! Diseased with sin, do
   you think yourself unworthy of His princely Presence? Yet He is
   Physician as well as Prince--therefore come where the glance of His
   eye, or the touch of His hand will make you perfectly whole!

   I wish I knew how to put my Lord before you in the best of words and
   describe Him so sweetly that you would all fall in love with Him, but,
   indeed, I believe Him to be so beautiful that if I can only convey to
   you the faintest idea of Him you must be enamored of Him, if you love
   that which is good and fair! While I am describing Him I feel I do but
   put a mist about Him. But, He is the sun and He can break through my
   cloudy language and cause your hearts to see Him in all His glory. "A
   Prince and a Savior." Suppose I put the words together and say, a
   Prince-Savior--One who is lordly and kingly in the salvation which He
   brings? He deals out no stinted Grace, but makes us to receive of His
   fullness, Grace for Grace.

   Turn the titles the other way and reverse the order, and truly He is a
   Savior-Prince whose Glory it is to save, whose kingdom and power and
   dominion are all turned in full force to achieve the work of rescuing
   His people from destruction. "A Prince and a Savior." This is the
   Christ to whom you must come, O you who would be delivered from your
   sins. Look to Him and live!

   II. APPROACH HIM, THEN, UNDER THESE TWO CHARACTERS. I would come to
   very close quarters with you who are seeking the Lord, while I urge you
   to approach Jesus Christ as a Prince. "And how shall we do that?" you
   ask. I answer, come to Him at once with the sorrowful confession of
   your past rebellion. You have lived, I do not know how many years, you
   unconverted ones, without paying due homage to Jesus! You have known
   about Him, but you have

   not obeyed Him. Up to this moment you have resisted His love and said,
   "Let us break His bands asunder and cast His cords from us." Confess
   this and be ashamed, for it is a great disgrace not to be swayed by
   such love as that of Christ!

   It is a great sin not to be in love with such an One as that which
   shines in the Person of the Son of God! It shows moral hardness of
   heart and bluntness of perception. It shows prejudice of soul and
   ignorance of mind not to be, at once, the willing subject of Christ.
   These many years you have said, "I will not have this Man to reign over
   me." Oh, may the gentle Spirit cause you, now, to see the folly and the
   sin of this conduct! And may you confess it with tearful eyes while you
   obey the bidding of the old Psalm and, "Kiss the Son, lest He be
   angry."

   When you have confessed the past before this Prince, then I charge you
   accept His great purpose and submit to His rule. He is a Prince,
   therefore yield yourself to be His subject. Do you know what the
   objective of His rule is? It is to make you love God and to be like
   God! You are created and, therefore, launched upon the sea of
   existence! You cannot help this fact or alter it--your existence has
   been given you and you cannot lose it! How can this creation of yours
   be an eternal blessing and the danger be removed of its becoming a
   never-ending curse? The answer is simple--if you are right with your
   Creator, you are right with everything! If you are reconciled to Him,
   you will be happy in time and in eternity!

   But you cannot be right with your Creator until past guilt is forgiven
   and sin is given up--and the love of wrongdoing, the love of everything
   that is contrary to His pure and holy mind--is destroyed in you. Now,
   Jesus comes in order that He may kill in you everything that is
   contrary to the mind of God. He comes to make you holy, yes, to make
   you perfect! Will you yield yourself to His gentle purpose? Are you
   ready to obey His precepts by means of which His Spirit will sanctify
   you wholly--spirit, soul and body? He is able to save from sin! His
   name is Jesus, "for He shall save His people from their sins."

   Do you really wish to be saved from sin? Jesus once asked a sick man,
   "Will you be made whole?" It is the question which He asks of you
   today, dear Friend. You would be glad to be saved from going to Hell.
   Yes, but that is not it. Do you desire to be saved from that which
   created Hell, from that which is the fuel of the unquenchable fire and
   the tooth of the undying worm--namely, the love of iniquity, the love
   of sin? Christ can save from sin, as a Savior, and lead you into the
   Kingdom of Righteousness of which He is the Prince. Are you willing
   that He should do so? If it is taken for granted that you have
   approached the Lord Jesus in this way, I would next say, as He is a
   Prince, surrender everything to Him. Christ claims of you that if you
   are saved, since it is through His redemption, you should, from now on,
   be His. If He has redeemed you, then you belong to Him--from now on you
   are not your own--you are bought with a price.

   It is an inevitable consequence of being redeemed from death and Hell
   by Jesus' blood that you should be Christ's forever. Oh, can you lift
   your eyes to Heaven and say, "If He will have me, I will cheerfully be
   His"? Can you make over now, this morning, by the help of God's Spirit,
   your body and your soul as a living sacrifice? Can you give to Him,
   now, all that you owe and all that you have? Could you stand at the
   foot of the Cross and say--

   "And if I might make some reverse, And duty did not call, I love my God
   with zeal so great, That I would give Him all"?

   He asks it of you. Will you do it, O seeking Soul, will you do it? For
   if that is done, surely, then, Christ is to you a Prince and a Savior!
   And if this is accomplished and He is Lord, then pay your loving, loyal
   homage to your Prince. Behold Him in His Glory, where all the angels
   cast their crowns before Him while the elders adore Him with vials full
   of sweet odors!

   If Christ is to be your Savior, He must be your Prince, and you must
   have a loyal attachment to Him, deep and true. Is this a hard thing to
   ask of you? I think it is the joy of my life to be the subject and the
   servant of King Jesus! The name of the Queen stirs the British
   soldier's heart and oftentimes, in the hour of battle, he has thought
   of his Sovereign and his country, and has been willing to lay down his
   life. But the love of Jesus is a more intense passion, by far, and the
   loyalty of a good soldier to Jesus Christ is a stronger force than any
   loyalty to earthly princes! You must have this! Do you see how right it
   is that you should have it? Towards such an one as Jesus we are proud
   to cherish a love which many waters cannot quench! A love stronger than
   death! Approach Him, then, with loving hearts, or at least bring your
   hearts and ask to have them made loving.

   You must also approach the Lord Jesus as Savior. Do not proudly murmur
   at this. I have known some who have been willing to take Christ for
   their example and as their teacher--and so far they have acknowledged
   Him as a Prince--but they cannot stand it that they should confess
   their need of a Savior! But you must have Jesus as a Savior, as well as
   a

   Prince, or you will be lost forever! I do now affectionately urge the
   sinner who is seeking mercy to come to Christ Jesus, confessing that he
   needs a Savior. Look at your sin and consider your past life with all
   its transgressions. Are you not ashamed of it? Are you not afraid to
   stand before that Judgment Seat where you must give an account for
   every idle word that you have spoken?

   Does not conscience fill you with trembling? Well, come and tell the
   Savior! Tell Him all! Pour out your heart before Him! Acknowledge that
   you are undone and condemned unless He can, in His pity, obtain a
   pardon for you. Are you actually doing so, now? Let us get down to
   business, as I have said before! Make the confession, now, from your
   heart while we are yet speaking. That done, since Christ is a Savior,
   believe that He is able to save you. Seeing He died the bitter death of
   the Cross, suffering from Divine Justice in a most terrible manner upon
   Calvary, there must be, in those five wounds, power enough to be the
   death of every sin! O crimson blood, you must have merit enough in you
   to wash out crimson sin! It must be so! He who died upon the Cross is
   God as well as perfect Man and a Sacrifice offered by Him must have
   infinite power and efficacy to remove sin.

   Believe this, also, and when you have believed it, then understand that
   you must submit yourself entirely to His processes of salvation. He is
   able to save you, but He has a way of His own and He will not save you
   in your way, but only in His way! And His way of saving you is to make
   you feel the smart and bitterness of sin, to make you hate that sin,
   loathe it and to turn you from it forever! Thus He saves you--are you
   willing to have it so? Can you say, "Farewell," this morning, to the
   sins you have loved so long? Is there any attraction to you, yet, in
   the harlots and the riotous with whom you have spent your Father's
   substance? Have you still a lingering love to the far country, or can
   you bid its citizens a long farewell?

   Do the swine attract you? Have you a hankering after the husks which
   they eat, so that you can refuse to go to Christ when He would take you
   away from these filthy pleasures and degrading delights? Can you say,
   "I cannot linger longer here. It is Sodom and the fire will soon
   descend from Heaven! I must flee for my life and look not behind me. I
   must and will do so, for Jesus takes me by the hand and leads me on"?
   If you have sincerely done this and you are willing to have a divorce
   from your sins--all and thoroughly--from table, bed, hearth and in all
   ways so that sin and you shall no more be on loving terms, then, I say,
   if you are willing for this, all you have now to do is to trust your
   Savior! Lean all your weight on Him! Repose your whole self on Him!

   You see your need of Him. You see His power to save you and you know
   what is meant by being saved, namely, delivered from the power of
   sin--will you now trust Him to make you pure? If you do, you have come
   to Him as a Prince and a Savior, and He has said, "Him that comes to Me
   I will in no wise cast out," and He will not, cannot cast you out! This
   approach to the Lord Jesus should be made at this moment, where you now
   are! There is no need to go elsewhere, or tarry for an hour. While yet
   you are here, God's Holy Spirit can enable you to come to Christ as
   your Prince and your Savior. I am putting the Truth of God very
   plainly. I have scarcely used one figure of speech or a single ornament
   of language. I have tried to tell you the way of salvation very
   plainly. And having told you, I can do no more but earnestly ask
   you--will you have this Prince and Savior, or not? May the Spirit of
   God persuade you to give the right reply! ' III. In the third place,
   NOTE THE GIFTS OF THE LORD JESUS. He is "exalted with God's right hand
   to give repentance and forgiveness of sins." Now if, dear Hearer, you
   are distressed, this morning, beneath the burden of sin, I pray you to
   catch at this blessed sentence, for there is honey here which shall
   take away the bitterness of your soul! I think I heard you say, "Gladly
   would I have Christ as Prince and Savior! I am willing enough, but this
   hard heart, this rebellious will--what can I do with them?" Listen--"He
   is exalted to give repentance." This does not mean, as some have said,
   to give space for repentance. We must not add words to Scripture!

   Nor does it mean to make repentance acceptable. Look at the text and no
   trace of such a meaning is there. But, "to give repentance," and
   repentance, itself, is intended, which is as much the gift of the
   ascended Savior as the forgiveness which follows upon it! What is
   repentance? If we keep to its literal meaning it is a change of mind,
   but then it is a very wonderful change of mind! He can give you to
   change your mind about all the past so that the things which pleased
   you shall grieve you! That which charmed you shall disgust you! That
   which you do love you shall hate and that which you do desire you shall
   abhor. This is His gift to His chosen--"I will take away the stony
   heart out of their flesh and I will give them a heart of flesh; a new
   heart, also, will I give them, and a right spirit will I put within
   them."

   What a marvelous thing this change of mind as to the past is! He can
   also change your mind as to the present and the future, so that,
   instead of looking for present pleasure, you will find your delight in
   future Glory realized by faith! Do you understand me? It shall be
   pleasure enough to you to think of the pleasures at God's right hand
   forevermore! Jesus can save you from living like the beast which looks
   not an hour ahead, but is content with the pasture around it--and will
   even walk into the slaughterhouse to be slain--so little does it know
   what is reserved for it! Jesus can save you from being so brutish and
   make you look into the eternal future with the eyes of a wise man!

   He can give you a good hope and inspire you with a good objective
   worthy of the eternity which lies before you. Christ can give such a
   change of mind as shall make the whole world seem new--and yourself
   most changed of all! Repentance includes a most necessary sense of sin
   and the Savior can give you this, by His Spirit. He can fill your soul
   with the barbed arrows of conviction till your heart bleeds with inward
   grief on account of sin, or He can work more gently and make you repent
   by melting you beneath the smiles of His love. He can make you sing--

   "Your mercy is more than a match for my heart, Which wonders to feel
   its own hardness depart. Dissolved by Your goodness, I fall to the
   ground And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found." He can work in
   you desires after holiness and hatred of every false way. He can take
   the guile out of your soul as well as the guilt out of your life. He
   can give you to be true and upright before Him and cleansed in the
   inward parts. Everything that is included in "repentance," Jesus Christ
   is exalted to give.

   Now, if no one obtains repentance, then Christ is exalted in vain--but
   somebody must have it, for Christ is not exalted in vain! Why, then,
   should YOU not have it? You need it! Your heart seems hard as granite
   and cold as a block of ice. Well, if you need it, why should you not
   have it? To whom does a man give his alms but to the needy? Do not the
   wise distribute their gifts to those who need them? If you need them,
   come and freely take them! Repentance will not spring out of your
   unrenewed heart, but the Prince and Savior can create it in you! Come
   to Him for it--

   "True belief and true repentance, Every Grace that brings You nigh,
   Without money,

   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   Here I preach Christ not merely to penitent sinners, but to impenitent
   sinners! O rock, be smashed with this rod! The Cross can fetch the
   waters of repentance out of stony hearts! O hard heart, be melted with
   this sacred fire! The fire of Jesus' love can dissolve the northern
   iron and steel of obdurate impenitence! He is exalted on high to give
   repentance! Therefore, O Sinners, look to Him for repentance!

   It is added as His second gift, "to give forgiveness.'" And the
   forgiveness which Jesus gives is very blessed. I pray you, seeking
   Soul, pay attention to each word I now say on this point. He can pass
   an act of amnesty and oblivion for all your sins. If He forgives you,
   all your transgressions shall be as though they had never been! He will
   make clean work of it, blotting out every record of your sin so that in
   God's book there shall be no grieving memory of your having been a
   sinner at all! So powerful is the atoning blood that all manner of sin
   and transgression shall be forgiven unto men for its sake. Sins against
   a holy God, sins against Christ's love and blood, sins against
   conscience, sins against the Law, sins against the Gospel, sins which
   have lain in your bones from your youth up, sins of your middle age,
   sins of your old age, aggravated sins, black sins, damnable sins--all
   are gone when He says, "I have blotted out your sins like a cloud, and
   as a thick cloud your transgressions." Jesus has gone to Heaven on
   purpose to give this complete forgiveness!

   Now mark, when full forgiveness comes, it brings with it the eternal
   removal of the penalty! The forgiven man cannot be punished! For him
   there is no Hell, no worm that dies not, nor fire that never can be
   quenched. God cannot forgive and then punish! If He removes your
   transgressions from you as far as the east is from the west, then who
   is he that shall lay anything to your charge? Who is he that can
   condemn? And who is he that can punish you? With the pardon of sin,
   there shall come, also, a restoration of every privilege. All that Adam
   had in the Garden you shall have to be yours-- not all of it to enjoy
   just now--but all and more than all shall be restored to you, for the
   man who wears the righteousness of Christ and is accepted in the
   Beloved may not have a Paradise on earth, but he has a Paradise above!
   For him there may be no golden apples of Eden, but there shall be the
   fruit of the Tree of Life, of which he shall eat forever and ever--

   "What Adam had, and forfeited for us all, Christ has, who cannot fail
   nor fall." He that believes on Christ Jesus shall dwell in bliss and be
   satisfied with the goodness of the Lord!

   And mark you, once again, you shall, when forgiven, have quiet in your
   soul, for when you are pardoned, all the hurly-burly of your spirit
   shall turn into a deep calm. You shall have the "peace of God which
   passes all understanding" to "keep your heart and mind by Christ
   Jesus." "Oh," says one, "I would give my eyes for it!" You shall have
   it without giving your eyes! Give your heart--no, and not even give
   your heart as a price for it--take the blessing freely, for freely it
   is given! Jesus is exalted on high that He may grant free pardons to
   great offenders! I come back to that statement--if Jesus is exalted on
   purpose to give pardon, then if He does not give forgiveness to
   someone, He is exalted in vain! He MUST, therefore, give it to
   some--why should He not bestow it upon you?

   The text says, "to give repentance to Israel." Who and what was Israel?
   The people of Israel, in our Lord's time, were surely the very worst of
   sinners, for it was by them that the Lord was nailed to the Cross! It
   was the Jews who cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" It means, then,
   that Jesus is exalted to give repentance and pardon to the chief of
   sinners, and if I am one, if, instead of blaming Jews or the Romans, I
   blame myself! if I take the death of Christ on my own shoulders and
   say--

   "Twas you my sins, my cruel sins, His chief tormentors were! Each of my
   crimes became a nail, And unbelief the spear,"

   then He is exalted to give me repentance and remission for my great
   sins! Do I need to ask you, will you have these two

   gifts?

   Ah, Friends, it shows how deep is the depravity of the human heart that
   we should have need to press our Master's mercies on you. If sin were
   not a madness, it would only need the preacher to come and tell about
   this blessed Gospel and you would begin to sing, "How beautiful upon
   the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that
   publishes salvation, that said unto Zion, Your God reigns as a Prince
   and a Savior in Heaven." Instead, however, of offering my Lord a joyful
   reception, some of you will count it a weariness to be entreated and
   pleaded with. I feel in my own soul that though my Master enables me to
   put these things before you, you will not receive them unless His love
   forces you. We can bring the horse to the water, but we cannot make it
   drink. And we can bring Christ before you, but we cannot make you
   accept Him.

   I pray that there may be some soft relenting, some gentle melting of
   your spirit this very morning, for ,"unto you is the word of this
   salvation sent." My dear Hearer, I may never have addressed you before.
   Happy shall I be if at the very first assault I win your soul for my
   Master! Or perhaps I have spoken with you many, many times and my voice
   is getting rather stale and flat to you. Well, I am sorry if I mar the
   message, but still it is so good that, though I stammered it, you
   ought, still, to catch at it and say, "Yes, if He is exalted to give
   repentance and pardon, here is my bosom, Lord! Pour them both into my
   soul at this good hour."

   IV. As I said to you about the titles, approach the Lord Jesus as such,
   so now I say about His gifts--ASK HIM FOR THEM. Ask now, at this
   moment! Again, I say I want you to get down to business and be doing as
   well as listening. While I am speaking, may the Holy Spirit incline
   your hearts to practical obedience! At this moment ask the Lord Jesus
   humbly for repentance and pardon. You do not deserve these gifts--if He
   leaves you to perish He will be just. He will have mercy on whom He
   will have mercy, and He will have compassion on whom He will have
   compassion.

   You have no claim to His love and must not set up any! Your heart is
   hard and He can leave you in your unbelief. You are guilty and He can
   justly leave you to bear your punishment. Ask humbly, therefore, not
   daring to claim anything, but appealing to His Sovereign Grace. Say--

   "O save a guilty sinner, Lord, Whose hope still hovering round Your
   Word Would light on some sweet promise there, Some sure support against
   despair."

   Ask importunately. Do not come to Mercy's gate, this morning, with a
   cold heart and unwilling spirit. Come with this resolve, "I will not
   leave the Cross till my sins have left me. I will plead for the Grace
   of God until I obtain it. With importunity will I wrestle saying--

   'Lord, I cannot let You go Till a blessing You bestow.'"

   The Angel is near this morning! Seize Him! Grasp Him! And if He seem to
   fling you off, hold to Him, still, and say, "I will not let You go
   except you bless me, and bless me now!" You will get the blessing if
   you can pray like that! Pray with deep humility, because you are
   unworthy, but with violent importunity because you are in such fearful
   peril and you cannot endure to be lost!

   But I ask you to pray believingly and this is, indeed, the heart of the
   matter. Ask for remission and repentance, this morning, believing that
   Christ can give it and believing that He is as willing as He is able.
   If you can look up and see those dear eyes which wept over sinners. If
   you can see those wounds, still open for sinners like so many gates of
   Heaven, you will perceive that Jesus still calls to you and bids you
   trust Him! Do not think Him unwilling to forgive. That would be too
   cruel a suspicion after He has died! Trust Him wholly, only, sincerely,
   solely! Have done with those works and prayers and tears which you have
   been known to rely upon! All that you ever did to save yourself must be
   undone! Nature's spinning must all be unraveled--her fig leaves will
   wither--sin's nakedness requires a better covering. Your only hope lies
   in Him who is Prince and Savior. Cry at once to Him--

   "A guilty weak, and helpless worm,

   On Your kind arms I fall;

   You are my strength and righteousness,

   My Jesus, and my All."

   And--and this is the last word--ask now! Do not put me off this
   morning! I am in earnest, even if you are not! But oh, it is your soul,
   not mine, that is now at stake! I pray you be in earnest, O Man, and be
   so now! Perhaps you will never hear another plea! It may be this is the
   last Sabbath you will spend on earth! Where will you be if you reject
   the Savior? Where the Sabbath bell shall never ring out its happy
   summons! Where the silver voice of Mercy shall never again salute you!
   There is another world--you will not die like a dog! There is a
   judgment to come and you will have to stand before your Maker to give
   an account of all your life!

   There is an everlasting punishment as surely as there is an eternal
   reward. Now I ask you, and I charge you, to go no further till you have
   answered this question--Is it worth while to lose your soul for
   whatever you can gain by it? The Romans, when they meant to bring
   things to an issue with an Oriental tyrant, sent their Ambassador. And
   the Ambassador was to bring his answer back--yes or no, war or peace.
   What do you think the Ambassador did? When he saw the king, he stooped
   down and with his wand he drew a ring upon the ground round the
   monarch. And then he said, "Step outside that ring, and it means war
   with Rome. Before you leave that circle you must accept our terms of
   peace, or know that Rome will use her utmost force to fight with you."

   I draw a ring round you while you are sitting in that pew, or standing
   in that aisle, and I demand an answer! Sinner, will you now be saved or
   not? Today is the accepted time! Today is the day of salvation! O Holy
   Spirit, lead the sinner to now ask and he shall receive! To believe,
   and he shall be saved. Amen and Amen!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Acts 5:17-42. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--304, 569, 332.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cheer For Outcasts

   (No. 1302)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 15, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He gathers together the outcasts of Israel." Psalm 147:2.

   DOES not this show us the great gentleness and infinite mercy of God?
   And as we know most of God in the Person of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
   should it not charm us to remember that when He came on earth He did
   not visit kings and princes, but He came unto the humble and simple
   folk? He did not seek out Pharisees, wrapped up in their own supposed
   righteousness, but He sought out the guilty, for He said, "They that
   are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick."

   The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost! It
   would have seemed natural that our Lord Jesus, when He came here,
   should, first of all, have addressed Himself to the most respectable
   people He could find and should have sent His message to the rabbis of
   Jerusalem, to the senators at Rome, to the philosophers of Greece. But
   instead, the common people heard Him gladly and He rejoiced in spirit
   while He said, "I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth,
   because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have
   revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
   Your sight."

   I think you may judge of a man's character by the persons whose
   affection he seeks. If you find a man seeking only the affection of
   those who are great, depend upon it, he is ambitious and self-seeking.
   But when you observe that a man seeks the affection of those who can do
   nothing for him, but for whom he must do everything, you know that he,
   himself, is not seeking, but that pure benevolence sways his heart.
   When I read in the text that the Lord gathers together the outcasts of
   Israel--and when I see that the text is truly applicable to the Lord
   Jesus Christ, because this is just what He did--I see another
   illustration of the gentleness of His heart, who said, "Take My yoke
   upon you, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest
   unto your souls."

   Be glad tonight, dear Friends, that we gather around such a Savior as
   this, from whom all pride and self-seeking are absent and who, coming
   down among us in gentleness and meekness, comes to gather those whom no
   man cares for-- those who are judged to be worthless and irreclaimable!
   He comes to gather together the outcasts of Israel! Applying this text
   to our Lord Jesus Christ, we not only see His gentleness, but we also
   clearly see an illustration of His love to men, as men. If you seek
   only after rich men, suspicion arises--and it is more than
   suspicion--that you seek their wealth rather than they. If you aim only
   at the benefit of wise men, it is probably true that it is their wisdom
   which attracts you, and not their manhood.

   But the Lord Jesus Christ did not love men because of any advantageous
   circumstances, or any commendable incidents of their condition. His
   love was to manhood. He loved His own chosen people as men, not as this
   or that among men. He has no respect for rank, nor care for wealth. A
   man is a man with Christ whether the "guinea-stamp" is there or not. He
   died not for titles and dignities, but for men. "Not yours, but you,"
   our Lord Jesus could truly say. Where Jesus Christ sees a man, though
   he is an outcast, an outlaw or one condemned by the law of his own
   country--He sees a human being--a creature capable of awful sin and
   terrible misery, but yet, renewed by Grace, capable of bringing
   wondrous glory to the Most High.

   Our Lord Jesus Christ, by gathering together the outcasts, proves that
   it is not the things which surround men, but the men, themselves, that
   He cares for. He considers not so much where a man is, but what he
   is--not what he has learned, or what he is thought of, or what he has
   done--just what he is. The man is the jewel. The immortal soul is the
   Pearl of Great Price which Jesus seeks as a merchantman seeks goodly
   pearls. Another thing is also clear. If Jesus gathers together the
   outcasts of Israel, it proves His power over the hearts of men. There
   is a certain class of men who follow that which is morally good because
   the Lord has given them a noble disposition. Thank God, He has, in
   mercy, been pleased to give

   some men a desire after that which is beautiful and true. They, too,
   are merchantmen seeking goodly pearls, and it is not difficult, when
   the heart is brought into such a desirable state, for the excellence
   and beauty of Jesus Christ to attract it!

   But here is a tug of war--there are men still left in the guilt and
   filthiness of human nature who have no desire after that which is
   good--but whose entire longings are after evil, only evil and that
   continually. These have no more eye to anything that is high and noble
   than the swine has for the stars. The minister of Christ may appeal to
   them, but he will appeal in vain. And Providence may warn them, by the
   deaths of others and by personal sickness, but they are not to be
   separated from the earth to which they are glued. Yet our Lord Jesus
   can gather together even these, the outcasts of Israel! Such is His
   power that He does not stop till He sees good desires in men--He
   imparts those desires to those who have them not! Such are the charms
   of His Cross, that blind eyes are made to see by its beauty! Such is
   the music of His voice, that deaf ears are opened by it! Such is the
   majesty of His life, that the dead hear His voice and they that hear
   are made to live!

   No groundwork of goodness is asked or expected from any man that Christ
   may come and act upon it--He takes man in his ruin and in the extremity
   of his depravity--and begins with him then and there. When the good
   Samaritan came to the wounded man, he did not wait for him to make the
   first advance, or come a little towards him. He went to him, where he
   was, and poured into his wounds the oil and the wine. So the Lord comes
   where hurtful nature is and, bad as its condition is, He stoops to it
   and He gathers together the outcasts of Israel! Oh, it is a wonderful
   thing, this, that there should be attractions about the Lord Jesus
   Christ which can draw to Him those whom nothing else that is good can
   possibly stir!

   You may preach virtue to the sinner, but he does not practically yield
   to its charms. You may preach to the drunk, to the unchaste, to the
   immoral, the beauties and excellences of honesty and of all the virtues
   and the Graces, but little good will come of it--the result is
   infinitesimal. You may charm very wisely upon those subjects, but these
   deaf adders do not care for charming. We have heard of a Divine who
   said that he had preached honesty till he had not an honest person left
   in the parish! And he preached of virtue till he did not know where
   Diogenes, with his lantern, could find it! Nothing worth having comes
   of preaching when Christ is not the theme!

   You may preach the Law and men will be frightened by it, but they will
   forget their fears. Yet if Jesus Christ is preached, He draws all men
   unto Him. The most wicked will listen to the news of Him who is able to
   save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. The most
   stubborn have been known to weep when they have heard the story of His
   grief and of His love! The most proud have found themselves suddenly
   humbled at His feet, of which some of us are witnesses, for we marveled
   to find the hardness and loftiness of our hearts suddenly removed by a
   sense of His goodness! I do not believe that we preachers have half
   enough, or a tenth enough faith in Jesus Christ. If we could preach
   Jesus Christ to a company of convicted felons, should we be wrong in
   hoping to see the larger part of them converted on the spot?

   If we had but faith enough to preach to them as we should, aiming
   directly, distinctly and believingly at their souls, might we not look
   for great results? We go so timidly, so doubtingly to work. We pray
   that God would save some out of our congregations and that He would be
   pleased to bless the Word here and there! But, such a splendid Gospel
   as we have to preach should not be preached so, nor should we so pray
   about it! When Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness, it
   was not with this prayer--"Lord, grant that one or two of those who are
   bitten by the serpent may look and live." No, Moses came out boldly
   with his serpent high upon the pole! He believed that thousands would
   look--they did look--and they lived! May we, after the same manner,
   proclaim Jesus who "gathers together the outcasts of Israel."

   Now, with this introduction, I would speak upon the text a little more
   particularly, and we shall observe with brevity, first, to whom the
   text applies--"He gathers together the outcasts of Israel." Secondly,
   we shall consider in what sense He may be said to gather them. And
   then, thirdly, what lesson this teaches us.

   I. First, then, TO WHOM MAY THIS TEXT APPLY--"He gathers together the
   outcasts of Israel"? It refers to several classes in different ways.
   First, it is a fact that our Lord Jesus gathered together some of the
   very poorest and most despised among men-- those who might, under some
   respects, be regarded as outcasts. And it is certain that, to this day,
   the Gospel comes in the largest measure of power to the poor of this
   world. Often, too, it comes with amazing power to those who are
   despised by others, or are regarded as being of inferior degree.

   You know that at this time it is boastfully said by the enemies of the
   Gospel that the culture, the brain, the intellect, the education of
   England is all on the side of skepticism. I am not so sure. When people
   say that they possess a great deal

   of brains, I am not certain that their claim is correct, unless it is
   that as sheep have a good deal of brains and yet are not the wisest
   animals in the world, so these gentlemen, also, are no wiser than they
   should be. As to those gentlemen who so evidently claim to be the
   cultured people, who monopolize all the sweetness and the light, I am
   not clear that they have all the modesty. It does seem to me that if
   they talked in a lower key, it would be as well. And if they thought a
   little less of their own culture and allowed a little more to other
   people, we might have more faith in this wonderful "culture" of theirs.

   Some of us have failed to see the deep thought and the profound
   learning we were told to look for in the books of the skeptical
   cultured mind and, therefore, we are less patient when we hear the
   perpetual bragging of our foes. Still, let it stand so. We will not
   quarrel with it. Suppose it to be so--that none but foolish people
   embrace the old-fashioned faith--Puritanism which, they say, is nearly
   dead--the old evangelism which they ridicule as being exploded. Let it
   be so, that we are an inferior order of people with very little brains
   and all that. Well, we are not out of heart on that account, because we
   find that it so happened in our Savior's day and has happened all days
   since--that the wisdom of the world has been at enmity with God.

   And it has also flamed out that the foolishness of God has been wiser
   than men and God has mastered human wisdom by the foolishness of
   preaching! By that Gospel which wise men laughed at as being folly, God
   has brought carnal wisdom to nothing! The Lord Jesus Christ looks with
   love on those whom others look down upon with scorn--

   "He takes the fool and makes him know.

   The wonders of His dying love,

   To lay aspiring wisdom low,

   And all our pride reprove."

   I am thankful when I meet with poor saints and see what a grip humble
   men and women get of the promises of God. Laboring men, humble
   shepherds and the like have often been more distinguished for deep
   insight into the mysteries of Grace than learned doctors of divinity!
   Where there has been little in the cupboard and the provision on the
   table has been but slender, there has been more enjoyment of the favor
   of God than among the great ones of the earth!

   They may regard those who still stand by the old-fashioned Truth of God
   as being outcasts from the commonwealth of letters and not worthy to be
   named among the cultured intellects of the age, but if the Lord will
   but gather us continually to His bosom and refresh us with Himself, we
   shall be content! The text should be a source of joy to us if any of us
   happen to be extremely poor--so poor that even Christian men are so
   ungenerous as to give us the cold shoulder, or if we happen to be the
   despised ones of our family. Here and there, sad to say it, there will
   be, in families, a better one than the rest, less thought of than the
   others--a Joseph whom his brothers hate because he loves his God.

   Well, you may become as a stranger to your mother's children and you
   may have no one to give you a good word, yet may you put this verse
   under your tongue as a sweet morsel--"He gathers together the outcasts
   of Israel." Those who are lowest in the esteem of men are still
   remembered by the Lord! The text may be applied very well to those who
   have made themselves outcasts by their wickedness and are deservedly
   cast out of society. May God grant that none of us may be, or may have
   been, among that number. But if I should be addressing any such at this
   time, I have a word for them. If there should be some such here,
   tonight, who do not often attend places of worship, but have dropped in
   from curiosity, I may suppose your case to be that of one who has
   broken a mother's heart and brought a father's gray hairs to the grave
   with grief.

   You have lived such a life that your own brothers could scarcely be
   expected to acknowledge you. You have sinned and sinned terribly. Man
   or woman--for woman, also, becomes an outcast--she is too severely
   treated, as a general rule, and more often becomes an outcast than the
   man who deserves it more! If I address such, it is a great joy to me to
   know that our Lord Jesus Christ can save the most wicked of the wicked,
   the most fallen of the fallen, the most depraved of the depraved! If
   you have sunk so low that there is not much to choose between you and a
   devil--and some men and women do get as low as that--yet Jesus Christ
   can lift you up!

   If your life story is such that it would be a pity it should ever be
   told and most grievous that it should ever have been enacted, yet Jesus
   can wash all the stains of your life away and save you, even you! Only
   one such may be present here tonight, but I make no apology for
   concentrating my whole thoughts upon one single person! I leave the 99,
   to go after the one lost sheep, that in the one lost one may be
   revealed the richness and freeness of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ!
   Come, then, Outcast! Come to your Redeemer and find pardon! "Though
   your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as snow!

   Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool!" Jesus is able
   to wash away every transgression from those who are steeped in guilt.
   Countless iniquities dissolve and disappear before the presence of His
   mighty love, for He, even Jesus, gathers together the outcasts of
   Israel!

   Is there no helper on earth? Yet is there One in Heaven! Is there no
   friend below? Yet is there One above! Is there nothing that can save
   you? Do you contemplate suicide? Stop, stop your hand, for Jesus is
   "able to save to the utter-most"--to the uttermost--"them that come
   unto God by Him." Let the prayer go up, "God be merciful to me a
   sinner," and go your way with hope in your soul, for "He gathers
   together the outcasts of Israel."

   A third class of persons consists of those who judge themselves to be
   outcasts, though, as to outward actions they certainly do not deserve
   the label. Many who have written about John Bunyan have been surprised
   at the description which he gives of his own life, for it does not
   appear that, with the sole exception of the use of blasphemous
   language, John Bunyan was one of the very worst of mankind. But he
   thought himself to be so. Now it often happens--I do not say always,
   but I think it is generally so--that when the Spirit of God comes, with
   power, to the conscience and awakens it, the man judges himself to be
   the very chief of sinners.

   For it may be that you have never gone into actual vice. You have never
   been a blasphemer or dishonest. You have, on the contrary, from the
   instructions of your childhood, been led into the path of right--and
   yet, when you are awakened, you may feel yourself to be vilest of the
   vile. Everything that is lovely and of good report has been found in
   you-- you do not know the time in which you would not have been shocked
   to hear a blasphemous word--and yet when the Holy Spirit awakens you,
   you will plead guilty among the very worst! I know in my own case I had
   a horror of ungodliness. And, yet, when the Spirit of God came to me, I
   felt myself to be far worse than the swearer or the drunk--for this
   reason--that I knew that many who indulged in those open sins did so
   ignorantly. They did so from the imitation of those in whose society
   they had been brought up.

   But as for me, with a godly parentage, with a mother's prayers and
   tears, with light and knowledge, understanding the letter of the
   Gospel, having read the Bible from my youth, up, I felt that my sins
   were blacker than those of others because I had sinned against light
   and knowledge. And you must have felt the same, I am persuaded. Perhaps
   you are even, now, feeling it. You remember that night when you stifled
   conviction, when conscience had an earnest battle with you and it
   seemed that you must yield to God and to His Christ--but you
   deliberately did violence to the inward principle and resolved to go on
   in sin. Do you remember that? If you do, it will sting you as does a
   serpent, now that you are under conviction of sin--and you will feel
   yourself to be the very chief of sinners on account of it, though no
   public sin may ever have stained your life.

   Well, I should not wonder, if such is your condition, that you also
   judge that there is no salvation for you--that God might save your
   mother, your brother, or your friend--but not you. You believe the
   blood of Jesus to be very precious, but you think it never will be
   applied to you. You heard, the other day, of the conversion of a friend
   and you felt glad, but at the same time you thought, "Grace will never
   come to me." When the preacher has exhorted his hearers to believe in
   Jesus Christ, you have said, "Ah, but I--I cannot! I am in a condition
   in which that Gospel is of no use to me." You think yourself an
   outcast. You feel that you deserve to be.

   You are not content to be so, but, at the same time, you could not
   blame the Lord if He left you to perish. You feel that your
   transgressions have been so great that if He should leave you out of
   His gracious plans and Grace should come to others and not to you, you
   could only bow your head in bitterest sorrow and say, "You are just, O
   God." Now, listen, you who have condemned yourself! The Lord absolves
   you! You who have shut yourself out as an outcast, you shall be
   gathered! For whereas they call you an outcast, whom no man seeks
   after, you shall be called Hephzibah, for the Lord's delight is in you!
   Only believe in Jesus Christ and cast yourself upon Him! Outcasts of
   this sort are the people who most gladly welcome Christ. People who
   have nowhere else to go but to Him--people so cast down, so full of
   sin, so everything but what they ought to be--these are the people to
   whom Christ is very precious!

   "Oh," says one, "but I do not feel like that. I cannot feel my guilt as
   I should." Very well, then, you are one of the outcasts among the
   outcasts--you do not think yourself to be as good, even, as they are!
   You are, in your own esteem, one of the worst outcasts of them all
   because you lack even the feeling of your need. You say, "I have a hard
   heart. I cannot see sin as others have seen it who have found Christ. I
   wish I could. I smite my breast and mourn that I cannot mourn,

   for if anything is felt, it is only pain to find that I cannot feel. I
   seem made of Hell-hardened steel which will not melt or

   break."

   Well, I see that you are, but, "such were some of us." We, also, knew
   our insensibility and lamented that we could not lament! But He
   gathered us! And there stands the text, "He gathers together the
   outcasts of Israel." If you have not a broken heart, only Christ can
   give it to you! If you cannot come to Him with it, go to Him for it! If
   you cannot come to Him wounded, come to Him that He may wound you and
   make you whole! You need bring nothing to Jesus! I would like to
   whisper in your ear just this--that those people who think themselves
   insensible, generally think so because they are more than usually
   sensitive. And those who think that they do not feel, are usually those
   who feel the most! I do not think we are ever good judges of our own
   feeling in this matter.

   The day may come when, in looking back, you will say, "I did, after
   all, mourn over sin when I thought that I did not. I had such a sense
   of how black it was that I felt I was not mourning enough, even when I
   was deeply mourning!" Brother, you never will mourn enough. Enough?
   Would oceans full of tears be enough to mourn the guilt of sin? No,
   but, blessed be God, we are not asked to repent or to mourn up to a
   certain standard! O outcast Soul, trust in Jesus and He will save you!
   I must not dwell, however, on this class, but proceed further to notice
   that there is another sort of people whom Jesus gathers who are even
   more truly the outcasts of Israel.

   I mean the backsliders from the Church--the outcasts of Israel who have
   been put out, and properly put out, for their unholy lives and
   inconsistent actions--those whom the Church is obliged, alas, to look
   upon as diseased members that must be removed. They are sickly sheep
   that infect the flock and must be put away. They are lepers that must
   be set aside from the camp. O Wanderer, banished from a Church, there
   is a word in the Gospel for you, also--even for the backslider! The
   Lord calls back His wandering children. Though His Church does right to
   put out those who do dishonor to His holy name, yet she would do wrong
   if she did not follow her Lord in saying, "Return, you backsliding
   children."

   It is not easy to persuade one who has been a backslider to come back
   to his first love. The return journey is uphill and flesh and blood do
   not assist us in it. Many new converts come, but the old wanderers
   remain outside and sometimes they do this because they fancy they will
   not be welcome. But if you are sincerely repenting of the sin which has
   put you away from the Church, the Church of Christ will be glad to
   receive you! And if you are, indeed, the Lord's believing one, though
   you have defiled yourself, He does not forget you! He does earnestly
   remember you, still, and He bids you come, in all your defilement, and
   wash in His atoning blood!

   The fountain that Jesus has opened is not only for strangers, when they
   are first brought near--but it is opened "for the house of David and
   for the inhabitants of Jerusalem"--those who know the Lord, that they
   may be daily purged from their transgressions and be cleansed from the
   filthiness of their backslidings. The Lord gathers together those who
   have been carried captive by their sins and makes them, once more, to
   dwell in the land of uprightness--and all His wandering sheep He brings
   back to Himself.

   The expression of the text may certainly be applied to those, also, who
   have loved the Lord for years, but who have fallen into great
   depression of spirit. We happen, every now and then, to meet with some
   of the best of God's people who get into the Slough of Despond and
   stick there by the month together--yes, by the year together! These are
   Believers who take periodically to despondency, as birds do to molting,
   and when the fit is on them you cannot cheer or comfort them. They then
   write bitter things against themselves and call themselves all the ugly
   names in the dictionary--until they make us smile to hear them--because
   we know how mistaken they are. We are admiring their consistency and
   they are mourning over their foolishness.

   We see their generosity towards the cause of God and their devotion to
   everything that is good. Yet they say there is nothing good in them. We
   know where they are, for we have been laid in iron, ourselves, and set
   fast in the very same stocks. What a mercy it is that when you who love
   the Lord thus, and sit down and commune with your despondencies-- I
   mean you, Miss Much-Afraid, you, Mr. Ready-to-Halt and you, Mr.
   Feeble-Mind--my Lord does not leave you nor judge you as you judge
   yourselves! He is pleased to gather together, in mercy, those who think
   themselves outcasts in Israel.

   Lastly, upon this point, there are some who become outcasts through
   their love to Christ and of these the text is peculiarly true. I mean
   those who suffer for righteousness' sake till they are regarded as the
   off-scouring of all things. Are there any that serve God faithfully,
   who have escaped the trial of cruel mockery? The names of those who are
   eminently

   useful are generally used as footballs for an ungodly world. The world
   is not worthy of them and yet their enemies think they are hardly
   worthy to live in the world. We do not hear much about persecution
   nowadays, but in private life there is a world of it! The cold shoulder
   is given where once friendship was sought--hard, cruel, cutting things
   are said where once admiration was expressed--and separations take
   place between good friends because of Christ.

   It is still true, in the Christian's case, that a man's foes are they
   of his own household. But if you should become an outcast upon the face
   of the earth for Christ's sake, there is this for your comfort--"The
   Lord does build up Jerusalem, He gathers together the outcasts of
   Israel." Of the persecuted He makes pillars in His holy temple forever.
   Blessed are those who are outcasts for Christ! Rich are those who are
   so honored as to be permitted to become poor for Him! Happy are they
   who have had this Grace given them--to be permitted to lay life,
   itself, down for Jesus Christ's sake!

   II. Now a few words upon the second point--IN WHAT SENSE DOES THE LORD
   JESUS GATHER TOGETHER THESE OUTCASTS OF DIFFERENT CLASSES? Of course I
   should have to vary the explanation to suit each case, but as that
   would take a long time, let me say that the Lord Jesus has several ways
   of gathering together the outcasts. He gathers them to hear the Gospel.
   Preach Jesus Christ and they will come! Both outcast saints and outcast
   sinners will come to hear the charming sound of His blessed name! They
   cannot help it. Nothing draws like Jesus Christ!

   Jesus Christ next gathers them to Himself. The parable of the wedding
   feast is repeated again, "Go out into the highways and hedges and
   compel them to come in, that My house may be filled." "Bring in here
   the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." In this sort,
   the Lord Jesus Christ gathers multitudes where He is faithfully
   preached. He gathers all sorts of characters and especially the odds
   and ends of society--the despised of men and the despised of
   themselves. He gathers them to Himself.

   And oh, what a blessed gathering place that is where there is cleansing
   for their filthiness, health for their disease, clothing for their
   nakedness and all-sufficient supplies for their abundant necessities!
   He gathers them to Himself-- which is to gather them to God--to gather
   them to blessedness and peace through reconciliation with the Father.
   "To Him shall the gathering of the people be."

   When He has done that, He gathers them into the Divine family. He takes
   the outcasts and makes them children of God--heirs with Himself. From
   the dunghill He lifts them and sets them among princes! He takes them
   from the swine trough and puts the ring on their fingers and the shoes
   on their feet--and they sit down at the Father's table to feast and to
   be glad! Jesus Christ, as the good Shepherd, gathers the lost sheep,
   the lame, the halt, the diseased and feeds them. He makes them to lie
   down and restores their souls and, finally, He leads them to the rich
   pastures of the Glory Land.

   In due time the Lord gathers together the outcasts into His visible
   Church. As David enrolled a company of men that were in debt and
   discontented, so does Jesus Christ gather the indebted ones and the
   malcontents and makes them His soldiers. These are known as the Church
   militant. Surely as David did great exploits by those Pelethites,
   Cherethites, Gittites and strange men of foreign extraction whom he
   gathered to himself, so does Jesus of Nazareth do great things by those
   great sinners whom He greatly forgives--those hard-hearted ones whom He
   so strangely changes and makes to be the Old Guard of His army.

   Yes, He gathers them into His Church and He gathers them into His work.
   The outcasts of Israel He uses for His own Glory. And when He has done
   that, He gathers them into Heaven. What a surprise it must be for any
   man to find himself in Heaven when he remembers where he once was! The
   outcast remembers the ale-bench on which he sat and soaked himself in
   liquor till he degraded himself below the brute beast. And now to be
   cleansed in the Redeemer's blood and to sit among the angels--this will
   be surprising Grace, indeed! "Oh, to think," one might well say, "that
   I, who was once in lewd company, polluted and defiled, am now made to
   wear a crown and sit at the Redeemer's feet!"

   When we reach Heaven, Brothers and Sisters, I do not suppose that we
   shall forget all the past. And sometimes it must burst in upon us as a
   strangely Divine instance of love that Christ should have brought us
   there and set us among the peers of His realm! And yet He will do it!
   And you, Mrs. Much-Afraid--you will be there! And you who think,
   "surely Satan will have me!" you will be there! You who are stumbling
   over every straw! You who seem stopped by every little gully in the
   road and who fancy, "Surely, there is no Grace in my heart." And yet
   you are still holding on, "faint, yet pursuing."

   You who touch the hem of Christ's garment, but have so little faith
   that you are afraid that you have none at all-- you shall get up from
   that mourning and moaning, you shall rise from that despondency and
   distress--and among the sweetest music of Heaven shall be your songs of
   gratitude and joy! "He gathers together the outcasts of Israel."

   III. Well, now, WHAT IS THE LESSON OF THIS? I think there are three
   lessons and I will just hint at them. One is this--encouragement to
   those who are unworthy, or think themselves so, to go to Jesus Christ
   tonight. I have been trying to think of all I know and I have lifted up
   my heart to the Holy Spirit to guide me that I may cheer some
   discouraged one. It was my objective, last Sunday night, to comfort the
   broken-hearted, and I do not seem to have gotten out of that vein, yet.

   I believe there are some here, whom God has sent me to, who really
   believe themselves to be out of the region of hope. My dear Friends, if
   God gathers together the outcasts, why should He not gather you? And if
   it is true that Jesus Christ does not look for goodness, but that He
   only considers our sin and misery, why should He not look upon you? May
   I urge you to try my Master? If you go to Him confessing your
   unworthiness and trusting yourself with Him, if He does not save you, I
   would like to know about it, because you will be the first person I
   have ever heard of that trusted himself with Jesus and was rejected! It
   will not be the case, whatever your condition may be, however desperate
   your state!

   You think your condition to be worse than I have pictured it to be and
   you fancy that I cannot know anything about how bad you are. Well, I do
   not know your special form of rebellion, but you are the very person I
   mean, for all that. I say, if you are as black as Hell. If you are as
   foul as the Stygian bog. If you have sinned till your sins cannot be
   counted and if your actions are so heinous that infinite wrath is their
   just desert--yet come and look to those five wounds and to that sacred
   head once wounded, and to that heart pierced with the spear! There is
   life in a look at Jesus crucified! Will you try it? As surely as God's
   word is true, if you do but glance your eyes at Him who "died the just
   for the unjust," you shall be brought to God and reconciled!

   And that now--note--while sitting in that seat, before the last word of
   this sermon shall be uttered, for whoever believes in Him shall be
   saved! "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
   the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not
   perish, but have eternal life." O that you would believe on Jesus now!
   We sometimes sing--

   "Venture on Him: venture wholly. Let no other trust intrude. None but
   Jesus

   Can do helpless sinners good."

   But, Sinner, it is not a venture! As surely as you cast yourself upon
   Him, He will be sure to save you! I will not multiply words, but I
   would, if I thought words would draw you. I pray the blessed and
   eternal Spirit to sweetly influence your minds, young people,
   tonight--and old people, too, and middle-aged people, too--that you may
   have done with trying to do anything, or to be anything in order to
   your own salvation, and know that it was all done when Jesus bled and
   died, all finished when He cried, "It is finished!" You have only to
   take believingly what He presents to you and accept Him as your All in
   All. God help you to do it!

   The second reflection is this. If Jesus Christ received some of us when
   we felt ourselves to be outcasts, how we ought to love Him! It does us
   good to look back to the hole of the pit from where we were dug. We get
   to be very top-lofty at times, my Brothers and Sisters. We are
   wonderfully big, are we not? Are we not experienced Christians, now?
   Why, we have known the Lord these 25 years! Dear me, how important we
   are! And perhaps we are deacons of Churches, or, at any rate, we have a
   class in the Sunday school and we pray in the Prayer
   Meetings--considerable importance attaches to us and we are high and
   mighty on that account.

   Ah, I have heard say of a man worth his thousands that once he had not
   a shirt on his back--and if he remembered what he sprang from he would
   not carry his head so high! I do not see much in that, but I do see
   something in this--that if we remembered the time when we were dead in
   trespasses and sins. When we had not a rag to cover us. When we were
   under God's frown and were heirs of wrath even as others--if we
   remembered our lost and ruined state by nature--I am sure that we
   should not lift our heads so very loftily and want to have respect paid
   to us in the Church, or think that God ought not to deal so very
   harshly with us, as if we had cause for complaint!

   Dear Friends, let us remember what we used to be, and that will keep us
   low in our own esteem. But, oh, how it will fire us with zeal to
   remember from what a depth He has lifted us up! Did Jesus save such a
   wretch as I was? Then for Him would I live and for Him would I die!
   This ought to be the utterance of us all. We ought to live in that
   spirit. God grant we may! Then, again, let us always feel that if the
   Lord Jesus Christ took us up when we were not worth having, we will
   never be ashamed to try and pick up others who are in the same
   condition. We will not count it any lowering of our dignity to go after
   the most fallen of all. We will reckon that they are no worse than we
   were, if we were viewed from a certain point, and we will, therefore,
   aim at their conversion, hope for it and expect it!

   This lesson is peculiarly applicable to some Christians here present.
   Dear Brothers and Sisters, if you really feel yourselves to have been
   outcasts and yet have been received into the Divine family--and are now
   on the road to Heaven--I ask you to pay every attention to any whom you
   meet with who are, now, what you once were! If you meet with any in
   great despair of soul, say, "Ah, I must be a comforter here, for I have
   gone through this. I will never let this poor soul go till, by God's
   help, I have cheered him." If you meet with one who is an open sinner,
   perhaps you will have to say to yourself, "I was an open sinner, too."
   But if not, say, "My sins were more secret, but still they were as bad
   as his and, therefore, I have hope of this poor soul and will try
   whether he cannot be loved to Christ by me."

   Mark my expression--"loved to Christ," for that is the power we must
   use--sinners are to be loved to Christ! The Holy Spirit uses the love
   of saints to bring poor sinners to know the love of Christ! Search
   after them and do not let them perish. May God put this resolve into
   your soul--"If there is anything that I can do, in the name of Jesus,
   and with the power of the Holy Spirit upon me, that might save that
   soul, it shall be done and, if that soul dies lost, when I hear the
   passing bell I will, God helping me, be able to say, 'I did set Christ
   before that soul. I did plead with that conscience. I did seek to bring
   that sinner to Jesus.'"

   The outcast, when converted, should seek after his brother outcasts.
   Young man, did you ever swear? Seek the conversion of swearers! Young
   man, have you been fond of the card table? Have you been a frequenter
   of low resorts of pleasure? Then addict yourself to looking after
   persons of the same sort! George Whitefield says that after his own
   conversion his first concern was the conversion of those with whom he
   had taken pleasure in sin. And he had the privilege of seeing many of
   them brought to Christ! Have you been a man of business and have you
   been associated in wrongdoing with others? Seek the salvation of those
   who were associated with you! It is a natural obligation which Christ
   imposes upon all of any special sort, that they should seek those of
   their own sort, and labor to bring them to repentance.

   May God bless you, Beloved. We shall soon be in Heaven. I can see some
   here tonight who, owing to their age, cannot be long before they enter
   the Glory of Christ. I see others of us who are younger, who do not
   know, from feebleness of health, how long it may be before we see the
   face of the Beloved. But we would say of Him tonight, what a blessed
   Savior He is and what an infinity of love there must be in Him to have
   ever revealed Himself to such as we are!

   Oh, when shall we be near Him and worship Him forever and ever? Make no
   tarrying, O our Beloved!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 147. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--587; 147 (SONG II.); 784.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Believer in the Body and Out of the Body

   (No. 1303)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 2, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Now He that has prepared us for the same thing is God, who also has
   given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always
   confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are
   absent from the Lord, (for we walk by faith, not by sight). We are
   confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to
   be present with the Lord. Therefore we labor, that, whether present or
   absent, we may be accepted of Him. For we must all appear before the
   Judgment Seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in
   his body, according to that he has done, whether it is good or bad." 2
   Corinthians 5:5-10.

   IT is quite clear that the Apostle did not consider his body to be
   himself. He speaks of it as being the frail tent or tabernacle in which
   he dwelt and, again, as the garment with which, for a while, he was
   clothed. That tent or tabernacle he expected to see dissolved. And that
   garment he expected to put off. He distinguished between the outward
   man which would perish and the inward man, which was his true self,
   which he speaks of as, "renewed day by day." The Apostle reckoned upon
   rising here in the body, according to the Divine will, till he had
   finished the work which was given him to do. And then he expected to
   put off his mortal flesh and to be an unclothed and disembodied spirit.

   Such is the condition, at the present time, of all the saints who have
   departed. They are well described as "the spirits of just men made
   perfect." With the exception of Enoch and Elijah, who carried their
   bodies with them into the celestial world, all departed Believers are
   now spirits unclothed of their bodies and wearing only such array as
   befits spiritual existences. Is it difficult to conceive of them in
   that condition? I do not think it should be. Spirits without bodies are
   not such marvelous things as spirits in bodies!

   You meet, everyday, as you walk the streets, spirits in bodies, spirits
   that quicken flesh and bone and muscle and move a mass of material from
   place to place. If we had never seen such a thing as a body kept in
   life and filled with power by an immaterial, invisible and spiritual
   substance, it would be a very hard thing to realize. No man among us
   knows how it is that this inner spirit of ours is connected with the
   body. Where is the point of union? What is the link between soul and
   sinew? Where does spirit begin and where does matter end? We know that
   if we will to move our arm it is moved, but how does the mind that
   wills, manage to grasp the materialism which obeys its bidding? How is
   spirit capable of acting upon matter at all?

   How is it that a spirit can dwell within an abode of flesh, look out of
   these eyes, listen through these ears, speak by these lips and perform
   its will by these hands? Eyes and ears and hands are but earth--they
   are made of such matter as we meet with in other parts of the solid
   world, mere dust of the earth, materialism wisely molded--but yet
   corruptible materialism. And yet the soul somehow manages to indwell
   and inhabit its house of clay--a far more wonderful thing, it seems to
   me, than for a spirit to exist without a body! We shall find it easy to
   conceive of a spirit disentangled of materialism in proportion as we
   have learned to meditate upon spiritual things and to feel the powers
   of the world to come.

   Multitudes around us know nothing of anything which does not appeal to
   their senses. But the man who has been renewed by the Spirit of God is,
   himself, made spiritually minded and, therefore, the idea of
   disembodied spirits is not strange to him. Let us, according to
   Scripture, look forward to a condition in which our perfected spirits
   shall abide with Christ, "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
   redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:23). Yet Paul did not expect that the
   disembodied state would last forever, for he was assured of the
   resurrection of the body.

   He did not despise the body so as to hope never to see it again, but he
   reckoned that after it had been put off, it would undergo a change and
   thus would be so renovated that at the coming of the Lord he would put
   it on afresh--and so his spirit would again be clothed! He expected
   that mortality would be swallowed up by life. And we, also, confidently

   indulge the same hope. The fabric which was put into the ground when
   the Believer was buried was sown in corruption. We expect to see it
   raised in perfection.

   That which we laid in the tomb the other day was a poor dishonored
   corpse on which decay was working its fierce will. But we shall see it
   raised in glory, radiant with the light which made Moses' face shine!
   That which we committed to Mother Earth, we lowered into the grave in
   weakness, but it shall as surely rise in power! That which was buried
   was a soulish body, only fit for the natural soul. It was not adapted
   for the movements and aspirations of the regenerated spirit. But we
   know that when it shall rise, it will be a spiritual body adapted to
   our highest nature, fitted to be the palace of that gracious life which
   makes us sons of God! The Apostle's great expectation was the
   perfection of his entire manhood--spirit, soul and body in Christ
   Jesus!

   He was confident in the expectation that though his body would be
   houseless for awhile, by the dissolving of his earthly tabernacle, he
   would soon enter into a building of God, a house not made with hands,
   eternal, in the heavens, and stand before the Presence of God both as
   to his body and his soul made perfect in Christ Jesus! This was
   confident expectation. From the text it is clear that this belief had a
   powerful influence over the Apostle. It had especially two effects upon
   him--one was to make him "always confident" and the other was to create
   in him a high ambition.

   "Therefore," he says, "we labor, that, whether present or absent, we
   may be accepted of Him." He felt that wherever he might be and in
   whatever condition he might exist, the only thing he had to care for
   was that he might be pleasing to Him who had redeemed him with His
   precious blood. And so, whether in the body or out of the body, it
   mattered little to him so long as he could be accepted of the Lord in
   Jesus Christ. Of the Apostle's confidence and ambition we are going to
   speak this morning, as the Spirit of God may graciously help us.

   I. And first, dear Friends, THE BELIEVER HAS REASON FOR CONSTANT
   CONFIDENCE. The Apostle tells

   us, "Therefore we are always confident." And then, again, lest we
   should lose the sense by the interjected sentence in the seventh verse,
   he says, again, "We are confident, I say." The condition, then, of the
   Christian, when he is living in faith of resurrection and eternal life,
   is a condition of continual confidence. It is a confidence which
   regards both the life which now is and the state in which we expect to
   live before we reach the fullness of the promised Glory. It is a
   confidence which concerns the present state--for while we are at home
   in the body, we are always confident--a confidence which equally
   concerns, and rather more so, the state which is to come. "We are
   confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to
   be present with the Lord."

   First, let me speak with you upon the confidence which the Believer has
   in reference to his present condition while he is at home in the body.
   Our translators have been somewhat unfortunate in their choice of terms
   in this instance, for they have lost part of the interest of the
   passage. We should have seen more beauty in these words if they had
   given us their literal meaning a little more closely. Let me read them
   to you as they may be read--"We are always confident, knowing that,
   while we are at home in the body, we are from home as to the Lord. We
   are confident, I say, and willing rather to be from home as to the body
   and to be at home with the Lord. Why we labor, that, whether from home,
   or at home, we may be accepted of Him."

   You see the point lies in at home and from home. These words are as
   near an approach to the original as could readily be found, though they
   do not exhaust the sense of the Greek terms. Here, then, in the present
   state, we are said to be at home in the body. But we are at home in a
   very modified sense, for it is a home which is not a home, but only a
   frail lodging, a temporary tenement to accommodate us till we reach our
   true and real home in the New Jerusalem. It is such a home as a soldier
   has in the camp at a bivouac, or as a passenger has when he is crossing
   from continent to continent. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had each a home,
   but it was in a strange country and they were daily looking for a city
   which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

   While we are in this present state we are at a disadvantage, for we are
   dwelling in a house which is not, as yet, in our home country, and by
   it we are kept from our real home in the fatherland above. In a sense,
   however, this body is a home, for here dwells the living, thinking,
   active mind--somewhere in the brain--from where it spreads itself and
   rules all the members of the body. We know that within the walls of
   this earthly fabric, our spirit is ordained to live for awhile, a lamp
   burning within a pitcher, a precious jewel set in a ring of clay. It is
   a house for which we have no little affection, and we are loath to quit
   it--

   "For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

   This pleasing, anxious being ever resigned, Left the warm precincts of
   this house of clay, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?"

   We complain of the infirmities of our bodies, but we are in no hurry to
   leave them! They threaten to fall upon as in their decay, but we linger
   in them, still, till death serves a writ of ejection and, at the same
   time, pulls down the tenement. We have, some of us, lived in our body
   for 40 years. Some of you for 60 or 70 years and it is natural that we
   should have made a home of it, such as it is. And it is small marvel
   that we are in no haste to emigrate--even the temptation of that
   brighter home and the "many mansions"--is not always enough to make us
   wish to be gone! But yet this body is not a fitting home for us and we
   often discover, by experience, how inconvenient it is.

   It is a poor old tent, easily overturned, constantly getting torn. And
   the older it gets, the more trouble it takes to patch it up and to keep
   it in habitable repair. In the course of years it has become soiled,
   creased and worn-out, like the tents of Kedar. With the wear and tear
   of many years, it becomes more and more evident that it is not a worthy
   dwelling place for the child of a King, nor a fit abode for an immortal
   Spirit born from on high! We have suffered many inconveniences from
   this crumbling tabernacle in many ways, but especially in spiritual
   things. We have been willing to watch, but the body has been inclined
   to sleep. The spirit has been willing, but the flesh has been very
   weak. We have been numbered with weariness, pain, care and bodily
   appetite when we have desired to be altogether engrossed with heavenly
   things.

   Sometimes, when we would sing, a throbbing headache makes us sigh. When
   we would rejoice with unspeakable joy, a palpitating heart depresses
   us. And when we would go about our Master's business, a lame foot or a
   decaying constitution hinders us so that we dwell in a house which is
   beneath the quality of so noble a creature as a spirit. We have to put
   up with flesh and blood, but we are outgrowing them--we feel we
   are--there is a something within us which warns us that, like certain
   of the sea creatures which have to break their shells up as they grow,
   so we are growingly in need of another and better abode.

   We are like the young chick within the eggshell--it has been a home for
   us until now, but it is becoming too tight for us--we begin to chip it
   and we sometimes wish it would break altogether, that we might enjoy
   fuller liberty. "We that are in this body do groan, being burdened,"
   and groan, we shall, till the day of our full redemption and the
   deliverance of the body from the bondage of corruption!--

   "Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge, That sets my longing soul at
   large, Unbinds my chains, breaks up my cell, And lets me with my God to
   dwell." According to the expression of the Greek, ours is a home in a
   foreign country. We are not dwelling among our own people at present,
   but we are exiles in a far-off land. We are not alone, for a numerous
   band of our Brothers and Sisters are with us, even as the Jews found
   company of their own race in Babylon, in whose songs and sighs they
   could unite. But this is exile to us, we have no inheritance here. "A
   possession of a burying place" is all that we need ask for and all that
   we shall soon have, for this world is not our rest.

   The Lord has not been pleased to give us our portion in this life--our
   inheritance lies on the other side of the Jordan. We are at home in the
   body, but, as I have already said, it is but a lodging place in the
   midst of a strange country in which we are pilgrims and sojourners as
   all our fathers were. We are wayfaring men hastening away and passing
   through a foreign land among people who speak not our tongue, know not
   our customs, understand nothing of the place to which we are going and,
   therefore, cannot understand us. They even think us mad when we talk
   about another country, of which they have no idea, and for which they
   have no longing. We are at home only in a narrow sense, as a man may be
   said to be at home when, being in banishment, he takes up his abode,
   for awhile, in a foreign town. It can never be more than this.

   It is a home, too, which keeps us from our true home. We are not yet
   where we can see our Lord and hear His voice. We are not yet in the
   "rest which remains for the people of God." Today we are at school,
   like children whose great holiday joy is to go home. We are laborers
   and this is the work field. When we have done our day's work we shall
   go home, but this is the workshop, not the home. It is a very sweet
   thing, after a week of hard work, to reach home at last, to take off
   one's dusty clothes and throw them aside and feel that toil is over for
   the present and rest has come. In this world we

   cannot find a total rest so as to be completely at ease and at home. We
   shall only reach that happy condition when we are out of this foreign
   world.

   No sense of perfect home rest ever comes over the soul while we are
   here, except as faith anticipates the joys prepared above. There
   remains a rest for the people of God, but in this body and in this
   world it is not to be had. Home is the place where one feels
   secure--our house is our castle. Outside, in the world, men watch your
   words and, if they can, they misrepresent or misinterpret them. You
   have to fight a battle of life, outside, but it is a very blessed thing
   if the battle is over when you cross your own threshold. Then you are
   no longer misunderstood, but are appreciated and loved around your own
   fireside. Beneath our own dear rooftree there is nobody to catch us up,
   nobody to quibble at us! Only wife and children and friends who love us
   and delight in us.

   Well, Brothers and Sisters, we find no such home spiritually in this
   world, for this is the place of conflict and watchfulness. Here we
   dwell among enemies and we have to sorrowfully cry--"My soul is among
   lions, among those that are set on fire of Hell." We sing--

   "Woe's me that I in Mesech am A sojourner so long!

   That I in tabernacles dwell

   To Kedar that belong.

   My soul with him that hates peace

   Has long a dweller been:

   I am for peace; but when I speak,

   For battle they are keen.

   My heart mourns and pines

   To reach that peaceful shore,

   Where all the weary are at rest, And troublers vex no more."

   In Heaven there will be no foes to watch against, nor men of our own
   household to be our worst enemies. Home, sweet home is to be found
   above--and from that home our present home in the body is keeping us.
   Home, too, is the place of the closest and sweetest familiarities.
   There all unbend. The judge takes off his gown and the soldier his
   sword--and both play with their children. He who wears his belt out of
   doors, finds himself stripped of it when he comes among his own kin.
   There is the kiss of affection, there are the blandishments of love.
   Here, alas, our spirits cannot take their fill of heavenly
   familiarities, for distance comes between. We long for the vision of
   love, but it comes not as yet.

   But up there what indulgence shall be accorded to us! What discoveries
   of the love of God in Christ Jesus! Then shall the cry of the spouse in
   the song be fulfilled forever and ever--"Let Him kiss me with the
   kisses of His mouth: for Your love is better than wine." Then shall the
   inmost heart of Christ be known to us and we shall dwell in Him forever
   and ever in closest communion! This home of ours in the body keeps us
   away from such communion with God as the glorified ones above enjoy
   without ceasing! Said I not, truly, that our present state has its
   drawbacks--such as make a man sigh and cry to be gone?

   But, dear Friends, the main point in which the present state is at a
   disadvantage compared with the future one is that here we have to live
   entirely by faith. We walk here by faith, not by sight. You believe in
   God, but you have not beheld His Glory as the blessed dead have done.
   You believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is in One "whom having not
   seen, you love." You believe in the Holy Spirit and you have been
   conscious of His Presence, by faith, but there is a something better
   yet--a clearer sight is yet to be had which we cannot enjoy while we
   tarry here. At present we take everything on the testimony of God's
   Word and the witness of His Spirit, but we have not yet seen the
   Celestial City, nor heard the voice of harpers harping with their
   harps, nor eaten at the banquets of the glorified!

   We enjoy a foretaste of all these and anticipate them by faith, but
   actual enjoyments are not for this world. What a man sees, why does he
   yet hope for? This place is the realm of hope we cannot expect to see.
   But we are going to the place where we shall not so much believe as
   behold, where we shall not so much expect as enjoy! We are nearing the
   country where we shall--

   "See and hear, and know,

   All we desired or wished below."

   And faith shall be exchanged for the clearest sight. Here we gaze
   through the telescope at heavenly things, but we cannot get into
   contact with them as we wish to do. But when we have shaken you off, O
   flesh, then shall we actually come into sight and fruition--and shall
   behold the Savior, as He is--face to face!

   These are the inconveniences, then, of this present state, but Paul,
   despite all these disadvantages was confident. "We are always
   confident," says he. He was contented, he was happy, he was courageous,
   he was steadfast! And why? Why, Brothers and Sisters, because he had a
   hope of the immortality to be revealed! He knew that as soon as ever he
   shook off this body, his soul would be with Christ! He knew that in
   some future day, when Christ should come, his body and his soul,
   remarried, should be forever beatified with the Lord and, therefore, he
   counted all the disadvantages of this life to be as nothing--"these
   light afflictions which are but for a moment."

   He laughed to scorn anything that he had to suffer here below, because
   of the "exceeding weight of Glory" which his faith realized, as soon,
   to be revealed! Observe, also, that his confidence came from God's work
   in his soul. "He that has prepared us to the same thing is God." He was
   sure he should one day be perfect and immortal because God had begun to
   work in him to that very end! When the statuary takes the block of
   stone and begins to carve it into a statue, we get the promise of that
   which is to be. I no sooner see the master workman take the first
   stroke, than I feel sure of a work of art, because I see that he has
   begun to work towards that end. From that work the mason may turn
   aside, or he may die and, therefore, I cannot be sure that from the
   chosen stone there will leap out, by-and-by, the statue.

   But God never undertakes what He does not finish! He never fails for
   lack of power, or because of a change of mind. And so, if today I am
   the quarried block of marble--if He has begun to make the first
   chippings in me of genuine repentance and simple faith towards
   Himself--I have the sure prophecy that He intends to work upon me till
   He has worked me up into the perfect image of Christ, to be immortal
   and immaculate like my Lord! Paul, by faith, knew that by a Divine
   decree, before all worlds were created, he was predestinated to be made
   a perfect and immortal being! He saw that God had created him for that
   very purpose and newly created him to that end.

   He felt the working of God preparing him--he could feel the Spirit of
   God operating in him, giving him newness of life, causing him to hate
   sin and to receive, more and more fully, the likeness of Christ, his
   Master. "He has prepared me for the same thing," said the Apostle and,
   therefore, he felt confident that to this end he should be brought.
   Again, there was another ground of confidence--"who also has given unto
   us the earnest of the Spirit." You know what an "earnest" is. It is not
   a mere pledge, for a pledge is returned when that which it certifies is
   given. An earnest is a part of the promise

   itself.

   A man is to receive a wage at the end of the week. In the middle of the
   week he obtains a part of the money. This is more than a pledge of the
   rest--it is an earnest of the whole--a most sure and positive pledge of
   that which remains unpaid. The man who has received the Spirit of God
   in his soul has obtained the Immortal Seed which will expand into
   perfection! He is forgiven and accepted! And the Spirit helps his
   infirmities in prayer, fills him with faith, perfumes him with love,
   adorns him with holiness and makes him commune with God--all this is
   the earnest of his perfected condition-- and the beginning of the joys
   to come! The beginning of the infallible assurance of all those joys
   which the Lord has prepared for them that love Him!

   No man ever had the Spirit of God dwelling in him, molding him to the
   Divine will, but what he ultimately obtained the heavenly state, for
   the Spirit of God does not leave His work undone. Neither does He
   bestow Divine gifts to take them away again. "Therefore," says Paul,
   "we are always confident." We have a hope which enters into that which
   is within the veil. We know what image the Lord is working in us and we
   have received the Holy Spirit as the earnest of eternal blessedness!
   Therefore, come what may, we are filled with a sacred courage and a
   sublime peace which make us await the future with calmest confidence.

   Now we shall pass on to the next point, which is that Paul was equally
   confident about the next state into which he expected, soon, to pass,
   namely, the condition of a disembodied spirit. Nature, when it acts
   apart from Grace, shrinks from the thought of dying. But death can have
   no terrors for the man whom it lands in a condition which he prefers.
   By turning to the text, we see that Paul preferred the state into which
   death would cast him. "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to
   be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." That is, we
   have a preference for being away from this home in the body, that we
   may be at home with the Lord! He looked at the state into which he
   would soon come by the dissolution of his body as a more desirable one
   than even his life of confidence here below!

   Yet let us observe that it was not because Paul thought it would be
   better to be without a body than with one that he thus spoke. He has
   told us already, "not for that we would be unclothed." He did not
   desire to be a disembodied spirit for its own sake. There are certain
   mystics who look upon the body as a wretched encumbrance. The thought
   of resurrection has no pleasure to them and, therefore, they
   spiritualize the doctrine and make it to be no resurrection at all. The
   Apostle was not of their mind. He called the body the temple of God and
   desired its perfection, not its destruction.

   The Lord has constituted man to be a wonderful continuation of many
   forms of existence--a link between the angel and the animal, a mixture
   of the Divine and the material--a comprehensive being taking up into
   himself the Heaven which is above him and the earth on which he treads.
   Our great Creator does not mean us to be maimed creatures forever. He
   intends us to dwell with Him eternally in the perfection of our
   humanity. When our Lord Jesus died, He did not redeem one half of man,
   but the whole man--and He means not to leave any part of the purchased
   possession in the enemy's hands.

   We ought not to think that to be half a man would be more desirable
   than to be a whole man, for our Lord Jesus does not think so. We should
   be waiting, expectantly, for the Second Advent of our Lord, who will
   call His saints from their tombs and redeem them altogether from the
   power of the grave. We should, even now, rejoice that this corruptible
   must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. It
   will be evident to you all, dear Friends, that if Paul preferred the
   disembodied state to this, as the text tells us he did, then the
   spirits of those saints who have left their bodies in the grave are not
   annihilated--they live on!

   Paul could not have counted it better to be annihilated than to lead a
   life of holy confidence. The saints are not dead! Our Lord gave a
   conclusive answer to that error when He said, "Now that the dead are
   raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calls the Lord, the God
   of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a
   God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him." Those who
   have departed this life are still alive! We are sure of that, or else
   Paul would not have preferred that state. Neither are they unconscious,
   as some say, for who would prefer torpor to active confidence? Whatever
   trials there may be in the Christian life here below, the man of faith
   really does enjoy life and could not prefer unconsciousness.

   Neither are the saints in purgatorial fires, as the Babylonian harlot
   says! Nobody would desire to be tormented and we may be sure that the
   Apostle Paul would not have been willing to be in purgatory more than
   to live here and serve his Lord! Brothers and Sisters, the saints live!
   They live in consciousness and in happiness! Moses came and talked with
   Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, though he had no body, just as
   readily as Elijah did, though that mighty Prophet carried his body with
   him when he ascended in a chariot of fire. The body is not necessary to
   consciousness or to happiness. The best of all is that the spirits of
   the departed are with Christ. "To be with Christ, which is far better,"
   said the Apostle. "Forever with the Lord," their portion is allotted
   them.

   It is the Lord's own prayer--"I will that they, also, whom You have
   given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." And
   the prayer is fulfilled in them! "Blessed are the dead which die in the
   Lord from now on, yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their
   labors; and their works do follow them." This made the Apostle
   something more than confident and courageous in the prospect of death.
   He was willing to depart into the disembodied state because he knew he
   would be at home with the Lord in it!

   I wish you to dwell a minute on that thought of being at home with the
   Lord. We rejoice that we have Christ with us here, spiritually, for His
   Presence brings us spiritual blessings of a very high order, and joys
   prophetic of the joys of Heaven, but still we have not His bodily
   Presence. We have, now, a sight of our Lord through a telescope, as it
   were. But we do not see Him near at hand. We speak to Him as through a
   trumpet across the sea--we do not talk to Him face to face. Ah, what
   will it be to be at home with Christ! When we reach His own palace gate
   and sit at His own table, we shall know Him far better than we do now!
   And He will look more lovely in our eyes than ever, because we shall
   see Him more clearly.

   The sound of His voice will be much sweeter than anything we have heard
   in the Gospel here below, for we shall actually hear Him speak! Will we
   not take our fill of Him when we once behold Him? I think I shall never
   want to take my eyes off Him, but find a Heaven, an eternity, an
   infinity of bliss in drinking Him in with all my eyes and all my heart!
   To be at home with Him will be to understand infinitely more of Him
   than we have ever dreamed of as yet. Ah, you do not know His Glory! You
   could not bear to behold it as yet. You would fall at His feet as dead,
   in a swoon of delight, if you

   could but gaze upon Him while you are yet in this frail body! When
   disembodied you shall not have the flesh to throw a mist over your
   eyes, but you shall behold the King in His beauty and be able to bear
   the joy.

   In that condition to which we are speeding, we shall also be beyond all
   doubt as to the truth of our holy faith. There will be no more mistrust
   of our Lord or of His promises. And we shall no more doubt the power of
   His blood or our share in His atoning Sacrifice. Sometimes the dark
   atheistic thought will come, "Is it not all a dream?" You shall never
   have such a thought, there, for you will be at home with Jesus! Now
   there arises the troublesome question, Were you a real Believer? Has
   Jesus really washed you in His blood? You will be beyond all such
   enquiries when you are absent from the body and present with the Lord!

   Now you have to walk by faith and you must not try to get beyond faith,
   for that is the mode of spiritual life for this present state. But
   after death you will no more walk by faith--you will have sight and
   fruition--and these will banish all the doubts which try your faith
   while in the body. How pleasant and desirable does the prospect of
   actual fruition cause Heaven to become, even though we know that, for
   awhile, we shall be away from the body. In the future state we shall
   communicate with Christ more sensibly than we do now. Here we speak
   with Him, but it is by faith through the Spirit of God. In Heaven we
   shall actually speak to Him in His immediate Presence and hear His
   voice while He personally speaks to us.

   Ah, what we shall have to tell Him! What will He have to tell us!
   Truly, I dare not venture into these great deeps of expectation lest I
   drown myself in the delights of hope! Oh, the joy which awaits us! It
   is almost too much for me to think of! When we are at home with Him,
   without the body, and also, I suppose, even more when we are at home in
   the resurrection body, we shall have greater capacity for taking in the
   Glory of our Lord than we have now. Sometimes He fills us with His love
   which passes knowledge and then we think we know very much of Him. But
   oh, my Brothers and Sisters, our knowledge is but that of little babes
   as yet! We are such small and shallow vessels that a few drops of
   Christ's love soon fill us up and we begin running over! But He will
   enlarge us till we hold great measures of Him and, then, He will fill
   us with all the fullness of God!

   You have, sometimes, tried to imagine what Heaven must be like. Well,
   you shall have many such heavens! No, ten thousand times as much
   delight in God as you have ever dreamed of! If even here He does for us
   exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or think, what will He do for
   us there? As for His Person and His sweetness--and His excellence and
   His Glory--you have only touched the hem of His garment! You have only,
   like Jonathan, dipped the end of your rod in that flood of honey and it
   has enlightened your eyes! But oh, when you shall be at home with Him,
   you shall feast to your heart's content! Here we sip, but there we
   shall drink full bowls! Here we eat our daily morsel, but there the
   heavenly feast will never break up!

   Now, putting these two things together, the present state and the next,
   we have great reason, like the Apostle, to go on, from day to day, with
   holy courage and confidence. If the way is rough, it leads to an
   unspeakably joyful end--so let us trip over it cheerfully! And if the
   way should grow rougher, still, let us show still greater confidence,
   for one hour with our God will make up for it all and infinitely more!

   II. The last point I can only spend a few minutes upon. It is this--THE
   BELIEVER HAS REASONS FOR AN ABSORBING AMBITION. According to the text,
   we are to live alone for Jesus--"Why we labor, that, whether present or
   absent, we may be accepted of Him." From now on, my Brothers and
   Sisters, the one great thing we have to care about is to please our
   Lord. You are saved and Heaven is your portion. Now, from this time on,
   concentrate all your thoughts, your faculties and your energies upon
   this one design--to be acceptable with Jesus Christ. Live for Him as He
   has died for you. Live for Him alone.

   Believer, it ought to be your ambition to please Christ in every act
   you do. Do not say, "How will this please myself or please my
   neighbor?" But ask, "How will this please my Lord?" And, remember, it
   is not by the action, alone, that He will be pleased, but the motive
   must be right or you will fail. Oh, cry to Him to keep your motives
   clean, pure, elevated, heavenly--for groveling aims will be a sour
   leaven and will render the whole loaf unfit to offer. Nor is it merely
   the motive--it is the spirit in which the whole thing is done. Labor,
   Brothers and Sisters, with a Divine ambition to please Jesus Christ in
   your thoughts, in your wishes, in your desires, in everything that is
   about you.

   I know you will have to lament many shortcomings and errors. There will
   be much about you that will be displeasing to Him. Take care that it is
   also displeasing to you and never be pleased with that which does not
   please Him. Never accept any-

   thing in yourself which He would not accept. With all your ardent
   spirit watch every movement of your soul that no power or passion so
   moves as to vex His Holy Spirit. Seek to please Him every moment while
   you are upon the earth. You know what sort of things Jesus did and what
   He would like you to do--follow His every step--obey His every word.

   He has bid you walk in holiness as He did, O sin not against Him! He
   bids you clothe the naked, feed the hungry, teach the ignorant, visit
   the sick, look after the fatherless and widows--all these things He
   speaks of as peculiarly pleasing to Himself and as mentionable to the
   honor of His saints in the day of His appearing. Let these things be in
   you and abound in you! Be fruitful in those Graces which were most
   conspicuous in Him. Do not let a day pass without doing something with
   the one objective of pleasing Christ.

   We do a great deal because it is customary, or because Church opinion
   expects it. But to do holy acts directly for Christ, simply and alone
   for love of Him--this should be our constant habit. Have we not some
   alabaster box to break to anoint His head? Have we not some tears with
   which to wash His feet? Need I urge that something, however humble,
   should frequently be done, even at the cost of self-denial, for His
   dear sake? Yes, let everything be done as unto Him. For then, mark this
   last, we shall please Him in the next state, for, "we must all appear
   before the Judgment Seat of Christ." The child of God is glad of this!

   The text might be translated, "we shall all be manifested before the
   Judgment Seat of Christ." Today men do not understand us, but they will
   know us in that day! I will guarantee you this one thing--if you will
   live the most devoted and disinterested life possible--you will find
   people sneering at you and imputing your actions to selfish motives.
   They will put a cruel construction on all you do or say. Well, it does
   not matter, for we shall all be manifested at the Judgment Seat of
   Christ, before God and men and angels! Let us live to please Him, for
   our integrity of motive will be known at the last, and put beyond all
   dispute!

   The world said of one man that he preached from selfish motives, while
   all the time he had no thought but for God's Glory. The Lord will make
   it clear how false was the judgment of men. They said of another man
   that he was very earnest, but that he wanted to win popularity. Yet all
   the while he cared not one straw for human praise. Such a man need not
   trouble himself--the smoke will clear away in that Great Day and he
   will be seen in his uprightness! If you have lived only to please
   Christ, you need not be afraid of His coming, for in that day He shall
   clear away all slander and misrepresentation--and you shall stand out
   vindicated and justified before an assembled universe!

   In that day, when God shall publicly justify His saints, He will make
   all men, angels and devils know that they are truly just. The solemn
   verdict of God will be one to which the whole universe of intelligent
   spirits will give in their assent. They will say, "YES," to the
   sentence passed by the Lord Jesus! They, themselves, would bring in a
   verdict in favor of Believers in that last testing day if it were left
   to them! As for the ungodly, the condemning sentence shall be not only
   just, but such as the whole universe shall assent to! The punishment
   which God will lay upon sinners for the evil deeds done in the body,
   will not then be caviled at, as too severe! It will be such a sentence
   as every intelligent spirit shall be compelled to own to be right.

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, let us so live that while our lives shall
   challenge no judgment on the score of merit--for that thought we
   utterly abhor--yet there shall be in our lives evidences of our having
   received Grace from God and evidences of our being acceptable with
   Christ. For if we do not so live, we may talk what we like about faith
   and boast what we please about experience--without holiness no man
   shall see the Lord. If our life has never had in it that which pleases
   Christ, then the evidence will be taken against us that we were not
   pleasing to Him, that we had no spiritual life, that we had no Grace in
   the heart and that we were not saved. Then there will remain nothing
   for us but to be condemned with the ungodly.

   Come, then, Brothers and Sisters, do not let us care whether we live or
   die! Let us not suffer ourselves to be alarmed about the passage out of
   this world into the next state, but let us be "steadfast, unmovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord." I have been twice to the
   grave this week, with two of our aged friends--a Sister and a
   Brother--who have passed into Glory. And the lesson which they have
   left behind for our edification is--let us not be concerned whether we
   are at home in the body or whether we are at home with Christ, but,
   living or dying, let us be careful to please Jesus!

   I wish I knew how to enforce this lesson and send it home to every
   Believer's heart, but I must rather pray the Holy Spirit to do so. May
   He write it on my soul and on yours! And may we all be found practicing
   it from this time forth, even forever. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Corinthians 4:14-18; 5.
   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--865, 858, 850.
     __________________________________________________________________

Enquire of the Lord

   (No. 1304)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 9, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "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. 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." Ezekiel 36:37,38.

   MULTIPLICATION is a very ancient form of blessing. The first
   benediction pronounced upon man was of this sort, for we read in the
   first chapter of Genesis, "And God blessed them, and God said unto
   them: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." That same
   blessing was pronounced, again, when God accepted His servant Noah, and
   entered into covenant with him. We read in Genesis 9:1 that "God
   blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply
   and replenish the earth." This also constituted a main part of the
   blessing promised to faithful Abraham. In Genesis 22:17, and many other
   places, we read to this effect, "In blessing I will bless you, and in
   multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of Heaven, and as
   the sand which is upon the seashore, and your seed shall possess the
   gate of his enemies."

   This was the blessing of God's chosen people, a blessing which all the
   malice of Pharaoh could not turn aside, for the more the Israelites
   were oppressed, the more they multiplied. David, in the 107th Psalm
   uses the expression, "He blesses them, also, so that they are
   multiplied greatly" (v. 38), so that, clearly, increase of numbers in
   families and nations was anciently regarded as a token of Divine favor.
   In a spiritual sense this is the blessing of the Church of God. When
   the Church is visited by the power of the Holy Spirit, she is increased
   on every side. When a Church, in the midst of a vast population,
   remains stationary in numbers, or even becomes smaller, no man can see
   in such a condition the marks of God's blessing. Certainly it would be
   a novel sort of benediction, for the first blessing, the blessing of
   Pentecost, resulted in 3,000 being added to the Church in one day! And
   we find afterwards that, "The Lord added to the Church daily such as
   should be saved."

   We read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Churches, "walking in the
   fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, were
   multiplied." Ever since those early days, when the Lord has been with
   His people, they have increased in numbers. Their children have sprung
   up as among the grass and as willows by the water courses. When they
   have been "diminished and brought low," it has been because they have
   departed from the Truth of God or lost their first love. The result is
   the clearness of Gospel testimony has been dimmed, spirituality has
   been at a low ebb, the Holy Spirit has been despised and He has
   suspended His operations--and the Church has dwindled down till she has
   had little more than a name to live. But as soon as the Lord has
   returned to her, she has become a fruitful mother and her children have
   cried out, "the place is too strait for us, give place to us that we
   may dwell."

   When the Lord has sent forth His power with the preaching of the
   Gospel, converts have been as innumerable as the drops of the dew and
   as the sands upon the seashore! It is plain that one of the blessings
   which we, as a Church, should seek with all our hearts is that of
   continual increase. The entire Church of God should look for the daily
   multiplication of the spiritual seed. We have the promise of it in the
   text, but there is appended to it this condition, "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." Every true Christian desires to
   see the Church increase. At any rate, I should pity the man who thinks
   himself a Christian and yet has no such wish.

   "Let the whole earth be filled with His Glory," is the natural
   aspiration of every child of God! And if any man has persuaded himself
   that he is a child of God and yet does not desire to see the Glory of
   the Lord made manifest by the conversion of multitudes, I pity the
   condition of his heart and of his understanding. I trust we all feel
   the missionary spirit. I trust we all long to see the kingdom of the
   Lord come and to see the converts in Zion multiplied. But God has
   appended to the granting of our desire that we should pray for it--we
   must plead and enquire--or else the increase will be withheld. Why has
   the Lord thus made prayer the necessary prelude to blessing?

   He has done so in great mercy to our souls. The Lord knows how
   beneficial it is to us to be much in prayer and, therefore, He makes it
   easy for us to draw near to Him. He affords us a multitude of reasons
   for approaching the Mercy Seat and gives us errands which may be used
   as arguments for frequent petitioning. When one knocks at a man's door
   it is a good thing to have some business to do, for then one knocks
   boldly. If the porter opens and enquires, "Why did you come here?" we
   can reply, "Good Sir, I came on an important errand," and so we are
   bold to remain at the door.

   Now, as the Lord loves to commune with His people, He takes care to
   give them errands upon which they must come to Him. We need never be
   afraid that we shall be interrogated at the gate of Mercy and this
   stern question put, "What are you doing here?" for we have always some
   reason for praying! Indeed, every promise is turned into a reason for
   prayer, because the promise is not to be granted to us till we have
   pleaded it at the Mercy Seat! Moreover, if I may say so, God has, in
   mercy, compelled us to prayer by making the pleading necessary for the
   blessing. We must pray! We are unblessed unless we pray and, therefore,
   our necessities drive us to the Mercy Seat. Though we may be so low in
   Grace and so un-spiritual that we may feel little positive enjoyment,
   for the moment, in prayer, yet pray we must. A sacred compulsion lies
   upon us arising from our vast necessities. We thank God, then, that He
   gives us reasons for coming, yes, lays a stress upon us so that we are
   compelled to draw near unto Him.

   Now, let the desire that the Church should be increased, which, as I
   have already said, dwells in the bosom of every child of God, act as a
   mighty impulse to drive us to earnest, prevailing prayer! For if we are
   driven to this, the Church shall be multiplied exceedingly. This is the
   object of the discourse of this morning. O Spirit of Grace and
   supplications, be now upon us that we may be saturated with the spirit
   of prayer! I shall thus speak upon the text--Why should we awaken
   ourselves to the enquiry of which the text speaks? "For this will I be
   enquired of." Next, how should such a duty as this be performed? The
   text will afford us a guide. And, thirdly, on what ground can any
   Christian be excused from the duty of uniting with his Brothers and
   Sisters in enquiring at the hand of the Lord for a blessing?

   I. WHY SHOULD WE AWAKEN OURSELVES TO THIS ENQUIRY AT THE HANDS OF THE
   LORD? I do not put this question to you because I think that many of
   you need instruction as to the necessity for prayer, but because it is
   good to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance upon this point.
   The first reason I shall give is this, because it is a great privilege
   to be allowed to enquire at the hands of the Lord. You will see this
   very vividly if you turn to the 20th chapter of this prophecy and read
   the third verse, "Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel, and say
   unto them, Thus says the Lord God, Are you come to enquire of Me? As I
   live, says the Lord God, I will not be enquired of by you."

   Look, again, at the 31st verse of the same chapter, "For when you offer
   your gifts, when you make your sons to pass through the fire, you
   pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I
   be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord God,
   I will not be enquired of by you." What a solemn curse, to be denied an
   audience with God! How terrible a punishment it is when God shuts the
   gates of prayer and declares, "I will not be enquired of by you: when
   you spread forth your hands I will hide My face from you; yes, when you
   make many prayers I will not hear." A people may get into such a
   condition of sin, such a willful state of alienation from God and
   disobedience to His commands, that He may say, "I will not be enquired
   of by you."

   Now, suppose for a moment that it were my painful duty to stand here
   and say, "Brothers and Sisters, it is of no use our praying. The Mercy
   Seat has been abolished! God, in His anger, has bid the Mediator lay
   aside His office and supplication is no longer to be heard." What
   wringing of hands, what weeping of hearts as well as eyes if it were,
   indeed, true that prayer was denied to the people of God! It was a fair
   token for good when Ezekiel was bid to say that God had now taken away
   the curse from His people. And though He had said earlier, "I will not
   be enquired of by you," yet now, under the Covenant of Grace, having
   forgiven their sins, He mercifully proclaimed, "Thus says the Lord, For
   this will I be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them."

   As you would be struck with horror if you were forbidden to pray, so I
   beseech you use the privilege of prayer while you may. If only some
   half dozen men had permission to speak into the ear of God, how you
   would venerate them! How you would wish to be one of their number! If a
   small chosen band were set apart who, alone, might ask in faith--and to
   whom, alone, the promise would be fulfilled, "Ask what you will and it
   shall be done unto you"--how would you envy them their high privilege!
   Since, then, at this time you are all, if you are the people of God,
   made to be a royal priesthood and the Mercy Seat is open to every
   Believer, take care that you do not despise your birthright. To each
   one of you the promise is given, "He that seeks finds, and to him that
   knocks it shall be opened." Is not this sufficient reason why we should
   awake ourselves to use the privilege which the Lord accords us?

   Secondly, prayer is also to be looked upon as a precious gift of the
   Spirit of God as well as a great privilege. Wherever the spirit of
   prayer exists, it is worked in the heart by the Holy Spirit Himself.
   And when the text says, "For this will I be enquired of," it is a
   promise that men shall enquire! It is by virtue of Covenant promises
   and Covenant Grace that men are made to pray, for the Lord has said, "I
   will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem, the spirit of Grace and of supplications."

   Every child of God who understands anything knows that real prayer is
   "the breath of God in man returning from where it came." It first comes
   from God, and then it goes back to God. The Spirit knows what the mind
   of God is and He writes the mind of God upon our mind. And thus the
   desire of the Believer is the transcript of the decree of God and,
   therefore, the success of prayer. Well, now, Brothers and Sisters, if
   united, earnest, hearty enquiry of the Lord is a Covenant gift and a
   work of the Spirit, we dare not despise it, but we should earnestly
   seek after it! When we obtain a measure of prayerfulness, we ought to
   cultivate it and seek to make it grow abundantly. Covenant gifts are
   always to be earnestly coveted, for they are "the best gifts."

   Remember what blood it was which sealed that Covenant and made it sure
   to all the elect! You cannot look upon one item of the inheritance
   which the Covenant entails upon the saints without feeling that it cost
   the Redeemer His heart's blood. Forsake not, then, the assembling of
   yourselves together in prayer as the manner of some is! Neither neglect
   the Mercy Seat in private, nor fail to enquire at the Lord's hand, for
   supplication is a Covenant gift and must not be despised by any heir of
   Heaven. These are two forcible arguments, but here is another.

   In the third place we must pray because it is a necessary work in order
   to obtain the blessing. The Church of God is to be multiplied, but,
   "Thus says the Lord God, I will yet for this be enquired of." Remember
   that this is virtually written at the bottom of every promise. God
   said, "I will do this or that," but it is understood that for this He
   will be enquired of. Doubtless we receive many unasked for favors, but
   the rule of the kingdom is, "He that asks, receives." This rule applies
   even to the King of the kingdom, Himself--"Ask of Me," said God to His
   own Son, "and I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance, and the
   uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession." I must, then,
   Brothers and Sisters, exhort you to be much in enquiring at the Lord's
   hands, because countless are suspended upon the exercise of prayer.

   Imagine, for a moment, that these blessings should not come. Suppose
   that month after month the particular blessing of the text should be
   withheld. Into what a state of mind would every earnest Christian be
   brought! No increase--we come to the Communion Table but report no
   additions. No need to hold Church meetings, for there are no
   confessions of faith to be heard and no converts are coming forward to
   tell of the power of Divine Love! Suppose that such a state of
   stagnation should continue month after month with us!

   And why shouldn't it? It has done so with many others. Then as one
   after another of the ripe children of God went to Heaven, there would
   be gaps in the Church roll and none to replace them. There would be
   none to be baptized for the dead--none to stand in those places in the
   ranks from which the pious dead have been removed. May these eyes never
   look on such a calamity! May this tongue be spending its strength among
   the choirs above long before such a night shall settle down! You may
   well write, "Ichabod," across the forefront of this House of Prayer
   whenever that shall be, for the glory will have departed!

   Up to this moment we have never had to sigh and cry because the Lord
   has left us without an increase. But only suppose that the benediction
   should be withdrawn. You can cause it to be withdrawn, if you will, by
   ceasing prayer. Only let the cry which goes up to God continually from
   thousands of earnest hearts cease for a while and it will be a token
   that the blessing has also ceased! Only as long as there shall be this
   enquiring at the hand of the Lord can we expect that He will

   do as He has done, namely, multiply us with men as with a flock.
   Enquire, therefore, eagerly, because the blessing is suspended on it.

   Next, we ought to have much of this enquiry because it is a business
   which is, above all others, remunerative. Look at the text--"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." That is a beautiful idea of
   a multitude. You have, perhaps, seen an immense flock, a teeming
   concourse of congregated life. Such shall the increase of the Church
   be! But then it is added, to enhance the blessing, "As the holy flock,
   as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts." This, to the Jewish
   mind, conveyed a great idea of numbers!

   At the three great feasts of Pentecost, the Passover and the Feast of
   Tabernacles, the Israelites were accustomed to offer sacrifices in vast
   numbers and, therefore, lambs and sheep were brought into Jerusalem in
   such enormous numbers that without a book before me, I should not like
   to mention the figures which have been put down by Josephus and others.
   We read of Solomon's offering, "an hundred and twenty thousand sheep."
   And of 17,000 sheep offered in a single day in Hezekiah's time! We may,
   therefore, imagine what the need was in our Savior's day that there
   should be a sheep market by the Pool of Bethesda, for there would be
   need of immense pens for such numerous flocks.

   Then might the city be described in the language of Isaiah when he
   said, "All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto you, the
   rams of Nebaioth shall minister onto you; they shall come up with
   acceptance upon My altar." Now, said the Lord, I will not only multiply
   you as the sheep are multiplied upon Sharon and Carmel, but as the
   flocks in Jerusalem when they come together from every quarter on
   solemn feast days, by hundreds and by thousands! You shall ask, "Who
   are these that fly as a cloud and as the doves to their windows?" The
   Lord will multiply the people beyond all count!

   There is this additional beauty about the promise, that the sheep which
   were brought to Jerusalem on the solemn feasts were not only numerous,
   but they were the best sheep in the land because no animal could be
   offered to God which had any blemish. The priests were peculiarly
   careful to select the lambs for the Passover and the sheep for the
   sacrifice. And they were always the pick of the flock, the choice sheep
   of all the flocks of Palestine. What a mercy when the Lord multiplies
   the Church with a holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem on her solemn
   feast days! Then, not only were they the choice of the flock, but they
   were all consecrated to God, for they were brought to Jerusalem, on
   purpose, to be sacrificed. O happy Church which receives a host of
   self-sacrificing members who do not come to the Church in name, only,
   but to present their bodies a living sacrifice unto God--to place body,
   soul and spirit at the feet of Jesus, and say, "Yours are we, Son of
   David, and all that we have."

   See, then, what can be had by enquiring for it! "For this will I be
   enquired of." And what is the, "this," which is spoken of? Why that God
   will give us a numerous people, a choice people, His own elect and they
   shall all be consecrated unto Himself! They shall give themselves,
   first, to the Lord, and afterwards to us by the Word of God. This is to
   be had by praying for it! Ah, my Lord, how foolish are we not to pray
   more! Your Church has her societies, her agencies and so on, and she
   has, perhaps, looked to these more than to You. But You are our
   battle-ax and weapons of war! You can multiply the people and increase
   the joy! You can fill the quiver of the Church with spiritual children
   and thus make her blessed! To You, only, can we look for this favor! My
   Soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from Him. The Lord is a
   Man of war, the Lord is His name! His right hand and His holy arm have
   gotten Him the victory. Therefore, O house of Israel, enquire at the
   hands of the Lord and a boundless blessing shall come!

   I don't think I need to say that it is necessary for us to pray,
   because the results of prayer, as I have already described them, are
   such as greatly glorify God. Kindly read the last sentence of the text.
   It is important--"And they shall know that I am the Lord." When a
   Church is largely increased with choice persons thoroughly consecrated,
   then the Church knows, anew, that there is a God in Israel! The world,
   also, opens its eyes with wonder and admits that there is something in
   prayer, after all! When the kingdom of God is largely increased in
   answer to prayer, there is a wonderful power abroad to answer the
   arguments of skeptics and to silence the ribaldry of ungodly tongues.
   "This is the finger of God," they say.

   How bitterly they ridiculed Whitefield and Wesley when first they begun
   to preach the blessed Gospel. They were fanatics and enthusiasts,
   disturbing the peace of the land! They were Jesuits, Jacobites and I do
   not know what they were not--but everything conceivable that is bad!
   But when the Lord put power into these men and multiplied their
   adherents by tens of thousands, then presently the world changed its
   tune and dreaded and feared those whom they had formerly

   despised. So it is now! If we do not pray, if we grow cold in heart and
   the blessing is withdrawn, then the worldly wise begin to say, "It is
   an old, effete doctrine, proclaimed by the last of the Puritans--it is
   dying out."

   But as soon as ever they see God blessing us, the multitudes coming
   together and the Church growing to be a power in the land, they like it
   none the better, but they are obliged to respect it! Oh, that the Lord
   would stir you up as a Church to pray and do the same with all the
   Churches of the land! This would smite His enemies upon the cheekbone
   and silence His adversaries! This would baffle both the scorner,
   infidel, the harlot, ritualism and make both skepticism and
   superstition acknowledge that in the grand old Gospel of Jesus there
   still resides the Omnipotence of the Lord God.

   II. Secondly, let us answer the question--HOW SHOULD THIS DUTY BE
   PERFORMED? First, it should be by

   the entire body of the Church. Let us turn to our Bibles and read the
   text again--"For this will I be enquired of by"--By the ministers? By
   the elders? By the little number of good people who always come
   together to pray? Look! Look carefully! "By the house of Israel." That
   is by the whole company of the Lord's people! To obtain a great
   increase there must be unanimous prayer--prayer from the whole house of
   Israel! Everyone must join without exception.

   Where two or three are met together there will be an answer of peace.
   The prayer of one prevails. But if ever the house of Israel, the whole
   company of the faithful, shall get together in prayer, ah, then we
   shall see the multiplication of saints as the flock of Jerusalem on her
   solemn feasts! But it will not be till then. When Israel was defeated
   at Ai, one of the reasons of their failure was that there was an
   abominable thing in the tent of Achan. But another cause of defeat was
   this, that they said, "Let not all the people labor there." A part of
   the people were to go and take Ai and the rest were to lie at ease. The
   Church of God will always have ill times so long as a few people are
   left to do what should be done by all the redeemed. The whole house of
   Israel must besiege Ai, if Ai is to be taken! The whole army of the
   living God must bend the knees together and plead with God if any great
   victory is to be achieved.

   Next, the successful way to enquire of the Lord is for the Church to
   take personal interest in the matter. "Thus said the Lord God; I will
   yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them."
   When the people feel that the conversion of souls is their own personal
   affair. When the Sunday school teachers feel that the multiplication of
   the Church should be something done by them. And when each Christian
   laborer feels that he has a personal interest in the saving of souls,
   then will the Lord's work be done on a great scale! Brothers and
   Sisters, when the case of poor sinners becomes our case and our heart
   cries, "I will break unless those souls are saved," then we are sure to
   succeed! If the sinner will not repent, let us break our hearts about
   him. Let us go and tell the Lord his sins and mourn over them as if
   they were our own!

   If men will not believe, let us, by faith, bring them before God and
   plead His promise for them. If we cannot get them to pray, let us pray
   for them and intercede on their behalf--and in answer to our repentance
   they shall be made to repent! In answer to our faith they shall be led
   to believe! And in reply to our prayers they shall be moved to pray!
   The Lord says He will do it, but He will have us seek it as a personal
   favor, that thus our souls may be made earnest in His cause. The
   blessing will come, in the third place, to the prayer of a dependent
   Church. See how it is put--"I will yet for this be enquired of by the
   house of Israel, to do it for them." That is to say, they will not
   dream of being able to do it for themselves, but will apply to God for
   it.

   Christian men should never speak of getting up a revival. Where are you
   going to get it up from? I do not know any place from which you can get
   it up except a place which it is better to have no connection with. We
   must bring a revival down if it is to be worth having! We must enquire
   of the Lord to do it for us. Too often the temptation is to enquire for
   an eminent revivalist, or ask whether a great preacher could not be
   induced to come. Now, I do not object to inviting soul-winning
   preachers, or to any other plans of usefulness. But our main business
   is to enquire of the Lord, for, after all, He, alone, can give the
   increase!

   Suppose we collect a crowd of people, what of that? It is a fine thing
   to put in the papers, but what is the good of it, if it ends there?
   Suppose we have large services and fierce excitement--and the whole
   thing ends in a pack of moon-shine--where is the glory to God? On the
   contrary, His name is dishonored and His Church is discouraged from
   making special attempts. But when the holy work begins in prayer,
   continues in prayer and everything is confessedly dependent upon the
   power of God, then the blessing is, indeed, worth having! Enquire of
   the Lord to multiply you and you will be multiplied! We must wait upon
   God, conscious that we can do nothing of ourselves--and we must look to
   the Holy

   Spirit as the only power for the conversion of souls. If we pray in
   this dependent way we shall obtain an overflowing answer.

   Again, the way to obtain the promised blessing is that the prayer must
   be offered by an anxious, observant, enterprising Church. The
   expression used, "I will be enquired of," implies that the people must
   think and ask questions, must argue and plead with God. It is well to
   ask Him why He has not given the blessing and to urge strong reasons
   why He should now do so. We should quote His promises to Him, tell Him
   of our great need--and then come back, again, to asking, enquiring and
   pleading our cause. Such a pleading Church will win a blessing beyond
   all doubt! It must be a Church which remembers the waste places. The
   text puts it in the promise and it must not be forgotten in the
   prayer-- "The waste cities shall be filled with flocks of men."

   A Church which anxiously remembers the departments of service which are
   not succeeding. A Church which casts a friendly eye over other Churches
   which may be failing and takes careful notice of those places where the
   Spirit of God does not seem to be at work--and mentions all those in
   prayer--is the Church to which the promise is made. I pray the Lord to
   give you, dear Brothers and Sisters, heartbreak over sinners whose
   hearts do not break. I pray He will give you painful anxiety for those
   who are not anxious. In fact, may God make all the members of this
   Church into anxious enquirers. When the saved ones are anxious
   enquirers, themselves, there will be plenty of anxious enquirers
   brought from the world! The way to have enquiring sinners is for us to
   become enquiring saints! When the saints enquire of the Lord, the
   sinners will ask their way to Zion with their faces turned there! Every
   Prayer Meeting ought, as a matter of fact, to be an enquirers' meeting,
   where true hearts behold the beauty of the Lord and enquire in His
   temple.

   If we are to obtain the blessing in answer to prayer, that prayer must
   be offered by a believing Church. Oh that we did believe God's promise!
   The Lord says, "I will be enquired of, to do it for them." But
   unbelieving enquiries are only a mockery of God! How few really believe
   in prayer! I was reading, the other day, that the Chinese converts of
   the Inland Mission have shown a feature of piety which is not very
   common. When they learned that God would hear prayer, they wanted to be
   always praying, because, they said, "If it is so, that the great God
   hears prayer, let us ask for a great deal."

   We do not wonder, therefore, that they have received answers so
   remarkable to their believing prayers that the missionary scarcely
   cares to narrate them, lest to unbelievers they should seem to be as
   idle tales! Indeed, his fears are not at all unreasonable, for in other
   cases the written lives of praying men have been wretchedly mistrusted.
   Huntingdon's "Bank of Faith" has been called a bank of nonsense, yet I
   believe him to have been a thoroughly honest recorder of facts and
   quite incapable of a lie. When they read the story of Sammy Hick and
   his turning the wind by prayer, most persons are dubious, but why?

   Bread was needed for a religious meeting and no flour could be found,
   for the mill could not go without wind. Hick took his bag of corn to
   the miller and bade him grind it. "But there is no wind, Sammy," said
   the miller. "Never mind, there will be if you only put the corn into
   the hopper." It was put in, the wind ground the wheat and then it
   ceased. "Ah," people say, "that is a Methodist story." Yes, it is, and
   there are many others of the same kind! And some of us have had them
   happen to ourselves. Answers to prayer do not, now, appear to us to be
   contrary to the laws of Nature--it seems to us to be the greatest of
   all the laws of Nature that the Lord must keep His promises and hear
   His people's prayers! Gravitation and other laws may be suspended, but
   this cannot be!

   "Oh," says one, "I cannot believe that." No, and so your prayers are
   not heard! You must have faith, for if faith is absent, you lack the
   very backbone and soul of prayer. Oh, for mighty faith! If we once
   behold a Church filled with real active faith, exercised in believing
   prayer to the living God, the God of Israel, we shall see the Churches
   multiplied with men as with a flock!

   III. We are now to seek comfort for you who do not come to Prayer
   Meetings, or otherwise wrestle in prayer. ON WHAT GROUND CAN ANYBODY BE
   EXCUSED FROM THE DUTY OF PRAYER? Answer--On no ground whatever! You
   cannot be excused on the ground of common humanity for if it is so that
   God will save sinners in answer to prayer, and I do not pray, what am
   I? Souls dying, perishing, sinking to Hell while the ordained machinery
   for salvation is prayer and the preaching of the Word--and if I don't
   pray, what am I? Surely the milk of human kindness has been drained
   from my breast and I have ceased to be human! And if so, it is idle to
   talk of communion with the Divine. He who has no pity on a wounded man
   and would not seek to relieve the hunger of one expiring of need is a
   monster! He who has no pity on souls who are sinking into everlasting
   fire, what is he? Let him answer for himself.

   Next, can any excuse be found in Christianity for neglect of prayer? I
   answer, there is none to be found in Christianity anymore than in
   humanity, for if Christ has saved us, He has given us His Spirit--"If
   any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." And who has
   the Spirit of Christ? Is it he who looked upon Jerusalem and said, "I
   believe that the city is given up, predestinated to be destroyed," and
   then coolly went on his way? No, not he! He believed in predestination,
   but that Truth of God never chilled his heart. He wept over Jerusalem,
   and said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your
   children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and
   you would

   not."--

   "Did Christ over sinners weep, And shall our cheeks be dry?"

   Shall there be no prayer in our hearts when God has appointed prayer to
   be the channel of blessing to sinners as well as to ourselves? Then how
   can we say that we are Christians? In God's name, how can we make a
   profession of Christianity if our hearts do not ascend in mighty prayer
   to God for a blessing on the sons of men? But perhaps an excuse is
   found in the fact that the Christian does not feel that his prayer is
   of very much consequence, for his heart is in a barren state. Ah, well,
   this is no excuse, but an aggravation of the sin! My dear Brothers and
   Sisters, if you feel you cannot pray, you ought to pray twice as much
   as anybody else! Whenever your mind falls into a condition in which it
   is indisposed for prayer, that condition should serve as a danger
   signal--something is very much amiss!

   At such a time there should be a double calling upon God that the
   Spirit of prayer may be vouchsafed. I do charge you, professing
   Christians, not to restrain prayer to God for a blessing, for, if you
   do, you hurt all the rest of the Brethren! Get a bit of dead bone into
   your body and it harms, first, the member in which it is placed and
   subsequently the whole body. From head to foot the whole system is
   worse off because of the fragment of dead matter which is present in
   the body. So if there is a prayerless professor among us, he is an
   injury to the entire company! Some of you are the baggage of the army
   and hinder its marches and its fighting! We have a great army here and
   if you were all able-bodied men and would march on to the fight, we
   would see great victories! But we have to carry our diseased ones in
   ambulances and half the time of the pastor and Church officers has to
   be taken up in looking after the inefficient soldiers who are fit only
   for the hospital "Who do you mean?" asks one. You, my Friend--very
   likely you! Your own conscience shall decide to whom it refers!

   Now, surely we ought to be much in prayer, because, after all, we owe a
   great deal to prayer. Those who were in Christ before me, prayed for
   me. Should I not pray for others? By a mother's prayers, some of you,
   when you were girls, were brought to Christ. Will you not pay back the
   debt to your mother by praying for your own children? By a father's
   prayers, young man, you were brought to the Savior's feet--now pray for
   those who are younger than yourself--that they may be brought to Jesus,
   too. The treasury of the Church's prayers has been expended upon us in
   bringing us to Christ's feet. Let us now contribute to the common
   stock, casting in our prayers for the conversion of others! Common
   gratitude demands that we attend to this.

   I am afraid I shall also have to plead that I must suspect your
   soundness in the faith, Brothers and Sisters, if you do not join in
   prayer. I know some, who, if they are anything at all, they are sound
   in the faith. This is their beginning and their ending. I used to know,
   years ago, a few people who were sound all over and never cared whether
   souls were saved or not because they were so sound! That kind of
   soundness is empty, from which may the Lord deliver us! Correct
   opinions are a poor apology for heartlessness towards our fellow men.
   If we are orthodox, we believe that regeneration is the work of the
   Spirit of God. Then, dear Friends, the natural inference is that those
   of us who are regenerated should pray the Holy Spirit to regenerate
   others! If it is entirely His work and we cannot depend upon the
   preacher at all, we must invoke the Divine power! If you do not thus
   call in Divine energy, where is your soundness?

   I am sure that you desire to see souls saved, but if it is the Spirit's
   work and you do not pray the Spirit to do that work, surely you do not
   believe your own doctrine! By your soundness in the faith, therefore, I
   would plead with you that you increase your earnestness in prayer. You
   may say, "Well, I think I may be excused," but I must reply you cannot!
   "I am very sick," says one. Ah, then you can lie in bed and pray! None
   of us can fully estimate the blessings which have come down on this
   Tabernacle in answer to the pleas of our friends who are constant
   invalids. I believe the Lord sets apart a certain section of the Church
   to keep up prayer through the night watches--and when you and I who are
   healthy are sound asleep, the watchers do not slumber, or keep
   silent--but either in praise or prayer they make the hours holy

   with their devout exercises. I consider that I sustain great losses
   when dear Christian men and women, who have for years sustained me by
   their prayers are taken home to Glory. Who will fill the gaps?

   "I am so poor," says one. Well, you are not called upon to pay a
   shilling every time you pray to God! It does not matter how poor you
   are--your prayers are just as acceptable! Only remember, if you are so
   poor, you ought to pray all the more, because you cannot give your
   offering in the shape of gold. I should like you to say with the
   Apostle, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give you.
   My Master, I will be much in prayer." "Ah," says another, "but I have
   no talent." That is another reason why you should pray more and not why
   you should be prayerless, because if you cannot contribute to the
   Church's public service from lack of talent, you should the more
   zealously contribute to her strength by the private exercise of prayer
   and intercession--and thus make those strong who are better fit to go
   to the front.

   "Ah," says one, "but I am just converted. I have hardly obtained peace,
   myself, how can I pray?" If you need an answer to that question, read
   the 51st Psalm. David begins, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to
   the multitude of Your tender mercies," and so on. And he does not
   continue long before he cries, "Do good in Your good pleasure unto
   Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem!" He has hardly been washed,
   himself, from sin, before he begins to pray to be useful-- "Then will I
   teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted unto
   You." You new converts are the very people to pray with power!

   So from my inmost soul, as if I were pleading for my life (and it lies
   nearer my health and continued life than some may imagine) I beg you to
   enquire of the Lord! In thus doing I am pleading for this Church's long
   prosperity! I am pleading for the good of London! I am pleading for the
   benefit of the whole world! If you love the Lord Jesus, Brothers and
   Sisters, do enquire at the hands of the Lord concerning this great
   promise of an increase in the Church! Prove Him, now, and see if He
   does not pour out a blessing for you, yes, if He does not increase you
   with men as with a flock, as the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem
   on her solemn feast days! God grant His blessing for Christ's sake.
   Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Ezekiel 36:1-14;24-38. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--145 (PART I), 985, 968.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Secret of a Happy Life

   (No. 1305)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 16, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I have set the Lord always before Me: because He is at My right hand,
   I shall not be moved." Psalm 16:8.

   IN the preceding verses we read, "The lines are fallen unto Me in
   pleasant places; yes, I have a goodly heritage." The speaker,
   therefore, is a very contented and happy man. It is not the most usual
   thing in the world to find persons extolling their lot and manifesting
   a conspicuous emphasis of satisfaction. Far more common is it to hear
   men surrounded with favors lamenting the hardness of their case!
   Contented minds are almost as scarce as snowflakes in harvest. The man
   who rejoices in his goodly heritage deserves attention and we shall do
   well to learn his secret. How is it that he is able to feel so happy?
   Let us seek out the way by which he arrived at this peace and discover
   the silken clue which led him into such a bower of delight. Perhaps his
   road may fit our feet and, by following it, we may become as perfectly
   content as he was. O Lord and Giver of peace, help us in the search!

   But, first, who is this person who is thus singularly content? To our
   astonishment we find that the Spirit speaks here by prophecy in the
   name and Person of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is He, who, by the Spirit,
   here said, "The lines have fallen unto Me in pleasant places; yes, I
   have a goodly heritage!" He was the "Man of Sorrows and acquainted with
   grief." He was "despised and rejected of men." He had not where to lay
   His head. He was often subject to hunger and thirst. He had few friends
   and those proved faithless in the time of His extremity. So how could
   He speak thus? All this is so much the more encouraging for us, because
   if this most sorrowful of men, was, nevertheless, able to feel an
   inward calm, a sweet contentment, then it must be possible for us to do
   so whose lot is not so bitter!

   We are not sent to make atonement for sin and, therefore, our sorrows
   are few compared with our Lord's. There was a special reason for His
   being distressed, for He took our griefs and carried our sorrows. But
   no atoning griefs are demanded of us, nor have we afflictions to bear
   from the hand of God as punishments for sin, for the Lord has laid all
   these upon Him and we are clear. If the Lord Jesus, the Man of grief, a
   mourner all His days, yet said the lines had fallen unto Him in
   pleasant places and He had a goodly heritage, it must be the more
   possible for us to rise to the same contentment if we follow His rules
   and live according to His example.

   What, then, is the secret of perfect peace and happiness here below?
   The price is above rubies--where shall this be learned? The magic lamps
   and wonderful rings of which children read in fairy stories are as
   nothing in value compared with this true philosopher's stone, this
   mystic secret of the Lord which is with them that fear Him--by which
   His saints are enabled to enjoy the peace of God which passes all
   understanding--which keeps their hearts and minds by Jesus Christ. O
   Prince of Peace, grant us this rest!

   Our text clearly imparts to us the secret of the greatest happiness to
   be found below the skies and, indeed, it reveals the hidden source of
   those pleasures above which are at God's right hand forevermore. The
   first part of the excellent method lies in always living in the Lord's
   Presence--"I have set the Lord always before Me." The second is found
   in always trusting in the Lord's Presence--"Because He is at My right
   hand, I shall not be moved."

   I. The secret, then, of peace, is, first, ALWAYS LIVING IN THE LORD'S
   PRESENCE--"/ have set the Lord always before Me." We shall try, in
   order to understand what this means, to keep our eyes upon the life of
   Jesus and, at the same time, apply the text to the saints. Though this
   passage is pre-eminently fulfilled in Jesus, yet since the members
   partake of the nature of the Head, each one, in his own degree, who
   does that which Jesus did and thereby obtains a holy joy and rest, may
   enter into the joy of our Lord.

   Does not our Lord Jesus bid us take His yoke upon us and learn of Him,
   that we may find rest unto our souls? I take it that our text means
   first, that we should make the Lord's Presence the greatest of all
   facts to us. Of all things that are,

   God chiefly /S, and we should regard Him in that light. It was so with
   our Lord Jesus Christ. He, as a Man, was cognizant of the existence of
   all the things that are seen, but even more did He recognize the
   existence of God, who cannot be seen--that great Spirit who is alike
   invisible and incomprehensible. How vividly the Presence of God must
   have been realized by Christ at all times, for He was in the Father and
   the Father in Him!

   You and I have never seen and understood the Father in the same degree
   as He did, though the Son has revealed Him to us. He entered into a
   fuller and more constant recognition of God's Presence in all places
   and things, than we, as yet, have done. Yet truly we have seen the
   Father, for we have seen Jesus by faith. We have mounted up on wings as
   eagles and with the eagle's eyes have looked the sun in the face and
   have not been blinded! Is it not written, "The pure in heart shall see
   God"? We have been taught to see God around us in all things that exist
   and in all events that happen. And we bless the Lord that we live not
   as those who are "without God in the world," that we are taught by the
   Spirit to recognize our Father's loving, all-pervading Presence!

   Yet I know we do not discern it so constantly, clearly and impressively
   as our Lord Jesus did. He looked upon the mountains and the sunlight on
   their brows was the smile of His Father. He saw the plains and their
   harvests were His Father's bounty. To Him the waves of the sea were
   tossed in tempest by His Father's breath, or calmed by His Father's
   whisper. He fed the multitude, but it was with His Father's bread. He
   healed the sick, but His Father did the works. In all things about Him,
   He continually and distinctly recognized the active Presence of the
   Most High. Other men remarked that the ravens were fed, but He said,
   "Your heavenly Father feeds them." Other men noticed that the lilies
   were fair to look upon, but He discerned that, "God so clothes the
   grass of the field." The heavenly Father was in every place and in
   every thing to Jesus.

   Now, I pray our Lord to grant that by the blessed Spirit we may always
   be sensitive of the Presence of God wherever we are. Is it not a sad
   proof of the alienation of our nature that though God is everywhere, we
   have to school ourselves to perceive Him anywhere? His are the beauties
   of Nature. His the sunshine which is bringing on the harvest. His the
   waving grain which cheers the farmer. His the perfume which loads the
   air from multitudes of flowers. His the insects which glitter around us
   like living gems! And yet the Creator and Sustainer of all these is far
   too little perceived! Everything in the temple of Nature speaks of His
   Glory, but our ears are dull of hearing. Everything, from the dewdrop
   to the ocean, reflects the Deity, and yet we largely fail to see the
   eternal brightness. I beseech you, my Brothers and Sisters, to pray
   that you may have this text worked into your very souls--"I have set
   the Lord always before Me."

   Refuse to see anything without seeing God in it. Regard the creatures
   as the mirror of the great Creator. Do not imagine that you have
   understood His works till you have felt the Presence of the great
   Worker, Himself. Do not reckon that you know anything till you know
   that of God which lies within it, for that is the kernel which it
   contains. Wake in the morning and recognize God in your chamber, for
   His goodness has drawn back the curtain of the night and taken from
   your eyelids the seal of sleep. Put on your garments and perceive the
   Divine care which provides you with raiment from the herbs of the field
   and the sheep of the fold.

   Go to the breakfast room and bless the God whose bounty has, again,
   provided for you a table in the wilderness. Go out to business and feel
   God with you in all the engagements of the day. Always remember that
   you are dwelling in His house when you are toiling for your bread or
   engaged in merchandise. At length, after a well-spent day, go back to
   your family and see the Lord in each one of the members of it!
   Acknowledge His goodness in preserving life and health. Look for His
   Presence at the family altar, making the house to be a palace wherein
   king's children dwell. At last, fall asleep at night as in the embraces
   of your God or on your Savior's breast. This is happy living!

   The worldling forgets God, the sinner dishonors Him, the atheist denies
   Him, but the Christian lives in Him! "In Him we live and move and have
   our being; we are also His offspring." Visible things we look upon as
   shadows. The things which we touch and taste and handle, perish in the
   using. The elements of this solid earth shall dissolve with fervent
   heat, but the ever-present God, whom we cannot see, is the same, and of
   His years there is no end, and His existence is the only real and true
   and eternal one to us. He has been our dwelling place in all
   generations and it were evil, indeed, not to know our own eternal home.
   This is a main ingredient in the oil of joy--to always realize that the
   Lord is round about us "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
   from now on even for evermore."

   Secondly, the words of the text signify the making of God's Glory the
   one object of our lives. As a prize is set before the runners in a
   race, so the Believer's heart sets God's Glory before it as the prize
   for which the race of life is run. It was even

   so with our dear Redeemer--from the first to the last He set the Lord
   always before Him as the object of His life on earth. Do you ever find
   in Him a selfish motive? Is He ever moved by any groveling ambition? Is
   He not always seeking the good of men and, by that means, the Glory of
   God? While yet a youth He goes up to the temple, not to display His
   precocity, nor, like other children, to gratify Himself with the
   admiration heaped upon Him for His early wisdom, but He says, "Know you
   not that I must be about My Father's business?"

   In later days, when He has been anointed to His work, He sits by a well
   and takes His rest. A woman comes and converses with Him, but He speaks
   upon no idle theme--He talks to her of the Living Water, seeks her soul
   to save it and then tells His disciples that He has meat to eat that
   they know not of--for it was His meat and His drink to do the will of
   Him that sent Him. He presses forward with changeless intensity of
   purpose towards the completion of the work which the Father had
   committed to Him.

   You see Him present at a wedding, or meeting a funeral procession, but
   He is found, in both cases, aiming at God's Glory. If you find Him
   battling with the crowd, or in the chamber, shut in with two or three
   raising the dead. If you read of His prayers upon the lone
   mountainside, or listen to His groans in the Garden of Gethsemane,
   still, evermore--this one thing He does--He glorifies His Father on the
   earth. Despising shame and trampling under foot the world's honor, He
   lives to God and to God, alone. Not sometimes and now and then, or as
   the general aggregate of His life is He found setting God before
   Himself, but always and without exception! In every thought, in every
   word, in every deed, God was before Him and He lived for God.

   Oh, that we could reach to this--whether we eat or drink, or whatever
   we do, we would do all to the Glory of God! Oh, that we never dared to
   do what would dishonor the name of God! Oh, that we walked in all
   things so as to please Him who loved us and gave Himself for us! I am
   sure, dear Brothers and Sisters, if you have aimed at this, though you
   may have fallen far short of your desire, yet in such a path you have
   found peace unto your souls. This is the king's highway, the way of
   holiness where no lion shall be found! To know that God is present and
   to live, by His Grace, wholly to please Him--this is the way of great
   pleasantness--take care that you keep therein! Never do anything which
   would dishonor the holy name with which you are called! Leave nothing
   undone, however hard to the flesh, which would serve the cause of God
   and so you shall be like your Lord and become partakers of His peace.
   This is the mode of life by which a man shall have foretastes of the
   feasts of Heaven while yet in this wilderness world--may the Holy
   Spirit lead us into it!

   A further meaning of setting the Lord always before us is to live so
   that the Presence of God shall be the rule and support of our
   obedience. So Jesus did. You know right well that to many servants the
   master's eye is most important in order to make them careful and
   industrious. How many are eye-servers and men pleasers? Take away the
   master's eye and how slowly the labor drags along--how often is it
   slurred over in a slovenly manner--or left undone altogether? The old
   proverb declares that the master's eyes do more than both his hands and
   it is too sadly true! Yet it is not wrong to say that our Master's eyes
   ought to have a great influence over the servants of God. "Behold, as
   the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the
   eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon
   the Lord our God."

   Beloved, how would you live if God were seen looking on? He is looking
   on! So live. Suppose that in some action of tomorrow you were specially
   warned--"The Lord will carefully observe you. The Omniscient will fix
   all His thoughts upon you and detect your motives and scan your spirit,
   as well as weigh the deed, itself." If you had such a revelation, how
   would you act? So should you act at all times, for it is always true.
   "You, God, see me" is an exclamation for every moment of day and night!
   Can you put your finger upon any part of Christ's life and say, "He
   forgot that the Father beheld Him in this act"? Is not the whole of
   Christ's life such a picture that God Himself looked at every line and
   tint of it with infinite admiration? Have you not, yourself, traversed
   the gallery of the Savior's life, and pausing at each picture and
   scene, been filled with amazement and led to exclaim, "He has done all
   things well!"?

   When your mind has been most devout and most holy, have you not more
   than ever admired every little trait in your Savior's Character, every
   separate feature of every action of His life, whether public or
   private? The Father was always with Him and He always did those things
   which pleased Him. Oh, Beloved, would to God that your obedience were
   in like manner measured out under the profound consciousness that the
   great God is watching you in all that you do! He has beset you behind
   and before, and laid His hands upon you. If you take the wings of the
   morning and fly to the utter-

   most parts of the sea, He is there! Even darkness hides not from Him.
   Everything that you have done has been enacted in the Presence of your
   heavenly Father!

   Have you felt this? Ah, when you dishonored the Lord Jesus He was,
   Himself, looking on. He to whom belong those pierced hands heard your
   cowardly words and saw your traitorous acts. He gazed in wondering
   sorrow at you, His Friend, betraying Him. When you mingled with the
   ungodly world and was as one of them, He, too, was there, and now He
   shows you His wounds and sorrowfully exclaims, "These are the wounds
   which I received in Your place, the place of My Friend." The blows of
   friends smite in a tender place! Their wounds are the cruelest that can
   be received, for enemies pierce sharply, but friends stab with poisoned
   daggers! When we bring dishonor upon Him whom we profess to love, it is
   dishonor, indeed! Oh, how much would be left undone and, on the other
   hand, how much more of another kind would be diligently executed, if in
   very deed we set the Lord always before us!

   Not yet, however, have we completely expounded our text. The words must
   also mean that we are to set the Lord before us as the Source from
   which we are to derive solace and comfort under every trial. Jesus
   could say, "I have set the Lord always before Me," for this, it was,
   that made Him suffer poverty and never complain. This, it was, that
   made Him encounter shame and spitting and yet remain dumb with wondrous
   patience, like a sheep before her shearers. You never hear our Lord cry
   out until His Father's face is hidden from Him. Then, indeed, He cries,
   "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" When, because of His
   standing as our Surety, God Himself withdrew the manifestation of His
   favor, then His pangs were bitter and His grief was overflowing--but
   you and I will never have to bear the same.

   God forsook Him that He might never forsake us. You shall always find
   the Lord near in the day of trouble and, therefore, if ever you have a
   Gethsemane, and the bitter cup cannot be passed from you except you
   drink it, you shall set the Lord before you and in that cheering
   Presence you shall be able to say, "Not as I will, but as You will,"
   and patiently drink your appointed cup even to the dregs. Are you
   saying today, "How much I wish that I had more of the comforts of life,
   but my means are sadly scant and I am very sick and very heavy in
   spirit"? Your Savior was tempted in all points just as you are, but He
   set the Lord always before Him and, therefore, He was content and said,
   "The Lord is My portion, said My soul, therefore will I hope in Him.
   The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places; yes, I have a goodly
   heritage."

   Let all else go, my Brothers and Sisters, for if God is with you, you
   will still be upheld. Let friends die, one after another, and let
   earthly comforts fade like autumn leaves, but if you set the Lord
   always before you--there is such a fullness of joy in every attribute
   of God, there is such a Heaven in every glimpse of Jesus' face, there
   is such overwhelming bliss in every drop of Jehovah's everlasting
   love--you shall not fail nor be discouraged, but you shall sing His
   praises even in the fiercest fire! To you He will say, "Fear not, I am
   with you; be not dismayed, I am your God. When you pass through the
   rivers I will be with you, the floods shall not overflow you. When you
   go through the fires you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame
   kindle upon you." The Presence of God makes even death delightful!
   "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
   fear no evil: for You are with me." Thus you see that setting the Lord
   always before us ensures us never ceasing consolation.

   Yet, further, these words mean that we are to hold perpetual communion
   with God. When Jesus said, "I have set the Lord always before Me," He
   meant that He was always in fellowship with the Father. Very frequently
   the fellowship was exercised in prayer, for our Lord, though He is
   described as praying very much, no doubt prayed infinitely more than
   any Evangelist has recorded, for He was praying when no one knew it but
   Himself and His God, when even His lips did not move. His public
   prayer, or the prayer which could be observed by others, was made
   manifest for our sakes and their sakes who stood with Him, but it was
   only a cropping up upon the surface of the great rock of prayer which
   laid the foundation of His holy living. Right well did He say, when at
   the grave of Lazarus, "And I know that You hear Me always: but because
   of the people which stand by, I said it."

   He was always talking with the Father, who was, indeed, the only One
   upon whom He could cast Himself. What consolation could He gather from
   Peter and James and John? He was like a father with a number of little
   children around Him who could not so much as understand their father's
   troubles, much less support Him under them! As our Lord was always in
   sacred fellowship with God, He had great sorrow from beholding the sin
   of mankind, knowing, as He did, how grievous it was to God! He would
   mourn before His Father, the people's sin, but continue, still, to
   intercede, praying all His life as He prayed at last, "Father, forgive
   them, for they know not what they do." Thus was He at all times in
   deepest sympathy with the God of Love.

   I doubt not that our Lord often spoke with the Father in the form of
   praise, for while, on one occasion, it is only recorded that He
   rejoiced, yet doubtless He rejoiced evermore in God. How could His pure
   Nature do otherwise than joy in the Lord? His whole heart and soul and
   mind ran in one line with the mind of God! I am, of course, now
   speaking of Him as Man and as Man His heart was in perfect harmony with
   the heart of God--there was nothing in Him contrary to the will and
   design of the Father--His whole human nature was carried along in a
   parallel course with the mind of the Most High and, therefore, that is
   why He was always at peace.

   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, may God grant us Grace to commune constantly
   with Himself! Prayer should not be a matter of mornings and evenings,
   alone, but all day our spirit should commune with God! Father, You are
   so near us and yet how slow we are to speak to You! Teach us, Your
   children, to be always talking with You so that while we walk on earth
   our conversation may be in Heaven! The Lord grant us to hold holy
   commerce with Heaven, hearing what God, the Lord, will speak, and
   speaking to Him in return. Be it ours to hear the Words of the inspired
   Book and to regard the advice of the gracious Spirit! And then may our
   spirit, in its turn, speak with God and make known its requests unto
   Him. I hope you will be reaching out towards this by the Divine
   anointing of the Holy Spirit. For this is the grand secret, the sure
   foundation of a happy life. Perpetual communion with God is the highest
   state of joy which can be known on earth! Learn to say truthfully," I
   have set the Lord always before me," and you have the Lord's secret!

   Once again upon this point, dear Friends. If we are to be happy, we
   must follow this life of nearness to God because of our delight in it
   and from the joy which we feel in it. Indeed, such a life cannot be
   lived in any other manner. Mere duty and law cannot operate here. If
   any man shall say, "What a dreary affair this communion with God must
   be! How dull must be this walking continually with God!" then I reply,
   your speech betrays you--you have not the first essentials of such a
   life--neither can you so much as guess what it means. Indeed, I am not
   talking to you at all, it would be useless to press such a theme upon
   you! Excuse me, you know nothing of the spiritual life, nothing of what
   it is to be a child of God, or else communion would not be despised by
   you! You must be born again and, till you are born again, such
   exhortations as these which I am now giving will not apply to you at
   all.

   Does some mere professor sneeringly enquire, "What? Are we always to
   live to God's Glory and are we to do nothing but what would glorify
   Him? This is laying down very straight rules and making the road to
   Heaven very narrow, indeed." Do you think so, Friend? Then I will tell
   you plainly my solemn suspicion about you--I am persuaded that you do
   not know the Lord, for if you did, the way of holiness would be your
   delight and you would not ask for license to sin. I can understand your
   sinning, but I cannot understand your finding pleasure in it if you are
   a real Christian! The pleasures of the world are, to a true Believer,
   as the husks which the swine eat. And if you find them to be good bread
   for your soul, then assuredly you are none of His!

   The hogs may be satisfied with hogs' food, for Providence meant it for
   them, but the child of God, even when he is a prodigal, cannot be
   satisfied so! He would gladly fill his belly with the husks, but it is
   impossible that he should thus be satisfied. I am sure if you are the
   Lord's, you will look upon living near to God and delighting in Him,
   not as being a severe task, or a weariness, but as a luxury and a
   delightful privilege after which your soul hungers and thirsts. You
   will say with David, "My soul pants for God, for the living God: when
   shall I come and appear before God?" To you the choicest place is that
   which is nearest to your Lord, though it may be in the dust of
   contempt, or in the furnace of affliction. It is your ambition to be
   subdued by the Lord Jesus unto Himself, most completely, and then to
   be, from now on, the place of His abode, the instrument for His use
   and, best of all, the object of His love! I would dwell in the house of
   the Lord forever, as a child at home, considering the present world to
   be a lower room of that house and Heaven above as the upper story of
   the same abode. The Presence of God is our bliss!

   Now, is there anything about our Lord's life which looks like being
   under restraint, or being compelled to act otherwise than He would have
   wished? Can you suspect in His whole career that He was, at any time,
   acting against His inclination? Was His life constrained and unnatural?
   Did He walk like a man in irons? Did He live as one pressed into the
   army of the righteous, denied pleasures which would have been His
   choice and forced to forms of piety which were distasteful to Him? Not
   at all! Christ is a free man, living out His inmost, following His
   heart's best desires. You can see that wherever He is, He acts
   according to His Nature and is as free in what He does as the fish are
   free in the sea, or the birds in the air!

   Now, such is the Christian in this matter of setting the Lord always
   before him. He acts not of constraint but willingly, for the Lord has
   given him a nature which delights in that which God delights in. He
   does not say, "Woe is me, I am caged like a bird! My life is so precise
   and Puritanical that I am weary of it." No, he says, "if I had these
   worldly joys, and might indulge in them, there is nothing in them to
   please me. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Others are saying, 'Who
   will show us any good?' But my one petition is, 'Lord, lift up the
   light of Your Countenance upon me.'" He says, "Let others do as they
   will, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The
   Christian is never so free as when he is most under Law to Christ! He
   is never so much himself as when he denies himself, and never so
   delighted as when he delights himself in the Lord and lives only for
   the Glory of God!

   Now, if such is the case with you, dear Brothers and Sisters, you have
   learned the secret of joy. The text may be read in the Hebrew, "I have
   set the Lord equally before Me," that is equally at all times. He
   speaks of the solitary night watches and then His reins instructed Him,
   for He was with God. In the morning He exclaims, "When I awake I am
   still with You." We are to have the Lord equally before us under all
   circumstances--in our business pursuits as well as in Prayer Meetings
   and hearings of sermons--in seasons of recreation as well as in hours
   of devotion--in the day of health as well as in the hour of death. If
   you break the chain of communion by going where you cannot expect to
   have the Lord's Presence, or doing what the Lord cannot sanction, the
   broken link can be restored, but it will always show the rivets.

   You may lose your roll like Christian in the arbor and you may go back
   and find it, again, but it is very hard going back over the same
   ground. And after going back, it is difficult to take to the onward
   path again. The hardest part of the road to Heaven is that which has to
   be traversed three times--once when you go over it at first, a second
   time when you have to return with weeping to find your lost
   evidences--and then again when you have to make up for lost time.
   Backsliding causes unhappiness, but abiding with God creates peace like
   a river, flowing on and on in one long-continued stream. Dear Friends,
   here is the method of a blissful life! Try it, and the result is
   certain!

   II. I will speak very briefly upon the second head. The second part of
   the secret follows upon the first--that is TRUSTING ALWAYS IN THE
   LORD'S PRESENCE. Here is confidence in God--"Because He is at My right
   hand, I shall not be moved." Here is confidence that God is near us.
   Confidence that God loves us, for He is not only near us, but in the
   place of friendly fellowship. And here is confidence that God will
   practically help us, for the right hand is the dexterous hand, the hand
   which does the work, and thus God is near unto His people with
   practical assistance to sustain and to deliver them. How blessed it
   must be to feel that we have nothing to be afraid of in all the world,
   for God stands at our right hand to take care of us whatever may
   happen.

   David says, and Christ says through David, "I shall not be moved," that
   is, first, I shall not be moved with any regret or remorse as to the
   past. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, if we have set the Lord always before
   us, we can sit down and meditate upon our course of action and it will
   bear reflection! The man who knows that he has lived as in the sight of
   God will not have to wish that he had never been born. On the contrary,
   he will bless the Lord at all times for all that happens to him. Christ
   had many sorrows, but no regrets. What a life was His! He never had to
   look back upon a single act and repent of it. All was done with the
   Lord before Him and He was not moved.

   A lady once told a minister that she was attending the theater, and she
   remarked, "There are so many pleasures connected with seeing a play.
   There is the pleasure of anticipation before you go. There is the
   pleasure of enjoying it when you are there. And there is the third
   pleasure of reflecting upon it afterwards." The good man replied, "Ah,
   Madam, there is another pleasure which you have not mentioned and that
   is the comfort it will afford you upon a dying bed." The irony was well
   deserved. I may mention this as being the greatest recommendation of
   setting the Lord always before you--that it will bear reflection and
   yield comfort amid sickness and death!

   If, by Divine Grace, you are able to live a life of unbroken communion
   with God, constantly having an eye to His Presence, you will not have
   to mourn over a misspent life. Your retrospect will be full of
   pleasure. As for sin, that is already covered by the blood of Christ
   and, besides that, you will have been kept from a thousand snares by
   having the fear of God always before your eyes. And so, in reviewing
   the past, you shall not be moved with bitter remorse. Many things which
   we now do, we may have to lament in the future, though now we think we
   are acting very wisely and well. But if the Lord is always before us,
   our steps will be established because they are ordered by the Lord.
   Even if you make a mistake as to policy, you will be comforted by the
   knowledge that it was a fault of your judgment and not of your heart,
   if, indeed, you desired to serve the Lord.

   Beloved, it is well for us to live near God that we may not be moved
   from our consistency in the way of true religion. There are many
   professors whose lives are jerky--they are walking with God, after a
   fashion, today, but soon they wander into crooked paths. Then they
   begin again, but before long they start aside as a deceitful bow. Like
   Reuben, they are unstable as water and do not excel. In our Lord's life
   there is no break, it is one continuous harmony. The unities are
   observed in His grand career, it is like His garment--without seam and
   woven from the top throughout. Now, Brothers and Sisters, if you set
   the Lord always before you, you will not be moved, but your path will
   be like that of the sun in the heavens, rising from dawn till noon!

   Setting the Lord before us prevents our being moved with terror. It is
   said of the Believer, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His
   heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." The Believer is not moved with
   staggering fear. A great trouble is coming upon him, but he has set the
   Lord before him, and he is not cast down. If like Jesus, Himself, he is
   for the moment swayed with exceedingly great sorrow, yet does he say,
   "What time I am afraid I will trust in You," and when he prays he is
   heard in that he feared. Such a man is not moved by temptation so as to
   be swept into surprising sin. If I set the Lord always before me, I
   shall not be carried away by a sudden temptation. It is when you are
   off your guard that sin comes and you fall.

   You speak unadvisedly, you get into a hot temper, you make sad havoc of
   your Christian life--and all because your eyes were off your Lord. If
   you could but have known that the trial was coming, you would have been
   protected against it. And if you had set the Lord always before you,
   you would have been prepared for the world, the flesh and the devil--
   and shielded from every fiery dart of the Evil One. Let us dwell in God
   and He will be a wall of fire round about us. He will keep us every
   moment, lest any hurt us. He will keep us night and day. Thus you will
   not be moved so as to fall into failure at the last. You must all have
   felt the dread lest, after all, at the end of life it should turn out
   that you are not saved. Have you not feared that you have deceived
   yourselves and were not converted when you thought you were?

   What if it should turn out to be so? What will you do when the bubble
   of false hope shall burst? Ah, but if you set the Lord always before
   you, you shall not be moved by that fear, for you will know that your
   Redeemer lives! You will have such a consciousness of the Divine
   Presence that you will commit your departing spirit unto God as to a
   faithful Creator! You will not be afraid to die, for as Jesus said, "My
   flesh, also, shall rest in hope. For You will not leave My soul in
   Hell; neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." So will
   you say, "My flesh, also, shall rest in hope, for You will not leave my
   soul in Hell, and though I see corruption as to my body, yet shall I be
   raised in incorruption in the likeness of my Lord, for I know that my
   next of kin lives and though after my skin, worms destroy this body,
   yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall behold for myself, and
   not another." Oh, the joy of thus abiding in God and trusting in His
   present power--having the Lord at your right hand--and then abiding in
   calm assurance that you cannot be moved!

   Just four things and I have done. First, to any of you who are unhappy.
   Some of you are not Christian people, but altogether of the world. You
   are not happy and yet I dare say you have a great many things to make
   you so. You are placed in easy circumstances where you can enjoy
   yourselves as much as you like. The sorriest thing in the world to
   enjoy is yourself! I can enjoy other people better than I can myself.
   To enjoy yourself needs a very depraved appetite, for selfishness is
   sordid and, like the serpent, has dust appointed to be its meat. If you
   think that you will find pleasure in worldli-ness, I should like you to
   remember one who tried that method very thoroughly.

   I mean Solomon of old, who had all the wealth a heart could wish and
   all the wisdom a brain could hold--and yet was both poor and foolish!
   He ransacked the world for joy, but found it not. At one time he gave
   all his thoughts to architecture and built splendid palaces. And after
   he had built them all, he said, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." He
   took to his books and studied very hard, but after he had poured over
   them a long time, he said, "Of making many books there is no end; and
   much study is a weariness of the flesh."

   He tried singing men and singing women, and the peculiar delights of
   kings, but when he had enjoyed himself in this manner to the utmost
   possibilities of human nature, he said, "Vanity of vanities, all is
   vanity." He planted gardens and laid out water courses and practiced
   engineering. He inclined, at one time, to the pleasures of a fool, and
   soon he was eager in the nobler pursuits of a wise man! Sometimes he
   was sober with science and at other seasons he was excited with
   laughter--he tried everything and found all earthly joy to be as
   deceitful as the apples of Sodom which are fair to look upon but turn
   to ashes in the hand.

   Nothing beneath the skies and nothing above the skies can make any man
   happy apart from God, search as you will! Apart from God you may make a
   Hell, but you cannot make a Heaven, do what you please! Oh, I beseech
   you, unhappy man, if you have grown weary of the world and are sick of
   everything--if you are in the sere and yellow leaf though not 40 years
   of age--remember that there is a place where your leaf can be made
   green! If you will set the Lord always before you, you shall find peace
   in Him.

   And, next, I may be addressing some who think themselves perfectly
   happy in the world. I confess I do not envy you, but still, I like to
   hear you sing your song and tell the tale of what bliss the world
   affords. Yet note on what frail pillars this fairy palace of yours is
   erected! You are healthy, that is at the bottom of it--your bodily
   frame is in good order and you are merry. But suppose you should fall
   sick? Or suppose those few gray hairs should, before long, be
   multiplied, where only lie your mirth? Or if your wealth should take to
   itself wings and fly away--what then? Or if you come before the Lord in
   judgement, what then? Oh, Sir, let this frail foundation go! It is not
   meet to rest your eternal hopes upon! You are like a little child
   building his little sand house by the seaside! The tide is coming up, O
   child, leave your sand and flee from the waves! There is a Rock on
   which you may build a house eternal with massive stones, a palace of
   happiness that never shall be dissolved! Go there!

   Now, you Christian people, if any of you are unhappy, I wish I could
   preach you out of it by reminding you of this test, but, as I cannot, I
   leave you in the hands of the Holy Spirit. If you draw near to God, you
   will be as happy as the days are long in midsummer! Your doubts and
   fears will flee and you will be as merry as birds of the air! And you
   happy Christians, you of the bright eyes and the elastic footsteps, you
   can be happier, still, by coming yet nearer to God and abide in fuller
   communion with Him. And though you are already singing--

   "How happy is the pilgrim's lot," you shall be yet more blessed if you
   become more obedient, more submissive to the Divine will, more in
   sympathy with Jesus and more abidingly in communion with the Father.
   This is Heaven below! God grant it to you for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 16. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--16, 708.

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

Fat Things, Full of Marrow

   (No. 1306)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 23, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercies will I
   gather you. In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment, but
   with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your
   Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto Me: for as I have
   sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go o ver the earth, so
   have I sworn that I would not be angry with you nor rebuke you. For the
   mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall
   not depart from you, neither shall the Co venant of My peace be remo
   ved, says the Lord that has mercy on you." Isaiah 54:7-10.

   THIS precious passage is the property of all true Believers in the Lord
   Jesus Christ. We might not have ventured to say this if it were not for
   the last verse of the chapter, which assures us that it is so. "This is
   the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
   Me, says the Lord." The matchless promises and assurances of this
   chapter do not belong to the Jews, alone, nor only to the Gentile
   Church, nor even exclusively to the whole Church considered as a
   community--they are the property of all who are sons and servants of
   the living God. Isaiah speaks of both sonship and service. "This is the
   heritage," or portion obtained by heirship, which implies sonship. The
   promise, then, is ours, if we have been born into the family of Grace.

   But then, all God's sons are also servants, even as the Firstborn among
   many brethren became a Servant of servants for our sakes. Judge
   yourselves, dear Friends, as to whether you are sons of God by birth
   and servants of God by choice, for if you are, then you may take these
   promises to yourselves. In the last clause it is written, "Their
   righteousness is of Me, says the Lord." In this we can claim our part,
   for we have no righteousness of our own! But it has pleased the Lord to
   work a righteousness for us and a righteousness in us, since we stood
   in great need of both of these. Neither could we, by any means, have
   procured them for ourselves. If the Lord Jesus had not been made unto
   us both our justification and our sanctification, we could have had no
   hope of seeing the face of God with acceptance.

   If we are sons by regeneration and servants by the renewal of our
   nature. And if our righteousness, both imputed and imparted, is found
   in God, alone, then the text is ours most richly to enjoy! Stand not
   back from a table so richly spread, but eat and drink abundantly of its
   dainty provisions. If this is our heritage, the Lord says to us as He
   did to Abraham, "Lift up, now, your eyes, and look from the place where
   you are, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all
   the land which you see, to you will I give it."

   Before going further I would call your attention to the position of the
   wonderful chapter now before us. It may seem to be a commonplace
   remark, but its position is remarkable as following the 53rd Chapter of
   Isaiah--that clearest of all prophecies concerning our Lord! The 53rd
   of Isaiah is the saying of the great minstrel Prophet concerning the
   sufferings of the despised and rejected of men! And it is followed by
   this golden chapter. By the way of the Atonement we come to enjoy
   Covenant blessings. Fresh from the woes of Calvary we are able to bear
   our own griefs without repining--and with the great Ransom in full view
   we are convinced of our security before the Lord.

   You will never have faith enough to comprehend the extent of the
   heritage prepared of the Lord for you, except as your eyes are
   strengthened by gazing upon Him whom it pleased the Father to bruise
   for us. When we have the fullest sense of the sufferings of Jesus and
   of the love which brought Him to bear the iniquities of His people, we
   are then in the most fit state to comprehend the wonders of Covenant
   Grace and to appreciate the priceless mercies which come to us by the
   way of His substitutionary Sacrifice. Carrying in your hearts such
   words as these, "Surely He has borne our griefs

   and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions and He
   was bruised for our iniquities," let us draw near to the treasures
   which are spread before us. May the Holy Spirit assist us!

   The people of God are often very severely afflicted. They are tried in
   Providence and they are vexed by the wicked among whom they dwell. At
   times it seems as if their lot were far less desirable than that of the
   ungodly. The best of saints have been tempted to envy the worst of
   sinners when they have seen them in great power, spreading themselves
   as a green bay tree, while they, themselves, have been as withered
   plants. The saints are chastened and the sinners are enriched--this is
   no small test of faith! What is worse, at times the children of God are
   the subjects of great spiritual griefs and derive no comfort from their
   religion. They judge themselves to be deserted by their God and they
   enquire within themselves, "Is His mercy clean gone forever? Will He be
   favorable no more?"

   Then the joy of their heart ceases and their music is turned into
   mourning. At such times there is powerful comfort for the child of God
   in the fact that, whatever the Lord may do with him, He cannot be angry
   with him, nor rebuke him in the weightiest sense of those words. Since
   Jesus has made complete atonement on our behalf, there may be much that
   is bitter in our cup, but there cannot be in it even a single drop of
   judicial punishment for sin, because Christ has borne all that Justice
   could indict! It would be inconsistent with the integrity of the Most
   High, first to execute vengeance upon the Surety, and then to call His
   people to account for the sin which that Surety has put away! There is
   not, therefore, in all the chastisements which God lays upon us so much
   as a single trace of punitive wrath--

   "Death and the curse were in our cup--

   O Christ, Christ, 'twas full for You!

   But You ha ve drained the last dark drop,

   'Tis empty now for me:

   That bitter cup, love drank it up,

   Now blessing's left for me."

   The punishment for sin has been executed once and for all upon Jesus
   Christ our Savior! And now, if ever there is wrath on God's part
   towards His people, it is of quite another kind from that with which He
   visits the unbelieving world. Towards the ungodly He is a Judge and He
   summons them to judgment and executes His righteous sentences upon
   them. But we who are in Christ have virtually died in Him and upon us
   Justice has executed its sentence in the Person of our great
   Substitute. Therefore the Law cannot make any further demands upon us.
   We are, from now on, the children of God and have come under another
   discipline altogether--the discipline of a loving father towards his
   family. The Lord may be angry with us as a father is angry with his
   child, but never as a judge is angry with a criminal.

   In that respect His anger is forever turned away from the redeemed. Our
   subject is to be God's little wrath and God's great Wrath--the little
   wrath may light upon the Lord's beloved, for He says, "In a little
   wrath I hid My face from you for a moment." But there is a great Wrath
   which burns as a consuming fire and this cannot fall upon the redeemed,
   for the Lord has sworn that He will not be angry with them nor rebuke
   them.

   I. The first subject, then, is what the Lord calls His, "LITTLE WRATH."
   Let us speak of it and its modifications and, perhaps, the Holy Spirit
   will bless our meditation to the comfort of His afflicted. Our first
   remark shall be that our view of that wrath and God's view of it may
   very greatly differ. To a child of God in a right state, even the most
   modified form of Divine anger is very painful. A loving child dreads
   the smallest displeasure on his father's part. He may be right well
   assured that his parent will not kill him, or disown him, or deliver
   him over to the magistrate to be put in prison, but it is sorrow enough
   for him that his father's heart is grieved.

   The terrors of a slave are not needed to keep the children of God in
   order. The filial fear which trembles at a father's frown is quite
   sufficient. Let God but hide His face and we are troubled. We do not,
   therefore, despise the chastening of the Lord, or think little of His
   fatherly anger. On the contrary, we are weary with crying, our eyes
   fail while we wait for our God. Our entreaty is, "Hide not Your face
   from Your servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily." It breaks
   our hearts to think that we should grieve our God! This pain of heart
   is a very proper feeling, but it may be perverted by unbelief into the
   occasion of sin. We may conclude from the chastening rod that the Lord
   is about to destroy us--though He has plainly said, "Fury is not in
   Me."

   We may falsely conclude, as the text seems to hint, that God has
   utterly forsaken us and hidden His face forever. When we prayed, we
   enjoyed no liberty and felt no access to the Mercy Seat. When we tried
   to sing, our hosannas fell flat from our tongues. When we went to the
   assembly of the saints, we no longer beheld the Glory of the Lord as we
   had, be-

   fore, seen Him in His sanctuary. When we opened the Bible, its choicest
   promises appeared to be as dry bones from which the marrow is taken
   and, therefore, we concluded that all was over with us, that God had
   forsaken us! And we, therefore, feared that nothing remained for us but
   eternal destruction--

   "If sometimes I strive, as I mourn,

   My hold of Your promise to keep,

   The billows more fiercely return,

   And plunge me again in the deep.

   While harassed and cast from Your sight,

   The tempter suggests with a roar,

   'The Lord has forsaken you quite:

   Your God will be gracious no more!'" This dark estimate of our affairs
   is not God's view of them! He knows that He has not utterly or finally
   withdrawn, but He puts it thus--"For a small moment have I forsaken
   you." It is but a partial departure under which the saint is
   suffer-ing--the small moment will soon be over. The tried one is
   enduring only a partial and transient withdrawal of the light of His
   Countenance, for the Lord says, "In a little wrath I hid My face from
   you for a moment."

   I suppose if we were quite new in this world and had never seen the sun
   descend below the horizon, we should conclude at his setting that we
   were about to be plunged into everlasting darkness! We have now become
   so accustomed to see him set and rise again, that evening causes us no
   alarm. Well, child of God, I trust you will not, for an instant, lose
   the light of your Father's countenance, but if you should do so, it
   will return again--He has not forsaken you altogether nor forever!
   Weeping shall have its night, but joy's bright morning will follow, for
   the Lord will not cast off forever. And though He causes grief, yet
   will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.

   When we are under the hiding of God's face, we cannot judge rightly. We
   are too agitated, too distressed, too distracted to see matters in
   their true light. At such times we are in fear where there is no fear
   and also magnify that which is legitimately a cause of anxiety.
   Unbelief is so natural to us and the propensity to write bitter things
   against ourselves is so very common, that we are not to be trusted with
   the scales of judgment. Let us not be too positive that our conclusions
   are the truth--let us, rather, take God's estimate of His own dealings.
   And if we are, at this time, walking in darkness and seeing no light,
   let us trust in the Lord and rest ourselves upon His Word, for all that
   God has done towards us, if we are, indeed, His servants, amounts to
   this--that for a small moment He has forsaken us and in a little wrath
   He has hidden His face from us.

   I will now call your attention to two or three things which should
   greatly modify the view we take of the hiding of God's face. First, as
   to time. The time during which our God withdraws Himself is very
   short--"for a moment," He says. But He puts it less than that, "For a
   small moment." Do any of you know what a small moment is? Yet that is
   the Lord's own expression! Think of how long He has loved us, even from
   before the foundation of the world! The time in which He hides His face
   is very short compared with that. Think of how long He will love
   us--when all this universe shall have subsided into its native
   nothingness He will love us forever! The time during which He chastens
   us is, compared with that, a very small moment!

   Think of how long we deserved to have been in Hell, to lie forever
   beneath His indignation! The little moment in which His heavy hand is
   upon us, is, indeed, as nothing compared with the eternal misery which
   our sins have merited. Dear Brothers and Sisters, when you come forth
   from the hiding of His face into the light, again, this gloom will seem
   to have been but a small moment! You shall forget the shame of your
   youth! You shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore!
   Sorrows past are slight and short when followed by boundless, endless
   joys. An eternity of Heaven makes even a lifetime of pain to shrivel
   into a small moment!

   When you have noticed the time, then I would call your attention to the
   recompense which is promised. "For a small moment have I forsaken you,
   but with great mercies will I gather you." The Lord will make up to you
   all your losses, your afflictions, your crosses and your chastisements!
   God's dealings with us never seem to be so merciful as after a time of
   trial. Then every blessing is a mercy, indeed, and we adore the love
   which grants it to us. When the taste of the wormwood and the gall is
   still on the palate, then the wines on the lees well-refined have a
   peculiar flavor, and we drink of them with a special zest. The
   bitterness makes the sweet the sweeter and the sorrow makes the joy the
   more abounding.

   The text does not say that God will give us mercy after He has, for a
   while left us, but the word is in the plural, "mercies," multitudes of
   mercies! No, it does not merely say, "mercies," but, "great mercies,"
   for they are all the greater because we so greatly need them, are
   plunged in such great distress for need of them, and filled with so
   many great fears as to our future estate. With great mercies will the
   Lord come to us, silence our fears and help us to gather up our
   scattered hopes and confidences! The Lord not only promises us these
   great favors, but He promises that He, Himself, will bring them. They
   are not to be sent to us by angels or by external Providences, but He
   declares, "With great mercies will I gather you."

   The work of restoration shall be the Lord's own personal work! His own
   right hand shall be laid to it and, after downcastings and scatterings
   of many different sorts, the Lord Himself shall arise for the gathering
   of His people. "He that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him
   as a shepherd does his flock." "Thus says the Lord, as one whom his
   mother comforts, so will I comfort you." The Lord Himself will devise
   means to bring back His banished ones! He will turn away His wrath from
   them and they shall sing, "O Lord, I will praise You, for though You
   were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfort me."

   It would be far better to walk with God in one long continuous
   fellowship throughout life, but if fellowship is broken, you may
   return, and return at once. It is a great thing to have your joy
   continued even under trouble, but if the trouble should be too much for
   you and all God's waves and billows should roll over you, yet He will
   restore you, for He has said, "I will bring you, again, from Bashan, I
   will bring My people, again, from the depths of the sea." You shall see
   how little His wrath was, for love's binding up shall make you forget
   the wounds--and the heavenly oil of consolation shall effectually
   remove the bruises.

   Though the Lord may shut you up in the dark, yet afterwards He will
   give you light, again, and the light will be all the brighter because
   of the darkness! When comforts are restored, we see the reason for
   their withdrawal. And like good old Jacob, when he found his long lost
   Joseph, we admire the love which afflicted us as much as the Grace
   which restores our comforts! Bear, then, with patience the little wrath
   of God because of the shortness of its duration and the greatness of
   its recompense!

   The text further declares that the wrath is, in itself, little. I
   should hardly have used such a term if I had not found it written here
   by an Infallible pen. "In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a
   moment." God's wrath against His own people, as compared with that
   which burns against the ungodly, is but little, and it never can get
   beyond that point! If you read the context you will see that it must be
   little wrath, for first it is the wrath of a husband against his wife.
   "Your Maker is your Husband." Yes, good Lord, You may be angry with me,
   but You are my Husband, still. You may forsake me for a while, but You
   have betrothed me unto Yourself forever in faithfulness and in mercy.
   And in Your Word it is written, "The Lord, the God of Israel, says He
   hates putting away."

   Observe with delight that the Lord's wrath against His chosen is not
   the anger of a king against rebellious subjects, nor that of an enemy
   against his foe, but the tender jealousy, the affectionate grief of a
   loving husband when his bride has treated him ill. Note an instance of
   this in the book of Jeremiah, where even when He banishes His people,
   He shows His love at the same time and sighs, "I have given the dearly
   beloved of My soul into the hands of her enemies." Observe, also, that
   the wrath is that of a Redeemer against those He has redeemed. We read
   at the end of the eighth verse, "Says the Lord, your Redeemer."

   It is such anger that, nevertheless, He died for us! It is such anger
   that, still, He puts forth His power to win what He has purchased. It
   is such anger that He values us far too well to lose us. Is not that a
   little anger which, nevertheless, calls to remembrance the blood with
   which it redeemed the offending one? O Savior, Son of God, my Lord, my
   Life, my All, if I cannot see the smiles of Your face, I can still look
   to the wounds of Your hands! If I may not be ravished with Your love as
   it is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit, yet I know it as it
   was shed abroad from Your dear wounded side, when the spear cut Your
   heart! Here is consolation to those who are under a cloud! It is only
   in a little wrath that a Redeemer can hide Himself from the purchase of
   His agonies!

   It is, moreover, the anger of One who pities us, for the passage at the
   end of the 10th verse is thus, "Says the Lord, that has mercy on you."
   And in the Hebrew it is, "Says the Lord your Pitier." It is the wrath
   of One who is tender and compassionate and pities while He smites! It
   is the anger of a father who takes the rod and scourges the child, but
   feels more of the smart than the child does, for every twig seems to
   lacerate his heart while he makes his child to cry and weep.

   It is such wrath as is consistent with love--"for a while I spoke
   against him. I do earnestly remember him still." Our names are engraved
   on the very hand which buffets us--and the rod which bruises us is
   steeped in mercy.

   I have not time to linger where there is so much to detain us, but we
   will notice, next, that the expression of His little anger is not,
   after all, so extremely severe, for what does it say? "I hid My face."
   The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the
   remembrance of them from the earth. But our text does not say, "I
   turned My face against you," but only, "I hid My face from you." I
   grant that this is painful, but still, there is this sweet
   reflection--why does He hide His face? It is because the sight of it
   would be pleasant to us! It is a face of love, for if it were a face of
   anger He would not need to hide it from His erring child! If it were an
   angry face and He wished to chasten us, He would unveil it. And,
   therefore, we may be sure that He covers it because it is so bright
   with everlasting love that if it could be seen, no chastisement would
   be felt by us.

   See, then, that--

   "Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smiling face."

   His hidden love is true love and it hides itself because it is so.
   Remember that we might have been plunged in outer darkness and have
   felt the crushing blows of the iron rod. But, as it is, we are only put
   under His frown for a time--"He has not dealt with us after our sins;
   nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." Be it ours to humble
   ourselves under the mighty hand of God, but let us not despise the
   chastening of the Lord, nor faint when we are corrected by Him, for
   whom the Lord loves He chastens and scourges every son whom He
   receives. Let us neither despair nor distrust our God, nor think that
   we are the objects of His great Wrath when, indeed, we are only feeling
   His fatherly anger, which is only a form of His wise and deep love.

   Observe, too, for we must not leave out a word here, that this little
   wrath is perfectly consistent with everlasting love. "In a little wrath
   I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will
   I have mercy on you." The Lord is filled with everlasting kindness at
   the very time when He is making the promise, for if you promise a
   person that you will love him, you love him already! Love, alone, could
   prompt a promise such as that which I have read. O you from whom God
   has hidden His face, when He promises that He will have mercy on you
   with everlasting kindness, is not love already ruling His heart? Our
   heavenly Father loves His children as much when He chastens as when He
   caresses! The Lord's own people are as dear to Him in the furnace of
   affliction as on the mount of communion! They are just as precious in
   His sight when He slays them and seems, in His fierce anger, to destroy
   their joys and wither their hopes, as when He lifts them to His own
   right hand!

   The Lord does not rise and fall in His love like the waves of the sea,
   but His firm affections stand fast like the great mountains and are as
   stable as the everlasting hills. You have no right to infer from the
   greatness of your griefs that God is ceasing to love you, or that He
   loves you less! On the contrary, I am persuaded that if all the griefs
   which are possible to men could be heaped upon one child of God. If all
   God's waves and billows went over him. If he were to descend into the
   deeps of affliction so low that the earth, with her bars seemed to be
   about him forever. If not one ray of light came into his soul, but he
   was tormented with temptation and afflicted by Satan, and deserted by
   man--and body and soul were, alike, in grief and pain--yet would all
   this only be a token of Divine love to him and part of the process by
   which love would supremely bless him!

   The utmost that can be truthfully said on the dark side of a Believer's
   worst estate is this, "In a little wrath I hid My face from you for a
   moment." O children of God, you ought to be comforted by this! But I
   know you will not be unless the Divine Comforter shall lay these
   heavenly Truths of God home to your souls. I can but speak them in my
   own feeble manner. He can speak them with power! Our duty, then, under
   the Lord's little wrath, is to feel it and grieve about it and to
   search ourselves and put away our sins! But we must not dishonor the
   Lord by unbelief, nor fancy ourselves to be under the Covenant of
   Works, or speak as if the Atonement had failed and left us as much the
   heirs of wrath as before.

   We are not under the Law and cannot, therefore, be under the wrath
   which the Law works. We are not accounted as guilty before the Lord
   and, therefore, cannot be obnoxious to His great anger. Let us remember
   this and be of good courage when we are enduring the chastisements of
   the Lord.

   II. We are now to consider THE GREAT WRATH OF GOD AND OUR SECURITY
   AGAINST IT. Our security against it is this--"This is as the waters of
   Noah unto Me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no
   more go

   over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor
   rebuke you." Until God drowns the whole world, again, He never can let
   out His great Wrath against His people! Many centuries have gone by
   since Noah was saved in the ark and there has been no other universal
   flood. There have been partial floods, here and there, but the earth
   has never been completely destroyed with water.

   I should not wonder but what the first shower of rain that fell, after
   he came out of the ark, frightened Noah! And if it had not been that he
   saw the rainbow of God in the clouds, he would have trembled lest, once
   again, the fair world would be buried in the deeps. But his fears were
   all in vain--generations have followed generations in perfect safety
   from a deluge--and I do not suppose that there is now a man existing
   who is afraid of a general flood. Now, child of God, you must get rid,
   once and for all, of all fear that God's great Wrath can ever be let
   loose upon you! It can never come upon the justified. Be sure of this,
   that as the waters of Noah shall no more go over the earth, so if you
   believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord will never be angry with you
   nor rebuke you, so as to destroy you, or count you His enemy!

   His great Wrath is over. The flood of old lasted six months and more
   and, during that time, there was neither sowing nor reaping, but the
   Lord has said that never again shall a flood interrupt the operations
   of Nature. "Seed time and harvest," said He, "summer and winter shall
   not cease." And they have not ceased! Go, now, into the fields and see
   how loaded they are with the fruits of the earth which are ripening for
   the sickle! Note, then, that as God has not suffered the seasons to be
   suspended by another flood, though thousands of years have passed away,
   so it is certain that He will not spend your spiritual life, nor take
   from you the blessings of His Covenant by letting out His great Wrath
   against you. He says He will not, and, Brothers and Sisters, it were
   something like blasphemy to indulge a doubt about this.

   My text suggests to me that we have ample security that the great Wrath
   of God will never break out against us, for it has broken out against
   us once. The waters of Noah did go over the earth once, but never
   twice. Now, the great Wrath of God can never break forth against His
   redeemed because it has already broken forth against them! Do you not
   remember it? It was on that dark, that doleful night, when our great
   Covenant Head and Representative was in the garden all alone. And then
   the flood began to rise and rage and He said, "My soul is exceedingly
   sorrowful, even unto death." There was a sight in the garden that night
   such as none of us have ever seen--

   "Immanuel, sunk with dreadful woe, Unfelt, unknown to all below--
   Except the Son of God-- In agonizing pangs of soul, Drinks deep of
   wormwood's bitterest bowl, And sweats great drops of blood."

   The floods lifted up their voice, the cataracts of wrath descended and
   the great deeps opened up from beneath to overwhelm His spirit! The
   waters came in, even unto His soul! You know what happened to Him in
   Pilate's Hall and among the soldiers--how He hid not His face from
   shame and spitting while He bowed His back to the smiter's lash. And
   you remember, well, how they took Him to the Cross and nailed Him
   there, your Lord and mine. "It pleased the Father to bruise Him: He has
   put Him to grief." He made His soul an offering for sin and laid on Him
   the iniquities of us all. The Father hid His face from Him and refused
   to smile on the sinner's Substitute! The tempest had came to its
   highest! The floods were out 20 cubits above the tops of the mountains
   when our Lord cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

   The flood was then at its height, even that flood of great Wrath which
   was due to us for sin! In the death of the Lord Jesus we died! We were
   crucified in Him! In Him we bore the punishment for sin! The Lord has
   laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Take it for a stable maxim which
   can never be denied, that two judgments can never be meted out for the
   same offense. Neither the laws of earth nor Heaven will permit that the
   Substitute should bleed and then that the penalty should, a second
   time, be demanded! Where would be the value of the Atonement if such
   could be the case? Jesus has paid our debts and, therefore, we are out
   of debt! He has taken the handwriting of ordinances which were against
   us and nailed it to His Cross--there is the receipt for all our debts,
   fastened up before Heaven and Hell upon the Cross of Christ!

   "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
   justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." Is not
   that answer enough for all the charges of Hell? Let us put together two
   or three texts and drink in their sweetness. "Once in the end of the
   world has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Get
   hold of that. Sin is put away forever. "He came," another Prophet tells
   us, "to finish transgression and make an end of sin." Now, if

   He has made an end of sin, where is it? What reason can we have to fear
   its return? Think how David puts it--"As far as the east is from the
   west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."

   Does anybody know how far in the broad heavens east is from the west?
   In the vastness of space no boundary can be imagined in either
   direction and, therefore, the distance is inconceivable. If the great
   enemy were to try and bring back our sins, it would take him an
   eternity to do it and, meanwhile, we shall be safe in Heaven! What is
   said concerning the Lord in the Book of Micah? "He will subdue our
   iniquities; and You will cast all their sins into the depths of the
   sea." Does anybody know how deep the sea is? In some places it is said
   to be unfathomable! Can we find, again, that which is cast into the
   deeps? Our sins are cast by our Lord Jesus into deeps where no line
   will ever reach them. Glory be to His name for this!

   Another text flashes upon my memory. "In those days, and in that time,
   says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there
   shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found."
   Take this again--"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your
   transgressions, and as a cloud your sins." The texts which speak to
   this effect are many! Time would fail us to mention them all, but their
   sum and substance is that Jesus Christ, our great Covenant Surety, was
   made a curse for us and has, thereby, redeemed us from the curse of the
   Law. You see, then, my drift. The floods of great Wrath have been
   out--they have rolled over the dear Redeemer's sacred Person and spent
   their fury!--

   "The tempest's awful voice was heard!

   O Christ, it broke on You!

   Your open bosom was my ward,

   It bra ved the storm for me.

   Your form was scarred, Your visage marred;

   Now cloudless peace for me."

   It is absolutely certain that there never shall be a second flood,
   either of water to drown the world, or of Divine Wrath to overwhelm the
   souls of the redeemed! What joy is this!

   But this is not all. Note that the text gives us, next, the oath of God
   as our security. "As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no
   more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with
   you, nor rebuke you." It is always a solemn occasion when Jehovah lifts
   His hand to Heaven and swears. Then is a matter confirmed, indeed, when
   it is secured by the oath of God! To my mind nothing is more full of
   awe! I cannot grasp the thought to the fullest and yet I love to dwell
   upon it! He swears by Himself because He could swear by no greater and
   thus, adding His oath to His promise, He gives us two immutable things
   wherein it is impossible for God to lie!

   He has pledged Himself, saying, "Their sins and iniquities will I
   remember no more." The sin which was buried in Christ's tomb shall
   never rise again, or be mentioned against us anymore forever! The
   iniquity which was borne by Christ shall never be laid to the charge of
   those for whom the Savior bore it. How could it be? So long as truth
   and holiness remain, how can it be imagined that the Atonement can be
   accepted and yet the sinner punished on his own account? If God can
   break His oath, may this thing be, but this is inconceivable and so we
   rest secure.

   But next we have before us the fact that the Lord has guaranteed our
   security by a Covenant, for in the 10th verse He says, "Neither shall
   the Covenant of My peace be removed." The passage should be read,
   "Neither shall My Covenant of peace be removed." The eternal Father has
   entered into covenant with Christ that He would give to Him a seed for
   whom He should be the Covenant Head and Surety. Christ has fulfilled
   His side of the Covenant by bearing all the penalty for His people's
   sin and fulfilling all righteousness. And now that Covenant stands fast
   to be assuredly executed on the Father's side.

   Thus runs the Covenant, "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." "I will make an
   Everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to
   do them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts, and they shall
   not depart from Me." God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk in
   them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." This is
   the Covenant from which the Lord cannot and will not draw back, for He
   never alters the thing which has gone forth out of His mouth! This
   Covenant was signed and sealed and ratified by the blood of Christ--and
   it is, in all things, well ordered and sure--and therefore the people
   of God may rest in perfect security of their everlasting deliverance
   from the deluge of righteous wrath.

   And now, to close, what blessed illustrations of our security are added
   in the further declaration of the Lord's mind and will. The Lord looks
   on the mountains and the hills and declares that these and all things
   visible will pass away, for time's grandest birth shall perish when
   eternity resurges its sway. The mountains and the hills may represent
   the most stable of earthly hopes and confidences--but these all must
   fail us when most we need them. The Lord Himself assures us of this
   and, therefore, does not at all guarantee to us any security in the
   things which are seen, nor any peace that can be drawn from the
   creature. Our consolation lies elsewhere. "The mountains shall depart
   and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you,
   neither shall the Covenant of My peace be removed, said Jehovah, the
   Pitier."

   Melt, you mountains and dissolve, you hills! Perish, O Earth, and flee
   away you heavens, but the Lord cannot forget His oath nor forsake His
   chosen! Should our dearest friends die. Should we traverse, many times,
   the sorrowful path to the sepulcher. Should those who survive become
   unkind. Should our substance be swept away and our honorable name be
   unjustly questioned. Should we be driven by persecution into banishment
   and should weakness and sickness cast us upon the bed of languishing.
   Should consumption mark us for her own, or painful maladies come upon
   us as armed men. Should we see the mountains depart and the hills
   remove--should all this happen, I say--even then we would triumph in
   almighty love, for thus says the Lord, "My kindness shall not depart
   from you, neither shall My Covenant of peace be removed."

   The sick chamber shall be a palace! The sickness, itself, an angelic
   messenger! Poverty shall make us rich! Shame shall increase our honor!
   Banishment shall bring us nearer Home! Death, itself, shall enlarge the
   boundaries of life! Under no conceivable circumstances shall the
   Covenant fail! The Lord who made it cannot change! Jesus who sealed it
   cannot die! The love which dictated it cannot cease! The power which
   executes it cannot decay and the Truth of God which guarantees it
   cannot be questioned! In the eternal provisions of that Covenant of
   peace, which is sure to all the seed, we may rejoice with unspeakable
   joy and full of glory!

   My Brothers and Sisters, do you believe this? If you do, you ought to
   be as happy as the angels are! Our lot is supremely blessed. What a
   loving God we serve and what great things has He spoken concerning us!
   The soul is filled with wonder that the Almighty God should, in very
   deed, enter into Covenant engagements with the insects of a day who are
   crushed before the moth! Whatever may be our outward sorrows, yet when
   we consider these choice favors and enjoy them in our own souls, we may
   count ourselves, of all men, the most happy! How can we be so cold, so
   dead as we are? Such favors are enough to melt rocks and make hills
   sing! O my Soul, awake, and from now on and evermore pour forth loud
   hallelujahs unto the Lord!

   As for you who have no portion in Divine realities, what do you possess
   that is worth having? O you who are seeking the world, but are
   despising Covenant mercies, it were better for you that you had never
   been born! "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
   lose his own soul?" Think upon this, and consider your ways. And there
   is this encouragement for you, that all through our text the leading
   note is mercy. Look at the seventh verse, "With great mercies will I
   gather you." Look at the eighth verse, "Will I have mercy on you." The
   Word of God drips with mercy! Remember, also, that if any of us have
   obtained these Covenant promises, we were no better than you by nature
   and we had no more meritorious right to them than you have!

   But God, in infinite distinguishing Grace, was pleased to bring us into
   the enjoyment of these privileges--why should He not bring you also? If
   salvation were by merit, there would be no Gospel! But as it is of
   mercy, free mercy, rich mercy--here is good news for you! Dear heart,
   if you would be forgiven, Christ is ready to forgive! If you would have
   peace with God, that peace is made! If you believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ you shall be saved, even as they are who are, this day,
   rejoicing in His complete redemption! The Lord bring you this day to
   confess your sin humbly, to look up to Christ believingly and to find
   salvation through the blood of the Lamb! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 54. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--245, 738.
     __________________________________________________________________

Enoch

   (No. 1307)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 30, 1876,

   BY C. H.SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: and Enoch
   walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three hundred years, and
   begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Enoch were three hundred
   sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for
   God took him." Genesis 5:21-24.

   "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."
   Hebrews 11:5, 6.

   "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying,
   Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute
   judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of
   all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all
   their hard speeches which ungodly sinners ha ve spoken against Him."
   Jude 1:14,15.

   THE three passages of Scripture which I have read are all the authentic
   information we have concerning Enoch. It would be idle to supplement it
   with the fictions of ancient commentators. Enoch is called the seventh
   from Adam, to distinguish him from the other Enoch of the line of Cain,
   who was the third from Adam. In the first Patriarchs God was pleased to
   manifest to men portions of His Truth in reference to true religion.
   These men of the olden times were not only, themselves, taught of God,
   but they were also teachers of their age and types in whom great Truths
   of God were exhibited. Abel taught the need of approaching the Lord
   with sacrifice, the need of the Atonement by blood--he laid the lamb
   upon the altar and sealed his testimony with his own blood. Atonement
   is so precious a Truth of God that to die for its defense is a worthy
   deed and from the very first it is a doctrine which has secured its
   martyrs, who being dead yet speak.

   Then Seth and Enos taught men the necessity of a distinct avowal of
   their faith in the Lord and the need of assembling for His worship, for
   we read concerning the days of Enos and Seth, "Then began men to call
   upon the name of the Lord." Those who worshipped through the atoning
   Sacrifice separated themselves from the rest of men, assembled a Church
   in the name of the Lord and worshipped, calling upon the name of
   Jehovah. The heart must first believe in the great sacrifice with Abel
   and then the mouth must confess the same with Seth. Then came Enoch
   whose life went beyond the reception and confession of the Atonement,
   for he set before men the great Truth of communion with God. He
   displayed in his life the relation of the Believer to the Most High and
   showed how near the living God condescends to be to His own children.
   May our progress in knowledge be similar to the growth of the
   Patriarchal teaching!

   Brothers and Sisters, you know as Abel did, the sacrificial Lamb. Your
   confidence is in the precious blood and so by faith you bring to God
   the most acceptable of all offerings. Having advanced so far, the most
   of us have proceeded a step

   further, and we have called upon the name and are the avowed followers
   of Jesus. We have given ourselves up to the Lord in the solemn burial
   of Baptism, when we were baptized into the name of the Father, and of
   the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because we reckoned ourselves dead in
   Christ to all the world and risen with Him into newness of life.
   Henceforth the Divine name is named on us and we are no more our own.

   And now we gather together in our Church capacity. We assemble around
   the table of fellowship, we unite in our meetings for prayer and
   worship and the center for us all is the name of the Lord. We are
   separated from the world and set apart to be a people who declare His
   name. Thus far so good--we have seen the Sacrifice of Jesus as the way
   with Abel. We have avowed the Truth with Seth. Now let us take the next
   step and know the life with Enoch. Let us endeavor to walk with God as
   Enoch did! Perhaps a meditation upon the holy Patriarch's life may help
   us to imitate it. While considering what he was and under what
   circumstances he came to be so, we may, by the Holy Spirit, be helped
   to reach the point to which he attained.

   This is the desire of every godly man! All the saints desire communion
   with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The constant cry of our
   soul is to our Lord, "Abide with me." I buried, yesterday, one of the
   excellent of the earth who loved and feared and served his God far
   better than most of us. He was an eminently devout Brother. One of the
   last wishes of his heart he had committed to writing in a letter to a
   friend, when he little thought of dying. It was this, "I have longed to
   realize the life of Enoch and to walk with God."--

   "Oh for a closer walk with God!"

   He did but write what you and I feel. If such are your desires, and
   such I feel sure they are, so surely as you are the Lord's people, then
   I hope a consideration of the life of Enoch may help you towards the
   realization of your wish.

   First, then, what does Enoch's walking with God imply? It is a short
   description of a man's life, but there is a mint of meaning in it.
   Secondly, what circumstances were connected with his remarkable life?
   These are highly instructive. And thirdly, what was the close of if! It
   was as remarkable as the life itself.

   I. First, then, WHAT IS MEANT BY ENOCH'S WALKING WITH GOD? Paul helps
   us with our first observation upon this by his note in Hebrews. His
   walk with God was a testimony that Enoch was well-pleasing to God.
   "Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."
   This is evidently the Apostle's interpretation of his walking with God
   and it is a most correct one, for the Lord will not walk with a man in
   whom He has no pleasure. Can two walk together, except they are agreed?
   If men walk contrary to God, He will not walk with them, but contrary
   to them. Walking together implies amity, friendship, intimacy,
   love--and these cannot exist between God and the soul unless the man is
   acceptable unto the Lord.

   Doubtless Enoch, like Elijah, was a man of like passions with
   ourselves. He had fallen with the rest of mankind in the sin of Adam.
   There was sin about him, as there is sin about us by nature, and he had
   gone astray in act and deed as all we, like sheep, have done. Therefore
   he needed pardon and cleansing, even as we do. Then to be pleasing with
   God it was necessary that he should be forgiven and justified, even as
   we are--for no man can be pleasing to God till sin is pardoned and
   righteousness is imputed. To this end there must be faith, for there
   can be no justification except by faith. And as we have said, already,
   there is no pleasing God except our persons are justified.

   Right well, then, does the Apostle say, "Without faith it is impossible
   to please God," and by faith Enoch was made pleasing to God, even as we
   are at this day. This is worthy of earnest notice, Brothers and
   Sisters, because this way of faith is open to us. If Enoch had been
   pleasing to God by virtue of some extraordinary gifts and talents, or
   by reason of marvelous achievements and miraculous works, we might have
   been in despair! But if he was pleasing to God through faith, that same
   faith which saved the dying thief, that same faith which has been
   worked in you and in me--then the wicket gate at the head of the way in
   which men walk with God is open to us, also!

   If we have faith we may enter into fellowship with the Lord! How this
   ought to endear faith to us! The highest grades of spiritual life
   depend upon the lower ones and rise out of them. If you want to walk
   with God as a man of God, you must begin by believing in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, simply, as a babe in Grace! The highest saintship must commence
   by the confession of your sinnership, and your laying hold upon Christ
   Crucified. Not otherwise does the strongest Believer live than the
   weakest Believer--and if you are to grow to be among the strongest of
   the Lord's warriors--it must be by faith which lays hold upon Divine
   strength.

   Beginning in the Spirit you are not to be made perfect in the flesh.
   You are not to proceed a certain distance, by faith in Christ, and then
   to commence living by your own works--your walk is to continue as it
   begun. "As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk you in Him."
   Enoch was always pleasing to God, but it was because he always believed
   and lived in the power of his faith. This is worth knowing and
   remembering, for we may yet be tempted to strive for some imaginary
   higher style of religious life by looking to our feelings instead of
   looking alone to the Lord! We must not remove our eyes from looking,
   alone, to Jesus, Himself, even to admire His image within
   ourselves--for if we do we shall go backward rather than forward. No,
   Beloved, by faith Enoch became pleasing to God and by faith he walked
   with God--let us follow in his footprints.

   Next, when we read that Enoch walked with God we are to understand that
   he realized the Divine Presence. You cannot consciously walk with a
   person whose existence is not known to you. When we walk with a man, we
   know that he is there. We hear his footsteps if we cannot see his face.
   We have some very clear perception that there is a person at our side.
   Now, it we look to Hebrews again, Paul tells us, "He that comes to God
   must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that
   diligently seek Him." Enoch's faith, then, was a realizing faith. He
   did not believe things as a matter of creed and then put them up on the
   shelf out of the way, as too many of us do today--he was not merely
   orthodox in his head--but the Truth of God had entered into his heart.

   What he believed was true to him, practically true, true as a matter of
   fact in his daily life. He walked with God--it was not that he merely
   thought of God, that he speculated about God, that he argued about God,
   that he read about God, that he talked about God--he walked with God,
   which is the practical and experimental part of true godliness! In his
   daily life he realized that God was with him and he regarded Him as a
   living God, in whom he confided and by whom he was loved. Oh, Beloved,
   do you not see that if you are to reach to the highest style of
   Christian life, you must do it through the realization of those very
   things which, by faith, you have received?

   Grasp them! Let them be to you substance and evidence. Make them sure,
   look upon them, handle them, taste them in your inmost soul and so know
   them beyond all question. You must see Him who is invisible and possess
   that which cannot be as yet enjoyed. Believe not only that God is, but
   that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, for this,
   according to Paul, is the Enoch faith! God realized as existing,
   observing, judging and rewarding human deeds--a real God, really with
   us--this we must know, or there is no walking with God.

   Then, as we read that Enoch walked with God, we have no doubt it
   signifies that he had very familiar communion with the Most High. I
   scarcely know a communion that is more free, pleasant and cordial than
   that which arises out of constant walking with a friend. If I wished to
   find a man's most familiar friend, it would surely be one with whom he
   walked daily. If you were to say, "I sometimes go into his house and
   sit a little while with him," it would not amount to so much as when
   you can say, "I have, from day to day, walked the fields and climbed
   the hills with him." In walking, friends become communicative--one
   tells his trouble and the other strives to console him under it--and
   then imparts to him his own secret in return. When persons are
   constantly in the habit of walking together from choice, you may be
   quite sure there are many communications between them with which no
   stranger may intermeddle.

   If I wanted to know a man through and through, I should want to walk
   with him for a time, for walking communion brings out parts of the man
   which even in domestic life may be concealed. Walking for a continuance
   implies and engenders close fellowship and great familiarity between
   friends. But will God, in very deed, thus walk with men? Yes, He did so
   with Enoch and He has done so with many of His people since. He tells
   us His secret, the secret of the Lord, which He reveals only to them
   that fear Him. And we tell Him, alike, our joys in praise, our sorrows
   in prayer and our sins in confession. The heart unloads itself of all
   its cares into the heart of Him that cares for us! And the Lord pours
   forth His floods of goodness as He imparts to His beloved ones a sense
   of His own everlasting love to them. This is the very flower and
   sweetness of Christian experience, its lily and its rose, its calamus
   and myrrh. If you would taste the cream of Christian life, it is found
   in having a realizing faith and entering into intimate communion with
   the heavenly Father. So Enoch walked with God.

   Next it is implied in the term, "walked," that his communion with God
   was continuous. As an old Divine has well remarked, he did not take a
   turn or two with God and then leave His company, but he walked with God
   for hundreds of years! It is implied in the text that this was the
   tenor of his life throughout the whole of its 365 years. Enoch walked
   with God after Methuselah had been born, 300 years, and doubtless he
   had walked with Him before. What a splendid walk! A

   walk of 300 years! One might desire a change of company if he walked
   with anybody else, but to walk with God for three centuries was so
   sweet that the Patriarch kept on with his walk until he walked beyond
   time and space--and walked into Paradise--where he is still marching on
   in the same Divine society! He had Heaven on earth and it was,
   therefore, not so amazing that he glided away from earth to Heaven so
   easily.

   He did not commune with God by fits and starts, but he abode in the
   conscious love of God. He did not, now and then, climb to the heights
   of elevated piety and then descend into the marshy valley of
   lukewarmness, but he continued in the calm, happy, equable enjoyment of
   fellowship with God from day to day. Night with its sleep did not
   suspend it. Day with its cares did not endanger it. It was not a run, a
   rush, a leap, a spurt, but a steady walk. On, on, through three happy
   centuries and more did Enoch continue to walk with God!

   It is implied, also, in this phrase that his life was progressive, for
   if a man walks either by himself or with anybody else, he makes
   progress, he goes forward. Enoch walked with God. At the end of 200
   years he was not where he began. He was in the same Company, but he had
   gone forward in the right way. At the end of the third hundred years
   Enoch enjoyed more, understood more, loved more, had received more and
   could give out more, for he had gone forward in all respects. A man who
   walks with God will necessarily grow in Grace and in the knowledge of
   God and in likeness to Christ. You cannot suppose a perpetual walk with
   God, year after year, without the favored person being strengthened,
   sanctified, instructed and rendered more able to glorify God.

   So I gather that Enoch's life was a life of spiritual progress. He went
   from strength to strength and made headway in the gracious pilgrimage.
   May God grant us to be pressing onward, ourselves. Suffer a few more
   observations upon Enoch's walk. In "Kitto's Daily Bible Pleadings"
   there is an exceedingly pleasing piece illustrating what it must be to
   walk with God by the figure of a father's taking his little son by the
   hand and walking forth with him upon the breezy hills. Kitto says, "As
   that child walks with you, so do you walk with God. That child loves
   you now. The world--the cold and cruel world--has not yet come between
   his heart and yours. His love, now, is the purest and most beautiful he
   will ever feel, or you will ever receive. Cherish it well, and as that
   child walks lovingly with you, so do you walk lovingly

   with God."

   It is a delight to such children with their fathers. The roughness of
   the way or of the weather is nothing to them--it is joy enough to go
   for a walk with father. There is a warm, tender, affectionate grip of
   the hand and a beaming smile of the eyes as they look up to father
   while he conducts them over hill and dale. Such a walk is humble, too,
   for the child looks upon its father as the greatest and wisest man that
   ever lived! He considers him to be the incarnation of everything that
   is strong and wise. All that his father says or does he admires. As he
   walks along, he feels the utmost affection for his father, but his
   reverence is equally strong. He is very near his father, but yet he is
   only a child, and looks up to his father as his king.

   Moreover such a walk is one of perfect confidence. The boy is not
   afraid of missing his way. He trusts implicitly his father's guidance.
   His father's arm will screen him from all danger and, therefore, he
   does not so much as give it a thought--why should he? If care is needed
   as to the road, it is his father's business to see to it and the child,
   therefore, never dreams of anxiety--why should he? If any difficult
   place is to be passed, the father will have to lift the boy over it, or
   help him through it--the child, meanwhile, is merry as a bird--why
   should he not be? Thus should the Believer walk with God, resting on
   eternal tenderness and rejoicing in undoubted love! A Believer should
   be unconscious of dread either as to the present or to the future.

   Beloved Friends in Christ, your Father may be trusted, He will supply
   all your needs--

   "You are as much His care as if beside No man or angel lived in Hea ven
   or earth." What an instructive walk a child has with a wise,
   communicative parent! How many of his little puzzles are explained to
   him, how everything about him is illuminated by the father's wisdom!
   Every step the boy takes, he becomes the wiser for such companionship.
   Oh, happy are the children of God who have been taught of their Father
   while they have walked with Him! Enoch must have been a man of profound
   knowledge and great wisdom as to Divine things. He must have dived into
   the deep things of God beyond most men. His life must, also, have been
   a holy life, because he walked with God, for God never walks out of the
   way of holiness. If we walk with God, we must walk according to truth,
   justice and

   love. The Lord has no company with the unjust and rebellious and,
   therefore, we know that he who walked with God must have been an
   upright and holy man.

   Enoch's life must, moreover, have been a happy one. Who could be
   unhappy with such a Companion! With God Himself to be with us, the way
   can never be dreary. "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the
   shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me." Granted that
   God is your Companion and your road must be a way of pleasantness and a
   path of peace. Did Enoch walk with God? Then his pilgrimage must have
   been safe. What a guard is the Great Jehovah! He is sun and shield! He
   gives Grace and Glory. He that dwells in the secret place of the Most
   High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Nothing can harm the
   man who is walking with the Lord God at his right hand.

   And oh, what an honor it is to walk with the Eternal! Many a man would
   give thousands to walk with a king. Numbers of people are such
   worshippers of dignities that if a king did but smile at then they
   would be intoxicated with delight! What, then, is the honor of walking
   with the King of kings? What a patent of nobility it is to be permitted
   to walk with the blessed and only Potentate all one's life long? Who is
   he that is thus favored to be the King's companion, to walk alone with
   Him and to become His familiar Friend? Jehovah rules earth and Heaven,
   and Hell. He is Lord of all who shall walk with Him!

   If it were only for the honor of it, oh Christians, how you ought to
   desire to walk with God! Enoch found it safe, happy, holy, honorable
   and I know not how much more that is excellent! But certainly this was
   a golden life--where shall we find anything to equal it?

   II. Secondly, let us consider WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES WERE CONNECTED WITH
   ENOCH'S WALKING WITH GOD. The first remark is that the details of his
   life are very few. We do not know much about Enoch and this is to his
   advantage. Happy is the nation which has no history, for a nation which
   has a history has been vexed with wars, revolutions and bloodshed. But
   a nation that is always happy, peaceful and prosperous has no chronicle
   to attract the lover of sensations. Happy is Enoch that we cannot write
   a long biography of him! The few words, "Enoch walked with God,"
   suffice to depict his whole career, until, "he was not, for God took
   him."

   If you go and look at a farmer's field and you say of it when you come
   back, "I saw yellow flowers covering it till it seemed as a cloth of
   gold. And then I spied out, here and there, white flowers like silver
   buttons set on the golden vesture. I also saw blue corn-flowers looking
   up with their lovely eyes, causing the whole field to sparkle," you
   would think that it is a very pretty field if you are a child. But the
   farmer shakes his head, for he knows that it is in bad condition and
   overrun with weeds! But if you come back and simply say, "It is as fine
   a wheat field as ever grew and that is all," then your description,
   though brief, is very satisfactory.

   Many of those dazzling events and striking incidents and sensational
   adventures which go to make up an interesting biography may attract
   attention, but they do not minister to the real excellence of the life.
   No life can surpass that of a man who quietly continues to serve God in
   the place where Providence has placed him. I believe that in the
   judgment of angels and all pure-minded beings, that a woman's life is
   most to be admired which consists simply of this--"She loved the Lord
   and did all she could for Him." And that man's life shall be the most
   noteworthy of whom it can be said, "He followed the Lord fully."
   Enoch's life has no adventures. But is it not adventure, enough, for a
   man to walk with God? What ambition can crave a nobler existence than
   abiding in fellowship with the Eternal?

   But some will say, "Well, but Enoch must have been very peculiarly
   situated. He was, no doubt, placed in very advantageous circumstances
   for piety." Now, observe that this was not so, for first, he was a
   public man. He is called the "seventh from Adam." He was a notable man
   and looked up to as one of the fathers of his age. A Patriarch in those
   days must have been a marked man, loaded with responsibility as well as
   with honor. The ancient custom was that the head of the family was
   prophet, priest and king in his household. And abroad, if he was a man
   of station and substance, he was counselor, magistrate and ruler. Enoch
   was a great man in his day, one of the most important of the period.
   Therefore we may be sure he had his trials and bore the brunt of
   opposition from the powerful ungodly party which opposed the ways of
   godliness.

   He is mentioned among a noble list of men. Some have unwisely thought,
   "I could walk with God if I had a little cottage, if I lived in a quiet
   village, but you see I am a public man, I occupy a position of trust
   and I have to mix with my fellow men. I do not see how I am to walk
   with God." Ah, my dear Friend, Enoch did! Though he was, undoubtedly, a
   man distinguished in his time and full of public cares, yet he lost not
   the thread of sacred converse with Heaven, but held

   on in his holy course through a life of centuries. Note again that
   Enoch was a family man. "Enoch walked with God and begat sons and
   daughters."

   Some have said, "Ah, you cannot live as you like if you have a lot of
   children about you. Do not tell me about keeping up your hours of
   prayer and quiet reading of the Scriptures if you have a large family
   of little ones. You will be disturbed and there will be many domestic
   incidents which will be sure to try your temper and upset your
   equanimity. Get away into the woods and find a hermit's cell--there,
   with your brown jug of water and your loaf of bread, you may be able to
   walk with God--but with a wife, not always amiable, and a troop of
   children who are never quiet, neither by day nor night, how can a man
   be expected to walk with God?" The wife, on the other hand, exclaims,
   "I believe that had I remained a single woman I might have walked with
   God. When I was a young woman I was full of devotion. But now with my
   husband, who is not always in the best of tempers, and with my children
   who seem to have an unlimited number of needs and never to have them
   satisfied, how is it possible that I can walk with God?"

   We turn to Enoch, again, and we are confident that it can be done!
   "Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, 300 years, and begat
   sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 365years." Thus, you
   see, he was a public man and he was a family man--and yet he walked
   with God for more than 300 years. There is no need to be a hermit, or
   to renounce married life in order to live near to God. In addition to
   this, Enoch lived in a very evil age. He was prominent at a time when
   sin was beginning to cover the earth. It was not very long before the
   earth was corrupt and God saw fit to sweep the whole population from
   off its surface on account of sin.

   Enoch lived in a day of mockers and despisers. You know that from his
   prophecy, as recorded by Jude. He prophesied, saying, "The Lord comes
   with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to
   convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds
   which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which
   ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." He lived when few loved God
   and when those who professed to do so were being drawn aside by the
   blandishments of the daughters of men. Church and State were proposing
   an alliance, fashion and pleasure ruled the hour and unhallowed
   compromise was the order of the day. He lived towards the close of
   those primitive times wherein long lives had produced great
   sinners--and great sinners had invented great provocations of God. Do
   not complain, therefore, of your times and of your neighbors and other
   surroundings, for amid them all you may still walk with God.

   Enoch walked with God and, in consequence thereof, he bore his witness
   for God. "Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied." He could not be
   silent! The fire burned within his soul and could not be restrained.
   When he had delivered his testimony, it is clear that he encountered
   opposition. I am certain that he did so from the context in Jude,
   because the passage in Jude has to do with murmurers and "complainers,
   walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great swelling
   words," and Enoch is brought in as having had to do with such persons.
   His sermon shows that he was a man who stood firm amidst a torrent of
   blasphemy and rebuke, carrying on the great controversy for the Truth
   of God against the wicked lives and licentious tongues of the scoffers
   of his age. He says, "Behold, the Lord comes with myriads of His
   saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are
   ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
   committed."

   It is clear that they spoke against Enoch, they rejected his testimony,
   they grieved his spirit and he mourned that in this they were speaking
   against God. For he speaks "of all their hard speeches which ungodly
   sinners have spoken against Him." He saw their ungodly lives and bore
   witness against them. It is remarkable that his great subject should
   have been the Second Advent! And it is still more noteworthy that the
   two other men whom one would select as living nearest to God, namely,
   Daniel and John, were both men who spoke much concerning the coming of
   the Lord and the Great Judgment Day. I need not quote the words of
   Daniel, who tells us of the judgment which is to be set, and of the
   Ancient of Days who shall come upon His Throne. Nor need I repeat the
   constant witness of John concerning the Lord's Second Coming. I will
   only mention his fervent exclamation, "Even so, come quickly, Lord
   Jesus!"

   Thus you see that Enoch was a preacher of the Word of God and,
   therefore, he had a care over and above that which falls to the lot of
   most of you. And yet, with that and all the rest put together, he could
   please God until his life's end! If I may speak of an end to a life
   which ran into an endless state of joy--he continued as long as he was
   here to walk in faith, to walk in a manner in which God was
   pleased--and so his communion with the Lord was never broken.

   III. This brings us to conclude with the third head--WHAT WAS THE CLOSE
   OF ENOCH'S WALK? We would

   first remark that he finished his work early. Enoch walked with God and
   that was such a good, sure, progressive walk that he traveled faster
   and reached Home sooner than those of us who walk with God, sometimes,
   and with the world at other times! Three hundred and sixty-five years
   would have been a long life to us, but it was a short life for that
   period when several Patriarchs attained to nearly a thousand years of
   age.

   Enoch's life, as compared to the usual life of the period, was like a
   life of 30 or 35 years in these short-lived ages--in fact, the best
   parallel to it is the life of our Lord. As with the extended ages of
   men of his period, Enoch's life was of about the same length as that of
   the Lord Jesus in comparison with such lives as ours. He passed away
   comparatively a young man, as our dear Brother and Elder Verdon, just
   departed, has done, and we do not wonder that he did. They say, "Whom
   the gods love die young," and both Enoch and Verdon were men greatly
   beloved. Perhaps these holy men ended their career so soon because they
   had done their lifework so diligently that they finished early.

   Some workmen, if they have a job to do in your house, are about it all
   day long, or rather all week long and make no end of confusion! No
   wonder that some people live a long while, for they need to do so much
   to do anything at all! But this man did his work so well and kept so
   close to God that his day's work was done at noon and the Lord said,
   "Come home, Enoch! There is no need for you to be out of Heaven any
   longer. You have borne your testimony, you have lived your life.
   Through all the ages men will look upon you as a model man and,
   therefore, you may come Home." God never keeps His wheat out in the
   fields longer than is necessary! When it is ripe, He reaps it at once!
   When His people are ready to go Home, He will take them Home. Do not
   regret the death of a good man while he is young. On the contrary,
   bless God that there is still some early ripening wheat in the world
   and that some of His saints are sanctified so speedily!

   But what did happen to Enoch? I am afraid I have said he died, or that
   I shall say so, it is so natural to speak of men as dying, but he,
   alone, and one other of all the human race are all that have entered
   the heavenly Canaan without fording the river of death! We are told
   concerning him that, "he was not." Those gentlemen who believe that the
   word, "to die," signifies to be annihilated, would have been still more
   confirmed in their views if the words in my text, "he was not," had
   been applied to all departed men, for if any expression might signify
   annihilation in their mode of transla-tion--this is the one! "He was
   not" does not, however, mean that he was annihilated! And neither does
   the far feebler term of dying signify anything of the kind!

   "He was not," that is to say, he was not here--that is all. He was gone
   from earth, but he was there--there where God had translated him. He
   was, he is with God! And that without having tasted death! Do not
   grudge him his avoidance of death. It was a favor, but not by any means
   so great as some would think, for those who do not die must undergo a
   change and Enoch was changed. "We shall not all sleep," says the
   Apostle, "but we shall all be changed." The flesh and blood of Enoch
   could not inherit the kingdom of God--in a moment he underwent a
   transformation which you and I will have to undergo in the day of the
   Resurrection. And so, though he was not on earth, he was translated or
   transplanted from the gardens of earth to Paradise above.

   Now, if there is any man in the world that shall never die, it is he
   who walks with God. If there is any man to whom death will be as
   nothing, it is the man who has looked to the Second Advent of Christ
   and gloried in it. If there is any man who, though he passes through
   the iron gates of death, shall never feel the terror of the grim foe,
   it is the man whose life below has been perpetual communion with God!
   Go not about by any other way to escape the pangs of death but walk
   with God, and you will be able to say, "O death, where is your sting? O
   grave, where is your victory?" It is said of Enoch that, "God took
   him." A very remarkable expression! Perhaps He did it in some visible
   manner. I should not wonder. Perhaps the whole of the Patriarchs saw
   him depart, even as the Apostles were present when our Lord was taken
   up.

   However that may be, there was some special rapture, some distinct
   taking up of this choice one to the Throne of the Most High. "He was
   not, for God took him." Note that he was missed. This is one thing
   which I could not overlook. He was missed, for the Apostle says he,
   "was not found." Now, if a man is not found, it shows that somebody
   looked for him. When Elijah went to Heaven, you remember, 50 men of the
   sons of the Prophets went and searched for him. I do not wonder that
   they did--they would not meet with an Elijah every day--and when he was
   gone away, body and all, they might well look for him! Enoch was not
   found, but they looked for him.

   A good man is missed. A true child of God in a Church like this,
   working and serving his Master, is only one among five thousand--but if
   he has walked with God, his decease is lamented. The dear Brother whom
   we have just buried, we

   shall miss. His brother Elders will miss him. The many who have been
   converted to God and helped by his means will miss him. And assuredly I
   shall miss him. I look towards the spot where he used to sit--I trust
   that someone else will sit there who will be half as useful as he was.
   It will be almost more than I can expect. We do not want to live and
   die so that nobody will care whether we were on earth or not. Enoch was
   missed when he was gone and so will they be who walk with

   God.

   Last of all, Enoch's departure was a testimony. What did the Blessed
   Spirit say by the fact that, "he was not, for God took him," but
   this--there is a future state. Men had begun to doubt it, but when they
   said, "Where is Enoch?" and those who had witnessed his departure said,
   "God took him," it was, to them, an evidence that there was a God and
   that there was another world. And when they asked, "But where is his
   body?" there was another lesson. Two men had died before him, I mean
   two whose deaths are recorded in Scripture--Abel was killed and his
   witness was that the seed of the serpent hates the woman's seed. Adam,
   too, had died about 50 years before Enoch's translation, whose witness
   was that, however late the penalty may come, yet the soul that sins, it
   shall die.

   Now comes Enoch and his testimony is that the body is capable of
   immortality! He could not bear testimony to resurrection, for he did
   not die--for that we have testimony in Christ who is the first fruits
   from among the dead. But the testimony of Enoch went a good way towards
   it, for it bore evidence that the body was capable of being immortal
   and of living in a heavenly condition. "He was not, for God took him."
   His departure also was a testimony to mankind that there is a reward
   for the righteous, that God does not sit with stony eyes, regardless of
   the sins of the wicked, or of the virtues of His saints. It proved that
   He sees and is pleased with His people who walk with Him--and that He
   can give them, even now, present rewards by delivering them from the
   pangs of death--and therefore He will certainly give rewards to all His
   people in some way or other.

   Thus you see, living and dying--no, not dying, again I am
   mistaken--living and being translated--Enoch was still a witness to his
   generation! And I pray that all of us, whether we live or whether we
   sleep, may be witnesses for God. Oh that we could live as my good
   Brother, Verdon, whom we have lately buried, lived, whose soul was on
   fire with love to Christ! He had a very passion for souls! I scarcely
   think there is one among us who did as much as he, for though he had to
   earn his daily bread, his evenings were spent with us in the service of
   the Lord, or in preaching the Gospel! And then, all night long he
   frequently paced the weary streets, looking after the fallen, that he
   might bring them in! He often went to his morning's work weary, except
   by the rest which he found in the service of Christ.

   He would sometimes meet a Brother with eyes full of joy, and say, "Five
   souls won for Christ last night!" At other times, after a sermon, here
   he was a great soul hunter and would fetch enquirers downstairs into
   the Prayer Meeting. And when he had squeezed my hand he would say in
   his Swiss tones, which I cannot imitate, "Jesus saved some more last
   night! More souls were brought to Jesus." For him to live was to win
   souls! He was the youngest in our eldership, but the gray-heads do him
   honor. As we stood weeping about his tomb, there was not one among us
   but what felt that we had lost a true Brother and a valiant fellow
   soldier. My the Lord raise up others among you to do what Elder Verdon
   did!

   May the Lord quicken the older Brothers and Sisters to be more active
   than they are and make the young ones more devoted. Our ranks are
   broken, who shall fill up the gap? We are getting fewer and fewer as
   the Lord takes one and another Home of the best-instructed and of the
   bravest-hearted. But, by His Grace, recruits are daily coming in! May
   others come forward--yes, Lord, bring them forward by Your Holy Spirit
   to be leaders in the front ranks, that as the vanguard melts into the
   Church Triumphant, the rear may continually find additions! Translated
   to the skies are some, may others be translated out of darkness into
   marvelous light, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 119:33-56. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--122, 780, 775.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Recorders

   (No. 1308)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 25, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To record, and to thank and praise the Lord God of Israel." 1
   Chronicles 16:4.

   DAVID took care of every part of Divine worship. He saw to it that
   nothing was neglected in the service of the God in whom he delighted.
   Let this stand as an example to us to be careful about everything which
   concerns the honor of God. Do not allow any of the duties of your holy
   faith to be forgotten, but seek to exhibit harmonious and entire
   obedience to the Divine will. Do not merely attend to what are called
   religious duties, but with equal religiousness regard your social
   duties and present to the Lord, as far as you can, a complete service.
   Such David desired to do.

   You observe that he had those about him who offered burnt offerings
   unto the Lord continually, morning and evening, as God had
   commanded--these things were not to be left undone. And then he set
   apart certain others to attend to the service of song. Theirs it was to
   sound the trumpets and to call the people together--theirs to touch the
   harmonious strings of harps, or to sound with cymbals of brass, or to
   lift their voices on high in the sweet praises of Jehovah, for God is
   to be served with sacrifice and praised with song. Our God accepts us
   when we labor for Him and when we praise Him--let both be done
   heartily. It were a pity if we worked so hard that we could not sing!
   It were equally unhappy if we sang so much that we idled away our time!
   There must be a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, music
   and fruit, service and song.

   There was also a third company set apart for a somewhat extraordinary
   work, namely as our text tells us, to record. They were to take notes
   of what God had done and was doing. They were to be the chronicles of
   the nation and, out of their chronicles, they were to compose the
   Psalms and songs. Perhaps that is the meaning of the word, "record,"
   here, but the original bears another meaning--"to bring to
   remembrance." If they were not to act as historians to record, they
   were as minstrels to proclaim what had been written in old times and
   bring it to remembrance. I rather prefer the idea that their duty was
   to do both--to record the loving kindness of the Lord and to bring to
   the remembrance of the people what the Lord's right hand had done in
   former times.

   Now, if you think a minute, this third class of people, who are placed
   between the Levites before the Ark and the singers who thanked and
   praised the Lord, would be useful both to those who went before and to
   those who followed. Those who had to serve before the Ark of the Lord
   are mentioned first. Now, what could so cheer them in their service as
   to read of the goodness of the Lord? What could so inspire them to
   attend reverently to the service of the Lord's house as to remember the
   former loving kindnesses of the Lord? What arguments could they have
   for fidelity that would be more powerful than the record of His mercy
   which endures forever?

   Those who were to conduct the praising and the thanksgiving are
   mentioned after these recorders. But what is the raw material of which
   praise is made but the record of what God is and of what He has done
   for His people? I think whenever they wanted to sing, they would turn
   to these remembrancers and recorders and say to them, "Tell us
   something of what God has done, for the simple record of Jehovah's acts
   is the noblest Psalmody." Do you notice that whenever we praise God
   best, we simply declare what He is, for the bare fact about God is the
   highest praise--you have only to mention what He does in order to
   produce the most sublime poetry--the grateful mention of His glorious
   acts is, in itself, adoration! You cannot adore the Lord better than by
   devoutly rehearsing His mighty acts--so good is His name, so blessed
   are His deeds. "Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show
   forth all His praise?"

   Now, from the fact that David set apart certain Levites to record, I
   gather three or four thoughts of which I am going to speak tonight. The
   first is--it is implied that there is a fault in man's memory. It is
   equally clear, in the second place, that we ought to endeavor to assist
   memory. Thirdly, it is certain, too, from the appointment of recorders,
   that there is a good deal worth remembering. And, fourthly, from the
   connection of these recorders with the singers, we see that, to

   right-minded persons memory will always produce praise. When we have
   recorded the great mercies of the Lord, then we shall be sure to thank
   and praise Him.

   I. First of all, we may gather, I think, without any straining of the
   text, that if recorders were appointed, THERE IS SOME FAULT IN OUR
   MEMORY TOWARDS THE LORD. What faults there are in our memory touching
   the work and Word of God! Perhaps some of you have very powerful
   memories and may be able to treasure up whole volumes as some have
   done. It might be said of you as it was of Dr. Lawson, that if the
   whole Bible had been destroyed, he could have reproduced it from
   memory. This is a great gift and a worthy use for it, but I fear that
   few of us have it. It is not likely that men could say of us, as of the
   famous Grecian, that out of 10,000 soldiers he knew every one of his
   men by name.

   I do not find fault with short memories, but with memories which are
   treacherous towards Divine things. What I complain of is that memory
   may be very strong concerning self-interest, grievances and trials--yet
   towards God's mercies it may be very weak. I am not going to speak
   about memory in general. I speak only of that faculty as it is
   exercised towards the favors and loving kindnesses of the Lord--and I
   am sure there is a fault in it, for, first of all, it has been
   prejudiced by the Fall. Do you not know that if anything bad ever
   reaches your ear you cannot forget it? That lewd song which you heard
   in your youth--in your unregenerate times. You would give everything to
   forget it, but it will come up--a snatch of it has, perhaps, been
   suggested by a hymn sung in worship, or even by the language used in
   prayer!

   What a grasp memory has for things that never ought to have crossed the
   mind at all and which, though they have crossed the mind, ought to be
   forgotten! Well said an old Divine, "Man's memory is a pond in which
   all the fish die and all the frogs live." I am sure it is so. The bad
   remains, but the good--ah, how you have to charge and constrain
   yourself to remember a tenth of it! The filth of Sodom is drawn to
   shore by memory, but the fair products of Jerusalem are permitted to
   glide down the stream to the ocean of oblivion.

   The Fall has given a sad bias to memory--like a strainer, it lets the
   good liquor run through and only retains the dregs. Again, memory
   towards God's mercy has been very much impaired by neglect. Any part of
   the body left unused will lose power--and any faculty of the mind which
   is never exercised will gradually become weak. You may have very
   powerful memories, as I said before, towards earthly things, but I will
   venture to say that some of you have never sought to remember the
   mercies of the Lord. No, you have not seen them to be God's mercies! It
   has never occurred to you to try and remember what God has done for
   you.

   I would not bring a harsh impeachment, but I suggest the question--Have
   you not lived as if there were no God? As if the mercies of everyday
   were, indeed, of your own procuring? As if you had no indebtedness to
   God and were under no obligation to be grateful to Him? I do not wonder
   that your memory towards Divine things is weak, for you have never
   exercised it--never thought of exercising it--and consequently, my
   Friend, if ever you are to learn to praise the Lord, you will have need
   of great help in the work, for your memory will not furnish you with
   materials. It has no store of good things with which to feed your
   devotion! You have kept its chambers empty by neglect.

   Memory, concerning God's mercy, is often overloaded with other things.
   Memory can only carry a certain amount, but, oh, what wagonloads of
   mischief memory is freighted with! Some of us can remember so little
   that it is a pity for us to try to remember anything trifling or of
   minor importance. It might be well to dedicate that faculty to the
   weightiest things only--to things imperative for this life--to things
   essential for the life to come. How foolishly some will stuff up their
   memory with rubbish that is not worth harboring. There are songs and
   pieces of "poetry," so called, and scraps taken from novels and I know
   not what besides, with which poor memory is gorged till it is blown out
   as a balloon with foul gas! It is fed upon mere husks till it is
   surfeited, stuffed and crammed and labors under indigestion!

   I think Aristotle used to call memory the stomach of the soul in which
   it retains and digests what it gathers. But men cram it full of
   everything that it does not need--upon which the soul cannot really
   feed--and thus they ruin it for remembering the best things. Some
   people can hardly carry home the text of the discourse. Is it likely
   they would? Other thoughts choke up the memory and put the good thing,
   the gracious thing, the grateful thing, the right thing, entirely out
   of the mind! Unload your memory tonight, if you can, even of your
   necessary cares!

   It is good when a sermon helps to unload you. You remember the man who
   said that generally, when he went to Church, he used to calculate how
   many looms the building would hold and how many workmen might be
   employed in it? "But," said he, "when I heard Mr. Whitefield, I forgot
   that there was a loom in the whole world." I wish it was always so

   in God's House! But there, the good woman remembers her household--she
   does not know whether she put the guard on the fire--she wonders what
   may have become of the baby while she is away. Another misses a ring
   from her finger--did she leave it in the basin when she washed her
   hands before she came to worship?

   The merchant is worrying about that bill which is coming due tomorrow.
   He wishes that he could forget it, but the thing will come in. And this
   is why you cannot remember God's mercy, because your memory is
   occupying itself with a host of earthly things which ought not to
   intrude into God's day and into God's worship. Or if they do, should be
   treated as Abraham treated the carnivorous birds when they came down
   upon his sacrifice. The ravens and the kites came to defile and eat
   what he had offered unto God, but we read that, "when the birds came
   down upon the sacrifice Abraham drove them away." So must you try to
   do. When the time has come to remember God's mercies and to worship
   Him, you must keep the birds away, or else they will devour the ripe
   fruit of your praise before you can gather it.

   Memory has also suffered from another cause, namely, from its
   connection with the other faculties. Every power of the mind has been
   injured by sin. The evil results of the Fall went through the entire
   system and weakened and perverted our entire nature, so that the whole
   head is sick. The understanding, among the rest a very noble power, has
   been very much darkened and, as every single part of a man operates
   upon the rest, the darkening of the understanding has caused a grievous
   weakening of the memory with regard to Divine things. You will see this
   in a minute, for what a man does not understand he does not readily
   remember.

   Many forget God's mercies because they do not appreciate them when they
   have them. They do not see the mercy of them. They have not the power
   to see how much love there is in them and how little they deserve them
   and, therefore, they are not impressed by them so as to make a note of
   their being received. When daily favors come, such men take them into
   stock as wholesale dealers receive parcels of goods and send them out,
   again, without so much as opening them, or checking their quantity.
   They scarcely know the meaning of the loving kindness of the Lord, for
   He is not in any of their thoughts!

   And, of course, a man does not remember what he does not understand! If
   you set a boy to learn a passage without any meaning in it, he may be
   able to repeat it to you the next time he says his lesson, but before
   long it must glide out of his memory because he does not understand it.
   Becloud the light of the understanding and the image formed upon the
   memory will be dull and indistinct, and very apt to vanish in time.

   Again, the affections have been perverted, as well as the
   understanding. Man, by nature, does not love God. I tremble when I
   think of that sad truth, for it seems to me the most awful thing that
   can happen to an intelligent being is not to love God. That would be my
   Hell! I count it the Hell of Hell not to love God--to be in such a
   condition that the infinitely lovable One--so perfect both in His
   character and His actions, so fitted to be adored--should not be loved
   is horrible! It is death and worse than death! I will not say it is
   blindness, deafness and the loss of every honorable moral power--it is
   utter death not to love God. It is partly because we do not love Him
   that we forget His mercies.

   Reflect a moment, and you will soon see. Here is a present which has
   been given you by a complete stranger, and though it may be of some
   value, you do not think much of it. But there is a ring that was given
   you by your mother-- your mother now among the angels. Ah, you will not
   forget that gift! Love has registered it among your richest
   possessions. I have many things that have been given to me by friends
   and I value them all. I never forget them--I never can because of my
   esteem and affection for those who gave them to me. And so when you
   view Divine mercy as given you by your dear and ever-blessed Father in
   Heaven, then you do not forget it! But if it is merely regarded as a
   passing stranger's gift, you care not for it.

   If you think of a blessing as "the gift of fortune," as the world
   generally does, or look upon it as a windfall from the tree of luck,
   you will not remember it. See in the bread you eat a Father's hand
   supplying you. See, even, in the cup of cold water the bounty of your
   God. See in the comforts of home and health and the sparing of your
   reason, the goodness of Him who loves you and whom you love--and memory
   will put forth her strength! Lack of love breeds lack of recollection
   in us and so the memory grows faulty. And, alas, one thing more. Our
   memory of God's goodness is often crushed down by a sense of present
   pain. When you suffer from sharp pains and weary aches and a fevered
   brow, you are prone to forget the days of health and strength--and only
   remember the sharp intervals of weakness and sorrow.

   When you stand over the grave of one you love, you are apt, in the
   loss, to forget he was a loan from God. When a dear one is taken away,
   the right way to look at it is that a precious loan has been called in
   by its Owner. We ought to be

   very grateful to have been allowed to borrow the comfort so long. We
   ought not to repine when the Owner takes back what He so kindly lent.
   The husband to whom you have been married these 10 years, or the child
   that has nestled in your bosom two years, or the friend that communed
   with you half a lifetime, or the brother who was such a comfort all his
   days--when these are gone, do not look at the going, only, but thank
   God that you ever had them. Be honest enough to acknowledge the good as
   well as to lament the evil. Bless a taking as well as a giving God, for
   He takes but what He gave.

   It is not so with us as a rule. We are living in the present too much.
   We strike a mark of oblivion across the happy past. We look with dread
   upon the unknown future and dwell on the troublous present--and so we
   forget the Lord's mercy to us. You are getting old, now, and you are
   feeble, but bless the Lord you had 50 years of manly vigor! You cannot,
   now, do what you once did and your mind is enfeebled, but bless God
   there was a time when you could serve Him with body and soul without
   fatigue!

   Perhaps you are brought low in estate and are afraid of poverty. Be
   grateful that you have had enough and to spare for many long years.
   Perhaps you are now a little sad. Yes, but remember the days when you
   use to praise the Lord on the high-sounding cymbals and stood upon the
   high places of the earth! Do not let memory fail you because of the
   present crushing sorrow, but bless the name of the Lord for what He has
   done. May the Holy Spirit help your infirmities and bring the loving
   kindness of past years to your remembrance. Memory is defective--this
   is our first inference--and I think it is clear enough.

   II. Now, secondly, as David appointed recorders, this proves, in the
   second place, that WE OUGHT TO DO ALL THAT WE CAN TO ASSIST OUR
   MEMORIES TOWARDS GOD. We should not allow the mercies of the Lord to
   lie forgotten in ingratitude and die without praises, if we can help
   it. How can we strengthen memory? I conceive that sometimes it is a
   good thing to make an actual record of God's mercy--literally to write
   it down in your pocketbook, so as to look at it another day. I am sure
   it is a proper thing to do and it will often prove to be a very useful
   memento. I do not believe in keeping diaries and putting down everyday
   what you feel, or what you think you feel but never did feel.

   I fear it would become a mere formality, or an exercise of imagination
   to most of us, for when I read very pious people's diaries they always
   seem to me to have had an eye to the people who would read them and to
   have put down both more and less than the truth. I am a little
   frightened at the artificial style of experience which it must lead to.
   The fact is that we have not a great deal to put down everyday if we
   lead an ordinary life! But there are days which ought to have a
   memorial. Days of sore trouble and of great deliverance, days of sharp
   temptation and of wonderful help--these need to be chronicled.

   Some days of brilliant mercy are like seven days in one. There are days
   which seem like chips of Heaven, fragments of eternity, stray days of
   delight which have broken loose from the days of Heaven and wandered
   down to earth. Make a note of the favored days. Put the event down in
   black and white just as it occurred. Never mind if nobody else ever
   reads it--you will read it one of these days and thank God that it
   stands recorded for the strengthening of your faith. Therefore make a
   record. "I cannot express myself well in writing," says one. Well, you
   know, Jacob used to set up a stone and pour oil on the top of it. That
   was his way, though he knew little or nothing about pen and ink. You
   can invent some way, surely, by which you can remember choice favors!

   You can make a notch somewhere, a mark on an old tree, a line on the
   margin of the Bible over against the text that blessed you. You can put
   a scratch somewhere of which you shall say afterwards, "I know what
   that means. I did not want to forget the Divine goodness--and there is
   the record. Glory be to God, it comes fresh to my soul, again, as I
   look upon it!" Another help to memory is to be sure to praise God
   thoroughly at the time you receive His goodness. You will not forget it
   if, when it has come, your mind is in a suitable condition of gratitude
   and, indeed, if you use the mercy, at once, to God's Glory, you will do
   better, still! Days that are full of thanksgiving will be remembered
   and those mercies around which we burned the incense of praise will
   leave their fragrance in the heart's secret chambers.

   Take care that if your memory is weak, you praise God while the mercy
   is newly born in your house. Frequently it will help memory much to set
   apart a little time for meditation. A godly man and his wife were
   accustomed to take half-an-hour on Saturday evening to go over the
   mercies of the week--this is a good example. But, says one, "I could
   not spare so much time." No, no, I do not suppose you could, but you
   spare hours to grumble over the miseries of the week! Oh, yes, we talk
   freely, when we get together, about our pains and our losses and about
   the bad times. They are very bad now,

   are they not? And you have all talked about them seven days a week for
   many a long week together. You have said 50 times, "I never saw such a
   season, there is no business, there is nothing stirring--there never
   was such stagnation."

   Now, as we all know all about that and are pretty well agreed that it
   is true, could we now go on to something else, and could not the time
   which we waste in telling out our troubles be spent in meditating on
   our mercies? See if you cannot spare half-an-hour with your wife for
   such an exercise as I have mentioned, and I believe that you would
   never spend 30 minutes more happily and profitably. Say, "Come, Wife,
   and help me. Help my memory and I will help yours. Let us remember what
   God has done for us this week." Then go over your own story and listen
   to her pleasant annotations.

   I do not hesitate to say that my life story is as full of mercy as a
   honeycomb is full of sweetness when it drips with honey. How God has
   treated you, I do not know, but He has indulged me with such love that
   if He will only let me get into a corner in Heaven and praise Him to
   all eternity, I will scarcely ask Him for anything else but the
   opportunity to adore Him. I mean to bless Him whatever comes to me--I
   cannot help it. I have been so favored of Providence and Grace that if
   I were crushed into mortar, I think every little bit and fragment of me
   would bless and praise His holy name, "for He is good and His mercy
   endures forever." This is my advice, then, and I have not given it
   without having tried it my-self--often meditate on what the Lord has
   done and that will help your memory.

   Then, again, often rehearse His mercy in the ears of others. I like to
   get with dear Brothers and Sisters who talk about God's loving
   kindness--they are good company. I have noticed the difference between
   two farmers, for instance. One of them never did have a good crop,
   though, to my knowledge, he had a "middling" one, once, and that was at
   the time that he could hardly gather it, for it was too heavy for the
   reapers! But then it was a "middling" one. He has never made any money.
   I know he was a poor man when he began and I know he has brought up a
   large family and is rich, now, but he never made any money--never!
   Nobody ever does by farming, or by any other business, as you all know
   by common report.

   Well, I heard the grumbler's story and I turned to another friend. This
   farmer says, "Well, it may not have been a very good year for wheat,
   last year, but then there is a capital crop coming on to make up for
   it." Another year he said, "Well, I do not think the grain will pay,
   but the sheep are turning out uncommonly well." He has always something
   to say by way of honoring God's mercy! And is not that as it ought to
   be? He says, "Blessed be God, I have always had bread to eat and
   clothes to put on. I am a great deal better off, now, than I thought I
   would be, and I have my portion to give to the work of the Lord who has
   dealt so well with me." That is the way to talk, for it is truthful and
   it praises God-- and it is the talk that God should hear from us! If
   you tell others of your mercies you will not be so likely to forget
   them.

   Sometimes it will help you to remember your mercies if you use
   everything about you as a reminder. How can that be? Have you got a
   boy? Look at him and think of what mercy is bound up in that
   child--remember when he was little and sickly--and you prayed that he
   might live. Remember when he met with an accident and yet he was not
   killed, as he might have been. Remember when he went out into life and
   God kept him out of temptation. Remember when you saw the first sign of
   piety, when you heard his first prayer, when you found that he was
   trying to be useful.

   Remember when you heard his first address as he tried to speak to
   others about the Lord Jesus. I know the joy of such mercy and I cannot
   hold my tongue when I think of it, for I am highly favored! And I hope
   that you either have had the same blessing on your growing lads or will
   have it. Well, the boy will be a reminder of God's mercy. Look at
   anybody's child and say, "I, also, was a child once," and then think of
   the mercies of God to you from childhood to the present time. Go into
   the street and meet a beggar. Should not that make you thank God that
   you are not forced to beg for your bread, and wear rags, but are
   provided for?

   Turn down by Bethlehem hospital and as you pass that institution, thank
   God that you have not lost your reason. Look at the Blind School and
   thank God that you have not lost your eyesight. Pass by the hospital
   and thank God that you are not stretched upon a bed of agony, having
   lost a limb. Go into a churchyard and thank God that you are yet alive.
   Reflect upon the judgment to come and thank God that you are not in
   Hell. Oh, my dear Friends, everything ought to make us praise God! From
   the little birds that wake the morning to the twinkling stars that
   gladden the night! Every breath of air, drop of rain and gleam of
   sunlight ought to refresh our memory and awake us to praise the Lord!
   That is the second point--we ought to do our best to assist our feeble
   memories.

   III. Thirdly--and here I shall ask you to preach to yourselves--WE HAVE
   ALL HAD MERCIES TO REMEMBER. I am going to include everybody in these
   remarks, first, whether they are converted people or not. We have all
   had

   common mercies. I have already hinted at them in speaking of those who
   are suffering from their losses. From our childhood until now we have
   had bread to eat and clothes to put on. Some of us have enjoyed an
   abundance of common mercies. We have not had to live from hand to
   mouth, nor labor like slaves. Others, who have had a harder lot, should
   thank God that there has always been deliverance in the hour of
   need--bread has been given and water has been sure. They have not
   always had what they might have liked, but there has been enough to
   keep them alive, and here they are in good health to prove it!

   Oh, to have your reason! To have the use of your limbs! To have your
   children about you! Even though you are poor, these are great
   blessings! Even these ordinary mercies should awaken your gratitude.
   Then, in addition to common mercies, we have had those of special
   Providence. Is there one person here who has not been, at times,
   favored with remarkable interpositions of God's Providence? Flavel used
   to say, "Those who notice Providences will not be long without
   Providences to notice." I think it is so. I could remember scores. If I
   had time to write them I could mention dozens of remarkable Providences
   which have occurred to myself, some of which would not be believed by
   anybody else and, therefore, shall not be told, but they are true for
   all that. There are matters known only to the Master and His unworthy
   servant for which I praise His name in my heart of hearts.

   Have you not had some such secrets between you and God--remarkable
   things, special things which, if you could write them, men would not
   believe? Well, praise His name for the peculiar favors, but do not
   forget the more usual ones! Remember what the Puritan said. He and his
   son had to ride some 20 miles, each, to meet each other. And when his
   son came in, he said, "Father, I have had a most remarkable Providence.
   My horse stumbled badly three times and yet he did not fall." "I am
   grateful," said the old gentleman, "but I have had a remarkable
   Providence, too, for my horse never stumbled all the way." We do not
   think of that. If there is a railway accident and we just escape by the
   skin of our teeth, we say, "What a wonderful mercy!" Ought you not to
   be quite as grateful when you travel without an accident? Should you
   not see, as much, the hand of God in your perfect safety as in your
   rescue from danger? Remember the hourly Providence of God which watches
   over you when you observe it not!

   I should like to remind every unregenerate man and woman here present
   of the long-suffering mercy of God. You have not loved Him, but He has
   blessed you. You have sometimes spoken very sad things against His
   Gospel, but He has not resented it. Possibly I speak to some who have
   even cursed His name, but He has not cursed you. You have defied Him
   and oh, it often seems to me to be an amazing thing that a man should
   lift his hand to Heaven and defy God and that God remains quiet in
   pitying patience! Do you think that God--the infinite God--is going to
   be put into a passion by such a puny thing as you are?

   No, He has appointed a day in which He will settle these matters with
   you through His son Jesus Christ who will judge the quick and the dead.
   He will not stir Himself out of His sublime compassion for you. But
   what an amazing thing it is that He does not! Why there are thousands
   of men who, if we had done a hundred thousandth part as much evil
   towards them as they have done towards God, they would have fallen upon
   us with a word and a blow--or rather there would not have been any
   word--there would have been two blows! And if it had been in their
   power to take our lives, they would not have hesitated! Men could not
   have borne such provocation as sinners heap upon the Lord1 You have
   provoked Jehovah to His face and thrust your finger into His eye.

   "No," you say, "how is that?" Why, when you mock religious people--when
   you make jests and mirth about those who fear Him, you do this.
   Remember that text, "He that touches you touches the apple of My eye"?
   That is an irritating thing enough, is it not? And yet you have touched
   the apple of Jehovah's eye--and instead of smiting you into nothingness
   in return, or sending you down to Hell, He has still had mercy upon
   you! Let us gratefully remember this almighty patience and bless His
   name, whoever we may be--

   "Lord, and am I yet alive?

   Not in torment, not in Hell?

   Still does Your good Spirit strive--

   With the chief of sinners dwell?

   Tell it unto sinners, tell,

   I am, I am, out of Hell!"

   Furthermore, we should all praise God, or at any rate the most of us,
   here, that we have enjoyed Gospel privileges. If you have not believed
   in Jesus, yet you have heard of Him. If you have rejected His Grace,
   yet the kingdom of God has

   come near unto you. The door has been set open even if you have not
   entered. And the call of the Gospel has been given though you have not
   accepted it. You are still on praying ground and pleading terms with
   God. You are still where you are wooed by a Savior's love. Thank God
   for this! Thank God that you are not living in the dark ages, or in a
   far-off heathen land where the saving name is not known! Thank God you
   are where the bronze serpent is lifted high and the message comes to
   you--"Look and live!" "To you is the Word of this salvation sent."

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, though I have thus spoken to everybody in
   the place, there is a special class to whom I must address myself. You,
   my Brothers and Sisters in Christ--you have, above all others, ten
   thousand times ten thousand reasons for remembering the past and
   blessing the name of the Lord! Look back to the hole of the pit from
   where you were raised! Remember Him who raised you from there! Look to
   the blood that bought you! Look to the Holy Spirit who renewed you!
   Look at the pardon which absolved you! Look to the Divine Grace that
   changed you! Look to the love that saved you! Look to the wisdom that
   has guided you! Look to the power that has upheld you!

   The life of a Christian should be unbroken gratitude, for it is a life
   of unceasing mercy! While others should praise God as creatures, we
   must praise him as new creatures. They can praise Him because He made
   them--we must praise Him because He has "begotten us, again, unto a
   lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."
   Therefore, lift up your hearts and voices, Beloved, and praise the Lord
   at the remembrance of His goodness!

   IV. The last thing is this--that ALL OUR MEMORIES SHOULD TEND TO MAKE
   US PRAISE AND BLESS GOD. We can rest but a minute here. Remember
   mercies. Remember there is not one you have deserved. That bread which
   does not choke the sinner might justly do so, for he is an unworthy
   recipient of it. The earth which does not open to swallow you up must
   often wonder why it is not commissioned to do so, for you are so
   rebellious against God. We do not deserve the air we breathe, or the
   water we drink. Everything we have is sweetened with unspeakable mercy!

   All the good that we enjoy comes from God. Remember that! Alas, most
   men forget it. Rowland Hill used to say that worldlings were like the
   hogs under the oak which eat the acorns, but never think of the oak
   from which they fell, nor lift up their heads to grunt out a
   thanksgiving. Yes, so it is. They munch the gift and murmur at the
   Giver. Would God we did begin to remember that every good gift comes to
   us from the Divine hand and that, therefore, the Lord is to be praised.
   We have received mercies at times, when, if we had not had them, the
   absence of them would have ended our lives, or would have involved us
   in misery worse than death. Do not, some of you, remember when you said
   in your soul, "O Lord, if You do but help me this time, I will praise
   You as long as I live"? Yet, when you received the benefit you rendered
   no fit return. You were grateful for a time, after a sort, but, as
   eaten bread is soon forgotten, so your remembrance of the mercy of God
   passed away. It ought not to be so!

   I am now going to put a few questions to all present. First, have you
   ever lived in gratitude? Are you now living to God's praise? Are you
   now conscious of your obligations and anxious to show that you feel
   them? If not--if not, I would like you to feel how evil you are. Does
   that offend you? I would like you to be offended with yourselves! What
   do you think of those who are ungrateful to you when you have been kind
   to them? Ah, you look upon them with indignation! Sometimes when I know
   that a man has been ungrateful to a friend of mine, very ungrateful, I
   cannot help looking upon him with contempt. If you have lived in this
   world for 50 years and have never shown any gratitude to God in life,
   feel evil. Feel what a miserable wretch you are to be living wholly for
   yourself while the God who has fed you and blessed you all your life
   has not had the turn of a penny from you in the way of real praise and
   true gratitude!

   I say again, feel evil, and then go to Jesus' feet and tell Him that
   you feel it, and cry, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" If you have
   never been a drunk or a swearer, or unjust, think it bad enough to have
   been ungrateful. If you have lived without serving your God, think it
   sin, enough, to have made yourself as base as the dirt beneath your
   feet and, at the thought of it, humble yourself before your gracious
   God!

   Next if you are able to say, "Through Divine Grace I have praised God
   and I do desire to live entirely to His Glory," yet, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, have you or I ever praised Him enough? Have we ever praised
   Him as we ought? "Oh, no," you say, "and we never shall." And I agree
   with you--we never shall. The poet stretched the words a little, but
   his meaning was right enough, when he said--

   "But, oh, eternity's too short, To utter all Your praise."

   We must feel, we ought to feel the happy burden of the Lord's praise to
   be too heavy for us. We confess that we cannot bless the Lord enough,
   either as to heartiness, frequency, or service. No human strength can
   praise God sufficiently, but still, let us be doing something more for
   God than we have ever done!

   We sang just now, and we sang, I think, very fairly. But let us act as
   well as sing! Let us consecrate ourselves and our substance far more
   fully to God. What are you doing for God? What are you doing for my
   Lord Jesus? Have you a precious alabaster box at home which you would
   like to break, that you might pour the ointment on His head? Do it, and
   do it soon! Some are very protective about their alabaster boxes and
   keep them under lock and key. They take their friends upstairs and show
   them their rare treasures. They ask them to visit their houses to see
   their alabaster boxes and they even talk of what will be done with
   their choice things when their estate shall go through the Probate
   Court.

   That is what they are talking about, but as to actually pouring the
   costly perfume on the head of the Lord Jesus personally, in their own
   lifetime, it has not entered into their heads! God lead you to honor
   your Redeemer at once with the best you have! Give God your best--your
   very best! Give God yourself--your all--He is worthy of it. And, oh,
   count it a high honor if He accepts it at your hands through Jesus
   Christ your Savior!

   Lastly, if anybody here says, "I would like to begin to remember the
   Lord's mercies and to praise His name," then you must begin at the
   Cross! The center of everything that is good is the Cross of Christ! No
   man begins a life of praise, or a life of prayer, or a life of holiness
   aright unless he begins within sight of the Crucified Savior, led there
   by the Holy Spirit! Go there with your ingratitude like a burden on
   your heart--and look to the flowing of the Redeemer's precious
   blood--and the load of ingratitude will roll into His sepulcher and
   will never be laid to your charge! And then when you get rid of the
   guilt you can begin--yes, you will begin--from that time on, to praise
   Him and magnify His name!

   God give you a memory capable of treasuring up His favors. May He
   enrich you with the benedictions of His Covenant that you may have much
   to treasure up. And may the whole of the sweet canes and precious
   spices which memory has laid up be used as fuel for the flame of
   thanksgiving in life, in death and through eternity! Amen. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 Chronicles 16:1-36. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--130, 229, 720, AND THE DOXOLOGY.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Little Dogs

   (No. 1309)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 6, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread,
   and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of
   the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Matthew 15:26,27.

   "But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is
   not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.
   And she answered and said unto Him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the
   table eat of the children's crumbs." Mark 7:27,28.

   I TAKE the two records of Matthew and Mark that we may have the whole
   matter before us. May the Holy Spirit bless our meditations. The
   brightest jewels are often found in the darkest places. Christ had not
   found such faith, no, not in Israel, as he discovered in this poor
   Canaanite woman. The borders and fringes of the land were more fruitful
   than the center, where the farming had been more abundant! In the
   headlands of the field, where the farmer does not expect to grow much
   beyond weeds, the Lord Jesus found the richest ear of corn that as yet
   had filled His sheaf. Let those of us who reap after Him be encouraged
   to expect the same experience. Never let us speak of any district as
   too depraved to yield us converts, nor of any class of persons as too
   fallen to become Believers. Let us go, even, to the borders of Tyre and
   Sidon, though the land is under a curse, for even there we shall
   discover some elect one, ordained to be a jewel for the Redeemer's
   crown!

   Our heavenly Father has children everywhere! In spiritual things it is
   found that the best plants often grow in the most barren soil. Solomon
   spoke of trees and discoursed concerning the hyssop on the wall and the
   cedar in Lebanon. So is it in the natural world--the great trees are
   found on great mountains and the minor plants in places adapted for
   their tiny roots. But it is not so among the plants of the Lord's right
   hand planting, for there we have seen the cedar grow upon the
   wall--great saints in places where it has apparently impossible for
   then to exist! And we have seen hyssops growing upon Lebanon--a
   questionable, insignificant piety where there have been innumerable
   advantages! The Lord is able to make strong faith exist with little
   knowledge, little present enjoyment and little encouragement. And
   strong faith in such conditions triumphs and conquers and doubly
   glorifies the Grace of God!

   Such was this Canaanite woman, a cedar growing where soil was scant.
   She was a woman of amazing faith, though she could have heard but
   little of Him in whom she believed and, perhaps, had never seen Him at
   all until the day when she fell at His feet and said, "Lord, help me!"
   Our Lord had a very quick eye for spying faith. If the jewel was lying
   in the mire, His eyes caught its glitter. If there was a choice ear of
   wheat among the thorns, He failed not to perceive it. Faith has a
   strong attraction for the Lord Jesus! At the sight of it, "the king is
   held in the galleries," and cries, "you have ravished my heart with one
   of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." The Lord Jesus was charmed
   with the fair jewel of this woman's faith and watching it and
   delighting in it, He resolved to turn it round and set it in other
   lights, that the various facets of this priceless diamond might, each
   one, flash its brilliance and delight His soul!

   Therefore He tried her faith by His silence and by His discouraging
   replies, that He might see its strength. But He was, all the while,
   delighting in it and secretly sustaining it. And when He had
   sufficiently tried it, He brought it forth as gold, and set His own
   royal mark upon it in these memorable words, "O woman, great is your
   faith; be it unto you even as you will." I am hopeful, this morning,
   that perhaps some poor soul in this place under very discouraging
   circumstances may, nevertheless, be led to believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ with a strong and persevering faith. And though as

   yet it enjoys no peace and has seen no gracious answer to prayer, I
   trust that its struggling faith may be strengthened, this morning, by
   the example of the Canaanite woman.

   I gather from the story of her appeal to the Lord Jesus and her
   success, four facts. The first is, faith's mouth cannot be closed. The
   second is, faith never disputes with God. Thirdly, I perceive that
   faith argues mightily and fourthly, that faith wins her suit.

   I. THE MOUTH OF FAITH CAN NEVER BE CLOSED, for if ever the faith of a
   woman was tried so as to make her cease from prayer, it was that of
   this daughter of Tyre. She had difficulty after difficulty to encounter
   and yet she could not be put off from pleading for her little daughter
   because she believed in Jesus as the great Messiah, able to heal all
   manner of diseases--and she meant to pray to Him until He yielded to
   her importunity--for she was confident that He could chase the demon
   from her child.

   Observe that the mouth of faith cannot be closed even on account of the
   closed ear and the closed mouth of Christ. He answered her never a
   word. She spoke very piteously--she came and threw herself at His
   feet--her child's case was very urgent. Her motherly heart was very
   tender and her cries were very piercing. And yet He answered her not a
   word! As if He were deaf and dumb, He passed her by. Yet she was not
   staggered. She believed in Him and even He, Himself, could not make her
   doubt Him, let Him try silence even if He would. It is hard to believe
   when prayer seems to be a failure. I would to God that some poor seeker
   here might believe that Jesus Christ is able and willing to save and so
   fully believe it that his unanswered prayers shall not be able to make
   him doubt!

   Even if you should pray in vain by the month together, do not allow a
   doubt about the Lord Jesus and His power to save to cross your mind.
   What if you cannot, yet, grasp the peace which faith must ultimately
   bring you? What if you have no certainty of forgiveness of your sin?
   What if no gleams ofjoy should visit your spirit? Still believe Him who
   cannot lie! "Though He slay me," said Job, "yet will I trust in Him."
   That was splendid faith! It would be a great deal for some if they
   could say, "Though He smite me, yet will I trust Him," but Job said,
   "Though He slay me." If Jesus puts on the garb of an executioner and
   comes out against me as though He would destroy me, yet will I believe
   Him to be full of love! He is still good and gracious. I cannot doubt
   it and, therefore, at His feet I will lie down and look up, expecting
   Grace at His hands! Oh for such faith as this! O Soul, if you have it,
   you are a saved man, as sure as you are alive! If even the Lord's
   apparent refusal to bless you cannot close your mouth, your faith is of
   a noble sort and salvation is yours!

   In the next place, her faith could not be silenced by the conduct of
   the disciples. They did not treat her well, but yet, perhaps, not
   altogether badly. They were not like their Master--they frequently
   repulsed those who would come to Him. Her noise annoyed them. She kept
   to them with boundless perseverance and, therefore, they said, "Send
   her away, for she cries after us." Poor soul, she never cried after
   them, it was after their Master! Sometimes disciples become very
   important in their own eyes and think that the pushing and crowding to
   hear the Gospel is caused by the people's eagerness to hear them,
   whereas nobody would care for their poor talk if it were not for the
   Gospel message which they are charged to deliver! Give us any other
   theme and the multitude would soon melt away!

   Though weary of the woman's importunate cries, they acted somewhat
   kindly towards her, for they were evidently desirous that she should
   obtain the gift she sought, or else our Lord's reply would not have
   been appropriate, "I am not sent, save to the lost sheep of the house
   of Israel." It was not her daughter's healing that they cared for, but
   they consulted their own comfort, for they were anxious to be rid of
   her. "Send her away," they said, "for she cries after us." Still,
   though they did not treat her as men should treat a woman, as disciples
   should treat a seeker, as Christians should treat everybody, yet for
   all that, her mouth was not stopped!

   Peter, I have no doubt, looked in a very scowling manner and, perhaps,
   even John became a little impatient, for he had a quick temper by
   nature. Andrew and Philip and the rest of them considered her very
   impertinent and presumptuous, but she thought of her little daughter at
   home and of the horrible miseries to which the demon subjected her, and
   so she pressed up to the Savior's feet and said, "Lord, help me." Cold,
   hard words and unkind, unsympathetic behavior could not prevent her
   pleading with Him in whom she believed. Ah, poor Sinner, perhaps you
   are saying, "I am longing to be saved, but such-and-such a good
   Christian man has dealt very bitterly with me. He has doubted my
   sincerity, questioned the reality of my repentance and caused me the
   deepest sorrow. It seems as if he did not wish me to be saved." Ah,
   dear Friend, this is very trying, but if you have true faith in the
   Master you will not mind us disciples--neither the gen-

   tlest of us, nor the most rough of us--just urge on your suit with your
   Lord till He deigns to give you an answer of peace.

   Her mouth, again, was not closed by exclusive doctrine which appeared
   to confine the blessing to a favored few! The Lord Jesus Christ said,
   "I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and
   though properly understood there is nothing very severe in it, yet the
   sentence must have fallen on the woman's heart like a talent of lead.
   "Alas," she might have thought, "then He is not sent to me! Vainly do I
   seek for that which He reserves for the Jews." Now, the Doctrine of
   Election, which is assuredly taught in Scripture, ought not to hinder
   any soul from coming to Christ, for, if properly understood, it would
   rather encourage than discourage! And yet, often, to the uninstructed
   ear the Doctrine of the Divine Choice of a people from before the
   foundation of world acts with very depressing effect.

   We have known poor seekers mournfully say, "Perhaps there is no mercy
   for me. I may be among those for whom no purpose of mercy has been
   formed." They have been tempted to cease from prayer for fear they
   should not have been predestinated unto eternal life! Ah, dear Soul, if
   you have the faith of God's elect in you, you will not be kept back by
   any self-condemning inferences drawn from the secret things of God! You
   will believe in that which has been clearly revealed, and you will be
   assured that this cannot contradict the secret decrees of Heaven. What?
   Though our Lord was only sent to the house of Israel, yet there is a
   house of Israel not after the flesh but after the spirit and,
   therefore, the Syrophenician woman was included even where she thought
   she was shut out--and you may, also, be comprehended within those lines
   of gracious destiny which now distress you. At any rate, say to
   yourself, "In the election of Grace others are included who were as
   sinful as I have been, why should not I? Others have been included who
   were as full of distress as I have been on account of sin and why
   should not I be, also?" Reasoning thus, you will press forward, in hope
   believing against hope, suffering no plausible deduction from the
   doctrine of Scripture to prevent your believing in the appointed
   Redeemer.

   The mouth of faith, in this case, was not even closed by a sense of
   admitted unworthiness. Christ spoke of dogs--He meant that the Gentiles
   were to Israel as the dogs--she did not at all dispute it but yielded
   the point by saying, "Truth, Lord." She felt she was only worthy to be
   compared to a dog! I have no doubt her sense of unworthiness was very
   deep. She did not expect to win the blessing she sought on account of
   any merit of her own--she depended upon the goodness of Christ's heart,
   not on the goodness of her cause--and upon the excellence of His power
   rather than upon the prevalence of her plea. Yet, conscious as she was
   that she was only a poor Gentile dog, her prayers were not hindered!
   She cried, notwithstanding all, "Lord, help me."

   O Sinner, if you feel yourself to be the worst sinner out of Hell,
   still pray, believingly pray for mercy! If your sense of unworthiness
   is enough to drive you to self-destruction, yet I beseech you, out of
   the depths, out of the dungeon of self-loathing, still cry unto God,
   for your salvation rests in no measure or degree upon yourself or upon
   anything that you are or have been or can be! You need to be saved from
   yourself, not by yourself! It is yours to be empty, that Jesus may fill
   you! It is yours to confess your filthiness, that He may wash you! It
   is yours to be less than nothing, that Jesus may be everything to you!
   Suffer not the number, blackness, frequency, or heinousness of your
   transgressions to silence your prayers, and though you are a dog--yes,
   not worthy to be set with the dogs of the Lord's flock--yet open your
   mouth in believing prayer!

   There was, besides this, a general tone and spirit in what the Lord
   Jesus said which tended to depress the woman's hope and restrain her
   prayer, yet she was not kept back by the darkest and most depressing
   influences. "It is not meet," said the Lord Jesus, "it is not becoming,
   it is not proper, it is hardly lawful to take children's bread and
   throw it to dogs." Perhaps she did not quite see all that He might have
   meant, but what she did see was enough to pour cold water upon the
   flames of her hope, yet her faith was not quenched! It was a faith of
   that immortal kind which nothing can kill, for her mind was made up
   that whatever Jesus meant, or did not mean, she would not cease to
   trust Him! She would continue to urge her suit with Him.

   There are a great many things in and around the Gospel which men see as
   in a haze and, being misunderstood, they rather repel than attract
   seeking souls. But be they what they may, we must resolve to come to
   Jesus at all risks. "If I perish, I perish." Beside the great stumbling
   stone of election, there are Truths of God and facts which seekers
   magnify and misconstrue till they see a thousand difficulties. They are
   troubled about Christian experience, about being born again, about
   inbred sin and all sorts of things. In fact, a thousand lions are in
   the way when the soul attempts to come to Jesus! But he who gives
   Christ the faith which He deserves, says, "I fear none of these things.
   Lord, help me, and I will still con-

   fide in You. I will approach You. I will press through obstacles to You
   and throw myself at Your dear feet, knowing that him that comes to You,
   You will in no wise cast out."

   II. FAITH NEVER DISPUTES WITH THE LORD. Faith worships. You notice how
   Matthew says, "Then came she and worshipped Him." Faith also begs and
   prays. You observe how Mark says, "She besought Him." She cried, "Lord,
   help me," after having said, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, You Son of
   David." Faith pleads, but never disputes, not even against the hardest
   thing that Jesus says. If faith disputed--I am uttering a mistake--she
   would not be faith, for that which disputes is unbelief! Faith in God
   implies agreement with what God says and, consequently, it excludes the
   idea of doubt. Genuine faith believes anything and everything the Lord
   says whether discouraging or encouraging. She never has a, "but," or
   an, "if." Or even a, "yet," to put in, but she stands to it, "You have
   said it, Lord and, therefore, it is true! You have ordained it, Lord
   and, therefore, it is right." She never goes beyond that.

   Observe in our text that faith assents to all the Lord says. She said,
   "Truth, Lord." What had He said? "You are comparable to a dog!" "Truth,
   Lord. Truth, Lord, so I am." "It would not be meet that the children
   should be robbed of bread in order to feed dogs." "Truth Lord, it would
   not be fitting, and I would not have one of Your children deprived of
   Grace for me." "It is not your time yet," said Jesus, "the children
   must first be fed, children at the meal times and dogs after dinner.
   This is Israel's time and the Gentiles may follow after. But not yet."

   She virtually replies, "I know it, Lord, and agree." She does not raise
   a question or dispute the justice of the Lord's dispensing His own
   Grace according to His sovereign good pleasure. She fails not, as some
   do who quibble at Divine Sovereignty. It would have proven that she had
   little or no faith if she had done that. She disputes not as to the
   Lord's set time and order. Jesus said, "Let the children first be
   filled," and she does not dispute the time, as many do, who will not
   have it that now is the accepted tine, but are as much for postponing
   as this woman was for antedating the day of Grace!

   She entered into no argument against its being improper to take the
   Covenant bread from the children and give it to the uncircumcised
   heathen. She never wished Israel to be robbed for her. Dog as she was,
   she would not have any purpose of God nor any propriety of the Divine
   household shifted and changed for her. She assented to all the Lord's
   appointments. That is the faith which saves the soul, which agrees with
   the mind of God even if it seem adverse to herself--which believes the
   revealed declarations of God whether they appear to be pleasant or
   terrible--and assents to God's Word whether it is like a balm to its
   wound or like a sword to cut and slay. If the Word of God is true, O
   man, do not fight against it, but bow before it! It is not the way to a
   living faith in Jesus Christ, nor to obtain peace with God, to take up
   arms against anything which God declares. In yielding lies safety. Say,
   "Truth, Lord," and you shall find salvation!

   Note that she not only assented to all that the Lord said, but she
   worshipped Him in it. "Truth," she said, "but yet You are my Lord. You
   call me, 'dog,' but You are my Lord for all that. You account me
   unworthy to receive Your bounties, but You are my Lord, and I still
   acknowledge You as such." She is of the mind of Job--"Shall we receive
   good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" She is
   willing to take the evil and say, "Whether the Lord gives, or whether
   He refuses, blessed be His name! He is still my Lord." Oh, this is
   grand faith, which has thrown aside the argumentative spirit and not
   only assents to the Lord's will, but worships Him in it!

   "Let it be what it may, O Lord, even if Your Truth condemns me, yet You
   are still Lord, and I confess Your Deity, confess Your excellence,
   acknowledge Your crown rights and submit myself to You. Do with me what
   You will." And, you observe, when she said, "Truth, Lord," she did not
   go on to suggest that any alteration should be made for her. "Lord,"
   she said, "You have classed me among the dogs." She does not say, "Put
   me among the children," but she only asks to be treated as a dog is!
   "The dogs eat the crumbs," she says. She does not want a purpose
   altered nor an ordinance changed, nor a decree removed--"Let it be as
   it is. If it is Your will, Lord, it is my will"-- she spies a gleam of
   hope, where, if she had not possessed faith, she would have seen only
   the blackness of despair! May we have such a faith as hers and never
   enter into controversy with God.

   III. Now I come to an interesting part of our subject, namely, that
   FAITH ARGUES, though it does not dispute. "Truth, Lord," she said, "yet
   the dogs eat the crumbs." This woman's argument was correct and
   strictly logical throughout. It was an argument based upon the Lord's
   own premises and, you know, if you are reasoning with a man, you cannot
   do better than take his own statements and argue upon them. She does
   not proceed to lay down new premises, or dispute the old ones by
   saying, "I am no dog." But she says, "Yes, I am a dog." She accepts
   that statement of the Lord,

   and uses it as a blessed argumentum ad hominem, such as was never
   excelled in this world! She took the words out of His own mouth and
   vanquished Him with them, even as Jacob overcame the Angel!

   There is so much force in the women's argument that I quite despair,
   this morning, of being able to set it all forth to you. I would,
   however, remark that the translators have greatly injured the text by
   putting in the word, "yet," for there is no, "yet," in the Greek! It is
   quite another word. Jesus said, "It is not meet to take the children's
   bread and cast it to the dogs. "No," she said, "it would not be meet to
   do this, because the dogs are provided for, for the dogs eat the crumbs
   that fall from their master's table." "It would be very improper to
   give them the children's bread, because they have bread of their own."
   "Truth, Lord, I admit it would be improper to give the dogs the
   children's bread, because they have already their share when they eat
   the crumbs which fall from the children's table. That is all they need,
   and all I desire. I do not ask You to give me the children's bread, I
   only ask for the dog's crumbs."

   Let us see the force of her reasoning, which will appear in many ways.
   The first is this. She argued with Christ from her hopeful position. "I
   am a dog," she said, "but, Lord, You have come all the way to Sidon.
   Here You are close on the borders of my country and, therefore, I am
   not like a dog out in the street--I am a dog under the table." Mark
   tells us that she said, "The dogs under the table eat of the children's
   crumbs." She as good as says, "Lord, You see my position--I was a dog
   in the street, afar off from You--but now You have come and preached on
   our borders and I have been privileged to listen to You. Others have
   been healed and You are in this very house doing deeds of Grace while I
   look on and, therefore, though I am a dog, I am a dog under the table.
   Therefore, Lord, let me have the crumbs."

   Do you see, dear Hearer? You admit that you are a sinner and a great
   sinner, but you say, "Lord, I am a sinner that is permitted to hear the
   Gospel, therefore bless it to me! I am a dog, but I am under the table,
   deal with me as such! When there is a sermon preached for the comfort
   of Your people, I am there to hear it. Whenever the saints gather
   together and the precious promises are discussed, and they rejoice
   therein, I am there, looking up and wishing that I was among them. But
   Lord, since You have had the Grace to let me be a hearer of the Gospel,
   will You reject me, now that I desire to be a receiver of it? To what
   end and purpose have You brought me so near, or rather come so near to
   me, if, after all, You will reject me? Dog I am, but still, I am a dog
   under the table. It is a favor to be privileged to be among the
   children, even if I may only lie at their feet. I pray You, good Lord,
   since now I am permitted to look up to You and ask this blessing, do
   not reject me."

   To me it seems that this was a strong point with the woman and that she
   used it well. Her next plea was her encouraging relationship. "Truth,
   Lord," she says, "I am a dog, but the dogs eat the crumbs which fall
   from their master's table." See the stress laid there by Matthew--"From
   their master's table"? I cannot say that you are my father. I cannot
   look up and claim the privilege of a child, but you are my Master, and
   masters feed their dogs. They give at least the crumbs to those dogs
   which acknowledge them as their lord." The plea is very much like that
   suggested to the mind of the poor returning prodigal. He thought to say
   to his father, "Make me as one of your hired servants," only his faith
   was far less than hers.

   For hers pleaded, "Lord, if I do not stand in relation to you as a
   child, yet I am Your creature. You have made me and I look up to You
   and beseech You not to let me perish. If I have no other hold upon You,
   I have at least this, that I ought to have served You and, therefore, I
   am Your servant though I am a runaway. I do belong to You--at least
   under the Covenant of Works if I do not under the Covenant of Grace,
   and oh, since I am Your servant, do not utterly reject me! You have
   some property in me by creation, at any rate. Oh, look upon me, and
   bless me. The dogs eat what falls from their master's table--let me do
   the same." She spies out a dog's relation to its master and makes the
   most of it with blessed ingenuity, which we shall do well to imitate.

   Notice next, she pleads her association with the children. Here I must
   tell you that it is a pity that it was not, I suppose, possible for our
   translators to bring clearly out what is, after all, the heart of the
   passage. She was pleading for her little daughter and our Lord said to
   her, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the
   little dogs." The word is a diminutive and the woman focused upon it.
   The word, "dogs," could not have served her turn one half as well as
   that of, "little dogs." But she said, "Truth, Lord, yet the little dogs
   eat of the crumbs." In the East, as a rule, a dog is not allowed
   indoors. In fact, dogs are looked upon there as foul creatures and roam
   about uncared for and half wild.

   Christianity has raised the dog and made him man's companion, as it
   will raise all the brute creation, till the outrages of vivisection and
   the cruelties of the vulgar will be things unheard of except as horrors
   of a past barbarous age. In

   the East a dog is far down in the scale of life--a street wanderer,
   prowling for scanty food--and in temper little better than a reformed
   wolf. So the adult Easterns do not associate with dogs, having a
   prejudice against them. But children are not so foolish and,
   consequently, the Eastern children associate with the little dogs. The
   father will not have the dog near him, but his child knows no such
   folly and seeks out a little dog to join him in his sports. Thus the
   little dog comes to be under the table, tolerated in the house for the
   child's sake.

   The woman appears, to me, to argue thus--"You have called me and my
   daughter whelps, little dogs. But then the little dogs are under the
   children's table. They associate with the children, even as I have been
   with Your disciples today. If I am not one of them, I have been
   associating with them, and would be glad to be among them." How
   heartily do I wish that some poor soul would catch at this and say,
   "Lord, I cannot claim to be one of Your children, but I love to sit
   among them, for I am never happier than when I am with them. Sometimes
   they trouble and distress me, as little children pinch and hurt their
   little dogs, but oftentimes they caress me and speak kindly and
   comfortably to me. And they pray for me, and desire my salvation. So,
   Lord, if I am not a child, yet You call me a little dog and so I am. So
   give me a little dog's treatment--give me the crumbs of mercy which I
   seek."

   Her argument goes further, for the little dog eats the crumbs of the
   children's bread with the child's full consent. When a child has its
   little dog to play with while he is eating, what does the child do?
   Why, of course, it gives a little bit to the dog every now and again
   and the doggie, himself, takes great liberties and helps himself as
   much as he dares. When a little dog is with the children at meal time
   it is sure to get a crumb from one or other of its playmates--and none
   will object to its eating what it can get.

   So the woman seems to say, "Lord, there are the children, Your
   disciples. They do not treat me very well. Little children do not treat
   little dogs always so kindly as they might, but still, Lord, they are
   quite willing that I should have the blessing I am seeking. They have a
   full portion in You. They have Your Presence. They have Your Word. They
   sit at Your feet. They have obtained all sorts of spiritual blessings.
   I am sure they cannot grudge me so much less a blessing-- they are
   willing that I should have the devil cast out of my daughter, for that
   blessing, compared with what they have, is but a crumb--and they are
   content that I should have it. So Lord, I answer Your argument. You say
   it is not meet until the children are filled to give bread to dogs,
   but, Lord, the children are filled and are quite willing to let me have
   my portion. They consent to allow me the crumbs! Will You not give them
   to me?"

   I think there was another point of force in her plea--the abundance of
   the provision. She had a great faith in Christ and believed big things
   of Him and, therefore, she said, "Lord, there is no great strength in
   Your argument if You do intend to prove that I ought not to have the
   bread for fear there should not be enough for the children, for You
   have so much that even while the children are being fed, the dogs may
   get the crumbs and there will still be enough for the children!" Where
   it is a poor man's table and he cannot afford to lose a crumb, dogs
   should not be allowed. But when it is a king's table where bread is of
   small account, and the children are sitting and feeding to the full,
   the little dogs may be permitted to feed under the table for the mere
   droppings--not the bread the master casts down, but the crumbs which
   fall by accident are so many that there is enough for the dogs without
   the children being deprived of a mouthful.

   "No, Lord," she said, "I would not have You take away the bread from
   Your own children! God forbid that such a deed should be done for me!
   But there is enough for Your children in Your overflowing love and
   mercy and still enough for me, for all I ask is but a crumb compared
   with what You are daily bestowing upon others." Now, here is the last
   point in which her argument had force. She looked at things from
   Christ's point of view. "If, great Lord," she said, "You look at me as
   a dog, then behold I humbly take You at Your word, and plead that if I
   am a dog to You, then the cure I ask for my daughter is but a crumb for
   Your great power and goodness to bestow on me." She used a diminutive
   word, too, and said, "A little crumb."

   The little dogs eat of the little crumbs which fall from the children's
   table. What bold faith this was! She valued the mercy she sought beyond
   all price! She thought it worth 10,000 worlds to her, but yet to the
   Son of God she knew it to be a mere crumb, so rich is He in power to
   heal and so full of goodness and blessing! If a man gives a crumb to a
   dog, he has a little the less, but if Jesus gives mercy to the greatest
   of sinners, He has none the less--He is just as rich in condescension
   and mercy and power to forgive as He was before! The woman's argument
   was most potent. She was as wise as she was earnest and, best of all,
   she believed most marvelously!

   I shall close this outline of the argument by saying that at bottom the
   woman was, in reality, arguing according to the eternal purposes of
   God, for what was the Lord's grand design in giving the bread to the
   children, or, in other words, sending a Divine Revelation to Israel?
   Why, it always was His purpose that through the children, the dogs
   should get the bread--that through Israel the Gospel should be handed
   to the Gentiles! It had always been His plan to bless His own heritage
   that His way might be known upon earth, His saving health among all
   nations! And this woman, somehow or other, by a Divine instinct, fell
   into the Divine method. Though she had not spied out the secret, or at
   least it is not told us that she did so in so many words, yet there was
   the innate force of her argument.

   In other words, it ran thus--"It is through the children that the dogs
   have to be fed. Lord, I do not ask You to cease giving the children
   their bread. Nor do I even ask You to hurry on the children's meal--let
   them be fed first--but even while they are eating, let me have the
   crumbs which drop from their well-filled hands and I will be content."
   There is a brave argument for you, poor coming Sinner. I leave it in
   your hands and pray the Spirit of God to help you to use it! And if you
   can turn it to good account, you shall prevail with the Lord this day!

   IV. Our last and closing head is this--FAITH WINS HER SUIT. This
   woman's faith first won a commendation for herself. Jesus said, "O,
   Woman, great is your faith." She had not heard of the prophecies
   concerning Jesus. She was not bred and born and educated in a way in
   which she was likely to become a Believer and yet she did become a
   Believer of the first class. It was marvelous that it should be so, but
   Grace delights in doing wonders. She had not seen the Lord, before, in
   her life. She was not like those who had associated with Him for many
   months and yet, with but one view of Him, she gained this great faith!
   It was astonishing, but the Grace of God is always astonishing!

   Perhaps she had never seen a miracle--all that her faith had to rest
   upon was that she had heard in her own country that the Messiah of the
   Jews was come--and she believed that the Man of Nazareth was He and on
   this she relied. O Brothers and Sisters, with all our advantages! With
   the opportunities that we have of knowing the whole life of Christ and
   understanding the doctrines of the Gospel as they are revealed to us in
   the New Testament--with many years of observation and experience--our
   faith ought to be much stronger than it is! Does not this poor woman
   shame us when we see her with her slender opportunities, nevertheless
   so strong in faith, so that Jesus Himself commending her says, "O
   Woman, great is your faith"?

   But her faith prevailed further in that it won a commendation for the
   mode of its action, for, according to Mark, Jesus said, "Go your way;
   for this saying the devil is gone out of your daughter." It was as if
   He rewarded the saying as well as the faith which suggested it! He was
   so delighted with the wise, prudent and humble, yet courageous manner
   in which she turned His words against Himself, that He said, "For this
   saying the devil is gone out of your daughter." The Lord who commends
   faith, afterwards commends the fruits and acts of faith! The Tree
   consecrates the fruit! No man's actions can be acceptable with God till
   He, Himself, is accepted. And the woman, having been accepted on her
   faith, the results of her faith were agreeable to the heart of Jesus.

   The woman also gained her desire--"The devil is gone out of your
   daughter," and he was gone at once! She had only to go home and find
   her daughter on the bed taking a quiet rest--something which she had
   not done since the demon had possessed her! Our Lord, when He gave her
   the desire of her heart, gave it in a grand manner! He gave her a sort
   of carte blanche and said, "Be it unto you even as you will." I do not
   know that any other person ever had such a word said to them as this
   woman, "Be it unto you even as you will." It was as if the Lord of
   Glory surrendered at discretion to the conquering arms of a woman's
   faith! The Lord grant to you and me, in all times of our struggling, to
   be able, thus, by faith, to conquer--and we cannot imagine how great
   will be the spoil which we shall divide when the Lord shall say, "Be it
   unto you even as you will."

   The close of all is this--this woman is a lesson to all outsiders--to
   you who think yourselves beyond the pale of hope, to you who were not
   brought up to attend the House of God, who perhaps have been negligent
   of all religion for almost all your life. This poor woman is a
   Sidonian. She comes of a race that had been condemned to die many
   centuries before--one of the accursed seed of Canaan! And yet, for all
   that, she became great in the kingdom of Heaven because she believed!
   And there is no reason why those who are reckoned to be quite outside
   the Church of God should not be in the very center of it--and be the
   most burning and shining lights of the whole! O you poor outcasts and
   far-off ones, take heart and comfort! Come to Jesus Christ and trust
   yourselves in His hands!

   This woman is, next of all, an example to those who think they have
   been repulsed in their endeavors after salvation. Have you been praying
   and have you not succeeded? Have you sought the Lord and do you seem to
   be more unhappy than ever? Have you made attempts at reformation and
   amendment and believed that you made them in the Divine strength--and
   have they failed? Yet trust in Him whose blood has not lost its
   efficacy, whose promise has not lost its truth, and whose arm has not
   lost its power to save! Cling to the Cross, Sinner! If the earth sinks
   beneath you, hang on! If storms should rage and all the floods be out,
   and even God, Himself, seems to be against you, cling to the Cross!
   There is your hope! You cannot perish there!

   This is a lesson, next, to every intercessor. This woman was not
   pleading for herself, she was asking for another. Oh, when you plead
   for a fellow sinner, do not do it in a cold-hearted manner! Plead as
   for your own soul and your own life! That man will prevail with God as
   an intercessor who solemnly bears the matter upon his own heart and
   makes it his own and with tears entreats an answer of peace! Lastly,
   remember that this mighty woman, this glorious woman, is a lesson to
   every mother, for she was pleading for her little daughter! Maternal
   instinct makes the weakest strong, and the most timid brave. Even among
   poor beasts and birds, how powerful is a mother's love!

   Why, the poor little robin which would be frightened at the approach of
   a footstep, will sit upon its nest when the intruder comes near when
   her little ones are in danger. A mother's love makes her heroic for her
   child! And so, when you are pleading with God, plead as a mother's love
   suggests to you, till the Lord shall say to you, also, "O Woman, great
   is your faith; the devil is gone out of your daughter; be it unto you
   even as you will." I leave that last thought with parents as an
   encouragement to pray. The Lord stir you up to it, for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 15:1-31. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--906, 551, 540.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Blind Befriended

   (No. 1310)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 9, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them
   in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before
   them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them,
   and not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16.

   This promise is not made to every blind man, or to all sorts of blind
   people, for there are some blind people whom God does not lead. There
   is only a peculiar sort of blind people to whom this promise is given,
   that He will guide them and not forsake them. If you go outside the
   Tabernacle, take the first turn on the left and walk down what is
   called the St. George's Road till you come to the end, you may see
   asylums built for three sorts of blind people. On your right hand you
   will have the Blind School. That is for the physically blind--those who
   have lost the sight of these outward eyes. On the left hand you will
   see the Bethlehem Hospital. That is for the mentally blind, who have
   lost the inner sight and are in the more unhappy state of lunacy. Then
   straight before you, you will see the St. George's Roman Catholic
   Cathedral. That is for the spiritually blind, whose case is all the
   more pitiable, because these blind people have blind leaders, and their
   deluded souls are prescribed for by physicians who foster their
   delusions.

   Now, the promise of Divine guidance is not addressed to any of these.
   It is not necessarily given to the physically blind, for, alas, some of
   them, in addition to their loss of natural sight, are without a sight
   of Christ. Nor is it given to the mentally blind, for some of them,
   before they lost their reason, had made ill use of it and had despised
   the Savior. Neither is it made to the spiritually blind, for strong
   delusion is upon them that they should believe a lie and, alas, they
   wander in the light as in the darkness, and grope like the blind at
   noonday.

   There is, however, a fourth kind of blindness which you, who are
   genuine Christians, will attribute to yourselves. A painful experience
   has made it clear to you. The promise is made to the confessedly, the
   consciously blind--and I shall try to show that this fitly describes
   every Christian! Every Believer in Christ is a witness of that
   "judgement for which Christ came into this world, that they which see
   not might see, and that they which see might be made blind" (John
   9:39). It is to him and to such as him, that the Lord has said, "I will
   bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them in paths
   that they have not known."

   I. Our first enquiry shall be, WHO ARE THEY? Who are these blind
   people? We have already said they are consciously blind people and they
   confess that they were once totally blind. Years gone by, before they
   knew the Savior, they knew nothing aright. Before the light from Heaven
   shone upon them they were in the gross darkness of their natural state.
   Now, it is not every man that knows that he is, by nature, in the
   dark--and when he does know it, he becomes one of the blind to whom the
   Lord makes this promise!

   The Pharisees in Christ's day were as blind as bats. But they said, "We
   see." "Therefore," said Christ, "your sin remains." They were the very
   people whom it was hard to save because they were a seeing people in
   their own estimation. But the man who has been converted knows, now,
   that there was no light in him by nature, that he did not understand
   anything aright, that he put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter,
   darkness for light, and light for darkness. He knows that in him--that
   is in his flesh--there was no good thing, but all manner of
   corruptions, tendencies towards evil, envy of mankind and hatred of
   God.

   Soul, have you ever seen your own darkness? Have you ever seen that
   Nature's light is nothing better than midnight? Have you ever been made
   to see that, as it were, through Adam's Fall, you were plunged into the
   state of the blind and could not possibly find your way? Well, if you
   are of that sort, the promise is made to you! These blind people,
   knowing their infirmity and feeling their privation, recognize that
   what they thought was sight, before, was all delusion. Ah, there

   was a time with me when I thought I was righteous. And as I looked upon
   myself I saw fair white linen upon my loins, but now I know that it was
   my blindness that made me think I was fully dressed when I was naked. I
   thought I had much goods and many treasures.

   I used to go from case to case to inspect my jewels. I would gladly
   persuade myself that I was rich. But now I see that I was in the
   delirium of sin and, therefore, flattered myself that I was rich when I
   was poor. I thought then, too, that I was happy. There was a mirth and
   a frothy joy which I thought well worth the having. But now I call that
   joy, misery, which is sinful, and that mirth to be wretchedness, which
   is apart from God. Now our eyes are open to see that we did not see and
   to discover that it was all dark, and yet we thought it light! Phantoms
   passed before us--mere shapes of things that were not--but we counted
   these to be substantial realities.

   Dear Hearer, have you discovered that those bright eyes of yours which
   you used to possess, which made you see such righteousness in yourself
   and such pleasure in sin, were, after all, blind eyes and that you did
   not see at all, but were duped and deluded, and under the witchcraft of
   Satan, fascinated by the world and beguiled by your own corrupt heart?
   Well, if it is so, you are one of those blind people who confess their
   blindness, to whom the promise is most graciously made. But I think I
   hear you say, "You are telling us rather of a blindness that we used to
   be afflicted with than of one from which we are now suffering." Well,
   the figure will not run on all fours. We must use it, however, to set
   forth the present truth and this is as it ought to be used.

   Surely, the description, "blind," may well be applied to the Christian
   for this reason--that now he does not expect to see that upon which he
   builds his hope. All that he sees is nothing to him! That which is to
   him substantial and real is that which he believes. If you ask any
   Believer what he rests his hope upon, he will tell you that it is upon
   an unseen Christ, "whom having not seen we love." He will tell you that
   there is a promise, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
   believed." And he has realized the sweetness of that word. He does not
   rest his confidence on a crucifix which he can see with his eyes, but
   on the Savior who is not here--for He is risen and ascended into
   Heaven! He does not rest upon a priest whose voice he can hear--a man
   like himself--his confidence is in another Priest who has gone within
   the veil and entered into Glory!

   He depends no longer upon his own doings. These he can see, but what he
   sees of them makes him despondent. He dares not rest in his own
   works--he rests in the works of Another who has gone up to the Throne
   of God and carried a matchless righteousness into Jehovah's Presence.
   He will tell you that he does not even depend upon his own feelings--he
   is very conscious that they are fickle--they change like the weather.
   As one day we have a little bright sunshine and, perhaps, in an hour we
   have a hailstorm, and by-and-by are brought back to the very cold of
   winter, so is it with our feelings. Our experience is always varying
   and the man that knows himself aright dares not trust in his feelings,
   nor rely upon his experiences. No, he rests in the feelings of Him who
   sweat great drops of blood in the garden! His confidence is in the
   anguish of One who was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and not
   in his own anguish.

   He rests in the death and resurrection--in the wounds and in the
   triumphs--not of himself in any respect, but of Christ whom, having not
   seen, he, nevertheless, trusts and relies upon! Oh, it is a blessed
   thing to be thus blind, so that you cannot see any good in yourself,
   cannot see any good upon which you could rest--cannot discover, even in
   God's work apart from Christ--any foundation on which to build! You
   cannot find in Heaven or earth any prop and pillar for the soul, except
   Jesus Crucified. Ransack the universe and where others can see grounds
   of confidence these truly blind men are unable to see anything, and
   only say, "These we count dross and dung that we may win Christ and be
   found in Him, not having our own righteousness which is of the Law, but
   the righteousness which is of God by faith." Oh, blessed blindness,
   never more to be able to see a solitary ray of hope except in
   Christ--never more to be able to find any confidence anywhere but in
   Him whom God the Father has set forth to be a Propitiation for sin,
   through faith in His precious

   blood!

   Moreover, besides this, these blind people are content not to see a
   great many things. He that is blind in the blessed sense knows that
   there are many things which he cannot see and does not want to see. For
   instance, he cannot see into the future. He leaves others to say,
   "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a
   year, and will buy and sell and get gain." This man is so wisely blind
   that he cannot presume to peer into tomorrow. He has been told to leave
   tomorrow with God, for "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I
   know some of the Lord's people who look so

   far forward that they see a great deal too much for their own peace of
   mind. They catch a glimpse of trouble ahead and yet that trouble will
   never come.

   Some of them see dreadful disasters which never happen! I have known
   some good old people who were afraid that they should have to spend
   their last shilling and yet they left ample stores behind when they
   went Home. I have known some who were afraid that they should live so
   long that they would be a nuisance to their friends, and yet their
   friends bewailed them when they, at last, fell asleep. I have known a
   Christian man dread what would happen if--and that, "if," was entirely
   his own conjuring up. Some are afraid to die and they feel a thousand
   deaths in fearing one! There will be no terrors to them in death! There
   was one who used to be always in bondage through fear of death--he died
   in his sleep and it would have been a good thing for him if he had been
   so blind that he could not see the thing he dreaded. Oh, it is a happy
   thing not to be able to see the trouble which, if wisely appointed, is
   as wisely concealed, but to leave it all with God! You have enough to
   do to fight the battles of today.

   Permit me to repeat a figure which I have often used before. When
   Leonidas and the Spartans went into the narrow pass of Thermopylae,
   where their enemies could only come up one or two at a time, they kept
   the whole Persian host at bay. But, when afterwards they gave up in
   despair and rushed into the plain to fight the Persians, they soon
   fell. Now, if you will stand in the narrow pass of today and just meet
   your troubles as they come, single-handed, in the name of God Almighty,
   who is your Defender, you will be sufficient for the evil as the evil
   will be sufficient for the day. But if you get to meddling with all the
   troubles that may come to pass between now and the next 12 months--you
   will soon compass yourselves about with perplexities and plunge
   yourselves into dismay! You had better let them alone. Be blind to the
   future. Be happily blind and plead the promise, "I will bring the blind
   by a way that they knew not."

   There are some other things, too, that these blind people know they
   cannot see. They are quite aware that if they open their eyes ever so
   wide they will never see clearly all the deep secrets, the profound
   mysteries of God's Covenant. I know men who are wise in their own eyes
   and very well assured of their own intellects, who, while palpably
   ignorant of everything that is rational, are conscious that they know
   everything that is spiritual. Their acquaintance with theology is
   thoroughly exhaustive. They have learned, long ago, to count five, to
   reckon them at their fingers ends--one, two, three, four, five!

   These mystic fingers comprise all the doctrines of the Gospel! They
   know them and they double up their fists at the mention of any of those
   five points--and they are ready to fight anybody about them. They are
   men of a great deal of wisdom--seeing men--but I think a man that gets
   a little nearer to God discovers that he does not know everything and
   he is quite clear that he can no more compass the whole of Divine Truth
   than he can hold the ocean in the hollow of his hand. I have long felt
   that I shall never understand where the two great Truths of God of free
   agency and predestination meet. I believe them both--believe them with
   equal faith--but how to reconcile them, I no longer wish to know,
   because I do not think that God intends we should know!

   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, there is such a thing as prying when you
   ought to be believing! Such a thing as forever quibbling and needing to
   see where your faith has to acquiesce in being led blindfolded! And who
   would not wish to be blind, if the blind man's privilege is to be led
   by God? Who is not willing not to see, if, instead of seeing, which
   will always be fallible, there shall come guidance from God which is
   constantly Infallible? Thus, you see, I have attempted to describe
   these blind people. I have not given a full description of them but I
   hope there are some of them here. They are people that feel their own
   weakness, their own lack of knowledge, their own nothingness! They are
   people that are willing to be led, willing to be guided. They are
   people that cannot see everything and do not expect to see everything,
   but are willing to walk by faith in the unseen God and to trust Jehovah
   where they cannot trace His footsteps.

   II. Now let us consider THE PROMISE THAT IS MADE TO THEM. What shall be
   done for them? Well, they have

   this pact of Heaven for their solace--"I will bring the blind by a way
   that they knew not: I will lead them in paths that they have not
   known." Do you catch the idea? Do you discern the sense of this
   gracious undertaking? If so, you must be wonderfully struck with the
   condescending goodness of the Lord in that He offers to lead blind men!
   Certainly it is not an office generally sought! It is not one supposed
   to be attended with any great honor, but it is a very kindly office and
   one which any Christian may be right glad to render to his afflicted
   friend.

   But only think of God, Himself, coming and guiding the blind--leading
   His blind children. "I will bring them," said He. "I will guide them."
   So our first thought is that God Himself will be the Guide of His
   people when they feel their

   blindness. He will not leave you to stumble and to grope your way, nor
   will He bid you depend upon your fellow Christian, who is as blind as
   yourself, but He will be your Guide. Think of it! Omniscience shall bow
   itself to instruct your ignorance! Infinite power shall stoop that you
   may lean upon its shoulder! Boundless love shall deign without any
   degradation to take you by the hand and pick your pathway for you! And
   infinite patience shall continue to direct every step of your course
   till you are brought to Heaven at last!

   As I said, just now, who would not be blind if he could have God for
   his Guide? Oh, blessed weakness that links me to the strong! Oh,
   blessed poverty that gives me a lien upon Jehovah's wealth! Oh, blessed
   wretchedness that issues in beatitude and conducts me to the happiness
   and bliss of God! Beloved, as you think of your own blindness, be
   comforted because He sees. As you think of your own ignorance, be
   cheered because He knows. And as you comprehend your own aptness to
   stumble, be of good courage because He faints not, neither is weary!
   There is no searching of His understanding. God will be their Guide.

   And, being their Guide, He will lead them in ways they never went
   before. The beauty of the promise appears in its special adaptation to
   meet the peculiar need--"I will bring the blind by a way that they knew
   not." Of course, when a blind man knows the way, he can almost go
   without a guide. Many of our friends afflicted with the loss of sight
   find their way, day by day, along the accustomed road. And there have
   been some that have been so expert, though blind, that they could go
   over 50 miles of country, or thread their way up and down the streets
   of a milkman's walk in town, serving at each customer's house without
   ever making a mistake. In fact, they have often acted as guides to
   others, but, then, it has always been along a way that they have known.

   And oh, Brothers and Sisters, there are many blind sinners here tonight
   who, I have no doubt, could guide others in the ways that they know!
   They could guide others in the way of the drunk, in the way of the
   licentious, in the way of the swearer! They know that way very well! I
   dare say they could guide young people into the way of infidelity--put
   a thousand horrible thoughts into their minds. But when the Lord takes
   such a man as that in hand, He does not lead him that way--He leads him
   in a way that he never went before! Oh, I remember being led by the
   Divine hand down the dark lane of repentance with many a sigh and many
   a groan! I remember being led into the more pleasant way offaith by the
   same Divine hand and brought to the Savior's feet.

   And since then I have not known the way, have not expected to know the
   way--for the way of Grace that lies before us may be described as the
   Lord described the way of Israel in the wilderness--"You have not
   passed this way before." It is a new way--and when God undertakes to be
   our Guide, it is all new! Is it not written, "Behold, I make all things
   new"? I hope that many of us know what it is to be led in a way we have
   not known. And I trust that others who do not know that, may breathe
   the prayer at once, "Lord, lead me in the way I have not known."

   Somebody said, the other night, that the way to Heaven was very easily
   learned. It is the first turn to the right and keep on. Well, that is
   very good, but I have heard it described another way--out of self, into
   Christ--only one step and you are on the road to Heaven! Out of self
   and into Christ. It is a way that you know not, but the Lord will lead
   you in it. Yet, although the way by which we go is a way that we know
   not, we shall be led safely in it, for it is not only said, "I will
   lead them," but, "I will bring them," which is more. You may lead a man
   and still he may be unable to follow you. You may be a good enough
   guide, but his legs may fail him.

   Happily the text says, "I will bring them," that is to say, "They will
   assuredly follow where I effectually lead." O Believer, though you
   cannot see the way to Heaven, trust implicitly in the Lord, your God,
   and you shall surely find your way there, for He that leads you will
   also bring you! There has never been a vessel which sailed with Christ
   as a convoy that was captured by the enemy! There was never a pilgrim
   who entrusted himself to Christ as a guide that lost his way and
   stumbled to destruction. Now, as of old, our Lord Jesus Christ can
   affirm, "Of all that You have given Me, I have lost none." He preserves
   His sheep. He keeps them, yes, unto eternal life does He preserve them.
   "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the
   end."

   Blessed are they, then, who, having no sight of their own and being,
   themselves, unable to find their way, are trusting in Him who has
   promised that He will effectually lead and bring them Home! Yes, and He
   will do this in the very narrowest ways, too, for the text says, "I
   will bring them by a way: I will lead them in paths." I suppose a way
   may be descriptive of the high road and the path may be like a track
   across the fields, over hedge and ditch, over stiles and down

   lanes, through the mire and through the slough. Be it, however, along a
   high road or among by-paths, the Lord will lead them.

   Oh, Beloved, there are some very narrow ways in the Christian's
   pilgrimage! Do you not, sometimes, hear a sermon which makes you
   question whether you can truly be a child of God? What a narrow way it
   is! You thought, when the preacher discoursed the other day about Free
   Grace and dying love, what a glorious highway it was, and you were
   running along it! But now that he begins to preach about regeneration,
   the work of the Spirit and its inward marks and evidences, you are
   afraid, you hesitate, you stand still and wonder whether you are
   traveling in the right direction! The road seems so narrow!

   Well, then, you must pray to your great Guide, and say, "Lord, lead me
   in the paths that I have not known. If there is any very narrow
   place--something very stringent and searching, and testing, and
   trying--if there is some high attainment that I have not yet reached.
   If there is some sweet enjoyment I have not yet known, Lord, lead me
   there." You have the promise, the performance rests with Him--"I will
   lead them in paths which they have not known." So, you see, the
   blessing of the text is wrapped up in this--you are to be blind and God
   is to be your Guide! You are not to want to see, but you are to let Him
   see for you! You who feel yourselves incapacitated by infirmity are to
   be led by His unerring wisdom.

   III. And this brings us, thirdly, to note WHAT SHALL COME OF IT. What
   shall come of it? Why, the Lord says, "I will make darkness light
   before them, and crooked things straight." Where are you, Brothers and
   Sisters? Are you in a dilemma where everything is dark around you,
   where you see not your signs and where you feel no sweet tranquilizing
   assurance? Presuming that you are one of the blind--truly blind--it
   will not make much difference to you! Do you not perceive that? Why,
   should you or I, who have sight of our natural eyes, want to read, it
   would be of little use when the sun has gone down. "Between the
   lights," as we say, there is a little wasted time--we cannot make out
   the letters.

   Well, now, a blind man is as well off, then, as he is in the middle of
   the day! When you happen to be in the dark you begin fretting and need
   a light. The blind man does not need a light--he is just as well
   without a light as with one. Thus it is a great mercy when God has so
   far enabled you to be blind--so little needing to see--that when it is
   all dark around you, you are just as happy as when it is all bright
   around you--because when it was bright you did not walk by sight-- and
   now it is dark you do not need to walk by sight, either! Oh, blessed is
   the secret art of living by faith, for as you turn to God in days of
   happiness and trust Him, so you likewise turn to Him in days of sorrow
   and distress. In trial or in triumph you still trust Him!

   It is a dangerous thing to begin to draw your happiness from your
   circumstances. Thereby you will weaken yourself, for once having drawn
   happiness from prosperous circumstances, you will, with equal ease,
   draw unhappiness from adverse circumstances. But if the Lord has taught
   you not to live according to the sight of the eyes at all, but to
   rejoice in the Lord always, then you will be prepared to enjoy the same
   calm, the same peace and the same happiness whatever the circumstances.
   It was a glorious speech of Job when he said, "Though He slay me, yet
   will I trust in Him." Was it not as much as to say, "I do not trust in
   Him because He gave me the camels, gave me the gold and silver and the
   sheep and oxen. I do not trust Him for them, though I am glad and
   thankful. And I do not trust Him because of the earrings of gold, and
   because of the respect I had when I sat in the gate among the citizens.

   "But I trust Him, let Him do what He likes. If He shall take all away,
   till there is nothing left, and afflicts me till I scrape my sores with
   a potsherd, I will not relax my trust in Him. And since I never did
   trust in my substance, or my health, though He goes farther, still, and
   slays me, yet will I trust in Him." Say, then, dear Friends, is it not
   a sweet contentment that does not need to see? To be delivered from
   regret and repining, knowing that He makes darkness light before us and
   why?--Because it is as light in the dark as at any other time and as
   safe to those who cease to walk with the eyes and only walk by faith!

   Nor is this all the meaning we may extract out of this gracious
   promise. If, my dear Brothers and Sisters, you are surrounded by the
   darkness of trouble, trust in God and the trouble will vanish. I do not
   say that the cause of the trouble will vanish. Perhaps you will have to
   bear with that--but the trouble, itself, will cease to trouble you. It
   will not touch your heart any longer and very likely the trouble,
   itself, may go, and the cause of it may go, too. For when the Lord
   brings His people to be resigned to what they have to endure, He
   frequently does not call them to endure it any longer. If you are in
   trouble, I can recommend to you, by experience, to be resigned.

   I have not so long an experience as some of the friends with gray hairs
   and bald heads before me, but I believe that they cannot contradict me
   when I say that He is a faithful God. At any rate, of this I can speak
   confidently--

   "When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,

   Has gathered thick and thundered loud,

   He, near my soul, has always stood;

   His loving kindness, O how good!" Thus the light of His Countenance has
   chased away the darkness of my trouble. And are you in the dark, child
   of God, through a sense of sin? Some of our friends, you know, get up
   so high in the scale of perfection that they never have any folly or
   negligence to bemoan. Most of us ordinary people are afflicted, every
   now and then, with such heart-searchings and such inward conflicts that
   we walk in darkness and see no light. Somehow I think the Bible was
   written for people like we, rather than for our fine Brethren, for it
   rather abounds in the details of such experiences!

   Should it ever be my lot to get rid of all conflicts and all darkness,
   I shall be able to dispense with a great part of the Book of Psalms. In
   fact, I do not know that I should need anything particular except
   Solomon's Song, and I am afraid I could hardly get on with that, for
   even the spouse had to seek her Lord in the dark and was unable to find
   Him, sometimes, when she had been unwary or remiss. But, oh, if you are
   dejected by reason of darkness, dismayed with a sense of sin, or
   distressed through soul-trouble, trust in your Lord and you shall find
   ready relief!--

   "When we in darkness walk,

   Nor feel the heavenly flame;

   Then is the time to trust our God,

   And rest upon His name.

   And when your eye of faith is dim,

   Still trust in Jesus, sink or swim;

   Still at His footstool bow the knee,

   And Israel's God your peace shall be." He will make the darkness light
   before you, whatever other sort of darkness may happen to befall you.
   Only be as the blind man who does not need to see--just leave it all to
   Jesus--trust in His dear name and He will make the darkness light
   before you.

   And as we are delivered out of darkness, so shall we be rescued out of
   difficulty. "I will make crooked things straight." And God can make
   crooked things straight! Who among us has not got some crooked thing or
   other to deal with? As they say that there is a skeleton, somewhere, in
   every house, so there is a crook in every lot, and none can make
   straight what God has made crooked! Awkward embarrassments and anxious
   perplexities full often drive us to our wit's end until we do not know
   which way to turn. To the right hand shall I go, or to the left? Both
   seem equally blocked up! Shall I go forward, or shall I go backward?
   Both ways seem equally hazardous! The judgment has lost chart and
   compass.

   And sometimes a child of God really does not know what he ought to
   choose. He seems to be in a maze and he has not a clue. The road goes
   in and out, backwards and forwards, like a map of the wanderings of the
   children of Israel in the wilderness. "There," he asks, "what shall I
   do? "Well, dear Brothers and Sisters, the best thing to do in such a
   case as that is to do nothing at all, but just to trust in the Lord!
   There is more wisdom in a quarter of an hour's prayer than there is in
   a quarter of a year's consultation with friends. Oftentimes when we
   have sought counsel of the living God, He has befriended us. When we
   have left things with Him, we have always gone wisely. Oh, how He can
   make the most crooked thing that ever did happen suddenly turn out to
   be the very straightest thing that ever occurred for our welfare!

   I know that sometimes I have puzzled my head about some difficulty in
   my Master's service--asked opinions of lots of people, like a
   stupid--and I have gone home with my head aching in deeper uncertainty
   than ever what to do. And I have never discovered how to unravel a
   knotty point by my own ingenuity--but I have always found that when I,
   at last, bend my knees, by His Grace, and say, "Heavenly Father, it is
   rather Your business than mine. It is quite beyond me and I now leave
   it in Your hands to guide me." And when I have just put it up on the
   shelf and said, "I will never take it down again whatever happens," it
   has gone all right. If I had maneuvered to manage it for myself it
   would have gone wrong enough.

   You are often, dear Friends, busy in doing yourself a mischief when
   eager to do the right thing. You do the wrong thing, after all, as
   though there were a fatality about it. "Stand still and see the
   salvation of God." A hard lesson to

   learn, full often, and especially to impetuous spirits, as some of us
   are. But when it is learned, if we continue to practice it, we shall
   find it the way of wisdom. Now, my dear Sister, do not fall in too
   hastily with that proposal which has been made to you. Think it over
   first. Pray about it. Just stop. You may get yourself into a world of
   trouble. Young man, it certainly does look as if a very fine opening
   was presented before you, but mind what you are doing. There is a fine
   opening for flies into many a spider's web--and they would be glad to
   find an opening for getting out again!

   Just stop awhile. Stand still and give reflection time to whisper in
   your ear. Do not delude yourself with flattering visions. Confess that
   the eyes of your understanding are dark and blind. Let the Lord guide
   you! Do not have an eye to your own advantage. Do not have an eye to
   the opinion of this world. Seek first the kingdom of God and His
   righteousness and all things will go well with you. Ah, they will call
   you such a fool not to jump at that chance of commencing trade with a
   man who you know is no Christian. But you are told not to be unequally
   yoked together with an unbeliever. Therefore, do not disobey your
   Master's command, I pray you! Just back out of it and give yourself up
   to be led and guided by the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, and you will go
   right enough. Here is one of the benefits of being blind in this sense,
   and this is what shall come of it.

   IV. And now, lastly, WHAT WILL BE THE END OF IT? Why the end of it will
   be, if you can see nothing, if you are blind and yield yourself to the
   Lord to lead you--leaving all that concerns you to His counsel and His
   care, your life will be strewn with mercies--fulfilled promises! "These
   things will I do unto them." And you shall have a life of everlasting
   love, for He adds, "and not forsake them." You shall find God present
   with you as long as you live! Never does a child of God venture
   everything by faith but the venture answers! You that speculate--I have
   no doubt that you find that your speculations are as often bad as good.
   But if you risk everything apparently in your confidence in God, it is
   no speculation--it is a certainty! He will not fail you!

   I was greatly refreshed, yesterday, by what you may think to be a very
   small thing, but it was not small to God. I was turning over our Church
   books and I came to the year 1861, and somewhere in January there is
   the record--"This Church requires £4,000 in order to pay for the new
   Tabernacle and we, the undersigned, not knowing where it will come
   from, fully believe in our heavenly Father that He will send it all to
   us in the proper time, as witness our hands." And there stand,
   subscribed, my hand and the hands of my deacons, and the hands of my
   elders, and the hands of a great many Christian women among us.

   Well, I was pleased to see that we had thus put our confidence in God.
   There were one or two names down there of very prudent Brothers and
   Sisters and I remember, at the time I saw them sign it, I was rather
   surprised, because they had been doubting most of the time whether we
   should ever get the money--but they signed their names! A month or two
   afterwards--say two months--there is this record--"I, Charles Haddon
   Spurgeon, who am less than the least of all saints, set to my seal that
   God is true, for He has supplied us with all this £4,000." And then
   follows a fresh minute like this, "We, the undersigned, hereby declare
   our confidence in Almighty God who has done to us according to our
   faith, and sent us, even before the time when we needed it, all that
   was needed. We are ashamed of ourselves to think that we ever had a
   doubt and we pray that we may always confide in Him in all things from
   now on and forever."

   And then there is a long list of signatures. Some of the names down
   there are those of people whom I can see now. You put your names down
   there, thanking God that faith was honored. Well, Brothers and Sisters,
   we have had a good many times to do something like that for large
   amounts, as a Church, but has the Lord ever failed us, yet? Never! And
   He never will! And you may depend upon it that in your business, in
   your household affairs, in your spiritual struggles, if you will trust
   God, He will be as good as your trust and better! You will never be
   able to say, "I rested in Him and was ashamed. I trusted in Him, and I
   found His promise fail."

   Mind, you must have a promise to rest on. You must not go and ask the
   Lord for every whim you like to get into your heads. But, if He has
   promised it to you and you can plead a promise, and it is for His Glory
   and you know it is, then see if ever He will run back! Search this
   Book, given by Inspiration, and see whether ever a promise of His did
   fail. Turn, then, to your own lives, by strange experience led, and
   answer this question--Has He ever been a wilderness unto you? Has He
   ever been a dry well, or a cloud that mocked you and yielded you no
   rain? You have trusted in men and you have met your reward, for,
   "Cursed is he that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm." But when
   you have trusted in God, have you not met a very different reward? And
   can you not say, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and

   whose hope the Lord is"? There, you see, you have got this--"These
   things will I do unto you." If you can just trust, the promise will be
   fulfilled!

   Then the last clause of the text is peculiarly inspiriting--"And not
   forsake them." "And not forsake them." This is no vain tautology. I
   think that the Lord's people are subject, at times, to a sudden
   fluttering of heart, a nervous depression of spirits and a great
   trembling just when their faith has been in the fullest exercise and
   the goodness of God has been most conspicuously displayed to them. And
   I do believe that this little sentence is intended to be at once a
   powerful tonic and an efficacious sedative. Why is it used? Did it
   arise from weariness of the flesh in the case of Elijah? You remember
   how he showed his zeal for the Lord of Hosts on Mount Carmel? You
   remember how vehemently he contended with the prophets of Baal--how
   signally his prayer was answered when the fire of the Lord fell and
   consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the
   dust--and licked up the water that was in the trench?

   You remember how he brought down the prophets of Baal to the brook
   Kishon and slew them there? And you remember how soon, afterwards, he
   went a day's journey in the wilderness, sat down under a juniper tree,
   requested that he might die and said, "It is enough. Now, O Lord, take
   away my life, for I am not better than my fathers"? He had much fear,
   but there was no danger that the Lord would forsake him. Or it may be
   that this strange terror is the reaction and result after intense
   excitement. David had been again and again delivered out of the hands
   of Saul and had heard his old enemy acknowledge that he had sinned and
   played the fool and erred exceedingly. Yet he went on his way and said
   in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul!"

   But was he forsaken of God? Had he any real cause to suspect such a
   climax to the Lord's dealings with him? Far from it! I do not know, but
   I am prone to attribute this fear, sometimes, to the infirmity of
   age--when decay creeps over the mortal frame and the soul sympathizes
   with the weakness of the flesh. The Psalmist, as I have already
   intimated, touches all the keys of human passion and all the moods to
   which Believers are subject. Certainly his faith was in full vigor when
   he said, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make
   mention of Your righteousness, even of Yours only." Nor could his
   gratitude have been at fault when he reviews his life from childhood to
   advanced years, saying, "O God, You have taught me from my youth, and
   up to now have I declared Your wondrous works!" But you can never
   forget

   the impassioned prayer that followed, "Now, ALSO, WHEN I AM OLD AND
   GRAY-HEADED, O GOD, FORSAKE ME NOT!"

   Just ring this bell once or twice, this silver, this delicious silver
   bell--"These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." They
   will yet get into trouble. Their friends will desert them as the leaves
   are gone from the trees in winter, but, says the Lord, "I will not
   forsake them." They will be very sick and they will lie in bed till the
   bed gets hard beneath them, but, "these things will I do unto them, and
   not forsake them." They will come to die and the devil will tempt them.
   Flesh will be very weak and their bodily pains distressing, but, "these
   things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." They will pass
   through the river and they will stand in judgment, but still, as it is
   written so shall it be, "these things will I do unto them and not
   forsake them."

   Go on, Beloved! Go on, Beloved! Though blind, and you cannot see your
   way, go on, Beloved! In the dark and crooked paths, go on, Beloved! For
   as surely as you trust in God, God will fulfill every promise of His to
   you--and to the last these shall be His words in your ears, "And not
   forsake them." For, "I will not fail them or forsake them." is His
   promise to His people. Throwing that grateful reflection into a
   verse--the verse of a familiar hymn, I will conclude--

   "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, He will not, He will
   not, desert to his foes.

   That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake, He will never, no
   never, no never forsake."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 43. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--23 (VER. III), 741.
     __________________________________________________________________

God of the Hills and God of the Valleys

   (No. 1311)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 27, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And there came a man of God, and spoke unto the king of Israel, and
   said, Thus says the Lord, Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is
   God of the hills, butHe is not God of the valleys, therefore will I
   deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know
   that I am the Lord." 1 Kings 20:28.

   THE Syrians had been defeated by the Israelites whom they despised.
   This victory had been achieved by so small a number of men over so vast
   a host that the Syrians were driven to the conclusion that there was
   something supernatural about it and they ascribed their defeat to the
   God of Israel. They were right in doing so. Brothers and Sisters, let
   not these heathen shame us! They knew to whom the crown of the victory
   belonged and, little as they understood Jehovah, yet they recognized
   that His right hand and His holy arm had gotten for His people the
   victory. Now, if the Lord has prospered you, if in your souls peace and
   joy are reigning, or if you have enjoyed success in Christian service,
   take heed that you do not lift up your horn on high and take honor to
   yourselves!

   Render all the glory to God, to whom it is most justly due. Let that
   Psalm, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Your name give glory," be
   always on your heart and often on your tongue. The tendency of the
   human heart towards pride is very strong and Satan, the great usurper,
   is always eager to stir us up to rob God of His Glory. Yet nothing is
   more fatal to peace, nothing more sure to provoke God, nothing more
   certain to bring upon us times of disaster and distress! "The Lord your
   God is a jealous God," and He is jealous of this thing, among
   others--He will not give His Glory to another! He will not allow those
   whom He uses for His purposes to ascribe their victories unto
   themselves! The Lord, alone, must be exalted. Whatever has been done by
   us, the great Worker who used us must have the praise. We have been
   nothing more than the axe in the hand of God if we have felled the
   cedar! We have been nothing more than the net if we have brought the
   fish to shore. Unto Him, therefore, be praise forever!

   So far let us learn from the heathen Syrians. While the Syrians thus
   ascribed their defeat unto Jehovah, they made a great mistake as to His
   Character, for they supposed Him to be a local God, like their own
   imaginary deities. They had gods for the mountains and gods for the
   lesser hills, gods for the rivers, gods for the fields, gods for their
   houses, gods for their gardens and these so-called gods were powerless
   out of their own sphere. They imagined the only living and true God to
   be a god like their idols. Let us abhor this dishonoring of God and
   avoid the sin by never daring to make unto ourselves a god after our
   own ideas.

   The art of god-making is very common among men. Instead of going to
   Revelation to see what God is and humbly believing in Him as He reveals
   Himself, men sit down and consider what sort of God He ought to be and,
   in so doing, they are no wiser than the man who makes a god of mud or
   wood or stone! If we make a god in our own thoughts, after our own
   ideas, we have virtually made a similitude of Him to whom no creature
   can be compared. We have tried to comprehend the Incomprehensible and
   limit the Infinite--and in so doing we are idolaters, for we have made
   the likeness of something that is in our own mind and, consequently, in
   the earth beneath--and even though it is not a material image, we have
   broken in spirit the First and Second Commandments.

   No man knows what God is, save only as He has revealed
   Himself--thoughts and imaginings apart from this are idolatrous.
   Believe what He reveals, but do not, after the fashion of the Syrians,
   begin to conceive of Him according to the darkness of your own feeble
   and foolish mind! Benhadad's counselors were led in their error to
   utter a blasphemy. They said, "He is the God of the hills, but not the
   God of the valleys," and I know not into what profanities our own proud
   thoughts may lead us, also! It is worthy of notice that because of this
   blasphemy of the Syrians, God was pleased to

   deliver His people Israel. It is not the only time, but one of many, in
   which the blasphemies of the adversary have worked good for the people
   of God.

   You might have supposed that God would have said, "It matters nothing
   what these ignorant heathens say. Who cares for their slanderous
   falsehoods?" But our God is jealous--He is ever represented in
   Scripture as being tender of His own Glory and, therefore, though
   Israel was guilty, and Ahab, their king, was detestable, yet God
   determines that Ahab and Israel shall smite Benhadad and Syria because
   of what Syria had said. I would invite all of you who tremble for the
   Ark of the Lord to draw courage from the evil language of the ungodly.
   When the infidel scoffs at God, you are sorry for his sin, but you may
   take heart and hope that, perhaps, God will now interpose. "It is time
   for You, Lord, to work, because they have made void your Law."

   When you see a skeptical philosophy growing, as it is at this day, more
   and more daring and insulting towards the Truth of God, do not be
   downhearted because of that, but rather say, "They will provoke the
   Lord, and by-and-by He will pluck His right hand out of His bosom--He
   will rend the heavens and come down and make the mountains to flow at
   His feet--He will give to His Gospel great power, so that His Truth
   shall be triumphant and His adversaries shall know that, verily, there
   is a God in Israel." As choice flavors are by a happy chemistry
   extracted from poisonous substances, so may we draw comfort from the
   blasphemous letter of Rabshakeh and from the impious language of
   Benhadad, for God will be provoked against them and will come forth to
   the avenging of His chosen nation and the establishment of His own
   cause.

   Now, this morning I have one lesson to teach, which is this--As the
   Syrians fell into a great and blasphemous sin by thinking that God was
   a local God, a God of the hills and not of the valleys--we may fall
   into much evil by the same surmising. The subject of this morning's
   discourse will be a warning against imitating the Syrians by limiting
   the Holy One of Israel under any circumstances whatever. We may do so
   on several occasions and in several ways.

   I. WE MAY LIMIT THE LORD BY MISTRUSTING THE SUCCESS OF HIS CAUSE. We
   are very often tempted to tremble for the Ark of the Lord and to
   stretch out a presumptuous hand to steady it as Uzzah did. Our fathers
   tell us, and we are getting a little into their modes of thinking, that
   we have fallen upon evil days and degenerate times. We have seen them
   shake their heads and call the present age a day of blasphemy and
   rebuke. And although we have not quite thought so, for there has been
   enough of youth left in us, still, to look more hopefully upon things
   and we have said, and we think we are not wrong in saying, that these
   are good times and hopeful--and that there are many things which should
   make the Christian wear a cheerful aspect and rejoice in the hope of
   better times.

   Yet we have, in a measure, shared in their fears. The temptation is at
   times heavy upon us to think that the Gospel cannot conquer the world,
   that the Truth of Jesus cannot spread in the midst of the thick
   darkness which surrounds us, that the good old cause is falling into a
   desperate condition and that, perhaps, the victory we have looked for
   will not come, after all. Here let us convict ourselves of having
   thought God to be the God of the hills and not the God of the valleys,
   for we have generally based our fears upon our perception that the
   front of the battle has changed! In the olden times the Church of God
   was persecuted beyond measure--the furnace was heated seven times
   hotter.

   Destruction was the word--the emperors of Rome determined to stamp out
   Christianity as though it were a dis-ease--and they vowed to put an end
   to its very name. But the Church of God triumphed over all opposition.
   Like a good ship in stormy waters, she mounted the waves which sought
   to engulf her and made headway by the winds which howled around her. We
   all perceive that God was with His Church in those tempestuous times,
   and yet we are apt to fear that the petty persecutions suffered by our
   village Churches and the cold contempt that is often poured upon
   Christian men in polite society will prove too much for the faithful.
   God, who could help Christians to play the man in the amphitheatre at
   Rome and enable them to die at the stake, or on the gridiron, is yet
   mistrusted!

   And we dare to suspect that He will not gain the victory in the battle
   which is waged by a few poor peasants in a village against a popish
   priest and a persecuting squire? For shame! Do we really dream that He
   is the God of the hills and not the God of the valleys? We have heard
   good men argue mistrustfully from another point of view. They say that
   persecution, after all, does not hurt the Church--it only winnows her
   and drives away her chaff--and these are far worse days, for prosperity
   undermines piety. They say Christians take things easy and there are so
   many false professors, so much of a name to live while spiritual death
   abounds--all of which is deadly to the Church of God. Depend upon it,

   since Satan could not kill the Church by roaring at her like a lion, he
   is now trying to crush her by hugging her like a bear, they say!

   There is truth in this, but it is not all the truth. Do you really
   think, my Brothers and Sisters, that God cannot preserve His Church in
   the particular trial through which she is now passing? Is He the God of
   the hills of persecution, but not the God of the valleys of prosperity?
   Chase away the thought! Besides, you are in great fear, my Brother,
   because a new heresy has sprung up, or an old one has revived. Dreadful
   doctrine dismays you. You are saddened by teaching which assails the
   vitality of Christianity and is so insidious that it is hard to meet
   it, and you say, "Any other than this, the Church could have resisted,
   but this will deaden her very soul--it eats as does a canker." What? My
   Brethren, are you now afraid? Do you not remember when the Church was
   full of Gnostic heresy and when, afterwards, Arianism afflicted

   her?

   Have you not read of the times when the Deity of Christ was almost
   universally denied and yet the Gospel lived on? Every Truth of God was,
   in its turn, assailed, and the professing Church, itself, for centuries
   was almost universally apostate! And yet the Gospel is not dead, nor
   its voice silenced! The Lord was the God of the hills and put these
   heresies down and trod them under foot as straw is trod for the
   dunghill! And let new heresies come, let men assail the Gospel with
   fresh errors--God is God of the valleys as well as God of the
   hills--and He will defeat them one by one as they arise! Ritualism,
   Spiritualism and Materialism will go the way of all the other
   adversaries of the Lord--into smoke shall they consume away.

   "But," says one, "infidelity is now so rampant! It takes the form of
   science and philosophy and calls into its aid the very thoughtfulness
   of man which once seemed to be on the side of the Gospel! There is
   cause for great alarm." Yet will we not fear, for many infidelities
   have shone forth and have died out as meteors of the night. They come
   like shadows and like shades they vanish! As successive summers have
   brought forth new harvests of leaves upon the trees of the forest,
   which in the following autumns have faded and gone, even so new
   infidelities have flourished and decayed, but God's eternal Truths
   shine on the same as ever, like the sun in the heavens, without
   variableness or shadow of turning! Trust in the Lord forever! He who
   shamed the first races of blasphemers against His holy cause and turned
   their craftiness into folly and made the wise men mad can do the same,
   again, yes, and will do it even unto the end.

   If the Church is assailed in any novel method by new modes of Satanic
   influence, or fresh inventions of human craft and philosophy, let us
   never entertain a doubt concerning the cause whose banner Christ has
   stained with His heart's blood, and whose honor the eternal power and
   Godhead of the Almighty are sworn to maintain! Let the times shift and
   change as they may, but God is master of the times! Circumstances alter
   cases, but they do not alter God! New modes of attack may threaten us
   with new fears, but they do not really involve any new dangers, for
   God, who knows all things, can meet the new adversary and foil him as
   He did His foes of old.

   I have known this despondency of heart arise from another cause. "Ah,"
   say some, "I do not know what is to become of the Church, because in
   those olden times which you have mentioned, it is true she had great
   enemies, but then she had great men in her midst. Look at the Fathers
   and how they fought! Remember the Reformers and the men who took up
   their descending mantles, the godly and learned Puritans! Consider the
   great names of Church history and where do you find such men in these
   days? Have we not fallen on an age of little men and nobodies?" Well,
   suppose we have. I do not anticipate any ill results from that, since
   great men are only men, and little men are still men! The God who used
   those men whom we call great, first made them great! They were nothing
   of themselves and He is just as able to use the men whom we call
   little, and to make them so efficient that the next generation will
   think them as great as those who went before!

   The so-called greatness or littleness of men must, after all, depend on
   the power of God which is shown in them. I dare to hope that if the
   instruments grow less and less likely to claim the honor of success for
   themselves, they are growing more and more fit to be used by the Lord
   our God! For this reason I look for even greater displays of Divine
   power in this time of supposed decline. He is the God of the hills and
   truly, He is the God of Augustine and Luther, the God of Knox and
   Whitfield! And He is the God of the valleys, also, and, therefore, our
   God and our confidence! He can use the men of our own time to build up
   His Church and convert the nations!

   "Ah," says one, "I do not so much lament the lack of eminent men as the
   absence of the grand old spirit of the early Church." What was that
   spirit, do you think? There was a freshness, an enthusiasm, a heroism
   about the first Christians

   which we do not see now. I grant you there was--but if it were real
   power, from where did it come but from the Holy Spirit? And has the
   Holy Spirit ceased to illuminate, quicken and strengthen the minds of
   men? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Do the heavens no longer
   drop with dew? Is the horn of anointing oil emptied? Is there no sacred
   breath with which to fan the gracious flame in the Church? No, my
   Brothers and Sisters, the Spirit of God has not ceased to work! If we
   cannot manifest the enthusiasm of the Church's youth, we will cultivate
   the undying perseverance of the Church's manhood and strive and
   struggle on, God helping us, till our Lord appears!

   The day must and shall come when the Truth of God shall prevail and the
   God of Truth shall be exalted and to the moles and bats the demon gods
   and their images shall be cast forever. Dishonor not your God by
   unbelief, faint-hearted soldiers! Bring not defeat upon yourselves by
   your cowardly fears! Believe in God and so shall you be established!
   God waits till you believe in Him--and when His whole Church shall,
   with brave confidence, be sure of victory--victory shall certainly come
   to her! The Lord increase our faith and, from now on in this respect,
   let us never dream that Jehovah, the God of the hills, is not the God
   of the valleys!

   II. WE MAY COMMIT THE SIN OF SYRIA BY DOUBTING THE HELP WHICH THE LORD
   WILL RENDER

   TO US. Sometimes we are brought into sore trouble and then we imagine
   that the Lord will not help us as He helped the old saints of whom we
   read in the Bible. We can believe all about Abraham and Moses and
   David--but we question whether the Lord will help us. We look at those
   men as the great hills and we regard ourselves as the valleys--and we
   dare not hope that the Lord will deal with us as He did with His
   servants in the days of yore. Now, don't you think this is making God
   to be a local God? Ought we not have the same faith in God as Abraham,
   Isaac and Jacob had?

   And if we had such confidence, should we not see same wonders? Not
   miracles, perhaps, but something quite as marvelous? God would perform
   His purpose by ordinary Providences, but the purpose would be quite as
   surely achieved as if miracles were worked! Let us never admit the
   thought that the Divine promises are now fictions and that Divine aid
   will not be given. The God of the Patriarchs and Prophets faints not,
   neither is He weary--He is our God from generation to generation--and
   is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now that Jesus Christ has
   come in the flesh, the Lord has not become less gracious! He still
   shows Himself strong on behalf of those who trust Him and there is no
   reason for doubt.

   When we get into deep trouble we are apt not only to forget the days of
   old, but even to overlook the Lord's former loving kindnesses to
   ourselves, or to regard them as exceptional cases, the like of which we
   cannot again look for. We unbelievingly think, "The Lord helped me when
   I put my trust in Him at first, but I cannot expect Him to help me now.
   In my young days I was full of vigor--the Lord was very gracious to me
   and worked wonders. But now I am less vigorous, my youthful energy is
   failing, I cannot cope with difficulties as I once did, and I cannot
   expect the Lord to help me now." I am almost ashamed to mention such
   fears! They are utterly unworthy of a Christian, and he who has
   indulged them ought most heartily to repent of them! Has the Lord
   changed? Because you are older and feebler is He weaker? Does He only
   help us when we can help ourselves, and leave us in our extremity? God
   forbid!

   He said, "I am God. I change not. Even to gray hairs I am He. I have
   made and I will bear, even I will carry." Yet so it is--we readily
   imagine that the difference of time alters the hope of Divine
   deliverance! Oh fools, and slow of heart, thus to mistrust Immutable
   Love and Infallible Wisdom! In every time of need God will work our
   deliverance, for having loved His own, He loves them to the end. The
   circumstances of our troubles, also, form occasions for unbelief when
   we are in that vein. "The Lord helped me when I was very poor," says
   one, "and if I were poor, again, I could trust Him concerning it. But
   now I am passing under slander and reproach which is far more bitter to
   my soul." Your heart unbelievingly supposes that now you will fall by
   the hand of the enemy, but, dear Brother, do you really think that God
   can only help us in certain sets of troubles and that when we enter
   upon new trials we shall find Him fail us?

   "Oh, but the scene is so changed! I could trust Him if I had to suffer
   as I did before, but this is so surprising to me." Is it also new to
   God? You are perplexed--is He perplexed? You are now at a nonplus--is
   He nonplussed? Think this over and do not imagine that He who could
   help you yesterday will leave you today or tomorrow. If your condition
   alters for the worse a thousand times, it will signify little if your
   faith can but maintain its hold upon the unchanging God! I have even
   known Christians to say, "I cannot go to God about my trials, they are
   so ordinary and commonplace. I can pray about spiritual things, but may
   I pray about temporals? I can take my sins and burdens of serious care
   to Him, but may I pray about little domestic troubles?"

   How can you ask that question? He tells you the hairs of your head are
   all numbered-- surely those are not spiritual things! You are told to
   cast all your cares on Him. Is He the God of the hills of the higher
   spiritual interests of His children and is He not the God of the
   valleys of their hourly troubles? Does He not bid us ask Him to give
   us, day by day, our daily bread? Has He not given His angels charge to
   bear us up lest we dash our foot against a stone? Has He not said of
   His people that they shall lack no good thing? Oh, what mistakes
   unbelief makes about God and what questions it raises which ought never
   to be raised at all!

   Troubled One, you may go to your heavenly Father about anything, about
   everything! He will help you in every trial wherever you may be! Though
   the thing is little, yet remember everything is little to Him and the
   difference between an archangel and a sparrow is not so very great with
   God. The difference between the ruling of a kingdom and the guidance of
   your Sunday school class may seem great to you, but it is almost
   invisible to God, to whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket! As you
   feel you could trust Him with great troubles, so be sure that you rely
   upon Him as to the minor ones. Yes, tell Him all your griefs and cast
   all your burdens upon Him. Truly He is the God of the hills, but He is
   the God of the valleys, too.

   Sometimes this fear that God will not help us arises from a change in
   our inward experience. "Oh," said one, "I have been in deep waters of
   soul-trouble before now and the Lord has helped me. I have fought with
   dragons and done battle with the Prince of Darkness in the valley of
   the shadow of death, and Jesus was with me. I do not wonder at it, for
   the fight seemed worthy of a God! But now it is only a little thorn in
   the flesh that worries me and I hardly dare beseech the Lord to remove
   it, or help me to bear it. I have experiences of a different sort,
   altogether, from that of former days. I grow cold, torpid, indifferent,
   careless. I do not seem to live the grand struggling life I once lived
   when I was familiar with gigantic spiritual difficulties and tasted
   exalted delights!

   "Can I expect God to help me now? Will He awake me from my lethargy?
   Will He stir me to devotion when I feel that I cannot pray? Will He
   bring back my spiritual feelings when I feel numbed and dead to all but
   pain? Can the Lord revive Laodicea? Can He heat, again, the lukewarm?
   Will He quicken such a dead lump, such a mass of lifeless flesh as I
   am?" O my Brothers and Sisters, do not ask such questions! There is no
   condition into which a Believer can fall but God can and will deliver
   him out of it! There is no trial or temptation, though it is low,
   degrading, base, but what the Lord can as much assist you when laboring
   under it as in the more sublime struggles of the most noble life.
   Commit yourself to God and entertain no fears as to His all-sufficiency
   and faithfulness.

   But you say, "I would not entertain any of these fears if I were like
   eminent saints. But I am far inferior to the godly men of whom I read
   and hear. I am obscure and insignificant. I have little talent and even
   less Divine Grace. I am a nobody." Be it so, but is our God the God of
   the hills and not the God of the valleys? Will God help Oliver Cromwell
   and not help a private soldier who trusts in God and keeps his powder
   dry? Will God aid a Whitfield and not help a poor local preacher
   holding forth upon the green? Will He assist the earnest minister who
   addresses thousands and desert the simple girl who teaches a dozen
   little children the old, old story of the Cross? Is this after the
   fashion of God, to patronize the eminent and neglect the lowly?

   Does Jesus despise the day of small things? Surely you have misread the
   Scriptures if you think so, for the Christ of the Gospels took note of
   a widow's two mites and was pleased with the hosannas of boys and
   girls! He rejoiced that His Father revealed His great things not to the
   wise and prudent, but to babes! And He called to His work, not the high
   priests and the philosophers, but the fishermen and the publicans! So
   do not, because you see a difference between yourself and others, and a
   change in the circumstances of your trials and all the rest of it,
   begin to think that the Heavenly Father will desert you, or else I
   shall again have to tell you that He is God of the valleys as well as
   the hills!

   III. IT IS VERY EASY TO FALL INTO THIS SIN BY COMPARING AND CONTRASTING
   THE EXPERIENCES OF OURSELVES AND OTHERS. Some minds are rugged and
   craggy, broken up and tossed about. In them you are astounded by seeing
   great rifts of conflict and terrible chasms of unbelief. Their hearts
   wear awful scars where the tempests of trial have swept all before them
   and laid bare the roots of their being. And then, on the other hand,
   they show such wonderful elevations of thought. Their soul mounts aloft
   beyond the clouds into the blue serene sky where God dwells, among the
   things unlawful for a man to utter. Everything about them is
   stupendous, majestic, sublime, or amazing--and little men who have
   heard of their awful experiences suspiciously enquire whether such
   feelings and conflicts can be consistent with the Grace of God.

   Yet who would say off the bleak and desolate mountains that the Lord is
   not there? Was He not on Sinai? Did He not come from Paran? Is not the
   strength of the hills the heritage of the Lord? Among the cloud-capped
   Alps, Jehovah's voice is often heard and the rocks are split by His
   flames of fire. The thoughtful soul may often hear the rustle of the
   hem of Jehovah's garments in the stillness of those lone hills. God is
   in rugged souls, in the ravines of a broken heart, and in the caves of
   dread despair! He overrules the whirlwind of temptation and the
   tempests of Satanic blasphemy, and soon He is seen in the bow of hope
   and the sunshine of full assurance. The Lord is in every heroic
   struggle against sin and in that eager clinging to His Word which is
   seen in so many tempted souls. Yet men judge their fellows and say,
   "The Lord cannot be there," even where He is most mightily!

   On the other hand, I have known persons fashioned in this rough mold
   look down on the gentle, quiet life of the useful, less thoughtful and
   perhaps less intelligent Christian, who is like the valley, and they
   have said, "Lord, what shall this man do? He does not sympathize with
   my soul-troubles. He has had little or no law work. He does not
   understand my grand conceptions of truth. He enters not into the deep
   things of God." Remember that this may be true and yet the Brother may
   be a far better man than you are! He may be one of the fields which the
   Lord has blessed--a low lying valley--cultivated by God's Spirit till
   it yields golden sheaves by which multitudes are fed! If He blesses
   many by his quiet menial life, who are you that you should condemn him?

   Brother from the valley, do not misjudge the dweller in the mountain
   and inhabitant of the crag! Do not look down with contempt upon the
   tenant of the plain, for God is in both your lives! God is in the
   stormy life of the afflicted and God is in the restfulness of the
   humble and contented. In the tried life and in the useful life God is
   variously but equally manifested, and I beg you always to see God as
   far as He can be seen in all His people. Recognize the virtues of your
   Brothers and Sisters wherein you are deficient, and not the Graces
   wherein they fail. Condemn not the man whom God has approved. He is God
   of the hills and He is God of the valleys--take your delight in both.

   Then about yourself, dear Friend, do not mournfully complain, "Alas, I
   have never experienced what I perceive has been the lot of my Brother
   in the Lord. He has had a deep, rugged, amazing experience of fights
   with the devil and of contests with his own corruptions--I know very
   little of these matters." Do not desire to know them, for if you know
   Christ it will suffice! Or if, on the other hand, you are much buffeted
   and tossed about, do not condemn yourself and say you are no child of
   God because you have not the constant enjoyment, the sweetness and rest
   of other Believers--it is enough for you, too, that Christ is yours!
   You are a crag Christian, be satisfied to have your feet upheld upon
   your high places! God is the God of the hills as surely as He is God of
   the valleys.

   Thus I have shown how, in a third way, we may fall into this error, but
   time fails me and I cannot enlarge. May the Holy Spirit further
   instruct you in all wisdom and prudence.

   IV. A VERY COMMON SHAPE OF THIS SIN IS LIMITING THE POWER OF THE
   GOSPEL. Listen to this, you

   who would gladly be saved but fear you cannot be! I have known you to
   limit the power of the Gospel by supposing that it will only save
   certain sinners. You heard of a great drunk who was converted, of a
   swearer who turned to God and you said to yourself, "I do not wish to
   be a drunk or a swearer, but I have seen many of that sort of people
   saved, and I, who have led a moral life, have not been renewed in
   heart--it makes me envy them."

   Dear Friend, why should you not, also, obtain salvation? Is Jesus the
   Savior of open and gross sinners and not of the more secret offenders?
   Is the very foulness of sin an aid to salvation? Impossible! There is
   certainly no need of adaptation in the Gospel to meet the case of the
   naturally moral and excellent--and you must not think there is! Jesus,
   who saves publicans and harlots, also blesses the seeker of the Truth
   of God and sows the honest and good ground. When you read of
   such-and-such a person who has been a great offender being suddenly
   struck down and turned to God, you do not wish that you were like he in
   his sin, but you could endure that evil if there might but be in you as
   manifest a change as can be seen in him. I know the feeling, but it is
   based upon an error and tends to foster the idea that more of God's
   Grace is displayed in one case than in another.

   True conversion is in all cases the work of God and, consequently, a
   display of Omnipotent power. The Lord presents the Gospel to every
   creature and whoever believes in Jesus, whether he has been a gross
   offender or only a common sinner, shall find salvation through the
   blood of the Atonement! Jesus is not the Savior of a class, but His
   power is unto all and upon all them that believe. To men of all sorts,
   His Grace extends--He blesses both hills and valleys. "Ah," says
   another, "I could believe in Jesus, whatever my sins had been or had
   not been, if I had known the awful conviction and

   painful sense of sin which some have known! I read of one that he was
   ready to lay violent hands upon himself when tormented by conscience! I
   have never felt like that. I know that sin is a dreadful thing, but I
   do not feel driven to despair by it as I have heard others say, or else
   I could believe."

   Friend, do you think that Christ's ability to save depends upon your
   fearful apprehensions of your guilt? O Soul, He is not the God of the
   hills, only, but of the valleys, also! He saves a Saul of Tarsus, whom
   He strikes down as a proud hill sinner, but He also saves Lydia, whose
   heart He opens to His Truth, as one of the dwellers in the plain. Those
   who are gently brought to Christ, if they do but rest in Him, are as
   truly saved as those who are driven to Him by fierce terrors and
   terrible forebodings of the wrath to come! Jesus is essential to every
   saving experience, but no form of experience is essential to fit a man
   for Jesus.

   "Yet," cries another, "I am afraid that the Lord Jesus will never
   conquer the kind of sin which has set up its dominion in my soul. I
   believe He can drive out of men their great and crying sins, but my
   tendencies are more subtle and injurious. I feel a dreadful
   indifference stealing over my spirit--where shall I find awakening and
   enlivening?" I answer, you will find help to overcome your sin just
   where the blasphemer and the drunk find theirs, namely, in Christ Jesus
   and the sanctifying power of His Holy Spirit. Jesus can overcome one
   sin as well as another. There is no sin in the whole catalog but what
   the blood of Christ can wash its guilt away--and the water which flowed
   with the blood can take away its power over the soul! Jesus can give us
   the double deliverance, both from the criminality and the bondage of
   sin, whether the sin is of the mountain or of the valley! Only trust
   Him, and the dominion of sin shall be broken.

   Christian people, I shall now speak to you and remind you that too
   frequently when you are about to tell of Jesus and His love, you feel a
   desire to select your hearers. In your heart you dream that certain
   persons are more conquerable by the power of God than others. "It is of
   no use trying after the conversion of So-and-So," you say. You put
   certain characters down on the black list and regard them as hopeless,
   while for others you feel more hopeful and work among them with more
   spirit. Have you not, in a measure, fallen into the sin of Syria?

   Is not your Christ, evidently, the God of the hills and not the God of
   the valleys? Your business is to tell the Gospel to every sort of
   sinner, to every class of mind, and to every rank of persons. And when
   you do so, believing that the Gospel in the hands of the Holy Spirit
   has an Omnipotent power and works on all sides, and among all classes
   of people, then shall you see the hand of God working mightily with
   you!

   V. Upon the last point we must only give a hint or two. WE CAN, AFTER
   THE FASHION OF SYRIA, LIMIT

   THE POWER OF GOD BY NOT EXPECTING HIS DIVINE AID TO BE GIVEN TO US IN
   HIS SERVICE. When we

   are urged to labor for the Lord we are tempted to excuse ourselves upon
   various grounds. We speak as if we could not reckon upon Divine
   assistance. Often the plea is that gifts and talents are scanty with
   us. This may be quite true, but it does not prevent our being used of
   the Lord for His gracious purposes! God is the God of the many-gifted
   and gracious man, but He is also the God of the one-talented man who
   seeks to glorify Him. We are accepted according to what we have--not
   according to what we have not.

   "But I have such peculiarity of disposition! I am so retiring that I
   cannot hope for a blessing." Brothers and Sisters, is this an argument
   which will hold water? Is God the God of the impudent and bold, but not
   the God of the modest? Is Grace given to bronze faces, but not to those
   who are meek and lowly? I am sure it is not so! Cease from such vain
   excuses. "Ah, but my sphere of life is a very difficult one. I dwell
   among such strange people. I find no sympathy and very few back me up
   in what I attempt." Ah, you would like a sphere made on purpose for
   you, would you not? And when you had it, there would be no necessity
   for your entering upon it, because all the good would be done already!
   Here is a lamp well lit! It objects to be placed where it is dark. It
   would like to be hung up in the sunshine. But what is the good of a
   lamp in the daylight? And what is the use of a Christian in a place
   where everything is already as he desires it to be?

   If the servant of the Lord is wise, he will look at the needs of the
   people as a call for his labors! He will regard disadvantages as
   advantages, and difficulties as things to be overcome. Indeed, to the
   Believer, even impossibility is only another name for a matter in which
   the power of God is more than ordinarily to be manifested in answer to
   believing prayer! The man who knows his God is strong and performs
   great exploits, judges all things to be alike easy with the Lord--he
   knows nothing of a God of the hills who is not, also, God of the
   valleys! "Ah," says one, "but I cannot expect God to bless me, for I
   feel so unworthy." Do you suppose, then, that those whom God greatly
   blesses are worthy? If you ever meet with a man who feels worthy to be
   blessed, he is the very person whom God does not bless at all! The most
   fa-

   vored feel most their unworthiness of such favors. Your sense of
   unworthiness must not be taken as a reason why God cannot bless you! It
   may, rather, be regarded as, itself, a blessing.

   "Still," you say, "I do not know how it is, but I feel such a trembling
   about my work and the place in which I live, and the people among whom
   I labor." Now, to be brief, this feeling is your great hindrance and
   you must get rid of it! There is no reason for trembling if you look
   the matter in the face. Has God sent you? Then God is with you and why
   should you fear? If you give yourself up to God, entirely, desiring
   that He should use every atom of you exactly as He pleases--and where
   He pleases, then there can be no cause for fear. All things are equally
   possible with God and every sphere is equally hopeful when God leads
   the way! Every time, every age and every man are all in the hands of
   the Omnipotent and eternal Lord! If God sends you to prophecy to dry
   bones with Ezekiel, or to preach to Ninevites with Jonah, He will be
   with you in either case! And you, Brother, will be quite as happy in
   your preaching as if He sent you to expound the Scriptures to Bereans
   or tell of Jesus to devout and honorable women.

   Your surroundings should not be the cause of fear to you, for they are
   of small weight in the scale. Is the Father with you? Is Jesus with
   you? Is the Holy Spirit with you? Then though you are one man, like
   Samson, the lone champion, and have no weapon to fight with except that
   which your enemies compare to an ass's jawbone, yet lay hold of it,
   Brother, and throw yourself upon the whole army of foes--and heaps upon
   heaps shall they lie before you! Greater is He that is for you than all
   they that are against you. "Who are you, O great mountain? Before
   Zerubbabel you shall become a

   plain."

   Do I hear you sigh, "Would God I could get to this faith and stay
   there." I pray the Lord to help you, for if you believe the utmost you
   can concerning the Lord, it will not be one whit too much! If you trust
   Him most implicitly, you will not trust Him too fully. You shall often
   be ashamed of your unbelief, but never of your hope! You shall often
   have to blush to think you doubted, but never because you trusted!
   Nobody shall ever meet you, not even a devil, and say, "You fool, you
   have relied on the Lord too much!" Time will prove otherwise--therefore
   rest in the God of the valleys and in the God of the hills--and glory
   in Him forever and ever!

   It is possible for unconverted men to fall into the sin of which we are
   speaking and I would like to give them this caution before dismissing
   them. Do any of you unconverted ones hope to escape from the punishment
   which God will bring upon the ungodly? If you do, your reasons are vain
   and will turn out to be lies! God punished Pharaoh and others in this
   life and He will punish all the ungodly in the life to come. As surely
   as He smote sinners of old, He will smite you before long. You may say,
   "I am not a thief or a drunk." Very well! But He who is the God of the
   hills is the God of the valleys, and if you remain unregenerate, even
   though you have never been an open offender, you shall be visited for
   your heart sins!

   God will smite the valley sinners as well as the hill sinners, and
   though you say, "I have always attended the House of God and used the
   outward means," yet assuredly, unless you believe in Jesus, God, who
   smites the thoughtless heathen, will smite the yet more guilty hearer
   of the Word who rejects the blood of Christ! God will deal out equal
   justice to all mankind. He is the God both of the hills and of the
   valleys, and no impenitent sinner shall escape the rod of His Justice!
   If you believe not on Christ you shall be lost, whoever you may be! If
   you will now trust Jesus you shall be saved, whether you dwell in the
   hills or the valley! God grant you Grace to believe at once, for
   Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-1 Kings20:1-30. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--92, 212, 499.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good News for Seekers

   (No. 1312)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 3, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him." Psalm 22:26.

   THESE are the words of Jesus on the Cross, which the inspired Prophet
   wrote beforehand concerning Him. When the Savior uttered this sentence,
   He had just passed through the experience of a seeker as far as it was
   possible for Him to do so. He had been engaged in earnest, fervent,
   pleading prayer on account of His having been left without His Father's
   Presence. He had cried, "Be not You far from Me, O Lord: O My Strength,
   hasten You to help Me." With strong crying and tears He had implored
   salvation from the lion's mouth. He had, at last, been heard and
   delivered, and He exclaimed with joy, "He has not despised nor abhorred
   the affliction of the Afflicted, neither has He hid His face from Him;
   but when He cried unto Him He heard. My praise shall be of You in the
   great congregation: I will pay My vows before them that fear Him."

   Thus, you see, because He had known the agony of an anxious seeker, had
   been heard in His seeking and, therefore, felt praise rising in His own
   soul. He learned sympathy with all seeking souls of every age and
   foresaw that they, also, would magnify the name of the Lord. Jesus
   knows every experience, for He has passed through the same. Does not
   this thought already whisper comfort to your soul? My seeking Friend,
   is it not a good omen that Jesus was heard in that He feared? Does not
   the fact that Jesus can sympathize with you raise some hope in your
   heart? It is true He never lived without the Presence of God, as you
   have done, in consequence of personal sin, but for a grand reason,
   namely, because He stood in our place, He was forsaken of God and,
   therefore, was compelled to cry after Him, even as you are doing, "My
   God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping
   Me?"

   He, therefore, understands the grief which troubles your fainting heart
   and enters into all your distresses while you are bewailing yourself
   and lamenting that you cry in the daytime and the Lord hears not, and
   that in the night season you plead in vain. This reflection, at the
   outset of our discourse, should be as the note of a silver bell, soft
   and restful to your wearied ears! Jesus foretells your success in
   seeking as the result of His own experience! Our Lord's great objective
   in laying down His life upon the Cross was the Father's Glory. No other
   objective was worthy of Him. He sought the salvation of men in order to
   the Glory of God and, so, in His extreme agonies our Lord Jesus placed
   this joy before Him and consoled Himself by foreseeing that God would
   be praised by seeking souls in consequence of His death.

   He solaces Himself with the reflection, "All the ends of the world
   shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the
   nations shall worship You." He dwells upon the Truth of God that, "They
   shall praise the Lord that seek Him," and He sees in this honoring of
   God the reward which His soul sought after! What He foresaw from His
   lookout upon the Cross is actually taking place everyday--for seekers
   are learning to be singers! The choirs of Heaven, how shall they be
   filled? As yet there are many vacant seats and the full chorus is not
   as yet heard. From where shall they come who shall complete that
   orchestra? They shall be called by Grace from among ungodly men and led
   to long for God--"They shall praise the Lord that seek Him."

   Fear not, for the number of the elect shall be accomplished, and no
   part of Heaven's music shall flag for lack of minstrels. From the
   choirs of earth the saintly souls are being withdrawn, one by one, to
   unite in the harmonies of Heaven. Just when their voices become most
   mellow and most clear, they leave us for the ivory palaces and their
   ceaseless melodies. How shall the praises of God be maintained here
   below? If one by one the sweet voices grow dumb and the singers are
   laid in the sepulcher, from where shall we replenish our numbers and
   maintain the daily praise? Fear not, there are new voices on the way.
   "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him." There are souls now weeping
   because of sin and longing for a Savior who will soon find Him--and
   then will become most hearty singers of the new song! They are coming,
   coming in their thousands even now!

   The music of praise shall be continued as long as the sun and the Glory
   of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. From
   generation to generation shall the name of the Lord be praised! This
   brings great gladness to my spirit as a pastor, for I know that there
   are some present here this day who are seeking the Savior, and it
   rejoices me to know that they will soon be among the most earnest in
   praising the name of the Lord! They will not always wear sackcloth.
   They will put on the silken garments of praise before long. We do not
   know where they are, for seekers are usually very quiet and retired,
   but there are some present whom I suspect of secret searches after my
   Lord. The Lord has seen them as He did Nathanael under the fig tree and
   even His servant begins to spy them out.

   There are young children seeking--boys and girls who dare not yet speak
   to their parents--are in private, praying for Grace. Blessed be the
   Savior of the young! These little ones shall grow up and praise God
   when their fathers have gone to their reward. Young men and maidens,
   too, are turning to Christ, though perhaps they would blush if
   personally charged with the holy search. Men, too, who are in their
   prime, are coming to Jesus to spend their strength in the service of
   the Redeemer. The Lord is gently touching many hearts and drawing them
   to Himself, and each one, when he finds the Lord, will make a sweet
   singer to swell the tune of Divine Grace. Perhaps in this place there
   may even be some aged people whose voices are becoming feeble with
   lapse of years who, nevertheless, will sing with their hearts most
   melodiously to the Glory of the God of all long-suffering. Be they who
   they may, when they have found the Lord Jesus Christ, they must and
   will glorify the God of their salvation!

   So, you see, the great objective of our Lord Jesus was that God might
   be praised and He foreknew that this objective would be effected by the
   praises of those who, in seeking, should find His Grace. This assurance
   which Christ here gives, that they shall praise the Lord that seek Him,
   ought to be very encouraging to all seekers, for, my dear Friends, it
   were wise for you to seek the Lord even if you had no stronger hope
   than a mere, "perhaps He will save us." It would be wise to do as the
   men of Nineveh did, to repent and turn to God, even if you had nothing
   better than, "who can tell?" to encourage you in so doing. But since
   our Lord Jesus Christ, in dying, felt confident that seekers would find
   peace and joy and so would come to praise God, we have double comfort.
   He could not have been mistaken, rest you sure of that and, therefore,
   seekers shall have reasons for praising the Lord!

   It is from the fact that He died upon the Cross that it becomes certain
   that the seeker shall be a finder. This it was which made Him sustain
   the scorn of men, the faintness of fear, the darkness of death and the
   horror of desertion-- because He knew that His prostration in agony and
   His yielding up the ghost would render it certain that no seeking soul
   should ever seek the Lord in vain! Had there been no suffering Savior,
   there had been no way to God. Had there been no dying Christ, there had
   been no living consolation! But now that His atoning work is
   accomplished and He has said, "It is finished," they shall live that
   seek Him and their lives shall be spent in His praise.

   The subject of this morning is the plain statement of the text in which
   I shall handle in all simplicity of speech. "They shall praise the Lord
   that seek Him." And you have here three things--the persons, the
   promise, and the praise.

   Observe first of all, THE PERSONS--"They shall praise the Lord that
   seek Him." Notice how unrestricted the description of the persons is.
   It does not say certain persons who seek God, but any persons who seek
   Him shall ultimately praise Him. You, my Friend, among the rest! None
   are excluded from the sweep of this precious promise, provided they are
   really seekers. In other matters many seek and but few find, but the
   rule of the Gospel Kingdom is, "He that seeks finds," and the rule has
   no exceptions!

   But what is meant by "seeking" the Lord? Who are the seekers to whom
   this promise is made? They include, first, those who really desire to
   commune with God. Some, when they say a prayer, are satisfied with the
   mere form. But he who really prays, desires to converse with God in
   prayer--he longs that his desires should be heard by the Most High--and
   that he should obtain the needed blessings for which he asks. No
   devotion can ever satisfy a true heart but that which brings him into
   contact with the Most High. We do not seek fine words in prayer. We do
   not seek choice music in praise. We do not seek the Church--we seek
   God--and when any man is really awakened to seek after God, although he
   may know but very little yet of the true faith, he has a desire within
   him to which the Lord always gives an answer of peace.

   You may be a stranger and a foreigner and you may have stepped in here,
   dear Friend, quite ignorant of the doctrine and teaching of the Lord
   Jesus. But if in any nation any man shall really seek after the one
   only living and true God, he shall receive further light and shall
   ultimately come to praise the Lord! Those who seek after God Himself
   very soon discover that they are at a distance from Him, so that one
   mark of a true seeker is that he is humbly conscious of his having

   gone astray from the Lord, his God. What a man has, he does not seek
   after, and what is close at hand is not an object of search. But when a
   man longs after God, there suddenly springs up in his soul a
   consciousness that he has departed from the Most High. And he cries
   unto the Lord to remove the separating mountains and to fill up the
   dividing valleys--and he that does this, in very deed, is the man who
   shall yet live to praise God!

   The soul that is, by the Holy Spirit made conscious of distance from
   God, if it is really seeking God, is anxious that everything should be
   taken away which created the distance and which keeps it apart from
   God. If it is unpardoned sin, the true seeker longs for such
   forgiveness as God may justly give. If it is the power of sin in his
   members, the earnest seeker cries for power to overcome every thought
   of evil. The awakened soul soon becomes conscious that nothing
   separates it from God like the love of sin and, therefore, it seeks to
   have sin slain, lust crucified and the enmity towards God forever
   destroyed. O how we long to be delivered from every false way, from
   every pollution and even from every appearance of evil which would tend
   to prevent our walking in happy fellowship with God!

   We know that two cannot walk together except they are agreed and,
   therefore, seeking after the Lord leads the soul to grieve over sin and
   to strive, with all its might with holy violence, to break away from
   pernicious habits which bind it, and to tread under foot tendencies
   which would lead it astray. Are you conscious, dear Friend, of such a
   seeking of God as this? Do you desire Him as the weary watcher on the
   castle wall desires the morning light? Do you pray to have everything
   taken away from you which separates between you and your God? Do you
   long for someone to bridge the chasm and to bring you near to the Lord
   in spirit and in truth? If such is the case, the promise of the text is
   certainly yours! "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him."

   What the seeker longs for is that he may so approach the Lord as to
   feel himself a Friend of God and know that Divine love is most surely
   all his own. Oh, the sweetness of knowing that there is nothing between
   God and you but amity and Love--that all the sad past is forgiven and
   even blotted out of the Lord's remembrance--and that now you may speak
   to Him without fear and trust in Him without dread! Atonement has
   removed His righteous wrath and settled fast His boundless love! Now
   you may come and lie in His bosom, for it is your Father's bosom and
   hide, even, under the dark shadow of His wing, for it is your Father's
   wing and it will cover you from all harm even as a hen covers her
   chickens. It is the prelude of Heaven to feel that--

   "The God that rules on high,

   And thunders when He pleases,

   That rides upon the stormy sky,

   And manages the seas,

   This amazing God is ours!"

   All His power is for our protection. All His wisdom for our direction.
   All His tenderness for our consolation. All His truth for our
   encouragement. All His grandeur for our ennobling. All the infinity of
   His Nature for our eternal glorification! He wills that we should be
   partakers of the Divine Nature and dwellers in the Divine blessedness.

   This is very sweet and this is what the soul that seeks God is
   following after. It aspires to walk with God and to dwell with God. It
   longs to abide in Him, to be forever His beloved, to be accepted in
   Christ Jesus and to become daily more and more conformed to the Divine
   image. To be cleansed from everything which is alien to the design and
   the Nature of God and to be perfectly at one with God is our grand
   ambition! O Beloved, this is a blessed longing for a soul to have and
   he that has it, by the Grace of God, though he may mourn and languish
   now, shall, one day, praise and bless God!

   It may help you to discern whether you have such longings if I say that
   the man who really has them is in earnest to seek after God now. He
   hates the idea of postponement. A moment's delay to a seeking soul is a
   dreadful thought--he desires immediate salvation--he would be
   reconciled to God at once! As the hungry man does not wish the meal to
   be postponed, but would gladly be fed at once, so in the true seeker
   his heart and his flesh cry out after God, for the living God--even as
   the hart pants after the water brooks, so does his soul pant after God.
   This desire is abiding, and cannot be turned aside to another object.

   Not always can a man perceive this desire with vividness because he is
   in the world and his thoughts must be somewhat diverted by his ordinary
   business and cares. But, still, the desire is always alive in his soul
   and whenever the stress of worldly care is taken from his mind, his
   heart flies back to its longings and begins, again, to sigh and cry
   after God. Such a man will break away from his fellows to plead with
   God alone. He will be praying without so much as the movement of his
   lips, even when he is in company. He will lie at night tossing on his
   bed and saying, "Oh that I knew where I might

   find Him!" He will wake in the morning with this desire strong upon him
   and will seek after the Lord as one that searches for hidden treasure.
   This desire hovers over the man who is subject to it. It overshadows
   his being and masters him completely! I have known it deprive food of
   its tastefulness and home of its comfort and make the seeker cry, "Woe
   is me until I find my God! I draw near unto the gates of death until He
   appears! Let others ask for the increase of their corn and wine, Lord,
   lift up the light of Your Countenance upon me, for this, and only this,
   will content my soul."

   Now, Beloved, all this seeking of the soul which I have feebly
   described prepares a man for praising God when he finds mercy at the
   Cross, as you will readily see upon reflection. This is the Holy
   Spirit's way of tuning the harp for future Psalmody. No man can praise
   God like the Believer who has sought the Savior, sorrowing as His
   mother and Joseph did in the days of His flesh, and at the last found
   Him. The seeker knows the bitterness of sin and, therefore, he can
   appreciate the sweetness of pardoning mercy. He has been made to know
   his own lost estate and, in consequence, he will be the more rejoiced
   when he is found by the Good Shepherd and restored to his home by his
   Great Father!

   He knows his helplessness. No one knows it better, for he has tried the
   works of the Law and failed. He has even tried prayer and Gospel
   ordinances--but he has not succeeded in them so as to find rest unto
   his soul. He knows that he is broken in pieces, all asunder and,
   therefore, when he finds his help in the Lord Jesus, even he who feels
   himself to be such a helpless worm, what praises Christ will have and
   what love in return for all His gracious aid! The poor seeker has known
   in his own heart what he deserves at the hands of the Law. He has had a
   glimpse of the world to come and the terrors of Judgment and the
   burnings of eternal wrath. And with the unquenchable fire scorching his
   very face, he must and will praise His Deliverer who has plucked him as
   a brand out of the burning!

   All his seeking, I say, helps him to prize Divine Mercy, when he
   receives it, and trains him to praise God according to the promise of
   our text, "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him." Never is a babe
   so dear to its mother as when it has just been restored from a sickness
   which threatened its life. Never does a father rejoice over his little
   child so much as when he has been long lost in the woods and, after a
   weary search, is at last brought home. No gold is so precious to a man
   as that which he has earned by hard labor and self-denial--the harder
   he has toiled to gain it, the more rejoiced is he when, at length, he
   has enough to permit him to rest.

   No freedom is so precious as the new found liberty of a slave, no
   enlargement so joyous as that of one who has long been sitting in the
   valley of the shadow of death, bound in affliction and iron. No return
   to a country is so full of delight as that of sorrowful exiles who come
   back from cruel Babylon, by whose waters they sat and wept, yes, wept
   when they remembered Zion. "When the Lord turned, again, the captivity
   of Zion, we were like men that dream. Then was our mouth filled with
   laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the
   heathen, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done
   great things for us, of which we are glad."

   If there are any seekers here at this good hour, I hope that if they
   have seen themselves in the picture which I have outlined they will
   still further be enabled to take heart and be of good courage! I am
   laboring, this morning, to drop words of consolation, even as the
   reapers, when Ruth came into the field of Boaz, let fall handfuls on
   purpose for her, that she might glean and return with a full portion.

   II. Now we come to THE PROMISE--"They shall praise the Lord that seek
   Him." Blessed promise! It is gradually, but surely, fulfilled. First,
   it is fulfilled unconsciously while the man is seeking. Did you ever
   think of this? Without knowing it, the humble seeker is already
   praising God. That confession of sin which he made with so many tears
   was a glorifying of God by bearing witness to the justice of God's Law
   and the truth of the charges which it brings against our fallen nature.
   "My son," said Joshua even to Achan, "I pray you give glory to the Lord
   God of Israel, and make confession unto Him." There is a measure of
   true praise in confession and it is as pure and real as that which
   angels present before the Throne of God!

   The seeker, when he acknowledges that he deserves to be sent to Hell
   is, in fact, praising Divine Justice--he is adoring the Judge of All.
   Even though in so doing there is a mixture of unbelief and a
   forgetfulness of other attributes, yet there is a firm belief in Divine
   Justice and a suppliant adoration of it which is far from being
   unacceptable. There is also in the seeker a measure of delight in God's
   mercy, for while the poor sin-smitten soul is craving for pardon, it
   confesses heartily how sweet mercy is, in itself, if it might but
   obtain it, how gracious forgiveness is, how precious loving kindness is
   if it might but be favored with them. No living man has so keen an eye
   to the tender attributes of God as he whose soul is covered all over
   with wounds, bruises and putrefying sores through a sense of sin!

   Meanwhile, the seeking soul is really praising the Lord Jesus by
   appreciating the preciousness of His love and the value of His blood
   and saying within itself, "Oh that I might know the value of these in
   my own case! Oh that I could but touch the hem of His garment for
   myself! Would God I did but know what it is to be washed in His blood
   and to be covered with His righteousness!" There is in all these
   emotions a measure of latent praise none the less accepted of the Lord
   because it is not perceived by man. There is a precious fragrance of
   deep reverence and holy awe about a seeker's prayers which render them
   sweet unto the Lord. So, you see, the seeker is already praising God
   and, thus, in a measure, the promise is fulfilled.

   But the praise exceedingly abounds when the desire is granted. As a
   bird lies hidden among the heather but is seen when, at last, it is
   startled and made to take to the wing, so does praise take to the wing
   and display itself when, at last, those who seek the Lord are permitted
   to find Him! What thunderclaps of praise come from poor sinners when
   they have just found their All in All in God in the Person of Christ
   Jesus! Then their joy becomes almost too much for them to hold, vastly
   too much for them to express! Oh, the praises, the day and night
   praises, the continuous praises which rise from the returning,
   repenting soul which has, at last, felt the Father's arms around its
   neck and the Father's warm kisses on its cheek, and is sitting down at
   the table where the happy household eat and drink and are merry!
   Praising time has come, indeed, when finding time has arrived. Happy
   day! Happy day when we meet with God in Jesus Christ!

   Now, dear Soul, the promise secures that you shall find God in Christ,
   because the promise is that you shall praise Him--and you cannot praise
   Him until you have found His Grace and favor in Christ. Therefore I am
   sure you will enjoy salvation before long! Oh, it is not to be thought
   of that a soul should seek after God and not find Him! Imagine the
   penitent prodigal son seeking after his father, reaching his father's
   house, searching in the chambers of his father's mansion, going abroad
   into his father's fields and crying, "My Father, my Father, I have lost
   you! Will you not be found of me?"--doing all this, I say, and doing
   this by the month and the year together and not finding his father,
   after all! There is no such parable as that in Holy Writ, nor could
   there be one--it would not be God-like or Christ-like!

   There is nothing like it, as a matter of fact, nor shall there ever be,
   except where unbelief comes in and wickedly misrepresents the Lord. My
   God, in Your universe You think of everything! The beast has its lair
   and the sea bird has its home. The fish finds its food and even the
   insect has a table provided for it1 And as for Your poor creature, man,
   though greatly erring, You do not forget him! You have made us wonder
   that You are so mindful of him, that You have such tender regard unto
   him and do visit him so graciously! It is not possible that any of all
   your creatures should be seeking after You like a child that cries
   after its mother in the dark and not find You, after all! You are not
   far from any of us!

   God may try you, He may let you wait awhile before He grants you the
   comforts of realized pardon. There may be that about you, especially
   that unbelief about you, which prevents your finding Him, but found of
   you He must be and He shall be before long! Which of you has a child
   who has offended you, but who, with many tears, comes to you and says,
   "My Father, forgive me," and you will not forgive? You know that, for a
   while, you may chide and say, "The offense is great, it has been oft
   repeated. I cannot readily pass by it this time." But if you see your
   child still weeping and still with a broken heart imploring your favor,
   does not your heart yearn over him? Do you not long to say, "My Child,
   I have forgiven and forgotten your fault"? You know you do! And if you,
   being evil, know how to forgive your children, how much more shall your
   heavenly Father give pardon and Free Grace to them that seek Him! You
   shall praise the Lord that seek Him! Lay hold on that promise.

   Well, and when you have found Him, to the joy of your heart, the
   promise of the text shall be fulfilled in a third sense, for you shall
   go on seeking and you shall go on praising. Seeking the Lord is
   sometimes used in Scripture as the alias for true religion and it very
   aptly describes it, for our life consists in endeavoring to know the
   Lord yet more and more. Now, since Christ has died, true religion is
   praise. The genius of the Christian religion is joy, its proper spirit
   is delight, and its highest exercise is praise! "They shall praise the
   Lord that seek Him." Now we go up to the House of the Lord with the
   congregation of the faithful with songs of holy joy! Now we draw near
   to the feast of communion at the Lord's Table with delight and, before
   we depart, we sing a hymn. Now we go forth to the good fight of faith
   and our battle song is a jubilant Psalm! Now do we even go to our beds
   of painful sickness and sing the Lord's high praises there! Since Jesus
   died, our heaviness is dead, our murmuring is buried in His tomb. Since
   Jesus endured the wrath of God, which was due to us, that wrath has
   passed away forever and it is now the privilege, no, the duty of every
   Christian to rejoice in the Lord! Let all the people praise Him and let
   the redeemed of the Lord be foremost in the joy!

   Nor is this all. There comes another day and another state, when we
   shall be in another place and then we shall praise the Lord, even we
   who seek Him. Every soul that has sought God on earth shall see Him and
   delight in Him in Heaven. What praises will you and I pour forth then!
   There are reasons why I consider myself to have been the greatest
   debtor to God of any man that ever lived--I can see special undeserving
   in my own case and special mercies on the part of God towards me. I
   challenge you all to bear witness that I am under bond to praise the
   name of the Lord more ardently than you because I am more deeply
   indebted to His Grace. Each one of you, I have no doubt, cater to the
   same vein of thought and not without reason. You will each feel as if
   you had the most cause to magnify His blessed name when you find
   yourself seated among the blood-washed and in your hands the palm
   branch of eternal victory! Oh, what a song shall go up then! What
   "shouts of them that triumph, and songs of them that feast" shall make
   Heaven's high arches ring in that glad day when "they shall praise the
   Lord that seek Him."

   What a promise this is! I leave it in your hands, only remarking that
   it takes the most delightful shape possible, because if you are a true
   seeker, the thing you want above all things is to be able to glorify
   God! You desire to be pardoned and to be renewed in heart with this
   objective--that you may be able to render acceptable praise to Him whom
   you have offended. Well, that is the very blessing which is promised
   you! "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him." And it includes, of
   course, the removal from your heart of everything that would prevent
   your praising Him--and the breaking down of every barrier that would
   keep you back from joining celestial choirs who, day without night,
   with their eternal symphonies circle His throne rejoicing!

   III. Thirdly, THE PRAISE. "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him."
   What will the praise be about? What will be the subject of the song?
   Ah, now I have before me an utterly endless task if I am to catalog the
   subjects of praise for a seeking soul when it has found peace with God!
   Why, Beloved, we praise Him to think that we found Him as we did! Some
   of you found Him so readily--you only heard a sermon and that one
   sermon led you to Christ! Others of us did not find Him so soon or so
   easily and, yet, we found Him in the very nick of time. Just when we
   were going to lie down in despair, when Satan suggested that no hope
   remained, then man's extremity was God's opportunity and we found the
   Lord exactly to the tick of the clock at the best moment! Blessed be
   His name!

   Oh, to find Him at all! How great a blessing! If a man should lie a
   thousand years in the prison of despair, yet if he did but find Christ,
   at last, it were worth while to have suffered the thousand years of
   daily death! If we may but at last say, "My God, my God," with
   unfaltering tongue and a heart that feels itself reconciled to Him, we
   shall make it our Heaven to praise Him with all our might! The chief
   point of praise, perhaps, with most saved ones is that they found such
   a Savior. Our Lord is represented as on the Cross when He utters this
   promise, "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him," and when we find
   the Lord we always find Him in Christ upon the Cross--and the Atonement
   becomes a chief feature in our joy.

   Do you remember the first time you had a view, by faith, of the
   Incarnate God bearing human sin--when that grand doctrine of
   Substitution flashed on your soul like the first sight of the sun to a
   man that had been blind? Do you remember when you first really knew
   that God did lay on Christ your iniquities and that He was punished
   instead of you, so that you cannot, by any possibility, be punished,
   for it were unjust, twice, to exact the penalty for one offense? Did
   you ever get the glory of that light concentrated on your soul, so that
   you knew, absolutely, that God, for Christ's sake had forgiven you and
   justly forgiven you because of the blood of Jesus? Did you ever drink
   in the meaning of those words, "faithful and just to forgive us our
   sins"? Then I know after the first overwhelming impression of intense
   delight you did praise God, yes, and you have not left off doing so,
   for there is enough in that one simple fact to set you praising God
   throughout the ages of eternity! Salvation by substitution so satisfies
   the conscience that it fills the heart with overflowing delight--

   "The lo ve I prize is righteous love, Inscribed on the sin-bearing
   tree. Love that exacts the sinner's debt, Yet, in exacting sets him
   free. Love that condemns the sinner's sin, Yet, in condemning, pardon
   seals. That saves from righteous wrath, and yet In saving,
   righteousness reveals.

   This is the love that calms my heart,

   That soothes each conscience-pang within,

   That pacifies my guilty dread,

   And frees me from the power of sin." Oh, to think that such an One as
   Jesus should be our Savior, that Heaven's Darling should condescend to
   assume our nature and become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh!
   That He should live such a life and die such a death! That He should
   present to God a work so perfect, without flaw, without excess! Is
   there not room for praises here? Now we are as clean before the Lord
   because we have been washed in Christ's blood, yes, we are as pure as
   if we had never sinned! And standing arrayed in Christ's righteousness,
   we are more righteous, even, than Adam before the Fall, for he had only
   a human righteousness, but we have a Divine righteousness. In Christ
   Jesus, the second Adam, we are nearer to God than if we had been born
   of the first Adam while untainted by sin!

   Now, there is a man who is akin to God, even Jesus, our Brother, who is
   also very God of very God. Man is exalted to the highest conceivable
   degree in the Person of Jesus Christ and we have become heirs of God,
   joint heirs with Jesus Christ. As the seeking soul learns more and more
   of this, it praises God more and more. Is it not so? Does not your soul
   bless the Savior? Yes, and the longer we live and the more we know
   about the Lord the more we find causes for extolling Him! Indeed,
   everything around us, within us and above us seems to suggest a reason
   for blessing His name! Think of our security, at this moment and,
   again, praise God!

   Many a song has been poured from my soul as I have remembered that my
   Lord has given me a life that cannot die-- that He has written me on
   His heart from where my name can never be erased--that He has made a
   Covenant with me to which He has pledged His honor and His word! And He
   has sealed it with His blood! I am His child and, by His Grace, I know
   that He never did and never can tear from His heart's love even the
   least of His children--the mountains may depart and the hills be
   removed, but the Covenant of His peace can never be removed--for so He
   has declared--

   "My name from the palms of His hands,

   Eternity cannot erase!

   Impressed on His heart it remains

   In marks of indelible Grace.

   Yes, I to the end shall endure

   As sure as the earnest is given!

   More happy but not more secure

   The glorified spirits in Heaven:" There is abundant raw material for
   praise in all this! Where can you find better? "They shall praise the
   Lord that seek

   Him."

   Brothers and Sisters, we see cause for praise in the very fact that we
   ever sought the Lord at all. Think what it was which made us seek
   Him--what but Sovereign Grace? What bedewed our eyes with the first
   tears of repentance? What fetched from our soul the first sigh of
   desire after Christ? What, I say, but GRACE? And from where came that
   Grace but from His eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus
   before the world was? And from where that purpose but from His Divine
   Sovereignty, even as it is written, "I will have mercy on whom I will
   have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"?
   Therefore let us glorify His holy name and think not of works or
   merits, or anything in man that could have won for us the love of the
   Most High! Boasting is excluded, but praise is secured! Give all the
   Glory to His holy name forever and forever, and let the text stand true
   in your case, "They shall praise the Lord that seek Him."

   Our final thought on this occasion shall be, if these things are so,
   let us praise the Lord, even we who have sought Him! If our poor
   friends, the seekers, are soon to bless His name, let us show them the
   way! We sought and we found--let us magnify the Lord at once! Do you
   think we praise our heavenly Father half enough? Do we not rob Him of
   His Glory by getting down in the dumps and giving way to care and,
   perhaps, to murmuring? This is not the right spirit for a Christian!
   Where there is so much undeserved mercy, there ought to be more
   grateful joy! Do you think we are demonstrative enough in our praise? I
   am sure we are not! Few around us would ever dream that we were half as
   favored as we are!

   Do we sing one-tenth as much as Christians ought to sing? We hum over a
   tune, now and then, very quietly, but we are terribly afraid of being
   heard and of annoying people. I do not find the giddy world much afraid
   of annoying us with their songs--do they not wake us up at night with
   their lewd discords? If we were half as earnest as we ought to be, we
   should sometimes, at least, make the streets ring with the praises of
   God! It would be well to be a little indiscreet occasionally and, now
   and then, provoke the charge of fanaticism, for this would be a proof
   of earnest sincerity! Once, at least, in our lives we should let our
   Lord ride through the streets, again, in public triumph amid our own
   most hearty enthusiasm, till Pharisees rebuke us and say, "Do you hear
   what these say?"--

   "Oh, for this love let rocks and hills

   Their lasting silence break!

   And all harmonious human tongues

   Their Savior's praises speak." Yes, and all inharmonious tongues, too!
   Let all creatures that have breath praise the Lord--

   "Yes we will praise You, dearest Lord,

   Our souls are all on flame.

   Hosanna round the spacious earth

   To Your adored name!"

   May the Lord set our hearts on fire! May we be full of exulting praise,
   marching on with hosannas and hallelujahs, magnifying, praising and
   extolling the Lord whom we sought in the hour of trouble, and whom we
   found in the day of His Grace!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 22. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--563, 775, 548.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Second Word to Seekers

   (No. 1313)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 10, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with
   all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13.

   LAST Sabbath morning [See Sermon No. 1312, "Good News for Seekers."] we
   gave forth words of good cheer to those who seek the Lord, dwelling
   upon those encouraging words of the Savior upon the Cross, "They shall
   praise the Lord that seek Him." We aimed only at the one point of
   encouraging seekers, for a single objective is always enough for one
   discourse and the impression made is more likely to be permanent. We
   had neither time nor desire to qualify our language with discriminating
   remarks which would help to show who are true seekers and who are not.
   One cannot reap and winnow with the same machine. I think it is right,
   therefore, that we should follow up that discourse by another in which
   we shall discern between those who truly seek and those who only
   nominally seek the Lord.

   Such discrimination will be useful in many ways. Perhaps, dear Friend,
   after last Lord's-Day you said, "I do not understand this promise that
   seekers shall praise God, for I have been seeking for many months but I
   have not been able to praise Him. Surely the promise cannot be true for
   me." Rest assured, dear Friend, that the promise is true for you if you
   are true to it. The Word of the Lord is sure. There can be no question
   upon that point--the questions to be raised must deal with yourself and
   your searching--either you do not seek or else you seek amiss. Always
   conclude that if a general promise does not turn out to be true in your
   particular instance, there is something in you that hinders it. You
   must have fallen short of the character to which the promise is
   made--the promise, itself, cannot be suspect. "Let God be true and
   every man a liar."

   You may account for your not obtaining the blessing which you have
   asked upon any theory which humbles yourself, but you must never
   suppose that the Lord will break His promise, for that were to dishonor
   His holy name, deny His faithfulness and pour contempt upon His Truth!
   If His good Word appears to fail towards you, is there not a cause?
   Does not sin lie at the door? Is there not some idol in the inner
   chamber which must be searched for and taken away? "Are the
   consolations of God small with you? Is there any secret thing with
   you?" It is a general truth that proper food will build up the human
   frame, but if food is eaten and yet no nourishment whatever is obtained
   from it, we conclude that the system is thrown out of order by some
   inward disease. The meat is good--it must, therefore, be the stomach or
   some other organ that ails and turns that which is good into evil.

   If a fire is kindled and a person is placed close to it, and yet he
   declares that he is not warmed by the heat, we do not, because of this,
   entertain any doubt of the power offire to warm the human body! We
   conclude that the man has a chill or some other malady which prevents
   his feeling the natural warmth of the fire. The failure of warmth
   cannot lie in the fire--it must be in the man--for fire must warm any
   healthy limbs which are held near to it. If a medicine which has been
   known to produce a cure in hundreds of cases is taken by an individual
   and it is found to have no result, or to work in a manner contrary to
   its natural and ordinary effect, we conclude that either the state of
   the case has been badly judged, or that there is present some other
   potent drug which neutralizes its effect.

   The man, himself, may not be aware that he is eating or imbibing that
   which acts in an opposite direction to the prescription of his
   physician and yet it may be so and, therefore, the medicine is not to
   be distrusted, but the interposing substance must bear all the blame.
   For this reason we will try, this morning, to discriminate a little,
   with no wish whatever to grieve any seeking soul, but with a strong
   desire to indicate any weak point in the seeking, any counteracting
   habit which may be, at this time, preventing the soul from entering at
   once into the peace and joy for which it is seeking.

   "He that seeks finds" is an indisputable fact. But, as all is not gold
   that glitters, so all is not seeking which bears the name! We come at
   once to our point by noticing the quality required in every true
   seeker. The verse tells us--"You shall seek Me, and find Me, when you
   shall search for Me with all your heart." Whole-heartedness is the
   quality required. Sec-

   ondly, we shall show the reasons why wholeheartedness is required. And,
   thirdly, indicate one or two of the main hindrances to it, which we
   pray the Lord to remove.

   I. THE QUALITY REQUIRED IN THE SEEKER is whole-heartedness--he must
   search for the Lord with all his heart. This means, I take it, three
   things. First, in order to find the Lord there must be an undivided
   Object in the seeker's mind. See how the text runs--"You shall seek Me,
   and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart." The
   Object is one and only one. The sinner is at a distance from God and
   guilt divides him from his God. He longs to draw near to the heavenly
   Father and to be reconciled--he therefore seeks after God and God,
   alone. "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." "O that I knew
   where I might find HIM!"

   Now, the Lord is to be found by the guilty only in Christ Jesus, who is
   the Mercy Seat where God meets sinners and hears their prayers. It is
   there that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily and there the
   fullness of Divine Grace and the Truth of God are stored up so that we
   may receive of them. We must turn our eyes, then, to God in Christ
   Jesus, and keep our eyes fixed there. "My Soul, wait you only upon God,
   for my expectation is from Him." If the eyes are not only on Christ and
   in desire of salvation through Him, it will be no wonder if we seek for
   mercy but seek in vain! How can a man run in two ways at the same time?
   Brothers and Sisters, you must shake off from you all trust in self,
   for God will have none of it! You must not seek God by the works of the
   Law, or by any supposed merit that is or ever can be in yourself, for
   this He utterly refuses.

   If you attempt to mix Law with Gospel, self with Christ and merit with
   mercy, you will certainly miss your aim-- your whole soul must
   concentrate itself upon this--to find God as He is revealed in Christ,
   a God of Grace and love, the God who justifies the ungodly when He
   looks upon the merit of His Son and sees the sinner's confidence in
   Him. You must so seek the Lord as to make no provision for the lusts of
   the flesh and the desires of the mind. If it cost you the giving up of
   every pleasure that you have, yet in searching after the Lord you must
   seek Him so entirely that you would cut off right arms and pluck out
   right eyes sooner than you should miss Him and so miss eternal life!
   However sweet the sin may have been to your palate, you must cast it
   out of your mouth, for it is as poisonous as it is pleasant and,
   therefore, it is to be put away far from you.

   "Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof," for if
   you do, you have not sought the Lord with all your heart. There must be
   one Object and that must be neither self nor sin, but you must feel and
   say, "in God is my salvation, and my glory. The rock of my strength and
   my refuge is in God. Therefore with strong desire do I follow after the
   Lord, even the Lord, alone." Moreover, there must be no reservations
   made in this search to gratify pride in any of its shapes. If you say
   within your heart, "I will only accept mercy if it come to me in a
   certain way"--you put yourself out of all hope of Grace, for God is a
   Sovereign, and will do as He wills with His own. Some will not have
   Christ without signs and wonders--they demand singular experiences,
   horrible depressions, or delirious excitements--and they will not
   believe unless some marvelous thing is worked in them or before them.

   You must make no conditions with God, either of this or of any other
   kind. You shall find Him if you will seek Him without bargains and
   terms and demands--for what are you that you should demand anything of
   your Maker--and lay down rules and regulations for the dispensing of a
   mercy to which you have no claim? Come as you are, poor Sinner, and
   without any reservation submit yourself to the mercy of God in Christ
   Jesus, only desiring this one thing--that you may find God and His love
   in Christ Jesus--

   "Lord, deny me what You will, Only ease me of my guilt. Suppliant at
   Your feet I lie, Give me Christ, or else I die."

   You shall find the Lord to be your help and your salvation if you seek
   Him as the one sole Object of your desire. "One thing have I desired of
   the Lord, that will I seek after."

   The phrase, "with all your heart" means, next, with the entire
   faculties of our being. A man must seek after God in Christ Jesus with
   his entire nature. David said, "My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs
   for You." If one part of the man refuses to seek the Lord and remains
   reserved for Satan, then the Evil One has a lien upon the whole man!
   Here is a little bird and it tries to fly into the open air, but it is
   not free. And why not? Its wings are loose, see how it flutters! Its
   head is not bound, hear how it sings! And this foot is free, too--why
   is it not at liberty? Do you not perceive that the other leg

   is bound by a thin twine? True, it is only held by that single thread,
   but it is not free. The whole bird is bound, because that one foot is
   held by that single thread!

   And so long as a man of free choice gives up any part of himself to the
   power of sin and keeps back any part of his nature from seeking after
   God, he is not really seeking the Lord at all, but remains a slave of
   sin. O man, if you would find God, set your faculties upon the search!
   Marshal your powers, muster your forces and let your entire nature,
   body, soul and spirit search after Jesus Christ as the merchantman
   seeks goodly pearls! Set your thoughts at work and let them search the
   Scriptures! Awake your understanding and endeavor to comprehend your
   danger and to know your remedy. Set your wits to work--let your
   ingenuity and your research be brought to bear on heavenly things, for
   perhaps when you do understand the Gospel you will believe and have
   peace.

   An enlightened judgment is a great help towards faith. Many a man
   remains without peace because his understanding has never been
   exercised upon the Gospel and Divine things. But if he would think them
   over, meditate upon them and ponder them in his heart, by the
   enlightening of the sacred Spirit, new light would flash into his soul
   and he would see and believe. "Do you understand what you read?" is an
   important question and suggests that in the search after salvation the
   understanding should be called into play. Do not expect to be saved as
   dumb driven cattle, but as a reasonable man and, therefore, use your
   reason and understanding upon Divine things, asking the Lord to teach
   your reason right reason--and to give your understanding a right
   understanding of His Word.

   It will be well for a man, in seeking the Lord, to use his memory and
   his conscience. Let him go over the list of his past sins and recall
   the wanderings of his heart, the follies of his tongue, the iniquities
   of his hands. Perhaps memory will call up conscience and become the
   mother of repentance! The recollection of the sinful past will, by the
   Spirit's Grace, create a penitent. Forget not, I pray you, to remember
   your former days, for God requires that which is past. Remember, too,
   what God has done by way of mercy to others. Think of friends and
   companions saved. Remember the grand old records of Inspiration--turn
   to the Bible and see how God has saved seeking souls--and your memory
   may thus beget faith in you by the work of the Spirit of God.

   The text bids you search "with all your heart," and your memory, as one
   of the faculties of your mind, should assist in the search. As for your
   will, how necessary that this, also, be captured and compelled to join
   heartily in the pursuit. It is a stubborn thing and will not readily
   bend, but how can you expect to find mercy if you are not willing to
   submit to God's rebukes and accept His methods of salvation? Bring
   forth my Lord Will-Be-Will and let Grace cause him to submit himself!
   Though he was once Lord Mayor of Mansoul, he must bare his neck to the
   yoke of Christ and admit that the will of the Lord is higher than man's
   will! Make him say, "Not as I will, but as You will." As to every other
   faculty that you have, if you are, indeed, in earnest, let it be
   awakened! Leave not a single part of your nature behind you when you
   come to God, but seek Him with your whole heart, with intense eagerness
   and strong desire.

   "My son, if you will receive My words, and hide My commandments with
   you; so that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to
   understanding; yes, if you cry after knowledge and lift up your voice
   for understanding; if you seek her as silver and search for her as for
   hidden treasures; then shall you understand the fear of the Lord and
   find the knowledge of God." I have now given you two meanings for the
   phrase, to seek the Lord with all our heart--it indicates an undivided
   Object and the entireness of our faculties in the search.

   But, thirdly, it signifies, mainly, awakened energy. "When you shall
   search for Me with all your heart you shall find Me." It includes the
   getting out of that dull, sluggish, indifferent spirit which seems so
   common. Indifference to eternal realities seems to impregnate the very
   air we breathe in this sleepy world--sleepy I mean as to things
   spiritual and Divine. We are busy about a thousand things, but sluggish
   about our souls! Yet be not deceived, if men are to be saved, it will
   not be accomplished while they slumber, nor will mercy be found by
   listless, careless, lackadaisical searching after it.

   When the Spirit of God sets a man searching, he becomes earnest,
   intense, fervent, vehement and strives to enter in at the strait gate,
   "for the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by
   force." He who would be saved must be resolved to escape from the wrath
   to come. It must come to this with you--that you will not rest till you
   find Christ and eternal life, for you can not endure to be damned and,
   therefore, you are determined that if there is on earth or in Heaven
   any remedy for your soul's sickness, you will have it if seeking can
   obtain it! When the Lord has made you thus resolute, you will need to
   have perseverance to follow hard after Him till you have beheld His
   face in peace.

   If you have once read the Scriptures to find Christ in them, you will
   read them again and again--and dig the field of the Word over 10 times
   till you find the hidden treasure! If you have once prayed for Grace
   and peace you will pray again and again, and again, and again till your
   knees are calloused rather than you will miss the blessing! If you have
   heard the Word preached many times and yet it has not brought peace to
   your soul, you will be early and late in your waiting at the posts of
   Jehovah's doors to hear those glad tidings of which it is written,
   "Hear, and your soul shall live." There will be in your spirit a
   determination that cannot be shaken, a desire which cannot be appeased!

   We must be importunate, like the widow with the unjust judge, or the
   man at midnight with his friend, for importunity prevails. "Arise, cry
   out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out your heart
   like water before the Lord." If you cannot rest till you receive the
   kiss of pardon, you shall soon obtain it! If you cannot be easy until
   you are taken into the Father's house and acknowledged to be His child,
   you shall soon rejoice in the adoption! May the Lord be pleased to
   awake all seekers to passionate earnestness, for when they are filled
   with travail of soul they shall obtain mercy! If you are content to go
   without salvation you shall go without it, but if your soul longs, yes,
   even faints for it, you shall have it.

   There are some poor souls who will, perhaps, be distressed with these
   remarks upon energetic seeking. They are constitutionally weak and
   feeble in all that they feel and do and, therefore, they will say,
   "Alas, Sir, I am afraid I never was so earnest as you describe. I am a
   poor feeble soul and very low in spirit. I fear I have no such
   eagerness and energy." No, dear Trembler, and I would not have you
   misunderstand me, for the force I am now commending is not physical,
   but spiritual and rather that of weakness than of strength! Have you
   not heard that once upon a time two knocks were given at Mercy's door
   and he who kept the door, opened to one in an instant, but to the other
   there was no reply. The knock to which the door was opened was but a
   gentle one and scarcely could be heard by those outside the gate, yet
   it evidently struck some secret spring upon the door, for the sound
   thereof thundered along the palace halls!

   The second knock was very loud and was heard by all who stood around
   the door, but it commanded no answer from within. Then he who thus had
   knocked marveled and enquired of him that kept the gate and said, "How
   is it that I have knocked so loudly and yet have not entered, while the
   trembling woman whose knock was very soft and low obtained immediate
   admittance?" Then he that kept the door answered, "She who knocked so
   feebly, yet knocked with all her might. Her strength was little, but it
   was all she had and, therefore, it sounded powerfully within these
   palace walls. As for you, you have put forth much energy, but it was
   not your all and, therefore, there is no response to you. Take you the
   hammer of the gate with both your hands and throw your whole soul into
   each blow, and see if the door does not yield you admittance."

   He did so, the gate flew open to him, and he entered into the place
   which his feeble Sister had already gained. If you seek God with all
   your heart, be your heart strong or feeble, you shall find Him!

   II. Secondly, we have to consider THE REASON FOR THIS REQUIREMENT. The
   requirement is so natural that it needs no excusing--it must recommend
   itself to every thoughtful person. But since it may help us to be
   earnest if we are told why it is required of us, I would answer first,
   that in every other pursuit where the object is at all worthy of a
   man's efforts, whole-heartedness is required. I knew a man who had a
   business, but if you called to see him upon any matter you seldom found
   him in--he was taking a holiday, or else he had not risen. He made an
   appointment with you, but he never kept it, or came in so late that you
   were weary with waiting. Commissions that he was entrusted with were
   often left unexecuted by the week together, or attended to in a
   slovenly manner. Do you wonder that when I passed by his shop one day I
   saw the shutters up and learned that he had failed?

   Do you not know that success in life depends upon earnestness in it? Do
   you not teach your sons this important lesson? And if it is so in the
   lower things of this mortal life, how much more is it in the matters of
   the world to come? No man becomes learned by sleeping with a book for
   his pillow, or famous by slumbering at the foot of the ladder of honor.
   You find, everywhere, that the kingdom of this world suffers violence
   and never more so than in these days of increasing competition. Surely
   you cannot expect that if you must run for this world, you may creep
   and win the next! No, no, you shall find the Lord, Seeker, if you seek
   Him with all your heart, but no other way! Spiritual sluggards shall
   starve! Labor, therefore, for the meat which endures to eternal life.

   The danger from which the need to escape is so great, that the utmost
   earnestness is none too much! Consider for a moment the imminence of
   our peril and the overwhelming nature of it. The unsaved man lies under
   the wrath of God and

   if any man did but know what the wrath of God is, he would think
   Nebuchadnezzar's furnace to be cool compared with that burning oven! He
   is, in instant danger of death and of the Judgment, and of that Second
   Death which follows on the heels of condemnation and consists in
   banishment from the Presence of God and the Glory of His power. Oh, if
   a man did but know, while he lived, what it is to die--if he could but
   guess what it is to stand before God's bar and if he could have an
   inkling of what it must be to be cast where their worm dies not and
   their fire is not quenched--this would surely make him seek the Lord
   with all his heart!

   O Man, if you were in a burning house you would be eager to get out of
   it! If there seemed a probability that you would sink in a river, you
   would struggle desperately to get to shore! How is it, then, that you
   are so little moved by the peril of your soul? Man is awakened when his
   life is once known to be in peril--how much more earnest ought he to be
   when eternal life or eternal death are the solemn alternatives! "What
   do you mean, O sleeper? Arise, and call upon your God!" Look, moreover,
   at the greatness of the mercy which you are seeking. It is none other
   than pardon of all your sins, perfect righteousness in Christ Jesus,
   safety through His precious blood, adoption into the family of God and
   eternal enjoyment of the Presence of God in Heaven!

   They that seek for pearls, gold and precious stones, use all their eyes
   and all their wits, but what are those gaudy toys compared with these
   immortal treasures? How ought a man to seek after Heaven and eternal
   life? Should it not be with all his heart? Remember that in this matter
   everybody else is in earnest. Poor Seeker, everyone that you have to do
   with in this matter is in earnest! Look down on Hell's domain and see
   how earnest Satan is to hold you and to ruin you! How diligently the
   enemy baits his hooks and sets his traps to catch the souls of men! How
   does he compass sea and land to hold his captives lest they escape. See
   how earnest, on the other hand, Christ is! He proved His earnestness by
   a life of toil by day and of prayer by night--by hunger, thirst,
   faintness and bloody sweat.

   The zeal of God's House had eaten Him up. He was earnest even to the
   death for sinners. And God is in earnest-- there is no mockery with
   Him, or carelessness or indifference about human souls. When He speaks
   of the sinner's perishing, He cries out with a solemn oath that He has
   no pleasure in their death. But if they, to the last, refuse His love
   and defy His justice, He will not trifle with them, but will judge in
   earnest and punish in earnest. Has He not said, "Beware therefore, you
   that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to
   deliver." The majesty of His power is revealed in flaming wrath against
   transgressors! Hell is no trifle and His wrath is no small matter.

   Heaven and Hell, then, are in earnest, and so must you be if you would
   find salvation. Shall we, who have to tell you to escape from the wrath
   to come, pray to be in earnest and shall we never feel earnest enough,
   but always cry that we may be seized with a yet more intense passion
   for your welfare? And shall it seem to you to be a common-place
   affair--a thing that you may let alone and let happen as it may? Oh,
   Sirs, if you talk so, the madness of sin is very manifest in you! May
   the Lord make you sane! Where everything else is in earnest, you need
   to be in earnest, too.

   You have been earnest enough and whole-hearted enough in the ways of
   sin. Think of yourself as engrossed with those things of which you
   ought to be ashamed. Have you not been earnest, indeed, there?
   Concerning this world you have risen up early and sat up late, and
   eaten the bread of carefulness. When you went into sin, did you not sin
   with both your hands? Perhaps I speak to some here who could never sin
   enough. When they were in company they were ahead of all
   others--ringleaders in every sort of wickedness. It was not enough for
   them to be as common sinners, but they were known by everybody to be
   the boldest and most daredevil of all the crew. They led the van in the
   march to Hell!

   Ah, Sirs, are you going to manifest all that earnestness in reviling
   and rebelling against God and is there to be no warmth, no ardor, no
   strong excitement of your nature when you seek the Lord and His Grace?
   Think of this and chide your laggard steps! Besides, look, Sirs, how
   can there be anything true about your seeking if it is not
   whole-hearted? Here is a man who almost repents of his sin, or half
   repents of it. Does not that mean that he does not repent of it at all?
   How can there be repentance of a deed to which half the heart is still
   wedded? If only half the heart seems to be separated from sin, it is
   but a seeming--the man's whole heart, in truth, still loves his sin.

   And how can there be half-hearted faith? He that half believes,
   believes not at all. If you say, "I almost believe," where is your
   faith? If you believe with all your heart you may be baptized and added
   to the Church. But if you believe half-heartedly, what sort of faith is
   this? For a man to turn half from sin and half to God, is that
   conversion? No, he has not turned to God who has turned but half to
   God. He abides where he was, only probably he has added hypocrisy to
   his

   other sins. He who leaves half his heart behind him when he comes to
   God comes not at all. "Their heart is divided, now shall they be found
   faulty."

   And also, my Brethren, you that are seeking the Lord, there must be
   whole-heartedness in your seeking because that which you seek, if you
   obtain it, is a whole-hearted thing. Hear how true Christians pray. Do
   they pray with half their hearts? No, for one said, "with my whole
   heart have I sought You." So say all the saints. They know that if they
   ask in a chilly style they are asking to be denied and, therefore, they
   besiege Heaven with all the power of prayer. They knock and knock again
   with fervor and importunity when they would obtain what they need. They
   say with wrestling Jacob, "I will not let You go unless You bless me."
   Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian and if he cannot pray
   without whole-heartedness, then it is clear that to have spiritual
   life, you, O Seeker, must give all your heart to it.

   Obedience to God in the Believer is whole-hearted. What did David say?
   "I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart." There is no doing the
   will of God with half a heart. That would be such an obedience as He
   could not, in any way, accept. It would be a sign of formality and
   hypocrisy, but not of sincerity. Genuine Christians love God with all
   their heart. What is the demand of the old Law, but, "You shall love
   the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul"? To love
   God with half your heart would be another name for not loving God at
   all! Love to God is the proof and test of a Believer, but how can you
   have it if even in your seeking your heart is divided?

   When Believers praise God, they do it in the style of the Psalmist who
   said, "I will praise You, O God, with my whole heart." What other songs
   can have music in them to the ears of the God of Truth? Vain must all
   ten-stringed instruments be if the heart praises not. "Unite my heart
   to fear Your name," said the holy man, and we must pray the same, for
   the Christian life is impossible without wholeness of heart. Only
   imagine for a moment that I were permitted to come here and say to you
   sinners, "God is very easily entreated and if you seek Him, no matter
   in what cold and careless way, He will be found of you. You may be half
   asleep, but yet so long as there is a little desire in your soul, it
   will go well with you. You need not be very earnest or specially
   prayerful, or whole-hearted--you may take it very easy--it will all go
   well with you"?

   What pretty preaching that would be! Some might like it, but what sort
   of Christians should we produce by it? Even when we preach earnestness,
   a great number of professors are drowsy enough! But what would they be
   if we had such a slumbering Gospel as this to preach? I have known
   persons go to sleep in the House of Prayer when the seats have been
   hard. But suppose we provided pillows for all armholes and downy
   cushions for drowsy heads? Who would wonder it you all went to sleep?
   What sort of a Church should we build up if we did not bid the enquirer
   seek with his whole heart, but urged him to be indifferent from the
   very first? Have I not reduced the whole thing to an absurdity? And do
   you not see, at once, that there must be a seeking of the Lord with all
   your heart if, indeed, you are ever to find Him? May the Divine Spirit,
   who comes as a rushing mighty wind and as a consuming fire, come upon
   all wavering hearts at this hour and cause them to be eager after the
   things which make for their peace!

   III. I am going to mention, in the third place, one or two of THE
   HINDRANCES which stand in the way of a sincere, whole-hearted,
   persevering search after the Lord and His salvation. I verily believe
   that a principal hindrance is presumption. The ungodly say within
   themselves, "God is very merciful and ready to forgive. We like to hear
   the preacher set forth the abundant mercy of God. We are pleased to
   hear him show how willing the Father is to forgive and how He delights
   to receive returning prodigals."

   Yes, and after saying this you continue in sin--your mean, dastardly,
   worse than brutish heart resolves to sin because God is merciful! I
   know not how to find adjectives sufficiently strong to set forth the
   degradation of a nature which can multiply offenses because the
   offended One is of a forgiving spirit! How worse than brutish are they
   who say, "Because God is so merciful, therefore we will go on in sin!"
   Are you not ashamed of yourselves? I am sure I am ashamed of you, that
   such a thought should ever dwell in your mind! It is so ungrateful, so
   ungenerous--I was going to say, it is so devilish--but the devil
   himself has never been so guilty, for he has never had any hope of
   mercy!

   To sin because of mercy is a step lower than even the devil has
   descended. Because God is merciful, therefore, you will not seek His
   mercy, but will continue in sin. Ah, be ashamed and be ashamed! You
   hear us continually say that whoever believes in Jesus is not
   condemned. And you say to yourself in the secret of your heart, "This
   is very easy. Only believe, and you shall be saved. Simply put your
   confidence in Christ," and from this you take license to go on in sin!
   Let me put

   this to you again that you may see the meanness of such a course. Do
   you say, "Because the way of salvation is so simple, therefore I will
   not attend to it at present. Any day will do. I will put it off"?

   Oh, Man, can it be that you have fallen so low as this? Oh, the deep
   depravity of your spirit, that if God is so ready to forgive, you are,
   therefore, all the more unready to be forgiven! And because He puts it
   on such easy terms, you, therefore, turn upon your heels and refuse His
   love! What is this but virtually to crucify Christ afresh by sinning
   because He is gracious? What is this but mocking Him and spitting in
   His face by refusing His salvation because it is so free? Oh, do not do
   this! Be not so unmanly, so cruel to yourself, and so ungenerous to the
   Christ of God.

   "Ah," says one, "a few words of prayer at the last will do."--

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

   Ah, I have often wondered how men can venture to speak thus within
   themselves! They seldom talk like that to others because they dare not!
   But they flatter themselves in secret. How do you know that you will
   have the few minutes in which to utter those pious words? "God be
   merciful to me a sinner," may be more than you will be able to say!
   Beware, lest He take you away with a stroke, for then you will not be
   able to raise even the shortest prayer! Some have been smitten down in
   their sins and those have been the very men who said, "Any time will
   do. I can turn to God when I please and make my peace with Him." Many
   men have fallen from a height, or been killed on the railway, or
   drowned at sea, or seized with an epileptic fit and their souls have
   stood in all their naked shame before the bar of God to answer for
   their ungodly speeches! Presumption upon the mercy of God is the reason
   why so many wrap themselves up in the garments of carnal security and
   put far from them the evil day. God deliver you from this great evil!

   Secondly, many are hindered, I doubt not, by remains of
   self-confidence. If they knew that they could not save themselves they
   would be in earnest to seek after God and His righteousness. But they
   still harbor some vain notion that there must be at least a little good
   thing about them, at least a spark--and a great fire may come from a
   spark. They never were as bad as some--they were not swearers or
   drunks--they have never plunged into actual lust and defiled themselves
   with uncleanness. Somewhere or other they have hoarded up a little
   store of native goodness and upon this they dote in a timorous, half
   suspicious way and, therefore, they do not cry out to God with the
   energy of those who must find mercy in Christ or be forever lost.

   He who thinks that he can swim will never seize the life buoy with the
   clutch of a drowning man. How fierce is the grasp of a man who is
   drowning and knows that his fast hold is his only chance! How he
   clutches, as if his fingers were made to be welded to the buoy! When a
   man feels that nothing is left for him but God in Christ, then with
   earnestness he seizes upon the hope set before him! I am afraid that
   some are hindered by a very opposite evil, namely, despair. Ah, some of
   you do not believe that you can be forgiven! You fancy that you never
   can be God's people. If you were quite sure that you could obtain
   perfect peace with God--if you knew that before the sun goes down today
   you might have the bright eye which looks up to Heaven and say, "There
   is a throne there for me," and the placid heart that feels perfect rest
   in Christ--if you knew that these could be yours, would you not seek
   them?

   Well now, I want to read you a verse which comes before my text. And as
   I read it, I pray the Holy Spirit to apply its comfortable assurance to
   your soul. Look at the 11th verse--"For I know the thoughts that I
   think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil."
   Oh, if God's thoughts towards you are good, come to Him now and kiss
   His feet! The prodigal, when he was returning home, did not doubt that
   his father would receive him somehow or other, even if it were as one
   of his hired servants. He knew that he would be received, somehow, and
   he was willing to be received!

   Come, poor Soul, the Lord will receive you, whoever you may be! If with
   your whole heart you do consent at once to trust the Lord Jesus, He
   will receive you! Yes, He will show you how to trust! He will give you
   faith and give you the blessing which your faith seeks. Why should you
   not meet your Lord in these pews this morning? Why, before you descend
   the steps of the Tabernacle, should you not breathe the prayer of faith
   and lean your weight upon the Cross of Christ, and find the mercy which
   our text declares you shall find if you seek it with all your heart?

   Lastly, I am afraid that some people have been kept from whole-hearted
   seeking by the conduct of Christian professors. Let me urge you never
   to take your pattern--you that are coming to Christ--from those who
   profess to be His followers, for some of them are a sorry sort! Yet let
   them be as bad as they may, what is that to you? You have your own soul
   to look after--and you have to seek Christ with all the more
   earnestness because some who think that they have

   found Him have been mistaken! It is a great pity when there are
   Christian people about, or those who say that they are Christians, to
   whom a poor seeking soul is unable to appeal because he would get no
   sympathy from them.

   I heard of one who, being ill, desired someone to visit him,
   occasionally, and pray with him. A young man, a professing Christian,
   was mentioned as one who would willingly do so. "No," said the other,
   "I do not want him to pray with me, for his life does not pray." There
   are people of that sort about, many of them. There are some such here.
   One would not have much faith in their prayers, or derive much comfort
   from their conversation, for, though you may hope, charitably, that
   there may be Grace in them, it is like coal in a pit--it is a long way
   down and hard to get at. Their hearts are lukewarm at the best and,
   therefore, they never boil with warm and loving expressions.

   The genuine and healthy Christian is one who is so full of love that
   his heart boils over with a good matter and others are compelled to
   feel that the fire of God is burning in his soul, for they see and feel
   the effects. O Christian Brothers and Sisters, I do trust that you will
   see to this, because if you are half-hearted, the chill which surrounds
   you will freeze the hearts of many who are seeking the Savior! Father,
   mother, may you not fear that you are hindrances to your children?
   Sunday school teachers, if you go to your class like blocks of ice this
   afternoon, you will have cold attention when you come to talk of
   Christ! If the minister preaches with icicles hanging on his lips, how
   can he expect that men's hearts will be thawed by his icy words? No, we
   must set the example of seeking God with our whole heart--we that are
   His peo-ple--and then God, by the Holy Spirit, will bless our example
   to others and they will come to seek Him with their whole hearts, too.

   The Lord make us to be in downright earnest, so we may hope that toward
   us He will fulfill that ancient promise, "I will give them one heart,
   and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them, and
   of their children after them: and I will make an Everlasting Covenant
   with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I
   will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me.
   Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in
   this land assuredly with My whole heart and with My whole soul."

   Think of God thus blessing us with His whole heart and His whole soul.
   Amen, Lord, so let it be!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 11:1-28. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--427, 594, 605.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Mighty Arm

   (No. 1314)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 17, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You have a mighty arm: strong is Your hand, and high is Your right
   hand." Psalm 89:13.

   WHEN the soul is perfectly reconciled to God and comes to delight in
   Him, it rejoices in all His attributes. At the first, perhaps, it
   dwells almost exclusively upon His love and His mercy, but it
   afterwards proceeds to find joy in the sterner attributes and
   especially delights itself in His holiness and in His power. It is a
   mark of the growth of Christian knowledge when we begin to distinguish
   the attributes and to rejoice in God in each one of them. It betokens
   meditation and thought when we are able to discern the things of God
   and to give to the Lord a Psalm of praise for each one of His glories.
   And it also indicates a growingly intimate communion with the great
   Father when we begin to perceive His adorable Character and to rejoice
   so much in all that He is, that we can take the attributes in detail
   and bless, praise and magnify Him on account of each one of them.

   Under the Jewish Law there were forms of the sacrifices which were of
   the simplest kind, such as the offering of turtle doves or young
   pigeons, which were simply torn asunder and burned upon the altar. But
   there were other and more elaborate rules for the sacrifices which were
   taken from the flock and the herd. These were rightly divided and the
   parts laid in their places--the head, the fat, the inwards, the legs
   and so on--as if to show that although some Believers only know the
   atoning sacrifice as a whole and after a superficial manner, there are
   others still further instructed who look deeper into Divine mystery and
   see the various forms which the great Truths of God assume.

   It is a saving thing to know the Lord God with all your heart, but I
   would, Beloved, that you knew all the varied rays of His pure light.
   That you beheld the many glories of His crown and could rejoice in each
   distinct excellence of His infinite perfection. The subject of this
   morning is the power of God as the subject of adoration. Here, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, we have large scope for thought, for the power of
   God is manifested in connection with all His other attributes. It is
   the cause of all His works and the basis and working force by which His
   kingdom is maintained and Himself revealed.

   How clearly is His power beheld in creation. There, indeed, O Lord,
   "You have a mighty arm." We injure ourselves and dishonor our Creator
   when we pass over His works as if they were beneath the notice of
   spiritual minds. It is perverse on our part to forget the exhortation,
   "What God has created, call not you common." The Psalmist sang
   concerning the creating might of God in verses 11 and 12 of the Psalm
   before us--"The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours: as for the
   world and the fullness thereof, You have founded them. The north and
   the south, You have created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in
   Your name."

   David did not divide between Revelation and Nature. He loved the Word
   of God and meditated therein day and night, but at the same time he
   triumphed in the works of God's hands. In the 104th Psalm he found
   music in rocks and rills, in fowls and fir trees, and rejoiced that the
   Glory of the Lord shall endure forever, the Lord shall rejoice in His
   works. In the 8th Psalm he considered the heavens and burst forth with
   the exclamation, "O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all
   the earth! "With the same feeling I led you to sing this morning that
   child's hymn in which the power of God is reverenced--

   "I sing the almighty power of God, Which made the mountains rise, Which
   spreads the flowing seas abroad, And built the lofty skies."

   The Lord made Job and his friends remember his power as seen in
   creation. Indeed, it was by revealing that one attribute that Job's
   friends were silenced and the Patriarch, himself, was led to cry,
   "Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer

   You?" We ought not to overlook that which had so salutary an influence
   upon others. It is a pity when people become so spiritual that they
   have no eyes whatever for the Lord's power in rivers and mountains, in
   seas and storms--for God has made them all and as in a glass He is
   darkly to be seen in them. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out
   of all them that have pleasure therein."

   I can understand the feeling of some who say, "I prefer spiritual
   preaching and I delight most to read the spiritual parts of the Word of
   God rather than the historical records, and to think of His Grace
   rather than of His wisdom in Nature." But there is a fault about such a
   preference, excellent as it is in one way. It is as though you had a
   friend who was a great artist, and a master in statuary, able to make
   the marble almost live and speak with his magic chisel. You are
   accustomed to call upon this eminent sculptor and it gives you great
   pleasure to talk with him and to associate with his children. But you
   have never gone into his studio, for his masterpieces do not interest
   you.

   Now, this is poor fellowship. If ever you get to be in perfect sympathy
   with your friend, you will be interested in that which interests him,
   and charmed with the various proofs of your friend's powers in design
   and execution. You will study his works for his sake and love him all
   the more because of those wonders of beauty and joy which his hands
   produce. If the Lord thinks fit to display the hand of His power in the
   visible universe, it would ill become any of His children to close his
   eyes to it. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." "All
   the works praise You, O God; but Your saints shall bless You."

   So, too, the power of God is to be seen in Providence--in the
   overruling hand which controls common events. Our sweet singer writes
   in verse 9, "You rule the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof
   arise You still them." God's power is seen in the great phenomena of
   Nature and even in the lesser matters of everyday life. His hand guides
   the fall of every sere leaf and adorns each blade of grass with its own
   drop of dew! But chiefly His way is in the whirlwind and the clouds are
   the dust of His feet. The mighty hand of the Lord is to be seen in the
   events of human history. His power is manifest in courts and armies, in
   the rise and fall of empires, in the growth of nations, or in their
   overthrow. Behold how He broke Egypt in pieces as one that was slain
   and scattered His enemies with His strong arm.

   His people did not refuse to sing of His great power when He smote
   great kings and slew famous kings because His mercy to His people
   endures forever. It ought to be a subject of great joy to all righteous
   souls that the world is not left to itself, or to tyrants. The might is
   with the right, after all, for power belongs unto God. There is a
   Governor and Ruler who is Lord of all and all power is in His hands.
   Have you not often wished more power to the arm of the man who attacks
   insolence and cruelty? Be glad, then, that all power is in the hand of
   the Judge of all the earth, who must and will do right.

   He will not leave bloodshed unavenged, nor suffer wanton cruelty and
   horrible brutality to go unpunished. And if the great ones of the earth
   pass by with indifference, or wink their eye at wicked policy, there is
   an eye that sees and a hand that will mete out stern and sure
   vengeance! In patience possess your souls, O you people of God, for,
   "God reigns over the heathen, He sits upon the Throne of His holiness."
   The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the oppressed forever
   trodden down, for verily the Lord reigns and His power shall defend the
   cause of right. It is another subject for which we have reason, also,
   to adore God, that His power is seen in the ultimate judgement of the
   wicked--a terrible subject upon which I will not enlarge--but one which
   should prostrate us in the dust before His awful majesty.

   There are two flaming jewels of Jehovah's crown which will be terribly
   seen in Hell--His wrath and His power. "What if God, willing to show
   His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering
   the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction?" Righteous indignation and
   Omnipotence will be glorified together in that last tremendous act of
   judgment in which He will separate the righteous from the wicked and
   apportion to the unbelievers their due. "Who knows the power of Your
   anger?" What must be the strength of an angry God! Who shall stand
   against Him when once He stirs up His indignation, when He shall break
   the nations with a rod of iron, and shiver them like potters' vessels?

   "Beware," He said, "you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and
   there be none to deliver." Who shall stand against this great and
   terrible God in the day of His wrath? Who shall endure in that day when
   Mercy's day is over and Justice, alone, sits on her burning throne?
   Neither of these, however, is the subject of this morning, though we
   should not have completed the topic without alluding to them. The
   subject is the power displayed in connection with the mercy

   of God, for so Ethan begins this noble Covenant Psalm: "I will sing of
   the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known Your
   faithfulness to all generations."

   Power in alliance with Grace is our one theme. First, we shall consider
   the mighty power of God in His Grace, as revealed in our experience.
   Secondly, Divine power, as displayed in Christ Jesus. And, thirdly, we
   shall endeavor to reflect upon the same power and consider how it
   should be practically recognized. We must be brief on each point, for
   our time is short.

   I. First, the mighty arm of God displayed in the way of Grace, as
   MANIFESTED IN OUR EXPERIENCE. And, Beloved, remember the Divine
   long-suffering. What a mighty arm of Grace it must have been which held
   back the anger of God while we were in a state of rebellion and
   impenitence! For God to rule the angry sea seems nothing, to me,
   compared with the power which He exercises upon Himself when He endures
   the provocations of ungodly men, the hardness of their hearts, their
   rejection of Christ and, oftentimes, their blasphemous speeches and
   their unclean deeds. O Sinner, when you are sinning with a high hand
   and with an outstretched arm, is it not a wonder of wonders that God
   does not cut you down and end your insolence?

   He said, "Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries." Is it not a marvel
   that He has not eased Himself ofyou and taken you away with a stroke?
   You know how it is with some men--a word and a blow--but it has not
   been so with God. There have been many words of love and many deeds of
   kindness. He has waited long and is waiting now, stretching out His
   hands all day to a disobedient and gainsaying people. What power is
   this which restrains its own power, the power of God over His own
   Omnipotence, so that He does not let His anger flame forth at once and
   devour the ungodly, nor suffer the sword of execution to smite down the
   rebel in the midst of his provocations? Glory be unto Your loving
   kindness and Your long-suffering, O God, for in them we see Your mighty
   self-restraining power!

   But, next, we saw the power of God so as to recognize it when the Lord
   subdued us by His mighty Grace. What Omnipotence is displayed in the
   conquest of every rebellious sinner! By nature the sinner stands out
   very stoutly against God and will not obey His voice. Often he is
   bulwarked round with prejudices and you and I, who seek to convert him,
   are quite unable to reach him. Prejudice is an earthwork into which you
   may fire with the heaviest cannon, but without use, for the balls are
   buried in the earth and no result follows. When men will not see, no
   light can help them, for they willfully close their eyes. When they
   will not hear, the charms of the Gospel are useless, for they have
   resolutely closed their ears.

   It is a wonder of wonders, when, at last, God conquers prejudice and
   the man finds himself where he would have sworn he never would
   be--melted down and penitent at Jesus' feet! If a Prophet had told him
   it would ever be so, he would have said, "You are mad! This cannot be!
   I abhor the very name of it." You have a mighty arm, O God, when
   prejudiced Saul of Tarsus falls down at Your feet and rises to become
   your Apostle! Men are surrounded often with a granite wall of
   obstinacy--they will not yield to the power of Divine Love. Preach as
   you may, they are not to be moved, but remain like an impregnable
   fortress, frowning from its own inaccessible rock, defying all
   assaults.

   You can find no way to get at them. You would be willing, almost, to
   die, if you could capture their hearts for Christ, but they are neither
   to be taken by threats nor by wooing. They are like leviathan whose
   scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. "Can you
   fill his skin with barbed irons, or his head with fish spears?" They
   appear to have no joints to their harness through which the arrow of
   conviction may penetrate. But You have a mighty arm, O God, and Your
   enemies are made to feel Your arrows! Those who were exceedingly stout
   against You have, nevertheless, come crouching at Your feet and have
   become Your servants! Glory be to God, the northern iron and the steel
   become wax at His bidding!

   We have seen some, also, who have been rooted in their habits of sin,
   altogether severed from their old sins. Wonder of wonders, the
   Ethiopian has changed his skin and the leopard has lost his spots, for
   he who was accustomed to do evil has learned to do well! Behold a
   miracle of mighty Grace! The sinner has grown old in sin--like an old
   oak he has become rooted to the earth by a thousand roots. To
   transplant him seemed impossible--it were far easier to cut him down.
   Yet the giant hand of Grace has taken hold of that ancient tree and
   shaken it to and fro by conviction of sin and, at last, it has, by
   conversion, been drawn from its place right up by the roots, so that
   the place which once knew it knew it no more! The rock and soil in
   which it had been imbedded for, perhaps, half a century, were made to
   give way before the upheaving, uprooting force and the man, divided
   from his former life, has been a proof of what the Lord can do!

   The Lord knows how to cleave the mountain and divide the sea and,
   therefore, He can separate men from their darling lusts and teach them
   to cut off right arms and pluck out right eyes rather than perish in
   sin. Truly, Lord, You have a mighty arm! Satan teaches men to defend
   themselves against Grace by bulwarks of pride. They say, "Who is the
   Lord that we should obey His voice?" They lift up their horn on high
   and speak with a stiff neck! They are self-righteous. They are sure
   that they have done no ill--the Gospel is powerless upon them because
   they are so lofty in their looks and insolent in their thoughts. But
   You have a mighty arm, O Lord! You lay proud sinners very low. You make
   them hungry and thirsty and then they cry unto You in their trouble.

   You have a mighty arm among the proud and You bring down their heart
   with labor! They fall down and there is none to help. "He has put down
   the mighty from their seats." Nebuchadnezzar, from saying, "Behold this
   great Babylon that I have built," learned to confess that those who
   walk in pride, the Lord is able to abase. Equally mighty is the Lord to
   overcome despair, for this is another one of the fortresses in which
   sinners entrench themselves against Divine Grace. "There is no hope,"
   they say, "therefore we will give up ourselves to our iniquities." And
   it is almost idle to attempt to convert those who are willfully
   despairing. They resent the consolations of the Bible and reject the
   promises of God.

   And yet the Lord can break the bars of iron and cut the gates of brass
   in pieces! He can bring up the captives from the dungeons of despair
   and set them on a rock! He can put a new song into their mouths and
   make them praise His name forevermore. From the iron cage, the Holy
   Spirit, the Comforter, can set the captives free! All glory be unto His
   name! When God resolves to save the sinner, He will have His will
   without violating the will of man! In a sweet, soft, gentle manner, in
   which the power lies in the gentleness and the force lies in the
   tenderness, the Lord can conquer the most obstinate! He makes the lion
   to lie down with the lamb, so that a little child shall lead it. Thus
   the power of God is seen in the conquest of sinners.

   That power is equally seen in their transformation, for is it not a
   marvel that God should be able to make old and corrupt rebels into new
   creatures in Christ Jesus? Every conversion is a display of
   Omnipotence. To create the world was but half a wonder compared with
   the creation of a right spirit, for there was nothing to hinder when
   God spoke and the world began. But when God speaks to ungodly men there
   is a resisting force which impedes the work and even defies the great
   Worker. There is a darkness and a death. There is a force of evil and
   an inability towards good which must be overcome, yet the Lord makes
   all things new, and causes the new creation to arise in the hearts of
   His people! Verily He has a mighty arm! Glory be to the Lord who only
   does great wonders with a high hand and an outstretched arm!

   Conversion is also called a resurrection. It will be a great feat of
   power when dead carcasses shall live at the sound of the last trumpet,
   but it is an equal wonder when the dry bones of dead sinners come to
   life--when those who were scattered at the grave's mouth, the hopeless,
   graceless, Christless--are, nevertheless, made to live at the sound of
   God's Word by the power of His Spirit. Oh, you that have been new
   created and quickened into newness of life, adore His power today! Who
   but a God could have made you what you are? Consider what you were and
   reflect upon the glorious position to which the Lord has brought you by
   the blood of the Cross!

   Think what rebels you were and how set on mischief your nature was--and
   now, subdued by Sovereign Grace, your spirit longs for His embrace--you
   follow after holiness and seek to have it perfected in the fear of God.
   What a revolution is this! What a turning of things upside down! To
   turn the wilderness into springs of water and the desert into a flowing
   stream is nothing compared with turning the dead, cold, dry heart of
   man into a mighty wellspring of love springing up unto eternal life!
   Glory be to Your power, oh You infinitely mighty Jehovah, You have a
   mighty arm!

   That same power is seen, dear Friends, in the various deliverances
   which the Lord gives to His people at the outset, when their enemies
   come against them so fiercely. Behold, my Brothers and Sisters, how
   strong was the hand of God which delivered us from the bondage of our
   first doubts and fears when conscience accused and the Law condemned!
   When we thought ourselves only waiting for the death guarantee and the
   execution. Behold the Lord has routed our despair, He has set us free
   from fear and brought us into the liberty with which Christ makes men
   free! We were slaves to sin, too, and oh how sin marshaled all its
   armies against us at the first, hoping it might cut off our earliest
   hopes.

   But mighty was that Christ of God who put all our sins to the rout and
   drowned them in the Red Sea of His blood! "There broke He the arrows of
   the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle." Then Satan came
   forth with the most horrible temptations and roared upon us like a
   lion, for he will not willingly lose his subjects. He sought to cast
   about us all his nets, that he might hold us captive and prevent our
   flying to the Divine refuge. But, behold, the prey has been

   taken from the mighty and the lawful captive has been delivered! And we
   are, this day, rescued from the power of sin and Satan. Even the Law,
   itself, has no power over us to condemn us, for Christ has satisfied it
   and we are free.

   Mighty is Your arm, O God! Your own right hand and Your holy arm have
   gotten You the victory! And since then, Beloved, in the continual
   upholding of the saints, in their final perseverance which is
   guaranteed, how much of the power of God is seen! You have passed
   through many troubles, some of you, troubles most heavy and sore, but
   they have not prevailed against you nor overthrown you. "Many are the
   afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord deliverers him out of them
   all." Fierce were the foes that gathered against us, many a time, and
   had not the Lord been on our side they had swallowed us up! But You, O
   Lord, have a mighty arm, and in Your name have we found a refuge.

   They compassed us about like bees, yes, they compassed us about, but in
   the name of the Lord have we destroyed them. Out of what sins and
   temptations have we come forth victorious! With some of you, your path
   has been through the wilderness and through one continuous scene of
   warfare. Snares and traps have been thickly strewn all along your
   path--trials and discouragements have fallen like a storm of hail
   perpetually beating--and yet you are not overthrown! He keeps the feet
   of His saints. The life of any Christian is a world of wonders, but in
   some Believers their experience consists of a series of great miracles.
   "O my Soul, you have trodden down strength." How has our soul escaped
   as a bird from the fowler's snare! The mighty adversaries have been
   overcome by Him who is mightier than all!

   The Divine strength has been manifested in our weakness. My Brothers
   and Sisters, is it not a wonder that being such a poor worm as you are,
   yet you have never been crushed? Is it not a marvel that though your
   faith has been as a bruised reed it has not been broken--and though
   your piety has been like smoking flax it has never been quenched? Kept
   alive with death so near, preserved when enemies have been so fierce,
   will you not say, indeed, "You have a mighty arm, strong is Your right
   hand"? Brethren, the end comes, but it will all be right at last, for
   unless the Lord shall come, we have yet to meet the last grim
   adversary, but we are not afraid! Our Brethren who have gone before us
   have set us an example of how to die triumphantly!

   How gloriously have they triumphed in their last hours! We have stood
   by their side, seen the brightness of their eyes when all around was
   death, and heard their exulting songs when all that looked upon them
   wept at the thought of their departure. Their cheek blanched? Far from
   it! They have been as jubilant in their dying hour as the warrior when
   he divides the spoil. As the bride rejoices on her wedding day, they
   have looked forward to the coming of their great Lord and to their
   being blessed forever in His embrace! We have been ready to cry out
   with them, "O death, where is your sting! O grave, where is your
   victory! "Truly, Lord, when Your poor, weak, suffering people die
   triumphantly, we see that You have a mighty arm!

   When flesh and heart are failing, when friends cannot help, when every
   earthly comfort vanishes--for the heart to still rejoice and
   triumph--this is to see the arm of the Lord made bare and this causes
   us to bless and magnify His holy name! I would to God that I had more
   ability to set forth this majestic subject, but I have done my best. I
   ask your meditations in the quiet of this afternoon to assist me, that
   you may really adore and bless the power which is so conspicuous in
   every vessel of mercy, so revealed in yourself if you are, indeed, a
   child of God! O Holy Spirit, make known to us who believe, the
   exceeding greatness of Your mighty power!

   II. Secondly, let us behold the mighty arm of God as specially
   DISPLAYED IN THE PERSON OF CHRST JESUS. And here will you kindly follow
   me in the Psalm, itself? There you will see that the power of God
   displayed in Jesus Christ, in the choice of Him and the exaltation of
   Him, to be a Prince and a Savior. See verse 19--"I have laid help upon
   One that is mighty; I have exalted One chosen out of the people."
   Christ is the Incarnation of the power of Divine Grace. In Him dwells
   the power of God to save the sons of men and yet in what weakness it
   dwelt! He was a man despised and rejected, lowly and meek, poor and
   without worldly honor. His was the weakness of shame and suffering,
   poverty and dishonor.

   But the power of God was upon Him and is upon Him now. It is a grand
   thing to know that God, by the weakness of man, taking it into
   connection with His own Nature, has routed sin, Satan, death and Hell!
   The battle in the wilderness was between Satan and a Man, tempted as we
   are, but oh, how gloriously that matchless Man overthrew the tempter
   and prevailed! The agony in the Garden of Gethsemane was that of a
   Man--it was a Man, though God, who sweat great drops of blood and
   uttered strong cries and tears, and won the victory by which evil is
   dethroned--and He that met the powers of evil on the Cross and stood
   alone and trod the wine-press till there remained not an uncrushed
   cluster, was a

   Man. It is by His power, even the power of the Man of Nazareth, that
   all the powers of evil have been forever blasted and withered so that,
   though they rebel, it is but a struggling gasp for life.

   As surely as God sits on His Throne, the foot of the Seed of the woman
   shall be upon the serpent's head, to crush it forever. Mighty as were
   the hosts of evil, God has exalted One chosen out of the people and
   laid help upon Him, that He may eternally vanquish all the hosts of
   darkness. Strong is Your right hand, O Savior, for by weakness and
   suffering and death You have overthrown all Your people's foes! His
   power was seen, next, in our Lord's anointing. "I have found David My
   servant, with My holy oil have I anointed him." You know how in His
   preaching there went out of His mouth a sharp two-edged sword with
   which He smote sin because the Spirit of God was upon Him. On the day
   of Pentecost the Spirit bore witness in the entire body of Christ,
   making all His servants speak with tongues of fire the Word of the
   Gospel.

   The Spirit of God is still with Christ on earth in His Church, so that,
   feeble though the speech of His ministers may be, a secret power
   attends it, irresistibly subduing the forces of evil. Rejoice this day,
   Beloved, for the anointing still rests in the Church of God and the
   anointed Redeemer must be victorious in every place. Thanks be unto God
   which causes His Word to triumph in every place by the power of the
   eternal Spirit! We ought, therefore, to adore Jesus Christ as having
   the power of God, because the Holly Spirit is always with Him and with
   His Word and He is, therefore, mighty to save!

   We must equally magnify the power of God because of the continuance of
   the empire of Christ in the world. As said the Psalmist--"with whom My
   hand shall be established, My arm, also, shall strengthen Him. The
   enemy shall not exact upon Him; nor the son of wickedness afflict Him
   and I will beat down His foes before His face and plague them that hate
   Him." These 1,800 years every effort has been put forth to root up the
   Church of Christ. The devil and all his servants on earth have
   conspired to overthrow the growing kingdom of our Lord--but they have
   never succeeded.

   Think, my Brothers and Sisters, what the power of God must be which has
   kept the Church alive under fiery persecutions, rescued it from the
   fangs of the Inquisition, preserved it from the poison of heresy and
   the pestilence of infidelity! And, what is more amazing, enabled it to
   survive the horrible dragon of Popery which has altogether threatened
   to carry away the Church with the blasphemies which it pours out of its
   mouth! Yet the chosen seed live on and are multiplied in the land, even
   as it is promised in the 36th verse of the Psalm before us: "His seed
   shall endure forever, and His Throne as the sun before Me." The
   establishment and continuation of the Church is an extraordinary proof
   of Divine power!

   So are all the conquests of Christ, some of which we have seen and more
   of which are to come. "I will beat down His foes before His face, and
   plague them that hate Him," is the Divine promise. "I will make Him My
   First-Born, higher than the kings of the earth. I will set His hand,
   also, in the sea and His right hand in the rivers." Glory be to God,
   Christ is still triumphant! Still in the preaching of His Truth He
   rides forth conquering and to conquer! The Gospel has not lost its old
   force, but whenever it is preached in faith it wins the day.

   See what power it has in drawing together the multitudes and holding
   them in breathless attention. A man has nothing to do but to preach
   Christ simply, and with all his might, and the people will hear it! We
   need no endowment of the State! We seek no acts of Parliament to help
   us. Give us a clear stage and no favor! An open Bible and an earnest
   tongue--and the people shall yet be awakened and the multitude shall
   bow before the people's King. Jesus Christ is still the mightiest name
   which can be pronounced by mortal tongue! Its all-subduing power shall
   yet be felt in the remotest regions of the earth!

   Beloved, I have not time to do more than say that the great power of
   God's Grace is embodied in Christ's mighty intercession. See verse
   26--"He shall cry unto Me, You are My father, My God, and the rock of
   My salvation." This makes Him mighty to save--"He is able to save them
   to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to
   make intercession for them." I should like to have an hour to expound
   upon the gracious power of God as seen in the intercession of Christ!
   Omnipotence dwells in every plea that falls from those dear lips, as
   the eternal Son pleads His own merits with the everlasting Father!

   Beloved, the power of Christ is well-known to many of you. Did it not
   call you from the dead? Has not it kept you from going down into the
   Pit? Is there not such power in His name that it makes your heart to
   leap? If we speak of anything else, you listen to it and glide into
   sleep. But if you hear about Him, does it not stir the very deeps of
   your soul? Have you not often, when you felt faint and weary, sprung to
   your feet with exultation at the very thought of Him? Has

   not His Presence made your sick bed soft and, what you thought your
   dying couch to be, a throne whereon you sat and reigned as in the
   heavenly places?--

   "Jesus, the very thought of You With transport fills my breast." You
   know it is so! The power of Jesus' name, who can measure it?

   And what will be your sense of His power when you reach another
   world--when He shall have brought you into His rest, even you who were
   so unworthy? When He shall reveal in you all the majesty of His
   goodness? When Heaven shall be yours and all its boundless plains and
   golden streets--and when, looking around, you shall find all your
   Christian Brethren there, without exception, as many as loved the Lord
   below, all safely gathered into the fold at last? What a shout shall
   sound throughout Heaven when the armies of the living God shall
   assemble and find not a soldier missing! They shall read the
   muster-roll and Little Faith shall be found there, and Ready-to-Halt
   shall be there without his crutches, and Miss Much-Afraid shall be
   there, and Mistress Despondency shall be there--each able to answer to
   his or her own name and say, "Here I am."

   Satan has not devoured a single lamb of all the flock, nor slain a
   single man of all the host! All along the line Jesus has been
   victorious! When you shall see the whole host assembled and remember
   the struggles through which each one of them came, the tribulation
   through which they waded to their crowns, you will exclaim with
   rapture, "You have a mighty arm, strong is Your hand, and high is Your
   right hand!" All glory be to Jehovah Jesus, our almighty Savior!

   III. Now this brings me to my conclusion and here we have to answer the
   question--HOW IS THIS POWER TO BE PRACTICALLY RECOGNIZED? If you will
   practically carry out what I say, a few words will suffice. First, if
   the power of God is so great, yield to it. Man, do you hope to resist
   God? Have you an arm like God's and can you thunder with a voice like
   His? Throw down those weapons and cease to wage a hopeless war!
   Capitulate at once, surrender at discretion. Oh, if there is a man here
   who is the enemy of God, I beseech him to count the cost before he
   continues the war, and see whether he is able to brave it out with God!
   Shall wax fight with fire, or twigs contend with the flame? He would go
   through a host of such as you are, O man, as fire burns up the stubble,
   and before you have time to think of it, you shall be utterly
   destroyed!

   "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way when His
   wrath is kindled but a little." The next practical use is this--is God
   so strong? Then trust Him to save you. Never say that He cannot snatch
   you from perdition! Never doubt His power to save, even in extremity. I
   have shown you that He has treasured up His gracious power in the
   Person of His Son Jesus Christ, therefore look unto Jesus Christ and be
   saved! All power lies with Him. He can forgive all sin and He can also
   subdue all iniquity, change the most depraved heart and implant every
   Grace in the soul. "Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah
   is everlasting strength."

   Next, if He is so strong, then trust Him in everything. Oh, you that
   are His people, never dare to distrust Him! Is His arm shortened?
   Cannot the Lord deliver you? Bring your burdens, your troubles, your
   needs, your griefs! Pour them out like water before Him. Let them flow
   forth at the foot of the Almighty and they shall pass away and you
   shall sing, "The Lord is my strength and my song; He also is become my
   salvation." Is God so strong, then shake off all fear of man. Who are
   you that you should be afraid of a man that shall die? Man is but
   grass, withered in an hour--why should you tremble at his frown? He is
   crushed before the moth--why, then, fear him? Let not the faces of
   proud men confuse you. Trust in God and fear not, for the mighty God of
   Jacob is with us and greater is He that is for us than all they that
   can be against us.

   And now as to your service, to which you are called by the Lord. If He
   is so strong, do not think of your own weakness any longer, except as
   being a platform for His strength! Have you only one talent? God's Holy
   Spirit is not limited in power. He can make your one talent as fruitful
   as another man's ten! Are you weak as water? Then rejoice this day and
   glory in infirmity, because the power of God shall rest upon you. Think
   not of what you can do--that is a very small affair--but consider what
   He can do by you! He can strengthen the feeble against the strong!
   Behold, this day, He said unto you, "Behold I will make you a new sharp
   threshing instrument, having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains and
   beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. You shall fan them,
   and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter
   them."

   Last of all, with regard to all the future which lies before you--is
   God so strong? Then commit it to His hands. You have a great trouble to
   face tomorrow--you are expecting a greater trouble, still, at the end
   of the week. Now, be not afraid, for the Lord lives to deliver you.
   What? Do you fear? Has your Counselor perished? Has your Helper failed
   you? How can you sink in the deep waters when underneath you are the
   everlasting arms? The mighty God is your refuge, how can you be in
   danger? Why do you look into the future at all? Sufficient unto the day
   is the evil thereof. God is the God of tomorrow as well as the God of
   today!

   Cease from your troubling, for it weakens you and cannot help you! It
   dishonors your God, your Savior--and thus it is evil! In patience and
   quietness wait for the fulfillment of His promise. Rest in Him and be
   at peace. Stand still and see the salvation of God! O Lord, glorify
   Yourself this morning in both saint and sinner, by manifesting the
   greatness of Your power, for You have a mighty arm. Strong is Your
   hand, and high is Your right hand!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 89. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--205, 89 (PART II), 679, 680.
     __________________________________________________________________

Untitled Sermon

   (No. 1315)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY 16, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came
   down, also, to the saints which dwelt at Lydda. And there he found a
   certain man named Aeneas, which had kept his bed eight years, and was
   sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes
   you whole: arise, and make your bed. And he arose immediately. And all
   that dwelt in Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord." Acts
   9:32-35.

   Upon the occasion of the regular hearers vacating their seats to allow
   strangers to fill the house.

   I MAY not hope that I shall see you all again, and so, as I have the
   opportunity of only preaching one sermon to you, I must make it as full
   as I can of the essence of the Gospel, from beginning to end. We have
   heard of a chaplain who preached in a jail, who selected a subject
   which he divided into two heads. The first part was the sinner's
   disease. This he took for his topic on one Sabbath and closed the
   sermon by saying that he would preach upon the sinner's remedy upon the
   following Sunday. Now, there were several of the prisoners hanged on
   Monday, according to the custom of the bad old times, so that they did
   not hear that part of the discourse which it was most necessary for
   them to hear.

   It would have been well to have told out the great news of salvation at
   once to men so near their end. And I think that in every sermon, if the
   preacher confines himself to one subject, and leaves out essential
   Gospel Truths under the notion that he will preach salvation by Jesus
   another day, he is very unwise, for some of his congregation may be
   dead and gone--alas, some of them lost--before he will have the
   opportunity of coming to the grand and all-important point, namely, the
   way of salvation!

   By the Grace of God we will not fall into that evil tonight! We will
   try to shoot at the very center of our target and preach the plan of
   salvation as completely as we can. And may God grant that His blessing
   may rest on it, the Holy Spirit working with it. I shall only preach
   this one sermon to some of you. You will, therefore, have the greater
   patience with me as I shall not inflict myself upon you again. But, if
   we are to have only one communication with each other, let us come to
   real practical business and waste no time. A good deal of
   sermon-hearing is mere trifling--let us come to matter-of-fact
   preaching and hearing at this time!

   I am afraid that some sermon preaching is playing, too--fine words and
   oratorical fireworks--but no agony for souls. We mean business tonight!
   My heart will not be satisfied unless many of you who came in here
   without Christ shall go down those steps saved by His atoning blood!
   Bitter will be my disappointment if many do not lay hold of Jesus and
   realize in their own souls, Peter's words, "Jesus Christ makes you
   whole." I have faith in the great Physician that many of you will go
   away whole tonight though you were sin-sick when you came into this
   House of Prayer. Much supplication has gone up to Heaven for this and
   the Lord hears prayer--therefore do I reckon that miracles of healing
   will surely be worked in this house on this occasion!

   To the point, then! Peter came to Lydda and found one who bore the
   classic name of Aeneas. He was no mighty warrior, however, but a poor
   paralyzed man who had been confined to his bed for eight long years.
   Touched with a sight of the man's feebleness, Peter felt the impulse of
   the Spirit upon him and, looking at him as he lay there, he said,
   "Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you whole: arise, and make your bed."
   Touched by the same Spirit who inspired the Apostle, the man believed
   the message--believed that Christ had healed him--at once rose and made
   his bed and in an instant was perfectly restored!

   Now let us hear something about this man. We are not to hear Virgil
   sing, "arms and the man," but we are to let Luke tell us of the man and
   his Savior.

   I. In the first place, then, it is very clear that THE MAN WAS TRULY
   SICK. Had he not been really sick, the incident before us would have
   been all a fake--a feint and a pretence from beginning to end--but he
   was hopelessly infirm. He had been anxiously watched by his friends for
   eight years and was so completely palsied that during all those years
   he had not left his bed, which had grown hard as a stone beneath him.
   Now, as there is no room for a great cure unless there is a great
   sickness, so there is no room for God's great Grace unless there is
   great sin! Jesus Christ did not come into the world to save sham
   sinners, but real sinners--neither did He descend from Heaven to seek
   those who are not diseased with sin, for the whole have no need of a
   physician--but He has come to seek those who are deeply diseased and to
   give them real healing.

   This man's sickness was no imaginary ill, for he could not move. His
   hands and feet were quite paralyzed. If in any limb there was a measure
   of motion, it was only a tremulous quiver, which rather indicated
   growing weakness than remaining force. He was bereaved of all strength.
   Are you such by nature, my Friend, in a spiritual sense? Certainly you
   are so--but have you found it out? Has the Spirit of God made you feel
   that you can do nothing aright apart from Him and that you are
   altogether ruined and palsied unless Jesus Christ saves you? If so, do
   not despair because you feel how terribly your soul is smitten!

   But, on the contrary, say to yourself, "Here is room for mercy in me.
   If ever a soul needed healing, I do. Here is space for Divine power to
   operate in me, for if ever a soul was weak and palsied, I am just that
   soul." Be cheered with the hope that God will make your infirmity a
   platform upon which He will display His power! The man had been
   paralyzed eight years. The length of its endurance is a terrible
   element in a disease. Perhaps yours is no eight years' malady, but 28,
   or 38, or 48, or 78--perhaps 88 years you have been in bondage! Well,
   blessed be God, the number of years in which we have lived in sin
   cannot prevent the mercy of God in Christ Jesus from making us whole!
   You have a very long bill to discharge, while another friend has but a
   short one and owes comparatively little--but it is just as easy for the
   creditor to write, "paid," at the bottom of the large bill as the
   smaller one.

   And now that our Lord Jesus Christ has made full Atonement, it is as
   easy for God to pardon the iniquities of 80 years as the sins of the
   child of eight. Be not despairing, then, Jesus Christ can make such as
   you are whole, even though your heart and your understanding have been
   long paralyzed with sin. The man's disease was one which was then
   reckoned to be, and probably is now, entirely incurable. Who can
   restore a palsied man? Aeneas could not restore himself and no merely
   human physician had skill to do anything for him. Dear Hearer, has the
   Spirit of God made you feel that your soul's wound is incurable? Is
   your heart sick? Is your understanding darkened? Do you feel your whole
   nature to have become paralyzed with sin and there is no physician?

   Ah, I know there is none among men, for there is no balm in Gilead,
   there is no physician there! There never was, or else the daughter of
   my people would have been healed of her hurt long ago. There is no soul
   physician except at Calvary! No balm but in the Savior's wounds! If you
   feel that you are incurably soul-sick and the case is desperate unless
   Infinite Mercy shall interpose, then I am glad that you are here
   tonight. I am glad that there is such a one as Aeneas present! Do you
   know that the most delightful task in the world is to preach to those
   who consciously need the Savior? Mr. Whitfield used to say that he
   could wish to preach all day and all night long to those who really
   knew that they needed Christ.

   We are bound to preach to everybody, for our Master said, "preach the
   Gospel to every creature" under Heaven. But, oh, when we can get at a
   knot of hungry souls, it is easy and pleasant work to feed them with
   the Bread of Heaven! And when hearts are thirsty, it is sweet work to
   hand out the Living Water, for they are all eager to take it! You know,
   the great difficulty is that you can bring a horse to the water, but
   you cannot make him drink if he is not thirsty--and so you may set
   Jesus Christ before men, but if they do not feel their need of Him they
   will not have Him. You may preach in tones of thunder, or plead with
   accents of intense affection, but you cannot stir them to desire the
   Grace which is in Christ Jesus unless they feel their need of it.

   Oh, I am happy tonight--thrice happy--if anywhere in this house there
   is an Aeneas who is sick and knows that he is sick! Who knows his
   disease to be incurable, laments that he is palsied and can do nothing
   and longs to be healed by Divine power, he is the man who will welcome
   the glad news of the Gospel of Free Grace! The man was really sick and
   so are you, my Hearer! Your sins are great, your sinfulness of nature
   is grievous and your case is beyond reach of human

   skill.

   II. In the second place, THIS MAN, AENEAS, KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT JESUS
   because, otherwise, when

   Peter said, "Jesus Christ makes you whole," Aeneas might have earnestly
   enquired what he meant, and could not intelligently have acted upon
   what he could not comprehend. He could not have believed what Peter
   said because he would not have understood his meaning. Mere words,
   unless they appeal to the understanding, cannot be useful. They must
   convey light as well as sound, or they cannot breed faith. When Peter
   said, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you whole," I have no doubt that
   Aeneas remembered what he had heard about Jesus Christ and His wondrous
   life and death.

   Now, lest there should be one in this congregation who does not know
   Jesus Christ, and does not understand how it is that He is able to heal
   sin-sick souls, let us briefly tell the old, old story over again.
   "Jesus Christ," translated into English, means, "Savior anointed." Who
   is He? He is the Son of the Highest, very God of very God! And when we
   were lost in sin, He who is called the Son of God, laid aside His most
   Divine array and came here to be dressed like ourselves in this poor
   flesh and blood! In the manger He lay as an infant, and on a woman's
   breast He hung a feeble Babe. The God who stretched forth the heavens
   like a tent to dwell in and dug the deep foundations of the earth, came
   down to earth to take upon Himself our nature and to be born of a
   woman!

   Oh, matchless stoop of unbounded condescension that the Infinite should
   be an Infant and the Eternal God should conceal Himself within the form
   of a Babe! This marvel was performed that we might be saved! Being
   here, the Lord of angels lived some 30 years or so among men. He spent
   the earliest part of His life as a carpenter's son, obedient to His
   father and He was, throughout the whole of His earthly sojourn obedient
   to His Father, God. Inasmuch as we had no righteousness, for we had
   broken the Law, He was here to make a righteousness for us and He did
   so. But there was also needed an atonement, for we had sinned, and
   God's judgment demanded that there should be punishment for sin.

   Jesus stepped in as the Surety and the Substitute for the guilty sons
   of men! He bared His back to the lash of Justice and opened His breast
   to her lance, and died that sinners might live! The Just for the
   unjust, He died that He might bring us to God--

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

   Now, when He had thus lived and died, they placed His body in the tomb,
   but He rose again on the third day and He is yet alive! And by this
   Man, Christ Jesus, who is risen from the dead, is preached unto the
   nations the remission of sins. For after 40 days this same Jesus, who
   had been dead and buried, rose into the heavens in the presence of His
   disciples, ascending till a cloud concealed Him from their sight. And
   He now sits at the right hand of God, even the Father, pleading, there,
   the merit of His blood, making intercession for sinners that they may
   be reconciled to God.

   Now, Beloved, this is the story that we have to tell you, with the
   addition that this same Jesus is coming again to judge the quick and
   the dead, for He is Lord of all! He is, at this hour, the Mediator
   appointed by the infinitely glorious Jehovah, having power over all
   flesh that He may give eternal life to as many as Jehovah has given Him
   and this we beseech you to consider, lest when He comes as a Judge you
   should be condemned at His bar. Aeneas had heard, more or less, of
   these great facts. The story of the Incarnate God had come to his ears
   by some means or other, and Aeneas understood that though Jesus Christ
   was not in the room, and there was only Peter and a few friends there,
   and though Jesus Christ was not on earth, but was gone to Heaven, yet
   His power on earth was the same as ever it was.

   He knew that Jesus could work miracles from Heaven as well as when He
   was here below. He understood that He who healed the palsy when He was
   here, could heal the palsy now that He has risen to His Throne. And so
   Aeneas believed in Jesus Christ from what he had heard, simply trusting
   in Him for healing. By means of that faith Aeneas was made whole! I
   will very earnestly dwell on that point for a second or two. I am
   persuaded that in this congregation all of you know the story of Jesus
   Christ Crucified. You have heard it on the Sabbath from the pulpit.
   Your children sing it when they come home from Sunday school.

   You have a Bible in every house, and you read the "old, old story" in
   the plain but sublime language of our own noble version. But, oh, if
   you have heard it and know it, how is it that you have not drawn from
   it the same inference that this poor paralyzed man did? How is it that
   you have no faith? Jesus lives! He sits on Zion's hill! He still
   receives poor sinners! Jesus lives "exalted on high to be a Prince and
   a Savior, to give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins." He can
   heal you, now, and save you, now, as well as if you met Him in the
   street, or saw Him standing at your door knocking for admittance. I
   would to God that this inference were drawn by you all!

   III. We have got this far--the man was sick and the man knew something
   about Christ. And now came the most important point of all--THE MAN
   BELIEVED ON THE LORD JESUS. Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ
   makes you whole." The man did not believe in Peter as the healer, for
   you notice Peter does not say anything about himself. Peter does not
   say, "As the head of the Church, I, by power delegated to me, make you
   whole." There is no allusion to any such claim! Peter preached too
   clear a Gospel for that! That is the purest Gospel which has the least
   of man in it and the most of Christ. I charge you, men and women, do
   not listen to that teaching which sets the priest in front of the
   Savior, or even by the side of the Savior, for it is false and ruinous!

   Your forefathers, Englishmen--your forefathers bled and died that they
   might never submit to that vile superstition which is being now
   propagated by a considerable party in the Established Church of this
   once Protestant land! No man beneath the sky has more power to save
   your soul than you have yourself! And if any presumptuous priest tells
   you that he has, do not believe him, but despise his claims! An old
   woman asks me to cross her hand with a sixpence and says that she will
   tell my fortune. I am not such a fool! And if another person dressed in
   robes, which are not quite so becoming to him as a red cloak is to an
   old woman, tells me that he can regenerate my child, or forgive my
   sins, I treat him with the same contempt and pity as that with which I
   treat the wicked hag! I believe in neither the one imposter nor the
   other!

   If ever you are saved you must be saved by Jesus Christ, alone, through
   your own personal belief in Him--certainly not by the intervention of
   any man, or set of men--hail they from whatever Church they will! May
   God send the Pope and the priesthood and all their detestable deceits
   down in this land, forever, and may His Christ be exalted! As this man
   had no faith in any supposed power coming from Peter, much less had he
   any faith in himself, neither did he look within himself for hope. He
   did not say to Peter, "But I do not feel strength enough to get well."
   Neither did he say, "I think I feel power enough to shake off this
   palsy."

   He said neither the one nor the other! Peter's message took him off
   from himself. It was, "Aeneas, JESUS CHRIST makes you whole! It is not
   that you have stamina in your constitution and rallying points about
   your bodily system. No, Aeneas, you are paralyzed. You can do nothing.
   But Jesus Christ makes you whole." That was what the man had to believe
   and it is very much what you, also, my dear Hearer, must believe. With
   his faith Aeneas had the desires which showed that it was not mere
   speculation, but solid practical believing. He anxiously wished to be
   made whole. Oh, that sinners anxiously wished to be saved! Oh, that
   yonder angry man wished to be cured of his bad temper! Oh, that yonder
   covetous man wished to be cured of his avarice! Oh, that yonder lustful
   man wished to be cured of his uncleanness! Oh, that yon drunk wished to
   be cured of his excess! Oh, that men really wanted to get rid of their
   sins!

   But no. I never heard of men reckoning a cancer to be a jewel, but
   there are many men who look upon their sins as if they were gems which
   they keep as hidden treasures so that they will sooner lose Heaven than
   part with their lustful pleasures! Aeneas wanted to be made whole and
   was ready to believe, when Peter spoke to him about Jesus Christ. And
   what did Aeneas believe? He believed--and may you believe the
   same!--first, that Jesus could heal him, could heal him, Aeneas. John
   Brown, do you believe that Jesus Christ can cure you? I do not care,
   John, what your faith is about your wife's case--it is about yourself
   that you need faith! Jesus Christ is able to save you--you, Aeneas.
   You, John Brown. You, Thomas. You, Sarah. You, Mary. He is able to save
   YOU. Can you grip that, and reply, "Yes, He is able to save ME"?

   And Aeneas believed that Jesus Christ was able to save him then and
   there, just as he was. He had not taken a course in medicine. He had
   not been under hypnotism to strengthen his nerves and sinews and
   prepare him to be cured, but he believed that Jesus Christ could save
   him without any preparation, just as he was, then! Immediately with a
   present salvation! When you think what Christ is and what He has done,
   it ought not to be difficult to believe this. But truly, God's power
   must be revealed before your soul will believe this unto salvation. Yet
   it is true that Jesus Christ can heal and can heal at once. Whatever
   the sin is, he can cure it.

   I mentioned a whole set of sins just now. The scarlet fever of pride,
   the loathsome leprosy of lust, the shivering ague of unbelief, the
   paralysis of avarice--He can heal all with a word, instantaneously,
   forever, completely, right now! Yes, Sinner, He can heal you NOW.
   Aeneas believed that. He believed and, as he believed, Jesus made him
   whole! Oh, I wish I could, tonight so preach the Gospel that my Lord
   and Master would lead many unbelievers to believe in Him! O Holy
   Spirit, work with the Word! Sinner, do you need forgiveness? Christ has
   worked it out! Every sin that you have done

   shall be forgiven you for His name's sake if you trust Jesus to do it.
   Do you see your sins like a great army pursuing you? Do you think they
   will swallow you up? Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him, will make an
   end of them all!

   You have read in Exodus how Pharaoh and his hosts pursued the tribes of
   Israel and the people were terribly alarmed. But early in the morning
   they were no more afraid, for Miriam took her timbrel and the daughters
   of Israel went forth with her in dance and they sang, "Sing unto the
   Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider has He
   thrown into the sea." One of the most magnificent notes in that
   marvelous song was this. "The depths have covered them: there is not
   one of them left." The damsels took up the refrain, and sang, "Not one,
   not one, not one! The depths have covered them: there is not one of
   them left."

   Now, if you believe in Jesus, the whole army of your sins shall sink
   beneath the sea of His blood and your soul shall sing, "The depths have
   covered them: there is not one of them left!" Such shall be your song
   tonight, if you are enabled to believe in Jesus Christ, God's crucified
   Son. But do not think that we preach about the pardon of past sins
   only, because if a man could get his past sins pardoned and go on as he
   did before, it would be so much the worse for him. Pardon of sin,
   without deliverance from its power, would be rather a curse than a
   blessing! But wherever sin is pardoned, God breaks the neck of its
   power in the soul.

   Mind you, we do not tell you that Jesus Christ will forgive the past
   and then leave you to live the same life as be-fore--but we tell you
   this--whatever the sin is that is now a disease to you, Jesus Christ
   can heal you of it! He can save you from the habit and power of evil
   doing and thinking. I will not attempt to go into details. There are
   people coming into the tabernacle on ordinary occasions and so I dare
   say there may be tonight. How often has there come in a man to whom I
   might say, "Put out your tongue, Sir. Ah, I see red spots, and black
   spots, for you are a liar and a swearer." Can my Master heal such a
   diseased tongue as that? Yes, trust Him tonight and He will make you
   truthful and purge you from your profanity!

   But here is another I dare not describe. Look at him! He has lived an
   unchaste life and strong are his passions! He says, "Can I ever be
   recovered from my vile desires?" Oh, Sir, my Lord can lay His hand on
   that hot heart of yours and cool it down to a sweet sobriety of
   chastity! And you, fallen woman, do not think that you are beyond His
   powers! He shows Himself mighty to save such as "the woman that was a
   sinner." Ah, if you are a slave to vile sins, Jesus can give perfect
   freedom from vicious habits. You, young man, there, you know that you
   have fallen into many sins which you dare not mention--they coil about
   your heart and poison your life like serpents writhing within your
   conscience.

   My Lord can take them all out of the soul and deliver you from the
   results of their fiery venom. Yes, He can make you into a new creature
   and cause you to be born-again! He can make you love the things which
   you once hated and hate the things which you once loved! He can turn
   the current of your thoughts in quite another way. You see Niagara
   leaping down its awful height and you say, "Who can stop this?" Yes,
   indeed, who can stop it? My Master can! If He speaks to the Niagara of
   your lusts and says, "Cease your raging!" they will cease at once! Yes,
   if He bids the waters of desire leap up instead of down, you shall be
   as full of love to Christ as once you were full of love to sin!

   He made the sun to stand still and caused the moon to pause upon the
   hill of Gibeah and He can do all things. Spoke He not the world out of
   nothing? And can He not create new hearts and right spirits in the
   souls of men who have been far off from Him by wicked works? He can do
   so and, blessed be His name, He will! The world of your mind is as much
   beneath His control as that of matter. If you believe, O man, to you I
   may say as Peter did to Aeneas, "Jesus Christ makes you whole."

   IV. Well, now, let us pass on to notice, next, that the MAN WAS MADE
   WHOLE. There was no counterfeit about it. He was made whole and made
   whole then and there! Just fancy, for a minute, what would have been
   the result if he had not been made whole. What dishonor it would have
   been to Peter! Peter said, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you whole"-- but
   there lies Aeneas as palsied as before! Everybody would say, "Peter is
   a false witness." Well now, I will not say that the preacher of the
   Gospel must see souls saved or else he is a false witness. I will not
   say that, but I will say that if ever my ministry, under God, does not
   save souls, I will give it up! For it seems to me that if we do not
   bring souls to Christ we preachers are just good for nothing.

   What are we, if we do not turn many to righteousness? We are reapers
   who never reap, soldiers who never win a battle, fishermen who take no
   fish and lights which enlighten no one! These are sad but true
   comparisons. Do I address any unsuccessful minister? I would not speak
   harshly to him, but I would speak very severely to myself if I were in
   his case. I

   remember the dream of a minister. He thought that he was in Hell and,
   being there, he was dreadfully distressed and cried out, "Is this the
   place where I am to be forever? I am a minister." A grim voice replied,
   "No, it is lower down for unfaithful ministers, much lower down than
   this." And then he awoke. Ah, and if we do not agonize till souls are
   brought to Christ, we shall have to agonize to all eternity!

   I am persuaded of it--we must have men saved, or else we shall be like
   Peter would have been if he had said, "Jesus Christ makes you whole,"
   and the man had not been made whole--we shall be dishonored witnesses.
   What dishonor would have been brought upon the name of Jesus if the man
   had not been made whole! Suppose, my dear fellow Sinner, you were to
   believe in Jesus Christ and yet were not saved--what then? Oh, I do not
   like to suppose it, for it is almost a blasphemy to imagine it! But
   yet, consider it for a moment. Believe in Jesus and not be saved? Then
   He has broken His word, or lost His power to save, either of which we
   are unwilling to tolerate for a minute! If you believe in Jesus Christ,
   as surely as you live, Jesus Christ has saved you!

   I will tell you one thing--if you believe in Jesus Christ and you are
   damned, I will be damned with you! Come! I will risk my soul on that as
   surely as you will risk yours, for if the Lord Jesus Christ ever loses
   a soul that trusts Him, He will lose mine! But He never will, He never
   can--

   "His honor is engaged to save

   The meanest of His sheep.

   All that His heavenly Father ga ve,

   His hands securely keep."

   Rest in Him and you shall be saved, else were His name dishonored! And
   suppose that, like Aeneas, you trusted Christ-- if you were not saved,
   what then? Why, then the Gospel would not be true! Shut up those
   Churches, close those Chapels, banish those ministers, burn those
   Bibles--there is no truth in any of them if a soul can believe in Jesus
   and yet not be saved!

   The Gospel is a lie and a counterfeit, if it is true that any poor
   sinner can put his trust in Jesus and not be healed of his sins, for
   thus said the Lord of old, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast
   out." This is His last word to His Church, "Go you into all the world
   and preach the Gospel to every creature: he that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned." If men
   believing are not saved from the power of sin, then the Gospel is not
   true and we are sent on a fool's errand! But they are saved, blessed be
   the name of God, and the Gospel is the Truth of God itself!

   Oh, my dear Hearer, gladly would I urge you to put your trust in Jesus
   Christ tonight, by the experience which I and other Believers have
   enjoyed. Some of us have relied on the name of the Redeemer and He has
   saved us. We shall never forget the day, some of us, when we left off
   self-righteousness and believed in Christ to the salvation of our
   souls. The marvel was done in a minute, but the change was so great
   that we can never explain it, or cease to bless the Lord for it--

   "Happy day! Happy day! When Jesus washed my sins a way." I remember the
   morning when salvation came to me as I sat in a little Primitive
   Methodist chapel under the gallery and the preacher said, "That young
   man looks unhappy." He added, "Young man, you will never find peace
   except you look to Christ!" And he called out to me, "Look!" With a
   voice of thunder he shouted, "Young man, look! Look now!"

   I did look, I turned the eye of faith to Jesus at once! My burden
   disappeared and my soul was merry as a bird let loose from her cage,
   even as it is now as often as I remember the blessed salvation of Jesus
   Christ! We speak what we know. Ours is no hearsay or second-hand
   testimony. We speak what we have felt and tasted and handled, and our
   anxiety is that you may know and feel the same! Remember, my dear
   Hearer, that the way to use the Gospel is to put it to yourselves like
   this. What is your name? I said, "John Brown," just now, did I not?
   Suppose it is John Brown, then. Well, the Gospel says, "He that
   believes on the Lord Jesus Christ has everlasting life."

   Then it means, "If John Brown believes on Jesus he has everlasting
   life." "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." "Then I, John
   Brown, believing and being baptized, shall be saved." Lay hold of it in
   that way. Perhaps you say, "But may I put my name to a promise and
   appropriate it in that fashion?" Yes, you may, because there is nothing
   in the Bible to say that your name was left out from the list of those
   to whom the promise is made! If I were a beggar in the streets and were
   very hungry and I heard that there was a gentleman who was giving a
   good meal away and that he had advertised that any beggar might come, I
   do not think I should say, "Well, my name is not down on his list." I
   should go

   immediately unless I found that he inserted an excluding clause,
   "Charles Spurgeon shall not have any of the food I distribute," but not
   till then.

   Until I read in black and white that he excluded me I should run the
   risk and get in with the other hungry folk. Until he shuts me out, I
   would go. It should be his deed and not mine that kept me from the
   feast. Sometimes you say, "But I am not fit to go to Christ." The
   fittest way to go to Christ is to go just as you are! What is the best
   clothes to wear when you go begging? I remember a long time ago, when I
   lived not far from here, in the extremeness of my greenness, I gave a
   man who begged at the door a pair of patent leather boots. He put them
   on and expressed great gratitude. But I met him afterwards, and I was
   not at all surprised to find that he had pulled them off. They were not
   at all the style of things to go about begging in.

   People would look at him and say, "What? You needing shoes while
   wearing those handsome boots? Your tale won't do." A beggar succeeds a
   deal better barefoot than in fine shoes! Rags are the dress of beggars!
   When you go and beg for mercy at the hand of God, do not put on those
   pretty righteousnesses of yours, but go with all your sin and misery,
   and emptiness and wretchedness, and say, "Lord, here I am. You have
   said that Christ is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto
   You by Him. I am a soul that needs saving to the uttermost and here I
   am. I have come. Lord, save me."

   Now, summing all up. This is what you have to do, Sinner, in order to
   be saved tonight. Simply believe in Jesus Christ. I saw a young woman
   from America in the vestry some little time ago who came in great
   concern of soul to know the way of salvation. And I said to her, "Can't
   you see it? If you trust Christ, you are saved." I quoted the
   Scriptures which teach this great Truth of God and made them plain to
   her, until the Holy Spirit opened her eyes! Light came on her face in a
   moment and she said, "I do see it! I trust Christ with all my heart!
   And I am to believe that I am saved because I trust Jesus and He has
   promised to save Believers?" "Yes," I replied, "you are getting on the
   Rock, now."

   "I feel," she said, "a deep peace beginning in my soul, but I cannot
   understand how it can be, for my grandfather belonged to the old school
   Presbyterians and he told me he was six years before he could get
   peace. He had to be put into a lunatic asylum, for he was so
   miserable." Ah, yes, I have no doubt such cases have happened. Some
   will go 17,000 miles round about merely to go across a street, but
   there is no need for it. There it is--"The word is near you, on your
   lips and in your heart. If with your heart you will believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and with your mouth make confession of Him, you shall be
   saved."

   There is nothing to be done, there is nothing to be felt! There is
   nothing to be brought. No preparation is needed. Come just as you are
   and trust Christ to save you and this night you shall be saved! God's
   honor and Christ's Word are pledged to it!

   V. This is the last thing. WHEN AENEAS WAS HEALED HE ACTED IN
   CONFORMITY THEREWITH. "Peter

   said unto him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you whole: arise, and make
   your bed." He did so. He rose directly and made his bed. Now, if any of
   you say, tonight, "I have believed in Jesus," remember you are bound to
   prove it. How prove it? Why, if you have believed in Jesus, you are
   made whole and you are to go home and show people how whole you are.
   This man was palsied and had been lying there prostrate eight years. He
   could never make his bed, but he proved he was healed by making his bed
   for himself!

   Perhaps there is a man here who, when he has entered his house, has
   generally opened the door with an oath. If there is such a person here,
   and Christ saves you--He will wash your mouth out for you. You will
   have done with profane language forever! Your wife will be surprised,
   when you go home, to hear how differently you talk. Perhaps you have
   been used to mix with rough companions in your work and you have talked
   as they have done. If Jesus Christ has made you whole, there is an end
   to all filthy speaking. Now you will talk graciously, sweetly, cleanly,
   profitably. In years gone by you were angry and passionate. If Jesus
   Christ has made you whole, you will be as tender as a lamb. You will
   find the old lion lifting his head and giving an occasional roar and a
   shake of his mane, but then he will be chained by the restraints of
   Grace, while the meek and gentle lamb of the new nature will feed in
   pastures wide and green!

   Ah, if the Lord has saved you, the drunk's ale bench will have no more
   of you, for you will need better company than the seats of scoffers can
   afford you. If the Lord saves you, you will want to do something for
   Him, to show your grateful love. I know this very night you will long
   to tell your children and tell your friends, that Jesus Christ has made
   you whole. John Bunyan says that when he was made whole, he wanted to
   tell the crows on the plowed land about it. I do not

   wonder that he did. Tell anybody, tell everybody, "Jesus Christ has
   saved me." It is a sensation, the like of which no man can imagine, if
   he has not felt it, to be made a new creature right away, in a moment!

   That surprises all who see it and as people like to tell news--strange
   news--so does a new-born man long to go and tell others, "I have been
   born-again--I have found the Savior!" Now, mark, you will have to prove
   that this is so by an honest, upright, consistent, holy life--not,
   however, by being merely sternly honest. If Christ has saved you, He
   will save you from being selfish. You will love your fellow men. You
   will desire to do them good. You will endeavor to help the poor. You
   will try to instruct the ignorant. He who truly becomes a Christian
   becomes, in that very day, a practical philanthropist. No man is a true
   Christian who is not Christ-like--who can live for himself alone, to
   hoard money or to make himself great. The true Christian lives for
   others. In a word, he lives for Christ. If Christ has healed you,
   gentle compassion will saturate your soul from this time forth and
   forever! O Master, You who did heal men's bodies in the days of Your
   flesh, heal men's hearts tonight, we pray You!

   Still this word more. Somebody says, "Oh, I wish I had Christ!" Soul,
   why not have Him at once? "Oh, but I am not fit." You never will be
   fit! You cannot be fit, except in the sense in which you are fit even
   now. What is fitness for washing? Why, being dirty! What is fitness for
   alms? Why, being in distress! What is fitness for a doctor? Why, being
   ill! This is all the fitness that a man needs for trusting in Christ to
   save him! Christ's mercy is to be had for nothing! Bribe or purchase is
   out of the question!

   I have heard of a woman whose child was in a fever and needed grapes.
   There was a prince who lived near, in whose hothouse there were some of
   the rarest grapes that had ever been grown. She scraped together the
   little money she could earn and went to the gardener and offered to buy
   a bunch of the royal fruit. Of course he repulsed her and said they
   were not to be sold. Did she imagine that the prince grew grapes to
   sell like a market gardener? And he sent her on her way, much grieved.
   She came again. She came several times, for a mother's importunity is
   great. But no offer of hers would be accepted.

   At last the princess heard of it and wished to see the woman. And when
   she came, the princess said, "The prince does not sell the fruit of his
   garden," but, snipping off a bunch of grapes and dropping them into a
   little bag, she said, "He is always ready to give it away to the poor."
   Now, here is the rich cluster of Gospel salvation from the true Vine!
   My Lord will not sell it, but He is always ready to give it away to all
   who humbly ask for it! If you want it, come and take it and take it now
   by believing in Jesus! The Lord bless you for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 55. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--100 (VER. I); 982, 992.
     __________________________________________________________________

Why the Heavenly Robes are White

   (No. 1316)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 24, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
   their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" Revelation
   7:14.

   OUR curiosity inquires into the condition of those who have newly
   entered Heaven. Like fresh stars they have lit up the celestial
   firmament with an added splendor. New voices are heard in the choir of
   the redeemed. In what condition are they at the moment of their
   admission to the heavenly seats? Their bodies are left behind, we know,
   to decay back to Mother Earth, but how fare their unclothed immortal
   spirits? What now occupies those pure and perfect minds? We are not
   left in the dark upon this matter--our Lord Jesus Christ has brought
   immortality and life to light--and in the words of our text and the
   preceding and following verses we are informed as to these new comers,
   these recruits for the Church triumphant!

   Were our text properly translated it would run thus--"these are they
   that come out of great tribulation," or who "are coming"--in the
   present tense. If the word does not distinctly refer to those who have
   "just come," it certainly includes such. Those who "come" are those who
   have come and those who shall come, but it must also include those who
   are, at this moment, arriving. These are they those whom I venture to
   call Heaven's new-born princes, her fresh blooming flowers whose
   beauty, for the first time, is seen in Paradise. Lo, I see the newly
   departed passing through the river of Death, ascending the other shore
   and entering in through the gates into the City.

   What are these new comers doing? We find that they are not kept waiting
   outside, nor put through a quarantine, nor cast into purgatorial
   fires--but as they arrive from great tribulation they are at once
   admitted to holy fellowship. Therefore are they before the Throne of
   God--dwelling in the courts of the Great King--to go no more out
   forever. Earthly courtiers only stand, at times, in their monarch's
   presence, but these abide forevermore before the Throne of God and of
   the Lamb, favored to behold the face of God without a veil between and
   to see the King in His beauty in the land that is very far off.

   How quickly has earth faded from their minds and Heaven's Glory flashed
   upon them! The sick bed and the weeping friends are gone--the Throne of
   their God and Savior fills the whole field of their delighted vision!
   They are arrayed for holy service, and arrayed at once, for they wear
   white robes fitted for their priestly service. It is true they have no
   material bodies, but in some mystic sense which is applicable to the
   spirit world these holy ones wear a vesture which qualifies them for
   celestial worship and all the holy service of the heavenly state. They
   are not only admitted to see God and prepared to engage in His most
   glorious worship, but they are, at once, permitted actually to commence
   their holy lifework by serving God day and night in His temple.

   We find them already engaged in actual adoration, for they cried with a
   loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God which sits upon the Throne
   and unto the Lamb." These pure spirits yet have voices which our God,
   who is a Spirit, hears and approves. Their song is full of purest
   Gospel Truth and their earnestness is shown by the loudness of their
   voices. They need no angels to instruct them in the manners and customs
   of the upper world, for even while they sojourned on earth their
   conversation was in Heaven and they are at home at once! They are not
   waiting till they have learned the song--but they know it already--for
   Grace is the rehearsal of Glory!

   They do not need to be initiated into the sacred mysteries, for they
   have had access within the veil while here below. They will begin their
   heavenly life at once, take up the tune just where they find it and
   join in the hymn just as soon as they arrive! They begin at once to
   praise Him that sits upon the Throne and to adore the Lamb! How sweet
   it is to think of those who have lately left us, that, though they
   broke off this mortal life, as it were, before it was complete and left
   it a fragment, yet they do not begin life up yonder prematurely or
   abruptly, but exactly at the right time! The new singer

   takes his place in the choir just when his part is coming on and takes
   up the keynote as if he had been there a century!

   He begins his song with his white robe on and his palm branch in his
   hand, as one who is well prepared to take his part in the endless
   adoration.

   Sudden Glory does not startle the inhabitants of Heaven as sudden death
   startles the dwellers upon earth. The immigrants to Heaven are expected
   and the gates stand always open to welcome them. There are no untimely
   births into the Church of the First-Born--each one comes in his season.
   As to the state and condition of the newly glorified, they are
   described to us still, further, in the verses which follow the text. It
   seems to me that those pure spirits who are without their bodies as yet
   are pictured as being like the children of Israel when the great camp
   was pitched in the wilderness. In the desert the Lord God would have
   dwelt among them, had it not been for their sins. In Heaven He does
   dwell in the most supreme sense. "He that sits on the Throne shall
   dwell among them."

   Over the heads of the great camp in the wilderness there hung a cloud
   of Glory which, in the daytime, sheltered them from the great heat of
   the sun, and at night lit up the whole camp so that all the streets of
   that canvas city were brilliant through the whole night. That bright
   light indicated the Presence of God--He did, as it were, hover over
   them and cover them with His wing. But in Heaven He shall be nearer,
   still, and dwell among them! His Presence shall sanctify, enlighten and
   overshadow all. The Shekinah, the holy and mystic light which indicated
   the Presence of God in the tabernacle, was veiled from the sight of the
   multitude--but in Heaven all shall behold the Glory of the Lord and be
   surrounded with it.

   The saints above enjoy a conscious nearness and fellowship with the
   Lord, such as we cannot hope to rival on this side of Jordan. He shall
   dwell among them! Happy spirits who have this felicity to have God
   indwelling them, abiding with them and surrounding them forever! Hence
   it is that they hunger no more, for as Israel fed upon the manna, so
   they feast on Divine Love. They thirst no more, for as Israel drank of
   the Rock, so are the glorified ones with Christ and drink forever of
   His Love. "The sun shall not light on them nor any heat." How can it,
   when they are utterly withdrawn from the influence of materialism and
   screened from all evil influences of every kind by the matchless
   Presence of the mighty God who, of old, was vanguard and rearguard to
   His people and forever is their All in All?

   With the Lamb for their Leader, what choice company they keep! What
   hallowed paths they tread! What sacred communications they receive!
   What amazing raptures they feel! With the Lamb to lead them to
   fountains of waters undiscovered by their feet aforetime, what fresh
   joy shall burst in upon them! With God Himself to be their Comforter,
   how all regrets at having left beloved ones down below shall be driven
   away completely! And how completely shall their whole souls be filled
   with perfect bliss without a single briny tear to mar the joy!

   In the vision before us, the most striking point about the newly
   arrived, according to the speech of the Elder and the remark of John
   was their wearing white robes. The venerable Elder does not appear to
   have taken notice of much else except this, for he asks the question,
   "Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, and from where came
   they?" That was the point to which he would direct John's thoughts--who
   can they be that shine so brightly there before the eternal throne?
   From where have they come in such attire? So this morning we will
   consider first, what did their white robes indicate? Secondly, how did
   they come by them? And lastly, what is the lesson of the text to us?

   I. WHAT DID THESE WHITE ROBES MEAN? Why were they white robes? Of
   course it is all symbolism--these spirits wore no garments because they
   had no bodies--but their robes signify their character, office, history
   and condition. The white robes show, first, the immaculate purity of
   their character. "They are without fault before the Throne of God."
   Into the heavenly place no sin could possibly enter and they have
   brought no sin with them. No, not so much as a trace or relic or scar
   of a sin. They are "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,"
   presented holy, without blame and faultless in the sight of the Most
   High.

   White signifies perfection. It is not so much a color as the harmonious
   union and blending of all the hues, colors and beauties of light. In
   the characters of just men made perfect we have the combination of all
   virtues, the balancing of all excellencies, a display of all the
   beauties of Divine Grace. Are they not like their Lord and is He not
   all beauties in one? Down here a saint has an evident excess of the red
   of courage, or the blue of constancy, or the violet of tenderness--we
   have to admire the varied excellencies and lament the multiform defects
   of the children of God. But up yonder each saint shall combine in his
   character all things which are lovely and of good repute--his garments
   shall be always white to indicate completeness, as well as spotlessness
   of character.

   We ought to note that the white here meant is bright and shining, to
   indicate that their characters shall be lustrous and attractive. They
   shall be the admiration of principalities and powers as they see in
   them the manifold wisdom of God. In these white garments they shall
   shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Our Lord's
   garments in the transfiguration are not only said to have been "whiter
   than any fuller could make them," but they are said to have been
   glistering and "white as the light." The redeemed before the Truth of
   God shine like stars before the eyes of all who are favored to gaze
   upon their assembly.

   What a glory there will be about the character of a child of God! Even
   those who have seen it long shall still be filled with wonder at what
   Grace has done! God, Himself, shall take delight in His people when He
   has made them "white in the blood of the Lamb." That the white robes
   must refer to their own character is clear. I have taken it for granted
   that it is so because the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which
   is the righteousness of the saints, cannot possibly be meant here,
   since that cannot be either defiled or washed. To speak of washing the
   righteousness of Christ in the blood of Christ would not only be an
   erroneous idea, but it would involve a conglomeration of metaphors not
   to be tolerated for a moment! The white robes here intended are the
   personal characters of the saints as they appear before God Himself.
   They are washed in the blood of the Lamb and so cleansed that they are
   absolutely perfect.

   By, "white robes," we also understand the fitness of their souls for
   the service to which they are appointed. They were chosen before all
   worlds to be kings and priests unto God--but a priest might not stand
   before the Lord to minister until he had put on his appointed linen
   garments. Therefore the souls which have been taken up to Heaven are
   represented in white robes to show that they are completely fitted for
   that Divine service to which they were ordained of old--to which the
   Spirit of God called them while they were here--and in which Jesus
   Christ leads the way, being a Priest, forever, at their head. They are
   able to offer acceptably the incense of praise, for they are girded
   with the garments of their office.

   We know not all the occupations of the blessed, but we know that they
   are all such as can be performed by a royal priesthood and, therefore,
   the priestly garb betokens that they are ready to do the will of God in
   all things and to offer, perpetually, the sacrifice of praise unto the
   Lord. "White robes" also signify victory. I should think that in almost
   every nation, white has indicated the joy of triumph. Often when
   generals have returned from battle they and the warriors have been
   clothed in white, or have ridden upon white horses. True, the Romans
   adopted purple as their imperial color, and well they might, for their
   victories and their rule were alike bloody and cruel.

   But the Christ of God sets forth His gentle and holy victories by
   white--it is on a "white cloud" that He shall come to judge the world
   and His seat ofjudgment shall be "the Great White Throne." Upon a
   "white horse" He shall ride and all the armies of Heaven shall follow
   Him on white horses. Lo, He is clothed with a "white" garment down to
   His feet. Thus has He chosen white as the symbolic color of His
   victorious kingdom and so the redeemed wear it, even the newly born,
   freshly escaped out of great tribulation, because they are, all of
   them, more than conquerors. They wear the victor's garb and bear the
   palm which is the victor's symbol.

   White is also the color of rest. If a man desired to do a day's work in
   this poor grimy world, a snow-white garment would hardly suit him, for
   it would soon be stained and soiled. Therefore the garments of toil are
   generally of another color, more fitted for a dusty world. The day of
   rest, the day of Sabbatic joy and pleasure is fittingly denoted by
   white garments. Well may the redeemed be thus arrayed, for they have
   finally put off the garments of toil and the armor of battle. They rest
   from their labors in the rest of God. Chiefly, white is the color of
   joy. Almost all nations have adopted it as most suitable for bridal
   array and, therefore, these happy spirits have put on their bridal
   robes and are ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

   Though they are waiting for the Resurrection, yet are they waiting with
   their bridal garments on, waiting and rejoicing, waiting and chanting
   their Redeemer's praises, for they feast with Him till He shall descend
   to consummate their bliss by bringing their bodies from the grave to
   share with them in the eternal joy! So, you see, the white garments
   have a great deal of teaching about them. And if it were the object of
   my discourse to bring it out, I could well spend a full hour in
   describing what is meant. But I am rather driving at something else and
   to that I invite you. May the Holy Spirit lead us into it.

   II. Secondly, HOW DID THEY COME BY THOSE WHITE GARMENTS? How came they
   to be so white? It was the whiteness which struck the mind of the Elder
   and of the Apostle, himself. What could be the cause of it? "From where
   did

   they come?" he asked. Those characters were not so pure, or, in other
   words, those garments were not so white by nature. They are washed, you
   see, and, therefore, they must once have been stained. They have
   "washed their robes." They were not, therefore, always white. No!
   Original sin has stained the character of all the sons of Adam. There
   is about us from the very beginning an abundance of leprous spots. The
   garment is not white when first we put it on. How shall he be clean
   that is born of woman?

   Then, alas, there are by nature upon the robe, the stains of actual sin
   which we committed before conversion. We altogether tremble at the
   remembrance of it and we would utterly despair if we did not know that
   it has been washed away in the blood of the Lamb! Then, alas, there are
   the iniquities we have committed since we have known the Lord. Under
   some aspects these are the most baneful and the most sinful of all our
   transgressions, for we have transgressed against eternal Love, since we
   have known it, and rebelled against an electing, redeeming, forgiving
   God. Ah, this is sin, indeed!

   Among the hosts above there is not one robe but what needed to be
   washed. They all required it, for by nature they were all stained by
   sin in many ways. Do not think of one saint who has gone to his reward,
   above, as being in any way different in nature from yourselves! They
   were all of like passions with us, ones who had within them the same
   tendencies to sin. If we suppose them to have been naturally better,
   they will not yield us so much stimulus, for then we shall ascribe
   their victory to the betterness of their nature and shall despair for
   ourselves! But if we remember that they were just as fallen and just as
   tainted with inbred sin as we are, we shall then rejoice and take
   courage, for if they have entered Heaven with unspotted garments,
   having washed them, why should not we be washed, also, and be white as
   they?

   But it might be suggested that, perhaps, they came to their rest by a
   cleaner way than that which now lies before us. Possibly there was
   something about their course of life, their surroundings, the condition
   of the age in which they lived, which helped them to keep their
   garments white. No, my Brothers and Sisters, it was not so! They passed
   along the road of tribulation and that tribulation was not of a less
   trying kind than ours, but was severe enough to be called "great
   tribulation." So they followed the same pathway as ourselves--

   "Once they were mourning here below, And wet their couch with tears.
   They wrestled hard as we do now, With sins and doubts and fears." Their
   road was just as miry as ours and, perhaps, even more so. They came
   through every slough bespattering their garments, even as we do, and
   sorrowing because of it even as we do! They went where we go, even to
   the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness and they washed their
   garments white. How this ought to assist us to feel that although our
   pathway is one in which we meet with innumerable temptations, yet
   inasmuch as all the glorified have come up white and clean from it, by
   virtue of the atoning blood, even so shall we!

   But I want to conduct you a little further into the central meaning of
   the text. Brothers and Sisters, their garments came to be white through
   a miracle of Grace. Through nothing less than a miracle of Grace
   because they came through the great tribulation, where everything
   tended to defile them. The word, "the" ought to have been in the
   translation. It is marvelous how the translators came to leave it out!
   The text should read, "These are they which come out of the great
   tribulation." Note, also, that the half Latin word, "tribulation," upon
   which so many dwell as signifying threshing, is not in the Greek, but
   is merely a translator's word and, therefore, not to be insisted on.

   The original simply signifies oppression and affliction of any sort.
   Now, all the children of God have had to go through the great
   oppression and to endure its ills. What am I driving at? I will show
   you. I do not think that the text refers to some one great persecution,
   but to the great conflict of the ages in which the seed of the serpent
   perpetually molests and oppresses the seed of the woman. The strife
   began at the gates of Eden when the Lord said to the serpent, "I will
   put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her Seed:
   He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise

   His heel."

   Satan takes care to nibble at the heel, though his own head has been
   broken by our great Lord. There is an hereditary conflict, a great
   tribulation, always to be suffered by the saints below, for he that is
   born after the flesh persecutes him that is born after the Spirit. The
   enmity takes all sorts of shapes, but from the beginning, even until
   now, it is in the world. Now, the white-robed ones had come out of that
   continuous and general conflict uninjured--like the three holy children
   who came out of the furnace with not so much as the smell of fire upon
   them. Some of them had been slan-

   dered--men of the world had thrown handfuls of the foulest mud upon
   them--but they washed their robes and made them white.

   Others of them had come out of remarkable temptations from men and
   devils. Satan himself had poured his blasphemies into their ears so
   that they verily thought they should, themselves, blaspheme! They were
   tried by the most defiling of temptations, but they overcame through
   the blood of the Lamb and were delivered from every polluting trace of
   the temptation by the efficacy of the atoning Sacrifice! Some of them
   were persecuted cruelly and trodden down as mire in the streets--and
   yet they rose to Glory white as snow! They went through fire, through
   water and wandered without a certain dwelling place. They were made to
   be as the offscouring of all things, but they came uninjured and
   unspotted out of it all!

   I would have you look upon the text as an exclamation of surprise
   uttered by the Elder to John as they both mentally looked down upon the
   great struggle going on in the world below, where temptations and
   trials of all sorts surround the chosen company of the Church militant.
   They watched the warring band and marked that a goodly host of men,
   though they fought in the thick of the battle and were covered with
   dust and had their garments rolled in blood, yet instead of perishing
   on the battlefield, as they seemed to do, came up out of it--came up
   wearing spotless and shining garments! Here was the wonder of it that
   they were white after such a trial! I have heard this text used as if
   the great tribulation had assisted in purifying them, whereas it was
   that which would have in itself defiled them! It was that which, by its
   own natural operation, tended to make them foul! The marvel was that
   they came out of it and washed their robes and made them white in the
   blood of the Lamb!

   Now let me conduct you into the thought which we have, at this moment,
   laid before you, namely, that it was by the operation of the blood of
   Christ and by nothing else, that the glorified saints were made clean!
   They came out of the great tribulation and they washed their robes and
   made them white in the blood of the Lamb! Tribulation, or affliction,
   or oppression--call it what you will--is overruled by a miracle of
   Divine Grace so as to benefit the Believer. But in and of itself, the
   great tribulation is not the cleanser, but the defiler of the soul!
   Affliction of itself does not sanctify anybody, but the reverse. I
   believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions.

   Afflictions of themselves awake the evil which is in us to an unknown
   energy and place us in positions where the rebellious heart is incited
   to forsake the Lord. This will be seen if we consider the matter
   closely. The great tribulation of which I have to speak is, under some
   aspects, a sin-creating thing. And if the victorious ones had not
   perpetually gone to the blood of Christ, they would never have had
   their garments white--it was the blood, alone, which made and kept them
   white. They were familiar with the Atonement and knew its cleansing
   power.

   Brothers and Sisters, some of the trials of the saints are evidently
   intended, by those who are the instruments of them, to make them sin.
   Satan and wicked men assail the saints with this as their end and aim.
   Satan, for instance, when he tried Job, did it with the distinct
   intention of causing him to curse God to His face. He did not at all
   hide his intent, even before the Throne of God, but boldly avowed it,
   and said, "Put forth, now, Your hand and touch his bone and his flesh,
   and he will curse You to Your face." The Lord had other designs, but
   the object of the affliction, as far as Satan was concerned, was to
   remove Job from his integrity and cause him to blaspheme.

   Satan is very wise and he knows, if we do not, that affliction is an
   admirable instrument for his purpose and so much tends to make a man
   sin that if he does not fly to the blood of Jesus to counteract the
   tendency of the tribulation, he will speedily fall. What would Job have
   done had he not known that his Redeemer lived? As it is with the prince
   of tempters, so is it with those who serve him--they vex the saints in
   order to make them sin. When ungodly men persecute the children of God,
   whether it is by scoffing at them, or by injuring them in their estates
   or persons, their direct objective is to make them renounce their
   religion and forsake Christ! Or if this cannot be done, they aim at
   making them dishonor their profession by sin.

   Has not this been the real object of all persecution, from the days of
   the chief priests and Pharisees even until now? If they can make the
   saints sin, their end is gained. So that that part of the great
   tribulation which comes from Satan and the world is directly designed
   to make us sin against the Lord. The saints of God are preserved from
   the great tribulation but the influence of these troubles does make
   them sin, as it made Job sin in a certain way and as, no doubt, it
   caused the martyrs many a secret sin even though they were triumphant
   over death. As for this, I say they are cleansed from it by the blood
   of the Lamb and so the actions of the enemy are defeated at every
   point.

   Tribulation of any kind is pretty sure to make us feel the need of the
   precious blood because if brings sin to remembrance. The widow of
   Sarepta said to the Prophet, "Have you come to bring my sin to
   remembrance and to slay my son?" Some sins never trouble the conscience
   until trials bring them up and makes the heart tender about them.
   Trouble, like a strong electric light, casts another color over the
   formerly dark scene and we discover what we had forgotten. Trials work
   a degree of tenderness of spirit and so make sin conspicuous to the
   weeping eyes and to the troubled heart. Many a man, when in great
   trouble about other matters, has begun to be in deep distress on
   account of sin. And oh, dear Friend, if you are passing through any
   portion of the great tribulation and its effect upon you is to make
   your old sins come up before you, I pray you fly to the blood of
   Christ!

   That is the only way by which your faith can keep her hold. You can
   only believe in a sin-pardoning God by going to the cleansing
   Fountain--for when sin is vividly seen, pardon is known to be
   impossible except through the Divine Atonement. Tribulation has a
   tendency to create, even in good men, new sins--sins into which they
   have never fallen before. "Brother," you say, "I shall never grieve
   against God." How do you know that? You say, "I have never done so unto
   this hour." I answer, why should you have done so? Has not the Lord set
   a hedge about you and all that you have-- why should you murmur? Are
   not your wife and children about you? Are you not in health and
   strength? Why, then, should you grieve?

   There is small credit in being satisfied when you have all that you
   need! But suppose the Lord were to strip you of all these things? O
   Man, I fear you might murmur as others have done before you, and the
   sin of rebellion to which you have been a stranger might yet triumph
   over you! Are you better than others? Let him who thinks he stands,
   take heed lest he fall! You will need to wash your robes even as others
   have done. In some men, tribulation works a very fierce temptation to
   distrust. Ah, we think we have a deal of faith until we need it and
   then, when the time comes, we who have taught faith to others find that
   we have little enough ourselves! Ah, how unbelief will insinuate itself
   and defy us to drive it out! Sharper and blacker doubts than we dare
   speak of will come, such as, "Is there a Providence. Is there a God?"
   Ah, we must fly to the blood or else this tribulation will drive us
   into atheistic questions and cover us with horrible sins which will
   dishonor God and wound ourselves.

   Tribulation, too, has a wonderful tendency to stir up all our old sins.
   While things go well with us, that cage of unclean birds will hardly
   peep or chatter. But affliction comes and stirs them all up and how
   horribly they hoot and call to each other! Ah, my perfect Brother, you
   do not know what a host of devils nestle inside your bosom! Whenever I
   hear a Brother talk of ceasing from conflict, I think how quiet the
   devils in his soul are keeping--and how they are chuckling at his
   folly! Sins swarm most where pride swears that there are none! There is
   an ocean of sin within the heart of any one of us and it only needs a
   trouble to stir the polluted mass and we shall see what it is like.
   Just put you, who are so very good in your own esteem, into certain
   positions and your mighty fine holiness will crack and blister like so
   much varnish in the sun!

   There lies lurking in the soul even of the most sanctified Believer,
   before he gets to Heaven, enough of sin to set the world on fire and it
   only needs a fierce breach of strong temptation to set the embers,
   which seemed as if they were all quenched, blazing away like
   Nebuchadnezzar's furnace! The fire of sin would soon burn our souls to
   destruction if Christ did not interfere. See, then, my Brothers and
   Sisters, we must hasten away to the blood of Atonement. You see how the
   two things are mentioned together--the tribulation and the
   blood-washing--and they must go together or else there will be no white
   robe for us at last, no character which will stand the gaze of the
   thrice holy Lord. The product of tribulation, by itself, will not be a
   white robe--but washing in the blood will give us that honorable array.
   Let us continually seek to have the atoning blood applied to cleanse
   our souls from the stains which tribulation is sure to make.

   So, too, beloved Brethren, great trials are wonderfully apt to reveal
   the weakness of our graces and the number of our infirmities. It is
   sure to make the Believer see what an unbeliever he is! It will make
   the man who is full of love see how little he loves. It will show the
   child of patience how impatient he is and will make the strong learn
   his weakness and the wise man learn his folly. Ah, Captain, you are a
   wise mariner, so you think, and so you are in a moderate squall or in
   even an ordinary storm! But if the Lord were to let loose all His winds
   against you, I tell you what you would do--you would reel to and fro
   and stagger like a drunk man and be at your wits' end. Think of that!

   Those who have never done business in deep waters do not understand
   this. Your pleasure yachts which run between the islands, up the rivers
   and in and out of the creeks know nothing about storms! Their crews are
   quite able to handle a

   vessel, so they say, but Atlantic storms would soon take the conceit
   out of them! Believe me, when a whirlwind takes the ship and twists her
   round--and plays with her as with a toy--seafaring becomes no
   amusement! When the boat mounts to Heaven and then goes down into the
   abyss, it melts the soul because of heaviness and forces a man to cry
   out for mercy! Spiritual storms make a man discover how utter weak he
   is and then he is wise to fly to the blood of the Lamb!

   Oh, what a sweet restorative is found in the atoning Sacrifice! God in
   Christ Jesus reconciled to me by the blood once shed for many is my
   great joy! How the soul seems to get rid of all the mischief which
   tribulation otherwise would breed in her, when she bathes in that
   sacred Fountain! Then, indeed, she puts on her white robes and chants a
   victorious song!

   III. Now, thirdly, WHAT LESSON COMES OUT OF THIS? What is the teaching
   of the passage? The teaching is this, Beloved, that when we are in
   tribulation, then is the time to have the most diligent dealings with
   the precious blood of the Lamb! I would say to you, first, meditate on
   it. A sight of Christ in His agony is a wondrous cure for our agonies.
   That crown of thorns about Your head, O my Master, this shall ease my
   throbbing brow! Those eyes so red with weeping shall look consolation
   into my soul! Your cheeks, stained with spit, shall make me forget the
   reproach I bear for Your sake. When I see You, Yourself, stripped naked
   and hung up on the Cross, the sight will make me think highly of being
   slandered and persecuted for Your sake!

   What are our griefs compared to His? On the table of sorrow they place
   the little drinking cups for us little children. But for our great
   elder Brother, what a flagon did they set for Him! Yet He drank it,
   saying, "Not as I will, but as You will." When we see the elder Brother
   drinking of the same cup as ourselves, it makes us cheerfully put ours
   to our lips and pledge Him in fellowship. "O Lord Jesus, shall we
   refuse what You take! No, glorious Brother of our souls, we will be
   true brothers--we will prove our fellowship in this sad communion and
   drink with You of Your cup--and be baptized with Your baptism." So, you
   see, meditation on the blood of Jesus helps us in our tribulation by
   letting us see how much greater His woe was than ours.

   Another sweet consolation growing out of our subject is this--we see
   how great His love is to us. Perhaps He has seen fit to smite us and we
   think Him angry. But we know He loves us because we see Him bleed. If
   you will only follow Christ through Gethsemane and watch Him for a
   while, on Calvary, and watching with Him for one hour, begin to taste
   His sufferings, we will say, "My Master, oh, how You love me! I
   perceive that Yours is a love which many waters cannot quench, which
   death, itself, cannot drown! Then if You love me so, You love me even
   in this, my affliction, and I will rejoice in it! I cannot doubt Your
   love, for Your blood seals the truth of it and, therefore, I am
   confident under Your chastening hand."

   Meditation also comforts us when we follow another line of reflection
   and say within ourselves--Jesus triumphed-- and how? By suffering! The
   victories of Christ were not obtained by crushing others, but by being
   crushed, Himself! His way to the Throne was downward through the grave!
   He shows us the power of weakness and the sublimity of suffering
   ridicule. Though here rejected, despised and made nothing of, He is now
   exalted above all principalities and powers! "Well, then," the heart
   argues, "so shall I be honored and glorified by suffering! It I endure
   patiently and hold on my way, flying still to the precious blood, I
   shall, in my weakness, find my strength! In my sense of sinfulness I
   shall find purity in Christ and in death shall find my everlasting
   life!" So, you see, there is something, even, in meditating upon the
   blood of the Lamb!

   But, Beloved, the chief thing is this--in all times of tribulation the
   great matter is to have the blood of Christ actually applied to the
   soul. If you lie soaking in the Atonement. If you put your broken heart
   to sleep on the breast of Christ, hard by His wounds, you will get
   peace by this method better than by any other. "How so?" one asks. Why,
   if the blood is applied to the conscience, it will breathe such peace
   through the soul, such sweet peace, that nothing else will be able to
   disturb you! I have known, in hospitals, where there have been foul
   gases and ill smells that have burned choice herbs and odoriferous
   plants--and sweet perfumes have been used to kill the noxious odors.

   Oh for a little of Christ's blood sprinkled in the chambers of the
   soul! It is better than frankincense or calamus! It will make death
   sweet and cause the chamber of affliction to smell deliciously with
   Christ's precious name. If sin is pardoned, I am secure! If Christ
   stands in my place and His precious blood pleads for me, I am content
   to lie down at His feet and say, "Do what You will, now You have
   pardoned me! Do what You will, Lord, for I am forgiven!" Such is the
   peace-giving power of the blood! When the blood is applied to the soul,
   there is another gracious result--it takes the sting out of affliction
   by making us know that there is nothing penal in it. If Christ was
   punished in my place for my sin, then I can

   never be punished for my sin and, therefore, whatever I may have to
   endure daily by way of trial or suffering, there is no punishment in
   it!

   There may be my Father's loving and wise chastisement and, doubtless,
   there is, but there is never a punishment such as a judge inflicts as a
   penalty for transgression. God brings no charge against His people--how
   can He? It is He that justifies them--and as He has no charge to bring,
   certainly He never punishes! Who is he that condemns since Christ has
   died? Are we not strengthened to bear the tribulation when we know that
   it does not come upon us as a punishment for sin? Our Father's
   Providence has no wrath in it, or, if it has wrath at all it is that
   "little wrath" we read of in Isaiah-- "In a little wrath I hid My face
   from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy
   on you."

   And, oh, Brothers and Sisters, if the blood of Christ is applied to the
   soul (and let us ask that it may, whether we are in great tribulation
   or not), we are assured that the end will be glorious! We are all in
   the great tribulation in one way or other--we are fighting and
   contending and must do so to the end--but that end is guaranteed to us!
   The blood of Jesus Christ gives us a sweet assurance that it is all
   well with us and shall be well with us forever! It opens the gates of
   Heaven to us, and cries, "Courage! Courage! The battle is sharp, but it
   will soon be over and there awaits for you a victor's crown."

   May not the soldier lift up his head and wipe his face from the sweat
   of battle and say, "Then I will fight it through! Yes, in God's name,
   and by His Grace, I will fight it through! What? Though this wound
   seems to have stunned me for a moment and almost split my skull, I will
   fight it through if such is the promise and the reward! I will stir my
   soul and the Holy Spirit shall awake it, to put on a noble daring, and
   on I will go to win for Christ! Well may I bear His Cross since He
   prepares my crown." That is the sweet effect of the blood and I ask
   that everyone here of us, tried or not, may feel it now to the praise
   and glory of His Grace! O Divine Spirit, grant us this Grace!

   What do you do, I wonder, who have not the blood of Christ to flee to?
   Ah, what do you do in time of sorrow who have no Christ to help you? I
   will ask you that question and leave it to ring through your souls!
   Remember, when you feel you need Him, my Lord is ready, for the
   Fountain is still opened for sin and for uncleanness! You have but to
   wash and be clean. A simple faith will obtain complete purification
   from all sin. God grant you may believe in Jesus at once. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Rerelation 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--872, 877, 818.
     __________________________________________________________________

Overcome Evil With Good

   (No. 1317)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 8, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21.

   THIS is a very meaty verse and the form of it greatly assists the
   memory. It is worthy to be called a Christian Proverb. I would
   recommend every Christian to learn it by heart and have it ready for
   use, for there are a great many Proverbs which convey a very different
   sense and these are often quoted to give the weight of authority to
   unchristian principles. Here is an Inspired Proverb--carry it with you
   and use it as a weapon with which to parry the thrusts of the world's
   wisdom. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Observe
   that the text appears to give us a choice between two things and bids
   us choose the better one. You must either be overcome of evil, or you
   must, yourself, overcome evil--one of the two.

   You cannot let evil alone and evil will not let you alone. You must
   fight. And in the battle you must either conquer or be conquered. The
   words before us remind me of the saying of the Scot officer of the
   Highland regiment when he brought them up in front of the enemy and
   said, "Lads, there they are: if you dinna kill them they'll kill you."
   So does Paul marshal us in front of evil and, like a wise general, he
   puts us on our mettle by saying, "Overcome, or be overcome." There is
   no avoiding the conflict, no making truce or holding parley, no
   suspension of hostilities after a brief skirmish. The battle must be
   fought through to the end and can only close with a decided victory to
   one or the other side.

   Soldier of Christ, do you need to debate which of the two to choose,
   victory or defeat? To be utterly overcome of evil would be a very
   dreadful thing! I shall say but little about it, because I trust we
   shall, by Divine Grace, be upheld so as never to know by experience
   what it is to be overcome of evil! May we be "more than conquerors
   through Him that loved us." May we be happily ignorant of what it is to
   be vanquished by the powers of evil and remain like the British drummer
   boy who did not know how to beat a retreat, for he had never had any
   use for such a thing! May we not know the dishonor and misery of being
   overcome of evil because Divine Grace continually gives us the victory!

   When we are overcome of evil, even for a moment, it discovers the sad
   weakness of our spiritual life. We must be babes in Grace and sadly
   carnal, still, if sin is allowed to master us. If we were stronger in
   the Lord and in the power of His might, we should overcome the world,
   itself, by faith! Did not John write unto young men and say, "You are
   strong and have overcome the Wicked One"? If we are overcome of evil,
   even for a moment, it will cause us great sorrow if we are in our right
   mind. A tender conscience will be greatly vexed as soon as defeat is
   sustained and, in looking back upon our fall, if fall we do, it will be
   a daily grief to us that we suffered ourselves to be overcome by evil
   at all.

   To be overcome of evil is dishonoring to our Lord and opens the mouths
   of adversaries. Those who watch for our falling will be sure to make
   much of it. "Report it, report it," they shout, and they do report it
   through the length and breadth of the land--that a servant of Christ
   has been overcome of evil. And if to be overcome of evil were not
   occasional but were continuous--if it could be said of our whole life
   that we were overcome of evil--it would prove that we were none of
   Christ's, for he that is born of God overcomes the world. Our Lord
   Jesus said, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," and He makes
   all His true disciples partakers of this victory!

   Only to conquerors are the great promises of the Book of Revelation
   given--"To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the hidden manna."
   "Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the house of My God." "To
   him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My Throne, even as I
   also overcame and am set down with My Father on His Throne." To be
   defeated in the battle of life would prove that we did not belong to
   that conquering seed which, if its heel is bruised, shall,
   nevertheless, break the foeman's head. Fix it, then, in your minds,
   that evil is to be overcome! It is a matter of necessity that we wage
   this war and succeed in it. We must triumph over the powers of
   darkness!

   Few are the words, but weighty is the meaning of our text. In one terse
   sentence the conflict is set before us and the sword of the battle is
   put into our hands. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with
   good." Good is the only weapon which, in this dread conflict, we are
   permitted to use! And we may rest assured it will be sufficient and
   effectual. To use any other weapon is not only unlawful but altogether
   impossible, for he who wields the sword of evil is no longer Christ's
   soldier at all! The reference in the text is to personal injuries and,
   therefore, we shall confine ourselves to that one point, though the
   principle is capable of very great extension.

   In fighting with sin and error, our weapons must be holiness and truth,
   and these alone. It is a wide subject and I will not venture upon it.
   That personal injury is referred to in my text is clear from the
   preceding verses, "Dearly Beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather
   give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is Mine: I will
   repay, says the Lord. Therefore if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If
   he is thirsty, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of
   fire on his head." With regard to the evil of personal injury, the
   common method is to overcome evil with evil--let us talk about it.
   Secondly, the Divine method is to overcome evil with good--let us speak
   of that and this will, no doubt, exhaust our time.

   As this is a very practical subject, let us entreat the Holy Spirit to
   teach us the will of Christ and then to enable us to obey it in all
   things. I shall be much disappointed if the subject does not humble as
   well as instruct us! And if it does this, it will be well for us to fly
   at once to the blood of the Atonement, that we may be purged from
   former faults and cleansed for future holiness.

   I. THE COMMON METHOD OF OVERCOMING INJURIES IS OVERCOMING EVIL WITH
   EVIL. "Give him a Roland for his Oliver." "Give him as good as he
   sends." "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." "Be six to his
   half dozen." I might go on with a score of proverbs, all inculcating
   the sentiment of revenge, or at least of meeting evil with evil. I have
   to observe that the overcoming of evil with evil is, in the first
   place, a most natural procedure. It suggests itself to any fool to
   overcome evil with evil! A lunatic or idiot could do that! You need not
   train your children to do it, it will be suggested in their infancy and
   they will strike the floor upon which they fall, and beat the post
   against which they stumble--to punish it for their hurt.

   It is natural, very sadly natural. A sort of instinct suggests it--the
   instinct of the worm which turns if it is stepped on. This instinct
   says, "Surely we are not to suffer evil without resenting it and what
   can we do better than to treat others as they treat us?" It must be
   admitted, also, that there is a show of justice about such a method of
   combating evil. Why should not a man be made to suffer who makes me
   suffer? And if he does me wrong, why should I not defend myself and
   make him smart for making me smart? I freely admit that this is
   exceedingly natural and has a show ofjustice about it.

   But to which part of us is it natural? Think for a minute. Is it
   natural to the new-created spirit which dwells in Believers, or is it
   natural to us because there is a part of us which is animal? Is it the
   new man in us which suggests revenge? Or is it the flesh, the mere
   animal in us which strikes out to avenge itself? A moment's reflection
   will let you see that the returning of evil for evil is natural to the
   animal nature, but that it is not, and never can be, natural to the
   new-created spirit whose nature is like the God from which it came,
   namely love, gentleness and kindness. "Good for evil is God-like. Good
   for good is man-like. Evil for good is devil-like. Evil for evil--."
   What is it? I quote it to prove my point. It is beast-like! It is like
   the beast which kicks because it is kicked, gores because it is gored
   and bites because it is bitten!

   Surely we cannot allow the lower part of our triple nature to dictate
   to our Heaven-born Spirit. We cannot let the servant be the master! We
   will be natural, but the nature which we will follow shall be that
   which we received in our regeneration when we were made partakers of
   the Divine Nature and enabled to escape the corruptions of the world.
   That returning evil for evil looks like rough and ready justice, I have
   confessed, but then is any man prepared to follow out for himself and
   in his own case this rule of justice? Is he prepared to stand before
   God and receive evil for his evil? "He shall have justice without mercy
   that shows no mercy."

   Is he willing to stand before God on the same terms as he would have
   the offending one stand before himself? No, our best and, indeed, our
   only hope must lie in the mercy of God who freely forgives offenses! We
   must look up to Infinite Love and entreat the Lord to have mercy upon
   us according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses and, therefore,
   we must render mercy to others. To recompense evil for evil is natural,
   but may God deliver us from the nature which makes it natural! It is
   just, no doubt, after a fashion, but from that sort of justice may our
   Redeemer rescue us! Again, it is admitted that the art of returning
   evil for evil is very, very easy. If, my dear Friend, you make it a
   rule that nobody shall

   ever insult you without having to pay for it, nor treat you with
   disrespect without meeting his match, you need not pray to God, in the
   morning, to help you to carry out your resolve.

   There will be no need to wrestle in prayer that you may be graciously
   enabled to take vengeance on your adversaries and stand up for your
   rights! You can do that decidedly better by trusting to yourself than
   by looking to God! Indeed, you dare not look to God about it at all.
   The devil will help you--and between your own passion and the Evil One,
   the thing may be very easily managed. There will be no reason for
   watchfulness. You need not be on your guard or keep your self in check.
   On the contrary, you may give to the very worst part of your nature the
   greatest possible license and go ahead according to the rage of your
   passionate spirit.

   Prayer and humility of mind will, of course, be quite out of the
   question. Nor will there be any need for faith--you will not commit
   your case unto God and leave it there--you will fight your own battles,
   wipe off old scores as you go, and place your dependence on fierce
   speeches, on mighty fists, or on the law and the policeman. Christian
   Graces will be too much in your way for you to think of them!
   Gentleness, meekness, forbearance, forgiveness--you will bid good-bye
   to these and cultivate the virtues of a savage or of a bulldog. All
   this is wonderfully easy, though it may be that before long it will
   turn out to be difficult.

   Now, I put it to Christians whether that which is so very easy to the
   very worst of men can ever be the right procedure for those who ought
   to be the best of men? If the Divine plan of love is difficult and
   requires great Grace to enable you to follow it, and I freely admit
   that it does--if it is very difficult to maintain it and will require
   much prayer, much watchfulness and much conquest of yourself--is it
   not, therefore, the more sure to be right? As for that which is so
   easy, let that be left to publicans and sinners! But as for you who
   have received more mercy of God than other men, should you not render
   more? You believe yourselves to be twice born, you have received a new
   and heavenly life--what do you do, more than others? Ought you not to
   show that there is more in you than in others by letting more come out
   of you than comes out of others?

   Much more is expected of us than of the unregenerate--naturally and
   rightly, expectation runs high in reference to men who make such high
   professions--and if the professed Christian is no better in his daily
   conversation than the ungodly, depend upon it, he is no Christian at
   all! We possess a higher life and we are lifted to a nobler platform
   than the common sons of men and, therefore, we must lead a nobler life
   and be guided by more sublime principles. Let the children of darkness
   meet evil with evil and carry on their wars and fights, their strifes
   and their envy, their malice and their revenge! But as for you, O
   Believers, you are the children of the God of Love and love must be
   your life! You have been renewed in the spirit of your minds and you
   must not be conformed to this world, but be transformed into the
   likeness of Christ, your Master. Evil for evil should be a principle
   detested by you and such should be your loving spirit that it ought to
   be no longer easy to recompense evil with evil, but difficult, yes,
   impossible to bring you to do anything of the kind! Revenge and fury
   should be as alien to the spirit of a child of God as they would be to
   an angel before the Throne of God!

   By many, to return evil for evil has been judged to be the more manly
   course. Years ago if a gentleman imagined himself to be insulted, it
   was necessary, according to the code of honor then in vogue, for him
   either to shed the blood of the offending person, or at least to expose
   himself to the like peril of his life. Thank God that murderous custom
   is now almost entirely gone from the face of the earth! The spirit of
   Christianity, has, by degrees, overcome this evil. But there still
   abides in the world the idea that to stand up for yourself, to just let
   people know what you are, never to knuckle down to anybody, but to
   defend your own cause and vindicate your honor has something extremely
   manly about it. And to yield, to submit, to be patient, to be meek, to
   be gentle is considered to be unworthy of a man of spirit. They call it
   showing the white feather and being cowardly, though to my mind, he is
   the bravest man who can bear the most.

   Now, Christian, who is your model of a man? You do not hesitate for a
   second, I am sure. There is but one model of a Christian and that is
   the Man, Christ Jesus. Will you then remember that whatever is Christly
   is manly and whatever you think to be manly which is not Christ-like,
   is really unmanly, as judged by the highest style of man? The Lord
   Jesus draws near to a Samaritan village and they will not receive Him,
   though He was always kind to Samaritans. Good John, gentle John,
   becomes highly indignant, and cries, "Lord, will You that we command
   fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?" Jesus meekly answers,
   "You know not what manner of spirit you are of: for the Son of Man is
   not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

   See Him on another occasion. Your Master has risen from His knees, with
   the bloody sweat still on His face, and Judas comes and betrays Him.
   And they begin to handle Him very roughly and, therefore, being highly
   provoked, brave Peter draws out his sword. And just to flash it a
   little, he cuts off the ear of Malchus. Hear how gently Jesus says,
   "Put up again your sword into his place: for all they that take the
   sword shall perish with the sword." And so He heals that ear at once.
   Was that manly, do you think? Was it manly to refuse to call fire from
   Heaven and to touch and heal the wounded ear? To me it seems
   superlatively manly! And may such be my manliness and yours!

   Look at our Lord, again, before the High Priest, when an officer of the
   court, incensed by His gentle answers, smites Him on the cheek. What
   does Jesus say? Observe the difference between Christ and Paul. Paul
   says, "God shall smite you, you white wall." Bravo, Paul! That is
   speaking up for yourself! We cannot blame you, for who are we to
   censure an Apostle? But look at Paul's Master and hear His words, "If I
   have spoken evil bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you
   smite Me?" Is not the example of Jesus the more noble, the more
   God-like? No man, for a moment, can put the two side by side without
   feeling that the Lord's conduct is by far the more sublime. It is not
   for us to imitate the servant of Christ when Christ, Himself, excels
   him! Here is victory when a man so overcomes himself that he replies to
   evil language with good and wise answers, not with fierce and reviling
   words!

   O Christians, look to Christ, your Lord, who all His life endured such
   contradiction of sinners against Himself! Who, when He was reviled,
   reviled not again, but submitted Himself to Him that judges
   righteously. And who, even on the cruel tree, when He was mocked by
   those around Him, had nothing to say but this--"Father, forgive them,
   for they know not what they do." O Man of men, be You the criterion
   from now on of all the manliness at which we aim! And if others count
   the opposite to be manly, let them count it as they will--we are not of
   their mind! Dear Friends, we are now bold to affirm concerning the old,
   easy, natural method of returning evil for evil that it does not
   succeed! Nobody ever overcame evil by confronting it with evil!

   Such a course increases the evil. When the great fire was blazing at
   London Bridge it would have been a strange way of putting it out or
   keeping it under if our firemen had lit another fire close to it, or
   had pumped petroleum upon it! Yet I have known some try to overcome the
   evil of a passionate temper in a man by becoming passionate
   themselves--rolling up another tar barrel to his fire and so making it
   burn more furiously than ever. That is not conquering evil, nor is evil
   ever to be so conquered till water drowns the sea! A soft answer turns
   away wrath, but anger excites more anger and more sin. Behold how great
   a matter a little fire kindles, when it comes to be heaped up with fuel
   and blown upon by furious winds!

   What is worse, when we assail evil with evil we are already, ourselves,
   overcome--we have fallen into the very wrong which we complain of. As
   long as we can be calm and quiet, we are victorious. But our breaking
   loose into an ill temper is our own defeat--and being overcome, how can
   we overcome others? Brothers and Sisters, the desire to return evil for
   evil does not succeed because it injures us much more than it injures
   the person whom we seek to overcome! It has been said that the worst
   peace is better than the best war--and I believe almost anything is
   better than becoming angry. Scarcely any injury which we can ever
   sustain will so injure us as the injury which must arise to us from
   becoming angry and revengeful. Our enemies are not worth putting
   ourselves out about, after all, and ten minutes of a palpitating heart
   and of a disturbed circulation causes us greater real damage in body
   than an enemy could inflict in seven years.

   Ten minutes of a fiery deluge overflowing the whole soul is a serious
   catastrophe! Ten minutes in which you could not look Jesus in the face,
   ten minutes in which you would be ashamed to think of the Master's
   being near, ten minutes of broken fellowship--why this is a very
   serious self-torture! Let us not suffer it to please our foes. Alas, I
   have known professors keep up this wrath for days and weeks! How it
   must hurt a man to have his soul broiling all that time! To have his
   heart roasting in the fire of wrath! I feel it to be too painful to
   bear, even for a brief season. It is bad for us in every sense, it
   hurts the mind permanently. Evil for evil is a sharp-edged tool which
   cuts the man who uses it--a kind of cannon which is most dangerous to
   those who fire it, both in its discharge and in its recoil.

   If you wished to destroy your enemy, it would be wise to make him a
   present of this dangerous gun and allow him to have the entire monopoly
   of it. I may truly say that when we oppose evil with evil, the evil
   which comes from us does us far more injury than any evil which we
   experience from others. Again, the method of overcoming evil with evil
   does not bear inspection. It does not bear to be pondered and meditated
   on. Let any renewed man sit down for a minute, after he has fallen into
   this practice, and ask himself as a Christian, how he feels about it.
   He has usurped the place of God, for

   vengeance belongs only to the Judge of all the earth--how does he feel
   while acting as an usurper? Who am I that I should clamber to the
   Throne of God and seize His sword and attempt to make myself judge and
   executioner among mankind?

   Will this bear consideration? Can a child of God thus see himself
   guilty of high treason against his King? How does a man feel when he is
   on his knees and remembers what he has done? How does he say, "forgive
   us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us"? Do not
   his eyes fill with tears and is not his heart heavy with regret? How
   will your hard speeches and fierce actions appear when viewed from your
   dying bed? Will railing, fighting and lawsuits be sweet memories there?
   Can such a thing as repaying evil with evil be the subject of our
   praise to God? Can we ever thank the God of Love for enabling us to
   avenge ourselves? If we cannot pray about it, or praise about it, let
   us let it alone!

   Is there anything about it which we could whisper in the ear of Christ?
   Is there anything in it that will help us to nearer fellowship with
   Him? Is there anything in anger and wrath which will prepare us for the
   business of earth or for the bliss of Heaven? It is bad, bad
   altogether! The best that I can say of it is that there may be rare
   occasions in which the provocation may be so great as to present others
   from condemning us, but then I must add that at such times we had
   better, even then, make no excuse for ourselves. The mind of Christ is
   that when smitten on one cheek we turn the other and, that in no case
   we render unto any man evil for evil.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters, I beseech you by the mercies of God that
   you refrain from, forever, the method of seeking to overcome evil with
   evil, and that you follow the example of your Lord, taking His yoke
   upon you and learning of Him, for He is meek and lowly in mind.

   II. Let us now consider THE DIVINE METHOD OF OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD.
   And here I freely admit, to commence with, that this is a very elevated
   mode of procedure. "Overcome evil with good! Ridiculous!" says one.
   "Utopian," cries another. "It might do for Plato's republic," says a
   third, "but it will never do for ordinary, everyday life." Well, I
   shall not blush to admit that this is a very high course of conduct and
   one which the mere worldling cannot be expected to follow--but of
   Christians we expect higher things! You have a high calling of God in
   Christ Jesus and you are, therefore, called to a high style of
   character by your glorious Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ!

   Brothers and Sisters, if it is difficult, I commend it to you because
   it is so! What is there which is good which is not, also, difficult?
   Soldiers of Christ love those virtues most which cost them most. If it
   is hard to obtain, the jewel is all the more precious. Since there is
   sufficient Grace to enable us to become like our Lord, we will labor
   after this virtue, also, and obtain the great Grace which its
   cultivation requires. Notice that this text inculcates not merely
   passive non-resistance, though that is going a good way, but it teaches
   us active benevolence to enemies. "Overcome evil with good," with
   direct and overt acts of kindness. That is, if any man has done you a
   wrong, do not only forgive it, but avenge it by doing him a favor!

   Dr. Cotton Mather was never content till he had bestowed a benefit on
   every man who had, in any way, done him an injury. If anybody has
   slandered you, or treated you unkindly in any way, go out of your way
   to serve him. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him." You might say,
   "Well, I am sorry for him, but really, he is such a vagabond! I could
   not think of relieving him." Yet according to this Scripture, he is the
   very man you are bound to feed! If he is thirsty, do not say, "I hope
   somebody will relieve him. I feel no animosity to the man, but I am not
   going out of my way to give him a drink." According to your Lord's
   command, he is the man to whom you must give drink! Go straightway to
   the well and fill your pitcher--and hasten to give him a drink at once,
   and without stint. You have not merely to forgive and forget, but you
   are bid to inflict upon the malicious mind the blessed sin-killing
   wound of your hearty and practical goodwill!

   Give a blessing for a curse, a kiss for a blow, a favor for a wrong.
   "Oh," you say, "this is high. I cannot attain unto it." God is able to
   give you strength equal to this, also. "It is hard," you say. Ah, but
   if you take Christ to be your Master, you must do what He tells you
   and, instead of shrinking because His command seems difficult to flesh
   and blood, you must cry, "Lord, increase my faith and give me more of
   Your Spirit." To forgive to 70 times seven would not be hard to Christ,
   for He did it all His life. And it will not be hard for you if the same
   mind is in you which was also in Christ Jesus. It is to this that you
   are called! It is a sublime temper and it is exceedingly difficult and
   needs Divine Grace, needs watchfulness, needs living near to God--but
   for these reasons it is all the more worthy of a follower of Jesus and,
   therefore, we should aim at it with our whole heart.

   The benefit of the method of returning good for evil is that it
   preserves the man from evil. If evil assails you and you only fight it
   with good, it cannot hurt you, you are invulnerable. If any man curses
   you and you answer him with a blessing, it is clear that the curse has
   not hurt you. It has not made you full of curses, or else one would
   come out of you. If a man has slandered you, but you never return him a
   reproachful word, he has not hurt your real character--the dirt which
   he has thrown has missed you--for you have none to throw back upon him.
   If, when much provoked, your temper still remains calm and quiet, the
   provocation has not touched you, the arrow has passed harmlessly by.
   The very thing your enemy wants is to make you descend to his level of
   anger and malice, but, as long as having much provocation you remain
   unprovoked, you vanquish him.

   Believe me, you are provoking your adversary terribly if you are quite
   calm, yourself! You are disappointing him, he cannot insert his
   poisoned darts, for you are clad in armor of proof. He tries to injure
   you, but he cannot. He fails to make you sin and so he misses his mark.
   Do you not see what a wonderful armor it is? If God preserve you, so
   that you have nothing but good wishes and goodwill towards the man who
   hates you and seeks your ruin, then you are a conqueror, indeed! While
   this conduct protects you, it is the very best weapon of offense
   against the opposer. William Ladd had a farm in one of the states of
   America and his neighbor, Pulsifer, was a great trouble to him, for he
   kept a breed of gaunt, long-legged sheep, as active as spaniels, which
   would spring over almost any sort of fence.

   These sheep were very fond of a fine field of grain belonging to Mr.
   Ladd and were in it continually. Complaints were of no use, for
   Pulsifer evidently cared nothing for his neighbor's losses. One morning
   Ladd said to his men, "Set the dogs on those sheep and if that won't
   keep them out, shoot them." After he had said that, he thought to
   himself, "This will not do. I had better try the peace principle." So
   he sent for his men, countermanded the order, and rode over to see his
   neighbor about those troublesome sheep.

   "Good morning," he said, but he received no answer. So he tried again,
   and got nothing but a sort of grunt. "Neighbor," he said, "I have come
   to see you about those sheep." "Yes," Pulsifer replied, "I know. You
   are a pretty neighbor to tell your men to kill my sheep! You, a rich
   man, too, and going to shoot a poor man's sheep!" Then followed some
   very strong language, but Ladd replied, "I was wrong, Neighbor, and I
   am sorry for it. Think no more about it. But, Neighbor, we may as well
   agree. It seems I have got to keep your sheep and it won't do to let
   them eat all that grain, so I came over to say that I will take them
   into my homestead pasture and I will keep them all season. And if any
   is missing you shall have the pick of mine."

   Pulsifer looked ashamed and then stammered out, "Now, Squire, are you
   in earnest?" When he found that Ladd really meant to stand to the
   offer, Pulsifer stood still a moment and then said, "The sheep shan't
   trouble you anymore. When you talk about shooting I can shoot as well
   as you. And when you speak in that kind and neighborly way, I can be
   kind too." The sheep never trespassed into Ladd's lot again. That is
   the way to kill a bad spirit! That is overcoming evil with good! If one
   had begun shooting and the other had followed suit, they certainly
   would have been both losers, and both been overcome. But when the
   offended one made kindness his only return, the battle was over!

   I remember, years ago--though I only quote it, not for my own praise,
   but as an illustration--a certain person, a very good man, too, did not
   admire a course of action that I felt bound to take. He was very angry
   and called upon me to express his objections. At last he said, "If you
   do that I shall expose you in a pamphlet." I was in a gracious mood at
   that time and was not to be ruffled in temper, nor yet turned from my
   course. I said to him quietly, "What do you think the pamphlet would
   cost?" "Oh," he said, "I don't know, but whatever it costs I shall do
   it." I answered, "Well, if you feel you ought to do it, I should be
   sorry to see you go into debt and, therefore, I will pay the printer's
   bill. I will trust you to give a truthful account of the matter and I
   am not at all ashamed to have my course of action made as public as
   possible. Indeed, I had rather it should be."

   He said he should not like to take any money from me. "Well," I
   replied, "perhaps you think that there might be some profits upon the
   sale. You shall be quite welcome to them. Your own friends can print
   for you. I will find the money and you shall have the profit." I never
   heard anymore of that pamphlet--and he is an exceedingly good friend of
   mine at the present moment--and will, I hope, always remain so. To
   remain quiet is generally the way to baffle an adversary. Indeed, there
   is no weapon with which he can wound you. If you will not yield so as
   to give railing for railing, what is to be done with you?

   It is much the same as when a certain duke proclaimed war against a
   peaceful neighbor who was resolved not to fight. The troops came riding
   to the town and found the gates open as on ordinary occasions. The
   children were playing in the streets and the blacksmith was at his
   forge. The shopkeepers were at their counters and so, pulling up their
   horses, the soldiers enquired, "Where is the enemy?" "We don't know. We
   are friends." What was to be done under the circumstances but to ride
   home? So it is in life--if you only meet evil with good, the bad man's
   occupation is gone! It has sometimes happened that evil men have been
   converted into good men and conquered, thus, in the very best possible
   way by seeing the patient Christian, by the Grace of God, return good
   for evil.

   Some years ago a wicked, reprobate sailor was engaged in tarring a
   vessel. And while he was at his work there came along an old man well
   known in the district as a Christian. One of the sailor's mates
   standing by, said to him, "Jack, you cannot provoke that man! He is
   such a gentle-spirited man you cannot put him out of temper." Jack was
   quite sure he could and it became the subject of a wager. The wicked
   fellow took his bucket of tar with which he was tarring the keel, and
   dared to throw it right over the good old man. It was a most shameful
   assault and the fellow deserved the utmost penalty of the law. The old
   man turned round and calmly said to him, "The Lord Jesus Christ has
   said that he who offends one of His little ones will find that it were
   better for him that a millstone had been tied about his neck, and that
   he were cast into the sea. Now, if I am one of Christ's little ones, it
   will be very bad for you."

   Jack slunk back, dreadfully ashamed of himself. What was more, the old
   man's quiet face haunted him. Night after night he woke up and in his
   dreams he saw that old man. And those tremendous words, "that it were
   better for him that a millstone were about his neck," broke him down
   before the Mercy Seat of God. He asked and found pardon. He sought out
   the old man, confessed his fault, and received forgiveness. Who would
   not have a bucketful of tar thrown over him if it would save a soul?

   Now, suppose the old man had turned round on him and uttered some fiery
   language, or struck at him--who could have blamed him? But then there
   would have been no triumph of Grace in the Christian and no conversion
   in the sinner! God has often made use of a gentle, meek, quiet,
   forbearing spirit to be the power with which He subdues the lion-like
   rebel and turns the course of ill-disposed and ungodly men. He makes
   them see how awful goodness is, how strong is gentleness, how
   Omnipotent is love! Returning good for evil, again, reflects great
   honor upon Christ. I do not know of anything which makes the blind
   world see so much of the Glory of Christ as this.

   When one of the martyrs was being tortured and tormented in a horrible
   way, the tyrant who had caused his sufferings said to him, "And what
   has your Christ ever done for you that you should bear this?" He
   replied, "He has done this for me, that in the midst of all my pain, I
   do nothing else but pray for you." Ah, Lord Jesus, You have taught us
   how to conquer, for You have conquered! There are many mighty names on
   the battle roll of earth, but Your name is not there--there is another
   conflict, sterner and nobler, and You stand at the head of the heroes
   who are engaged in it! Read the name, my Brothers and Sisters, it is
   written in His own blood, "Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified, the chief
   of those who overcome evil with good."

   Who among you will say, "Write down my name, Sir, beneath my Lord the
   Lamb, for in that battle I would have a share, and on those lines I
   would fight the foe"? Remember you must do it or you cannot be like He,
   and if you are not like He, you have not His Spirit, and, "if any man
   has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." I will not explain
   how this principle can be carried into other things, for there is no
   time, but I will close by noticing that everything that is admirable
   may be said of this method of overcoming evil with good. It is so
   noble. It is so becoming one whom God has lifted up to be His child,
   that I commend it to every person of sanctified feeling. A Christian
   man is the noblest work of God and one of the noblest features of a
   Christian is his readiness to forgive and the cheerfulness with which
   he seeks to recompense good for evil.

   The Emperor Adrian, before he reached the throne, had been grievously
   insulted. When he had attained the imperial purple he met the man who
   had insulted him. The guilty person was, of course, dreadfully afraid
   of his mighty foe. He knew that it only needed a wish from the Emperor
   and his life would be taken away. Adrian cried out, "Approach. You have
   nothing to fear. I am an Emperor!" Did this heathen feel that his
   dignity lifted him above the meanness of revenge? Then, my Brothers and
   Sisters, let those whom Christ has made kings unto God scorn to render
   evil for evil! Let us say, "I am a Christian, and my resentments are
   over. What can I do to serve you? I could have fought you to the death
   before, but now I am dead, myself, and born-again! And having commenced
   a new life, behold, Christ has made all things new.

   My animosities are buried in His tomb! My revenges are lost in the
   abyss into which He has cast my sins! And now, as a new man in Christ
   Jesus, my life shall be love, for He has said, 'Love your enemies,
   bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
   them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the
   children of your Father which is in Heaven: for He makes His sun to
   rise upon the evil and on the good.'"

   Good for evil is nobly congruous with the spirit of the Gospel. Were we
   not saved because the Lord rendered to us good for evil? The spirit of
   the Law is, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," but the spirit of
   the Gospel is, "freely I forgive you: your many iniquities and vast
   transgressions are all blotted out for Christ's name's sake, therefore
   be pitiful towards others." Forgiveness is one fruit of the Gospel and
   doing good in return for evil is another. Should not the spirit of
   every Christian be one of unconquerable love? For by unconquerable love
   he is saved!

   And, Beloved, this spirit of forgiveness is the Spirit of God, and he
   that has it becomes like God. If you would rise to the highest style of
   being, rise to the condition of a being who can be injured and yet
   forgive! To be just is something. Scarcely for a righteous man would
   one die. But to be merciful and kind is much more, since for a good man
   some would even dare to die--such is the enthusiasm which a loving
   spirit will kindle! Rise above mere righteousness into the Divine
   atmosphere of love!

   And whether men love you or not is a small matter. Whether you conquer
   them or not is also a little matter. But that you should conquer evil,
   that you should be victorious over sin, that you should receive from
   your Lord, at the last, the "Well done, good and faithful servant," and
   that you should be like God in your nature--this is of the utmost
   importance to you, for this is Heaven! Heaven is to have self
   dethroned. Heaven is to be purged of all anger--to be delivered from
   all pride. Heaven is, in fact, to be God-like! May we be made so
   through Jesus Christ our Savior, by the work of His Holy Spirit. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 12. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--175, 706, 262.
     __________________________________________________________________

Increased Faith the Strength of Peace Principles

   (No. 1318)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 15, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The Apostle said unto the Lord, increase our faith." Luke 17:5.

   THE sermon of last Sabbath morning, [#1317, Overcome Evil with Good] in
   which I earnestly endeavored to inculcate the doctrine of overcoming
   evil with good and the frank and full forgiveness of all injuries for
   Christ's sake, has raised much discussion. I know that it startled a
   great many of you and that you have a great many questions among
   yourselves as to whether such precepts are practicable by ordinary
   Christians. At that I am not at all surprised, because when our Lord
   preached the same doctrine, His disciples were so astonished that the
   Apostles exclaimed in surprise, "Lord, increase our faith."

   It is most important in this case to see the connection of the text, or
   you will fail to see its drift and bearings. It was not for the sake of
   working miracles that the Apostles sought increased faith. It was not
   in order to bear their present or future trials and neither was it to
   enable them to receive some mysterious article of the faith. Their
   prayer referred to a common everyday duty enjoined by the Gospel--the
   forgiving those who do us wrong--for the previous verses are to this
   effect, "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother trespasses against
   you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he trespasses
   against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again
   to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him."

   And it was upon hearing this that the Apostles cried, "Increase our
   faith." If you have been surprised, dear Friends, at the high standard
   of Christian duty which my Lord has laid down for you, I only trust
   your surprise may drive you to the same resort as it did those first
   servants of the Lord and compel you to appeal for help to Him who
   issued the command. Will He not help us in walking in His ways? When we
   feel that His commandments are exceedingly broad, to whom should we
   appeal for aid but to Him who is our Leader in all holy conversion and
   godliness? He will not set you the task and refuse you His assistance
   in performing it!

   Observe that these Apostles did not, because of their having sinned
   against this precept in former times, conclude that they had no faith.
   They did not conclude, because the precept was so much above them that,
   therefore, they were unbelievers. Despair is no help to Christian duty!
   To doubt our discipleship will not help us to obey our Lord. If any of
   you have cut yourselves off from the household of faith because you
   fall short of the noblest forms of Christian love, I entreat you to
   begin again and, instead of doubting the existence of your faith, ask
   to have it increased. There is a Fountain opened for your past
   uncleanness--and sanctifying power for your future lives! Apply to
   Jesus, at once, for the double deliverance, and doubt not that He will
   deal graciously with you.

   Neither did the disciples reject the precept as utterly impossible, nor
   excuse themselves from it on the ground that in their peculiar
   circumstances it must be modified. They did not complain that it was
   too much to expect of human nature, nor did they regard the command as
   only fit for dwellers in Utopia. No, they respected the precept which
   surprised them and admired the virtue which astonished them. As loyal
   followers of the Lord Jesus, they felt bound to follow where He led the
   way, for they believed that He was too wise to issue an impossible
   command, too good to teach an impracticable code of morals and too
   honest to set up a standard to which no mortal could, in any measure,
   attain. They looked on His command and they felt such confidence in Him
   that, instead of drawing back, they resolved that it should be obeyed
   at all costs.

   Their resolve was to do His bidding, but feeling that they could not
   achieve it in their own strength, they began to pray and their prayer
   was for faith. They felt that only faith could work such a wonder of
   patient love! It was far out of the ordinary line of action--flesh and
   blood could not accomplish it, mere resolve would not achieve it--faith
   must do it and even faith, itself, would need strengthening or it would
   fail in the attempt. They felt, also, that the kind of faith

   which could forgive to 70 times seven must be supernatural and not such
   as they could grow in their own breasts without Divine assistance and,
   therefore, they said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." They needed
   such faith as He could give in order that they might perform such
   duties as He enjoined.

   Beloved, imitate the example of these Apostles! Whenever you feel that
   you have something to do that is beyond you, stop a moment and breathe
   a prayer for more strength. If ever the leap is too wide, draw back,
   take a breath, ask for strength and then, in the name of Him that will
   surely bear you over it, take your leap and succeed! He has not brought
   you into a condition in which you shall feel your infirmities so
   abjectly as to lie down and die, but He does intend you to feel your
   weakness so much that you may importunately pray for His aid and then,
   in the strength which you have gained by prayer, may attain to heights
   of virtue which otherwise had been far above and out of your sight. We
   are all the more likely to rise to holiness when we have seen our own
   incapacity for it.

   Those who, at the first blush, were somewhat staggered by the high and
   glorious precepts of Christian forgiveness, of non-resistance and of
   returning good for evil, are, none the less, likely to become good
   practitioners of this holy art, but all the more so if their
   astonishment drives them to pray, "Lord, increase our faith." Let us
   then, this morning, in that connection, consider the prayer of the
   text. Let us, secondly, see how it bears upon the duty offorgiveness,
   how the increase of faith can help us to forgive. And then, thirdly let
   us note how our Lord Jesus answered this prayer. O Divine Spirit, lead
   us into these Truths of God while we meditate together and afterwards
   help us to show in our lives the mind of Christ!

   I. First, LET US CONSIDER THE PRAYER ITSELF. It may help us to see its
   meaning if we consider, for a moment, where the Apostles learned to
   pray like this. Who suggested to them to say, "Lord, increase our
   faith"? Now, faith is the act of man--truly, it is the gift of God--but
   it is as surely the act of man. God does not believe for us, the Holy
   Spirit does not believe in our place--the man, himself, believes. This
   would be clear enough to the Apostles, but they might not so readily
   learn that Jesus had power to give and to increase faith.

   It is assuredly most proper to ask the Lord to increase our faith, but
   it was not very early in their Christian career that the Apostles did
   so pray. In fact, it is a very singular fact that I think this is
   almost the only instance in which, as an Apostolic company, they asked
   any spiritual thing of the Master! They did say, "Lord, teach us how to
   pray," but I am afraid they meant to learn a form of prayer rather than
   to be filled with the spirit of prayer. As to spiritual blessings, our
   Lord might well say to them, "To this point you have asked nothing in
   My name." But they were, at last, so overwhelmed with a consciousness
   of their own weakness when they perceived the exceeding breadth and
   height of the Law of Christian forgiveness, that they felt assured that
   there must be strength laid up for them somewhere or other! And where
   could it be but in their Lord? And so they prayed to the Lord,
   "increase our faith."

   It is not the only time in which a sense of their own personal
   emptiness has convinced men of the Divine fullness and driven them to
   it. I think it was Jesus who had taught them to pray so. They must have
   caught the idea from that which is recorded in the 11th of Mark, at the
   22nd verse, where you have much the same passage as the one before us,
   though expressed in different words. "Jesus answering said unto them,
   Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, that whoever shall say
   unto this mountain, Be you removed, and be you cast into the sea; and
   shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which
   he said shall come to pass, he shall have whatever he said. Therefore I
   say unto you, What things you desire, when you pray, believe that you
   receive them, and you shall have them. And when you stand praying,
   forgive, if you have anything against any: that your Father also which
   is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not
   forgive, neither will your Father which is in Heaven forgive your
   trespasses."

   Note that our Lord, according to Mark, commenced this exhortation
   concerning forgiveness by saying, "Have faith in God," then showed the
   power of faith in working wonders, and especially in obtaining answers
   to prayer, and last of all commanded forgiveness of trespasses. Was not
   that sentence, "Have faith in God," the mother of their prayer,
   "Increase our faith"? Jesus had said, "Have faith," and now, when they
   fully understand what it is that He inculcates, they take the words out
   of His mouth and they say to their Lord, "Add to our faith. We trust we
   have some of that precious Grace, but add to it yet more and more, we
   beseech You."

   Our Master, in His teaching, was continually connecting the forgiveness
   of others with the exercise of faith. In the passage just referred to,
   and in that which surrounds my text, you have our Lord referring to the
   faith which moves mountains, or plucks up sycamore trees by the
   roots--and coupling with it the forgiving of offenses. Surely this may
   have led them so to pray! Our Lord had also suggested this prayer for
   faith from the fact that as He had taught them that

   there must be faith in prayer, so He had also insisted upon it that
   prayer must always be connected with a forgiving spirit. In fact, in
   the model prayer, according to which we are always to shape our
   petitions, He has taught us to say, "Forgive us our debts, as we
   forgive our debtors," or, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
   them that trespass against us."

   He has allowed us, as it were, to cut out for ourselves the measure of
   pardon that we wish to receive--and the measure is to be precisely that
   which we are prepared to give to others. God will pardon us in
   proportion as we are prepared to pardon! If you have a trespass which
   you cannot pardon, God also has an unpardonable sin written in His book
   against you. I mean unpardonable as long as you are unforgiving. If you
   will only pardon slowly, and after a niggardly fashion, you shall not,
   for many a day, enjoy the freeness and the bounty of the unlimited
   mercy of God! So you see, as our Lord had connected success in prayer
   both with forgiveness and faith, he had suggested the increase of the
   one with the view of accomplishing the other.

   No man can pray successfully while he is in an unforgiving frame of
   mind. But a believing man always does pray successfully, therefore a
   believing man is ready to forgive. As faith increases we become more
   able to overlook the provocations we endure. I think that the Apostles
   had also learned this prayer, not only from the Master, but from one
   who was very much inferior to themselves, but who, nevertheless, had
   outrun them in the knowledge of the struggles of the heart--I mean the
   father who had a lunatic child. That was a wonderful prayer of his,
   when Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to
   him that believes." The poor man cried out, "Lord, I believe, help You
   my unbelief."

   This was a deeply experimental prayer. It showed how familiar he was to
   the workings of his own soul. He detected unbelief in his own heart and
   yet he saw faith there, too, whereas a great many Christians, if they
   discern some unbelief in their hearts, straightway imagine that there
   cannot be any faith! And if they possess a degree of faith, they fancy
   that there cannot be any unbelief surviving--whereas the two powers are
   in one man at the same time and contend within his soul. The Apostles
   appear to me to have learned a noble lesson from that tried father and
   now they put his prayer into their own language and use it on their own
   account. They do as good as confess their lingering unbelief, and yet
   they acknowledge that they do believe while they pray, "Lord, increase
   our faith." So that with the teaching of Jesus and with the example of
   that poor struggling soul, they had been taught to pray as they should.
   It is a grand thing when we learn to pray better. And both from the
   Master's lips and from the experience of all, His servants are being
   taught what to pray for as we ought. By the use of such means the
   Spirit helps our infirmity and teaches us how to prevail with God.

   Now let us come a little closer to the prayer itself and notice what it
   confesses. It confesses that they had faith, for they say, "Lord,
   increase our faith." He who asks for faith must have some faith, or he
   would not ask at all. Indeed, it is with faith that we ask for faith.
   He who pleads, "Add to my faith," acknowledges that he has some,
   already, to which more is to be added. So that these Apostles,
   notwithstanding that they were staggered by the duty before them,
   believed that Christ could help them through it and believed, also,
   that He could at once give them the necessary faith. When you ask for
   any blessing, always do so in such a way as to acknowledge what you
   have already received. Do not despise the little faith you have, even
   though you feel bound to plead for more.

   They also confessed that while they had faith they had not enough of
   it. My Brothers and Sisters, must we not all make the same confession?
   You believe in Jesus Christ to the salvation of your soul, but,
   Brothers and Sisters, do you believe to the comfort of your heart? You
   have faith enough to bear the ordinary trials of life, but, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, have you enough for the superior contests to
   which you have lately been called? If you have not, then here is the
   prayer for you, "Lord, increase my faith." Certain it is that no one
   among us has too much faith, nor even enough should unusual storms
   arise. We have no faith to spare. God grants it to us always according
   to our day and He gives more Grace and faith when He sends more trials.

   Often, when our faith is sorely tried, we are compelled to feel as mere
   babes in Faith's school and need, indeed, to pray daily, "Lord,
   increase our faith." But then, by their prayer, the Apostles confessed
   that they could not increase their own faith. Faith is not a weed to
   grow upon every dunghill without care or culture--it is a plant of
   heavenly growth and requires Divine watching and watering! He who is
   the Author of faith and the Finisher of it, is the only One who can
   increase it. As no man ever obtains his first faith apart from the
   Spirit of God, so no man ever gets more faith except

   through the working of that same Divine power! The Spirit which rests
   upon Jesus must anoint us, also, or the measure of faith will not be
   enlarged.

   Breathe, then, the prayer to God, my Brothers and Sisters, "Increase my
   faith." This will be a far wiser course than to resolve in your own
   strength, "I will believe more," for, perhaps, in rebuke of your pride
   you will fall into a decaying state and even believe less! After having
   made so vainglorious a resolution, you may fall into grievous
   despondency! Do not, therefore, say, "I will accumulate more faith,"
   but pray, "Lord, I believe, help You my unbelief." Herein is your
   wisdom! The prayer, also, confesses that the Lord Jesus can increase
   faith. Dear Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ can increase your faith by
   the use of common means, through His Spirit. He is able to make all
   Grace abound towards you! Not by any magical mode, nor by miracle, but
   even by such things as you have, the Lord can make Little-Faith grow
   into Greatheart and turn Feeble-Mind into Valiant-for-Truth!

   He has the key of faith and can open more of its chambers and fill them
   with His treasures. He can reveal Truths of God to you which shall
   cause you to believe more fully, or the Truth of God already revealed,
   He can set in clearer light and apply more powerfully to your heart and
   so can add to your faith. Do not believe, Brothers and Sisters, that
   you are condemned to lead an unbelieving life! No such necessity
   exists. Let no one among you sit down and say, "I have a withered arm
   of faith and cannot stretch it out," or, "I have a weak eye, and shall
   never be able to see afar off." No, the name of our God is, Jehovah
   Rophi, and He can heal us of all these ills! God can make you strong,
   Brothers and Sisters. Do you not know that He gives power to the faint
   and, to them that have no might, He increases strength?

   Present again and again the prayer, "Lord increase our faith," with the
   full conviction that He can do so to any extent and that He can lift
   even the most drooping soul among us into the full assurance of faith!
   May the Lord at this very hour work in you a childlike confidence in
   His love and faithfulness! And may you never be the victim of mistrust
   again! I want you to observe who prayed this prayer. It is not often
   that the Evangelists speak of, "the Apostles," separately, as asking
   anything. You will perceive in the first verse that our Lord spoke to
   the disciples. "Then said He to the disciples," but the persons who
   sought increased faith were the Apostles.

   "The Apostles said." How is this? Does it not show us that these men
   who were the leaders of the Christian Church did not think themselves
   infallible? Fancy the successor of Peter saying, "Lord, increase our
   faith!" Surely, "His Holiness" needs no increase of faith! He who
   boasts that he is infallible cannot be unbelieving! Ah, Brothers and
   Sisters, the Apostles knew nothing of such silly and wicked
   pretensions! None of them ever in their lives pretended to be the "Head
   of the Church" or, "Vicar of Christ"--they were ready to cry to their
   Master for increase of faith just as soon as the rest of the disciples,
   yes, sooner, too, because they were the first to feel their need! They
   were the choice of the Lord's flock and, therefore, they were the first
   to see and to confess their own failures!

   No man so soon knows and so much deplores his need of faith as the man
   who has most of it! It was not the little ones in the Church who said,
   "increase our faith"--they might well say it--but it was the masters in
   Israel who had been best instructed by Christ! It was they who had seen
   His miracles and preached His Word! These were the very ones who cried
   to their Lord, "Increase our faith." The nearer you live to God and the
   more full your soul is of faith, the less inclined will you be to be
   self-satisfied! And the more earnestly will you desire that your faith
   should be increased! It is somewhat remarkable that the whole of the
   Apostles thus prayed. They were unanimous in this prayer, though it did
   not often happen that they were so in anything else!

   There were divisions among them and strifes as to who among them should
   be the greatest. But this time they were all one in the petition to the
   Lord. A petition which commended itself to the entire college of the
   Apostles is one which surely all of us may put up to our great Lord in
   the presence of that supreme duty of which we heard last Sunday
   morning. In order that we may not resist evil, but overcome evil with
   good, be pleased, O Lord, to increase our faith! While I am still
   explaining the prayer, let us notice, once again, why they asked for
   faith. They said unto the Lord, "increase our faith." Might they not
   more fitly have said, "Lord, increase our meekness. Lord, increase our
   Christian love"? No, but they went to the bottom of the thing--they
   looked to the mainspring of all Christian Graces--they asked for faith.

   Sometimes, Brothers and Sisters, we are led to see that if a duty is to
   be performed at all, it cannot be done in the strength of nature. Now
   the Grace which deals with the supernatural is faith, therefore we say,
   "Lord, increase our faith, for since this is supernatural virtue which
   You do ask of us, be pleased to give us the faculty which deals with
   supernatural power that we may be enabled to achieve this high and
   difficult duty." I know some of you think that faith was given

   to men of old that they might work miracles and you have admired the
   faith of Samson when he slew the Philistines with the jawbone of an
   ass--the faith which "quenched the violence of fire," the faith which
   "stopped the mouths of lions"-- and so on. Yes, but faith is meant for
   other matters besides miracles!

   The faith which enables a Christian man to live a holy life, especially
   the faith that will enable you not to be overcome of evil but to
   overcome evil with good, and to forgive your neighbor to 70 times seven
   is as great a faith as that which of old stopped the sun and divided
   the sea! It seems to be thought by some that faith nowadays is only
   meant to be used to raise money so that we may support orphanages and
   colleges by obtaining answers to prayer. Well, these are noble deeds
   and the faith which accomplishes them brings great glory to God. May
   God give to His servants who are called to such work, more and more
   success, for such works are a standing testimony to a skeptical world
   that God does hear prayer!

   But after all, the feats which the most of you are to perform are
   neither miracles nor the maintenance of orphanages, but deeds of love
   in common life! You have not to stop the mouths of lions, but you have
   the equally difficult task of stopping your own mouths when you are in
   an angry temper! You are not called to quench the violence of fire,
   except as it burns in your own wrath! You have to smite no Philistine
   but your own sins and cast down no walls but your own prejudices!
   Christian woman, your faith has to work its miracles in the drawing
   room, in the parlor, in the kitchen, in the chamber. Man of business,
   your faith is to perform its marvels on the exchange, or in the shop,
   or in the commercial room. Working man, you are to achieve your wonders
   at the forge, or by the bench, or in the field, or in the mill.

   Here is your sphere of service and you have need to lift to Heaven the
   prayer of the Apostles--"Lord, increase our faith," that you may live
   worthily, righteously, soberly and after a Christian sort.

   II. Secondly, I want to show HOW THE INCREASE OF FAITH BEARS UPON OUR
   POWER TO FORGIVE

   OTHERS. And I would answer first, that I think you already see that it
   does so, although you cannot explain the mode of its operation. If I
   were to bring before you a person of whom I might say, "This man is
   strong in faith," you would feel certain that he would be a man who
   would readily forgive the injuries of others. Though you do not see the
   connection between the two, you are very conscious that there must be
   such a connection.

   Now, when I tell you of Abraham, how when the herdsmen of Abraham and
   Lot quarreled, Abraham did not quarrel with Lot, but, finding that they
   must separate, gave Lot, his junior, the choice as to which way he
   would go, it seems natural that Abraham should act in that gentle
   manner. That calm, quiet, believing man of God--you have only to look
   into his majestic face and feel quite certain that he will act with
   great gentleness and nobleness of soul. Joseph, the man so full of
   faith that he gave commandment concerning his bones--when his brothers
   came before him and he made himself known to them and wept over them
   and forgave them--you feel that such conduct is just what you might
   expect from Joseph! The very fact that he was so true a Believer in God
   makes you feel that he will not seek to avenge himself, though he had
   been shamefully treated by his unbrotherly brethren.

   Moses was so meek, so gentle, that you trace his meekness at once to
   his faith. And David, when you see him standing over sleeping Saul and
   hear his companion say, "Let me smite him but this once," but he will
   not allow the deed to be done, but leaves his enemy in the hands of
   God, you say to yourself, "I expected such conduct of David, for he is
   a truly believing man of God." Though you have not satisfactorily
   traced out the connection between the two, yet you know very well that
   if a man professes to be a Believer in Christ you expect him to be
   gentle and forgiving--and you are right! And there is an actual
   connection between the two, which we shall, I doubt not, see directly.

   When the Apostles said, "Lord, increase our faith," they meant,
   "Increase our confidence in You." And this is a very material help
   towards the performance of the duty. First, God must help us so to
   believe in Jesus that we may not suspect Him of setting us an
   impracticable task. The Lord has said, "Overcome evil with good," and
   has bid us "Forgive 70 times seven times." Do you not feel ready to
   say, "This is a hard saying, who can bear it?" Do we not fancy that we
   shall never get through the world in that gentle fashion? It is our
   unbelief which tells us that we must sometimes bend our fists, or at
   least sometimes deliver our minds with great vigor of wrath or else we
   shall be trod down like mire in the streets.

   We need to ask for Divine Grace that we may be helped to believe that
   Christ's way of forgiveness is, after all, the best way, the noblest
   way, the most truly manly and the most surely happy way. Their prayer
   may be read as meaning "Lord, help us to believe that You can enable us
   to do this. We cannot, by our own unaided nature, be always forgiving,
   lowly, gentle and loving in temper, but You have said, 'Take My yoke
   upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and

   lowly in heart; and you shall find rest unto your souls.' Therefore, O
   Lord, give us more faith in You that we may believe that You can make
   us meek and lowly, even as You are."

   We ought to believe that Jesus can turn our lion-like tempers into
   lambs and our raven-like spirits into doves. And if we have not faith
   enough for that, we must pray for it--for do you not see that if a man
   believes a duty to be impossible, or judges that Grace, itself, cannot
   enable him to do it, then he never will do it? But when he obtains a
   confidence that the command is within his power, or that it can be
   obeyed by a force which is within his reach, then he has won half the
   battle! In believing in the possibility of a high standard of holiness,
   a man is already on his way towards that holiness! I therefore
   earnestly exhort you to ask for more faith, that you may believe the
   duty of constant forgiveness to be possible of accomplishment through
   Divine Grace.

   But, next, between faith and forgiveness a very close connection will
   be seen if we enquire what is the foundation of faith? Listen a moment.
   Faith believes that God, for Christ's sake, forgives us--and how much?
   Seventy times seven? Beloved, God forgives us much more than that! And
   does the Lord forgive us seven times a day? If seven times a day we
   offend Him and repent, does He forgive? Yes, that He does. This is to
   be unfeignedly believed and I believe it! I believe that often as I
   transgress, God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend,
   though, alas, I am all too ready to transgress.

   Have you right thoughts of God, dear Hearer? If so, then you know that
   He is a tender Father willing to wipe the tear of penitence away and
   press His offending child to His bosom and kiss them with the kisses of
   His forgiving love. The mercy of God lies at the very foundation of our
   faith--and surely it wonderfully helps us to forgive. Don't you see at
   once, O forgiven one, that the natural inference is that if the Lord
   has forgiven you your 10,000 talents of debt, you dare not go and take
   your brother by the throat for the hundred pence which he owes you! You
   must forgive him because God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you!

   Notice again, that the joy offaith is a wonderful help to forgiveness.
   Do you remember when you were first converted? I remember well the
   first day in which I believed in Jesus Christ! Do you not, also,
   remember your own spiritual birthday? Recall, then, the love of your
   espousals, the happy honeymoon of your spiritual life! Could you
   forgive your enemy then? Why, you thought nothing of injuries! You were
   so happy and joyful in the Lord that if anybody tried to irritate you
   they could not do it! Or if you became a little annoyed for a minute,
   you soon came back to your moorings again. You were too full of holy
   joy to indulge in quarrelling. Dear Brothers and Sisters, do you not
   know that you ought always to have retained that love and joy, and that
   the best thing you can do is to get them back if you have lost them?
   Therefore, pray today, "Lord, increase my faith, restore unto me once
   again the joy of Your salvation." When you return from your backsliding
   and rejoice in the Lord with all your heart, you will find it easy
   enough to forgive your meanest foe.

   Again, it is quite certain that a spirit of rest is created by faith
   which greatly aids the gentle spirit. The man who believes, enters into
   rest and becomes calm of spirit. And this keeps him from seeking petty
   revenges. He knows that whatever happens, all is right forever. He
   knows whom he has believed and he walks in the integrity of his heart
   and, therefore, he is not a man that is likely to be irritated. It is
   wonderful when you are sure you are right with how much you can put up
   with! Good Joseph Hughes of Battersea was one of the founders of the
   Bible Society and one of the most earnest workers for it. He was riding
   on a coach upon a dreadfully cold, bitter winter's day and at his side
   sat a talkative person, who thought himself a gentleman.

   As the coach proceeded, he began talking about religion in general, and
   denouncing Bible Societies in particular. With a sprinkling of swearing
   he went on to say that such societies were got up to keep lazy
   secretaries and other officials. "Those fellows," he said, "get fine
   salaries and then they go traveling all about the country, enjoying
   themselves, and charging a pretty penny for their traveling expenses. I
   understand they always travel in the best style." Mr. Hughes quietly
   replied, "But what would you say, Sir, if you were informed by one of
   the secretaries that he never received a farthing for his services and
   that in order to save money for the Society, he rode on the top of the
   coach on a cold day like this so that he might not pay so much as he
   would have to do if he went inside? Now, Sir," said he, "one of them is
   doing this before your eyes."

   Now you can understand how Mr. Hughes could be very cool and allow the
   talkative man to proceed as long as he liked with his falsehoods,
   because he knew he had so crushing an answer for him! And so when faith
   gives perfect rest to

   the soul, a man is not easily disturbed, for he knows that behind all,
   there is a blessing which will compensate for present annoyances.
   Conscious strength removes us from the temptations which surround petty
   feebleness. May God give you that increased faith which shall fix your
   heart in the sphere of perfect satisfaction in the Lord and patient
   waiting for His will and so shall you cease to fret yourself because of
   evildoers.

   Again, faith, when it is strong, has a high expectancy about it which
   helps it to bear with the assaults of men of the world. "What," she
   says, "what matters that which happens to me here, for I am on my
   journey, and I shall soon be in the Glory Land, where I shall have a
   reward for all my travail by being forever with the Lord." A man
   readily puts up with the little inconvenience of the present when he
   has great joys in store for the future! If you stay at an inn for a
   while when you are on a journey, it is only for a night, and though
   things may not be very comfortable, you say, "Well, I am not going to
   live here a week, I shall be gone in the morning. It does not matter, I
   am looking forward to my sweet home at my journey's end."

   So does Faith, by its blessed expectation of the future, make the
   troubles of the present to be very light so that she bears them without
   fretfulness and anger. May the Holy Spirit cause Faith thus to work in
   us.

   III. But my time has gone sooner than I desired and, therefore, I must
   close by noticing, in the third place, HOW

   THE LORD JESUS CHRIST ANSWERED THE PRAYER FOR INCREASED FAITH. He did
   it in two ways. First, by

   assuring them that faith can do anything. The Lord said, "If you had
   faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamore
   tree, be you plucked up by the root and be you planted in the sea, and
   it should obey you." I think He meant that to be understood as a
   proverbial expression, to signify that faith can accomplish anything.

   You say, "Ah, my bad temper is rooted in me: as a sycamore tree takes
   hold of the earth by its roots, so an ill temper has gone into the very
   depth of my nature. I am constitutionally quick-tempered. From my very
   birth I have found it hard to forgive." If you have faith, my Brother,
   you can say to that sycamore tree, or better still, upas tree within
   you, "Be you plucked up by the roots." "But," says one, "With such a
   nature as mine, such a changeable, excitable, nervous disposition as
   mine, you cannot expect to plant in me the tree which bears the fruit
   of calm, quiet forgiveness." What says our Lord? "You shall say to that
   sycamore tree, be you planted in the sea."

   A strange place for a tree to be planted! In the sea! Indeed, it is an
   impossible thing, because every wave would shake its roots out of their
   places! The substance is too unsubstantial, the liquid of the sea is
   too moveable for a single tree to grow in it! Our Lord says, "If you
   had faith as a grain of mustard seed it should obey you." You can, by
   faith, plant a tree in the sea--and so can you plant this fruit-bearing
   glorious tree of love to God and love to man within your frail nature
   if you have but faith enough! Brothers and Sisters, we do not need to
   be moving mountains! If mountains required moving, I have no doubt
   faith would move them, but the mountains are in the best possible
   places they can be and, therefore, why should we uproot them?

   We do not require to transplant sycamore trees by faith, for there are
   plenty of workmen to be had to lift them up and carry them carefully to
   another place. And it would be a pity that we should use faith so as to
   deprive poor men of their means of livelihood! But I doubt not it would
   be done if it were necessary. Now, there is room enough in the moral
   and spiritual world for Faith and there she can work her miracles! We
   can say to our bad disposition, "Be plucked up by the roots," and it
   will be done! And if we have faith in God, we can have the right
   disposition, the quiet, calm spirit implanted in us. Do you believe
   this? If you do not, then you have not the faith and you shall not see
   it! But, if you believe, it is possible to you.

   Once more, how did Christ answer the prayer? He answered it in a very
   remarkable manner, as I think, by teaching them humility. He said to
   them in effect, "You think that if you were to forgive to 70 times
   seven you would be doing a great deal. You fancy that if you were never
   to return evil for evil, but always to be gentle and loving, you would
   be somebody and that God would almost be in debt to you!" But it is not
   so. And then He went on to tell them that the servant, when he is sent
   to plow or to attend to the cattle is not thanked. While he is doing
   his labor his master does not come to him and wonder at him as if he
   were doing some very extraordinary thing.

   The master does not hold up his hands in amazement and cry, "How well
   my servant can plow, how cleverly he feeds the oxen," and he does not
   go to him and say, "My dear, invaluable Servant, I am sure I do not
   know what I would do without you, therefore come and sit down, and I
   will wait upon you." Oh, no, if he works well, he only does his own
   work and nobody else's. He does what he is bound to do and the master
   does not think of praising him and feasting him.

   So says Christ, "So likewise you, when you shall have done all those
   things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we
   have done that which was our duty to do."

   This mode of increasing our faith reminds me of the hydropath way of
   strengthening some people by pouring a douche of cold water upon the
   spine of their backs. The parable of the servant and his lord shows us
   our true place and the small value which we may attach to our own
   services. It takes the man who thinks, "Oh, it is a great thing to
   forgive everybody, and if I were to do it I should be a great saint,"
   and it pours a torrent of cold water upon his pride by saying, "No, if
   you did it you would not be anything wonderful--it is only what is your
   duty to do--you would have no reason to go about the world blowing your
   trumpet and saying, 'What a wonderful martyr I am.' You would only then
   have fulfilled a common duty."

   Well now, it seems to me that this is a wonderful strengthener to my
   faith. I feel resolved within my spirit thus--My Lord and Master, I
   will no more say of anything You bid me to do, "this is beyond my
   reach," but I will pray, "My Lord, increase my faith till I can do it,
   till I can live up to Your standard, for even if I should do so, by
   Your Grace, yet considering what You have done for me, considering what
   I owe You, considering the power of Your blessed Spirit that dwells
   within me, considering the richness of the ultimate reward which You
   will surely give me, though it is of Grace and not of debt, all I could
   do, if I could be zealous as a seraph and perfect as the saints in
   Heaven, would be too little, and I should have to confess that I am an
   unprofitable servant! I should have done no more than it was my duty to
   have done."

   I pray God the Holy Spirit to let this sermon come on the back of the
   discourse of last Sunday, that you may not look upon the first as being
   impracticable, but may gather strength from the second to go and put
   into practice what you have learned. May God bless you for Christ's
   sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 18:19-35; Luke
   17:1-10. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--173, 626, 533.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sinner's Savior

   (No. 1319)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 1, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He was gone to be a
   guest with a man that is a sinner." Luke 19:7.

   PUBLICANS, or tax-gatherers, among the Jews were objects of intense
   aversion. The nation was always restless under the Roman yoke, for the
   Israelite's pride of lineage made him boast that he was born free and
   was never in bondage unto any man. Moreover, they had hopes of a great
   future under a Messiah who would lead them on to conquest and,
   therefore, the Roman yoke galled their shoulders exceedingly and the
   payment of taxes to a foreign power was a heavy grievance. That the
   people of God should pay tribute to a heathen power was a bone of
   continual contention and the persons of the tax-gatherers were held in
   bitter hatred. While they abhorred the collectors of customs as a
   class, they reserved their most intense contempt for any of their own
   countrymen who lent themselves to this obnoxious business.

   They regarded such as almost renouncing their relationship to Israel
   and sharing the guilt of the oppressor. As a usual rule it would only
   be the lowest class of people among the Jews who would become
   collectors of tribute from their own countrymen. The outcasts and
   scapegoats of society would sometimes take to this detested business,
   but very rarely would a man of wealth and position, such as Zacchaeus
   evidently was, encounter the scorn which such an office brought upon
   him. Zacchaeus was not, perhaps, the actual tax collector who called
   upon individuals, but he was the superintendent of the custom house
   officers of the district, for, "he was the chief of the publicans, and
   he was rich."

   He came, perhaps, under even greater contempt than others because he
   occupied a more prominent position and carried on the unsavory business
   on a larger scale. Jewish society drew a cordon around the publicans
   and set them aside as moral lepers, with whom respectable people must
   not associate if they studied their souls' health. And so Zacchaeus,
   with all his wealth, was regarded as a pariah by his fellow countrymen.
   He may have been a thoroughly honest and upright man, but that mattered
   little to those who had taken a prejudice against all publicans. He was
   regarded by the Pharisaic party as one of the offscouring of society--a
   man not to be acknowledged in the street and into whose house no one
   would enter. He was a man to be shunned if he had the impertinence to
   enter the synagogue or the temple, and only to be tolerated because it
   was not possible to rid the world of him.

   From the very first, our Lord had broken through this hard and fast
   rule. He disregarded all the traditional and fashionable rules of
   caste. Constantly did He address publicans as if they had the same
   feelings as other men. He talked with them and went into their houses,
   so that He came to be commonly called by those who wished to show their
   contempt of Him, "the friend of publicans and sinners." A man who could
   be a friend to publicans was reckoned to be as evil as publicans,
   themselves, and further than that, a man could not go! If the Jew
   mentioned publicans and sinners, he always gave publicans the first
   place, as being decidedly the worse of the two! "Friend of publicans
   and sinners"--who can tell what a mass of contempt was condensed into
   that title!

   Our Lord did not at all deviate from His course because of this
   scoffing, but He went on befriending sinners, even open sinners,
   sinners of the most avowed and undoubted degree of sin! He almost
   commenced His ministry by talking to an unchaste woman at the well of
   Sychar. And He finished it by dispensing pardon to a thief while
   hanging on the Cross--and between that calling of the woman of Samaria
   who had had five husbands and was living unlawfully at the time--right
   along to the thief who died upon the gallows tree for his crime, the
   Savior had been receiving sinners and eating with them! He had been
   seeking and saving that which was lost!

   The old contempt of the sinner's Savior still lingers in the world
   among the self-righteous. Taking different shapes and speaking with
   other voices, it is still among us and still, in one way or the other,
   the old charge is repeated that Christianity is too lenient on the
   sinner. They say it tends to discourage the naturally amiable and
   virtuous, and looks

   too favorably upon the vicious and disreputable. They say that it is
   always talking about pardon without merit and speaking slightingly of
   human goodness. And therefore some even say they regard Christianity as
   a foe to society and an enemy to good morals. How easily could we turn
   the tables upon these slanderers, for usually those who talk thus have
   but a scant supply of morals and virtues themselves.

   First, Brothers and Sisters, it was said that Jesus had gone to be a
   guest of a man that was a sinner, and we shall admit the truth of the
   charge. Secondly, we shall deny the insinuation which that charge is
   meant to cover. And thirdly, we shall rejoice in the fact which has
   been the subject of the objection.

   I. First, then, we shall ADMIT THE TRUTH OF THE CHARGE. We do so most
   cheerfully and without the slightest reserve! Jesus did go to be a
   guest of a man that was a sinner and He did so not only once, but as
   often as He saw a need. He went after the sheep which had gone astray
   and He had a wonderful attraction for the disreputable classes, for it
   is written, "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for
   to hear Him." His ministry was aimed at those who were as sheep without
   a shepherd and it succeeded among such, for we read that the publicans
   and harlots entered into the kingdom! We are not, for a single moment,
   going to deny what is so evidently true--Jesus was and is the sinner's
   Friend.

   We admit most fully and freely that the Gospel which now represents
   Christ upon earth bears the most kindly relationship towards the
   guilty. That, in fact, it contemplates their salvation and finds its
   greatest triumphs among them! To begin with, the object of Christ and
   the design of the Gospel is the saving of sinners. If there is any man
   in this world who is not guilty, the Savior is nothing to him. If there
   is anyone who has never transgressed God's Law, but has kept His
   Commandments from his youth up and is excellent and meritorious in
   himself, Jesus Christ did not come into the world to call such a man to
   repentance. Why should He? "The whole have no need of a physician, but
   they that are sick."

   Christ comes not to proffer His needless services to those who are not
   sin-sick or needy! A Savior for those who are not lost? A Redeemer for
   those who are not enslaved? Alms for the rich? Medicine for the whole?
   Pardon for the innocent? These are all needless things! A physician
   does not at all hesitate to say that he comes into a town with his eyes
   upon the sick. It would be ridiculous for him to come there with a view
   to anybody else! And so to guilty sinners Jesus comes. Gospel promises
   are addressed to the guilty. Who else would need abundant pardon?
   Gospel invitations are addressed to the sinful. Who should be entreated
   to wash but those who are foul? Gospel blessings are intended for those
   who have transgressed and are under condemnation, for who else would
   value forgiveness and justification?

   I know, myself, of no Gospel for men who have not sinned! I know of no
   New Testament promises intended for those who have never broken the Law
   of God! I perceive all through the wondrous pages of the Gospel that
   Mercy's eyes and heart are set upon those who are guilty and
   self-condemned! The Eternal Watcher is looking over the vast ocean of
   life, not that He may spy out the vessels which sail along proudly in
   safety, but that He may see those who are almost wrecks. "He looks upon
   men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right,
   and it profits me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the
   Pit, and his life shall see the light."

   Our Lord was more moved at the sight of sickness than of health! He
   worked His greatest wonders among fevers, leprosies and palsies! This
   is the end and object of the Gospel, namely, to save the unrighteous!
   The God of the Gospel is He that "justifies the ungodly," "for when we
   were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly." "God commends
   His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
   us." As the Gospel's eye is thus fixed on sinners, we have to notice
   that our Lord does actually call sinners into its fellowship. Zacchaeus
   did not come to Jesus, first, but Jesus went after Him while he was yet
   a sinner, and said to him, "Today I must abide in your house." So does
   the Gospel, by the Holy Spirit's power, continually call to itself the
   guilty!

   The drunk, the thief, the harlot, the profane, the careless, the
   prayerless are called out--those who are consciously guilty are led to
   faith and pardon. Not merely those guilty of open sin, but those guilty
   of secret sin--sins of the heart, sins of the imagination, sins which
   stain the inmost soul are converted and saved! Jesus Christ causes His
   ministers, in the preaching of the Word of God, to gather out of the
   world and into the Church those who were enemies and alienated in their
   minds by wicked works. The Spirit of God does not effectually call
   those who are without sin, but He calls sinners to repentance. The
   Spirit of God does not quicken those living--living in their own
   natural goodness--He quickens the dead in trespasses and sins!

   The eternal love of God does not go forth towards those who dream of
   their own superiority and wrap themselves up in the mantle of their own
   righteousness, but it goes forth unto those who sit in darkness and in
   the shadow of death, bound in affliction and iron because they have
   rebelled against the Lord and contemned the counsel of the Most High.
   These are they upon whom this mighty love fixes itself and upon whom
   Sovereign Grace exerts its power! The great Founder of Zion has found
   inhabitants for her, even as Romulus peopled Rome. It is said of that
   renowned builder that when he walled his city he peopled it by
   permitting the offscouring of all other cities to use it as a refuge.
   Glorious things are spoken of you, O Zion, city of God, and yet all
   your citizens confess that they were guilty and defiled till Jesus
   washed and renewed them! Today Jesus, the Son of David, enlists under
   His banner men who are in debt and are discontented! And out of such as
   these are, He makes heroes of the Cross! Gladly would I invite to the
   cave Adullam of His Church those who are willing to enlist under the
   banner of the Son of David!

   Moreover, while we are about it, we will make a further confession--the
   Man Christ Jesus does very readily come to be a guest with a man who is
   a sinner, for He stands on no ceremony with sinners, but makes Himself
   at home with them at once. If a Pharisee had gone to Zacchaeus' house
   and been allowed to do exactly what he liked, he would have said,
   "Well, I may, perhaps, condescend to enter your profane abode,
   Zacchaeus, but I must wash first and wash afterwards also. And,
   moreover, you, also, must wash and also have your house specially
   purified--it must be whitewashed, scrubbed, and perfumed with incense.
   And then, if you will take a seat up in the far corner of the room, I
   will not mind coming near the door, where the fresh air may, perhaps,
   remove any exhalations from your guilty person, for I, being so
   transcendently holy, am exceedingly sensitive and cannot come into
   contact with your unholiness."

   Now, the Lord Jesus Christ did not ask Zacchaeus even to wash his
   little finger, but He said, "Make haste, and come down, for today I
   must abide in your house." Why, Zacchaeus had the green of the tree all
   over him! He was not in a very elegant condition to receive the Lord
   and, worse still, there was his sin about him! And yet Jesus Christ
   said to him before he had brushed off a grain of dust, "Make haste, and
   come down, for today I must abide in your house." To his house Jesus
   came and with him He sojourned, and all without ceremony and
   preparation! Yes, I have known the Lord Jesus meet with a man as black
   as Hell and wash him white in five minutes--and sit at his side and eat
   bread with him at once!

   I have known Him meet with the very vilest of offenders and almost in
   the twinkling of an eye He has made the transgressor to be His
   companion and His friend! Did not the father in the parable at once
   receive his returning son? How many minutes did he wait before he
   kissed him? How many times did the prodigal wash his face before his
   father pressed him to his bosom? He did not even tell him to wash his
   hands, though he had been feeding swine, but fell upon his neck and
   kissed him then and there! Our Lord Jesus not only has pity upon
   sinners, but treats them with love, comes under their roof and brings
   salvation to their homes! We confess the impeachment and rejoice that
   our Lord is indifferent to the censures of the proud and continues,
   still, to provoke the question, "Why does your Master eat with
   publicans and sinners?"

   Our Lord goes further. He not only stands on no ceremony with sinners,
   but within a very little time He is using those very sinners who had
   been so unfit for any holy service--using them in His most hallowed
   world! Note how He makes Zacchaeus to be His host--"Today I must abide
   in your house." Was not this going too far? Might we not have prudently
   suggested, Good Master, forgive Zacchaeus, but do it privately? Good
   Master, accept Zacchaeus as a secret disciple, but do not publicly go
   into such society! To sit at his table and let him wait upon You, is
   too great an honor for the likes of him! And surely, Brothers and
   Sisters, it seemed to the first Christians to be almost impossible that
   Saul of Tarsus could be allowed to be a preacher!

   They heard that he now preached the faith which he had persecuted, but
   they could hardly believe in his Apostleship! What? When his hands were
   just now blood-red with putting saints to death, is he to stand up and
   preach and to be an Apostle--how can it be? We all have a measure of
   this legal hardness and are scarcely prepared to allow the guilty to
   become heralds of Grace too soon after their conversion! The Gospel
   knows nothing of a purgatory at the Church doors, or a quarantine
   before its pulpit! Only is it, indeed, seen that a man has really
   accepted Christ and we may both receive him into fellowship and employ
   him in holy service! Jesus permits the man who was a sinner to become
   His host, even as He allowed the woman who was a sinner to anoint His
   head, and Peter, who had denied Him, to feed His sheep!

   Yes, and the Lord favored Zacchaeus, the sinner, by granting him, that
   day, the full assurance of salvation. The very day that He called him,
   by His Grace, He gave him full assurance--at any rate I should not want
   any better assurance than Zacchaeus received when the Lord, Himself
   said to him, "This day is salvation come to your house."--

   "Oh, might I hear Your heavenly tongue

   But whisper, 'You are Mine!'

   Those gentle words should raise my song

   To notes almost Divine."

   How often have we sung this wish, but Zacchaeus had it granted him, for
   the Lord said plainly, "Salvation has come to your house," and
   Zacchaeus could not doubt it! How happy he must have felt, how free
   from all trouble--"I am a saved man and salvation, having once entered
   the house, there is no telling where it will go--it will be upstairs,
   downstairs, among the servants, among the children! It will embrace all
   my descendants and I and my house shall be saved!"

   He obtained that choice blessing within the first day of his believing
   on Christ! And is it not wonderful, poor Sinner, that though you, even
   now, have not believed in Jesus as yet, and are sitting down in sorrow,
   burdened with sin, yet if you now believe--before this service shall be
   over, you may not only be saved but know it--and shall go home and say
   to your wife and children, "Salvation has come to our house!" Blessed
   be the name of Jesus! All this is true and we have no wish to conceal
   it! Jesus Christ has gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner!

   II. Secondly, we are going to DENY THE INSINUATION WHICH IS COVERTLY
   INTENDED BY THE CHARGE brought against our Lord. Jesus is the Friend of
   sinners, but He is not the Friend of sin! Jesus forgives sin altogether
   apart from human merit, but Jesus does not, therefore, treat virtue and
   vice as if they were indifferent things, or in any way discourage
   purity and righteousness. Far from it, for, first, Christ was a guest
   with a man that was a sinner, but He never flattered a sinner yet.
   Direct me to a single passage in His Word in which He ever justifies a
   sinner in sinning, or ever treats sin as if it were a trifle, or looks
   at it as a mere misfortune and not as a crime!

   No religion under Heaven is so strong in its denunciation of sin as the
   religion of Jesus Christ! His Words do not only condemn acts of sin,
   but even words and thoughts, in such words as these--"For every idle
   word that man shall speak, he shall give an account in the Day of
   Judgment." "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." The
   Savior's lips were too truthful and too pure to pander to the vices of
   men! He denounced sin in every form and shape and threatened it with
   everlasting fire! You do not find Jesus Christ anywhere asserting that
   the result of sin is a merely temporal evil, that the souls of sinners
   will be annihilated, or that they will, by-and-by, in another state,
   obtain forgiveness and be delivered, but, "these shall go away into
   everlasting punishment" rolls like thunder from His honest lips.

   He sweeps away from men all their empty confidences wherein they
   entrenched themselves and makes them see that whatever a man sows, that
   shall he also reap. He who lives in sin is declared to be the servant
   of sin, and he who brings forth evil fruit is judged to be an evil
   tree. Christ's fan is in His hand and He sweeps away the chaff. He sits
   as a refiner and consumes the dross. He lays the axe at the root of
   tree and demands that the heart and spirit be right before God. If He
   sets forth obedience to the Law, our Lord declares that it must be
   obedience in every point, or a man cannot be saved by it. If He accepts
   a follower, He bids him count the cost and forsake all that he has, or
   he cannot be His disciple. His moral standard is--"Be you perfect, even
   as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect."

   If you want the standard of the Laws of God lowered, you must not go to
   Christ! And if you wish to see the penalties of sin mitigated, you must
   not go to Christ, for He is, of all Teachers, the most severe against
   sin of every sort, and the most clear in foretelling its penalty. The
   Friend of sinners is too much their Friend to befriend their sin--that
   He utterly abhors and He will never rest till He has driven it out of
   them. Neither does the Lord Jesus Christ screen sinners from that
   proper and wholesome rebuke which virtue must always give to vice.

   The Pharisees, no doubt, meant to say, "This man Jesus does mischief.
   We keep ourselves aloof from all low company and in this way we do a
   good deal for these publicans, because we let them see the difference
   between holy and unholy men! When they look at our phylacteries between
   our eyes and observe the broad borders of our garments, and see how we
   wash our hands, and know how we tithes on mint and cumin, it must
   greatly edify them! No doubt they will go home and feel greatly ashamed
   that they cannot associate with such blessed and holy people as we are.
   Now, that Man, Christ, goes in among them and eats and drinks with
   them! And thus, in some measure, our protest is broken down. They will
   think a great deal of themselves, now that the proper distance is no
   longer kept up, for they will say, if this Man, who is, no doubt, a
   good man, associates with us, then, after all, we are not so bad as we
   were thought to be."

   That is how the Pharisees argued and there are some around us who still
   think that the best thing you can possibly do with the degraded is to
   isolate them. Turn your back on them! The sight of a good man's back
   will be a fine moral lesson to them! Make them to feel that you are
   disgusted with them and they will be brought to repent. But it does not
   turn out to be so. This process has generally been carried out by proud
   formalists and loathsome hypocrites and has ended in making bad worse!
   Jesus never sanctions this mode of reformation. Look at Him and admire!
   Did He say a word to Zacchaeus about his having taken taxes by false
   means, or about his being cruel to the poor? No, not a syllable!

   Christ's Presence was enough rebuke for the man's sin. No sooner does a
   man perceive the love of Christ and the perfection of His blessed
   Person, than straightway sin receives its death blow and is ashamed to
   show itself anymore. Jesus is the best rebuke to sin. The Gospel of
   Jesus Christ does not say to you, who live in sin, "You are not fit
   company for Christians." Nor does it turn to godly people and say,
   "Make these your daily associates and join in their mirth." Quite the
   opposite! But it does, nevertheless, say to Christians, "Go and seek
   out the lost and bring them to a better mind." We go not among the
   sin-smitten to catch their disease, but to cure it! Going in such a
   spirit, a good man's presence is a far better rebuke to sin than a
   cold, self-righteous isolation. The Gospel does not aim so much at
   rebuking sinners as at reclaiming them. Its business is not to make men
   feel remorse for having sinned, but to rid them from the power of sin.

   Again, it is not true, as I have heard some say, that the Gospel makes
   pardon seem such a very easy thing and, therefore, sin is thought to be
   a small matter. "Oh," says one, "if men have only to believe and be
   saved, you put a premium upon sin by making deliverance from it to be
   so speedy a business." These cavilers know better, some of them, and if
   they do not know better, let us teach them! When the Lord Jesus Christ
   forgave me, He taught me at the same moment to dread sin. I never had
   such a sense of the terrible evil of sin as I had in the moment of my
   forgiveness! Where, do you think, did I read my pardon? I read it on
   His Cross--written in crimson lines! I understood that, though the
   pardon was free to me, it cost Him cries and groans to bring me near to
   God. It cost His soul an agony never to be described before He could
   redeem one poor sinner from going down into the Pit. It is a gross
   injustice to charge the preaching of the Gospel to sinners with making
   sin to appear a trifle! The accusation is a baseless slander!

   They who know no atoning blood. They who know nothing of the sufferings
   of Christ--these are they who can toy with sin. But those who gaze upon
   the wounds of Christ cannot but tremble at sin! The great doctrine of
   the Substitu-tionary Sacrifice, whenever it is fully received by the
   soul, makes sin to be exceeding sinful! Oh, Sin, I have heard of you by
   the hearing of the ear, but on the Cross my eyes see you slaying the
   Incarnate God! I abhor myself in dust and ashes!

   Now, though Christ is the Friend of sinners, is it true that He makes
   men think lightly ofpersonal character? "Oh," say some, "these
   Christians teach that believing a creed saves the soul and that it does
   not matter at all how we live." This is an old libel. I remember
   reading much the same charge in a book which leveled its artillery at
   Wilberforce and his evangelical friends. The author said, "in a cant,
   unmeaning jargon, they talk much of vital faith, but they say little of
   vital benevolence." He goes on to remark that to teach men to be
   honest, clean, kind and truthful was far more important. Now, it is
   time that such a slander as that came to an end, but a lie has many
   lives and though you kill it 50 times over, it soon restores itself to
   vitality. Look at the matter of fact.

   Jesus Christ did not teach Zacchaeus, by going to his house, that
   character was of no consequence. On the contrary, Zacchaeus perceived
   at once that character was of the greatest consequence and so he stood
   forth, and said, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the
   poor. And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
   restore him fourfold." Let who will, deny the logic of it! The fact is
   that when a man comes to believe in Jesus, he has a higher appreciation
   of the excellence of character than any other man in the world. And he
   does not merely appreciate it in theory, but begins to seek after it
   for himself.

   Man's nature becomes renewed by the faith which, some say, will cause
   him to become indifferent to holiness. A man's whole life is changed by
   his believing in Jesus, and that which thus happily affects the
   character cannot honestly be said to lead to indifference concerning
   it! Even the remark I quoted now about Wilberforce was signally false,
   because it was through him and the party which gathered around him that
   benevolence gained one of her very noblest victories. How would the
   slave in the West Indies have obtained his liberty if it had not been
   for these very men? Wilberforce and the like, who while they held that
   faith in Christ, alone, could save the soul, felt that benevolence was
   the essential spirit of Christianity and liberty the natural right of
   every man! They spent their whole strength in fighting against the
   mercenary feeling of the times, till the fetters of England's slaves
   were broken forever!

   It has been said that if we tell men that good works cannot save them,
   but that Jesus saves the guilty who believe in Him, we take away all
   motives for morality and holiness. We meet that, again, by a direct
   denial--it is not so--we supply the grandest motive possible and only
   remove a vicious and feeble motive! We take away from man the idea of
   performing good works in order to salvation, because it is a lie! Good
   works will not save a sinner, nor is he able to perform them if they
   could save him! Works done with a view to salvation are not good,
   because they are evidently selfish and so are not acceptable to God.
   The selfishness of the motive poisons the life of the work and takes
   its goodness out of it.

   But when we tell men, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall
   be saved," if they exercise faith they are saved! And being saved there
   grows up in their hearts gratitude to God--and from this springs a
   loving desire to serve God on account of what He has done--and this
   motive is not only very powerful but it is very pure, because the man
   does not, then, serve God with a view to self, but he serves Him out of
   love! And works done out of love to God are the only good works
   possible to men. It supplies a motive which is clean, clear, pure--a
   motive, moreover, which is proven by the lives of saved men to be
   potent enough to keep them in the way of righteousness all their days.

   The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives men something more than motive, it
   supplies them with power and life, for wherever men believe on the Lord
   Jesus the Holy Spirit is surely at work with all His wondrous power! He
   enters the heart and changes it, turns the whole current of the soul
   and creates within the man a new, living, conquering principle akin to
   the Nature of God, Himself, so that the man becomes and continues to be
   a new creature in Christ Jesus. This indwelling Spirit is not a theory,
   nor a doctrine, but a Person--and His work is not a dream, but a
   conscious fact--a phenomenon to which all Believers bear witness, for
   we have known Him and felt His power! We have bowed before the might
   and majesty of His influences.

   As the anointing on Aaron's head went where Aaron went, so where Christ
   is received, the Holy Spirit comes, the new creation commences and men
   are delivered from living as they did before, under the bondage of
   corruption. Thus we repel with indignation the charge that Christ is
   the abettor of sin--and yet we preach with unabated eagerness this good
   news for sinners--Whatever sin you may have committed, and however
   stained you may be with habits of evil, there is immediate pardon to be
   had and complete salvation to be obtained, now, on this very spot, if
   you will but accept it and trust Jesus for it! We assure you of this
   from our own experience! We also assure you that all your good works,
   prayers, tears and almsgivings will go for nothing if you trust in
   them! But though you may be covered with ten thousand times ten
   thousand sins, if you believe in Jesus you shall be saved from them
   all!

   He is a Savior and a great one! And He is able to deliver great
   sinners. This will not make you think lightly of sin, nor cause you to
   continue in sin that Grace may abound, but it will give you the power
   which you need! It will supply you with a strength you have never been
   able to find, notwithstanding all your efforts! It will enable you to
   rejoice that you are saved and, in the strength of such an assurance,
   you will find within your heart a love for holiness and an abhorrence
   of sin such as you have never known before! You will go to the door of
   your heart and say to the devil, "Get you gone!" And to the lusts of
   the flesh, "Get you behind me!" And as to all the temptations which
   arise from old companions you will shut the door in their faces and
   say, "Depart from me!"

   III. In the third place, WE REJOICE IN THE VERY FACT WHICH HAS BEEN
   OBJECTED TO, that Jesus Christ

   comes to be a guest with men who are sinners. And first, dear Brothers
   and Sisters, we rejoice in it because it affords hope to ourselves. It
   often happens that we should never have a hope of His coming to be a
   guest with us if He were not a guest to sinners. To me, such gracious
   facts are needed to save me from despair. Oh, it is mighty easy to
   build up a fine experience and a pretty sanctification. And to imagine
   that you are getting on wonderfully and becoming strong and pure, and
   very superior saints, indeed. Let the devil deal with you five minutes
   and he will show you something of quite another color!

   Let your old corrupt nature only bubble up for a quarter of an hour and
   you will find such a condition of things in your soul that you will cry
   out in bitterness of anguish! Then will you find that fine words about
   experience do not fit your mouth and all your notions of being somebody
   will evaporate like dew in the summer's sun. Oh the thousands of times
   when I have looked for any mouse hole through which I might creep if I
   might but enter into a little hope! I love to preach a sinner's Gospel,
   for it suits myself! I delight to preach holiness and will aim at it as
   long as I live and can never be content until I am perfect, but still,
   my soul needs and must have the sinner's Savior! Nothing else will do
   for me!

   Whenever I get nearest to my Lord and feel most of His preciousness,
   and enjoy most communion with Him, I lay lower before Him than ever and
   feel it to be an unspeakable privilege to creep to His feet and wash
   them with my tears. I have, at this moment, no sort of hope but in
   mercy, great mercy rendered to a great sinner through the sacrifice of
   Jesus! Brothers and Sisters, what is there to depend upon, except the
   sinner's Savior? If He does not save sinners, as sinners, by an act of
   free, rich, Sovereign Mercy, altogether apart from anything that is in
   them and of them, what will happen to you and me? We do not wish to
   make any excuses for our sin! We would loathe it and abhor ourselves
   before God on account of it, but still, a wash in the Fountain opened
   for sin and uncleanness suits us today as well as it did 27 years ago,
   when, for the first time, we looked to Jesus and lived!

   Do you not find it so, my beloved Brothers and Sisters? After half a
   century of knowing Christ, do you not find that you need a sinner's
   Savior as much as ever? You will need Him when you come to die even as
   you need Him now! And while you are languishing into everlasting life,
   He will be your strength and your song, and you will be glad to think
   that, "this Man receives sinners and eats with them." Again, we rejoice
   that it is true for another reason, because this affords us hope for
   all our fellow men. Suppose that our Lord did not visit any but the
   good, moral and excellent? Then, alas, for poor London's back streets
   and crowded courts! Alas for the casual ward! Alas for the penitentiary
   and alas for the jail! Alas for the fallen woman and alas for the
   thief!

   But now there is hope for even these and every philanthropist ought to
   feel, deep down in his soul, the most profound gratitude to the Lord
   for this fact. This is earth's brightest star! This is her well of
   hope, her dawn of joy! Since Jesus Christ receives the guilty and saves
   the vile, despondency and despair have, from now on, no right to haunt
   the abodes of men! Hope smiles on all and invites the most fallen to
   look up and live! Yes, and let me tell you Pharisees, if there are any
   representatives of that section here today--though you do not like the
   idea of Grace to the guilty, but cling to the idea of your being
   rewarded for your supposed merit--it is a great mercy for you that
   Jesus receives great offenders because you must be numbered among them!

   What is your heart but a raging sea of pride and enmity against God and
   even against your fellow men? You despise God's ordained plan of Grace
   and you look with contempt upon the guilty whom He deigns to save! Is
   it not the spirit of the devil which makes you think yourself so much
   above your fellow men? Is it not an intolerable inhumanity which makes
   you wish that the Gospel were molded to suit you and to shut out poor
   sinners? Who are you to carry your head so high? If you have never
   sinned as open transgressors have done, yet it is very probable that
   you would have done worse if you had been placed in the positions which
   they have occupied! With all their faults there are greater faults in
   you--and if somebody were to set to work to read the secrets of your
   soul, aloud, you would be much ashamed!

   Ah, there are many who are pluming themselves upon their virtues who,
   in the sight of God, are as rotten at the core as even the unchaste and
   the profane! There are more thieves, I doubt not, outside our jails
   than there are inside! And there are more double-dyed sinners than we
   ever dreamed of who appear respectable and yet are abominable! Yes,
   even among nominal Christians there are plenty of scarlet sinners--they
   are always at the place of worship, very regular in all acts of outward
   devotion--and yet they indulge in secret uncleanness and are as bad as
   any in the felons' prison!

   If my Master were to repeat, today, a certain scene in which He figured
   so wonderfully, some of those now present would be placed in an awkward
   position. A woman taken in adultery was brought before Him. He did not,
   for a moment, justify her crime, but He said with great power and to
   the point, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a
   stone at her." I say to you who pretend that you are righteous, that if
   your consciences speak, you must admit that you have no righteousness,
   but are so sinful that you have not a stone to fling, even against the
   grossest sinner! Convicted by your own conscience you may go out--but
   it were better, still, if you were to stay here and say, "Yes, in my
   heart I am guilty, too, and I bless Christ that He is a sinner's
   Savior, and that even I may look to Him this day and live."

   We rejoice that this is the fact, because when we are working for the
   Lord it cheers us up with the hope of fine recruits. Many become very
   cold, stale and mechanical in their work for Jesus within a short time
   after they are converted. The enthusiasm dies out, the warmth chills. I
   remember a sailor who, before conversion, used to swear, and I
   guarantee you he would rattle it out, volley after volley! He became
   converted and when he prayed it was much in the same fashion. How he
   woke everybody up the first time he opened his mouth at the Prayer
   Meeting! The little Church had quite a revival, for their old jog-trot
   pace would not do for the new convert so full of love and zeal!

   The prayers offered in the meetings had become quite stereotyped and so
   had everything else about them. There were the same sleepy people, the
   same long prayers and the same dreary addresses. But Jack's conversion
   was like an earthquake and startled everybody--and their zeal revived.
   They even began to think that, perhaps, sailors might be saved, and
   started a service on the wharf and did many other good things. The
   conversion of a great sinner is the best medicine for a sick Church! In
   all the churches, you good people who are settled on your lees, need
   stirring up every now and then, and one of the best stirrings up you
   can have is to open the door of the Church and see a Saul of Tarsus
   standing there to be admitted!

   The porter enquires, "Who is this that seeks admission here?" "A
   recruit," says he, and we look at him. Why, he is one of the devil's
   most famous soldiers, one of the men who carried the black flag in the
   battle, one who ridiculed us most! We are apt to look a little askance
   at him, for we feel dubious. So we refer him to the elders, that they
   may enquire and sift him, to see whether he is really a changed
   character. Perhaps these earnest men are not quite sure and hesitate
   till they see more of him. And they are quite right to do so. But if
   the Lord has really called the sinner, by His Grace, no sooner does the
   Church receive such a man than they find that he has brought with him
   fresh fire and throws a fresh impetus into the whole work! Our Lord
   Jesus, then, when He goes to be a guest with a man that is a sinner,
   brings additional strength to the Church and finds her recruits of the
   very sort she most needs. We will therefore rejoice and bless the
   sinner's Savior.

   I wonder, this morning, where Zacchaeus is--whether he is up in the
   gallery there! Has there come in here a man who is a sinner and knows
   it? Has there come in here, this morning, one who, if I were to pass a
   label up to him inscribed with the word, "SINNER," would hang it round
   his neck and say, "I am the man"? Where are you, Zacchaeus? Jesus calls
   you! He means to save you at once! He says to you, "I must abide in
   your house today." Make haste down and open the door, and say, "Come
   in, my Lord, I am honored to receive You." Will any hesitate? Will any
   delay? May my Master's Holy Spirit cause, today, many a great sinner's
   heart to open and receive Jesus joyfully!

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 18:31-43; 19:1-10. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--257, 543, 544.
     __________________________________________________________________

Why Should I Weep?

   (No. 1320)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 22, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "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
   paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the
   mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these
   things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Luke 23:27-31.

   CAN you picture the scene? Jesus is given up by Pilate to the Jews that
   they may do their will with Him and, led by a small band of soldiers,
   He is conducted into the public street, bearing His Cross upon His
   shoulders. Perhaps they judged Him to be weary with His night of
   watching and worn with His suffering from the scourge, and they feared
   lest He might die upon the road and, therefore, with a cruel mercy,
   they laid hold upon one in the crowd who had too loudly expressed His
   sympathy, impressed him into military service and compelled him to
   assist in carrying the instrument of execution. You see the haughty
   scribes and the ribald throng--but the center of the spectacle, and the
   cause of it all was our Lord Himself--Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
   the Jews.

   We cannot paint Him. All who have ever attempted to do so have, to a
   large extent, been unsuccessful, for there was upon His face a mingled
   majesty and meekness, loveliness and lowliness, sanctity and sorrow
   which it would not be possible to express upon canvas or to represent
   in words. About His Person there were abundant marks of cruelty. He had
   been scourged. Everyone could see it. His own garments, which they had
   put upon Him, could not conceal the marks of the Roman lash. The traces
   of the crown of thorns were on His brow and the rough treatment of the
   soldiers had left its tokens, too, so that His visage was more marred
   than that of any man. And His form more than the sons of men.

   And now He is being led away to be put to the shameful death of the
   Cross. There were some glad eyes there, delighted that, at last, their
   victim was in their power and that the eloquent tongue which had
   exposed their hypocrisy would now be silenced in death. There, too,
   were the unfeeling Romans, to whom human life was a trifle. And all
   around, gathered in dense masses, the brutal mob, bribed to shout
   against their best Friend. But all then present were not in this savage
   mood. There were some--and to the honor of the sex it is recorded that
   they were women--who entered their protest by their cries and
   lamentations.

   Not silently in their sorrow did they weep, but they began to lament
   aloud and bewail audibly, as though they were attending the funeral of
   some dear friend, or expected the death of one of their kindred. The
   voice of a woman's weeping has great power with most of us, but it
   would not stir the stony hearts of Roman legionaries. The wail of women
   was no more to them than the moaning of the winds among the forest
   trees! Yet it must have struck many of the less stern and stolid mold
   and filled their souls with some measure of kindred feeling. Chiefly,
   however, did it strike One, the most tender hearted among them all, One
   whose ear was delicately sensitive to every sound of sorrow.

   And though He had not answered Herod and had given Pilate but a few
   words of reply. And though amidst all the mockeries and scourging He
   had been as dumb as a sheep before her shearers, yet He paused and,
   looking round upon the weeping company, piteously, yet sublimely broke
   the silence by saying to them, "Weep not for Me, but weep for
   yourselves and for your children." As for the words, themselves, they
   are especially noteworthy, because they constitute the last connected
   discourse of the Savior before He died. All that He said afterwards was
   fragmentary and mainly of the nature of prayer. A sentence to John and
   to His mother, and to the dying thief. Just a word or two looking
   downward, but for the most part He uttered broken sentences which flew
   upwards on the wings of strong desire.

   This was His last address, a farewell sermonette delivered amid
   surroundings most sad and solemn, restraining tears and yet, at the
   same time, causing them to flow. We reckon the words to be all the more
   weighty and full of solemnity because of the occasion, but even apart
   from this, the truths delivered were, in themselves, of the utmost
   importance and solemnity. This last discourse of our Lord before His
   death was terribly prophetic to a world rejecting Him--portentous of a
   thousand woes to a people whom He loved--woes which even He could not
   avert because they had rejected His interposition and refused the mercy
   which He came to bring. "Daughters of Jerusalem," said He, "weep not
   for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children."

   Not many hours before, He had, Himself, set them the example by weeping
   over the doomed city, and crying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that
   kill the Prophets, and stone them which are sent unto you, how often
   would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her
   chickens under her wings, and you would not!" Looking even upon the
   surface of the words you will perceive that they bear His undoubted
   image and superscription. Who but He would have spoken after this sort?
   You are sure that the passage is genuine, for it is, in all respects,
   so inimitably Christ-like. See how self-oblivious He was--for Himself
   He asks not even tears of sympathy. Was there no cause for grief? Yes,
   cause enough, and yet He says, "Weep not for Me, but weep for
   yourselves," as if all His thoughts were taken up with other griefs
   than His own and He would not have a tear wasted upon Him, but spent on
   woes which grieved Him more than His own pangs.

   Observe the majesty of the speech, too, steeped as the speaker was in
   misery. You can see that His is sorrow which well deserved to be wept
   over, but He is not overcome by it, but rather His royal soul reigns in
   the future. And as a King, He anticipates His scepter and His Judgment
   Seat and foretells the doom of those who now insult Him. Here is no
   cowardly spirit, no confession of defeat, no appeal for pity, no shadow
   of petty resentment, but on the contrary, a majestic consciousness of
   strength! With His calm, prophetic eye, He looks beyond the intervening
   years and sees Jerusalem besieged and captured. He speaks as though He
   heard the awful shrieks which betokened the entrance of the Romans into
   the city and the smiting down of young and old, women and children.

   No, mark how His piercing eyes see yet further--He beholds and
   describes the day when He shall sit upon the Throne of Judgment and
   summon all men to His bar. When He who was, then, the weary Man before
   His foes should alarm the ungodly by the appearance of His Countenance,
   so that they would call to the mountains to fall upon them and to the
   rocks to hide them from His face! He speaks as if conscious of the
   majesty that would be upon Him in that dreadful day and yet, at the
   same time, pitiful towards those who, by their sins, were bringing upon
   themselves so terrible a doom! He says, in effect, "Weep for those
   concerning whom it would have been better that they had never been
   born, and for whom annihilation would be a consummation devoutly to be
   wished."

   He dries up the tears which were flowing for Himself, that the women
   may draw up the sluices of their souls and let the torrents of their
   grief flow forth for impenitent sinners who will be filled with
   unutterable dismay at His Second Coming. May the Holy Spirit help me
   while handling this awful subject! The text very readily divides itself
   into two parts. The one may be headed, "Weep not.''" The other, "Weep."
   The first is, "Weep not," or what the Savior suggested. The second is,
   "Weep," or what the Savior commanded.

   I. He said to the weeping women, "WEEP NOT." There are some cold,
   calculating expositors who make it out that our Lord reproved these
   women for weeping and that there was something wrong, or, if not
   altogether wrong, yet something very far from commendable in their
   sorrow. I think they call it, "the sentimental sympathy," of these kind
   souls. There is no being much more unnatural than a cold-blooded
   commentator who bites at every letter and nibbles at the grammatical
   meaning of every syllable, translating with his lexicon, but never
   exercising common sense, or allowing even the least play to his heart.

   Blame these women? No! Bless them again and again! It was the one
   redeeming trait in the dread march along the Via Dolorosa! Let it not
   be dreamed that Jesus could have censured those who wept for Him! No!
   No! No--a thousand times, No! These gentle women appear in a happy
   contrast to the chief priests with their savage malice, and to the
   thoughtless multitude with their fierce cry of, "Crucify Him, crucify
   Him!" They seem, to me, to have shown a noble courage in daring to
   express their sympathy with One whom everybody else hunted to death
   with such ferocity. To espouse His cause amid those hoarse cries of,
   "Crucify Him, crucify Him," was courage more than manly! Those women

   were heroines more valiant than those who rush upon the spoil. Those
   lamentations, in sympathy with Him who was being led to die, are worthy
   of our praise and not of our criticism!

   Our Lord accepted the sympathy they evinced and it was only His great
   disinterested unselfishness which made Him say, "Spare your griefs for
   other sorrows." It was not because they were wrong, but because there
   was something still more necessary to be done than even to weep for
   Him. I do not think we erred when we sang just now--

   "A moment give loose to grief,

   Let grateful sorrows rise,

   And wash the bloody stains away

   With torrents from your eyes." Have we not all felt it to be a gracious
   exercise to sing in unison that almost dirge--

   "Oh come and mourn with me awhile;

   Oh come to the Savior's side;

   Oh come, together let us mourn:

   Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

   Have we no tears to shed for Him,

   While soldiers scoff and Jews deride?

   Ah! Look howpatiently He hangs;

   Jesus, our Lord, is crucified"?

   Who among us, for words like these, can blame Dr. Watts and others when
   they sing--

   "Thus might I hide my blushing face, While His dear Cross appears,
   Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, And melt my eyes to tears"?

   There can be nothing ill about the weeping of these women and,
   therefore, let us proceed to say, first, that their sorrow was
   legitimate and well-grounded. There was reason for their weeping! They
   saw Him suffering, friendless and hunted to death--they could not but
   bewail Him!

   Had I been there and seen Him all alone, and marked the cruel eyes that
   watched Him, and heard the malicious voices which assailed Him, I, too,
   must have wept! I hope I am not so past feeling as to have looked on
   without overflowing sorrow. See those bleeding shoulders, those
   lacerated temples--mark, above all, that quiet, unrivalled God-like
   Countenance, so marred with sacred grief! One must have wept, surely,
   if one had a heart anywhere within him, to think that He who suffered
   thus, and was about to suffer so much more, should be so gentle and so
   unresisting! Was not this cause for intense sympathy? He was meek and
   lowly in heart and, therefore, He returned none of those fierce looks
   and answered none of those ferocious words.

   He was like a lamb in the midst of wolves, or a dove surrounded by a
   thousand hawks, or a milk-white hare amid baying hounds! There was none
   to pity and none to help! Shall we, then, refuse our compassion? No!
   You women's eyes, you did well to weep--how could you help it, since
   you were mothers of children and, therefore, had hearts to love? How
   could you help weeping for Him who was so lowly, so gentle, so
   unselfish, so submissive to all they put upon Him? Surely it was a
   superfluity of malice to be hunting Him to death who, even in life, was
   so much the Man of Sorrows! And then He was so innocent and pure! What
   had He done amiss? They could not answer Pilate's challenge--"Why, what
   evil has He done?" There was no fault in Him, they could not find any!

   You could see by the very look of Him that He was the purest of all
   mankind--that all around Him was sin and vanity--yet He, alone, was
   Holiness and Truth! Why, then, should they lead Him forth among
   malefactors and nail those blessed hands and feet to the wood and hang
   Him to a tree? Above all, in addition to His being innocent of fault,
   He had been so full of kindness--of more than kindness--of infinite
   love to all mankind and even in His deepest sorrow boundless
   benevolence shone in His Countenance, beaming as the sun! He looked
   upon His enemies and His glance was royal but it was tender, too.
   "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," was trembling
   on His lips. He would not harm them. Not He! He would not curse them
   though His curse had withered them, nor even frown upon them, though
   that frown might have secured His liberation! He was too good to render
   evil for evil!

   These women remembered what a life He had led. They remembered how He
   had fed the hungry--perhaps some of them had even eaten of the loaves
   and fishes. They remembered how He had healed their children, raised
   their dead and

   had dislodged foul fiends from the bodies of their friends. He had
   preached openly in their streets and He had never taught ill will, but
   always gentleness and love. He had been popular and stood at the head
   of the multitude at one time, but He had never used His power for
   selfish purposes. He had ridden through their streets in pomp, but the
   pomp was simple and homely--on a colt, the foal of an ass had He ridden
   with children for His courtiers--and with no sound of the trumpets of
   war, but only with the children's cries of, "Hosanna, blessed is He
   that comes in the name of the Lord."

   Why should they crucify Him? He had done nothing but good! His noble
   Presence seemed to appeal to the women and they asked each other, "For
   which of His works would they slay Him? For which of His actions would
   they put Him to death?" He, the Friend of the friendless, why should He
   die? I cannot, I say again, but commend the tears of these women! It is
   little marvel that they should weep and bewail when they saw the
   Innocent One about to die. I think, too, that this weeping on the part
   of the women was a very hopeful emotion. It was far better, certainly,
   than the non-emotion or the cruelty of those who formed that motley
   throng. It showed some tenderness of heart, and tenderness of heart,
   though it is but natural, may often serve as a groundwork upon which
   better and holier and more spiritual feelings may be placed.

   It is objected that persons weep when they hear the story of other
   griefs besides those of Jesus and I am glad they do. Should they not
   weep with them that weep? It is also objected that this natural
   sympathy may, in many cases, be as much due to the skill of the orator
   as in others it is the undoubted result of the music of the oratorio. I
   know it is so. I am going to show you that mere emotional sympathy is
   not all, nor a half, nor a tenth of what is needed. Still, I should be
   sorry if I thought myself capable of remembering the griefs of Jesus
   without emotion while other men's woes affected me. And I should
   greatly deplore the fact if it were, indeed, true that you were all,
   especially you women, so hardened that you could think of Jesus of
   Nazareth bleeding and dying without your hearts beginning to melt.

   The emotion is good, at any rate, so far that if it were absent you
   would be bereft of humanity and turned to stones. It is hopeful because
   it opens a door through which something better may enter. This
   tenderness is a natural stock suitable for grafting something far
   higher upon. He who can weep for the sorrows of Christ may soon be on
   the road towards weeping over the sin which caused the sorrow, or he
   may be on the highway towards being able to lament, as Christ bids men
   lament, those other griefs and miseries which sin brings upon
   themselves and upon their children. I would not carry the emotional
   towards Christ to an excess, nor ask men to make Jesus' death only a
   fountain of sorrow, since it is also a source of joy. I would deplore
   that idolatrous emotion which weeps before a hideous image, or mourns
   over touching a picture. But still, I would not have men, at the
   thought of Jesus dying, act as if they were sticks and stones, but
   prove that they mourn for Him whom they have pierced.

   Having said this much, we now add that on our Lord's part, such sorrow
   was fitly repressed, because, after all, though naturally good, it is
   not more than natural, and falls short of spiritual excellence. It is
   no proof of the work of the Spirit upon your heart that you weep as you
   hear the story of Christ's death, for probably you would have been even
   more affected had you seen a murderer hanged. It is no proof that you
   are truly saved because you are moved to great emotions whenever you
   hear the details of the Crucifixion, for the Bulgarian atrocities
   excited you equally as much. I think it good that you should be moved,
   as I have said before, but it is only naturally and not spiritually
   good.

   Doubtless there are many who have shed more tears over the silly story
   of a love-sick maid in a frivolous novel than they have ever given to
   the story of the Lover of our souls. Though they have felt emotion when
   they have pictured the sufferings of Emmanuel, they have felt even more
   when the bewitching pen of fiction has sketched some imaginary picture
   of fancied woes. No, no, these natural sympathies are not to be
   commended so that we wish you to be continually exercised with them!
   Our Lord did well to give them healthy bounds. Besides, such feeling is
   generally very evanescent. Tears of mere emotion, because of the
   external sufferings of Christ, are speedily wiped away and forgotten.

   We do not know that any of these women ever became our Lord's converts.
   Among those who met in the upper room we do not know that any had taken
   part with this company of weepers. These were women of Jerusalem and
   the followers of Christ at His death, who ministered unto Him, were
   generally women from Galilee. For this see Matthew 27:54-56. I fear
   that the most of these Jerusalem sympathizers forgot tomorrow that they
   had wept today. I may be mistaken, but there is nothing in the mere
   fact of their lamenting the Savior's doom which would prove them to be
   His regenerated followers. The morning cloud and the early dew are fit
   emblems of such fleeting emotions.

   Such weeping, too, is morally powerless--it has no effect upon the
   mind. It does not change the character. It does not cause the putting
   away of sin, nor create real and saving faith in Jesus Christ. Many
   tears are shed under powerful sermons that are so much wasted
   fluid--when the discourse is over, the sorrow has ceased. There was no
   work of Grace upon the inner heart, it was all surface work and no
   more. The worst of it is, such feeling is often deceptive, for people
   are apt to think, "I must have something good in me, for what a time of
   weeping I had under the sermon and how tender I felt when I heard the
   description of Christ upon the Cross!"

   Yes, and thus you may wrap yourself up in the belief that you are under
   the influence of the Holy Spirit when, after all, it is only ordinary
   human feeling. You may conclude, "Surely these drops come from a heart
   of flesh," when it may be only moisture condensed upon a heart of
   stone! This feeling, too, may stand in the way of something a great
   deal better. Jesus would not have these women weep for one thing,
   because they were to weep for another thing which far more seriously
   demanded their weeping! You need not weep because Christ died one-tenth
   as much as because your sins rendered it necessary that He should die!
   You need not weep over the Crucifixion, but weep over your
   transgressions, for your sins nailed the Redeemer to the accursed tree!

   To weep over a dying Savior is to lament the remedy--it were wiser to
   bewail the disease. To weep over the dying Savior is to wet the
   surgeon's knife with tears--it were better to bewail that spreading
   polyp which that knife must cut away! To weep over the Lord Jesus as He
   goes to the Cross is to weep over that which is the subject of the
   highest joy that ever Heaven and earth have known! Your tears are
   scarcely needed there--they are natural--but a deeper wisdom will make
   you brush them all away and chant with joy His victory over death and
   the grave! If we must continue our sad emotions, let us lament that we
   should have broken the Law which He thus painfully vindicated. Let us
   mourn that we should have incurred the penalty which He, even to the
   death, was made to endure.

   Jesus wished them not so much to look at His outward sufferings as at
   the secret inward cause of that outward sorrow, namely, the
   transgression and the iniquity of His people which had laid the Cross
   upon His shoulders and surrounded Him with enemies! As I quoted, just
   now, certain verses which led us to lament our Lord, let me propose to
   you as better, still, those words of Watts--

   "'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,

   His chief tormentors were!

   Each of my crimes became a nail,

   And unbelief the spear.

   'Twas you that pulled the vengeance down

   Upon His guiltless head:

   Break, break, my heart, oh burst my eyes!

   And let my sorrows bleed.

   Strike, mighty Grace, my flinty soul,

   Till melting waters flow,

   And deep repentance drowns my eyes

   In sorrow and in woe."

   II. Now we pass on from, "Weep not," to, "WEEP." May God the Holy
   Spirit help us to dwell upon that for a while with profit to our souls.
   Though Jesus stops one channel for tears, he opens another and a wider
   one. Let us look to it. First, when He said, "Weep for yourselves," He
   meant that they were to lament and bewail the sin which had brought Him
   where He was, seeing He had come to suffer for it. And He would have
   them weep because that sin would bring them and their children into yet
   deeper woe.

   You know that just before He uttered this remarkable saying, the
   husbands, the fathers and the sons of those women had been crying with
   loud voices, "Let Him be crucified," and when Pilate had taken water
   and washed his hands to show that he was innocent of the blood of
   Jesus, they had imprecated upon their nation, and upon their unborn
   sons, the curse which follows from such a deed. "Then answered all the
   people, His blood be on us and on our children." And though these women
   lamented and mourned, yet over their heads, the men who had spoken for
   the nation had gathered the thunder cloud of Divine Wrath! Jesus points
   to it and says, "Weep for the national sin, weep for the national curse
   which will surely come upon you, because you are putting the Just One
   to death."

   Yes, deeper, still, was His meaning, for all those about Him were, in a
   sense, guilty of His death. And you, and I, and all the rest of mankind
   have been, in our measure, the cause of the Savior's Crucifixion. Oh,
   Brothers and Sisters, this is the reason why we should weep--because we
   have broken the Divine Law and rendered it impossible that we should be
   saved except Jesus Christ should die! If we have not believed in Jesus
   Christ, we have this cause for lamentation--that our sin abides upon us
   at this present moment! That curse which crushed the Savior down till
   He cried, Eloi, Eloi, lama Sa-bachthani, is resting upon some who are
   here this morning!

   Souls, you need not pity the dying Christ, but pity yourselves! On your
   own selves your sin is resting! And your children growing up
   unconverted, hardened in rebellion against God by your example--their
   sin is resting upon them, too, and this is the overflowing cause why
   you should weep! And you Believers, you from whom sin has been lifted,
   who are forgiven for His name's sake--yet lament that you should have
   sinned--and with your joy for pardoned guilt mourn that Christ had to
   carry the burden which you heaped together and to bear the penalty
   which you deserved! All round, Brothers and Sisters, there is abounding
   cause for sorrow for sin--a sweet sorrow from the Lord's people and a
   bitter sorrow from those who have no part nor lot in the result of
   Christ's passion as yet, but who, nevertheless, are partakers in the
   crime which slew the Son of God!

   1 beg you, now, to look again into the reason why our Lord bade them
   weep. It was, first, for their sin, but it was next for the impending
   punishment of their sins. The punishment of the national sin of the Jew
   was to be the scattering of his nation and the total destruction of its
   holy city! And well does our Savior speak of it in terrible language,
   for under all Heaven and in all history there never was such a scene of
   misery as the siege and destruction of Jerusalem! I need not give you
   any outline of it because you must be familiar with that painful
   subject where every horror seems to be combined in one and exaggerated
   to the utmost! Nothing has ever surpassed it! I question if anything
   ever equaled it.

   But our Lord, as I have hinted, looked further than the Roman sword and
   the massacre of the Jews. Often, in His preaching, you do not know
   whether He is talking of the siege of Jerusalem or of the Judgment Day,
   for the one was on His mind such a foreshadowing, rehearsal and type of
   the other--so that in His language He often seemed to melt the two into
   one. He means to you and to me, this morning, to speak, not of besieged
   Jerusalem, but of that Day of Wrath, that dreadful day--what man among
   us shall be able to abide its coming? There is surely cause enough for
   weeping, for when that day comes it will find some men in such a state
   that it would have been better for them that they had never been born!

   When the dreadful sentence shall come from the Judge, "Depart, you
   cursed, into everlasting fire in Hell, prepared for the devil and his
   angels," they will bless the barren womb and the breast at which no
   child has sucked! Then will impenitent sinners bitterly exclaim,
   "Cursed be the day when I was born! Let not the day when my mother bore
   me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father,
   saying, A man child is born unto you; making him very glad." They will
   wring their hands in anguish and curse their existence and wish that
   they had never seen the light! So terrible will the doom of the wicked
   be, that mothers who looked upon the birth of their children as the
   consummation of their joy, shall wish they had been barren and never
   carried a babe at their breasts! They shall count those happy who were
   childless, whom, perhaps in their hearts, in their past lives they
   despised. Existence is, in itself, a blessing--but what shall be the
   misery which shall make men wish that they had never breathed? Yet,
   alas, such is the condition of multitudes while I am speaking to you,
   and such will soon be the condition of some who are looking into my
   face now, unless they repent! Alas! Alas! Weep for yourselves and for
   your children!

   Further, our Lord went on, with that melting voice of His, in
   overflowing grief to say that they might reserve their tears for those
   who would, before long, wish to be annihilated, but wish in vain. "Then
   shall men begin to say to the rocks, fall on us, and to the hills,
   cover us." The falling of the mountain would grind them to powder and
   they wish for that! The descent of the hill upon them would bury them
   in a deep abyss and they would rather be immured in the bowels of the
   earth forever than have to look upon the face of the Great Judge! They
   ask to be crushed outright, or to be buried alive sooner than to feel
   the punishment of their sins!

   Then shall be fulfilled the Word of the Lord by His servant, John, "And
   in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall
   desire to die, and death shall flee from them" (Rev. 9:6). Ah, Sirs,
   extinction is a blessing too great to be permitted to the ungodly!
   Earth will have no heart of compassion for the men who polluted her and
   rejected her Lord. The mountains will reply, "We fall at God's bidding,
   not at the petition of His enemies," and the hills, in their

   stolid silence, will answer, "We cannot, and we would not if we could,
   conceal you from the Justice which you, yourselves, willfully
   provoked." No, there shall be no refuge for them, no annihilation into
   which they can fly! The very hope of it were Heaven to the damned. Oh,
   could they but expect it! But it must not, shall not be. Their cry for
   extinction shall be in vain.

   Now, if you have tears for Jesus dying, reserve them for those to whom
   death is but the beginning of evils! If you have griefs for Him to whom
   they said, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the paps that gave
   You suck," have still more tears for those who shall curse the hour in
   which they were conceived! Here is, indeed, a subject which demands the
   tears of nations and of ages--souls lost beyond all remedy, seeking
   destruction, itself, as a blessing and beginning petitions of
   unutterable anguish which shall never cease and never be put into use!
   Then our Lord goes on to draw a wonderful parallel and contrast between
   His sufferings and those to be lamented, for He says, "If they do these
   things in a green tree, what shall they do in the dry?" I suppose He
   meant, "If I, who am no rebel against Caesar, suffer so, how will those
   suffer whom the Romans take in actual rebellion at the siege of
   Jerusalem?"

   And He meant, next, to say, "If I who am perfectly innocent, must
   nevertheless be put to such a death as this, what will become of the
   guilty?" If when fires are raging in the forest, the green trees, full
   of sap and moisture, crackle like stubble in the flame, how will the
   old dry trees burn which are already rotten to the core and turned to
   touchwood--and so prepared as fuel for the furnace? If Jesus suffers,
   who has no sin, but is full of the life of innocence and the sap of
   holiness, how will they suffer who have long been dead in sin and are
   rotten with iniquity? As Peter puts it in another place, "For the time
   is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first
   begins with us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel
   of God? And if the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the
   ungodly and the sinner appear?"

   Note well that the sufferings of our Lord, though in some respects far
   beyond all conceivable woes, have yet some points about them in which
   they differ with advantage from the miseries of lost souls. For, first,
   our Lord knew that He was innocent and, therefore, His righteousness
   upheld Him. Whatever He suffered, He knew that He deserved none of it.
   He had no stings of conscience, nor agonies of remorse. Now, the sting
   of future punishment will lie in the indisputable conviction that it is
   well deserved. If there were one woe in Hell more than a lost soul
   deserved, it would act as an opiate to its pain--but the justice of
   every infliction will be the tooth of the worm, the edge of the sword.
   No dream of innocence, or conceit of self-righteousness will survive
   the Judgment Day--conscience will be awakened and armed to do its
   work--the wicked will perceive their guilt and cling to it and this
   will make their punishment the more severe. The finally impenitent will
   be tormented by their own passions which will rage within them like an
   inward Hell.

   But our Lord had none of this! There was no evil in Him, no lusting
   after evil, no self-seeking, no rebellion of heart, no anger or
   discontent. A man in whom there is no evil passion to stir up cannot
   know those fierce pangs and wild throes with which raging sin feeds the
   soul. Pride, ambition, greed, malice, revenge--these are the fuel of
   Hell's fire. Men's selves, not devils, are their tormentors! Their
   inward lusts are worms that never die and fires that never can be
   quenched! There could be none of this in our Divine Lord. Again, lost
   souls hate God and love sin, but Christ ever loved God and hated sin.

   Now, to love evil is misery when undisguised and rightly understood sin
   is Hell. It is love of evil continued in the soul which causes the
   perpetuity of the lost estate of men. But the holy Jesus, though
   suffering beyond all conception, could not feel the pangs which come of
   hating good and loving evil. He was the green tree and the ungodly are
   the dry trees. Yet if the Innocent One suffers so, with what pains will
   guilty souls be racked by their avenging consciences? Our Lord Jesus
   knew that every pang He suffered was for the good of others--He endured
   cheerfully because He saw that He was redeeming a multitude that no man
   can number from going down to the Pit. But there is no redeeming power
   about the sufferings of the lost--they are not helping anyone, nor
   achieving a benevolent design.

   The great God has good designs in their punishment, but they are
   strangers to any such a purpose. Our Lord had a reward before Him
   because of which He endured the Cross, despising the shame. But the
   finally condemned have no prospect of reward nor hope of rising from
   their doom. How can they expect either? He was full of hope, they are
   full of despair. "It is finished" was, for Him, but there is no, "It is
   finished" for them. Their sufferings, moreover, are self-caused--their
   sin was their own. He endured agonies because others had transgressed
   and He willed to save them. Their

   sufferings are self-chosen, for they would not be persuaded to forsake
   their sins. But He, from necessity of love, was made to bleed--the cup
   could not pass from Him if His people were not redeemed.

   The torments of the lost will be self-inflicted--they are suicides to
   their souls--the venom in their veins is self-created and
   self-injected. They torment themselves with sin to which they cleave,
   but it pleased the Father to bruise the Son--but the necessity for His
   bruising lay not in Himself, but in others. Now, dear Friends, I think
   I have said enough on this painful matter to assure you that the most
   terrible warning to impenitent men in all the world is the death of
   Christ. For if God spared not His own Son, on whom was only laid
   imputed sin, will He spare sinners whose sins are actual and their own?
   If He smote Him to the death who only stood in the sinner's place, will
   He let the impenitent sinner go free? If He who always did His Father's
   will and was obedient even unto death, must be forsaken of God, what
   will become of those who reject Christ and live and die enemies to the
   Most High?

   Here is cause for weeping! And, very solemnly would I say it, God help
   me to say it so that you may feel it--the most dreadful thought is that
   perhaps we, ourselves, are in the condition of guiltiness before God
   and are hastening on to the judgment which Christ has foretold! Oh,
   think if within the next six months--no, stretch it as far as you
   like--if within the next 50 years some of us should be asking the hills
   to cover us and wishing that we never had been born? What an awful
   prospect! And yet, unless we are renewed in heart and made Believers in
   Jesus Christ, that certainly must be our doom! Think of your children,
   too, who are growing up about you, capable of understanding and
   responsible for their actions. Oh, if they live as they now live, and
   die as they now are, you may wish they had never been given to you and
   had never borne your name! Think of this and weep!

   Dear Friends, if the Lord would put you into a right state of heart,
   you would scarcely think of an unconverted person's condition without
   the deepest pity. You would not hear an oath in the street without the
   tear starting in your eyes! That was a dreadful spectacle which I
   pictured to you just now--our Lord bearing His Cross and the women
   weeping. But how much more awful is that before me! I see a soul
   carrying about itself the instrument of its own destruction and going
   onward with it to its doom! Sin is the cross to which the soul will be
   fastened and habits and depravities are the nails! The soul is bearing
   its sin and loving to bear it! Look, it is going to execution, but at
   each step it laughs! Every step it takes is bearing it towards Hell and
   yet it makes mirth! Lo, the infatuated one scoffs at the voice that
   warns him and every scoff he utters is increasing his guilt!

   Look forward to his end, its never-ending end! Look forward to it
   steadily, with calm and tearful gaze--is it not an awful spectacle? But
   what if you should be beholding yourselves as in a vision, or seeing
   your child in the glass of prophecy! If it is your case, I beseech you,
   repent of your sins, bewail your condition and fly to Christ for
   shelter! And if it is your child, give Heaven no rest! Plead
   continually at the Throne of Grace till you have brought down a
   blessing from God upon your offspring! Never cease to pray until your
   sons and your daughters are safely landed on the Rock of Ages and so
   secured there that they will need no other rock to hide them in the day
   when Christ shall come.

   I beseech you, beloved Christian Friends, ask for tenderness towards
   sinners, towards all sinners, and let your tenderness be shown in
   fervent prayer, in incessant effort and in holy sympathy towards the
   wandering ones. Alas, I have but stuttered and stammered compared with
   the manner in which I hoped to have spoken! I may have failed in
   expressing myself, but God can bless the word none the less! The
   subject is worthy of an angel's tongue! It needs Christ, Himself, to
   expound it completely. Would God He might, by His Spirit, expound it to
   your hearts in the leisure of this afternoon. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 23:1-31. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--178, 265, 312.
     __________________________________________________________________

Why May I Rejoice?

   (No. 1321)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 29, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Not withstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject
   unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in
   Heaven." Luke 10:20.

   You will remember that last Lord's-Day we saw our Lord correcting a
   very natural grief and supplying its place by a more necessary sorrow,
   as He said to the women, "Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and
   for your children." [See No. 1320--"Why Should I Weep?"] Now, this
   morning we shall see Him correcting a very natural joy and directing
   its gladness into a more elevated channel. "Notwithstanding in this
   rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice,
   because your names are written in Heaven." If we commit ourselves to
   Him, He will guide us aright in all things and teach us to sanctify,
   alike, our grief and our gladness.

   We shall commence our discourse by saying that our Lord did not blame
   or upbraid the 70 for rejoicing that the devils were subject to them.
   It would have been a very strange thing if they were not joyous on the
   occasion of so great a success. They had been sent forth upon their
   Lord's errand. They had gone forward unhesitatingly in His name, girded
   with His strength. And His power had been revealed so that His name had
   been glorified--should they not rejoice? It was the Kingdom of God
   which they had proclaimed--should they not be joyful? It was their
   Lord's enemy, as well as their own, who had "fallen like lightning from
   Heaven"--should they not exult? It was not likely, therefore, that the
   Lord Jesus was angry at their joy when they returned, saying, "Lord,
   even the spirits are subject unto us through Your name."

   We must read our Lord's words according to the manner of Oriental
   speech. The peculiar idiom of our Savior's speech often makes Him
   appear to be actually forbidding what He only places in a secondary
   place. He did not mean, in the present instance, to censure their joy
   in their success, but only to make it subordinate to another rejoicing
   and to prevent its growing to excess. Some have thought that they
   detected in the 70 too much personal exultation, if not an almost
   childish triumph in the success which they had achieved. I must confess
   I see small traces of such a feeling in their report to their Master.
   Our Lord Himself evidently coincided with the truth of their report,
   for He, also, said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven."

   I can hardly think that He could have seen that sight without joy and,
   therefore, in some measure, He shared in the feelings of His servants.
   Had He observed in these Brothers that excess of childish exultation
   and vainglory which is supposed, I think He would hardly have gone on
   to invest such novices with yet more power--but yet, He did so, for we
   read in the 19th verse--"Behold I give unto you power to tread on
   serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and
   nothing shall by any means hurt you." Had they been intoxicated with a
   sort of childish glee, the wisdom of our Lord, as Commander in that
   Crusade, would have led Him to say to them, "I had many things to have
   given unto you, but you cannot bear them now. I see already that you
   are intoxicated with your present victories and, therefore, I must
   withhold from you the extraordinary gifts of My kingdom till you are
   better prepared to receive them with humility and to use them with
   wisdom."

   Such prudent conduct would have been in accordance with the usual
   proceedings of our wise Teacher. But He saw no such excessive
   exultation. Whatever He might fear as likely to occur, by-and-by, He
   saw nothing, as yet, to blame in them and so He went on to say,
   "therefore I give you power over all the power of the enemy, and
   nothing shall by any means hurt you." We cannot understand Him to be
   condemning their rejoicing over the fall of devils, for He says,
   "Rejoice rather," and this almost implies that you may rejoice in the
   first subject of joy in some degree. "Notwithstanding," He says, "in
   this rejoice not; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in
   Heaven." The one is forbidden only in comparison with the other. We may
   rejoice that God blesses our labors, but still, it must be a far less
   prominent joy than

   that which springs out of our personal interest in the salvation of
   God! Church members may be glad when they see a great revival and their
   numbers largely increased. But, at such times it is doubly necessary to
   look to vital godliness and personal religion or the joy may be turned
   into mourning.

   Now, my Brothers, taking the incident as it will apply to ourselves,
   there may be some of you, here present, to whom God has given many
   gifts for use in the kingdom of Heaven. He may also have given you
   influence in His Church and power among men of the world. And,
   moreover, your gifts and your power have not been used in vain, they
   have been made useful in many ways so that your course has been one of
   honor and success. The kingdom of God has come near to many through you
   and the great enemy's kingdom has suffered injury by your means.
   Because of all this, you are greatly cheered. Is this wrong? Ought you
   not to be full of joy? I say yes, assuredly, you are bound to be glad!
   We should all be grateful for gifts, grateful for influence, grateful
   for success--but a gratitude which is not attended with joy can
   scarcely be called gratitude at all!

   Would you have gratitude lament the possession of the blessing for
   which she is grateful? There must be joy in the thing received or else
   one can hardly be imagined to be thankful! If gratitude for these
   things is a duty, then surely a measure of joy concerning them must
   also be a duty! You may rejoice that to you is this Grace given, to
   preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And you
   may be glad that from you the Word of God has sounded forth throughout
   all the region in which you dwell. Thus far we go, but we must not
   exceed due bounds lest we become trans-gressors--this joy must be held
   within its own lines and never suffered to run riot. Let us pause and
   see how our Lord Jesus puts a restraining, "notwithstanding," and a
   repressing negative upon this joy when He judges that it is in danger
   of passing due bounds.

   And let us also note how He supplies the place of this joy by something
   higher and better when He says-- "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not,
   that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your
   names are written in Heaven." We shall dwell upon three things this
   morning. First, the joy which needs moderating-- "Notwithstanding in
   this rejoice not." Secondly, the joy which needs exciting--"Rather
   rejoice." And then, thirdly, the joy of the Lord in sympathy with this
   last joy. Just read the first line of the 21st verse--"In that hour
   Jesus rejoiced in spirit." Our Lord could unite in this joy under
   certain aspects of it.

   I. First, then, THE JOY WHICH NEEDS MODERATING. It is the joy of
   triumph over evil spirits, the joy of having preached the Gospel and
   worked wonders--in a word, the joy of gifts, power and success. This
   needs moderating, first, because it is so apt to degenerate into pride.
   The 70 were not proud, for they said, "Lord, even the devils are
   subject unto us through Your name." This was a very proper way of
   reporting results. They did not arrogate any measure of the success to
   themselves, but they ascribed it to the matchless, all-conquering name
   which they had used. So far, all was well.

   But, my Brothers, the tendency of human nature is towards
   self-exaltation and so, by degrees, we come to emphasize the, "to us,"
   and we allow the, "through Your name" to be uttered softly, and yet
   more softly until it is only used as a matter of form--and we, in our
   hearts, ascribe the whole success to ourselves. If God shall bless any
   man with long-continued success in soul-winning, even though that is a
   higher achievement than the casting out of devils, there is an evil
   tendency in our corrupt nature which will tempt such a man to dream
   that in him there is some peculiar excellence or special virtue. He
   will say in his heart, "Lord, even great sinners and proud infidels
   have been turned to You by my preaching," and he may, at the same time,
   forget that it was not his preaching, but the name of Jesus, which
   accomplished the notable deed.

   We are nothing, however much God may have worked by us! All the glory
   is due unto the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, yet we are so base as to
   take credit to ourselves! Who among us can claim to have been perfectly
   free from this temptation? True, the Lord keeps His servants humble
   when He uses them, and if they abound in Grace they may safely abound
   in gifts, also. Saints may be safely trusted with abundant influence if
   they are abundantly under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But to be
   preserved when thus eminently honored is an exceedingly great favor!
   When we see a successful worker walking very humbly, we may say, "This
   is the finger of God." Leave corrupt nature to itself and as a warm
   atmosphere soon causes dead flesh to become putrid, so will the ease
   and comfort of self-congratulation and prosperity speedily breed
   corruption in human nature! Therefore it is necessary that joy in gifts
   and success should be kept under due control and, if it is tolerated in
   a measure, as it may be, it must, nevertheless, not be indulged to any
   great extent lest evil consequences come to us. To here may it come,
   but no further, lest the Lord behold us waxing exceedingly proud and

   put us aside from His work, altogether, and take unto Himself other
   instruments which will not attempt to rob Him of His Glory.

   Again, this joy which needs to be moderated should be restrained by the
   reflection that it is no evidence of Grace in the heart that we possess
   gifts, or that we are successful. Talents are possessed even by wicked
   and slothful servants. Grace without talent will save, but talent
   without Grace will only increase our condemnation! "Though I speak with
   the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as
   sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of
   prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I
   have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity,
   I am nothing." The highest conceivable gifts for Church work and the
   greatest influence in the Church are worthless apart from Divine Grace!

   The possession of such powers may be accompanied by hypocrisy and
   falsehood--it was so in our Lord's day. Judas worked miracles. Judas
   preached the Gospel. Judas was not only a member of the Church, but a
   trusted officer in it. Yet Judas went unto his own place, for he was a
   son of perdition. Our Lord tells us to expect many cases of graceless
   workers, for He says, "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord,
   have we not prophesied in Your name? And in Your name have cast out
   devils? And in Your name done many wonderful works? And then will I
   profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work
   iniquity."

   Observe that this warning speaks not of a few, but of many! We shall
   not only see a Judas once in 18 centuries, but many of whom this shall
   be the case. Men have gone forth making use of the name of Jesus and
   God has honored the name though He has not accepted the men who used
   it. They have preached and the message has been true, and God has
   acknowledged the Truth--but the men have not been true and,
   consequently, they have been abhorred of the Lord. Good seed will grow
   even though it was scattered by a leprous hand. Let us beware, however,
   of speaking the Truth of God with lying lips. Let us beware, lest we be
   like Balaam, who had his eyes opened to see marvelous visions of the
   future and his tongue inspired to utter deep things, and yet he fell
   among the accursed because he ran greedily after a reward.

   Do not rejoice, then, dear Brothers, because God blesses you in what
   you are doing, so that you see souls saved and yourself honored, for
   this might happen to one for whom the Lord has no regard. But rather
   rejoice in being really and truly one of the Lord's own people, written
   in Heaven. Let us keep under our body and watch unto prayer, lest
   haply, after having preached to others, we, ourselves, should become
   castaways. It will be a dreadful thing to keep the door of the King's
   great banquet hall and open it to others--and yet to perish with
   hunger!

   Moreover, it is very unsafe to rejoice unduly in the work which we have
   done because the work, after all, may not turn out to be all that it
   appears. I do not know how much of real good the 70 had worked. There
   can scarcely have been very many converts, for otherwise the number of
   the names would have been greater when the disciples assembled in the
   upper room at Pentecost. We will not, however, judge the work of the
   seventy. But we do know this, that it is very easy for us to go forth
   and, for a time, to succeed so that it seems as if even the devils were
   subject to us. And yet there may be no true Word of God. Crowds may
   gather to listen. There may be manifestations of deep emotion. The
   number of the conversions put down on paper may be very great and yet
   there may be little or nothing in the whole matter worthy of real joy.

   So it may be in other forms of service--in the Sunday school or in any
   other place, we may think we have succeeded and yet we may have only
   been building a baseless structure on sand which the next tide will
   carry away. We ought to remember that every man's work must be tested
   before long, "for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it
   is." It is too early to begin to rejoice until the fire has passed over
   our lifework. The edifice is very lofty and apparently very fair, but
   what if those walls should turn out to be composed of straw, the
   foundations of stubble and the rafters of dry wood? How soon will they
   yield to the fire and how rapidly will the fabric disappear!

   He who has built the tiniest cell of sparkling gems, or the smallest
   cottage of gold, has done more than he who has heaped aloft into the
   air a pyramid of hay! It is not the quantity of work done, it is not
   the space occupied in Church history, it is not the noise of our great
   works--the question is, what is really and truly done? The quality is
   far more important than the quantity. The enduring character of the
   work is far more to be considered than the flash and the glare of it.
   Therefore rejoice not, O young man, in all the brilliant success which
   has, for the present, attended you. And rejoice not even you, old man,
   though you have had half a century of prosperity! Rejoice not so much
   in this as to exalt yourself because of it. But rather rejoice in
   something safer and more gracious--rejoice that your name is written in
   Heaven, if so it

   is!

   This joy, again, however good our work may be, is to be moderated
   because it does not prove that we are anymore gracious than others of
   far less gift and usefulness. Did you notice in the chapter which
   precedes my text, that nine of the Apostles attempted to cast out a
   devil from a lunatic child, but were unable to accomplish it, so that
   they said to the Master, "Why could not we cast him out?" The majority
   of the sacred conclave of Apostles failed to cast out a devil and yet
   70 inferior persons all return with joy, and say, "Lord, even the
   spirits are subject unto us." Do you draw the inference, therefore,
   that the 70 were superior to the Apostles? If you do, you have made a
   very grand mistake, for they were by no means so! And it would be a
   very great pity for any person who has been made useful in the kingdom
   of God to infer that he is, therefore, better than those whose earnest
   labors are crowned by no such apparent results.

   An obscure child of God whose name has never been mentioned in the
   Church may yet be more worthy than we are! Of all estimates of
   ourselves, that which is founded upon our apparent usefulness is likely
   to be most deceptive! Be very careful, Sir, if you consider yourself to
   be something because you have worked wonders! I will show you the
   choicest of my Master's children on sick beds! I will show you the
   richest and rarest piety connected with illiterate poverty! I will show
   you a man who cannot speak a sentence, grammatically, who lives in the
   very bosom of Christ! And you will blush for the depth and power of his
   vital godliness!

   I will find you one who shines as a precious jewel in Jehovah's sight,
   compared with whom you are a poor dull pebble--and yet you are highly
   esteemed--and he has little honor. His prayers have been of a thousand
   times more use to the Church than your preaching! Yes, it may be that
   your preaching has owed its success to his prayers! We cannot judge
   character by gifts! He who has one talent, and uses it well, shall have
   better acceptance at the last than he who has five talents and uses
   them ill. And he who fills his circle, though that circle is small,
   shall have far more comfort, therein, than he who, with a vast field,
   has, nevertheless, left the major part of it altogether unfilled. Great
   importance in the public mind is no argument of great Grace! A man is
   none the worthier for being successful! The best may not be the most
   prosperous. Boast not yourself, O fisherman, because your net is
   filled, for as good men as you are have toiled all night and taken
   nothing!

   Again, this joy in success needs to be kept under tight rein because it
   is not an abiding joy. If you, O man, rejoice today because of subject
   devils, what will you do tomorrow when the devils break loose again? If
   you return from your labor full of success and rejoice, what will you
   do when, another time, you will have to plow the thankless rock and
   break the plowshare? What if your Master should send you where there
   will be no response to your invitations? What if He should send you
   among Samaritans who will not even hear you and you shall have to go
   from city to city and wipe off the dust of your feet against them? What
   if you should meet a child possessed of a devil and find that you
   cannot cast out the evil spirit because this kind goes not out except
   with prayer and fasting? Why, Man, you will be sorely depressed, then,
   and your courage will fail!

   If you have fed your soul upon such light bread as apparent success, it
   will enfeeble you and what will you do when your prosperity wanes? You
   will not have steadfastness enough to go on under discouragement and
   you will shun your Lord's service. This will be evil, indeed! O for a
   faith that is nourished on something better than appearances--a faith
   which does not live on gifts or influence, or present success, but
   sustains itself upon the unfailing promise of the ever blessed God.
   This is what we need!

   Once again, this joy, if we were to be filled with it to overflowing,
   would be found unable to bear the strain of trial, trouble, temptation
   and especially of death. Take the last--will any man, when he lies
   dying, be able to console himself with the reflection, "I have
   testified of Christ to others"? Will he not need some other confidence?
   Will he not require something far more personal? Will this be the sweet
   morsel that shall stay the hunger of his soul? What if he had power
   over devils? May not devils yet obtain power over him? Will he be able
   to cheer himself amidst death's chilly waves with this boast--"I was a
   loud talker and a mighty professor, and the cause of Christ grew under
   my leadership"? No, in such times as that we shall need surer
   consolations and more Divine stays than these.

   Unhappy will he be who has accustomed himself to live upon the
   excitement of crowded meetings, or upon the laudatory criticisms of
   friends. Gifts, attainments, labors, successes all heaped together
   cannot support a soul on the verge of eternity! There is ever present
   the fact that such things are no sure sign of regeneration. Did not the
   sons of the Pharisees cast out devils? Did not the people say of Simon
   Magus, "This man is the great power of God"? Yet these were graceless
   deceivers! We must have sure evidence of the new birth. We must know
   that our citizenship is in Heaven! We must know

   that we belong to Jesus! In one word, we must know that our names are
   written in Heaven or else we shall find ourselves utterly undone in our
   dying hours!

   For all these reasons, then, be not too elated because of devils
   conquered, crowds gathered, or souls saved. But hearken to your Lord's
   voice while He points you to other reasons for rejoicing.

   II. So now we come, secondly, to consider THE JOY WHICH NEEDS EXCITING.
   "Rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven." I am glad,
   my Brothers and Sisters, that this is the joy in which we indulge to
   the full, because it is one in which all the saints may unite and take
   their share. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, my dear Brother,
   though you can do but little for Him, you may rejoice that your name is
   written in Heaven! Here the bedridden Sister may rejoice! Here the
   incurably diseased may exult! The child of God, whose tongue is
   silenced by infirmity, and whose conflicts with devils are confined to
   his closet and his chamber, may come in and say, "I, too, can rejoice
   that my name is written in Heaven."

   Have you ever remarked how our aged friends always delight to sing--

   "When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, Ibid farewell
   to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes"?

   They do so because experience has led them to dwell much on the joy of
   having their names written in Heaven! The joy which our Lord commends
   is one which springs from faith, while the other joy arises alone from
   sight. A man can see that he has gifts. He can see that he has power
   and influence. He can see that he has success. But rest assured that
   every joy which comes to Believers through the sight of the eyes is a
   doubtful joy! It is a dainty of which we must eat in scanty measure.
   Have you found such honey as this? Do not eat too much of it lest it
   sicken you.

   But the joy caused by our names being written in Heaven comes offaith,
   for eye has not seen the record, neither has any angel read it to
   us--and only because we believe in Jesus are we assured of it--for this
   reason the joy grows in good soil and is, in itself, safe. All the joys
   of faith are safe as the water which flowed from the smitten Rock. No
   poisonous streams can ever issue from that source! This joy is a
   heavenly manna of which a man may eat according to his eating and let
   his soul be satiated. This is healthy meat which breeds no plague in
   the camp as the eating of the quails did, for the quails were sent in
   wrath to satisfy their fierce desires.

   We never hear of men dying of eating the manna which came down from
   Heaven, but they did die through eating the quail--which was food for
   their lusts. Be it yours to get as much as ever you can of the joys of
   faith and especially of this--"Rather rejoice that your names are
   written in Heaven." This joy consists in knowing our
   election--"knowing, dearly Beloved, your election of God"--knowing that
   your names were written in Heaven from before the foundation of the
   world! Oh, what an inconceivable delight is this! To be God's choice is
   the choicest of delights! The joy of having your name written in Heaven
   includes the joy of knowing that you are precious to the Lord, for it
   is written, "a book of remembrance was kept for them that feared the
   Lord and that thought upon His name, and they shall be Mine, said the
   Lord, in the day when I make up My jewels."

   To be written in Heaven means that we are precious in the sight of the
   Lord, that He has noted us down in the list of His crown jewels and
   will preserve us for Himself till the day in which all His sacred
   regalia shall be complete. Blessed are those who stand recorded in the
   inventory of Heaven's jewel house! To be written in Heaven means that
   you claim the right of citizenship in the New Jerusalem, "the Church of
   the First-Born, whose names are written in Heaven." Just as there is a
   roll kept by great cities in which they inscribe the names of citizens,
   so do we rejoice that our names are written in the roll of the City
   above, and that, from now on, our citizenship is in Heaven, from where
   we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus!

   This is a broad subject for rejoicing, for it includes priceless
   privileges and honors more than royal. We also rejoice that our names
   are written, that is, known and published in Heaven. Paul mentioned
   certain of his fellow servants of whom he said, "whose names are
   written in Heaven." As much as to say though they have neither fame nor
   honor here, they have a perpetual record where honor is worth
   receiving, namely, before the Throne of God! The heavenly writing
   signifies that we are part and parcel of Christ's new kingdom! We are
   inscribed among His soldiers, we are commissioned to bear hardness for
   His sake. We are written in Heaven among the friends of Jesus, we are
   accounted as of the sacred brotherhood! In the great book of the Divine
   Fatherhood, we are numbered among the children and, from now on, we

   shall be regarded and treated as belonging to the one family in Heaven
   and in earth. This is the matter concerning which we are called to
   rejoice. "Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven."

   I see in this fact abundant cause for joy, but I cannot stay, this
   morning, to bring it out in detail. I would have you joy in the great
   Grace which first inscribed your name in God's eternal book. Oh, bless
   the sovereign, distinguishing, discriminating Grace which wrote down
   your unworthy name where there might have stood the name of a king, or
   of an emperor, or the name of a person of great repute, of superior
   talent, or of great eloquence and learning! Instead of those which men
   esteem to be great names, there stands your common name! Therefore give
   the Grace of God all the glory evermore! And then rejoice in the Grace
   which has kept your name inscribed in that heavenly roll, so that over
   you that ancient threat of the Law has had no power--"Whoever has
   sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my Book." (Exo. 32:33).

   But up to now you have stood among those of whom the Spirit speaks
   expressly in the Book of the Revelation--"He that overcomes, the same
   shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out
   of the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and
   before His angels." There stands your name, still recorded in the
   Lamb's Book of Life, though many a tear of yours might well fall upon
   it to think what Grace it is which keeps it there and will keep it
   there forever! A name among God's sons and daughters is better for you
   than if your name were in Debrett's Peerage, or in the Royal Almanac de
   Gotha. Being in the Book of Life guarantees you peace, joy, security,
   blessedness now--and secures you a place hereafter among the
   blood-washed host in the "many mansions," which Christ has gone to
   prepare for those whom His Father has given Him!

   Sit down now, Beloved, and let your soul triumph to the last degree of
   joy in this--your names are written in Heaven! Forget the falling
   devils for awhile, forget your abilities, forget your successes. Cast
   these all at your Redeemer's feet, where they ought to be, and then
   take this to yourself as your joy, your portion, your Heaven
   below--that your name is written in the family register of the Eternal!
   May the Holy Spirit inspire you with this sublime delight. Brothers and
   Sisters, this is a joy which can be cultivated. How are we to cultivate
   it? If we desire to have much of this joy, we must make the fact sure.
   We must be certain that our names are written in Heaven, or else we
   cannot rejoice in it. Let your faith grow until it reaches the full
   assurance of faith and then shall you rejoice that your names are
   written in Heaven!

   "How am I to know it?" one asks. Well, Friend, one thing is sure, if
   God has written you down among those who are saved, you can soon know
   it because you are saved! If you are forgiven, your name is written
   among the forgiven. If you are, indeed, quickened and made alive, your
   name is written among the living in Zion. I will not invite you to go
   further and peer into that which is unrevealed, for if I did so I
   should be as much out of my sphere as those are who pretend to bring
   men messages from the spirit world! The Lord gives not to any soul,
   dead in sin, the least right to believe that it is written among the
   living. Neither gives He to any ungodly man the liberty to hope that he
   is written among the elect of

   God.

   We must have evidence, not dreams and airy suppositions! And the
   evidence of our name being written in Heaven is that we have been
   called by Grace out of the world to follow Jesus. We see our election
   by our calling, and nothing else. We may know what is written about us
   in Heaven by that which is written within us on earth. If Grace has
   written upon your heart till you are "an Epistle of Christ, known and
   read of all men," your name is in His secret book! If you are trusting
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are His, and the Lord knows them that are
   His. He has written them down in His own private tablets which He
   carries in His bosom. If your name is among true Believers on earth, it
   is among the redeemed in Heaven--you need not question that, for the
   declarations of Scripture put it beyond a doubt.

   If you would rejoice in your name's being written in Heaven, not only
   be assured of the fact, but meditate much upon it. Let this be
   frequently on your mind, "My name is written in Heaven. Beneath the
   name of my Lord, the Lamb, it is inscribed. I am one of His redeemed
   and He writes me down among His dearly purchased property. He knows me,
   looks upon me and regards me as His treasure. I am not my own, I am
   bought with a price, I belong to Him." Go, Brothers and Sisters, and
   exult in this and let the sweet influence of it be daily seen upon your
   life--for this joy, dear Friends, will make all else on earth pale, in
   comparison, with the fact your names are written in Heaven!

   What if you are rich? Rejoice not in this, for riches take to
   themselves wings and fly away, but rather rejoice because your name is
   written in Heaven! If you are a man of learning, thank God for your
   knowledge and use it for His Glory, but, nevertheless, rejoice not in
   this, for what is earthly knowledge often but learned ignorance?
   "Rather rejoice because

   your name is written in Heaven." If you are a person of position in the
   Church, thank God if you may glorify Him thereby! But rather rejoice
   because your name is written in Heaven. Are you strong and in good
   health? Be grateful for the privilege, but rather rejoice because your
   name is written in Heaven!

   Turn this Inspired text round another way and if you have any sorrow,
   or if you mourn the absence of any earthly good, do not lament too
   bitterly--but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven!
   You are poor. Well, be not despondent, for your name is written in
   Heaven! You are despised and your name is cast out as evil--but
   rejoice, none the less, for it is written in Heaven! You have but few
   gifts and abilities, but your name is written in Heaven! You could not
   stand up and edify a multitude, but your name is written in Heaven!
   When you die your departure will make but a small gap in the Church's
   ranks, but your name is written in Heaven! Whatever you lack or
   whatever you suffer, let this console you and, at the same time, let it
   strengthen you for service.

   The joy of the Lord is your strength, you will feel able to go forward
   in God's work when you can boldly say, "My name is written in Heaven. I
   may well serve Him who has so graciously redeemed me! He has put me
   down among His people, why should I not, therefore, expect Him to be
   with me when I go upon His errands and attempt to win Him honor? My
   name is written in Heaven and, therefore, I will live for Him to the
   utmost of my strength and spend and be spent for His name." There seems
   to me to be such a wonderful moral and spiritual power about this joy
   in having one's name written in Heaven that it does not require me to
   explain why the Savior encourages you to indulge in it!

   It is a corrective to the other joy, but it has about it, also,
   independently of that, so many admirable uses that we need not add a
   word by way of guarding it, or restraining it, but may, on the
   contrary, earnestly invite you to partake of it without stint! Eat the
   fat and drink the sweet! Rejoice, yes, rejoice abundantly! Rejoice and
   yet again rejoice, because your names are written in Heaven!

   III. Now, lastly, into this joy the Savior enters and we have to look
   in the third place to THE JOY OF THE LORD IN SYMPATHY with it. And so
   we add to our text the first sentence of the 21st verse--"In that hour
   Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit." Why did He rejoice? I think it was with
   a very same joy that He bids us cultivate as far as it related to
   Himself, for you see, He rejoiced because Grace was given. He said, "I
   thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that You have hid these
   things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes." It
   makes Christ's heart glad to think that God has been gracious to the
   sons of men--to think that He has plucked some of the race out of the
   horrible pit and lifted them up from the miry clay--and brought them
   out of darkness into His marvelous light.

   It makes His soul glad to see that sin has been overcome in many men
   and that many have been renewed in the spirit of their minds by Divine
   Grace. Jesus was also glad at the Father's choice. He said, "I thank
   You, O Father." He looks at these 70 babes out of whose mouth He has
   ordained strength, and He says, "I thank you, O Father, for having
   chosen these." They looked a wretched regiment to conquer the world
   with, did they not? A company of fishermen and peasants, men of the
   lower order! If a man had to shake the world, he might naturally wish
   for choice spirits, the elite, the aristocracy of thought, at any rate,
   if not the aristocracy of gold and silver! He might wish to select the
   refined, the noble, the educated, for his great enterprise.

   But Jesus Christ is perfectly satisfied with His Father's choice. It
   has given me intense joy, sometimes, to think that our dear Savior is
   perfectly satisfied to think that His Father should have chosen me. He
   is not like Hiram, who, when King Solomon gave him certain cities, was
   discontented with them. But our Lord has never spoken a word against
   any of the sheep His Father gave Him, nor has He despised any of the
   elect ones whom the Father has put into His hands. He is perfectly
   content with you, Beloved, perfectly satisfied that you should be
   chosen, though you are not one of the wise and prudent, that you should
   be chosen, though you are like one of the "base things of this world."
   Jesus rejoiced and thanked the Father because of the choice which His
   Sovereign Grace made.

   Notice the spirit in which Jesus puts His thanksgiving--He is satisfied
   with the choice because it is God's choice. "Even so, Father," He said,
   "for so it seemed good in Your sight." That is the true spirit of
   Christ, to be content with what God wills because God wills it--He has
   no questions, no judging, but shows an entire submission, no, an
   intense delight, in the august will of God! Let us, also, delight
   ourselves, this morning, in the fact that our names are written in
   Heaven because God willed them to be there! How well satisfied we ought
   to be with that will, but how much more joyous may we be because
   Christ, also, is content with that will, by which we are given to Him
   that we may be His people.

   Then our Savior went on to rejoice because the Grace of God given to us
   has revealed to us Christ, and revealed to us the Father, for He says,
   "no man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is,
   but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." Now, the Grace of
   God has manifested itself to you and to me, Beloved in Christ, by
   revealing the Father, whom we now inwardly and truly know. We can say
   in our very souls, "Our Father which are in Heaven." And we also know
   the Son. We cannot tell others all we know of Him, all the secret
   fellowships we have had and into what deep communion we have entered,
   but we know Christ and are known of Him--and this is our life's work to
   go on to know Him yet more and more--and to know the Father in Him.

   Jesus exulted because there was a fellowship about all this, for He
   speaks of His knowing the Father and the Father knowing Him--and then
   of our knowing the Father because the Son has revealed Him to us--all
   of which implies a wondrous communication and communion with the Father
   and with the Son. Now, this, I take it, is the cream of joy, a joy in
   which Christ partakes as He has fellowship with the Father and with us,
   and of which we partake as we have fellowship with Him and with the
   Father. Now, mark, there is nothing of this in, "Lord, even the devils
   are subject unto us." There is nothing of this when we merely have
   success in soul-winning. A man may work marvels and yet have no
   fellowship with the Father and with the Son and, therefore, he may lack
   that which is the essence, the center point, the focus of all true joy!

   But he who has his name written in Heaven has had the Father revealed
   to him through the Son and in this he may exceedingly rejoice, for the
   very news of this is what kings and Prophets waited for and found not.
   This is that which even angels desire to look into! Therefore, Brothers
   and Sisters, rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice! My
   last word is for those who know nothing about their names being written
   in Heaven. I would like to turn the text upon you for a second or so,
   for it has a dark side to you, and I pray God that as you see it, you
   may tremble and fly to Christ!

   Whatever you have in this world, Sinner, you have nothing worth
   rejoicing in because you cannot say your name is written in Heaven!
   Rejoice neither in your wealth, your health, your children, your
   prosperity, your position, your success--for if your name is not
   written in Heaven, Ichabod is written over all your choicest
   possessions! As you look on all that you have gained, remember that God
   can make your souls to hunger and faint even in the midst of all these
   things! Listen to the thunder of that dreadful sentence, "I will curse
   your blessings." "The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked,
   but He blesses the habitation of the righteous."

   Oh that your names may be written in Heaven for His mercy's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 9:51-62; 10:1-24. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--219, 239, 719.
     __________________________________________________________________

Rest For The Laboring

   (No. 1322)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   willgiveyou rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek
   and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For My
   yoke is easy, and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30.

   [The Tabernacle was on this night thrown open to strangers, all the
   regular congregation kindly vacating their seats.]

   Our Lord had just been declaring the Doctrine of Election, thanking the
   heavenly Father that He had chosen babes, though He had passed by the
   wise and prudent. It is very instructive that, close upon the heels of
   that mysterious doctrine, should come the gracious invitation of my
   text--as much as if the Lord Jesus would say to His disciples, "Let no
   views of predestination ever keep you back from proclaiming fully My
   Gospel to every creature." And as if He would say to the unconverted,
   "Do not be discouraged by the Doctrine of Election. Never let it be a
   stumbling block in your way, for when My lips have said, 'I thank You,
   O Father, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
   revealed them unto babes,' I also proceed to speak to you in the
   deepest sincerity of heart and say, "Come unto Me, all you that labor
   and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

   I shall notice at the outset who it is that makes so large a promise
   and gives so free an invitation. There are many quack doctors in the
   world and each one of these cries up his own medicine. Who is this Man
   who calls us so earnestly and promises rest so confidently? Is He an
   impostor, too? Will He play us false? Does He boast beyond His ability?
   Ah, it cannot be thought so, for this Man, this marvelous Man who
   promises rest to those who come to Him, is also God! He is the Son of
   the Highest as well as the son of Mary! He is Son of the Eternal as
   well as Son of Man and He has power, because of His Divine Nature, to
   accomplish whatever He promises to perform!

   As a Man, the Lord Jesus was noted for His truthfulness. From His lips
   there never fell an equivocation. He never boasted beyond His ability
   or led men to expect from Him what He could not render. Why should He
   deceive? He had no selfish end to serve or ambition to gratify. Did He
   not come to tell men the Truths of God? It was His errand and He did it
   thoroughly. Believe Him, then! As you are persuaded of the truthfulness
   of His Character, accept His teaching. And as you believe in His
   Deity--if you do believe, and I trust you do--believe in His ability to
   save and at once trust your soul in His hands! If He is a mere
   pretender, do not come to Him. But if, indeed, you believe my Lord and
   Master to be faithful and true, I beseech you attend, at once, to His
   call!

   Where is He now? He is not here, for He is risen. But since He spoke
   these words, He has lost no power to save, but in a certain sense has
   gained in ability--for since He uttered those words He has died the
   death of the Cross by which He obtained power to put away the sins of
   men! He has also risen from the grave, no more to die, and He has gone
   up into Glory with all power given unto Him in Heaven and in earth. He
   is King of kings and Lord of lords! And it is in His name and by His
   authority that we proclaim to you the Gospel of Christ, according to
   His Words, recorded by the evangelist Mark--"All power is given unto Me
   in Heaven and in earth: go you, therefore, and teach all nations,
   baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
   Spirit."

   It is an enthroned Redeemer who tonight invites you! See that you
   refuse not Him that speaks. He is able to save them to the uttermost
   that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession
   for them. Therefore doubt not His power to save you, but come to Him at
   once and find rest unto your souls. Jesus being the speaker, and His
   authority and ability being both clear, we shall now come to dissect
   the words and may God grant that as we do so, the Spirit of God may use
   every syllable and press His Truth home upon our hearts!

   And, first, I notice here a character which, dear Friends, I think
   describes you as the laboring and the heavy laden. Secondly, I notice a
   blessing which invites you--"I will give you rest." Thirdly, I notice a
   direction which will guide you--"Come unto Me: take My yoke upon you:
   learn of Me." And, fourthly, I notice an argument which I trust may
   persuade you--"I am meek and lowly in heart. My yoke is easy, and My
   burden is light."

   I. First, then, here is a character which, no doubt, describes a
   considerable number of those here assembled--"ALL YOU THAT LABOR AND
   ARE HEAVY LADEN." The words look as if there were a great many such
   persons--"all you," and, indeed, so there are, for laboring and
   burden-bearing are the common lot of the sons of Adam. Laborers and
   loaded ones constitute the great mass of mankind--and the Lord Jesus
   invites them all without exception--high or low, learned or illiterate,
   moral or depraved, old or young--"all that labor and are heavy laden"
   are comprehended in His

   call.

   Some have ventured to say that this describes a certain spiritual
   character, but I fail to see any words to mark the spirituality of the
   persons. Certainly I see not a syllable to limit the text to that
   sense. Brothers and Sisters, it is not our right either to add to or to
   take from the Word of God knowingly, and as there is no indication,
   here, that these words are to be limited in their meaning, we shall not
   dare to invent a limit! Where God puts no bolt or bar, woe unto those
   who shall set up barriers of their own. We shall read our text in the
   broadest conceivable sense, for it is most like the spirit of the
   Gospel to do so. It says--"all you that labor," and if you labor, it
   includes you! It says--"all you that are heavy laden," and if you are
   heavy laden it includes you, and God forbid that we should shut you
   out!

   No, God be thanked that no man can shut you out if you are willing and
   obedient, and come to Christ accepting His invitation and obeying His
   command. To you, then, do we speak, "all you that labor." You who work
   so hard to earn a crust that your limbs are weary with your daily
   toil--come to Jesus! And if He gives you no rest for your bodies, yet
   to your souls He will! Yes, even for your physical toil, He is your
   best hope, for His righteous and loving teaching will yet alter the
   constitution of the body politic, till the day shall come when no man
   shall need to toil excessively to earn his share of the common food
   which the great Father gives for all His creatures!

   If ever rest from oppression and from excessive labor shall become the
   joyful lot of mankind, it will be found when the Son of David shall
   reign from pole to pole and from the river even to the ends of the
   earth! And come, you that labor with mental labor--you that are
   straining your minds and exhausting your spirits--you who pine and pant
   after repose for your souls, but find it not! Perhaps you are laboring
   to enter into rest by formal religion--trying to save yourselves by
   rites and ceremonies--by attendance on this service and on that, making
   your life a pious slavery that you may find salvation by the outward
   ordinances of worship. There is no salvation there! You weary
   yourselves with searching for a shadow! You seek for the living among
   the dead!

   Why do you spend your labor for that which satisfies not? Turn your
   thoughts another way! If you come to Christ you shall cease from the
   bondage of an external and formal religion! You shall find a finished
   righteousness and a complete salvation ready to your hand! O you that
   are trying, by your good works, to save yourselves and doing no good
   works all the while--for how can that be good which you do with the
   sole view of benefiting yourselves? That selfish virtue which only
   seeks its own--is that virtue? Can that commend itself to God? I know
   how you wear your fingers to the bone to spin a garment of your own
   righteousness, which, if it were spun, would be no more substantial
   than a spider's web and no more lasting than the fading autumn leaves!

   Why do you not cease from this fruitless toil? O you that hope for
   salvation by the works of the Law, it is to you that Jesus speaks! And
   He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." And He can do it, too!
   He can, at once, give you a spotless righteousness! He can array you
   from head to foot with the garments of salvation! On the spot He can
   give you both of these, and so give you rest, you laboring ones! Some
   of you are laboring after happiness. You think to find it in
   gain--hoarding up your pence and your pounds and seeking for rest in
   the abundance of your beloved wealth. Ah, you will never have enough
   till you get Christ! And when you have Him, you will be full to the
   brim!

   Contentment is the peculiar jewel of the beloved of the Lord Jesus. All
   the Indies could not fill a human heart--the soul is insatiable till it
   finds the Savior--and then it leans on His bosom and enters into
   perfect peace. Perhaps, young man, you are laboring after fame. You
   despise gold, but you pant to obtain a great name! Alas, ambition's
   ways are very weary and he who climbs the loftiest peak of honor finds
   that it is a slippery place where rest is quite unknown. Young brother,
   take a friend's advice and care no longer for man's praise, for it is
   mere wind. If you would rise to a great name,

   become a Christian, for the name of Christ is the name above every name
   and it is bliss to be hidden beneath it, and overshadowed by it!

   Christ will not make you great among men, but He will make you so
   little in your own esteem that the lowest place at His table will more
   than satisfy you! He will give you rest from that delirious dream of
   ambition and yet fire you with a higher ambition than ever! What is it
   you are laboring for? Is it after knowledge? I commend you. It is a
   good possession and a choice treasure. Search for it as for silver. But
   all the knowledge that is to be had from the zenith to the center of
   the earth will never satisfy your understanding till you know Christ
   and are found in Him! He can give rest to your soul in that respect by
   giving you the knowledge of God and a sense of His love. Whatever it is
   you labor after, come to Jesus, and He will give you rest.

   But the text speaks of some as, "heavy laden." They are not merely
   struggling and striving, but they are burdened. They have a load to
   carry and it is to these that Jesus says, "I will give you rest." Some
   carry a load of sin. I mean not all of you. Some of you think, perhaps,
   that you have no sin. But there are others who know that they have
   sinned. In the memory of the past they are full of fear and looking, in
   the present, to their own condition and position. They feel uneasy and
   unhappy. Their grief has nothing to do with the house or with the
   barn--it is with their own selves that their burden begins and ends. "I
   have sinned," they say, "and how can I be forgiven?" This is the load
   they carry.

   Some carry a load of sorrow on the back of this load of sin--a daily
   fretting, worrying sorrow from which they cannot escape--to such Jesus
   beckons and He says, "I will take your sins from you, forgive you, and
   make you whiter than snow. I will take your sorrows from you, too, or,
   if the sorrow abides with you, I will make you so content to bear it
   that you shall thank God for the cross that you carry and glory in your
   infirmity because the power of Christ does rest upon you." Loaded,
   then, with sin or sorrow, come to Jesus and He will give you rest!

   Or, possibly, the load may be that of daily care. You are continually
   crying, "What shall I eat? What shall I drink? With what shall I be
   clothed?" Oh what heavy hearts tread our streets! How many are scantily
   fed and scarcely clothed! What myriads go down Cheapside unhappy
   because they can see no provision for their most common needs! Even to
   these, Jesus says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." He teaches
   the sweet art of casting our cares on Him who cares for us. He shows us
   that, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
   proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live." He has a way of
   making us content with little, till a dinner of herbs, with His Grace
   to season them, becomes a greater dainty than the stalled ox of the
   rich man! Come to Him, you poverty-stricken, and He will teach you the
   science of joying and rejoicing under all circumstances! Even in a
   cottage with scanty comfort, He will give you rest and true riches.

   Or, the burden may happen to be one of doubt. You, perhaps, feel as if
   you can believe nothing and are uncertain about everything. This, also,
   is a crushing load to a thoughtful spirit. I, too, know what that
   means, for I have seen the firm mountains of my youth moved from their
   foundations and cast into a sea of questioning. I, too, have been
   loaded down with difficulties and skepticisms. From that burden I am
   delivered, for in that day in which I believed on Jesus-- the Man, the
   God--and cast myself at His dear feet to be His servant and believe His
   Words and trust in Him, then did the reeling earth stand still and
   Heaven no longer fled away! I saw Jesus and in Him I found the pole of
   faith, the basis of belief! Believe in Jesus and you will meet with a
   blessed rest of mind and thought such as earth cannot afford
   elsewhere-- a rest that shall be the prelude to the everlasting rest in
   Heaven where they know even as they are known!

   So Jesus cries aloud tonight, to you who labor and to you who are
   loaded down with mighty burdens! He cries, and I beseech you have
   regard to the cry! Are you weary of life, young man? Christ will give
   you a new life and teach you how to rejoice in Him always! Are you
   disappointed? Has the world given you a slap in the face where you
   looked for a kiss? Come to my Lord! He will give new hopes that shall
   never be disappointed, for he that believes in Him shall not be
   ashamed, world without end! Are you vexed with everybody and most of
   all with yourself? Jesus can teach you love and put you at your ease
   again. Does someone fret and tease you from day to day? Come to my
   Master and the vexations of the world shall gall you no longer. You
   shall reckon that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment,
   are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in
   you!

   Do you despair? Are you ready to fling yourself away? Do you wish that
   there was no hereafter? And if you were sure there is none, would you
   speedily make your own quietus? Would you afford short shrift to your
   soul and end this mortal

   life at once? Ah, do not do it! There are brighter days before you,
   since Jesus has met you and new life will begin if you will come to my
   Master and sit at His feet! I will give you a hymn to sing, which shall
   grow sweeter every day you live--

   "Happy day, happy day, When Jesus washed my sins away! He taught me how
   to watch and pray, And live rejoicing every day, Happy day, happy day,
   When Jesus washed my sins away!" I have spoken enough upon the
   character, which, I think, comprehends many here--"All you that labor
   and are heavy laden." I know how well it suited me once upon a time and
   how glad I was to answer to the call of the text.

   II. Now, secondly, the text speaks of A BLESSING WHICH INVITES YOU.
   "Come unto Me," says Jesus, "and I will give you rest." "Rest! Rest!
   Rest!" I could keep on ringing that silver bell all the evening--"Rest!
   Rest! REST!" "You gentlemen of England who live at home at ease," you
   scarcely know the music of that word! The sons of toil, the mariners
   tossed upon the sea, the warriors in the battle, the men who labor deep
   in the mines--these know, as you do not, how sweet this music sounds!

   Rest! Rest! Rest! Rest for the weary body is the outward emblem of that
   inward blessing which Jesus Christ holds up, tonight, before the eyes
   of all laboring and heavy-laden souls. Rest--rest which He will give,
   which He will give at once--rest to the conscience. The conscience,
   tossed to and fro under a sense of sin, has no peace. But when Jesus is
   revealed as bleeding and suffering in the sinner's place, and making
   full atonement for human guilt, then the conscience grows quiet. As
   Noah's dove lighted upon the ark, so conscience lights on Christ and
   rests there forever! No sin of yours shall trouble you when you have
   seen how it troubled Christ--how He took it on His shoulders and bore
   it up to the Cross--and then flung it into the depths of the sea, never
   to be mentioned against you anymore forever!

   Jesus gives rest to the mind as well as to the conscience. As I have
   said, the mind wanders to and fro, lost in endless mazes. It must
   believe something, but it knows not what. He who is the greatest
   unbeliever, generally believes the most-- only he believes a lie.
   Incredulity and credulity are strangely near of kin, for he that
   believes not in God generally believes in himself, or believes in
   whatever his own dreams may shape. But he that takes Christ and rests
   upon Him, finds his mind no more disturbed--his thoughts rest, his
   judgment becomes satisfied, his brain is quiet. Rest to the heart, too,
   is given by Jesus. Oh, there are choice and tender spirits in this
   world that need, above all things, something to love! These too often
   choose an earthly object and lean on that reed till it breaks or turns
   into a piercing spear.

   O hearts that pine for love, here is a Beloved for you whom you may
   love as much as you will or can--and yet never be guilty of idolatry,
   nor ever meet with treachery! O broken heart, He will heal you! O
   tender heart, He will delight you! The love of Jesus is the wine of
   Heaven and he that drinks it is filled with bliss! Jesus can give rest
   to the palpitating heart. You sons of desolation, hasten here!
   Daughters of despondency, gather to this call! He can give rest, too,
   to your energies. O you whose unabated strength seeks a worthy field of
   labor, do you enquire, "What shall we pursue?" You want to be up and
   doing, but you have not found an object worthy of you. Oh, but if you
   follow after Jesus and, in the love of God and in the love of man, cast
   aside selfishness, desiring only to be obedient to the great Father's
   will and to bring your fellow men into a gracious state, then shall you
   find a noble and restful life! If you are willing to give up life,
   itself, for God's Glory as Jesus did--for you cannot well be His
   disciple if you do not--then shall you find perfect rest unto your
   souls.

   As for your fears and forecasts which now are troubled--He will turn
   them into hopes of endless glory! Dark forebodings of a future, you
   know not what--the sound of an awful sea whose surf beats upon an
   invisible shore, and whose billows resound with sound of storm and
   everlasting tempest--from all this you shall be delivered! Jesus will
   give you rest from every fear. If you will come to Jesus you shall
   obtain rest in all ways--the rest of your entire manhood, rest such as
   shall unload you of your burdens and ease you of your labors--this is
   the rest which Jesus promises you!

   "Alas," cries one, "I wish I could attain rest. That is the one thing
   necessary to me. I should then become strong and happy. My mind would
   become clear and I should be able to fight the battle of life if I
   could but obtain rest." Yes, but you cannot have it unless you come to
   Christ. Not Heaven, itself, could give you peace apart from Christ, nor
   can the grave's deep slumbers rest you unless you sleep in Him! Rest!
   Neither Heaven nor earth, nor sea and Hades--none of

   them can afford you any trace of it until you come to the Incarnate
   God, Christ Jesus, and bow at His feet. Then you shall find rest to
   your souls, but not till then!

   III. This brings me, next, to say that the text presents A DIRECTION TO
   GUIDE EVERY LABORING AND

   HEAVY-LADEN SOUL IN THE PURSUIT OF REST. I shall be sure to have your
   very deep attention to the directions which Jesus gives, for you all
   need to find rest. Oh, may the Divine Spirit now lead you into the way
   of peace! If you follow our Lord's directions and do not find rest,
   then His Word is not true. But His Word is true! I invite you to try it
   and urge you, at once, to accept His guidance and leadership.

   The first direction is, "Come unto Me." "Come unto Me," He said, "and I
   will give you rest." Mark, it is not coming to a sacrament. It is not
   coming to a Church, or coming to a doctrine. It is coming to a Person
   which is set before you-- "Come unto Me." You are to come to God in
   human flesh, the Deity, Himself, dwelling among us, and taking our
   nature upon Himself. You are to come to Him. He does not bid you do
   anything or bring anything! He does not command you to prepare
   yourself, or advise you to wait. He bids you come--come as you
   are--come now--come alone--come to Him and to Him, only!

   Nobody here needs me to say that we cannot go to Christ, as to bodily
   going, for in His own actual Person He is in Heaven and we are here
   below. The coming to Him is mental and spiritual. Just as we may come
   in spirit to some great poet whom we never saw, or approach some
   renowned teacher whose voice we have never heard, so may we come in
   thought, in meditation, to Jesus, whom our eyes have never beheld! We
   are to come to Him in some such fashion as the following words
   describe--I believe what God has revealed concerning You, O You
   wondrous Person. I believe that You are God and Man. I believe that You
   have died for human sin. I believe that You are able to save, and I
   think of You and meditate upon You daily. "I believe You to be the
   Savior, and I trust You to save me. I am troubled and You say, 'I will
   give you rest.' I trust You to give me peace and I mean to follow Your
   directions till I find it. I ask You to give me Your Spirit that I may
   enter into Your rest. As much as lies in me I come to You! Oh, draw me
   while I come! Lord, I believe! Help You my unbelief!"

   Now, mark, it is not merely to His teaching, or to His Commandments, or
   to His Church that you are to approach--it is to HIM that you are to
   come! Not merely to reading the Scriptures or to offering prayer, for
   if you put your trust in reading the Bible, or in a prayer, you have
   stopped short of the true basis of salvation. It is to HIM--a real
   Person--a Man and yet God--One who died and yet ever lives that you
   must draw near. You are to trust Him! The more you know of Him by the
   reading of His Word, the better you will be able to come. But, still,
   it is neither Bible reading, nor praying, nor Chapel attendance, nor
   Church attendance, nor anything else that you can do that will save
   you, unless you come to HIM! This you can do if you are on the sea
   where the Sabbath bell never sounds. This you can do in a desert where
   there are no meetings of God's people. This you can do on the sick bed
   when you cannot stir a limb. You can go to Jesus by the help of His
   blessed Spirit and you can say, "Lord, I believe in You." That is the
   first thing, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."

   The next command is, "Take My yoke upon you." "Come," and then, "take."
   That is to say, no man is saved by merely trusting himself with Christ,
   unless that trusting is of a living and practical kind. I sometimes
   explain this to my people as I will explain it to you. A celebrated
   doctor visits you, when you are very ill, and he says to you, "Do you
   trust me?" You reply, "Yes, Sir, wholly." "Well," he says, "if you
   trust me completely and give your case over into my hands, I believe
   that I shall see you through this sickness." You assure him of your
   implicit faith in him and then he begins to question you. "What do you
   eat?" He lifts up his hands in horror and he exclaims, "Why, my good
   man, you eat the very thing which feeds your sickness--you must not
   touch that anymore, however much you like it--you must have simpler
   food and a more harmless diet." "Then," he says, "I will send you a
   little medicine which you will take every three hours, according to the
   prescription. You are sure you trust me?" "Yes." "Then all will be
   well."

   He comes back in a few days and he says. "You seem worse, my Friend. I
   fear that your disease has taken a stronger hold upon you than before.
   I do not understand how matters have taken this turn. Are you trusting
   me?" "Yes, doctor, trusting you entirely." "Well, what have you been
   eating?" And then you tell him that you have been eating just what you
   used to eat and you have broken all his rules as to food. "Now," he
   says, "I see why you are worse. You are not trusting me. Have you
   regularly taken my medicine?" He looks at the bottle upon the table.
   "Why, you have not taken a single dose!" "No, Sir, I tasted it and I
   did not like it, and so I left it alone." "How is this?" says the
   doctor, very much

   grieved. "My Friend, you said that you trusted me implicitly." "Yes,
   Sir, so I do." "But I say you do not," he says, "and I will leave you.
   I insist upon it that I will not be responsible for your health if you
   mock me with such a pretended faith! If you believed me, you would have
   done as I told you."

   Now, Jesus Christ never sent me or any other minister to preach to you
   and say, "Only believe, and you may live as you like, and yet be
   saved." Such preaching would be a lie! It is true that we say, "Only
   believe," but that, "Only believe" must be such a believing that you do
   what Jesus bids you! Jesus has not promised to save you in your sins,
   but from your sins, just as a physician does not pretend to heal a man
   while he feeds his disease and refuses the remedy--he only promises
   that he will benefit him if the faith which he expects him to exercise
   shows itself to be a practical and real faith. Beware of a liar's
   faith! And that is a liar's faith which you pretend to get at revival
   meetings if you then go and live just as you did before--

   "Faith must obey her Maker's will As well as trust His Grace. A
   gracious God is jealous still, For His own holiness."

   So Christ says, "Take My yoke." That is, "If you will be saved by Me I
   must be your Master and you must be My servant. You cannot have Me for
   a Savior if you do not accept Me for a Lawgiver and Commander. If you
   will not do as I bid you, neither shall you find rest for your souls."
   Then there is a third direction and I pray you notice each one of these
   words, for failure about any one of them may cause you to miss peace. I
   remember when I was seeking the Lord, that before I came to peace, I
   was made willing to be or to do anything the Lord Jesus chose to bid me
   do or be. Are you in such a state? Then listen, for Jesus says, "Learn
   of Me." That is to say, at first you do not know all His will and,
   perhaps, you will do wrong--but then that will be in ignorance--and He
   will graciously wink at your fault.

   But He says, "Be My disciple. Be My scholar. Come and learn at My
   feet." Christ will not be your Savior if He is not to be your Teacher.
   He will teach you very much, at first, and a great deal more as you go
   on. And it is essential to your salvation that you have a teachable
   spirit even as a little child. You must be willing to drink in what
   Christ pours out for you. The promise is to those who are willing to
   become learners. This is the Gospel, but it is not often preached as it
   should be--"Go you into all the world, and disciple all nations," or,
   "make disciples of all nations." Now, what are disciples but learners?
   You must be willing to be a learner and say, "As I learn I will do, and
   as I am taught I will practice, trusting You, O Jesus, to save me all
   the while. Not trusting to my doing or my learning, but trusting alone
   to You. Yes, both doing and learning because I trust You. Because You
   are all my hope, therefore will I do as You bid me, if you, O Lord,
   will help me."

   Come, young men, I am glad to see so many of you present here, this
   evening. It is a good thing that you bear Christ's yoke in your youth.
   You must have some master, you know, and you will either be your own
   master--and you cannot have a worse--or you will get the devil for your
   master, or you will get the world for a master, and either of these
   will make dreadful drudges of you! But if you take Christ for your
   Master, oh, then it is that you will find Him to be your Savior, and
   you shall enter at once into rest! And that rest will grow, for, if you
   notice, my text first says, "I will give you rest," and then it says,
   "you shall find rest." That is to say, you shall find for yourselves a
   deeper and more profound enjoyment of life as you understand more fully
   the Divine will and obtain more Grace to put it into practice. This is
   the sum and substance of the Gospel.

   Yield, Sinner! Yield! Yield to Jesus! O you proud Sinners, come and bow
   before my Lord! Down with your weapons of rebellion! Lower the crest of
   your pride! Unbuckle the harness of your self-glorying and say, "Jesus,
   Master, only save me from the guilt and power of sin and I will bless
   You forever and ever, and rejoice to obey You as long as I live." Now,
   what I have said is no fiction of mine! I have not altered my Master's
   conditions, or imported anything into the text that is not there. There
   it stands. "Come unto Me: take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me."

   IV. Now the last thing--and I will not detain you much longer, is THE
   ARGUMENT TO PERSUADE YOU TO

   DO SO. And that argument is this--First, the Master you are to serve is
   "meek and lowly in heart." I confess there are some men whom I could
   not serve. They are proud, austere, domineering. One might sooner eat
   his flesh from the bone than serve such tyrants. There have been
   despots in the world whom to serve was degradation. But when you look
   at Jesus Christ, whose whole Being is love, gentleness, meekness,
   lowliness--oh, there are some of us who feel that His shoe laces we are
   not worthy to unloose!

   We would count it Heaven to be permitted to kiss His feet, or wash them
   with our tears, for He is such a glorious One that His beauty attracts
   us to Him. He holds us spellbound by His wondrous Character and we
   count it not slavery, but perfect liberty, to wear His yoke and carry
   His Cross! Have you never heard how He has been served by His
   disciples? Why, they have gladly given up their lives for Him! Let
   Bonner's Coalhole and the Lollards' Tower and the stakes that stood at
   Smithfield tell how men have loved Him! They so loved Him that they
   sang in the dark dungeon and made it light with their joys! They
   clapped their hands in the fires, glad to be consumed that they might
   bear testimony for Him!

   Have you never heard of old Polycarp, when they bid him deny his
   Master, saying, "Eighty and six years have I served Him and He never
   did me a displeasure! How can I, now, blaspheme my King that saved me?"
   Oh, He has bred such enthusiasm in His followers that neither the
   gridiron of St. Lawrence nor the wild bulls of Blandina have been able
   to prevent the saints from glorying in His name! They would have gone
   through Hell, itself, to serve Him, if it had been possible! His love
   has had such power over them--whatever we have to suffer for Him, He
   suffers with us! Alexander was a great master of men and one of the
   reasons why all his soldiers loved him so enthusiastically was that, if
   they were upon a long march, Alexander did not ride, but marched along
   in the heat and dust with the common soldiers. And when the day was hot
   and they brought His Majesty water, he put it aside, and said, "The
   sick soldiers need it more than I. I will not drink till every soldier
   has a draught."

   So is it with Christ! In all our afflictions, He is afflicted and He
   will not have joy until He gives joy to His people! Yes, He has done
   more than Alexander, for He emptied Himself of all His glories and gave
   Himself to die upon the Cross and consummated the redemption of His
   people by His own agonies. Who would not follow One whose footprints
   show that He was crucified for His followers? Who would not rally to
   His banner, when you see that His hand which upholds it was pierced
   with nails that He might redeem us from Hell? On which of His disciples
   has He ever looked unkindly? Which of His redeemed has He ever cast
   away? To which of those that love Him has He ever been unjust or
   ungenerous? Therefore I charge you all--and all His saints speak in me
   while I speak--take His yoke upon you and learn of Him, for He is meek
   and lowly in heart.

   In the last place, that which Jesus Christ asks you to do is no hard
   thing. As He is not severe, Himself, so His commands are not hard, for
   He says, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." True, there are
   some things which you now delight in of which Christ will say, "Have no
   more to do with them," but He will only forbid you those things which
   injure you, and He will put something better in their place. He may
   call you to duties which will try you, but, then, He will give you such
   consolations that they will cease to be trials. In fact, the
   difficulties of following Christ are delightful to His hearty
   followers! They love difficulties that they may show the sincerity of
   their confidence in their Leader.

   Oh, my beloved Friends, the service of the Lord Jesus Christ is no
   bondage! There are no chains to wear! There are no prisons to lie in,
   or, if there are any, they are not of His making but are the devices of
   His enemies. Christ's ways are ways of pleasantness and all His paths
   are peace. He calls you to that which is right, true, honest, loving,
   tender, heavenly. Who would not be willing to be called to this? He
   asks you only to give up that which is evil and displeasing in His
   sight, degrading to your own mind, and which stops the channels of
   peace and happiness to your soul. Above all, it is no hard thing,
   surely, to believe in Him.

   "Oh," says one, "that is just the point. Sometimes I cannot feel that
   Christ could forgive me." No, and do you know why? It is because you do
   not think enough of HIM and think too much of yourself. If you sit down
   and think of your sin, you will soon feel as if pardon were impossible
   but, when you turn and think of Him, you will see, at once, how readily
   He is able to forgive! There is an homely illustration which I often
   use, and I cannot think of a better, I must use it now. If you were to
   go, tomorrow, up and down London, right along from end to end, there
   would be quite a journey for you. Twelve, 14, 15, perhaps 20 miles you
   could go and scarcely see a break in the houses. I would have you
   traverse the main roads and then go down the cross streets, lanes,
   alleys, and courts.

   After you had had a day of it you would say, "Dear, dear me, what a
   mass of people! How do they live?" And if you were nervous, you might
   very soon come to feel, "I am afraid, one of these days, London will be
   starved. Here are nearly four millions of people! Lebanon would not be
   sufficient to find them cattle, nor Carmel and Sharon to supply them
   with sheep for a single week! They will certainly be starved." I can
   imagine your becoming seriously apprehensive of a famine. Well, then,
   next Monday morning we will have a fast horse and we will go up to
   Copenhagen Fields and see the live cat-

   tle. And then we will drive to Smithfield, and see the carcasses. And
   next we will go round to the markets and see where the fish and the
   vegetables are sold.

   And when we have finished our tour of observation--which will take us
   at least two or three hours early in the morning--as you get out of the
   Hansom Cab, I know what you will say to me. You will change your tone
   and say, "I am no longer afraid of the people's starving, but I am more
   afraid of the meat being wasted! I cannot think where all the people
   come from to eat all this! I am astonished to see such a mass of food!
   I should not wonder if tons of it should be spoiled. There cannot be
   people enough to eat it all." Your mind has suffered that sudden change
   because you have changed your point of consideration!

   So now, if you think of sin, sin will seem a monstrous thing that never
   can be put away. And when you have reached that point, it is time to
   think of the blood which cleanses us from it. Think of sin till it bows
   you down, but do not think of it so as to despair! Turn your eyes to
   Calvary's bloody tree and see, there, the Son of God in agonies of body
   and soul, pouring out His life for sinners! May the Holy Spirit give
   you a quick eye for the sufferings of Jesus. Oh, I have sometimes
   looked at Christ in that way till I have said, "The sin of a world
   might readily be put away! Yes, Master, and if every star that decks
   the heavens were a world, and every world were as full of sinners as
   this earth is, yet, surely, no grander redemption for them all would be
   needed than your august Sacrifice, O mighty Son of God!"

   John Hyatt, when he lay dying, was asked by one of his friends, "Mr.
   Hyatt, can you trust Jesus with your soul now?" And the good man
   answered, "Trust Him with one soul? I could trust Him with a million
   souls, if I had them!" That is how I feel when I think of the death of
   my Lord Jesus, and it is what I want you who are troubled in spirit to
   feel. As you see Him wounded, bleeding, dying on the cursed tree,
   Sinners, may you find your hearts believing that He suffered thus for
   you. And, as you do believe it, you will find rest unto your souls. May
   God give that rest to every one of you tonight, for Christ's sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 11:15-30.
     __________________________________________________________________

And Why Not?

   (No. 1323)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 12, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And He said unto the disciples, The days will come when you shall
   desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you shall not see
   it" Luke 17:22.

   WHILE the Lord was yet on earth the days of the Son of Man were but
   lightly esteemed. The Pharisees spoke of them with a sneer and demanded
   when the kingdom of God should come. As much as to say, "Is this the
   coming of your promised kingdom? Are these fishermen and peasants your
   courtiers? Are these the days for which Prophets and kings waited so
   long?" "Yes," Jesus tells them, "these are the very days. The kingdom
   of God is set up within men's hearts and is among you even now. And the
   time will come when you will wish for these days back again. And even
   those who best appreciate them, shall, before long, confess that they
   thought too little of them, and sigh in their hearts for their return."

   This suggests the remark that we are bad judges of our present
   experiences. Those days of which we think very little while they were
   passing over us come, by-and-by, to be remembered with great regret.
   Have you not found it so in your own lives? Has it not been so that the
   very experience which caused you anxiety while you were passing through
   it was, afterwards, appeared to be so excellent in your eyes that you
   have wished to have it back again? I have said unto my soul sometimes,
   "How heavy you are! How are you bowed down! How little do you rejoice
   in the Lord! It is sad that you should fall into this condition."

   The period of heaviness has passed away and then I have chided my heart
   in another way, saying, "Soul, how careless and unfeeling you are! It
   were better for you if you were as heavy, now, as you were a little
   while ago, for then you were in earnest--then you were driven to mighty
   and prevailing prayer--but now you are steeped in lethargy! You have
   lost your fervency and are scarcely alive at all!" This stage has gone
   by and I have again had to look back and feel that when I thought
   myself insensible I was really very spiritual and sensitive--and that
   my fears of falling into carnal ease were sure proofs that I was
   carefully upon the watch. Thus are we delivered from carnal security by
   being made to see more beauty in past experiences than in those now
   passing over us.

   Holy anxiety, when it broods over us, is often mistaken for unbelief.
   Full assurance is suspected to be presumption and joy is doubted and
   stinted for fear it should be pride and self-deception! When our
   spiritual spring is with us, we are fearful of its March winds and
   April showers. But when it is gone and we are parched with summer heat,
   we wish we had the winds and showers back again. So, too, when autumn
   comes, we mistake ripening for decaying and mournfully wish the roses
   of summer would return--while all through winter we are sighing for
   those summer hours we once enjoyed and those mellow autumn fruits which
   were so sweet to our taste. Thus, Brothers and Sisters, we continue, if
   we permit ourselves to do so, to judge each state in which we have been
   to be better than that in which we are, and to shed useless tears of
   regret over times and seasons which are gone past recall!

   While they are with us, we see their deficiencies. When they are gone,
   we remember only their excellencies. It were wiser if we took each time
   and season, and state and experience, while yet it was on the wing,
   turned it to the best account for God's Glory and rejoiced in it! It
   will be time, enough, to mourn when it is gone from us. After all, each
   season has its fruits and it were a pity to wither them with idle
   regrets. Let us turn to good account the old worldling's motto, and
   live while we live. Let us live one day at a time, enjoy the present
   good and leave yesterday with our pardoning God. The days of the Son of
   Man, of which the Apostles thought comparatively little, they
   afterwards sighed for. And these present days, of which we are
   complaining, may yet come to be regarded as among the choicest portions
   of our lives.

   Our second remark is a very commonplace one, you have heard it a
   thousand times--we seldom value our mercies till we lose them. We best
   appreciate their excellence when we have to deplore their absence. This
   has been so often said that I wish it did not continue to be true, for
   it is an atrocious piece of folly that, after all, we should be obliged
   to lose our

   blessings in order to learn gratitude for them! Are we such dolts that
   we never shall know better than this? Such conduct is only worthy of
   the idiot or the insane! Can we not put away such childishness and thus
   remove one occasion for our sorrows? Would it not be well to resolve,
   in God's strength, to estimate the blessing while we have it, and so to
   use it that when it is gone we may remember that we turned it to the
   best account for our soul's profit, for the benefit of others, and for
   God's Glory?

   We cannot call back the sun and lengthen out these shortening days, but
   we can, at least, so live that every flying hour shall carry with it,
   tidings of our zealous industry in our Master's cause. Come, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, whatever is our present condition is good, let us
   bless God for it now and use at once its peculiar opportunities and
   advantages, lest haply, in some future day we should rue our foolish
   neglect and desire too late to see more of such days. This morning, as
   the Holy Spirit may help me, I intend to use the text, first, by
   explaining its immediate interpretation. Then, secondly, by giving an
   interpretation adapted to Believers at the present day. And then,
   thirdly, by urging home another interpretation, much after the same
   import, adapted to unbelievers at this time.

   I. First, let us consider THE IMMEDIATE INTERPRETATION of our text. The
   first meaning ought always to have the preference in every discourse.
   We must always mind the mind of the Spirit. Did not our Savior mean two
   things, first, that the day would come in which His disciples would
   look back regretfully upon the past, wishing that they could have Him
   walking among them again? And, secondly, that they would anxiously look
   forward to the future, wishing that they might, if it were only for one
   day, behold Him in His Glory, enthroned in power, as He shall be in the
   latter days, when He shall stand a second time upon the earth?

   Looking either backward or forward, the one thing they sighed for was
   to have their Lord personally and visibly with them. First, then, I
   say, our Lord meant that they would look back regretfully upon the days
   when He was with them. In a short time His words were true enough, for
   sorrows came thick and threefold. At first they began to preach with
   uncommon vigor and the Spirit of God was upon them so that thousands
   were converted in a single day. Then they saw how expedient it was that
   their Lord should go and that the Spirit should be given. Persecution,
   however, soon arose and they were scattered abroad. And many of them,
   doubtless, mourned those quieter days when their Lord's Presence
   shielded them.

   Still, in all their scattering, the power of the Spirit rested upon
   them and they increased and multiplied--and the joy of the Lord was
   their strength. But by-and-by the love of many waxed cold and their
   first zeal declined. Persecution increased in its intensity and the
   timid shrank away from them. Evildoers and evil teachers came into the
   Church. Heresies and schisms began to divide the body of Christ and
   dark days of lukewarmness and half-heartedness covered them. In such
   circumstances many and many a time did the true servant of Christ say,
   "O for an hour with the Lord Jesus! O for one of the days of the Son of
   Man, when the arm of the Lord was revealed among us! O that we might go
   to Him and tell Him all our problems and ask his guidance and entreat
   Him to put forth His power!"

   I can imagine that all the first generation, and the next, and the
   next, after our Lord had ascended, had often upon their lips the sigh,
   "Would to God we could see one of the days of the Son of Man! Oh, where
   is He that trod the sea and made the waves of the lake of Galilee lie
   still at His feet? Oh, where is He that chased the demons and met our
   foes at every point?" They must often have felt a strong desire to see
   one of those grand days of miracles when even the devils were subject
   to them. It has often occurred to us to desire the same. Though it is
   now 1,800 years ago and more since the Lord went into His Glory and
   though He has given us the blessed Spirit to abide with us in His
   place, yet we have fondly wished, but wished in vain, that we could,
   for one day, at least, see Him healing the sick and raising the dead!

   See here, the scoffers tell us that God is dead, or that if there is a
   God, He has no influence in this world, but has laid aside His powers
   and handed it over to certain rigid laws with which He has nothing to
   do. Oh, if we could have the Incarnate God among us but for a day to
   work His wonders of Grace, to feed the hungry, to open blind eyes, to
   unstop deaf ears, to make the lame man leap like a rabbit and cause the
   tongue of the dumb to sing! Have you not desired it? Your desire will
   not be gratified. "You shall not see it." It would not be of much
   service if you did see it. It could only happen in one place upon any
   one day and you who already believe would be confirmed by what you saw,
   but not so unbelievers.

   We should only have to begin a new battle with infidels, who would as
   readily deny that which happened today as that which happened almost
   2,000 years ago! Only those who saw the miracle would ever believe that
   it occurred and a large proportion of these would begin to say, "This
   was probably done by sleight of hand," or they would ascribe it to

   magnetism, or electricity, or some newly-discovered force. Miracles
   will not convince when men are resolved to disbelieve! Faith is not
   born of sight, nor can it be nourished by it. It is the gift of God and
   the work of the Holy Spirit--and we err if we believe that even
   Christ's bodily Presence and the repetition of His miracles would be of
   any value! He who believes not Moses and the Prophets, neither would he
   believe though he were to be dazzled with miracles! The kind of faith
   which merely outward signs would produce would not be the faith of
   God's elect.

   Then, too, we have been wearied with fierce disputing upon this
   doctrine and upon that, and one has said, "This is the Master's mind,"
   and another has said, "No." One teacher has denounced his fellow and
   has been answered by an excommunication from his opponent. In these
   controversies have we not wished that we could go to Jesus with all
   questions and say, "Master, give us one Infallible Word, untie or cut
   these knots with one word of Your lips. Then will Your poor Church be
   no longer disquieted with debates." Brothers and Sisters, Jesus is not
   here! Instead of His Presence, we have that of His Spirit, and though
   you may wish for His bodily Presence, it would not be of much service
   to you in the matter for which you desire it, for, strange to say, if
   our Lord were to speak again, men would begin to dispute tomorrow about
   what He meant today, even as they now quarrel over His Words of 1,800
   years ago!

   His language in this Book is already so very plain that I do not know,
   if He were to speak again, that He could speak more clearly than He has
   done. At any rate, His hearers said of Him, in the days of His sojourn
   here, "Never man spoke like this Man," and I suppose if He were to
   speak again, He would not improve upon what He has already spoken, nor
   would He teach us much more. For us to hear Him speaking, again, would
   only be to create a new opportunity for a fresh set of
   controversies--and we should have among us the Old School Christians,
   and the Christians of the Later Revelation, which would double the
   confusion and make bad worse! No, my Brethren, we need the Holy Spirit
   to enlighten us as to what our Lord has already spoken, but it is idle
   to wish that He would teach among us again.

   We ignorantly desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but
   Divine Providence kindly denies us our wish and tells us plainly, "You
   shall not see it." "Ah," but you have said, "Only to see our blessed
   Lord once! Just to cast eyes upon His beloved Person for a moment! To
   hear but once the tones of His heart-moving voice! Oh, if I might but
   once unloose His sandals or kiss His feet, how would my spirit feel
   confidence and joy all her days! How would faith grow if she could but
   have a little actual and intimate communion with the Well-Beloved! I
   would gladly give all that I have for one glance of His eyes." I know
   you have indulged that thought, for I have often had it myself, but
   dear Brothers and Sisters, if the Lord Jesus were to come upon earth, I
   am not sure that you could have much of His company, because there are
   so many of His people--and each one would wish to entertain Him.

   He could, as a Man, be but in one place at one time, and you might get
   to see Him, perhaps, once in the year, but what would you do all the
   rest of the year, when you might not be able to hear His voice because
   He would be in America or in Australia? How much better off would you
   be? Surely none at all! It is far better for you to continue to say,
   "Whom not having seen we love; in whom, though now we see Him not, yet
   believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." The fact
   is, Brothers and Sisters, the great battle of the Lord has to be fought
   out upon the lines offaith and, for us to see with our eyes would spoil
   it all. That sight of the eyes and hearing with the ears which we
   desire, just to break the monotony of the walk of faith, would, in
   fact, spoil it all, and amount to a virtual defeat.

   Our God is saying to us, "My Children, can you trust Me? Can you obtain
   the blessing of those who have not seen and yet have believed? Abraham
   trusted Me, but he heard Me speak with an audible voice. Moses trusted
   Me, but he saw My wonders in Egypt and in the wilderness. Can you trust
   Me without voice or miracle?" The Lord has spoken to us by His Son, who
   is better than all voices or wonders! Can we now believe Him? Is the
   spiritual life within us strong enough to believe the Lord without any
   further evidence? Can we honor Him by resting upon His sure Word
   without seeing signs or wonders? We, upon whom the ends of the earth
   have come, are set to work out the great problem of defeating the
   powers of darkness and walking throughout an entire life by simple,
   undiluted faith--can we accomplish it? By the Spirit's help we can!

   I beseech you, Brothers and Sisters, say unto the Lord, "Lord, increase
   our faith, and grant that we may so trust You that from now on we may
   neither ask for sight nor sound, nor anything else that would prevent
   our resting on Your bare Word." You have fallen into that mistaken
   condition and wished for one of the days of the Son of Man, but you
   shall not have it, for your heavenly Father has reserved some better
   thing for you, that you, to the end, with simple, unalloyed

   faith in Him, should endure and conquer through the blood and the power
   of your unseen Redeemer, who is really with you, though you see Him
   not!

   Our second reading of the text was that these disciples would look
   forward, sometimes, with anxious expectation. "If we cannot go back,"
   they would say, "Oh that He would hurry on and quickly bring us the
   predicted era of triumph and joy! Oh for one of the days of the Glory
   of the Son of Man!" They would gladly have a drop of the Glory before
   the shower of the Millennium. They would hear one blast of His trumpet
   before it shall sound to raise the dead and see one flash of the
   eternal morning before whose dawning the shadows shall forever flee.
   Have you not, sometimes, desired the same? I know when I stood at the
   foot of the so-called Holy Staircase at Rome and saw the poor deluded
   creatures crawling up and down the steps, in hopes of obtaining
   remission of sins by their prayers, I wished the Lord would flash forth
   His power a moment upon those horrible priests who had degraded their
   people by such superstition!

   One of the days of the Son of Man with the scourge of small cords would
   effect a great change in the Church of Rome, but one of the days of the
   Son of Man with the iron rod would be better, for there are plenty of
   potter's vessels around the Vatican that need dashing to shivers! Our
   indignation would anticipate the judgment and put a speedy end to
   Antichrist. We long to see the millstone dashed into the flood from the
   angel's hand, never to rise again! In all this indignant impatience
   there is much that needs repressing. Our Lord says to us, "My Children,
   what have I to do with you? My hour is not yet come."

   We know not what spirit we are of, for in reality we are wanting to
   give up the battle on the present lines and see it fought out in
   another way! Or, in other words, we consent to a defeat, so far as
   faith goes, and would console ourselves with victory obtained in
   another manner. Suppose we wish for one of the days of the Son of Man
   to break down the idols of the heathen and the images of the
   Papists--to overthrow all systems of error and to establish straight
   away, by force of Omnipotence the kingdom of Christ? Now, if our wish
   could be granted, what would it all amount to? It would only manifest
   what is clear enough, already, namely, the power of God in the world of
   matter! But it would not prove His greatness in the moral and the
   spiritual worlds.

   If you will think of it, awhile, you will see that the Omnipotence of
   God is not the question. It is clear that any act of power can be
   performed by the Lord at once. He could, beyond all doubt, in a moment,
   confound His enemies and utterly destroy their errors by crushing the
   advocates of them. But that is not the point. The question is--can the
   force of love and truth by the Gospel of Jesus win men's hearts? Can
   Christ, in His people, conquer sin, falsehood and hatred by purely
   spiritual means? Can sinful creatures, such as we are, continue
   faithful to God under temptation and allurements? Will God, by the
   feeble instrumentality of men and women living and teaching the Gospel
   of Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is a purely
   spiritual power, be able to break down the works of Satan, abolish the
   false gods, scatter infidelity and Antichrist--and establish the
   kingdom of Grace, peace and righteousness?

   Do you not see, Brothers and Sisters, that to invoke the interference
   of mere power is to spoil the experiment? The glory of the latter days
   befits the period of triumph, but not the time of conflict! To snatch
   from the future a day of its splendors would be to alter the conditions
   of the great fight and so to accept a defeat! The result is safe
   enough! The battle is the Lord's and He will win and, therefore, do not
   let us give way to these misplaced pipedreams and longings. "Ah," says
   one, "I wish He would come, now, and divide the sheep from the goats."
   Why? Are not the sinners better among the saints for awhile, that the
   Gospel may the more easily reach them? Remember, also, that the farmer
   would not have the tares divided from the wheat till the harvest came.

   "Oh, but we wish the Lord would come and put an end to sin." Is it not
   better that His long-suffering should patiently wait, calling men to
   repentance and culling out His elect from the sons of men throughout
   many a generation? The waiting is dreary to you, but it is not long nor
   dreary to His infinite patience. "Oh, but this delay is tedious, and
   infidels are demanding, 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" Brothers
   and Sisters, of what consequence is it what unbelievers say? Are
   Heaven's affairs to be arranged to meet their foolishness? "He that
   sits in the heavens does laugh; the Lord does have them in derision."
   Would it not be better for you, also, to scorn their scorning? Who are
   they that we should be afraid of their reviling?

   "Ah," you say, "but error has so long prevailed and it grows worse and
   worse." What if it does? It shall still be overruled for the Lord's
   Glory! God is still on the Throne. He is in no hurry. Remember the
   infinite leisure of the Eternal! What would a million, million ages be
   to Him? Truly He comes quickly, but you must not read that, "quickly,"
   after

   your rendering, for, "quickly," with Him may be slowly enough for us.
   We cannot measure the paces of the Infinite, for the whole history of
   man is but a pin's point to His eternity! Our judgments of Jehovah's
   going forth are sure to err--He walks, we are told, upon the wings of
   the wind--He is only walking when He moves as swiftly as the tempest!
   We may as readily err upon the other side and think Him slow, when in
   reality, He rides upon a cherub and does fly! A thousand years to Him
   are as one day, and one day with Him is as a thousand years!

   No, we will not beseech the Lord, as yet, to divide the sinners from
   the saints by His Infallible Voice--we will not expect Him, yet, to
   say, "Depart, you cursed," and, "Come, you blessed." We will not beg
   Him to display at once His great power and to put down all the
   principalities of evil with His rod of iron. We will wait and fear not!
   Faith is now the watchword and the order of the day. Sight is for
   unbelievers, but patient trust is for the saints. This is the victory
   which overcomes the world, even our faith. This it is which glorifies
   God and overthrows the powers of evil! Believe, and so shall you wax
   valiant in fight and put to flight the armies of the aliens. Believe,
   and so shall you be established. Ask not to see, for sight is wisely
   denied you. Heaven will be the brighter and eternity the more glorious
   because we hope for what we see not, and do with patience wait for it.

   II. Secondly, I am going to give, with much solemn earnestness, AN
   ADAPTED INTERPRETATION SUITABLE TO BELIEVERS AT THIS PRESENT MOMENT.
   "The days will come when you shall desire to see one of the days of the
   Son of Man, and you shall not see it." That is to say, first, I call
   our days of holy fellowship with Jesus days of the Son of Man. And
   these may pass away to our deep sorrow. We have known days when our
   faith in Christ has been strong and real and our hearts have drawn very
   near to Him. Our ears have not heard Him speak and yet He has spoken
   into our soul. Our eyes have not seen Him and yet our heart has been
   ravished with His beauties! Oh, the delights, the heavenly joys which
   we have, then, experienced!

   Perhaps I speak to some who are experiencing all that bliss at this
   present time and this has lasted with them for months, perhaps for
   years. Happy Brothers! Happy Sisters! To abide in such a state of mind
   as this! But cast not aside my word of jealous counsel this morning,
   for I speak in purest love. Take heed lest the day come when you shall
   desire to have one of these days, again, and not see it! While the
   Beloved is with you, hold Him and do not let Him go. "I charge you, O
   you daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field,
   that you stir not up nor awake my love until He pleases." Remember, the
   Lord Jesus is a jealous Savior. He will depart if He finds you love any
   earthly thing more than Himself. He will hide Himself if you begin to
   pride yourself upon your gifts and think that, surely, you must be
   someone or else your Lord would not so sweetly reveal Himself to you.

   He will up and away, also, if you grow cold and negligent, if you
   despise the means of Grace and especially if you decline in private
   prayer and if His Word shall become a dry bone to you. Ah, when the
   Lord is gone, what a vacuum remains in the soul! It is the best thing I
   can say for it--I hope that the dreary vacuum will be mourned over and
   lamented. I hope that the heart will never rest till Jesus returns, but
   mourn and lament--

   "Where is the blessedness I knew In union with my Lord? Where is my
   heart's refreshing view Of Jesus and His Word?"

   But, Beloved, the Lord Jesus need not go and you need not depart! He
   will abide with you even as He did with the disciples at Emmaus when
   they constrained Him, if you are but eager for His company. He will
   pitch His tent with you and be no more a stranger or a guest, but like
   a child at home! Only take heed that you grieve Him not by sin and He
   will remain with you till the day breaks and the shadows flee away! And
   you shall evermore abide in His love and your soul be filled with His
   joy.

   But take the kindly warning of this morning, for if you walk loosely,
   carnally, carelessly, proudly, forgetfully, the days shall come when
   you shall wish for one of the days of the Son of Man and you shall not
   see it. Turn the text another way, and learn again. Beloved Friends, we
   have enjoyed days of delightful fellowship with one another as well as
   with our Lord. In the days of the Son of Man the disciples were so
   united in heart that when He had ascended, "they were all with one
   accord in one place." Now, it is a great joy for Believers when we are
   all knit together in love and when Christian brotherhood is a matter of
   fact and not of mere talk. Those are blessed days when the family
   circle is gracious, when husband and wife and children can speak
   together of the things of God and there is no division or coldness at
   home.

   Those are happy times when your bosom friends are Christ's bosom
   friends! When those with whom you talk familiarly hold converse with
   God. It is no small bliss to go up to the House of God in company with
   those who keep holy day and to feel that they are of one mind with us
   in the things of God. Happy is it, also, for us when in the Church
   there is undivided fellowship in prayer, when everybody seems to be in
   a praying frame of mind--when there is fellowship in praise and eyes
   glance joy to eyes with a delight that is common because of the Lord's
   blessing--when there is fellowship and agreement, one Lord, one faith,
   one baptism, and one Spirit is in all and upon all. Those are, indeed,
   the days of the Son of Man! Something like this we have known for
   years--by His Grace these days have been common with us.

   Brothers and Sisters, I hope we shall never know the loss of them, but
   we easily may. The Church may soon allow her fellowship to be broken.
   And how? Why, some do a world of mischief in this matter by denying
   that there is any fellowship at all and asserting that love and zeal
   have died out. Did I hear a Brother say that there is very little
   Christian love nowadays? You are a very good judge of yourself,
   Brother, for remember you are speaking for yourself! Another says, "Oh,
   Christian fellowship. I never see any." Very likely, Brother. Again I
   say you are speaking for yourself and you are the gentleman who is
   likely to put an end to anything like fellowship in others by your acid
   spirit and bitter talk.

   In other ways, also, joyful fellowship may be wounded. Let there be a
   lack of holy walking, a lack of zeal, or an absence of humility. Let
   there arise in the Church the desire in each one to be the greatest,
   and let there be small care about the Glory of God. Let every man
   become proud and lifted up and there will soon be an end of Christian
   fellowship! Do you, dear Brother, neglect private prayer and become as
   cold as an iceberg? Wherever you go you will chill other people--and
   there will be frosts wherever you are found. It is one of the easiest
   things in the world, when the devil and a knot of prejudiced people
   agree about it, to spoil the fellowship of the saints! But if we labor
   that love may be promoted and increased, we shall not have to sigh for
   the days of the Son of Man without finding them, but they shall be
   continued to us all our lives.

   Again, certain times may be aptly called the days of the Son of Man
   when there is abundant life and power present in the Church of God. We
   know what this means in this Church. I wish we knew it more fully. And
   we know what the contrast means by having observed many dead and
   decaying Churches. What wretched communities some Churches are, where
   the soul of religion is absent! There is a company of people called a
   Christian Church and a man called a minister who gives them a pious
   essay every Sunday morning. And they go in and out and go home--and
   there is an end of the whole thing! Meanwhile their neighbors are
   perishing for lack of knowledge, but they care nothing. The heathen are
   dying without Christ, but they heed it not. So much is given to the
   cause of God as must be paid out of sheer necessity for the maintenance
   of outward ordinances, but there is no zeal, no consecration, no fervor
   of love. May we never come down to this!

   my Beloved, I long to see among us yet more and more abundantly, the
   spirit of Divine life, energetic life, fervent, self-denying life--life
   which consumes everything to achieve God's Glory! Beloved, you have
   this and may have more of it, but you may also lose it. Life and power
   may soon depart! Pastor and people may, alike, sleep in spiritual
   sloth! And then, at such times, the power, having gone from the Church,
   its energy is no longer felt among the unconverted. A living Church
   grasps with a hundred hands all that comes near to it! It is a mighty
   soul-saving institution, which, with its far-reaching nets, draws
   thousands from the sea of death! A living Church attracts even the
   Sabbath-breaker and awakens the infidel. It startles those whom it does
   not save. When the Church is in this state, her converts are plenteous!
   Then her teaching and preaching are with power and the Truth of God
   pushes down its adversaries.

   1 have been in my inmost soul bowed before the Lord with awful dread
   lest these days of the Son of Man which we have enjoyed in great
   measure so long should be taken away from us. I tremble lest we should
   go to sleep and do nothing! I am alarmed lest there should be no
   conversions and nobody caring that there should be any and yet,
   everything seeming to be prosperous. I know that people may be growing
   more respectable and appearing to be more pious than ever they were,
   and yet everything may be going backwards! God forbid that the dry rot
   of indifference should seize upon the heart of the Church while she yet
   appears to be sound and strong! Before that occurs may God be pleased
   to take me Home!

   Many of you wish the same for yourselves, and well you may, for I trust
   that we have lived too long in the atmosphere of zeal to be able to
   endure the cold, frigid condition of a careless Church! Yet it would
   soon be our lot if the Spirit of God were withdrawn. O Holy Spirit, do
   not depart from us! While His power is with us, Brothers and Sisters,
   let us be all at it and always at it, with our whole souls serving the
   Lord Jesus, and so the cloud of blessing shall be long detained.

   Again, "The days will come, when you shall desire to see one of the
   days of the Son of Man." This may be true with regard to a powerful
   ministry, for in the days of the Son of Man the Gospel was faithfully
   preached by Christ and His Apostles and Evangelists.

   It is not for me to exalt my office, if by that I am supposed to imply
   any exaltation of myself. But still, I believe that to any Church and
   people, an earnest, plain, simple, faithful ministry is a blessing of
   untold value. Yet the Lord may readily take it away from His Church, or
   He may paralyze its power so that it may no longer be a blessing. This
   you well know. The Lord may in anger take the candlestick out of its
   place and then what would happen? Death may silence the earnest tongue
   and there will be mourning. He who was a spiritual nursing father and a
   leader in Israel may be removed, and what then? Are we sufficiently
   thankful for ministers and pastors while we have them? Are not many of
   the faithful taken away because they have never been valued as they
   ought to have been? God's servants are precious in His sight and He
   would not have us despise them.

   It may be that in this land of ours, in years to come, Gospel ministers
   will become scarce enough. If the popery which now abounds in the
   Church of England is to go on increasing, the day may come when the
   voice of Christian ministry will be silenced by Law and persecution
   allowed to rage. For, be not deceived, Rome has not changed her views!
   Just let her once get power, again, and all the penal laws will be
   re-enacted and you Protestants who are today flinging away your
   liberties as dirt cheap, will rue the day in which you allowed the old
   chains to be fitted upon your wrists. Popery fettered and slew our
   sires and yet we are making it the national religion! Or if it should
   never come to be a matter of Law that ministries should be silenced,
   yet they may become fewer and fewer, till a little child may number
   them.

   We have none too many faithful ministers of Christ even now, but even
   these may be called away. The Lord may say to this guilty people, "You
   did not hear them while you had them. Behold, I will call back My
   Prophets and my messengers. You did not regard them when they cried
   morning and noon and night unto you, and bade you lay hold on Jesus
   Christ and be saved and, therefore, behold, I will remove your teachers
   and take them away from you, and you shall not see their faces
   anymore." Are you prepared for this? What are Sabbaths to some
   Christians I know of but days of bitter disappointment? They go to
   their places of worship as a matter of duty, but they are not fed, nor
   comforted, nor stirred up! They gather no Divine encouragement! They
   find no influences in the ministry to help them on their way.

   Are there not hundreds of unedifying preachers and hundreds of
   congregations where the Sunday service is a weariness and a misery? God
   grant you may never have to mourn and lament the happy days in which
   the Gospel was preached among you in simplicity and earnestness! But
   remember, if they are not valued, they may speedily come to an end.
   Infirmities of body and frequent sicknesses are not only admonitions to
   the preacher but to his hearers, also.

   III. My last promise was to give A MEANING ADAPTED TO THE UNCONVERTED.
   To them let me say these two or three things. To some of you, now
   present, who have heard the Gospel for years and yet have rejected it,
   my text will, one day, become solemnly true. "The days will come when
   you shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you
   shall not see it." Perhaps you will emigrate. You will wander into the
   backwoods of America or into the bush of Australia where the sound of
   Church bells will never again reach you--where ministers and sermons
   and services will be unfamiliar things.

   Then it may be you will say, "Would to God I had used my Sabbaths while
   I had them, and that I had constantly heard the Gospel when I might."
   Or if you should remain in England, yet in a certain time, shorter or
   longer, you will lie upon the bed of sickness. And it will become clear
   to all around that it is your last bed and your last sickness. And then
   you will begin to say, "O God, are there no more Sabbaths for me? No
   more preaching of the Gospel for me? Oh, that I had them over again!"
   Will you not, then, be willing to give all that you possess to be able,
   once again, to hear the voice of God's minister proclaiming pardon
   through the blood of Jesus? You know you will!

   At such a time it may be there will be an end to the emotions which you
   now occasionally feel, for oftentimes God's arrows stick fast in your
   conscience and you are wounded. There will be no arrows to wound you,
   then, with tender wounds of hopeful penitence, but remorse will tear
   you with poisoned fangs! You will be going down to Hell filled with
   hardness of heart! Emotions, which you aforetime quenched, will not
   come back. You resisted the Spirit and He will leave you to yourself.
   And yet there will be enough, perhaps, of conscience left to make you
   wish that you were again at some of those earnest meetings--that you
   could, again, feel as once you felt when you were almost persuaded to
   be a Christian!

   At such times, it may be, you will look back upon your mother's
   entreaties with great remorse and wish she could be at your bedside to
   love you again and weep over her dying child. "Ah," you will say,
   "would God Mother could speak to me about Jesus as she once did, but
   she is gone." And sisters and friends that once, you said, worried you
   about religion, you will wish for them, also, but they are gone. They
   will never worry you anymore with their Psalm singing! You will never
   again be tired, and wearied, and bored with their entreaties! You may
   be sure about that, for they are in Heaven, and you are dying without
   hope! You are going down to the grave, now, and will never again have
   to complain of dull Sundays and prosy ministers! You will not be
   annoyed with street preachers and missionaries. No more warnings, no
   more entreaties, no more prayers, no more revival services!

   You are now passing into another region. I wonder whether you will be
   of a different mind towards these things from what you are now? Will
   you, then, remember my warnings and call yourselves fools for rejecting
   them? I am but giving you an outline of what I wanted to have said, and
   said with much more earnestness, but I do beseech you think over these
   things, yourself, in the quiet of your room this afternoon. Within a
   short time there will be an end to all the opportunities and means of
   Grace you now enjoy. Within a short time, at the very longest, there
   will be an end of all exhortations, invitations, warnings, entreaties
   and, it may be when they come to an end you will wish to have them back
   again.

   Would it not be far better that you should use them now? Escape and
   find life in Christ, for the lamp of life shall never be kindled,
   again, to give you a second opportunity! While yet Mercy's gate stands
   open, enter in and find eternal life, for if it is once shut, it will
   never move upon its hinges again, and you shall be shut out, world
   without end! God grant His blessing upon these feeble words, for Jesus'
   sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 17:20-37; 18:1-14. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--136, 914, 972.
     __________________________________________________________________

Unwillingness to Come to Christ

   (No. 1324)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And you will not come to Me, that you might have life." John 5:40.

   OUR Lord was addressing Himself to the unbelieving Jews. He told them
   that they had received abundant evidence of His being the Sent One of
   God, but yet they had rejected Him, and He solemnly charged this home
   upon their consciences. If you read the passage at home you will see
   that in the 36th verse He reminded them that He had received the
   witness of John, and all men believed John to be a Prophet. He had come
   as the herald of Christ, the promised Elijah, and he had borne witness,
   saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the
   world." Yet this clear testimony they had despised and trod under foot.

   Next, our Lord claimed that His miracles and lifework were a sufficient
   witness to His Messiahship. "The works which the Father has given Me to
   finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father
   has sent Me." There is, perhaps, no better evidence of the truth of our
   Savior's mission than His Character, life and miracles. The truths
   which He revealed, the perfections which He displayed and the wonders
   which He worked all went to show that He was, indeed, anointed of God
   and sent to be the Savior of men.

   Further, our Lord informs them that there was more testimony, still,
   though in that evidence many of them had not shared. He says, "The
   Father Himself, which has sent Me, has borne witness of Me." Three
   times out of the excellent Glory the Father had said, "This is My
   beloved Son, hear you Him." This was good evidence, whether they had
   heard it or not, and though He tells them that they had neither heard
   His voice at any time, nor seen His shape, yet others had heard that
   Voice and seen the descent of the Spirit like a dove--and their
   testimony ought to have had weight with them.

   To you, dear Friends, assembled here tonight, this is a very important
   piece of evidence. We rejoice as we hear that God has actually spoken
   by audible sounds out of Heaven and borne testimony to His Son that He
   is the Christ! Then our Lord goes on to say that there was yet another
   evidence in which the Jews had not shared--the unbelieving ones--and
   that is, the internal evidence which, to those who have it, is the very
   best in all the world!

   Internal evidence--the evidence of a renewed heart, the evidence ofjoy
   and peace, the evidence of conscious pardon, the evidence of
   sanctification--this is the most convincing of all evidence to those
   who possess it! It is clear as the sun in the heavens, but they had not
   shared in it and, therefore, felt it not. "You have not His Word
   abiding in you; for whom He has sent, Him you believe not." And then
   the Master reminds them that there was yet a fifth mode of evidence
   which demonstrated Him to be the Christ, and that was the Scriptures,
   of which He says, (if I may read the text in the indicative and I think
   it must be so read)--"You search the Scriptures; for in them you think
   you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me."

   Therefore, if we will now forget the unbelieving Jews and only think of
   unbelieving Gentiles, there are to us, tonight, evidences concerning
   the Lord Jesus of the most convincing character. There are John's
   witness, the witness of the miracles, the witness of the voice of the
   Father out of Heaven, the inner witness which many of our friends and
   kindred tell us of, and then the witness of the Holy Spirit in sacred
   Scripture. All these show that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised
   Redeemer of man, that He is the appointed Mediator of the Covenant of
   Grace and that through Him there is immediate salvation for all who
   will believe on Him.

   The worst point about the whole conduct of the Jews was that, with all
   this witness in His favor, which they could not overturn, they would
   not come to Him that they might have eternal life! At this moment there
   are many such unbelievers upon the face of the earth and, what is more
   to the point, I fear that at this hour, in this congregation, there are
   some who will not come to Jesus that they may have life. There are
   persons in this great assembly, consisting, as it does,

   of individuals who have enough thought about religion to come out on a
   weeknight to hear a sermon about it, who, nevertheless, will not come
   to Christ!

   Some of these persons are often here, familiar with these courts and
   familiar with this voice--perhaps so familiar that they have grown
   accustomed to it and it has but little power with them. And yet, though
   they will come to us, they will not come to Christ! However, it is to
   them that I shall speak tonight and I ask God's people to pray that
   while I am speaking, the Spirit of God may apply the Word to the heart
   and to the conscience. I speak in great weakness and bodily pain and,
   therefore, I hope to be aided and assisted by a double portion of the
   Divine strength, and, if it is so, God's Glory will come of it.

   Now, we shall notice, first of all, the great plan of salvation. Let us
   look at it--it is coming to Christ that we might have life. Secondly, I
   shall look and ask you to look at your position towards it--"You will
   not come to Me that you might have life." Then, thirdly, I shall dwell,
   for a few minutes, upon what will certainly be the result of such
   conduct as this. And, fourthly, before we have done, let us hope for a
   change in your state of mind, so that before you sleep tonight it shall
   cease to be true of you that you will not come--and a joyful fact that
   you have come and found eternal life!

   Your immediate conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ shall be the great
   object of our discourse and of the prayers which will go with it from
   the Lord's people here assembled.

   I. First, then, the text very briefly sets forth THE PLAN OF SALVATION.
   Christ speaks of it thus, "Come to Me that you might have life." The
   way to be saved is to come to Christ! Christ is a Person, a living
   Person, full of power to save! He has not placed His salvation in
   sacraments, or books, or priests, but He has kept it in Himself, and if
   you want to have it, you must come to Him! He is still the one Source
   and Fountain of eternal mercy. There is no getting it by going round
   about Him, or only going near Him--you must come to Him, actually to
   Him, and there must be a personal contact established between the Lord
   Jesus and your spirit.

   Of course it cannot be a natural contact, for His body is in the
   heavens and we are here. It must be a spiritual contact, by which your
   mind, heart, thoughts shall come to Christ, and faith, like a hand,
   shall touch Him spiritually, grasp Him by believing upon Him and
   receive life and Grace from His Divine power. Just as when the woman of
   old touched His garment's hem, the virtue went out of Him to her and
   she was healed, so now, though He is yonder, faith's long hand can
   touch His Divine and human Person, by confiding, trusting and resting
   in Him. And so, virtue will flow from Him into our soul and our mind
   shall be healed of whatever disease it has.

   Think, then, at this very moment, of Jesus Christ, who was once nailed
   to the Cross and died as the Sacrifice for sin. Think of Him as
   sitting, now, at the right hand of God, even the Father, clothed with
   infinite majesty and might. And if you are enabled, now, to repose your
   heart upon Him, to believe that He is able to save you and, by an act
   of faith, to commit your soul into His keeping that He may save it, you
   have done what He bids you do--you have come to Him and He will not
   cast you out--the blessings of His salvation shall be yours! This is
   the coming which He sets before you--the drawing near of the mind, the
   heart, the soul to Jesus, so as to trust in Him--to trust in Him at
   once for all that your soul needs.

   The text, when it says, "Come to Me that you might have life," implies
   that we are to come to Jesus Christ for everything, for life includes
   all that is absolutely necessary for salvation, yes, salvation itself!
   It is the lowest stage of Grace, and yet the term comprehends the very
   highest condition of the soul, even when it enters into Glory and
   enjoys life at the right hand of God. O Sinner, by nature you are dead
   in sin! You must be made alive or you cannot dwell with God, for He is
   not the God of the dead but of the living! To be quickened, you must
   come into contact with Him who is "the Life," even Jesus. And if you
   come to Him, you have begun to live! You are also condemned to die on
   account of your breaches of the Law. You are condemned already, for you
   have sinned against the most high God. If you come to Christ, the
   Mediator, the sentence against you shall be removed. You shall live,
   for, "there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in
   Christ Jesus."

   As soon as the soul comes to Christ, it receives pardon and
   justification. These two remove from us the guilt which brought us
   under condemnation and put upon us a righteousness which entitles us to
   stand before the most high God without fear, for, "who is He that
   condemns? It is Christ that died." Coming to Christ gives us actual
   spiritual life and gives us, also, judicial life, so that we need not
   fear the axe of Justice. Those cannot be condemned who are accepted in
   the Beloved and all are thus accepted who have come to Christ!

   I will read you two verses, as they certainly may be translated without
   the slightest violation of the original language. The text runs
   thus--"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have
   eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me; but you will not
   come to Me that you might have life"--as if to show you that there are
   many persons who seek life and even think that they have it, and yet
   have not found it because they stop short of Christ. They search the
   Scriptures, but they will not come to Jesus.

   Is it not, therefore, a good thing to search the Scriptures? Yes, that
   it is, and the more you search them the better. But it is not the
   thing--it is not the saving work. You may be Bible readers and yet
   perish! But this can never happen if you come to Jesus by faith. I may
   put the same Truth of God in another shape. You pray. Some of you pray
   earnestly, but yet you will not come to Christ that you might have
   life! Is it not a good thing to pray? Yes, indeed, a blessed thing to
   pray, but still it is not the thing--it is not the subject of the great
   saving command. The Gospel precept is not, "Go you into all the world
   and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that searches the
   Scriptures and prays shall be saved."

   No, but the Gospel runs thus--"He that believes and is baptized shall
   be saved." There stands the healing touch-- the act which brings us
   life--faith in the heart and confession with the mouth! To these the
   promise is made, and of those who neglect these our Lord says, "You
   will not come to Me, that you might have life." Now, observe that this
   way of coming to Christ, which is indicated in the text, is the only
   way. There are other preachings, but there is only one true ministry,
   and the true ministry bears witness concerning Christ.

   There are other supposed ways of salvation, but they shall be accursed
   that preach them! And woe unto them in the Last Great Day who have
   deluded men's souls with their "other gospels," for, "other foundation
   can no man lay than that which is laid--Jesus Christ the Righteous."
   "Believe and live" is the one unchanging oracle and He that has regard
   to it, shall find eternal life! But take heed that you despise not him
   that speaks this wondrous word from Heaven, "for there is no other name
   given under Heaven among men whereby you must be saved." Come to
   Christ! Come to the anointed Savior! Come to the Son of God! Come to
   Him who is both God and Man! Come to the Mediator! Come to the
   Redeemer! Come to the Great Substitute for sinners!

   Come and trust Him and you shall live! I have no other message for you.
   Do not reject it, for if you do you must perish without hope. And this
   way, as it is the only one, blessed be God, is a sure way and an open
   way. Sure, for none ever tried it and failed. There lives not on earth,
   there lives not in Hell--one soul that trusted in Christ and yet was
   not saved--

   "There is life in a look at the Crucified One. There is life at this
   moment for you."

   Life in every instance. There has never yet been one that did confide,
   alone, in Jesus, that found faith to be useless, for faith is a living
   thing and works by love. It purifies the soul and saves the man through
   Jesus Christ. And it is an open way as well as a sure one--open to you
   tonight, dear Friend.

   "Say not in your heart, who shall ascend into Heaven to bring Christ
   down? Or who shall descend into the deep to bring Him up again from the
   dead? The Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." If you
   will, with your heart believe in the Lord Jesus, and with your mouth
   make confession of Him, you shall be saved, even you! The latter days
   have fallen upon us! The shades of the evening of the world and the
   damps of its autumn are all around us! But still there sounds forth the
   cry, "Whoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely."
   Still is the Fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants
   of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness--

   "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
   all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

   Thus have I put, as plainly as I can, the plan of salvation. That is it
   and that is all of it--it is to come to Christ! If I talked much longer
   I might darken, but I could scarcely make clearer, the simplicity of
   the Gospel of Jesus. It is to come to Christ, to trust Him, to obey
   Him, to yield yourself to Him, to love Him! So, to come to Him is to
   come to Him on earth and be with Him forever and ever in Heaven!

   II. Now, secondly, and very solemnly, I want to speak to you
   unconverted ones, who have heard the Gospel a long

   time, about YOUR POSITION IN REFERENCE TO THIS PLAN OF SALVATION. "You
   will not come to Me that

   you might have life." That describes your position and I earnestly
   beseech you to look it in the face. I would have you get

   by yourself and say to yourself aloud and deliberately, "/ will not
   come to Him, that I might have life." But you reply, "That would be an
   awful thing to say!" I know it would be, but it is a more awful thing,
   to my mind, not to dare to say it and yet practically to be doing it!
   Are you ashamed to say it and yet not ashamed to do it? I know there is
   a curious feeling about some men that if the preacher openly rebukes a
   vice which they practice they find fault with him for even speaking of
   it. They say that he ought not to allude to such vile things, yet they
   live in these very sins from day to day!

   This is the hypocrisy and cant of sinners and it is detestable! And so
   men will live in unbelief, but if you ask them to say decidedly, "I do
   not believe," or to assert openly, "I will not come to Christ that I
   may have life," they think we must be as wicked as they are to ask them
   to say such a thing! Now, what you dare do, you will surely dare say,
   or else you are a coward and a liar to your soul! If it is a right
   thing to do, it must be right thing to say. I do not ask you to go and
   proclaim it to others--to infect them with your disease--but I ask you
   to say it to yourself. I ask you to label yourself what you are and let
   it be distinctly understood by your own soul what you mean and where
   your position is.

   I pray you act honestly and openly with your own heart. It surely
   cannot be wise to cheat yourself. You will not come to Jesus that you
   might have life--we know this to be true of many of you because you
   have not come. If you say it is not true that you will not come, then I
   reply, "How is it that you have not come?" If you have come, how
   readily do I withdraw the charge! With what joy and happiness do I
   bless the Lord that you have been led to His dear Son! But, if you have
   not come, dear Friend--and you know, yourself, whether you have or
   not--then I cannot retract a syllable of the accusation, but I repeat
   the charge--you will not come to Him that you might have life.

   I know that you would rather put it another way and you would say
   softly, "I cannot come." But this is clattering language! Do you know
   what, "cannot," in such a case means in Scripture? It means the same
   thing as, "will not." If you have the will, you have the power, for,
   wherever there is the will, God has it and He does not give the will
   without giving the power! Though sometimes we have to cry out that, "to
   will is present with us," but, "how to perform that which we would, we
   find not," yet that lasts not long. When the Lord gives the will, He
   soon gives the way. His Grace does not divide the two gifts--the power
   comes with the will.

   And if you have the will tonight you have the power. That you cannot is
   true, but it is only true because you will not--your will is the seat
   of the weakness. I may say of a man that he cannot be chaste. Why?
   Because he will not be chaste! That is the only reason! I may say of
   another man that he cannot speak the truth. What do I mean by that? I
   mean that he is such a liar that he will not speak the truth. He could
   if he would, but there is the point--he will not. Our weakness to do
   good lies in the fact that our will, itself, is opposed to the right.
   "You will not come that you might have life" is the true English of
   that excuse of yours, that you cannot! If you would, you could. It is
   because you will not that you cannot!

   But one of you will say, "It is not that I will not, but that I dare
   not come to Jesus." Ah, my dear Friend, but if you say, "I dare not," I
   have to ask you on what grounds you support that remarkable fear. Dare
   not be saved? Dare not come to the Son of God whose very Person is
   Love? Dare not do what God commands you? "This is His commandment, that
   you believe on Jesus Christ whom He has sent." Turn that, "dare not,"
   round the other way--it were much better used so--"I dare not refuse to
   come! I dare not tarry any longer! I dare not disbelieve! I dare not
   distrust! I dare not keep my sin and let my Savior go." That is the
   true kind of, "dare not," but the other is an idle excuse. How idle it
   must be for a man to say, "I dare not obey my God and trust in His
   Son," I leave your own consciences to judge.

   The truth is, "You will not come to Christ, that you might have life."
   Let me hold you, now, and ask you to think for a few minutes of what
   you are doing. Think of the life which you are spurning! There is no
   life for you anywhere but in Christ--and if you will not come to Him
   you will never have life! That is to say, you will not have that
   without which this poor existence of yours is only a lingering death.
   The Grace which enables you to overcome sin, the joy which enables us
   to master trouble, the light which helps us to look into Divine
   mysteries, the inward spiritual principle given in regeneration, by
   which we have fellowship with God and with His Son Jesus Christ--these
   are main ingredients in the life which you need.

   O my dear Friend, life--the life of God in the soul--is to me the one
   thing necessary, the one thing without which all the world were not
   worth having! It were better to be poor and hungry and naked than to be
   without this inner life. It is true life in this world to live by faith
   upon the Son of God--and that you are missing and despising! This is
   the life which made your mother what she was. You remember her holy
   living and you cannot forget her triumphant dying! The

   life which makes men holy, happy, safe and blessed is, "Christ in you,
   the hope of glory," and this it is that you need. Will you reject it? O
   be not so foolish!

   Remember that this life which you spurn is Eternal Life! It is the life
   with which you are to live in another world, the life which shall
   qualify you to dwell with cherubim and seraphim and join their songs,
   the life which will enable you to stand before the Throne of God and
   cast your crown at His feet in ecstasy of grateful joy! It is this that
   you do not care to have, for you will not come to Christ that you might
   have life. Do not continue to spurn the best of God's gift! Let me tell
   you, the day will come when you will wring your hands in anguish to
   think that you despised that life. It may be that it will be so in the
   throes of death, but it is certain that it will be so amid the terrors
   of Judgment, when there shall open wide before you the gates of Hell,
   and before you shall blaze the lake that burns with fire and brimstone
   which is the second death.

   They who are not born twice will have to die twice! And he that has not
   life through faith in Jesus must die the second death and endure its
   pangs forever and forever. See, then, the life you spurn, dear Friend,
   and ask yourself whether this is wise. Next, think--and I wish I could
   speak to you as I would--think of the Person whom you reject. "You will
   not come to ME," says Christ. I have been thinking of this all day--how
   it is that any man can be so base as not to come to my Lord Jesus
   Christ. Look at Him! Let me portray Him to you as He completed your
   redemption. He hangs upon His Cross--His face is all stained with the
   bruises and the spit of the rough soldiers. And down it trickles the
   red drops that have been started from His temples by the crown of
   thorns.

   His eyes are red with weeping and with watching, and His visage is more
   marred than that of any man. You can see all His bones. His body is
   emaciated and worn with anguish. His hands--the cruel nails have
   dragged and torn till you see the wide gaping wounds from which the
   blood flows. His feet are the same--they are both fountains of blood.
   And then His side! Behold His side--from which gushed blood and water
   from the deep wound made by the spear. It is He who thus redeemed
   mankind! The Lord of Glory hangs there! The only-begotten Son of the
   Highest, the Prince of the kings of the earth has given Himself up to
   bleed and to die a felon's death for you!

   And what is your attitude towards Him? You turn your backs upon Him! Is
   it nothing to you? "Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die?" Do you
   mean that it is nothing to you that Jesus should bleed to redeem men?
   Do you mean to refuse a share in that redemption? Do you utterly reject
   the bloody ransom price He paid upon the Cross? If it is so, then put
   it down in plain English--put it down in black and white and sign your
   name to it--"I refuse Christ's blood." To write it down is the very
   best thing you can do if it is, indeed, so! Because, perhaps, when you
   have read the dreadful lines, your conscience may be lashed into
   something like life and you may begin to look at Him whom you have
   pierced, and mourn because of Him. Think about this, you that will not
   come to Him that you might have life.

   But, lo, I see Him yet again! He is in Heaven now. Quite another
   picture may we set before you. There He is at the right hand of God,
   even the Father, clothed with a snow-white garment down to His feet,
   and girt about with a golden sash, distributing crowns and thrones! He
   is worshipped by ten thousand times ten thousand blood-washed spirits
   and angels in all their ranks! Now you can be sure of this, that He it
   is to whom you will not come! From His Glory as well as from His shame
   you turn away! It is well for Me that I do not feel, just now, about it
   as I did before I entered this pulpit, for if I did I could only stand
   here and burst into tears, and could not dare to say what I am uttering
   now.

   This is so unkind to Jesus! So ungenerous to Jesus! I cannot bear it!
   It is at the price of your souls that you reject Him! Will you sooner
   be damned than have Him? Do you mean that? What strange hate is this,
   that to show your hatred of Jesus you will destroy yourselves? O
   foolish Sinners! Foolish Sinners! What mad freak of sin is this, that
   you will bear your sins and dare the death they bring sooner than have
   Christ to be your Savior? Yet it is so, so long as it is true that you
   will not come to Him that you might have life.

   Now, think, again, what it is you are doing. What is this which you
   refuse to do? What is the action you refuse? You refuse to come to Him.
   If it were to come to Sinai, where the trumpet waxes exceedingly loud
   and long, and where the flaming lightning flashes forth amidst
   tremendous thunder, I could understand your reluctance. But the deed
   you refuse to do is to come to Calvary, to come to Jesus where nothing
   sounds but love and mercy! You will not come to Him. That means, with
   some of you, that you will not even think about Christ. He may die, but
   you cannot trouble to think His redemption is over. He may rise and
   thus may justify His people, but you have something else to think
   about.

   And that something else, with some of you, is earning your daily bread.
   With others of you it is only how you may pass the hours and go from
   one amusement to another. Salvation is worth Christ dying for, but not
   worth your thinking about! Alas, how the mass of people in London think
   of anything except Christ and their souls! The papers ring with some
   fresh thing and the news is on everybody's tongue. But my Lord's death
   for sinners--oh, it is a bore, is it not? It is a weariness to hear
   about it and, "sermons are very dull," they say. It is because men's
   hearts are dead that sermons are dull! Jesus is not endured because men
   will not come to Him and live!

   blessed Spirit, turn their hard hearts and stubborn wills, and turn
   them now! While some will condescend to think a little, yet they
   utterly refuse to come to the point and believe. Now, surely, the very
   least thing that the Lord Jesus Christ can claim of us is that we
   believe Him! When has He ever been false? What is there about His
   Character that is untrue? It is due to truth to render to it our
   confidence and our trust--and when we know that this faith, this
   believing Him, this trusting Him, which is His due, is, nevertheless,
   simple as it is, the highest and most saving act of the mind--it is
   strange that we should still refuse to believe!

   What Jesus claims is that we so believe Him as to obey Him. Now, if He
   were a tyrant, we might very well be reluctant to obey. But He is so
   gracious, His yoke is so easy and His burden is so light that it is
   foolish as well as wicked to not obey! All His followers tell us that
   there never was such a Master and that they wish they could altogether
   obey His every will and wish, for obedience to Him is bliss to
   them--and yet you refuse to yield obedience to such a Master? Is this
   wise or right? He asks your love--the love of your heart. What a heart
   that must be which cannot and will not love Him! How foul, how vile,
   how dead, how black, how stony is the heart that cannot love Him who
   gave His heart's blood to redeem us! O Soul, Soul, Soul, if you perish,
   it is not because the Gospel was hard and exacting and its terms
   severe, or because the saving act was impossible to you and out of your
   reach--you perish because you will not come to Him that you might have
   life!

   1 desire you, still, to keep your eyes fixed on that fact, my Friend,
   that you are acting as if you had said, "I will not come to Christ that
   I might have life." Think of why you will not come. Can you give me
   some good reason why you will not come? Perhaps you answer that you
   hope to find salvation somewhere else. These Jews fancied so. They
   thought that they would find it in the Scriptures. "In them you think
   you have eternal life." Hence a personal Christ was rejected, that they
   might go on searching into the original text, counting the letters and
   disputing over knotty points. They were, however, mistaken--the Bible
   cannot save!

   Perhaps you feel that you can get more good by trying to understand
   doctrine than by coming to Christ. You will be bitterly mistaken.
   However excellent the Scriptures are, if you put Scripture in the place
   of Christ, you have made a choice and you have set your choice in
   opposition to God's choice, which is this--"that you believe on Him
   whom He has sent." It is not on "it"--that you are to believe, but on
   "Him whom He has sent." That is the great saving point, the Person, the
   very Person of the Lord Jesus Christ! O Beloved, I wish you could see
   this--that Jesus Christ gathers up in His Person all the teaching of
   Scripture--that in His blessed Person is all the efficacy of His
   redemptive work for men and that what is to be done is to come to Him.

   When you do not believe in Jesus, you refuse to honor the Son of God.
   And He has said, "He that refuses Me, refuses Him that sent Me." You
   refuse God when you refuse His Christ! Possibly, dear Friend, the
   reason why you will not come is that you indulge some secret sin which
   you cannot give up. O that secret sin! That secret sin! That worm at
   the root of the soul! I know not what it is, my Friend, but God knows
   and you know. Is it your pride? Can you not stoop to be saved by mercy,
   through the Grace of God? Or is it a fleshly lust from which you cannot
   separate yourself? Is it dear to you as your right hand? Off with it,
   Man! "It is better for you to enter into life halt or maimed, rather
   than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire."

   Is sin holding you back from Christ, from life, from Heaven? Dear as
   this Barabbas may be, do not prefer him to your Lord! Away with the
   sin, it is a viper! Away with it, or else God will say, "Away with
   you." I fear, in some cases, that the chain which holds men back from
   Christ is sheer frivolity. It is so with a great many young people--and
   there are some old people who are quite as trifling--they have gray
   hair on the outside of their heads, but none within. Their minds are
   none the riper for being old. They are silly, frivolous, superficial,
   trifling with everything, never serious upon any theme--and above all
   others they need to be sharply rebuked.

   Ah, Sirs, if you must play, I wish you would play with something
   cheaper than the blood of Christ! If you must trifle, trifle with
   something that will cost you less than your souls! It seems a dreadful
   thing for a man to stake his whole estate on the running of a horse, as
   some have done. But it is less foolish than to stake your endless
   destiny upon the possibility of your living another week, or another
   day! Yet you are doing this--you know you are! May God awaken you, dear
   Friend! May He speedily awaken you from such folly as this.

   Now, I want you, dear Hearer, to come back to the point and look at the
   fact that you will not come to Christ. You will do anything else, but
   you will not come to Christ. You will come out to our special meetings,
   but why do you come? What do you come to these meetings for if you do
   not need Christ? And you will pray from mere habit--you would not like
   to go to sleep without praying after a fashion--but what do you pray
   for if you will not have the best gift which God can give you, even
   Jesus Christ? What is there worth praying for if you refuse Christ?
   Yes, you will search the Scriptures, but, in the name of reason, for
   what?

   Why do men go into the harvest fields if they need no grain? Why do
   they dig in the mines if they do not need to find metals? The
   Scriptures (with all reverence of them do we speak) are but the
   mine--Christ is the treasure! They are the fields, but He is the
   harvest! Take Christ out of the Bible and what is it? He is the sum and
   the substance of it all! And when you search the Scriptures you should
   search them that you may find Him, or else you misuse and abuse them.
   But why this strange reluctance? "Oh, I need to feel," says one. Yes, I
   know. You would like to feel deep convictions. You would like anything
   rather than to come to Christ. "But," says one, "I must have time to
   think." I know--you want to be saved by your thinking--anything is more
   desirable to you than coming to Christ.

   Come to Christ just as you are, just as you are now, while now His
   Spirit pleads with you! Ah, you will not do this, some of you will not
   and, therefore, I must leave you. Let us pass on to the third point
   very briefly.

   III. Let us consider thoughtfully WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT OF THIS. I
   will put myself in your place, now, and speak for you. "I will not come
   to Christ that I might have life." When I have said that, what does it
   involve? It means that any good feelings which I may have had through
   hearing the preaching of the Gospel, or through listening to the
   addresses of earnest Christian men, are as the morning cloud and as the
   early dew. They are all to end in nothing and to pass away. They cannot
   do me any good.

   I have heard sermons in vain. I have read the Scriptures in vain. I
   have attended Prayer Meetings in vain. If I will not come to Christ all
   these things are in vain. But what next? Why, then, I may expect that
   the feelings I now have (for I am conscious of some measure of holy
   desire) will pass away. I shall grow harder and harder, and harder in
   heart, and more indifferent, and more callous as time rolls on. And
   what will happen to me, then? Why, this--I never shall come to Christ
   at all! I suppose that some of you, though you will not come now, think
   you will come to Jesus one day. Oh, if it were told you, to a dead
   certainty, that you never would come, you would stand aghast. "Ah, me!"
   you would say, "Must I, then, be lost forever? Shall I never come to
   Christ?"

   My dear Friend, it looks very likely that you never will be saved. If
   you are to come to Jesus, why not now? Why not now? Every day adds to
   the chances, if I may use such an expression, adds to the deadly "odds"
   against you, that you will never come to Christ! Ah, it is a prediction
   which might be terribly accurate if we were to say that some of you who
   have oftentimes been awakened and yet have gone to sleep again, will
   sleep forever and will never lift up your eyes till you awake in the
   flames of Hell! Ah, God, in Your mercy, prevent this! But this is the
   last result of all. If I will not come to Christ that I might have
   life, then I must die eternally and be driven forever from the Presence
   of God and from the glory of His power!

   And, O my Soul, what will that be? What will that be? Ask those who
   know what it is. Ask Dives while he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to dip
   the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue! Ask those whose
   perpetual reply is weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth! But I will
   not pause to give you their answers--it would be too dreadful! Look at
   your future! If you will not come to Jesus that you might have life,
   you shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in you!

   ' IV. And now, last of all, LET US HOPE THAT THERE WILL BE CHANGE, and
   a change tonight! I felt, while I was speaking, that some of you were
   saying, "No, I dare not say that I will not come." Well, then, there is
   only one other word to say--"/ will come." O that you would say, "I
   will come," and then carry out the resolve at once! "He is worthy of my
   trust. I will trust Him. He is worthy of my obedience. If He will help
   me, I will obey Him. He is worthy of my love.

   By His rich Grace I will love Him--I will, I will." Thank God, dear
   Friend, if you have said that, though it has been with trembling lips,
   for you may come. He bids you. His own words are, "Come to Me, all you
   that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

   You may come. His Church invites you and His Spirit invites you, for,
   "the Spirit and the Bride say, Come." We who have, ourselves, come,
   would all invite you, for it is written, "Let him that hears, say,
   Come. And whoever will, let him take of the Water of Life freely." Do
   you feel a softness of soul coming over you? Does something whisper,
   "Now is mercy's hour"? Then, I beseech you, quench not the Spirit, and
   tarry no longer! No, tarry not even to leave that pew and find your
   little chamber and fall on your knees, but here and now yield yourself
   to Him! It will be the best moment you have ever lived--the beginning
   of days to you! As the night when Israel came out of Egypt shall this
   night be to your spirit if you yield yourself--

   "A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

   On Christ's kind arms I fall

   He is my strength and righteousness--

   My Jesus, and my all."

   What He bids you do is two-fold, believe and be baptized. "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." First, with the heart, man
   believes, and next with his mouth he makes confession of Jesus. Baptism
   is the way to make confession according to Christ's own rule, to which
   I charge you to be obedient--and may He accept you and bless you this
   night, for His name's sake. We shall sing this one verse, and I ask
   nobody to sing it who does not mean it--

   "'Tis done--the great transaction's done!

   I am my Lord's, and He is mine!

   He drew me, and I followed on,

   Charmed to confess the voice Divine." Now, for once do not stand up,
   but sit still and sing it just as you are--those who can sing it. As
   for the rest of you, the Lord have mercy upon you. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 5:24-27. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--486, 515.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           Christ the End of the Law

   A Sermon

   (No. 1325)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, November 19th, 1876, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that
   believeth."--Romans 10:4.

   YOU REMEMBER we spoke last Sabbath morning of "the days of the Son of
   man." Oh that every Sabbath now might be a day of that kind in the most
   spiritual sense. I hope that we shall endeavour to make each Lord's Day
   as it comes round a day of the Lord, by thinking much of Jesus by
   rejoicing much in him, by labouring for him, and by our growingly
   importunate prayer, that to him may the gathering of the people be. We
   may not have very many Sabbaths together, death may soon part us; but
   while we are able to meet as a Christian assembly, let us never forget
   that Christ's presence is our main necessity, and let us pray for it
   and entreat the Lord to vouchsafe that presence always in displays of
   light, life and love! I become increasingly earnest that every
   preaching time should be a soul-saving time. I can deeply sympathize
   with Paul when he said, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
   is that they might be saved." We have had so much preaching, but,
   comparatively speaking, so little believing in Jesus; and if there be
   no believing in him, neither the law nor the gospel has answered its
   end, and our labour has been utterly in vain. Some of you have heard,
   and heard, and heard again, but you have not believed in Jesus. If the
   gospel had not come to your hearing you could not have been guilty of
   refusing it. "Have they not heard?" says the apostle. "Yes, verily:"
   but still "they have not all obeyed the gospel." Up to this very moment
   there has been no hearing with the inner ear, and no work of faith in
   the heart, in the case of many whom we love. Dear friends, is it always
   to be so? How long is it to be so? Shall there not soon come an end of
   this reception of the outward means and rejection of the inward grace?
   Will not your soul soon close in with Christ for present salvation?
   Break! Break, O heavenly day, upon the benighted ones, for our hearts
   are breaking over them.

   The reason why many do not come to Christ is not because they are not
   earnest, after a fashion, and thoughtful and desirous to be saved, but
   because they cannot brook God's way of salvation. "They have a zeal for
   God, but not according to knowledge," We do get them by our exhortation
   so far on the way that they become desirous to obtain eternal life, but
   "they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Mark,
   "submitted themselves," for it needs submission. Proud man wants to
   save himself, he believes he can do it, and he will not give over the
   task till he finds out his own helplessness by unhappy failures.
   Salvation by grace, to be sued for in forma pauperis, to be asked for
   as an undeserved boon from free, unmerited grace, this it is which the
   carnal mind will not come to as long as it can help it: I beseech the
   Lord so to work that some of you may not be able to help it. And oh, I
   have been praying that, while this morning I am trying to set forth
   Christ as the end of the law, God may bless it to some hearts, that
   they may see what Christ did, and may perceive it to be a great deal
   better than anything they can do; may see what Christ finished, and may
   become weary of what they themselves have laboured at so long, and have
   not even well commenced at this day. Perhaps it may please the Lord to
   enchant them with the perfection of the salvation that is in Christ
   Jesus. As Bunyan would say, "It may, perhaps, set their mouths a
   watering after it," and when a sacred appetite begins it will not be
   long before the feast is enjoyed. It may be that when they see the
   raiment of wrought gold, which Jesus so freely bestows on naked souls,
   they will throw away their own filthy rags which now they hug so
   closely.

   I am going to speak about two things, this morning, as the Spirit of
   God shall help me: and the first is, Christ in connection with the
   law--he is "the end of the law for righteousness"; and secondly,
   ourselves in connection with Christ--"to everyone that believeth Christ
   is the end of the law for righteousness."

   I. First, then, CHRIST IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAW. The law is that
   which, as sinners, we have above all things cause to dread; for the
   sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. Towards us
   the law darts forth devouring flames, for it condemns us, and in solemn
   terms appoints us a place among the accursed, as it is written, "Cursed
   is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the
   book of the law to do them." Yet, strange infatuation! like the
   fascination which attracts the gnat to the candle which burns its
   wings, men by nature fly to the law for salvation, and cannot be driven
   from it. The law can do nothing else but reveal sin and pronounce
   condemnation upon the sinner, and yet we cannot get men away from it,
   even though we show them how sweetly Jesus stands between them and it.
   They are so enamoured of legal hope that they cling to it when there is
   nothing to cling to; they prefer Sinai to Calvary, though Sinai has
   nothing for them but thunders and trumpet warnings of coming judgment.
   O that for awhile you would listen anxiously while I set forth Jesus my
   Lord, that you may see the law in him.

   Now, what has our Lord to do with the law? He has everything to do with
   it, for he is its end for the noblest object, namely, for
   righteousness. He is the "end of the law." What does this mean? I think
   it signifies three things: first, that Christ is the purpose and object
   of the law; secondly, that he is the fulfillment of it; and thirdly,
   that he is the termination of it.

   First, then, our Lord Jesus Christ is the purpose and object of the
   law. It was given to lead us to him. The law is our schoolmaster to
   bring us to Christ, or rather our attendant to conduct us to the school
   of Jesus. The law is the great net in which the fish are enclosed that
   they may be drawn out of the element of sin. The law is the stormy wind
   which drives souls into the harbour or refuge. The law is the sheriff's
   officer to shut men up in prison for their sin, concluding them all
   under condemnation in order that they may look to the free grace of God
   alone for deliverance. This is the object of the law: it empties that
   grace may fill, and wounds that mercy may heal. It has never been God's
   intention towards us, as fallen men, that the law should be regarded as
   a way to salvation to us, for a way of salvation it can never be. Had
   man never fallen, had his nature remained as God made it, the law would
   have been most helpful to him to show him the way in which he should
   walk: and by keeping it he would have lived, for "he that doeth these
   things shall live in them." But ever since man has fallen the Lord has
   not proposed to him a way of salvation by works, for he knows it to be
   impossible to a sinful creature. The law is already broken; and
   whatever man can do he cannot repair the damage he has already done:
   therefore he is out of court as to the hope of merit. The law demands
   perfection, but man has already fallen short of it; and therefore let
   him do his best. He cannot accomplish what is absolutely essential. The
   law is meant to lead the sinner to faith in Christ, by showing the
   impossibility of any other way. It is the black dog to fetch the sheep
   to the shepherd, the burning heat which drives the traveller to the
   shadow of the great rock in a weary land.

   Look how the law is adapted to this; for, first of all, it shows man
   his sin. Read the ten commandments and tremble as you read them. Who
   can lay his own character down side by side with the two tablets of
   divine precept without at once being convinced that he has fallen far
   short of the standard? When the law comes home to the soul it is like
   light in a dark room revealing the dust and the dirt which else had
   been unperceived. It is the test which detects the presence of the
   poison of sin in the soul. "I was alive without the law once," said the
   apostle, "but when the commandment came sin revived and I died." Our
   comeliness utterly fades away when the law blows upon it. Look at the
   commandments, I say, and remember how sweeping they are, how spiritual,
   how far-reaching. They do not merely touch the outward act, but dive
   into the inner motive and deal with the heart, the mind, the soul.
   There is a deeper meaning in the commands than appears upon their
   surface. Gaze into their depths and see how terrible is the holiness
   which they require. As you understand what the law demands you will
   perceive how far you are from fulfilling it, and how sin abounds where
   you thought there was little or none of it. You thought yourself rich
   and increased in goods and in no need of anything, but when the broken
   law visits you, your spiritual bankruptcy and utter penury stare you in
   the face. A true balance discovers short weight, and such is the first
   effect of the law upon the conscience of man.

   The law also shows the result and mischief of sin. Look at the types of
   the old Mosaic dispensation, and see how they were intended to lead men
   to Christ by making them see their unclean condition and their need of
   such cleansing as only he can give. Every type pointed to our Lord
   Jesus Christ. If men were put apart because of disease or uncleanness,
   they were made to see how sin separated them from God and from his
   people; and when they were brought back and purified with mystic rites
   in which were scarlet wool and hyssop and the like, they were made to
   see how they can only be restored by Jesus Christ, the great High
   Priest. When the bird was killed that the leper might be clean, the
   need of purification by the sacrifice of a life was set forth. Every
   morning and evening a lamb died to tell of daily need of pardon, if God
   is to dwell with us. We sometimes have fault found with us for speaking
   too much about blood; yet under the old testament the blood seemed to
   be everything, and was not only spoken of but actually presented to the
   eye. What does the apostle tell us in the Hebrews? "Whereupon neither
   the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had
   spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took
   the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and
   hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people saying, this is
   the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover
   he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the
   ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and
   without shedding of blood is not remission." The blood was on the veil,
   and on the altar, on the hangings, and on the floor of the tabernacle:
   no one could avoid seeing it. I resolve to make my ministry of the same
   character, and more and more sprinkle it with the blood of atonement.
   Now that abundance of the blood of old was meant to show clearly that
   sin has so polluted us that without an atonement God is not to be
   approached: we must come by the way of sacrifice or not at all. We are
   so unacceptable in ourselves that unless the Lord sees us with the
   blood of Jesus upon us he must away with us. The old law, with its
   emblems and figures, set forth many truths as to men's selves and the
   coming Saviour, intending by every one of them to preach Christ. If any
   stopped short of him, they missed the intent and design of the law.
   Moses leads up to Joshua, and the law ends at Jesus.

   Turning our thoughts back again to the moral rather than the ceremonial
   law, it was intended to teach men their utter helplessness. It shows
   them how short they fall of what they ought to be, and it also shows
   them, when they look at it carefully, how utterly impossible it is for
   them to come up to the standard. Such holiness as the law demands no
   man can reach of himself. "Thy commandment is exceeding broad." If a
   man says that he can keep the law, it is because he does not know what
   the law is. If he fancies that he can ever climb to heaven up the
   quivering sides of Sinai, surely he can never have seen that burning
   mount at all. Keep the law! Ah, my brethren, while we are yet talking
   about it we are breaking it; while we are pretending that we can fulfil
   its letter, we are violating its spirit, for pride as much breaks the
   law as lust or murder. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
   Not one." "How can he be clean that is born of a woman?" No, soul, thou
   canst not help thyself in this thing, for since only by perfection thou
   canst live by the law, and since that perfection is impossible, thou
   canst not find help in the covenant of works. In grace there is hope,
   but as a matter of debt there is none, for we do not merit anything but
   wrath. The law tells us this, and the sooner we know it to be so the
   better, for the sooner we shall fly to Christ.

   The law also shows us our great need--our need of cleansing, cleansing
   with the water and with the blood. It discovers to us our filthiness,
   and this naturally leads us to feel that we must be washed from it if
   we are ever to draw near to God. So the law drives us to accept of
   Christ as the one only person who can cleanse us, and make us fit to
   stand within the veil in the presence of the Most High. The law is the
   surgeon's knife which cuts out the proud flesh that the wound may heal.
   The law by itself only sweeps and raises the dust, but the gospel
   sprinkles clean water upon the dust, and all is well in the chamber of
   the soul. The law kills, the gospel makes alive; the law strips, and
   then Jesus Christ comes in and robes the soul in beauty and glory. All
   the commandments, and all the types direct us to Christ, if we will but
   heed their evident intent. They wean us from self, they put us off from
   the false basis of self- righteousness, and bring us to know that only
   in Christ can our help be found. So, first of all, Christ is the end of
   the law, in that he is its great purpose.

   And now, secondly, he is the law's fulfillment. It is impossible for
   any of us to be saved without righteousness. The God of heaven and
   earth by immutable necessity demands righteousness of all his
   creatures. Now, Christ has come to give to us the righteousness which
   the law demands, but which it never bestows. In the chapter before us
   we read of "the righteousness which is of faith," which is also called
   "God's righteousness"; and we read of those who "shall not be ashamed"
   because they are righteous by believing unto righteousness." What the
   law could not do Jesus has done. He provides the righteousness which
   the law asks for but cannot produce. What an amazing righteousness it
   must be which is as broad and deep and long and high as the law itself.
   The commandment is exceeding broad, but the righteousness of Christ is
   as broad as the commandment, and goes to the end of it. Christ did not
   come to make the law milder, or to render it possible for our cracked
   and battered obedience to be accepted as a sort of compromise. The law
   is not compelled to lower its terms, as though it had originally asked
   too much; it is holy and just and good, and ought not to be altered in
   one jot or tittle, nor can it be. Our Lord gives the law all it
   requires, not a part, for that would be an admission that it might
   justly have been content with less at first. The law claims complete
   obedience without one spot or speck, failure, or flaw, and Christ has
   brought in such a righteousness as that, and gives it to his people.
   The law demands that the righteousness should be without omission of
   duty and without commission of sin, and the righteousness which Christ
   has brought is just such an one that for its sake the great God accepts
   his people and counts them to be without spot or wrinkle or any such
   thing. The law will not be content without spiritual obedience, mere
   outward compliances will not satisfy. But our Lord's obedience was as
   deep as it was broad, for his zeal to do the will of him that sent him
   consumed him. He says himself, "I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea
   thy law is within my heart." Such righteousness he puts upon all
   believers. "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous";
   righteous to the full, perfect in Christ. We rejoice to wear the costly
   robe of fair white linen which Jesus has prepared, and we feel that we
   may stand arrayed in it before the majesty of heaven without a
   trembling thought. This is something to dwell upon, dear friends. Only
   as righteous ones can we be saved, but Jesus Christ makes us righteous,
   and therefore we are saved. He is righteous who believeth on him, even
   as Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
   "There is therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ
   Jesus," because they are made righteous in Christ. Yea, the Holy Spirit
   by the mouth of Paul challengeth all men, angels, and devils, to lay
   anything to the charge of God's elect, since Christ hath died. O law,
   when thou demandest of me a perfect righteousness, I, being a believer,
   present it to thee; for through Christ Jesus faith is accounted unto me
   for righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is mine, for I am one
   with him by faith, and this is the name wherewith he shall be
   called--"The Lord our righteousness."

   Jesus has thus fulfilled the original demands of the law, but you know,
   brethren, that since we have broken the law there are other demands.
   For the remission of past sins something more is asked now than present
   and future obedience. Upon us, on account of our sins, the curse has
   been pronounced, and a penalty has been incurred. It is written that he
   "will by no means clear the guilty," but every transgression and
   iniquity shall have its just punishment and reward. Here, then, let us
   admire that the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law as to penalty.
   That curse and penalty are awful things to think upon, but Christ has
   ended all their evil, and thus discharged us from all the consequences
   of sin. As far as every believer is concerned the law demands no
   penalty and utters no curse. The believer can point to the Great Surety
   on the tree of Calvary, and say, "See there, oh law, there is the
   vindication of divine justice which I offer to thee. Jesus pouring out
   his heart's blood from his wounds and dying on my behalf is my answer
   to thy claims, and I know that I shall be delivered from wrath through
   him." The claims of the law both as broken and unbroken Christ has met:
   both the positive and the penal demands are satisfied in him. This was
   a labour worthy of a God, and lo, the incarnate God has achieved it. He
   has finished the transgression, made an end of sins, made
   reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness.
   All glory be to his name.

   Moreover, not only has the penalty been paid, but Christ has put great
   and special honour upon the law in so doing. I venture to say that if
   the whole human race had kept the law of God and not one of them had
   violated it, the law would not stand in so splendid a position of
   honour as it does today when the man Christ Jesus, who is also the Son
   of God, has paid obeisance to it. God himself, incarnate, has in his
   life, and yet more in his death, revealed the supremacy of law; he has
   shown that not even love nor sovereignty can set aside justice. Who
   shall say a word against the law to which the Lawgiver himself submits?
   Who shall now say that it is too severe when he who made it submits
   himself to its penalties. Because he was found in fashion as a man, and
   was our representative, the Lord demanded from his own Son perfect
   obedience to the law, and the Son voluntarily bowed himself to it
   without a single word, taking no exception to his task. "Yea, thy law
   is my delight," saith he, and he proved it to be so by paying homage to
   it even to the full. Oh wondrous law under which even Emmanuel serves!
   Oh matchless law whose yoke even the Son of God does not disdain to
   bear, but being resolved to save his chosen was made under the law,
   lived under it and died under it, "obedient to death, even the death of
   the cross."

   The law's stability also has been secured by Christ. That alone can
   remain which is proved to be just, and Jesus has proved the law to be
   so, magnifying it and making it honourable. He says, "Think not that I
   am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy,
   but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
   one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
   fulfilled." I shall have to show you how he has made an end of the law
   in another sense, but as to the settlement of the eternal principles of
   right and wrong, Christ's life and death have achieved this forever.
   "Yea, we established the law." said Paul, "we do not make void the law
   through faith." The law is proved to be holy and just by the very
   gospel of faith, for the gospel which faith believes in does not alter
   or lower the law, but teaches us how it was to the uttermost fulfilled.
   Now shall the law stand fast forever and ever, since even to save elect
   man God will not alter it. He had a people, chosen, beloved, and
   ordained to life, yet he would not save them at the expense of one
   principle of right. They were sinful, and how could they be justified
   unless the law was suspended or changed? Was, then, the law changed? It
   seemed as if it must be so, if man was to be saved, but Jesus Christ
   came and showed us how the law could stand firm as a rock, and yet the
   redeemed could be justly saved by infinite mercy. In Christ we see both
   mercy and justice shining full orbed, and yet neither of them in any
   degree eclipsing the other. The law has all it ever asked, as it ought
   to have, and yet the Father of all mercies sees all his chosen saved as
   he determined they should be through the death of his Son. Thus I have
   tried to show you how Christ is the fulfillment of the law to its
   utmost end. May the Holy Ghost bless the teaching.

   And now, thirdly, he is the end of the law in the sense that he is the
   termination of it. He has terminated it in two senses. First of all,
   his people are not under it as a covenant of life. "We are not under
   the law, but under grace." The old covenant as it stood with father
   Adam was "This do and thou shalt live": its command he did not keep,
   and consequently he did not live, nor do we live in him, since in Adam
   all died. The old covenant was broken, and we became condemned thereby,
   but now, having suffered death in Christ, we are no more under it, but
   are dead to it. Brethren, at this present moment, although we rejoice
   to do good works, we are not seeking life through them, we are not
   hoping to obtain divine favour by our own goodness, nor even to keep
   ourselves in the love of God by any merit of our own. Chosen, not for
   our works, but according to the eternal will and good pleasure of God;
   called, not of works, but by the Spirit of God, we desire to continue
   in this grace and return no more to the bondage of the old covenant.
   Since we have put our trust in an atonement provided and applied by
   grace through Christ Jesus, we are no longer slaves but children, not
   working to be saved, but saved already, and working because we are
   saved. Neither that which we do, nor even that which the Spirit of God
   worketh in us is to us the ground and basis of the love of God toward
   us, since he loved us from the first, because he would love us,
   unworthy though we were; and he loves us still in Christ, and looks
   upon us not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in him; washed in his
   blood and covered in his righteousness. Ye are not under the law,
   Christ has taken you from the servile bondage of a condemning covenant
   and made you to receive the adoption of children, so that now ye cry,
   Abba, Father.

   Again, Christ is the terminator of the law, for we are no longer under
   its curse. The law cannot curse a believer, it does not know how to do
   it; it blesses him, yea, and he shall be blessed; for as the law
   demands righteousness and looks at the believer in Christ, and sees
   that Jesus has given him all the righteousness it demands, the law is
   bound to pronounce him blessed. "Blessed is he whose transgression is
   forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
   imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." Oh, the
   joy of being redeemed from the curse of the law by Christ, who was
   "made a curse for us," as it is written, "Cursed is every one that
   hangeth on a tree." Do ye, my brethren, understand the sweet mystery of
   salvation? Have you ever seen Jesus standing in your place that you may
   stand in his place? Christ accused and Christ condemned, and Christ led
   out to die, and Christ smitten of the Father, even to the death, and
   then you cleared, justified, delivered from the curse, because the
   curse has spent itself on your Redeemer. You are admitted to enjoy the
   blessing because the righteousness which was his is now transferred to
   you that you may be blessed of the Lord world without end. Do let us
   triumph and rejoice in this evermore. Why should we not? And yet some
   of God's people get under the law as to their feelings, and begin to
   fear that because they are conscious of sin they are not saved, whereas
   it is written, "he justifieth the ungodly." For myself, I love to live
   near a sinner's Saviour. If my standing before the Lord depended upon
   what I am in myself and what good works and righteousness I could
   bring, surely I should have to condemn myself a thousand times a day.
   But to get away from that and to say, "I have believed in Jesus Christ
   and therefore righteousness is mine," this is peace, rest, joy, and the
   beginning of heaven! When one attains to this experience, his love to
   Jesus Christ begins to flame up, and he feels that if the Redeemer has
   delivered him from the curse of the law he will not continue in sin,
   but he will endeavour to live in newness of life. We are not our own,
   we are bought with a price, and we would therefore glorify God in our
   bodies and in our spirits, which are the Lord's. Thus much upon Christ
   in connection with the law.

   II. Now, secondly, OURSELVES IN CONNECTION WITH CHRIST--for "Christ is
   the end of the law to everyone that believeth." Now see the point "to
   everyone that believeth," there the stress lies. Come, man, woman, dost
   thou believe? No weightier question can be asked under heaven. "Dost
   thou believe on the Son of God?" And what is it to believe? It is not
   merely to accept a set of doctrines and to say that such and such a
   creed is yours, and there and then to put it on the shelf and forget
   it. To believe is, to trust, to confide, to depend upon, to rely upon,
   to rest in. Dost thou believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?
   Dost thou believe that he stood in the sinner's stead and suffered the
   just for the unjust? Dost thou believe that he is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by him? And dost thou therefore lay
   the whole weight and stress of thy soul's salvation upon him, yea, upon
   him alone? Ah then, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
   thee, and thou art righteous. In the righteousness of God thou art
   clothed if thou believest. It is of no use to bring forward anything
   else if you are not believing, for nothing will avail. If faith be
   absent the essential thing is wanting: sacraments, prayers, Bible
   reading, hearings of the gospel, you may heap them together, high as
   the stars, into a mountain, huge as high Olympus, but they are all mere
   chaff if faith be not there. It is thy believing or not believing which
   must settle the matter. Dost thou look away from thyself to Jesus for
   righteousness? If thou dost he is the end of the law to thee.

   Now observe that there is no question raised about the previous
   character, for it is written, "Christ is the end of the law for
   righteousness to every one that believeth." But, Lord, this man before
   he believed was a persecutor and injurious, he raged and raved against
   the saints and haled them to prison and sought their blood. Yes,
   beloved friend, and that is the very man who wrote these words by the
   Holy Ghost, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every
   one that believeth." So if I address one here this morning whose life
   has been defiled with every sin, and stained with every transgression
   we can conceive of, yet I say unto such, remember "all manner of sin
   and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." If thou believest in the
   Lord Jesus Christ thine iniquities are blotted out, for the blood of
   Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanseth us from all sin. This is the
   glory of the gospel that it is a sinner's gospel; good news of blessing
   not for those without sin, but for those who confess and forsake it.
   Jesus came into the world, not to reward the sinless, but to seek and
   to save that which was lost; and he, being lost and being far from God,
   who cometh nigh to God by Christ, and believeth in him, will find that
   he is able to bestow righteousness upon the guilty. He is the end of
   the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, and therefore to
   the poor harlot that believeth, to the drunkard of many years standing
   that believeth, to the thief, the liar, and the scoffer who believeth,
   to those who have aforetime rioted in sin, but now turn from it to
   trust in him. But I do not know that I need mention such cases as
   these; to me the most wonderful fact is that Christ is the end of the
   law for righteousness to me, for I believe in him. I know whom I have
   believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
   committed to him until that day.

   Another thought arises from the text, and that is, that there is
   nothing said by way of qualification as to the strength of the faith.
   He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth,
   whether he is Little Faith or Greatheart. Jesus protects the rear rank
   as well as the vanguard. There is no difference between one believer
   and another as to justification. So long as there is a connection
   between you and Christ the righteousness of God is yours. The link may
   be very like a film, a spider's line of trembling faith, but, if it
   runs all the way from the heart to Christ, divine grace can and will
   flow along the most slender thread. It is marvelous how fine the wire
   may be that will carry the electric flash. We may want a cable to carry
   a message across the sea, but that is for the protection of the wire,
   the wire which actually carries the message is a slender thing. If thy
   faith be of the mustard-seed kind, if it be only such as tremblingly
   touches the Saviour's garment's hem, if thou canst only say "Lord, I
   believe, help thou mine unbelief," if it be but the faith of sinking
   Peter, or weeping Mary, yet if it be faith in Christ, he will be the
   end of the law for righteousness to thee as well as to the chief of the
   apostles.

   If this be so then, beloved friends, all of us who believe are
   righteous. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ we have obtained the
   righteousness which those who follow the works of the law know nothing
   of. We are not completely sanctified, would God we were; we are not
   quit of sin in our members, though we hate it; but still for all that,
   in the sight of God, we are truly righteous and being qualified by
   faith we have peace with God. Come, look up, ye believers that are
   burdened with a sense of sin. While you chasten yourselves and mourn
   your sin, do not doubt your Saviour, nor question his righteousness.
   You are black, but do not stop there, go on to say as the spouse did,
   "I am black, but comely."

   "Though in ourselves deform'd we are,

   And black as Kedar's tents appear,

   Yet, when we put Thy beauties on,

   Fair as the courts of Solomon."

   Now, mark that the connection of our text assures us that being
   righteous we are saved; for what does it say here, "If thou shalt
   confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
   that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." He who is
   justified is saved, or what were the benefit of justification? Over
   thee, O believer, God hath pronounced the verdict "saved," and none
   shall reverse it. You are saved from sin and death and hell; you are
   saved even now, with a present salvation; "He hath saved us and called
   us with a holy calling." Feel the transports of it at this hour.
   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."

   And now I have done when I have said just this. If any one here thinks
   he can save himself, and that his own righteousness will suffice before
   God, I would affectionately beg him not to insult his Saviour. If your
   righteousness sufficeth, why did Christ come here to work one out? Will
   you for a moment compare your righteousness with the righteousness of
   Jesus Christ? What likeness is there between you and him? As much as
   between an emmet and an archangel. Nay, not so much as that: as much as
   between night and day, hell and heaven. Oh, if I had a righteousness of
   my own that no one could find fault with, I would voluntarily fling it
   away to have the righteousness of Christ, but as I have none of my own
   I do rejoice the more to have my Lord's. When Mr. Whitefield first
   preached at Kingswood, near Bristol, to the colliers, he could see when
   their hearts began to be touched by the gutters of white made by the
   tears as they ran down their black cheeks. He saw they were receiving
   the gospel, and he writes in his diary "as these poor colliers had no
   righteousness of their own they therefore gloried in Him who came to
   save publicans and sinners." Well, Mr. Whitefield, that is true of the
   colliers, but it is equally true of many of us here, who may not have
   had black faces, but we had black hearts. We can truly say that we also
   rejoice to cast away our own righteousness and count it dross and dung
   that we may win Christ, and be found in him. In him is our sole hope
   and only trust.

   Last of all, for any of you to reject the righteousness of Christ must
   be to perish everlastingly, because it cannot be that God will accept
   you or your pretended righteousness when you have refused the real and
   divine righteousness which he sets before you in his Son. If you could
   go up to the gates of heaven, and the angel were to say to you, "What
   title have you to entrance here?" and you were to reply, "I have a
   righteousness of my own," then for you to be admitted would be to
   decide that your righteousness was on a par with that of Immanuel
   himself. Can that ever be? Do you think that God will ever allow such a
   lie to be sanctioned? Will he let a poor wretched sinner's counterfeit
   righteousness pass current side by side with the fine gold of Christ's
   perfection? Why was the fountain filled with blood if you need no
   washing? Is Christ a superfluity? Oh, it cannot be. You must have
   Christ's righteousness or be unrighteous, and being unrighteous you
   will be unsaved, and being unsaved you must remain lost forever and
   ever.

   What! has it all come to this, then, that I am to believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ for righteousness, and to be made just through faith? Yes,
   that is it: that is the whole of it. What! trust Christ alone and then
   live as I like! You cannot live in sin after you have trusted Jesus,
   for the act of faith brings with it a change of nature and a renewal of
   your soul. The Spirit of God who leads you to believe will also change
   your heart. You spoke of "living as you like," you will like to live
   very differently from what you do now. The things you loved before your
   conversion you will hate when you believe, and the things you hated you
   will love. Now, you are trying to be good, and you make great failures,
   because your heart is alienated from God; but when once you have
   received salvation through the blood of Christ, your heart will love
   God, and then you will keep his commandments, and they will be no
   longer grievous to you. A change of heart is what you want, and you
   will never get it except through the covenant of grace. There is not a
   word about conversion in the old covenant, we must look to the new
   covenant for that, and here it is--"Then will I sprinkle clean water
   upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from
   all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you,
   and an 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. And I
   will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,
   and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." This is one of the
   greatest covenant promises, and the Holy Ghost preforms it in the
   chosen. Oh that the Lord would sweetly persuade you to believe in the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and that promise and all the other covenant
   engagements shall be fulfilled to your soul. The Lord bless you! Spirit
   of God, send thy blessing on these poor words of mine for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Romans 10.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--231, 535, 647.
     __________________________________________________________________

                         Christ the Conqueror of Satan

   A Sermon

   (No. 1326)

   Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, November 26th, 1876, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed
   and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise thy head,
   and thou shalt bruise his heel."--Genesis 3:16

   THIS IS THE FIRST gospel sermon that was ever delivered upon the
   surface of this earth. It was memorable discourse indeed, with Jehovah
   himself for the preacher, and the whole human race and the prince of
   darkness for the audience. It must be worthy of our heartiest
   attention.

   Is it not remarkable that this great gospel promise should have been
   delivered so soon after the transgression? As yet no sentence had been
   pronounced upon either of the two human offenders, but the promise was
   given under the form of a sentence pronounced upon the serpent Not yet
   had the woman been condemned to painful travail, or the man to
   exhausting labour, or even the soil to the curse of thorn and thistle.
   Truly "mercy rejoiceth against judgment." Before the Lord had said
   "dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return," he was pleased to say
   that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Let us
   rejoice, then, in the swift mercy of God, which in the early watches of
   the night of sin came with comfortable words unto us.

   These words were not directly spoken to Adam and Eve, but they were
   directed distinctly to the serpent himself, and that by was of
   punishment to him for what he had done. It was a day of cruel triumph
   to him such joy as his dark mind is capable of had filled him, for had
   he indulged his malice, and gratified his spite. He had in the worst
   sense destroyed a part of God's works, he had introduce sin into the
   new world, he had stamped the human race with his own image, and gained
   new forces to promote rebellion and to multiply transgression, and
   therefore he felt that sort of gladness which a fiend can know who
   bears a hell within him. But now God comes in, takes up the quarrel
   personally, and causes him to be disgraced on the very battle-field
   upon which he had gained a temporary success. He tells the dragon that
   he will undertake to deal with him; this quarrel shall not be between
   the serpent and man, but between God and the serpent. God saith, in
   solemn words, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between
   thy seed and her seed," and he promised that there shall rise in
   fulness of time a champion, who, though he suffer, shall smite in a
   vital part the power of evil, and bruise the serpent's head. This was
   the more, it seems to me, a comfortable message of mercy to Adam and
   Eve, because they would feel sure that the tempter would be punished,
   and as that punishment would involve blessing for them, the vengeance
   due to the serpent would be the guarantee of mercy to themselves.
   Perhaps, however, by thus obliquely giving the promise, the Lord meant
   to say, "Not for your sakes do I this, O fallen man and woman, nor for
   the sake of your descendants; but for my own name and honour's sake,
   that it be not profaned and blasphemed amongst the fallen spirits. I
   undertake to repair the mischief which has been caused by the tempter,
   that my name and my glory may not be diminished among the immortal
   spirits who look down upon the scene." All this would be very humbling
   but yet consolatory to our parents if they thought of it, seeing that
   mercy given for God's sake is always to our troubled apprehension more
   sure than any favour which could be promised to us for our own sake.
   The divine sovereignty and glory afford us a stronger foundation of
   hope than merit, even if merit can be supposed to exist.

   Now we must note concerning this first gospel sermon that on it the
   earliest believers stayed themselves. This was all that Adam had by way
   of revelation, and all that Abel had received. This one lone star shone
   in Abel's sky; he looked up to it and he believed. By its light he
   spelt out "sacrifice," and therefore he brought of the firstlings of
   his flock and laid them on the altar, and proved in his own person how
   the seed of the serpent hated the seed of the woman, for his brother
   slew him for his testimony. Although Enoch the seventh from Adam
   prophesied concerning the second advent, yet he does not appear to have
   uttered anything new concerning the first coming, so that still this
   one promise remained as man's sole word of hope. The torch which flamed
   within the gates of Eden just before man was driven forth lit up the
   world to all believers until the Lord was pleased to give more light,
   and to renew and enlarge the revelation of his covenant, when he spake
   to his servant Noah. Those hoary fathers who lived before the flood
   rejoiced in the mysterious language of our text, and resting on it,
   they died in faith. Nor, brethren, must you think it a slender
   revelation, for, if you attentively consider, it is wonderfully full of
   meaning. If it had been on my heart to handle it doctrinally this
   morning, I think I could have shown you that it contains all the
   gospel. There lie within it, as an oak lies within an acorn, all the
   great truths which make up the gospel of Christ. Observe that here is
   the grand mystery of incarnation. Christ is that seed of the woman who
   is here spoken of; and there is a hint not darkly given as to how that
   Incarnation would be effected. Jesus was not shadowed of the Holy
   Ghost, and "the holy thing" which was born of her was as to his
   humanity the seed of the woman only; as it is written, "Behold a virgin
   shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel."
   The promise plainly teaches that the deliverer would be born of a
   woman, and carefully viewed, it also foreshadows the divine method of
   the Redeemer's conception and birth. So also is the doctrine of the two
   seeds plainly taught here--"I will put enmity between thee and the
   woman, between thy seed and her seed." There was evidently to be in the
   world a seed of the woman on God's side against the serpent, and a seed
   of the serpent that should always be upon the evil side even as it is
   unto this day. The church of God and the synagogue of Satan both exist.
   We see an Abel and a Cain, an Isaac and an Ishmael, a Jacob and an
   Esau; those that are born after the flesh, being the children of their
   father the devil, for his works they do, but those that are born
   again--being born after the Spirit, after the power of the life of
   Christ, are thus in Christ Jesus the seed of the woman, and contend
   earnestly against the dragon and his seed. Here, too, the great fact of
   the sufferings of Christ is clearly foretold--"Thou shalt bruise his
   heel." Within the compass of those words we find the whole story of our
   Lord's sorrows from Bethlehem to Calvary. "It shall bruise thy head":
   there is the breaking of Satan's regal power, there is the clearing
   away of sin, there is the destruction of death by resurrection, there
   is the leading of captivity captive in the ascension, there is the
   victory of truth in the world through the descent of the Spirit, and
   there is the latter-day glory in which Satan shall be bound, and there
   is, lastly, the casting of the evil one and all his followers into the
   lake of fire. The conflict and the conquest are both in the compass of
   these few fruitful words. They may not have been fully understood by
   those who first heard them, but to us they are now full of light. The
   text at first looks like a flint, hard and cold; but sparks fly from it
   plentifully, for hidden fires of infinite love and grace lie concealed
   within. Over this promise of a gracious God we ought to rejoice
   exceedingly.

   We do not know what our first parents understood by it, but we may be
   certain that they gathered a great amount of comfort from it They must
   have understood that they were not then and there to be destroyed,
   because the Lord had spoken of a "seed." They would argue that it must
   be needful that Eve should live if there should be a seed from her.
   They understood, too, that if that seed was to overcome the serpent and
   bruise his head, it must auger good to themselves: they could not fail
   to see that there was some great, some mysterious benefit to be
   conferred upon them by the victory which their seed would achieve over
   the instigator of their ruin. They went on in faith upon this, and were
   comforted in travail and in toil, and I doubt not both Adam and his
   wife in the faith thereof entered into everlasting rest.

   This morning I intend to handle this text in three ways. First, we
   shall notice its facts; secondly, we shall consider the experience
   within the heart of each believer which tallies to those facts; and
   then, thirdly, the encouragement which the text and its connection as a
   whole afford to us.

   I. THE FACTS. The facts are four, and I call your earnest attention to
   them. The first is Enmity was excited. The text begins, "I will put
   enmity between thee and the woman." They had been very friendly; the
   woman and the serpent had conversed together. She thought at the time
   that the serpent was her friend; and she was so much his friend that
   she took his advice in the teeth of God's precept, and was willing to
   believe bad things of the great Creator, because this wicked, crafty
   serpent insinuated the same. Now, at the moment when God spake, that
   friendship between the woman and the serpent had already in a measure
   come to an end, for she had accused the serpent to God, and said, "The
   serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." So far, so good. The friendship of
   sinners does not last long; they have already begun to quarrel, and now
   the Lord comes in and graciously takes advantage of the quarrel which
   had commenced, and says, "I will carry this disagreement a great deal
   further, I will put enmity between thee and the woman." Satan counted
   on man's descendants being his confederates, but God would break up
   this covenant with hell, and raise up a seed which should war against
   the Satanic power. This we have here God's first declaration that he
   will set up a rival kingdom to oppose the tyranny of sin and Satan,
   that he will create in the hearts of a chosen seed an enmity against
   evil, so that they shall fight against it, and with many a struggle and
   pain shall overcome the prince of darkness. The divine Spirit has
   abundantly achieved this plan and purpose of the Lord, combating the
   fallen angel by a glorious man: making man to be Satan's foe and
   conqueror. Henceforth the woman was to hate the evil one, and I do not
   doubt that she did so. She had abundant cause for so doing, and as
   often as she thought of him it would be with infinite regret that she
   could have listened to his malicious and deceitful talk. The woman's
   seed has also evermore had enmity against the evil one. I mean not the
   carnal seed, for Paul tells us, "They 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." The carnal seed of the man and the
   woman are not meant, but the spiritual seed, even Christ Jesus and
   those who are in him. Wherever you meet these, they hate the serpent
   with a perfect hatred. We would if we could destroy from our souls
   every work of Satan, and out of this poor afflicted world of ours we
   would root up every evil which he has planted. That seed of the woman,
   that glorious One,--for he speaks not of seeds as of many but of seed
   that is one,--you know how he abhorred the devil and all his devices.
   There was enmity between Christ and Satan, for he came to destroy the
   works of the devil and to deliver those who are under bondage to him.
   For that purpose was he born; for that purpose did he live; for that
   purpose did he die; for that purpose he has gone into the glory, and
   for that purpose he will come again, that everywhere he may find out
   his adversary and utterly destroy him and his works form amongst the
   sons of men. This putting of the enmity between the two seeds was the
   commencement of the plan of mercy, the first act in the programme of
   grace. Of the woman's seed it was henceforth said, "Thou lovest
   righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath
   anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

   Then comes the second prophecy, which has also turned into a fact,
   namely the coming of the champion. The seed of the woman by promise is
   to champion the cause, and oppose the dragon. That seed is the Lord
   Jesus Christ. The prophet Micah saith, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah;
   though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee
   shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings
   forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give
   them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth."
   To none other than the babe which was born in Bethlehem of the blessed
   Virgin can the words of the prophecy refer. She it was who did conceive
   and bear a son, and it is concerning her son that we sing, "Unto us a
   child is born, unto us a son is given: and his name shall be called
   Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the
   Prince of Peace." On the memorable night at Bethlehem, when angels sang
   in heaven, the seed of the woman appeared, and as soon as ever he saw
   the light the old serpent, the devil, entered into the heart of Herod
   if possible to slay him, but the Father preserved him, and suffered
   none to lay hands on him. As soon as he publicly came forward upon the
   stage of action, thirty years after, Satan met him foot to foot. You
   know the story of the temptation in the wilderness, and how there the
   woman's seed fought with him who was a liar from the beginning. The
   devil assailed him thrice with all the artillery of flattery, malice,
   craft and falsehood, but the peerless champion stood unwounded, and
   chased his foeman from the field. Then our Lord set up his kingdom, and
   called one and another unto him, and carried the war into the enemy's
   country. In divers places he cast out devils. He spake to the wicked
   and unclean spirit and said, "I charge thee come out of him," and the
   demon was expelled. Legions of devils flew before him: they sought to
   hide themselves in swine to escape from the terror of his presence.
   "Art thou come to torment us before our time?" was their cry when the
   wonder-working Christ dislodged them from the bodies which they
   tormented. Yea, and he made his own disciples mighty against the evil
   one, for in his name they cast out devils, till Jesus said, "I beheld
   Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Then there came a second personal
   conflict, for I take it that Gethsemane's sorrows were to a great
   degree caused by a personal assault of Satan, for our Master said,
   "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." He said also, "The
   Prince of this world cometh." What a struggle it was. Though Satan had
   nothing in Christ, yet did he seek if possible to lead him away from
   completing his great sacrifice, and there did our Master sweat as it
   were great drops of blood, falling to the ground, in the agony which it
   cost him to contend with the fiend. Then it was that our Champion began
   the last fight of all and won it to the bruising of the serpent's head.
   Nor did he end till he had spoiled principalities and powers and made a
   show of them openly.

   "Now is the hour of darkness past,

   Christ has assumed his reigning power;

   Behold the great accuser cast

   Down from his seat to reign no more."

   The conflict our glorious Lord continues in his seed. We preach Christ
   crucified, and every sermon shakes the gates of hell. We bring sinners
   to Jesus by the Spirit's power, and every convert is a stone torn down
   from the wall of Satan's mighty castle. Yea, and the day shall come
   when everywhere the evil one shall be overcome, and the words of John
   in the Revelation shall be fulfilled. "And the great dragon was cast
   out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
   whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast
   out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come
   salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of
   his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused
   them before our God day and night." Thus did the Lord God in the words
   of our text promise a champion who should be the seed of the woman,
   between whom and Satan there should be war for ever and ever: that
   champion has come, the man-child has been born, and thought the dragon
   is wroth with the woman, and made war with the remnant of her seed
   which keep the testimony of Jesus Christ, yet the battle is the Lord's,
   and the victory falleth unto him whose name is Faithful and True, who
   in righteousness doth judge and make war.

   The third fact which comes out in the text, though not quite in that
   order, is that our Champion's heel should be bruised. Do you need that
   I explain this? You know how all his life long his heel, that is, his
   lower part, his human nature, was perpetually being made to suffer. He
   carried our sicknesses and sorrows. But the bruising came mainly when
   both in body and in mind his whole human nature was made to agonize;
   when his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and his enemies
   pierced his hands and his feet, and he endured the shame and pain of
   death by crucifixion. Look at your Master and your King upon the cross,
   all disdained with blood and dust! There was his heel most cruelly
   bruised. When they take down that precious body and wrap it in fair
   white linen and in spices, and lay it in Joseph's tomb, they weep as
   they handle the casket in which the Deity had dwelt, for there again
   Satan had bruised his heel. It was not merely that God had bruised him,
   "though it pleased the Father to bruise him," but the devil had let
   loose Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and the Jews, and the Romans,
   all of them his tools, upon him whom he knew to be the Christ, so that
   he was bruised of the old serpent. That is all, however! It is only his
   heel, not his head, which is bruised! For lo, the Champion rises again;
   the bruise was not mortal nor continual. Though he dies, yet still so
   brief is the interval in which he slumbers in the tomb that his holy
   body hath not seen corruption, and he comes forth perfect and lovely in
   his manhood, rising from his grave as from a refreshing sleep after so
   long a day of unresting toil! Oh the triumph of that hour! As Jacob
   only halted on his thigh when he overcame the angel, so did Jesus only
   retain a scar in his heel, and that he bears to the skies as his glory
   and beauty. Before the throne he looks like a lamb that has been slain,
   but in the power of an endless life he liveth unto God.

   Then comes the fourth fact, namely, that while his heel was being
   bruised, he was to bruise the serpent's head. The figure represents the
   dragon as inflicting an injury upon the champion's heel, but at the
   same moment the champion himself with that heel crushes in the head of
   the serpent with fatal effect. By his sufferings Christ has overthrown
   Satan, by the heel that was bruised he has trodden upon the head which
   devised the bruising.

   "Lo, by the sons of hell he dies;

   But as he hangs twixt earth and skies,

   He gives their prince a fatal blow,

   And triumphs o'er the powers below

   Though Satan is not dead, my brethren, I was about to say, would God he
   were, and though he is not converted, and never will be, nor will the
   malice of his heart ever be driven from him, yet Christ has so far
   broken his head that he has missed his mark altogether. He intended to
   make the human race the captives of his power, but they are redeemed
   from his iron yoke. God has delivered many of them, and the day shall
   come when he will cleanse the whole earth from the serpent's slimy
   trail, so that the entire world shall be full of the praises of God. He
   thought that this world would be the arena of his victory over God and
   good, instead of which it is already the grandest theatre of divine
   wisdom, love, grace, and power. Even heaven itself is not so
   resplendent with mercy as the earth is, for here it is the Saviour
   poured out his blood, which cannot be said even of the courts of
   paradise above. Moreover he thought, no doubt, that when he had led our
   race astray and brought death upon them, he had effectually marred the
   Lord's work. He rejoiced that they would all pass under the cold seal
   of death, and that their bodies would rot in the sepulchre. Had he not
   spoiled the handiwork of his great Lord? God may make man as a curious
   creature with intertwisted veins and blood and nerves, and sinews and
   muscles, and he may put into his nostrils the breath of life; but,
   "Ah," saith Satan, "I have infused a poison into him which will make
   him return to the dust from which he was taken." but now, behold, our
   Champion whose heel was bruised has risen from the dead, and given us a
   pledge that all his followers shall rise form the dead also. Thus is
   Satan foiled, for death shall not retain a bone, nor a piece of a bone,
   of one of those who belonged to the woman's seed. At the trump of the
   archangel from the earth and from the sea they shall arise, and this
   shall be their shout, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
   thy victory?" Satan, knowing this, feels already that by the
   resurrection his head is broken. Glory be to the Christ of God for
   this!

   In multitudes of other ways the devil has been vanquished by our Lord
   Jesus, and so shall he ever be till he shall be cast into the lake of
   fire.

   II. Let us now view OUR EXPERIENCE AS IT TALLIES WITH THESE FACTS. Now,
   brothers and sisters, we were by nature, as many of us as have been
   saved, the heirs of wrath even as others. It does not matter how godly
   our parents were, the first birth brought us no spiritual life, for the
   promise is not to them which are born of blood, or of the will of the
   flesh, or of the will of man, but only to those who are born of God,
   "That which is born of the flesh is flesh"; you cannot make anything
   else and there it abides, and the flesh, or carnal mind, abideth in
   death; "it is not reconciled to God, neither indeed can be." He who is
   born into this world but once, and knows nothing of the new birth, must
   place himself among the seed of the serpent, for only by regeneration
   can we know ourselves to be the true seed. How does God deal with us
   who are his called and chosen ones? He means to save us, and how does
   he work to that end?

   The first thing he does is, he comes to us in mercy, and puts enmity
   between us and the serpent. That is the very first work of grace. There
   was peace between us and Satan once; when he tempted we yielded;
   whatever he taught us we believed; we were his willing slaves. But
   perhaps you, my brethren, can recollect when first of all you began to
   fell uneasy and dissatisfied; the world's pleasures no longer pleased
   you; all the juice seemed to have been taken out of the apple, and you
   had nothing at all. Then you suddenly perceived that you were living in
   sin, and you were miserable about it, and though you could not get rid
   of sin yet you hated it, and sighed over it, and cried, and groaned. In
   your heart of hearts you remained no longer on the side of evil, for
   you began to cry, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
   the body of this death?" You were already from of old in the covenant
   of grace ordained to be the woman's seed, and now the decree began to
   discover itself in life bestowed upon you and working in you. The Lord
   in infinite mercy dropped the divine life into your soul. You did not
   know it, but there it was, a spark of the celestial fire, the living
   and incorruptible seed which abideth for ever. You began to hate sin,
   and you groaned under it as under a galling yoke; more and more it
   burdened you, you could not bear it. So it was with you: is it so now?
   Is there still enmity between you and the serpent? Indeed you are more
   and more the sworn enemies of evil, and you willingly acknowledge it.

   Then came the champion: that is to say, "Christ was formed in you the
   hope of glory." You heard of him and you understood the truth about
   him, and it seemed a wonderful thing that he should be your substitute
   and stand in your room and place and stead, and bear your sin and all
   its curse and punishment, and that he should give his righteousness,
   yea, and his very self, to you that you might be saved. Ah, then you
   saw how sin could be overthrown, did you not? As soon as your heart
   understood Christ then you saw that what the law could not do, in that
   it was weak through the flesh, Christ was able to accomplish, and that
   the power of sin and Satan under which you had been in bondage, and
   which you now loathed, could and would be broken and destroyed because
   Christ had come into he world to overcome it.

   Next, do you recollect how you were led to see the bruising of Christ's
   heel and to stand in wonder and observe what the enmity of the serpent
   had wrought in him? Did you no begin to feel the bruised heel yourself?
   Did not sin torment you? Did not the very thought of it vex you? Did
   not your own heart become a plague to you? Did not Satan begin to tempt
   you? Did he not inject blasphemous thoughts, and urge you on to
   desperate measures; did he not teach you to doubt the existence of God,
   and the mercy of God, and the possibility of your salvation, and so on?
   This was his nibbling at your heel. He is at his old tricks still. He
   worries whom he can't devour with a malicious joy. Did not your worldly
   friends begin to annoy you? Did they not give you the cold shoulder
   because they saw something about you so strange and foreign to their
   tastes? Did they not impute your conduct to fanaticism, pride,
   obstinacy, bigotry, and the like? Ah, this persecution is the serpent's
   seed beginning to discover the woman's seed, and to carry on the old
   war. What does Paul say? "But as then he that was born after the flesh
   persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." True
   godliness is an unnatural and strange thing to them, and they cannot
   away with it Though there are no stakes in Smithfield, nor racks in the
   Tower, yet the enmity of the human heart towards Christ and his seed is
   just the same, and very often shows itself in "trials of cruel
   mockings" which to the tender hearts are very hard to bear. Well, this
   is your heel being bruised in sympathy with the bruising of the heel of
   the glorious seed of the woman.

   But, brethren, do you know something of the other fact, namely, that we
   conquer, for the serpent's head is broken in us? How say you? Is not
   the power and dominion of sin broken in you? Do you not feel that you
   cannot sin because you are born of God? Some sins which were masters of
   you once, do not trouble you now. I have known a man guilty of profane
   swearing, and from the moment of his conversion he has never had any
   difficulty in the matter. We have known a man snatched from
   drunkenness, and the cure by divine grace has been very wonderful and
   complete. We have known persons delivered from unclean living, and they
   have at once become chaste and pure, because Christ has smitten the old
   dragon such blows that he could not have power over them in that
   respect. The chosen seed sin and mourn it, but they are not slaves to
   sin; their heart goeth not after it they have to say sometimes "the
   thing I do," but they are wretched when it is so. They consent with
   their heart to the law of God that it is good, and they sigh and cry
   that they may be helped to obey it, for they are no longer under the
   slavery of sin; the serpent's reigning power and dominion is broken in
   them.

   It is broken next in this way, that the guilt of sin is gone. The great
   power of the serpent lies in unpardoned sin. He cries "l have make you
   guilty: I brought you under the curse." No," say we, "we are delivered
   from the curse and are now blessed, for it is written, Blessed is the
   man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.' We are no
   longer guilty, for who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
   Since Christ hath justified, who is he that condemneth? Here is a
   swinging blow for the old dragon's head, such as he never will recover.

   Oftentimes the Lord also grants us to know what it is to overcome
   temptation, and so to break the dead of the fiend, Satan allures us
   with many baits; he has studied our points well he knows the weakness
   of the flesh: but many and many a time blessed be God, we have foiled
   him completely to his eternal shame! The devil must have felt himself
   mean that day when he tried to overthrow Job, dragged him down to a
   dunghill, robbed him of everything, covered him with sores, and yet
   could not make him yield. Job conquered when he cried, "Though he slay
   me yet will I trust in him." A feeble man had vanquished a devil who
   could raise the wind and blow down a house, and destroy the family who
   were feasting in it. Devil as he is, and crowned prince of the power of
   the air, yet the poor bereaved patriarch sitting on the dunghill
   covered with sores, being one of the woman's seed, through the strength
   of the inner life won the victory over him.

   "Ye sons of God oppose his rage.

   Resist, and he'll be gone:

   Thus did our dearest Lord engage

   And vanquish him alone."

   Moreover, dear brethren, we have this hope that the very being of sin
   in us will be destroyed. The day will come when we shall be without
   spot or wrinkle or any such thing; and we shall stand before the throne
   of God, having suffered no injury whatever from the fall and from all
   the machinations of Satan, for are "they are without fault before the
   throne of God." What triumph that will be! "The Lord will tread Satan
   under your feet shortly." When he has made you perfect and free from
   all sin, as he will do, you will have bruised the serpent's head
   indeed.

   And your resurrection, too, when Satan shall see you come up from the
   grave like one that has been perfumed in a bath of spices, when he
   shall see you arise in the image of Christ, with the same body which
   was sown in corruption and weakness raised in incorruption and power,
   then will he feel an infinite chagrin, and know that his head is
   bruised by the woman's seed.

   I ought to add that every time any one of us is made useful in saving
   souls we do as it were repeat the bruising of the serpent's head. When
   you go, dear sister, among those poor children, and pick them up from
   the gutters, where they are Satan's prey, where he finds the raw
   material for thieves and criminals, and when through your means, by the
   grace of God, the little wonderers become children of the living God,
   then you in your measure bruise the old serpent's head, I pray you do
   not spare him. When we by preaching the gospel turn sinners from the
   error of their ways, so that they escape from the power of darkness,
   again we bruise the serpent's head. Whenever in any shape of way you
   are blessed to the aiding of the cause of truth and righteousness in
   the world, you, too, who were once beneath his power, and even now have
   sometimes to suffer from his nibbling at your heel, you tread upon his
   head. In all deliverances and victories you overcome, and prove the
   promise true,--"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young
   lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set
   his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high,
   because he hath known my name."

   III. Let us speak awhile upon THE ENCOURAGEMENT which our text and the
   context yields to us; for it seems to me to abound.

   I want you, brethren, to exercise faith in the promise and be
   comforted. The text evidently encouraged Adam very much. I do not think
   we have attached enough importance to the conduct of Adam after the
   Lord had spoken to him. Notice the simple but conclusive proof which he
   gave of his faith. Sometimes an action may be very small and
   unimportant, and yet, as a straw shows which way the wind blows, it may
   display at once, if it be thought over, the whole state of the man's
   mind. Adam acted in faith upon what God had said, for we read, "And
   Adam called his wife's name Eve (or Life); because she was the mother
   of all living" (verse 20). She was not a mother at all, but as the life
   was to come through her by virtue of the promised seed, Adam marks his
   full conviction of the truth of the promise though at the time the
   woman had borne no children. There stood Adam, fresh from the awful
   presence of God, what more could he say? He might have said with the
   Prophet, "My flesh trembleth fro the fear of thee," but even then he
   turns round to his fellow-culprit as she stands there trembling too,
   and he calls her Eve, mother of the life that is yet to be. It was
   grandly spoken by Father Adam: it makes him rise in our esteem. Had he
   been left to himself he would have murmured or at least despaired, but
   no, his faith in the new promise gave him hope. He uttered no word of
   repining against the condemnation to till with toil the unthankful
   ground, nor on Eve's part was there a word of repining over the
   appointed sorrows of motherhood; they each accept the well-deserved
   sentence with the silence which denotes the perfection of their
   resignation; their only word is full of simple faith. There was no
   child on whom to set their hopes, nor would the true seed be born for
   an age, still Eve is to be the mother of all the living, and he calls
   her so. Exercise like faith, my brother, on the far wider revelation
   which God has given to you, and always extract the utmost comfort from
   it. Make a point, whenever you receive a promise from God, to get all
   you can out of it if you carry out that rule, it is wonderful what
   comfort you will gain. Some go on the principle of getting as little as
   possible out of God's word. I believe that such a plan is the proper
   way with a man's word; always understand it at the minimum, because
   that is what he means; but God's word is to be understood at the
   maximum, for he will do exceeding abundantly above what you ask or even
   think.

   Notice by way of further encouragement that we may regard our reception
   of Christ's righteousness as an installment of the final overthrow of
   the devil. The twenty-first verse says, "Unto Adam also and to his wife
   did the Lord God made coats of skins, and clothed them." A very
   condescending, thoughtful, and instructive deed of divine love! God
   heard what Adam said to his wife, and saw that he was a believer, and
   so he comes and gives him the type of the perfect righteousness, which
   is the believer's portion--he covered him with lasting raiment. No more
   fig leaves, which were a mere mockery, but a close fitting garment
   which had been procured through the death of a victim; the Lord brings
   that and puts it on him, and Adam could no more say, "I am naked." How
   could he, for God had clothed him. Now, beloved, let us take out of the
   promise that is given us concerning our Lord's conquest over the devil
   this one item and rejoice in it, for Christ has delivered us from the
   power of the serpent who opened our eyes and told us we were naked, by
   covering us from head to foot with a righteousness which adorns and
   protects us, so that we are comfortable in heart, and beautiful in the
   sight of God, and are no more ashamed.

   Next, by way of encouragement in pursuing the Christian life, I would
   say to young people, expect to be assailed. If you have fallen into
   trouble through being a Christian, be encouraged by it; do not at all
   regret of fear it, but rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy, for
   this is the constant token of the covenant. There is enmity between the
   seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent still, and if you did not
   experience any of it you might begin to fear that you were on the wrong
   side. Now that you smart under the sneer of sarcasm and oppression
   rejoice and triumph, for now are ye partakers with the glorious seed of
   the woman in the bruising of his heel.

   Still further encouragement comes from this. Your suffering as a
   Christian is not brought upon you for your own sake; ye are partners
   with the great seed of the woman, ye are confederates with Christ. You
   must not think the devil cares much about you: the battle is against
   Christ in you. When, if you were not in Christ, the devil would never
   trouble you. When you were without Christ in the world you might have
   sinned as you like, your relatives and workmates would not have been at
   all grieved with you, they would rather have joined you in it; but now
   the serpent's seed hates Christ in you. This exalts the sufferings of
   persecution to a position far above all common afflictions. I have
   heard of a woman who was condemned to death in the Marian days, and
   before her time came to be burned a child was born to her, and she
   cried out in her sorrow. A wicked adversary, who stood by said, "how
   will you bear to die for your religion if you make such ado?" "Ah," she
   said, "Now I suffer in my own person as a woman, but then I shall not
   suffer, but Christ in me." Nor were these idle words, for she bore her
   martyrdom with exemplary patience, and rose in her chariot of fire in
   holy triumph to heaven. If Christ be in you, nothing will dismay you,
   but you will overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil by faith.

   Last of all, let us resist the devil always with this belief that he
   has received a broken head. I am inclined to think that Luther's way of
   laughing at the devil was a very good one, for he is worthy of shame
   and everlasting contempt. Luther once threw and inkstand at his head
   when he was tempting him very sorely, and though the act itself appears
   absurd enough, yet it was a true type of what that greater reformer was
   all his life long, for the books he wrote were truly a flinging of the
   inkstand at the head of the fiend. That is what we have to do: we are
   to resist him by all means. Let us do this bravely, and tell him to his
   teeth that we are not afraid of him. Tell him to recollect his bruised
   head, which he tries to cover with a crown of pride, or with a popish
   cowl, or with an infidel doctor's hood. We know him, and see the deadly
   wound he bears. His power is gone; he is fighting a lost battle; he is
   contending against omnipotence. He has set himself against the oath of
   the Father; against the blood of the incarnate Son; against the eternal
   power and Godhead of the blessed Spirit, all of which are engaged in
   the defence of the seed of the woman in the day of battle. Therefore,
   brethren, be ye steadfast in resisting the evil one being strong in
   faith, giving glory to God.

   "Tis by thy blood, immortal Lamb,

   Thine armies tread the tempter down;

   "tis by thy word and powerful name

   They gain the battle and renown.

   "Rejoice ye heavens; let every star

   Shine with new glories round the sky;

   Saints, while ye sing the heavenly war,

   Raise your Deliverer's name on high."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Genesis 3.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--335, 477, 322.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ the Overcomer of the World

   (No. 1327)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 3, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON.

   "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33.

   WHEN these words were spoken, our Savior was about to leave His
   disciples to go to His death for their sakes. His great anxiety was
   that they might not be too much cast down by the trials which would
   come upon them. He desired to prepare their minds for the heavy sorrows
   which awaited them, while the powers of darkness and the men of the
   world worked their will upon Him. Now observe, Beloved, that our Lord
   Jesus, in whom dwells infinite wisdom, knew all the secret springs of
   comfort and all the hallowed sources of consolation in Heaven and under
   Heaven, and yet in order to console His disciples He spoke not of
   heavenly mysteries nor of secrets hidden in the breast of God, but He
   spoke concerning Himself.

   Does He not teach us, then, that there is no balm for the heart like
   Himself, no consolation of Israel comparable to His Person and His
   work? If even such a Divine Barnabas, such a first-born Son of
   consolation as the Lord, Himself, must point to what He, Himself, has
   done, so He can make His followers be of good cheer, then how wise it
   must be in ministers to preach much of Jesus by way of encouragement to
   the Lord's afflicted and how prudent it is for mourners to look to Him
   for the comfort they need. "Be of good cheer," He said, "f--something
   about Himself--"/ have overcome the world."

   So then, Beloved, in all times of depression of spirit hasten away to
   the Lord Jesus Christ! Whenever the cares of this life burden you and
   your way seems hard for your weary feet, fly to your Lord! There may be
   other sources of consolation, but they will not, at all times, serve
   your turn. But in Him there dwells such a fullness of comfort that
   whether it is in summer or in winter, the streams of comfort are always
   flowing! In your high estate or in your low estate and from whatever
   quarter your trouble may arise, you can resort at once to Him and you
   shall find that He strengthens the hands that hang down and confirms
   the feeble knees.

   A further remark suggests itself that the Lord Jesus must be more than
   man from the tone which He assumed. There are certain persons who deny
   the Godhead of our Lord and yet think well of Jesus as a man. Indeed,
   they have uttered many highly complimentary things with regard to His
   Character. But I wonder why it does not strike them that there is a
   great deal of assumption, presumption, pride, egotism and all that
   style of folly in this Man if He is nothing more than a man! For what
   good man whom you would wish to imitate would say to others, "Be of
   good cheer: I have overcome the world"? This is altogether too much for
   a mere man to say!

   The Lord Jesus Christ frequently spoke about Himself, and about what He
   had done, and commended Himself to His disciples as one could never
   have done who was only a man and of a lowly mind. The Lord was
   certainly meek and lowly in heart, but no man of that character would
   have told others so. There is an inconsistency here which none can
   account for but those who believe Him to be the Son of God! Understand
   Him to be Divine--put Him in His true position as speaking down out of
   the excellency of His Deity to His disciples--and then you can
   comprehend His so speaking, Yes, it becomes infinitely seemly and
   beautiful!

   Deny His Godhead and I, for one, am quite unable to understand how the
   words before us, and others like them, could ever have fallen from His
   lips--for none will dare to say that He was boastful! Blessed are You,
   O, Son of Man, You are also Son of God and, therefore, you not only
   speak to us with the sympathizing tenderness of a brother man, but with
   the majestic authority of the Only-Begotten of the Father! Divinely
   condescending are Your words, "I have overcome the world."

   If you look at this claim of Jesus without the eyes of faith, does it
   not wear an extraordinary appearance? How could the betrayed Man of
   Nazareth say, "I have overcome the world"? We can imagine Napoleon
   speaking thus when he had

   crushed the nations beneath his feet and shaped the map of Europe to
   his will. We can imagine Alexander speaking thus when he had rifled the
   palaces of Persia and led her ancient monarchs captive. But who is this
   that speaks this way? It is a Galilean who wears a peasant's garment
   and consorts with the poor and the fallen! He has neither wealth nor
   worldly rank nor honor among men and yet speaks of having overcome the
   world!

   He is about to be betrayed by His own base follower into the hands of
   His enemies and to be led out to judgment and to death, and yet He
   says, "I have overcome the world." He is casting an eye to His Cross
   with all its shame and to the death which ensued from it, and yet He
   says, "I have overcome the world." He had not where to lay His head. He
   had not a disciple that would stand up for Him, for He had just said,
   "You shall be scattered, every man to His own, and shall leave Me
   alone." He was to be charged with blasphemy and sedition and brought
   before the judge--and find no man to declare His generation. He was to
   be given up to brutal soldiers to be mocked and despitefully used and
   spat upon!

   His hands and feet were to be nailed to the Cross that He might die a
   felon's death--and yet He said, "I have overcome the world." How
   marvelous and yet how true! He spoke not after the manner of the flesh
   nor after the sight of the eyes. We must use faith's optics here and
   look within the veil--then we shall see not only the despised bodily
   Person of the Son of Man, but the indwelling, noble, all-conquering
   Soul which transformed shame into honor and death into glory!

   May God the Holy Spirit enable us to look through the external to the
   internal and see how marvelously the ignominious death was the rough
   garment which concealed the matchless victory from the purblind eyes of
   carnal man! During the last two Sabbath mornings I have spoken of our
   Lord Jesus Christ--first, as the end of the Law and, secondly, as the
   conqueror over the old serpent. Now we come to speak of Him as the
   Overcomer of the world--addressing His disciples He said, "Be of good
   cheer; I have overcome the world." Now, what is this world that He
   speaks about? And how has He overcome it? And what good cheer is there
   in the fact for us?

   I. WHAT IS THIS WORLD TO WHICH HE IS REFERRING? I scarcely know a word
   which is used with so many senses as this word, "world." If you will
   turn to your Bibles you will find the word, "world," used in widely
   different ways, for there is a world which Christ made, "He was in the
   world and the world was made by Him"--that is, the physical world.
   There is a world which God so loved that He gave His only-begotten Son
   that whoever believes in Him might not perish. There are several forms
   of this favorable use.

   Then there is a world, the world here meant, which "lies in the Wicked
   One"--a world which knows not Christ but which is ever more opposed to
   Him--a world for which He says that He does not pray and a world which
   He would not have us love--"Love not the world, neither the things
   which are in the world." Without going into these various meanings and
   shades of meaning, which are very abundant, let us just say that we
   scarcely know how to define what is meant here in so many words, though
   we know well enough what is meant. Scripture does not give us
   definitions, but uses language in a popular manner, since it speaks to
   common people.

   "The world" is very much the equivalent of the "seed of the serpent,"
   of which we spoke last Sunday. The world here means the visible
   embodiment of that spirit of evil which was in the serpent and which
   now works in the children of disobedience. It is the human form of the
   same evil force with which our Lord contended when He overcame the
   devil. It means the power of evil in the unregenerate mass of mankind,
   the energy and power of sin as it dwells in that portion of the world
   which abides in death and lies in the Wicked One. The devil is the god
   of this world and the prince of this world and, therefore, he who is
   the friend of this world is the enemy of God!

   The world is the opposite of the Church. There is a Church which Christ
   has redeemed and chosen out of the world and separated unto Himself
   from among men. And of these as renewed by the power of Divine Grace,
   He says, "You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." And
   again, "Because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
   the world, therefore the world hates you." Now, the rest of mankind not
   comprehended among the chosen, the redeemed, the called, the saved, are
   called the world. Of these our Lord said, "O, righteous Father, the
   world has not known You." And John said, "The world knows us not
   because it knew Him not."

   This is the power which displays a deadly enmity against Christ and
   against His chosen--therefore it is called, "this present evil world,"
   while the kingdom of Grace is spoken of as, "the world to come." This
   is the world of which it is said, "He that is born of God overcomes the
   world." You will see that "the world" includes the ungodly themselves,
   as well as the force of evil in them. But it marks them out not as
   creatures nor even as men who have sinned, but as unregen-

   erate, carnal and rebellious and, therefore, as the living embodiments
   of an evil power which works against God--and so we read of "the world
   of the ungodly."

   Perhaps I ought to add that there has grown up out of the existence of
   unconverted men and the prevalence of sin in them, certain customs,
   fashions, maxims, rules, modes, manners, forces--all of which go to
   make up what is called, "the world," and there are also certain
   principles, desires, lusts, governments and powers which also make up a
   part of the evil thing called, "the world." Jesus says, "My kingdom is
   not of this world." James speaks of keeping ourselves "unspotted from
   the world." John says, "the world passes away and the lust thereof."
   And Paul says, "not conformed to this world, but be you transformed."

   Moreover, I may say that the present constitution and arrangement of
   all things in this fallen state may be comprehended in the term,
   "world," for everything has come under vanity by reason of sin and
   things are not, today, according to the original plan of the Most High
   as designed for man in His innocence. Behold there are trials and
   troubles springing out of our very existence in this life of which it
   is said, "in the world you shall have tribulation." To many a child of
   God there have befallen hunger and disease and suffering--and
   unkindness and various forms of evil which belong not to the world to
   come, nor to the kingdom which Christ has set up--but which come to
   them because they are in this present evil world which has become so
   because the race of men have fallen under the curse and consequence of
   sin.

   Now the world is all these matters put together--this great
   conglomeration of mischief among men, this evil which dwells here and
   there and everywhere men are scattered--this is the thing which we call
   the world. Every one of us know what it is better than we can tell to
   anybody else and, perhaps, while I am explaining, I am rather confusing
   than expounding. You know just what the world is to some of you--it is
   not more than your own little family, as to outward form, but much more
   as to influence. Your actual world may be confined to your own house,
   but the same principles enter into the domestic circle which pervade
   kingdoms and states.

   To others the world takes a wide sweep as they necessarily meet with
   ungodly men in business and this we must do unless we are to go
   altogether out of the world, which is no part of our Lord's plan, for
   He says, "I pray not that You should take them out of the world." To
   some who look at the whole mass of mankind and are called,
   thoughtfully, to consider them all because they have to be God's
   messengers to them, the tendencies and outgoings of the human mind
   towards that which is evil, and the spirit of men's actions as done
   against God in all nations and ages--all these go to make up to them,
   "the world."

   But be it what it may, it is a thing out of which tribulation will be
   sure to come to us. Christ tells us so. It may come in the form of
   temporal trial of some shape or other. It may come in the form of
   temptation which will alight upon us from our fellow men. It may come
   in the form of persecution to a greater or less extent according to our
   position, but it will come! "In the world you shall have tribulation."
   We are sojourners in an enemy's country and the people of the land
   where we tarry are not our friends and will not help us on our
   pilgrimage to Heaven. All spiritual men in the world are our friends,
   but then, like ourselves, they are in the world but they are not of it.
   From the kingdom of this world of which Satan is lord we must expect
   fierce opposition against which we must contend even unto victory if we
   are to enter into everlasting rest.

   II. Now this brings me to the more interesting topic in the second
   place, of HOW HAS CHRIST OVERCOME THE WORLD? And we answer, first He
   did so in His life, then in His death, and then in His rising and His
   reigning. First, Christ overcame the world in His life. This is a
   wonderful study, the overcoming of the world in the life of Christ! I
   reckon that those first 30 years of which we know so little were a
   wonderful preparation for His conflict with the world and that though
   only in the carpenter's shop, obscure and unknown to the great outside
   world, yet in fact He was not merely preparing for the battle, but He
   was, then, beginning to overcome it.

   In the patience which made Him bide His time we see the dawn of the
   victory. When we are intent upon doing good and we see mischief and sin
   triumphant everywhere, we are eager to begin. But suppose it were not
   the great Father's will that we should be immediately engaged in the
   fray? How strongly would the world, then, tempt us to go forward before
   our time? A transgression of discipline may be caused by too much zeal
   and this as much breaks through the law of obedience as dullness or
   sloth would do!

   The Roman soldier was accounted guilty who, when the army was left with
   the orders that no man should strike a blow in the leader's absence,
   nevertheless stepped forward and slew a Gaul. The act was one of valor,
   but it was contrary

   to military discipline and might have had most baleful results--and so
   it was condemned. Thus is it, sometimes, with us. Before we are ready,
   before we have received our commission, we are in a hurry to step
   forward and smite the foe. That temptation must have come to Christ
   from the world--many a time--as He heard what was going on in the reign
   of error and hypocrisy. His benevolent impulses might have suggested to
   Him to be up and doing, had it not been that He was incapable of wrong
   desires.

   Doubtless He was willing to be healing the sick. Was not the land full
   of sufferers? He would gladly be saving souls--were they not going down
   to the Pit by thousands? He would gladly have confuted error, for
   falsehood was doing deadly work--but His hour was not yet come. Our
   Lord and Master had nothing to say till His Father bade Him speak. We
   know He was under a strong impulse to be at work, for when He went up
   to the temple, He said, "Know you not that I must be about My Father's
   business?" That utterance revealed the fire that burned within His soul
   and yet He was not preaching nor healing, nor disputing, but still
   remained in obscurity all those 30 years because God would have it so.

   When the Lord would have us quiet, we are doing His will best by being
   quiet. But yet to be still and calm for so long a time was a wonderful
   instance of how all His surroundings could not master Him--not even
   when they seemed to work with His philanthropy--He still remained
   obedient to God and thus proved Himself the Overcomer of the world.
   When He appears upon the scene of public action you know how He
   overcomes the world in many ways. First, by remaining always faithful
   to His testimony. He never modified it, not even by so much as a
   solitary word to please the sons of men. From the first day in which He
   began to preach, even to the closing sentence which He uttered, it was
   all the Truth of God and nothing but the Truth of God!

   It was the Truth of God uncolored by prevailing sentiment, untainted by
   popular error. He did not, after the manner of the Jesuit, disguise His
   doctrine by so shaping it that men would hardly know but what it was
   the very error in which they had been brought up! Jesus came out with
   plain speaking and set Himself in opposition to all the powers which
   ruled the thought and creed of the age. He was no guarder of Truth. He
   allowed Truth to fight her own battles in her own way. And you know how
   she bares her breast to her antagonist's darts and finds in her own
   immutable, immortal, and invulnerable life her shield and her spear.
   His speech was confident, for He knew that Truth would conquer in the
   long run and, therefore, He gave forth His doctrine without respect to
   the age or its prejudices.

   I do not think that you can say that of anybody else's ministry, not
   even of the best and bravest of His servants. We can see, in looking at
   Luther, great and glorious Luther, how Romanism tinged all that he did,
   more or less. And the darkness of the age cast some gloom, even over
   the serene and steadfast soul of Calvin. Of each one of the Reformers
   we must say the same--bright stars as all of these were--yet they kept
   not themselves untarnished by the sphere in which they shone. Every man
   is more or less affected by his age and we are obliged, as we read
   history, to make continual allowances, for we all admit that it would
   not be fair to judge the men of former times by the standard of the
   19th Century.

   But, Sirs, you may test Christ Jesus, if you will, by the 19th Century
   light, if light it is! You may judge Him by any century, yes, you may
   try Him by the bright light of the Throne of God! His teaching is pure
   Truth of God without any mixture. It will stand the test of time and of
   eternity! His teaching was not affected by the fact of His being born a
   Jew, nor by the prevalence of the Rabbinical traditions, nor by the
   growth of the Greek philosophy, nor by any other of the peculiar
   influences which were then abroad. His teaching was in the world, but
   it was not of it, nor tinged by it! It was the Truth of God as He had
   received it from the Father--and the world could not make Him add to
   it, or take from it, or change it in the least degree and,
   therefore--in this respect He overcame the world.

   Observe Him, next, in the deep calm which pervaded His spirit at times
   when He received the approbation of men. Our Lord was popular to a very
   high degree at certain times. How the people thronged around Him as His
   benevolent hands scattered healing on all sides! How they approved of
   Him when He fed them! But how clearly He saw through that selfish
   approbation and said, "You seek Me because of the loaves and fishes."
   He never lost His self-possession. You never find Him elated by the
   multitudes following Him. There is not an expression that He ever used
   which even contains a suspicion of self-glorification.

   Amid their hosannas His mind is quietly reposing in God. He leaves
   their acclamations and applause to refresh Himself by prayer upon the
   cold mountains, in the midnight air. He communed with God and so lived
   above the praises of men. He walked among them holy, harmless,
   undefiled and separate from sinners--even when they would have taken

   Him by force and made Him a king! Once He rides in triumph, as He might
   often have done if He had pleased, but then it was in such humble style
   that His pomp was far other than that of kings! It was a manifestation
   of lowliness rather than a display of majesty. Amid the willing
   hosannas of little children and of those whom He had blessed, He rides
   along, but you can see that He indulges none of the thoughts of a
   worldly conqueror, none of the proud ideas of the warrior who returns
   from the battle stained with blood.

   No, He is still as meek and as gentle and as kindly as ever He was! His
   triumph has not a grain of self-exaltation in it. He had overcome the
   world. What could the world give Him, Brothers and Sisters? An imperial
   Nature like His, in which the Manhood held such close communion with
   Deity is not readily to be imagined! What was there, here below, to
   cause pride in Him? If the trumpet of fame had sounded out its loudest
   note, what could it have been compared with the songs of cherubim and
   seraphim to which His ear had been accustomed throughout all ages? No,
   allied with His Deity, His Manhood was superior to all the arts of
   flattery and to all the honors which mankind could offer Him. He
   overcame the world.

   He was the same when the world tried the other plan upon Him. It
   frowned at Him but He was still calm. He had scarcely commenced to
   preach before they would have cast Him headlong from the brow of the
   hill! Do you not expect, as they are hurrying Him to the precipice, to
   see Him turn round upon them and denounce them at least with burning
   words such as Elijah used? But no, He speaks not an angry word! He
   slips away and is gone out of their midst. In the synagogue they often
   gnashed their teeth at Him in their malice, but if ever He was moved to
   indignation it was not because of anything directed against Himself. He
   always bore all and scarcely ever spoke a word by way of reply to
   merely personal attacks.

   If calumnies were heaped upon Him, He went on as calmly as if they had
   not abused Him, nor desired to slay Him. When He is brought before His
   judges, what a difference there is between the Master and His servant,
   Paul. He is smitten, but He does not say like Paul, "God shall smite
   you, you white-washed wall!" No, but like a lamb before her shearers,
   He is dumb and opens not His mouth. If they could have made Him angry,
   they would have overcome Him--but He was still loving. He was gentle,
   quiet, patient--however much they provoked Him. Point me to an
   impatient word--there is not even a tradition of an angry look that He
   gave on account of any offense rendered to Himself.

   They could not drive Him from His purposes of love, nor could they make
   Him say anything or do anything that was contrary to perfect love! He
   calls down no fire from Heaven--no she bears come out of the woods to
   devour those who have mocked Him. No, He can say, "I have overcome the
   world," for whether it smiles or whether it frowns, in the perfect
   peace and quiet of His spirit, in the delicious calm of communion with
   God, the Man of Sorrows holds on His conquering way! His victory will
   be seen in another form. He overcame the world as to the unselfishness
   of His aims. When men find themselves in a world like this they
   generally say, "What is our market? What can we make out of it?"

   This is how they are trained from childhood. "Boy, you have to fight
   your own way! Mind you look to your own interests and rise in the
   world." The book which is commended to the young man shows him how to
   make the best use of all things for himself. He must take care of,
   "Number One," and mind the main chance. The boy is told by his wise
   instructors, "you must look to yourself or nobody else will look to
   you. And whatever you may do for others, be doubly sure to guard your
   own interests."

   That is the world's prudence, the essence of all her politics, the
   basis of her political economy--every man and every nation must take
   care of themselves. If you wish for any other politics or economics you
   will be considered to be foolish theorists and probably a little
   touched in the head! Self is the man! The world's law of
   self-preservation is the sovereign rule and nothing can go on rightly
   if you interfere with the gospel of selfishness--so the commercial and
   political Solomons assure us.

   Now, look at the Lord Jesus Christ when He was in the world and you
   will learn nothing of such principles except their condemnation! The
   world could not overcome Him by leading Him into a selfish mode of
   action. Did it ever enter into His soul, even for a moment, what He
   could do for Himself? There were riches, but He had not where to lay
   His head. The little store He had, He committed to the trust of
   Judas--and as long as there were any poor in the land they were sure to
   share in what was in the bag. He set so little account by estate, stock
   and funds that no mention is made of such things by either of His four
   biographers! He had wholly and altogether risen above the world in that
   respect, for

   with whatever evil the most spiteful infidels have ever charged our
   Lord, they have never, to my knowledge, accused Him of avarice, greed,
   or selfishness in any form. He had overcome the world.

   Then, again, the Master overcame the world in that He did not stoop to
   use its power. He did not use that form of power which is peculiar to
   the world even for unselfish purposes. I can conceive a man, even apart
   from the Spirit of God, rising superior to riches and desiring only the
   promotion of some great principle which has possessed his heart. But
   you will usually notice that when men have done so, they have been
   ready to promote good by evil, or at least they have judged that great
   principles might be pushed on by force of arms, or bribes, or policy.
   Mahomet had grasped a grand truth when he said, "There is no God but
   God."

   The unity of the Godhead is a truth of the utmost value--but then here
   comes the means to be used for the propagation of this grand truth--the
   scimitar! "Off with the infidels' heads! If they have false gods, or
   will not acknowledge the unity of the Godhead, they are not fit to
   live." Can you imagine our Lord Jesus Christ doing this? Why, then the
   world would have conquered Him. But He conquered the world in that He
   would not employ, in the slightest degree, this form of power. He might
   have gathered troops about Him--and His heroic example, together with
   His miraculous powers-- must soon have swept away the Roman empire and
   converted the Jew!

   And then across Europe and Asia and Africa His victorious legions might
   have gone trampling down all manner of evil. And with the Cross for His
   banner and the sword for His weapon, the idols would have fallen and
   the whole world must have been made to bow at His feet! But no, when
   Peter takes out the sword, He says, "Put up your sword into its sheath.
   They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Well did He say,
   "My kingdom is not of this world, else would My servants fight." And He
   might, if He had pleased, have allied His Church with the State, as His
   mistaken friends have done in these degenerate times--and then there
   might have been penal laws against those who dared dis-sent--and there
   might have been forced contributions for the support of His Church and
   such like things.

   You have read, I dare say, of such things being done, but not in the
   Gospels, nor in the Acts of the Apostles! These things are done by
   those who forget the Christ of God, for He uses no instrument but love,
   no sword but the Truth, no power but the Eternal Spirit and, in the
   very fact that He put all the worldly forces aside, He overcame the
   world! So, Brothers and Sisters, He overcame the world by His
   fearlessness of the world's elite, for many a man who has braved the
   frowns of the multitude cannot bear the criticism of the few who think
   they have monopolized all wisdom!

   But Christ meets the Pharisee and pays no honor to his phylactery. He
   confronts the Sadducee and yields not to his cold philosophy. Neither
   does He conceal the difficulties of the faith to escape his sneer. And
   He braves, also, the Herodian, who is the worldly politician, and He
   gives him an unanswerable reply. He is the same before them all! He is
   Master in all positions, overcoming the world's wisdom and supposed
   intelligence by His own simple testimony to the Truth of God! And He
   overcame the world in His life, best of all, by the constancy of His
   love. He loved the most unlovely men. He loved those who hated Him. He
   loved those who despised Him.

   You and I are readily turned aside from loving when we receive
   ungrateful treatment and thus we are conquered by the world. But He
   kept to His great objective--"He saved others, Himself He could not
   save." And He died with this prayer on His lips, "Father, forgive them,
   for they know not what they do." Not soured in the least, blessed
   Savior, You are, at the last, just as tender as at the first! We have
   seen fine spirits, full of generosity, who have had to deal with a
   crooked and perverse generation until they have, at last, grown hard
   and cold. Nero, who weeps when he signs the first death warrant of a
   criminal, at last comes to gloat in the blood of his subjects! Thus do
   sweet flowers wither into noxious corruption. As for You, precious
   Savior, You are always fragrant with love! No spot comes upon Your
   lovely Character, though You traverse a miry road. You are as kind to
   men at Your departure as You were at Your coming, for You have overcome
   the world!

   I can only say on the next point that Christ, by His death, overcame
   the world because, by a wondrous act of self-sacrifice, the Son of God
   smote to the heart the principle of selfishness which is the very soul
   and lifeblood of the world. There, too, by redeeming fallen man, He
   lifted man up from the power which the world exercises over him, for He
   taught men that they are redeemed, that they are no longer their own
   but bought with a price, and thus redemption became the note of liberty
   from the bondage of self-love and the hammer which breaks the fetters
   of the world and its lusts. By reconciling men unto God through His
   great Atonement, He also has removed them from the despair which
   otherwise had kept them down in sin and made them the willing slaves of
   the world. Now are they pardoned, and, being justified, they

   are made to be the friends of God! And being the friends of God they
   become enemies to God's enemies and are separated from the world--and
   so the world, by Christ's death, is overcome.

   But chiefly has He overcome by His rising and His reigning, for when He
   rose He bruised the serpent's head and that serpent is the Prince of
   this world and has dominion over it. Christ has conquered the world's
   Prince and led him in chains--and now has Christ assumed the
   Sovereignty over all things here below. God has put all things under
   His feet. At His belt are the keys of Providence. He rules among the
   multitude and in the council chambers of kings. As Joseph governed
   Egypt for the good of Israel, so does Jehovah Jesus govern all things
   for the good of His people. Now the world can go no further in
   persecuting His people than He permits!

   Not a martyr can burn, nor a confessor be imprisoned without the permit
   of Jesus Christ who is the Lord of all! The government is upon His
   shoulders and His kingdom rules over all. Brothers and Sisters, this is
   a great joy to us, to think of the reigning power of Christ as having
   overcome the world! There is yet this other thought that He has
   overcome the world by the gift of the Holy Spirit. That gift was
   practically the world's conquest. Jesus has set up a rival kingdom
   now--a kingdom of love and righteousness! Already the world feels its
   power by the Spirit. I do not believe that there is a dark place in the
   center of Africa which is not, to some extent, improved by the
   influence of Christianity. Even the wilderness rejoices and is glad for
   Him.

   No barbarous power dares to do what once it did, or if it does, there
   is such a clamor raised against its cruelty that very soon it has to
   say peccavi, and confess its faults. This moment the stone cut out of
   the mountain without hands has begun to smite old Dagon! It is breaking
   his head and breaking his hands. And the very stump of him shall yet be
   dashed in pieces! There is no power in this world so vital, so potent
   as the power of Christ at this day! I say nothing just now of heavenly
   or spiritual things. I speak only of temporal and moral
   influences--even in these, the Cross is to the front! He of whom
   Voltaire said that He lived in the twilight of His day, is going from
   strength to strength!

   It was true it was the twilight, but it was the twilight of the morning
   and the full noon is coming! Every year the name of Jesus brings more
   light to this poor world! Every year hastens on the time when the Cross
   which is the lighthouse of humanity--the world's lighthouse amid the
   storm--shall shine forth more and more brightly over the troubled
   waters till the great calm shall come! The words shall become more and
   more universally true, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw all men unto
   Me." Thus has He overcome the world.

   III. Now, lastly, WHAT CHEER IS THERE HERE FOR US? Why, first, that if
   the Man, Christ Jesus, has overcome the world at its worst, we, who are
   in Him, shall overcome the world, too, through the same power which
   dwelt in Him! He has put His life into His people! He has given His
   Spirit to dwell in them and they shall be more than conquerors! He
   overcame the world when it attacked Him in the worst possible shape,
   for He was poorer than any of you! He was more sick and sad than any of
   you! He was more despised and persecuted than any of you! And He was
   deprived of certain Divine consolations which God has promised never to
   take away from His saints--and yet, with all possible
   disadvantages--Christ overcame the world! Therefore be assured we shall
   conquer, also, in His strength.

   Besides, He overcame the world when nobody else had overcome it. It was
   as it were a young lion which had never been defeated in fight. It
   roared upon Him out of the thicket and leaped upon Him in the fullness
   of its strength. Now, if our greater Samson did tear this young lion as
   though it were a kid, and fling it down as a vanquished thing, you may
   depend upon it that now it is an old lion--and gray and covered with
   the wounds which He gave it of old--we, having the Lord's life and
   power in us, will overcome it, too! Blessed be His name! What good
   cheer there is in His victory. He does as good as say to us, "I have
   overcome the world, and you, in whom I dwell, who are clothed with My
   Spirit, must overcome it, too."

   But then, next, remember He overcame the world as our Head and
   Representative, and it may truly be said that if the members do not
   overcome, then the head has not perfectly gained the victory. If it
   were possible for the members to be defeated, why then, the head,
   itself, could not claim a complete victory, since it is one with the
   members. So Jesus Christ, our Covenant Head and Representative, in
   whose loins lay all the spiritual seed, conquered the world for us and
   we conquered the world in Him! He is our Adam and what was done by Him
   was actually done for us and virtually done by us! Have courage then,
   for you must conquer! It must happen to you as unto your Head--where
   the Head is, shall the members be--and as the Head is, so must the
   members be!

   And now, Brothers and Sisters, I ask you whether you have not found it
   so? Is it not true, at this moment, that the world is overcome in you?
   Does self govern you? Are you working to acquire wealth for your own
   aggrandizement? Are you living to win honor and fame among men? Are you
   afraid of men's frowns? Are you the slave of popular opinion? Do you do
   things because it is the custom to do them? Are you the slaves of
   fashion? If you are, you know nothing about this victory! But if you
   are true Christians, I know what you say--"Lord, I am Your servant. You
   have loosed my bonds. From now on the world has no dominion over me and
   though it tempts me, and frightens me, and flatters me, yet still I
   rise superior to it by the power of Your Spirit, for the love of Christ
   constrains me, and I live not unto myself and unto things that are
   seen, but unto Christ and to things invisible."

   If it is so, who has done this for you? Who but Christ the Overcomer,
   who is formed in you the Hope of Glory? Be of good cheer, for you have
   overcome the world by virtue of His dwelling in you! So, Brothers and
   Sisters, let us go back to the world and its tribulations without fear!
   Its trials cannot hurt us! In the process we shall get good, as the
   wheat does out of the threshing. Let us go forth to combat the world,
   for it cannot overcome us! There was never a man, yet, with the life of
   God in his soul, whom the whole world could subdue! No, all the world
   and Hell together cannot conquer the smallest babe in the family of the
   Lord Jesus Christ!

   Lo, you are harnessed with salvation! You are covered with Omnipotence!
   Your heads are covered with the protection of the Atonement, and
   Christ, Himself, the Son of God, is your Captain! Take up your battle
   cry with courage and fear not, for more is He that is for you than all
   they that are against you! It is said of the glorified saints, "They
   overcame through the blood of the Lamb," "and this is the victory which
   overcomes the world, even our faith." Be steadfast even to the end, for
   you shall be more than conquerors through Him that has loved you. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 16:1-33. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--326, 633, 739.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ the Maker of All Things New

   (No. 1328)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 10, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things
   are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians,
   5:17.

   WE shall try to preach, this morning, of Christ as the Author of the
   new creation and may we be enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak to His
   Glory. To create all things new is one of His most famous achievements!
   May we not only gaze upon it but be partakers in it. What says Solomon
   in the Book of Ecclesiastes? Does he not tell us, there, that "the
   thing that has been shall be, and that which is done is that which
   shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun"? No doubt
   Solomon was correct in this declaration, but he wrote of this world and
   not of the world to come of which we speak. For, behold, in the world
   to come, that is to say, in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, all
   things are new!

   To the wisest mind, if unrenewed, there is nothing new, but to the
   humblest of the regenerated ones, all things have become new. The word,
   "new," seems to harmonize sweetly with the name and work of our Lord
   Jesus, inasmuch as He comes in after the old system had failed and
   begins anew with us as the Father and Head of a chosen race. He is the
   Mediator of the New Covenant and has come to place us in a new
   relationship towards God. As the second Adam, He has delivered us from
   the old broken Covenant of Works wherein we lay under the curse and He
   has placed us under the new infallible Covenant of Grace wherein we are
   established by His merit.

   The blood of Jesus Christ is said to be "the blood of the New
   Covenant"--there is thus a connection with newness even in the most
   vital point of our dear Redeemer's Person. The blood is to Him the
   life, thereof, and apart from that blood He can bestow no remission of
   sin. Thus there is a newness about that essential life-flood, for when
   He gives us to drink of His cup of remembrance, He says, "this is My
   blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of
   sins." "Now has He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much,
   also, He is the Mediator of a better Covenant, which was established
   upon better promises."

   The old Covenant, the old ceremonial Law, the old spirit of bondage and
   the whole of the old leaven, Jesus has purged out of the house. He has
   admitted to a new dispensation wherein Grace reigns through
   righteousness unto eternal life. When our Lord Jesus came into the
   world, His birth of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit was a new
   thing, for thus had the Prophet Jeremiah said of old in the name of the
   Lord, "How long will you go about, O you backsliding daughter? For the
   Lord has created a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a
   man." Unto us a Child is born who is the virgin's Son, in whom we do
   rejoice because He comes into the world without taint of original sin,
   after a new fashion, as never man was born before!

   Coming thus into the old world, He publishes new doctrine, for His
   doctrine is called Gospel, or Good News. It is the freshest news that
   an anxious heart can hear! It is the most novel music by which a
   troubled breast can be soothed! Jesus Christ's teaching is still the
   best news of these days, as it was centuries ago. Though the world has
   had nearly 1900 years of the glad tidings, the Gospel has the dew of
   its youth upon it and when men hear it they still ask, as the Greeks
   did of old, "What new doctrine is this?"

   Our Lord Jesus has come to set up, by the preaching and teaching of the
   Gospel, a new kingdom, a kingdom having new laws, new customs, a new
   charter and new riches. It is a kingdom which is not of this world--a
   kingdom founded upon better principles and bringing infinitely better
   results to its subjects than any other dominion that has ever been.
   Into that kingdom He introduces only new men, who are made new
   creatures in Christ Jesus, who therefore love His new commandments and
   serve Him in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

   Moreover, Christ has opened for us an entrance into the kingdom of
   Heaven above, for now we come to God "by a new and living way, which He
   has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh."
   When, in days to come,

   we shall meet Him again, there will still be novelty, for He has said,
   "I will not drink from now on of the fruit of the vine until that day
   when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." Indeed,
   concerning our Lord and Master, everything is new and was it not so
   prophesied? For did not Isaiah say, in the 43rd chapter, 18th verse,
   "Remember you not the former things, neither consider the things of
   old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall
   you not

   know it?"

   And to the same effect was his prophecy in the 65th chapter, 17th
   verse: "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the
   former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be glad and
   rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem
   a rejoicing, and her people a joy." This newness of everything was to
   be a leading feature in Messiah's reign and it has already been so, but
   far more shall this be seen in the latter days. Does not John in
   Revelation 21:5, say, "He who sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make
   all things new"? Foretold in former ages as the Creator of new heavens
   and a new earth, our Lord shall, at last, in the summing up, be plainly
   seen to be the Maker of all things new.

   Do you wonder, Beloved, that if a man is in Christ he is a new
   creature? If everything that Christ touches is made new, if He
   refreshes and revives, if He re-establishes and re-edifies and
   new-creates wherever He goes, are you at all astonished that those who
   live nearest to His heart--no, are in vital union with His blessed
   Person--should also be made new? It would be very astonishing if it
   were not so! Let us direct our attention, then, to the teaching of the
   text, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature."

   I. We shall first consider with brevity THE GROUND OF THE NOVELTY which
   is here spoken of. It is, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new
   creature," not otherwise. No man comes to be a new creature by any
   process apart from Christ. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new
   creature," but if any man is not in Christ, he is not a new creature,
   nor can he become so except by connection with Him of whom it is
   written that He is "the beginning of the creation of God." As in the
   old creation, "without Him was not anything made that was made," so is
   it in the new! He makes all things new, but the things that are apart
   from Him have waxed old and are ready to perish--neither can they renew
   their youth.

   As well might the face of the earth hope to be renewed with spring
   apart from the sun, as for a soul to hope for spiritual renewal apart
   from Jesus! The wonderful newness produced by regeneration and new
   creation is the work of the Holy Spirit and His operations are all in
   union with the Lord Jesus and aimed at His Glory. "He that believes on
   the Son has everlasting life: and He that believes not the Son shall
   not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." But how comes it
   that a man is, indeed, a new creature if he is in Christ?

   I answer, first, it comes necessarily from the representative Character
   of Christ towards those who are in Him. If you wanted a man to be made
   a new creature, and were Omnipotent, what process would suggest itself
   to you? I think a double one. To make an old creature into a new
   creature, there must first be the stroke which ends him and then the
   touch which begins him anew. To put it more plainly, there must be
   death and then life. Now, has that taken place upon those who are in
   Christ? Of course it has, if it has taken place upon Christ, Himself,
   because He is the Head and represents the members!

   As Adam acted for the seed in him, so Christ has acted for the seed in
   Him. See, then, Beloved, Christ has died. He came before the Judgment
   Seat with our sins upon Him, the Representative of those of whom He is
   the Head. And in Him, death, which was the penalty of sin, was
   fulfilled to the letter--its most bitter dregs being drunk up. Jesus
   died. We are certain that He died, for the executioners broke not His
   legs because they saw that He was already dead. So one of the soldiers
   pierced His side with a spear and there came out blood and water. We
   know that He died, for the jealous eyes of His enemies would not have
   permitted Him to have been taken down from the Cross unless the life
   had assuredly departed.

   He was laid in the grave, assuredly dead, under the dominion of Death
   for the time being. And you and I who are in Him, at that time, died in
   Him. "If one died for all, then all died." Such is the proper
   translation of that passage. We died, for He died in our name. Our sin
   was punished in Him by the death which He endured. You see, then,
   Brothers and Sisters, we are dead--dead by virtue of our Federal Union
   with Jesus Christ. I mean not all of you, unless you are all in Christ
   Jesus. Judge whether it is so with you or not. But I mean as many as
   the Father gave to Christ! As many as Christ, in His intent, did
   specially redeem by becoming their Substitute--these were in Him and in
   Him they died--being crucified with Him.

   In Him, also, all His people rose again when He rose! On the third day
   He burst the bonds of Death and left the grave on our behalf! See how
   the Holy Spirit, by His servant Paul, identifies us with all this. "Now
   if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
   Him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more.
   Death has no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto
   sin once: but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise reckon you,
   also, yourselves, to be dead, indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God
   through Jesus Christ our Lord."

   As far as He was our Representative, He was a new man when He rose. The
   Law had no claims upon Him--He had been dead and so had passed out of
   its jurisdiction. The Law never had any claim upon the risen Christ--it
   had a claim upon Him when He came under the Law, but when He had
   satisfied it to the last jot and tittle, by death--He was completely
   clear! Has the law of our country any claim upon a man after he is
   dead? If a dead man can be raised again, all his past offenses are done
   with--he begins a new life and is not under the old law.

   And so with Christ and so with us, for here is the point of union--we
   are risen with Him by faith of the Resurrection of Christ. We have been
   dead and buried, and now we are risen, and thus this, which is the very
   best and surest process for making a person a new creature, has been
   undergone by all God's elect, by reason of the representative and
   sacrificial death of Jesus Christ and His glorious representative
   Resurrection on their behalf! But, Beloved, there is another meaning.
   We are made new creatures by an actual process as well as by the legal
   process which I have described, and here, also, the same thing is done.

   We are made vitally one with Jesus Christ when we believe in Him--and
   then do we spiritually die and are made to live again. Our faith
   apprehends the dying of Christ and we feel, at the same time, the
   sentence of death in ourselves. We see how we deserve to die for sin
   and we accept the sentence, confessing our guiltiness before the Most
   High, and there is proclaimed throughout the powers and passions of the
   soul, a decree from God that the flesh shall die with all its lusts. We
   write down sin as from now on dead to us and ourselves as dead to it!
   We labor to mortify all our evil desires and the lusts of the flesh and
   all that comes of the flesh!

   When we believe in Jesus, a sword goes through the very loins of sin
   and the arrows of the Lord stick fast in the hearts of the King's
   enemies that lurk within our spirit. There also comes a new life into
   us as we behold Jesus risen from the dead. When we believe in Jesus we
   receive from God a new vital principle of superior and heavenly
   character, akin to Deity--there drops into our soul a sacred Seed from
   the hand of the eternal Spirit, living and incorruptible, which abides
   forever--and forever brings forth fruit after its kind. As we believe
   in Christ living, we live in Christ and live after the fashion of
   Christ--and the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead
   dwells in our mortal bodies, making us to live in newness of life!

   Now, Beloved, do you know anything about this? Have you been made new
   creatures by death and resurrection? If you have been baptized, you
   have professed that so it has been with you. "Know you not that so many
   of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?
   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. For if we have been planted
   together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
   of His resurrection." In the ordinance of Baptism, by burial in the
   water and rising up from it, there is a setting forth as in a type and
   figure of our Lord's burial and Resurrection and, at the same time, it
   is an emblem of the process by which we become new creatures in

   Him.

   But is it really so in your souls? Are you from now on dead to the
   world, and dead to sin, and quickened into the life of Christ? If you
   are so, then the text will bear to you a third and practical meaning,
   for it will not merely be true that your old man is condemned to die
   and a new nature is bestowed, but in your common actions you will try
   to show this by newness of actual conversation. Evils which tempted you
   at one time will be unable to beguile you, now, because you are dead to
   them! The charms of the painted face of the world will no longer
   attract your attention, for your eyes are blind to such deceitful
   beauties! You have obtained a new life which can only be satisfied by
   new delights, which can only be excited by new objects and constrained
   by new principles suitable to its own nature! This you will continually
   show.

   The life of God within you will make your actions pregnant with
   holiness and the end, thereof, shall be everlasting life! Your faith in
   Christ clearly evinces you to be a new creature, for it kills your old
   confidences and makes you build upon a new basis. Your love to Christ
   also shows your newness, for it has slain your old actions and captured
   your heart for Jesus only. And your hope, which is also a gift of the
   blessed Spirit, is set upon new things altogether, while your old

   hopes are things of which you are now ashamed. Thus it is that first,
   by the Headship of Christ, you are legally dead and alive, again.

   Next, by your vital union with Christ, you are dead and alive, again,
   as a matter of experience. And now it is practically proven in your
   life, from day to day, that you are dead and your life is hid with
   Christ in God. In all these three ways you are new creatures by the
   double process of dying and quickening. You are under a new Adam and so
   start life afresh as new creatures. You are under a new Covenant and
   commence to act under different principles and so are new creatures.
   You are quickened by a new Spirit and so in thought and word and deed
   are seen to be new creatures. But all this is in Christ, and if you are
   not in Christ you are still in the old world which must shortly be
   destroyed. As "by the Word of God were the heavens made, and all the
   host of them by the breath of His mouth," so have you been created by
   Jesus, the Eternal Word, and quickened by His Spirit or else you still
   abide in death.

   If your faith has never laid her hand upon Christ's Sacrifice for sin,
   then your soul has never felt the regenerating influence of the Holy
   Spirit! And all the baptismal regeneration and all else of human
   invention that may now comfort you is but a vain deceit. You must be
   born again, but it can only be in Christ Jesus, for to "as many as
   received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to
   them that believe on His name." "He that has the Son has life; and He
   that has not the Son of God has not life."

   O that we may all believe in Him, and enter into the new life--

   "Author of the new creation, Come with all Your Spirit's power! Make
   our hearts Your habitation, On our souls Your Graces shower."

   II. I shall, in the second place, lead you to consider the ESSENCE OF
   THIS NOVELTY. "If any man is in Christ, He is a new creature." Read,
   and the reading will be accurate, "He is a new creation." This is a
   very sweeping statement. A man in Christ is not the old man purified,
   nor the old man improved, nor the old man in a better humor, nor the
   old man with additions and subtractions! Nor is he the old man dressed
   in gorgeous robes! No, he is a new creature altogether! As for the old
   man, what is to be done with him? Can he not be sobered, reformed and
   made to do us useful service? No, he is crucified with Christ and bound
   to die by a lingering but certain death!

   The capital sentence is passed upon him, for he cannot be mended and,
   therefore, must be ended. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for
   it is not subject to the Law of God, neither, indeed, can be." You
   cannot change the old nature! It is immutably bad and the sooner it is
   put away as a filthy and unclean thing, the better for us! The
   Believer, so far as he is in Christ, is a new creation! He is not the
   old stuff put into a new fashion, or the old material worked up into an
   improved form, but absolutely a new creation! To create is to make out
   of nothing and that is precisely how the newborn life came into us. It
   is not a development, or an outgrowth, but a creation--a heavenly
   something called into being by a power from above.

   The new man in us is made out of nothing that was in us before, for
   Nature does not assist Grace but is opposed to it. Christ has not found
   light stored away in our darkness, nor life amid the corruption of our
   spiritual death! The new birth is from above and the life produced
   thereby is a new creation and not the goodness of Nature educated till
   it becomes Grace! They are getting up a notion, in certain quarters,
   that the children of pious parents, if not of all mankind, are the
   children of God by their first birth and only need certain training and
   influences to be brought to bear upon them and then they will develop
   into Christians as they grow up into manhood and womanhood.

   One Divine says that our children ought not to need conversion! This
   theory is false throughout, for the best of children are, by nature,
   heirs of wrath even as others! The Grace of God in the soul is a new
   creation and not the natural development of a pious education and
   training working upon the innate goodness of men! Indeed there is no
   such goodness there at all! It is altogether a dream! The new man in
   Christ is not the old creature washed and put out to school and
   elevated by "modern thought and culture." No, the Ethiopian cannot
   change his skin, nor the leopard his spots--do what you will with
   them--they will still be an Ethiopian and a leopard!

   But the new man in Christ is another creature altogether. Mark you, it
   is not said that the man has something new about him, but he, himself,
   is new! It is not merely that in a spiritual sense he has new eyes, new
   hands and new feet--but he, he, he, he, himself, is a new creation!
   Mark that! Do you not see, then, that salvation is the work of God? You
   cannot create yourself and you cannot create anything at all! Try and
   create a fly, first, and then you may dream of being able to

   create a new heart and a right spirit in another person! But even then
   it would be quite another matter to new create yourself.

   Is not the very idea an absurdity? Shall nothing create something?
   Shall darkness create light? Shall sin create holiness? Shall death
   create life? Shall the devil create God? None of these questions are
   more absurd than the idea of the sinner's being able to new create
   himself. No, Beloved, regeneration is an extraordinary work, demanding
   Omnipotence to accomplish it! It is, in fact, a Divine work, for it is
   the supreme prerogative of God to create--

   "KKnow that the Lord is God alone, He can create, and He destroy." If
   any man is in Christ, it is not only said that he is a creation, but a
   new creation, and the word here translated, "new," as has been well
   observed, does not signify recent, but something altogether different
   from that which previously existed! A book may be new and yet it may be
   only a fresh copy of some old work. But that is not the case in this
   instance. The creature is not a new specimen of the same kind as the
   old, but another and different creation!

   We might almost read the text as if it said, "If any man is in Christ,
   he is a fresh creation, a new kind of creature altogether." The new
   creation differs essentially from the old, although the first is an
   instructive emblem of the second. The first creation was the work of
   physical power, the second a work of spiritual power--the first
   created, for the most part, materialism in its various forms--but the
   new creation deals with spiritual things and manifests the most sublime
   attributes of the Divine Character. God, in Nature, is glorious, but in
   Grace He is all-glorious!

   The second is a creation nearer to the heart of God than the first
   creation was, for when He made the world He simply said it was good.
   But when He makes the new creation, it is written, "He shall rest in
   his love; He shall rejoice over you with singing." So gladdening to His
   heart is the sight of the new creature which His Grace has made, that
   He sings a joyful hymn! Furthermore, we must note that if any man is in
   Christ, he is a new creature and the creation of him bears some
   resemblance to the creation of the world.

   I have at other times gone through that wonderful first chapter of the
   Book of Genesis, which is a Bible in miniature, and I have shown you
   how it sets forth the spiritual creation. Behold, by nature we lie like
   chaos--a mass of disorder, confusion and darkness. As in the old
   creation, so in the new. The Spirit of God broods over us and moves
   upon the face of all things. Then the Word of the Lord comes and says
   within us, as before in chaos and old night, "Let there be light," and
   there is light. After light there comes a division of the light from
   the darkness and we learn to call them by their names. The light is,
   "day," and the darkness is, "night."

   So to us there is a knowing and a naming of things and a discerning of
   differences in matters which before we were ashamed when we put light
   for darkness. After a while there comes forth in us the lower forms of
   spiritual life. As in the earth there came grasses and herbs, so in us
   there come desire, hope and sorrow for sin. By-and-by there appeared on
   the globe fowl, fish, beasts and living things--and life beyond all
   count. So, also, in the new creation, from having life we go on to have
   it more abundantly. God, by degrees, created all His works till at last
   He had finished all the host of them. And even so He works on till He
   completes in us the new creation and looks upon us with rejoicing! Then
   He brings to us a day of rest, blessing us and causing us to enter into
   His rest because of His finished work. We could draw a very beautiful
   parallel if we had time, but you can think it out for yourselves.

   Now, notice very carefully that if any man is in Christ, he is a new
   creature, and this certifies that a new creation has taken place upon
   every man who is in Christ, whether by nature he was a Jew or Gentile,
   a moralist or a rake, a philosopher or a fool! When a man is converted
   and brought to Christ, he has invariably become a new creature. If he
   has believed in Jesus only three minutes, yet he is a new creature! And
   if he has known the Lord 70 years he can be no more. A new creation is
   a new creature and in this matter there is no difference between the
   babe in Grace and the father in Israel!

   As this creation is common to all the saints, so is it immediate and
   present. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature." It is not
   spoken of as a something that is to happen to him in the last article
   of death, wherein some seem to hope that many wonderful changes will be
   worked in them! But he who is in Christ is a new creature now. "Neither
   circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creature."
   And that new creature is now possessed and, I may add, consciously
   possessed, too, for although there may arise occasional doubts upon
   this question, yet in a man's inmost self he finds cause to know that
   there has passed upon him a marvelous change which only God, Himself,
   could have worked.

   This change is universal in the man. The new man is not full grown in
   every part, nor, in fact, in any part, and yet in all the portions of
   his regenerated nature he is a new creature. I mean this--if any man is
   in Christ, it is not merely his mental eye that is a new creation, but
   he, himself, is a new creation! He has a new heart according to the
   promise, "A new heart, also, will I give you, and a new spirit will I
   put within you." He has new ears, hearing what he refused to hear
   before. He has a new tongue and can pray with it as he never prayed
   before! He has new feet and these delight to run in the ways of God's
   Commandments.

   I refer, of course, only to His inner man, that is altogether new, and
   not any one part of it, only. If a man is merely enlightened in
   understanding, what is that? It is good, but it is not salvation! A new
   brain is not all that is needed to make a new man. A new man is
   spiritually new-created from head to foot. Though but a babe in Grace
   and not fully developed in any one part, yet he is new, "created in
   Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained that we
   should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).Thus have I tried to show you the
   essence of the novelty.

   III. Let us next consider THE EXTENT OF THE NOVELTY. "If any man is in
   Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
   things have become new." It seems, then, that not only is the man a new
   creature, but he has entered into a new creation. He has opened his
   eyes in a new world! Imagine Adam falling asleep at the gates of
   Paradise just under the cherubim's flaming sword, with the thorns and
   thistles springing up before him, and the serpent's trail behind him!
   And then further picture him lying there in a deep sleep till the Lord
   touches him, makes him open his eyes and causes him to find himself in
   a better Paradise than the one he had lost!

   It was not so in reality, but can you imagine such a thing? If so, it
   may serve as a symbol of what the Lord has done for us. We are made new
   and find ourselves in a new world! What about the old things? The text
   says they have passed away. The Greek word gives the idea of their
   having passed away spontaneously. I cannot liken it to anything that I
   know of better than the snow which melts in the sun. You wake up one
   morning and all the trees are festooned with snowy wreaths, while down
   below upon the ground the snow lies in a white sheet over everything.
   Lo, the sun has risen, its beams shed a genial warmth and in a few
   hours, where is the snow? It has passed away!

   Had you hired a thousand carts and horses and machines to sweep it away
   it could not have been more effectually removed. It has passed away.
   That is what the Lord does in the new creation--His love shines on the
   soul, His Grace renews us and the old things pass away as a matter of
   course. Where are your old views about which you used to be so
   positive? Where are those old opinions for which you could freely have
   knocked a man down? Where are those old sneers against God's people?
   Where are those old pleasures which you took so much delight in? Where
   are those old engrossing pursuits? Had you a hard tug to get away from
   these bonds?

   Where are those old joys, those old hopes, those old trusts, those old
   confidences? Was it difficult to shake them off? Ah, no! Beneath the
   power of the Holy Spirit they have passed away! You hardly know how it
   is, but they have gone and gone completely. As a dream, when one
   awakes, you have despised their image and your heart knows them no
   more. It is marvelous, in this new creation, how the Lord makes
   confusion and old night to fly! You may call for them and say, "Chaos,
   where are you?" But no answer comes back, for old things are passed
   away! Our Lord Jesus Christ causes all this! Where His blessed face
   beams with Grace and truth, as the sun with warmth and light, He
   dissolves the bands of sin's long frost and brings on the spring of
   Grace with newness of buds and flowers.

   But when you remove the old what is to take its place? Do you not
   observe that new things have come? "Behold, all things are become new."
   Now the man has new views, new notions, new ambitions, new convictions,
   new desires, new hopes, new dreads, new aims, new principles and new
   affections! He is led by a new spirit and follows a new course of life!
   Everything about him, in fact, is as if he had come fresh from the hand
   of God! Even as with the cleansed leper, as his flesh came, again, to
   him as the flesh of a little child and he was clean, so it is with the
   heart renewed by Grace! Beloved, it is delightful to read in the Book
   of Revelation and anticipate the things which are to be hereafter. How
   full that book is of novelties which illustrate our subject, for there
   you read of a new name which the Lord bestows upon those who overcome.

   Perhaps some of you used to be known by some nickname or vulgar epithet
   while you lived in the world and were a lover of it. Now, in all
   probability, you are called by quite a different name among your
   Christian friends. Saul the persecutor is called Paul when he becomes
   an Apostle. Moreover, there is a new name which the mouth of the Lord
   shall name, which no man knows, saving he that receives it. You have
   been named with the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of

   the Holy Spirit, and you wear, from now on, that name by which the
   whole family in Heaven and earth is named. Grace also has taught you a
   new song, "He has put a new song into my mouth and established my
   goings." You are rehearsing the music of that glorious band of whom it
   is written, "They sung a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the
   book and to open the seals thereof."

   Now are you a citizen of a new city, the New Jerusalem which comes down
   out of Heaven from God, which shall be established among the sons of
   men in the last days as the world's metropolis, concerning which they
   shall say, "The temple of God is with men and He does dwell among
   them." Beloved, each one of you has now become part of one new man. Do
   you know what I mean by that? There were once the Jews and the
   Gentiles, but now, said Paul, Christ "has broken down the middle wall
   of partition; for to make in Himself of two, one new man, so making
   peace." The mystical body of Christ is the one new man and we are
   members of that body! From now on we have communion with all saints and
   to us "there is neither Greek nor Jew, bound nor free, but Christ is
   all, and in all."

   Even now we have commenced to live in a new Heaven and walk upon a new
   earth--and we are anticipating the time when literally, on this very
   earth where we have struggled, there shall be set up a new condition of
   things, for the first Heaven and the first earth shall have passed away
   and there shall be no more sea. Rolled up like a scroll shall yon blue
   heavens be, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
   Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a
   new earth to which, in expectation, we are always drawing near and
   pressing forward with inward yearning, for already in Christ Jesus we
   are a part of that new creation which is more fully to be revealed.

   IV. Fourthly let us consider THE RESULT OF THIS NOVELTY. "If any man is
   in Christ, he is a new creature." Well, the result of this novelty is,
   first, that the man is already a great wonder to himself. You know the
   Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls--the soul passing,
   first, into one body and then into another--and so existing under
   different conditions. We do not believe that fiction for a moment, but
   if it had been true, the memories of such souls must have been stored
   with varied information, surpassingly strange to hear.

   Ours is another transformation. It is death and resurrection--the old
   passing away and the new being created--and how remarkable are the
   experiences of the men who have been so transformed! Here is a man who
   is a new creature and he has a very distinct recollection of the time
   when he was something far other than he is now! What a change he has
   undergone! Suppose a swine could suddenly be turned into a man and yet
   remember what it did when it was one of the herd! What an experience it
   would have to tell! If you could take a hog from the trough and turn it
   into an emperor, that would not be half so great a change as is
   accomplished when an unregenerated sinner becomes a saint!

   I guarantee you the emperor would not find much cause for glorifying in
   his former swinish state! He would be silent and ashamed when others
   mentioned it. If he alluded to that state, it would always be with the
   blushes of humiliation and the tears of gratitude. If anybody began to
   talk about it and he knew that there might be others about him that
   might be helped by hearing what the Lord had done, he would begin to
   tell, in a gentle, modest way, how the Lord transformed him from a
   swine into a monarch. But he would never, never boast--how could he? In
   such a case the poor swine would have no responsibility and could not
   be blamed for wallowing in the mire.

   But this cannot be said of us, for when we acted as swine we knew
   better and sinned willfully. Still, what a change it is! How I wonder
   at myself! How I marvel at the goodness of my God! How I adore that
   sacred power which has made me the child of two births, the subject of
   two creations! He first made me in the fashion of a man and then made
   me in the image of the Man, Christ Jesus! I was first born to die and
   then born to live eternally! Let us bless God and be full of lowly
   wonder this morning!

   The next result of this new creation is, however, that the man does not
   feel at home in this present evil world, for this is the old creation.
   The new man, the twice-born man, feels as if he were out of his element
   and not in a congenial country. He dwells in a body which is nothing
   better than a frail, uncomfortable, easily removed tent in which he
   groans, earnestly desiring to enter his own house at home, the house
   not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Wherever he goes, things
   seem out of order with the rule which is set up in his soul. He loves
   not the world, neither the things in the world. The world's glories do
   not charm him and its treasures do not enchant him. Earth's music
   grates upon his refined ears, which are tuned to heavenly harmony! Its
   dainties do not delight the taste which has learned to enjoy the Bread
   of Heaven. The new creatures pine to be in the new creation!

   And Beloved, while we are pining we are preparing! The Spirit of God is
   working us to this same thing and filling us with groans and pangs of
   strong desires which indicate that we are becoming more and more fit to
   be partakers with the saints in light--they who see the face of the
   Beloved without a veil and drink in ever new delights! Mark, once more,
   while the new creature is thus watching and waiting for the new
   creation, he is, meanwhile, extending an influence, more or less
   unconscious, over the old world in which he dwells. Just as our Lord
   has gone to Heaven to prepare a place for us, so we, His people, are
   stopping here to prepare a place for Him.

   We are, by His Grace, winning men from the world to Christ! We are
   raising the tone of morals, we are spreading light and truth on all
   sides by the power of the Spirit and so we are helping to make the
   world more ready to receive the great King. We are seeking out His
   jewels. We are bringing His rebellious subjects to His feet. The life
   that is in us seems out of place in this mortal frame, for the body is
   dead because of sin and, therefore, we groan, being burdened. As for
   the world itself, it is not our rest, for it is polluted.

   It seems a dreadful thing for the living Spirit to be dwelling in this
   graveyard of a world, but it is necessary for us to be here. We are
   linked with a creation made subject to vanity, because it was thus
   subjected, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the
   same in hope that the creation, itself, "shall be delivered from the
   bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of
   God." We are here as links between the spiritual and the material and
   we are working out Divine purposes for the fuller display of the Divine
   Glory!

   We comfort one another with these words and as new creatures in Jesus
   Christ, we look for the new heavens and the new earth and for the
   coming of your Lord and Savior! Know you not that when He shall appear,
   then shall you, also, appear with Him in glory? Let us, even now, bow
   before Him and salute Him with the language of our hymn--

   "To You the world its treasure brings!

   To You its mighty bow!

   To You the Church exulting springs

   Her Sovereign, Savior!

   Beneath Your touch, beneath Your smile,

   New hea vens and earth appear,

   No sin their beauty to defile,

   Nor dim them with a tear."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Corinthians 4:17,18; 5.
   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--907, 391, 474.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ the Destroyer of Death

   (No. 1329)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 17, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Corinthians 15:26.

   DURING four previous Sabbaths we have been following our Lord and
   Master through His great achievements. We have seen Him as the end of
   the Law, as the Conqueror of Satan, as the Overcomer of the world, as
   the Creator of all things new. And now we behold Him as the Destroyer
   of death. In this and in all His other glorious deeds, let us worship
   Him with all our hearts! May the Spirit of God lead us into the full
   meaning of this, which is one of the Redeemer's grandest Characters.
   How wonderfully is our Lord Jesus one with man! For when the Psalmist
   David had considered "the heavens, the work of God's fingers," He said,
   "Lord, what is man--that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that
   You visit him?"

   He was speaking of Christ. You would have thought he was thinking of
   man in his humblest estate, and that he was wondering that God should
   be pleased to honor so frail a being as the poor fallen son of Adam.
   You would never have dreamed that the glorious Gospel lay hid within
   those words of grateful adoration! Yet, in the course of that
   meditation David went on to say, "You made Him to have dominion over
   all the works of Your hands, You have put all things under His feet."
   Now, had it not been for the interpretation of the Holy Spirit, we
   would still have considered that he was speaking of men in general, and
   of man's natural dominion over the brute creation, but behold, while
   that is true, there is another and a far more important Truth of God
   concealed within it, for David, as a Prophet, was all the while chiefly
   speaking of the Man of men, the model Man, the second Adam, the Head of
   the new race of men!

   It was of Jesus, the Son of Man, as honored of the Father, that the
   Psalmist sang, "He has put all things under His feet." Strange, was it
   not, that when he spoke of man, he must of necessity speak also of our
   Lord? And yet, when we consider the thing, it is but natural and
   according to truth. It is only remarkable to us because in our minds we
   too often consider Jesus and man as far removed and too little regard
   Him as truly one with man. Now, see how the Apostle infers from the
   Psalm the necessity of the Resurrection, for if all things must be put
   under the feet of the man, Christ Jesus, then every form of evil must
   be conquered by Him and death among the rest. "He must reign till He
   has put all enemies under

   His feet."

   It must be so and, therefore, death itself must ultimately be overcome.
   Thus out of that simple sentence in the Psalm, which we would have read
   far otherwise without the light of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle gathers
   the doctrine of the Resurrection. The Holy Spirit taught His servant,
   Paul, how, by a subtle chemistry, he could distil from simple words a
   precious fragrant essence which the common reader never suspected to be
   there. Texts have their secret drawers, their box within a box, their
   hidden souls which lie asleep till He who placed them on their secret
   couches awakens them that they may speak to the hearts of His chosen.

   Could you ever have guessed Resurrection from the eighth Psalm? No, nor
   could you have believed, had it not been told you, that there is fire
   in the flint, oil in the rock and bread in the earth we tread upon!
   Man's books have usually far less in them than we expect, but the Book
   of the Lord is full of surprises! It is a mass of light, a mountain of
   priceless revelations. We little know what yet lies hidden within the
   Scriptures. We know the form of sound words as the Lord has taught us
   and by it we will abide--but there are inner store houses into which we
   have not peered--chambers of Revelation lit up with bright lamps,
   perhaps too bright for our eyes at this present time.

   If Paul, when the Spirit of God rested upon Him, could see so much in
   the songs of David, the day may come when we, also, shall see still
   more in the Epistles of Paul and wonder at ourselves that we did not
   understand better the things which the Holy Spirit has so freely spoken
   to us by the Apostle. May we at this time be enabled to look deep and
   far and behold the sublime glories of our risen Lord!

   To the text, itself, then--death is an enemy. Death is an enemy to be
   destroyed. Death is an enemy to be destroyed last--"the last enemy that
   shall be destroyed is death."

   I. DEATH AN ENEMY. It was so born, even as Haman the Agagite was the
   enemy of Israel by his descent. Death is the child of our direst foe,
   for, "sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." "Sin entered into
   the world and death by sin." Now, that which is distinctly the fruit of
   transgression cannot be other than an enemy of man. Death was
   introduced into the world on that gloomy day which saw our fall and he
   that had the power of it is our arch enemy and betrayer, the
   devil--from both of which facts we must regard death as the manifest
   enemy of man.

   Death is an alien in this world. It did not enter into the original
   design of the unfallen creation, but its intrusion mars and spoils the
   whole. It is no part of the Great Shepherd's flock, but it is a wolf
   which comes to kill and to destroy. Geology tells us that there was
   death among the various forms of life from the first ages of the
   globe's history, even when as yet the world was not fitted up as the
   dwelling of man. This I can believe and still regard death as the
   result of sin. If it can be proved that there is such an organic unity
   between man and the lower animals that they would not have died if Adam
   had not sinned, then I see in those deaths before Adam the antecedent
   consequences of a sin which was then uncommitted.

   If by the merits of Jesus there was salvation before He had offered His
   atoning Sacrifice, I do not find it hard to conceive that the foreseen
   demerits of sin may have cast the shadow of death over the long ages
   which came before man's transgression. Of that we know little, nor is
   it important that we should, but certain is it that as far as this
   present creation is concerned, Death is not God's invited guest but an
   intruder whose presence mars the feast. Man, in his folly, welcomed
   Satan and sin when they forced their way into the high festival of
   Paradise, but he never welcomed Death. Even his blind eyes could see in
   that skeleton form a cruel foe!

   As the lion to the herds of the plain, as the scythe to the sowers of
   the field, as the wind to the sere leaves of the forest, such is Death
   to the sons of men. They fear him by an inward instinct because their
   conscience tells them that he is the child of their sin. Death is well
   called an enemy for it does an enemy's work towards us. For what
   purpose does an enemy come but to root up and to pull down and to
   destroy? Death tears in pieces that comely handiwork of God, the fabric
   of the human body, so marvelously worked by the fingers of Divine
   skill. Casting this rich embroidery into the grave among the armies of
   the worms, to its fierce soldiery, Death divides "to everyone a prey of
   many colors, of many colors of nee-dlework"--and they ruthlessly tear
   in pieces the spoil!

   This building of our manhood is a house fair to look upon, but Death,
   the destroyer, darkens its windows, shakes its pillars, closes its
   doors and causes the sound of the grinding to cease. Then the daughters
   of music are brought low and the strong men bow themselves. This vandal
   spares no work of life, however full of wisdom or beauty, for it looses
   the silver cord and breaks the golden bowl. Lo, at the fountain, the
   costly pitcher is utterly broken and at the cistern the well-worked
   wheel is dashed in pieces! Death is a fierce invader of the realms of
   life and where he goes, he fells every good tree, stops all wells of
   water and mars every good piece of land with stones.

   See a man when Death has worked his will upon him--what a ruin he is!
   How is his beauty turned to ashes and his comeliness to corruption!
   Surely an enemy has done this! Look, my Brothers and Sisters, at the
   course of death throughout all ages and in all lands. What field is
   there without its grave? What city without its cemetery? Where can we
   go to find no sepulchers? As the sandy shore is covered with the traces
   of the worm, so are you, O Earth, covered with those grass-grown
   hillocks beneath which sleep the departed generations of men! And you,
   O Sea, even you are not without your dead!

   As if the earth were all too full of corpses and they jostled each
   other in their crowded sepulchers, even into your caverns, O mighty
   main, the bodies of the dead are cast! Your waves must become defiled
   with the carcasses of men, and on your floor must lie the bones of the
   slain! Our enemy, Death, has marched, as it were, with sword and fire
   ravaging the human race. Neither Goth, nor Hun, nor Tartar could have
   slain so universally all that breathed, for Death has allowed none to
   escape! Everywhere he has withered household joys and created sorrow
   and sighs! In all lands where the sun is seen, he has blinded men's
   eyes with weeping. The tear of the bereaved, the wail of the widow and
   the moan of the or-phan--these have been Death's music of war and he
   has found, therein, a song of victory!

   The greatest conquerors have only been Death's executioners, journeymen
   butchers working in his shambles. War is nothing better than Death
   holding carnival and devouring his prey a little more in haste than is
   his common way. Death

   has done the work of an enemy to those of us who have as yet escaped
   his arrows. Those who have lately stood around a new grave and buried
   half their hearts can tell you what an enemy Death is. It takes the
   friend from our side and the child from our bosom, neither does it care
   for our crying. He has fallen who was the pillar of the household. She
   has been snatched away who was the brightness of the hearth! The little
   one is torn out of its mother's bosom though its loss almost breaks her
   heartstrings--and the blooming youth is taken from his father's side
   though the parent's fondest hopes are thereby crushed.

   Death has no pity for the young and no mercy for the old! He pays no
   regard to the good or to the beautiful! His scythe cuts down sweet
   flowers and noxious weeds with equal readiness! He comes into our
   garden, tramples down our lilies and scatters our roses on the ground!
   Yes, and even the most modest flowers planted in the corner and hiding
   their beauty beneath the leaves that they may blush unseen--Death spies
   out even these! He cares nothing for their fragrance, but withers them
   with his burning breath. He is your enemy, indeed, you fatherless
   child, left for the pitiless storm of a cruel world to beat upon with
   none to shelter you! He is your enemy, O widow, for the light of your
   life is gone and the desire of your eyes has been removed with a
   stroke.

   He is your enemy, husband, for your house is desolate and your little
   children cry for their mother of whom Death has robbed you. He is the
   enemy of us all, for what head of a family among us has not had to say
   to him, "You have bereaved me again and again!" Especially is Death an
   enemy to the living when he invades God's House and causes the prophet
   and the priest to be numbered with the dead. The Church mourns when her
   most useful ministers are struck down, when the watchful eye is closed
   in darkness and the instructive tongue is mute. Yet how often does
   Death thus war against us! The earnest, the active, the indefatigable
   are taken away.

   Those mightiest in prayer. Those most affectionate in heart. Those most
   exemplary in life--these are cut down in the midst of their labors,
   leaving behind them a Church which needs them more than tongue can
   tell. If the Lord does but threaten to permit Death to seize a beloved
   pastor, the souls of his people are full of grief and they view Death
   as their worst foe, while they plead with the Lord and entreat Him to
   bid their minister live. Even those who die may well count Death to be
   their enemy--I mean not now that they have risen to their seats and, as
   disembodied spirits, behold the King in His beauty--but earlier while
   Death was approaching them.

   He seemed to their trembling flesh to be a foe, for it is not in
   nature, except in moments of extreme pain or aberration of mind, or of
   excessive expectation of Glory, for us to be in love with Death. It was
   wise of our Creator so to constitute us that the soul loves the body
   and the body loves the soul, and they desire to dwell together as long
   as they may, else had there been no care for self-preservation and
   suicide would have destroyed the race--

   "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's
   wrong, the proud men's contumely, When he himself might his quietus
   make With a bare knife?"

   It is a first law of our nature that skin for skin, yes, all that a man
   has, will he give for his life, and thus we are nerved to struggle for
   existence and to avoid that which would destroy us. This useful
   instinct renders Death an enemy, but it also aids in keeping us from
   that crime of all crimes--the most sure of damnation if a man commits
   it willfully and in his sound mind!

   I mean the crime of self-murder. When Death comes, even to the good
   man, he comes as an enemy, for he is attended by such terrible heralds
   and grim outriders as do greatly scare us--

   "Fever with brow of fire. Consumption with palsy, Half-warmed with
   life, And half a clay-cold lump; Joint-torturing gout, And ever-gnawing
   rheum; Convulsion wild; Swollen dropsy; panting asthma; Apoplexy full
   gorged."

   None of these add a particle of beauty to the aspect of Death. He comes
   with pains and griefs. He comes with sighs and tears. Clouds and
   darkness are round about him. An atmosphere laden with dust oppresses
   those whom he approaches and a cold wind chills them even to the
   marrow. He rides on the pale horse and where his steed sets its foot
   the land becomes a desert. By the footstep of that terrible steed, the
   worm is awakened to gnaw the slain!

   When we forget other grand Truths of God and only remember these
   dreadful things, Death is the king of terrors to us. Hearts are
   sickened and reins are loosened because of him. But, indeed, he is an
   enemy, for what comes he to do to our body? I know he does that which
   ultimately leads to its betterness, but still, it is that which, in
   itself, and for the present, is not joyous, but grievous. He comes to
   take the light from the eyes, the hearing from the ears, the speech
   from the tongue, the activity from the hand and the thought from the
   brain. He comes to transform a living man into a mass of
   putrefaction--to degrade the beloved form of brother and friend to such
   a condition of corruption that Affection, itself, cries out, "Bury my
   dead out of my sight."

   Death, you child of sin, Christ has transformed you marvelously, but in
   yourself you are an enemy before whom flesh and blood tremble, for they
   know that you are the murderer of all born of woman, whose thirst for
   human prey the blood of nations cannot slake! If you think for a few
   moments of this enemy, you will observe some of his points of
   character. He is the common foe of all God's people and the enemy of
   all men--for however some have been persuaded that they should not
   die--yet is there no discharge in this war. And if in this conscription
   a man escapes the ballot many and many a year till his gray beard seems
   to defy the winter's hardest frost, yet the man of iron yields at last!
   It is appointed unto all men once to die.

   The strongest man has no elixir of eternal life to renew his youth amid
   the decays of age. Nor has the wealthiest prince a price with which to
   bribe destruction. To the grave must you descend, O crowned Monarch,
   for scepters and shovels are akin! To the sepulcher must you go down, O
   mighty man of valor, for sword and spade are of like metal! The prince
   is brother to the worm and must dwell in the same house. Of our whole
   race it is true, "Dust you are, and unto dust shall you return." Death
   is also a subtle foe, lurking everywhere, even in the most harmless
   things. Who can tell where Death has not prepared his ambush? He meets
   us both at home and abroad. At the table he assails men in their food,
   and at the fountain he poisons their drink.

   He waylays us in the streets and he seizes us in our beds. He rides on
   the storm at sea and he walks with us when we are on our way upon solid
   land. Where can we fly to escape from you, O Death, for from the summit
   of the Alps men have fallen to their graves and in the deep places of
   the earth where the miner goes down to find the precious ore, there
   have you sacrificed many a hecatomb of precious lives! Death is a
   subtle foe and with noiseless footsteps follows close at our heels when
   least we think of him. He is an enemy whom none of us will be able to
   avoid, take what by-paths we may, nor can we escape from him when our
   hour is come.

   Into this fowler's nets, like the birds, we shall all fly! In his great
   seine must all the fishes of the great sea of life be taken when their
   day is come. As surely as the sun sets, or as the midnight stars at
   length descend beneath the horizon, or as the waves sink back into the
   sea, or as the bubble bursts, so must we all, sooner or later, come to
   our end and disappear from earth to be known no more among the living.
   Sudden, too, full often, are the assaults of this enemy--

   "Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north
   wind's breath, And stars to set--but all, You have all seasons for your
   own, O Death!" Such things have happened as for men to die without an
   instant's notice. With a Psalm upon their lips they have passed away!
   Or engaged in their daily business, they have been summoned to give in
   their account. We have heard of one who, when the morning paper brought
   him news that a friend in business had died, was drawing on his boots
   to go to his counting-house and observed with a laugh that as far as he
   was concerned, he was so busy he had no time to die. Yet, before the
   words were finished, he fell forward and was a corpse. Sudden deaths
   are not so uncommon as to be marvels if we dwell in the center of a
   large circle of mankind.

   This is Death--a foe not to be despised or trifled with! Let us
   remember all his characteristics and we shall not be inclined to think
   lightly of the grim enemy whom our glorious Redeemer has destroyed.

   II. Secondly, let us remember that Death is AN ENEMY TO BE DESTROYED.
   Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ has already worked a great victory
   upon death so that He has delivered us from lifelong bondage through
   its fear.

   He has not yet destroyed death, but He has gone very near to it, for we
   are told that He has "abolished death and has brought life and
   immortality to light through the Gospel." This surely must come very
   near to having destroyed death altogether.

   In the first place, our Lord has subdued death in the very worst sense
   by having delivered His people from spiritual death. "And you has He
   quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." Once you had no Divine
   Life whatever, but the death of original depravity remained upon you
   and so you were dead to all Divine and spiritual things. But now,
   Beloved, the Spirit of God, even He that raised up Jesus Christ from
   the dead, has raised you up into newness of life and you have become
   new creatures in Christ Jesus! In this sense death has been subdued.
   Our Lord, in His lifetime, also conquered death by restoring certain
   individuals to life.

   There were three memorable cases in which, at His bidding, the last
   enemy resigned his prey. Our Lord went into the ruler's house and saw
   the little girl who had lately fallen asleep in death, around whom they
   wept and lamented. He heard their scornful laughter when He said, "She
   is not dead but sleeps," and He put them all out and said to her,
   "Maid, arise!" Then was the Spoiler spoiled and the dungeon door set
   open! He stopped the funeral procession at the gates of Nain, from
   where they were carrying forth a young man, "the only son of his
   mother, and she was a widow," and He said "Young man, I say unto you,
   arise."

   When that young man sat up and our Lord delivered him to his mother,
   then, again, was the prey taken from the mighty! Chief of all, when
   Lazarus had laid in the grave so long that his sister said, "Lord, by
   this time He stinks," when, in obedience to the word, "Lazarus come
   forth!" forth came the raised one with his grave clothes still about
   him, but yet really quickened, then was Death seen to be subservient to
   the Son of Man! "Loose him and let him go," said the conquering Christ,
   and Death's bonds were removed, for the lawful captive was delivered!

   When at the Redeemer's Resurrection many of the saints arose and came
   out of their graves into the holy city, then was the crucified Lord
   proclaimed to be victorious over death and the grave. Still, Brothers
   and Sisters, these were but preliminary skirmishes and mere foreshadows
   of the grand victory by which Death was overthrown. The real triumph
   was achieved upon the Cross--

   "He Hell in Hell laid low Made sin, He sin overthrew: Bowed to the
   grave, destroyed it so, And Death, by dying, slew."

   When Christ died He suffered the penalty of death on the behalf of all
   His people and, therefore, no Believer now dies by way of punishment
   for sin, since we cannot dream that a righteous God would twice exact
   the penalty for one offense! Death, since Jesus died, is not a penal
   infliction upon the children of God! As such He has abolished it and it
   can never be enforced.

   Why do the saints die, then? Why, because their bodies must be changed
   before they can enter Heaven. "Flesh and blood," as they are, "cannot
   inherit the kingdom of God." A Divine change must take place upon the
   body before it will be fit for incorruption and Glory! And death and
   the grave are, as it were, the refining pot and the furnace by means of
   which the body is made ready for its future bliss. Death, it is true
   you are not yet destroyed, but our living Redeemer has so changed you
   that you are no longer Death, but something other them your name!
   Saints do not die now, but they are dissolved and depart.

   Death is the loosing of the cable that the boat may freely sail to the
   fair havens! Death is the fiery chariot in which we ascend to God! It
   is the gentle voice of the Great King who comes into His banqueting
   hall, and says, "Friend, come up higher." Behold, on eagle's wings we
   mount! We fly, far from this land of mist and clouds, into the eternal
   serenity and brilliance of God's own house above! Yes, our Lord has
   abolished death! The sting of death is sin and our great Substitute has
   taken that sting away by His great Sacrifice! Death without a sting
   abides among the people of God, and it so little harms them, that to
   them, "it is not death to die."

   Further, Christ vanquished Death and thoroughly overcame him when He
   rose. What a temptation one has to paint a picture of the Resurrection,
   but I will not be led aside to attempt more than a few touches. When
   our great Champion awoke from His brief sleep of death and found
   Himself in the withdrawing room of the grave, He quietly proceeded to
   put off the garments of the tomb. How leisurely He proceeded! He folded
   up the napkin and placed it by itself, that those who lose their
   friends might wipe their eyes. And then He took off the winding sheet
   and laid the grave clothes by them-

   selves that they might be there when His saints come there, so that the
   chamber might be well furnished and the bed ready sheeted and prepared
   for their rest.

   The sepulcher is no longer an empty vault, a dreary morgue, but a
   chamber of rest, a dormitory furnished and prepared, hung with the
   drapes which Christ, Himself has bequeathed! It is now, no more, a
   damp, dark, dreary prison-- Jesus hag changed all that--

   "'Tis now a cell where angels use,

   To come and go with hea venly news." The angel from Heaven rolled away
   the stone from our Lord's sepulcher and let in the fresh air and light
   again upon our Lord--and He stepped out more than a conqueror! Death
   had fled. The grave had capitulated--

   "Lives again our glorious King!

   Where, O Death, is now your sting?

   Once He died our souls to save;

   Where's your victory, boasting Grave?" Well, Brothers and Sisters, as
   surely as Christ rose, so did He guarantee an absolute certainty the
   resurrection of all His saints into a glorious life for their bodies,
   the life of their souls never having paused even for a moment! In this
   He conquered Death! And since that memorable victory, every day Christ
   is overcoming Death, for He gives His Spirit to His saints and having
   that Spirit within them they meet the last enemy without alarm. Often
   they confront him with songs. Perhaps more frequently they face him
   with calm countenance and fall asleep with peace. I will not fear you,
   Death, why should I? You look like a dragon, but your sting is gone!
   Your teeth are broken, oh old lion, why should I fear you? I know you
   are no more able to destroy me, but you are sent as a messenger to
   conduct me to the golden gate wherein I shall enter and see my Savior's
   unveiled face forever!

   Expiring saints have often said that their last beds have been the best
   they have ever slept upon. Many of them have enquired--

   "Tell me, my Soul, can this be death?" To die has been so different a
   thing from what they expected it to be, so easy and so joyous! They
   have been so unloaded of all care, have felt so relieved instead of
   burdened, that they have wondered whether this could be the monster
   they had been so afraid of all their days! They find it a pin's prick,
   whereas they feared it would prove a sword thrust! It is the shutting
   of the eyes on earth and the opening of them in Heaven, whereas they
   thought it would have been a stretching upon the rack, or a dreary
   passage through a dismal region of gloom and dread!

   Beloved, our exalted Lord has overcome death in all these ways. But
   now, observe, that this is not the text--the text speaks of something
   yet to be done. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death, so
   that Death, in the sense meant by the text, is not destroyed yet. He is
   to be destroyed, and how will that be? Well, I take it he will be
   destroyed in the sense, first, that at the coming of Christ, those who
   are alive and remain shall not see death! They shall be changed--there
   must be a change, even to the living, before they can inherit eternal
   life, but they shall not actually die. Do not envy them, for they will
   have no preference beyond those that sleep. Rather do I think theirs to
   be the inferior lot of the two in some respects. But they will not know
   death--the multitude of the Lord's own who will be alive at His coming
   will pass into Glory without needing to die.

   Thus Death, as far as they are concerned, will be destroyed. But the
   sleeping ones, the myriads who have left their flesh and bones to mold
   back to earth, Death shall be destroyed even as to them, for when the
   trumpet sounds they shall rise from the tomb! The Resurrection is like
   destruction of death! We never taught, nor believed, nor thought that
   every particle of every body that was put into the grave would come to
   its fellow and that the absolutely identical material would rise--but
   we do say that the identical body will be raised and that as surely as
   there comes out of the ground the seed that was put into it, though in
   very different guise, for it comes not forth as a seed but as a
   flower--so surely shall the same body rise again!

   The same material is not necessary, but there shall come out of the
   grave, yes, come out of the earth if it never saw a grave, or come out
   of the sea if devoured by monsters--that same body for true identity
   which was inhabited by the soul while here below. Was it not so with
   our Lord? Then so shall it be with His people! And then shall be
   brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in
   victory. O death, where is your sting! O grave where is your victory!"

   There will be this feature in our Lord's victory, that Death will be
   fully destroyed because those who rise will not be one whit the worse
   for having died!

   I believe, concerning those new bodies, that there will be no trace
   upon them of the feebleness of old age. None of the mark of long and
   wearying sickness, none of the scars of martyrdom! Death shall not have
   left his mark upon them at all, except it is some glory mark which
   shall be to their honor, like the scars in the flesh of the
   Well-Beloved which are His chief beauty, even now, in the eyes of those
   for whom His hands and feet were pierced! In this sense Death shall be
   destroyed because he shall have done no damage to the saints at
   all--the very trace of decay shall have been swept away from the
   redeemed.

   And then, finally, there shall, after this trumpet of the Lord, be no
   more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, for the former things will have
   passed away. "Christ, being raised from the dead dies no more, death
   has no more dominion over Him." And so the quickened ones, His own
   redeemed, they, too, shall die no more. Oh dreadful, dreadful
   supposition, that they should ever have to undergo temptation or pain
   or death a second time! It cannot be. "Because I live," says Christ,
   "they shall live, also." Yet the doctrine of the natural immortality of
   the soul, having been given up by some, certain of them have felt
   obliged to give up with the eternity of future punishment the eternity
   of future bliss--and assuredly, as far as some great proof texts are
   concerned, they stand or fall together!

   "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous
   into life eternal." If the one state is short, so must the other be!
   Whatever the adjective means in the one case it means in the other! To
   us, the word means endless duration in both cases--and we look forward
   to a bliss which shall never know end or duration! Then in the
   tearless, sor-rowless, graveless country, Death shall be utterly
   destroyed.

   III. And now last of all, and the word, "last," sounds fitly in this
   case, DEATH IS TO BE DESTROYED LAST. Because he came in last, he must
   go out last. Death was not the first of our foes. First came the devil,
   then sin, then Death. Death is not the worst of enemies. Death is an
   enemy, but he is much to be preferred to our other adversaries. It were
   better to die a thousand times than to sin. To be tried by Death is
   nothing compared with being tempted by the Satan! The mere physical
   pains connected with dissolution are comparative trifles compared with
   the hideous grief which is caused by sin and the burden which a sense
   of guilt causes to the soul.

   No, Death is but a secondary mischief compared with the defilement of
   sin. Let the great enemies go down first! Smite the shepherd and the
   sheep will be scattered. Let sin and Satan, the lord of all these
   evils, be smitten first and Death may well be left to the last. Notice
   that Death is the last enemy to each individual Christian and the last
   to be destroyed. Well now, if the Word of God says he is the last, I
   need to remind you of a little piece of practical wisdom--leave him to
   be the last. Brother, do not dispute the appointed order, but let the
   last be last! I have known a Brother wanting to vanquish Death long
   before he died. But, Brother, you do not need dying Grace till dying
   moments! What would be the good of dying Grace while you are yet alive?

   A boat will only be necessary when you reach a river. Ask for living
   Grace, and glorify Christ and then you shall have dying Grace when
   dying time comes! Your enemy is going to be destroyed, but not today.
   There is a great host of enemies to be fought today--and you may be
   content to let this one alone for a while! This enemy will be
   destroyed, but of the times and the seasons we are in ignorance--our
   wisdom is to be good soldiers of Jesus Christ as the duty of every day
   requires. Take your trials as they come, Brother! As the enemies march
   up, slay them, rank upon rank! But if you fail, in the name of God, to
   smite the front ranks, and say, "No, I am only afraid of the rear
   rank," then you are playing the fool! Leave the final shock of arms
   till the last adversary advances! Meanwhile, hold your place in the
   conflict.

   God will, in due time, help you to overcome your last enemy, but
   meanwhile see to it that you overcome the world, the flesh and the
   devil! If you live well, you will die well. That same Covenant in which
   the Lord Jesus gave you life contains, also the grant of death, for,
   "All things are yours, whether things present or things to come, or
   life or death, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is
   God's." Why is Death left to the last? Well, I think it is because
   Christ can make much use of him. The last enemy that shall be destroyed
   is Death, because Death is of great service before he is destroyed. Oh,
   what lessons some of us have learned from Death!

   "Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud to dampen our brainless
   ardors," to make us feel that these poor fleeting toys are not worth
   living for! They remind us that as others pass away so must we, also,
   be gone--and thus they help to make us let loose of this world and urge
   us to take wing and mount towards the world to come! There are,
   perhaps, no

   sermons like the deaths which have happened in our households--the
   departure of our beloved friends have been to us solemn discourses of
   Divine Wisdom which our heart could not help hearing. So Christ has
   spared Death to make him a preacher to His saints.

   And you know, Brothers and Sisters, that if there had been no death,
   the saints of God would not have had the opportunity to exhibit the
   highest ardor of their love. Where has love to Christ triumphed most?
   Why, in the death of the martyrs at the stake and on the rack! O
   Christ, You never had such garlands woven for You by human hands as
   they have brought You who have come up to Heaven from the forests of
   persecution, having waded through streams of blood! By death for Christ
   the saints have glorified Him the most. So is it, in their measure,
   with saints who die from ordinary deaths--they would have had no such
   test for faith and work for patience as they now have if there had been
   no death!

   Part of the reason of the continuance of this dispensation is that the
   Christ of God may be glorified, but if Believers never died, the
   supreme consummation of faith's victory must have been unknown.
   Brothers and Sisters, if I may die as I have seen some of our Church
   members die, I court the grand occasion! I would not wish to escape
   death by some by-road if I may sing as they sang! If I may have such
   hosannas and hallelujahs beaming in my very eyes as I have seen, as
   well as heard, from them, it were a blessed thing to die! Yes, as a
   supreme test of love and faith, death is well respited awhile to let
   the saints glorify their Master!

   Besides, Brethren, without death we should not be so conformed to
   Christ as we shall be if we fall asleep in Him. If there could be any
   jealousies in Heaven among the saints, I think that any saint who does
   not die, but is changed when Christ comes, could almost meet me and
   you, who probably will die, and say "My Brother, there is one thing I
   have missed. I never lay in the grave. I never had the chill hands of
   Death laid on me, and so in that I was not conformed to my Lord. But
   you know what it is to have fellowship with Him, even in His death."
   Did I not well say that they that were alive and remain should have no
   preference over them that are asleep? I think the preference, if
   anything, shall belong to us who sleep in Jesus and wake up in His
   likeness!

   Death, dear Friends, is not yet destroyed, because he brings the saints
   home! He does but come to them and whisper his message and in a moment
   they are supremely blessed!--

   "Have done with sin and care and woe, And with the Savior rest."

   And so Death is not destroyed yet, for he answers useful purposes. But,
   Beloved, he is going to be destroyed! He is the last enemy of the
   Church collectively. The Church, as a body, has had a mass of foes to
   contend with, but after the Resurrection we shall say, "This is the
   last enemy. Not another foe is left!" Eternity shall roll on in
   ceaseless bliss! There may be changes, bringing new delights, perhaps.
   In the eternity to come there may be eras and ages of yet more amazing
   bliss and still more superlative ecstasy! But there shall be--

   "No rude alarm of raging foes, No cares to break the last repose." The
   last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death and if the last is slain
   there can be no future foe! The battle is fought and the victory is won
   forever! And who has won it? Who but the Lamb that sits on the Throne,
   to whom let us all ascribe honor, glory, majesty, power, dominion and
   might forever and ever! The Lord help us in our solemn adoration! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 Corinthians 15:1-34. HYMNS
   FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--909, 843, 841.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Great Birthday

   (No. 1330)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 24, 1876.

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "The angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good
   tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." Luke 2:10.

   THERE is no reason upon earth, beyond that of ecclesiastical custom,
   why the 25th of December should be regarded as the birthday of our Lord
   and Savior Jesus Christ anymore than any other day from the first of
   January to the last day of the year. And yet some persons regard
   Christmas with far deeper reverence than the Lord's-Day. You will often
   hear it asserted that, "The Bible and the Bible, alone, is the religion
   of Protestants," but it is not so! There are Protestants who have
   absorbed a great deal beside the Bible into their religion and among
   other things they have accepted the authority of what they call, "the
   Church," and by that door all sorts of superstitions have entered.
   There is no authority whatever, in the Word of God, for the keeping of
   Christmas at all! And there is certainly no reason for keeping it just
   now except that the most superstitious section of Christendom has made
   a rule that December 25th shall be observed as the birthday of the Lord
   and the Church, established by State Law in this land, has agreed to
   follow in the same track.

   You are under no bondage, whatever, to regard the regulation. We owe no
   allegiance to the ecclesiastical powers which have made a decree on
   this matter, for we belong to an old-fashioned Church which does not
   dare to make laws, but is content to obey them. At the same time, the
   day is no worse than another, and if you choose to observe it and
   observe it unto the Lord, I doubt not that He will accept your
   devotion. But, if you do not observe it, but unto the Lord observe it
   not for fear of encouraging superstition and will-worship, I doubt not
   but what you shall be as accepted in the non-observance as you could
   have been in the observance of it!

   Still, as the thoughts of a great many Christian people will run, at
   this time, towards the birth of Christ--and as this cannot be wrong--I
   judged it meet to use ourselves of the prevailing current and float
   down the stream of thought. Our minds will run that way because so many
   around us are following customs suggestive of it. Therefore let us get
   what good we can out of the occasion. There can be no reason why we
   should not, and it may be helpful that we should, now, consider the
   birth of our Lord Jesus. We will do that voluntarily which we would
   refuse to do as a matter of obligation--we will do that simply for
   convenience sake which we should not think of doing because enjoined by
   authority or demanded by superstition!

   The shepherds were keeping their flocks by night. Probably a calm,
   peaceful night, wherein they felt the usual difficulty of keeping their
   weary eyelids open as sleep demanded its due of them. All of a sudden,
   to their amazement, a mighty blaze lit up the heavens and turned
   midnight into midday! The Glory of the Lord, by which, according to the
   idiom of the language, is meant the greatest conceivable glory as well
   as a Divine Glory, surrounded and alarmed them! And in the midst of it
   they saw a shining spirit, a form, the like of which they had never
   beheld before, but of which they had heard their fathers speak, and of
   which they had read in the Books of the Prophets so that they knew it
   to be an angel.

   It was, indeed, no common messenger from Heaven, but "the angel of the
   Lord," that choice presence angel, whose privilege it is to stand
   nearest the heavenly majesty, "'mid the bright ones doubly bright," and
   to be employed on weightiest errands from the eternal Throne of God.
   "The angel of the Lord came upon them." Are you astonished that at
   first they were afraid? Would you not be alarmed if such a thing should
   happen to you? The stillness of the night, the suddenness of the
   apparition, the extraordinary splendor of the light, the supernatural
   appearance of the angel--all would tend to astound them and to put them
   into a quiver of reverential alarm--for I doubt not there was a mixture
   both of reverence and of fear in that feeling which is described as
   being "sorely afraid."

   They would have fallen on their faces to the ground in fright had there
   not dropped out of that, "glory of the Lord," a gentle voice, which
   said, "Fear not." They were calmed by that sweet comfort and enabled to
   listen to the announcement which followed. Then that voice, in accents
   sweet as the notes of a silver bell, proceeded to say, "Behold, I bring
   you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto
   you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the
   Lord." They were bid to shake off all thoughts of fear and to give
   themselves up to joy! Doubtless they did so and, among all mankind,
   there were none so happy at that dead of night as were these shepherds
   who had seen an amazing sight!

   They would never forget that night and now were consulting whether they
   should not hasten away to gaze upon a sight which would be more
   delightful still, namely, the Babe of which the angel spoke! May great
   joy be upon us, also, while our thought shall be that the birth of
   Christ is the cause of supreme joy. When we have spoken upon this we
   shall have to enquire, to whom does that joy belong? And thirdly, we
   shall consider how they shall express that joy while they possess it.
   May the Holy Spirit now reveal the Lord Jesus to us and prepare us to
   rejoice in Him.

   I. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST SHOULD BE THE SUBJECT OF SUPREME JOY. Rightly
   so. We have the angelic guarantee for rejoicing because Christ is born!
   It is a Truth of God so full of joy that it caused the angel who came
   to announce it, to be filled with gladness! He had little to do with
   the fact, for Christ took not up angels, but He took up the seed of
   Abraham. But I suppose that the very thought that the Creator should be
   linked with the creature--that the great Invisible and Omnipotent
   should come into alliance with that which He, Himself, had made--caused
   the angel, as a creature, to feel that all creatureship was elevated
   and this made him glad.

   Besides, there was a sweet benevolence of spirit in the angel's bosom
   which made him happy because he had such gladsome tidings to bring to
   the fallen sons of men! Although they are not our brethren, yet do
   angels take a loving concern in all our affairs. They rejoice over us
   when we repent! They are ministering spirits when we are saved and they
   bear us aloft when we depart! And we are sure that they can never be
   unwilling servants to their Lord, or tardy helpers of His beloved ones.
   They are friends of the Bridegroom and rejoice in His joy! They are
   household servants of the family of love and they wait upon us with an
   eager diligence which betokens the tenderness of feeling which they
   have towards the King's sons.

   Therefore the angel delivered his message cheerfully, as became the
   place from which he came, the theme which brought him down and his own
   interest therein. He said, "I bring you good tidings of great joy," and
   we are sure he spoke in accents of delight. Yes, so glad were angels at
   this Gospel that when the discourse was over, one angel, having
   evangelized and given out the Gospel for the day, there suddenly
   appeared a band of choristers and sang an anthem loud and sweet that
   there might be a full service at the first propounding of the glad
   tidings of great joy! A multitude of the heavenly host had heard that a
   chosen messenger had been sent to proclaim the new-born King and,
   filled with holy joy and adoration, they gathered up their strength to
   pursue him, for they could not let him go to earth alone on such an
   errand!

   They overtook him just as he had reached the last word of his discourse
   and then they broke forth in that famous chorale, the only one sung of
   angels that was ever heard by human ears here below, "Glory to God in
   the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Thus, I say,
   they had a full service--there was Gospel ministry in rich discourse
   concerning Christ--and there was hearty and devout praise from a
   multitude all filled with heavenly joy! It was so glad a message that
   they could not let it be simply spoken by a solitary voice, though that
   were an angel's, but they must pour forth a glad chorus of praise,
   singing unto the Lord a new song!

   Brothers and Sisters, if the birth of Jesus was so gladsome to our
   cousins, the angels, what should it be to us? If it made our neighbors,
   who had comparatively so small a share in it, sing, how should it make
   us leap for joy? Oh, if it brought Heaven down to earth, should not our
   songs go up to Heaven? If Heaven's gate of pearl was set open at its
   widest and a stream of shining ones came running downward to the lower
   skies to anticipate the time when they shall all descend in solemn pomp
   at the glorious advent of the great King. If it emptied Heaven for a
   while to make earth so glad, ought not our thoughts and praises and all
   our loves to go pouring up to the eternal gate, leaving earth, awhile,
   that we may crowd Heaven with the songs of mortal men? Yes, verily, so
   let it be!--

   "Glory to the new born King! Let us all the anthem sing

   'Peace on earth, and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled.'"

   For, first, the birth of Christ was the Incarnation of God--it was God
   taking upon Himself human nature--a mystery, a wondrous mystery, to be
   believed in rather than to be defined! Yet so it was that in the manger
   lay an Infant who was also Infinite! A feeble Child who was also the
   Creator of Heaven and earth! How this could be we do not know but that
   it was so we assuredly believe, and therein do we rejoice! If God thus
   takes upon Himself human nature, then manhood is not abandoned nor
   given up as hopeless! When manhood had broken the bonds of the Covenant
   and snatched from the one reserved tree the forbidden fruit, God might
   have said, "I give you up, O Adam, and cast off your race. Even as I
   gave up Lucifer and all his host, so I abandon you to follow your own
   chosen course of rebellion!"

   But we have now no fear that the Lord has done this, for God has
   espoused manhood and taken it into union with Himself! Now manhood is
   not put aside by the Lord as an utterly accursed thing, to be an
   abomination unto Him forever, for Jesus, the Well-Beloved, is born of a
   virgin! God would not have taken manhood into union with Himself if He
   had not said, "Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it." I know the
   curse has fallen upon men because they have sinned, but evidently not
   on manhood in the abstract, for else had not Christ come to take upon
   Himself the form of man and to be born of woman! The Word made flesh
   means hope for manhood, notwithstanding the Fall!

   The race is not to be outlawed and marked with the brand of death and
   Hell, or to be utterly abandoned to destruction, for, lo, the Lord has
   married into the race and the Son of God has become the Son of Man!
   This is enough to make all that is within us sing for joy! Then, too,
   if God has taken manhood into union with Himself, He loves man and
   means man's good. Behold what manner of love God has bestowed upon us
   that He should espouse our nature! For God had never so united Himself
   with any creature before. His tender mercy had ever been over all His
   works, but they were still so distinct from Himself that a great gulf
   was fixed between the Creator and the created, so far as existence and
   relationship are concerned.

   The Lord had made many noble intelligences, principalities and powers
   of whom we know little. We do not even know what those four living
   creatures may be who are nearest the eternal Presence--but God had
   never taken up the nature of any of them, nor allied Himself with them
   by any actual union with His Person. But, lo, He has allied Himself
   with man, that creature a little lower than the angels, that creature
   who is made to suffer death by reason of his sin! God has come into
   union with man and, therefore, full sure He loves him unutterably well
   and has great thoughts of good towards him. If a king's son does marry
   a rebel, then for that rebel race there are prospects of
   reconciliation, pardon and restoration!

   There must be in the great heart of the Divine One wondrous thoughts of
   pity and condescending love if He deigns to take human nature into
   union with Himself! Joy, joy forever! Let us sound the fond cymbals of
   delight for the Incarnation bodes good to our race! If God has taken
   manhood into union with Himself, then God will feel for man! He will
   have pity upon him! He will remember that he is dust. He will have
   compassion upon his infirmities and sicknesses. You know, Beloved, how
   graciously it is so, for that same Jesus who was born of a woman at
   Bethlehem is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, having been
   tempted in all points like we are! Such intimate practical sympathy
   would not have belonged to our great High Priest if He had not become
   Man!

   Not even though He is Divine could He have been perfect in sympathy
   with us if He had not, also, become bone of our bone and flesh of our
   flesh. The Captain of our salvation could only be made perfect through
   suffering--it is necessary that since the children were partakers of
   flesh and blood, He, Himself, also should take part of the same. For
   this, again, we may ring the silver bells, since the Son of God now
   intimately sympathizes with man because He is made in all points like
   unto His brethren!

   Further, it is clear that if God condescends to be so intimately allied
   with manhood, He intends to deliver man and to bless him. Incarnation
   prophesies salvation. Oh, believing Soul, your God cannot mean to curse
   you! Look at God Incarnate! What do you see there but salvation? God in
   human flesh must mean that God intends to set man above all the works
   of His hands and to give him dominion, according to His first intent,
   over all sheep and oxen and all that pass through the paths of the sea
   and the air! Yes, it must mean that there is to be a man beneath whose
   feet all things shall be placed, so that even Death, itself, shall be
   subject unto Him. When God stoops down to man it must mean that man is
   to be lifted up to God! What joy there is in this! Oh that our hearts
   were but half alive to the Incarnation! Oh that we did

   but know a thousandth part of the unutterable delight which is hidden
   in this thought, that the Son of God was born a Man at Bethlehem! Thus
   you see that there is overflowing cause for joy in the birth of Christ
   because it was the Incarnation of the Deity.

   But further, the angel explained our cause for joy by saying that He,
   who was born, was unto us a Savior. "Unto you is born this day a
   Savior." Brothers and Sisters, I know who will be most glad, today, to
   think that Christ was born a Savior. It will be those who are most
   conscious of their sinnership! If you would draw music out of that
   ten-stringed harp-- the word, "Savior"--pass it over to a sinner.
   "Savior" is the harp, but "sinner" is the finger that must touch the
   strings and bring forth the melody. If you know yourself lost by nature
   and lost by practice. If you feel sin like a plague at your heart. If
   evil wearies and worries you. If you have known the burden and the
   shame of iniquity, then will it be bliss to you even to hear of that
   Savior whom the Lord has provided!

   Even as a Babe, Jesus, the Savior, will be precious to you! But most of
   all because He has now finished all the work of your salvation! You
   will look to the commencement of that work and then survey it even to
   its close and bless and magnify the name of the Lord. Unto you, O you
   who are the chief of sinners, even unto you, you consciously guilty
   ones, is born a Savior! He is a Savior by birth--for this purpose is He
   born! To save sinners is His birthright and office! It is from now on
   an institution of the Divine dominion and an office of the Divine
   Nature to save the lost! Henceforth God has laid help upon One that is
   mighty, and exalted One chosen out of the people, that He may seek and
   save that which was lost. Is there not joy in this? Where else is joy
   if not here?

   Next, the angel tells us that this Savior is Christ the Lord and there
   is much gladness in that fact. "Christ," signified anointed. Now when
   we know that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save, it is most pleasant to
   perceive, in addition, that the Father does not let Him enter upon His
   mission without the necessary qualifications. He is anointed of the
   Highest that He may carry out the offices which He has undertaken--the
   Spirit of the Lord rested upon Him without measure! Our Lord is
   anointed in a threefold sense, as Prophet, Priest and King. It has been
   well observed that this anointing, in its threefold power, never rested
   upon any other man.

   There have been kingly prophets, David to wit. There was one kingly
   priest, even Melchisedec. And there have also been priestly Prophets
   such as Samuel. Thus it has come to pass that two of the offices have
   been united in one man, but the whole three--Prophet, Priest and
   King--never met in one thrice-anointed being until Jesus came. We have
   the fullest anointing conceivable in Christ, who is anointed with the
   oil of gladness above His fellows. And as the Messiah, the Sent One of
   God, Jesus Christ is completely prepared and qualified for all the work
   of our salvation. Let our hearts be glad! We have not a nominal Savior,
   but a Savior fully equipped! He is One who in all points is like
   ourselves, for He is Man, but in all points fit to help the feebleness
   which He has espoused, for He is the anointed Man.

   See what an intimate mingling of the Divine and human is found in the
   angel's song. They sing of Him as "a Savior," and a Savior must of
   necessity be Divine in order to save from death and Hell. And yet the
   title is drawn from His dealings with humanity! Then they sing of Him
   as, "Christ," and that must be human, for only man can be anointed, yet
   that unction comes from the Godhead! Sound forth the jubilee trumpets
   for this marvelously Anointed One and rejoice in Him who is your
   Priest, to cleanse you, your Prophet to instruct you and your King to
   deliver you! The angels sang of Him as Lord, and yet as born. So here,
   again, the godlike in dominion is joined with the human in birth. How
   well did the words and the sense agree!

   The angel further went on to give these shepherds cause for joy by
   telling them that while their Savior was born to be the Lord, yet He
   was so born in lowliness that they would find Him a Babe, wrapped in
   swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. Is there cause of joy there? I
   say, yes, indeed, there is, for it is the terror of the Godhead which
   keeps the sinner, oftentimes, away from reconciliation! But see how the
   Godhead has graciously concealed itself in a Babe, a little Babe-- a
   Babe that needed to be wrapped in swaddling bands like any other
   new-born child! Who fears to approach Him? Who ever heard of trembling
   in the presence of a babe? Yet is the Godhead there!

   My Soul, when you cannot, for very amazement, stand on the sea of glass
   mingled with fire. When the Divine Glory is like a consuming fire to
   your spirit and the sacred majesty of Heaven is altogether overpowering
   to you, then come to this Babe, and say, "Yet God is here, and here can
   I meet Him in the Person of His dear Son, in whom dwells all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily." Oh, what bliss there is in Incarnation
   if we remember that herein God's Omnipotence comes down to man's
   feebleness and infinite Majesty stoops to man's infirmity!

   Now mark, the shepherds were not to find this Babe wrapped in Tyrian
   purple nor swathed in choicest fabrics fetched from afar--

   "No crown bedecks His forehead fair, No pearl, nor gem, nor silk is
   there." Nor would they discover Him in the marble halls of princes, nor
   guarded by praetorian legionaries, nor pampered by vassal sovereigns.
   They would find Him the Babe of a peasant woman, of princely lineage it
   is true, but of a family whose stock was dry and forgotten in Israel.
   The Child was reputed to be the son of a carpenter. If you looked on
   the humble father and mother and at the poor bed they had made up,
   where earlier oxen had come to feed, you would say, "This is
   condescension, indeed."

   O you poor, be glad, for Jesus is born in poverty and cradled in a
   manger! O you sons of toil, rejoice, for the Savior is born of a lowly
   virgin and a carpenter is His foster father. O you people, oftentimes
   despised and downtrodden, the Prince of the Democracy is born--one
   chosen out of the people is exalted to the throne! O you who call
   yourselves the aristocracy, behold the Prince of the kings of the
   earth, whose lineage is Divine and yet there is no room for Him in the
   inn! Behold, O men, the Son of God, who is bone of your bone, intimate
   with all your griefs! Who in His life was hungry as you are hungry, was
   weary as you are weary and wore humble garments like your own! Yes, He
   suffered worse poverty than you, for He was without a place where to
   lay His head! Let the heavens and the earth be glad since God has so
   fully, so truly, come down to man!

   Nor is this all. The angel called for joy, and I ask for it, too, on
   this ground, that the birth of this child was to bring Glory to God in
   the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men. The birth of Christ
   has given such Glory to God as I know not that He could ever have had
   here by any other means! We must always speak in accents soft and low
   when we talk of God's Glory. In itself it must always be infinite and
   not to be conceived by us. And yet may we not venture to say that all
   the works of God's hands do not glorify Him so much as the gift of His
   dear Son--that all creation and all Providence do not so well display
   the heart of Deity as when He gives His Only-Begotten and sends Him
   into the world that men may live through Him?

   What wisdom is manifested in the plan of redemption of which the
   Incarnate God is the center! What love is there revealed! What power is
   that which brought the Divine One down from Glory to a manger? Only
   Omnipotence could have worked so great a marvel! What faithfulness to
   ancient promises! What truthfulness in keeping covenant! What Grace and
   yet what justice! For it was in the Person of that newborn Child that
   the Law must be fulfilled and in His precious body must vengeance find
   recompense for injuries done to Divine righteousness! All the
   attributes of God were in that little Child most marvelously displayed
   and veiled. Conceive the whole sun to be focused to a single point and
   yet so softly revealed as to be endurable by the most tender eyes--even
   thus the glorious God is brought down for man to see Him born of a
   woman!

   Think of it! The express image of God in mortal flesh! The heir of all
   things cradled in a manger! Marvelous is this! Glory to God in the
   highest! He has never revealed Himself before as He now manifests
   Himself in Jesus! It is through our Lord Jesus being born that there is
   already a measure of peace on earth and boundless peace yet to come.
   Already the teeth of war have been somewhat broken and a testimony is
   borne by the faithful against this great crime. The religion of Christ
   holds up its shield over the oppressed and declares tyranny and cruelty
   to be loathsome before God. Whatever abuse and scorn may be heaped upon
   Christ's true minister, he will never be silent while there are
   downtrodden nationalities and races needing his advocacy.

   Nor will God's servants anywhere, if faithful to the Prince of Peace,
   ever cease to maintain peace among men to the utmost of their power.
   The day comes when this growing testimony shall prevail and nations
   shall learn war no more. The Prince of Peace shall snap the spear of
   war across His knee. He, the Lord of all, shall break the arrows of the
   bow, the sword and the shield and the battle--and He shall do it in His
   own dwelling place, even in Zion, which is more glorious and excellent
   than all the mountains of prey! As surely as Christ was born at
   Bethlehem, He will yet make all men brothers and establish a universal
   monarchy of peace, of which there shall be no end!

   So let us sing if we value the Glory of God, for the new-born Child
   reveals it! And let us sing if we value peace on earth, for He is come
   to bring it! Yes, and if we love the link which binds glorified Heaven
   with pacified earth--the good will towards men which the Eternal herein
   manifests--let us give a third note to our hallelujah and bless and
   magnify

   Immanuel, God with us, who has accomplished all this by His birth among
   us. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
   men."

   I think I have shown you that there was room enough for joy for the
   shepherds, but you and I, who live in later days, when we understand
   the whole business of salvation, ought to be even more glad than they
   were, though they glorified and praised God for all the things that
   they had heard and seen. Come, my Brothers and Sisters, let us at least
   do as much as these simple shepherds and exult with our whole souls!

   II. Secondly, let us consider TO WHOM THIS JOY BELONGS. I was very
   heavy yesterday in spirit, for this dreary weather tends greatly to
   depress the mind--

   "No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray." But a thought struck me
   and filled me with intense joy. I tell it to you, not because it will
   seem anything to you, but as having gladdened myself. It is a bit all
   for myself to be placed in a parenthesis! It is this, that the joy of
   the birth of Christ in part belongs to those who tell of it, for the
   angels who proclaimed it were exceedingly glad, as glad as glad could
   be! I thought of this and whispered to my heart, "As I shall tell of
   Jesus born on earth for men, I will take license to be glad, also, glad
   if for nothing else that I have such a message to bring to them."

   The tears stood in my eyes and stand there even now, to think that I
   should be privileged to say to my fellow men, "God has condescended to
   assume your nature that He might save you." These are as glad and as
   grand words as he of the golden mouth could have spoken. As for Cicero
   and Demosthenes, those eloquent orators had no such theme to dwell
   upon! Oh, joy, joy, joy! There was born into this world a Man who is
   also God! My heart dances as David danced before the Ark of God! This
   joy was meant, not for the tellers of the news alone, but for all who
   heard it. The glad tidings "shall be unto all people." Read, "all the
   people," if you like, for so, perhaps, the letter of the original might
   demand.

   Well, then, it meant that it was joy to all the nation of the Jews--but
   assuredly our version is truer to the inner spirit of the text--it is
   joy to all people upon the face of the earth that Christ is born! There
   is not a nation under Heaven but what has a right to be glad because
   God has come down among men! Sing together, you waste places of
   Jerusalem! Take up the strain, O you dwellers in the wilderness, and
   let the multitude of the isles be glad! You, who beneath the frigid
   zone, feel in your very marrow all the force of God's north wind, let
   your hearts burn within you at this happy truth! And you whose faces
   are scorched by the heat of the torrid sun, let this be as a well of
   water unto you! Exult and magnify Jehovah that His Son, His
   Only-Begotten, is also Brother to mankind!--

   "O wake our hearts, in gladness sing!

   And hail each one the newborn King,

   Till living song from loving souls

   Like sound of mighty waters rolls." But, Brothers and Sisters, they do
   not all rejoice, not even all of those who know this glorious Truth of
   God. Nor does it stir the hearts of half of mankind. To whom, then, is
   it a joy? I answer, to all who believe it and especially to all who
   believe it as the shepherds did--with that faith which staggers not
   through unbelief. The shepherds never had a doubt! The light, the
   angels and the song were enough for them. They accepted the glad
   tidings without a single question. In this the shepherds were both
   happy and wise, yes, wiser than the would-be wise whose wisdom can only
   manifest itself in quibbling.

   This present age despises the simplicity of a childlike faith, but how
   wonderfully God is rebuking its self-conceit. He is taking the wise in
   their own craftiness. I could not but notice in the late discovery of
   the famous Greek cities and the sepulchers of the heroes, the powerful
   rebuke which the spirit of skepticism has received! These wise doubters
   have been taken on their own ground and put to confusion! Of course
   they told us that old Homer was, himself, a myth, and the poem called
   by his name was a mere collection of unfounded legends and mere tales.
   Some ancient songster did but weave his dreams into poetry and foist
   them upon us as the blind minstrel's song--there was no fact in it,
   they said, nor, indeed, in any current history--everything was mere
   legend.

   Long ago these gentlemen told us that there was no King Arthur, no
   William Tell, no anybody! Even as they questioned all sacred records,
   so have they cast suspicion upon all else that common men believe. But
   lo, the ancient cities speak! The heroes are found in their tombs! The
   child's faith is vindicated! They have disinterred the king of men and
   this and other matters speak in tones of thunder to the unbelieving
   ear, and say, "You fools! The simpletons believed and were wiser than
   your 'culture' made you. Your endless doubts have led you into
   falsehood and not into truth." The shep-

   herds believed and were glad as glad could be, but if Professor_(never
   mind his name) had been there on that

   memorable night, he would certainly have debated with the angel and
   denied that a Savior was needed at all!

   He would coolly have taken notes for a lecture upon the nature of light
   and have commenced a disquisition upon the cause of certain remarkable
   nocturnal phenomena which had been seen in the fields near Bethlehem.
   Above all, he would have assured the shepherds of the absolute
   non-existence of anything superhuman! Have not the learned men of our
   age proved that impossibility, scores of times, with sufficient
   arguments to convince a wooden post? They have made it as plain as that
   three times two are 18 that there is no God, nor angel, nor spirit!
   They have proven beyond all doubt, as far as their own dogmatism is
   concerned, that everything is to be doubted which is most sure and that
   nothing is to be believed at all except the infallibility of pretenders
   to science!

   But these men find no comfort. Neither are they so weak as to need any,
   so they say. Their teaching is not glad tidings but a wretched
   negation, a killing frost which nips all noble hopes in the bud and in
   the name of reason steals away from man his truest bliss! Be it ours to
   be as philosophical as the shepherds, for they did not believe too
   much, but simply believed what was well attested--and this they found
   to be true upon personal investigation! In faith lies joy! If our faith
   can realize, we shall be happy.

   I want, this morning, to feel as if I saw the Glory of the Lord still
   shining in the heavens, for it was there, though I did not see it. I
   wish I could see that angel, and hear him speak, but, failing this, I
   know he did speak, though I did not hear him. I am certain that those
   shepherds told no lies, nor did the Holy Spirit deceive us when He bade
   His servant, Luke, write this record! Let us forget the long interval
   between and only remember that it was really so. Realize that which
   was, indeed, matter of fact, and you may almost hear the angelic choir
   up in yonder sky still singing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on
   earth peace, good will toward men." At any rate, our hearts rehearse
   the anthem and we feel the joy of it by simply believing, even as the
   shepherds did.

   Mark well that believing what they did, these simple-minded shepherds
   desired to approach nearer the marvelous Babe. What did they do but
   consult together and say, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this
   thing which has come to pass"? O Beloved, if you want to get the joy of
   Christ, come near to Him! Whatever you hear about Him from His own
   Book, believe it! But then say, "I will go and find Him." When you hear
   the voice of the Lord from Sinai, draw not near unto the flaming
   mountain--the Law condemns you, the Justice of God overwhelms you. Bow
   at a humble distance and adore with solemn awe.

   But when you hear of God in Christ, hasten there! Hasten there with all
   confidence, for you are not come unto the mountain that might not be
   touched, and that burned with fire--you are come unto the blood of
   sprinkling, which speaks better things than that of Abel! Come near,
   come nearer, nearer still! "Come," is His own word to those who labor
   and are heavy laden, and that same word He will address to you at the
   last--"Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
   you from before the foundation of the world." If you want joy in
   Christ, come and find it in His bosom, or at His feet! There John and
   Mary found it long ago.

   And then, my Brothers and Sisters, do what the shepherds did when they
   came near. They rejoiced to see the Babe of whom they had been told!
   You cannot see with the physical eye, but you must meditate--and so see
   with the mental eyes this great, grand and glorious Truth of God that
   the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us! This is the way to have joy
   today, joy such as fitly descends from Heaven with the descent of
   Heaven's King! Believe! Draw near! And then fixedly gaze upon Him and
   so be blest!--

   "Hark how all the vault of Heaven rings

   Glory to the King of kings!

   Peace on earth and mercy mild,

   God and sinners reconciled.

   Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

   Hail the incarnate Deity,

   Pleased as Man with men to appear,

   Jesus our Immanuel here."

   III. My time has fled, else I desired to have shown, in the third
   place, HOW THAT JOY SHOULD BE MANIFESTED. I will only give a hint or
   two. The way in which many believers in Christmas keep the feast we
   know too well. This is a Christian country, is it not? I have been told
   so, so often, that I suppose it must be true. It is a Christian
   country!

   But the Christianity is of a remarkable kind! It is not only that in
   the olden times, "Christmas broached the mightiest ale," but nowadays
   Christmas keepers must get drunk upon it! I slander not our countrymen
   when I say that drunkenness seems to be one of the principal items of
   their Christmastide delight!

   If Bacchus were born at this time, I do think England keeps the
   birthday of that detestable deity most appropriately, but tell me not
   that it is the birth of the holy Child Jesus that they thus celebrate!
   Is He not crucified afresh by such blasphemy? Surely to the wicked,
   Jesus says, "What have you to do to keep My birthday and mention My
   name in connection with your gluttony and drunkenness?" Shame that
   there should be any cause for such words! Tenfold shame that there
   should be so much!

   You may keep His birthday all the year round, for it were better to say
   He was born every day of the year than on any one, for truly in a
   spiritual sense He is born every day of every year in some men's
   hearts! And that, to us, is a far weightier point than the observation
   of holy days! Express your joy, first, as the angels did, by public
   ministry. Some of us are called to speak to the many. Let us, in the
   clearest and most earnest tones proclaim the Savior and His power to
   rescue man.

   Others of you cannot preach, but you can sing. Sing, then, your anthems
   and praise God with all your hearts! Do not be slack in the devout use
   of your tongues, which are the glory of your frames, but again and
   again and again lift up your joyful hymns unto the new-born King!
   Others of you can neither preach nor sing. Well, then, you must do what
   the shepherds did, and what did they do? You are told twice that they
   spread the news. As soon as they had seen the Babe, they made known
   abroad the saying that was told them, and as they went home they
   glorified God. This is one of the most practical ways of showing your
   joy. Holy conversation is as acceptable as sermons and anthems!

   There was also one who said little, but thought the more--"Mary
   pondered all these things in her heart." Quiet, happy spirit, weigh in
   your heart the grand Truth of God that Jesus was born at Bethlehem.
   Immanuel, God with us-- weigh it if you can! Look at it again and
   again! Examine the varied facets of this priceless brilliant diamond
   and bless, and adore and love and wonder, and yet adore again this
   matchless miracle of love! Lastly, go and do good to others. Like the
   wise men, bring your offerings and offer to the newborn King your
   heart's best gold of love, frankincense of praise and myrrh of
   penitence.

   Bring everything of your heart's best and something of your substance,
   also, for this is a day of good tidings and it were unseemly to appear
   before the Lord empty. Come and worship God manifest in the flesh and
   be filled with His light and sweetness by the power of the Holy Spirit.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 2:1-21. HYMN FROM OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK--249, 260, 256.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Two "Comes"

   (No. 1331)

   DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 31, 1876,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say,
   Come! And let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the
   water of life freely." Revelation 22:17.

   [This sermon is the first sermon in Volume 23 in the original
   manuscripts.]

   OUR text stands at the end of the Bible even as this day stands at the
   end of the year--and it is full of Gospel even as we would make our
   closing Sabbath discourse. It would seem as if the Holy Spirit were
   loath to put down the pen while so many remained unbelieving,
   notwithstanding the testimony of the Inspired Word and, therefore,,
   before He closes the canon of Holy Scripture and guards it against all
   addition or mutilation, with most solemn words He gives one more full,
   free, earnest, gracious invitation to thirsty souls to come to Christ
   and drink! So on this last page of the year I would gladly write
   another Gospel invitation that those who have not, up to now, believed
   our report, may, even on this last day of the feast, incline their ears
   and accept the message of salvation!

   Before yet the midnight bell proclaims the birth of a new year, may you
   be born to God! At any rate, once more shall the Truth of God, by which
   men are regenerated, be lovingly brought under your attention. I ask
   those of you who have the Master's ear to put up this request to Him
   just now, that if the arrows have missed the mark on the previous 52
   Sabbaths, they may strike the target this time, being directed by the
   Divine Spirit. Pray, also, that if some have kept the door of their
   hearts fast closed against the Lord Jesus till now, He may, Himself,
   come in the preaching of the Word, this morning, and put in His hand by
   the hole of the door, that their hearts may be moved for Him.

   In answer to that prayer we shall be sure to get a blessing! Let us
   expect it and act upon the expectation and we shall see men flying to
   Jesus as a cloud, and as doves to their windows! Are not the Words of
   our text the Words of the Lord Jesus? Can they be regarded as the words
   of John? I think not, for they follow so closely upon the undoubted
   language of Jesus in the former verse. Thus runs the passage--"I,
   Jesus, have sent My angel to testify unto you these things in the
   churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright and
   Morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come!"

   We can hardly, I think, divide the paragraph, and we must, it seems to
   me, regard our text as the Words of the risen Jesus, that Morning Star
   whose cheering beams foretell the glorious day! The lover of men's
   souls was not quite done speaking to sinners--there was a little more
   to say and here He says it. The Divine Redeemer, leaning from His
   Throne where He sits as the reward of His accomplished work, and
   bending over sinners with the same love which led Him to die for them,
   says, "Let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come. And
   whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

   Looking at the words, therefore, in that golden light as coming from
   the dear lips of the Well-Beloved, let us notice first, the heavenward
   cry of prayer--"The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who
   hears say, Come!" These voices go upward to Christ. Then, secondly, let
   us hear the earthward cry of invitation--"Let him who thirsts come. And
   whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." That cry goes
   outward and downward towards needy and sorrowing spirits. Then,
   thirdly, we shall pause awhile to notice the relation between these two
   cries, for the coming of Christ is connected with the coming of
   sinners. And then, as best we can, we shall observe and expect the
   response to the two cries--both from Him who sits in the heavens and
   from souls thirsting here below.

   O Divine Spirit, bless the Word!

   I. First, then, our text begins with THE HEAVENWARD CRY OF PRAYER, 'The
   Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him that hears say, Come!" I
   think it will be evident, if you read carefully, that this cannot be
   interpreted as being

   only the voice of the Spirit and the bride to the sinner. Surely the
   sense requires us to regard this cry of, "Come!" as addressed to our
   Lord Jesus, who in a previous verse had been saying, "Behold I come
   quickly, and My reward is with Me." We may see the second included in
   it, but it will never do to exclude the first. We shall not have dealt
   honestly with the words before us unless we regard them, first, as
   spoken upwards towards our Lord whose coming is our great hope.

   The matter of this cry is first to be noticed--it is the coming of
   Christ. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come!" This is, and always has
   been, the universal cry of the Church of Jesus Christ! There is no one
   common theory about the exact meaning of that coming, but there is one
   common desire for it, in some form or other. Some of us are expecting
   the bodily coming because the angel said, when the cloud concealed the
   rising Christ, "This same Jesus who is taken up from you into Heaven
   shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven." We
   therefore look for His descent upon the earth in Person, to be here,
   literally, among us.

   Some expect that when He comes it will be to reign upon the earth,
   making all things new and bringing to His people a glorious period of a
   thousand years in which there shall be perpetual Sabbath rest. Others
   think that when He comes He will come to judge the world and that the
   day of His appearing is rather to be regarded as the end of all things
   and the conclusion of this dispensation than as the commencement of the
   age of gold. There are some who think the millennium a dream and the
   coming of Christ in Person to be a mere fancy--they believe that He
   will come spiritually-- and they are looking for a time when the Gospel
   shall spread very wonderfully and there will be an extraordinary power
   about the ministrations of the Word. They believe that nations shall
   run to Him and be converted to His Truth.

   Now it would be very interesting to take up these various statements
   and speculations, but we do not want to do so, because, after all, in
   whatever way men look at it, all the true people of God still desire
   the coming of Christ, and so long as He draws near they are content!
   They may have, more or less light about the manner of it, but still the
   coming of Christ has been always, since the time when He departed, the
   great wish and desire, yes, and the agonizing prayer of the Church of
   God. "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus," is the cry of the whole host
   of the Lord's elect!

   It is true that some have not always desired this coming from motives
   of the most commendable kind. Many become more than ever earnest in
   this prayer when they have been in a state of disappointment and
   sorrow, but still, that which they desire is a right thing and a
   promised blessing to be given in its time. I suppose the trial of
   sorrow will always give a keener edge to the desire of Christ's coming.
   Luther, on one occasion, when much discouraged, said, "May the Lord
   come at once! Let Him cut the whole matter short with the Day of
   Judgment, for there is no amendment to be expected." When we get into
   this state of mind, the desire, though right in appearance, may not be
   quite as pure as we think.

   Desires and prayers which grow out of unbelief and insolence can hardly
   be of the very best order! Perhaps when we more patiently wait and
   quietly hope, we may not be quite so feverishly anxious for the speedy
   coming. And yet our state of mind may be more sober and more truly
   watchful and acceptable than when we showed more apparent eagerness.
   Waiting must sit side by side with desiring--patience must blend with
   hope. The Lord's, "quickly," may not be my, "quickly," and if so, let
   Him do what seems good to Him!

   It may be a better thing, after all, for our Lord to tarry a little
   longer, so that by a more lengthened conflict He may the better
   manifest the patience of the saints and the power of the eternal
   Spirit! It may be the Lord may linger yet a while, and if so, while the
   Church desires His speedy advent, she will not quarrel with her Master,
   nor dictate to Him, nor even wish to know the times and the seasons.
   "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," is her heart's inmost wish, but as
   for the details of His coming, she leaves them in His hands.

   Having noted the matter of the cry, let us next observe the persons
   crying. The Spirit is first mentioned--"The Spirit and the bride say,
   Come!" And why does the Holy Spirit desire the coming of the Lord
   Jesus? At present the Spirit is, so to speak, the vicegerent of this
   dispensation upon earth. Our Lord Jesus is gone into the heavens, for
   it was expedient for Him to go, but the Comforter, whom the Father has
   sent in His name, has taken His place as our Teacher and abides on
   earth continually as the Witness to the Truth of God and the Worker for
   it in the minds of men. But the Spirit of God is daily grieved during
   this season of long-suffering and conflict. How much He is provoked all
   the world over is not possible for us to know.

   The 40 years in the wilderness must have become as nothing compared
   with 19 centuries of rebellious generations! The ungodly vex Him, they
   reject His Testimony and resist His operations. And, alas, the saints
   grieve Him, too. You and I have, I fear, grieved Him often during the
   past year and so He desires the end of this evil estate and says to our
   Lord

   Jesus, "Come!" Beside, the Spirit's great objective and desire is to
   glorify Christ, even as our Lord says, "He shall glorify Me, for He
   shall take of Mine and show them unto you."

   Now, as the coming of Christ will be the full manifestation of the
   Redeemer's Glory, the Spirit, therefore, desires that He may come and
   take to Himself His great power and reign. The Holy Spirit seals us
   "unto the day of redemption," having ever an eye to that great event.
   His work tends towards its completion in the day of the appearing of
   the sons of God. He "is the Earnest of our inheritance till the
   redemption of the purchased possession." Therefore does the Spirit have
   sympathy in the groans of His saints for the glorious appearing--and it
   is especially in this connection that He is described as helping our
   infirmities and making intercession for us with groans which cannot be
   uttered. In this sense the Spirit says, "Come!" Indeed, all such cries
   of, "Come!" in this world are of His prompting!

   Our text, next, tells us that "the bride says, Come!" We all know that
   the bride is the Church, but perhaps we have not noticed the
   peculiarity of her name. It is not, "the Spirit and the Church say,
   Come!" But, "the Spirit and the bride," for she says, "Come!" always
   more fervently when she realizes her near and dear relationship to her
   Lord and all that it involves. Now, a bride is one whose marriage is
   near, either as having just happened or as close at hand. She is far
   more than merely engaged--either she is married or about to
   be--although the actual marriage feast may not have been celebrated
   yet. So is the Church very nearly arrived at the grand hour when it
   shall be said, "The marriage of the Lamb is come and His bride has made
   herself ready." And because of that, she is full of joy at the prospect
   of hearing the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom comes!"

   Who marvels that it is so? It would be unnatural if there were no
   desire on the part of the Church to see her Beloved Lord and Head. Is
   it not as it should be, when the bride says, "Come!"? I wish to call
   your attention to the fact that while I have made two of the persons
   mentioned in the text for the purpose of discoursing upon them in due
   order, yet they are not divided in the passage before us. It does not
   say the Spirit says, "Come!" and the bride says, "Come!" but, "the
   Spirit and the bride say, Come!" That is to say, the Spirit of God
   speaks by the Church when He cries, "Come!" And the Church cries unto
   Christ for His coming because she is moved of the Holy Spirit!

   True prayer is always a joint work--the Holy Spirit within us writes
   acceptable desires upon our hearts and then we present them! The Holy
   Spirit does not plead apart from our desiring and believing--we must,
   ourselves, desire and will and plead and agonize because the Spirit of
   God works in us so to will and to do. We plead with God because we are
   prompted and guided by His Holy Spirit! Our pleadings, which go up to
   Heaven for the advent of Jesus, are the Holy Spirit crying in the
   hearts of the blood-bought! The Church, herself, prays in the Holy
   Spirit, instantly crying day and night for the fulfillment of the
   greatest of all the Covenant promises--

   Come, Lord, and tarry not! Bring the long looked-for day! Oh, why these
   years of waiting here, These ages of delay? Come, for Your saints still
   wait! Daily ascends their sigh. The Spirit and the bride say, Come! Do
   You not hear the cry?"

   The next clause of the text indicates that each separate Believer
   should breathe the same desire, "Let Him that hears say, Come!"
   Brethren, this will be the index of your belonging to the bride! This
   is the token of your sharing in the one Spirit and being joined unto
   the one body--if you unite with the Spirit and the bride in saying,
   "Come!" No ungodly man truly desires Christ's coming. On the contrary,
   he desires to get away from Him and forget His very existence! To
   delight in drawing near unto the Lord Jesus Christ is an evidence of
   our election and calling. To wish more and more fully to know Him and
   to dwell more near to Him is the token of our having been reconciled
   unto God by His death and of our having a new nature implanted in us!

   To long to see Jesus Christ manifested in fullness of His Glory is the
   ensign of a true soldier of the Cross. Do you feel this? Do you desire
   to be better acquainted with the Lord Jesus? You have heard the
   Gospel--do you say, as the Church does, "Come, Lord Jesus"? Alas, to
   many, the Day of the Lord will be darkness and not light! They cannot
   desire it, for it will be a day of terror and confusion to them! But
   unto such as have heard and believed in the precious name of the Son

   of God, it will be joy and peace and, therefore,, the cry of their
   heart is, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" This utterance of "Come!" by him
   that hears it, is the mark of his joyful consent to the fact that
   Christ shall come!

   It is well, my Friend, if when you hear that Christ will come, you say,
   "Let Him come." If He comes to reign, let Him, for, blessed be His
   name, who should reign but He? If He descends to judge the earth, let
   Him come, for we shall be justified at His bar! His ends and objectives
   in coming cannot but be loaded with infinite benefit to us and Glory to
   our God and, therefore,, we would not delay His chariot wheels by so
   much as an hour--

   "Hasten Lord, the promised hour! Come in Glory and in power! Still Your
   foes are not subdued-- Nature sighs to be renewed. Time has nearly
   reached its sum, All things with Your bride, say, 'Come!' Jesus, whom
   all worlds adore, Come and reign forevermore!"

   The saying of, "Come!" by each true hearer is the sign that his heart
   responds to the doctrine which he has been taught. We have received it
   by Revelation that Christ is to come and our souls say, "Even so, Come
   Lord Jesus! It is our happiness that it should be so."

   Thus have we mentioned the persons by whom this cry is uttered and now
   let us add a word upon the tense in which the cry is put. It is in the
   present tense. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who
   hears say, Come!" The Spirit and the bride are anxious that Christ
   should come at once. And he that knows Christ and loves Him desires,
   also, that He should not tarry. Look, my Brothers and Sisters, is it
   not time, as far as our poor judgments go, that Jesus should come? See
   how iniquity abounds! Behold our very streets, how foul they are with
   sin! See how errors are multiplied--do they not swarm in the Church of
   God, itself? Have not heresies come down like birds of prey upon the
   sacrifice, to pollute even the altars of the Most High?

   See at this present time how skeptics defy the living God! They hiss
   out from between their teeth the question, "Where is the promise of His
   coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they
   were?" Behold how Antichrist stalks boldly through the land!
   Superstitions which your fathers could not bear are, again, set up
   among you! The graven images, crosses, crucifixes and sacraments--many
   gods and many lords of old Rome have come back to England--and they are
   worshipped in her national Church! In England, stained with the blood
   of martyrs, once again the mark of the Beast is to be seen on the
   foreheads of those whom she feeds to teach her people! Is it not time
   that the Lord should come?

   O hoary systems of superstition, what else can shake you from your
   thrones! O gods that have long ruled over superstitious minds, who else
   can hurl you to the moles and to the bats? You know Him who made you
   quiver on your thrones on that night when He was born in Bethlehem's
   manger and you may well tremble, for when He comes it will be with an
   iron rod to dash you into shivers! "Even so," we cry, "Come, Lord
   Jesus! Come quickly! Amen."

   II. Now, secondly, let us listen to THE EARTHWARD CRY OF INVITATION TO
   MEN. I must confess I cannot

   quite tell you how it is that the sense in my text glides away from the
   coming of Christ to the earth into the coming of sinners to Christ, but
   it does! Like colors which blend, or strains of music which melt into
   each other, so the first sense slides into the second. This almost
   insensible transition seems, to me, to have been occasioned by the
   memory of the fact that the coming of Christ is not desirable to all
   mankind.

   There are the unbelievers who have not obeyed Him and when they hear
   the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" straightway they begin to tremble
   and they say within themselves, "What if He should come! Alas, we
   rejected Him and His coming will be our destruction." I think I hear
   some such sinners weeping and wailing at the very thought of the Lord's
   coming, for they know that they, also, who have pierced Him must behold
   Him and weep because of Him! It seems almost cruel on the part of the
   bride and the Spirit to be saying, "Come!" when that coming must be for
   the overthrow of all the adversaries of the Lord!

   And so Jesus, Himself, seems gently to turn aside the prayer of His
   people while He pleads with the needy ones. He lets the prayer flow
   towards Himself, but yet directs its flow towards you sinners, also.
   He, Himself, seems to say, "You bid Me come, but I, as the Savior of
   men, look at your brothers and your sisters who are yet in the far
   country, the other

   sheep which are not yet of the fold, whom I, also, must bring in. And
   in answer to your cry to Me to come I speak to those wandering ones,
   and say, 'Let him who thirsts come. And whoever will, let him take the
   water of life freely.'" Is not that the way in which the sense glides
   from its first direction?

   Now, from whom does this cry arise? It first comes from Jesus. It is He
   who says, "Let him who thirsts come." The passage so stands, as I have
   already said, that we cannot but believe this verse to have been the
   utterance of Him who is the Root and Offspring of David, and the Bright
   and Morning Star. He, out of Heaven, cries to the unconverted, "Let him
   who thirsts come." Will they refuse Him that speaks? Shall Jesus,
   Himself, invite them and will they turn a deaf ear? But next, it is the
   call of the Spirit of God. The Spirit says, "Come!" This Book which He
   has written, on every page says to men, "Come! Come to Jesus!" This is
   the cry of the Spirit in the preaching of the Word.

   What do sermons and discourses mean but, "Come Sinner, come!"? And
   those secret motions of power upon the conscience. Those times when the
   heart grows calm, even amid dissipation, and thought is forced upon the
   mind--those are the movements of the Spirit of God by which He is
   showing man his danger and revealing to him his Refuge--and so is
   saying, "Come!" All over the world, wherever there is a Bible and a
   preacher, the Spirit is saying, "Come!" And this is the speech of the
   Church, too, in conjunction with the Spirit, for the Spirit speaks with
   the bride and the bride speaks by the Spirit.

   The Church is always saying, "Come!" This is, indeed, the meaning of
   her Sabbath gatherings, of her testimony in the pulpit, of her teaching
   in the schools, of her prayers and her exhortations. Everywhere, poor
   wandering Hearts, the Church of God is saying to you, "Come!" Or if she
   does not do so, she is not acting in her true character as the bride of
   Christ. For this purpose is there a Church in the world! If it were not
   for this, our Lord might take His people Home as soon as they have
   believed, but they are kept here to be a seed to keep the Truth of God
   alive in the world. And their daily earnest cry to you is, "Come, come
   to Jesus!" "The Spirit and the bride say, Come!"

   The next giver of the invitation is spoken of as, "Him that hears." If
   you have had an ear to hear and have heard the Gospel to your own
   salvation, the very next thing you have to do is to say to those around
   you, "Come!" Go and speak to anybody that you meet! Speak to everybody
   that you meet according as opportunity and occasion shall be given you!
   And say what all the Church says and what the Spirit is saying--namely,
   "Come!" Give your Master's invitation! Distribute the testimony of His
   loving will and bid poor sinners come to Jesus! Your children and your
   servants--bid them come! Your neighbors and your Friends--bid them
   come! The strangers and the far-off ones--bid them come! The harlot and
   the thief--bid such come! Those that are in the highways and the
   hedges! Those who are far off from God by abominable works--say unto
   all these--"Come!"

   Because you have heard the message and proved its truth, go and call in
   others to the feast of love! Oh, if there were more of these individual
   proclaimers, what blessings would descend upon London! I do not know
   how many Believers in Christ there are present here, but I do know that
   there are 5,000 of us associated in Church fellowship at this
   Tabernacle. And if the whole of these 5,000 would but begin to bear
   witness for Christ with all their might, there would be salt enough
   even within this one Tabernacle to season all London, with God's
   blessing upon our efforts! My Brothers and Sisters, let us not be slow
   to address ourselves to those to whom the Spirit of God within us, the
   voice of Jesus from above and the cry of the whole Church is addressed!
   Let each individual member take up the note of invitation till all
   around, the trembling Sinner hears the encouraging cry of, "Come!"

   Now, notice the remarkably encouraging character of this, "Come!" which
   is given by the Spirit of the bride. One part of it is directed to the
   thirsty--"Let him who thirsts come." By thirst is meant necessity and
   an appetite for its supply. Do you feel yourself guilty, and do you
   desire pardon?--you are a thirsty one! Are you disquieted and filled
   with unrest, and do you long to be pacified in heart?--you are a
   thirsty one! Is there a something, you know not, perhaps, what it is,
   for which you are sighing, and crying and pining? You are a thirsty one
   and to you is the invitation most positively and distinctly given, "Let
   him who thirsts come."

   But how much I rejoice that the second half of the invitation does not
   contain even an apparent limit, as this first sentence has been thought
   to do! I regard the thirst here mentioned as by no means requiring of
   any man that he should have gone through a process of horror on account
   of guilt, or should have been overwhelmed with conviction and driven to
   despair of salvation. I believe that any desire and any longing will
   come under the description of, "thirst." But since

   some have stumbled at it and have said again and again, "I feel I do
   not thirst enough," see how sweetly the second clause of our text puts
   it--"Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

   Whether you are thirsty or not, yet have you a will to drink? Have you
   a will to be saved? Have you a will to be cleansed from sin? A will to
   be made a new creature in Christ Jesus? Do you will to have eternal
   life? Then thus says the Spirit to you, "Whoever will, let him take the
   water of life freely." Now, notice three vast doors through which the
   biggest and most elephantine sinner that ever made the earth shake
   beneath the weight of his guilt may go. Here are the

   three doors. "Whoever"--"Will"--"Freely."

   "Whoever" is the first door. "Whoever"--then what man dares have the
   impudence to say that he is shut out? If you say that you cannot come
   in under, "whoever," I ask you how you dare narrow a word which is, in
   itself, so broad, so infinite? "Whoever"--that must mean every man that
   ever lived or ever shall live while yet he is here and wills to come!
   Well, then, the word, "will." There is nothing about past character,
   nor present character. There is nothing about knowledge, or feeling,
   nor anything else but the will--"Whoever will." Speak of the gate
   standing ajar! This looks to me like taking the door right off the
   hinges and carrying it away!

   "Whoever will." There is no hindrance whatever in your way. And then,
   "freely." God's gifts are given without any expectation or recompense,
   or any requirements and conditions--"Let him take the water of life
   freely." You have not to bring your good feelings, or good desires, or
   good works--just come and take freely what God gives you for nothing!
   You are not even to bring repentance and faith in order to obtain
   Divine Grace--you are to come and accept repentance and faith as the
   gifts of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. What broad gates of mercy
   these are! How wide the entrance which Love has prepared for coming
   souls! "Whoever!" "Will!" "Freely!"

   Observe how the invitation sums up the work the sinner is called upon
   to do. First, he is bid to come. "Whoever will, let him come." Now, to
   come to Christ means simply for the soul to draw near to Him by
   trusting Him. You are not asked to bring a load with you, nor to work
   for Christ in order to earn salvation, but just to come to Him. Nothing
   is said about the style of coming--come running or creeping, come
   boldly or timidly--for if you do but come to Jesus, He will in no wise
   cast you out. A simple reliance upon the Lord Jesus is the one
   essential for eternal life!

   Then the next direction is, "take." "Whoever will, let him take." That
   is all. That word, "take," is a grand word to express the Gospel. The
   world's gospel is, "bring." Christ's Gospel is, "take." Nature's gospel
   is, "make." Just change the letter and you have the Gospel of Divine
   Grace which is, "take." There is the water, dear Friends! You have not
   to dig a well to find it--you have only to take it. There is the bread
   of Heaven, you have not to grind the flour or bake the loaf, you have
   only to take it. There is a garment woven from the top throughout and
   without a seam--you have not to add a fringe to it--you have only to
   take it!

   The way of salvation may be summed up in the four letters of the word,
   "take." Do you desire Christ? Take Him. Do you need pardon? Take it. Do
   you need a new heart? Take it. Do you want peace on earth? Take it. Do
   you want Heaven hereafter? Take it--that is all. "Whoever will, let him
   take the water of life freely." And there is one other word which I
   love to dwell on, and it comes twice over, "Let him who thirsts come,
   and whoever will let him take." It is graciously said, let him. It
   seems to me as if the Lord Jesus Christ saw a poor soul standing
   thirsty at the flowing crystal fountain of His Love and the devil,
   standing there, whispered to him, "You see the sacred stream, but it
   flows for others. It is what you need, but you must not have it, it is
   not for you."

   Listen! There is a voice from beyond the clouds which cries aloud, "Let
   him take it!" Stand back, Satan, let the willing one come! He is
   putting down his lips to drink--he understands, now--but there comes
   rushing upon him hosts of his old sins, like so many winged bats, and
   they scream out to him, "Go back! You must not draw near! This fountain
   is not for you--this pure crystal stream must not be defiled by such
   leprous lips as yours!" Again there comes from the Throne of Love this
   blessed password, "Let him come and let him take."

   It is as when a man is in court and is called to go into the witness
   box. He is standing in the crowd and his name is called. What happens?
   As soon as he hears his name he begins to push through the throng to
   reach his place. "What are you doing?" asks one. "I am called," he
   says. "Stand back! Why do you push so?" asks another. "I am called by
   the Judge," he says. A big policeman demands, "Why are you making such
   confusion in court?" "But," says the man, "I am called. My name was
   called out and I must come."

   If he cannot come. If it is not possible for him to get through the
   throng, one of the authorities calls out, "Make way for that man--he is
   summoned by the court. Officers, clear a passage and let him come." Now
   the Lord Jesus calls the thirsty one and He says, "Whoever will, let
   him come!" Make way, doubts! Make way, sins! Make way, fears! Make way,
   devils! Make way, all of you, for Jesus Christ, the great King and
   Judge of all has said, "Let him come!" Who shall hinder when Jesus
   permits? He who is divinely called shall surely come to Jesus! Come he
   shall, regardless of whomever may stand in his way!

   This morning I feel as if I could come to Jesus all over again and I
   will do so! Do you not feel the same, my Beloved Brothers and Sisters?
   Well then, dear Brothers and Sisters, after you have done so, turn
   round and proclaim this precious Gospel invitation to all around you!
   Say to them, "Come and take the water of life freely!"

   III. The third point is THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO COMINGS. Is
   there any relation between the coming of Christ from Heaven to earth,
   and the coming of poor sinful creatures to Christ and trusting Him?
   There is this relation, first, that they are both suggested in this
   passage by the closing of the Scriptural Canon. John is about to write,
   by the voice of the Lord, that none are to add to or take from the
   completed Book of God. The Church says, "If there are no more Prophets
   to proclaim the mind of God, no more Apostles to write with infallible
   authority and no more instructors to give forth new revelations, or
   bring new promises, then it only remains that the Lord should come.

   "Then," she says, "Come, Lord Jesus!" And here are the sinners standing
   round and they hear that no other Gospel is to be expected, no more
   revelations are to be added to those which are in this Bible. They hear
   there will be no other Atonement, no other way of salvation. Therefore
   it is their wisdom to come at once to Jesus! It is because the Book was
   about to receive its finis that the Spirit and the bride unitedly cried
   to the sinners to come at once! No fresh Gospel is to be expected,
   therefore let them come at once! Why should they tarry any longer? The
   oxen and fatlings are killed, come to the supper! All things are ready,
   there is nothing more to be done or to be revealed! Upon us the ends of
   the earth have come. "It is finished" has rung through earth and
   Heaven, therefore--

   "Come and welcome, Sinner, come!"

   I think I perceive another connection, namely, that those people who,
   in very truth love Christ enough to cry to Him continually to come, are
   sure to love sinners, also, and to say to them, "Come!" Not that there
   are not some who talk a great deal about Christ's coming and yet
   manifest but small care for other men's souls. Well, it is talk--the
   profession of looking for the Second Advent is nothing but talk when it
   does not lead people to cry to perishing men, "Come to Christ!" He who
   loves Christ so very much that he is quite wrapped up in himself and
   forgets the dying millions around him. He who stands star-gazing into
   Heaven, expecting to see a sudden Glory to take himself away does not
   understand what he says! For if he really loved his Lord, he would set
   to work for Him and would show that he expected the King to come by
   endeavoring to extend His kingdom!

   There is this connection, also, that before Christ comes a certain
   number of His elect must be gathered in. He shall not come until an
   appointed company shall have been brought to eternal life by the
   preaching of the Word. Oh then, Brothers and Sisters, it is ours to
   labor that the wanderers may come home, for so we are, as far as lies
   in us, hastening the time when our Beloved, Himself, shall come! Once
   more, there is a sort of coming of Christ which, though it is not the
   first meaning here, may be included in it, for it touches the center of
   the sinner's coming to Christ. Because, Brethren, when we cry, "Come,
   Lord Jesus!" if He shall answer us by giving us of His Spirit more
   fully, so that He comes to us spiritually, then penitent souls will
   assuredly be brought to His feet.

   We know this, that wherever the Lord, Himself, is in a meeting, hearts
   are sure to be broken and repentance is certain to be manifested!
   Wherever Jesus Christ is in power, there must be a revival, for dead
   souls must come to life in Him. The great thing we need above all
   others is a grip of that glorious promise, "Lo, I am with you always,
   even to the end of the world," and as we, in this sense, obtain the
   coming of the Lord, we shall see sinners come and take of the water of
   life freely!

   IV. Well then, lastly, WHAT ARE THE RESPONSES? We sent up a cry to
   Heaven and said, "Come!" The response is, "Behold, I come quickly."
   That is eminently satisfactory. You may have to wait awhile, but the
   cry is heard and if the Lord should not come in your lifetime, the same
   preparation of heart which made you look for His coming will be
   blessedly useful to you if He sends His messenger to take you Home by
   death. The same waiting and watching will answer in either case, so you
   need not be under any distress about which of the two shall happen!

   Christ will descend to earth as surely as He ascended to Heaven! And
   when He comes there will be victory to the right and to the true--and
   His saints shall reign with Him! And now concerning this other cry of,
   "Come!"--we ask sinners to come. We have asked them in a fourfold
   voice--Jesus, the Spirit, the bride, and him that hears--they have all
   said, "Come!" Will they come? Brothers and Sisters, it is a question
   which I cannot answer. You must not ask me, for I do not know! You had
   better ask the persons, themselves! They are of age, ask them. Take
   care that you ask them before they get out of the Tabernacle this
   morning! They know and, therefore,, they can tell you whether they mean
   to come or not.

   This I will say to them--my dear Friends, I trust that this last day of
   the year may be, to you, a day of mercy! The Jews had a Feast of
   Ingatherings at the end of the year and I earnestly pray that we may
   have a gathering in of precious souls to Christ before the year quite
   runs out--that would be a grand finish to this year of Grace and a
   sweet encouragement for the future! But suppose you do not come. Well,
   you have been invited. If a Christmas feast is provided for the poor
   and a number of beggars are standing shivering outside in the sleet and
   snow, but will not come in, though earnestly bid, we say, "Well, you
   have been invited. What more do you need?"

   Remember, also, that you have been invited very earnestly. The Spirit,
   the bride and him that hears--and Jesus, Himself--they have all said to
   you, "Come!" I am as the man that hears and I have said, "Come!" I do
   not know how to say it more earnestly than I have said it. Oh, how
   would my soul delight if everyone here came to Christ at this moment! I
   would ask no greater joy out of Heaven to crown this year with! You are
   invited and you are earnestly invited--what more do you need? If you
   never come, you will have this thought to haunt you forever--"I was
   invited and pressed again and again, but I would not come."

   I want you to remember, too, that you are called to come now, at once!
   You may not be bid to come tomorrow for several reasons. You may not be
   alive, or there may be no earnest person near to invite you. Can there
   be a better day than today? You have always said, "Tomorrow," yet where
   are you now? Not a bit closer, some of you, than you were 10 years ago!
   Do you remember that sermon when you were made to tremble so and you
   said, "Please God, if I get out of this, I will seek Your face"? But
   you postponed it and are you any closer now?

   You remember the story of the country man who would not cross the river
   just yet, but sat down and said he would wait until all the water had
   gone by? He waited a long time in vain and he might have waited
   forever, for rivers are always flowing. You, too, are waiting till a
   more convenient season shall come and all the difficulties shall have
   gone by. Forget about such supreme folly! There will always be
   difficulty! The river will always flow! O man, be wise! Plunge into it
   and swim across! Now is the accepted time and now is the day of
   salvation!

   Oh that you would believe in Jesus Christ! May His Spirit lead you to
   do so now!--

   Only trust Him! Only trust Him! Only trust Him now! He will save you!
   He will save you! He will save you now!" Cast yourselves upon the blood
   and merits of the Lord Jesus and the great work is done! The Lord help
   you to do so. Amen.

   Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon--Revelation 22 HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--917, 345, 509.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [8]3:16   [9]5:21-24

   Deuteronomy

   [10]4:29-31

   1 Kings

   [11]20:28   [12]20:40

   1 Chronicles

   [13]16:4

   Nehemiah

   [14]9:17

   Job

   [15]34:31-32

   Psalms

   [16]16:8   [17]22:26   [18]22:29   [19]45:7   [20]89:13   [21]91:2
   [22]105:19   [23]136:17-22   [24]147:2

   Proverbs

   [25]11:30   [26]14:26

   Isaiah

   [27]1:18   [28]42:16   [29]54:7-10   [30]57:18

   Jeremiah

   [31]29:13

   Lamentations

   [32]3:27

   Ezekiel

   [33]16:62-63   [34]36:37-38

   Daniel

   [35]10:18

   Matthew

   [36]11:28-30   [37]12:6   [38]15:26-27

   Mark

   [39]1:45

   Luke

   [40]2:10   [41]10:20   [42]17:5   [43]17:22   [44]19:7   [45]23:27-31

   John

   [46]5:40   [47]6:53-56   [48]13:7   [49]16:33   [50]21:16

   Acts

   [51]5:31   [52]9:32-35   [53]11:21

   Romans

   [54]10:4   [55]12:21

   1 Corinthians

   [56]4:7   [57]15:26

   2 Corinthians

   [58]5:5-10   [59]12:9

   Galatians

   [60]5:6

   Ephesians

   [61]1:13-14

   Hebrews

   [62]6:17-20

   James

   [63]4:7

   1 John

   [64]4:19

   Jude

   [65]1:21

   Revelation

   [66]7:14   [67]22:17
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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