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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 58: 1912
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

               Worship (Public and Private) Including the church year, Christian
               symbols, liturgy, prayer, hymnology

               Times and Seasons. The church year
     __________________________________________________________________

The Voices of Our Days

   (No. 3283)

   A NEW YEAR'S SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I said, Days should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom."
   Job 32:7.

   In the discussion between Job and his three friends, Elihu was present,
   but though by far the wisest man, he remained quiet. Sometimes a still
   tongue proves a wise head. In our text he gives his reason for
   refraining from speech. He felt inclined to deliver his mind, but being
   the younger man he modestly said, "These gray-headed men ought to know
   better than I. Perhaps if I speak, I shall display my ignorance and
   they will say, "Be silent, boy, and let your fathers teach you."
   Therefore he said to himself, "Days should speak and multitude of years
   should teach wisdom."

   Elihu had, however, been disappointed. His words plainly say that he
   had heard but little wisdom from the three ancients. And he added,
   "Great men are not always wise; neither do the aged understand
   judgment." He was not the only man who had been disappointed when
   looking to his seniors for wisdom, for it is a sorrowful truth that the
   lapse of years, apart from the Grace of God, will not make us wise.
   Though with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, every year's experience
   will make the Christian riper, yet without that teaching it is possible
   that each year may make a Christian not more ripe, but more rotten.
   Among all sinners the worst are those who have been longest at the
   trade and among saints he is not always the best who has lived long
   enough to grow cold. We have known some exhibit ripeness of experience
   in their very youth through Divine teaching and by growing on the sunny
   side of the wall of fellowship--while others who have been far longer
   on the tree are still sour because they hang out of the blessed
   sunlight of the Divine Presence in the cool shade of worldliness. You
   cannot measure a man's wisdom by the baldness of his head, or the
   grayness of his hair-- and yet, if the Spirit of God were with us to
   sanctify each day's experience, it ought to be so--"Days should speak
   and multitude of years should teach wisdom."

   This, then, is our New Year's theme--the teaching of our years as they
   pass over our heads. What are we learning from them?

   I. Our first remark shall be that DAYS HAVE A VOICE. Elihu said, "Days
   should speak." Every day, as a day, has its own lesson. "Day unto day
   utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge." The sun never
   breaks upon the earth without light of a superior order for those who
   have intelligence--especially for those who have the Holy Spirit. For
   instance, the mere fact of our beginning another day teaches us to
   adore the mercy which kept us alive when the image of death was on our
   faces during the night--an extraordinary mercy, indeed--for sleep is
   near akin to death, and waking is a rehearsal of the resurrection! When
   the day begins, it tells us that God has already provided us with
   mercies, for there are our garments ready to put on and there, too, is
   the morning meal. Each day in its freshness seems to hint that the Lord
   would have us attempt something new for Him, or push forward with that
   which we have already commenced, or draw nearer to Him than we have
   ever been before. The Lord calls us to learn more of Him, to become
   more like He, to drink more fully into His love and to show forth that
   love more clearly. Every hour of the day teaches us its own lesson and
   till the shadows fall, the voices speak to us if we have ears to hear.
   Night, too, has its teaching. Does it not bid us pray the Lord to draw
   a curtain over the day and hide the sin of it, even as He draws the
   curtain across the sky and makes it more easy for us to fall asleep? Do
   we not delight, as we go to our beds, to ask to be unclothed of all our
   sins, even as we are stripped of our garments? And should we not pray
   to be prepared to fall asleep and lie in our last bedchamber, till the
   everlasting morning breaks upon us and we put on our Glory robes? Did
   we but exercise sanctified thought, each day would bring its precious
   power of wisdom and make us better acquainted with the Lord.

   What a message do our Sabbaths bring to us! To those who toil all the
   week long, the light of the Lord's-Day seems fairer and fresher than
   that of any other day. A person at Newcastle who had a house to let,
   took an applicant for it to the top of his house. He spoke of the
   distant prospect and added, "We can see Durham Cathedral on a Sunday."
   "On Sunday," said the listener, "and pray why not on a Monday?" "Why,"
   he said, "because on the weekdays great furnaces and pits are pouring
   forth their smoke and we cannot see as far--indeed, we can scarcely see
   at all! But when the fires are out, our view is wide." Is not this a
   true symbol of our Sabbaths when we are in the Spirit? The smoke of the
   world no more clouds the heavens and we see almost up to the golden
   gates! Such days do speak, indeed, and tell of the rest which remains.
   They sing in our ears with soft and gentle voices and tell us that we
   shall not always need to bow like galley slaves, tugging at the oar of
   this world's work, but may even now look up to the place where our Home
   awaits us and the weary are at rest! These peaceful Lord' s-Days call
   us away to the top of Shenir and Hermon, where we may view the land of
   our inheritance! They cry to us, "Come up higher!" They beckon us to
   commune with Him "whom having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we
   see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with unspeakable joy and full of
   glory." All days speak, but Sabbaths speak best--they are orators for
   God! These resurrection days, these days of the Son of Man--these have
   angel voices. "He that has ears to hear, let him hear."

   While each day speaks, some days have peculiar voices. Days ofjoy speak
   and bid us bless the Lord, and magnify His name. Days of sorrow speak
   and cry, "Arise and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is
   polluted." Days of communion with God speak saying, "Abide with Me,"
   and days of lost communion cry in warning, "Are the consolations of God
   small with you? Is there any secret thing with you?" Days of health
   say, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." And
   days of sickness say, "In the day of adversity, consider." Each day,
   whether bright or dim, clear or cloudy, festive or desolate, has its
   own tone and modulation and speaks its own message. Some of these days
   are great preachers and from them we have learned more than in months
   before. Solemn days of decision when sins have been abandoned. Joyous
   days of manifestation when Christ has been precious. Triumphant days of
   victory in which God has been exalted--these speak, indeed--and like
   Prophets claim a hearing in the name of the Lord. Whether common or
   special, each day is to us a new page of sacred history, a new window
   into the Truth of God, another rest stop in the march to the Celestial
   City!

   Here let us add that all our days have had a voice to us. There were
   youthful days and we thought they said, "Rejoice, O young man, in your
   youth"--and we listened all too eagerly--yet we misunderstood those
   voices. Had we hearkened to the end of their sermon, we would have
   heard them say, "But know you that for all these things God will bring
   you into judgment." To some of us, our youthful days were full of
   blessed teaching, for they called us to seek Him early in whom we have
   rejoiced and found our All-in-All. Days of middle life have a voice
   which we hear as we buckle on our harness for stern fight and find but
   little space for rest--and none for self-congratulation. What do these
   days say to us but "Work while it is day, for the night comes when no
   man can work"? Those gray hairs scattered upon our brows warn us that
   our sun will not remain at noon for long. I hear a voice which cries to
   me, "Quick! Quick! Quick! The night comes!" As to those later days, to
   which our text more pointedly alludes, they say to you, dear Brothers
   and Sisters who have reached them, "Make sure work for eternity. Hold
   time loosely. Lay hold on eternal life." The declining strength, the
   teeth long gone, the limbs trembling, the eyes needing glasses to aid
   them, the hair snowy with many winters--all these are messages of which
   the purport is--"Be you also ready, for the Bridegroom comes." Knowing
   our frailty, each day sounds in my ear the trumpet call, "Boot and
   saddle! Up and away! Linger no longer. Press on to the battle!"

   One of the loveliest sights in the world is an aged Believer waiting
   for the summons to depart. There is a lovely freshness in the green
   blade. The bloom upon the ripening corn is also fair to look upon, but
   best of all we delight in the gold ears drooping down from the very
   weight of ripeness, expectant of the sickle and the harvest home! We
   have some among us who are so lovely in their lives and heavenly in
   their conversation that they seem like shining ones who have lingered
   here a little late--they ought to be in Heaven, but in mercy to us they
   tarry here to let us see what the glorified are like! I have heard of
   stray sunbeams and these are such. It is well when our old age is such
   a voice from Heaven! But with the unconverted man or woman, how
   different are all things! To them we must tenderly but faithfully give
   warning. "You must soon die. The young may die, but you must--you know
   you must. Be wise, therefore, and prepare to meet your God." The
   eleventh hour with iron tongue calls to you-- give heed to it, or you
   will have to hear it sound your condemnation forever!

   "Hasten, Sinner, to be wise, Stay not for the morrow's sun-- Longer
   wisdom you despise, Harder is she to be won. Hasten mercy to implore.
   Stay not for the morrow's sun Lest your season should be over Ere this
   evening's stage is run! Hasten, Sinner, to return, Stay not for the
   morrow's sun Lest your lamp should fail to burn Ere salvation's work is
   done! Hasten, Sinner, to be blest, Stay not for the morrow's sun Lest
   perdition you arrest Ere the morrow is begun."

   Our days all have a voice and those which mark the different stages of
   our life and the flight of time have voices which demand special
   attention. Birthdays, as often as they come, have a chiding voice if we
   are lingering and loiter-ing--and they also have a voice appealing to
   us for gratitude for years of mercy past. They have a voice calling to
   us for more strenuous exertions and bidding us draw nearer to God than
   before. There is always a buoyancy and gladness about the first days of
   the year--they speak of thankfulness and call us to devote ourselves
   anew to God--and ask for new Grace to make the coming year more holy
   than the rest. The dying hours of the last day of the year are well
   kept as a watch, for by their fewness we see their precariousness.
   There are also last days to a life--and it will depend upon what that
   life is whether they will be rung out with joyous peals or knelled with
   despair.

   Let days speak, then, for they have much to say to us!

   II. The next thing in our text is that INCREASING YEARS SHOULD INCREASE
   OUR WISDOM--"multitude of years should teach wisdom." A man ought not
   to be at this moment as foolish as he was 12 months ago. He should be
   at least a little wiser. Christians ought to learn several things by
   the lapse of years.

   We ought to learn to trust less to ourselves. Self-confidence is one of
   the most common faults of the young--they judge themselves to be better
   than their fathers and capable of great things. Untried strength always
   appears to be greater than it is. For a man to trust himself in the
   beginning of his Christian career is very unwise, for Scripture warns
   him against it! But for him to trust himself after he has been 20 or 30
   years a Christian is surely insanity, itself--a sin against common
   sense! If we have spent only a few years in the Christian life, we
   ought to have learned from slips, follies, failures, ignorance and
   mistakes that we are less than nothing! The college of experience has
   done nothing by way of instructing us if it has not taught us that we
   are weakness, itself. To rest upon yourself, or upon any particular
   virtue which you possess or upon any resolution which you have formed
   is vanity itself! Brothers and Sisters, has the spider's thread already
   failed you so many times and do you still call it a cable? Has reed
   after reed broken beneath you and do you still rest on them as though
   they were bars of iron? Are you an aged Christian and yet
   self-confident? Surely this cannot be!

   Age should teach every man to place less and less confidence in his
   fellow men. I do not mean that we are to lose that legitimate
   confidence which we should place in our fellow Christians and in the
   moral integrity of those we have tried and proved. I refer to that
   carnal confidence which makes flesh its arm--this should be cured by
   age. When we begin the Christian life, we are like feeble plants
   needing a support. We cling to our minister and everything he says is
   Gospel, or we follow some superior person and place our admiring
   confidence in him. Alas, it often happened that helpers fail--and
   unless we have, in the meantime, learned to do without them, the
   consequences may be very serious! In the course of time, I think most
   Christians find their idols among men broken before their eyes. They at
   one time said, "If such a man were to fall, I should think that there
   was no truth in Christianity." But they have now learned better! God
   will not have us make idols of His saints or ministers--and years prove
   to us that those are cursed who trust in man--but he is blessed that
   trusts in the Lord!

   We ought to learn, again, that there is no depending upon appearances.
   Have you not found, as far as you have now gone, that the direst
   calamity that ever overtook you was your greatest mercy? And have you
   not found that what you thought would have been a choice blessing had
   really been a terrible danger to you if it had been bestowed? You have
   judged the Lord according to your folly--by the outward manifestation
   of His Providence! Have you not now learned to believe in His tried
   fidelity and to trust Him at all times, let Him do what He may? In
   this, age should instruct us. We ought not to be afraid because the day
   is cloudy but remember that if there were no clouds, there would be no
   rain--and if no rain, no harvests! Surely it is time that we had done
   judging each inch of time by itself and began to see things upon a
   broader scale! We would neither be too much depressed nor too exultant
   because of our immediate present condition if we knew that things are
   not what they seem.

   Years should also teach us greater reliance upon the Divine
   faithfulness. I t ought every day to be easier for a Christian to trust
   in God. The young Believer is like a young swimmer who, for the first
   time feels his feet off the bottom and scarcely knows what will become
   of him. But the old swimmer feels like a fish in its native element--he
   is not afraid of drowning. The little waves which in his boyhood he
   thought would swamp him, he takes no notice of whatever! And even if
   huge billows roll, he mounts them like a sea bird! Oh, it is a grand
   thing to be established in the faith, grounded and settled, so as to be
   able to say, "Therefore will we not fear, though the earth is removed."
   So it ought to be with us-- "Days should speak and multitude of years
   should teach wisdom."

   And truly, dear Friends, we ought to attain a deeper insight into the
   things of God as every year rolls over our heads. The conversation of
   mature Christians is always very delightful. Young Christians sparkle,
   but old Christians are diamonds of the first water! You may get good
   fruit from a young and earnest Christian, but it lacks the mellowness
   and full flavor of the ripe Believer. I love to talk with aged
   Christians even when they are uneducated people. Many holy women may be
   met with among the poor of the Church who know a world of sound
   Divinity--and if you will but listen to them, you will be surprised.
   They do not deal in theories--they tell you matters of fact. They do
   not explain points like the schoolmen, but they illustrate their
   experience! They have been instructed by living near to God, by feeding
   upon His Truth, by lying in Jesus' bosom like the poor man's ewe lamb
   which did eat of his bread and drink of his cup--this makes men wise
   unto salvation and, in such cases, years sanctified by Divine Grace
   teach them wisdom!

   I shall have to speak a long time if I have to show in what respects
   Christians ought to grow wiser. They ought to grow wiser with regard to
   themselves, to be more watchful against their besetting sins, more
   intent in that particular department of service for which they find
   themselves most qualified. They ought to be wiser towards Satan--more
   aware of his devices and of the times when he is likely to assail them.
   They ought to learn how to work better with others, to manage more
   easily people with odd tempers, to get on better with those who are
   under them, or with them, or above them. They should be learning how to
   deal with trembling sinners, with hard hearts and with tender
   consciences--with backsliders, with mourners and the like. In fact, in
   all things every year we ought to be more fully equipped and, under the
   blessing of God's Spirit, years should teach us wisdom!

   Brothers and Sisters, if we are Christians, we ought to learn if we
   remember who it is that has been teaching us. It is the Holy Spirit
   Himself! If your boy goes to a school two or three years and does not
   make progress, you do not feel satisfied with the master. Now, you
   cannot, in this case blame the Teacher--then let the pupil take much of
   the blame to himself. "Days should speak and multitude of years should
   teach wisdom," since the Holy Spirit dwells in us who are converted to
   God! Let us remember how sweetly He has taught us by means of the
   choicest mercies. They used to teach their children the alphabet, in
   the olden times, by giving them A B C on pieces of gingerbread--and
   when the boy knew his letters, he ate the gingerbread for a reward!
   That is very much like the way in which we have been taught
   Doctrine--it has been sweet to us and we have learned it by feasting
   upon it! I know it has been so with me. The mercy of God has been a
   Divine Instructor to my soul. "Your gentleness," says one of old, "has
   made me great." With such sweet teaching, kind teaching--loving
   teaching, forbearing teaching--we ought to have learned something in
   all these years!

   And then, sometimes, how sharply the Holy Spirit has taught us. I have
   heard say that boys do not learn so well now because the rod is so
   little used. I should not wonder, for in God's school the rod has never
   been put aside! Some of us do not go long without a stroke or two--if
   you have been very much tried and troubled, and yet have not learned,
   my dear Brother, my dear Sister--what can be done with you? What? With
   this smarting, with all this sickness, with all these

   losses and crosses and yet no profiting? O vine, with all this pruning,
   are there so few clusters? O land, with all this plowing and harrowing,
   is there so slender a harvest? Let us mourn before God that it should
   be so!

   And let us remember, again, how much teaching we have had from the
   ministry under the blessing of God's Holy Spirit. I should not wonder
   if some Christians do not profit--their Sabbaths are very dreadful days
   to them. All the week they are hard at work and on Sunday there is
   nothing to feed upon in what they hear, so they come home from public
   worship dissatisfied and troubled. Now, if your souls have been fed--if
   you have often said, "Surely God was in this place and I knew it," and
   you have gone home with your souls fed with the finest of the
   wheat--should there not be some wisdom to show for it? Consider the
   position which some of you occupy as teachers of others, as heads of
   families and instructors. If you do not learn, how are you to teach?
   And if there is no learning with you, you cannot wonder if your
   scholars make no progress under your instructions! With God as our
   Teacher, if we do not learn, we cannot blame others if they do not
   learn from us who are but men and women! May God grant that instead of
   wasting time in frivolities, or "killing time," as the worldling calls
   it, we may seek to increase in the knowledge of God and in likeness to
   Jesus, so that every day we may be better heirs of Heaven!--

   "So let our lips and lives express

   The holy Gospel we profess!

   So let our works and virtues shine

   To prove the Doctrine all Divine!

   Thus shall we best proclaim abroad

   The honors of our Savior God,

   When His salvation reigns within,

   And Grace subdues the power of sin!" III. My last word shall be a short
   one. And it is this--according to my text, THOSE WHO HAVE WISDOM

   SHOULD COMMUNICATE IT TO OTHERS.

   "I said, Days should speak"--not be silent--"and multitude of years
   should teach wisdom." That is to say, those who have days and multitude
   of years should try to teach the younger folks what they know! Now, it
   is a fault with some of our Brothers and Sisters that they do not teach
   our young people enough. They are too quiet. I should not like them to
   die and go to Heaven without having told us all they knew. And yet,
   when a venerable saint is buried who has been very reticent in speech
   and has never used his pen, what a mint of teaching is buried with him!
   It always seems to me to be a pity that anything should be lost through
   the hand of death--it should rather be a gain! There are some of us who
   have told people all we know and we are always repeating it, so that if
   we die, no secrets will sink into oblivion. But there are others of the
   opposite sort--a great deal goes into them--there must be a deal of
   wisdom in them for none ever comes out! Doubtless many Believers have
   been walking with God and enjoying the means of Grace for so long a
   time that they are quite able to teach others--but they are of small
   service to us because they are so retiring. I never like to see a
   Christian like an old-fashioned moneybox into which you put the money,
   but from which you cannot get it out again unless you break it! It
   ought not to be so. Does not our Savior tell us that the well of water
   in us is to become rivers of water streaming out from us? As we
   receive, we should give! The more we learn, the more we should
   teach--and if God teaches us, it is because He expects us to instruct
   others.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, I presume to speak to those who are older
   than I am. Try and teach somebody! Ask yourselves how did you learn
   what you know? You were taught. Return the blessing by teaching
   somebody else. You were taught. Did your mother teach you? Are you a
   mother? Then teach your children. Did you learn from your father? Then,
   Father, be not ungenerous to your family. Hand on the inheritance--what
   your faith gave you, pass on to your sons, that they may teach the same
   to their heirs! Or did you learn from a Sunday school teacher? Be a
   Sunday school teacher, yourself, and teach the rising generation.
   Remember that according as you have ability, you are a debtor to the
   Church of God by whose means you received the Truth of God--and to the
   Church of God pay back, in the shape of instrumentality, the teaching
   which you have received by teaching those around you!

   Note, next, that you are bound to do it, for without this, the Truth of
   God cannot be propagated in the land. There is not a tree that stands
   at this moment leafless and bare in the winter's blast but has within
   itself preparation for casting its seed into the earth next year. Take
   off a bud and you will find concealed within it the flower and
   everything prepara-

   tory for the creation of another tree like itself when the fullness of
   time shall come! The violet and the foxglove in the hills are waiting
   for the time to cast seed abroad, that the species may be continued on
   the face of the earth, each after its kind. In like fashion should each
   Believer, by having known the Truth of God, secure a succession of the
   faithful among men. Are those of ripe years among us attending to this
   as they should?

   Again, remember that the devil is always teaching and his servants are
   always busy! When the sons of Belial invent some new blasphemy, their
   lips ache to tell it! Let but a loose song be sung in any music hall in
   London and before many hours it will have a thousand voices occupied
   with it. The devil has his missionaries ready to teach iniquity
   wherever they go--and they neither lack for zeal nor courage! And shall
   Satan have such busy servants and Christ's cause languish for want of
   agents? God forbid! If you have learned a great Truth, go and tell it!
   If you have found out something that is fresh to you concerning the
   Lord and His love, do not wait till the morning light, but tell it at
   once! If you have found the Savior, tell about Him! Tell about Him!
   Tell about Him with all your might whenever you have opportunity! And
   spread abroad the gladsome news of His salvation! Remember that to tell
   others what you have known is often the very best way of deepening and
   increasing your own knowledge. Holy occupation is one of the most
   important things for our spiritual health. If you see a church sinking
   low, the last persons to leave that church are the Sunday school
   teachers and others who are practically occupied with serving God--and
   the first to go are those fluffy professors who are neither useful nor
   ornaments, but cling to a church like dust to your coat! Very largely
   will you find that in proportion as you serve Christ, Christ will serve
   you--therefore seek you to feed His lambs--and He will feed you!

   At the beginning of this year I would urge each one of you to say,
   "Cannot I make this year better than the last? Can I not pray more,
   believe more, love more, work more, give more and be more like Christ?"
   Was last year an improvement upon the previous one? Whether it was so
   or not, let this year be an advance upon last year! It ought to be, for
   it is a year which lies somewhat nearer Heaven than its predecessors!
   If you have lived up till now without a Savior--end that dangerous
   state! Listen to the Gospel message, "Believe and live." Ere New Year's
   Day is over, look unto Jesus Christ and be saved! He will have Glory
   and you shall have happiness--and thus shall you begin aright another
   year of our Lord--and His Holy Spirit will make it to you a year of
   Divine Grace!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS 13:21,22; 14.

   We are going to read once more the familiar story of how the Lord
   relieved His people from the power of Egypt after He had brought them
   out of the house of bondage.

   Exodus 13:21-22. And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a
   cloud, to lead them the way: and by night, in a pillar of fire, to give
   them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the
   cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people.

   Exodus 14:1-2 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the
   children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi Hahiroth
   between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal Zephon: before it you
   shall encamp by the sea. It might have been sufficient for the pillar
   of cloud to move that way, but it was really such an extraordinary
   thing for the Lord to lead the people right down to the sea that He
   gave a special command as well as the movement of the cloud! That Moses
   himself might not be staggered by what would seem to him to be such
   strange guidance, the Lord tells him what to say to the people and then
   gives him this explanation--

   3, 4. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are
   entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in. And I will
   harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will
   gain honor over Pharaoh, and over all his host, that the Egyptians may
   know that I am the Lord. And they did so. Those four words, "And they
   did so," though they are very short and very simple words, express a
   great deal! Oh, that it might always be said of all of us whenever God
   commands us to do anything, "And they did so."

   5. And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the
   heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and
   they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from
   serving us?Nothing but the Grace of God will truly humble men! These
   Egyptians had been crushed by terrible plagues into a false kind of
   humility,

   but they were soon as proud as ever! Nothing but the Omnipotent Grace
   of God can really subdue a proud and stubborn heart.

   6-8. Andhe made ready his chariot, and took hispeople with him: andhe
   took six hundred chosen chariots, andall the chariots of Egypt, and
   captains over every one of them. And the LORD hardened the heart of
   Pharaoh, king of Egypt, andhe pursued after the children of Israel: and
   the children of Israel went out with an high hand. They were resolute
   and brave as long as they realized that God was with them! And the
   Egyptians behind them were bold and proud although God was not with
   them! There were two high hands that day--the high hand of the proud,
   puny Pharaoh-- and the high hand of the ever-blessed Omnipotent
   Jehovah!

   9, 10. But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and
   chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them
   encamping by the sea, beside Pi Hahiroth, before Baal Zephon and when
   Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes and,
   behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sorely afraid.
   Forgetting what God had done for them and promised to them, they became
   timid at the sight of their old masters! They knew the cruelty of the
   Egyptians in time of war, and their hearts failed them.

   10, And the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD. Ah, dear
   Friends, if they had cried to the Lord in true believing prayer, they
   would have been worthy of commendation--but they did not do so! They
   cried out unto the Lord in an unbelieving complaint, as the next verse
   plainly shows--

   11, 12. And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in
   Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you
   dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the
   word that we did tell you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may
   serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the
   Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. What cowards they
   were, and how faint-hearted! Were these the people that were to conquer
   Canaan? Were these God's chosen people? Ah, judge them not, for you and
   I have often been quite as fainthearted and quite as fickle as they
   were! May God forgive us as He again and again forgave them!

   13-15. And Moses said unto the people, Fear you not, standstill and see
   the Salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today: for the
   Egyptians, whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more
   forever The LORD shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.
   And the LORD said unto Moses, Why do you cry unto Me? Speak unto

   the children of Israel, that they go forward [See Sermon #548, Volume
   10--FORWARD! FORWARD! FORWARD.] Moses was no doubt praying in his
   heart, though it is not recorded that he uttered any words in
   prayer--but it was not the time for prayer--it was the time for action!
   When people sometimes say, when they know their duty, "We will make it
   a matter of prayer," they generally mean that they will try to find
   some excuse for not doing it! You need not pray about any matter when
   you know what you ought to do--go and do it!

   16-20. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and
   divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through
   the midst of the sea. And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the
   Egyptians, and they shall follow them: andI will get Me honor over
   Pharaoh, and over allhis host, over his chariots, and over his
   horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have
   gotten Me honor over Pharaoh, over his chariots, and over his horsemen.
   And the Angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and
   went behind them: and the pillar of the cloud went before their face,
   and stood behind them: and it came between the camp of the Egyptians
   and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it
   gave light by night to these; so that the one came not near the other
   all the night.God was like a wall of fire between them and their
   enemies--so that they had no cause for fear even though the Egyptians
   were so near!

   21-25. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea: and the LORD
   caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and
   made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of
   Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the
   waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
   And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the
   sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it
   came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host
   of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and
   troubled the host of the Egyptians. And took of their chariot wheels,
   that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee
   from the face of Israel; for the LORD fights for them against the
   Egyptians.They were now in the midst of the sea between the two high
   walls of water, and before they could flee see what happened to them--

   26-31. And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out your hand over the
   sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their
   chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand
   over the sea, and the sea returned to its full depth when the morning
   appeared, and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the
   Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the water returned, and covered
   the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the hosts of Pharaoh that came
   into the sea after them; there remained not much as one of them. But
   the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea;
   and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their
   left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out the hand of the
   Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptian dead upon the sea shore. And
   Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and
   the people feared the LORD, and believed the Lord, and His servant
   Moses. And well they might! Yet how soon they murmured both against the
   Lord and against Moses!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sequel to Divine Sovereignty

   (No. 3284)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 4, 1866.

   "The LORD reigns; let the people tremble." Psalm 99:1.

   "The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice." Psalm 97:1.

   No Doctrine in the whole Word of God has more excited the hatred of
   mankind than the truth of the absolute Sovereignty of God. [See Sermon
   #77, Volume 2--DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY.] The

   fact that "the Lord reigns" is indisputable--and it is this fact that
   arises the utmost opposition in the unrenewed human heart. "The kings
   of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together
   against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their
   bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us." We know what the
   Lord thinks of their rebellion against Him--"He that sits in the
   heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall
   He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure."
   Let us, Beloved, not be among those who refuse to believe this great
   Truth of God, but may we humbly bow before that dread Sovereign who
   does as He wills among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants
   of this lower world--

   "God is a King of power unknown;

   Firm are the orders of His Throne!

   If He resolves, who dare oppose,

   Or ask Him why, or what He does?' God has the right to act thus, first,
   because He is the source of all created existence. "In the beginning
   God created the heavens and the earth," and everything else that exists
   is the product of His creative power! As the writer of the 100th Psalm
   says, "It is He that has made us, and not we ourselves." So He has the
   absolute right to do with us whatever He pleases. It rested with Him to
   make us or not to make us. And when He determined to create, it was
   according to His own will that He made one creature a worm and another
   an eagle, one an ant crawling upon its little hill and another a
   leviathan making the deep to boil. It was by His decree that there were
   almost boundless variations among the great family of mankind. In
   constitution, disposition and temperament--in the very appearance of
   our bodies, in the strange diversities of our mental capacities, in our
   position upon the globe or our place and circumstances in any
   particular country and nation--we see traces of the Sovereign purpose
   and will of God. It is true that our ancestors, parents and
   surroundings have exerted certain influences upon us, but there are
   peculiarities about each one of us which can only be ascribed to the
   Sovereign good pleasure of God. That one should be a silent and
   unobtrusive traveler through life's pilgrimage, and that another should
   be so eloquent as to speak in words that find an echo the wide world
   over--that one should sweat and toil all his days, and that another
   should be dandled upon the knee of luxury--we may say what we will
   about all this, but whether we agree with it or not, we cannot deny
   that it is according to Divine appointment and order and, therefore, we
   must submit to it--

   "The Lord is King; who them shall dare Resist His will, distrust His
   care, Or murmur at His wise decrees, Or doubt His royal promises? The
   Lord is King, child of the dust, The Judge of all the earth is just--

   Holy and true are all His ways, Let every creature speak His praise."

   Not only do we believe that God being the Creator, has the right to
   make His creatures according to His own will, but we also believe that
   He has another right over us acquired from our sinful nature. We may
   say, though we speak it with bated breath in the Presence of His awful
   Majesty, that even creatures have their rights at their Creator's hand.
   For instance, every creature may claim from its Creator that it should
   not be punished if it does not offend--and that it should be made happy
   if it is obedient to His commands. Such rights Jehovah has always
   acknowledged and has never violated. But you and I, dear Friends, have
   lost all the rights of creatureship, for we have all sinned! A subject
   of this realm has the right of freedom to go where he pleases and do
   what he pleases as long as he does not offend against the law of the
   land. But if he commits high treason, or robbery, or some other crime
   and so is brought under the condemnation of the law, he immediately
   loses all right to his freedom and is put in prison with other
   criminals.

   Now the Law of God's universe, a most equitable and just Law, runs
   thus, "The soul that sins, it shall die." And we have all sinned--the
   sentence of death is recorded against every soul born of woman--and
   that any of us are still permitted to live is due to the clemency of
   the great King! Some of us, blessed be His holy name, have been
   pardoned by Him. And having been pardoned, we shall never again be
   condemned--but others are put off during their Majesty's pleasure and
   that respite is an act of Divine Sovereignty. Had He executed the
   sentence pronounced upon us as soon as we had sinned, we might have
   bewailed His severity, yet we could never have impeached His Justice,
   for we should have deserved the utmost penalty that could have been
   demanded by His righteous Law! So that, by virtue of our sinnership,
   God has the right to punish us if He pleases to do so. But if He can
   consistently, with the principles of Eternal Justice, pardon us, He has
   the right do so! You noticed that I said, "consistently with the
   principles of Eternal Justice," for God will never violate those
   principles. He can always do as He wills, but He always wills to do
   what is right and, by the Atonement of His dear Son, He has made a way
   by which He can satisfy all the claims of His inflexible Justice and
   yet can take infinite delight in bestowing His mercy upon the guilty!
   Then surely, as mercy is not only God's prerogative as King, but also
   had to be so dearly bought by the precious blood of His well-beloved
   Son, we ought not to be backward in confessing that He has the right to
   bestow that mercy whenever He pleases. At all events, whether we
   believe it or not, this declaration is still thundered forth from the
   Throne of the Eternal, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
   and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

   Observe then, three rights which belong to God--as Creator, as Judge,
   having the right to punish the guilty. And as the God and Father of our
   Lord Jesus Christ, having the right to pardon sinners and to do it
   without, in the slightest degree, violating His Justice. These are high
   Doctrines from which some turn away in despair. It is true that they
   are high, as high as the Throne of God Himself! When I think of them, I
   feel like the Prophet Ezekiel when he looked upon those wheels that
   were so high that they were dreadful. Yet, Beloved, as they are true,
   let us bow before them with awe-stricken spirits, yet with believing
   hearts knowing that the Judge of all the earth is certain to do that
   which is right!

   Moreover, the Sovereignty of God is also displayed in His distribution
   of gifts among His own people--and surely He has the right to do this
   because the gifts are His own. If we could claim them as ours, they
   would not be gifts--they would be rightly due to us like anything else
   that belonged to us. If any man has a valid claim upon God for mercy,
   then it is not mercy that he should claim, but justice! If any man, by
   virtue of his own works, deserves to be saved, then salvation is of
   works and not of Grace--but this the Scriptures distinctly deny! If you
   come to God expecting to receive from Him spiritual gifts because of
   certain rights vested in yourselves, you come to Him on a footing that
   He cannot tolerate for a moment! He will say to you, "May I not do as I
   will with My own?" And He will give nothing to you who claim it as a
   right. But He will give all they need to those who come to Him
   confessing that they have no right to His mercy and entreating that it
   may be bestowed upon them through the riches of His Grace in Christ
   Jesus--

   "Justice upon a dreadful Throne Maintains the rights of God While mercy
   sends her pardons down, Bought with a Savior's blood."

   I have thus reminded you of the Truth of God which is not only stated
   in our two texts, but is revealed in many other Scriptures--the Truth
   that "the Lord reigns." As He reigns in Creation and Providence, so
   does He reign in the realm of His Grace. Taking the two texts together,
   I want, earnestly and affectionately, first to address the unsaved
   sinner And

   then to speak to the saved Believer, endeavoring to invoke in each soul
   the twin emotions of rejoicing and trembling-- "The Lord reigns, let
   the people tremble." "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice." I. So,
   first, LET ME SPEAK TO THE UNSAVED SINNER.

   Sinner, it is an unspeakable mercy for you that the Lord reigns, for it
   is because He reigns that you are yet alive. If God were not King, the
   sentence of Justice must be executed swiftly, surely, mercilessly! And
   every sinner, the moment that he sinned, must die. But, Sinner, He who
   is King is very gracious and He says to the officer of Justice, "Spare
   that man. Let him live." He has spared some of you thirty, forty,
   fifty, sixty--it may be even 70 years! You would not have spared any of
   your fellow creatures who had offended you as long as that. If a man
   provoked you to your face, your anger would wax hot against him long
   before 20 years! Some of you would not bear with him even for 20
   minutes--yet you have provoked the Lord year after year--but the
   long-suffering patience in the heart of God has borne with you even
   until now! He has said concerning you, again and again, "Spare him!
   Spare her!" When fever shot its hot darts at you, God turned them
   aside! And when the poison of disease was actually in your blood, He
   removed it with His healing hand. The Lord who reigns has spared
   you--therefore rejoice!

   Yet tremble at the same time, Sinner, for this great King can as
   readily slay as He can spare. One turn of His hand, no, not as much as
   that--He need not even lift His little finger--He has but to will your
   death and then where would you be? He who has been so strong to spare
   can be just as strong to smite! He has not yet taken up the axe, but
   when once He lifts it and its sharp edge falls upon the tree that is
   still barren, what will become of it? "The Lord reigns; let the people
   tremble." If He were to come to you tonight and lay judgment to the
   line, and righteousness to the plummet, it would be all in vain for you
   to attempt to resist Him! The breath of your nostrils is so absolutely
   under God's control that all the physicians in the world could not
   extend the lease of your life if He were to say to you, "This night
   shall your soul be required of you." So tremble at the recollection
   that "the Lord reigns," for you are as completely in His power as a
   moth would be in yours if you held it in your hand knowing that you
   could crush it any moment that you pleased!

   Another instance of Divine Sovereignty which may cause you both to
   rejoice and to tremble, is this--God has sent the Gospel to you. Think
   of this fact, my Hearer! There are millions upon millions of your
   fellow creatures who have never heard the Gospel and who are going down
   to their doom in utter ignorance of the great salvation! Their idol
   gods cannot save them. Their blocks of wood and stone cannot hear their
   cry of hopeless sorrow. But unto you is the word of this salvation
   sent! Many in this great London of ours are born and nurtured amid
   scenes of vice and iniquity--they never enter the House of Prayer and
   possibly even the voice of the street preacher never reaches their
   ears. But some of you heard the name of Jesus mingled with the hush of
   your first lullaby! You were dandled on the knee of piety, and carried
   even as a baby in the arms of earnest prayer. It is a most gracious
   Sovereignty that has accorded you such great privileges as these! It is
   the Lord, the Lord who reigns, to whom you owe all this! Therefore
   rejoice, yet tremble as well, for these high privileges involve
   corresponding responsibilities--and He will require of you a strict
   account of the way in which you have used these advantages which others
   have not possessed. One of these days He will make inquisition and will
   say to you, "I gave you light--did you rejoice in it? I sent the Gospel
   to you--did you listen to the joyful sound, or did you shut your ears
   to it and turn away from it with contempt and provoke Me to anger
   against you?" Besides, Sinner, although you are able to hear the
   Gospel, today, you may not be allowed to hear it tomorrow! Instead of
   the message to you being as it is today--"Believe and live," tomorrow
   it may be--"Depart you cursed." Instead of the entreaty being addressed
   to you as it is today, "Turn you, turn you, for why will you die?"
   Tomorrow the dread sentence may be pronounced by Jehovah the King,
   "Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek
   Me early, but they shall not find Me: for that they hated knowledge and
   did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would have none of My
   counsel: they despised all My reproof." Mercy's day lasts not forever!
   God's Gospel shall not always be trifled with! You may for a time
   remember to listen to the loving, tender, wooing voice of the Savior,
   but I would have you remember that He will not always quietly submit to
   your rejection of His gracious invitations! Tremble, I beseech you,
   lest the music of the silver trumpet of the Gospel should give place to
   the harsh clangor of the knell announcing that you have been driven
   from the Presence of the King to that dread prison where the voice of
   love and mercy shall never be heard! Thus I bid you rejoice in your
   present privileges, but also tremble, lest if you do not prize them and
   use them aright, they may rise up in judgment to condemn you!

   There are many in this place who may well thank the King for His
   Sovereign Mercy to them for they are the subjects of the strivings of
   His Holy Spirit There are many here who cannot listen to the Gospel
   without being, to some extent,

   impressed by it. They have been seen to shed tears because of their
   consciousness of sin-- and there have been times when it has been
   exceedingly difficult for them to continue in the service of Satan.
   Some of you cannot sin with impunity as others can, and it has
   sometimes been a question with you whether you dare occupy these seats
   unless you resolve to give up your darling sins! Well, if the Holy
   Spirit has thus strived with you, thank God, for this is another
   instance of His Sovereignty! Yet remember how early in the history of
   mankind God had to say, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man."
   In a moment the Sovereignty of God may take away all those melting and
   gracious influences! And do you know what would happen to you then?
   Your conscience would be seared as with a hot iron and your natural
   hardness of heart would be followed by a judicial hardness which would
   be still more terrible! You might then continue to hear the Gospel, but
   it would be as though it were being preached to the dead--you would sit
   in your pews and experience no more feeling than a row of statues
   could--and you would live only to walk away and forget that you had
   been listening to the Truth of God. I tremble as I look around upon
   some of you! I cannot help fearing that you have already reached this
   dreadful state and that God has said concerning you, "They are joined
   to their idols, let them alone." I see some here who once made a
   profession of religion and who would even speak in God's name, but they
   turned aside! Then they professed to repent, but afterwards turned
   aside again. And now no message ever seems to startle them. They have
   listened to the Gospel until they have become Gospel-hardened--that
   which should have been the means of their salvation has become the
   means of their damnation! That same Gospel which has been a savor of
   life unto life to many others, has become a savor of death unto death
   to them! Take heed, Sinner, for He who melts can harden--and if you
   have long resisted the strivings of the Spirit, it may be that the Lord
   will allow you to go on sinning unrebuked--until you have filled up the
   measure of your iniquity and received the due reward of your evil
   deeds!

   Let me also remind those of you who are unconverted that you have a
   further proof of Divine Sovereignty in the fact that God has promised
   to hear prayer There are many promises like these, "Ask, and it shall
   be given you; seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened
   unto you: for everyone that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds,
   and to him that knocks, it shall be opened." God in mercy invites you
   to come to Him--and this is a subject for heartfelt rejoic-ing--but it
   is also a cause of trembling, for the door of His mercy will not always
   remain open and, "when once the Master of the house is risen up and has
   shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door,
   saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us! He shall answer and say unto you, I
   know not who you are." TonightJesus is lifted up in the preaching of
   the Gospel as once He was lifted up upon the Cross, and He bids us cry
   to you, "Look and live! Look and live," for it is still true that--

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

   But if you refuse to obey the Gospel invitation, what must become of
   you? Surely Captain Execution, with the sharp axe in his hand, will
   come forth and take you to your well-deserved doom! If God were to deal
   with you according to your deserts, what hope would there be for you?
   Yet He bids you repent and He speaks to us as He said to Ezekiel, "Say
   unto them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the
   death of the wicked: but that the wicked turn from his way and live:
   turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house
   of Israel?" Isaiah's message is still true-- "Seek you the Lord while
   He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near: 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." Sinner, I am happy in standing here as the
   ambassador of my King--and yet while I rejoice, I tremble lest you
   should reject the message that He has sent to you in the greatness of
   His Grace, for my King is not to be trifled with--He deals severely
   with those who spurn His mercy! Nothing provokes Him more than slights
   cast upon His dear Son! To turn away from the blood of His atoning
   Sacrifice will bring down upon you the indignation of the Most High!
   Oh, venture not upon such a perilous course, but with those trembling
   lips of yours kiss the Son, trust in Him, depend upon Him and you shall
   find salvation now to the praise and Glory of God's good Grace!--

   "Long the Gospel you have spurned,

   Long delayed to love your God,

   Stifled conscience, nor have turned

   Wooed though by a Savior's blood!

   Wretched, ruined, helpless soul,

   To a Savior's blood apply-- He alone can make you whole, Fly to Jesus,
   Sinner, fy"

   II. Thus have I spoken to sinners. Now I am briefly TO SPEAK TO THE
   PEOPLE OF GOD.

   You "precious sons on Zion, comparable to fine gold," look by faith to
   your King as He sits upon the Throne! And first, rejoice that you are
   His. It is the King who has saved you! Your pardon is signed by the
   royal hand--it would be worthless to you if it were not so signed! It
   is Sovereignty that puts the crown upon every other attribute of God!
   It is the King who has chosen you, the King who has saved you!

   Yet, Beloved, while I bid you rejoice, I would have you rejoice with
   trembling while I suggest to you the question-- are you sure that the
   Lord has saved you? I put the question to myself--My Soul, are you sure
   that the Lord has saved you? Have you made your own calling and
   election sure before exhorting others to seek the Lord? It is well for
   all of us to examine themselves and see whether we are in the faith or
   not. My Brothers on the platform, you who are officers in the Church, I
   evoke you to make sure work for eternity! You fathers in Israel,
   presume not upon your gray hairs, but search yourselves, or, better
   still, let each of us pray David's prayer, "Search me, O God, and know
   my heart; try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there is any wicked
   way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." You parents who have
   been for years members of the Church--and you young men and maidens who
   have not long joined our ranks--rejoice with trembling and each one of
   you pray, "O Lord, by Your Holy Spirit witnessing with my spirit,
   assure me that I am born

   to God!"

   I have been thinking of these two texts in connection with ourselves
   who are members of this Church. What a notable instance of Sovereignty
   is exhibited in the usefulness of the members of this Church! Some of
   us have, in a very distinguished manner, been made the parents of
   spiritual children and our seed has become very numerous. Here is
   Sovereignty in which I, for one, do exceedingly rejoice! And there are
   Brothers and Sisters here who also rejoice in it. But I, for one, must
   tremble as well as rejoice. What if the Master should take back the
   power which He has up to now lent us? What if our preaching should
   become sapless and savorless to God's people and lifeless and powerless
   to sinners? O my God, let me die before that should become my unhappy
   lot! I could never endure to live as some ministers seem content to do.
   To be a cumberer of the ground, to see no sign of God's hand being made
   bare--oh, this would indeed be misery! May the Lord preserve us from
   ever having that sad experience! I trust, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   that you all feel that it would be far better for you to die as far as
   your bodies are concerned than to die in the sense of being no longer
   spiritually fruitful. Therefore, while we rejoice over the great
   blessing with which the Lord has so long enriched us, let us tremble
   lest we give Him cause to withhold it for the future! Unless we put
   every wreath of laurel upon the King's own head, He will speedily
   withdraw any power with which He entrusted us--and we shall be as weak
   as Samson was when the Spirit of God had departed from him.

   What a remarkable instance of Divine Sovereignty we have in this
   Church, itself, as well as in individual members of it! We were among
   the least in Zion, but the Lord has multiplied us greatly. Why is this?
   Why has He blessed us so won-drously and passed by others who scarcely
   ever hear the cry of a newborn convert? What other reason can we give
   than this--because it seemed good in His sight? Therefore let us
   rejoice, but let us also rejoice with trembling lest the Lord should
   take away from us such blessed experiences! Well do I recollect the
   words of that man of God who is now in Heaven--dear Mr. Jonathan
   George--at the opening of this building. Quoting Jeremiah 33:9, "They
   shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity
   that I procure unto it." He said that the more blessing and prosperity
   the Lord gave us, the more humble must we be--and the more anxious not
   to provoke Him to jealousy--or else He would take away His Presence
   from us. I trust that many of you, Beloved, cherish this holy anxiety
   lest we should grieve the Spirit and drive Him away from us. At all
   events, I know one who, without being unbelieving, is always very
   anxious that "Ichabod" ("the Glory is departed") should never be
   written on these walls. What if the Lord should allow your zeal to grow
   cold, your doctrines to become unsound and your lives unholy? What if,
   instead of ardor there should be lethargy? Instead of love there should
   be bickering? Instead of harmony there should be division and instead
   of mighty wrestling with the Most High there should be sad contentions
   with one another? May these eyes be sealed in death before such a
   wretched state of things as that should come! And I know that many of
   you are saying, "Amen," as far as you, also, are concerned! Yet all
   this is possible, for the King who gives can take away, and He who now
   blesses can withhold the blessing! And He will do it unless as a
   Church, we are faithful and true to Him. Go you now to the cities of
   Asia Minor where

   once the seven golden candlesticks brought such Glory to God, and how
   much light will you find there? Where is Perga-mos? Where is Laodicea?
   Where are the Churches of Philadelphia and the rest? Have not the most
   of them ceased to be because they left their first love and turned back
   unto the world? If we have any Achans in the camp, we would not stone
   them, but we would pray for them--and we would plead with them to
   repent and turn again unto the Lord--lest the whole Church should
   suffer through them as Israel did through the sin of Achan.

   This solemn Truth of the Sovereignty of God rests very heavily on my
   heart. Let it rest very heavily on yours, also, so that together we may
   rejoice because of all the goodness that the Lord has bestowed upon us
   and, at the same time, let us tremble lest we should in any way provoke
   Him to anger and cause Him to withdraw His Presence from us, and say to
   us, "I will work no more through you, but I will leave you to your own
   devices that you may find out what you can do when I have gone away
   from you." God forbid that this should ever happen to us!

   Now as we come to the Table of our Lord, let us come with deep
   solemnity remembering that there is Sovereignty here, also. The
   observance of this ordinance may be very dull and dreary to you--or God
   make it a time of most blessed fellowship with Him and with one
   another. The means of Grace are not always equally profitable to us.
   The pipes are always golden, but the holy oil does not always flow in
   our direction. There is blessing to be had at all times, but you cannot
   always get it. Ask the King to give you Divine Grace to recognize His
   right to give or to withhold the blessing-- and then plead with Him,
   for Jesus' sake, to remember you for good! God grant that it may be so,
   for His dear name's sake! Amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 72

   A Psalm for Solomon.

   This was David' s dying bequest to his son, Solomon--but a greater than
   Solomon is here, for this Psalm concerns the reign, triumph and
   everlasting dominion of our Lord Jesus Christ!

   Verses 1, 2 Give the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness
   unto the king's son. He shall judge Your people with righteousness, and
   Your poor with judgment It is the distinguishing mark of Christ's
   Kingdom that He cares so much for the poor--whereas in other kingdoms
   they are generally pushed to the wall--and men of great estate and
   consequence get all the good positions. In Christ's Kingdom the poor
   are exalted!

   3. The mountains shall bring peace to Your people and the little hills,
   by righteousness. Those mountains, in whose caves robbers lurked, and
   from whose heights enemies often came down and swept away the little
   estates of the lowlan-ders--even these shall bring peace and comfort--

   "No strife shall vex Messiah's reign." When Jesus Christ comes a second
   time to this earth, we shall see these prophecies literally
   fulfilled--but until then we delight to know that the reign of Christ
   is a reign of peace!

   4-6. He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children
   of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor They shall fear
   You as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. He
   shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water
   the earth. After being mown, the grass is tender--should there be a
   long period of burning sunshine--the roots left exposed might soon be
   dried up and the lower portion of the stem, bereft of moisture, might
   become hard. Never does rain seem so refreshing to the grass as just
   after the mowing! So is it in Christ' s Kingdom. Upon you whose broken
   hearts are like mown grass. Upon you who have been cut down by the
   sharp scythe of affliction and who have seen your hopes withered before
   your eyes--Jesus shall come on gently like rain upon the mown grass.
   And as the showers fertilize the barren earth, so shall the Presence of
   Christ make your hearts to be fertile and fruitful. If any of us are
   like the parched earth or the mown grass, may we have this gracious
   promise fulfilled to us!

   7. In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so
   long as the moon endures. Under other kings sinners have flourished and
   great oppressors have walked in public. But in Christ' s days, the
   righteous shall flourish, "and abundance of peace so long as the moon
   endures." There have been some times of truce. There have been some
   periods when the temple of Janus has been shut. But when Christ comes,
   the Lord shall break the bow and cut the spear in

   sunder--not lay them by in store for days of warfare in the future--but
   break them up as there will be no further use for them!

   8, 9. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river
   unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow
   before Him and His enemies shall lick the dust. The Arabs, the
   wandering Bedouin tribes, un-conquered and untamable, "shall bow before
   Him." And His enemies shall not merely be beaten once or twice, but
   they "shall lick the dust"--they shall be so entirely broken that there
   shall be no fear of their rebelling in the future!

   10. The Kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents.
   Britain and some of her sister islands shall do homage to this great
   Solomon.

   10. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Ethiopia shall
   stretch out her hands unto God. And men of swarthy skin shall
   acknowledge the King of the Jews as Lord over all!

   11. Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve
   Him. There is a great future for you, Christians, a glorious future for
   our holy religion! The handful by the side of the lake shall yet become
   an all-conquering host! As it was when that cake of barley bread fell
   into the midst of the camp of Midian and overthrew the tent, so that it
   lay along, and as it was when the shout was heard, "The sword of the
   Lord, and of Gideon," so shall it be with us before long. God's people
   having no strength of their own shall, nevertheless, break the power of
   their enemy when the war-cry shall be heard, "The sword of Christ and
   of the Lord of Hosts!"

   12. 13. For He shall deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also,
   and him that has no helper He shall spare the

   poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. [See Sermon
   #1037, Volume 18--THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND.] Now, needy one, here is a
   promise for you! Is there one here that has no helper? Then let that
   one know that Christ is the Friend of the friendless and the Helper of
   the helpless!

   14-16. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and
   precious shall their blood be in His sight. And He shall live, and to
   Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for
   Him continually; and daily shall

   He be praised. There shall be an handful of corn on the earth--[See
   Sermon #717, Volume 12--PRAY FOR JESUS.] Only a handful? O you birds of
   the air, how you long to eat it all up! O you thorns, how soon would
   you choke it to death! It is only a handful of corn--

   16. Upon the top of the mountains.That is a bad place for corn--surely
   it will die there--the winter snows will chill it and, exposed to every
   stormy blast it will never fill the arms of the reaper. But is it so?
   Listen--

   16. The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. Just as there are
   peculiar noises heard in a great forest when the wind sweeps through
   it--there is an allusion to this in the Hebrew--there should be such an
   abundance of fruit from this handful of corn that as when the forest
   bows its head before the whirlwind, so shall there be heard a sound as
   of God rushing among the multitude of His saints!

   16. And they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. They
   shall be so many that one might as well attempt to count the blades of
   grass as to reckon the number of God's saints!

   17-20. His name shall endure forever: His name shall be continued as
   long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall
   call Him blessed. Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only
   does wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name forever: and let
   the whole earth be filled with His Glory. Amen, and Amen. The prayers
   of David, the son of Jesse are ended [See Sermons #27, Volume 1--THE
   ETERNAL NAME; #2187, Volume 37--JESUS--"ALL BLESSING AND ALL BLESSED";
   #2451, Volume 42--"BLESSED IN HIM" and #129, Volume 3--DAVID'S DYING
   PRAYER.] He had nothing more to pray for! He had his heart's highest
   and best wish and, therefore, he closes his prayer where God had given
   him all that he could ask.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cheer From Christ's Victory Over the World

   (No. 3285)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "These things Ihave spoken unto you, that in Me you night have peace.
   In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have
   overcome the world." John 16:33

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text are #1327, Volume
   22--CHRIST THE OVERCOMER OF THE WORLD and #1994, Volume 33-- SWEET
   PEACE FOR TRIED BELIEVERS.]

   The Believer is in two places, and he lives two lives. In the text
   there are two places spoken of--"in Me" and, "in the world."

   The saint's noblest life is "hid with Christ in God." This is his new
   life, his spiritual life, his incorruptible life, his everlasting life.
   Rejoice, Beloved, if you are in Christ, and enjoy the privilege which
   belongs to that condition--"that in Me you might have peace." Do not be
   satisfied without it! It is your right through your relationship to the
   Prince of Peace. Because you are in Christ, your life of lives is
   always safe and should be always restful. Your greatest interests are
   all secure, for they are guaranteed by the Covenant of which Jesus is
   the Surety. Your treasure, your eternal portion, is laid up with Him in
   Heaven where neither rust nor robber can enter. Therefore, be of good
   cheer! Be restful and happy, for you are in Christ and He has said,
   "These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace."

   You are sorrowfully conscience that you also live another life, for you
   dwell in the midst of evil men, or, as the text puts it, you are "in
   the world." I need not enlarge upon that fact, for probably, dear
   Friend, every time you go out to business or to daily labor, you find
   by the ungodly speeches of graceless men, that you are in the world
   which lies in the Wicked One. Even while you dwell in the sweet
   seclusion of domestic life, though your family has been graciously
   visited, and your dear ones are all Believers, yet even there matters
   occur which make you feel that you are "in the world--a world of sin
   and sorrow. You are not yet in Heaven--do not dream that you are. It
   would be a pity for a sailor to expect the sea to be as stable as the
   land, for the sea will be the sea to the end and the world will be the
   world to you as long you are in it.

   The Savior warns His people, "In the world you shall have tribulation."
   That is to say, your condition will at times be as unpleasant as that
   of wheat under the flail, for the Latin word, "tribulation," signifies
   threshing. Many blows of the flail are needed to separate your chaff
   from your wheat and, therefore, while you are in this world, you are on
   the threshing-floor. The Greek word which Jesus used is not quite of
   the same import as our English-Latin word, but it means pressing grief
   and searching trial. You must at times experience trial while you are
   in the world, though not always to the same degree, for God gives some
   of His people much rest even while here below--but this does not arise
   out of the world--it is His own special gift. "In the world you shall
   have tribulation" is as sure a fact as that in Christ you shall have
   peace!

   Now, because of this tribulation and the sorrow which is likely to come
   of it, our Savior gives us the words of good cheer to which our
   attention is directed in the text. We have first to show what sorrow
   the comfort is aimed at and, secondly, what is the actual comfort here
   bestowed.

   I. WHAT IS THIS TRIBULATION IN THE WORLD AT WHICH THE SAVIOR'S WORDS OF
   COMFORT ARE AIMED?

   It includes the afflictions which come upon us because we are men
   living among men and not yet at Home among angels and glorified saints.
   We dwell among beings who are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
   Between other men and us there are many points of difference, but we
   share with them in the common infirmities, labors, sicknesses,
   bereavements and necessities of our fallen race. We are outside of
   Eden's gate with the rest of Adam's family. We may be

   greatly beloved of God and yet be poor. God's love to Lazarus did not
   prevent his lying at the rich man's gate, nor hinder the dogs from
   licking his sores. Saints may be sick as well as other men--Job and
   David and Hezekiah felt sore diseases. Saints go into the hospital as
   well as sinners, for their bodies are liable to the same accidents and
   ailments. Such diseases as men bring upon themselves by vice, the godly
   escape and, therefore, as a rule, God's people have a great advantage
   over the reckless and reprobate in point of health. But, still, in this
   respect the best of men are only men and it will often be said, "Lord,
   he whom You love is sick." Upon the bodies of the godly the elements
   have the same power as upon others--upon them the hot desert wind
   blows, or through their garments the cold penetrates--the sun scorches
   them in the fierceness of its summer heat, or chilling dampness
   threaten the flame of life. In this respect, one event happens unto
   all, though not without mysterious and blessed differences. No screen
   is set around the godly to protect them from physical suffering--they
   are not living in the land of Goshen so that light cheers their
   dwelling while the dense fog hangs over the rest of the land! Scant is
   the need to dwell up this theme, for it is well known that "many are
   the afflictions of the righteous," because they are in a world which,
   for a while, is made subject to vanity.

   Nor may we forget that we endure a second set of tribulation because we
   are Christians. Ishmael was not mocked, but Isaac was, for he was born
   after the promise. Esau's posterity never suffered bondage in Egypt,
   but Israel must be trained by hard service. Persecution is for the
   righteous, wicked men are in honor among their ungodly associates.
   Slander shoots her poisoned arrows, not at the vicious, but at the
   virtuous. Birds do not peck at sour fruit, but they wage war upon the
   sweet and ripe. Holy men must expect to be misrepresented,
   misinterpreted and often willfully maligned--while hypocrites have
   their reward in undeserved homage. Carry what load you choose upon your
   shoulders and no one will notice it unless, indeed, they obey the good
   old rule and "respect the burden." But if you take up Christ's Cross
   and bravely bear it, few will respect the burden, or praise the bearer!
   Graceless men will add weight to your load, for the offense of the
   Cross has not ceased. The seed of the serpent still has enmity against
   the Seed of the woman, and one and another will commence biting at the
   heel which treads the sacred way of Christ. It is the nature of the
   wicked to hate the righteous, even as the wolf rages against the sheep.
   This world cannot be the friend of the friend of God unless, indeed,
   Belial can have concord with Christ--and this we know is impossible! In
   one form or another, the Egyptian will oppress the Israelite till the
   day of the bringing out with a high hand and an outstretched arm. If
   today the enmity is restrained in its manifestation, it is because the
   law of the land, by the good Providence of God, does not now allow the
   rack, the stake, or the dungeon. Our Lord said to His first disciples,
   "In the world you shall have tribulation," and He explained it to mean
   that men would put them out of the synagogues. Yes, that the time would
   come when those that killed them would think that they did God service!
   Tribulation of that sort remains up to the measure in which it is not
   hindered by Divine Power. The spirit out of which it sprang cannot die
   till men are renewed. A man's foes are still they of his own household.
   "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."

   Nor is the opposition of the world confined to persecution. It
   sometimes takes the far more dangerous form of flattery--pleasing baits
   are held out and allurements are used to decoy the Believer from his
   Lord. Many have been grievously wounded by the world when it has met
   them with the kiss of Judas on its lips and a dagger in its right hand
   wherewith to slay the soul! Woe unto those who are ignorant of its
   devices! This is a sore trouble under the sun, that men are
   false--their words are softer than butter, but inwardly they are drawn
   swords! This has often surprised young Christians. They imagined that
   since the godly were charmed at the sight of their early graces, all
   others would be equally pleased. They are dumbfounded when they find
   that their good is evilly spoken of. Is any hearer of mine one of these
   raw recruits? Let him learn that to be a soldier of the Cross means
   real war--not a sham fight! He is in an enemy's country and the time
   will yet come when, as a veteran warrior, he will be surprised if he
   lives a day without a conflict, or is able for an hour to sheathe his
   sword--

   "Must I be carried to the skies,

   On flowery beds of ease,

   While others fought to win the prize

   And sailed through bloody seas?

   Are there no foes for me to face?

   Must I not stem the flood

   To help me on to God?

   Surely I must fight if I would reign--

   Increase my courage, Lord!

   I'll bear the toil, endure the pains, Supported by Your Word'

   Certain tender hearts are not only surprised, but they are daunted and
   grieved by the world's opposition. Gentle, loving spirits who would not
   oppose anybody if they could help it, keenly feel the wanton assaults
   of those whom they would rather please than provoke. The sensitiveness
   of love renders the choicest characters the most susceptible of pain
   under cruel opposition--especially when it comes from beloved kinsfolk.
   To those who love God and man, it is at times an agony to be compelled
   to appear as the cause of strife, even for Christ's sake. We would
   gladly follow peace with all men, yet are we often forced to cry--

   "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 soul distracted mourns and pines

   To reach that peaceful shore

   Where all the weary are at rest,

   And troubles vex no more."

   We are sent forth as sheep among wolves--and this jars upon our
   gentleness which loves far better to lie down in the green pastures
   near the Shepherd and in the midst of flock.

   We are most of all grieved to think that men should not love Christ. It
   makes us deeply sorrowful that they should not see the beauties of the
   Man of Sorrows. In our inmost hearts we are wounded when they wound our
   Well-Beloved. That they oppose us is little--but that they stumble at
   the great Foundation Stone upon which they will surely be broken, is
   terrible to perceive! They sin against light and love. They sin against
   their own souls--and this is a tribulation which bruises every holy
   heart and causes every loving spirit to bleed.

   This calls for constant watchfulness, since our very love to men might
   become, unless salted by the Grace of God, a cause of decay to our
   purity. Some spirits love fighting and are never more happy than when
   they can denounce, resist, secede and contend. These are members of the
   Church Militant in another than the best sense. When the Grace of God
   enters their hearts and consecrates their obstinacy into firmness, they
   make fine men in a way, but if we measure them by the scale of love,
   and that, I take it, is the standard of the sanctuary--for he is most
   like God who loves most and he has come nearest to the image of Christ
   whose heart is fullest of tenderness--these rougher spirits turn out to
   be rather dwarfs than giants in the Kingdom of God. We must have
   backbone and must be prepared to contend earnestly for the faith, but
   yet the more love we exhibit, the better! And, therefore, the more pain
   it will cost us to be continually at war with unloving spirits. This is
   a part of the tribulation which we must endure--and the more bravely we
   face it, the more thoroughly shall we win the battles of peace and
   purity!

   Is not this enough upon the darker side of the picture?

   II. Let us now consider WHAT THE COMFORT IS WHICH JESUS GRACIOUSLY
   OFFERS US. "Be of good

   cheer," He says, "I have overcome the world." This is a glorious
   sentence spoken by the greatest Conqueror that ever lived--in whom all
   His people shall yet be "more than conquerors."

   Here let us view our Lord in His blessed Person, for there is much of
   good cheer in the contemplation. Remember, first, that our blessed Lord
   was a Man. Believe all that this means, for many are apt to think that
   because He was God as well as Man, therefore He was not so fully a Man.
   The tendency is to separate Him from the race and so from ourselves,
   but I pray you, Friend, to respect that Jesus was in some respects more
   a Man than any of us!

   There are some points in which no one man is all that manhood is--but
   Jesus was the summary of all manhood. I might almost venture to say
   that He had about Him the whole Nature of mankind as it respects to the
   mental conformation of both man and woman, for He was as tender as
   woman though as strong as man. Holy women, as much as godly men, find
   in Jesus all that is in their own souls. There is nothing effeminate in
   Him and yet all the loveliness which is feminine--read His life story
   and see. He was Man in the broadest sense of the term, taking up in one
   the whole genus. Men are of certain ranks and grades, but Christ is
   without limit, save only that in Him was no sin. Though a Jew, He bore
   no special national peculiarity, for Gentiles find in Him their next of
   kin. You apply no descriptive word to the Son of Man, except that you
   call Him "the Man of Sorrows." He was a Man who greatly suffered in
   body and in mind, and

   displayed His Manhood by the bravery of His endurance--a Man rejoicing
   in man's joy, depressed in man's grief--a Man who ran up the entire
   scale of humanity, from its deepest to its highest tone. Now, if a
   typical man has overcome the world, then man has done it and man can be
   enabled to do it again! This inspires courage and vanishes despair. It
   was the mighty power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him by which Jesus
   overcame the world--and that same quiet power, if it dwells in us, will
   make us win the same victory by faith. The arch enemy has been
   conquered by Man and our hearts may be comforted by the conviction that
   by God working in us, we, too, shall bruise Satan under our feet
   shortly!

   It is cheering to remember that wherein our Lord's was a special case,
   it is to our comfort, for He, as Man, entered into the conflict under
   serious disadvantages which we cannot labor under. He was weighted with
   a care unique and unexampled. Be our charge what it may, it cannot be
   comparable to His heavy burden as the Shepherd of Souls. We think
   ourselves overburdened and speak of life as though it were rendered too
   stern a conflict by the load of our cares and responsibilities. But
   what comparison is there between our load and that of Jesus? A pastor
   with a great flock is not without his hourly anxieties, but what are
   those to the cares of the Chief Shepherd? He watched over the great
   multitude which no man can number--who were committed to Him by the
   Father--and for these He carried all their grief! Here was a burden
   such as you and I, dear Friend, cannot even imagine! And yet, without
   laying aside the weight, He fought the world and overcame it! Let His
   name be praised and let His victory be the comfort of all that labor
   and are heavy la-dened--

   "His is the victor's name, Who fought our fight alone! Triumphant
   saints no honor claim-- His conquest was His own."

   Remember, next, that He was loaded with substitutionary sorrows which
   He bore for us. These are not ours. He came into the world to suffer
   griefs that were not His own. He had human guilt laid upon Him to bear
   and, because of that, He was bowed down till He was exceedingly
   sorrowful even unto death. Some seem to think we are to imitate Christ
   in being men of sorrows as He was. No, no! The argument is the other
   way! Because Jesus took our sorrows, we may leave them all with Him,
   rolling our burden upon the Lord. Because He was grieved for me and in
   my place, it is my privilege to rejoice with unspeakable joy in full
   redemption! No weight of sin remains to press us to the dust! Christ
   has carried it all away--and in His sepulcher He has buried it forever!
   Yet never let us forget what an inconceivable pressure our sin put upon
   Him, for remembering this, it becomes the more a comfort to us that,
   notwithstanding all, He could say, "I have overcome the world."

   Remember, again, that our Lord in the battle with the world, was the
   center of the attack. When the whole host marches to the fight, we,
   each one, take our place in the ranks and the war goes on against us
   all. But where, do you think, the arrows fly most thickly? Where were
   the javelins hurled one after the other, thick as hail? "The
   Standard-Bearer among ten thousand" was the chief target! It seems to
   me as if the Prince of Darkness had said to his armies, "Fight neither
   with small nor great, save only with the King of Israel," for He was
   tempted in all points like as we are. You and I encounter some
   temptations, but He endured them all! I have mine and you have yours,
   but He had mine and yours, and such as are common to all His
   saints--and yet, standing in the thick of the fray, He remained
   unwounded and cried aloud--"I have overcome the world." Divine Grace,
   then, can also clothe us with triumph, for against us no such supreme
   charges of hosts upon hosts will ever be led. The whole band has
   gathered together against Him--but never against any one of His feeble
   followers!

   Remember, also, that the Redeemer was, in many respects, a lonely Man.
   If we need spiritual succor, we know someone to whom we can go. If we
   need converse with a superior mind, we can find such an one among our
   Brothers and Sisters. But our blessed Master could scarcely find a
   kindred spirit, and never an adviser. Like some lone mountaintop which
   towers above all surrounding heights, He stood alone where winter's
   snowstorms beat full upon Him, spending all their fury on His
   unshielded height! We are but valley dwellers and rise not to His
   loftiness. To whom could He tell His secret grief? To Peter, James or
   John? As well might a mother whisper to her babe the throes that rend
   her heart! He did once, in deep distress, resort to the three noblest
   spirits among the 12 Apostles, but they slept for sorrow and could not
   watch with Him one hour! O lonely Christ, if You did overcome this
   world alone, how surely shall Your warrior Brothers and Sisters
   overcome it when they stand shoulder to shoulder, cheering each man his
   fellow and, above all, when You are in the field communicating Your
   victorious valor to the whole host!

   I have not finished this setting forth of the disadvantage under which
   the Savior lay, for I beg you to notice that there were possibilities
   about our Lord that were never ours. A man who does not know his
   letters is little tempted to be proud of his learning. And the man who
   lives from hand to mouth and never has a penny to lay by can hardly be
   tempted to be purse proud! We poor creatures could not be tempted to
   the same degree as our great Lord. The multitude would have taken Him
   by force and made Him a king--no, more--all the kingdoms of the earth
   were proffered Him and instead of suffering poverty and yielding
   Himself up to death, He might have pushed Caesar from his throne! The
   world with all its honors, the cattle on a thousand hills and secret
   mines, and rocks of gold and silver were all His--and He might have
   left His life-work to be the greatest, richest, mightiest monarch that
   ever reigned--had He not been Jesus, to whom such things are the dirt
   beneath His feet! But none of us have such great offers and brilliant
   opportunities and, therefore, we have not such a battle to fight as He
   had. Shall we not, by His help, overcome the lesser temptations, since
   He went on to victory over the greatest that can be imagined?

   Remember, too, that the intense zeal that burned in His spirit, had He
   been capable of ever yielding to a temptation, might have suggested to
   Him in a hundred ways, a turning aside from His own line of action by
   which He had resolved to conquer the world. He came to vanquish evil by
   the force of love and truth through His Spirit. If some of His
   followers had been girt with His power, they would not have kept to His
   order of battle! I stood in Rome, one day, at the bottom of the Santa
   Scala, and watched the poor votaries of superstition creeping up those
   so-called sacred steps upon their knees, imagining them to be the very
   stairs which our Lord descended when Pilate said, "Behold the Man." As
   I saw certain priests watching their dupes, I longed for a thunder bolt
   or two with which to make a clearance of Pope, cardinals, and priests!
   But the spirit our Lord Jesus was not so hot--for when James and John
   asked, "Lord, will You that we command fire to come down from Heaven
   and consume them?" their Lord replied, "You know not what manner of
   spirit you are of." We may never have been tempted to ask fire from
   Heaven because we knew that we could not get it--but our Lord had only
   to ask His Father and He would presently have sent Him legions of
   angels! See with grief what a part of the Church has done--certain
   professors easily fell into the snare which their Lord avoided!

   Suppose the Lord Jesus had been made a king and had marshaled an army?
   He might have set up an established Church and have maintained it by
   the power and wealth of the State. A temple might have been built in
   every parish in the Roman empire and the heathen might have been
   compelled to pay tithes for the support of the ministry and
   Apostle-ship. By the help of imperial prestige and patronage, nominal
   professors of the faith would have been multiplied by millions and,
   outwardly, religion would have prevailed! Would it not have been as
   great a blessing as our Established Church is to us? But the Lord Jesus
   Christ did not choose this method, for His Kingdom is not to be set up
   by any force than by that of truth and love! It was His purpose to die
   for men, but not to lift the mailed hand of power, or even the jeweled
   finger of rank to bring them into subjection. Jesus loves men to
   Himself--Love and Truth are His battle-ax and weapons of war. Thus He
   overcame the world which was in that most insidious form of
   worldliness--the suggestion to make alliance with it and set up a
   mongrel society, a kingdom at once earthly and heavenly, a State
   Church, a society loyal both to God and Mammon, fearing the Lord and
   serving the High Court of Parliament! It might have appeared to us to
   be the readiest means to bless the world--but it was not His Father's
   way, nor the way of holiness--and, therefore, He would not follow it,
   but overcame it! No force may be put on conscience. The altar of God
   must not be polluted by forced offerings. Caesar must not step beyond
   his province. However great the proffered benefit, the Lord never did
   evil that good might come!

   Let us now observe that the main point of the comfort lies in the fact
   that not only did our Lord overcome the world as an individual, but He
   vanquished it as the Representative Man. Clear a space! Clear a space!
   A deadly fight is to be fought! Here comes into the battle, stalking
   along, a monster man towering high above his fellows. He is for
   Philistia! Here comes the champion of Israel, a ruddy youth. These two
   are to decide the day. Anxious eyes are turned towards the field of
   duel. Philistia, look to your champion! Israel, watch your stripling
   with beating heart! O maids of Judah, lift up your prayers for the son
   of Jesse, that he may play the man this day! As we watch that fight and
   see the stone sink into the champion's brow, and behold the youth
   taking off the giant's head and bringing it to the camp, we are ready
   to join in the dances of the jubilant women, for David has won the
   victory! See the result of his deed--the victory of David is the
   triumph of every man in Israel's land! It was a representative
   conflict--Israel against Philistia--and when Philistia's hero fell,
   Israel was the conqueror. Up to the spoil, O sons of Jacob! The
   uncircumcised are utterly routed! They fly! Pursue them and scatter
   them as dust before the whirlwind! Even so, when Christ overcame the
   world, the victory was won on the behalf of all His people and today we
   face a vanquished foe. Up and spoil the enemy! Let your infirmities
   become the subject of your glorying! Let your tribulations become the
   themes of your thanksgivings! And if you are persecuted for
   righteousness' sake, do not whine and whimper as though some dread
   calamity had come upon you, but rejoice that you are made participators
   of the honors of Prophets and saints--and of your great Leader who won
   the battle as your Champion!

   In closing, let us remember that here we have not merely
   representation, but also union. "I have overcome the world," means more
   than, "I overcame in your name." All Believers have virtually overcome
   the world, for they are one with Christ! Did my hands win the victory?
   Then my feet triumph! Did my head achieve the conquest? Then my heart
   shares the honor! The soles of my feet are victorious when my head is
   crowned. When Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, was victorious over
   the foe, every member of His Mystical Body, even the most uncomely,
   was, virtually, a conqueror in the conquering Head! So let us shout the
   victory and wave the palm branch, for we are more than conquerors
   through Him that has loved us! Said He not well when He bade us be of
   good cheer, for He had overcome the world? Therefore, struggling
   Brothers and Sisters, obey His word, and--

   BE OF GOOD CHEER!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN12:20-50.

   Our Lord had gained a sudden popularity through raising Lazarus from
   the dead. And the people had attended Him with great enthusiasm as He
   rode through the streets of Jerusalem. For the time, things looked very
   bright with Him, but He knew that He was soon to suffer and to die. And
   the overshadowing of that great eclipse was already upon His heart.
   Note how He looked forward to it and how He spoke concerning it.

   Verses 20-22 And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to
   worship at the feast the same came therefore to Philip, which was of
   Bethsaida of Galilee, and entreated him, saying, Sir, we would see
   Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip told
   Jesus. Probably these persons were proselytes to the Jewish faith. They
   had renounced their idols and they had come to worship the only true
   God. And now they had a wish to see Jesus--not out of idle curiosity,
   but because they felt a certain degree of respect for Him. They wanted
   to know more of His teaching and to learn whether He was, indeed, the
   promised Messiah. The disciples encouraged these seekers--they would
   not have brought mere curiosity-mongers to their Master, but they saw
   that there was something better in these Greeks--so they consulted
   together and their opinion was that they must tell Jesus about them.

   23. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of
   Man should be glorified.He was about to die, yet He speaks of His death
   as being glorified. For the joy that was set before Him, He seems to
   overlook the intervening humiliation in the prospect of the Glory that
   would come of it through the salvation of multitudes of strangers from
   the very ends of the earth! He looks on these Greeks as the vanguard of
   a great army of Gentiles who would continue to come to Him and pay Him
   homage. Hear what He says next--

   24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat falls into
   the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies,

   it brings forth much fruit. [See Sermon #3024 Volume 53--CHRIST'S DEATH
   AND OURS.] He knew that He must die, for His living, preaching and
   miracle-working would never produce such results as His death would
   accomplish! He must go down into the ground, out of sight, and there
   must lie like a buried grain of wheat, that out of Him there might
   spring a great harvest to the Glory of God! And these Greeks were like
   a first handful, a wave-sheaf unto God, a promise of the great harvest
   that would be the result of His death--"If it dies, it brings forth
   much fruit."

   25. 26. He that loves his life shall lose it and he that hates his life
   in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serves Me,
   let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if
   any man serves Me, him will My Father honor [See Sermons #463, Volume
   8--CHRIST'S SERVANT--HIS DUTY AND REWARD; #2449, Volume 42--THE RULE
   AND REWARD OF SERVING CHRIST; #2651, Volume 45--THE CHRISTIAN'S SERVICE
   AND HONOR and #2874, Volume 50--PRECEPTS AND PROMISES.] It is an honor
   to be allowed to serve Christ, but God will bestow still further honor
   upon those who faithfully serve Him!

   27-29. Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me
   from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father,
   glorify Your name. Then came there a Voice from Heaven, saying, Ihave
   both glorified it and will

   glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by and heard it,
   said that it thundered: others said, An angel spoke to Him. How ready
   they were to find an explanation for that "Voice from Heaven" which
   they could not comprehend! Some "said that it thundered: others said,
   An angel spoke to Him." But here is Christ's own interpretation of the
   mystery--

   30, 31. Jesus answered and said, This Voice came not because ofMe, but
   for your sakes. Nowis thejudgment ofthis world: now shall the Prince
   ofthis world be cast out. Satan may have thought that he had triumphed
   when Christ was crucified, but that death upon the Cross was the
   deathblow to the devil's usurpation!

   32, 33. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
   Me. This He said, signifying what death He

   should die. [See Sermons #139, Volume 3--CHRIST LIFTED UP; #775, Volume
   13--THE GREAT ATTRACTION and #1717, Volume 29--THE MARVELOUS MAGNET.]
   There is no magnet like the death of Christ! He is still able

   to draw men unto Him because of the attractive force of His atoning
   Sacrifice.

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

   Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that
   walks in darkness knows not where he goes.

   While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be the
   children of light. These things spoke Jesus, and departed, and did hide
   Himself from them. At first sight, this may not seem to have been an
   answer to their question, "Who is this Son of Man?" Yet it was a very
   direct answer, for He was "the Light of the world" and, as the Light
   was soon to be withdrawn from them, there was all the greater need of
   Christ's injunctions, "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness
   come upon you. While you have light, believe in the light, that you may
   be the children of light."

   37-41. But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they
   believed not on Him: that the sayings of Isaiah the Prophet might be
   fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report? And to
   whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not
   believe, because that Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes, and
   hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor
   understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
   These things said Isaiah, when He saw His Glory, and spoke of Him. [See
   Sermon #1844, Volume 31--israel and

   BRITAIN--A NOTE OF WARNING.] Isaiah was sent upon a painful errand to
   tell the people that they would hear, but they would not
   understand--that they would see, but they would not perceive. And so it
   happened to Israel as a nation, and to this day Israel rejects the true
   Messiah. Oh, that none of us may imitate their evil example by
   negligence and contempt of the Revelation of God, lest after playing
   with Scripture and trifling with the Christ of God, the Lord should at
   last in anger declare that we should see, but should not perceive, that
   we should hear, but should not understand!

   42, 43. Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him;
   but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should
   be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than
   the praise of God. Are there any here who believe in Christ, but who
   have never confessed Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue
   and lose the praise of men? Are you afraid of your family, your father,
   or your husband? Or is there some friend who would be angry with you if
   you confessed Christ? If so, be no longer such a coward, I pray you,
   but come out boldly and confess Him who will not be ashamed to confess
   you before His Father and the holy angels!

   44-50. Jesus cried and said, He that believes on Me, believes not on
   Me, but on Him that sent Me. And he that sees Me sees Him that sent Me.
   Iam come as a light into the world, that whoever believes on Me
   shouldnot abide in darkness. And if any man hears My word and believes
   not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save
   the world. He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that
   judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in
   the last day. For Ihave not spoken of Myself but the Father which sent
   Me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should
   speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatever I
   speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Fear of Death

   (No. 3286)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1912,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
   25, 1866.

   "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He
   Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might
   destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver
   those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
   bondage." Hebrews 2:14,15.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon verse 14, is No. 166, Volume 4,
   in The New Park Street Pulpit, "The Destroyer Destroyed:"]

   BEFORE speaking upon the main subject of the text, I cannot help
   drawing your attention to those two words, "the children." Hear that
   sweet expression again, for it is one of the choicest descriptions of
   the saints, "the children." "You are all the children of God by faith
   in Christ Jesus." What a wonderful influence the children have in the
   house! How many of the arrangements are made especially with a view to
   them! How much of the wear and tear of life to their parents is for
   their sakes! And we may truly say, concerning our Father in Heaven,
   that His plans, His arrangements, His actions, His gifts are very
   emphatically for the children! He uses all things in this great house
   of His for the education of the children--and when their education
   shall be finished--He will clear all these things away just as the
   builder takes down the scaffolding around the house when it is
   complete.

   This name of "the children" is such a blessed one, it seems to indicate
   a simple, sweet and gracious character. "Be not children in
   understanding," but in all else be--

   "Humble, teachable and mild,

   Like unto a little child."

   I. But this is only by the by--the main theme on which I am going to
   speak is the fear of death And, first, I observe that THE FEAR OF DEATH
   IS NATURAL TO MAN AS A SINNER. So long as there was no sin in the
   world, there was no death and no fear of death, but as soon as sin
   entered, God said to Adam, "Dust you are and unto dust shall you
   return." The echo of these words still rings throughout the world and
   Adam's children, as sinners, fear death, but this is rather a blessing
   to them than otherwise. To most unconverted men, the fear of death has
   often been made to subserve the highest purpose of Divine Mercy. Many a
   man would, at least outwardly, have been more guilty than he is if the
   fear of death had not, to some extent, held him in check. The knell
   from the old church tower has often spoken to those who other preachers
   could not reach--and an open grave has had an eloquent voice which has
   been more alarming than the polished sentences of the golden-mouthed
   orator.

   It is well that there should be such a thing as the fear of death in
   the world! But for it, sinners would be more outrageously wicked than
   they already are. This earth would soon become like Sodom and Gomorrah
   if men were not restrained by the fear that they must soon depart this
   life. No doubt, too, the fear of death answers very wise and important
   purposes in the economy of humanity. If men were in peril, they would
   probably give themselves up without making any strenuous exertions for
   their preservation if there were not an indefinable dread of death
   which creeps over them and makes them put forth what strength they have
   in order, if possible, to prolong their lives. Being afraid to die,
   they tug, toil, labor and strive so as to put off the dreaded day as
   long as they can! Even Satan spoke the truth when he said, "All

   that a man has will he give for his life." Our streets might be crowded
   with idlers who would starve rather than work if the fear of death did
   not drive them unwillingly to their labors!

   Certainly the fear of death has often been the means of preventing the
   crime of suicide. You know how Shakespeare represents Hamlet as talking
   of a man making his quietus with a bare bodkin--

   "But that the dread of something after death,

   The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

   No traveler returns, puzzles the will,

   And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

   Than fly to others that we know not of" No doubt it has often been the
   case that this "dread of something after death" has prevented men from
   rushing into the presence of their Maker red-handed with their own
   blood! The fear of death, though itself part of the punishment of sin,
   is a wise and beneficent arrangement in the commonwealth of humanity.

   II. But, secondly, while the fear of death is natural to the sinner, IT
   IS NOT NECESSARY TO THE SAINT. For all the purposes of which I have
   spoken, the fear of death is not necessary to a Christian. He does not
   need it to restrain him from sin, for he hates sin with a perfect
   hatred. Other checks, of far greater importance here, in the hand of
   Infinite Love, restrain the Christian from going into sin. Nor does he
   need the fear or death to keep him from suicide--why should he have any
   desire to commit that terrible crime? Christians have, even here, joy
   and peace through believing and though their best portion is in the
   world to come, yet even now it may be said of them, "Happy are you, O
   Israel: who is like unto you, O people saved by the Lord?" The clanking
   fetters of the fear of death are not intended for God's freemen to
   wear! Let the slave of sin and Satan wear them if they will restrain
   them from suicide and other evils, but the true born child of God needs
   no such check as this. He lives the life of faith upon the Son of God
   and the love of Christ so graciously constrains him that it both holds
   him back from sin and urges him on to duty.

   But though the fear of death is not necessary to Christians and the
   Grace of God has been manifested in giving Christ to deliver them from
   it, yet it is true that some of them are still subject to bondage
   through this wholly unnecessary fear! They not only fear death, but
   they fear it to such an extent that it brings them into bondage. It is
   not merely a dark cloud that passes over them and is soon gone, but it
   abides with them--they are, "All their lifetime subject to bondage"
   through the fear of death! They shall not perish, neither shall any
   pluck them out of Christ's hands, but they have not that restful
   assurance of safety which Christ's sheep ought to enjoy. I am sorry to
   say that I know some who profess to have been Christians for years, but
   who still, at times at any rate, are in bondage through fear of death.
   I do not speak of this as a phenomenon, or an experience that is
   uncommon--I wish it were, but I am obliged to say that there are very
   many whom one must judge to be the children of God--who are frequently,
   if not always, in a state of despondency, doubt and dread through this
   fear of death which seems to rest upon them like a pall.

   Many of these persons have been so long in this sad state that they
   have almost come to believe that it is impossible for them to escape
   from it. There is such a thing as sitting so long on the cold stone of
   despair that you and the stone almost seem to be one. There is such a
   thing as wearing the yoke of despondency until that yoke and your
   shoulders become so closely united that you cannot take it off. Just as
   valor fights till its sword grows to its hand, so despair burdens you
   till it grows into your spirit. I would not roughly tear it out, but if
   I might kindly perform an act of spiritual surgery, I would be glad to
   be made the instrument through which the Master would perform His
   blessed work of delivering those who are in bondage through fear of
   death!

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there is no need that you
   should be afraid to die! It is even possible for you to look upon death
   as your best friend! You may yet come to be familiar with the shroud,
   the mattock, the grave--and find the cemetery to be no place of gloom
   and may even rejoice in the prospect of death and--

   "Long for evening to undress

   That you may rest with God." According to our text, it appears that in
   order to remove this fear of death from His people, our Lord Jesus
   Christ became Man-- "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of
   flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same." And as flesh
   and blood have about them the element of mortality, the flesh and blood
   of Christ partook of the same character. It is true that in Him was no
   sin, but in all other respects His flesh was like ours and, therefore,
   was liable

   to death even as ours is. Now, the very fact that Jesus Christ became
   Man should remove from us the fear of anything which is incidental to
   humanity because it was incidental to Christ as well as to ourselves--

   "He takes us through no darker rooms

   Than He went through before."

   "Fear not," said Caesar, to the trembling boatman, "you carry Caesar
   and all his fortunes." And, in like manner, standing in the vessel of
   our mortality, Christ says to us, "Fear not, you carry Christ and all
   His fortunes; you are partakers of flesh and blood and He Himself
   likewise shared in the same." If one had to be a soldier on the field
   of battle, it might be a very great assistance to one's courage to
   stand side by side with the hero of a thousand fights who had always
   been victorious! If tonight you had to journey along some dark and
   lonely road and an angel came from Heaven to walk beside you--and you
   were quite sure that it was an angel--I should think you would be
   altogether free from fear! With such a companion you might even wish
   that the way were still more dangerous so that you might have the
   delightful experience of passing through it unharmed under the care of
   such a glorious protector!

   But you have a better Protector than any angel could be, even the Lord
   of the angels, your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, so what cause have
   you for fear? He will be with you all through life. He will be with you
   when you are called to die and the pledge of that is that He is a
   partaker of that very flesh and blood which will bring you down to
   death. But we not only know that Jesus partook of flesh and blood--we
   have this further comfort--Jesus did actually die. The Cross of Calvary
   was a witness to no phantom grief, no sham expiring. The Roman soldier
   with his spear pierced Christ's side and so proved the fact of His
   death. He went through the valley; He ascended the mountain on the
   other side and He, in due time, went up into Heaven--and all this He
   did as the Representative of His people! Whatever Christ did, He did
   for His whole Church and for each one who, believing in Him, is a
   member of that Church! So, if you are a Believer, you died in Christ
   and you rise in Christ. Christ died, you, too, must die. As Christ
   rose, you, too, must rise. What Christ has done, He has done for you in
   such a way that you, also, do it--

   "As Christ the Savor rose, So shall His followers must."

   Their is further cause for comfort in the fact that, through death,
   Christ destroyed the devil The persons who always interpret the word,
   "destroy," as meaning, "annihilate," would do me a very great favor if
   they could really prove to me that Jesus Christ annihilated the devil!
   I have very mournful proof in my own experience that he is not
   annihilated and many of you, also, know that "your adversary the devil,
   as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour." Alas, the
   devil is still alive, but his power in this world has received its
   death blow! Jesus Christ has trodden on the old serpent's head and, to
   the Christian, in the matter of death, the devil is completely
   destroyed, for he that believes in Christ shall never die! Death seemed
   to be all black and evil, like Satan, himself, seething into which he
   had put his most venomous sting! But now, to Believers in Jesus, death
   is an angel from our Father in Heaven calling us home to Him--not a
   black angel, striking terror in our heart--but one who is exceedingly
   bright and fair, coming to bid us fly away to realms of light and love!

   Remember, Christian, "the sting of death is sin," but that has been
   destroyed for you. And remember, too, "the strength of sin is the Law,"
   but that has been fulfilled for you! Rejoice, therefore, that both are
   gone so far as you are concerned--and that your greatest causes for
   fear are entirely removed!

   III. Now let us spend a few minutes in thinking of THOSE THINGS
   CONNECTED WITH DEATH WHICH USUALLY CAUSE DREAD.

   I borrow the list of them from a popular commentator. There are some
   things connected with death which even the best of men naturally fear
   and the first is the death-pang. It is generally supposed that there is
   exquisite pain associated with the act of death, but I am persuaded
   that this is mistaken and that there is no pain whatever in dying--the
   pain is in living. The man who has a long sickness previous to his
   departure must not lay the pain he has to endure at the door of death,
   for the pain afflicts the living, not the dying. If life would but give
   way, death would inflict no pain. The departure out of life is, one
   would judge, the cessation of pain, the ending of the strife. But if we
   take the popular view for granted--that death involves some
   extraordinary pain--then Jesus Christ partook flesh and blood, died and
   destroyed the devil, so far as we who believe in Him are concerned, in
   order that we might not have any fear of this pain.

   He says to each one of us, "My child, whatever pain there may be about
   your death, I have endured it with an emphasis. I died, not as you
   probably will, on your bed, but upon a Cross. Instead of sympathizing
   friends around Me, I had mocking foes. Instead of soft pillows, I had
   cruel thorns--and tearing nails instead of cooling draughts and
   sustaining cordials. Men gave Me vinegar to drink mingled with gall. I
   died under far more trying circumstances than can possibly surround
   your deathbed, so now, My child, are you now willing to do at your
   Fathers' bidding what I have done? The cup passed not from Me, I
   drained it to the dregs--why, then, should it pass from you--why should
   you wish it to pass from you?"

   I have sometimes seen a mother, when her child has had medicine to take
   which it could not bear, sip of the cup and then say, "Drink it, my
   child, it is for your good and it is not so bad as you think. Mother
   has tasted it herself." And then the little one, not always with
   cheerfulness, but still with submission, drinks it up. "So Jesus brings
   us the cup and says to each one, "Drink, My child. I drank of this cup,
   so why should you fear to drink of it? There can be nothing deadly in
   it, for it has not destroyed Me. It has been to Me a gain and it shall
   be a gain, also, to you, for it shall take you from your humiliation to
   your Glory even as it took Me."

   But to some others this may not be their particular phase of death that
   they dread. They fear the darkness and gloom which sometimes attend
   departed out of this life. There are different ways of taking down the
   earthly atonement. There are certain forms of disease which seem rather
   to increase the sufferer's joy than to diminish it, while there are
   others which so affect the brain and the whole nervous system that
   depression is a melancholy symptom of the disease. Some are
   constitutionally so nervous that they are afraid that when they come
   face to face with death they will be easily vanquished. But many of us
   must have noticed that the very people who are most depressed in
   anticipation of trouble are frequently those who bear it best when it
   does come! So it may be with you, my poor nervous Friend. My
   observation warrants me in remarking that the most of Christians, when
   they die, are either in a deep calm or else triumphant in an ecstasy of
   delight.

   But if it should not be so with you, if gloom surrounds your spirit,
   yet remember that Jesus Christ became a partaker of flesh and blood in
   order to deliver you from the dread of death. It is flesh and blood
   that fear the gloom. It is flesh and blood that shrink from the
   despondency--and Jesus Christ passed through that experience when He
   said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death"--and later,
   when He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" You cannot
   possibly have such gloom surrounding you as He had to pass through! He
   went down deeper than you will ever have to go and you will always have
   His almighty arm to sustain you! Besides, the remembrance that Christ
   suffered for you, that He has destroyed Satan' s power over you and
   that He has opened the gates of Resurrection and of Glory for you
   should take away from you all the gloom that you dread! You are making
   the mistake of looking at that part of death which belongs to this
   world. I pray that the Holy Spirit may anoint your eyes with Heavenly
   eye salve so that you may see that death is but the gate of Life, the
   porch to Paradise and may no longer fear to enter the portals through
   which you shall pass into the Presence of your Lord who went that way
   before you!

   I know other Believers who do not so much dread the pain as they do the
   mystery associated with death The handwriting upon the wall troubled
   Belshazzar, not only because of the appearance of the fingers that
   wrote the message, but also because no one could interpret the writing
   until Daniel came. It was the mystery that terrified the impious
   monarch! When traveling among the Alps in a dense mist, we have seemed
   to see vast lakes without a shore, crags that appeared like the
   battlement of Heaven and awful depths that thrilled us with horror! Yet
   much of that mystery was only caused by the mist, for, when we
   journeyed the same way on a bright morning, the great lake proved to be
   only a little pond! The mighty battlement was a crag that a child could
   climb and the vast depths that had made us shudder with terror were
   gentle slopes which we could have descended with ease.

   It is the mysteriousness of death that alarms you. That the soul should
   be divorced from the body to which it has been so long united is
   something that startles you. Yes, but as the light dissipates the
   terrors of the mountains, so the fact that Jesus Christ has brought
   life and immortality to light will scatter all your gloom! There is no
   "undiscovered country" to you, Christian, for your Master has returned
   from the land of Death-Shade and He has told you all you need to know
   concerning it! He has come back to tell you that, for you, there is no
   such thing as death! Everything that constitutes death has been
   abrogated so far as you are concerned and your portion is to be
   everlasting life! If you would only believe

   all that is revealed in the Word concerning believers in Jesus, the
   mystery associated with death would no longer alarm and terrify you.

   There are some Christians who are afraid of the grave. I must say that
   I like the thought of sleeping in the cemetery, with green grass and
   flowers and shrubs growing all around--and winding walks upon the
   rising ground far away from the busy city! I say I like the thought of
   all that, yet, when I stand by an open grave, as I so often do, and see
   the cold clods of clay and think of the chill and silence of the night,
   the cemetery appears in another light! But, after all, what does it
   matter where the poor body is laid? If it could lie in state,
   surrounded with light and music, you know that very soon even the chief
   mourner would have to say, "Bury my dead out of my sight!" When we
   think of those who are sleeping in Jesus--I speak, of course, only of
   their bodies--it does seem appropriate that they should be wrapped in
   their white robes, as men are when they go to their beds, and lovingly
   committed to the care of mother earth from which they sprang. I do not
   think there is any need to be troubled about all this--much of it is
   mere sentimentalism and certainly, as far as Christians are
   concerned--when we remember that the blessed body of Jesus was laid in
   the tomb, we are quite content in that matter to be even as He was.

   I am afraid that I have not hit the center of the target even yet, for
   some of "the children" are afraid of the Judgement Seat of God. Does
   this remark surprise you? It ought to do so, for it ought to be
   impossiblefor a child of God to tremble at the thought of meeting his
   Father anywhere! Why is it that some of us are thus afraid? It is,
   Beloved, because they have a dark suspicion that they are not reallyin
   Christ, not reallysaved--and this indicates a greater evil than the
   dread of death--while it also point out the remedy for that evil. If I
   have the Divine Assurance that I am washed from every sin and that,
   clothed in the righteousness of Christ, I am without spot, or wrinkle,
   or any such things, how can I give way to fear? It is the dreadful
   doubt, the doubt whether it is so, that causes the dread of death and
   ofjudgment! It is unbeliefthat is at the bottom of it!

   If we would take such Scriptures as these--"He that believes on the Son
   has everlasting life." "By Him all that believe are justified from all
   things." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
   Lord Jesus Christ"-- and if we really trusted in the Savior of whom
   they speak, we would have no fear of either death or judgement, but
   would cry with the Apostle, "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, yes, rather that is risen again, who is even at the
   right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." No doubt there
   are some professing Christians who oughtto be afraid of death--there
   are some members of Christian Churches who oughtto dread the Judgement
   Seat! There are deacons and elders and ministers who oughtto tremble at
   the thought of the world to come because their profession of
   Christianity is a mere profession without any real work of the Spirit
   of God at the back of it!

   When you have doubts about your eternal state, do not say that they
   come from the devil! It may be that the Spirit of God is striving with
   you to bring you to see the hollowness of all the religion in which you
   have put your confidence! Never be afraid of self-examination, but obey
   the Apostolic injunction, "Examine yourselves, whether you are in the
   faith; prove yourselves." Better still, pray David's prayer, "Search
   me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if
   there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
   Those who have only a name to live, but who are spiritually dead. Those
   who talk about believing, but who have not believed. Those who talk
   about regeneration, but who have not been born again have good cause to
   be afraid of death! If that is your condition, Friend, I pray that you
   may become still more afraid of death and that God's gracious Spirit
   may make you so afraid of it that you may turn from it and fly to Him
   who, by carrying away your sin, shall also take away from you the fear
   of death.

   But as for you, dearly Beloved, who are really in Christ Jesus, you
   ought not to have any fear of death. There is no condemnation for you,
   for Christ has borne, on your behalf, all the punishment that was due
   to your sins! The sword of Justice has no terrors for you, for it was
   plunged in the heart of Jesus on purpose that He might die in your
   place. You need not fear the possibility of being cast away from
   Christ, for you are members of His body, of His death and of His blood!
   And unless He were to dismember Himself, He could not cast away any who
   are thus vitally united to Him. Let the thought that He became a
   partaker of flesh and blood, died to put away your sin and to destroy
   your great adversary, the devil, be a quietus to all your fears of
   death!

   It may not be long before some of us will have our faith tested in our
   dying hour. The preacher may be called away or you may receive the
   summons first. It would be well if we were all so familiar with death
   that we could say as one old

   saint did, "Dying? Why, I have died daily for the last 20 years, so I
   am not afraid to die, now!" Or, as another said, "I dip my foot in
   Jordan's stream every morning before I take my breakfast, so I shall
   not be afraid to go down into the stream whenever my Lord bids me enter
   it." May that be your experience and mine, Beloved, and then we shall
   have no fear of death!

   I have told you before of that godly woman who fell asleep in Jesus one
   night and on her table were found these lines--

   Since Jesus is mine, I'll not fear undressing, But gladly put off this
   garment of clay! To die in the Lord is a Covenant blessing, Since Jesus
   to Glory through death led the way."

   May we all have like precious faith, for Jesus sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-32.

   Verses 1, 2. Moreover, brethren, Ideclare unto you the Gospel which
   Ipreached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand.
   By which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what Ipreached unto
   you, unless you have believed in vain. By which the Apostle means,
   unless they had a false faith, a merely notional faith or, he may also
   mean, "Unless what I have preached unto you should have been a fable
   and, therefore, you will have exercised your faith upon nothing real,
   and so it would have been in vain."

   3. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I, also, received,
   The preacher of Christ must not make new doctrines! He is not to be his
   own teacher. He is first to receive the Truth of God and then to
   deliver it. The Christian minister takes the lamp out of the hands of
   God and then passes it on to the hands of his people. Think not that
   any originality is needed in the pulpit! All that is required is that
   the herald should faithfully deliver his Master's message just as his
   Master gives it to him. "I delivered unto you first of all that which
   I, also, received."

   3, 4. How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture; and
   that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to
   the Scriptures. There are many passages in the Old Testament which
   describe the Messiah as dying for sinners, especially the chapter of
   Isaiah's prophecy. There are others that speak of Him as being buried,
   yet not corrupting in the tomb. These were facts which the Apostle had
   received upon the testimony of others; now comes the great fact of the
   Resurrection.

   5-8. And that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, He
   was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater
   part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that,
   He was seen of James; then of all the Apostle and last of all He was
   seen of me, also, as of one born out of due time. [See Metropolitan
   Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 2663, Volume 433--" A Leap Year Sermon." ] The
   Apostle does not attempt to defend the doctrine of the Resurrection by
   an argument fetched from reason, but he proves it by undoubted
   evidence. If I had to prove that there existed such a tree as the
   cedar, I should not use logical arguments further than this--I produce
   a certain number of men who have seen a cedar and the thing is proved
   by their testimony. If the evidence of honest men is not accepted, then
   there is an end, not only to Christianity, but to all the sciences--and
   you and I must wander forever in a maze of doubts. Now, of all the
   facts recorded in history, there is not one which is better attested
   than the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The men who testified that they
   had seen the risen Christ evidently had no selfish reason for doing so.
   What is the result of their testimony? They were cast into prison! They
   were stoned! They were sawn asunder, simply for believing the evidence
   of their own senses, and testifying what they knew to be true! It is
   clear that they would have had no interest in publishing this fact if
   it had not been true--their interest would have lain quite the other
   way. Besides, it was not as if only a few had seen Him, but over 500
   brethren at once beheld Him. For 40 days He was gazed upon by different
   persons and the feat is proved beyond all doubt.

   9. For I am the least of the Apostles and am not meet to be called an
   Apostle because Ipersecuted the Church of God. "God has forgiven me,"
   said a good man once, "but I shall never forgive myself." So was it
   with the Apostle Paul. He knew that God had forgiven him and honored
   him by making him an Apostle, but he could not forgive himself and, no

   doubt, the tears gushed from his eyes when he wrote these words, "I am
   not meet to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of
   God."

   10. But by the Grace of God I am what I am: and His Grace which was
   bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than
   they all: yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me. [See
   Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 2833, Volume 499--" Lessons on
   Divine Glory."] In what humble tones Paul speaks! He will not deny what
   Divine Grace has done in him and by him, but he will ascribe it all to
   God. Brothers and Sisters, you are not to shut your eyes to the
   gracious change which God's Holy Spirit has worked in you! You may
   speak of it and speak of it often, but always guard against taking any
   of the honor to yourselves--and be especially careful to put the crown
   upon the right head.

   11, 12. Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so you
   believed. Now if Christ is preached that He rose from the dead, how say
   some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?For Christ was
   the pattern Man to all His people. He is their Representative. Whatever
   He did, He did for them and whatever was worked in Him shall be surely
   worked in them. So if Christ rose from the dead, then all who are
   members of His mystical body must rise, too, for when the Head comes
   out of the grave, you cannot retain the members in it! Prove that
   Christ rose and you prove that His people rise, for they are one with
   Him.

   13. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not
   risen. [See Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 2287,Volume 38-- "If
   There Is No Resurrection,"] Yet it is proved by hundreds of credible
   witnesses that Christ is risen, therefore there is a resurrection.

   14. And if Christ is not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
   faith is also vain. This Truth of God is the keystone of the arch--put
   this away and the whole tumbles down! It is upon this that the whole
   Christian system rests. If the Resurrection of Christ is a mere myth
   and not a positive matter of fact, preaching and faith are equally
   vain.

   15. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God because we have
   testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if it
   is so that the dead rise not.The Apostle puts the matter strongly, yet
   not too strongly. He seems to say, "You know me to be an honest and
   truthful man, having no selfish motive in what I declare unto you. But
   if Christ did not rise from the dead, I have testified to you a gross
   falsehood and led you to put your trust in an imposture." So he stakes
   his own personal character upon the fact of Christ's Resurrection.

   16. 17. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if
   Christ is not raised, your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins. Yet
   they knew that they were not in their sins, for they had the witness
   within then that their sins had been pardoned. They knew that sin had
   no more dominion over them, for they had been made to walk in holiness
   before the Lord. "Therefore," says Paul, "Christ must have risen, for
   if He had not risen, you would have remained sinners as you once were."

   18. Then they, also, which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. A
   supposition against which both Nature and Grace revolt!

   19, 20. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men
   most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the
   first fruits of them that depart As they always brought into the Jewish
   tabernacle and temple, a portion of the harvest which indicated that
   the harvest was begun, so Christ's going up to Heaven was the taking of
   the first sheaf into God's great garner--and all the rest must follow.

   21, 22. For since by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection
   of the dead. For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ shall all be
   made alive. Not that all shall be saved, but all will be raised from
   the dead! Or else the passage means that as all who were in the first
   Adam died as the result of Adam's sin, so all who are in the Second
   Adam, that is, Christ, shall live as the result of His righteousness.
   The question is, Are we in the Second Adam? Faith is that which unites
   us to Christ. If we are trusting in Him by a living faith, then His
   rising from the dead ensures our rising from the dead. And if not, it
   is true that we shall rise, but it will be to shame and everlasting
   contempt.

   23-28. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits,
   afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end,
   when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father;
   when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power For He
   must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet The last enemy
   that shall be destroyed is death. For He has put all things under His
   feet But when He says all things are put under Him, it is manifest that
   He is accepted, who did put all things under Him. And when all things
   shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son Himself also be subject
   unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all This
   is a very difficult

   passage, but I suppose the meaning is this--Jesus Christ, in order to
   remedy the great mischief of sin, was appointed to a mediatorial
   kingdom over all worlds and that kingdom will continue until all His
   enemies shall be destroyed and sin shall be trod under His feet. Then
   Christ--as Mediator, mark you, not as Lord--shall deliver up His
   mediatorial kingdom to His Father and there shall be heard that great
   shout, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent
   reigns!" Christ as God, as one of the Persons of the ever-blessed
   Trinity, will still be as glorious as ever, but His mediatorialreign
   will then be over, seeing that He has accomplished all its purposes.

   29. Otherwise what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the
   dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?'This is
   another most difficult passage and many meanings have been given to it,
   but I think the most likely to be correct is this--As soon as a member
   of the early Christian Church was given up to the lion or to be burned,
   another convert would step forward and say, Let me take his name and
   place." Though it was almost certain that they, also, would soon be put
   to death, there were always found persons bold enough to come forward
   to be baptized--to take the place of the dead. "Now," says the Apostle,
   "what advantage is there in this if the dead rise not ?"

   30. And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Why were the Apostles
   always subjecting themselves to cruel persecution?

   31. I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord,
   I did daily. [See Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 828, Volume 14--"
   Dying Daily."] He was so hunted about everywhere that there was not a
   day in which he felt secure of his life, so he asks, "Why should I
   endure this if there is no world to come ?"

   32. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,
   what advantage is it to me, if the dead rise not?It is quite possible
   that Paul was thrown to the lions in the theater at Ephesus and that he
   fought with them and came off a conqueror. "But why," he asks, "did I
   try to save my life for future labor and for future suffering if the
   dead rise not?" 32. Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die. This is
   the best philosophy in the world if there is no life to come. So Paul
   has proved his point right well by every argument that he has used.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Only Door

   (No. 3287)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I am the door: if anyone enters by Me, he shall be saved, and shall go
   in and out, and find pasture." John 10:9.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text is #2752, Volume
   47--THE DOOR.]

   The Word of God tells us that in the midst of the great mass of men
   there are to be found a special people--a people who were chosen of God
   out of the common race before the stars began to shine--a people who
   were dear to God's heart before the foundation of the world, a people
   who were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus beyond and above the
   rest of mankind, a people who are the special property of Christ, the
   flock of His pasture, the sheep of His hand, a people over whom
   Providence watches, shaping their course amid the tangled maze of
   life--a people who are to be produced at the last, every one of them
   faultless before the Eternal Throne and fitted for the exalted destiny
   which, in the ages to come, He shall reveal! All through Scripture you
   read about this particular and special people. Sometimes they are
   called "a seed," at other times "a garden," at other times "a
   treasure," and sometimes, as in the Chapter we have read, "a flock."
   The common name in the New Testament for them is "the Church"--"the
   Church of God which He has purchased with His own blood." "Christ loved
   the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse
   it with the washing of water by the Word."

   Now, the all-important question is how can we obtain admission into
   this Church? Where is this community to be found? Who are the members
   of it? What is the way to become a partaker of the privileges which
   belong to it? Jesus Christ here tells us two things--First, How to
   enter the Church The way is through Himself as the door. Secondly, What
   are the benefits we shall receive through being members of Christ's
   Church--we shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.

   I. HOW A MAN CAN BECOME A MEMBER OF THAT CHURCH WHICH IS ELECTED,
   REDEEMED AND WILL BE SAVED, IS SIMPLY AND BRIEFLY SOLVED BY OUR LORD'S
   FIRST ASSERTION.

   Christ tells us that the only way to enter the Church is through
   Himself He is the door, the only door. There is no other mode of
   admission into His Church but through Himself. Let it be understood,
   then, once and for all, that we cannot get into the Church of Christ
   through Baptism. There are tens of thousands, yes, there have been
   millions who have been baptized after a fashion, that is to say, they
   have been sprinkled--and thousands have been immersed--who never were
   admitted into the Church of Christ! In consideration of the ordinance
   as it was administered to them, with, or more commonly, without their
   consent, they were recognized by some persons as being Christians. But
   let me tell you that unless they came to Christ by true faith, they are
   nothing better than baptized Pagans! They are still just sprinkled
   heathen! Why, you might hold a man in an everlasting shower, but you
   could not, thereby, make him "a member of Christ." Or you might drag
   him through the Atlantic Ocean and if he survived the immersion, yet he
   still would not be one jot the better! The door is not baptism, but
   Christ! If you believe in Christ, you are a member of His Church. If
   your trust is stayed upon Christ, who is God's great way of salvation,
   you have evidence that you were chosen of Him from before the
   foundation of the world--and that faith of yours entitles you to all
   the privileges which Christ has promised in His Word to Believers!

   If Christ is the door, then it follows that men do not get into the
   Church by birthright The Society of Friends has been one of the most
   useful communities in the world and it has maintained a good testimony
   upon most important points for many years. But it seems to me that the
   great evil in it--that which has done them the most mischief--is the
   admission of birthright membership. Do they not receive in their
   fellowship the children of their members as though they

   were necessarily proper persons to be received into the visible Church?
   My Brothers and Sisters, it is a great privilege to have Christian
   parents. It may prove a very great advantage if you use it rightly. But
   it involves a great responsibility, and if you use it wrongly, instead
   of being a blessing to you, it may be a fearful curse! Though you may
   be one of a long line of saints, "Except a man is born-again, he cannot
   see the Kingdom of God." The most pious example, the most godly
   training cannot ensure conversion--and without conversion, depend upon
   it--you cannot be Christ's. "Except you are converted and become as
   little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."
   Through our not practicing infant baptism, we do not so readily fall
   into this error as some denominations--still, it is necessary to say
   even here that you have no right to Gospel privileges because of your
   mothers and fathers. You must yourselves be born-again! You have no
   right to the Covenant of Grace, nor to the blessings or promises
   thereof, except as by your own personal and individual faith you come
   to Christ! It is not your father nor your mother who can be the door
   into Christ's Church for you, but Christ Himself. "I," He said, "I am
   the door." If you are in Christ, you are in His Church. If you have
   laid hold on Him, you are a member of that secret and invisible
   community of His elect and His redeemed--but it is not by Baptism, nor
   by birthright that you can ever be so!

   Moreover, as Christ is the door, it is evident that a man does not come
   to be a member of the Church of Christ by making a profession of being
   so. He may prove himself to be a detestable hypocrite, but he cannot
   prove himself to be a genuine Christian by mere profession! Men do not
   get rich in this world by a lavish expenditure, or by a profession of
   being wealthy. They must hold the title deeds of their estate and have
   the cash in the strong box, or else they are poor in spite of all their
   pretensions! And you cannot become a Christian by coming forward and
   asking to be admitted into the Church, declaring that you believe and
   avowing that you repent. No, verily, but you must truly repent, or you
   shall perish! You must truly believe, or you shall have no part or lot
   in this matter! The mere saying, "Yes, yes, I am willing to profess
   this, I am willing to say that," no more makes you a Christian than it
   would make cotton to be silk to call it so, or make mud to be gold by
   labeling it with that title! Beware of a false profession, for it is
   doubly hazardous. The man who has no Grace is in danger, but the man
   who makes a profession of having it when he has none, is in double
   danger, for he is the least likely to be awakened and he is certain,
   unless Sovereign Grace prevents, to make his profession a pillow for
   his wicked and slumbering head till he sleeps himself into Hell!

   Further, and this may, perhaps, touch the point more closely--a man
   does not get to be one of the Lords people, or to be one of Christ's
   sheep, by being admitted into any visible church. He ought not to try
   to get into any visible church until he is in the trueChurch! He has no
   right to join the external organization until he has first got into the
   secret conclave by a living faith in Christ. If he leaves the door
   alone, and climbs over the wall and comes into the outward church
   without being a Believer in Christ--so far from being saved, Christ
   will say to him, "You are a thief and a robber, for you have climbed up
   some other way and you came not in by the door." I believe we do
   rightly to subject the admission of members to the voice of all the
   Church. I believe we do rightly to examine candidates to see whether
   they make a creditable profession and whether they know what they are
   doing. But our examination--oh, 'tis nothing better than skin deep! We
   cannot search the heart and the best judgment of ever so many Christian
   men, though honest, and deserving to be treated with great respect,
   would be a very poor thing to rest upon. If you have not Christ, your
   church certificates are waste paper and your membership with any
   people, however pure and Apostolic they may be, is but a name to live
   while you are dead--for the only way, the sole way of getting into the
   real, vital, living Church of Christ is by coming to Christ who is
   Himself the door!

   The plain English of this metaphor then, is just this--to be one of
   Gods people, the essential thing is a simple dependence upon Jesus
   Christ If you have not this--no matter who baptizes you, or who gives
   you the consecrated bread and wine, or who preaches to you about a hope
   of salvation for which there is no warrant--you will die in your sins,
   notwithstanding all your sacraments unless you come to Christ! No other
   admittance to Heaven can there be but by a simple dependence upon Him
   who has bled and died on Calvary's Cross! The preaching of any other
   system is a mere delusion against which the warning voice went forth or
   ever the snare was laid to trap the unwary!

   Mark you, simple faith, where it is genuine, makes it plain that you do
   enter by Christ, the door, because such faith leads to obedience. How
   can you suppose that you are a member of His Church if you are not
   obedient to Christ? It is necessary that the man or woman who trusts
   Christ should become the servant of Christ. Real faith never kicks at
   this rule, but rather delights in it. "If you love Me," says Christ,
   keep My commandments." Unless we keep Christ's commandments out of a
   principle of love to Him, our religion is vain. "Without holiness no
   man shall see the Lord." We may

   talk as we will about inward experiences and believing, but "by their
   fruits you shall know them." The Spirit of God is the Spirit of
   holiness. When Christ comes into the soul, all iniquity must be purged
   out of the soul. You know how Mala-chi describes His Advent. He
   proclaims to us the promise that the Lord whom we seek shall suddenly
   come to His Temple--that is, seekers shall be finders! Do you know what
   he adds? "But who may abide the day of His coming? For He is like a
   refiner's fire and like fullers' soap." Now, the refiner's fire burns
   up the dross, and fullers' soap takes out the stains--and so, if Christ
   is in you, you will pass through a refining that will burn up your
   outward sin--and you will be subjected to a washing like that of the
   fullers' soap which will cleanse you from all your iniquities. "Be not
   deceived, God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he
   also reap." If you live after the flesh, you shall die! But if, through
   the Grace of Christ, you are living in Him, trusting in Him, always
   serving Him--service being the evidence of trust and trust being the
   evidence of your election--you have then come into the Church through
   the door--and it is well with you!

   Now, if it is so, that Christ is the door into the Church, and if we
   have entered the Church through that door, it does not matter much to
   us what the old gentleman at Rome thinks of us. He may excommunicate
   us. This he is very fond of doing, for he is a rare hand at cursing,
   but what does it matter? It matters not one jot, if I am a new creature
   in Christ Jesus, how much the Pope may rail at me! Besides, there are
   plenty of revilers nowadays who are saying, "You NonConformists are
   only a pack of heretics! We have the Apostolic succession! We have the
   sacraments and the priests." Ah, they vaunt themselves as being
   "Catholic," though their claim is disallowed alike by the Babylon which
   is here below, and by the Jerusalem which is above! Let them vaunt if
   they will. As long as we have Christ, they may keep their Apostolic
   succession and all their other rubbish! Christ is the door and if we
   have come through Him, it is well with us!

   I like that story of the Sandwich Islanders who had been converted
   through some of our missionaries and the Gospel had been preached to
   them for years. At last, two or three gentlemen in long black gowns
   landed there and the people asked them what they had come for. They
   said they were come to instruct them in the true faith and to teach
   them. Well, they said, they should be glad to hear it. If their
   teaching was true and like the Scriptures, they would listen to them.
   By-and-by, a little diagram was exhibited to the natives after the
   similitude of a tree. This tree had many branches. The twigs which were
   farthest off were the different saints, the Believers, those who do
   good works. Then the limbs, which were a little larger, were the
   priests. The bigger branches were bishops, the biggest were the
   cardinals and, at last, these all joined on to the trunk--which was the
   Pope--and that went all the way down to the bottom till it came to
   Peter, who was the root, deriving his authority immediately from
   Christ. So the natives asked about all these twigs, branches and
   especially about certain rotten branches that were tumbling off into a
   fire. What were they? They were Luther, and Calvin, and other heretics
   who had been cut off from the true tree of the church. "Well," said one
   of the islanders, "and pray what is the root of the tree?" Of course
   that was allowed to be Jesus Christ. So they clapped their hands at
   once for joy, and said, "Never mind about the branches, and stems, and
   twigs--we have never heard of them--but we have got the Root, and that
   will do to grow on." In like manner, Brothers and Sisters, we can say
   tonight, if we have Christ, we have got the "root out of a dry ground."
   We have got the root of the matter, the basis, the sum, the substance
   of it--

   "Let others trust what forms they please, Their hopes we'll not
   contest." Let them go about their business and rejoice in their
   fancies--but Christ is the door! We have Christ! We have entered by the
   Door! We have believed in Him, we have entered through Him into faith,
   and into joy, and into peace! We will be content with this--let others
   clamber up some other way if they please.

   Before I leave this point, a question suggests itself--Have we all
   entered by the Door? We are agreed that Christ is the Door, have we
   entered by the Door? You who are growing old--I always feel much
   pleasure in seeing gray heads, the type of mellowed years, in the
   concourse of worshippers--have you all believed in Jesus? You know the
   Truth--you would not like to hear anything but the simple Gospel
   preached! But have you laid hold on the Gospel? A man my starve with
   bread on the table if he does not eat. And he may perish with thirst,
   though he is up to his neck in water, if he does not drink. Have you
   trusted Christ? If not, how can you remain in a state of unbelief, for
   "he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed
   in the name of the only begotten Son of God"? Men and women in middle
   life, struggling with the cares of business, have you trusted in
   Christ? I know your thoughts are much taken up and necessarily so, with
   the world. But have you not time to think upon this question or dare
   you neglect it--"Do you believe on the Son of God?" If not, O man, your
   life hangs on a thread and that snapped, your ruin is certain! And, oh,
   you young

   people, what a mercy it is to see you willing to come and hear the
   Word! But have you all heard it with your inward ears? Have you looked
   to my Master? Oh, it is sweet to come to Christ in the early morning of
   life, to have a long day of happiness before you! May it be the
   blessedness of each one of you! It is vain to look at the Door unless
   you enter. God give you Grace to come in if you have never entered
   before!

   II. Our Lord and Master tells us WHAT ARE THE PRIVILEGES OF ENTERING
   THROUGH HIM, THE DOOR. The man who enters by Christ shall be saved and
   he shall go in and out, and he shall find pasture. He shall be saved.
   The man who believes in Jesus Christ shall be saved. He is saved and he
   shall be saved! A man has by accident killed his fellow man. The next
   of kin to the murdered man will be sure to kill the manslayer out of
   revenge if he can get at him. Therefore the poor man takes flight as
   quickly as he can towards the City of Refuge. How his heart beats, how
   his footsteps bound, how he flies with all his might! There is a
   signpost with the word, "Refuge," upon it, and on he continues his way.
   But, presently, while he is running, he turns his head and finds that
   the avenger of blood is after him. He sees that he is gaining upon him!
   He feels that he will probably overtake him. Oh, how he picks his steps
   lest he should trip on a stone! How he skims the ground, swift as a
   roe! He runs until he can see the city gates. "That is the fair CITY OF
   REFUGE, he says. But he does not rest then, for a sight of the city
   will not secure him--so he quickens his speed as if he would outstrip
   the wind till he shoots through the archway and he is in the broad
   street of the city! Now he stops. Now he breathes. Now he wipes the hot
   sweat from his brow. "Now I am safe," he says, "for no avenger of blood
   dares cross that threshold. He that once escapes here is delivered." So
   with the sinner when sin pursues him, when he discovers that he has
   offended God! He hears the furious coursers of Divine Vengeance coming
   on swiftly behind him and his conscience flies, and his soul speeds
   towards the Cross. He gets a little hope. He hears of a Savior, but
   that is not enough. He will never rest, he will never say he is at
   peace until he has passed the gate of faith and can say, "Now I do
   believe that Jesus died for me."

   He that enters in by the door shall be saved. Noah's ark was built in
   the olden times to preserve Noah and his family from the great flood.
   It could not be said that Noah was saved till he had passed through the
   door--but when he had done that, a Divine hand, quite unseen, shut the
   door and as Noah heard it fastened and understood that the Lord had
   shut him in, he felt quite safe. If God shuts us in, the floods from
   beneath cannot drown us and the rains from above cannot penetrate to
   injure us. He must be safe whom God shuts in! The moment that a poor
   sinner trusts in Christ, God shuts the door. There he is and there he
   shall be till time shall be no more! He is secure. The infernal powers
   shall not destroy him and the vengeance of God cannot touch him! He has
   passed the door and he shall be saved.

   I read a story the other day of some Russians crossing wide plains
   studded over here and there with forests. The villages were ten or a
   dozen miles from each other, the wolves were out, the horses were
   rushing forward madly, the travelers could hear the baying of the
   wolves behind them. And though the horses tore along with all speed,
   yet the wolves were close behind and they only escaped, as we say, "by
   the skin of their teeth," managing just to get inside some hut that
   stood in the road and to shut the door. Then they could hear the wolves
   leap on the roof, they could hear them dash against the sides of the
   hut, they could hear them gnawing at the door and howling, and making
   all sorts of dismal nois-es--but the travelers were safe because they
   had entered in by the door and the door was shut! Now, when a man is in
   Christ, he can hear, as it were, the devils howling like wolves, all
   fierce and hungry for him. And his own sins, like wolves, are seeking
   to drag him down to destruction! But he has got in to Christ and He is
   such a shelter that all the devils in the world, if they were to come
   at once, could not harm a single beam of that Eternal Refuge! It must
   stand fast, though earth and Heaven should pass away!

   Now, to every man and woman, Christ says that if they have entered in
   by the door, they shall be saved. Do not have any doubt about it! Do
   not let anybody raise the question whether you may be or you may not
   be--you shall be! Oh, clutch at that blessed, "shall." Sir, if you have
   been a drunk, yet, if you trust in Christ, you shall be saved! You
   shall not go back to your old drunkenness, but you shall be saved from
   it if you believe in Him. O Woman, if you have stained your character
   to the worst, yet if you believe in Christ, none of your old sins shall
   ruin you, but you shall be saved! Ah, though you are tempted every day
   of your lives, tempted as none ever were before, yet God is true and
   cannot lie--if you come through Christ, the Door, you shall be saved!
   Do you understand what it is to come through the door? It is to depend
   upon Jesus, to give yourselves to Him, to rest on Him. When you hang up
   your jugs and mugs on the nail in the cupboard, what keeps them from
   falling? Nothing but the nail! And if that holds well, nothing can fall
   that hangs on it.

   Now, you must trust in Christ as the vessel hangs on the nail--and if
   you do so, He is fastened as a nail in a sure place-- and you cannot
   and shall not perish! That is the first privilege--"he shall be saved."

   He that enters in by the door "shall go in'" The man who believes in
   Christ shall go into rest and peace, for there is no condemnation to
   them that are in Christ Jesus. He shall go in to secret knowledge. He
   shall become a scholar and shall be taught by Christ as his Rabbi. He
   shall go in unto God with holy boldness in prayer. He shall go in unto
   that which is within the veil and speak to God from before the Mercy
   Seat. He shall go in unto the child's place and shall stand as an
   adopted heir of Heaven. He shall go in unto close communion with God.
   He shall speak with his Maker. The Lord shall lift up the light of His
   Countenance upon him. He shall go in unto the highest attainment in
   spiritual things. He shall go in to the treasure house of the Covenant
   and say, "All this is mine!" He shall go in to the store house of the
   promises and take whatever his soul needs. He shall go in, passing from
   circle to circle, till he comes to the innermost place where the love
   of God is most graciously shed abroad!

   He that enters in by the door shall be saved, and he shall go in. If
   you know what this means, go in! Go in further. Go in more constantly.
   Do not stop where you are, but go in till you have got a little more.
   If you love Christ, come nearer to Him and nearer, and still nearer!
   But if you want to get into anything that is Divine, you must get in
   through Christ. O you who open your Bibles and want to understand a
   text--the way to get into the meaning of a text is through the Door,
   Christ! O you who want to get more holiness, come through the Door--the
   way to holiness is not through Moses, but through Christ! O you who
   would have closer communion with your heavenly Father, the way to come
   in is not through your own efforts, but through Christ! You came to
   Christ at first to get salvation--you must still come to Christ to get
   sanctification! Never look for another door, for there is but one, and
   that one door will let you into life, love, peace, knowledge and
   sanctification--it will let you into Heaven! Christ is the master key
   of all the rooms in the palace of mercy! And if you get Christ, you
   shall go in. Nothing shall keep you out of any of the secret chambers.
   You shall go in, in God's name, through Christ, the Door!

   The next privilege is that he shall go out Putting the two
   together--"he shall go in and out"--they signify liberty. The Christian
   does not come into the Church as into a prison, but he comes in as a
   free man, walking in and out of his own house. But what does it mean to
   go out? I think it means this, Brothers and Sisters. The men that trust
   in Christ go out to their daily business through Christ, the Door. I
   wonder how many of you ever thought of this? You know sometimes you get
   up, put on your clothes and go blundering out to work. And then you
   find yourselves very weak all day. Well, I do no wonder at it, for you
   do not go out through Christ, the Door. Suppose you had given
   yourselves to Christ for the day and though you had time but for a few
   minutes' prayer, yet you had put it thus, "Lord, I am Yours. Take care
   of me today. I am going out where there will be many to tempt me and
   try me. I do not know what may happen, but, Lord, I am going out in
   Your name and resting in Your strength. If there is anything that I can
   do for You, I desire to do it. If there is anything to suffer, I wish
   to suffer it for Your sake, but take care of me, Lord. I will not go
   out and face my fellow men until I have seen Your face. And I do not
   want to speak to them until I have spoken to You, nor to hear what they
   have to say till I have heard what God the Lord will speak." Depend
   upon it, it is blessed going out when you go thus through the Door! You
   will be sure to come home happy when you go out after this sort!

   May not this going out also mean to go out to suffering? You and I are
   sometimes called to bear great bodily pain, or losses, or bereavements.
   Well now, what a sweet thing it is to go out to suffer these things
   through the Door, and to be able to say, "Now, my Master, this is a
   cross, but I will carry it, not in my own strength, but in Yours. Do
   what You will with me--I shall drink the cup because You appoint it."
   Whenever you can see Christ's hand in it, it makes the bitter sweet and
   heavy things soon grow light! Go to your sickbed as you hope to go to
   your deathbed--through the Door, that is, through Christ!

   And when, as sometimes happens, we have to go out, as it were, away
   from fellowship with Christ, to fight with our inward sins--the right
   way is to go out to resist them through the Door. If you ever try to
   fight with sin in your own strength, or on a legal footing, or because
   you feel that you will be condemned if you do not overcome those sins,
   you will be as weak as water! The way of victory is through the blood
   of the Lamb. There is no killing sin except by throwing the blood of
   Christ upon it. When once the blood of Christ comes into contact with
   the besetting sin, that sin withers straight away! Go to your spiritual
   conflicts through the Door.

   And so, Beloved, we ought, in all that we do for the Lord, to go out
   through the Door. It is always sweet preaching for me when I feel that
   I come forth in the name of my Master--when I do not come to tell you
   what ideas I have woven out of my own brain, nor to put attractive
   figures before you, as I would like to do sometimes--but rather, when I
   come to tell you just what my Lord would have you know, telling it as a
   message to you from your God and cherishing in my own heart His great
   love toward perishing sinners. Then, indeed, to minister is joy! You
   Sunday school teachers will always teach well when you go down to the
   schoolroom through the Door, that is, having been with Christ, having
   sought and enjoyed His company. I know, my dear Brothers and Sisters,
   you who are teaching larger classes, you who are engaged in instructing
   or exhorting, you who go about any holy work--you always do it well
   when you have God's smile upon you in the doing of it--and you shall
   have great success in the doing of it if you always go to it through
   Christ, the Door--if you serve Christ through Christ, and do it not
   only for Him, but through Him and by Him! Our own strength is perfect
   weakness, but the strength which comes through simple dependence upon
   the ever-living Christ who has said, "Lo, I am with you always, even
   unto the end of the world"--this is the strength which wins the
   conquest! God give you Grace not only to go in, but also to go out
   through the Door.

   The last privilege named in the text is, "and shall findpasture."I
   suppose this is what you come here for, you who love the Lord--you come
   here for pasture. It is a great blessing if when we come to hear the
   Gospel, it becomes real pasture to us. We do know some who say that the
   troubles of the week become unbearable because they have such barren
   Sabbaths. Ah, if you are members of a church that is torn with discord,
   where the ministry abounds in anything but Christ, you will soon begin
   to cry out and you will value the privilege of hearing Jesus Christ
   lifted up among you! But who are the people who get the pasture where
   Jesus Christ is preached? Not all who hear of Him, nor yet all
   Believers. There are times when you may hear a sermon that is of no use
   to you--and yet your Brother and Sister by your side may be greatly
   instructed and comforted thereby. In such a case, I should not wonder
   if it was because your friend came in to the service through the Door,
   and you did not.

   Do you remember the story of Mr. Erskine and the good lady who went to
   hear him preach at the Communion? It was such sweet preaching, she
   thought she had never heard the like. So, after service, she asked who
   the gentleman was that had preached and, on being told that it was Mr.
   Ebenezer Erskine, she said, "I will come and hear him again next
   Sabbath morning." She went, she listened and she thought to herself,
   "Well, this is very dry, very heavy preaching." She was not at all
   comforted by it! Then like a foolish woman, as I should think she must
   have been, she went into the vestry, and said, "Oh, Mr. Erskine, I
   heard you last Sabbath with much pleasure! Sir, I was never so edified
   and I came again this morning, but I have been dreadfully
   disappointed." So the good man said very calmly, "Pray, Madam, when you
   came to the kirk last Sabbath, what did you come for? She said, "I came
   to Communion, Sir." "To have fellowship with Christ, I suppose?" he
   asked. "Yes, Sir." "Well you came for it and you had it. And pray, what
   did you come here this morning for?" She said, "I came to hear you,
   Sir." "And you had it, woman," he said. "You had it and you had not
   anything else, because you did not come for anything more than that."

   Well now, when people come merely to hear a minister, or for custom's
   sake, or for form's sake--do they not always get what they come for? If
   people come to find fault, we always give them plenty of our
   imperfections to be entertained with, so they need not be disappointed!
   If others come merely out of custom, they say, "Well, this is my work,
   I have performed my duty." Of course it is, but if you had come in
   through the Door, that is, looking to Christ, looking forChrist,
   desiring not to see the preacher, but the Lord--not to get the word of
   man, but the Word of God as food for your soul, I believe you would
   have found pasture! Brothers, the sheep need pasture. No other food
   will suit them. So your soul needs heavenly Truth and if you come to
   the House of God through Christ, you will get it! If you turn to the
   Bible through Christ, you will find it a rich storehouse! If you come
   to prayer through the door of Christ, you will find it comforting and
   so you shall find pasture.

   I think the text may mean that he who rests in Christ shall have all
   his needs supplied. If the text does not mean so, another does, "The
   Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green
   pastures: He leads me beside the still waters." Some of you are very
   poor, but if you have trusted in Christ, you may plead this promise,
   "You have said that I shall find pasture. Your Word declares that no
   good thing will he withheld from them that walk uprightly. Lord, make
   this true to me."

   I would to God that some who have never yet entered into the fold might
   now be drawn to Jesus. Oh, that you would come through the Door into
   these four choice privileges! You may never have such another
   opportunity. You may never feel any of the motions of the Spirit of God
   again. Oh that, without delay, you would just cast your helpless souls
   into the Savior's gracious arms, who is able and willing to save, that
   you might be saved now!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN10:1-18.

   Verses 1, 2. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that enters not by the
   door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a
   thief and a robber But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of
   the sheep. The true Shepherd cares for the flock. The false ones are
   thieves and robbers who only care for the flesh or the fleece.

   3. To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice: and he
   calls his own sheep byname, and leads them out.

   [See Sermon #2359, Volume 40--PERSONAL AND EFFECTUAL CALLING.] John

   the Baptist was the doorkeeper who opened the door of Christ's earthly
   ministry by bearing witness that He was the Son ofGod.

   4, 5. And when heputs forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the
   sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
   follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of
   strangers. Christ is the great Leader of His people and they will never
   go astray as long as they follow Him. The sheep of Christ recognize
   their Shepherd' s voice and come at His call. But "strangers" call to
   them in vain.

   6, 7. This parable spoke Jesus unto them: but they understood not what
   things they were which He spoke unto them. Then said Jesus unto them
   again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. No
   one metaphor can fully describe our glorious Lord, for He is both
   Shepherd and Door to the sheep, and all else that they need--

   "O my Savior! Shield and Sun,

   Shepherd, Brother, Husband, Friend--

   Every precious name in one,

   I willlove You without end!'

   8-10. All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the
   sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he
   shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief
   comes not but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that
   they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. [See
   Sermon #1150, Volume

   20--LIFE MORE ABUNDANT.] The thief came to take away life, but

   Christ came to give life--that abundant life which shall last forever
   and ever! But see what it cost Him to give that life-- 11-13. I am the
   good shepherd: the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But he
   that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,
   sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf
   catches them, and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees because he is
   an hireling, and cares not for the sheep. Just now the contrast was
   between the Shepherd and the thief, here it is between the Shepherd and
   the hireling. The hireling cares for himself. The Shepherd cares for
   the sheep and provides for them and cares for them even at the cost of
   His life.

   14, 15. I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of
   Mine. As the Father knows Me, even so

   know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep. [See Sermon
   #1877, Volume 32--OUR OWN DEAR SHEPHERD.] There is mutual knowledge
   between the Shepherd and the sheep, and between the Father and the Son.

   16. And other sheep Ihave, which are not of this fold: they also Imust
   bring, and they shall hear My voice: and there

   shall be one fold, and one shepherd [See Sermon #1713, Volume 29--OTHER
   SHEEP AND ONE FLOCK.] Or, more correctly, "one flock, one Shepherd."
   The flock would never be complete without those "other sheep" which the
   Shepherd says He must bring into the fold, and which He says shall hear
   His voice. Not one of them will be missing in the day when they pass
   again under the hand of Him that counts them.

   17, 18. Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life,
   that I might take it again. No man takes it from Me, but Ilay it down
   ofMyself Ihave power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
   This commandment have I received of My Father The voluntariness of
   Christ's Sacrifice is its Glory, and well may His Father love Him
   because of it--and well may we, who are eternally to benefit by His
   death--also love Him!
     __________________________________________________________________

Why the Gospel Is Hidden

   (No. 3288)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY, 11, 1866.

   "But if our Gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who aire lost." 2
   Corinthians 4:3.

   In this verse and the following one we have a very brief yet very full
   description of what every minister of the Gospel ought to preach. In
   the first place, he is to preach the Gospel--not metaphysics, not
   politics, not mere morality, not simply doctrines as such. He is to
   preach the Gospel, which signifies good news, something new and
   something good--so good that nothing else can equal it--the glad
   tidings of mercy for the guilty, the blessed tidings of God coming down
   to man that man may go up to God, the welcome tidings of atonement made
   for human guilt! It is also new as well as good--it comes as a strange
   novelty to the attentive ear. Mythology never dreamed it, human wit
   could never have invented it, even angelic intellect could not have
   devised a scheme--

   "So just to God, so safe for man." The business of the Christian
   minister is to preach this Good News, to publish to the sinners the
   glad tidings that there is a Savior, to point the guilty to Christ and
   to be constantly saying to each individual sinner, "Believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." I care not what may be the
   learning or eloquence of the minister, though he may speak with the
   tongue of men and angles, if he does not preach Christ and bid sinners
   trust in Him, he has mistaken his mission and missed the grand
   objective for which he was sent!

   This Gospel is called in the text "our Gospel"By this expression I
   understand that the minister must accept it for himself before he can
   hold it out to others. I am myself to look to Jesus as my own personal
   Savior--and then I am to cry to others, "Look unto Him, and be you
   saved, all the ends of the earth." I must be able to say--

   "I came to Jesus, and I drank Of that life-giving stream--

   and then, but not till then, I am to cry, "Ho, everyone that thirsts,
   come you to the waters." What a miserable wretch must he be who
   preaches to others a Gospel in which he has, himself, no share! He
   spreads the table and invites others to come to the feast, while he,
   himself, is starving! He is like a plague-stricken physician who knows
   the remedy for the disease and sees others cured by it, yet dies with
   the remedy in his hand. Ah me, of all the portions, that must be most
   dreadful in the world to come, as well as most uncomfortable in this
   present life! Surely it must be the portion of the man who preaches to
   others what he has never experienced in his own soul. Paul might well
   call it "our Gospel," for it had saved him, the chief of sinners, and
   made him a beloved Apostle of Jesus Christ. He might well call it "our
   Gospel" for he had held it fast in time of persecution and amid all the
   perils to which he had been exposed--and he was, at last, to give his
   life as a sacrifice for it! And it must be "our Gospel," too, "to have
   and to hold," or else we cannot preach it with any power!

   In the verse following our text, something more is said about the
   Gospel--it is there called "the glorious Gospel" There was something in
   it that aroused and inflamed the Apostle 's noblest thoughts. Paul was
   no boaster. "God forbid that I should glory," he said--but there was
   one exception--"save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." He did not
   stand up as a mere apologist for the Gospel, or say, "I can defend it
   against all comers and maintain that it is reasonable," but he gloried
   in it as the best and highest Truth of God--as wiser than all the
   Stoic's wisdom and more full ofjoy than all the Epicurean's pleasure!
   He gloried in that Gospel which brings full and free forgiveness to the
   penitent! That Gospel which takes the meanest and basest of mankind and
   makes them princes in the court of the King of kings! That

   Gospel which comes to men in poverty, in slavery, in the degradation of
   superstition, idolatry and crime--and lifts them up out of the horrible
   pit and the miry clay, sets their feet upon the Rock of Ages, cleanses
   them, clothes them, puts a new song into their mouth, preserves them
   from falling and, at last, brings them where they shall see the face of
   God and dwell forever in His Presence! It is, indeed, a glorious Gospel
   which can do all this! Yet, alas, the most of men are like the rooster
   on the dunghill who, when he found a pearl, said that he would sooner
   have found a grain of barley--they think more of their corn and their
   wine, their feasts and their mirth, than they do of the inexpressibly
   glorious things of the Kingdom of Heaven. Oh, that they were wise
   enough to perceive the glories of this glorious Gospel!

   Paul further calls it "the glorious Gospel of Christ" And well he
   might, for it is all about Christ from beginning to end! Give me a true
   preacher of the glorious Gospel of Christ and I will gladly listen to
   him. I would like him to be an educated minister if that is possible,
   for there is no need for my ears to be tortured by mistakes in grammar,
   but I do not care so much about that as about the other matter! I would
   sooner hear Christ's Gospel preached ungrammatically than I would hear
   the best philosophy set forth in the most orderly sentences, but with
   the Gospel of Christ left out. When the table is spread for dinner, it
   is well to have a clean tablecloth, china, glass and cutlery of all the
   right sort and in their proper places--but if there is no food on the
   dishes, all those other things are a mere mockery to the hungry ones
   who are waiting to be fed! Sooner, by far, would I go to a bare table
   and eat from a wooden bowl something that would appease my appetite,
   than I would go to a well-spread table on which there was nothing to
   eat! Yes, it is Christ, Christ, Christ whom we have to preach! And if
   we leave Him out, we leave out the very soul of the Gospel! Christless
   sermons make merriment for Hell. Christless preachers, Christless
   Sunday school teachers, Christless class leaders, Christless tract
   distributors--what are all these doing? They are simply setting the
   mill to grind without putting any grist into the hopper--all their
   labor is in vain! If you leave Jesus Christ out, you are simply beating
   the air, or going to war without any weapon with which you can smite
   the foe!

   Dear Friend, if you are unconverted, let me pause here for a few
   moments to remind you that this is not a Gospel of self, nor a Gospel
   of works, nor a Gospel of baptism, nor a Gospel of priests, nor a
   Gospel of ministers, but it is "the glorious Gospel of Christ!" Forget
   the men who preach it if you will, but, oh, forget not the bleeding,
   dying Savior to whom they bid you look. Your hope must be in Him and in
   Him, alone! To Him would we affectionately point you and we pray the
   Holy Spirit to shut your eyes to everything but Him whom God has set
   forth to be a Propitiation for sin--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One!

   There is life at this moment for thee!

   Then look, Sinner--look unto Him and be saved--

   Unto Him who was nailed to the tree!

   It is not the tears of repentance or prayers,

   But the blood that atones for the soul--

   On Him, then, who shed it, believing at once

   Your weight of iniquities roll!

   We are healed by His stripes--would you add to the Word?

   And He is our righteousness made--

   The best robe of Heaven He bids you put on,

   Oh, could you be better arrayed?

   Then doubt not your welcome, since God has declared

   There remains no more to be done!

   That once in the end of the world He appeared

   And completed the work He begun." With this rather long introduction, I
   now come to the three points upon which I am going to briefly speak,
   but very solemnly, for I think they concern many of you who are here,
   tonight. So, firstly, I ask, why is this Gospel hidden from some
   people? Secondly, what is the state of those from whom it is
   hidden?'And, thirdly, what is to be feared concerning them in the
   future?

   I. First, then, WHY IS THIS GOSPEL HIDDEN FROM SOME PEOPLE?

   It is evident that there are some persons in the world who do not
   understand the Gospel--and I will venture to say that the Gospel is
   never understood until it is received. You might have thought that men
   could very readily understand anything as simple as, "Believe, and
   live," yet those of us who have been converted must confess that we did
   not under-

   stand the Gospel until we received it. I am sure that I never fully
   comprehended the plan of salvation until I believed in the Lord Jesus
   Christ. And when I did believe, the whole matter seemed so simple that
   I wondered why I had not understood it before! You notice that the
   Apostle decreed that it was not his fault that the Gospel was hidden
   from some people. And although we would not put ourselves on a level
   with any Apostle, we are as clear upon this point of plain speaking as
   any Apostle who ever lived! If "our Gospel" is hidden from any of our
   hearers, it is not because of the fine language that we use! We fear
   that there are some who, in preaching the Gospel, indulge in such
   eloquent oratory that their Gospel is hidden from their hearers--but
   this is not a sin which can be laid at our door. We use what Whitefield
   called, "market language." We use a great many more Saxon words than
   Latin words. If we had to find out the Gospel through the types and
   symbols of the Law, we might have a difficulty in understanding it, but
   the Gospel we have to preach is simply this, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved. Trust in Him as suffering as a
   Substitute in your place and you shall be saved." Can anything be more
   simple than that? We try to use the plainest similitudes so as to bring
   the Truth of God within the comprehension of the weakest of our
   hearers. We make it a matter of conscience, as in the sight of God, to
   speak to men very simply so that each one, after he has heard the
   message, is compelled to admit that it has been delivered to him very
   plainly. How is it, then, that you do not understand it?

   Certainly, it is not because we hide the Gospel in a long roll of
   ceremonies. We have never said to you, "You must be christened in your
   infancy, you must have sponsors to promise all sorts of things in your
   name and then, as you grow up, you must be confirmed and must take the
   responsibility upon yourselves." Oh, no! We have never talked like
   that! We point you to the Divinely-Inspired Bible and tell you that all
   you need to know is plainly recorded there. We point you to the Eternal
   Word who became Incarnate and we say, with all the emphasis of which we
   are capable--

   "None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good!" We bid you not to trust
   in forms and ceremonies, but to look alone to Jesus Christ and Him
   Crucified, so that it cannot be for lack of plainness that the Gospel
   is not understood!

   And again, it cannot be because of any obscurity in the Gospel, itself.
   I will venture to say that there is no proposition in the world more
   simple than the one which the Gospel sets before us. The formula,
   "Twice two are four," is so simple that a child's mind can understand
   it. And the degree of intellect which can comprehend is sufficient--so
   far a intellect is concerned--to comprehend Paul's declaration, "This
   is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
   came into the world to save sinners." Or John's, "He that believes on
   the Son has everlasting life." To trust Jesus Christ, as far as it is
   an intellectual act, is a matter that does not require the slightest
   education--there is no need to sit down and calculate. Here is Jesus
   Christ standing in the sinner's place. God punished the sinner's guilt
   upon Christ instead of upon the sinner--all that the sinner is bidden
   to do is to trust Christ to save him--and, as soon as he does that, he
   is saved! What could be simpler than that? I grant you that as the
   Gospel is sometimes preached, there is obscurity in it, but there is no
   obscurity in the Gospel, itself! Well then, if it so, and it is, why is
   it that the Gospel is hidden from some people? And the answer is that
   "the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not."
   Let us see how this is.

   First of all, the Gospel is hidden from some men because they have
   never felt sin to be an evil. "Why," they say, "do you talk to us about
   the punishment of sin? Why do you tell us that God punished His own Son
   in the place of sinners? We believe in the universal fatherhood of God,
   so we have no need of any Doctrine of Substitution." So you think that
   it is a small thing to offend the Most High God, but He thinks it is a
   very great thing! You consider that sin is a mere trifle, scarcely
   worth thinking about, but God regards it as exceedingly sinful--an evil
   and an accursed thing which He will, by no means, pardon except in them
   who trust His Son, the Divinely appointed Substitute and Savior. If you
   realized what sin is, you would soon understand the Gospel! If the Holy
   Spirit shall teach you that sin is the most deadly and most damnable
   thing of which you can conceive, you will at once understand the Glory
   of the Gospel that shows how you can be completely delivered from its
   curse, penalty and power through the mercy of God in giving His
   only-begotten Son to die in your place! You love sin--that is the fact
   of the matter--and you suppose that one is no more offensive to God
   than it is to yourself. Fool that you are, you are fascinated by the
   serpent that has filled your veins with the venom which shall burn in
   you forever and ever unless you shall look by faith to Him who was
   lifted up upon the Cross even as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in
   the wilderness that all who looked upon it might live! May God give you
   Grace to see sin

   as it really is in His sight, for then will you realize your need of a
   Savior and you will give heed to the Gospel which bids you believe in
   Him that you may be saved!

   Another reason why men do not understand the Gospel is that they do not
   understand themselves. Some of you who are here tonight think that you
   can save yourselves. I know what your thoughts are--they are to this
   effect--that if you do your best, if you say your prayers, if you
   attend church or chapel, if you give some to the poor, then you will go
   to Heaven. You have not yet learned that all you do is tainted with the
   leprosy of sin and, therefore, cannot be acceptable to God! Your best
   works are bad since you do them with the motive that you may be saved
   by them--selfishness, therefore, is at the bottom of them all! You are
   not serving God by your good works! You are all the while trying to
   serve yourselves. If you knew yourselves better, you would know that
   all your works are nothing but sin until the Holy Spirit brings you to
   know your needof Christ--and then to knowChrist as the very Savior you
   need! If I am not in need, I have no need of the gifts of charity. And
   if you do not know how needy you are spiritually, you will never apply
   to Christ for aid. But once let the real needs of your soul stare you
   in the face--that you realize that you are "wretched, and miserable,
   and poor, and blind, and naked," then the simple Gospel message,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," will be so
   welcome to your soul that it will almost leap out of your body to lay
   hold of it!

   Yet another reason why men do not understand the Gospel is because
   their will is not subdued. "We want to know," they say, "why the
   requirements of the Gospel are so strict." Oh, Sirs, that is not the
   language for you to use to your God! The message to you is, "Except you
   are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into
   the Kingdom of Heaven." That hectoring spirit which says, "Why is this
   the only way of salvation? Why is this precept enjoined? Who is the
   Lord that we should serve Him?"--that spirit has been the eternal ruin
   of many! There is no likelihood that you will ever understand the
   Gospel while you are of this humor. Come down, Man, come down--there is
   no blessing for you while you set yourself up high! May the Lord make
   you know the corruptions and abominations which dwell in your heart
   that, in the Presence of the thrice-holy God, you may demean yourself
   after another and a humbler fashion! But while that wicked will of
   yours says, "I will not do what God requires," there is no hope
   whatever that you will be able to understand the Gospel!

   There are some who cannot understand the Gospel because it interferes
   with their worldly interests. If you take a sovereign out of your
   pocket and cover the word, "God," in your Bible with it, of course you
   cannot see the word! There are a great many men who never seem to see
   anything beyond pounds, shillings and pence--they never look above
   their ledgers--they never rise to anything that is Godlike and Divine.
   They have no more spirituality than so many pigs at a trough! They say
   they cannot understand the Gospel, but how can they when their
   understanding has been eaten through and through with the canker of
   their gold? There are many here to whom I am a stranger, but I should
   like to put this question to any of you who do not understand the
   Gospel--Is there not in your hearts a desire not to understand it? Is
   it not a sorrowful fact that many of you do not comprehend Gospel
   preachers because you do not want to trouble yourselves by
   comprehending them or have an uneasy consciousness that Gospel Truth
   and your pleasures will not agree? You are like men who are on the way
   to bankruptcy, but who dare not examine their books to see how they
   stand! Yet did you ever know a man retrieve his position by refusing to
   look his difficulties in the face? Is it not the most sensible plan to
   know the worst of your case and to know it at once? I have known some
   who did not want to understand the Gospel because they were engaged in
   a business which would not bear examination. There are others who are
   hindered by their besetting sins. If the Lord Jesus Christ would grant
   pardons and yet allow men to keep their sins, what a host of disciples
   of that sort He might have! But He says that though sin is as dear to
   us as our right arm, it is to be cut off--and though it is as precious
   as our right eye, it is to be plucked out! Yet many will not agree to
   these conditions and, therefore, the Gospel is hidden from them.

   II. Now I must try very briefly to answer the second question, WHAT IS
   THE STATE OF THOSE FROM WHOM

   THE GOSPEL IS HIDDEN?

   Paul says that they are lost--"If our Gospel is hidden, it is hidden to
   those who are lost." But, Paul, are you not very uncharitable in saying
   that men are lost? Preachers nowadays tell them that they will all get
   to Heaven at last. Ah, Beloved, the Apostles knew nothing of this
   modern, maudlin "charity!" They said, as their Master said before them,
   "He that believes not shall be damned." Our Lord Jesus Christ knew that
   there was no alternative between believing and being lost. But in what
   sense are they from whom the Gospel is hidden, lost?

   Well, first, they are lost to the church. You may be a subscriber to
   the funds of the church, you may attend the service of the church, you
   may even be an ardent admirer of the preacher and find a certain
   measure of interest in listening to his discourses. But if the Gospel
   is still hidden from you, if you do not understand it and believe on
   the Christ of whom it speaks--you are lost to the church of which many
   around you are members--and if you remain as you are, you will be lost
   to the one great Church of the first-born and will never form a part of
   the general assembly of the redeemed around the Throne of God above!

   It is a dreadful thing for anyone to be lost. I do not know if there is
   a more dreadful word in the English language than that word, "lost." Do
   you remember, my Friend, when you came home from work one night and
   your wife met you with the sad news that your little Mary was lost, how
   you hurried from one police station to another? And your poor
   distracted wife went tearing up and down one street after another
   seeking for tidings of your lost child! It was her misfortune to be
   lost in thatsense, but I hope you may never have a child lost in a
   sense in which it shall be her crime when the mother, night after
   night, searches the cold streets for any trace of her poor lost
   daughter! Ah, Sinner, you are lost to God in that sense. You have
   turned away from Him who made you. You have despised the love that He
   has lavished upon you. You have forgotten all the care that He has
   taken of you. I am quite sure that you are not happy while you are thus
   lost--how can you be happy? You are not at rest. Your soul is like a
   ship drifting in a storm with neither a rudder to guide her, nor an
   anchor to hold her and unless the Lord shall mercifully interpose to
   save you, you will be lost forever!

   What a mercy it is, Sinner, that you are not yet "lost" in the full
   meaning of that term, as you soon will be if you do not repent of your
   sin and turn unto the Lord! But even now it is a terrible thing to be
   lost in any sense--and if you are not saved, you are lost--you must be
   either the one or the other, you cannot be partly saved and partly
   lost! I will ask every one of you again tonight to do what I asked my
   congregation once before to do. You are either lost or saved, so will
   you definitely decide which word applies to your case and write it down
   and sign your name to it? I remember that on the previous occasion when
   I made this request, there was one Brother, who, after sincere heart
   searching, felt that he was lost, so he wrote down that word and signed
   his name below it. When he had done so and looked at the word, "Lost,"
   written with his own hand, and with his signature appended to it--and
   felt that it might be brought forward as evidence against him at the
   Last Great Day, it broke the heart that had never been broken before
   and brought him as a true penitent to the Savior's feet, so that before
   that night passed away he could write himself down as, "Saved," just as
   truthfully as he had before acknowledged that he was lost! I pray that
   this Brother's experience may be repeated in many of you here. Do not
   hesitate to look thoroughly into your own case. If you are saved, it is
   not difficult for you to know that you are. And if you are not saved,
   it is well that you should know it at once! If you think you are saved
   when you are not, your ruin will be all the more terrible because you
   had not the courage to find out the truth! If there is any doubt about
   the matter, let it be cleared up at once. Go to Jesus Christ this very
   moment! Confess your sin to Him and trust to His precious blood to wash
   it all away! And then you will be no longer lost, but shall be saved in
   the Lord with an everlasting salvation!

   III. Now, in a few closing sentences, let me answer the third question,
   WHAT IS TO BE FEARED CONCERNING THOSE FROM WHOM THE GOSPEL IS HIDDEN?

   It is to be feared that in addition to their natural blindness, a
   second film has been cast over their eyes by "the god of this world."
   That is a very remarkable expression, "the god of this world." Does
   this world, then, really worship the devil? There are devil-worshippers
   in certain far-off lands--and we hold up our hands in horror and say,
   "What shockingly bad people!" Yet there are also many devil-worshippers
   in this land! The lover of pleasure--what is he better than a
   devil-worshipper? It is the devil in his best suit of clothes whom some
   people worship, but it is still the devil! Worship the devil with the
   golden hoofs, but it is the same devil all the while! If I were to be
   lost, it would make little difference to me whether I was lost in a
   gold mine, or in a coal mine. If I were to break my neck on a slab of
   gold, it would be no better for me than breaking it upon a slab of
   stone! So, if you are lost, you will find little comfort in the thought
   that you are lost in a more respectable way than others are!

   When "the god of this world" comes to a man who is already blind by
   nature, he seeks to "make assurance doubly sure" by bandaging his eyes
   so securely that the Light of the Gospel shall be still more completely
   hidden from him! If such a man attends a place of worship, the devil
   persuades him that he is not a sinner, so that he need not take to him
   the preacher's warnings and exhortations. Another says, "I don't intend
   to trouble about any of these things--my one aim is to get on in the
   world." Yes, just so, "the god of this world" has blinded his eyes! So
   effectually does Satan blind the man that he cannot see his own
   depravity! O Soul, what shall it profit you if you shall gain the whole
   world, and yet be lost forever? What if you shall die upon a bed of
   down and wake up among the lost in Hell? May God give all of us the
   Grace to look upon the two worlds in their proper light! If the next
   world is only a trifle, trifle with it! If this world is everything,
   make everything of it! As you possess an immortal spirit, think well
   where that spirit is to spend eternity. As all have sinned and come
   short of the Glory of God, you are a sinner and you need salvation, so
   do, I entreat you, trust in Him who alone can save the guilty, "for
   there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must
   be saved," but the name of Jesus--and He is able to save unto the
   uttermost all who come unto God by Him. I said just now that I do
   entreat you to trust in Him, and so I do, yet this is not half so much
   my business as it is yours. The preacher of the Gospel ought to be in
   earnest, but when he has faithfully delivered his message, the
   responsibility is transferred to his hearers. As the Lord lives, I will
   take no responsibility of yours upon myself--to our own Master you and
   I must stand or fall! But, as your fellow man. As one who devoutly
   desires that you should not be lost, I do beseech you to seek Divine
   Grace from God to get rid of the scales from your eyes so that you may
   see sin, salvation and everything else as they are in His sight--and
   may look to Jesus and find eternal life in Him!

   Some of you young men are perhaps going to Oxford or Cambridge. Well,
   study hard, be senior wranglers if you can, but with all the knowledge
   that you may acquire, do get a clear understanding of eternal things
   and seek the wisdom that comes from above. When you wear the degrees
   which earthly knowledge will procure for you, may you also wear the
   higher degree which God shall confer upon you as the children of the
   Kingdom, children of God by faith in Christ Jesus! Sit at the feet of
   divines and philosophers if you will, but also sit at the feet of Jesus
   and learn of Him, for so shall you have honor and glory that shall last
   forever! Seek after the honor which comes from God--which can only be
   found by believing in Jesus and seeking to please Him in all things!

   My time has gone and your time for repentance and faith is almost gone.
   May the realities of eternity be deeply impressed upon us all--and may
   we be prepared--when death shall summon us to stand before God, to
   prove that the Gospel was not hidden from us, so that we may not be
   among "those who are lost." May God save us, by His Grace, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 CORINTHIANS 4; 5:1-9.

   2 Corinthians 4:1-2. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we
   have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things
   of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God
   deceitfully; but by manifestation of the Truth commending ourselves to
   every man's conscience in the sight of God. Paul's description of his
   own ministry and also that of Timothy should be true of every servant
   of Jesus Christ! There must be no dishonesty, or craftiness, or deceit
   about the minister of the Word of God--and it is by the manifestation
   of the Truth of God that he must commend himself to every man's
   conscience in the sight of God! He may not win every man's approval,
   yet even those who differ from him must perceive his loyalty to his
   Lord.

   3, 4. But if our Gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost:
   in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which
   believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is
   the image of God, should shine

   unto them. [See Sermons #1663, Volume 28--THE TRUE GOSPEL IS NO HIDDEN
   GOSPEL and #2304, Volume 39--BLINDED BY SATAN.] The light of the Gospel
   is so glorious and bright that it is only hidden from those who have
   been blinded by Satan, "the god of this world." The only hope for them
   is to believe in Jesus who can give sight to the spiritually blind as
   easily as He gave sight to the physically blind when He was here in the
   flesh.

   5. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and
   ourselves your servants for Jesus 'sake. "Christ Jesus the Lord" is to
   be the great theme of our preaching! And when it is so, we naturally
   take our right position with regard to our hearers, as Paul and Timothy
   did--"and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."

   6, 7. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
   shinedin our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of
   God in the face of Jesus Christ But we have this treasure in earthen
   vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
   God might have put the priceless treasure of the Gospel into the golden
   vessel

   of cherubim and seraphim--and He might have sent angels who would never
   suffer, who would never err, who would never sin--to preach the Word.
   But instead of doing so, He has chosen to send the Gospel to men by
   commonplace beings like themselves. "We have this treasure in earthen
   vessels," and this redounds much to God's Glory and, dear Friends, the
   great objective of the sending of the Gospel into the world is the
   Glory of God! He would manifest His mercy to men that His mercy might
   be glorified and, therefore, He has committed the Gospel not to the
   trust of perfect men, but to the trust of poor, shallow, earthen
   vessels like ourselves!

   8, 9. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are
   perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down,
   but not destroyed. The Apostle is here speaking for himself and all the
   members of the Apostolic college and, also, for all the early saints.
   They appear to have been very much troubled and sometimes to have been
   very much perplexed. I meet with certain brethren, now and then, who
   have no troubles--they are so supremely wise that they are never
   perplexed and so eminently holy that they do not appear to belong to
   the ordinary democracy of Christiani-ty--but are altogether
   supernatural beings! Well, I do not belong to their clique and it does
   not seem to me that Paul and the Apostles and the early Christians did.
   Those great pioneers of the Church of Christ were men who were troubled
   on every side--perplexed, persecuted, cast down--in fact, they were men
   of like passions with ourselves!

   10, 11. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
   that the life, also, of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For
   we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'sake, that the
   life, also, of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So you
   see, Brothers and Sisters, to have an anticipation of death upon one is
   no hindrance to one's work, but a great help to it--to bear about in
   our body the dying of the Lord Jesus is a great help towards the
   manifestation of the life of Christ! When we begin to reckon that we
   shall live long, we are very apt to live loosely. But to live as though
   tomorrow might be the Judgment Day, or as though today the King might
   come in His Glory--that is the style of living which is the best of
   all! "A short life and a holy one"--lengthened as God may please, but
   reckoned by us as short even at the longest--may that be the
   Christian's motto. As the worldling says, "A short life and a merry
   one." But we say, "A short life if God so wills it, but a holy one
   whether it is long or short."

   12. So then death works in us, but life in you. These Apostolic men
   lived as if they were on the borders of the grave--lived expecting to
   die a cruel death--and in this way spiritual life was brought to the
   Corinthians and others who witnessed their holy lives and heroic
   deaths.

   13-16. We, having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written,
   I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore
   speak; knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up,
   also, by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for
   your sakes, that the abundant Grace might through the thanksgiving
   ofmany redound to the Glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but
   though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by
   day. As the flesh goes down, so, by God's Grace, the spirit goes up!
   You know that there are heavy weights that keep men down to the earth,
   but he who understands mechanics knows that by the use of wheels and
   pulleys those same heavy weights may be made to lift a man--and God
   often makes the weights and burdens associated with bodily decay lift
   up the inward spirit.

   17, 18. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for
   us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not
   at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for
   the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not
   seen are eternal

   2 Corinthians 5:1, 2. For we know that ifour earthlyhouse ofthe
   tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
   with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan. In this poor
   body it is our lot often to groan, but the groan is a hopeful one, for
   it is a birth-pang and it will bring joy in due time--"For in this we
   groan."

   2-6. Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from
   Heaven: if it is that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we
   that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we
   would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed
   up of life. Now He that has worked us for the same thing is God, who
   also has given unto us the earnest ofthe Spirit Therefore we are always
   confident That is a blessed experience, "always confident." There are
   some Christians who are neverconfident and some who are afraid of being
   confident. I know some who, if they see this holy confidence in other
   Christians, begin to tremble for their eternal safety. Never mind about
   them, Brothers and Sisters--if God gives you a holy confidence in Him,
   hold fast to it and do not let it go, whatever anyone may say!

   6-9. 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. [See Sermon #1303, Volume 22--the believer in
   the body and

   OUT OF THE BODY.] That is our main business--whether we live or

   whether we die is of no consequence at all! But to be accepted of
   Christ--so to live is to be well-pleasing to God. Be this our heavenly
   ambition and may the Holy Spirit graciously enable us to attain to it!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sealed Hand--a Winter Sermon

   (No. 3289)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He seals up the hand of every man; that all men may know His work."
   Job 37:7.

   When the Lord seals up a man's hand, he is unable to perform his labor.
   The Lord has an objective in this, namely, "that all men may know His
   work." When they cannot do their own work, they are intended to observe
   the works of God. This is a fact which I fear many of us have never
   noticed. When the ground is hardened into iron by the frost. When the
   land lies deep beneath the snow. When the ox rests in the stall and the
   servants warm their hands at the fire, then the farmer's hand is sealed
   up. But I fear the Divine Purpose is not often heeded. As you look
   through the frosted pane upon the driving snow, do you say to yourself,
   "God has taken me off from my own work and given me a holiday which He
   would have me turn into a holy day--let me now turn my thoughts to the
   Lord's great works in Nature, Providence and Grace. Shut out from my
   calling, I am also shut in to think of my God and of His work"?

   To the most of us, it happens that at sundry times we are set aside
   from our ordinary service--and it is well if we improve the hour. One
   is never absent from his desk. Another is regularly behind the counter.
   A third is always diligent in his travelling but, sooner or later,
   there comes a day of pain and weakness--when the usual course of life
   is interrupted and the busiest man lies still. In the sickbed for weeks
   and months, God seals up the active hand, and thus He presents to the
   busy a quiet season for reflection! In France, they call the hospital,
   "the House of God," and it is well when it becomes so. The man who will
   not think of God if he can help it, while he is busy in the world, is,
   by sickness blessed with time for consideration and, being set aside
   from turmoil, he is invited to rise above his engrossing cares! The
   Great Father seems to say, "Lie there alone. Lie awake through the
   night-watches and think of your past ways and what they lead to. Listen
   to the tick of the clock and mark the flight of time till you number
   your days and apply your heart unto wisdom. Your own work you cannot
   touch. Now, therefore, think of the work of your God and Savior till
   you obtain the blessing which comes of it." This is the design of
   sickness and inability to follow our calling! Thus is our hand sealed
   from its occupation that our heart may be unsealed towards God, Heaven
   and eternal things!--

   "It needs our hearts be weaned from earth.

   It needs that we be driven

   By loss of every earthly stay,

   To seek our joys in Heaven."

   It is clear that God can easily seal up the hand of man if he uses his
   strength in rebellion or folly, for He has other seals besides
   sickness. When the wicked are determined to carry out a plan which is
   not according to His mind, He can baffle them. See the people gathering
   on the plain of Shinar, bringing together brick and slime that they may
   build a tower whose lofty height shall mark the center of a universal
   monarchy! What does God do? By simply confounding their language, he
   seals every man's hand! No storm, or flood, or earthquake could have
   more effectually caused the workmen to desist. Look through the
   loopholes of retreat tonight upon this wicked world and see men urgent
   with schemes which to them appear admirable. If they are not for God's
   Glory, He that sits in Heaven laughs! The Lord has them in derision!
   With a word He seals up their hand so that it loses all its cunning and
   their purpose falls to the ground! Sometimes He closes up the hands of
   His inveterate enemies with the cold seal of death. Walk over the place
   where Sennacherib's hosts had pitched their tents. They spread
   themselves upon the face of the earth and threatened to devour Judah
   and Jerusalem--yes to quickly swallow them up--but "the angel of death
   spread his wings on the blast," and the sleepers never again rose to
   blaspheme Jehovah! They lie with their weapons under their heads, but
   they cannot grasp them! Bows,

   spears and chariots remain as a spoil to the armies of the Lord! Let us
   never, therefore, be disturbed by the vaunting of the adversaries of
   Jehovah! He can seal up their hands and then the men of might are
   captives! "The Lord reigns"--

   "Though sinners boldly join,

   Against the Lord to rise,

   Against His Christ combine,

   The Anointed to despise.

   Though earth disdain,

   And Hell engage,

   Vain is the rage--

   Their counsel vain."

   We will leave that part of the subject and handle the text in another
   way. Here is, first, a word to Christian workers. And when we have so
   expounded it, we shall turn to struggling Believers panting for
   victory--for with both these classes there are seasons when their hands
   are sealed. Thirdly, we shall speak to such as are toiling after
   self-salvation for it is a happy thing when such an hour comes to them,
   also, and they cease from their own work and know the work of the Lord!

   I. First, then, I speak to YOU WHO ARE GOD'S PEOPLE and have grown into
   strong men in Christ Jesus.

   Do not be surprised if sometimes your Master seals up your hand by a
   consciousness of unfitness. You may have preached for years and yet
   just now you feel as if you could never preach again. Your cry is, "I
   am shut up and cannot come forth." The brain is weary, the heart is
   faint and you are on the brink of saying, "I will speak no more in the
   name of the Lord." Your seed basket is empty and your plow is
   rusty--when you get to the granary, it seems to be locked against you.
   What are you to do? No message from God drops sweetly into your soul
   and how can your speech among the people distil as the dew? Perhaps
   some of you who have lately begun to serve the Lord wonder that it
   should ever be so with us older workers. You will not wonder long, for
   it will also happen to you! When a farmer sows his field with a seeder,
   the drill has no aches and pains, for it has no nerves and nothing to
   prevent the seed shaking out of it with precise regularity. But our
   great Lord never sows His fields with iron seeders. He uses men and
   women like ourselves, who are liable to headaches, heartaches and all
   sorts of miseries and, therefore, cannot sow as they could wish.
   Comrades in the Lord's work, it is essential that we learn our own
   inability! It is profitable to feel that without our Lord we can do
   noth-ing--but that the Lord can do very well without us! If we cannot
   break the clods, His frost is doing it. If we cannot water the soil,
   His snow is saturating it. When man is paralyzed, God is not even
   hindered. When we feel our own weakness, it is that we may know the
   Lord's work and comprehend that whatever understanding we have, He gave
   us. Whatever thought or utterance we have, He worked it in us and if we
   have any power among men to deliver the precious Gospel of Christ, He
   has anointed us to that end. Therefore, if we have received, we may not
   boast as if we had not received! It is a great blessing for us to be
   emptied of self that God may be All-in-All, for then our infirmities
   cease to be drawbacks and rise into qualifications through Divine
   Grace! This has a world of comfort in it.

   Sometimes the Christian worker's hand is sealed, not by his own
   incompetence, but by the hardness of the hearts he has to deal with. Do
   we not often cry, "I cannot make any impression upon that man! I have
   tried in several ways, but I cannot find a vulnerable place in him. I
   cannot get the sword of Truth to strike at him"? Have you never mourned
   that you could not touch those children--they were so volatile and
   frivolous? Have you not been ready to weep because so many men are so
   coarse, so drunk and so reckless? Have you not groaned, "Lord, I cannot
   get at those wealthy people! They are educated and sneer at my
   mistakes. And they are so eaten up with the conceit of their own
   position that they will not come to You as the poor do, and receive
   Your salvation. Truly, my hand is sealed"? This is all meant to drive
   you to your God in prayer, crying, "It is time for You, Lord, to work!"
   Oh, for that word which is like a hammer, breaking the rock in pieces!
   Oh, that the fire would melt and save the sinner!

   Another thing which often seals the hand of the worker and leaves it
   maimed and bleeding, is the apostasy of any who were thought to be
   converts. Oh, how we rejoiced over them! Perhaps just a little, behind
   the door, we thought how wonderfully well we labored to have such
   converts. As we saw them at worship and remembered that they were once
   drunks and swearers, we almost whispered that a notable miracle had
   been worked by us. Ah me, how light-fingered we are! How ready to rob
   God of His Glory to clothe self with it! What did the Lord do? He let
   our precious convert go reeling home and he that prayed at the Prayer
   Meeting was heard cursing! Thus all our weaving was unraveled. Then we
   wept and cried, "We have accomplished nothing at all! We have only bred
   a generation of hypocrites! They only need to

   be tempted and they go back again! Alas for us!" We shall return to our
   work with more tenderness and humility, with more prayer and faith--and
   looking alone to God we shall see His hand outstretched to save! We
   shall wonder that we have not gone back, ourselves, and shall be
   prepared to sing Jude's doxology, "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 forever. Amen." When the
   Lord seals up your hand in any way, then, dear Christian worker,
   consider God's work, and call Him into the field--

   "Arm of the Lord, awake, awake!

   Your power unconquerable take.

   Your strength put on, assert Your might

   And triumph in the dreadful fight!

   Why do You tarry, mighty Lord?

   Why slumbers in its sheath Your sword?

   Oh, awaken for Your honor's sake--

   Arm of the Lord, awake, awake!

   Hasten then, but come not to destroy.

   Mercy is Yours--Your crown, Your joy!

   Their hatred quell, their pride remove,

   But melt with Grace, subdue with love." Some think the text teaches
   that when God seals up a man's hand, it is that he may know his own
   work, that is, that he may perceive what poor, imperfect work it
   is--that he may form a correct estimate of it and not glory in it--that
   he may observe the scantiness of the sphere of human action and mourn
   how ineffective, how despicable, how feeble man's efforts are apart
   from God's power. It is a great blessing to know our own work and to be
   humble, but still it is a higher blessing to know the Lord's work and
   to be confident in Him. O Brothers and Sisters, we must be nothing, or
   the Lord will not use us! If the axe vaunts itself against him that
   fells trees therewith, he will fling that axe away. If we sacrifice to
   our own net, the Great Fisherman will never drag the sea with us again
   till He has made us more fit for use. Oh, to be nothing! To lie at His
   feet and then, full of His power, because emptied of our own, to move
   forward to victory! May the Lord work in us to will and to do of His
   good pleasure--then shall we work out a glorious destiny to His praise!
   II. This Scripture equally applies to THE CASE OF THE STRUGGLING
   BELIEVER.

   The man is earnestly striving. Look at him! He is seeking to pray. I
   sometimes ask young people, "Do you pray?" They answer, "We could not
   live without prayer." "Can you always pray alike?" I thank God that I
   usually receive the answer, "No, Sir. We wish we could always be
   earnest." Just so. A steam engine can always do its work with equal
   force, but a living man cannot always pray. A mere actor can perform
   the externals of devotion at any time, but the real suppliant has his
   variations. We have all read of the preacher who, while preaching, used
   to cry most unaccountably when others were untouched. The reason was
   that he had put in the margin of his manuscript, "Cry here," and this
   he had done in the quiet of his study, without considering whether the
   passage would really produce tears. A man of genuine emotion cannot
   make himself cry at say, half-past seven in the morning and ten at
   night. Mighty prevailing prayer is an effect of the inward impulses of
   the Spirit of God and the Spirit blows where He wishes. We cannot
   command His influence. We ought always to pray most when we think we
   cannot pray at all! Mark that paradox. When you feel disinclined to
   pray, let it be a sign to you that prayer is doubly necessary! Pray for
   prayer! Yet there are times with me, and I suppose with you, when at
   the Throne of Grace I mourn because I cannot mourn, and feel wretched
   because all feeling has fled. The Lord has sealed up my hand! But that
   is that I may learn anew how His Spirit helps my infirmities and that I
   am powerless in supplication till He quickens me. We could as easily
   create a world as present a fervent prayer without the Spirit of God!
   We need to have this written upon our hearts, for only so shall we
   offer those inwrought supplications which the Lord hears with delight.

   Look at the struggling Believer, next, when he tries to learn the Truth
   of God. For instance, in reading the Scriptures, he pants to know the
   meaning of them. Did you never try to dig into a passage and find
   yourself unable to make headway? Fetch a commentary! Do you find that
   it leaves your difficulty untouched? Have you not begun at the wrong
   end? Would it not be better to pray your way into the textand when you
   have got somewhat through the rind of it, will it not be well to
   imitate a mouse when he meets with cheese and eats his way to the
   center? Work away at the passage by prayer and experience and you will
   tunnel into the secret! Yet you will at times find yourself lost among
   grand Truths of God and quite unable to cut your way through the forest
   of Doctrines because your understanding seems to have lost its edge.
   God has sealed up your hand that now you may go to Him for instruction,
   and clearly so that not in books nor in teachers, but in His Holy
   Spirit is the light by which the Word of Truth is to be understood by
   the soul! He seals up our hands that we may sit at His feet--

   "Light in Your light oh may we see, Your Grace and mercy prove,
   Revived, and cheered, and blessed by Thee, Spirit of peace and love."

   The struggling Believer may have set himself to watch against certain
   sin. Possibly he has enjoyed his morning's devotion and he goes
   downstairs resolved to be patient, whatever provocation may occur, for
   he wept last night over the evil done by a quick temper. He converses
   cheerfully and yet, before the breakfast is over, the lion is roused
   and he is in the wars again! The poor man murmurs to himself, "What
   will become of me? This hot temper runs away with me." Do not excuse
   yourself but still learn from your own folly. Does not the Lord thus
   let you see your own weakness more and more till you gird on His
   strength and overcome it? Remember, it must be conquered! You must not
   dare to be the slave of a fierce temper, or, indeed, of any sin! If the
   Son make you free, you shall be free, indeed! And it is His
   emancipating hand that you need within. Sanctification is the work of
   the Spirit of God--only He can accomplish it--and it is for you to cry
   unto the Strong for strength!

   Perhaps the struggle is of yet another kind. You long to grow in Grace.
   This is a matter worthy of the utmost desire and labor, and yet, as a
   matter of fact, neither plants nor souls actually grow through
   conscience effort. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
   they toil not, neither do they spin." Children of God, when they grow,
   grow up into Christ, not by agonies and excitements, but by the quiet
   force of the inward life renewed from day to day by the Holy Spirit! We
   have heard some true saints complain that they felt as if they were
   rather growing downward than upward, for they feel worse instead of
   better. Thus do many of the plants of our garden grow--and we are
   joyful that it is so--for we need not the useless top growth, but we
   prize the root! To grow downward in humility may be the best possible
   growth--the hand sealed may be bringing us more spiritual profit than
   the hand at work!

   III. I might thus enlarge, but it would come to the same thing and,
   therefore, I leave the struggling Christians to lend a hand to THE
   SELF-RIGHTEOUS, whom I would gladly help into a ditch and leave there
   till the Almighty One shall come to take them out!

   If we believe their own statements, there are a great many very good
   people in this world. True, the Bible says, "There is none that does
   good; no, not one," but that is an old-fashioned sort of book! Good men
   are plentiful as blackberries! I hear certain of them bearing witness
   that they are quite as good as those who make a profession of religion
   and, in fact, rather better! They are so good that they do not even
   profess to trust the Lord Jesus Christ! Now, you excessively good
   people, I am right glad when the Lord seals up your hands so that you
   cannot persevere in your fine doings and are compelled to try the true
   way of getting to Heaven!

   Sometimes that sealing up comes by a discovery that the Law of God is
   spiritual, and that the service of God is a matter of the heart. Here
   is a good woman! She says, "I never stole a penny. I always pay my
   debts. I am sober, kind and industrious. I thank God I am not a gossip,
   or proud, or idle, as so many are." Is she not a superior person? But
   observe a change! She hears a sermon, or reads the Bible and finds that
   external goodness is nothing unless there is goodness in the
   heart--unless there is love to God and love to men--unless there is the
   new birth and a consequent total and radical change of nature
   manifested by a simple reliance upon Christ! Is this the same woman?
   How different her manner! How changed the tone of her talk! Hear her
   exclaim, "I am utterly lost! I had no idea that God required the heart
   and judged our thoughts and desires. What searching Truths! A look can
   make me guilty of adultery. Anger without a cause is murder!" If this
   fact comes with power to the heart--the hand is sealed and all hope of
   salvation by works is gone! Oh, that this would happen to all
   self-justifiers! Oh, that the Lord would wean them from self, that they
   might know His work, the work of Christ who satisfied the Law for all
   His people, that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him!

   Sometimes an actual sin has let in light upon the sinfulness of the
   heart I knew a young man who, in his own esteem, was as fine a fellow
   as ever worked in a shop. He prided himself that he had never told a
   lie, nor been dishonest, nor a drunk, nor loose in his life--and if the
   Savior had said to him that he must keep the commandments, he would
   have rep-

   lied, "All these have I kept from my youth up." In pushing a fellow
   workman, he upset an oilcan. It happened to have been upset before, and
   the master had spoken strongly about the careless waste. The master,
   coming along on this occasion, called out, "Who upset that can?"" The
   young man said that he did not know, though he himself was the
   offender. That passed away. No further question was asked, but in a
   moment he said to himself, "I have told a lie! I never would have
   believed myself capable of such meanness." His beautiful card house
   tumbled down! The bubble of his reputation burst and he said to
   himself, "Now I understand what Mr. Spurgeon means by the depravity of
   the heart. I am a good-for-nothing creature! What must I do to be
   saved?" No doubt outward sin has often revealed the secret power of
   evil in the heart. The leprosy has come out upon the skin and so it has
   been seen to be in the system. Thus is pride hidden from man--and his
   hand is sealed up that he may look for mercy from God, and live!

   Yes, I have known God seal up some men's hands by a sense of spiritual
   inability, so that they have said, "I cannot pray. I thought I prayed
   every morning and night, but I now see that it is not prayer at all. I
   cannot now praise God. I used to sit in the choir and sing as sweetly
   as any of them, but I was singing to my own glory, and not unto the
   Lord. I fear I have been deceiving myself and setting up my
   righteousness instead of Christ's--and that is the worst form of
   idolatry. I have dishonored God and I have crucified Christ by claiming
   to myself the power of self-salvation. I have un-Christed Christ and
   counted His blood to be a superfluous thing." When a man has come to
   that, then he--

   "Casts his deadly doing down,

   Down at Jesus' feet--

   To stand in Him, in Him alone,

   Gloriously complete!"

   "What?" cries yonder friend, "Would you not have us do good works?"
   Yes, a host of them! But not to thereby save yourself! You must do them
   becauseyou are saved! You know what children do when they are little
   and silly--they go into their fathers garden and pick handfuls of
   flowers, and make a garden. "A pretty, pretty garden," so they say.
   Wait till tomorrow morning and every flower will be withered and there
   will be no pretty garden at all, for their flowers have no roots! That
   is what you do when you cultivate good works beforefaith--it is a
   foolish, fruitless business. Repent of sin and believe in Jesus, for
   these are the roots of good works! And, though at first they look like
   black bulbs with no beauty in them, yet out of them shall come the
   rarest flowers in the garden of holiness! Get away with your good
   works! Get away with your salvation of yourself! This is all proud
   fancy and falsehood. Why did God send a Savior if you need no saving?
   What need of the Cross if you can be saved by your own works? Why did
   Jesus bleed and die if your own merits are sufficient? Come, you guilty
   ones! Come, you weary! Come, you whose hands are sealed, so that you
   can do nothing more--take the work of Christ and be saved by it at
   once!

   A young Sister who I saw just now, told me how a friend helped her to
   see the way of salvation. She could not believe in Jesus Christ because
   she did not feel herself to be all that she wanted to be. But the
   friend said to her, "Suppose I were to give you this Bible for a
   present." "Yes." "Would it not be yours as soon as you took it? It
   would not depend upon whether you were good or not, would it?" "No."
   "Well, then," the friend replied, "the Lord God has given Jesus Christ
   to you as a free gift--and if you take him by faith, He is immediately
   yours, whoever you may be." The case stands just so. Accept Jesus as
   the free gift of God to you and you are saved! And being saved, you
   will work with all your might to show your gratitude to God your
   Savior!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM94.

   This is the prayer of a man of God in great trouble, standing out for
   God in an evil day, when the Lord's people were greatly oppressed, and
   the honor of God was being trampled in the mire. The prayer wells up
   from an oppressed heart struggling against great difficulty.

   Verse 1. LORD God--"O Jehovah, El." Men of God in trouble delight to
   call upon the name of the Lord. His very name is a stronghold to them!
   The Infinite Jehovah, the strong God. EL. "O Lord God"--

   1. To whom vengeance belongs; O God, to whom vengeance belongs, show
   Yourself'Vengeance does not belong to us! It is not right for any
   private individual to attempt to avenge himself. But vengeance does
   belong to the just Judge

   who will mete out to all the due reward of evil or of good. Hence, my
   appeal is to the Court of King's Bench, or higher still, to the King,
   Himself! "O God, to whom vengeance belongs, show Yourself." When false
   Doctrine abounds, only God can put it down. All the efforts of the
   faithful will be futile apart from Him.

   2-4. Lift up Yourself You judge of the earth: render a reward to the
   proud. LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked
   triumph? How long shall they utter and speak hard things? And all the
   workers of iniquity boast themselves?That expression, "How long?"
   repeated three times, is very sorrowful. It seems to get into a kind of
   howling or wailing. But a child of God, when he sees things going wrong
   with his Lord's Kingdom, must grow somewhat impatient and he cries out
   to His God, "How long? How long? How long will You bear it?" The very
   triumphs of the wicked and the hard things they say, with which they
   seem to bubble over like fountains, (for that is the force of the term
   "utter and speak" used here), stir the heart of the man of God to its
   very depths! He gets alone and grieves before God. And out of a full
   heart he thus cries to Him, "How long shall they utter and speak hard
   things? And all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?"

   5. They break in pieces Your people, O LORD There is a strong plea in
   that declaration, for the Lord of Hosts says to His people, He that
   touches you, touches the apple of My eye." In days of persecution the
   saints can pray in this fashion, "They break in pieces Your people,
   Jehovah."

   5, 6. And afflict Your heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger,
   and murder the fatherless. This made the appeal still stronger, for God
   is "a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows."

   7. Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob
   regard it Yet this very God of Jacob came to the troubled Patriarch at
   Jabbok and blessed him there. And He said to heathen kings, "Touch not
   My Anointed, and do my Prophets no harm"--so can it be true that He
   does not see and regard what the wicked do to His people? They dare to
   say so, and render themselves the more brazen in their sin because of
   this, their infidelity!

   8. Understand, you brutish among the people. Here the pleader turn into
   a Prophet and, after having spoken to God, he now speaks to men.
   Understand, you boors," for so the word may be rendered, "You swine
   among the people."

   9. And you fools, when will you be wise? He that planted the ear, shall
   He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He

   not see? [See Sermon #2118, Volume 35--THE PLANTER OF THE EAR MUST
   HEAR.] You say that God does not see, that He does not regard--but how
   can that be? You are mad to talk so! He that gave men the sense of
   hearing--cannot He, Himself, hear? He that gave them sight--cannot He
   see?--

   "Shall He who, with transcendent skill,

   Fashioned the eye and formed the ear--

   Who modeled Nature to His will--

   Shall He not see? Shall He not hear?

   Vain hope! His eyes at once survey

   Whatever fills Creation's space--

   He sees our thoughts, and marks our ways,

   He knows no bounds of time and place."

   10. He that chastises the heathen, shall not He correct?He judges the
   nations--read the Book of Providence and see how He deals out justice
   to nation after nation! So shall He not also correct the individual
   man?

   10. He that teaches man knowledge--If you look at your Bibles, you will
   see that the translators have put in here the words, "shall not He
   know." They are printed in italics because they are not in the
   original. The original is very abrupt--it is as if the Psalmist had
   said, "There, I am tired of arguing with you. You can draw your own
   inference. I will leave you to do that for yourselves. Fools as You
   are, I need not draw the inference for you." "He that teaches man
   knowledge." Does man really know anything unless God teaches him? Adam
   was taught of God at the first--and every particle of true science that
   man knows has been imparted by God! I do not say that God is the Author
   of the science of today--much of that evidently comes from man--but all
   true knowledge is imparted to us by God. "He that teaches man
   knowledge"--do you think--do you dream that He does not Himself know
   everything?

   10, 11. Shall not He know? The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that
   they are vanity He knows that men are vanity, that they are, according
   to one translation, a vapor! The men themselves are but a vapor, but as
   for their thoughts, their intellect, their power to think, that of
   which many men are most proud--what does God think of these? What a
   wonderful thing "modern thought" seems to be! But listen to this, "The
   Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are

   nothing." Vanity is a negation, it is a bubble--a thing puffed up that
   has no substance in it--"The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they
   are vanity."

   12. Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O LORD, and teach him out of
   Your Law [See Sermon #2374, Volume 40--BLESSED

   DISCIPLINE.] These are two things that go well together-a rod

   and a book. No man ever learns much without both rod and book. "Blessed
   is the man whom You chasten." The Book is never properly understood
   without some touches of the rod, but the Book must also be there--"and
   teach" him out of Your Law, "for if it were all rod and no Book, there
   would be plenty of scars, but there would be no learning! Have you got
   the two together, my dear Friend? Have you been of late very much with
   the Book in a nook, and very much with the rod upon your bed? Well,
   then, you are a blessed man, for the Psalmist says, "Blessed is the man
   whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your Law."

   13. That You may give him a rest from the days of activity, until the
   pit is dug for the wicked. In these days, the quiet virtues are not
   prized as much as they ought to be. Men are always busy--they must be
   ever on the trot--but blessed is the man who is so taught by the Book
   and by the rod that he comes to a holy quietism and learns to rest! The
   man or woman most rested is the best worker. He who knows how to sit at
   Jesus' feet, knows how to work for Jesus better than if he were
   continually running about and getting cumbered with much service. We
   never learn the secret of this rest by the Book, alone, or by the rod,
   alone--the rod and the book togetherteach us to rest from the days of
   adversity. They teach us not to lay the present too much to heart, not
   to fret because of things as they are today, but to think of what is to
   be in that Day when the righteous shall be rewarded, and when the
   Mighty Hunter shall have trapped His adversary and ours--when the pit
   shall be dug for the wicked and Satan's power shall be forever
   destroyed!

   14. For the LORD will not cast off His people. He may cast them down,
   but He will never cast them off!

   14. Neither will He forsake His inheritance. Even men will not give up
   their inheritance. This is especially the case among the Jews! You
   remember how Naboth would not sell his inheritance--he would sooner
   die. And the Lord will not forsake His inheritance--there is a sacred
   condition upon His people that never can be broken--and He will never
   give them up.

   15. But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright
   in heart shall follow it The wicked may be the upper spokes of the
   wheel just now, but they will be the lower spokes before long! The
   Truth of God may be in the mire, today, but she shall be upon the
   Throne tomorrow! The revolutions of the wheels of Providence produce
   strange changes. Wait. Work. Watch. For the Lord will set things right
   in His own good time.

   16. Who will rise up for me against the evildoer or who will stand up
   for me against the workers of iniquity?The Psalmist appeals for
   helpers, but he gets no response from man. And sometimes the man of God
   will have to stand alone-- and that can be quite an education for him.
   Blessed is he who has learned to hang on the bare arm of God--he is
   better off without his earthly friends than he was with them! Here is
   the answer to the Psalmist's question--

   17. Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in
   silence. You may be one of the best of God's servants and yet that may
   be your experience. Here is another piece of testimony in which many of
   us can join--

   18. When I said, My foot slips, Your mercy, O Lord, held me up. "My
   foot had slipped from under me. I was down. But then, even then, You
   did put underneath me Your everlasting arms. 'Your mercy, O Lord, held
   me up.'"

   19. In the multitude of my thoughts within me Your comforts delight my
   soul [See Sermon #883, Volume 15--multiudinous

   THOUGHTS AND SACRED COMFORTS.] "My thoughts"-so some read

   this verse--"seem intertwisted and interlaced like the many branches of
   a tree. I cannot make them out--they are in such a tangle." But the
   bird has learned to sit among the branches and sing, "Your comforts
   delight my soul." There are thoughts of grief, thoughts of fear,
   thoughts of disappointment, thoughts of desertion, thoughts of a broken
   heart--all sorts of thoughts, but God's comforts come in and delight
   the soul! You know what it is--do you not?--to be cast down, but not
   destroyed? To be troubled, and yet to be happy? "As sorrowful," says
   Paul, "yet always rejoicing." Whereupon an old Divine remarks that it
   is "as sorrowful"--quasi sorrowful--but it is not "as always
   rejoicing." There is no "quasi" to that, but there is a real joy in the
   midst of a seeming sorrow! "In the multitude of my thoughts within me
   Your comforts delight my soul."

   20. Shiall thee throne of iniquity have fellowship with You, which
   frames mischief by a Law?Lord, are You on their side? Oh, no, and as
   You are not on their side, I care not who is! So long as You will not
   aid iniquity or help wrongdoing, I will, by Your Grace, fight the
   battle through.

   21, 22. They gather themselves together against the soul of the
   righteous and condemn the innocent blood. But the LORD is my defense;
   and my God is the rock of my refuge. He gets away unto his God as he
   had been accustomed to hide in the cave of Adullam out of reach of his
   foes! And then he sits down in peace to sing--

   23. And He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them
   off in their own wickedness; yes the LORD our God shall cut them off.
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Hand at Evening

   (No. 3290)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 15, 1866.

   "Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening." Ezekiel 33:22.

   PERHAPS in the special senses in which Ezekiel uses this expression, we
   shall not expect to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon us. God may not
   call us to prophesy as Ezekiel did, although in the Scriptural use of
   the word, "prophesy," the preacher of the Word is still called to
   deliver the message which he has received from his Lord's lips. The
   days of special visions and voices and prophesying have passed away,
   but we can still say with Peter, "We have a more sure word of prophecy,
   whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines
   in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day star arise in your
   hearts."

   I think, however, that we may use our text with some profit in other
   senses--"The hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening." So we will
   enquire, first, what hand was this?Secondly, what time was this? And
   then, thirdly, what teaching is there for us in this incident?

   I. So first, let us ask, WHAT HAND WAS THIS? The answer is very clearly
   stated in the text, "the hand of the Lord." We will examine this
   expression, first, in its connection with the Lord's people, and then
   in its relation to sinners in whom a gracious work is beginning.

   First, then, looking at this expression in its connection with the
   Lord's people, I remark that sometimes, "the hand of the Lord" is laid
   very heavily upon them in chastisement. It is no unusual thing for a
   child of God to say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me"--and often he
   has not merely to add, "in the evening"--but he can truthfully say,
   "All day long His hand has been heavily laid upon me." There are some
   of God's children who are very frequently the subjects of His
   chastening, and if any of you have come here smarting under the blows
   of His rod, you must not murmur, for this is the treatment that is
   meted out to all the rest of the Lord's family. It is through much
   tribulation that they enter the Kingdom, so let not any one of us take
   up the lamentation of Jeremiah, "I am the man that has seen affliction
   by the rod of His wrath"--but let us all expect to follow in the
   footsteps of the flock, well knowing that--

   "The path of sorrow, and that path, alone, Leads to the land where
   sorrow is unknown." Be not astonished, therefore, if "the hand of the
   Lord" is laid upon you, thus, for, "if you endure chastening, God deals
   with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chastens
   not?" Yet while you feel the weight of God's hand upon you, never
   forget that it is your Father'shand. Whatever form your trial may
   take--whether it is the loss of a child or of a parent, or the
   withdrawal of temporal prosperity, or the smiting of the body with
   aches and pains--the rod is never in any hand but the paternal one and
   even while the Father smites, He loves. Let this be your comfort, that
   it is not the hand of an enemy that is upon you--you are not suffering
   from a crushing blow from the foeman's mailed hand, but the stroke,
   whether it is heavy or light, is wholly caused by your loving Father's
   hand!

   "The hand of the Lord" is also a humbling hand. When God lays His
   afflicting hand upon us, He takes away much of our fancied beauty and
   lets us see the ugliness of our natural deformity. We thought we were
   very patient until we had need of patience--and then we found what a
   murmuring, discontented spirit we had within us! Perhaps you, my
   Brother, thought you were a strong Believer until your present trial
   came. But now you have proved how feeble your faith really is. You
   imagined that you were better than the rest of God's saints because you
   could sing when they could only groan. But now you have hard work to
   keep from groaning yourself! It is a blessed thing when the blows of
   God's rod lay us low at our Father's feet. The safest option for all
   children of God is to lie flat upon the Rock of Ages. With all the joy
   and confidence that I trust we feel when we reflect upon our Lord's
   promises and His solemn oath and Covenant, yet

   when we think of our own imperfections and unfaithfulness, we are
   compelled to bow very humbly before the Throne of Grace.

   Turning to another side of the subject, let me say that there is no
   reason why the hand of the Lord should not be upon us without our
   having any particular trouble. When we have come up to God's House to
   worship Him, I trust that we have often felt "the hand of the Lord"
   upon us, pressing us down very low in a sense of our own weakness and
   unwor-thiness. There are other things beside affliction that can humble
   us beneath the mighty hand of God! When Peter's boat began to sink
   because it was full of fish, Peter, too, went down and he cried to
   Jesus, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." When we think
   of all the Lord's goodness to us, we cry out, somewhat as David did,
   "Who are we, O Lord, and what is our house, that You have done such
   great things for us?" If we have "the hand of the Lord" upon us in this
   sense, it will not crush us, nor drive us to despondency or death--it
   will make us realize our own nothingness while it will also give us a
   grateful sense of our Lord's loving kindness and condescension in
   dealing so graciously with us!

   Yet this humbling "hand of the Lord" is also at the same time an
   uplifting hand. The Christian is often a riddle to himself--he cannot
   understand how it is that the lower he sinks, the higher he rises! Then
   he sings, with Dr. Watts--

   "The more Your glories strike my eyes,

   The humbler I shall lie.

   Thus, while I sink, my joys shall rise

   Immeasurably high!"

   The truest joy is the joy of the creature in being made nothing that
   God may be All-in-All--the joy of emptiness in receiving of the Divine
   fullness--the joy of utter weakness laying hold upon the Divine
   strength! Have you never, dear Friends, in the worship of God, felt His
   hand gloriously bearing you aloft that not merely were worldly cares
   forgotten, with all the things that concern time and sense, but you
   seemed to forget that you were still in the body and that the body was
   upon the earth? There have been times with some of us when "the hand of
   the Lord" has been so blessedly upon us that He has seemed to open the
   pearly gates and bid us enter! We have stood awe-stricken and yet full
   of joy in the Presence of the Eternal, and we have worshipped Him with
   cherubim and seraphim--and have anticipated the day when we shall join
   the heavenly throng to go no more out forever! "The hand of the Lord"
   when it is upon us thus is so uplifting that we feel as though the joys
   of our spirit are more than our bodily frame can bear--and we cry with
   the spouse-- "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am
   love-sick." May we often feel this downcasting and yet uplifting power
   of "the hand of the Lord" upon us!

   Further, "the hand of the Lord" is a healing hand as well as a smiting
   and wounding one. Whenever it is laid upon a poor troubled conscience,
   it brings peace at once. There is no furrow in the brow which God's
   finger cannot smooth away. There is no burden upon the shoulders which
   God's hand cannot remove. Perhaps your heart was so heavy that you
   thought you would never be able to rejoice again--yet the Lord did but
   touch you and your depression was gone in a moment! There is an old
   fiction about the touch of a royal hand curing disease, but the royal
   hand of the King of kings really does what the other was only fabled to
   do! Let Him but touch the suffering soul and healing comes at once. It
   is useless for us to go to war with our besetting sins at our own
   charge--but when the Lord stretches forth His hand against them, it is
   another matter! Beloved friends may sometimes seek to set us right, yet
   through their lack of wisdom they may only aggravate the evil. But when
   God lays His hand upon the sin, drags it to the light, tries and
   convicts it-- and hangs it up to die--then are we most blessedly
   delivered from it. If our besetting sin is a fiery temper, or a
   slothful nature, or a strange temptation to some other evil, may "the
   hand of the Lord" be so graciously upon us this evening that it shall
   heal us even before we go to our homes!

   The Lord's hand is also a strengthening hand to all His children. Let
   Him but lay His hand upon you and then, as your days, so shall your
   strength be. Isaiah trembled when he saw "the King, the Lord of Hosts,"
   but one of the seraphim touched his lips with a live coal from the
   Altar, and then, in answer to the Lord's question, "Whom, shall I send,
   and who will go for Us?" he said, "Here am I; send me." So surely, when
   God touches the lips with His finger, power goes into the messenger
   whom He sends forth on His mission of mercy! Moses was very hesitant to
   go as God's ambassador to Pharaoh--and among his many excuses he urged
   that he was slow of speech, and of a slow tongue--but the Lord said to
   him, "Who has made man's mouth?"--as much as to say, "He who made your
   mouth knew what He was doing and He did not make a mistake when He gave
   you a slow tongue! Go you in Hisstrength and you shall be mighty enough
   to deliver His people out of the land of Egypt." God worked through the
   weakness of Moses and so glorified Himself over the mighty Pharaoh. And
   so shall it be with us, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, ministers,
   Sunday school teachers, tract-distributor, or whatever you may be--if
   "the hand of the Lord" shall be upon us, God shall be glorified in our
   weakness

   and we shall be mighty through Him, to the pulling down of strongholds.
   Tarry in the Jerusalem of your prayer closet until you are endued with
   power from on High, for, "they that wait upon the Lord shall remember
   their strength"-- and then in Hsname and in Hsmight go forth to the
   service to which He has called you.

   I may also add that, to many of you, "the hand of the Lord" is a
   well-known hand. You have been receiving from it all your days. You
   have gone to it thousands of times so that it has become very familiar
   to you. And there is one mark in that hand which has made it especially
   dear to you, for, "the hand of the Lord" from which you receive
   everything is a nail-pierced hand, for it is the hand of the Man,
   Christ Jesus, as well as the hand of the Almighty God! And hard by the
   print of the nail is your own name, for He has said to you, "I have
   engraved you upon the palms of My hands." When that Divine-Human hand,
   once outstretched upon the Cross for our redemption, is laid upon us,
   then do we rejoice with exceedingly great joy!

   Now for a little while let us look at this expression in its relation
   to sinners in whom a gracious work is beginning. And here I must remind
   you that if "the hand of the Lord" is ever laid upon you, then it will
   come, first, as a creating hand. It is the hand of God and that hand,
   alone, which can create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit
   within you! Nothing but the Divine touch can ever make "a new creature
   in Christ Jesus." If all the angels had united all their powers, they
   could never have created a world and if all the ministers in the world
   were to combine their efforts, they could never create a new creature
   in Christ! Creation is the work of God, alone, so may He graciously lay
   His hand upon you tonight! Though there is nothing in you for Him to
   begin with, remember that He made the world out of nothing and He can
   make a new man of you out of nothing. It is true that your whole being,
   spiritually, is without form and void--and darkness is upon the face of
   the deep--but He who brought order out of chaos and said, "Let there be
   light," and there was light, can do the same for you! May you become a
   new proof His creating power, so that the angels may sing over you as
   they once did over a newly made world!

   Yet let me tell you that wherever "the hand of the Lord" comes, it
   always comes at first as a breaking hand! As soon as God's hand is laid
   upon us, down go the images of our pride as Dagon fell upon his face
   before the Ark of God! And our self-righteousness, our self-conceit,
   our carnal confidence and everything else that is displeasing to the
   Most High are dashed in pieces by the blows from His almighty hand! It
   is a blessed thing to be put into God's mortar that He may pound us
   with the pestle that He holds in His hand until He has crushed and
   bruised us so as to bring us to self-despair-- for then it will not be
   long before that same blessed hand of His shall bind up what He has
   broken and heal what he has wounded! It is His prerogative to say, "I
   kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal: neither is there any that
   can deliver out of My hand." If you could go to some eminent surgeon,
   it would be a strong argument if you could say to him, "O Sir, I pray
   you to heal me, for you did, yourself, cause this gaping wound! It was
   by your sharp knife that this gash was made, so will you not bind it
   up?" So go to God, Sinner, with that poor broken heart of yours, and
   say to Him, "Lord, You did break it, will You not bind it up? You are
   Jehovah-Rophi, will You not heal me?" You know how David prayed, " Make
   me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken may
   rejoice." God is a bone-breaker and He is also a bone-mender! He is
   also a heartbreaker, yet He delights to bind up the hearts that He has
   broken! So go to Him, Sinner, and ask Him to lay His hand upon you,
   first breaking, and then binding up--first killing, and then making
   alive!

   Further, to sum up briefly, "the hand the Lord" is a receiving hand.
   And if you go to Him, Sinner, He will receive you graciously and love
   you freely! It is also an upholding hand, and it will hold you up so
   that your feet shall not slip. It is an enriching hand, with which the
   Lord will give generously to you both in Providence and in Grace. It is
   a guiding hand with which the Lord shall direct your steps. And at last
   it shall be an opening hand, with which the Lord shall open the gates
   of Glory, that you may enter them to go no more out forever!

   II. Our second question was to be WHAT TIME WAS THIS? "The hand of the
   Lord was upon me in the evening." There is a congruity in meditating
   upon this text in the evening, so let us think upon it for a while in
   connection with our own inward experience.

   And first, Beloved, when you and I have felt "the hand of the Lord"
   upon us in the evening, I think it has come very seasonably to remind
   us of the day's sin. Evening is a good time for casting up the sum of
   the day--there ought to be set seasons for balancing our accounts. I am
   afraid that most us are so busy that we neglect this important duty.
   But it is well to devote a few minutes at night to review the day that
   has gone by. Recall your actions, your words, your thoughts. Look at
   your sins that you may repent of them. Look at your follies that you
   may avoid them in the future. Look at your mistakes that you may not
   fall into them again. As you turn over all these things in your evening
   mediation, what a

   blessed thing it is to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon you making your
   conscience tender, not allowing you to play with sin as though it were
   a trifle, but assuring you, by a gentle pressure, that all your sin is
   put away through the great Atoning Sacrifice of Christ Jesus your Lord
   and Savior!

   It seems to me that evening is also a very blessed time for feelings of
   gratitude. How many are God's thoughts concerning us during a single
   day? When we rose this morning, I suppose that most, if not all of us,
   found that our food and raiment had been provided for us. We have been
   busy all day and have had just enough strength to get through our work.
   We have been preserved, perhaps, in the midst of temptations to which
   others have yielded. Where they have stumbled and fallen, we have been
   graciously upheld! And now at evening we are thinking of the many
   mercies which "the hand of the Lord" has bestowed upon us during the
   day. If we are delivered from some accident, we say what a merciful
   Providence it was that we escaped--yet we are apt to forget the
   merciful Providence when there is no accident! I have heard of a father
   who, in the days when there were no railways, needed to see his son who
   lived a long way off. They agreed to meet at a place half-way between
   their two houses. Each had to ride about 50 miles. And when they met,
   the son said to his father, "I have had a very special Providence, for
   my horse stumbled three times yet it did not fall." "Well," said the
   father, "I also have had a very special Providence, for my horse did
   not stumble once, all the way." This was quite as notable a Providence
   as the son had experienced, but it is one that is often left unnoticed.
   Our mercies which pass unobserved are probably ten times as numerous as
   those which we perceive! It is well, therefore, at least at the close
   of every day, to look back upon all the mercy that has been given to us
   during the day--and to realize that "the hand of the Lord" is still
   upon us in the evening, shielding us from all harm, guiding us in His
   own good way and providing most generously for all our needs!

   Evening is also a special reminder of the evening of life. We sometimes
   say that we--

   "Long for evening to undress, That we may rest with God"--

   and to a Christian, dying is very much like going to bed. Being buried
   is just having our clothes put away while we are asleep in Jesus.
   Therefore, as evening is a reminder and type of dying, it is especially
   appropriate for us, then, to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon us and to
   realize that He has brought us there, to the margin of the river, and
   that He says to us, "You will have to cross that river some day, so dip
   your foot in it, now, and try to get used to dying." Paul wrote to the
   Corinthians, "I die daily." He was rehearsing his part every day, so
   that when the time came for him to actually die, he was fully prepared
   and was not taken unawares. It would be well if we could hear one say,
   "As I stood by my bedside, and took off my clothes, I felt that if I
   were now called to put off my body, which is the clothing of my soul, I
   couldn't do it with as much complacency as I removed my garments. And
   when I laid my head upon my pillow and closed my eyes, I felt as easy
   in the thought of that being my last sleep as I have felt when simply
   going to my bed." If this is how we are able to talk, we may
   confidently say, "The hand of the Lord lay upon me in the evening."

   I like, too, the thought of this manifestation of God in the evening
   because the evening is usually the quiet time that is specially suited
   to meditation. The morning is the time for action. The day is the time
   for work. But the evening is the time for mediation. It is well if we
   then have the inclination as well as the opportunity for communing with
   God, though I am afraid that our hearts are not always ready for this
   high privilege even when the season is peculiarly favorable for it. May
   you, dear Friends, feel "the hand of the Lord" upon you every
   evening--and may you feel it very specially this evening! We are in the
   midst of a most gracious work in this congregation. We began with
   earnest prayer and we are now receiving the blessing that we have asked
   at the Lord's hands. During the past week we have had a most blessed
   fulfillment of that promise, "While they are yet speaking, I will
   hear." While we have been asking the Lord to bless, He has been
   blessing! And tonight we want again to feel "the hand of the Lord" upon
   us. When the preacher feels the Lord's hand on him, there is no lack of
   power or energy in his sermons! When the Deacons and Elders feel it,
   there is no lack of attention to the duties of their important offices!
   When the members feel it, there are no dull, lifeless Prayer Meetings!
   And when any individual Christians feels it, his heart is made to burn
   within him while his Master talks with him by the way. May it be so
   with everyone of us!

   III. Our third question was to be, WHAT TEACHING IS THERE FOR US IN
   THIS INCIDENT?

   The text seems to me to teach us, first, to look above man. Ezekiel
   says, "The hand of the Lord was upon me"--not the hand of the king, nor
   the hand of the priest--but the hand of the Lord! The first question
   with many persons, when the service is over, very often is, "Well, how
   did you like the minister." But really, dear Friends, that is a very
   unimportant question--the vital matter is--Did you see Jesus as the
   preacher sought to lift Him up before you? Was "the hand of the Lord"
   upon you, pressing you down to the ground under the weight your many
   sins and then setting you glorious-

   ly at liberty by casting all your sins behind His back into the depths
   of the sea to be remembered against you no more forever? That is the
   chief business of our coming together in these great assemblies--that
   we may be brought into real, close, personal contact with God and see
   His power and His Glory in the sanctuary! As for the Preacher, he is of
   no more account than the lad with the five barley loaves and two small
   fishes! But if the Master will add His blessing, the multitudes shall
   be fed spiritually even as the thousands were then fed literally--and
   He shall have all the Glory! I pray you, dear Friends, never to be
   content with a sermon unless it brings you into yet closer fellowship
   with the Lord Jesus Christ and lifts your eyes above man unto Him to
   whom you are bid to look!

   Then, as you are to look above other men, much more are you to look
   above yourselves. In one sense, it is hard work to keep a Christian's
   eyes looking up. But in another sense, it is equally difficult to keep
   them looking down. You may rake over the dunghills of your own
   corruption to try to find something good, but you will only find what
   Paul calls dung! But if you look up to the Most High, you will not
   search in vain for treasures that will endure forever! If you will
   persist in looking within, look there till you are tired and then do
   not look any longer. One look at Jesus Christ will remunerate you far
   better than 20 looks at yourself! No doubt there are certain marks and
   evidences of the Christian life for which it is quite right to talk,
   yet it is better to look at the marks of the Savior's wounds and to see
   the evidences of God's Love manifested in the Person and work of His
   well-beloved Son. It is much more profitable to look at the Creator
   than at the creature. If you must bring self in at all, let it only be
   as Ezekiel did when he said, "The hand of the Lord was upon me in the
   evening."

   This text should also encourage us to remember previous Divine
   visitations. I suppose Ezekiel had often felt the hand of the Lord upon
   him, but this time he recorded it. David called to remembrance former
   manifestations of God's mercy when he wrote, "O my God, my soul is cast
   down within me: therefore will I remember You from the land of Jordan,
   and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar." Sailors keep a logbook in
   which they enter the principal incidents of the voyage. And Christian,
   you ought to keep a log of your voyage to Heaven! And you should
   especially record the visitations of God to your soul. There may come
   times when you will not have these visits and then, if you turn to your
   diary, you will be able to call to remembrance the joyous seasons of
   the past--and it will be a great comfort to you to recollect the
   experiences you passed through on Mizar's hill and Hermon's mount.
   There are certain occasions that some of us can never forget--and in
   our dark hours we think of them and say, "Lord, by all that we have
   felt in the past, we are assured that You will not let us go, but that
   You will hold us fast to the end."

   And to close, I think that this should encourage us in our darkening
   hours to expect the Light of God's Presence. It was the evening, the
   sun was going down, but the Sun of Righteousness was still shining upon
   Ezekiel! The stars began to sparkle in the heavens, but the promises of
   God were brighter still! The night was coming on, but the Prophet did
   not dread it, for although he could not see his Lord's face, he could
   feel his Lord's hand upon him! It is one of the enjoyments of faith to
   walk with God in the dark. It is not the enjoyment of sight because it
   comes in the evening when strength is declining, and life, itself, is
   dying out. Ah, that evening will soon come to everyone of us when we
   shall have to bid farewell to the fond pursuits of the day--that
   "night" of which our Savior said that then, "no man can work." And when
   that night comes on and we begin to feel its chilly dews settling upon
   our dying brow. When the hoar-frost of death shall be upon every limb,
   how blessed it shall be to have a bright and glowing lamp within our
   soul which will owe none of its brilliance to sun or moon, but to the
   Lord God who gives us the Light that shall last forever!

   "At evening time it shall be light." In some parts of the world there
   is no twilight--as soon as the sun sets, night follows immediately. But
   here in England our long evenings are a great delight, and certainly so
   is the long evening of a well spent life, when you have, to a great
   extent, finished with the toil and turmoil of earthly service and your
   soul has a blessed season of resting, as Bunyan's pilgrims had in the
   land Beulah until the summons came for them to cross the river and go
   into the Presence of the King. It will be a blessed thing to feel the
   hand of the lord upon us in that evening! And whether it is long or
   short, all will be well with all who are trusting in the Lord Jesus
   Christ! Even though we have to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of
   Death, we will fear no evil, for He will be with us. His rod and His
   staff shall comfort us! And when we get to Heaven, we will tell the
   angels that "the hand of the Lord" was upon us in the morning of our
   days when we gave our young hearts to the Lord! That His hand was upon
   us in the noontide of middle life while we were toiling for Him with
   all our might! That His hand was upon us in the afternoon helping us
   still to gather the precious grain into His garner, and that His hand
   was upon us, as it was upon Ezekiel, in the evening! As the Lord God
   walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, so will He be with
   us in the evening of our lives! And though we must go to bed and sleep
   in the tomb, we shall awake in His likeness and then shall we be
   satisfied--and His hand shall

   still be upon us in the morning--that morning which will be to us
   without mourning, that day which shall never have a night--that
   blessedness which shall last forever! God grant that this may be the
   portion of each one of us, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM92.

   Verse 1. It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing
   praises to Your name, O Most High. It is good in itself. It is good for
   those who hear it, but it is especially good for our own hearts to give
   thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto the name of the Most
   High. Sometimes when we are very heavy in spirit, if we would take care
   not to defraud the Lord of the revenue of praise that is due Him, we
   should find that the readiest way to bring comfort to ourselves is to
   sing praises unto His holy name. Brother and Sisters in Christ, it is
   not very notable work to praise God when all things go well with us--it
   is far grander work to praise Him when everything seems to be against
   us! It is because the nightingale sings by night that he has such
   excellence among the birds. And if you and I can praise God in the
   dark, then we shall find that it is a good thing for ourselves to give
   thanks to the Lord and to sing praises unto the name of the Most High.

   2. To show forth Your loving kindness in the morning, and Your
   faithfulness every night [See Sermon #1138, Volume 19--

   MORNING AND EVENING SONGS.] Begin the day by setting forth the

   Lord's loving kindness. It was His loving kindness that watched over
   you when you lay unconscious and defenseless and could not, therefore,
   protect yourself. It was His loving kindness that drew wide the curtain
   of the night, that touched your eyelids and awakened you out of that
   sleep which was the image of death and bade you look out upon the
   rising sun. Therefore take the key of the morning to open the day, and
   let it be the golden key of praise! Show forth the Lord's loving
   kindness in the morning.

   And when night comes again, let us then sing of God's faithfulness. We
   have experienced it through another day, let us praise Him for it. Now
   we see how He has borne with us, pardoned us, preserved us, supplied
   our needs and continued to educate us throughout another day. Let us,
   therefore, praise and bless His holy name and so close the day and
   commit ourselves to sleep again under His Divine protection.

   3. Upon an instrument often strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the
   harp with a solemn sound. Under the old dispensation, instrumental
   music seemed more congruous than it does now with the spiritual worship
   into which we have been introduced. If we must ever have instrumental
   music in our worship, let it be the same--the very same as David had.
   And then I, for one, though I should still think it we going back to
   the old dispensation long since superseded, would put up with it! I
   could never get much further than that, I think, for what instrument is
   there that is equal to the human voice? What music can be compared with
   it? All other sound is but the poor attempt of man to rival the
   creation of his God--but the human voice is full of charming melodies
   and harmonies! And if it is controlled by a true heart, there is
   nothing like it even to our ears, while it seems to me that it must be
   far more acceptable to God than the product of mere mechanism.

   4. For You, LORD, have made me glad through Your work: I will triumph
   in the works of Your hands. There is a blessed verse to come from the
   heart and mind of a happy man who is praising God and who looks on all
   the works of the Lord in Creation, Providence, and Redemption--and
   makes them all the subject of his joyous song!

   5. O LORD, how great are Your works! And Your thoughts are very deep.
   There is little that we know of the thoughts of God except as we gather
   them from His works or learn them from His Word, "for what man knows
   the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so
   the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God." It is by Divine
   Revelation that we must know the thoughts of God--and the more we know
   of them, the more shall we realize that they are very deep.

   6. A brutish man knows not; neither does a fool understand this. He
   looks at Nature and as he sees its varied operations. He observes
   certain eternal laws, as he calls them, but he does not see the power
   at the back of those laws which makes the laws potent for the
   government of the world! No, he lives and walks where God has displayed
   His power to the fullest, yet he fails to see Him! It would be a
   strange proceeding for anyone to go into an artist's house and look at
   his pictures and his sculptures and yet never to think of him--but this
   is what the brutish man does with regard to the works of God, and with
   regard to God Himself!

   7. When the wicked spring as the grass--Numerous, fresh, vigorous--

   7. And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they
   shall be destroyed forever That is the end to which they will surely
   come, no matter how much they boast, nor how they grow and flourish
   till they seem like the grass in the meadow, to cover everything so
   that you can go nowhere without seeing them! Yet "they shall be
   destroyed forever."

   8. But You, LORD, are Most High forevermore. The Psalmist began by
   calling the Lord, Most High, and now he says that He is "Most High
   forevermore." Yes, this is our joy that God never passes away--He
   abides forever. Myriads of the ungodly have come and gone. Empires of
   wickedness have risen to great power and in due time have passed away
   like dreams--but we can still say, with the Psalmist, "You, Lord, are
   Most High forevermore."

   9. 10. For, lo, Your enemies, O LORD, for, lo, Your enemies shall
   perish as the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn have
   You exalted like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh
   oil [See Sermon #1649, Volume

   28--FRESHNESS.] The Believer, though he is very weak in his own

   consciousness, and utterly insignificant in his own esteem, shall
   receive fresh power from God! And when the wicked melt away, he shall
   grow stronger and stronger.

   11. My eyes shall also see my desire on my enemies, and my ears shall
   hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The translators
   put in the words, my desire. In both cases they are printed in italics
   to show that they are not in the original. No doubt the Psalmist means
   that his eyes should see the end of his enemies and his ears should
   hear of their total overthrow.

   12. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like
   a cedar in Lebanon. The palm tree flourishes amidst the desert
   sunshine, growing straight upright towards Heaven without a branch that
   deviates to the right or the left and bearing its great masses of fruit
   as near Heaven as ever it can! It is a fine type of Christian life and
   growth and fruitfulness! A Christian should also be "like a cedar in
   Lebanon," firmly rooted in his appointed place and defying the winter's
   snows which threaten to bury him out of sight.

   13. Those that are planted in the House of the LORD shall flourish in
   the courts of our Lord. Like trees planted in the courtyard, screened
   and protected, such are true Believers! God is their defense and they
   are screened within the court of the Lord's House.

   14. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat
   and flourishing. When Christians decay, they shall still be fruitful.
   They shall not feel as so many others do, that their age is a cure--it
   shall be to them a blessing, ripening them for eternity, and it shall
   be a blessing to all by whom they are surrounded.

   15. To show that the LORD is upright: He is my rock. Can each one of
   you say that concerning the Lord, "He is my rock, my foundation, my
   refuge, my shelter"?

   15. And there is no unrighteousness in Him. Say that when you have lost
   the dearest one you ever knew! Say that when your property has melted
   like the hoar frost in the morning. Say that when every bone in your
   body is aching and some fell disease is hastening you to an early
   grave! "There is no unrighteousness in Him." How long have you known
   Him? If it is 70 years, or more than that, He has never been unfaithful
   to you, nor allowed a single promise of His to fail! Write this down as
   the testimony of the experience of all God's people, "There is no
   unrighteousness in Him."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sea! the Sea! the Wide and Open Sea!

   (No. 3291)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH AND
   FOREIGN SAILORS' SOCIETY.

   "The sea is His, for He made it: and His hands formed the dry land."
   Psalm 95:5.

   THIS Psalm exhorts us to sing joyfully unto God. Whether we contemplate
   the land or the sea, there will be found upon them both abundant
   reasons for adoring the great Creator. Some, I know, as they walk upon
   the land, can no more praise Him than if it were one vast desert of
   Sahara--and yet the earth is full of His goodness--it is as a garden
   yielding not only food for man and beast, but lovely and fragrant
   flowers! Forest and field, mountain and plain alike sing out the
   praises of the Lord! Nor is the sea less rich in excitements to worship
   the Lord our Maker. Ignorant persons regard the sea as a dreary waste
   of waters. In the olden times, our home-loving forefathers were
   desperately afraid of the sea and looked upon it as a devouring
   monster. It was a "melancholy ocean" to them--a place of constant
   sorrow and sudden death--they shuddered as they thought of it. But,
   indeed, to him who is rightly taught, the sea is full of beauty! Its
   every wave is lit up with splendor--the sea is the Lord's, for He made
   it! You see then, that both on the land and on the sea adoration is in
   its place. Praise is never out of season at any time and worship is
   never foreign in any land. It matters not whether we travel over sand
   or snow, or how we are tossed about on Arctic or tropical sea--we are
   still in the pasture of the Great Shepherd, and within the palace of
   the Great King. Praise the Lord from the earth and let dragons and all
   deeps join in the Psalm. "Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof;
   the world, and they that dwell therein."

   At this time I shall ask you only to think of the sea. I could far more
   easily preach upon this text if I were standing in one of my delightful
   haunts by the Mediterranean, looking over its blue waters, hidden away
   in the cleft of a rock, with the spray at my feet. Then, I think, I
   should not coldly read the words, but clap my hand, as I cried with my
   heart, "The sea is His, for He made it." Here we are, however--stranded
   on this white-clifed island and banished from the fresh sea breezes to
   this huge Babylon of bricks where men appear to forget God since they
   see so little of His world and so much of their own! Let us try, if we
   can, to transport ourselves to the wide and open sea and as we gaze all
   around and see nothing but the rolling waves, let us sing--

   "He formed the deeps unknown,

   He gave the seas their bound.

   The watery worlds are all His own,

   And all the solid ground."

   There is no need for any labored division in our sermon tonight. Our
   first one will be that God made the sea. And the second will be that
   therefore it is His. And the third shall come out of the next verse--He
   is therefore to be adored. "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us
   kneel before the Lord our Maker!"

   I. Our first thought is that GOD MADE THE SEA.

   Somebody made it and who else could have made it but God It is not
   often that you find a seafaring man who is an atheist. Addison tells us
   of a time when he was aboard ship and there was a passenger on deck who
   was an infidel. He was reported to the captain as an atheist and
   neither he nor the sailors could make out what sort of a strange fish
   that might be--and so asked him what he meant. They were told that he
   did not believe in a God. A storm coming on, the men proposed that they
   should pitch him overboard seeing he did not believe in God Almighty!
   But he was soon cured of his unbelief, for, when things looked
   threatening, the first person who was down on his knees crying for
   mercy in great terror was the precious atheist, who soon got rid of his
   atheism when he felt in danger of his life! A little while ago, a
   Christian

   minister crossing to America was walking the deck with a gentleman who
   called himself an atheist. It was a very bad night and the vessel had
   to steam on in the teeth of a head wind. It would have been fatal to
   let her drift. The captain said, "We cannot keep any watch, we must
   drive ahead, and if we run into an iceberg, there's an end of us." Our
   friend, who believed in God, hearing this, said that he should turn in
   and go to sleep. His companion declared that he could not think of
   doing any such thing--he should not like to die in his sleep--and so he
   would walk the deck, rough as it was. All night long he who had no God
   was cold and wet with watching, fretting and worrying because he was
   afraid he should die, while my friend slept sweetly and rose in the
   morning fresh as a lark! Coming on deck, he accosted the philosopher,
   "What? Have you not turned in?" "No, no." He was miserable, he was
   unhappy. "Why," said the Believer, "I trust in my heavenly Father and I
   fell asleep, and I feel quite refreshed. What good have you got by
   staying here?" "I must confess," said the other, "you Believers have
   the best of it when you get to sea." Yes, and assuredly we have the
   best of it on land, too! We have the best of it in health, in sickness,
   in death--and we shall have the best of it forever!

   God made the sea, and the prints of His hands are still to be seen.
   Skillful persons can tell that a picture is by a certain artist by its
   style. It is not everybody that can judge well, but a man skilled in
   art knows the touch of each painter's brush. "That is Rembrandt," cries
   the artist, "he alone could produce such lights and shadows! And the
   other is by Sal-vator Rosa--I know the master's hand." He also who has
   sought out the works of the Lord and has pleasure therein, knows the
   great Father's style. The same sublime mind which gave us the Holy
   Scriptures also ordained the channels of the deep. I am absolutely sure
   that He who reveals the secrets of the soul is He in whose hands are
   the deep places of the sea. His commandment is exceedingly broad, even
   as the main ocean--and of His Divine Grace we are compelled to cry, "O
   the depth!" even as when we sound the Atlantic!

   I will not go into the question tonight, but there are wonderful points
   of likeness between the Word and the work of the Almighty. The sea is a
   mystery of waters and Scripture is sometimes obscure--but yet the sea
   shines like a mirror and in Scripture we see the Lord as in a glass!
   The Bible has its most terrible storms and its calms most restful--it
   is full of life, even as the sea nourishes innumerable creeping things,
   both small and great beasts. It is full of power, even as the sea moves
   in the fullness of its strength. There is a certain peculiar light of
   its own within the Word, as if it were all sun and flame, even as at
   times the waters are a liquid light and the waves shine as with ten
   thousand stars! The wisdom, goodness, power and infinity of God are all
   to be seen in the ocean by those who have opened eyes. He who knows God
   can see His hand in the scales of every little fish. If he takes up a
   five-finger or a crab, he perceives a master hand in the fashioning of
   its smallest members! If you take a beautiful needle, however admirably
   polished, and put it under the microscope, you say to yourself, "A man
   made this," for it looks like a rough bar of iron--the microscope
   discovers its lack of finish. But if you take a frill of seaweed, or
   the eye of a shrimp, and put these under the glass, you exclaim at
   once, "No man ever made this! No man could have made it. It is
   perfection!" I shall not go into further details, but I am sure that he
   who is acquainted with the works of God sees at once that the sea is
   God's creature--and in its ever-changing sameness, in its awe-inspiring
   majesty, in its tremendous force, unsearchable mystery, its waves and
   caverns, its calms and storms--it tells of an invincible hand, an
   unsearchable mind!

   God made the sea--you can mark His wisdom there. Philosophers tell us
   there is just as much water in the sea as there ought to be, and no
   more. Perhaps if there were twice as much sea as we now have, we should
   not be able to live-- and if there were any less, the world would
   become too dry for human habitation. The land and water balance each
   other to an ounce and a drop--there can be neither more nor less.
   Permanent and fixed are the relations and proportions of matter.
   Substances may change their combinations, but of the elements, the same
   amount must abide till all things pass away. That the sea is salt and,
   therefore, does not corrupt. That it is moved with tides and,
   therefore, does not stagnate. That it evaporates and, therefore, does
   not increase so as to drown the earth, are all instances of Divine
   Wisdom. If its waters were more or less salt than they are, many fishes
   would die and the floating power of the ocean would change. There is a
   relation between the size of the ocean and the balancing of a dewdrop
   upon its blade of grass--a proportion between a hurricane and the
   dancing of a gnat in the summer's sun. The more we study the sea the
   more shall we say, "Your way, O Lord, is in the sea and Your path in
   the great waters."

   And certainly no man can deny the power which thunders across the
   billows. What tremendous force is there displayed! "The floods have
   lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods
   lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of
   many waters, yes than the mighty waves of the sea." When one has seen
   the damage

   the sea has worked upon our coasts, the way in which the hardest rock
   has been worn away--when one has sadly watched a huge boat tossed to
   and fro like a plaything and when one has heard how the largest vessels
   are caught in a cyclone and whirled away like feathers--one bows upon
   his face before the Almighty Lord who rules the sea! And yet God's
   goodness is there as well. The sea is a great benefactor! Where were
   the clouds, and where the rains, and where our harvests, if it were not
   for the ocean? The sea feeds myriads with its fish and enriches many
   more by its commerce. It was once thought to divide nations, but now it
   has been the highway by which they communicate--a silver belt by which
   all lands are bound to one another! England, above all nations, has
   reason to see the goodness of God in the sea. Perhaps we had not even
   remained a nation if the silver streak had not separated us from the
   continent. Most probably we had not been a free nation, or a Protestant
   nation, if the Lord had not bid the waters encompass us--

   "O Britain, praise your mighty God,

   And make His honor known abroad!

   He bade the ocean round you flow,

   Not bars of brass could guard you so." May God inspire British hearts
   with gratitude to Him for setting old England like a queen in the midst
   of the sea where she laughs at the tyrant's power!

   Every attribute of God shines in the sea although the more spiritual
   and precious are but dimly seen, these being reserved to be manifested
   in Christ Jesus the Lord, before whose feet the sea crouched in
   reverence! Perhaps even those attributes will be discovered to be there
   in some degree when our eyes shall be strengthened to see the Glory of
   the Lord in all His works. Till then we will listen to the sea and
   think of it as an--

   "Impassioned orator with lips sublime,

   Whose waves are arguments which prove a God." God made the sea. I
   delight to reflect upon this fact, for it brings us so very near to
   God. Yonder at our feet are the blue waves which He has created. You
   have certain treasures which you value greatly because they were made
   by a dear friend, and you say, "Whenever I look at them I seem to feel
   him near." Thus do God's works make us feel that He is not far from us.
   Mungo Park, in the deserts of Africa, had his heart cheered by taking
   up a little bit of moss and reflecting that God made it, and that the
   Creator had been there and was there, watching over the tiny green
   thing! Come, then, my Friend, and stand by the sea and say to yourself,
   "The sea is His, for He made it. Here is something that my heavenly
   Father made. He has left His footprints on these waves. He is still
   here and His power works forever." The palpitating heart of the sea,
   with it perpetual tide, tells of God's present life. Its alternate
   advance and retreat at His bidding prove His present majesty, for He
   says, "To here shall you come, but no further."

   I trust many of my seafaring friends have often felt near to God when
   alone upon the vast deep. God is in Ratcliff Highway, but it is
   uncommonly hard to find Him. We could find fifty devils there in five
   minutes, sooner than find a trace of God--for there is the den of the
   drunkard, there is the foul haunt in which men are robbed and
   ruined--the house of the strange woman, of which Solomon says, "the
   dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of Hell." Far out at
   sea the sailor is free from the danger of falling tiles and
   chimney-pots when the wind is blowing. And he is also free from many a
   temptation which besets him on shore. Often, I have no doubt, when you
   have been alone, watching at night, pacing the deck to and fro and
   looking up to the bright stars, you have thought, "God is very near me
   now." I remember, when going to Hamburg, I stood at night with the
   captain upon the quarter-deck and suddenly a light seemed to rush down
   the mast and light up the rigging and the whole ship in such a manner
   as I never saw before. For an instant the vessel seemed to be on fire,
   and then the light was gone! "What is that?" I asked. "What is that?"
   he said, for neither of us knew--but we felt awe-struck. Seafaring men
   meet with them often--strange things that we "land lubbers" never dream
   about! "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in
   great waters; these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the
   deep." God seems to come very near to those who are on the waters. When
   the wind howls and the sea booms, the noise would suffice to drown a
   thousand volleys of artillery. "The voice of the Lord is upon the
   waters: the God of Glory thunders: the Lord is upon many waters." When
   men mount up to Heaven and go down again to the deep, then is God
   present to them and they cry unto Him in their trouble. The sea has
   often forced men to exclaim--

   "Great God, how infinite are Thee!

   What worthless worms are we!"

   The fact that God made the sea should make us feel more confidence in
   venturing upon it. We may trust ourselves upon the King's highway! We
   may go where Jesus went, and where the Lord reigns--"The Lord sits upon
   the flood; yes the Lord sits King forever." As "all things work
   together for good to them that love God," there is nothing left to work
   for evil. The sea cannot destroy those whom God would preserve. Even if
   the sea in its tempestuous mood should take away our lives, what will
   it do but waft us to the gates of Heaven? It is as well to go to Glory
   by water as by land-- perhaps drowning is an easier death than expiring
   with broken bones or torturing pains. You who are about to emigrate to
   Australia or to America and are feeling dreadfully troubled tonight at
   the thought of the terrible sea, should be of good courage. Your Master
   went to sea and His disciples went with Him--they, too, were tossed
   with tempest, and yet their vessel and the other little ships which
   sailed on the billows of dark Galilee were safe! Our Master, who is
   Lord High Admiral on the seas, brought all the fleet into harbor safe
   and sound! He has not given up His rank, or lost His power, and He will
   save all who sail under His convoy. No tempest or tornado shall wreck a
   soul that is in His charge!

   This ought to make us feel at rest as to those who lie buried beneath
   the waves. I have heard it said by one or two whom I have known, "I
   would not have minded, Sir, if they could have found the body." I
   suppose there is something natural about that regret, but I do not
   greatly sympathize with it. The sea is God's own--and blessed are they
   who lie in God's most sacred sleeping place, where no spade of sexton
   shall ever disturb their bones! Where can any of us lie better than
   where "pearls lie deep"? What myriads are there already! When the
   trumpet of the Resurrection sounds, the sea must give up her dead and
   myriads will stand upon the waves, as on a sea of glass, to be judged!
   And full many of them will rise to their eternal thrones from the
   caverns of the mighty main! God has but to speak it, and though the
   bodies may have been devoured by fish, or dissolved into their separate
   atoms by the perpetual beating of the surf, yet when He speaks it,
   frames shall be refashioned, life shall come back at His call and our
   dead men shall live, and in their flesh shall they see God, who, before
   they died, had learned to say, "I know that my Redeemer lives."

   Do not be distressed by the fear of dying at sea. You must die
   somewhere. Do you know the old story of the man who asked a captain if
   he was afraid to go to sea? "I am not," said the mariner, "why should I
   be?" "Look at the danger," said the landsman. "How did your father
   die?" "He died at sea" "How did your grandfather die?" "He was lost at
   sea." "And your great-grandfather?" "Yes," he replied, "I have heard
   that he, too, was drowned at sea" "Surly then, you are afraid to go to
   sea?" "No," said the captain, "I am not. Where did your father die?"
   "He died in his bed" "And where did your grandfather die?" "He died in
   his bed." "And where did your great-grandfather die?" "As far as I
   know, he also died in his bed." "And yet you are not afraid to go to
   bed!" There is good, sound reason in such a view of the matter. We
   shall not die before our time. Our lives are in the Divine Hands. You
   may well smile at my tale and I hope you will keep a gleam of that
   pleasant look for the next time death stares you in the face--and then
   say to yourself, "Be still, my Heart. If my time has come, I will
   commit my spirit into the hands of a faithful Creator and feel that if
   I sink, I shall drop into my Father's hands, for He holds the waters in
   the hallow of His hands." Thus much upon that first point--God made the
   sea

   II. Our second point is, GOD OWNS THE SEA--"The sea is His, for He made
   it." He owns it by right of creation. It is not everything that a man
   makes that is his own. Many tradesmen are occupied in making divers
   articles which when they have made them, belong to their masters. But
   that is because the materials are found for them. God made the sea out
   of nothing--there were no materials ready to His hand to make this
   world of--His own Omnipotence spoke it into existence! He filled the
   sea from His own treasury, the liquid stores were His own. There is not
   in the sea at this moment a single wave that anybody made but God, and
   all the constituent elements of it were created by Him, and by Him
   only. Therefore He claims the sea from shore to shore, and who shall
   question His title? Not only did He own it once, but He owns it now--He
   has never handed over the ocean to any people or nation! David said,
   "The sea is His," and it is still God's. It always will be His sea!

   But the sea is man's. God evidently meant us to go to sea because when
   He made man, almost the first thing He said was that He made him to
   have dominion over the fish of the sea. And I do not see how we can
   have dominion over the fish of the sea if we never go to sea at all.
   There are the fish, thousands of miles from the shore, and if no
   mariner shall ever cross the deep, what dominion can we be said to have
   over "the fish of the sea and whatever passes through the paths of the
   seas"? He made man to be a fisherman as well as to be a farmer. He
   meant him to plow the waves as well as to plow the shore! In fact, our
   present race all sprang from one whose huge vessel was the cradle of
   the new race. Man owns the sea

   but still, the sea is God's. Man is God's viceroy, but God is the true
   King. Man is tenant under God and should pay the quit-rent of
   reverential gratitude and adoration, for the freehold of the sea
   remains with the Lord. There may be a victory in India or in Ireland,
   but India and Ireland are still the Queen's--and so man may have
   dominion over the fish of the sea but it is a delegated
   Sovereignty--the sea is still the Lord's.

   Old ocean does not belong to Neptune, as the heathen used to say.
   Father Neptune is an idle dream! The idolaters parceled out the various
   kingdoms among their deities--one should rule the heavens, another the
   clouds, another the earth and another the sea--but we know that there
   is only one God. The sea is Jehovah's--not Neptune's.

   Though we sometimes sing, "Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves,"
   the words are not true! Jehovah rules the waves--not Britannia! There
   is a sense in which the patriotic song expresses a great truth--and I
   have not a word to say against it--but we all know that we may be on
   board Britannia's biggest ship of war, but the Union Jack cannot save
   us in the time of tempest! Jehovah must then interpose and bid the
   billows sleep. "The sea is His, for He made it."

   I sometimes feel very glad when I look at the sea and think that it
   belongs to the great and generous God and not to greedy man. Here upon
   land, every foot of earth is enclosed by somebody and jealously guarded
   from trespassers. The village had a breezy common upon which a poor man
   might at least keep a goose--but the great folks could never rest till
   every inch was put within hedges and made their own. You can scarcely
   walk anywhere without being met by, "Trespassers, Beware." Mountains
   and hills which everybody ought to be allowed to climb without leave,
   are fenced in and kept from all intruders. Men fight for years over a
   yard of ground that is my lord's, and this is my lady's, and this is
   copyhold of the manor. "The Heaven, even the Heaven of heavens, is the
   Lord's, but the earth has He given to the children of men"--and they
   scramble for it and divide it among themselves! No such greed can
   appropriate the sea. The free sea cannot be parceled out, nor hedged,
   nor ditched, nor walled! It has no lords of the manor, but remains free
   and unappropriated forever! "The sea is His, for He made it." According
   to law, a few miles from the shore the sea belongs to the country which
   borders on it, but once reach the main ocean and nationalities are
   forgotten. The sea is neither English nor French, Dutch nor American.
   No ship is a trespasser there! No one ever thought of impounding stray
   whales for going out of their owner's fields. The pastures of the deep
   are for all fish--they may feed where they will, from shore to shore.

   "The sea is His," and this begets in you a joyous sense of liberty, as
   though for once you were beyond bounds and, like a sea bird, feared no
   cage or fowler's snare. Oh, for a bound from billow to billow of the
   unpolluted main, where sail of man has never been seen, or voice of
   blasphemy ever heard! Who can hinder our liberated spirit as it dances
   on the wave, or dives beneath it? May we always wear that free spirit
   about us, even in these huddled homes and narrow streets! Let us not be
   grasping, mean, narrow--let us not hedge in all things unto ourselves,
   but desire that others may share in our blessings! May we have
   largeness of heart as the sand which is on the seashore and greatness
   of love comparable to the immeasurable sea!

   "The sea is His." Then this sentence puts all other claimants out of
   court. The sea is the Lord's and, therefore, He ought to be reverenced
   on it. Hush! Hush! What are you doing, Man? Swearing at God on His own
   sea! Stop till you get on land--and when you reach the shore, stop till
   you can find a place where God is not near you, for to swear at Him to
   His face is madness! Will you insult God on His own sea? No, surely. If
   the sea is His, you will mind what you are doing. When a man is out in
   the street, when he wanders about as he pleases, he may often take many
   liberties. But if he is invited to a friend's house, he does not like
   to be to boisterous and noisy, but minds his manners. If any of us were
   invited to dinner with the Queen, I am sure we should feel quite
   nervous, and ask of our friends, "Jack, how do you behave when you go
   into a palace? What is the way of doing it?" You would all be anxious
   to be proper and well-behaved. On the sea it seems to me that you
   should be particularly careful of what you say and do for you are on
   God's premises! In as much as He can hear you think--mind what you
   think about! On the sea you are inside God's House--be holy, then--"for
   holiness becomes His House forever." There is the Throne of the Great
   King and around it is a pavement of crystal! I mean the glassy sea and
   you sailors should think of yourselves as God's courtiers--permitted to
   come very near Him, and to behold more of His Glory than any other men!
   Oh that you may be led to think of your position in this light!

   I wish you would think highly of your honorable calling. When a man
   thinks that his calling necessitates his being wicked, he is sure to be
   wicked. But when he judges that he is under obligation to be holy,
   perhaps he will desire to be so and God's Grace will help him to be so!
   Ho, you who do business on God's own sea--fly away from His royal
   domain if you resolve to rebel against Him! Do not dare to sin to His
   face! But where shall you go? If you take the wings of the morning and
   fly to the uttermost of the sea you are still within His courts!

   There is yet another view of the matter. The sea is the Lord's and,
   therefore, I may confess my sin to Him when I am out on the oceanand He
   will hear me, for He is there! I may weep the tear of penitence and He
   will see me, for God is there! Out at sea I may cry, "My Father," and
   He will hear His child! Brother, you may find Jesus at sea for He was
   at home on the waves and a companion of seafaring men! The Lake of
   Galilee was familiar with His voice and saw His answer to the prayer,
   "Lord, save, or I perish!" The sea around you waits to hear you pray
   and to see God's wonders on the deep!

   Something calls for a repetition of that, "hush," which I gave just
   now, in the thought that "the sea is His," for God reveals Himself
   through the sea--therefore gaze with awe! I have not the slightest
   doubt that many a man has learned much of God on the ocean, although as
   yet he knows not the Redeemer and His salvation. I wish every sailor
   would daily read the Bible, which is our chart to Heaven, but many who
   have neglected that blessed Book, have found lessons of warning, yes,
   and lessons of hope in the rolling waves. O hear the voice of God in
   the storm! Be warned as you escape from the jaws of death! Have hope as
   you cling to the rock! The sea is God's--take care that when you fly
   over its hallowed surface, you read Jehovah's Book, bow before His
   Throne, trust in His Son and offer continual thanksgiving to

   Him!

   It seems to me that as the sea is God's, then sailors should be His,
   too, or they are trespassers. A man feeds his own sheep in his own
   pastures, and would not God have His own mariners on His own sea?
   Moreover, if God owns the sea because He made it, He owns you, because
   He made you, too! You are His creature and by all the rights of
   Creatorship you belong to Him. He claims you--will you dispute the
   claim? I would not like to think of you as a blot upon the fair face of
   the ocean. God is looking over all the waters and seeing the white
   sails and the smoking funnels that even now are passing from shore to
   shore. And He is saying, "The sea is all Mine, but those men who breast
   the storm are not Mine. I preserve them, but they never think of Me. I
   have sent salvation to them, but they will not hear it. The fish and
   the bird know their seasons, but man rebels against Me." I cannot bear
   to think that it should be so. I long for the day when every ship upon
   the sea shall be an ark and every sailor a Noah!

   What are some of you sailors doing? Why, there are many of you whom I
   would trust with anything--I would not count my gold, but trust you
   with my purse--I am so sure that you would bring it back safely. You
   hate dishonesty and would not tell a lie. You speak out bravely and
   fear no man, and yet some of you rob God! You pay your debt to
   everybody most freely, but not to your Maker! You owe Him most, and yet
   think of Him least! Is not this wrong? See that child? They say he is
   very good to the servants and to strangers, but he always puts on a
   scowl when he sees his father, for he cannot stand him. Would you like
   to be the father of such a child? Yet you are like he. You are capital
   fellows on board a ship, capital men on shore, too, when you get among
   your families--and yet toward God you act shamefully! May the Spirit of
   God lead you to feel that you are wrong--and when you feel it, may you
   have Grace to tack about and steer for another point!

   A little while ago, a vessel picked up a man far out at sea in an open
   boat. He was unconscious. The oars were lying by his side and he had
   evidently drifted from off the beach, carried by a current right away
   from help. I wonder whether any man here is drifting right away--out of
   sight of land, drifting on and on! Ah, Jack, when you were a boy, you
   went with your mother to the little chapel in the village. Do you
   recollect that you were in the Sunday school? You loved to worship with
   your mother, who is now in Heaven, but you went away from home and you
   went away from God, too! You have been pretty nearly round the
   world--do you remember the places where you have landed only to plunge
   into sin? Oh, you forget, do you? I must tell you, then, that God did
   not forget and your own conscience does not forget, for the stain is on
   your soul today. You have drifted, drifted, drifted. How long is it
   since you read a chapter of the Bible? How long since you bowed your
   knees in prayer? You have drifted very far out. I wish this full-rigged
   ship of mine, which has just come within sight of you, might pick you
   up. At any rate, I hail you from this quarterdeck, and if you are not
   quite unconscious, I hope you will hear the call. Poor shipmate, we
   would like to get you up the ship's side! Some of my crew will be after
   you in the boats, directly, for there are true hearts here that love to
   rescue the perishing. If one of them comes alongside, just know that he
   is a friend and that he comes in the name of Jesus, "mighty to save."
   May the Lord Jesus come, Himself and put out His hand to some sinking
   Peter, and save him from a watery grave! Amen.

   I wonder where the training ship, "Atalanta," now is? Where are the
   other vessels which have been missed so long? We have reason to fear
   that they are lost! Fine vessels and yet lost! Hundreds on board and
   all lost! We cannot bear to think of it. If they are lost, it will be
   of no use to go after them--the swiftest vessel cannot overtake them
   and the sharpest lookout will never see them. They are beyond hope. But
   what a mercy it is that you are not! If it had not been for the mighty
   hand of God last voyage, you would not only have been lost at sea, my
   Friend, but lost forever! To be lost at sea, if the soul is safe, is
   but a small calamity--but to lose the soul is to lose all--it were good
   for that man that he had never been born! Blessed be God, you are not
   in Hell yet! You are not shut out from mercy yet! Jesus Christ still
   flies the mercy-signal and His servant still cries to you, "Come, come,
   come to Jesus! Come and welcome, come and put your trust in the
   Savior." May His gracious Spirit lead you to do so! Remember, wherever
   you are, on whatever sea you may sail, the sea is His. His Grace
   reaches to the uttermost. The shipwrecked soul is still within the
   reach of mercy! If God does but lead it to cry to Him out of the lowest
   depths, He will hear the voice of supplication!

   III. I now invite you to the third and concluding point, "O COME, LET
   US WORSHIP AND BOW DOWN." You of the land, and you of the sea, let us
   together worship the Lord our God! It is no new work for one of us, for
   our life is spent in worship, but oh, if it is a new thing with any man
   here, I would gently take him by the hand and say, "Come, Friend, let
   us worship and bow down, let us do it together. You are a Sinner--so am
   I. You have no merits and I have none. If ever you are saved, it will
   be by Grace, alone, and so it will be in my case. Jesus must be your
   only hope, and He is mine. 'O come, let us worship.'"

   Have you never worshipped God? Then sit still in the pew and do it.
   Say, "My God, You have made me, teach me how to worship You." Shall I
   stop a minute while you ask pardon for Jesus' sake?

   (Pause.)

   This is the last thing I have to say. I recollect a man, an old sailor,
   who had been a great blasphemer. He was a regular old salt, but there
   was no salt of Divine Grace in him, for he hated religion. He heard the
   Gospel. The Lord brought him to his knees, broke his heart, gave him
   deep conviction of sin and afterwards led him to look to Christ and
   trust Him and find salvation. When this weather-beaten mariner came
   forward to join the Church, he said, "I am come to get on the register,
   for I have got a new Owner. I used to carry the black flag at the
   masthead and there was not a timber in me but what belonged to the
   devil. I carried many a cargo and sailed over many a sea for him, but
   now I belong to Jesus from stem to stern, and I want to run up the
   blood-red flag of Christ, who has bought me for His own. I want you to
   register me under my new Owner and let me sail with those who belong to
   Him." We were glad enough to register him in the Church-Book. The first
   point is to get the Owner, the Lord Jesus, and then to acknowledge Him
   before all the world.

   You Christian sailors, wherever you go, show your flag! A dear man of
   God, a captain, was baptized here last Thursday night and he told me
   that 20 or more of his crew were converted on the last voyage out. He
   said, "We cannot make Christians of them, but we give them an
   opportunity every day of hearing the Gospel and, blessed be God, many
   have found the Savior." Captains, mind you look to your crews--and
   don't have their blood on your skirts through your neglect! If you are
   not captains, if you have any influence at all, carry the Gospel
   wherever you go. I believe if you are nothing but a cabin boy you can
   speak a word for Jesus Christ if you have Jesus Christ in your hearts!
   And then others will say, "Why, that boy shames us, for he loves the
   Savior!" Though they may scoff at you and pretend to despise you, it
   will make a hole in their consciences, depend upon it! If you drop a
   lighted match down anybody's neck, he may say it is a small bit of
   timber and laugh at it, but he will know it is there before long! If
   you get on fire with the love of God. If you are placed in the company
   of others, you may be very small and despised, but they will soon
   discover the heavenly flame! Only you must mind that you are really
   alight and that the true fire is in your spirit--for an empty
   profession will only make religion a mockery! God bless you and bless
   the Society! (A voice--"Amen!") You said, "Amen." Well, there is to be
   a collection and so I hope you will carry out your amen in a practical
   way and bless the Society by contributing to it as you are able.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Almighty Warrior

   (No. 3292)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 18, 1866.

   "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Most Mighty One, with Your Glory
   and Your Majesty. And in Your Majesty ride prosperously because of
   truth and meekness and righteousness: and Your right hand shall teach
   You terrible things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's
   enemies; whereby the people fall under You." Psalm 45:3-5.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon verse five, is #3039, Volume
   53--THE KING'S SHARP ARROWS.]

   THIS Psalm has been thought by some to be a marriage song for Solomon
   on the occasion of his wedding with the daughter of Pharaoh. It may be
   so, though I should be very loath to believe it. But even if that
   should be true, we will find in the Psalm a distinct reference to the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and to His marriage union with His Church. Under the
   Mosaic dispensation, when a man had married a wife, he was not to go
   out to war for a year, but when the Lord Jesus Christ entered into a
   marriage union with His people, that very union made it necessary that
   He should wage war on their behalf. He had to meet all their spiritual
   foes in terrible conflict--the Prince of Darkness and all the powers of
   evil set themselves in array against Him--and we know how He fought
   with them, overcame them and trampled them beneath His feet as the
   treader of grapes crushes the purple clusters in the winepress. And
   now, even though in Heaven, He is in a state of rest. Yet here, as the
   Head of the Church Militant, His mystical body, He is still warring
   against sin, struggling most strenuously to drive sin out of the world
   and to make the earth His own dominion wherein He shall reign in
   righteousness and peace.

   The prayer of the Psalmist, as we have it in our text, is also a most
   suitable petition for us to present. We desire to stir up our almighty
   Champion to go forth to the war against evil. How gloriously He went
   forth with His first disciples in the brave days of old! They rode
   forth to battle and to death under His leadership, but it was to
   victory, too, in those glorious times of conflict and conquest. But we
   seem to have fallen upon days of peace--that false peace which arises
   from stagnation, lethargy and death. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we
   have need to cry mightily to the great Captain of our salvation to gird
   His sword upon His thigh, to order His great war chariot to be brought
   to the front, again--that He may again ride forth to battle with all
   His attendant hosts--that His enemies may know that His power is as
   great as ever it was in the ages that are gone! While I am speaking
   upon the text, I trust that all Believers here will turn it into a
   prayer and that while you are praying, God will give you the answer and
   bless the message to the salvation of sinners-- which will be a true
   victory for Christ!

   I am going to invite your attention, first, to the armed Warrior
   Secondly, to His filled chariot And thirdly, to His victory won.

   I. So, first, I ask you to think of THE ARMED WARRIOR--"Gird Your sword
   upon Your thigh, O Most Mighty One, with Your Glory and Your Majesty."

   Then Christ has a sword. What is it? Certainly not the sword of which
   soldiers and princes are proud, for it was concerning that kind of
   sword that Jesus said to Peter, "Put up again your sword into its
   place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
   It was concerning that sort of weapon that Jesus said to Pilate, "My
   Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, then
   would My servants fight." Christ could truly say that the weapons of
   His warfare were not carnal, but that they were mighty through God to
   the pulling down of strongholds. His was not

   the kind of fighting that needs sword and spear and shield and buckler
   such as the world's warriors use. His wrestling was "not against flesh
   and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the
   rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wilderness in
   high places." The main weapon which Christ wielded was "the Sword of
   the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

   The Psalmist prayed, "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh." But in the Book
   of the Revelation we read concerning Christ, "out of His mouth went a
   sharp two-edged sword." You know how constantly Jesus quoted the
   Scriptures in resisting Satan's temptations or the assaults of His
   human adversaries. "It is written," was His unanswerable argument at
   all times. This sword, which Christ wields, is not made of steel to cut
   heads, or arms, or legs--it is the sword of the Truth of God to pierce
   the hearts and consciousness of sinners. It is said to be
   sharp--"sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
   asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
   discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." No other sword
   wounds as the Sword of the Spirit does! It wounds so that none but God
   can heal. You may bring it down upon a heart that is harder than a
   millstone, but its edge will never be turned and it will cut the stone
   in two. It is a sharp, wounding sword--and it is a killing sword.
   Wherever it goes, it kills sin, cuts iniquity in pieces, slays
   self-righteousness and destroys the infirmities of the flesh! This
   sword is also "two-edged." A sword with only one edge to it has a blunt
   back, but there is no blunt back to the Sword of the Spirit--it has a
   front stroke and a back stroke--in fact, it cuts all ways and every
   part of it is keen as a razor's edge! Promises, precepts, Doctrines,
   threats are all sharp and penetrating--there is no part of the Word of
   God that is ineffective to produce the result for which it was given.

   Notice that the Psalmist prays, "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh." The
   Bible is not your Bible or mine, alone. It is God's Bible, it is
   Christ's Bible, it is the Holy Spirit's Bible. Truth is no monopoly--it
   is not the priest's truth--it is the people's truth! It is everybody's
   truth, but it is most of all Christ's truth. Why is it that the Word of
   God is Christ's sword? Surely it is because that Word tells us about
   Him--He is the text of which the Bible is the sermon! The Bible is like
   a script pointing to Him and saying, "This is the way to Jesus Christ."
   Holy Scripture gives you a wardrobe full of choice garments and they
   all smell of myrrh and aloe and cassia because Christ has worn them!
   The Word of God is especially Christ's because He has used it and still
   uses it. My use of the Word or any other preacher's use of it will have
   very little effect unless Christ uses us as the instruments by which He
   shows what He can do with it. Someone looked at the sword of a famous
   conqueror and, after examining it closely, said, I do not see anything
   particular about it." "No," was the answer, "perhaps not, but if you
   could see the brawny arm that wielded it, you would understand why it
   is so notable." So is it with the Sword of the Spirit--this
   Divinely-Inspired Book--it may not seem to you as though it could work
   such wonders as it is continually doing, but if you could see the hand
   of Christ that wields that sword, then you would understand where the
   Glory and the Majesty of the Truth of God are found--and where it
   derives its power to convince and convert the sons of men!

   The Psalmist's petition is, "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Most
   Mighty One." When a soldier intends to use his sword, he puts it where
   he can easily get at it. He hangs it by his side so that he can readily
   draw it from its scabbard when he needs it either for attack or
   defense. So the prayer of our text means, "Lord, use Your Word! Put
   power and energy into the Truth as it is proclaimed." The preaching of
   a sermon may be like the drawing of a sword from its scabbard, yet it
   will not be really effective until Christ puts His hand to the work!
   The soldier's sword kills nobody until he grasps its hilt with a firm
   grip and deals the deadly blow with it. Here is the Sword of the
   Spirit, like some ancient weapon hanging on the wall of an old castle,
   but O You blessed King of kings, will You not take it in Your almighty
   hand and prove again what You can do with it? Right and left will You
   not cut and thrust with it and so get to Yourself a glorious victory
   over all the powers of evil? Ah, Sinner, if Christ shall send His Word
   home to Your heart, you will soon perceive that is a very different
   thing from what it is when we poor mortals only preach it in your ears!
   When we blow the Gospel trumpet at Ear-Gate, you take no notice. But if
   the Prince Emmanuel shall bring the great battering ram of His Cross up
   to Heart-Castle and smite it, blow after blow, the posts will rock, the
   bars will snap, the gate will fall and the Prince will ride in and
   reign forever over the soul that He has won by His Grace--as long ago
   He bought it with His blood! Oh, that He would do it this very night!

   Notice the title that the Psalmist gives to the Almighty Warrior--"Gird
   Your sword upon Your thigh, O Most Mighty One." Christ is not only
   mighty, but He is most mighty. There have been mighty men in prayer,
   but He is the

   most mighty Advocate with His Father on His people's behalf. There have
   been mighty preachers of the Word, but "never man spoke like this Man."
   There have been many friends of sinners, but there has never been such
   a Friend of sinners as Jesus is! Your sins are mighty to destroy, but
   He is more mighty to save. I will grant you that your passions are
   mighty-- that is positive! I will grant you that they are more mighty
   than you are--that is comparative! But Jesus is most mighty to overcome
   them and that is superlative! The superlative might of the love of
   Christ as exhibited in His death upon the Cross is infinitely greater
   than the positive and comparative might of our actual sin--and the
   depravity of our nature. May He prove Himself most mighty in winning
   many of you unto Himself!

   The Psalmist not only prays to the Lord to gird His sword upon His
   thigh, but he also adds, " with Your Glory and Your Majesty.." Did you
   ever see Christ in His Glory andHis Majesty? I know that you have never
   seen Him thus unless you have first seen yourself in your degradation
   and shame. There, where the poor broken-hearted sinner lies prostrate
   in the dust, feeling himself to be less than nothing, the great
   Conqueror comes in His Glory and Majesty, and says to him, "I am Your
   salvation. I have loved you with an everlasting love and laid down My
   life that I might save you." You remember how John Bunyan pictures
   Prince Emmanuel's entry into Mansoul after He had captured it from
   Diabolus?--"This was the manner of going up there. He was clad in His
   golden armor. He rode in His royal chariot, the trumpets sounded about
   Him, the colors were displayed, His ten thousands went up at His feet
   and the elders of Mansoul danced before Him." They might well rejoice
   at His coming in Glory and Majesty to take up His abode in their midst,
   and to prove to them how fully He had forgiven their rebellion now that
   they had repented of their sin and accepted Him as their rightful Lord
   and Savior! So will it be with all here who welcome Christ into their
   hearts and no longer yield allegiance to the Prince of Darkness!

   II. Having thus shown you the armed Warrior, I am now going to bid you
   look upon THE FILLED CHARIOT-- "And in Your Majesty ride prosperously
   because of truth and meekness and righteousness."

   The Eastern monarch stood erect in his war chariot and rode forth in
   great splendor in the midst of his troops. To my mind, the preaching of
   the Gospel is the chariot of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel itself
   is His sword and the preaching of the Gospel, the distribution of the
   Word, by which Christ is made known to the sons of men, may be likened
   to His chariot of salvation! This chariot appears to have four wheels
   or, if you like, you can call them the four milk-white steeds that draw
   the Gospel chariot. Their names, according to our text, are Majesty,
   Truth, Meekness and Righteousness. These are the four supports of the
   Gospel, or the four motive powers by which the Gospel of Christ is
   brought into the hearts of sinners!

   The power of the Gospel lies first, then, in the Majesty of Christ.
   Sinner, Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, is also the Son of God, who
   could truly say, "I and My Father are One." He who died on Calvary's
   Cross is the King of kings and Lord of lords! That very Man who cried
   in agony, "I thirst," is the Almighty God who holds the waters in the
   hollow of His hand! Does not this move you to trust Him? The Majesty of
   Christ ought to win not only your admiration, but also your affection.
   He whose face was more marred than that of any other man, was the One
   of whom Isaiah said, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
   The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Oh, does
   not this fact melt your heart and woo and win you to Him, that He,
   against whom you have sinned, should have suffered for your sins and
   borne the curse and penalty that were due to you? Surely the Majesty of
   Christ should lead you to trust Him!

   Then, the next wheel of the chariot, or the second of the noble steeds
   drawing it, is Truth. Sinner, the Gospel which is preached to you is
   true! Whatever there is in the world that is false, this certainly is a
   positive fact--"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It
   is also true that He will receive you if you come to Him--come and
   trust Him and see if He will not welcome you! It is true that He can
   forgive the blackest offenses and that He does forgive all who
   sincerely repent of their sin and trust in His atoning Sacrifice. It is
   true that He can uproot sin from the heart, make the unholy holy, and
   cause the disobedient to become obedient to God's commands! This is not
   a matter of conjecture on our part-- it is no guesswork, no dream of an
   excited imagination--many of us have proved the sanctifying power of
   the Doctrines of the Cross and we, therefore, urge you to prove this
   for yourselves so that the Truth of the Gospel may commend itself to
   you.

   The next wheel or steed of the chariot is Meekness. Jesus said, "Learn
   of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." It is no proud Savior who
   invites you to come to Him! Let me remind you working men that Jesus
   Christ belonged to your rank in life and probably toiled at the
   carpenter's bench with Joseph, the husband of His mother, Mary. He was
   no domineering aristocrat, looking down with contempt upon men and
   women in a lower stratum of society. The Lord says concerning Him, "I
   have exalted One chosen out of the people." He is the people's Christ.
   [See Sermon #11, Volume 1--the

   PEOPLE'S CHRIST.] He is a condescending Savior who took little

   children up in His arms and blessed them, and said, "Allow the little
   children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
   Kingdom of God." Notwithstanding all His Glory and Majesty, He disdains
   not the poor and needy, and His ears are always open to the cry of the
   humble and contrite! He takes pity upon the prisoner, He hearkens to
   the wail of the sorrowful, He has respect unto the broken in heart and
   is always tender and compassionate to any who seek His aid. Surely this
   meekness of the Savior must commend the Gospel to you!

   Then the fourth wheel--or the fourth steed if you prefer that
   metaphor--is Righteousness. O Brothers and Sisters, what a righteous
   Savior Jesus is and what a righteous Gospel His Gospel is! A man might
   well fall in love with the Gospel for this reason, if for no
   other--that it sets forth so clearly the Majesty of Divine Justice. God
   determined to save sinners, yet He would not save them at the expense
   of justice. He delights in mercy, but He would not indulge even His
   darling attribute to the detriment of His righteous Law! Christ gave
   His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off the
   hair. He hid not His face from shame and spitting. He yielded up His
   hands and His feet to the cruel nails, His body to indescribable pangs
   and His soul to agonies so terrible that He cried, "My soul is
   exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." He bore--

   "All that Incarnate God could bear, With strength enough but none to
   spare"--

   in order that He might fully vindicate the justice of God.
   Righteousness well completed the number of the wheels of the chariot of
   salvation, or the steeds that draw that chariot wherever God wills it
   to go! May they, by His Grace, draw it just where you are, poor Sinner,
   and may that same Grace compel you to enter that chariot, that you may
   ride in it to everlasting Glory!

   But dear Friends, a Gospel without Christ is like a chariot without a
   rider in it--and of what use is an empty chariot? In the front of the
   chariot of the Gospel stands Jesus Christ in all His Glory and His
   Majesty! I wish that all preachers would always remember this. Some of
   them seem to me to preach the Doctrines of the Gospel, and others of
   them proclaim its precepts--and in that way they bring out the chariot,
   but there is no rider in it! They have left out the Christ who is its
   Chief--indeed, its only Glory! But whatever else the preacher may
   forget, he should never forget his Master, but always give Him His
   rightful place. He should say to his Lord as the Psalmist said to
   Jerusalem, "If I forget you, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I
   do not remember you, let my tongue cleave to the roof my mouth." What
   is there for any man to preach about if he leaves Jesus Christ out of
   his sermon? A discourse without Christ in it is delusion and a sham--a
   mere playing with immortal souls, a mockery both of God and man! Jesus
   Christ and Him Crucified should be the Alpha and the Omega of every
   sermon! Even if the preacher is not preaching Christ directly, he ought
   to be preaching Him indirectly, proclaiming the Truths of God in such a
   way that it shall either draw the sinner or else drive him to the heart
   of Christ! In the chariot of our ministry I hope that we all, without
   hesitation, say that Jesus Christ rides in His Glory and in His
   Majesty.

   But, although Christ may thus ride in the chariot of our teaching, He
   must always be there in His Omnipotent might and in the power of the
   ever-blessed Spirit. So I want you who love Him to pray the Psalmist's
   prayer, "Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Most Mighty One, with Your
   Glory and Your Majesty. And in Your Majesty ride prosperously because
   of truth and meekness and righteousness." There is a fine old Welsh
   hymn which I wish I could turn into English without spoiling it--it
   runs somewhat to this effect--"O Jesus, come forth! Leave the ivory
   palaces! Your chariot waits for You, Come forth, come forth! Hell
   trembles before You, all Heaven adores You, earth owns Your sway, men's
   hearts cannot resist You. Come forth, come forth! Bars of brass You
   break, gates of iron give way before You; come forth, come forth, O
   Jesus for Your chariot awaits You now!"

   III. Now we are to close with our third head, THE VICTORY WON. "Your
   right hand shall teach You terrible things. Your arrows are sharp in
   the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people fall under You."

   Many representations of Eastern monarchs picture them not only as
   wearing a sword upon the thigh when riding in the great war chariot,
   but also as bearing a battle bow. And the artists, wishing to flatter
   their royal masters, represented the king's arrows as going right
   through the hearts of the king's enemies! Our Almighty Warrior has a
   sure

   aim--He never misses the heart at which He shoots His arrows! That same
   Gospel which is like a two-edged sword is, in another aspect, like
   sharp arrows shot from the bow of a mighty archer. Arrows, you know,
   can do nothing until they are shot. The arrow is useless without the
   bow--and the bow, itself, is useless without the hand and arm of the
   man who bends it and speeds the arrow to the mark he wants to hit! It
   used to be said of William the Conqueror that no man in England except
   himself could bend his bow--and so is it with the bow that belongs to
   our Great Conqueror--no one but He can bend it. When He fits the arrows
   to the string and draws the bow with His Almighty hand, the missile
   flies with irresistible force and buries itself in the heart at which
   the King took such unerring aim!

   I take it that these arrows are not so much intended to represent the
   whole Bible as certain texts out of the Bible-- sharp arrow from the
   quiver of Revelation. Sometimes one arrow will be shot and sometimes
   another, but they are all sharp. Have you, my Hearers, ever felt the
   pang that goes through the heart when one of these sharp arrows strikes
   it? So long as it lasts, there is no pain as keen as that produced by
   conviction of sin! And there is no cure for that pain except from that
   very hand which shot the arrow that caused it!

   These arrows are spoken of in the plural because while there are arrows
   of conviction, arrows of justice, arrows of terror, there are also
   arrows of mercy, arrows of consolation. While there are arrows that
   kill sin, there are also arrows that kill despair, which also is a
   sin--and as there are arrows that smite and slay our carnal hopes, so
   there are other arrows that effectually destroy our sinful fears. And
   all these arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies--there is
   not a blunt one in the whole quiver.

   Notice that all these arrows belong to the King. It is to the "Most
   Mighty" that the Psalmist says, "Your arrows." The Truth of God never
   comes home to our heart and conscience until the Holy Spirit convinces
   us that it is God's Truth. There are some Doctrines in the Scriptures
   which many are unwilling to accept as Divine although they are very
   clearly revealed in the Word and they are Truths which God has over and
   over again blessed to the salvation of souls. People have often said
   that the Doctrine of Election ought not to be preached lest it should
   prove to be a stumbling block in the way of sinners coming to Christ,
   yet I can testify that we have had scores of souls brought to the
   Savior and added to this Church through sermons upon Election,
   Predestination and those other great Truths of God in which many of us
   believe and rejoice! They are certainly among the sharp arrows of our
   King!

   Observe, too, where the King's arrows go. They all pierce the heart.
   "Your arrows are sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies." Some of
   you have been struck by an arrow in your head. Well, that would kill
   you if it were literally an arrow--but the King's arrows, when they
   metaphorically strike the head, that is, when there is a merely
   intellectual assent to the Truth of the Gospel, are not effective as
   they are when they enter the heart. Some of you have been struck by
   these arrows in your legs--that is to say you have gone limping
   upstairs to pray for a little while, yet there has been no such killing
   work as there is when the King's arrows pierce the heart. When they
   strike the sinner there, they inflict a mortal wound, for out of the
   heart are the issues of life. O Lord, smite the sinners heart! Kill his
   old life and give him a new life! Slay him as Your enemy, but cause him
   to live as Your friend! Shoot Your arrows right through the heart that
   loves sin and hates You, the heart that loves drunkenness, that loves
   lust, that loves Sabbath-breaking, that loves evil in any form! Kill
   that heart, O Lord, and then give a new heart and a right spirit!

   Let me remind you that there is a time coming when Christ will go forth
   to war with all His armor on--that is the time of which we read in the
   Revelation, "out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it, He
   should smite the nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of iron. .
   .In righteousness He does judge and make war." It will be a terrible
   thing for all who are the enemies of the King in that day! His arrows
   will indeed be swift and sharp to slay them. Do not long for that day
   to come, you unconverted ones, for to you it will be a day of darkness
   and not of light! It will be a dreadful day for those of you who have
   despised and rejected the Christ of God when He shall fit His sharp
   arrows to the string, draw the bow and pierce you to the heart. Where
   will you flee from the glance of His all-seeing eyes? Up to the
   loftiest mountains His shafts shall fly after you! In the trackless
   deserts, in the densest forests, far out upon the mighty ocean His
   arrows shall find you out! Try not to flee from Him, but flee to Him!
   If a man wanted to shoot me with a bow and arrow, I would try to clasp
   him in my arms and hold him to my heart, for how could he shoot me
   then? Close in with Christ in this fashion! Run not from Him, but run
   to Him and clasp Him to your heart and never let Him go!

   If you yield to Christ, you will find that He will no longer be angry
   with you. He is loving and gracious and He delights to welcome
   penitents to His heart. Oh that He might receive you this very hour! He
   will if you only trust Him and then you will see Him riding in His
   chariot in quite another fashion. Perhaps at first you will be afraid
   of Him and ask, "Lord, what have You come here to do?" And He will
   reply, "I have come to kill your sins with My sharp arrows." One after
   another He will fit them to His bow and shoot at all He means to slay.
   He will kill your profanity. He will kill your self-righteousness. He
   will kill your self-trust. All of those will be pierced through and
   through by His unerring darts! Then He will shoot at your pride and
   kill it, outright, and make you humble as a little child. He will shoot
   at your love of the world. He will shoot at all your pleasures which
   are not holy pleasures. He will shoot at every lust and every evil
   propensity within you--and down they will fall-- everyone slain by His
   sharp arrows and blessed will it be for you when they are all slain!
   Who would wish to spare any one of these King's enemies? Rather rise up
   and help the King to slay them! Surely you will give no quarter to
   those that are your foes as well as His!

   Finally, Sinner, trust the Savior. He died for sinners, bearing their
   sins in His own body on the tree. He died for all who trust Him--and
   they who trust Him shall find Him faithful and true! And He shall bring
   them Home to His Father's House to dwell with Him forever! Oh, that all
   of us might be in that blessed company! God grant it for Jesus' sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM103.

   Verse 1. Bless the LORD, O my soul--Come, my Soul, wake up, bestir
   yourself, for you have a great work to do! Such work as angels do
   forever before the Throne of God on high!

   1. Andall that is within in me, bless His holy name. [See Sermons
   #1078, Volume 18--THE SAINTS BLESSING THE LORD and #2121, Volume
   36--THE KEYNOTE OF THE YEAR.] Let no power or faculty exempt itself

   from this blessed service! Come, my memory, my will, my judgment, my
   intellect, my heart--all that is in me is to be stirred up by His holy
   name to magnify and bless. "Bless the Lord, O my soul," for the music
   must begin deep down in the center of my being--it must be myself, my
   inmost self that praises God!

   2. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. This
   shall be the first note of our grateful song, "We love Him because He
   first loved us." We have not to go abroad for materials for
   praise--they are all around us at home. "Forget not all His benefits"
   to you, my Soul! His overwhelming, His innumerable benefits, which have
   to be summed up in the gross as "all His benefits," forget them not!

   3. Who forgives all your iniquities. Come, my Soul, can you not praise
   God for forgiven sin? This is the sweetest note in our song of
   praise--"Who forgives all your iniquities," not merely some of them!
   The blessed Scapegoat has carried the whole mass into that "No man's
   land" where they shall never be found!

   3. Who heals all your diseases. He is the Physician who can heal you,
   my Soul. Your diseases are the worst diseases of all, for they would
   drag you down to Hell if they remained unhealed! But He "heals all your
   diseases."

   4. Who redeems your life from destruction. O my Soul, praise God for
   redemption! If you cannot sing about anything else, sing of "free Grace
   and dying love." Keep on ringing "those charming bells."

   4. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. What? Can
   you wear such a crown as this, which is made up of loving kindness and
   tender mercies, and yet not bless Him who put it upon your head? Oh,
   let it not be so, but let us, each one, break forth in spirit in Mary's
   song, "My soul does magnify the Lord."

   5. Who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is
   renewed like the eagle's. This is heavenly feasting on heavenly fare!
   There is Divine satisfaction to be derived from the finished work of
   the Lord Jesus Christ! O my Soul, pray to God to give you this
   satisfying food so that your youth may be renewed, so that your wing
   feathers may grow again, that you may mount as eagles do! Surely, dear
   Friends, this little list of mercies, though such a short one,
   comprises an immensity of mercy far beyond utmost comprehension! Let us
   bless the Lord for it all.

   6. The LORD executes righteousness and judgment for all that are
   oppressed. Let the poor and the down-trodden praise the Lord who so
   graciously takes care of them! He is the Executor of the needy, and He
   is the Executioner of those that oppress them!

   7. He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of
   Israel Therefore let us bless the God of Revelation who does not hide
   Himself from His creatures, but who makes known both His ways and His
   acts unto His chosen

   people. An unknown God is not a praised God, but when He reveals
   Himself to His people, they cannot refrain from blessing His holy name!

   8. The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in
   mercy. Praise Him for all this! At every mention of any one of His
   Divine attributes let your hearts beat to the music of praise.

   9. He will not always chide: neither will He keep His anger forever
   Therefore let the afflicted praise Him, let the downcast and the
   despondent sing praises unto His holy name! If they cannot sing because
   of anything else, let them bless the name of the Lord that He will not
   keep His anger forever!

   10. He has not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according
   to our iniquities. Let us all thank God that we are not in Hell and
   that we are yet on praying ground and on pleading terms with Him--and
   some of us can praise Him that we shall never come into Hell, for He
   has saved us with an everlasting salvation! Truly, if we did not bless
   Him, every timber in this building and every iron column that supports
   this roof would burst out in rebukes for our ingratitude!

   11. For as the Heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy
   toward them that fear Him. Look up to the blue sky. Try to imagine what
   is beyond the stars and then say to yourself, "So great is His mercy
   toward them that fear Him"--and try to praise Him as He deserves to be
   praised.

   12. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our
   transgressions from us. Let us therefore praise Him for such boundless
   loving kindness and tender mercy!

   13. Like as a fatherpities his children, so the LORDpities them that
   fear Him. [See Sermons #941, Volume 16--the tender

   PITY OF THE LORD; #1650, Volume 28--GOD'S FATHERLY PITY and #2639,
   Volume 45--OUR HEAVENLY FATHER'S PITY.] He has an infinitely tender he;
   t. He never strikes without regret, but His love always flows most
   freely. No earthly father or mother is half as full of pity as God is
   to His children.

   14. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust Our bodies
   are just animated dust and our souls are so weak and feeble that even
   they might be compared to dust in His sight--not iron or granite, but
   simply dust. What men call "the laws of Nature" are so stern that it is
   a wonder that men live as long as they do, for earthquakes and
   tornadoes and volcanoes are found that no man can bind! And when so
   many men are constantly crossing the sea it is a wonder that so many of
   them ever come to land again.

   15. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he
   flourishes. You are like the primrose by the river's brink, or the
   buttercup and the daisy in the meadow that is mown with the scythe.
   That is all we mortals are--not mighty cedars, not solid rocks, but
   just flowers of the field or as so much grass!

   16. For the windpasses over it, and it is gone; and theplace thereof
   shall know it no more. The hot winds of the East blow over a meadow and
   it is immediately burned up. Even in the South of France, when the
   Sirocco has blown across from Africa I have seen the fairest flowers
   look in a short time as if they had been burned with hot iron--and such
   are we when pestilence, as we call it, comes. It is but a breath of
   poisonous wind and we are soon gone.

   17. But--This is a blessed, "but"--

   17. The mercy of the LORD--That is not a fading flower, that is not a
   withering wind! "But the mercy of the

   Lord"--

   17. Is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His
   righteousness unto children's children-- Here are innumerable mercies
   all enclosed in the one mercy of the Lord! Everlasting mercy, Covenant
   mercy. If we do not praise God whenever we think of the Covenant of
   Grace, what are we doing? We must be possessed by a dumb devil if we do
   not praise Him whose mercy "is from everlasting to everlasting upon
   them that fear Him."

   18, 19. To such as keep His Covenant, and to those that remember His
   commandment, to do them. The LORD has preparedHis throne in the
   heavens; andHis kingdom rules over all Now, children of the King, will
   you go mourning all your days? You who dwell in the light of His
   Throne, will you not be glad? Rejoice, O Believer, for your King lives
   and reigns forever!

   20. Bless the LORD, you His angels, that excel in strength, that do His
   commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word. "Bless the Lord,
   you His angels." We cannot do it well enough, yet, so help us, you
   angels, "that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening
   unto the voice of His word." Your actions are our praises, O you mighty
   angels of God! Oh, that we had learned to do His commandments as you do
   them! We are praying for this, "Your will be done in earth, as it is in
   Heaven."

   21. Bless you the LORD, all you His hosts; you ministers of His, that
   do His pleasure. All living things and all the forces and powers of
   Nature are calling upon men to praise the Lord! And we cry to all the
   hosts of God, the ministers of His, that do His pleasure, "Bless you
   the Lord."

   22. Bless the LORD, all His works in all place of dominion: bless the
   LORD, O my soul While all these glorious anthems are ascending to
   Heaven, I must not be silent! But I, too, must praise the Lord with my
   whole heart--"Bless the Lord, O my Soul."
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Blood of the Testament"

   (No. 3293)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "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 his
   people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God has
   enjoined unto you." Hebrews 9:19,20.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon, upon verse 20 is #1567, Volume 26--THE
   BLOOD OF THE COVENANT.]

   Blood is always a terrible thing. It makes a sensitive mind shudder
   even to pronounce the word. But to look upon the thing, itself, causes
   a thrill of horror. Although by familiarity men shake this off, for the
   seeing of the eyes and the hearing of the ears can harden the heart,
   the instinct of a little child may teach you what is natural to us in
   reference to blood. How it will worry if its finger bleeds ever so
   little--shocked at the sight, even if there is actually no pain! I envy
   not the man whose pity would not stir to see a sparrow bleed or a lamb
   wantonly put to pain. And as for the cruel man, I shudder at the
   thought of his depravity. What exquisite pain it must have caused our
   first parent--how keenly it must have touched the fine sensibilities of
   their nature--to have had to offer sacrifice! Probably they had never
   seen death until they brought their first victim to the altar of God.
   Blood! Ah, how they must have shuddered as they saw the warm life-fluid
   flowing forth from the innocent victim. It must have seemed to them to
   be a very horrible thing and, very properly so, for God intended them
   to feel their feelings outraged. He meant them to take to heart the
   anguish of the victim and learn, with many a shudder, what a
   destructive and killing thing sin was! He meant them to see before
   their eyes a commentary upon His threat--"In the day that you eat
   thereof you shall surely die." He meant Adam and Eve to witness the
   harrowing appearance as the sentence upon sin was executed, stabbing at
   the very heart of life, convulsing all the frame, sealing up the senses
   and leaving behind but a wreck of the beautiful creature and not a
   relic of happiness for it in the world. How dreadful must have been the
   spectacle when the first pair gathered around the corpse of their
   second son, slain by his brother! There were the clots of blood on the
   murderous club, or the sharp stone, or whatever other instrument Cain
   may have used in smiting his brother to the grave. How they must have
   mourned and sighed as they saw the precious crimson of human life
   wantonly poured out upon the ground and crying to God against the
   murderer!

   Yes, blood is always a ghastly and a terrible thing. It is so, I
   suppose, because we recognize in it the destruction of life. Is it not
   so, also--though we may not be able to define the emotion--because we
   are compelled in our consciences to admit the effect of sin and we are
   staggered as we see what our sin has done? All through the great school
   of the Jewish Law, blood was constantly used to instruct the Israelite
   in the guilt of sin, and in the greatness of the atonement necessary
   for putting it away. I suppose that the outer court of the Jewish
   Temple was something worse than ordinary shambles. If you will read the
   lists of the multitudes of beasts that were sometimes slain there in a
   single day, you will see that the priests must have stood in gore and
   have presented a crimson appearance--their snow-white garments all
   splashed over with blood as they stood there offering sacrifice from
   morning till night! Every man who went up to the tabernacle or to the
   Temple must have stood aside for a moment, and have said, "What a place
   this is for the worship of God! Everywhere I see signs of slaughter."
   God intended this to be so. It was the great lesson which He meant to
   be taught to the Jewish people, that sin was a loathsome and a
   detestable thing--and that it could only be put away by the Sacrifice
   of a great life, such a life as had not then been lived--the life of
   the Coming One, the life of the Eternal Son of God who must, Himself,
   become Man that He might offer His own immaculate life upon the altar
   of God to expiate the guilt and put away the filth and the
   loathsomeness of human transgression!

   Some of you will feel sickened at these reflections and object to what
   I have already said as unworthy of my lips and offensive to your ears.
   I know who these will be--the creatures of taste who have never felt
   the loathsomeness of sin! Oh, I would that your sins would sicken you!
   I would to God that you had some sense of what a horrible thing it is
   to rebel against the Most High, to pervert the laws of right, to
   overthrow the rules of virtue, and to run into the ways of
   transgression and iniquity, for if blood is sickening to you, sin is
   infinitely more detestable to God! And if you find that being washed in
   blood seems awful to you, the great bath which was filled from Christ's
   veins in which men are washed and made clean is a thing of greater and
   deeper solemnity to God than any tongue shall be ever able to express!

   I do not think anyone ever knows the preciousness of the blood of
   Christ till he has had a full sight and sense of his sin, his
   uncleanness and his ill desert. Is there any such thing as truly coming
   to the Cross of Christ until you first of all have seen what your sin
   really deserves? A little light into that dark cellar, Sir--a little
   light into that hole within the soul, a little light cast into that
   infernal den of your humanity and you will soon discern what sin is!
   And, seeing it, you would discover that there was no hope of being
   washed from it except by a Sacrifice far greater than you could ever
   render. Then the Atonement of Christ would become fair and lustrous in
   your eyes and you would rejoice with unspeakable joy in that boundless
   love which led the Savior to give Himself a ransom for us, "the Just
   for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." May the Lord teach
   us--thundering at us, if necessary--what sin means! May He teach it to
   us so that the lesson shall be burned into our souls and we shall never
   forget it! I could gladly wish that you were all burden-carriers till
   you grew weary. I could gladly wish that you all labored after Eternal
   Life until your strength failed, and that you might then rejoice in Him
   who has finished the work and who promises to be your All-in-All when
   you believe in Him and trust in Him with your whole heart!

   Looking carefully at the text, I would have you notice the name given
   to the blood of Christ, the ministry in which it was used and the
   effect that it produced.

   I. First, observe THE NAME GIVEN IN THE TEXT TO THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. It
   is said to be, "THE BLOOD OF THE TESTAMENT."

   You are aware, perhaps, you who read your Bibles thoroughly, that the
   word here rendered, "testament," is more commonly rendered, "covenant,"
   and although it would be wrong to say that it does not mean,
   "testament," yet it would be right to say that it signifies both,
   "covenant" and, "testament," and that its first and general meaning is
   "covenant."

   Let us take it so. The blood of Jesus is the Blood of the Covenant.
   Long before this round world was made, or stars began to shine, God
   foresaw that He would make man. He also foresaw that man would fall
   into sin. Out of that fall of man, His distinguishing Grace and
   Infinite Sovereignty selected a multitude that no man can number to be
   His. But, seeing that they had offended against Him, it was necessary,
   in order that they might be saved, that a great scheme or plan should
   be devised by which the Justice of God would be fully satisfied, and
   yet the mercy of God should have full play. A covenant was therefore
   arranged between the Persons of the blessed Trinity. It was agreed and
   solemnly pledged by the oath of the Eternal Father that He would give
   unto the Son a multitude whom no man could number who should be
   His--His spouse, the members of His Mystical Body, His sheep, His
   precious jewels. These the Savior accepted as His own, and then on His
   part, He undertook for them that He would keep the Divine Law, that He
   would suffer all the penalties due on their behalf for offenses against
   the Law and that He would keep and preserve every one of them until the
   day of His appearing. Thus stood the Covenant and on that Covenant the
   salvation of every saved man and woman hangs. Do not think it rests
   with you, Soul, for what says the Scripture? "It is not of him that
   wills, nor of him that runs but of God that shows mercy." He said to
   Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
   compassion on whom I will have compassion." To show you that salvation
   is not by human merit, God was pleased to cast it entirely upon
   covenant arrangements. In that Covenant made between Himself and His
   Son, there was not a word said about our actions having any merit in
   them! We were regarded as though we were not, except that we stood in
   Christ and we were only so far parties to the Covenant as we were in
   the loins of Christ on that august day. We were considered to be the
   seed of the Lord Jesus Christ, the children of His care, the members of
   His own body. "According as He has chosen us in Christ before the
   foundation of the world." Oh, what Grace it was that put your name and
   mine in the eternal roll and provided for our salvation, provided for
   it by a Covenant--by a sacred pact between the Father and His Eternal
   Son, that we should belong to Him in the day when He should make up His
   jewels!

   Now, Beloved, in a covenant there are pledges given--and on those
   pledges we delight to meditate. You know what they were. The Father
   pledged His honor and His word. He did more--He pledged His oath and,
   "because He could swear by no greater, He swore by Himself." He pledged
   His own word and sacred honor of Godhead that He would be true to His
   Son, that He should see His seed and that by the knowledge of Him,
   Christ should "justify many." But there was needed a seal to the
   Covenant--and what was that? Jesus Christ in the fullness of time set
   the seal to the Covenant, to make it valid and secure, by pouring out
   His life's blood to make the Covenant effectual once and for all.
   Beloved, if there is an agreement made between two men, the one to sell
   such-and-such an estate, and the other to pay for it, the covenant does
   not hold good until the payment is made. Now, Jesus Christ's blood was
   the payment of His part of the Covenant! And when He shed it, the
   Covenant stood as firm as the everlasting hills--and the Throne of God,
   Himself, is not more sure than is the Covenant of Grace! And, mark you,
   that Covenant is not sure merely in its great outlines, but also sure
   in all its details! Every soul whose name was in that Covenant must be
   saved! Unless God can undeify Himself, every soul that Christ died for,
   He will have! Every soul for which He stood Substitute and Surety, He
   demands to have--and each of the souls He must have, for the Covenant
   stands fast. Moreover, every blessing in that Covenant which was
   guaranteed to the chosen seed was, by the precious blood, made
   eternally secure to that seed! Oh, how I delight to speak about the
   sureness of that Covenant! How the dying David rolled that under his
   tongue as a sweet morsel! "Although my house," he said, "be not so with
   God"--there was the bitter in his mouth--"yet," he said--and there came
   in the honey, "yet He has made with me an Everlasting Covenant, ordered
   in all things, and sure." And this sureness, mark you, lies in the
   blood! It is the blood of Christ that makes all things secure, for all
   the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, to the Glory of
   God by us!

   You will ask, it may be, "What is the purpose of this Doctrine?" Its
   purpose is this--To you who have believed in Jesus, Covenant mercies
   are sure, not because of your frames and feelings, but because of the
   precious blood of Jesus! Yesterday you were happy, perhaps, and today
   you are downcast. Well, but the Covenant has not changed! Tomorrow you
   may be in the very depths of despair, while today you are singing upon
   the top of the mountain--but the Covenant will not change. That august
   transaction was not made by you and cannot be unmade by you! It tarries
   not for man, and waits not for the sons of men. There it stands fast
   and settled, signed by the Eternal Signet, and your security is not in
   yourselves, but in Christ. If Christ bought you--if the Father gave you
   to Him, if Christ became a Surety for you, then--

   "Nor death, nor Hell, shall ever remove His favorites from His breast;
   In the dear bosom of His love They must forever rest!"

   The name of the blood, as we find it in our own translation, is "the
   blood of the testament" This teaches a similar Truth of God, though it
   puts it under another figure. Salvation comes to us as a matter of
   will. Jesus Christ has left Eternal Life to His people as a legacy.
   Here are the words--"Father, I will that they, also, whom You have
   given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." Now, a
   will, as the Apostle rightly tells us, has no power whatever unless the
   man who made it is dead. Hence the blood of Jesus Christ, the token of
   His death, gives validity to all the promises which He has made. That
   spear-thrust by the Roman soldier was a precious proof to us that our
   Lord was really dead. And now, Beloved, whenever you read a precious
   promise in the Bible, you may say, "This is a clause in the Redeemer's
   will." When you come to a choice word, you may say, "This is another
   codicil to the will." Recollect that these things are yours--not
   because you are this or that--but because His blood makes them yours!
   The next time Satan says to you, "You do not believe as you ought and,
   therefore, the promise is not sure," tell him that the sureness of the
   promise lies in the blood, and not in what you are or in what you are
   not! There is a will proved in Heaven's Court of Probate, whose
   validity depends upon its signatures, upon its witnesses and upon its
   being drawn up in proper style. The person to whom the property is left
   may be very poor, but that does not overthrow the will. He may be very
   ragged, but that does not upset the will. He may have disgraced himself
   in some way or other, but that does not make the will void. He who made
   the will and put His name to the will, makes the will valid, and not
   the legatee to whom the legacy was left. And so with you this Covenant
   stands secure, this will of Christ stands firm! In all your ups and
   downs, in all your successes and your

   failures, you, poor needy Sinner, have nothing to do but to come and
   take Christ to be your All-in-All and put your trust in Him--and the
   Blood of the Covenant shall make the promises sure to you!

   This is a sweet topic. I have not time, however, to enlarge upon it,
   but I heartily commend it to your private meditations and trust you may
   find consolation in it.

   II. The blood which Moses called "the blood of the covenant" or, "of
   the testament," was of the utmost importance in the ministry of the
   tabernacle, for IT WAS SPRINKLED BY HIM EVERYWHERE.

   First, we are told that he sprinkled it upon the book Oh, how
   delightful this Bible looks to me when I see the blood of Christ
   sprinkled upon it! Every leaf would have flashed with Sinai's lightning
   and every verse would have rolled with the thunders of Horeb if it had
   not been for Calvary's Cross! But now, as you look, you see on every
   page your Savior's precious blood! He loved you and gave Himself for
   you, and now you who are sprinkled with that blood and have by faith
   rested in Him, can take that precious Book and find it to be green
   pastures and still waters to your souls!

   The blood was then sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat itself. Whenever you
   cannot pray as you would, remember that Jesus Christ's blood has gone
   before you and is pleading for you before the Eternal Throne of God.
   Like the good Methodist who, when a Brother could not pray, cried out,
   "Plead the blood, Brother!" Yes, and when you feel so unworthy that you
   dare not look up. When the big tear stands in your eye because you have
   been such a backslider and have been so cold in heart, plead the blood,
   my Sister--you may always come where the blood is! There you see that
   this sin of yours has been already atoned for. Before you committed it,
   Jesus carried it! Long before it fell from your heart, the weight of it
   had pressed upon the Redeemer's heart--and He put it away in that
   tremendous day when He took all the load of His people's guilt and
   hurled it into the sepulcher--to be buried there forever!

   Then the blood was sprinkled upon every vessel of the sanctuary. I like
   that thought. I like to come up to God's House and say, "Well, I shall
   worship God today in the power and through the merit of the precious
   blood! My praises will be poor, feeble things, but then the sweet
   perfume will go up out of the golden censer and my praises will be
   accepted through Jesus Christ! My preaching, oh, how full of
   faults--how covered over with sins! But then the blood is on it and
   because of that, God will not see sin in my ministry, but will accept
   it because of the sweetness of His Son's blood."

   You will come to the Communion Table tonight, most of you. But oh, do
   not come without the precious blood, for the best place of all upon
   which it was sprinkled was upon all the people. The drops fell upon
   them all! As Moses took the basin and scattered the blood over the
   whole crowd, it fell upon all who were assembled at the door of the
   Tabernacle. Have you had sprinkling with the precious blood, my Hearer?
   If you have, you shall live forever! But if you have not, the wrath of
   God abides on you! Do you ask how you can have the blood of Christ
   sprinkled upon you? It cannot be done literally, but faith does it.
   Faith is the bunch of hyssop which we dip into the basin and it
   sprinkles man's conscience from bad works. You say you have been
   christened, confirmed, baptized--but all these things together would
   not save one soul, much less all the multitudes who trust in them! They
   are not sufficient for the taking away of a single sin! But you always
   say your prayers, you have family prayers and you are very honest and
   so on! I know all this--but all these things you ought to have done and
   they will not make amends for what you have not done! All the debt that
   you have paid will not discharge those that are still due! Know you not
   that saying of the Scriptures, "by the deeds of the Law there shall no
   flesh be justified in His sight: for by the Law is the knowledge of
   sin"? You may work your fingers to the bone, but you can never weave a
   righteousness that shall cover your nakedness before God! The only hope
   for the sinner is to come and cast himself upon what Jesus Christ has
   done for him--depending upon the groans, and agonies, and death of the
   martyred Savior who stood for us and suffered in our place, that we
   might escape the wrath of God!

   I hope that there is never a Sunday but what I teach this one Doctrine
   and, until this tongue is silent in the grave, I shall know no other
   Gospel than just this--Trust Christ and you shall live! The bloody
   Sacrifice of Calvary is the only hope of sinners! Look there and you
   shall find the Star of Peace guiding you to everlasting day! But turn
   your backs upon Christ and you have turned your back upon Heaven--you
   have courted destruction, you have sealed your doom! It is by the
   sprinkling of the blood, then, that we are saved. We must have the
   blood of Christ upon us in one way or the other. If we do not have it
   upon us to save us, we shall have it upon us to destroy us. "His blood
   be on us and on our children," said the Jews to Pilate in their
   madness--and the siege of Jerusalem was the answer to the cry! Worse
   than was the siege of Jerusalem to the Jews, shall be the death of
   those who do despite to the Spirit of Grace and despise the blood

   of Jesus! But happy shall they be who, giving up every other
   confidence, come to the Blood of the Covenant and put their trust
   there, for it shall not deceive them!

   III. THE EFFECT OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST claims our earnest
   attention--yet the minutes are few in which I can enlarge upon it.

   Whenever Jesus Christ's blood comes upon a man, the instantaneous
   effect is something more than miraculous. Before the application of
   Christ's blood, the man was distracted. His guilt and its consequent
   punishment weighed heavily upon him. "Alas!" he said, "I shall soon
   die, and then Hell will be my lot!" Oh, some of us will never forget
   when we were in that miserable, burdened state! I declare before you
   all that when I felt the weight of my sin, I wished that I had never
   been born! And I envied frogs, and toads, and the most loathsome
   creatures, and thought that they were so much better off than I,
   because they had never broken the Law of God, which I had so wickedly
   and so willfully done! If I went to my bed, I started with the fear
   that I should wake up in Hell. And by day the same dread thought
   distracted me--that I was cast off by God and must perish! But the
   moment that I looked to Christ--do not mistake me--the very same moment
   that I put my trust in Christ, I rose from the depths of despair to the
   utmost heights ofjoy! It was not a process of reasoning. It was not a
   matter which took hours and days--it was all done in an instant! I
   understood that God had punished Christ instead of me, and I saw that,
   therefore, I could not be punished anymore--that I never could be if
   Christ died for me--and I was assured that He did if I did but trust
   Him! So I did trust Him--with my whole weight I threw myself into His
   arms and thought, at the time, that He had never had such a load to
   carry before! But I found that He was able to save, even to the
   uttermost, them that came unto Him--and what joy and peace I had in
   that moment it is impossible for me to describe! And I thank God that I
   have never lost it. There have been time of depression. There have been
   seasons when the light of God's Countenance has been withdrawn. But one
   thing I know--Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--I am a
   sinner, and my soul rests alone on Him! And how can He cast me away,
   since His own promise is, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved"? I have believed, by His Grace! I have been baptized as an
   avowal of my faith! And He is not true if He does not save me! But He
   must be true, He cannot break His word! O dear Friends, there are
   hundreds here who have passed through the same blessed experience and
   they can tell you that the blood of Jesus in an instant speaks peace to
   the soul!

   And this precious blood has this property about it that if the peace
   which it first causes should become a little dim, you have only to go
   to the precious blood to have that peace once more restored to you!

   I would recommend any of my doubting Brothers and Sisters to come to
   Christ over again as they came to Him at first. Never mind about your
   experience! Never care about your marks and evidences. Never get piling
   up your experiences. If you go to the top of some mountains such as
   Snowdon or the Righi, you will find it all solid and firm enough, but
   there are some people who want to get a little higher than the
   mountain, so the people there built a rickety old stage and charge you
   four pence--or sixpence to go to the top of it! And when you get up
   there, you find it is all shaky and ready to tumble down and you are
   frightened! Well, but what need is there to go up there at all? If you
   would stand on the mountain, that would not shake! So, sometimes, we
   are not content with resting upon Christ as poor sinners, and depending
   on Him. We get to building a rickety stage of our own experience, or
   sanctification, or emotions, and I know not what besides--and then it
   begins to shake under our feet. Far better if we were like the Negro
   who said he "fell flat down on de promise, and when he had done that,
   he couldn't fall no lower." Oh, to keep close to a promise! Job says
   that the naked embrace the rock for need of a shelter, and there is no
   shelter like the Rock of Ages--

   "None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good!"

   But I have not told you all the power of this blood, nor could I tell
   you tonight. That blood gives the pardoned sinner access with boldness
   to God, Himself. That blood, having taken away the guilt of sin,
   operates in a sanctifying manner and takes away the power of sin--and
   the pardoned man does not live as he lived before he was pardoned. He
   loves God, who has forgiven him so much--and that love makes him
   enquire, "What shall I do for God, who has done so much for me?" Then
   he begins to purge himself of his old habits. He finds that the
   pleasures that once were sweet to him are sweet no more. "Away you go,"
   he says to his old companions, "I cannot go with you to Hell." Having a
   new heart, a new love, a new desire, he begins to mix with God's
   people. He searches God's Word. He makes haste to keep God's
   commandments. His desires are holy and heavenly and he pants for the
   time when he shall get rid of all sin, shall be quite

   like Christ and shall be taken away to dwell forever where Jesus is!
   Oh, the blood of Christ is a blessed sin-killer! They say that St.
   Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Ah, but Christ drives all
   the serpents out of the human heart when He once gets in. If He does
   but sprinkle His blood upon our hearts, we become new men--such new men
   as all the rules of morality could not have made us! Such new men as
   they are who, robed in white, day without night sing Jehovah's praise
   before His Throne!

   Sinner, would you be saved tonight? Trust Jesus and you shall be!
   Sinner, would you be saved upon a dying bed? Trust Jesus now and you
   shall be! Sinner, would you be saved when the heavens are in a blaze
   and the stars fall like withered fig leaves from the firmament? Look to
   Jesus, now, and you shall be saved then! Oh, I would to God that some
   of you would look to Him! Not for the eyes of your body to do it, but
   for the eyes of your mind to do it! Think of what Christ is--God, and
   yet Man. Think of such a Being suffering instead of you! What must be
   the merit of such suffering, and what an honor to God's Justice that
   such an One should suffer instead of you! Then depend upon Christ and
   if you do so, your sins are forgiven you! Believe that they are. Then
   will you feel springing up within your heart great love to Him who has
   forgiven you--and that will become the mainspring of your new life! You
   will start afresh like one that is born tonight. You will, indeed, be
   born-again, for this is regeneration! Not sprinkling your face with
   drops of water, but making a new man of you--generating you over again,
   not by natural generation, but by the Eternal Father begetting you
   again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
   dead--the true and only spiritual generation! And then, as new
   creatures in Christ Jesus, you shall go your way through this life up
   to the eternal life, God's blessing shielding you and crowning you
   forever.

   The Lord grant you His blessing, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HEBREWS 9; EXODUS 24:1-10.

   Hebrews 9:1. Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of
   divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. That is, a sanctuary belonging
   to this world, a visible sanctuary. That first covenant was to a large
   degree a thing of outward rites and ceremonies, which the new covenant
   is not--it is a covenant of spiritual and unseen realities.

   2-5. For there was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the
   candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called the
   sanctuary. And behind the second veil, the tabernacle which is called
   the Holiest of All; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the
   covenant overlaid roundabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that
   had manna and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
   and over it the cherubims of Glory shadowing the Mercy Seat; of which
   we cannot now speak particularly. Because it was not his main purpose
   at that time--he was writing an important Epistle upon the most vital
   Truths and it would not do to encumber it with too many explanations.

   6-9. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priest went always
   into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into
   the second went the high priest, alone, once every year, not without
   blood, which he offered for himself, and for the error of the people:
   the Holy Spirit thus signifying that the way into the Holiest of All
   was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet
   standing: which was a figure for the time then present, in which were
   offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the
   service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience. All these sacrifices
   and ceremonies, although full of instruction, were not, in themselves,
   able to give peace to the conscience of men. The new and better
   Covenant does give rest to the heart by the real and actual taking away
   of guilt, but this, the first Covenant, could not do. It is astonishing
   that there should be any who want to go back to the "beggarly elements"
   of the old Jewish Law, and again to have priests and an elaborate
   ritual, and I know not what besides! These things were faulty and fell
   short of what was needed even when God instituted them, for they were
   never intended to produce perfection, or to give rest to the troubled
   conscience! So of what use can those ceremonies be which are of man's
   own invention, and which are not according to the New Covenant at all?

   10-12. Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and
   carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But
   Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater
   and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not
   of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His
   own blood He entered in once into the Holy Place, having obtained
   eternal redemption for us. [See Sermon #2075, Volume 35--

   OUR LORD'S ENTRANCE WITHIN THE VEIL.] Christ has entered into the

   true Holy Place--not into that which was curtained with a veil, which
   was but a type, and which was put away when the veil was torn from the
   top to the bottom as Jesus died. He has entered into the immediate
   Presence of God and He has entered there once and for all, "having
   obtained eternal redemption for us."

   13, 14. For ifthe blood ofbulls and of goats, and the ashes ofan heifer
   sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to thepuri-

   fying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
   through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge
   your conscience from dead works to serve the living God [See Sermons
   #1481, Volume 25--THE RED HEIFER and #1846,

   Volume 31--THE PURGING OF THE CONSCIENCE.] Do you all feel the power

   of that blood now? Oh, what blessing it is to know that the conscience
   is quite at rest because of the purging worked by Jesus' blood! It is
   Heaven begun below! We cannot serve God aright until we have been thus
   cleansed. No, we dare not stand in that awful Presence while the
   consciousness of sin is upon us! But when Jesus Christ says to us, "You
   are clean," then, "being justified by faith, we have peace with God
   through our Lord Jesus Christ." Then have we "access with confidence"
   unto the Father through Him.

   15-17. And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that
   by means of death, for the redemption of the transgression that were
   under the first testament, they which are called might receive the
   promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must
   also of necessity be the death of the testator For a testament is of
   force after men are dead: otherwise it is ofno strength at all while
   the testator lives. Whether it is a covenant or a testament, death is
   necessary to make it valid. God's Covenants have always been sanctioned
   and ratified with blood and the Covenant or the Testament of eternal
   Grace is ratified with the blood of the Surety and Testator!

   18-26. 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
   has 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 no
   remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in
   the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things
   themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered
   into the Holy Places made with hands, which are the figures of the
   true; but into Heaven itself now to appear in the Presence of God for
   us: nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest
   enters into the Holy Place every year with blood of others; for then
   must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now
   once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin by the
   sacrifice of Himself [See Sermons #759, Volume 13--JESUS PUTTING AWAY
   SIN; #911, Volume 16--THE PUTTING AWAY OF SIN and #2283, Volume
   38--CHRIST'S ONE SACRIFICE FOR SIN.] What Aaron could not do by
   entering into the Holy

   Place year after year, Christ has done by entering into Heaven once!
   And there is no more need of a sacrifice for sin, and they are grossly
   guilty who pretend to offer Christ over again. The great work of
   redemption is finished! Sin is put away and there is no more
   remembrance of it. In the sight of God, Christ's one Sacrifice has
   completed the Expiation of sin, Glory be to His holy name!

   27, 28. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
   judgment so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto
   them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto
   salvation. He shall come to complete the salvation of those for whom
   His precious Sacrifice was offered all those hundreds of years ago. Now
   let us read the passage to which Paul refers in verses 19 to 21.

   Exodus 24:1, 2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD, you, and
   Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and
   worship you afar off And Moses alone shall come near the LORD: but they
   shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him. Nearer to
   God than the people were allowed to come, but still at a distance from
   Him. It was a covenant of distance--bounds were set about the mountain
   lest the people should come too near. Yet they were near unto God as
   compared with the heathen, but far off as compared with those who now,
   by the teaching of the Spirit of God, have been brought near to God
   through the precious blood of Jesus! Moses alone could come near to
   Jehovah on Mount Sinai--the people could not go up with him--nor even
   with the man who was their mediator with God, for such Moses was. But
   you and I, Beloved, can go up with Him who is far greater than Moses--

   with Him who is the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ
   Jesus, for God "has raised us up together, and made us sit together in
   heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

   3-8. And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and
   all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and
   said, All the words which the LORD has said will we do. And Moses wrote
   all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and built
   an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve
   tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the children of Israel,
   which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen
   unto the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood, andput it in basins;
   and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book
   of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said,
   All that the LORD has said will we do, and be obedient AndMoses took
   the blood, and sprinkled it on thepeople, andsaid, Behold the blood of
   the covenant, which the LORD has made with you concerning all these
   words. There is a double power about the blood--towards God an
   Atonement--that is the blood sprinkled on the altar. And towards
   ourselves a sense of reconciliation--thus must the blood be sprinkled
   upon us that we may prove its cleansing power.

   9-10. Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, andseventy of
   the elders oflsrael: and they saw the God of Israel: and there was
   under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it
   were the body of Heaven in His clearness.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lord's Eternal Rest

   (No. 3294)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 22, 1886.

   "This is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it"
   Psalm 132:14.

   THESE are the words of Jehovah Himself concerning the hill of Zion, but
   it is clear that He did not intend us to understand them merely in
   their literal reference to Zion, because Zion could not be a fitting
   place for His eternal rest. Nor has He made it literally His rest
   forever, for Zion has been trodden down of the Gentiles for all these
   centuries. I have no doubt that the Lord had in His mind the greater
   Zion, "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem...the general
   assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in Heaven."
   The eternal God, looking down from His Throne of Glory upon all the
   creatures He has made, selects His Church--elect, blood-bought, called,
   preserved and sanctified, and He says concerning this Church--"This is
   my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it."

   We would never have ventured to conceive of God as finding rest in such
   puny creatures as we are. However beloved, and however filled with His
   Spirit, it would seem too great a thing for the Creator ever to rest in
   His creature! Yet it is true that this is where He finds His rest. It
   is concerning the redeemed souls who make up the Church of Christ that
   He says, "This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have
   desired it."

   I must, at the outset, confess my inability to dive into the depths of
   this subject. I can only, as it were, flit across its surface as the
   swallow with swift wings skims over the brook. I am going to ask,
   first, about God finding rest in His Church Then about the duration of
   that rest And in closing, I want to say a few practical words
   concerning our finding rest where God finds rest.

   I. First, then, let us think of GOD FINDING REST IN HIS CHURCH.

   He does this, in the first place, because in His Church all the three
   Divine Persons of the Trinity are honored. A man does not find rest in
   anything which gratifies only one part of his nature. Therefore it can
   truly be said to Christians concerning this world, "This is not your
   rest," for whatever gratification it may yield to the body, it can
   never satisfy our soul. If there were in the Church of God honor only
   for God the Father, but none for God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
   it could never be the Lord's eternal rest. But, Beloved, when the
   Father looks upon the Church, He views with delight His own chosen
   children and sees His eternal purposes accomplished in them! He thinks
   of the Covenant into which He entered with His dear Son on their
   behalf, and of the Atonement which He gave for them when He gave His
   only-begotten Son to die as their Substitute and Surety. As for God the
   Son--when He looks upon the Church, He beholds those for whom He paid
   the ransom price on Calvary--every member of that Church He has
   purchased with His own blood and, therefore, He looks upon them with
   peculiar complacency. As for God the Holy Spirit, He--

   " Takes delight to view

   The holy souls He formed anew." As He gazes upon them, He sees the
   gracious results of His regenerating energy and He rests in holy
   contemplation. I hope, Beloved, you will never exalt one member of the
   ever-blessed Trinity above either of the rest--it is quite a mistake to
   ascribe the work of salvation entirely to the Father, or to the Son, or
   to the Holy Spirit. In the first Creation, it is most emphatically true
   that God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." The
   first Creation was the work of Deity as a whole, and so is the new
   Creation! And for both we may most justly sing--

   "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

   All are equally concerned in perfecting the Church, the true Zion, and
   therefore God, in the Trinity in Unity--Father, Son, and Spirit--says
   concerning the Church, "This is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for
   I have desired it."--

   "Arise, O King of Grace, arise,

   And enter to Your rest!

   Lo, Your Church waits with longing eyes,

   Thus to be owned and blest.

   Enter with all Your glorious train,

   Your Spirit and your Word--

   All that the Ark did once contain

   Could no such Grace afford." Just think for a minute or two what this
   rest of God is. Is it the entire cessation from toil? When we do
   nothing, but sit still in listless inactivity, that cessation from toil
   may yield us a measure of rest, but it is not rest of a kind that we
   could long love--certainly it is not such rest as we should wish to
   enjoy forever! We would be in a most restless state if we had nothing
   to do! We would soon be worn out with the weariness of living an
   aimless, purposeless life. I believe the truest state of rest is when a
   man has just as much to do as he can perform with ease. If your mind
   does not think at all, it is in a coma or in a sort of fainting fit.
   But when it is occupied with pleasing themes, not working out difficult
   problems, but meditating upon simple themes which you can easily
   understand, then it is at rest! Perhaps you sit down quietly by the
   fire and indulge in what we call day-dreams--your mind is active all
   the while, yet its activity does not prevent it from resting. Heaven is
   a place and state of perfect rest, yet it is not the rest of silence
   and stagnation! In one sense, they rest not day nor night, yet they
   serve God continually--and that is perfect rest!

   It is in His Church that God finds His rest, for it is there that He
   finds work exactly adapted to His infinite capacities. The blessedness
   of God must consist partly in His activity--what an active Being God
   is! There is not a cloud that flies across the sky of which He is not
   the pilot. How busily He worked in creating the heavens and the earth
   and all that they contain, yet He never rested in them for the visible
   creation is too narrow a couch to provide a resting place for the
   Eternal! But when He comes to the mightier work of Redemption and
   reveals the combined Majesty of His Justice and sublimity of His love
   in those whom He forms anew, then He is engaged in a task that occupies
   those attributes which He most delights to exercise! And therefore He
   says to His Church, "This is My rest forever: here will I dwell." When
   He made the earth, "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of
   God shouted for joy." But you never read that God sangat the Creation.
   It is when He is working in the higher sphere that He says to Zion, the
   Church of His choice, "The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty;
   He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in His
   love, He will joy over you with singing." In the new Creation He finds
   such rest as the old Creation never could afford Him. We know so little
   of the Infinite God that we must speak with due humility and reticence
   concerning these great mysteries, yet it seems to me that in the making
   of those who shall show forth His praise forever, He is doing a work in
   which He especially delights and in which He, therefore, rests and
   rejoices as He does in nothing else!

   Further, He rests in His Church because He sees, there, His eternal
   purposes fulfilled. Whenever a soul is saved, God sees, there, another
   of His Divine decrees accomplished. And that affords His heart rest--to
   speak after the manner of men--and we cannot speak in any other way.
   As, one by one, those who were chosen by Him unto eternal life, those
   whom He gave in Covenant to His Son, those who were redeemed by that
   Son's precious blood are delivered from the Egyptian bondage of sin,
   conducted safely through the howling wilderness waste of this world and
   carried across the Jordan of death into the Canaan of heavenly rest,
   God sees His eternal purposes fulfilled and therein He finds most
   blessed rest! When the entire Church of God shall have been brought,
   safe and perfected, to His right hand in Glory, then will He say, in
   the words of our text, "This is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for
   I have desired it." I must confess that I do not understand the
   condition of mind of those brethren who are not able to perceive in the
   Scriptures a clear Revelation concerning the purposes of God in the
   salvation of His elect. It would be strange if the work of Grace were
   left to chance. An architect would not permit an important building
   like St. Paul's, for instance, to be erected according to the whims and
   fancies of the individual workers employed! He would not leave to the
   freewill of every laborer the decision as to where each pillar should
   be placed, or what stone and other materials should be used in the
   building--he has everything done according to the plan that he designed
   before the work was commenced! And shall not the Most High, who is
   building a habitation for Himself, have it erected in harmony with the
   plan that He had prepared from all eternity? I

   think, Brothers and Sisters, it is because God has planned what His
   Church is to be and because that plan will be exactly followed until
   the whole building is complete, that the Lord says concerning it, "This
   is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it."

   Then, in the next place, have we not in the Church of God almighty
   energies rewarded?God rested on the seventh day because Creation's work
   was done. And God rests in His Church in so far as it also is a
   finished work. Every soul saved by Grace, every soul brought home to
   Glory is the result and the reward of almighty labor. He who spoke and
   it was done in the making of the material world made not His Church so
   easily. It was with His word that He made this world, but it was the
   Incarnate Word that was necessary to the new creation! No blood needed
   to be spilt for the making of this earth in all its pristine beauty and
   glory, but the new heavens and the new earth could be cemented by
   nothing less than the product of almighty suffering! The Church of God
   is a most wonderful fabric upon which not only have the purposes of God
   been exercised from all eternity, but "all the fullness of the Godhead
   bodily" has been at work to accomplish this marvel of marvels which
   shall set all Heaven ablaze with astonishment when it is at last
   complete and perfect! For many centuries stroke upon stroke from God's
   hand and instruments has been telling upon the rough block of marble,
   and when the last touch shall have been given to it, and the work
   appears in all its Glory and beauty before the eyes of God, He will
   rest, just as a skilled workman does in the successful accomplishment
   of some great task which he has undertaken and which he regards as his
   masterpiece.

   Best of all, however, is the next reason why God rests in His Church!
   That is because it is the reward of stupendous suffering. We are told
   that "the Lord smelled a sweet savor" when Noah offered burnt offerings
   after he came out of the ark. The marginal reading is "a savor of
   rest." And when God is dealing with sinners, now, He finds no savor of
   rest except in the Sacrifice of His dear Son! All the world over the
   spirit of Justice flew in search of a righteous man, but the only
   result of that long search was the verdict, "There is none righteous,
   no, not one." Justice next looked to see if there was any helper who
   could deliver the guilty, but none could be found until she turned her
   eyes to the Cross where hung the Son of God in extreme agonies. And as
   she marked the falling blood, the bowed head and the crown of
   thorns--and heard the Voice that said, "It is finished," she rested!
   Her long quest was over, for she had found the One who was Himself
   perfectly righteous and who was, therefore, able to deliver the guilty
   by the full and complete Atonement that He offered for their
   Redemption. The Son of God takes delight in His Church because He sees
   that in her, all His pains and agonies have yielded to Him a glorious
   harvest! And God the Father, who smote His Son so heavily when He took
   the place of His sinful people, delights in His Church because He sees
   in her a full reward for all that His well-beloved Son endured.

   Then do you not think that God finds rest in His Church because of the
   relationships there developed?Where do you find rest, dear Friends? You
   not only rest in the garden which you have planted, and in the house
   which you have with a great effort, bought--but your choicest rest is
   found with the children whom you so fondly love. There is no stranger
   in the family circle! The door is closed, the fire is burning brightly
   and now is mother's time for rest, and father's time for joy, for there
   are only loved ones around the hearth. The merchant comes home from the
   counting-house where he has been on the watch all day lest he should be
   deceived and over-reached. But he can come down from his watchtower,
   now, for he has no fear of being deceived in the family circle. The
   judge has been sternly administering the law while he has been upon the
   bench, but He lays aside all his sternness when he takes off his robes
   of office and gathers his children around him. The toiling laborer
   wipes the sweat from his brow and gladly rests at home among those whom
   he loves. "Perfect love casts out fear," and fear is like a thorn in
   our nest--it prevents us from resting. But when "perfect love" comes,
   then we are perfectly at our ease. When you are at home, you may say
   what you will, and do what you please-- there are none to slander and
   align you there. You do not say all you feel in the presence of your
   servants--they are faithful and true, but you do not tell them all that
   is in your heart. It is when you are among your children that you feel
   free and unrestrained. So it is with God! Not even among the angels
   does God find His rest--bright and perfect beings though they are, they
   are but ministering spirits waiting in the great Temple of God to
   render service to the saints! But here, where He sees His own likeness
   in every blood-bought soul. Here where He sees those whom He has
   begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
   from the dead--here it is that He feels at home and finds His rest! Do
   not think that I am speaking too boldly when I use the family metaphor
   to illustrate this great Truth of God, for I am but following the
   example of our Lord Jesus, Himself, when He said, "If you then, being
   evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
   shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask
   Him?" He rejoices over the son who was dead, and is alive again--who
   was lost, and is found--and because He is our Father, and we are His
   children, He says of us and of the whole company of His redeemed, "This
   is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it."

   II. Now I am to speak briefly concerning THE DURATION OF GOD'S REST IN
   HIS CHURCH. "This is My rest

   forever."

   Then this proves that there will always be a Church of God. There are
   certain persons who are constantly subject to great fear and their
   fears make them quiver and shake--and then they imagine that God's
   Church is quivering and shaking, which is a very different matter! They
   hold up their hands, and cry, "Alas! Alas! The Church is in danger!"
   Well, some particular church, designed by men, may be in danger, but I
   do not believe that the Church of God is, or ever was, or ever will be
   in danger! It is thought by some that Popery will swallow the Church of
   Christ just as the whale swallowed Jonah. But if it should do so, the
   Church would come back again as surely as Jonah was cast up upon the
   dry land! There is no sword fashioned that can smite the Church of God,
   nor will there ever be one! There will be a Church as long as there is
   a world--and when this world is burned up, the Church shall shine more
   brightly than ever--and it shall keep on shining to all eternity, and
   be a rest for God forever--

   "Glorious things of you are spoken,

   Zion, city of our God!

   He whose word cannot be broken,

   Formed you for His own abode:

   On the Rock of Ages founded,

   What cam shake your sure repose?

   With salvation's walls surrounded,

   You may smile at all your foes." Further, there will always be a Church
   with God in it, and such a Church as God can rest in. Some people think
   that there is no church of which they can comfortably be members. But,
   dear Friends, there is a Church of which Jesus Christ is a member, for
   He is the Head of it! And if you cannot be members of any visible
   church, be not content unless you are members of that Church in which
   God rests forever, for that is always a pure Church! You sometimes hear
   a great deal about Apostolic succession--it is a gross lie as it is
   generally understood, but in itself it is a great Truth of God. The
   Apostolic succession may be very clearly traced through the Novatians,
   Donatists, Lollards, Albigenses, Waldenses, Anabaptists and Huguenots,
   right down to the Christians of various denominations that exist today.
   There is a true line that never entered the Stygian bog of Rome! A pure
   silver stream which has flowed down to us right from the times of the
   Apostles! There always has been a Church in which God could dwell and
   there always will be a Church that shall be His dwelling place! You
   know that Christ prayed, "Holy Father, keep through Your own name those
   whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are." And I do not
   believe that Christ prayed any prayer that will not be answered in due
   time! More than that, I believe that the Church of Christ is one now.
   "Oh, but!" says someone, "look at the many divisions and denominations
   that there are!" Yes, I know about them, but the only true unity is
   that of the spiritually quickened souls that form the Mystical Body of
   Christ. Whatever division there may be among them at present is only
   external--if we could see beneath the surface and judge as God
   judges--we should perceive that in the truly vital matters, they are
   one. Being one with Christ, they are also one with each other. We must
   look less and less to mere externals, and think more and more of that
   which is spiritual, for it is only in the invisible and spiritual
   Church of Christ that God finds rest. I do not believe that He finds
   rest in the Baptist denomination, or in the Independent, or in the
   Church of England, as such--He finds His rest in all the saved to
   whatever denomination they may belong! His rest is not in great human
   organizations, but in those whom His Grace has called--who are already
   one in Christ Jesus!

   Another inference that I draw from the text is that the Church of God
   will always be secure. "Here will I dwell," says the Lord. And there
   would be no rest for Him if the enemy could be continually scaling the
   ramparts, damaging the walls and carrying away His people as captives.
   A king within his capital could not rest if one suburb after another
   fell into the hands of his foes. The rest of a shepherd would be
   effectually broken if he heard a lion scrunching the bones of any of
   his sheep, or if a wolf seized even one of the lambs of his flock. When
   the Lord says, "This is My rest forever," He seems to me

   to guarantee the eternal security of every soul that is in the true
   Church of Christ. All who are in the Church which Jesus bought with His
   precious blood must be perfectly safe forever--

   "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'll never, no never, no never forsake!" There may be many in any part
   of the visible church who will perish, but there shall never be one who
   is truly a member of the Church of the living God who shall be lost! I
   started a little, the other night, when a Brother said that once we are
   brought into the Church, we are safe forever. But when he went on to
   show that by the expression, "the Church," he meant what God means by
   those words, I fully agreed with him! This is the Zion of which Jehovah
   says, "This is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired
   it." And it is His rest because He knows that all who are within it are
   safe forever! At the last, Jesus will be able to say to His Father, "Of
   all whom You gave Me have I lost none."

   I also infer from the text that the whole Church will be eternally
   glorified, otherwise God could not say of it, "This is My rest
   forever." The living stones that are to form the "habitation of God
   through the Spirit," are being quarried, fashioned and polished here
   below--and one by one they are being transported to the holy hill
   above. And so, "all the building fitly framed together grows unto a
   holy temple in the Lord." And when it is complete, He will say, "Here
   will I dwell forever." The eternal duration of the Church's blessedness
   ought to be a theme of greater consideration and rejoicing than it is.
   Think of it, Beloved, that the great God will forever find His rest in
   you and in others like you who have been redeemed by the precious blood
   of His dear Son! Does not this make time seem a mere trifle, and earth
   but a tiny speck scarcely worthy of our notice? Then, as you are
   forever and ever to be the object of Divine delight, cannot you see
   that you must alwayshave been so? Oh, revel in this thought, that every
   blood-bought soul shall eternally be the temple and abode of God,
   Himself, and that all of them united in one shall be His rest forever!

   III. Now we are to close with a few practical words concerning OUR
   FINDING REST WHERE GOD FINDS REST.

   God finds His rest in His Church. Is that where we find our rest? I
   wonder how many here could truly repeat the language of Dr. Watts--

   "Let others choose the sons of mirth To give a relish to their wine. I
   love the men of heavenly birth, Whose thoughts and language are Divine.

   Do you, dear Friends find rest in the company of God's chosen people?
   The ungodly do not. If some gracious person should go to their house
   and begin talking about the mysteries of the Cross, their impatient
   glances at the clock would soon show that such a theme was a weariness
   to them. When they go up to the place where God's people meet, to
   worship Him, the shorter the service is the better they like it! And
   the reason is that they do not savingly know the Lord. A man without
   sight would not be likely to be very much charmed in a picture gallery.
   And a man who was stone-deaf would not be very delighted with the
   grandest oratorio that was ever performed! In like manner, we cannot
   expect that those who have no spiritual sense can find delight in the
   company of God's people. But how different it is with the man who is
   really saved! He can say, with David, of the saints that are in the
   earth, that they are "the excellent, in whom is all my delight." A good
   old saint, whom I went to see on her dying bed, said to me, "It always
   gives me comfort, Sir, to think that God is not likely to send me to
   dwell with the wicked, for I never liked their society here. I believe
   He will let me go with my own company and I have always kept company
   with His people since I have learned to know Him." I assured her that I
   believed it would be so. It is a sign of Grace when we find rest with
   those who are really spiritual because they are spiritual. You may love
   some saints of God, yet it may be no sign of Grace on your part--there
   may be something specially lovable about them so that you cannot help
   loving them or you may have received some temporal kindness from them
   and, therefore, love them for purely natural reasons. But it is a very
   different matter when we can say, with John-- "We know that we have
   passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Some of us
   can truthfully declare that our happiest hours are those that we
   expound with the saints of God! And we can fully sympathize with Dr.
   Watts when he says--

   "My soul shall pray for Zion still, While life or breath remains; There
   my best Friends, my kindred dwell, There God my Savior reigns.

   God says of His Church, "This is My rest forever," and we can say the
   same. I cannot say that concerning any visible church--I should not
   like to have to rest forever in any portion of the church on earth! But
   in union with the redeemed in Glory, I can rest! When I think of
   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When I read the lives of Prophets and
   Apostles. When I turn to more modern times and think of Calvin, and
   Luther, and Zwingli, and Berridge, and Wesley, and Whitefield, and a
   host of others, I can say, "Ah, let me once get into their company and
   then I shall feel, 'This is my rest forever.' I do not need anything
   more than this except to be in the Master's own company!" Oh, what rest
   it will be to be with Him! This is our rest even now--to be with Him!
   And to be forever with Him will be the perfection of rest--

   "Let me be with You, where You are,

   My Savior, my eternal rest!

   Then only will this longing heart

   Be fully and forever blest"

   Do you not think that Abel must have felt very strange when he went to
   Heaven? How startled the angels must have been when they saw the first
   soul redeemed by blood in Glory all by himself! I think they must have
   hushed their songs awhile to ask all about him. Here was a man come to
   sing in Heaven, to chant before the Eternal Throne the praises of a
   Sacrifice greater than any that he had offered! Yes, but Abel could not
   have felt perfectly at rest, for Paul tells us that the Church in
   Heaven will not be made perfect without us. When another and yet
   another joined Abel in Heaven, I think it must have increased his
   happiness. And now, as others keep on going Home, the glorified saints
   welcome them with exceeding joy, for they all feel that their bliss
   will not be perfect until every redeemed soul is gathered there with
   them and the whole of the shining ranks are filled! Then, when all
   shall be there, each one of them will say, as God Himself now says,
   "This is my rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it."

   I wonder if there are any here who will never find rest in the Church
   of the First-Born which are written in Heaven? If you want to get into
   the Church of God, do you know the way to get in? You say, "I must come
   before the Elders." No, no--that is the way to get into our Church,
   here, but not into the invisible Church above! "Well, then, I must be
   baptized." No, that is the ordinance for you afteryou have entered the
   Church of God. "Well, then, how am I to get in?" He whose hand was
   pierced says, I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be
   saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." The only door to the
   Church of God is Jesus Christ! Trust to His precious blood sprinkled
   upon the altar to give you access to and acceptance with God--and
   having that blood sprinkled upon yourself, you may venture to draw near
   even to the Eternal, for you shall be "accepted in the Beloved." God
   grant that it may be so, for Jesus sake! Amen.

   [See Sermon #3287, Volume 58--THE ONLY DOOR.]

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM132.

   A Song of Degrees.

   1. LORD, remember David, and all his afflictions. God had entered into
   an Everlasting Covenant with David, "ordered in all things and sure,"
   and in this Psalm either David, himself, or some of his people or
   descendants pleaded that Covenant in time of affliction and trial.
   "Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions." The Lord would not
   forget either David or his people, yet it pleased Him for them to come
   before Him in prayer and to remind Him of the Covenant that He had made
   with His servant. Using this prayer in a Gospel sense, we bow before
   the Lord and cry, "Lord, remember Jesus, the Son of David, and all His
   afflictions! Remember all that He endured as His people's Substitute,
   and have pity upon us for His sake, as we plead that Eternal Covenant
   which You have made with Him on our behalf." That an-

   cient Covenant was made with David and the far more ancient Covenant of
   Grace was made with great David's greater Son," our Lord and Savior,
   Jesus Christ!

   2-5. Howhe swore unto the LORD, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob;
   surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor up into my
   bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, until
   I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty God of
   Jacob. David remembered that he had built himself a palace, but he
   wished even more ardently to build a palace for his God--a house for
   the celebration of His worship--"an habitation for the mighty God of
   Jacob." But where can a worthy house be built for God? Where can there
   be made a fit dwelling place for the Most High? He fills all things,
   yet all things cannot contain Him! There is but one dwelling place of
   God-- it is in Christ Jesus, for "in Him dwells all the fullness of the
   Godhead bodily." Oh, how we ought to thank God that He has provided
   Himself a fitting dwelling place in the Person of His dear Son, in whom
   all Believers are also built together for a habitation of God through
   the Holy Spirit! As for the Ark of the Covenant, it had long ago in
   David's day dwelt in obscurity.

   6. Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the
   woods. [See Sermon #2590, Volume 44--hearing, seeking,

   FINDING.] God is willing to dwell in the woods. Many a time He

   does so. In many a cottage far removed from the haunts of men, God is
   found--and to many a backwoodsman God is as near as He is to those who
   worship Him in temples or cathedrals. "We found it in the fields of the
   woods."

   7. We will go into His tabernacles: we will worship at His footstool
   This Psalm is called "A Song of degrees." Notice the steps here
   described. We heard of it, we found it, we will go into it, we will
   worship in it! It is a good thing when in our prayers and praises, we
   ascend step by step--not on the steppingstones of our dead selves which
   are pieces of rubbish--but by the living steppingstones upon which the
   ever-living Spirit helps us to rise tier above tier, His own almighty
   hand helping us continually to rise higher and higher!

   8. Arise, O LORD into Your rest; You and the ark of Your strength. Let
   us pray that the Lord may constantly find rest in the midst of His
   people. He finds rest in them because they are one with His
   well-beloved Son. Come, Lord, at this moment, and take Your rest in the
   midst of this assembly and make us all rest in You!

   9. And let Your priests be clothed with righteousness. This is the best
   robe for all God's holy ones who are priests and kings unto Him. This
   is better than snow white linen or robes decked with crimson and gold!

   9. And let Your saints shout for joy.The worship of God should be very
   gladsome and even demonstrative. We may shout. Sometimes the
   overflowing of joy demands more than ordinary expression, therefore we
   pray, "Let Your holy ones shout for joy."

   10. For Your servant David's sake turn not away the face of Your
   Anointed. Much more may we ask this for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. O
   God, remember Your Son, our Lord and our King, and for His sake look in
   love and pity upon us today,

   11. 12. The LORD has sworn in truth unto David, He will not turn from
   it I will set upon the throne the fruit of your body. If your children
   will keep My covenant and My testimony that I shall teach them, their
   children shall also sit upon your throne forevermore. Long did the
   house of David reign over Israel. But they proved unfaithful, and
   therefore the scepter passed out of their hands. But it is still in the
   hand of another Son of David. In a spiritual sense Jesus Christ has a
   throne and a dominion that shall know no end--

   "Jesus shall reign wherever the sun Does its successive journeys run;
   His kingdom stretches from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and
   wane no more."

   13. For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desiredit for His habitation.
   The literal Zion was the Lord's habitation for a time, but the
   spiritual Zion will be His dwelling place throughout eternity!

   14. This is My rest forever: here will I dwell; for I have desiredit.
   God rest in His people. The whole company of the redeemed shall be His
   abiding place forever!

   15. I will abundantly bless her provision: will satisfy her poor with
   bread. God sends the necessary provision for His people, and sends His
   blessing with it. We are so poor that we have not even spiritual bread
   for our souls to eat unless He

   gives it to us. But here is His gracious promise, "I will satisfy her
   poor with bread." This He will do both literally and spiritually.

   ver prayer, but here, in this 16t verse, we have a golden answer. The
   prayer of the Psalmist was, "Let your saints shout for joy." The Lord's
   answer is, "Her saints shall shout aloud for joy." God always gives
   good measure, pressed down, and running over. Often we have not because
   we ask not, or because we ask amiss. His command to each one of us is,
   "Open your mouth wide." And His promise is, "I will fill it." If you
   ask great things of Him, He will give you yet greater things for He is
   "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."

   17. There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp
   for My Anointed. Oh, that today the horn of David might again bud! May
   every Believer in Jesus feel the life of God reviving within Him, and
   in many a case where there is no spiritual life at all, may life Divine
   begin today! Pray for it, Beloved--and then look for it, and you shall
   surely see it!

   18. His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon Himself shall His
   crown flourish. We have no King but Jesus and His crown is always
   flourishing. It sits well upon a blessed head. Let us crown Him once
   again this day with our gladsome praise and thanksgiving!

   .th
     __________________________________________________________________

Communion With Christ and His People

   (No. 3295)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT A COMMUNION SERVICE AT MENTONE, ON A LORD'S-DAY AFTERNOON IN
   DECEMBER, 1882.

   "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the
   blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of
   the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for
   we are all partakers of that one bread." 1 Corinthians 10:16,17.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon on verse 16 is #2572, Volume
   44--FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST.]

   I will read you the text as it is given in the Revised Version--"The
   cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of
   Christ?" That is to say, is it not one form of expressing the communion
   of the blood of Christ? "The bread," or as it is in the margin, "the
   loaf which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ seeing
   that we, who are many, are one loaf, one body: for we all partake of
   the one loaf." The word, "loaf," helps to bring out more clearly the
   idea of unity intended to be set forth by the Apostle .

   It is a lamentable fact that some have fancied that this simple
   ordinance of the Lord's Supper has a certain magical, or at least
   physical power about it, so that by the mere act of eating and drinking
   this bread and wine, men can be made partakers of the body and blood of
   Christ! It is marvelous that so plain a symbol should have been so
   complicated by genuflection, adornments and technical phrases! Can
   anyone see the slightest resemblance between the Master's sitting down
   with the 12 and the "mass" of the Roman community? The original rite is
   lost in the superimposed ritual! Superstition has produced a sacrament
   where Jesus intended a fellowship. Too many who would not go the length
   of Rome, yet speak of this simple feast as if it were a dark and
   obscure mystery. They employ all manner of hard words to turn the
   children's bread into a stone! It is not the Lord's Supper, but the
   "Eucharist." We see before us no plate, but a "paten." The cup is a
   "chalice," and the table is an "altar." These are incrustations of
   superstition, whereby the blessed ordinance of Christ is likely to be
   again overgrown and perverted!

   What does this Supper mean? It means communion--communion with Christ,
   communion with one another!

   What is communion? The word breaks up easily into union, and its prefix
   com, which means with, "union with." We must, therefore, first enjoy
   union with Christ and with His Church or else we cannot enjoy
   communion. Union lies at the basis of communion. We must be one with
   Christ in heart, soul and life--baptized into His death, quickened by
   His life--and so brought to be members of His body, one with the whole
   Church of which He is the Head. We cannot have communion with Christ
   until we are in union with Hm. And we cannot have communion with the
   Church till we are in vital union with it.

   I. The teaching of the Lord's Supper is just this--that while we have
   many ways of COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, yet the receiving of Christ into
   our souls as our Savior is the best way of communion with Him.

   I said, dear Friends, that we have many ways of communion with Christ.
   Let me show you that it is so.

   Communion is ours by personal union with the Lord Jesus. We speak with
   Him in prayer, and He speaks with us through the Word. Some of us speak
   more often with Christ than we do with wife or child--and our communion
   with Jesus is deeper and more thorough than our fellowship with our
   nearest friend. In meditation and its attendant thanksgiving we speak
   with our risen Lord. And by His Holy Spirit He answers us by creating
   fresh thought and emotion in our minds. I like sometimes, in prayer,
   when I do not feel that I can say anything, just to sit still and look
   up--then faith spiritually catches sight of the Well-Beloved and hears
   His voice in the solemn silence of the mind. Thus we have

   union with Jesus of a closer sort than any words could possibly
   express. Our soul melts beneath the warmth of Jesus' love and darts
   upward her own love in return. Think not that I am dreaming, or am
   carried off by the memory of some unusual rhapsody--no, I assert that
   the devout soul can converse with the Lord Jesus all day and can have
   as true fellowship with Him as if He still dwelt bodily among men! This
   thing comes to me, not by the hearing of the ears, but by my own
   personal experience--I know of a surety that Jesus manifests Himself
   unto His people as He does not unto the world!

   Ah, what sweet communion often exists between the saint and the
   Well-Beloved, when there is no bread and wine upon the table, for the
   Spirit Himself draws the heart of the renewed one and it runs after
   Jesus, while the Lord, Himself, appears unto the longing spirit! "Truly
   our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ." Do
   you enjoy this charming union?

   Next, we have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views and
   purposes, for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity
   and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus
   does--that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves Him
   grieves them, also. Consider, for instance, the greatest theme of our
   thought, and see whether our thoughts are not like those of Christ. He
   delights in the Father, He loves to glorify the Father--do not we? Is
   not the Father the center of our soul's delight? Do we not rejoice at
   the very sound of His name? Does not our spirit cry, "Abba Father"?
   Thus it is clear that we feel as Jesus feels towards the Father and so
   we have the truest communion with Him. This is but one instance--your
   contemplations will bring before you a wide variety of topics wherein
   we think with Jesus. Now, identity ofjudgment, opinion and purpose
   forms the highway of communion--yes, it is communion.

   We have also communion with Christ in our emotions. Have you never felt
   a holy horror when you have heard a word of blasphemy in the street?
   Thus Jesus felt when He saw sin and bore it in His own Person--only He
   felt it infinitely more than you do. Have you never felt, as you looked
   upon sinners, that you must weep over them? Those are holy tears and
   contain the same ingredients as those which Jesus shed when He lamented
   over Jerusalem. Yes, in our zeal for God, our hatred of sin, our
   detestation of lies, our pity for men, we have true communion with
   Jesus.

   Further, we have had fellowship with Christ in many of our actions.
   Have you ever tried to teach the ignorant? This Jesus did. Have you
   found it difficult? So Jesus found it. Have you strived to reclaim the
   backslider? Then you were in communion with the Good Shepherd who
   hastens into the wilderness to find the one lost sheep--finds it, lays
   it upon His shoulders and brings it home rejoicing! Have you ever
   watched over a soul night and day with tears? Then you have had
   communion with Him who has borne all our names upon His broken heart
   and carries the memorial of them upon His pierced hands! Yes, in acts
   of self-denial, liberality, benevolence and piety, we enter into
   communion with Him who went about doing good. Whenever we try to
   disentangle the snarls of strife and to make peace between men who are
   at enmity, then are we doing what the great Peacemaker did and we have
   communion with the Lord and Giver of peace! Wherever, indeed, we
   co-operate with the Lord Jesus in His designs of love to men, we are in
   true and active communion with Him.

   So it is with our sorrows. Certain of us have had large fellowship with
   the Lord Jesus in affliction. "Jesus wept." He lost a friend and so
   have we. Jesus grieved over the hardness of men's hearts--we know that
   grief. Jesus was exceedingly sorry that the hopeful young man turned
   away and went back to the world--we know that sorrow. Those who have
   sympathetic hearts and live for others readily enter into the
   experience of "the Man of Sorrows." The wounds of calumny, the
   reproaches of the proud, the venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the
   false and the weakness of the true--we have known in our measure and
   therein have had communion with Jesus.

   Nor this only--we have been with our Divine Master in His joys. I
   suppose there never lived a happier man than the Lord Jesus. He was
   rightly called, "the Man of Sorrows," but He might with unimpeachable
   truth have been called "the Man of Joys." He must have rejoiced as He
   called His disciples and they came to Him--as He bestowed healing and
   relief and gave pardon to penitents, and breathed peace on Believers.
   His was the joy of finding the sheep and taking the piece of money out
   of the dust. His work was His joy--such joy that for its sake He
   endured the Cross, despising the shame! The exercise of benevolence is
   joy to loving hearts--the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind
   actions make us happy and in such joy we find communion with the great
   heart of Jesus.

   Thus have I given you a list of windows of agate and gates of carbuncle
   through which you may come at the Lord. But the ordinance of the Lord's
   Supper sets forth a way which surpasses them all I t is the most
   accessible and the most

   effectual method of fellowship. Here it is that we have fellowship with
   the Lord Jesus by receiving Him as our Savior. We, being guilty, accept
   of His Atonement as our sacrificial cleansing and in token thereof, we
   eat this bread and drink this cup. "Oh," says one, "I do not feel that
   I can get near to Christ. He is so high and holy--and I am only a poor
   sinner." Just so. For that very reason you can have fellowship with
   Christ in that which lies nearest to His heart! He is a Savior and to
   be a Savior there must be a sinner to be saved! Be you that one, and
   Christ and you shall at once be in union and communion--He shall save
   and you shall be saved! He shall sanctify and you shall be
   sanctified--and two shall thus be one! This Table sets before you His
   great Sacrifice. Jesus has offered it--will you accept it? He does not
   ask you to bring anything--no drop of blood, no pang of flesh--all is
   here and your part is to come and partake of it, even as of old the
   offerer partook of the peace offering which he had brought and so
   feasted with God and with the priest. If you work for Christ, that will
   certainly be some kind of fellowship with Him, but I tell you that the
   communion of receiving Him into your inmost soul is the nearest and
   closest fellowship possible to mortal man! The fellowship of service is
   exceedingly honorable when we and Christ work together for the same
   objectives! The fellowship of suffering is exceedingly instructive,
   when our heart has engraved upon it the same characters as were
   engraved upon the heart of Christ. But still, the fellowship of the
   soul which receives Christ and is received by Christ is closer, more
   vital, more essential than any other! Such fellowship is eternal! No
   power upon earth can henceforth take from me the piece of bread which I
   have just now eaten! It has gone where it will be made up into blood,
   nerve, muscle and bone. It is within me, and ofme. That drop of wine
   has coursed through my veins and is part and parcel of my being! So he
   that takes Jesus by faith to be his Savior has chosen the good part
   which shall not be taken away from him. He has received Christ into his
   inward parts and all the men on earth, and all the devils in Hell
   cannot extract Christ from him! Jesus said, "He that eats Me, even he
   shall live by Me." By our sincere reception of Jesus into our hearts,
   an indissoluble union is established between us and the Lord--and this
   manifests itself in mutual communion. To as many as received Him, to
   them has He given this communion, even to them that believe on His
   name!

   II. I have now to look at another side of communion, namely, THE
   FELLOWSHIP OF TRUE BELIEVERS WITH EACH OTHER. We have many ways of
   communing, the one with the other, but there is no way of mutual
   communing like the common reception of the same Christ in the same way!
   I have said that there are many ways in which Christians commune with
   one another--and these doors of fellowship I would mention at some
   length.

   Let me go over much the same ground as before. We commune by holy
   converse. I wish we had more of this. Time was when they that feared
   the Lord spoke often, one to another. I am afraid that now they more
   often speak one against another. It is a grievous thing that full often
   love lies bleeding by a brother's hand. Where we are not quite so bad
   as that, yet we are often backward and silent--and so miss profitable
   converse. Our clannish reserve has often made one Christian sit by
   another in utter isolation, when each would have been charmed with the
   other's company. Children of one family need not wait to be introduced
   to each other--having eaten of this one bread, we have given and
   received the token of brotherhood. Let us therefore act consistently
   with our relationship and fall into holy conversation next time we
   meet! I am afraid that Christian brotherhood in many cases begins and
   ends inside the place of worship. Let it not be so among us! Let it be
   our delight to find our society in the circle of which Jesus is the
   center and let us make them our friends who are the friends of Jesus.
   By frequent united prayer and praise, and by ministering, the one to
   the other, the things which we have learned by the Spirit, we shall
   have fellowship with each other in our Lord Jesus Christ!

   I am sure that all Christians have fellowship together in their
   thoughts. In the essentials of the Gospel we think alike--in our
   thoughts of God, of Christ, of sin, of holiness, we keep in step. In
   our intense desire to promote the Kingdom of our Lord we are as one.
   All spiritual life is one. The thoughts raised by the Spirit of God in
   the soul of men are never contrary to each other. I say not that the
   thoughts of all professors agree, but I do assert that the minds of the
   truly regenerate in all sects and in all ages are in harmony with each
   other--a harmony which often excites delighted surprise in those who
   perceive it! The marks that divide one set of nominal Christians from
   another set are very deep and wide to those who have nothing of
   religion but the name. Yet living Believers scarcely notice them.
   Boundaries which separate the cattle of the field are no division to
   the birds of the air! Our minds, thoughts, desires and hopes are one in
   Christ Jesus--and herein we have communion.

   Beloved Friends, our emotions are another royal road of fellowship. You
   sit down and tell your experience and I smile to think that you are
   telling mine! Sometimes a young Believer enlarges upon the sad story of
   his trials and temptations, imagining that nobody ever had to endure so
   great a fight, when all the while he is only describing the common
   adventures of those who go on pilgrimage and we are all communing with
   him! When we talk together about our Lord, are we not agreed? When we
   speak of our Father and all His dealings with us, are we not one? And
   when we weep, when we sigh, when we sing and when we rejoice--are we
   not all akin? Heavenly fingers touching like strings within our hearts
   bring forth the same notes, for we are the products of the same Maker
   and tuned to the same praise! Real harmony exists among all the true
   people of God--Christians are one in Christ!

   We have communion with one another, too, in our actions. We unite in
   trying to save men--I hope we do. We join in instructing, warning,
   inviting and persuading sinners to come to Jesus. Our life-ministry is
   the same--we are workers together with God. We live out the one desire,
   "Your Kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven."

   Certainly we have much communion, one with the other, in our
   sufferings. There is not a poor sick or despondent saint upon the earth
   with whom we do not sympathize at this moment, for we are fellow
   members and partakers of the sufferings of Christ. I hope we can each
   one say--

   "Is there a lamb in all Your flock, I would disdain to feed? Is there a
   foe, before whose face, I fear Your cause to plead?"

   No, we suffer with each other, bear each other's burdens and so fulfill
   the Law of Christ. If we do not, we have reason for questioning our own
   faith! But if we do so, we have communion with each other.

   I hope we have fellowship in our joys. Is one happy? We would not envy
   him, but rejoice with him! Perhaps this spirit is not so universal as
   it should be among professors. Are we at once glad because another
   prospers? If another star outshines ours, do we delight in its
   radiance? When we meet a Brother with ten talents, do we congratulate
   ourselves on having such a man given to help us, or do we depreciate
   him as much as we can? Such is the depravity of our nature that we do
   not readily rejoice in the progress of others if they leave us
   behind--but we must school ourselves to this. A man will readily sit
   down and sympathize with a friend's griefs, but if he sees him honored
   and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not readily
   rejoice with him. This ought not to be! Without effort we ought to be
   happy in our Brother's happiness. If we are ill, be this our comfort,
   that many are in robust health! If we are faint, let us be glad that
   others are strong in the Lord! Thus shall we enjoy a happy fellowship
   like that of the perfected above.

   When I have put all these modes of Christian communion together, not
   one of them is so sure, so strong, so deep as communion in receiving
   the same Christ as our Savior and trusting in the same blood for
   cleansing unto eternal life! Here on the Table you have the tokens of
   the broadest and fullest communion. This is a kind of communion which
   you and I cannot choose or reject--if we are in Christ, it is and must
   be ours! Certain brethren restrict their communion in the outward
   ordinance, and they think they have good reasons for doing so. But I am
   unable to see the force of their reasoning, because I joyfully observe
   that these brethren commune with other Believers in prayer, praise,
   hearing of the Word and other ways! The fact is that the matter of real
   communion is very largely beyond human control and is to the spiritual
   body what the circulation of the blood is to the natural body--a
   necessary process not dependent upon volition. In perusing a
   deeply-spiritual Book of Devotion, you have been charmed and benefited,
   and yet upon looking at the title page, it may be you have found that
   the author belonged to the Church of Rome. What then? Why, then it has
   happened that the inner life has broken all barriers and your spirits
   have communed! For my own part, in reading certain precious works, I
   have loathed their Romanism and yet I have had close fellowship with
   their writers in weeping over sin, in adoring at the foot of the Cross
   and in rejoicing in the glorious enthronement of our Lord. Blood is
   thicker than water, and no fellowship is more inevitable and sincere
   than fellowship in the precious blood and in the risen life of our Lord
   Jesus Christ! Here, in the common reception of the one loaf, we bear
   witness that we are one. And in the actual participation of all the
   chosen in the one redemption that unity is in very deed displayed and
   matured in the most substantial manner. Washed in the one blood, fed on
   the same loaf, cheered by the same cup, all differences pass away, and
   "we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of
   another."

   III. Now then, dear Friends, if this kind of fellowship is the best,
   LET US TAKE CARE TO ENJOY IT. Let us at this hour avail ourselves of
   it!

   Let us take care to see Christ in the mirror of this ordinances. Have
   any of you eaten the bread and yet have you not seen Christ? Then you
   have gained no benefit. Have you drank the wine, but have you not
   remembered the Lord? Alas, I

   fear you have eaten and drunk condemnation to yourselves, not
   discerning the Lord's body! But if you did see through the emblems, as
   aged persons see through their spectacles, then you have been thankful
   for such aids to vision! But what is the use of glasses if there is
   nothing to look at? And what is the use of the communion if Christ is
   not in our thoughts and hearts?

   If you did discern the Lord, then be sure, again, to accept Him. Say to
   yourself, "All that Christ is to any, He shall be to me. Does He save
   sinners? He shall save me. Does He change men's hearts? He shall change
   mine. Is He All-in-All to those who trust Him? He shall be All-in-All
   to me." I have heard persons say that they do not know how to take
   Christ. What said the Apostle? "The word is near you, even in your
   mouth, and in your heart." If you have something in your mouth that you
   desire to eat, what is the best thing to do? Will you not swallow it?
   That is exactly what faith does. Christ's Word of Grace is very near
   you--it is on your tongue--let it go down into your inmost soul! Say to
   your Savior, "I know I am not fit to receive You, O Jesus, but since
   You do graciously come to me as bread comes to the hungry, I joyfully
   receive You, rejoicing to feed upon You. Since You come to me as the
   fruit of the vine to a thirsty man, Lord, I take You willingly, and I
   thank You that this reception is all that You require of me. Has not
   Your Spirit so put it, 'As many as received Him, to them gave He power
   to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name'"?

   Beloved Friends, when you have thus received Jesus, fail not to rejoice
   in Him as having received Him! How many there are who have received
   Christ, who talk and act as if they never had received Him! It is a
   poor dinner of which a man says, after he has eaten it, that he feels
   as if he had not dined! And is it a poor Christ of whom anyone can say,
   "I have received Him, but I am none the happier, none the more at
   peace." If you have received Jesus into your heart, you are saved. You
   are f ustified. Do you whisper, "I hope so"? Is that all? Do you not
   know? The hoping and hopping of so many are a poor way of going--put
   both feet down and say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
   that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against
   that day." You are either saved or not! There is no state between the
   two! You are either pardoned or condemned and you have good reason for
   the highest happiness or else you have grave causes for the direst
   anxiety. If you have received the Atonement, be as glad as you can be!
   And if you are still an unbeliever, rest not till Christ is yours!

   Oh, the joy of continually entering into fellowship with Christ in such
   a way that you never lose His empathy! Be this yours, Beloved, every
   day and all the day! May His shadow fall upon you as you are in the
   sun, or stray in the gardens! May His voice cheer you as you lie down
   upon the seashore and listen to the murmuring of the waves. May His
   Presence glorify the main solitude as you climb the hills! May Jesus be
   to you an all-surrounding Presence, lighting up the night, perfuming
   the day, gladdening all places and sanctifying all pursuits! Our
   Beloved is not a Friend for Lord's-Days only, but for weekdays too! He
   the inseparable passion of His loving disciples. The who have had
   fellowship with His body and His blood at this Table may have the Lord
   as an habitual Guest at their own tables! Those who have met their
   Master in this supper room may expect Him to make their own chamber
   bright with His royal Presence! Let fellowship with Jesus and with the
   elect brotherhood be henceforth the atmosphere of our life, the joy of
   our existence! This will give us a Heaven below and prepare us for
   Heaven above!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW26:14-35.

   Verses 14-16. Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto
   the chief priests, and said unto them, What will you give me, and I
   will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with Him for thirty
   pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray
   Him. It was one of the twelve who went to the chief priests, to bargain
   for the price of his Lord's betrayal! He did not even mention Christ's
   name in his infamous question, "What will you give me, and I will
   deliver Him unto you?" The amount agreed upon, thirty pieces of silver,
   was the price of a slave and showed how little value the chief priests
   set upon Jesus--and also revealed the greed of Judas in selling his
   Master for so small a sum. Yet many have sold Jesus for a less price
   than Judas received--a smile or a sneer has been sufficient to induce
   them to betray their Lord! Let us who have been redeemed with Christ's
   precious blood, set high store by Him, think much of Him and praise Him
   much. As we remember with shame and sorrow these thirty pieces of
   silver, let us never undervalue Him, or forget the priceless
   preciousness of Him who was reckoned as worth no more than a slave.

   17, 18. Now on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the
   disciples came to Jesus, saying unto Him, Where will You that we
   prepare for You to eat the Passover? And He said, Go into the city to
   such a man, and say unto him, The Master says, My time is at hand; I
   will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples. How truly royal
   was Jesus of Nazareth even in His humiliation! He had no home of His
   own wherein He could "keep the Passover"with His disciples. He was soon
   to be put to a public and shameful death, yet He had only to send two
   of His disciples "into the city to such a man," and the guest chamber,
   furnished and prepared, was at once placed at His disposal! He did not
   take the room by arbitrary force, as an earthly monarch might have
   done, but He obtained it by the Divine compulsion of Almighty Love.
   Even in His lowest estate, our Lord Jesus had the hearts of all men
   beneath His control. What power He has now that He reigns in Glory!

   19. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made
   ready the Passover. If Christ's disciples always loyally did as Jesus
   appointed them, they would always speed well on His errands. There are
   many more people in the world ready to yield to Christ than some of us
   think. If we would only go to them as Peter and John went to this man
   in Jerusalem, and say to them what "the Master says," we would find
   that their hearts would be opened to receive Christ even as this man's
   house was willingly yielded up at our Lord's request!

   20, 21. Now when the evening was come, He sat down with the twelve. And
   as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall
   betray Me. Our Lord remained in seclusion until the evening and then
   went to the appointed place and sat down, or rather, reclined at the
   paschal table with the twelve. And as they did eat, He said, "Verily I
   say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me." This was a most
   unpleasant thought to bring to a feast, yet it was most appropriate to
   the Passover, for God's commandment to Moses concerning the first
   paschal lamb was, "With bitter herbs they shall eat it." This was a
   painful reflection for our Lord, and also for His twelve chosen
   companion--"One of you," and His eyes would glance round the table as
   He said it, "One of you shall betray Me."

   22. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began, each of them, to
   say unto Him, Lord, is it I?That short sentence fell like a bombshell
   among the Savior's bodyguard! It startled them--they had all made great
   professions of affection for Him and, for the most part, those
   professions were true. And they were exceedingly sorrowful--and well
   they might be! Such a revelation was enough to produce the deepest
   emotions of sorrow and sadness. It is a beautiful trait in the
   character of the disciples that they did not suspect one another, but
   each of them enquired, almost incredulously, as the form of the
   question implies-- "Lord, is it I?"No one said, "Lord, is it Judas?"
   Perhaps no one of the eleven thought that Judas was base enough to
   betray the Lord who had given him an honorable place among His
   Apostles. We cannot do any good by suspecting our brethren--but we may
   do great services by suspecting ourselves! Self-suspicion is near akin
   to humility.

   23, 24. And He answered and said, he that dips his hand with Me in the
   dish, the same shall betray Me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of
   Him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had
   been good for that man if he had not been born. A man may get very near
   to Christ, yes, may dip his hand in the same dish with the Savior, and
   yet betray Him. We may be high in office and may apparently be very
   useful, as Judas was--yet we may betray Christ. We learn from our
   Lord's words that Divine decrees do not deprive a sinful action of its
   guilt--"The Son of Man goes as it is written of Him: but woe unto that
   man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed." His criminality is just as
   great as though there had been no "determinate counsel and
   foreknowledge of God." "It had been good for that man if he had not
   been born'" The doom of Judas is worse than non-existence! To have
   consorted with Christ as he had done--and then to deliver Him into the
   hands of His enemies--sealed the traitor's eternal destiny!

   25. Then Judas which betrayed Him, answered and said, Master, is it I?
   He said unto him, You have said.Judas appears to have been the last of
   the twelve to ask the question, "is it I?" Those who are the last to
   suspect themselves are usually those who ought to be the first to
   exercise self-suspicion. Judas did not address Christ as, "Lord," as
   the other disciples had done, but called Him, Rabbi--"Master."
   Otherwise his question was like that of his eleven companions. But He
   received from Christ an answer that was given to no one else--He said
   unto him, "You have said." Probably the reply reached his ears alone,
   and if he had not been a hopeless reprobate, this unmasking of his
   traitorous design might have driven him to repentance, but there was
   nothing in his heart to respond to Christ's voice. He had sold himself
   to Satan before he sold his Lord.

   26-28. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and
   broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is My
   body. AndHe took the cup and gave thanks andgave it to them, saying,
   Drinkyou all of it; for this is My blood of the new testament, which is
   shed for many for the remission of sins. The Jewish Passover was made
   to melt into the Lord's Supper, as the stars of the morning dissolve
   into the light of the sun. As they were eating, while the paschal
   supper was proceeding, Jesus instituted the new memorial which is to be
   observed until He comes again. How simple was the whole ceremony! Jesus
   took bread, and blessedit, and broke it, andgave it to His disciples,
   andsaid, "Take, eat; this is My body'" Christ could not have meant that
   the bread was His actual body, for His body was reclining by the table!
   But He intended that broken bread to representHis body which was about
   to be broken on the Cross. Then followed the second memorial, the cup,
   filled with "the fruit of the vine," of which Christ said, "Drinkyou
   all of it." There is no trace here of any altar or priest--there is
   nothing about the elevation or adoration of the "host." There is no
   resemblance between the Lord's Supper and the Romish "mass." Let us
   keep strictly to the letter and spirit of God's Word in everything, for
   if one adds a little, another will add more, and if one alters one
   point, and another alters another point, there is no telling how far we
   shall get from the Truth of God! The disciples had been reminded of
   their own liability to sin--now their Savior gives them a personal
   pledge of the pardon of sin, according to Luke's record of His words,
   "This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you."

   29. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of
   the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's
   Kingdom. Thus Jesus took the great Nazarite vow never to drink of the
   fruit of the vine till He should drink it new with His disciples in His
   Father's Kingdom. He will keep His tryst with all His followers, and
   they, with Him, shall hold high festival forever!

   30. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of
   Olives.Was it not truly brave of our dear Lord to sing under such
   circumstances? He was going forth to His last dread conflict, to
   Gethsemane and Gabbatha and Golgotha--yet He went with a song on His
   lips! He must have led the singing, for the disciples were too sad to
   start the Hallel with which the paschal feast closed. And when they had
   sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Then came that
   desperate struggle in which the great Captain of our salvation wrestled
   even to a bloody sweat and prevailed.

   31. 32. Then said Jesus unto them, All you shall be offended because
   ofMe, this night: for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the
   sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen
   again, I wiil go before you into Galilee.Observe our Lord's habit of
   quoting Scripture! He was able to speak words of Infallible Truth, yet
   He fell back upon the Inspired Record in the Old Testament! His
   quotation from Zechariah does not seem to have been really necessary,
   but it was most appropriate to His prophecy to His disciples-- "All you
   shall be offended because ofMe this night: for it is written, I will
   smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered
   abroad." Jesus was the Shepherd who was about to be smitten, but He
   foretold the scattering of the sheep! Even those leaders of the flock
   that had been first chosen by Christ and had been most with Him would
   stumble and fall away from Him on that dread night, but the Shepherd
   would not lose them--there would be a reunion between Him and His
   sheep-- "After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee."
   Once again He would resume, for a little while, the Character of their
   Shepherd-King, and with them He would revisit some of their old haunts
   in Galilee before He ascended to His heavenly home. "I will go before
   you," suggests the idea of the Good Shepherd leading His flock after
   the Eastern manner. Happy are His sheep in having such a Leader! And
   blessed are they in following Him wherever He goes!

   33. Peter answered and said unto Him, Though all men shall be offended
   because of You, yet will I never be offended. This was a very
   presumptuous speech, not only because of the self-confidence it
   betrayed, but also because it was a flat contradiction of the Master's
   declaration! Jesus said, "All you shall be offended because of Me this
   night," but Peter thought he knew better than Christ, so he answered,
   "Though all men shall be offended because of You, yet will I never be
   offended." No doubt these words were spoken from his heart, but "the
   heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Peter
   must have been amazed, the next morning, as he discovered the
   deceitfulness and wickedness of his own heart as manifested in his
   triple denial of his Lord! He who thinks himself so much stronger than
   his brethren is the very man who will prove to be weaker than many of
   them, as did Peter, not many hours after his boast was uttered.

   34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, That this night, before
   the cock crows, you shall deny Me thrice. Jesus now tells His boastful
   disciple that before the next morning's cockcrowing, he will thrice
   deny his Lord. Not only would he stumble and fall with his fellow
   disciples, but he would go beyond them all in his repeated denials of
   that dear Master whom he professed to love with as intense an affection
   as even John possessed. Peter declared that he would remain true to
   Christ if he were the only faithful friend left. Jesus foretold that of
   all the twelve, only Judas would exceed the boaster in wickedness!

   35. Peter said unto Him, Though I shall die with You, yet will I not
   deny You. Likewise also said all the disciples. Here again Peter
   contradicts his Master straight to His face. It was a pity that he
   should have boasted once after his Lord's plain prophecy that all the
   disciples would that night be offended. But it was shameful that Peter
   should repeat his self-confident declaration in the teeth of Christ's
   express prediction concerning him! He was not alone in his utterance,
   for likewise also said all the disciples. They all felt that under no
   circumstances could they deny their Lord. We have no record of the
   denial of Christ by the other ten Apostles, although they all forsook
   Him and fled, and thus practically disowned Him. Remembering all that
   they had seen and heard of Him, and especially bearing in mind His most
   recent discourse, the communion in the upper room, and His wondrous
   intercessory prayer on their behalf, we are not surprised that they
   felt themselves bound to Him forever. But, alas, notwithstanding their
   protests, the King's Prophesy was completely fulfilled, for that night
   they were all "offended."
     __________________________________________________________________

Praise for Jesus

   (No. 3296)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 25, 1866.

   "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise." Genesis 49:8.

   THESE words were spoken by the Patriarch Jacob when he blessed his sons
   as he lay a-dying. But before he finished Judah's blessing, the good
   old man seemed to forget his son and to turn his thoughts to Jesus, our
   Lord, of whom Judah was a very significant type. Jacob compared Judah
   to a lion and a lion's whelp--and in the Revelation we read that one of
   the elders said to John, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of
   David, has prevailed to open the book, and to loosen the seven seals
   thereof." In the 10th verse of this Chapter we have Jacob's notable
   prophecy concerning the coming of Christ, "The scepter shall not depart
   from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes
   and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be."

   I intend only to speak about Judah so far as he is a type of Christ,
   and I trust that I shall, by the Holy Spirit's gracious guidance, move
   all the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ to praise Him, so that I
   shall be able to reverently say to Him, "Jesus, You are He whom Your
   brothers shall praise." So I shall speak, first, concerning the praise
   of Judah and the praise of Jesus. And then, secondly, concerning the
   glories of Judah as setting forth the glories of Jesus.

   I. First, then, let us think about THE PRAISE OF JUDAH AND THE PRAISE
   OF JESUS.

   Jacob said to Judah, "You are he who your brothers shall praise." Judah
   was preeminent above his brethren in several things for which he
   deserved to be praised. The first was the eloquence and prevalence of
   his intercession. Judah seems to have been the gifted one out of the 12
   sons of Jacob, and his pleading prevailed with his father when all
   others were powerless. When "the lord of the land" of Egypt, whom his
   brothers failed to recognize although he knew them, said to them, "You
   shall not see my face, except your brother be with you," they went back
   home with heavy hearts and their father stoutly refused to allow
   Benjamin to go down into Egypt. But when all their corn was eaten up,
   and they were obliged to go again to buy more, it was Judah who
   persuaded Jacob to let Benjamin go with them. Reuben and Levi were
   obliged to be silent in that critical period, for they had lost their
   rightful position in the family by their transgressions, and Simeon was
   a hostage in the hands of Joseph--but Judah was able to step into the
   breach and his intercession prevailed.

   We, Brothers and Sisters, are by nature like those sinful sons of
   Jacob. We have offended our Father who is in Heaven, and it is in vain
   for us to attempt to approach Him as sinners without an intercessor.
   But our Judah-Jesus, if I may so call Him, stands before His Father's
   face--and whatever our desire or our request may be, provided it is a
   right one--it is sure to be granted when Jesus pleads for us before the
   Throne of God! "If any man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father,
   Jesus Christ, the Righteous." Turn your eyes upward, Beloved, and see
   our Great High Priest appearing there in the Presence of God for us!
   And as He points to the print of the nails in His hands and feet, and
   to the scar of the soldier's spear in His side, and pleads our cause,
   be certain that His plea must prevail with His Father! Remember the
   argument of the Apostle when writing concerning the Melchisedec
   priesthood of Christ, "this Man, because He continues forever, has an
   unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is able also to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He always lives to make
   intercession for them." If Judah was praised because his intercession
   prevailed with Jacob, much more shall Jesus be praised because His
   intercession prevails with Jehovah! Clap your hands, O you saints, at
   the remembrance of His prevalence on your behalf when you sought Him
   out of the depths of your despair! And praise Him that He still lives
   to carry on His people's cause above! Have you any burden on your mind
   at this moment? Is there anything that

   distresses you? Have you been much in prayer without getting answers to
   your supplications? Then put your case into the hands of Christ--He has
   never lost a suit yet--and that is more than the best of earthly
   advocates can say about the cases entrusted to them! Therefore praise
   Him, you who have committed yourselves into His hands! And as for you
   who are going to do so now, begin to praise Him, for your most sanguine
   anticipations of blessing shall not be disappointed!

   That was a wonderful scene when Joseph said that Benjamin should not go
   back with his brothers, but should remain in Egypt as his servant
   because the silver cup had been found in his sack, and Judah pleaded
   with Joseph, not knowing that "the lord of the land" was his own
   brother! You remember how he pictured their old father at home, who
   would certainly die of a broken heart if Benjamin did not return to him
   in safety and how, at last, he offered to be a bondman to Joseph if he
   would but let Benjamin go free. You see, he pleaded for substitution,
   and he also told Joseph how he became surety for the lad unto his
   father--and his plea was so effectual that Joseph could refrain himself
   no longer, but bursting into tears declared that he was their long-lost
   brother! So, dear Friends, if the great Lord of Heaven and earth seems
   angry with you because of your sins--"and He is angry with the wicked
   every day"--put your case into the hands of the sinners' Advocate,
   Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and when He stands up to plead with His
   Father for you, He will soon bring a smile of forgiveness upon the
   righteously severe Countenance of His Father and you shall gladly say,
   "Jesus, You are He whom Your brethren shall praise because of Your
   almighty power in pleading for them."

   We find that at a later period, the tribe of Judah was foremost in
   wisdom and skill. If you turn to Exodus 35:30, you will see that when
   the tabernacle was to be erected in the wilderness, "Moses said unto
   the children of Israel, See, the Lord has called by name Bezaleel the
   son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And He has filled
   him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in
   knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship; and to devise curious
   works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting
   of stones, to set them, and in carving of wood, to make any manner of
   cunning work." And, surely, I may metaphorically apply this description
   to our Judah-Jesus! What wisdom there is in Him and what skill! What is
   there that He cannot do? Bezaleel could cut, polish, and set precious
   stones--but Jesus can take the worthless pebbles of the brook and
   transmute them into diamonds! Jesus takes "base things of the world,
   and things which are despised," and works such marvelous changes in
   them that the Lord of Hosts says concerning them, "They shall be Mine
   in that day when I make up My jewels." He is a wonderful Lapidary! Some
   of us have been upon the wheel under His hand for a long time--and we
   are apt to think that He has cut us most cruelly-- but the cutting is
   intended to bring out our brilliance and to make us fit to shine in the
   diadem of the King in due time! Bezaleel was also a worker in wood--and
   our great Judah-Jesus came to us when we were growing wild in the
   forest of sin. It was His axe of conviction that cut us down and it has
   been His hand of skill that has been fashioning and carving us to make
   us worthy to be pillars in His Temple!

   What is there that Jesus cannot do? Has He not worked out for us a work
   which required far more skill than the erecting of the Tabernacle in
   the wilderness and the making of the Ark of the Covenant, the veil
   which hung before the Most Holy Place, the high priest's garments of
   glory and beauty and all the cunning work devised by Bezaleel and his
   helpers? Did He not spend His whole life in working out for us a
   matchless robe of righteousness in which we may even dare to stand
   before the all-seeing eyes of God? Angels will keep on wondering
   throughout eternity at the wisdom of their Lord and ours! The wisdom of
   His teaching is Divine. "Never man spoke like this Man." The wisdom
   with which He deals with each individual case that is brought to Him is
   matchless! He is the Great Physician and there is no earthly doctor who
   has such skill as He has. Let Bezaleel, of the tribe of Judah, have all
   due praise, but let Jesus, the Son of God, have far more! All wisdom is
   to be found in Him! His very name is "Wisdom." Solomon calls Him by
   that name. The wisest of men was not at all wise in comparison with
   Incarnate Wisdom, the Wisdom of God as manifested in Jesus Christ.
   Jesus, we bless You, You who have worked out a perfect righteousness
   for us, You who make us into living stones and then build us, stone by
   stone, into the marvelous edifice of Your Church! Jesus, You are He
   whom Your brethren shall praise for Your wondrous wisdom and skill!

   Further, the tribe of Judah had precedence in presenting offerings unto
   the Lord. In Numbers 7:12, we read, "He that offered his offering the
   first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah." The
   Lord had said to Moses, "They shall offer their offering, each prince
   on his day, for the dedicating of the altar," and the prince of the
   tribe of Judah, therefore, led the way by bringing his offering on the
   first day. We know that our Lord sprang out of Judah, so he was first
   with his offering. "No," says someone, "Abel was first with his
   offering." Yes, apparently He was in the or-

   der of time, but Christ's offering was much more ancient than his, for
   He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." In the Divine
   Purpose, His sacrifice was offered long before the great tragedy on
   Calvary! And the merit of His Atonement was reckoned to His people's
   account long before man was created--but certainly in order of
   precedence Christ's offering comes first. Christ brought for His
   offering His own most precious body and blood and we, by faith, present
   the same offering when we come to God in the name of Jesus. What
   sacrifice could we bring if Judah's Prince had not first brought His
   one offering by which He has perfected forever them that are
   sanctified? Did I say just now that Christ's offering had precedence? I
   must correct myself, for it is first, it is last, it is midst, it is
   the onlySacrifice that can put away sin and make us acceptable unto
   God! And there is no sacrifice either of prayer or of praise that we
   can present to God unless we being it by virtue of Christ's one great
   Sacrifice. Let us, therefore, praise our Judah-Jesus! Let us give Him
   our loudest hallelujahs, for He comes first to the altar, and we
   afterwards approach it through Him. Jesus, You are He whom Your
   brethren shall praise for Your wondrous atoning Sacrifice!

   Yet again, Judah had the singular precedence of always leading the van
   when the tribes were on the march. In Numbers 10:14 we read that, when
   the fiery-cloudy pillar moved, "in the first place went the standard of
   the camp of the children of Judah according to their armies." First in
   the encampment, first on the march, first everywhere was Judah's lion!
   The tribe of Dan brought up the rear, but the tribe of Judah always
   went in front. And here again let Jesus Christ be praised, for He
   always leads the way! If I descend into the Valley of Humiliation, I
   shall see His footprints all down the slippery steeps. If I pass
   through the Enchanted Ground where so many fall asleep, I shall see the
   track of the Wakeful One all along that dangerous way. If up the Hill
   Difficulty I have to scramble on my hands and knees, I shall see the
   marks of the blood drops where His hands were torn by the thorns and
   His feet were cut by the flints as He, too, climbed there! And when I
   go down to the river, I shall still see His footprints--and up the
   other side I shall see the track of my risen Lord! All up the eternal
   hills I shall but follow where He leads the way! Yes, and up to the
   very Throne of God He has gone before us, clearing a way for His people
   and leading them along it.

   Yet once more, Judah afterwards attained to the sovereignty, for David,
   of the tribe of Judah, was in due time proclaimed king over all Israel.
   We also have a King of the line of Judah, one who is mightier than
   David, and wiser than So-lomon--and happy are we in having such a King
   to reign over us! Who among us that loves Christ would not set Him up
   upon a high throne? Oh, that we could continually exalt Him yet more
   and more! Let your sweetest songs be all in His praise! Let your most
   daring deeds be done for Him. Give Him, you gracious women, your
   alabaster boxes full of precious ointment! Prepare your feasts, you
   wealthy men, and invite Him to preside at the table! Come, you
   children, and strew branches in the way while He rides along
   triumphantly! Let, "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!" be the joyful strain
   which comes from every lip and heart because Jesus reigns over us, the
   King of kings and Lord of lords! Do praise Him, do extol Him this very
   moment, lift up your hearts and your voices while we sing this familiar
   strain--

   "Jesusis worthy to receive

   Honor and power Divine.

   And blessings more than we can give

   Be, Lord, forever Thine." (The congregation joined in singing, and then
   the preacher continued his sermon).

   II. The second part of our subject was to be THE GLORIES OF JUDAH AS
   SETTING FORTH THE GLORIES OF JESUS. They are illustrated in the
   sentence concerning Judah that follow our text.

   The first of them mentions the victories of Judah--"Your hand shall be
   on the neck of your enemies." You know what it means when a man seizes
   his enemy by the throat, or when a lion gets its prey by the neck and
   shakes the very life out of it. Thus has Jesus Christ done with all the
   enemies of His people. Shall I tell you again the grand old story?
   'Twas one dark night when the Great Shepherd was watching His flock
   that He heard the roaring which told Him that the old lion of the pit
   was about to leap into the fold to tear the sheep in pieces. Then the
   Shepherd whispered to Himself, "This is the dreadful hour and the power
   of darkness." Taking His place in the midst of His blood-bought flock,
   He waited for the next terrific roar. And as the lion sprang into the
   fold, He received him upon His bare bosom, and began at once to grapple
   with Him. He was wounded in His hands, in His feet, and in His
   side--and in the desperate struggle "His sweat was, as it were, great
   drops of blood falling down to the ground." It was a dreadful fight
   which had been foreseen before

   the world was made, and which shall be the theme of grateful song when
   the world has ceased to be! But in the end the Shepherd tore the lion
   as though it had been a kid and, crying, "It is finished," He Himself
   fell prostrate over His foe, slain, but dying only to rise again and
   live in everlasting triumph! In that dread combat, His hand was,
   indeed, on the neck of His enemy--and now He has gone to Glory, leading
   captivity captive! You who have been delivered by Him from the old lion
   of the pit may well exclaim, "Jesus, You are He whom Your brethren
   shall praise."

   The next thing for which Judah was to be praised was Jacob's prophecy,
   " Your father's children shall bow down before you." Now, who in this
   house is a child of God? You will not be long in answering that
   question when I put to you another, "Do you bow down before the Lord
   Jesus Christ?" Here we are, a vast multitude assembled in this
   Tabernacle, but we are not all the children of God by faith in Christ
   Jesus. We cannot all truly say, "Our Father, who are in Heaven." Our
   text gives us the means of knowing who are the children of God, for the
   great Father says to His Son, "Your Father's children shall bow down
   before You." Do you bow down before the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He your
   only trust? Do you rest your whole weight upon Him? Do you depend for
   time and eternity upon Judah-Jesus whom God has anointed and appointed
   to be the only Savior of sinners? If so, you have proved your sonship
   by bowing down before your great elder Brother!

   The third Glory of Judah was his lion-like power Jacob said, "Judah is
   a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you are gone up. He stooped
   down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him
   up?" This seems to be a picture, first of Judah, and then of the Lord
   Jesus Christ. As a young lion, He has gone up and tore His prey in
   pieces. Sin, death and Hell He has torn asunder! And now that He is
   like a mighty, full-grown lion, woe be unto those who provoke Him to
   anger--but blessed are they who have Him on their side! Many of you
   have seen that beautiful engraving of Una, the type of innocence,
   riding upon a lion's back. That lion, according to Spenser, protecting
   her from all ill. That is how every penitent soul rides, by the Grace
   of God! The Lion of the tribe of Judah is the Guardian of every
   believing heart. You have but to trust yourself to Jesus and He will
   see to it that you are never destroyed. He will preserve and deliver
   you from all evil of every kind and, at last, shall safely bring you
   where you shall see His face and rejoice in Him forever and ever! But
   woe to any of you who reject Him! Woe to you who deny His Deity! Woe to
   you who break His Sabbaths, abhor His Word and despise His Cross! In
   that last tremendous Day, His anger against the wicked shall be so
   terrible that they shall say to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us
   and hide us from the face of Him that sits on the Throne, and from the
   wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who
   shall be able to stand?" Oh, bow before Him, accept His Grace, trust in
   His atoning Sacrifice and then the very power which should make you now
   tremble will be exerted on your behalf and cause you to rejoice
   forever!

   Further, Jesus is to be extolled for His perpetual Sovereignty. "The
   scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between His
   feet until Shiloh comes." Judah's sovereignty came to an end, but Jesus
   always reigns. His kingdom here on earth has often seemed as if it were
   in jeopardy, but it has never been overthrown and it never will be. In
   the martyr days, they sewed the Christians up in the skins of wild
   beasts and cast them to the dogs. They dragged them at the heels of
   horses. They burned them at the stake. They stripped off their clothes
   and tortured then with hot irons on every part of their body. I dare
   not mention all the cruelties that were practiced on the followers of
   Jesus, but nothing availed to shake their allegiance to their King! In
   all these trials they were more than conquerors through Him who loved
   them and who gave them the Grace to endure all these things for His
   sake! Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution nor famine,
   nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword could separate them from the love
   of Christ! And thus His Kingdom was perpetuated during even the darkest
   ages of its history--which in another sense were also the brightest
   because of the Glory that the faithfulness of His followers brought to
   their King! His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom--"of the increase of
   His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of
   David, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with
   judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever."

   Now we get clear of Judah and come to Shiloh, of whom Jacob says, "unto
   Him shall the gathering of the people be." Ah, Beloved, there are no
   gatherings of the people anywhere else like those who come to Christ!
   It is no small thing that, all these years, the multitudes have
   gathered in this house, Sabbath by Sabbath, and why do they come? I
   confidently affirm that the only reason why such crowds gather here is
   because the preacher's theme is Christ! Feebly as he sometime preaches,
   his unvarying theme is the Cross, the precious blood, the
   all-sufficient Sacrifice of Christ offered once for all on Calvary!
   This is a theme which never palls upon the ear! This is a subject which
   never grows stale. "We preach Chr-

   ist Crucified," for this is the magnet that draws the people to Him.
   Jesus Himself said, "I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all
   men unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die." The
   crowds that come here are nothing in comparison with the multitudes
   that have been and are still being drawn to Christ by the magnet of His
   death! I see His Cross standing on yonder hill and I see the people
   gathering to it from every quarter. There was a little stream at first,
   but it grew, and none of us can tell how many have already been drawn
   to Christ--and still they come! While I have been speaking to you, they
   have kept on coming to Him, and so they shall until "He shall have
   dominion also from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the
   earth." "Yes all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall
   serve Him." "To Him shall the gathering of the people be." They may
   seem to us to be long in coming, but they must come. The vision may
   tarry, but it is sure--and at the appointed time there shall be heard a
   great shout from the dwellers in the land, and from those far off upon
   the sea and from the glorified in Heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this
   world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He
   shall reign forever and ever."

   At the last, good old Jacob seems to have had his eyes opened, and to
   have seen a very singular vision of Judah's King--"Binding His foal
   unto the vine, and His ass's colt unto the choice vine." Yes, 'tis He,
   the very same of whom the Prophet wrote, "Behold, your King comes unto
   you, meek and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass."
   This is Judah-Jesus! He is a King, but He goes not down to Egypt for
   horses. He is meek and lowly, so He is content to ride upon the humble
   ass in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem! The mention of "the vine"
   and "the choice vine" naturally turns our thoughts to His most
   instructive parable of the Vine and the branches. And as the ass's colt
   was bound to the vine, so is the Church of God bound to Him who said,
   "I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman."

   Jacob's next words are also very suggestive--"He washed His garments in
   wine, and His clothes in the blood of grapes." You know the meaning of
   the allegory. Jesus went to Gethsemane and there "the blood of grapes"
   upon the true Vine--I mean, the bloody sweat that exuded from every
   pore of His sacred body--was so copious as to make His garments appear
   as though they had been washed in wine! They took Him to Gabbatha and
   there they scourged Him so cruelly that again His clothes looked as if
   they had been washed in the blood of grapes. And so He passed on
   through the streets of Jerusalem until He came to Golgotha. Can you
   bear to see Him taking His last bloodbath on Calvary?--

   "His dying crimson, like a robe, Spreads o'er His body on the tree."
   After that terrible bloodbath, how does He look? What aspect does He
   bear? Jacob said, "His eyes shall be red with wine, and His teeth white
   with milk." His eyes were red with wine, but again it was the red wine
   of His own most precious blood flowing down from His thorn-crowned
   brow! And the white teeth seem to suggest the spotless purity of the
   Son of God even when He who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we
   might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Oh, we must praise our
   blessed Judah-Jesus, for He was still fairest of the fair even when His
   face was marred more than the face of any man! Let us humbly bow before
   Him. Let us gratefully adore Him as we remember that, "being found in
   fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death,
   even the death of the Cross." But that was not the end of Him, for He
   was buried--but the third day He rose again and, after tarrying a while
   with His disciples, He ascended to His Father and our Father, to His
   God and ours! And He is coming back again, one of these days, "to be
   glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" in
   Him!

   Long ago, Isaiah asked, "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed
   garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, travelling
   in the greatness of His strength?" And the answer came at once, "I that
   speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Then the Prophet asked, "Why
   are You red in Your apparel, and Your garments like he that treads in
   the wine vat?" And He answered, "I have trodden the winepress alone;
   and of the people there was none with Me: for I will tread them in My
   anger, and trample then in My fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled
   upon My garments, and I will stain all My raiment. For the day of
   vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed is come." To all
   who trust Him, our great Judah-Jesus is still "mighty to save." All
   blood-bedewed from Calvary, He cries, "Come unto Me, all you that labor
   and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." To every sincere
   penitent, He still speaks in righteousness and says, "I washed My
   garments in wine, and My clothes in the blood of grapes when I trod the
   winepress of Jehovah's wrath for Your sake; when there was none to
   help, My own arm brought salvation unto Me, but it was for you that I
   suffered." Oh, believe Him, sinner! Trust Him and so become a child of
   God by faith in Christ Jesus, and then go forth

   to serve Him and to praise Him all your days--and to glorify Him
   forever. Let us all go our way still singing the praises of our blessed
   Lord and Master--

   "Let Him be crowned with majesty Who bowed His head to death; And be
   His honors sounded high By all things that have breath! Jesus, our
   Lord, how wondrous great Is your exalted name! The glories of Your
   heavenly state Let the whole earth proclaim!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS49:1-28.

   Verses l, 2. And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather
   yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in
   the last days. Gather yourselves together, and hear, you sons of Jacob;
   and hearken unto Israel your father.It must have been a great comfort
   to the old man to have all his 12 sons with him. What a quiet answer
   this was to his former unbelief! They were all there, yet he could
   remember the time when he had said, "Me have you bereaved of my
   children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin
   away." Ah, we also shall have in our later days to chide ourselves for
   our foolish unbelief! "Jacob called unto his sons." So he was not
   bereaved after all! They are all here, Jacob! It falls to the lot of
   few fathers to have 12 sons--but still fewer to have all 12 of them
   gathered about his dying bed! "Gather yourselves together." They were
   to keep together as a family--and shall not the people of God keep
   together? Come away from the world, Beloved, but come close to one
   another! Be one household. Be it your delight to assemble around your
   elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ! "Gather yourselves together, that
   I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days." We are
   not told, nowadays, everything about the future, but much of the future
   is unfolded to us in the great principles of the Law and the Gospel.
   And we may learn very much of holy foresight by coming to the oracles
   of God.

   3. Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my
   strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power The
   Patriarch fixes his eyes on his first-born. He must say something sharp
   that would dishonor him, but he does not deny him the rights of
   birthright. He clothes him with the robes and the jewels of
   primogeniture, and then he strips him--

   4. Unstable as water, you shallnot excel; because you went up to your
   father's bed; then defledyou it: he went up to my couch.So a man may
   have great opportunities and yet lose them. Uncontrolled passions may
   make him very little who otherwise might have been great. Reuben was
   "the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power," yet his
   father had to say to him, "You shall not excel."

   5. Simeon and Levi--They stood next according to the order of birth.
   "Simeon and Levi"--

   6. Are brothers. They are very much like each other.

   6-7. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come
   not you into their secret; unto their assembly, my honor, be not you
   united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they
   dug down a wall Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their
   wrath, for it was cruel: I wiil divide them in Jacob, and scatter them
   in Israel Hence we do not read of the tribe of Simeon in the blessing
   of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. But the Levites had this curse
   turned into a blessing, for, though they were scattered, yet they were
   scattered as priests and instructors to the other tribes. Happy is that
   man who, though he begins with a dark shadow resting upon him, so lives
   as to turn even that shadow into bright sunlight! Levi gained a
   blessing at the hands of Moses--one of the richest blessings of any of
   the tribes. This holy man, Jacob, in dying, did not express himself
   according to the rules of natural affection but he yielded himself up
   to the Spirit of God--therefore he had to say very much what must have
   been very bitter for a father to say, and he said it in all
   faithfulness being taught of the Spirit concerning things to come.

   8. Judah Now the Patriarch changes his tone, for he has come to that
   tribe which would take the birthright, out of which the Christ would
   come--"Judah"--

   8. You are he whom your brothers shall praise.They praised God for him,
   they praised God by him, they praised God in him! He is the type of
   Jesus, of whom we can say all this with great emphasis.

   8. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's
   children shall bow down before you. In the person of David, in the long
   line of kings of the tribe of Judah, all this came true. And in the
   Person of the great Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, all this has
   come true to a very high degree!

   9. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, you are gone up: he
   stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse
   him up?The coat of arms of Judah was a lion couchant, in the fullness
   of his strength, keeping still, waiting to spring upon his adversary.
   Our Lord Christ is such a Lion today--"the Lion of the tribe of
   Judah"-- couchant, lying down. "Who shall rouse Him up?" Ah, if He is
   once fully aroused, what power will He put forth when He shall spring
   upon His adversaries?

   10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
   between his feet until Shiloh comes; and unto him shall the gathering
   of the people be.Jacob's eyes were dim, but he could see a very long
   way! He could see to the coming of Christ, the Shiloh, the Pacificator,
   the Peace-Maker--he could see that day when the Jews would cry, "We
   have no king but Caesar," for the Shiloh would have come and the
   scepter would have departed from Judah's tribe. "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be." Oh, that it might be so today! May many be
   gathered to Christ! He is the true center and we gather unto Him. May
   the divisions of the Church be soon healed by a general gathering unto
   Christ who alone is the center of the Church. "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be."

   11-12. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his donkey's colt unto the
   choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the
   blood of grapes: his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white
   with milk They were to have a land in which would be milk for babes and
   wine for strong men! Surely this land is "Your land, O Emmanuel!" What
   nourishing milk there is in the Gospel, and what exhilarating wine for
   those who know the love of Christ!

   13. Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an
   haven of ships; and his brother shall be unto Zidon. When the land was
   divided by lot, the lot was disposed by God to the complete fulfillment
   of Jacob's prophecy. Many things may seem to be left to chance, but
   they are not--the hand of God still guides and controls. This blessing
   is very suggestive. "Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and
   he shall be for a haven of ships." If God puts you by the sea, mind
   that you are a haven for ships. The Lord, in His Providence, fixes your
   position--see that you turn it to account for the good of others.

   14-15. Issachar is a strong donkey couching down between two burdens:
   and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and
   bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.
   Issachar's was a poor case. He was so idle, so fond of rest, that he
   was willing to become a servant unto tribute. This seems hardly a
   blessing yet it was true of Issachar. He was strong, but then he was a
   donkey as well as strong, so he liked couching down between two burdens
   much better than bearing either one of them--yet he had to bow his
   shoulder to bear and became a servant unto tribute.

   16-17. Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan
   shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the

   path that bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall
   backward.This tribe would show more cunning than courage. It would
   excel rather in the strategy of war than in the force of arms. Here the
   old man paused and refreshed himself by saying--

   18. I have waited for Your salvation, O LORD. What a happy breathing
   space is this! When you and I, also, are near our journey's end, may we
   be able to say, as Jacob did, "I have waited for Your salvation, O
   Lord." He could not have said that once. This is the very Jacob who
   had, in his earlier days, been full of crafty policy and tricks and
   schemes! But he has done with all that now, and he is able to
   truthfully say, "I have waited for Your salvation, O Lord."

   19. Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.
   This has been the blessing of many a child of God--to fight and
   apparently to lose the battle, yet to win it at the end. O you who are
   striving against sin, or seeking to win souls for Christ, after many
   disappointments may you be able to clutch this sweet assurance, "He
   shall overcome at the last."

   20. Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal
   dainties. Asher was a tribe that was placed in a very fertile region
   where everything was crowned with delight. Oh, to have our inheritance
   where we feed upon the bread of Heaven, and where the deep Truths of
   God become to us royal dainties!

   21. Naphtali is a hind let loose: he gives goodly words. Naphtali was a
   tribe notable for those that could speak freely, helped of God with a
   holy freedom in bearing testimony to His Truth.

   22. Joseph Ah, now the Patriarch comes to his beloved Joseph, and here
   the old man lingers long, longer than upon any other of his sons.
   "Joseph"--

   22. Is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose
   branches run over the wall The Hebrew puts it, "Joseph is a son of
   fruits, even a son of fruits by a well; whose daughters run over the
   wall."

   23, 24. The archers have surely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated
   him: but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hand were made
   strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from there is the
   Shepherd, the Stone of

   Israel). [See Sermon #17, Volume 1--JOSEPH ATTACKED BY THE ARCHERS.]

   Joseph is a type of Him who is both the Shepherd and the Stone to
   us--the Shepherd who defends us, provides for us, and dies for us. And
   the Foundation on which we build for time and eternity.

   25-28. Even by the God of your father, who shall help you; and by the
   Almighty, who shall bless you with blessings of Heaven above, blessings
   of the deep that lies under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
   the blessings of your father have prevailed above the blessings of my
   progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall
   be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was
   separate from his brethren. Benjamin shall prey as a wolf: in the
   morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the
   spoil All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that
   their father spoke unto them, and blessed them; every one according to
   his blessing he blessed them
     __________________________________________________________________

David and His Volunteers

   (No. 3297)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold
   to the wilderness men of might, and men ofwar fit for the battle, that
   could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of
   lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains; Ezer the
   first, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third, Mishmannah the fourth,
   Jeremiah the fifth, Attai the sixth, Eliel the seventh, Johanan the
   eighth, Elzabad the ninth, Jeremiah the tenth, Machbanai the eleventh.
   These were of the sons of God, captains of the host: one of the least
   was over an hundred, and the greatest over a thousand. These are they
   that went over Jordan in the first month when it had overflowed all his
   banks; and they put to flight all them of the valleys, both toward the
   east, and toward the west" 1 Chronicles 12:8-15.

   DAVID, compelled to flee from his own country, and to hide himself from
   the malice of Saul, was eminently a type of our Lord Jesus Christ who,
   in the days when He dwelt here among men, was despised and rejected of
   men. And at this moment it is well known to the true Church of God and
   it becomes palpably evident to every earnest Believer in the Gospel
   that Jesus, the Son of David, is not received, acknowledged, or
   tolerated in this present evil world. He has gone forth outside the
   camp. All who would repair to Him must go forth likewise, bearing His
   reproach. These eleven Gadites--all of them remarkable men--espoused
   the cause of David when he was in his very worst condition--they left
   the ease and comfort, the honors and elements of their own homes to
   associate themselves with him when he was regarded as an outlaw under
   the ban of society. And to this day, every Christian who is faithful to
   his profession must separate himself from his fellow men to be a
   follower of the despised Jesus. In that way and with that faith which
   men still count heresy, must he join himself with that to which is
   everywhere spoken against, running the gauntlet of the age if he would
   espouse the cause of the Lord's Anointed!

   In tracing out the parallel, let me now draw your attention, first, to
   the leader who commanded the voluntary homage of good and valiant men.
   And then to the recruits who joined themselves to him, of whom we find
   a graphic description it our text.

   I. THE LEADER, whom we regard as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, was
   David, the son of Jesse. And in tracing out some points of analogy, we
   begin by noticing that like David, our Lord was anointed of God to be
   the Leader of His people. Hence the words of prophecy concerning Him,
   "I will make an Everlasting Covenant with You, even the sure mercies of
   David. Behold, I have given Him for a Witness to the people, a Leader
   and Commander to the people." The Spirit of God is upon Jesus of
   Nazareth, for Him has God the Father anointed. "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be." We may well be ready to follow a Leader
   whom God has appointed and commended to us with such high praise! "I
   have laid help upon One that is mighty; I have exalted One chosen out
   of the people. I have found David My servant; with My holy oil have I
   anointed him: with whom My hand shall be established: My arm also shall
   strengthen him." The Lord, in His own Sovereignty, with wisdom and
   prudence, has been pleased to fix His choice upon the Man Christ Jesus
   to be our federal Head, our King and our Commander. What other
   justification do we need for following Christ than that God Himself
   thus sets Him forth? To this choice of God our soul agrees. Never be
   afraid, young man, of acknowledging Christ! Never let any of us blush
   to acknowledge the blessed impeachment that we are followers of the
   Lamb! It is an honor to follow One who has the highest sanction of
   Heaven in taking the command and exercising the authority that pertains
   to Him!

   Jesus was like David, too, in that He was personally fit to be a
   Leader. David, alike by his character and his deeds of prowess, had
   become the foremost man of his times. So our blessed Lord, as to His
   Person, is just such a King as one might desire to obey. And as for His
   achievements, O tell what His arm has done--what spoils from death His
   right hand won! Let His fame be spread over all the earth! He stood in
   the gap when there was none to help. He vanquished the foe who
   threatened our destruction. He set His people free. He led their
   captivity captive. In point of courage and in feats of war He so
   outstripped David that I may safely say, "David has slain his
   thousands, but Jesus His tens of thousands! He is a Man of war. The
   Lord is His name." He has defeated all the principalities and powers
   and put to rout all the hosts of Hell that came against His people.
   Therefore let Him be acknowledged as King. Who else should be exalted
   among the people but He who has done such wonderful things for the
   people? It is no marvel that the men of Israel gathered around David
   with a glowing enthusiasm and proved their patriotism by their
   allegiance to his sovereignty. Nor need we wonder that the children of
   God should shout--

   "All hail the power of Jesus' name

   Let angels prostrate fall,

   Bring forth the royal diadem

   And crown Him Lord of all!" Right well does He deserve all the homage
   we can ever ascribe to Him!

   But our Lord, though anointed of God, and meriting the distinction
   which He gained, was, nevertheless, like David, rejected of men. Poor
   David! Saul thirsted for his blood and put him upon dangerous missions,
   in the hope that he might die. And when he saw that God was with him,
   he hated him yet more--till he hunted him like a partridge upon the
   mountains! He could find shelter nowhere. If he went to the priests of
   Nob, the king sent and slew all the inhabitants of the city. Or if he
   went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and saved the
   inhabitants of Keilah, yet by-and-by they were willing to give him up
   to his enemies! He was safe nowhere. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ here
   upon earth was in the same manner despised and rejected of men--nor has
   the offense of His Cross ceased to this day. You may be a nominal
   Christian and have the good esteem of all men, but if you are a true
   disciple of Jesus, obeying Him from the heart, openly avowing His cause
   and diligently testifying His Truth, you will meet with bitter
   hostility in all sorts of places and among all sorts of people! Rest
   assured that until Christ comes again, it will be true that if you were
   of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of
   the world, but Christ has chosen you out of the world, therefore the
   world hates you.

   There may be Christians placed in such sheltered nooks and living among
   such godly families that they do not come into collision with the
   outside world--but if you do come into connection with the world in any
   way, you will be sure to prove its enmity! As the world is in rebellion
   against God and hostile to Christ, it will be intolerant of you. So
   Ishmael persecuted Isaac even in Abraham's own household! So the seed
   of the serpent hates the Seed of the woman. So, too, those that are
   under the Law own no kindred with those that are the children of the
   promise. Marvel not, then--it scarcely becomes you to murmur, though it
   sometimes appears to you a hard lot--Jesus Christ is still as a root
   out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness to the mass of mankind!
   True religion is not to be found in fashionable circles. It finds
   little favor among the great and mighty, though today it does not hide
   its head in the clefts and caves of the rocks. While the violence of
   persecution is abated in its outward manifestations of terror, the
   malice out of which it grew still survives and the people of God are
   harassed by it in a thousand ways. The iron is made to enter into their
   soul. Thus the cruel jealousy and the galling animosity with which
   David was driven forth and hunted from place to place, find a
   counterpart in the treatment that Christ, Himself, received--and that
   all His faithful followers have in their measure to endure!

   But notwithstanding the pains and penalties they incurred in those dark
   days, the really good and pious people in Israel rallied to the
   standard of David. I know it is said that those who were in debt, those
   who were in distress and those who were discontented came to David.
   That is quite true and well it typifies the abject condition of those
   poor sinners who come to Christ for refuge! But many of those
   Israelites were reduced in circumstances and brought into debt through
   the bad government of Saul. Probably the very best people in the
   country were to be found among those who gathered around David. And
   certainly there was with David, Abiathar the priest. He came to David
   as the representative of the godly, the Puritan Party! With David,
   likewise, there was Gad the Prophet. And you know how, in the early
   days of David's persecution, he resided with Samuel, the Prophet of the
   Lord, so that the gracious party was always on David's

   side. Does not the same thing happen among those who ally themselves
   with the Son of David at this day? Although He whom we worship is
   despised and rejected of men, yet unto you who believe, He is precious!
   They that fear the Lord, love Christ and embrace His Gospel. Those that
   have a new heart and a right spirit are not at all dubious which side
   to take. They have lifted up their hands to the Crucified One and they
   are sworn to do battle for His cause as long as they live! We need not
   be ashamed to side with Jesus, for we shall be in good company--not in
   the company of the nobles of the earth, those who bear its titles, own
   its wealth, or enjoy its empty fame--but in the company of the pure in
   heart, of the heirs of the promises, of those to whom God has been
   pleased to reveal Himself, yes, of the babes out of whose mouths He has
   perfected praise! Oh, we may well be content to cast in our lot with
   God's elect, be they who they may in the world's esteem, or be their
   lot what it may in their pilgrimage to the better country! With them
   would we be numbered! With them would we be associated! With them would
   we go! Let Christ's people be our people. Where they toil, we would
   toil. With them would we live. With them would we die. With them would
   we be buried, in the glad hope that with them we shall rise again to
   live forever in the fellowship of the saints!

   Mark one thing more. Despised as David was among men, yet, being
   anointed of God, his cause in the end was successful. He did come to
   the throne--and so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ. Notwithstanding
   all the opposition that still rages against His cause, it must prosper
   and prevail. "He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days and the
   pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." Well may the enmity of
   the wicked provoke the irony of Heaven. "Why do the heathen rage, and
   the people imagine a vain thing?" "He that sits in the heavens shall
   laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision." It is Jehovah Himself who
   says it, "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion." God's
   decree has placed Him there! Do you think the conspiracy of kings and
   rulers can unseat Him? No--there must He sit till all His enemies are
   beneath His feet! Oh, it is good to be with Christ, today, for then we
   shall be with Him tomorrow! It is good to be with Him in the stocks,
   for if we can bear the reproach, we shall one day be with Him on His
   Throne to share the Glory! If you will walk with Christ through the
   mire when He goes barefoot, you shall be with Him in the golden streets
   when He puts on the golden sandals and the angels fall down and worship
   Him! If you can foot it with Him in His deeds of service when He grows
   weary and footsore, you shall ride with Him when He rides on His white
   horse of victory, when all the armies of Heaven shall follow Him in His
   great achievements! If you are with Him in His humiliation, you shall
   be with Him in His triumph!

   I think I have told you before a little parable which I will venture to
   repeat in this place. There was a certain king whose son was set upon
   an errand to a far country. And when he came into that country,
   although he was the lawful prince of it, he found that the citizens
   would not acknowledge him. They mocked him, made fun of him and took
   him and set him in the stocks! And there they scoffed at him and pelted
   him with filth. Now, there was one in that country who knew the
   prince--and he alone stood up for him when all the mob was in tumult
   raging against him. And when they set him on high as an object of
   scorn, this man stood side by side with him to wipe the filth from that
   dear royal face. And when, from cruel hands, missiles were thrown in
   scorn, this man took his full share of them and, whenever he could, he
   thrust himself before the prince to ward off the blows from him if
   possible--and to bear the scorn instead of him. Now it came to pass
   that after a while the prince went on his way and, in due season, the
   man who had been the prince's friend was called to the king's palace.
   And on a day when all the princes of the court were roundabout and the
   peers and nobles of the land were sitting in their places, the king
   came to his throne and he called for that man, and said, "Make way,
   princes and nobles! Make way! Here is a man more noble than you all,
   for he stood boldly forth with my son when he was scorned and scoffed
   at! Make way, I say, each one of you, for he shall sit at my right hand
   with my own son. As he took a share of his scorn, he shall now take a
   share of his honor." And there sat princes and nobles who wished that
   they had been there, yes, envied the man who had been privileged to
   endure scorn and scoffing for the prince's sake!

   You need not that I interpret the parable. May you make angels envious
   of you if envy can ever pierce their holy minds! You can submit for
   Christ's sake to sufferings which it is not possible for seraphim or
   cherubim to endure!

   II. Having thus drawn your attention to the Leader, whom David, the son
   of Jesse, prefigured, let me turn now to

   speak a little OF THOSE WHO GATHERED ROUND HIM AND ENLISTED IN HIS
   SERVICE. The recruits who

   came to David were eleven in number.

   The first characteristic we read about them is that they were
   separated. "Of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David"
   eleven persons. Observe that they separated themselves. They seem to
   have been captains of the militia of

   their tribe. The very least among them was over a hundred, and the
   greatest over a thousand, but they separated themselves from their
   commands over their tribes--separated themselves from their brethren
   and their kinsfolk. I daresay many of their friends said to them, "Why,
   what fools you are! You must be mad to espouse the cause of a fellow
   like David!" And then they would call David all manner of foul,
   opprobrious names. "Are you going to be among those who associate with
   him--a troop of bandits with that ragged regiment?" I'll be bound to
   say they had terms for David and his men which, in polite ears, it
   would not be meet to quote! It is a mercy that the language of those
   men of Belial has not been recorded. But these men all said, "Yes, we
   will separate ourselves." And, for that matter, they did not merely
   tear themselves away from their friends, but from their kinsfolk, too!
   David needed their right arms and he would have them! He needed valiant
   men--and they would go and fight for David--whatever fond connection
   should be sundered thereby!

   Dear Friends, in these times it is most important that everyone who is
   a Christian should understand that he must separate himself from the
   world. You cannot serve Christ and the world, too. You cannot be of the
   world and of Christ's Church. You may be nominally of the Church and
   really of the world--but really of the world and really of the Church
   you cannot possibly be! The Christian must differ from the world in
   many things. His language must not be the speech of Babylon, but the
   chaste, pure language which Christians use. His actions, his customs,
   his manners, his habits, must not be like those of other men. He is not
   to be full of affectation and eccentricity. He need not adopt a
   peculiar garb, or discourse in quaint phrases or speak with an
   unnatural twang. All that may be mere formalism! Still, there is ample
   room for separateness in that which meets the eye and addresses the ear
   of the observer. We need not display vanity in our attire. In dress,
   Christians will be simple and chaste, not ornate and gaudy. In their
   speech, too, the children of God will certainly never use an oath, or
   lend their tongue to the semblance of a lie! And from foolish talking
   and jesting, which are not convenient, they will rigidly abstain! The
   tongue of a Believer, my Brothers and Sisters, ought to be as a
   fountain which sends forth sweet water--in our conversation there
   should be the meekness of wisdom! And when we cannot speak to profit,
   our silence must bear witness to our sincerity. But it is in his
   dealings with the world that the Christian shows the moral force of his
   character. There it comes out because it cannot be hid. If his trade
   has become used to tricks and stratagems which will not bear the Light
   of God, he cannot conform to them! He will shrink from them with
   abhorrence! He must keep a clean conscience. Other men may do the thing
   without compunction. It may have become "the custom." But no antiquity
   or universality of custom will authorize that which is obviously
   wrong--so he cannot do it and will not do it, for he is a Christian! He
   counts that a higher morality is required of him than of an ordinary
   man and after this higher morality he diligently seeks!

   From the world's religion the man of God will likewise stand aloof. He
   never asks himself, "What kind of religion does the present age
   consider most expedient?" Nor does he wish to find out the fashionable
   taste in Doctrine, or the order of devotion which is most agreeable to
   the undevout! He seeks after God. He diligently enquires for God's
   Truth. He joins himself to God's Church and earnestly promotes its
   welfare. Moreover, he loves God's ways and desires to be under the
   power of God's Spirit. After this manner he separates himself. Does not
   the Church in these days need to hear sounded every day, as a thunder
   clap, that Divine Commandment, "Come out from among them, and be you
   separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will
   receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons
   and daughters, says the Lord Almighty"? Oh, the shameful conformity of
   some professors with the world! It degrades the Church and it debases
   themselves! God grant that we may be staunch in our nonconformity to
   the world! To whatever church we may belong, may we be "holy, harmless,
   undefiled and separate from sinners."

   But, observe that these people separated themselves unto David. You may
   separate yourself and yet not separate yourself unto Christ! And if
   not, you only change from one form of worldly-mindedness to another. We
   are not to separate ourselves unto self-righteousness, or unto
   affectation, or unto a sect, but unto Christ! The people got away from
   their friends that they might get to David--we are to get away from the
   world that we may get closer to Christ! We often sing--

   "Oh, for a closer walk with God!"

   But if our walk is to be close with God, it must be a long way from the
   world! We must separate ourselves, by Divine Grace, unto Christ! And
   then, as you read that they separated themselves unto David in the
   wilderness, let me entreat you to ask yourselves if you are ready to
   take part with a rejected, Crucified Christ! Tens of thousands would
   separate them-

   selves to David if he were in Hebron on the throne of Israel. They
   would go there to crown David in the day of his prosperity--but the
   thing was to separate themselves unto David in the wilderness! That is
   the work of real Divine Grace in the heart which leads us to take sides
   with a despised Christ. It is a blessed thing when God teaches you to
   say, "I will follow the Truth wherever it leads me. I will follow it
   though some shall say to me, 'You are inconsistent.' I do not care
   about that. Though they shall say, 'Why, you have landed, now, in
   fanaticism.' I do not care about that. I will be a fanatic. If the
   Truth of God leads me there, I will separate myself unto Christ in the
   wilderness." Though they should tauntingly say, "You only go to some
   'Little Bethel' which is frequented by a few ignorant and vulgar
   people," be it so! If Christ goes there, what matters that to us? If
   the Truth of God should lead us down into a hovel where we could only
   associate with the very lowest of the low--if they were the Lord's
   people, they should be our delight! I wish this spirit were in all
   Christians--that they would be loyal to the Truth of God and not pander
   to the world! Do not be continually asking yourselves, "What will
   So-and-So think? And what will So-and-So say?" Do the right and fear
   not! Believe the Truth of God, let what will come of it! Follow the
   straight line and do not trim your way. Go not round about for the sake
   of policy, but take sides with Jesus Christ in the day of scoffing, on
   the ground of principle!

   Do I speak to some men here who work in factories? Oh, acknowledge
   Christ when other men laugh at Him! Stand up for Jesus when the whole
   shop is full of jesting and jeering against religion! If your religion
   is worth having, it is worthwhile enduring a little banter for it. He
   that is a friend must be a friend in need. If you would be a friend of
   Jesus, you will defend His name when it needs a defender and everybody
   is raging at Him. To come to the Tabernacle and join your fellow
   Christians in praising Jesus is very easy and involves no self-denial.
   But the thing is, you merchants, to praise Jesus among your fellow
   merchants who are ungodly--to bear witness, you working men, among
   others who fear not the Lord--to separate yourselves unto David in the
   wilderness, to cleave to Christ where He is scoffed at and despised!
   That is a true Christian! I beseech you, test yourselves by this, for
   if you are ashamed of Him in this evil generation, He will be ashamed
   of you when He comes in His Glory. But if you, out of a pure heart, can
   confess Him before a godless world, He will acknowledge you in the day
   when He comes in the Glory of His Father and all His holy angels with
   Him! Oh, for Grace to be separated unto Christ in this way!

   Note, next, about these men that they were men of might. It is said of
   them that they were "men of might. . .whose faces were like the faces
   of lions, and they were as swift as the roes upon the mountains." All
   who came to David were not like that. David had some women and children
   to protect, but he was glad to receive others who were men of might.
   Now there came to Jesus, the Greater David, in His day, the weak ones
   of the flock--and He never rejected them. He was glad to receive even
   the feeblest! But there also came to our Lord and Master eleven men
   who, by His Grace, were like these Gadites. Truly, I may say of His
   Apostles, after our Divine Lord had filled them with His Spirit, that
   they had faces like lions and feet like hinds' feet, so swift were they
   for service and so strong for combat! How wondrously they ran to and
   fro to the very ends of the earth, like the roes of the mountains! And
   how bravely they faced persecution and opposition, like lions that
   could not flinch from their prey! And what grand works they did for
   Jesus! Would to God that we were like they, Beloved! The Grace God can
   make us like they were. The Grace of God can make us brave as lions, so
   that wherever we are, we can hold our own, or rather can hold our
   Lord's Truth and never blush nor be ashamed to speak a good word for
   Him at all times! He can make us quick and active, too, so that we
   shall be like the roes upon the mountains! I am afraid that, often, we
   are like the donkey that couches down. We need the whip and the spur to
   make us move! We are like bulls unaccustomed to the yoke of service.
   Yet it ought not to be so. Loved as we have been with such great love
   and having tasted, as some of us can testify, of such choice favors
   from our Lord, being indulged with such intimate fellowship with Him
   and sustained as we are now with such joy and peace in Him, we ought to
   serve Him with quickness and activity, with courage and confidence! We
   really should outlive the lion for his bravery and the hinds and the
   wild goats of the rock for their swiftness. I pray that it may be so.
   May God send to this Church men--and women, too--of this order--"strong
   in the Lord, and in the power of His might!" To whom the joy of the
   Lord shall be their strength, who shall go about their Father's
   business with all their might--that might which is given them of
   God--and do great exploits for our greater David while He is in the
   wilderness and needs their aid!

   But it is worth noticing that they were men of war, conditioned to
   discipline--"men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield
   and buckler." Now there are some men of might who do not seem to be
   good men of war because they cannot keep rank. What exploits they may
   do, they must do alone, for they cannot march with the army. There are
   some Brothers and Sisters I know who are most excellent people as
   individuals, but they seem never to be meant to march in the
   ranks--they must, everyone of them, lead--they feel they must, they
   cannot be second to anybody! Neither can they be under any discipline
   or rule. Instead of taking their place in Christ's Church, they seem to
   consider themselves independent of the Church and its organization.
   However, the men Christ needs in the Church--and I pray Him to multiply
   their number in our midst, and enlist all of us among them--are such as
   can keep step, observe the rule and preserve order in the march, or in
   the fight or the service of the Lord! Men who can smite the foe, who
   can handle the sword and buckler, and ward off the arrows of the
   enemy--who can use the shield of faith and withstand the assaults of
   the adversary--we need these! May God teach us how to keep our places
   and to do our work!

   Some men have swords, but their swords seem to be more dangerous to
   their friends than to their foes. They are the people one wishes to
   keep clear of. They are, no doubt, very zealous, but if they had a
   little love as well as a lot of zeal-- and were endowed with a capacity
   for fellowship--it would greatly improve their character! This,
   however, seems to be their defeat--they have such an excess of
   individuality and they are, therefore, so exclusive that we can hardly
   imagine how they could pray, "Our Father, which are in Heaven," or
   recognize anybody else as belonging to the family of the Most High! May
   God make us men of might, but may He also make us men of discipline!
   While we keep our place and do our own work, may we delight to see
   others do their share of the work, too! When we smite the foe, may we
   delight to see others use the weapons of Christian warfare with skill
   and success! Do not shrink from the drill or revolt against discipline,
   for it is a great trait of a good soldier that he should know how to
   keep rank.

   These Gadites, likewise, furnish us with a noble example of strong
   revolution. When the eleven men determined to join David, they were
   living on the other side of a deep river which at that season of the
   year had overflowed its banks-- so that it was extremely deep and
   broad. But they were not to be kept from joining David when he needed
   them by the river. They swam across the river that they might come to
   David. Oh, I would like to hold up my Master's banner and be His
   recruiting sergeant tonight, if I could entertain the hope that out of
   this company there would come men of such mettle whose hearts the Lord
   has touched to join themselves to the Lord and fight for His Cross,
   whatever might impede and block their way! Do you stand back and shrink
   from avowing your attachment to the standard of God's Anointed because
   it would involve loss of reputation, displeasure of friends, the frowns
   of your associates in the world, or the heartbreaks of anguish of those
   you tenderly love? Know, then, that our Lord is worthy of all the
   troubles you incur and all the risks you run! And be assured that the
   peace which a soul enjoys that once joins Christ in the hold and abides
   with Him in the wilderness, well repays a man for all that he has to
   part with in getting to his Lord and Master! We have known some of the
   rich who have joined Christ's Church who have had to swim through
   overflowing rivers of contumely--the unkindness they have braved has
   indeed been cold and chilling. We have known many a poor woman who has
   had to suffer from her husband's brutality--and many a poor man who has
   had to run the gauntlet of a thousand cruel tongues! But who is afraid
   of such treatment as that? Once see the King in His beauty and your
   fears will vanish like smoke! Did you ever see His face stained with
   spit and black and blue with the blows of mailed hands? Did you ever
   see that head surrounded with the crown of thorns and mark the painful
   agony that was upon His visage, more marred than any man's? And have
   you not said, "Savior, since You endured all this for me, there is
   nothing that I will count too difficult to endure for You. I will count
   shame for You to be my glory, and Your reproach shall be greater riches
   to me than all the treasures of Egypt"? Have you not said that? If you
   have said so from your very soul, God the Holy Spirit writing it upon
   your heart, I know you have resolved to endure any pain or shame if you
   could but get to your Lord and stand side by side with Him! They swam
   the river to get to David, so, Believer, swim the river to be with
   Christ!

   Now, it would appear that after they had got across the river, they
   were attacked, but we are told that "they put to flight all them of the
   valleys, both toward the East, and toward the West." They were men of
   such resolution that if they had to fight to be on David's side, they
   would fight! And, notwithstanding the position of those on the right
   hand and the opposition of those on the left, they still pushed their
   way, lion-like men as they were, through all the forces that would
   impede them! O you that love our Lord and Master, I beseech you, in
   this evil day, this day of blasphemy and rebuke--stand not back--be not
   cowards! Cast in your lot with Him and with His people! Come to the
   front, hide not away like cowards, for this is the day when he shall be
   accursed that comes not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the
   Lord against the mighty! See you not everywhere how the Truth of God is
   fallen in the streets--how the old idols of Rome are once more set up
   in the high places of this land? The whole nation seems to have gone
   after the idols which our

   fathers removed! O you that love Christ, come out and separate
   yourselves from all acquaintance, all association with this evil thing!
   Come and join yourself unto the Son of God by a holy covenant! If He is
   your Beloved, and if His Grace is in your heart, fear not! What have
   you to fear? Greater is He who is with you than all they that are
   against you! Fear not. The battle is not yours, it is the mighty God's!
   If truth is with you, you must conquer! If Christ the Incarnate Truth
   is with you, you are already more than a conqueror through Him that has
   loved you! Never be ashamed! Never turn aside from Him who gave Himself
   to you! Be steadfast, immovable. For this steadfastness you need to
   pray much and often to God, for many are the seductions of the world--

   "Can you cleave to your Lord, can you cleave to your Lord,

   When the many turn aside?

   Can you witness that He has the living Word,

   And none upon earth beside?

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

   Through His love's constraining power'?

   But do you remember the flesh is weak,

   And will shrink in the trial hour?

   Yet yield to His love, who around you now

   The bands of a man would cast

   The cords of His love, who was given for you,

   To His altar binding you fast." Examine yourselves. Prove your own
   hearts. Consider what manner of men you ought to be. Let the precepts
   of the Word admonish you. Let the esprit de corps stimulate you. Never
   let disciples of Christ fall behind followers of David in warmth of
   attachment, or in order of service. The nearer you get to the Person of
   your Lord, the more you will catch of His Spirit! I think, Beloved, you
   need direction more than exhortation. The more you live under His eyes
   and the more often you listen to His voice, the better, truer, nobler
   men and women you will prove to be and the happier recognition you will
   find in the day of His appearing!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM56.

   To the chief Musician upon Jonath-elem-rechokim, Michtam (a golden
   Psalm) of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath.

   Verse 1, 2. Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up: he
   fighting daily oppresses me. My enemies would daily swallow me up: for
   they are many that fight against me, O You Most High David was in such
   peril from man that he cried to God to come to his rescue. Man was
   merciless to him, so he prayed, "Be merciful unto me, O God." His
   enemies were many and mighty, so he appealed to the One who was
   Almighty--who could destroy them or put them all to flight.

   3. What time I am afraid, I will trust in You. He is a happy man who
   can trust in God when he is afraid. But he is still happier who can
   say, "I will trust, and not be afraid."

   4. In God (I will praise His word), in God I have put my trust; I will
   not fear what flesh can do unto me. The trusting soul is a singing soul
   and it soon becomes a courageous soul! Faith in God drives out the fear
   of man--"In God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do
   unto me."

   5. 6. Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me
   for evil They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they
   mark my steps when they wait for my soul David had many enemies--Saul,
   Doeg the Edo-mite, the Philistines and some even in his own
   household--but all their malice and craft were in vain since the Lord
   was on his side! We, too, have enemies who wrest our words, whose
   thoughts against us are evil, who lay traps for us and lie in ambush to
   take us unawares. But we need not fear any of them, not even the great
   adversary, himself, if we are trusting in the Lord!

   7. Shall they escape by iniquity? In Your anger cast down the people, O
   God. They sought to cast him down, so he prayed to the Lord to cast
   them down, and we know how graciously the Lord answered his
   supplication.

   8. You number my wanderings: put my tears into Your bottle: are they
   not in Your book?David was such a wanderer at that time that he might
   not remember all the places where he had hidden away from Saul. But God
   had a record of them and even of his tears--"are they not in Your
   book?" There is nothing that concerns the Lord's chosen people that is
   not noted and remembered by Him.

   9. When I cry unto You, then shall my enemies turn back: this I know;
   for God is for me. David's confidence in God was not misplaced! He who
   can truthfully say, "God is for me," need not fear however many may be
   against him!

   10. 11. In God will Ipraise His word: in the LORD will Ipraise His
   word. In God have Iput my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do
   unto me. He repeats the declarations he made in verse four--such holy
   confidence may rightly be published again and again! It is most
   pleasing and honoring to the Lord and it is most likely to lead other
   tried Believers to follow such a worthy example! The praising and
   trusting man fears not what man can do to him.

   12. Your vows are upon me, O God I will render praises unto You. David
   had not forgotten the vows that he had made unto the Lord. Vows should
   not be lightly made, but once made, they should be sacredly remembered,
   and faithfully performed.

   13. For You have delivered my soul from death: will not You deliver my
   feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the
   living?So the Psalm ends, as it began, with prayer--a prayer that was
   most graciously answered, as we can see if we turn to Psalm 116:8,
   9--"You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears and my
   feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the
   living."
     __________________________________________________________________

Lessons From Christ's Baptism

   (No. 3298)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   4, 1866.

   "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up immediately out of the water:
   and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit God
   descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo, a Voice from
   Heaven, saying, This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."
   Matthew 3:16,17.

   [Another Sermon by Mr. Spurgeon upon verse 17 is #2409, Volume 41--A
   GREAT SERMON BY THE GREATEST PREACHER.]

   I WANT to teach two lessons tonight. The first will be a most necessary
   one for the unconverted. The second will be more suitable to believers
   in the Lord Jesus Christ.

   I. Without any preface, let us at once try to learn the first lesson
   from the text which relates to THE CO-WORKING OF THE TRINITY IN THE
   MATTER OF OUR SALVATION.

   There are some who seem to suppose that Jesus Christ is our Savior to
   the exclusion of God the Father and of God the Holy Spirit, but this is
   a most erroneous idea. It is true that we are saved by the precious
   blood of Christ, but it is equally true that God the Father and God the
   Holy Spirit have had their share in the great work of our salvation. In
   order that we might not fall into the error in which some have been
   entangled, it pleased God to give us, at the very beginning of Christ's
   public ministry, a very distinct intimation that He did not come alone
   and that He did not undertake the work of our redemption apart from the
   other adorable Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity.

   Try to picture to yourselves the scene that our text describes. There
   is Jesus Christ who has just been baptized in Jordan by John. And John
   bears witness that He is the Son of God because the sign from Heaven
   for which he had been told to look for had been given. As Jesus comes
   up out of the water, the Spirit of God descends upon Him in a visible
   shape-- in appearance like a dove--and rests upon Him. John says that
   "it abode upon Him," as though the Spirit was thenceforth to be His
   continual Companion and, truly, it was so. At the same time that the
   dove descended and lighted upon Christ, there was heard a Voice from
   Heaven, saying, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."
   This was the voice of God the Father--He did not reveal Himself in a
   bodily shape, but uttered wondrous words such as mortal ears had never
   before heard! The Father revealed Himself not to the eyes as the Spirit
   did, but to the ears--and the words He spoke clearly indicated that it
   was God the Father bearing witness to His beloved Son. So that the
   entrance of Christ upon His public ministry on earth was the chosen
   opportunity for the public manifestation of the intimate union between
   God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!

   Now, Sinner, from this day forward, if you have never done so before,
   think humbly, reverently and lovingly of all the three Persons of the
   most blessed Trinity in Unity! Bless the Son of God for becoming Man in
   order that He might redeem us from destruction. He left His Glory in
   Heaven and was made in the likeness of men that He might suffer in our
   place as the Lamb of God's Passover and that we might shelter beneath
   His sprinkled blood--and so escape the sword of vengeance. Do you know
   that when Christ was baptized, He gave, as it were, a picture of His
   great work of Redemption? He said to John, "Thus it becomes us to
   fulfill all righteousness," by which I understand not that He fulfilled
   all righteousness by being baptized, but that His Baptism was a picture
   or emblem of the fulfillment of all righteousness. What was done with
   Christ when He was baptized? Why, first, He was regarded as one who was
   dead and, therefore, He was buried beneath the waters of Jordan. He
   thus set forth, by a most significant symbol, the fact that He had come
   to earth

   to be obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross--and that in due
   time He would actually die and be really bu-ried--as now He was
   submerged beneath the yielding wave in a metaphorical burial. But
   baptism does not consist of merely plunging the person into the
   water--he must be lifted out again--otherwise he would be drowned, not
   baptized. So the Savior, when He rose up out of the water, set forth
   His own Resurrection. By His Baptism, He figuratively said, "I shall
   die for sinners, I shall rise again for sinners and I shall go back to
   Heaven to plead for sinners. My death will put away their offenses and
   my Resurrection will complete their justification." Go, you who long
   for salvation, and by faith look to the Savior dying on the Cross at
   Calvary! See Him buried in Joseph's tomb. See Him rise the third day
   and after forty days, see Him ascend to Heaven leading captivity
   captive! His dying, His burial, His rising, His ascension--these are
   the fulfillment of all righteousness--and it is by these that you must
   be saved--it is not your being baptized that can save you! It is
   Christ's being baptized for you with that Baptism of blood when He
   poured out His soul unto death that you might live forever! It is not
   your suffering, but His suffering that avails for your salvation! It is
   not your being or your doing that is the secret of blessing, but it is
   His being and His doing on which you must depend for everything! Trust
   in Jesus Christ and you shall find salvation in Him!

   Now I want you to look with humbly grateful eyes to God the Holy
   Spirit. You remember how Jesus Christ applied to Himself the words He
   read in the synagogue at Nazareth--"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
   because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has
   sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the
   captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
   that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." It was
   the Spirit of God who gave success to Jesus Christ's ministry--and if
   you, dear Friend, would be saved--it is only the Holy Spirit who can
   take away from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh! I
   pray you to think with holy reverence of that mighty, mysterious Being
   who works in human hearts and molds them according to the will of God.
   By nature you are spiritually dead--and only the Spirit of God can give
   you spiritual life. By nature you are spiritually blind--and only the
   Spirit of God can give you spiritual sight. Even the work of Christ on
   the Cross does not avail for you until the Holy Spirit takes of the
   things of Christ and reveals them to you. You must look to Christ, or
   He will not save you! You must trust in Christ, or His precious blood
   will not be applied to you! But you will never look to Him or trust in
   Him unless the Father who sent Him, shall draw you to do so by His
   Spirit effectually working in you. When we are thinking and speaking of
   the Holy Spirit, let us always feel as if we must take off our shoes
   for the place whereon we stand is peculiarly holy. You remember how
   solemnly Christ warns us as to the consequences of even speaking
   against the Holy Spirit? "Whomever speaks a word against the Son of
   Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whoever speaks against the Holy
   Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world, neither in
   the world to come." Whenever we mention the name of the Holy Spirit,
   let us do it with holy awe and reverence, remembering that it is the
   Spirit that quickens, it is the Spirit that instructs, it is the Spirit
   that sanctifies, it is the Spirit that preserves, it is the Spirit that
   makes us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
   light! So unto the ever-blessed Spirit of God as well as unto the
   well-beloved Son of God be Glory and honor, praise and power, forever
   and ever!

   With equal reverence and with equal awe let us also think of God the
   Father. What does the Father here say concerning Christ? First, He
   calls Him His Son. There has been much disputing about how Christ can
   be equal with the Father, and equally eternal, and yet be the Son of
   the Father. This is a great deep into which you and I, dear Friends,
   will do well not to pry. We usually speak of Christ being the Son of
   the Father by what is called "eternal generation." I confess that there
   is a mystery here which I can neither understand nor explain, but as
   the Father calls Him His Son, I unhesitatingly believe that He is what
   the Scripture constantly calls Him, "the Son of God." In our text we
   find that the Father not only calls Christ His Son, but He says, "This
   is My Beloved Son." What wondrous love there must be in the heart of
   each one of the Divine Persons in the sacred Trinity towards each of
   the others! How blessedly they must look upon one another with Divine
   benignity and complacency! There never could be any diversity in their
   interests, for they are one in heart, one in purpose, one in every
   respect, even as Jesus said, "I and My Father are One."

   Now, Sinner, the point to which I want to especially direct your
   thoughts is this--that God not only calls Christ His Son and His
   beloved Son, but that He says He is well-pleased with Him. And this
   concerns you in that if you are so united to Christ as to be one with
   Him, God will also be well-pleased with you for His dear Son's sake!
   But can a sinner ever be pleasing to God? Not in himself, apart from
   Christ, but all who are in Christ are "accepted in the Beloved." His
   Father is so pleased with Him that all whom He represents are pleasing
   unto God for His sake! "But," asks one, "how can I be in

   Christ?" My dear Friend, if you are one of the Lord's chosen, you are
   already in Christin God's eternal purpose. But the way in which you
   must experimentally get into Christ is by true faith in Him. To trust
   in Jesus is to be in Jesus. To rely upon the atoning Sacrifice of
   Christ is to be one with Christ. Faith is the uniting bond which binds
   together the Christ in whom we believe and those who believe in Him. If
   you are truly trusting in Christ, God looks upon you as a part of
   Christ's Mystical Body and He is well-pleased with you for Christ's
   sake.

   Thus you have the Son suffering for you, the Spirit applying to you the
   merit of His atoning Sacrifice and the Father well-pleased with you
   because you are trusting in His beloved Son! Or, to put the Truth in
   another form, the Father gives the great Gospel feast, the Son is the
   feast and the Spirit not only brings the invitations, but He also
   gathers the guests around the table. Or, to use another metaphor, God
   the Father is the Fountain of Grace, God the Son is the Channel of
   Grace and God the Holy Spirit is the Cup from which we drink of the
   flowing stream. I wish that I could really make you see Jesus Christ
   standing by Jordan's brink as He came up out of the water after He had
   been baptized by John--and the Spirit of God descending and lighting
   upon Him and that I could make you hear the voice of the Father
   saying--"This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." If I could
   do this, all I would have to add would be John's message, "Behold the
   Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world." There is eternal
   life for everyone who truly looks to Him by faith--

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

   II. In beginning my sermon, I told you that the second lesson I wanted
   you to learn tonight would be more suitable to believers in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, though at the same time it may also be useful to the
   unconverted, just as I hope the first lesson has been helpful to the
   people of God though especially intended for those who are not yet
   avowedly on the Lord's side. This second lesson, upon which I have now
   to speak, relates to THE DESCENT OF THE SPIRIT UPON BELIEVERS, but I
   would not have dared to take the text without also calling your
   attention to the first lesson upon which I have already spoken.

   I want you to clearly understand that as the Holy Spirit rested upon
   Christ, so He rests upon all who are in Christ. Indeed, when the Spirit
   rested upon Christ, He rested upon the whole Church that was
   represented by Christ. You remember that David says the unity of
   brethren is "like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down
   upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his
   garments." So the anointing that Christ received from the Holy Spirit
   ran down to the very lowest, least and last of the members of that
   Church of which He is the Head!

   When the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven like a dove and lighted upon
   Christ, that descent was intended to teach us several lessons which we
   will now try to learn. Consider, first, the swiftness of that descent.
   The heavens were opened--there was no delay, but swiftly as a flash of
   lightning the Spirit descended and lighted upon Christ. Beloved
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, do you feel dull and heavy tonight? Are
   you depressed in spirit? There is no reason why, within the next
   second, you should not be in quite a heavenly frame of mind, for the
   Spirit of God can descend upon you like a dove and immediately you
   shall be lifted up out of your dullness and despondency! The Spirit
   needs no time in which to work. The motions of matter are necessarily
   tardy--matter can only move at a certain rate and there are many things
   that slow it down. But as you know, the motion of mind is far more
   rapid--your thoughts can fly to America and back again more swiftly
   than I can describe their flight! In a flash your mind can be soaring
   away up among the stars millions and millions and millions of miles
   away! Now, the mind of the Spirit is the highest order of mind, for He
   is Divine and, therefore, His motions are swift as light--no, they are
   incomparably swifter than that! He descended like a dove in order to
   set forth the rapidity of His flight. You remember that expression in
   the Song of Solomon, "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the
   chariots of Amminadib." So is it when the Spirit comes to us--our soul
   is, as it were, borne along in a swiftly-driven chariot! It does not
   take the Holy Spirit an hour to convert a soul. The vital spark that
   regenerates a soul is kindled in an instant! Instantaneous conversion
   is not the exception, it is the rule--there cannot be any conversion
   but that which is instantaneous! The growth, the development of the
   work of Grace in the heart and life is gradual, but there is a moment
   in which the soul passes from death unto life, from slavery to liberty,
   from sin to righ-

   teousness! And I have already said to you, Christian Friends, that you
   can, in a moment, be transported out of a dull, languishing state of
   heart into one of holy peace and joy. Breathe the prayer--

   "Come, Holy Spirit heavenly Dove, With all Your quickening powers,
   Come, shed abroad a Savor's love, And that shall kindle ours"-- and
   there is no reason why He should not grant your request even before you
   have finished your petition!

   The figure of a dove also represents softness as well as swiftness.
   Speed generally causes some measure of sound--we usually associate
   hurry with noise, but it is not so with the Spirit of God. He descended
   with silent wings and alighted upon Christ as He came up out of the
   river where He had been baptized. If it had been recorded that the
   Spirit descended like an eagle, we would have thought of the whirring
   of great wings. But the dove's flight is of a far gentler and quieter
   order. So, Beloved, the Spirit of God may come down upon some of us in
   this house tonight, yet no one may be aware of His coming except those
   upon whom He rests as He rested that day upon Christ! Your neighbor may
   not perceive what has happened to you--there need be no outcry, no
   shouting, no violent contortions as there have been in certain revivals
   of which we have heard. No, the blessed Spirit frequently works
   invisibly, as the wind blows where it wishes--and sometimes blows so
   softly that we are not conscious of the slightest sound from the gentle
   zephyrs that fan our cheeks. I pray that in the solemn silence of the
   mind, many of you may thus experience the descent of the Holy Spirit
   like a dove, so swift yet so soft, so gentle yet so strong!

   Besides this, wherever the Spirit comes, He works according to His own
   holy Nature. He comes like a dove and He operates in a dove-like
   manner. And if He graciously operates upon you, you also will have
   dove-like qualities given to you. What are they? Well, I think that the
   first thought we associate with a dove is that of purity. You remember
   that the spouse in the Song of Solomon says of her Beloved, "His eyes
   are as the eyes of doves." And the Bridegroom says to His spouse, "You
   are fair, My love; behold, you are fair; you have doves' eyes"--that
   is, eyes of purity, bright sparkling eyes that care not to look upon
   that which is unclean! The dove is no carrion-loving bird and you will
   recollect that it was the only bird that was offered to God in
   sacrifice under the old dispensation. Perhaps someone says, "Oh, but it
   was written in the Law, "A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons!"
   Yes, it was so written. But then I remind you that a pigeon is only one
   member of the great dove family and that it was only among the doves,
   of all feathered creatures, that there was found a bird that was clean
   enough to be offered unto God as a sacrifice! So the selection of a
   dove as the emblem of the Holy Spirit is very suggestive, for, wherever
   He goes, He breeds purity. If a man shall live a life of uncleanness,
   hatred, malice, and then say that he has the Holy Spirit dwelling in
   him, he lies, for the Spirit first makes us pure and then peaceable.
   Unless you, my dear Hearer, have shaken off from you the love of all
   that is evil and have resolved in God's strength to live as becomes the
   Gospel of Christ, you prove that you have not experienced the dove-like
   influence of the Holy Spirit! In my early days in the country, I was
   horribly shocked when I heard of a man standing on a public house table
   and saying though at the time he was almost drunk, "I can say what none
   of you fellows can say, that I am one of God's elect." All of us who
   knew anything of the man used to shudder at the thought of his
   blasphemy in pretending to be one of the elect. Why, if the Grace of
   God does not make a man holy, what is it worth? My dear Friend, if you
   are determined to be damned, leave religion out of it--and do not
   pretend to be a child of God and yet live in sin. To profess to be an
   heir of Heaven and then to live as an heir of Hell is such detestable
   hypocrisy that I pray God that all of you may be preserved from ever
   falling into it! Where the Spirit of God dwells, there is sure to be
   purity!

   And next to purity comes peace. The dove with the olive leaf in its
   mouth was the token of peace to Noah and those who were with him in the
   Ark. And the dove has long been used as a symbol of peace. If the
   Spirit of God, like a dove, shall dwell with you, my dear Friend, you
   will have peace in your own conscience, peace with your fellow men,
   peace with God. As Paul puts it in writing to the Philippians, "the
   peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and
   mind through Christ Jesus." Those worrying, distracting thoughts of
   yours do not come from the Holy Spirit! Those carking cares, those
   disquieting anxieties are not the Spirit's work! Where the Spirit, like
   a dove, dwells in a Believer's heart, that ancient assurance is
   fulfilled, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on
   You: because he trusts in You." May you enjoy this perfect peace
   through the coming of the Spirit to you!

   The dove is, next, the picture of gentleness. You do not expect to see
   doves fighting like vultures or ravens. I suppose doves do quarrel
   sometimes but, as a rule, their gentle and amiable nature makes them
   harmless and lovable. So, Chris-

   tians should be the most gentle of all men. We are to be willing to be
   struck on one cheek and then to turn the other to the smiter. I know
   some professing Christians who, as soon as ever a contrary word is
   spoken to them, boil over with rage. Well, it is not their Christianity
   that makes such a display as that--and it is a poor excuse to say that
   it is their infirmity! "Oh," says one, "but if you tread on a worm, it
   will turn." Yes, the poor little creature turns in its agony, but is a
   worm to be a model for your conduct? Surely it would be better to ask
   the Holy Spirit to give you the Grace to take the Lord Jesus Christ as
   your example! Have you never heard of the Christian who killed his
   neighbor by kindness? When his oxen got into his neighbor's field, the
   cross-grained man put them into the pound and said that if they came
   astray again he would deal with them in the same way. By-and-by, his
   own oxen wandered into his neighbor's field--and then the Christian man
   fed them and sent word that if they came there again, he would treat
   them in the same way. That is the style in which we should endeavor to
   act towards any who treat us unkindly--by heaping coals of fire upon
   their heads, we may in time burn love into their hearts!

   I am afraid that all professing Christians are not as gentle as they
   should be, though gentleness is one of the prominent characteristics of
   true Christians. I am not a Quaker, but I must say that in this
   particular quality of gentleness, the Society of Friends has set a good
   example to the whole Christian Church. I wish that the spirit of
   non-resistance was more generally prevalent among Christians than it
   often is. It is certainly in accordance with both the teaching and
   example of our Lord Jesus Christ, "who, when He was reviled, reviled
   not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself
   to Him that judges righteously." These words of the Apostle Peter
   follow immediately after his declaration that "Christ also suffered for
   us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps." Where the
   dove-like Spirit dwells, there will be a gentleness of spirit in
   harmony with His own Nature. I am charmed with the change that is often
   apparent in the converts who come to join this Church. When I hear of a
   man who before his conversion used to rage and rave in such a way as to
   be a terror to his family, yet who now, though he is at times greatly
   provoked, just walks away and says nothing, I feel that the Grace of
   God is really working in his heart. If what you call Grace does not
   change your evil tempers, you had better exchange it for the true Grace
   of God which will do so! For surely it is one of the first evidences
   that the Spirit of God is dwelling within a man when it makes him
   "gentle, showing all meekness unto all men."

   A dove is also one of the most harmless of all God's creatures. And a
   Christian must never intentionally hurt or harm others. Our Lord Jesus
   Christ was willing to suffer, but He did not make others suffer--and He
   would not have us seek to propagate His Truth in a bitter spirit. If
   you are dealing with an infidel, let him see that, however strongly you
   disapprove of his principles, you endeavor to win him away from them
   not by unkindness, but by love. I doubt if anybody is ever bullied into
   accepting the Gospel. Certainly, more flies are caught with honey than
   with vinegar--and more sinners are brought to Christ by kindness than
   by unkindness. Never let anyone be truthfully able to say of you,
   "There is a professed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ who has done me
   most serious injury." But rather let it be said concerning you, "There
   goes a man whom I grossly injured, yet he bore it patiently and said
   nothing against me because he is a Christian."

   You know, too, that in Scripture the dove is spoken of as a type of
   love. When the turtledove has lost its mate, everybody knows how it
   will sit and moan and mourn. "The voice of the turtle is heard in our
   land" is the Scriptural description of a spiritual springtime, the
   season of love and joy. If the dove-like Spirit has come into your
   heart, my Friend, your soul will be full of love to Jesus. But if you
   are not conscious of His Presence, you will mourn like the bereaved
   dove and will dolefully sing--

   "I cannot bear Your absence, Lord. I cannot live without Your smile."

   If I cannot rejoice in Christ, the next best thing is to weep because I
   cannot enjoy sweet fellowship with Him. If I cannot rest in Christ, it
   is a good thing if I cannot rest anywhere else. Ah, Soul, if you have
   the Spirit of God within you, you will pine and sigh and cry until
   Christ is very near and very dear to you! And when He is both near and
   dear to you, then your soul will be like a vessel that is filled to the
   brim, yet still remaining under the running stream, and you will
   overflow with love and gratitude to your dear Lord who has done such
   great things for you!

   Time flies, so I must close with just one more thought. You remember
   that when this world was created, "the earth was without form, and
   void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
   moved upon the face of

   the waters." Everything was in a state of chaos and confusion--there
   was neither life nor order! But when the Spirit of God spread His great
   wings over the face of the deep and brooded, like a bird upon its nest,
   it was not long before the Voice of God was heard and soon disorder
   gave place to order, darkness to light, and death to life! The Holy
   Spirit comes into our heart now to work the same kind of change as
   that. He finds our soul in a state of chaos--formless, empty, dark--but
   when He mysteriously spreads His dove-like wings over our soul--life,
   light and order soon appear. We then begin to see what we never saw
   before! We put God into His rightful place and we realize how great He
   is. And we put ourselves into our rightful place and we realize what
   nothings we are! We put the Law into its rightful place and recognize
   how terribly stern it is. And we put sin into its rightful place and we
   tremble before its terrible power! When the Spirit of God broods over
   us, one of the first signs of the new life appearing in our soul is the
   penitent cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Those sorrow-filled
   eyes, those swiftly-falling tears, that brokenhearted sigh--all these
   are the result of the brooding of the Spirit of God upon our disordered
   nature! And when at last you can truthfully say--

   "I rest My soul on Jesus,

   This weary soul of mine.

   His right hand me embraces

   I on His breast recline"--

   that also is the result of the brooding of the Spirit! He has quickened
   you! He has given you life, for only a living soul can truly say, "I do
   believe in Jesus." That is a sure sign of the new creation! It is a
   certain proof that Christ has made all things new in you by the
   effectual working of His ever-blessed Spirit. To any here who have
   never realized the dove-like energy of the Holy Spirit, I commend the
   prayer Charles Wesley wrote--

   "Expand your wings, celestial Dove,

   Brood over our nature's night!

   On our disordered spirits move

   And let there now be light." Dr. Watts gives us another prayer in which
   Christians can heartily unite--

   "Descend from Heaven, immortal Dove,

   Stoop down and take us on your wings

   And mount and bear us far above

   The reach of these inferior things!

   Beyond, beyond this lower sky

   Up where eternal ages roll,

   Where solid pleasures never die

   And fruits immortal feast the soul!

   Oh for a sight, a pleasing sight

   Of our Almighty Father's Throne!

   There sits our Savior crowned with light,

   Clothed in a body like our own!

   When shall the day, dear Lord, appear,

   That I shall mount to dwell above,

   And stand and bow among them there,

   And view Your face, and sing, and love?" May the Lord bless everyone of
   you, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 6.

   Verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that Grace
   may abound?\f the sinfulness of man has really given an opportunity for
   the display of Divine Mercy, then the devil's logic would be, "Let us
   commit more sin, that there may be more room for Grace to work!" But
   Christians have learned their reasoning in another school--and to such
   diabolical arguments they answer in the words of the Apostle --

   2. God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer
   therein?The two terms are exactly opposite to one another. If, through
   Grace, we are dead to sin how can we live in it? If, sinners as we are,
   we come to Christ to be saved from sin, then it would be a complete
   misuse of language to talk of being saved from sin, yet still to
   continue in it! Besides, the Apostle goes on to show that the
   ordinance, by which believers in Jesus are to be admitted into the
   visible Christian Church will not allow them to continue in sin.

   3, 4. 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. [See Sermons #1627,
   Volume 27--BAPTISM--A BURIAL and #2197, Volume 37--CHRIST'S
   RESURRECTION AND OUR NEWNESS OF LIFE.] You remember, My Brothers and

   Sisters in Christ, that hallowed hour when you went down into the
   liquid tomb, when, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
   Spirit, you were immersed upon profession of your faith in Jesus
   Christ? By that solemn act you set forth your death to sin and when you
   were raised again out of the opening element, you thereby made a
   profession of your faith in Christ's Resurrection. And moreover, you
   did then and there, seeing that you had received the Grace of God in
   truth, profess to rise unto newness of life! How could you, then, go
   back to sin? That would be to make your Baptism a lie! Indeed, you are,
   all of you, unbaptized unless you have been baptized into Christ's
   death.

   5, 6. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His
   death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing
   this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin
   might be destroyed, that henceforth we

   should not serve sin. [See Sermon #882, Volume15--THE OLD MAN
   CRUCIFIED.] God has driven the nails through the active powers of our
   sin--both hands and feet are fastened to the Cross of Christ. And
   though the heart and the head may sometimes wander, yet our old man is
   crucified with Christ that the body of sin may be destroyed--and we are
   looking forward to that happy day when the old man shall be dead
   altogether, and we shall be made meet to enter into the inheritance of
   the saints in light. We believe that our old man will never die until
   we die, but we thank God that the death of our body will also be the
   death of the body of sin.

   7. For he that is dead is freed from sin. He can no longer live in it,
   for he is dead. And if we are really dead in Christ, we can no longer
   live in sin as we were known to do.

   8-11. Nowifwe are dead with Christ, we believe that we shallalso 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 [See Sermons #503, Volume 9--DEATH AND
   LIFE IN CHRIST and #2933, Volume 51--DEAD, YET ALIVE.] If Christ could
   die again, then Believers might lose their spiritual life and there
   might be such a thing as falling from Grace! But while Jesus lives, no
   member of His Mystical Body can die. His own promise is, "Because I
   live, you shall live also." He died unto sin once--we do the same. He
   lives no more to die-- we also do the same. Highly privileged are they
   who are dead with Christ! And blessed is that ordinance in which we set
   forth our death and burial with Him.

   12, 13. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you
   should obey it in the lusts thereof Neither yield you your members as
   instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God,
   as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
   of righteousness unto God.Your legs used to carry you to the theater--
   compel them now to carry you to the House of God even though you are
   weary. Your eyes could look long enough upon wickedness--let not their
   lids fall when you are sitting to hear a sermon! Let all the members of
   your body which once served Satan now serve God! Consider that your
   whole body is a consecrated temple and be not satisfied unless the
   whole of it is reserved for the great God Himself!

   14, 15. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under
   the Law, but under Grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not
   under the La w, but under Grace?[See Sermons #1410, Volume
   24--believers free from the dominion

   OF SIN and #1735, Volume 29--THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE DO NOT LEAD TO
   SIN.]

   This is another of the Antinomian suggestions that were made in the
   Apostle's time--and that are still made now! And how does Paul answer
   it? Why, with this solemn adjuration--

   15-18. God forbid! Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves
   servants to obey, his servantsyou are to whom you obey: whether of sin
   unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked,
   that you were the servants

   of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine which
   was delivered you. Being then made free from sin,

   you became the servants of righteousness. [See Sermon #1482, Volume
   25--OUR CHANGE OF MASTERS.] Is not that a glorious sentence, "Being
   then made free from sin"? Yes, the fetters are all gone! We have put up
   our feet upon the block and the chains have been knocked off! We have
   put our hands down and the irons have been broken in pieces. Free from
   sin! 'Tis true that sin still tempts us, but it cannot prevail against
   us--it tries to put the bit in our mouth and to ride us as once it did,
   but we no longer submit to its sway! Sin is now an enemy to fret and
   worry us, but not a king to trample upon us and rule over us.

   19, 20. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of
   your flesh: for as you have yielded your members servants to
   uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your
   members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the
   servant of sin, you were free from righteousness. You disdained the
   silken bonds of pie-ty--you said that you would never wear what you
   called the iron fetters of Grace! You were "Free from righteousness."
   So, surely, now that you are the servants of righteousness, you should
   seek to be free from sin!

   21-23. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now
   ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free
   from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto
   holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death;
   but the gift of Godis eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord [See
   Sermon #1868, Volume 31--DEATH AND LIFE--THE WAGE AND THE GIFT.]
     __________________________________________________________________

Ho! Ho!

   (No. 3299)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters." Isaiah 55:1.

   THERE is a thirst which is peculiar to the Believer. He can say with
   David, "As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul
   after You, O God." Delightful thirst! Would God we had more of it! May
   we be longing and panting after our God in that sense until we shall be
   filled with His Spirit and shall dwell in His Presence to go no more
   out forever!

   But I wish now to speak of another kind of thirst to another class of
   thirsting ones, who thirst they scarcely know for what. They have a
   sense of unrest, of longing, of yearning--yet they have a very
   indistinct idea of what it is their souls are pining for. It may be
   that they will find out presently what it is their thirst requires.
   Better still, if perhaps, by God's blessing, that thirst shall be
   quenched by their drinking that Living Water of which they are bidden
   freely to take.

   I shall not detain you with a long preface, nor, indeed, with a long
   discourse. I will try to make each portion of my address brief,
   practical and pointed. May the Holy Spirit make it effectual!

   Learn from my text that God has made plenteous soul-provision and that
   to every thirsty soul this provision is perfectly free and gratuitous.

   I. In the first place, GOD HAS MADE AN ABUNDANT SOUL-PROVISION.

   We read here of "water." Water has been pronounced the simplest,
   purest, fittest drink for all persons of all ages and temperaments.
   Now, there is a thirst in man's body which makes him require drink. He
   drinks and that thirst is removed. There is a similar thirst in man's
   spiritual'nature. He needs something and he feels uneasy until he gets
   it. The Grace of God, which is proclaimed to us in Christ Jesus, is
   that which meets the longing of man. That is the spiritual water for
   man's spiritual thirst. In the text, the word is put in the plural,
   "Come you to the waters," I suppose to show the abundance thereof, as
   though there were many rivers of it, so that none might fear that they
   should require more than was provided--

   "Rivers of love and mercy here

   In a rich ocean join.

   Salvation in abundance flows,

   Like floods of milk and wine.

   Great God, the treasures of Your love

   Are everlasting mines--

   Deep as our helpless miseries are,

   And boundless as our sins."

   The mercy of God is not a little brook which can be almost drained up
   by a passing ox, but it is a vast river--it is many rivers, rivers to
   swim in! "Ho, everyone that thirsts!" Stand not back because you think
   there is not enough, but come you to the waters!

   Or the word may be in the plural to signify variety. The soul needs
   many things. Viewing eternity, God and judgment from different points
   of view, it needs manifold and multitudinous mercies. They are all
   provided and the word, "waters," indicates that many fresh springs of
   consolation are ready for those who thirst for all spiritual blessings
   as soon as the eye sees or the ear hears tell of them! You need not
   fear if you need the pardon of sin, or the renewal of your nature, or
   guidance in perplexity, or comfort in distress--you need not fear but
   what you shall find it. "Come you to the waters." There is an infinite
   variety in the Grace of God! He is called "the God of all Grace." All
   the Grace that all the

   sinners that ever come to Him can need, they shall find stored up in
   the Gospel provisions of the Covenant of Grace. "Ho, everyone that
   thirsts, come you to the waters," for God has provided for soul-needs
   in plentiful abundance and endless variety!

   Now, are you thirsting? It surely is not the mere play of imagination,
   but the sober apprehension of a fact that convinces me there are
   persons here who are thirsting in a spiritual sense. I think one of
   them says, "I thirst, I thirst to have my sins forgiven and to be
   reconciled to God. I know that I have done wrong--for me to plead that
   I have been innocent would be to add a lie to all my other iniquities.
   I am sensible in my inmost heart that I have both by omission and
   commission, transgressed the Divine Law. I deserve punishment, but I
   would that, by some means, I might be put into the Divine favor. I
   cannot bear to think that God should be angry with me every day! Once I
   laughed at this, but now I feel its meaning and it is like an arrow
   sticking in my loins. Oh, that I could have my Maker to be my Friend! I
   cannot fight the battle with Him--He could crush me in a moment! I
   would, therefore, cast down the weapons of my rebellion and be
   reconciled to Him." Come, then, you thirsty one, come and have what you
   need! Come and put your trust in Jesus and your sin is forgiven and you
   are reconciled--for, far off as you are, you shall be brought near by
   the blood of Christ! Do you know how? It is thus--God must punish sin.
   Your sin has incurred penalty, but He exacted your debt from your
   Surety. He punished Jesus for your sins which you have committed, if
   you believe in Jesus as your Substitute! He endured, that you might
   never endure, the whole of the Divine wrath! God can now, therefore,
   without marring His justice, reconcile to Himself the offending sinner,
   be agreed with him, receive him into friendship, yes, receive him into
   sonshipand adopt him as His child! That troubled conscience of yours
   will soon have peace if you will but trust in the bleeding Sacrifice of
   the Lamb of God for slain sinners! Put your hands upon His dear head,
   once crowned with thorns for you, and you shall prove that God is our
   Friend, and know that your sin is forgiven! Ho, everyone that thirsts
   for pardon and for reconciliation, come you to the waters, and have
   there your desire!

   I think I hear another say, "I desire that same blessing, but I need
   something more. I want to conquer the sin that dwells in me.I want to
   be pure and holy! I cannot bear to be in the future what I have been in
   the past! I feel the chains of habit that bind me--I need to snap them
   off. I would no longer be an example of vice--I want to be a pattern of
   everything that is lovely and of good repute. But I have struggled
   against sin and it gets the mastery over me. I do for a time escape,
   but still I bear my fetters upon me and am dragged back to my prison. I
   cannot be what I would, oh, that I could escape from the power of sin!"
   Ah, you thirsty one, it is a blessed thing to desire as you desire! And
   let me tell you that God will give you the desire of your heart, for
   Jesus died that He might deliver His people from the power of Satan! He
   came on purpose that He might destroy the power of sin in His people
   and make them so free that they should not serve sin, but become a
   people zealous for good works. If you will come to Jesus and simply
   believe in Him--that is, rely upon Him, trust Him--His Grace will come
   and refine you, implanting a new nature, taking away the heart of stone
   and giving a heart of flesh--and you shall yet put your foot upon the
   neck of all your corruptions! You shall cast them out little by little,
   and you shall be made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the
   saints in light! Ho, everyone that thirsts for purity and virtue and
   for victory over indwelling sin, let him come to the waters that flowed
   with the blood from Jesus' side--and let him taste and his thirst shall
   be appeased forever!

   In some persons this soul-thirst takes the shape of an anxious desire
   for perseverance and security. "I would like," says one, "oh, how I
   would like to know myself saved, and so saved that I never can be lost!
   Would that I could get on the Rock and feel the steadfastness of my
   refuge, that I might be able to sing--

   "'My name from the palms of His hands

   Eternity will not erase!

   Impressed on His heart it remains

   In marks of indelible Grace!'''

   1 recollect how I longed and panted after this, for no salvation ever
   seemed to me to be worth the having that would not last me to the end.
   No sign of Grace within seemed worth the having, but a sign that could
   never be cut off. The dread, "perhaps," haunted me lest the enterprise
   should be, after all, a failure, and the prospect of final deliverance
   should be defeated by some superior power of evil. I wanted the
   indwelling of Eternal Life, of that incorruptible life which lives and
   abides forever! Now, such a life as this it is that we read of in the
   Bible. Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, "Whoever drinks of the water
   that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
   give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
   life." You who want security, who wish to know that you are saved and
   to rejoice in it,

   may well listen to these words--"Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to
   the waters." If you come to Christ for this blessed satisfaction, you
   shall have it! Give yourselves up to Christ and you shall sing, in the
   words of our song--

   "I know that safe with Him remains Protected by His power, What I've
   committed to His hands Till the decisive hour."

   Yes, be your thirst for pardon, for reconciliation, for sanctification,
   for deliverance from sin, or for perseverance and safety, you shall
   have any and all of these in the waters which God has made to flow!

   There are persons in the world, however, whose thirst takes another
   form. They have a thirst for knowledge. They want to know, to know
   infallibly. Through how many theories some people wade! There are minds
   so naturally inclined for cavil and controversy, for reasoning and
   reconsidering, that the more they study, the more skeptical they grow.
   Always learning, they never come to the knowledge of the Truth of God.
   "Oh," such a man seems to say, "if I could but get hold of something
   that was true, some fact, some certainty." Well, Sir, if you thirst for
   this, let your soul be given up to a belief in Christ and you shall
   soon find certainty! I believe that the religion of Jesus Christ is so
   certain a truth to that man who has believed it, that it is so verified
   to his inner consciousness, and so interweaves itself with his entire
   being that no proposition of Euclid could ever be more demonstrable, or
   more absolutely conclusive! We have known and believed the Revelation
   that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. We have tasted, felt and
   handled the good Word of Life. I know, and many here know, that since
   we have believed in Jesus we have come to live in an entirely new
   world. We have broken through the veil that parted us from a kingdom of
   which we know nothing, and we have been brought into this new Kingdom
   and live in it, and are as conscious of new sensations, new emotions,
   new sorrows and new joys as we are conscious of the old sensations
   which we possessed before! It is true, Sirs, certainly true! Have not
   our martyrs stood at the stake and burnt for this Truth of God? That is
   a stern Truth for which a man will dare to burn! Twisted as their
   nerves and muscles were upon the rack, and their very hearts searched
   after with hot claws of fire by their tormentors, yet have they learned
   to sing in the midst of anguish, to tell of present enjoyment and to
   triumph in the absolute Truth of the Doctrine whereof they were the
   witnesses! If you need to get your foot upon a bit of rock, to feel
   your footing and express your conviction--"Now, this is true whatever
   else is not"--you must believe in Jesus Christ! Then you will be no
   more shifted about like an unguided vessel by every wind and every
   current, but you will be sailing with the heavenly Pilot on board,
   directing you to the haven of everlasting peace!

   But there are those whose thirst is that of the heart It is not so much
   something to believe as something to love which they need. Well, my
   dear Friend, if you would have something worthy of your affection, a
   Person whom you may love to the fullest possible extent and never be
   deceived, whom you may adore and never become an idolater, let me say
   to you--Come you to the waters, and drink of the love of Christ, for
   they that love Him much may love Him more--they cannot love Him too
   much! He never disappoints any confidence that is reposed in Him. His
   dear, sweet love which He pours into the souls of those who love Him is
   recompense for any sorrow they may have endured for His sake--a
   recompense that makes them forget their wrongs and woes in the
   exceeding weight of glory which it entails!

   Oh, did you but know my Master, you would find out that to know Him is
   to love Him! All things else in this world are insignificant in
   comparison with Him. As a candle is not to be compared to the sun at
   noonday, so the joys of this world are not worthy to be mentioned in
   the same century as the joys of communion with Christ! Get this, and
   you shall have overflowing joy! You shall be satisfied with marrow and
   fatness and drink of the wines on the lees well-refined!

   But time would fail me if I were to try to mention all the different
   forms of soul-thirst. Whatever they may be, God has provided a supply
   for them all. Sinner, you cannot need anything which God cannot give
   you! Your soul cannot crave for anything but He can bestow it. You
   cannot be so soul-sick but He has medicine that will heal you. You
   cannot be so naked but He can clothe you, nor so black but He can wash
   you, nor so devilish but He can sanctify you, nor so near being damned
   but He can save you! Christ is All-in-All. If you are just now ready to
   die. If you have brought yourself down to the gates of the grave by
   your sin. If you are suffering in the body the results of your
   iniquities. If your own conscience has pronounced on you the dread
   sentence of doom--know this--my Master's arm is strong, and long as
   well as strong! He is able to reach the worst, the vilest, and the most
   abandoned! And when He once reaches them, He will never let go of them
   till He has taken them out of the miry clay, out of the horrible pit
   and set their feet upon a rock and estab-

   lished their goings! I wish I had an angel's tongue, or could sound a
   trumpet that would be heard right round this world! How loudly, then,
   would I proclaim the glad tidings that God has in store for needy
   ones--everything they need! No sinner need die of famine, for there is
   no famine in this land of Grace. No traveler through this world needs
   to die of thirst, for the well is deep, and it eternally springs up. No
   sinner needs to starve, for the oxen and fatlings are killed and the
   Gospel message is, "Come, for all things are ready." God grant that
   knowing how bountifully all these things are provided, we may, none of
   us, keep back, turn a deaf ear to the general call, refuse the special
   invitation, slight the Grace, or scorn the Gospel!

   II. Observe, secondly, that THE GOSPEL PROVISIONS ARE FREE TO ALL
   THIRSTY SOULS.

   Do you notice the first word of the text? "Ho!" That is like the cry of
   the salesman at a fair. He calls out to passersby, "Ho! Look! listen!
   Turn here! Here is a bargain--something worth your attention!" So God
   condescends, as it were, to cry out to those who are busy with this
   world's cares, its business and its barter, its buying and selling,
   "Ho! Ho! Ho! Here is something worth your minding, you that would be
   rich at little cost, you that are in want, you that are in need, you
   that would find something that shall exactly meet your case." Ho!--this
   is the Gospel note! A short, significant appeal, urging you to be wise
   enough to attend to your own interests. Oh, the condescension of
   God--that He should, as it were, become a beggar to His own creature
   and stoop from the magnificence of His Glory to cry, "Ho!" to foolish
   and ungrateful men!

   Notice the next words, "Ho! Everyone"--not some of you that thirst, but
   everyone--you rich ones, you poor ones, you great men, you little men,
   you old people, you young folk. "Ho! Everyone that thirsts." Now, it
   does not say, "Everyone except--except--except." No, no! Here is an
   amnesty published without exception or exemption. Here is an invitation
   given to every longing, thirsting one--and not a single name struck
   out--"Ho! Everyone that thirsts."

   And then it is added, "come." Not, "make yourselves ready." Not, "bring
   your money," or, "prove your title," but, "come!" Come just as you are.
   The coming is believing, trusting. Believe, trust, then, while you are
   as you are! Rely upon Christ--"comeyou to the waters." Come now. Read
   the invitation for yourselves. It is written in the present tense. Obey
   the summons--come, come at once! Though you have no money, you may come
   and take a drink, for it is freely provided for you. As I walked over a
   long sandy road one day last week when the weather was sultry and the
   heat far beyond our common experience in this country--almost
   tropical--I saw a little stream of cool water and, being parched with
   thirst, I stooped down and drank. Do you think I asked anybody's
   permission, or enquired whether I might drink or not? I didn't know to
   whom it belonged and I didn't care! There it was and I felt, as it was
   there, it was enough for me. Nobody was there to call out, "Ho!" My
   inward craving called out, "Ho!" I was thirsty and water was there
   inviting to my taste! I noticed, after I had drunk, that two poor
   tramps came along and they stooped down and drank in like manner. I
   didn't find anybody marching them off to prison. There was the
   stream--and the stream being there, and the thirsty men being
   there--the supply was suited to their need and they promptly partook of
   it. How strange it is that when God had provided this Gospel, and men
   need it, they should require somebody to call out to them, Ho! Ho! Ho!
   And then they will not come, after all! Oh, if they were a little more
   thirsty, if they did but know their need more, if they were more
   convinced of their sin--then they would scarcely need an invitation,
   but the mere fact of a supply would be sufficient for them and they
   would come and drink--and satisfy the burning thirst within.

   Now, although the Gospel provision is free to all thirsty souls, there
   are many who cannot believe this. Some cannot believe it because they
   stumble at the Doctrines. What Doctrine frightens you, dear Friend? Is
   it the Doctrine of Election? Well now, I believe the Doctrine of
   Election, and I thank God that I do. It is a precious Doctrine. And let
   me tell you, dear Friend, that the Doctrine of Election shuts nobody
   out, though it shuts a great many in. "But I may not come and trust
   Christ." How do you know that? God says you may--in fact, He says, "He
   that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed,"
   thus making it a sin not to believe! So you really have such a right to
   believe that it becomes even your duty! Whatever the Doctrine of
   Election may be, or may be meant to be, we will not talk of that just
   at present, for it is quite certain that it cannot contradict any plain
   practical direction of Scripture. Here is a plain text, which no one
   can deny, "He that believes on Him is not condemned." If, then, you
   believe on Jesus Christ, you are not condemned--election or no
   election! But let me tell you, if you believe in Christ you are one of
   His elect! And it is because He elected you that you come to believe in
   Him--it is because He chose you that you are led to desire Him and made
   to accept Him! Let not that Doctrine ever terrify you, or provoke your
   distrust, for if you rightly understand the

   Revelation, it is rather a finger beckoning to Christ than a specter
   that should intimidate you, or drive you away from

   Him!

   Then your spirit of legality will tell you that the Gospel is not free
   to you. Why not? Oh, because you are not fit to receive it. This, I
   say, is a spirit of legality and is clearly contrary to the Gospel!
   There is no fitness needed to receive Christ! You see men go to wash.
   What is the fitness for washing? Why, to be dirty--and that is no
   fitness. All the fitness a sinner can have for Christ is simply to need
   Christ. If you are empty, you are fit for Christ and He will come and
   fill you. If you are poor, you are fit for Christ to make you rich. He
   that is sick is fit for a physician. He that is needy is fit for pity.
   He that is guilty is fit for mercy. I beseech you, get rid of that
   pestilent and soul-destroying idea of fitness for Christ! You cannot
   come to Godas you are, but you may come to the Savior as you are. All
   black and unwashed you may come and wash in the fountain which He has
   opened! Let nothing, then, by way of legality, make you think that the
   Gospel provisions are not free to you.

   But what if your unbelief should tell you that the provisions of Grace
   are not for you because you have been such a great sinner? Did not
   Jesus come into the world to save the very greatest of sinners? He
   said, "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." You
   may have soared as high as the mountains in your sin, but God's flood,
   like, that of Noah, can go over the tops of all your iniquities! Do not
   limit the Holy One of Israel by your unbelief! Believe Him and you
   shall be forgiven, even though you were worse than you are!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters! Whatever the devil may say, and whatever your
   irritated conscience may say against the freeness of God's mercy, I
   tell you solemnly it is as free to every thirsty one as the drinking
   fountain at the street corner! It is as free as the air that blows over
   the mountain and into the valleys--free to every lung that breathes--so
   free is the mercy of God! God stints not His mercy when men need it. Be
   they but thirsty, let them but long for it, and they shall have it! If
   there is any difficulty, it is on your part, not on God's part. You are
   not straitened in Him--you are straitened in yourselves. O guilty
   Sinners, if you find no mercy, it is not because God is unwilling to
   give, but because you will not trust Him! Because you will not think
   that He can save you! The prodigal never could have believed his
   father's heart to be so kind as it was had he not tried and proved it.
   Come and try my Master's heart! I tell you that He will blot out your
   sins like a cloud and your transgressions like a thick cloud! Only rest
   on Him and you shall find Him better than you ever dreamed Him to be!
   As for my words, they cannot fully set Him forth. May you be brought to
   try Him, for then you will be sure to find that He is a mighty Savior!

   The provisions of Grace must be free to thirsty ones, why else were
   they provided?Why should there be a Savior for sinners if God will not
   give salvation to sinners? Why those wounds? Why that bloody sweat? Why
   that crown of thorns, why those expiring throes if God will not receive
   sinners? The dying Savior is the best answer to the caviling of
   unbelievers. He must be willing to forgive who spared not His own Son!
   If the Gospel were not free to thirsty ones, why is it published? If it
   were not meant for you, why are we bid to tell it to you and to
   continue sounding it in your ears? If it were meant for a few in a
   corner, why publish it in the streets? Why gather the crowds together,
   as we are bound to do, and find out those in the highways and hedges
   with a mandate to compel them to come in? Why do all this if God
   intends to bar the door in their faces? The very fact that the Gospel
   is preached to the sinner is God's love-token that He will accept you
   if you will come to Him! Why is there a Mercy Seat? Why are you allowed
   to pray? Why are you bid to pray, if God will not hear? This were a
   mockery of which you cannot accuse God--that He should encourage a
   sinner to pray with no intention of hearing him! Let me ask you
   again--How is it that others have found God's mercy so free when they
   have come and trusted Christ? Why is that multitude in Heaven, all once
   as guilty as you are, but all having washed their robes in the precious
   blood of Jesus? Why those on earth who have found peace? They had
   nothing to recommend them any more than you have. They will all tell
   you that they came just as they were, in all their rags and beggary,
   and Jesus did not reject them. No, glory be to His name, He received us
   freely!

   Come, then, fellow Sinners, come! May the eternal Spirit draw you now!
   Even now, "come you to the waters." Though you have no money and no
   price and no goodness, come and rest in Jesus and find everlasting
   life! Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters." That is my
   message. There is your welcome. Come! Do come! So my errand will speed.
   So your souls will be blessed. So God's name will be glorified! Amen.

   ISAIAH55.

   Verse 1. Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that
   has no money; come you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price. [See Sermons #1161, Volume 20--without
   money and without price and

   #1726, Volume 29--BUYING WITHOUT MONEY.] The description of Gospel

   blessings grows sweeter as it advances. "Waters'' first, "wine and
   milk" next, and still all "without money and without price." We preach
   no narrow salvation--we rejoice in the Covenant of Grace--it is the
   backbone of our theology, but the Gospel has wide arms, a loud voice
   and persuasive tones! "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the
   waters." In Christ there is a full supply for all our
   necessities--bread and water and yes, there are luxuries sufficient for
   our largest desires--wine and milk and He wants us to bring nothing in
   payment for them! "Without money and without price." That is, indeed,
   Free Grace! Some people object to that expression and say that it is
   tautology, for Grace must be free--but we mean to keep on using it that
   all may know that Grace is free, gratis, all for nothing!

   2. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor
   for that which satisfies not? The less value there is in any religion,
   the more you have to pay for it. The pardon that costs a shilling is
   not worth a farthing, but that which costs us nothing is worth more
   than the whole world!

   2. Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat you that which is good, and let
   your soul delight itself in fatness. [See Sermons

   #2278, Volume 38--FEEDING ON THE WORD and #2786, Volume 48--THE SOUL'S
   BEST FOOD.] All that your largest desires can long for, you will find
   in Christ. You shall have not only necessities, but delicacies,
   delights that shall satisfy you to the fullest! You shall not be able
   to conceive of anything that shall be more rich and full than the Grace
   of God. The Gospel is "that which is good." Yes, it is the best food
   our souls can ever eat! It gratifies, it satisfies and fills our
   spirits with holy joy and exhilaration!

   3. Incline your ear, and come unto Me-[See Sermons #2092, Volume
   35--GOD'S OWN GOSPEL CALL and #2316, Volume 39--TWELVE COVENANT
   MERCIES.] This is the gate by which salvation enters into

   man--Ear-Gate--by hearing and believing. "Incline your ear," bend it
   forward as if you would catch every word-- "and come unto Me"--

   3. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting
   covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Only think of a
   Covenant made with needy sinners, thirsty sinners! God striking hands
   with guilty men in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is a sure Covenant,
   too--not made up of "ifs" and "buts" and "perhapses," but a Covenant
   sealed with blood and signed by Him who gives an oath with it that He
   will never turn from it, that you may have "strong consolation."

   4. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a Leader and
   Commander to the people. [See Sermons #2534, Volume

   43--THE GREATEST GIFT IN TIME OR ETERNITY and #2787, Volume
   48--CHRIST'S TRIPLE CHARACTER.] He who is our greater David comes to us
   to bear witness to the Immutable Love of God and to be to us our
   Captain and our King! Happy are the souls that accept this David to be
   their Leader. You remember how David, in the Cave Adullam, gathered to
   himself "everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt,
   and everyone that was discontented, and he became a captain over them."
   Even so, the great Antitype, David's Son and David's Lord, is willing
   now to gather to Himself those who are spiritually bankrupt,
   discontented and weary with the world, and God says, "I have given Him
   for a witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people."

   5. Behold, You shall calla nation that You knownot, andnations that
   know You notshallrun unto You because of the LORD Your God and for the
   Holy One oflsrael; for He has glorified You. What joy this gives to you
   who love Him! Jehovah has glorified His Son, and given to Him the power
   to call to Himself a people that He knew not in a saving sense, and He
   shall so call nations that knew Him not that they shall run unto Him!
   We do not preach the Gospel at hapha-zard--we are sure of results. If
   we speak in faith, in the name of Christ, men must be saved, they must
   run to Christ. It is not left to their option--there is a Divine hand
   that secretly touches the springs of the will of men so that, when
   Christ calls them, they run to Him! Oh, that He would just now call
   them, even those that are furthest off, that they may run to Him and
   that He may be glorified! A Savior without souls saved by Him would be
   only a Savior in name. A head without a body would be a very ghastly
   thing. A shepherd without sheep would be a man without occupation. A
   Christ anointed to save the lost, and yet no lost ones coming to
   Him--where would His Glory be? But sinners, drawn by His Almighty
   Grace, run to Him, and so God glorifies Him!

   6. Seek you the LORD while He may be found, call you upon Him while He
   is near. In those happy Gospel times when Christ is set forth on
   purpose that "He may be found," seek Him, call upon Him! He is very
   near when the Gospel is preached with holy unction, when Christians are
   praying, when hearts are breaking for the conversion of sinners, and
   when His Spirit is working in their hearts that they may repent of sin.

   7. Let the wicked forsake his way--It is a bad way, it is a downward
   way, it is a way that will end in destruction! Do not follow it any
   longer. "Let the wicked forsake his way."--

   7. And the unrighteous man his thoughts. "Thoughts!" says one, "We
   shall not be hanged for our thoughts!" Oh, but you may be damned for
   your thoughts! No man has really forsaken the way of wickedness until
   he hates the very thought of wickedness. If your thoughts run after
   evil, your tongues will soon utter evil and your hands will soon do
   evil.

   7. And let him return--he is like one who has wandered from his
   father's house--"let him return." He is like the dove that flew away
   from Noah's ark and was ready to faint. "Let him return"--

   7. Unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for
   He will abundantly pardon. [See Sermons

   #1195, Volume 20--ABUNDANT PARDON and #2797, Volume 48--THE NEED AND
   NATURE OF CONVERSION.] What a blessed word, "abundantly," is here!
   Abundant pardon to cover abundant sin, abundant provocation, abundant
   rejection of His Word!

   8. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My way,
   says the LORD. "Says the Lord," as if He would not leave the Prophet to
   speak any longer on His behalf! He Himself appears upon the scene and
   speaks--"For My thoughts are not your thoughts." No doubt He refers
   here to the pardon of sin. Our thoughts are narrow! We find it hard to
   forgive great offenses, to forgive many offenses, to forgive many
   offenders, to continue completely to forgive-- all this is very
   difficult to man.

   9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
   than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. Think of the
   biggest thought you ever had concerning God's forgiveness of sins. Try
   again. Let your thoughts rise still higher--you cannot have reached the
   utmost height yet, "for as the heavens are higher than the earth," so
   are His thoughts and ways higher than yours!

   10. 11. For as the rain comes down and the snow from Heaven and returns
   not there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that
   it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall My Word
   be that goes forth out ofMy mouth: it shall not return unto Me void but
   it shall accomplish that which Iplease, and it shallprosper in the
   thing whereto I sent it. If you believe this great promise, you shall
   have the full benefit of it. Let this gracious rain drop on you, and it
   must refresh you. Let these blessed snowflakes come down on you, and
   they shall melt into your bosom, and remain there to bless you
   forever--they shall not go back to God with their mission unfulfilled!
   As for us who preach that Word, or teach it in the Sunday school--we
   may have a full assurance that we shall not labor in vain, nor spend
   our strength for nothing! No, no--the raindrops go not on an errand
   that can fail and the snowflakes that fall to the earth accomplish the
   end for which they are sent! Much more shall the purpose of God's Word
   be accomplished! Behold, it drops like the gentle rain--like snowflakes
   fly the messages of mercy from the lips of the Lord, Himself, and they
   shall not fall in vain, blessed be His holy name!

   12. For you shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the
   mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and
   all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.There shall seem to
   be joy everywhere when there is joy in your heart. When you receive
   Christ, you have put everything round about you into its true position.
   The whole Creation is a vast organ, and man puts his tiny fingers on
   the keys and evokes thunders of harmony to the praise of God! When the
   heart is filled with joy and peace, mountains and hills break forth
   before us into singing and all the trees of the field clap their hands!

   13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree. The thorn is
   everywhere, today, pricking our feet and maiming our hands. But
   "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree." Where is the thorn,
   then? I see it upon the bleeding brow of Christ--He has taken it away
   and worn it as a crown!

   13. And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it
   shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting

   sign that shall not be cut off [See Sermons #833, Volume 14--THE LORD'S
   NAME AND MEMORIAL; #2410, Volume 41--SPRINGTIME IN NATURE AND GRACE and
   #3044, Volume 53--SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATIONS.] It shall make

   men know what He is like, what gracious power He has, what goodness
   dwells in Him! "It shall be to Jehovah for a

   name"--"An everlasting sign." That sign is exhibited today in the eyes
   of men. An evil and adulterous generation called for a sign, and this
   is the sign that God has given--His converting Grace in His Church.
   Instead of miracles, we have the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts
   of sinners--and if any will not believe when this sign is sent to them,
   neither would they believe though one rose from the dead! It stands as
   "an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."
     __________________________________________________________________

Titles of Honor

   (No. 3300)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
   5, 1886.

   "Brethren beloved of the Lord." 2 Thessalonians. 2:13.

   THE verse from which my text is taken begins thus, "But we are bound to
   give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord," so I
   will commence my discourse by saying that we might often find comfort
   and relief from gloomy apprehensions by associating with those who are
   "beloved of the Lord." If you read the Chapter through, you will
   perceive that Paul's mind was greatly exercised concerning the perilous
   times which were to come to the Church of Christ. He wrote to warn the
   Thessalonians concerning the coming of antichrist, and then said that
   there were some to whom God would send "strong delusion, that they
   should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not
   the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteous." The Apostle 's heart was
   so heavily burdened with that sorrowful theme that he was glad to turn
   his pen to quite a different subject and, therefore, he wrote, "But we
   are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the
   Lord." Just now, there is a general opinion that the growth of Popery
   in this land is most alarming and that the declension of vital
   godliness is very serious. And while we do not fully agree with the
   alarmists, we are obliged to admit that these are times of peculiar
   peril. The tendency of those who look only at the black side of the
   question is to fret and worry--and to feel that God's Church is in
   danger. Brethren, I would not have you shut your eyes to the dangers by
   which we are surrounded, but I would not have you dispirited by them,
   either! There are still many saints left in the world. There are still
   they who, like those in Sardis, have not defiled their garments. There
   are still some who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. There are still
   many earnest and faithful testifiers to the Truth of God as it is in
   Jesus. So, although you may mourn over the evils of the times, you are
   bound to always give thanks to God that there are some "brethren
   beloved of the Lord" still left upon the face of the earth! David spoke
   of the saints that were on the earth in his day as "the excellent, in
   whom is all my delight." And David's Lord, our blessed Master, no doubt
   found no small solace, as a Man, in associating with Mary, Martha and
   Lazarus, for He seems to have withdrawn from the multitude who mocked
   and scoffed and to have retired into the privacy of domestic piety--and
   there to have found joy and comfort in the midst of the happy family
   that was so closely attached to Him. There are still in the world many
   of the precious sons of Zion who are comparable to fine gold and
   concerning whom the Lord says, "They shall be Mine in that day when I
   make up My jewels." Be wise, my Brothers and Sisters, and let it be
   said of you as it was said of them of old, "They that feared the Lord
   spoke often, one to another," for there is comfort to be found in the
   society of God's saints-- let the times be ever so perilous and dark.

   But I would advance a step beyond this preliminary observation and
   remark that when things are outwardly not as the children of God would
   like them to be, and when there is much within them that is not as it
   should be, they may often derive much solace by reflecting upon their
   true condition in the sight of God in connection with the Lord Jesus
   Christ. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I know that many of you have
   grievous trials to endure. And I am well aware that if you look within,
   you will see much that will distress you. You will perceive that the
   old Adam still lurks within you and that notwithstanding all the force
   that has been brought against him by Divine Grace, he is still far too
   vigorous! It is true that some of you have also to suffer from poverty
   and that your lot is a very difficult one--yet we are bound to give
   thanks always to God for you, and you are, yourselves, bound to give
   thanks on your own behalf because notwithstanding your poverty, and
   notwithstanding your infirmity, and notwithstanding even the sin of
   which you have such cause to mourn, you are still "beloved of the
   Lord"--and in the Person of Jesus Christ you are "without spot, or
   wrinkle, or any such thing"! When faith recognizes the vital union
   which exists between Christ and the soul and realizes the consequent

   blessedness and security of the saint, then it cries, "I am bound to
   give thanks always unto God, for I am still beloved of the Lord
   notwithstanding all that causes me often to weep and mourn."

   It is my purpose, this evening, to invite all of you who are trusting
   in the Lord Jesus Christ to contemplate your true standing in the sight
   of God--that you may be uplifted from the dunghills of your complaints,
   shake off the ashes of your doubts, unwind the sackcloth of your fears,
   put on your beautiful garments of holy rejoicing and sing aloud unto
   Him through whose Grace you are made worthy to be called "brethren
   beloved of the Lord." There are two topics on which I have to speak.
   First, the titles mentioned in the text And, secondly, the wearers of
   those titles.

   I. First, then, let us think for a while of THE TITLES MENTIONED IN THE
   TEXT--"brethren" and, "beloved of the Lord."

   "Brethren" is a very special word--the utterance of it awakens an echo
   in every Believer's heart. It is naturally a silver word, but
   spiritually God has transmuted it into gold. I do not wonder that a
   certain sect has appropriated this title, yet we equally claim the name
   of, "brethren," as our own, and we share it with all who are the
   children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. The title, "brethren," is
   very hallowed and very precious to us--let us try to find out what it
   implies.

   First, it indicates a common nature. Whatever opinions any may hold
   concerning the unity of the human race, there can be no difference of
   opinion about the unity of nature in those who are born of the same
   parents. Where should I expect to find a person more in sympathy with
   myself than my own brother? Where should I expect to find, beneath the
   cope of Heaven, another soul that should be more akin to mine than the
   soul of my brother? If there are not peace and love between us, where
   can they be found? However much we may differ from one another in some
   respects, there must be certain lineaments of feature or traits of
   character in which we are alike. But even if this is not so naturally,
   it certainly is so spiritually! All Believers are alike partakers of
   the Divine Nature--we are all equally begotten again unto a lively hope
   by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! The inner life of
   all true Christians is the same--there is not a Baptist life and a
   Methodist life, or a Nonconformist life and a Church of England life.
   The Divine Life is one wherever it is bestowed. The life of my hand and
   the life of my foot are one and the same, pulsating from the same
   central source and maintained by the same power. And the life of God is
   the same in all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ. This is
   something more than brotherhood--that idea does not cover the whole
   truth although it includes much of it. There is a distinct unity of
   nature in all the saints of the living God! Hence, Brothers and
   Sisters, I can never tolerate any attempts to limit communion between
   those who are really one in Christ. It always seems to me that it would
   be an infraction of the Divine Law if I were to say to a Brother in
   Christ that I could not commune with him because of certain minor
   matters in which we do not quite agree. Besides, whether I am willing
   to do so or not, I cannot help communing with him for he is a part of
   Christ's Mystical Body of which I also am a part! So that unless I
   could myself get out of that body, or he could get out of it, which is
   impossible for either of us, I must remain in spiritual communion with
   him whatever I may do concerning the outward and visible symbols of
   that communion. No, more than that, if I could go to Heaven and that
   Brother still tarried here upon the earth, our communion would not be
   broken, for Dr. Watts was right when he sang--

   "The saints on earth, and all the dead,

   But one communion make!

   All join in Christ, their living Head,

   And of His Grace partake."

   The term, "brethren," also implies a common experience. The brethren in
   an earthly family have the same parents, they live in the same house,
   they partake of the some food, they share all the privileges and varied
   experiences of the same household. So is it with those who are of the
   household of faith, the family of God. Their experiences may vary even
   as one child in the home differs from another, but there is much more
   similarity than there is diversity in the experiences of the living
   children of the living God. We have all been broken in pieces. We have
   all been bound up. We have all been emptied. We have all been brought
   to the Cross. We have all been led by one Spirit to drink of the same
   precious Truth! We have not all subscribed to the same creed, yet in
   substance and in effect, the Doctrine of all the children of God is, to
   a large extent, identical. They rely for salvation upon the atoning
   Sacrifice of Christ, and therein they are all one. Their pilgrim path
   is through the same wilderness, they eat the same manna, they drink of
   the same Rock, they are led by the same cloudy-fiery pillar, and they
   come at last to the same heavenly Canaan and go no more out forever!
   They are and they must be one, not only because they are one in nature,
   but because the various processes through which that nature has to pass
   are so largely the same.

   More than this, the title, "brethren," implies that we love one
   another. It is said that there is a lack of love in certain churches
   that profess to be Christian. Well, perhaps there is. I am not going to
   be an accuser of the brethren in that re-

   spect, but I believe there is a great deal more love existing among
   Christians than many persons imagine. Possibly, those who say there is
   a lack of love in our midst judge by the state of their own hearts,
   while those who really love the saints find that the saints also love
   them. Do not suppose, dear Friends, because the preacher has sometimes
   to proclaim very unpalatable Truths of God and because he sometimes
   delivers his message in stern tones, that therefore he has not a tender
   heart! Fidelity to the Truth of God requires that it should be spoken
   in such a fashion as to secure public attention, and this involves the
   use of great plainness of speech and a manner of delivery which some
   may resent. And the man who honestly and fearlessly acts thus is more
   acceptable to God and has far greater and truer love in his heart than
   the one who says, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace! As I hate
   Satan and all his works, so my soul hates every false doctrine in this
   Church and in every Church! But as I love God and all that God loves,
   so am I desirous to love every child of the loving God. And I will
   further say that not only do I desire to love every child of God, but I
   think I really do. Do you not feel, beloved Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, whenever you meet a Believer in Jesus, and begin to talk of the
   things that belong to His Kingdom, you have fellowship with him in
   heart and spirit even though you had never seen him before? When we
   talk of Jesus, our love to one another soon begins to flow! The true
   basis of our communion with one another is that we are there in Christ
   Jesus--and that union manifests itself in love to all who are, as our
   text puts it, "brethren beloved of the Lord."

   This word, "brethren," is a far-reaching word, for it further implies
   that all Christians have a common Father. Let all Believers rejoice
   that they can unite in saying, "Our Father, who are in Heaven." There
   is a straight line from my heart to the heart of God--and so there is
   from your heart, my Brother or my Sister in Christ--so our Father's
   heart is our common meeting place! We were there in purpose before this
   world was created. We are there by faith at this moment and we shall be
   there by blessed experience when this world has passed away and time
   shall be no more! Having the same Father, we share equally in that
   Father's love. We may not always feel the same love to all our Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, but God's love to us and His love to them knows
   no variation. I trust you all realize that our Father is quite
   impartial in His love to all His children and that all who are truly
   members of His family through their union to Christ shall have an equal
   share of it. Hence the tie of Christian brotherhood become a very
   solemn and a very precious thing, for it not only binds us fast to our
   Father in Heaven, but it also binds us closely to one another! I pray
   that the members of this Church may always act toward each other as
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ. I wish that among all the saints there
   might be a sort of spiritual Freemasonry so that whenever we might
   meet, we should recognize one another by the holy grip of Christian
   love. There are certain sacred passwords that are common to all the
   saints and I will defy the hypocrite or the worldling to pronounce them
   aright--but if he should be able to utter them with his lips--he can
   never really know their meaning in his heart. There are certain
   experiences that cannot be learned without the teaching of the Holy
   Spirit. There is a certain way of speaking about Christ that can never
   be acquired as a parrot learns to talk. There is a certain ring which
   God gives to His gold which is never bestowed upon baser metal--and
   there is a certain something about a true child of God which enables
   him to recognize others of the same family and which also enables them
   to recognize him so that when they come together, their hearts leap up
   at the thought that they are "brethren beloved of the

   Lord."

   Perhaps I have lingered too long over that first title, so now I must
   turn to the second one, "beloved of the Lord." You do need my
   explanations here, for the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle to give the
   Divine explanation of this title of honor. Turn to the verse from which
   our text is taken and you will see that the first thought concerning
   the Lord's love to you is that of its antiquity--"We are bound to give
   thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God
   has from the beginning chosen you." You always were "beloved of the
   Lord"! He did not begin to love you when you first repented and turned
   to Him. He saw you in the glass of His eternal purpose and he loved you
   then! That love He proved many centuries before you knew anything about
   it, for His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, had
   redeemed you 1800 years before you were born--He gave the fullest proof
   of His affection for you in laying down His life for you. There was
   nothing in you to merit this wondrous Self-Sacrifice on the part of
   Christ--on the contrary, you were His enemies, you profaned His holy
   name, and despised His Sacrifice after you learned what He had done!
   But He gave Himself for you because from eternity He had loved you with
   a love that would not be turned from its purpose by anything that He
   foresaw would be done by you!

   In addition to the antiquity of the Lord's love to you, think also of
   its richness. The Apostle says, "God has from the beginning chosen you
   to salvation." Have you grasped the full meaning of that word,
   salvation, Beloved? It does not merely mean salvation from Hell, though
   that is included in it, but it means salvation from sin, salvation from
   the guilt

   and power of sin, salvation from your doubts, your fears, your
   troubles--salvation from that besetting infirmity of yours, salvation
   from the devil's dominion over you, salvation in all its fullness from
   first to last! To all this "God has from the beginning chosen you" who
   are "brethren beloved of the Lord"! This is no mean inheritance, no
   slender portion, no slight gift--indeed, it is not easy to find words
   in which adequately to describe all that God has done for you in
   choosing you "to salvation." It will need all eternity to fully explain
   the meaning of that great word! You are, indeed, "beloved of the Lord"
   in having such a priceless portion as this bestowed upon you!

   Notice, next, the wisdom, of the Lord's love to you. "God has from the
   beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
   and belief of the truth." Had it been possible for you to have had
   salvation without sanctifica-tion, it would have been a curse to you
   instead of a blessing. If such a thing were possible, I cannot conceive
   of a more lamentable condition than for a man to have the happiness of
   salvation without the holiness of it! Happily, it is not possible. If
   you could be saved from the consequences of sin, but not from the sin,
   itself, and its power and pollution, it would be no blessing to you.
   But the salvation to which God has from the beginning chosen you is
   inseparably linked with the cleansing and sanctifying work of the Holy
   Spirit who operates within you through the instrumentality of faith!
   Your belief of the Truth of God has a purifying influence upon your
   whole life and makes you desire to follow in the footprints of your
   dear Lord and Savior. Thus God shows His wisdom in the choice of the
   means which He blesses to your salvation--blessing you as much by the
   means as by the salvation, itself--blessing you as much in the road as
   in the end to which it leads! You are, indeed, "beloved of the Lord" in
   having the Spirit of God thus dwelling in you and bestowing upon you
   that precious gift of faith by which you are enabled to believe the
   Truths of God!

   Observe, too, in order to increase your joy in the Lord, the signs of
   this love. In the next verse, the Apostle goes on to say, "whereunto He
   called you by our Gospel." Do you not remember, you who are "beloved of
   the Lord," when you were called by the Gospel? Then was the eternal
   purpose of God fulfilled in your experience. Go back in thought to the
   time of your espousal to Christ. Recall the sound of the silver trumpet
   that then brought you into Gospel liberty. You had been to the House of
   God hundreds of times before when that same trumpet was ringing out the
   glad refrain--

   "The year of jubilee is come! Return, you ransomed sinners, home"-- but
   your ears and heart had been sealed to the message! But that day the
   Lord opened your heart and unstopped your ears, so that you were
   numbered among the happy people who heard the joyful sound! Your
   calling proved your election, and it stands to you still as gracious
   evidence of God's eternal love to you. Happy are we, too, if we can say
   with the Apostle, "whereunto He called you by our Gospel." I know that
   however many may preach the Gospel better than I do, there is no one
   who can preach a better Gospel than the one I preach, for it is that
   Gospel which "is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
   believes." "Our Gospel" is the best of gospels, the richest of gospels,
   it cannot be excelled, it cannot be equaled! In fact, it is the only
   Gospel that is worthy of the name! You remember how Paul wrote to the
   Galatians, "I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called
   you into the Grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not
   another." That is to say, it is not another gospel and it brings only a
   curse both upon him who preaches it and those who receive it! But
   blessed are you who have been called unto salvation by "our Gospel."

   There is yet one more sign of God's eternal love which is to be seen by
   us in the future--"to the obtaining of the Glory of our Lord Jesus
   Christ." We who believe in Jesus are so "beloved of the Lord" that He
   will never be satisfied until we share His Glory! So be glad in the
   Lord and rejoice in the glorious prospect that He has set before you!
   God was not content to choose you to happiness here, but He has also
   chosen you to happiness hereafter! He was not satisfied with making a
   little Heaven for you here below, but He has made a great Heaven for
   you up above! He has not appointed an earthly paradise where He might
   sometimes come to you as He came to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden,
   but He has prepared a place for you in His own Home in Glory that you
   may dwell forever in your Father's House where there are many abiding
   places. Rejoice, then, "beloved of the Lord," that He has "called you
   by our Gospel to the obtaining of the Glory of our Lord Jesus Christ"!

   Of course it is not in my power to enable every Christian here to suck
   all the sweet out of this title, but it is in the power of the Holy
   Spirit to enable you to--and by the exercise of faith you may draw much
   of it out. I claim this title for myself--"beloved of the Lord"--and
   each Brother or Sister in Christ may claim it for himself or herself.
   "O man greatly beloved" was the title given to Daniel, and that is the
   title that is given to every Believer in Jesus. "That disciple whom
   Jesus loved" was the distinguishing title of one of His followers when
   Christ was here in the flesh. And now that after the flesh we know
   Christ no more, we are His in such a special sense that every child of
   God is "that disciple whom Jesus loves." May you get a firm grip of
   that Truth of God, Beloved, and realize that Jesus loves you! You
   cannot obtain this

   assurance except by faith, but when you have believed, joy and peace
   will quickly follow upon the heels of faith. No, they come hand in
   hand, for we have joy and peace in believing!

   II. I have taken so long in speaking of these titles of honor that I
   have very little time left for speaking of THE

   WEARERS OF THESE TITLES.

   Suppose, dear Friends, you had all heard the Gospel preached and that
   you understood the dignity and happiness of a Christian--what sort of a
   person would you suppose him to be? If I try to picture him for you,
   you will see how far your ideas and mine agree. I should think you
   would so imagine that a man who is "beloved of the Lord" would be the
   happiest man in the world. You naturally suppose that if the eternal
   God has loved him, if the infinite heart of the Most High has been set
   upon him from all eternity, he must experience the greatest imaginable
   delight in such a belief and he must feel that whatever else he may or
   may not possess, he is rich to the fairest possible extent in having
   the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit who is
   given unto him! I know that a sorrowful friend over yonder is saying,
   "If I really could say that Jesus is mine, I would be quite content to
   be poor. If I were 'beloved of the Lord,' I would not mind if I had to
   lie in a dungeon or even to be burned to death for His sake." So I
   conceive that those who are "beloved of the Lord" must be the most
   happy and joyful people to be found anywhere upon the face of the
   earth!

   I suppose, too, that the influence of this love upon them would make
   them very careful not to offend their loving Lord. Naturally, the love
   of Christ would exercise such a constraining influence upon them that
   they would feel that men so highly favored as they are ought not to
   live as other men do--but that, being distinguished by such peculiar
   privileges, they should be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
   Without violating the proprieties of conjecture, I can conceive that
   the "beloved of the Lord" would be most heavenly-minded people. Having
   such treasure in Heaven, they would naturally not care about the things
   of earth, but would set their affection on things above so that where
   their treasure is there would their heart be also. I think the Believer
   would be longing and panting to get a peep through the pearly gates and
   that until he could be there with his loving Lord, he would often be
   singing--

   "My heart is with Him on His Throne, And ill can brook delay! Each
   moment listening for the voice, 'Rise up, and come away!'"

   Further, I can suppose that the "beloved of the Lord" are so grateful
   for their Lord's love that they are constantly telling others the story
   of that love. And that when they meet their fellow Christians, their
   constant theme of conversation is the riches of Divine Grace. I can
   suppose that these people are so different from others that wherever
   they go, they are looked upon with astonishment! Difficulties I suppose
   they have, but being "beloved of the Lord" they take their difficulties
   to Him and He enables them to overcome them by His Grace. Trials I
   suppose they have, but they are sure to go to God about them and He
   either removes them or gives the necessary strength to endure them. I
   suppose they are people who compass sea and land, not to make
   proselytes to their particular sect, but by holy self-denial and
   consecrated service to glorify God and extend the Redeemer's Kingdom on
   earth.

   Is not this what you are longing to do, Beloved? Well, it is a good
   thing to have high aspirations, but it is an even better thing to turn
   those aspirations to practical account. Is there not something that we
   can do for Christ tonight? The Israelites found the manna in the
   wilderness, not by looking up to Heaven, but by looking down on the
   ground. And instead of looking up to Heaven for means of glorifying
   God, we may find opportunities of doing so all around our daily path!
   Let us, each one, ask ourselves these questions and answer them as in
   the sight of God--What can I do for God in my own family circle? What
   can I say about Jesus to my friends? How can I bring most Glory to God
   in my own spiritual life? What choice gift can I bring to my Savior as
   Mary brought the costly ointment of spikenard and anointed the feet of
   Jesus? What tears of penitence can I weep before His marred visage?
   What holy faith can I now exercise in His risen and glorified Person?
   Let me, as the "beloved of the Lord," with my largest ideas concerning
   His Glory and the coming of His Kingdom, see what I can practically do
   to show that I truly love Him by whom I am so greatly beloved!

   I wish, Brothers and Sisters, that the portrait of the happiest man in
   the world that I tried to draw a few minutes ago might prove to be your
   own likeness. Some of you are sad and despondent, yet you are the
   "beloved of the Lord." Then why are you so dispirited? You are heavy of
   heart tonight, but since you are the "beloved of the Lord," you should
   rejoice in Him whatever there may be to cause you present heaviness of
   spirit! You have been struggling with inbred sin and the fight has been
   so fierce that you have feared that you would be defeated--but as you
   are the "beloved of the Lord," you must be more than conquerors through
   Him who has loved you!

   Some of you have come here tonight from the workshop where you have
   been laughed at and mocked--you have most painful recollections of the
   scorn with which you were assailed this very afternoon--but since you
   are the "beloved of the Lord," the day will come when these things will
   be reckoned among your highest honors. "Take that, John Bu-nyan," said
   one to a certain Christian as he pushed him into the gutter. "Oh," said
   the other, "you may push me into the gutter again if you can only prove
   my right to bear that noble name!" So may you say to those who
   persecute you for Christ's sake, "You may do it again if it pleases
   you, for it would be an honor to me to be spit upon because I belong to
   Christ." Cultivate that spirit, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and let
   the thought that that you are the "beloved of the Lord" make amends for
   every cruel act or word on the part of His enemies. When the last
   trumpet sounds, and the innumerable hosts of the redeemed are gathered
   together unto Christ--and you whom God has from the beginning chosen to
   salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth,
   you whom He has called by our Gospel--when you obtain, I say, the Glory
   of our Lord Jesus Christ, you will forget the little suffering that you
   have ever borne on His account and rejoice with unspeakable joy and
   full of Glory that you are forever to be numbered among the "beloved of
   the

   Lord"!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 8:1-14.

   This wonderful Chapter is the very cream of the cream of Holy
   Scripture! What a grand keynote the Apostle strikes in the first verse!

   Verse 1. There is therefore nowno condemnation to those who are in
   Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but

   after the Spirit [See Sermon #1917, Volume 32--IN CHRIST NO
   CONDEMNATION.] "No condemnation"--that is the first note of the
   Chapter. In the last verse it is "no separation." What glorious music
   there is here--no condemnation to those who are in Christ, no
   separation of them from Christ! Happy are the people who have a share
   in this double blessing--but unhappy are the men and women who know
   nothing of it! We will read it again--"There is therefore now no
   condemnation." There is a great deal of accusation, and a great deal
   more of tribulation, but there is no condemnation--not the least hint
   of it! Some condemnation we might have expected, but "there is
   therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who
   walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

   2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
   from the Law of sin and death. I have broken away from its thralldom!
   The new Law, the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the Law of
   Grace has set me free from the domination of the Law of sin and death!
   Happy is the free man who is thus liberated by the Grace of God.

   3. For what the Law could not do--God has done by His Grace. "What the
   Law could not do"--

   3. In that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in
   the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin--Or, as the marginal reading
   renders it, "by a sacrifice for sin"--

   3-5. Condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the Law
   might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
   Spirit For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh.
   Unregenerate men, the men who remain in the state in which they were
   born. The men who allow their lower nature to have the predominance.
   "They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh." That is
   all that they care about, all that they think about, all that they toil
   for, all that they really "mind."

   5. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit Those
   in whom there is a new life begotten by the Holy Spirit--these mind the
   things of the Spirit. Each nature seeks its own things--the flesh seeks
   the things of the flesh, the spirit seeks the things of the Spirit.
   Judge you, my Hearers, to which case you belong by this test--for what
   are you living for? That which you live for is the true index of your
   nature. Do you mind spiritual things or the things of the flesh?

   6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded
   is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is

   enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither
   indeed can be. [See Sermons #20, Volume 1--the carnal mind ENMITY
   AGAINST GOD and #1878, Volume 32--A TRAITOR SUSPECTED AND CONVICTED.]
   The old nature never will obey the Law of God--it can never do so.
   What, then, is to be done with

   it? Improve it? No, my Hearers, the only thing to be done with it is to
   let it die and then to bury it. In Baptism you have a

   most significant symbol of what is to be done with the flesh--you are
   to treat it as a dead thing and, therefore, to bury

   it. Let the old life be crucified and put to death with Christ and let
   the new life take its place!

   8. So then they that are in the flesh--Those who are still in the old
   nature, living for it, living to it--

   8. Cannot please God. Men may wash this old nature, they may clothe it,
   they may decorate it, they may educate it, but there is no evolution
   which can produce Grace out of Nature. The child of Nature may be
   finely dressed, but it is a dead child however gaudily it is attired.
   There is a vital eternal difference between the old nature and the new.

   9. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
   Spirit of God dwells in you. You saints of Rome to whom Paul was
   writing, and you who believe in Christ now--"You are not in the flesh,
   but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you."

   9. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. If
   Christ's Spirit has not quickened you, you do not belong to Christ.
   Some ministers preach a very general sort of gospel in which everybody
   has a share, but the Bible knows nothing of that sort of gospel! "If
   any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Do you know
   what it is to have the Spirit of Christ? If not, my Hearer, do not
   deceive yourself--you are none of His. "If any man"--be he prince or
   magistrate, a member of Parliament or a doctor of divinity--"if any man
   has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."

   10. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the
   Spirit is life because of righteousness. Hence the body suffers, the
   body is sick, the body decays, the body is under the dominion of death
   because of sin--but the Spirit is full of life because of
   righteousness.

   11. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells
   in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your
   mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. You Believers may have
   a good hope concerning your bodies! "He that raised up Christ from the
   dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." Wait a while, therefore--
   what God has done for your souls He will, in due time, also do for your
   bodies! This should make you long for the day of

   Christ's appearing, as Paul says in the 23r verse of this Chapter,
   "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body," when
   Christ shall appear, and we shall be raised--

   "From beds of dust and silent clay"-- the body itself born a second
   time, regenerate like the soul!

   DEBTOR--Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org.] We owe the flesh nothing! I mean the law
   of sin in our

   members--we owe nothing to that. It has been a curse and a plague to
   us. We are not debtors to the flesh, so we must not "live after the
   flesh."

   13. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. If you live simply
   to gratify your ambition. If you live for avarice. If you live to
   please yourself--if you live for any earthly object which can be
   comprised under the term "after the flesh"-- you will certainly be
   disappointed, for you will die and your hope will die with you!

   13. But if you, through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,
   you shall live. If you seek, by the Holy Spirit's power, to kill sin.
   If you try to crush all sinful desires. If you keep evil with a rope
   about its neck--if you mortify it--put it to death, then you shall
   live! Holiness is the mode of the Christian's life--sin is the way of
   the sinner's death.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Prophetic Warning

   (No. 3301)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold."
   Matthew 24:12.

   Christ had spoken to His disciples of earthquakes in divers places,
   famines and pestilences--but these were only the beginning of sorrows.
   Such things as these need not trouble Christians, for though the earth
   is removed and the mountains are carried into the midst of the sea, yet
   may the Believer be confident and his heart may abide at rest. Even
   when the Master told His disciples that they would be hated of all men
   for His name's sake, that needed not afflict them. He had taught them
   before, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill
   the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and
   body in Hell." They were thus braced up to meet the fiery trial.
   Earthquake, pestilence, war and persecution fail to disturb the
   serenity of Believers in Christ! But the evil spoken of in our
   text--this is the wound, this is the sorrow! Here is something to
   tremble at! "Because iniquity shall abound"--that is worse than
   pestilence-- "the love of many shall grow cold"--that is worse than
   persecution! As all the water outside a vessel can do it no harm until
   it enters the vessel, itself, so outward persecutions cannot really
   injure the Church of God. But when the mischief oozes into the Church
   and the love of God's people grows cold--ah, then the boat is in sore
   distress! I fear that we are much in this condition at the present
   hour. May the Holy Spirit bless the alarming prophecy now before us to
   our awakening!

   I. Notice, first, THE CAUSE OF THAT GRIEVOUS CHILL OF HEART which is
   here spoken of--"Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall
   grow cold." When love grows cold, it is a serious sign. Then the heart
   is affected--affected with a chill! Is not this the forerunner of
   death? What is the cause of it? According to our text, it is the
   abounding of iniquity!

   Sin does its best to destroy Divine Grace. So much sin, so much the
   less of holiness, so much the less of every Christian Grace! Sin is
   like a poisonous atmosphere--if a man has to live in it, he has good
   need to pray that he may not be overcome by it. You and I, seeing that
   we are in this world and cannot go altogether out of it, will come into
   contact with evil. In our daily avocations however careful we are, we
   must encounter this infection. We cannot but feel that the evil around
   us is a hindrance to our holiness and a detriment to our growth in
   Grace. When the society around the Christian becomes flagrantly wicked,
   corrupt and offensive, it is difficult for him to maintain the purity
   of his life and the strength of his spiritual character. At this time,
   we live in an atmosphere which hinders our growth, yet in the early
   days of Christianity the Lord's people had, as a, rule, to live in
   worse society than that which surrounds us today! I will not say this
   without an exception. There are quarters of London, I am told, as
   vicious as ever existed in Corinth, or in old Rome. And I am afraid
   that some of the grossest vices which we dare not even mention, abound
   in this city. We have a fringe of respectability which barely conceals
   the licentiousness and abomination which abound. I have been reading
   today some details as to the number of illegitimate births and I am
   perfectly astounded at the awful wickedness of this land! We call
   ourselves a Christian country. Do not dareto speak so falsely! This is
   growing to be a heathen land--part of it bowing before images, another
   part howling out, "There is no God," and a third secretly reveling in
   unutterable filthi-ness.

   Still, the most of us do not come into contact with vice to the same
   degree as the first Christians did. Society in the Roman Empire was
   utterly rotten. It is a wonder that God permitted the world to exist in
   that loathsome age! It tended greatly to the depression of Christian
   principle for infamous crimes to be tolerated in the society which
   surrounded the faithful. Look at these first Churches which some think
   so much of! They were not half as good as the Churches of today,

   bad as these are. Take the Church at Corinth, for instance. Did you
   ever hear of a Church in our day which allowed drunkenness at the
   Lord's Supper? Have we personally met with a Church which would
   knowingly allow a person living in incest to remain in its membership?
   I hope not! But gross offenses had become so common in general society
   in Paul's day that it did not strike even Christian people that some of
   these things were wrong! Iniquity abounded and it was greatly
   detrimental to Grace.

   Again, iniquity is especially injurious to the growth of love. Because
   iniquity abounded, therefore the love of many grew cold. Men inside the
   Christian Church found themselves betrayed by other members of the
   Church. Frequently, the heads of the Brothers and Sisters were sold to
   the executioner by hypocrites like Judas. That would greatly tend to
   injure Christian love. Men began to suspect one another. You did not
   know that the man who sat next to you at the Lord's Table would not
   tomorrow inform against you and get blood-money for you! Therefore
   suspicion entered with its wintry breath. It was natural that it should
   be so, albeit that there was sin in it, yet you and I would have
   probably fallen into the same. All around, men were so loathsome that
   Christian love, which teaches us to pity the most degraded and to do
   good to the most unworthy, found it a difficult struggle to live. Godly
   men endeavored to win the ungodly from their lusts, but they found
   themselves persecuted in consequence--the more they sought to do good,
   the more they were hated--and this put their love to a severe test.

   I think that you can see why our Savior has given us a warning in this
   particular form.

   Iniquity is naturally opposed to Grace, but it is most of all injurious
   to the Grace of love. If sin abounds in a Church, it is little wonder
   if the love of many should grow cold. Young members introduced into the
   Church after a short time find that those whom they looked upon as
   being examples are walking disorderly and using lightness of speech and
   of behavior. Those young people cannot be very warm in love--they are
   led to stumble and are scandalized. Older saints who have for years
   held onto their way in integrity, and by Grace have kept their garments
   unspotted from the world, see those around them who have come into the
   Church who seem to be of quite another race, who can drink of the cup
   of Belial and of the cup of the Lord, who seem to follow Christ and the
   devil, too! Seeing this evil, these godly men and women gather up their
   garments in holy indignation and find it difficult to feel the love of
   purer days.

   Oh, Friends, if the frost of sin rules in a Church, every tender flower
   is injured and nothing flourishes! Love is a sensitive plant and if it
   is touched by the finger of sin, it will show it. The lilies of Love's
   Paradise cannot bloom amid the smoke and dust of unholiness!

   Because iniquity abounds even in the professing Church, the love of
   many is growing cold today. What a sermon one might preach upon
   this!--but I shall not do anything of the kind. I am not so desirous to
   deplore the evils of others as to watch against evils within myself. I
   am not so anxious to make you discover transgression in the Church as
   to make you watch against it in your hearts--for rest sure of this--if
   you give sin any license in your heart, your love will grow cold! You
   cannot walk in love to Christ and yet live in the love of sin. If today
   you have indulged an unholy temper, if you have given way to
   covetousness, if you have in any way transgressed against the Lord, you
   will not feel that warmth of love towards Jesus Christ which you felt
   yesterday! Your life will have lost much of its beauty and its
   sweetness. Cry to God that He would give it back to you! Do not rest
   satisfied until it is perfectly restored.

   II. Now let us consider THE SERIOUS CHARACTER OF THIS EVIL. "The love
   of many shall grow cold." It is a very dreadful thing that love in any
   man's heart should grow cold. Observe the bearings of Christian love
   and you will see the sin of it under various aspects.

   Our love is, first, a love to the great Father--our Father who chose us
   before ever the earth was, by whom we have been begotten again and
   received into His family. If our love to Him grows cold, what mischief
   that must bring! Coldness towards the father in a family--do you know
   any household afflicted in that way? I should be very sorry to be a
   member of it! Coldness of love to the father? Why, that household is
   scarcely a family! It has lost the bond which holds it together and
   constitutes it a family. May the good Lord save us from this ruin of
   all holy unity!

   Next, our love is love to Jesus Christ, "who loved us and gave Himself
   for us." If love to Jesus should grow cold, the result would be
   grievous! Is there any spiritual Grace within you that can be in a
   healthy condition when your love to Christ is declining? Are you right
   anywhere if your heart is wrong towards your Lord? Can you do anything
   earnestly when love to Jesus is chilled? Can you sing aright? Can you
   pray aright? Can you live aright? Do not let us dream of

   bearing fruit if we are severed from the Vine! It is vitally important
   that we should love Jesus with all our heart, soul and strength!

   Christian love also embraces the Truths of God. They that love God and
   His Divine Son, love the Truth which He has committed to them. The
   Church is the trustee of the Gospel--she is "the pillar and ground of
   the Truth." And when men begin to play with the Truth of God and think
   that one set of Doctrines is as good as another, and that nothing is of
   any particular importance, evil must come! In former days our fathers
   counted it a small thing to go to prison for a Doctrine, or to be burnt
   to death for a testimony! Look at the multitudes in Holland who were
   drowned, or who were tied to ladders and roasted to death for nothing
   but their conviction that Believers should be baptized! Nowadays,
   people consider Scriptural views of Baptism to be a mere trifle. I
   question whether our present Broad Churchmen think that there is any
   Doctrine worth a person's losing the first joint of his little finger
   for! As to burning to death for a Truth of God-- that must seem a great
   absurdity to these liberal theologians! Now that things have reached
   this pass, need we wonder that heresies and all manner of errors rush
   in torrents down our streets? When she can afford to trifle with the
   Truths of God, what is the Church worth?

   Our love is also love to our fellow Christians. This is a vital
   principle. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we
   love the brethren." But when members of Churches have no love to one
   another. When a professor does not care at all what becomes of his
   Brothers and Sisters, has the Church any Christianity left? No, it has
   a name to live, and is dead! Christianity is gone when the heart is
   cold--its very life is mutual affection.

   Then, again, we are to love the ungodly and the unconverted. It is by
   love that we are to win them to Christ. But if the Church has no love
   to the dying sons of men, what is she worth? Where will be her
   missionary operations? What will be the use of her ministry? Think of
   her Sunday schools without love to the children! Think of people
   pretending to win souls who have no love for them and do not care
   whether they are lost or saved. Can the Church sustain a worse loss
   than the losing of her fervent love to perishing men? And yet, if
   iniquity abounds, this is the great risk we run-- compassionate love
   will cease to minister to man's miseries!

   Beloved, when we love best, how little is our love compared with what
   it ought to be for Him who left the royalties of Heaven for the shame
   and sorrow of our Nature! If we glowed with seraphic fire night and day
   through a life as long as that of Methuselah, our love could not repay
   the love of Christ! If that love, poor as it is, grows colder, what
   will it come to? Oh, eyes that are to look upon the Well-Beloved
   forever and ever, if you cease to see beauty in Him, now, what has
   blinded you? Oh, hearts that are to glow forever with delight in the
   Presence of the Reigning One, who once was crucified, what ails you if
   you grow cold when you most need His love and are receiving most from
   Him? I cannot bear it that we should love Jesus so little! It seems to
   me horrible! Not to have your heart all on fire for Christ Jesus is
   immoral! Let us love Him to the utmost! Let us ask Him to give us
   larger hearts and to fire them with the same love that is in His own,
   that we may love Him to the utmost possibilities of affection!

   Ah, then, Beloved, think again. Suppose our love grows cold--do you not
   see how it paralyzes the entire system? If the reservoir is empty, you
   cannot expect to get much water from the pipes. If the heart grows
   cold, everything will be coldly done. When love declines, what cold
   preaching we have! All moonlight--light without heat--polished like
   marble and as cold! What cold singing we get--pretty music made by
   pipes and wind, but oh, how little soul-song!--how little singing in
   the Holy Spirit, making melody in the heart unto God! And what poor
   praying! Do you call it praying? What little giving! When the hot is
   cold, the hands can find nothing in the purse and Christ's Church, and
   Christ's poor, and the heathen may perish, for we must hoard up for
   ourselves and live to grow rich! Is there anything that goes on as it
   ought to go when love grows cold? I should like to act throughout life
   as I have when my soul has been stirred to its inmost depths with
   affection for my Lord! I would continually act as if I had just seen
   Him and had put my fingers into the print of the nails! I would live as
   if I had been just sitting with Mary at His feet, yes, and were still
   sitting there! I would speak for Him, work for Him and give for Him as
   if I had freshly lifted my head from John's place upon His bosom!

   m. Thirdly, THE SOLEMN DANGER of the spread of this mischief.

   I will read you the text translated accurately. "Because iniquity shall
   abound, the love of the many shall grow cold." That is a more saddening
   expression than "the love of many." It is, "the love of the many." That
   is, of the major part of the Church--the bulk of it. This supposes a
   dreadful state of things because when the many have become cold, they
   keep one another in countenance. One cold Brother says to the other,
   "What is your temperature?" "I think I am far below

   zero." "So am I," says the first one, "and we are about right." If the
   majority are warm, then the cold ones are thawed, but if they are all
   below zero, then they freeze into a wretched compactness! It is the
   most sober, respectable Church you ever knew--they have no
   quarrelling--everything is so comfortable and orderly. Alas, they are
   frozen together, and their peace is that of death! The love of the many
   has grown cold and they are full of mutual admiration for their
   quietness.

   They have nobody to rebuke them. If the many have grown cold, then the
   few among them, instead of being able to rebuke with authority, are
   themselves snubbed. "He is a terribly fanatical young man! That zealous
   fellow never leaves anyone alone!" "He will grow out of that," says
   one, "by the time he gets to my age he will be as prudent as I am."
   Yonder good woman feels great anxiety for the conversion of souls and
   she is making a stir. A lady of repute declares that she is too
   forward, or has got a bee in her bonnet. Active people are looked upon
   as rather troublesome when the love of the many grows cold. The few
   have a hard time of it and if they do venture upon a rebuke, they are
   soon snuffed out-- this confirms the evil.

   And then the tendency is to grow still colder. They go on freezing.
   There is no telling how cold people can be. I have been burnt with cold
   and I suppose you have been too. I have preached in places whose
   spiritual temperature was that of an icehouse and, preach as hard as I
   could, nothing could possibly come of it, for my words fell to the
   ground like lumps of ice! Colder and colder Churches become till, at
   last, the great God who breaks up icebergs in due season, destroys a
   Church and its place knows it no more!

   IV. In the presence of the danger which is seriously threatening many
   Churches, there is A CALL FOR SERIOUS ACTION ON OUR PART. What is that
   serious action?

   Why, it is, first, that we should remember that if the love of the many
   may grow cold, then our love may grow cold! What are we that we should
   think ourselves secure where others are in danger? If other men as good
   as we are have gradually cooled down, may not we? Let us be watchful
   and careful--and let us go to God for more Grace.

   Let us notice, next, that if the love of the many grows cold, it is not
   much use our complaining about it, but the few must get together and
   pray. The real vitality of a Church seldom lies in the many, but
   generally in the few. Inside the election there is another election. Do
   you remember that out of Christ's disciples there were twelve? Out of
   the 12 there were three? Out of the three there was one? And so
   election has rings within rings. Inside the nominal Church--(we cannot
   say whether they are all God's people or not)--the many may grow cold,
   but there ought to be a remnant who abide in life and love. God grant
   that we may belong to it! We must at once grow warmer. We must live
   nearer to Christ. We must be more enthusiastic. Oh for a band of choice
   spirits--men fit to walk with Christ in white, for they are worthy--
   men who will be prepared to follow the Lamb wherever He goes! The
   Spirit said, "You have a few names even in Sardis which have not
   defiled their garments." And so in every Church there are some that
   have not grown idle or heretical! Let them get together and help each
   other! I thank God for those whom the Lord keeps very near to Him--may
   their number be daily increased! May each one of us be filled with the
   Spirit! When I hear of one minister after another giving up the
   old-fashioned Gospel, do you know what I say to myself? I resolve that
   I will stick the closer to it! If the many cannot bear Calvinistic
   Doctrine, I will be more Calvinistic than ever! The more men do not
   like the Truths of God, the more they shall have it! Let this be our
   line of action. If men become more worldly, we will become more
   Puritanical. If professing Christians do not exhibit the Spirit of
   Christ, we will ask our Lord to give us sevenfold of His Spirit, that
   we may maintain His Truths!

   Suppose you expected a famine in London as there was in Paris during
   the siege? Everybody who could do so, would get in a hundred-fold
   supply of provisions. Every good housewife would lay out every penny
   that she could get and fill her cellars full of food. There is going to
   be a spiritual famine--therefore buy the Truth of God and sell it not.
   Go to your Lord and get larger supplies from Him. Do not go to one
   another for it. That will be like saying, "Give us of your oil"--and
   your companions will wisely reply, "Not so, lest there be not enough
   for us and you." Go to your Master and ask Him to fan the fire within
   you to a great heat, that if there should be cold everywhere else,
   there may be warmth in your bosoms! The Lord help you to do this, dear
   Friends, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW24:1-28.

   Verse 1, 2. And Jesus went out, and departed from the Temple: and His
   disciple came to Him to show Him the buildings of the Temple. And Jesus
   said unto them, See you not all these things? Verily I say unto you,
   There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be
   thrown down. The King, having finished His first discourse in the
   Temple, left it, never to return--"Jesus went out and departed from the
   Temple." His ministry there was ended. As His disciples moved away with
   Him towards the Mount of Olives, they called His attention to the great
   stones of which the Temple was constructed and the costly adornments of
   the beautiful building. To them the appearance was glorious, but to
   their Lord it was a sad sight. His Father's House, which ought to have
   been a House of Prayer for all nations, had become a den of thieves and
   soon would be utterly destroyed! Jesus said unto them, "See you not all
   these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one
   stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Josephus tells us
   that Titus at first tried to save the Temple, even after it was set on
   fire, but his efforts were of no avail--at last he gave orders that the
   whole city and Temple should be leveled, except a small portion
   reserved for the garrison. This was so thoroughly done that the
   historian says that there was but nothing to make those that came there
   believe it had ever been inhabited!

   We sometimes delight in the temporal prosperity of the Church as if it
   were something that must certainly endure-- but all that is external
   will pass away or be destroyed. Let us only reckon that to be
   substantial which comes from God, and is God's work. The things which
   are seen are temporal.

   3. And as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him
   privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall
   be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world?The little
   procession continued ascending the Mount of Olives until Jesus reached
   a resting place from which He could see the Temple (Mark 13:3). There
   He sat down and the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, "Tell
   us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your
   coming, and of the end of the world?" These are the questions that have
   been asked in every age since our Savior's day. There are here two
   distinct questions, perhaps three. The disciples enquired first about
   the time of the destruction of the Temple, and then about the sign of
   Christ's coming and of "the consummation of the age" (R.V. margin). The
   answers of Jesus contained much that was mysterious and that could only
   be fully understood as that which He foretold actually occurred. He
   told His disciples some things which related to the siege of Jerusalem,
   some which concerned His Second Advent and some which would immediately
   precede "the end of the world." When we have clearer light, we may
   possibly perceive that all our Savior's predictions on this memorable
   occasion had some connection with all three of these great events.

   4-6. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man
   deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and
   shall deceive many. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see
   that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but
   the end is not yet Jesus was always practical. The most important thing
   for His disciples was not that they might know when "these things"
   would be, but that they might be preserved from the peculiar evils of
   the time. Therefore, Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that
   no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am
   Christ; and shall deceive many." They were to beware lest any of the
   pretended Messiahs should lead them astray--as they would pervert many
   others. A large number of impostors came forward before the destruction
   of Jerusalem, giving out that they were the Anointed of God--almost
   every page of history is blotted with the names of such deceivers--and
   in our own day we have seen some come in Christ's name, saying that
   they are Christ's. Such men seduce many, but they who heed their Lord's
   warning will not be deluded by them.

   Our Savior's words, "You shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars," might
   be applied to almost any period of the world's history. Earth has
   seldom had a long spell of quiet--there have almost always been both
   the realities of war and the rumors of war. There were many such before
   Jerusalem was overthrown. There have been many such ever since and
   there will be many such until that glorious period when "nation shall
   not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
   anymore." "See that you be not troubled" is a timely message for the
   disciples of Christ in every age! "For all these things must come to
   pass." Therefore let us not be surprised or alarmed at them, "but the
   end is not yet." The destruction of Jerusalem was the beginning of the
   end--the great type and anticipation of all that will take place when
   Christ shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. It was an end, but
   not the end--"the end is not yet."

   7, 8. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
   kingdom: and there shall be famine, and pestilences, and earthquakes in
   divers places. All there are the beginning of sorrows. One would think
   that there was sorrow enough in "famines, and pestilences, and
   earthquakes in divers places," but our Lord said that "all these" were
   only "the beginning of sorrows"--the first birth-pangs of the travail
   that must precede His coming, either to Jerusalem, or to the whole
   world. If famines, pestilences and earthquakes are only "the beginning
   of sorrows," what may we not expect the end to be? This prophecy ought
   both to warn the disciples of Christ what they may expect and wean them
   from the world where all these and greater sorrows are to be
   experienced!

   9. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you:
   and you shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake. Our Lord not
   only foretold the general trial that would come upon the Jews and upon
   the world, but also the special persecution which would be the portion
   of His chosen followers. "Then shall they deliver you up to be
   afflicted, and shall kill you: and you shall be hated of all nations
   for My name's sake." The New Testament gives abundant proof of the
   fulfillment of these words. Even in Paul's day, "this sect" was
   "everywhere spoken against." Since then, has there been any land
   unstained by the blood of the martyrs? Wherever Christ's Gospel has
   been preached, men have risen up in arms against the messengers of
   mercy and afflicted and killed them wherever they could.

   10. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and
   shall hate one another This would be a bitter trial for the followers
   of Christ, yet this they have always had to endure. Persecution would
   reveal the traitors within the Church as well as the enemies outside.
   In the midst of the chosen ones there would be found successors of
   Judas who would be willing to betray the disciples as he betrayed his
   Lord. Saddest of all is the betrayal of good men by their own
   relatives--but even this they have, many of them, had to bear for
   Christ's sake.

   11. 12. And many false prophets shall rise, andshall deceive many. And
   because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold. What
   could not be accomplished by persecutors outside the Church and
   traitors inside, would be attempted by teachers of heresy--"Many false
   prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." They have risen in all
   ages! In these modern times they have risen in clouds till the air is
   thick with them, as with an army of devouring locusts! These are the
   men who invent new doctrines and who seem to think that the religion of
   Jesus Christ is something that a man may twist into any form and shape
   that he pleases. Alas that such teachers should have any disciples! It
   is doubly sad that they should be able to lead astray "many." Yet, when
   it so happens, let us remember that the King said that it would be so.

   Is it any wonder that where such "iniquity abounds" and such
   lawlessness is multiplied, "the love of many shall grow cold"? If the
   teachers deceive the people and give them "another gospel which is not
   another," it is no marvel that there is a lack of love and zeal. The
   wonder is that there is any love and zeal left after they have been
   subjected to such a chilling and killing process as that adopted by the
   advocates of the modern "destructive criticism." Verily, it is rightly
   named "destructive," for it destroys almost everything that is worth
   preserving!

   13. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
   Again our Savior reminded His disciples of the personal responsibility
   of each one of them in such a time of trial and testing as they were
   about to pass through. He would have them remember that it is not the
   man who starts in the race, but the one who runs to the goal who wins
   the prize--"He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be
   saved." If this Doctrine were not supplemented by another, there would
   be but little good tidings for poor, tempted, tried and struggling
   saints in such words as these! Who among us would persevere in running
   the heavenly race if God did not preserve us from falling and give us
   Persevering Grace? But, blessed be His name, "the righteous shall hold
   on his way." "He which has begun a good work in you will perform it
   until the day of Jesus Christ."

   14. And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world
   for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.The world
   is to the Church like a scaffold to a building. When the Church is
   built, the scaffold will be taken down--the world will remain until the
   last elect one is saved--"Then shall the end come." Before Jerusalem
   was destroyed, "this Gospel of the Kingdom" was probably "preached in
   all the world" as far as it was then known. But there is to be a fuller
   proclamation of it "for a witness unto all nations" before the great
   consummation of all things--"then shall the end come" and the King
   shall sit upon the Throne of His Glory, and decide the eternal destiny
   of the whole human race!

   15-18. When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation
   spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoever
   reads, let him understand), then let them which be in Judaea flee into
   the mountains: let him who is on the housetop not come down to take
   anything out of his house: neither let him who is in the field return
   back to take his clothes. This portion of our Savior's words appears to
   relate solely to the destruction of Jerusalem. As soon as Christ's
   disciples saw "the abomination of desolation," that is, the Roman
   ensigns with their idolatrous emblems, "stand in the holy place," they
   knew that the time for them to escape had arrived--and they did "flee
   into the mountains." The Christians in Jerusalem and the surrounding
   towns and villages "in Judaea," availed themselves of the first
   opportunity for eluding the Roman armies, and fled to the mountain city
   of Pella, in Perea, where they were preserved from the general
   destruction which overthrew the Jews. There was no time to spare before
   the final investment of the guilty city. The man "on the housetop"
   could "not come down to take anything out of his house," and the man
   "in the field" could not "return back to take his clothes." They must
   flee to the mountains in the greatest haste, the moment that they saw
   "Jerusalem compassed with armies" (Luke 21:20).

   19-21. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give
   suck in those days! But pray you that your flight is not in the winter,
   neither on the Sabbath: for then shall be great tribulation, such as
   was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever
   shall be.It must have been a peculiarly trying time for the women who
   had to flee from their homes just when they needed quiet and rest. How
   thoughtful and tender was our compassionate Savior in thus sympathizing
   with suffering mothers in their hour of need! "Flight. . .in the
   winter" or "on the Sabbath" would have been attended with special
   difficulties, so the disciples were exhorted to "pray" that some other
   time might be available. The Lord knew exactly when they would be able
   to escape, yet He bade them pray that their flight might not be in the
   winter, nor on the Sabbath! The wise men of the present day would have
   said that prayer was useless under such conditions--not so the great
   Teacher and Example of His praying people--He taught that such a season
   was the very time for special supplication!

   The reason for this injunction was thus stated by the Savior. "For then
   shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the
   world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Read the record written by
   Josephus of the destruction of Jerusalem and see how truly our Lord's
   words were fulfilled. The Jews impiously said, concerning the death of
   Christ, "His blood be on us, and on our children." Never did any other
   people invoke such an awful curse upon themselves and upon no other
   nation did such a judgment ever fall! We read of Jews crucified till
   there was no more wood for making crosses--of thousands of the people
   slaying one another in their fierce faction fights within the city. Of
   so many of them being sold for slaves that they became a drug in the
   market, and all but valueless! And of the fearful carnage when the
   Romans at length entered the doomed capital and the blood-curdling
   story exactly bears out the Savior's statement uttered nearly 40 years
   before the terrible events occurred!

   22. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh
   saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.These
   were the words of the King as well as of the Prophet and, as such, they
   were both authentic and authoritative. Jesus spoke of what "should be,"
   not only as the Seer who was able to gaze into the future, but as the
   Sovereign Disposer of all events. He knew what a fiery trial awaited
   the unbelieving nation and that "except those days should be shortened,
   there should no flesh be saved." If the horrors of the siege were to
   continue long, the whole race of the Jews would be destroyed! The King
   had the power to cut short the evil days and He explained His reason
   for using that power--"For the elect's sake, those days shall be
   shortened." Those who had been hated and persecuted by their own
   countrymen became the means of preserving them from absolute
   annihilation! Thus has it often been since those days--and for the sake
   of His elect the Lord has withheld many judgments and shortened others.
   The ungodly owe to the godly more than they know, or would care to
   admit.

   23-26. Then ifanyman shallsay unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there;
   believe it not. For there shallarise false Chr-ists, and false
   prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that if it
   were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told
   you before. Therefore if they shall say unto you, Behold he is in the
   desert; go not forth. Behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it
   not. It is a grand thing to have such faith in Christ that you have
   none to spare for imposters. It is important not to distribute your
   faith too widely. Those who believe in a little of everything will, in
   the end, believe nothing of anything. If you exercise full faith in
   that which is sure and steadfast, "false Christs and false prophets"
   will not be able to make you their dupes! In one respect, the modern
   teachers of heresy are more successful than their Judean prototypes,
   for they do actually "deceive the very elect," even though they cannot
   "show great signs and wonders." One of the saddest signs of the times
   in which we live is the ease with which "the very elect" are deceived
   by the smooth-tongued "false Christs and false prophets" who abound in
   our midst. Yet our Savior expressly forewarned His followers against
   them--"Behold, I have told you before." Forewarned is forearmed. Let it
   be so in our case. Our Savior's expressive command may be fitly applied
   to the whole system of "modern thought" which is contrary to the
   inspired Word of God--"Believe it not."

   27. For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even unto
   the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. When HE comes,
   we shall know who He is and why He has come. There will be no longer
   any mystery or secret about "the coming of the Son of Man." There will
   be no need to ask any questions then! No one will make a mistake about
   His appearing when it actually takes place. "Every eye shall see Him."
   Christ's coming will be sudden, startling, universally visible-- and
   terrifying to the ungodly! "As the lightning comes out of the east, and
   shines even unto the west." His first coming to judgment at the
   destruction of Jerusalem had terrors about it that till then had never
   been realized on the earth--His last coming will be still more
   dreadful.

   28. For wherever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered
   together. Judaism had become a "carcass," dead and corrupt--fit prey
   for the vultures or carrion-kites of Rome. By-and-by there will arrive
   another day when there will be a dead church in a dead world--and "the
   eagles" of Divine Judgment "will be gathered together" to tear in
   pieces those whom there shall be none to deliver! The birds of prey
   gather wherever dead bodies are to be found--and the judgments of
   Christ will be poured out when the body, politic or religious, becomes
   unbearably corrupt!
     __________________________________________________________________

Faith in Christ's Ability

   (No. 3302)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
   12, 1866.

   "Jesus sai unto them, Believe you that I am able to do this?" Matthew
   9:28.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon verses 27 to 30, are #1355, Volumen
   23--OUR LORD'S QUESTION TO THE BLIND MEN and #1560, Volume 26-- THE
   PLAIN MAN'S PATHWAY TO PEACE.]

   I WANT to lay special emphasis on the word, "this," in the
   text--"Believe you that I am able to do this?" The question of Jesus
   referred to one particular thing--it was not intended to apply to the
   general power of Christ to heal the sick or to raise the dead--it
   concerned the specific malady from which these two men were suffering.
   The question meant did they believe that Christ was able to cure their
   blindness? Among professing Christians, there is much so-called faith
   that is not really faith. Many of us profess much more in our creeds
   than we believe in our hearts and we hold a great deal more in theory
   than we do in reality. For instance, I suppose there is no professor of
   religion here who would dispute the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to
   do anything and everything--we believe that He has all power in Heaven
   and in earth. And yet, if it came to be a matter of personal detail and
   He said to us, "Believe you that I am able to do this?" we might not
   all be able to answer as promptly and as confidently as the blind men
   did, "Yes, Lord."

   I. I am going to speak about this matter, and I start with the very
   simple statement that FAITH, IN SO FAR AS IT IS TRUE, DEALS IMMEDIATELY
   WITH THE CASE IN HAND.

   True faith believes that Jesus Christ is "able to do this." It
   believes, of course, that He is able to do twenty thousand other
   things, but it believes especially that He is "able to do this"--to
   forgive this sin of which I am so deeply conscious, to remove this
   trial with which I am now so sorely afflicted, to sustain me under this
   temptation which so fiercely assails me, to strengthen me to accomplish
   this duty which so clearly is before me. As each special case arises,
   faith will exercise itself upon that particular thing and believe that
   Christ is "able to do this."

   There are solemn thoughts connected with unbelief concerning "this"
   which Christ is able to do. Over there is a Brother who is in such a
   plight that he thinks there is no way of deliverance for him out of it.
   He has a task before him which he hardly dares ask his Lord to enable
   him to perform because he lacks the necessary faith in his Lord's power
   and willingness to help him! Now, my dear Friend, as you are in doubt
   in this case, I want to ask you what is to prevent you from doubting in
   the next difficulty that occurs to you--and then in the next after
   that, and so on? You say that it is only upon this one point that you
   are in doubt and that you think you have very good reasons for not
   believing in this particular case? But the next circumstances that
   occurs to you will very probably furnish you with just as weighty
   reasons for doubting--and so will it be with each succeeding case as it
   arises. It seems to me that you are shut up to this alternative, either
   to trust God in this case or else to confess that you do not intend to
   believe Him in any case. I know you will urge that the present case is
   a very peculiar one, but I shall remind you that the next one will also
   be a very peculiar one. I have not lived as long as some of you have
   but, during the years that I have been able to observe what has been
   passing around me, I have noticed that every year of my life has been a
   crisis in the affairs of the nation--at least so the papers have always
   told us and so have some good people always told us! I think it is very
   likely that the present time is a most solemn crisis and I also think
   with equally good reason, that this is a most solemn crisis in your
   history and that if you do not believe now, you are not likely to
   believe in the next crisis that comes to you. The fact is, you must
   either believe God always or you must never believe Him! If you think
   Christ is not "able to do this"--forgive this sin, remove this trial,

   overcome this temptation, or strengthen you for this duty--you will
   probably think the same when the next testing times comes.

   Moreover, it seems to me that if you doubt God concerning any one
   trial, you give up the whole case. You would have me believe that your
   present trial is very peculiar and strange. Well, suppose I admit that
   it is? Still, if you do not believe concerning this, you have given up
   the whole case, for what Christ claims is Omnipotence--and if there is
   any one thing that He cannot do, then He is not Omnipotent! If there is
   any one heart too hard for Him to break, if there is any one sin too
   strong for Him to enable me to abandon, then He is not Omnipotent. If
   you look this thought fairly in the face, I think you will scarcely
   dare to rob your Lord of one of the most glorious of His attributes!
   You would surely hesitate to put forth that right hand of yours to
   snatch from His crown one of its most precious gems! No, you would
   sooner lose your life than commit so traitorous a crime as that--yet
   you do practically commit it if you do not believe that He is "able to
   do this," whatever, "this," may be and, therefore, you do virtually say
   that He is not Almighty!

   Besides, your doubt concerning God's power sets up a new god. Do you
   start in alarm at that statement? It is true, for that which is
   mightiest in the world is God--but if there is anythingwhich surpasses
   the power of God--something that is more potent than Omnipotence, that
   something must be god! I only put the matter thus to show you that you
   are obliged to believe that God can deliver you out of your present
   desperate plight, or else you must become an idolater! You must feel
   that your difficulties and trials are greater than God and, therefore,
   you deify them! Of course you do not mean to do that! You feel a cold
   shiver go through you at the bare thought of such blasphemy, yet you
   practically do it whenever you doubt that God is "able to do this,"
   whatever, "this," may be!

   Further, to doubt God's power to do "this," whatever it may be, is
   challenging every attribute of the Divine Character. I could prove this
   if I had the time, but I will indicate only one attribute of God, that
   is, His truthfulness. Take such a promise as this, "He shall call upon
   Me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble." Now, if you
   doubt God's power to fulfill that promise, you practically challenge
   His veracity! Can you calmly contemplate such a sin as that would be?
   Yet it seems to me that you cannot avoid committing that sin unless
   now, by simple faith, you believe that He is "able to do this." But
   grant that God is Omnipotent, once really accept that Truth of God in
   your heart and then you will feel that there remains no strait into
   which you can be brought out of which He cannot deliver you, that there
   is no temptation which may assail you from which He cannot preserve
   you, that there can be no position of peril in which He cannot protect
   you and out of which He cannot bring you unharmed! May the Holy Spirit
   graciously reveal to us the unsafe, treacherous, boggy pit that would
   swallow us up if we doubt that God is "able to do this"--and may He
   enable us to realize that it is safe walking and happy walking when we
   walk by faith!

   II. My second statement, which is as simple as the first, is that TRUE
   FAITH, ESPECIALLY IN THE MATTER OF SALVATION, MUST BE PERSONAL.

   If I have any true faith in Christ at all, I must believe that He is
   "able to do this"--that is, that He is able to do for me what He has
   done for many who are now in Glory--and what He is doing for many who
   are rejoicing in His salvation here on earth! I know that I am
   addressing many who believe in the Bible. At least you say that you do
   and that you believe that Jesus Christ is able to do everything. That
   is the theory of your faith, yet you do not believe this--that Jesus
   Christ is able to save you now. You have got an idea in your mind that
   for some reason or other, on account of some lack of preparation in
   you, or for some equally foolish reason, the simple act of faith in
   Christ would not be the means of bringing salvation to your soul! You
   imagine that your case is not one that is covered by the promise of
   God, or encompassed by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ!

   If that is what you think, that Christ cannot save you--why do you not
   doubt whether He can save others? In fact, why do you not doubt whether
   He can save any sinner who ever lived? You tell me that your case is a
   very peculiar one. I will grant you that, but then the case of the next
   sinner you meet will also be a peculiar one. He is as honest a man as
   you are and he will tell you that there is something very peculiar
   about his case. I have very seldom talked with any person under
   conviction of sin who did not think that his case was different from
   that of anybody else--and very surprised has he been when I have told
   him that his words just described my own experience when I was under
   conviction of sin! If you believe that Christ cannot save you because
   of some peculiarity in your case, is it not equally reasonable or
   unreasonable that you should believe that He cannot save another sinner
   because of some peculiarity in his case? In this way you would soon get
   to believe that Jesus Christ cannot save at all! "No," you say, "I
   shall never believe that." But that is practically

   what you do believe! You do not believe that Jesus Christ is a potent
   Savior! You may think that you do, but if the matter were put to the
   test and you regarded every other sinner's case as you regard your own,
   there would be just as good reason to suppose every other case to be
   hopeless as to conclude that there is no hope of salvation for
   yourself! If you are strictly reasonable in your belief, you must
   either believe that Christ can save you or that He can save nobody at
   all!

   Then, as I said before under the previous head, if you do not believe
   that Christ can save you, you give up the whole case. You have
   probably, all of you, held as one of the undisputed articles of the
   Christian faith that Christ is Omnipotent. But supposing that your case
   is one in which His blood has no cleansing efficacy--supposing that you
   are so vile that He cannot and will not receive you, supposing that
   your heart is so hard that He cannot soften it--then He is not
   Omnipotent! That is as clear as anything can be, for here is a case
   that has defied and defeated Him! Oh, tell it not in Gath, publish it
   not in the streets of Askelon that there is a man here who professes to
   believe the Bible, yet He holds that Christ is not Omnipotent! "Oh,"
   you say, "I do not hold that!" But you do practically hold it, for if
   you thought Him to be Omnipotent, you must conclude that He is "able to
   do this," that is, to save you!

   More than that, disbelieving Christ's power to save in your own case is
   virtually making yourself god. "Oh, no!" you say in horror at the bare
   mention of such a thing! "I never did that!" Stay a moment and let me
   prove it to you. You believe that there is something in you which
   cannot be overcome by Divine Power. You think that there is something
   in you which makes it impossible that you can be saved. Now listen, the
   most mighty of all forces must belong to Deity-- but if there is in you
   some force of wickedness, some hardness of heart, some obstinate
   willfulness which you imagine God really cannot overcome, then you are
   practically making out that the evil in you is more powerful than
   Omnipotence and greater than God! Is not this very strange, as well as
   very wicked? You thought you were making yourself out to be very
   humble, but it turns out that you are very proud, lifting up yourself
   to the very Throne of God and seeking to usurp His place! This is what
   you are practically doing when you assume that Christ is not "able to
   do this," that is, to save you. My dear Friend, look at the enormous
   guilt in which such unbelief would involve you and start back from it
   with the utmost abhorrence! And believe that Christ is mighty to save,
   yes, that He is Almighty to save even you!

   I say again, as I said upon the first part of my subject, this unbelief
   of yours challenges all the Divine Attributes. In believing that Christ
   cannot save you, you are dishonoring the Character of God in the Person
   of His well-beloved Son, for you have set a limit to His power although
   He said that all power in Heaven and in earth had been given to Him!
   When He asks, "Is My arm shortened that it cannot save you?" you
   answer, "Yes, Lord." When He says, "Is My ear heavy that it cannot hear
   your cry?" you reply, "Yes, Lord." You may not dare to say it with your
   lips, but you really mean it in your heart--and that is even worse! You
   are denying the Truth of Christ's promise. He said, "Come unto Me, all
   you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Yet
   yousay, "Lord, I would come to You, but I would never get any rest. I
   would trust you, but I would never be saved." You suppose either that
   Christ has promised more than He can perform, not knowing that He was
   doing so, which is challenging His Omniscience, or that He has
   deliberately promised more than He knew that He could do, which is
   challenging His truthfulness and honor! He has commanded that this
   message should be preached to every creature in all the world--"He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." He also said, "He that
   believes on the Son has everlasting life." This is His declaration
   concerning every believing soul, so that if you believe on Him, it is
   notpossible that your case could be beyond the limit of His power to
   save! I am not talking now about His willingness to save. If I were, I
   would speak just as confidently, but just now I am referring to His
   power. Christ's own question to you, my dear Friend, is the same that
   He put to the blind men, "Believe you that I am able to do
   this?"--that, is, to save you! Think of the solemn consequences of
   unbelief--see how shamefully it maligns and slanders the Character of
   Jesus and then may His gracious Spirit sweetly compel you to believe
   that He is "able to do this," and to save even you!

   After Christ had cured these blind men, He healed a dumb man who was
   possessed with a devil. And the multitudes marveled, saying, "It was
   never so seen in Israel." I wonder if there is one here who thinks
   himself the biggest sinner in the world, the most hardened, the most
   hopeless? If so, and he believes in Jesus, Jesus will save him and then
   he, also, will be able to say, "It was never so seen in Israel." I know
   that when I found peace through believing in Jesus, I thought that it
   had never been so seen in Israel! And I have met with many others who
   have felt just the same about their own conversion. Well, supposing
   that it wasnever so seen in Israel, then there are new honors and fresh
   glories for Immanuel and there is no reason why it should not be seen
   here tonight! At any rate, I pray God to show you the inconsistency of
   professing to believe the Bible and yet thinking that for some reason
   or other, or for all the reasons in the world put together, Christ is
   unable to save you!

   III. My third statement, which is as simple as the first and second
   were, is that IN ALL MATTERS AFFECTING THE SOUL, THE VITAL QUESTION IS
   THAT OF FAITH.

   "Believe you that I am able to do this?" must be the vital question
   concerning a soul's salvation! Personal faith with regard to Christ's
   power to save must be the main matter. Jesus did not say to these blind
   men, "Have you a proper sense of your blindness? Are you sufficiently
   sensible of the deprivation from which you suffer through the loss of
   your eyesight? Do you feel the degradation of the poverty which compels
   you to beg? Have you wept, moaned, groaned and grieved because you
   cannot see?" No such questions as these were put to them by our Lord!
   He simply asked them, "Believe you that I am able to do this?" There
   are various questions that many of you ask yourselves although Christ
   never puts them to you--His one enquiry is, "Believe you that I am able
   to do this?" If you can answer that question satisfactorily, you need
   not trouble about your own queries!

   You will notice, too, that Christ did not ask the blind men whether
   they loved Him. He did not say to them, "I am not going to do anything
   for you unless your hearts are burning with love to Me." Oh, no! It
   would have been clean contrary to our Savior's nature to say to these
   men, "Are you really fond of Me? Then I will do what you desire." So,
   Sinner, Christ does not ask you whether you love Him because He knows
   that you do not--yet you ask yourself this question again and
   again--"Do I love the Lord or no? Am I a lover of Jesus? I have heard
   His people say that they love Him, but do I love Him?" Now, this is a
   very proper question for you to ask yourself after you have believed in
   Jesus--but you must have the root-grace of faith, first, before you
   begin to look for its fruits. I hope that you will afterwards attain to
   that burning, fervent love that many advanced Believers have to Jesus,
   but this is not the matter that concerns you just now. The question
   that Jesus puts to you now is, "Believe you that I am able to do this?
   Believe you that I can take your sins away and make you clean tonight?
   Believe you that I can take away your heart of stone and give you a
   heart of flesh? Believe you that I can turn you, a lion, into a lamb?
   Believe you that I can give you the Grace of repentance though you
   cannot repent without My aid? Do you believe that I am able to do all
   that needs to be done in order to save you?" This is the question
   Christ asks you now. I trust the time will come when He will say to
   you, "Do you love Me?" and that you will be able truthfully to answer,
   "Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You."

   There was another question which Christ did not put to the blind men.
   He did not say to them, "Have you feared whether you would ever have
   your sight? Have you been frightened at the thought that you may have
   to grope about in darkness and poverty all your days? Have you been in
   such despair that you have almost feared that you would commit suicide
   unless your blindness could be cured?" No, Christ did not ask any such
   questions as these! His one enquiry was, "Believe you that I am able to
   do this?" Friends tell us sometimes about the terrors they have
   experienced before they came to Christ by simple faith, but it would be
   quite wrong on our part to conclude that such terrors are necessary! I
   believe that they are nevernecessary and that they are seldom
   useful--it certainly cannot be right to put them in the place of faith
   in Christ! Dear Friend, I wish that you would answer the Master's
   question and leave all other matters alone until He asks you about
   them. He does not question you concerning your fears and your terrors,
   the plowing and harrowing Law work of which some brethren are so fond
   of talking about. His first question is, "Believe you that I am able to
   do this?" Give Him an answer and may the Holy Spirit enable you to give
   the right reply, "Yes, Lord," even as the blind men did when Christ put
   a similar question to them! The vital matter is faith in Jesus. "Do you
   believe on the Son of God?" O Sinner, how glad and thankful I would be
   if I knew that you were saying in your heart, "I do believe that Christ
   is both able and willing to save me. And I cast myself into His arms
   now." If you have really done that, you are saved, and now you know,
   feel, and rejoice in His power to save all those who come unto God by
   Him! Trust in Jesus, for this is the vital sign by which we discern
   those who are chosen of the Father, regenerated by the Holy Spirit and
   redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus! If you truly believe in Jesus,
   you are born of God--you need not fear that you shall ever perish, but
   you may even now rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory!

   IV. I close with this fourth observation, that THIS QUESTION IS ONE
   WHICH WE MIGHT NATURALLY

   HAVE CONCLUDED THAT JESUS WOULD ASK.

   It was a vitally important question, and it was by no means an
   unreasonable one. If the blind men had not believed that Jesus was
   "able to do this," they would not have asked Him to have mercy upon
   them. It would have been an imper-

   tinence on their part, or something worse than that, if they had
   pleaded for mercy and yet had not believed that He was able to grant it
   to them! I should not feel pleased if a blind man came to me and said,
   "Will you be so good as to open my eyes?" I should feel morally certain
   that he was mocking me, for he would know as well as I do that I have
   not the power to give sight to the blind! Now, dear Friends, some of
   you have been praying to the Lord to have mercy upon you--so you see
   that you have committed yourselves just as these blind men had! You
   have not told anybody about it. Possibly it was behind the hedge, or up
   in the hayloft, or in that little bedroom of yours when no one but God
   could see you. Well then, how did you dare to pray thus if you did not
   believe that the Lord could do for you what you asked of Him? You did
   not mean to insult Him, did you? I think the very fact of your praying
   drives you to the conclusion that you do believe that He is "able to do
   this." If you do not, you must not pray anymore! "Oh," you say, "I
   cannot help praying." I am glad you cannot and I hope you never will
   cease praying, but if you go on praying, yet do not believe in Christ's
   power to save you, it is very much like a mockery of the Savior, for
   how can you pray with any sort of justification unless you can truly
   say, "O Lord, I do believe that You are able to save, and able to save
   even me"? I do not know whether the blind men at first fully believed
   in the Deity of Jesus, but I assume that all of us hold that He is
   "very God of very God." I hope none of you have been led astray by the
   false Doctrine that Christ is a mere man. You believe that He is the
   Son of God, so what is more reasonable than that He should say to you,
   "Believe you that I am able to do this?" You must give up your belief
   that He is Divine or else you must believe that He is able to do this,
   that is, to save you! I have already shown you that Omnipotence is
   essential to Deity, so if you doubt that Christ is Omnipotent, I do not
   see how you can believe that He is the Son of God. But inasmuch as you
   say that you do believe that He is the Son of God, and I have no reason
   to question your veracity, how can it be a question with you whether He
   is able to save you?

   Besides, you know that Christ has saved a great many other people and
   this should encourage you to believe that He can save you. The blind
   men had probably heard of His miracles of mercy and so were stimulated
   to cry to Him on their own account. You have seen the change that
   Christ has worked in some of your relatives or friends--and this being
   the case, Christ certainly has the right to expect that you should
   believe that what He was able to do for them, He is also able to do for
   you! Your case is not by any means as peculiar as you imagine. It can
   easily be matched by others where Christ's power to save has been
   abundantly proved. If you are a drunk, we can produce drunks who have
   been saved by Christ. If you are a swearer, we can show you swearers
   who have been saved by Christ. If you are a harlot, we can bring
   harlots who have been washed in the precious blood of Jesus and who are
   now living chaste and holy lives. If, on the other hand, you have led
   an outwardly moral life and cannot feel the deep conviction of sin that
   others have experienced--if you say, with Cowper--

   "I hear, but seem to hear in vain, Insensible as steel. If anything is
   felt, 'tis only pain To find I cannot feel"--

   we can find plenty of cases to match yours! Suppose you have a bad leg
   and you go to a doctor and say to him, "Doctor, you see what is the
   matter with my leg, but I don't believe you can cure it." He would
   certainly not feel flattered by your doubt concerning his skill, yet he
   might say to you, "Well, it so happens that I have had many cases
   exactly like yours, and in every instance the remedies I have
   prescribed have been the means of producing a complete cure." If, after
   that, you still persist in saying that you do not believe the doctor
   can cure you, he would be fully justified in saying to you, "Then I
   think your unbelief is very unreasonable. Here in my book I have the
   record of many cases almost identical with yours, and as I was able to
   cure them, I have no doubt that I can cure you if you will only commit
   yourself to my hands and do as I tell you." In a similar manner, I
   venture to say that there is not a case in this house--there is not a
   case in the whole world to which there has not been a very close
   parallel in which the power of Christ has already been displayed-- and,
   therefore, He has the right to ask every unsaved soul, "Believe you
   that I am able to do this for you?"

   My dear Hearer, I can most confidently assure you that He is "able to
   do this." I know the ways of unbelief, for I have walked there. But oh,
   happy, happy, happy day when I understood my Savior's Grace and power
   at least in some degree! When I saw that, although I was a sinner, He
   came to save sinners, and although I was black with sin, His precious
   blood was able to wash me whiter than snow--and although I was naked,
   His righteousness supplied me with a robe in which I might even dare to
   appear before God, and although I was spiritually dead, His Holy Spirit
   was given to

   quicken me and make me live forever--thus in Christ all my soul's needs
   were fully met--and desperate as my case had appeared to myself, I had
   proved as so many before me and since have also proved that, "with God
   all things are possible." May you come to the same conclusion, dear
   Friend, and cast yourself now upon the naked promise of God made in
   Covenant with Christ and ratified by His most precious blood! If He
   does not save you when you trust Him, this Bible is not true. If any
   soul can truly trust Him and then be a castaway, I have no Gospel to
   preach to guilty sinners! But that can never be the case, for He has
   Himself declared--oh that I could pronounce the words as He uttered
   them!--"Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Come then,
   everyone of you, and prove the truth of His blessed promise and so you
   shall be saved--and He shall have the Glory forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW9:18-38.

   Verse 18. While He spoke these things unto them, behold, there came a
   certain ruler and worshipped Him, saying, My daughter is even now dead:
   but come and lay Your hand upon her, and she shall live. This was grand
   faith on the ruler's part, believing that the touch of Christ's hand
   would raise his dead daughter to life! We do not wonder that the Savior
   honored such faith as that at once!

   19, 20. And Jesus arose, and followed him, andso didHis disciples. And,
   behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve
   years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment This was
   while He was on the way to the ruler's house. Jesus Christ can work
   many miracles while He is on the way to work other miracles.

   21. For she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment, I
   shall be whole. This also is wonderful faith-in this Chapter we get
   among the

   great Believers! The man believes that the touch of Jesus can raise the
   dead. The woman believes that the touch of His garment will make her
   whole!

   22. But Jesus turned about, and when He saw her, He said, Daughter, be
   of good comfort; your faith has made you whole. And the woman was made
   whole from that hour. [See Sermon #3020, Volume 53--good cheer from
   grace received.] Christ never comes short of our faith, but He often
   goes beyond

   it!

   23. And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels
   and the people making a noise. These were hired men and women who were
   brought in to act as mourners

   24. 25. He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but
   sleeps. And they laughed Him to scorn. But when the people were put
   out, He went in--There is a good deal that has to be "put out" before
   the Lord Jesus Christ will fully reveal His power to bless. He would
   have you put out your doubts, your fears, your wandering thoughts, your
   self-trust--in fact, everything that is contrary to His righteous rule.
   "When the people were put out, He went in"--

   25-27. And took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame
   hereof went abroad into all that land. And when Jesus departed from
   there, two blind men followed Him, crying, and saying, You Son of
   David, have mercy on us! See how busy our Lord was, and how ready for
   every application that was made to Him! And note how He adapted His
   power to every case that came before Him. First He heals an issue of
   blood. Then He raises the dead and now He is ready to open blind eyes!
   I wish the Lord might have such blessed business among us here--and He
   may have--for if you will cry to Him for your child, dead in trespasses
   and sins, He will make her live! If you will bring your blind eyes to
   Him, He will open them! And if you will come to Him with a disease that
   is sapping your very life, He will heal you! Give the Lord plenty of
   this holy work to do! Drawn wells, they say, are sweetest--and a Savior
   who is constantly used is most enjoyed!

   28. And when He was come into the house, the blind men came to Him: and
   Jesus said unto them, Believe you that I am able to do this?That is the
   question the Lord puts to any who are in soul-trouble. "'Believe you
   that I am able to do this?'--to forgive your sins once and for all--to
   give you a new Nature at this very moment--to make you, a sinner, into
   a saint--to save you, not merely for the next few weeks, but to save
   you eternally so that you shall see My face in Glory with exceeding
   joy--'Believe you that I am able to do this?'"

   28, 29. They said unto Him, Yes, Lord. Then touched He their eyes,
   saying, according to your faith be it unto you. That is what Jesus says
   to every person here, "According to your faith be it unto you." If you
   believe Christ a little, He

   will bless you a little, but if you believe Him up to the hilt, He will
   bless you to the fullest! Your faith shall never outrun the
   manifestations of Divine Love. Believe you this? Then you shall see it!
   "According to your faith be it unto you."

   30-32. And their eyes were opened and Jesus immediately charged them,
   saying, See that no man knows it But they, when they were departed,
   spread abroad His fame in all that country. As they went out, behold,
   they brought to Him a dumb man possessed with a devil. These miracles
   were worked so rapidly, and they concerned such different cases that as
   we read of them, we rejoice to see how Christ was ready for anything
   and ready for everything! It did not matter what case was brought to
   Him, He was never taken aback. Here He is just as fully prepared to
   heal the dumb as just now He was to cure the blind!

   33. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spoke --There is nothing
   like going at once to the root of the matter. Christ did not heal the
   dumb man, and leave the devil in him, but He first cast the devil out
   and then, "the dumb spoke." And this is His way of saving men. He
   renews them by His Spirit, He casts the devil out and then their
   despair goes, their prayerlessness disappears, their love of vice is
   killed! All evil is expelled when once the root of the evil is pulled
   up. "When the devil was cast out, the dumb spoke"--

   CURE--Read/download the entire sermon, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org.] Christ had worked such miracles as the
   multitudes had

   never before seen! And they might well marvel.

   34, 35. But the Pharisees said, He casts out devils through the prince
   of the devils. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages-- What
   the Pharisees said was of such very small consequence that, for the
   time being, Christ vouchsafed them no answer but this, "Jesus went
   about all the cities and villages." In like manner, it will be your
   best plan not to reply to slander. There are some lies that smell so
   strongly of the Pit from which they come that everybody will recognize
   their origin and, therefore, you need not take the trouble to point out
   that they are lies. And the best reply to all scandal and slander is to
   go on with your work just as if you had never heard it. The Pharisees
   said that Christ cast out devils through the prince of the devils, and
   the very next sentence is, "And Jesus went about all the cities and
   villages"--

   35- 36. Teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the
   Kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
   But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for
   them--Yet Christ, while upon the earth in the flesh, never saw such
   multitudes as are gathered in London today! He never saw such
   multitudes as make up this nation! There never passed before the eyes
   of the Redeemer such multitudes as are crowded together in China and
   India today! No, the population of the world has wondrously increased
   since those days, so what must be the compassion of His heart when He
   sees the multitudes that are living in the world today? "When He saw
   the multitudes He was moved"--in the original, this is a very striking
   word--it signifies that He trembled with emotion, His inmost powers
   were moved, His heart was stirred "with compassion on them"--

   36- 37. Because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having
   no shepherd. Then said He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is
   plenteous, but the laborers are few. Not the preachers, but the
   laborersare few! Not the talkers, but the laborers--the patient,
   plodding, resolute, disinterested, industrious toilers who really go in
   for winning souls for Christ--the men and women who do real work for
   God and do not play at Christian service as some do, making it a kind
   of amusement to go and do some little good now and then! It is these
   laborers who are few. You know the difference between a dock laborer,
   or a farm laborer, and the gentleman who takes a tool in his hand just
   for a pastime now and then.

   38. Pray you therefore the Lord of the Harvest, that He will send forth
   laborers into His harvest [See Sermon #1127, Volume 19--HARVEST MEN
   NEEDED.] It is earnest workers that we are to

   pray God to thrust forth into His harvest, for still the harvest is
   plenteous and the laborers are few.

   was never before seen in Israel.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Very Early Bible Society

   (No. 3303)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 14,
   1885.

   "And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the
   Book of the Law in the house of the LORRD. And Hilkiah delivered the
   book to Shaphan... Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying,
   Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the
   king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the
   Law, that he tore his clothes." 2 Chronicles 34:15,18,19.

   ~ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY-

   HILKIAH had found THE BOOK and it was a more important find than if he
   had discovered a mine of diamonds, or perpetual motion, or a new world!
   Oh, that Book, that wonderful Book! Was there ever anything like it
   under Heaven? Well may it be a power when we come to think of what it
   is--the Book of the Law of the living God! How reverently did he lift
   it from its hiding place, remove its dust and commence to read its
   title and contents! This particular Book of the Law was probably the
   first five Books of Moses, commonly called the Pentateuch. Some have
   thought that it was only the Book of Deuteronomy, but it is too late in
   the day for us to decide with confidence its exact form. We know that
   it was "a Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses" (2 Chron 34:14),
   probably an autographed copy by Moses. Of that we cannot be sure, but
   whatever hand may have written the letters, what a Book the Law of the
   Lord is! The Old Testament is a Divine light which has led multitudes
   of saints to the Lord's right hand--and its luster is not dimmed by the
   New Testament, but increased thereby. Not one tittle of it has failed,
   or shall fail--it lives and abides forever! Taking an enlarged view of
   the Law of the Lord today and holding in our hands two Testaments, both
   the Old and the New, what a marvelous Book the Bible is! Earth does not
   contain an equal wonder!

   It is a Book which has God for its Author, for though there are many
   authors and the Book is divided into many treatises, yet it is all of
   one as to its innermost authorship, since holy men of old spoke as they
   were moved by the Holy Spirit. A Divine originality runs through it
   all--marks of the Divine Mind abound in every portion and the Holy
   Spirit still inspires it all and breathes it into the hearts of
   believing readers. Matthew and Mark, and Luke and John are here, but we
   scarcely observe them as compared with the higher light, the Light of
   God which illuminates every page! The Book is saturated with a heavenly
   life!

   What God has written is to be received with the utmost reverence. It is
   a pity that so many treat this Sacred Volume as they would treat any
   ordinary book. They sit on the throne of judgment and sway the scepter
   of criticism, as if they would call God, Himself, to their bar! Surely
   they have never heard in their heart and conscience the sound of that
   question, "Who are you that replesagainst God?" If God is not its
   Author, this Book is a gross imposture and the sooner we treat it as
   such the better! But if God is its Author, let us bow before it
   obediently and accept it as our Infallible Directory.

   As it has God for its Author, so it commends itself to us as
   inestimably precious because it has God's mind for its matter. In this
   Book of the Lord the chief subject is Himself and His ways and His
   Grace towards us, His creatures. Here the Lord does not so much explain
   His works as His own personal ways, thoughts and designs to our fallen
   race. He does not take the pen in hand to explain to us what He has
   written in the stone book, or to open up to us what He has printed in
   letters of light in yonder constellations, but to reveal His glorious
   Grace which He has caused to dwell in all its fullness in Christ Jesus
   our Lord! He has left us to find out what we may of visible things--a
   happy and healthful exercise for our

   minds, but He had something nobler to tell us when He inspired this
   Book. Herein He has told us His thoughts of man and of the Man, Christ
   Jesus. His thoughts upon our sin and the ruin that comes of it. His
   thoughts as to how we may be saved and what shall come out of that
   salvation. The windows of this Book look towards Heaven and truly they
   are windows of agate--themselves precious and giving us a view of still
   more precious things! Its doors open into eternity and its gates lead
   into Glory. Every page points to holiness and felicity and attracts us
   thereto. Precious Book! I would say of you what David said of Goliath's
   sword "There is none like that. Give it to me." You are marrow and
   fatness, honey, wines on the lees well-refined--yes, manna of angels
   and water from the Rock, Christ Jesus! Of all soul medicines you are
   the most potent! Of all mental dainties you are the sweetest! And of
   all spiritual food you are the most sustaining!

   As the Book has God for its Author, and God's mind for its matter, so
   does it become invaluable to us because it is directed to us. It is not
   a letter written from God to the angels, nor is it sent to a race of
   beings alien from ourselves. This Book is for men and it is directed
   not to our curiosity, nor to any of our lower faculties, but to the
   soul of our life, to the vital spirit of our manhood! It is God's Word
   to the innermost man--to our immortal part. He speaks here not only to
   our ears, but to our souls. He directs His teaching not to that part of
   us which shall die, but to that part of us which shall never cease to
   be, but shall be immortal as Himself! If ever a man ought to
   concentrate all his faculties and pray to be in the best mental order,
   it should be when he comes to study the Word of God upon matters which
   concern his noblest being. God grant, therefore, that in our hearts we
   may feel deep reverence for this marvelous Book which we shall not now
   lose as Israel almost lost it--whose copies will never become scarce,
   as they were in Josiah's day. The Word of the Lord will always be
   precious, but not through scarcity of copies, now that the Bible
   Society is scattering them thick as autumn leaves! They will always be
   gems for value and yet as pebbles of the brook for multitude!

   He that reads this wondrous Book aright may well value it because of
   the blessings which it will bring him. It will tell him how to be rid
   of all his sin and free himself from the slavery of Satan. It will
   teach him how to bear his present burdens and quit all needless cares.
   It will be a guide to him through the maze of life, a pillow for the
   bed of death! It will give him joy and peace through believing when the
   thickest troubles shall gather round about him, and it will make him
   ready for the future world when brightest glories shall shine upon him!
   Whatever you need for time or for eternity, this Book shall either give
   it to you, or point you to Him who has it ready to give to you if you
   will bend your knee before Him! It is a golden mine of the Truth of God
   and infinitely more--it is a treasury of blessings and delights, and
   even then I have not fully described it. It has for you, O sheep of the
   Lord, all that your Good Shepherd sees that you have need of! Here are
   the green pastures wherein He makes you to feed and to lie down--and
   here flow the still waters, whereof if a man drinks, he shall never
   thirst, but shall joy and rejoice in God forever! I do not wonder that
   Hilkiah and Shaphan had the same value for the smaller Book which we
   Believers in Christ have for the larger edition of it--for even a
   fragment of it is priceless! I do not wonder that they considered their
   treasure to be worthy of being brought before the king. If they had
   discovered where hidden coffers had been concealed by Solomon and the
   great kings that succeeded him, they would not have procured so
   glorious a present for the king of Judah as when they suddenly stumbled
   upon this Book of the Law of the Lord!

   I. Tonight I shall try to speak of the whole question under three
   heads. And the first will be this--here is an instance of that PECULIAR
   PRESERVATION which God has extended to the Scriptures which He has
   Inspired. It would seem, from this narrative, that copies of the Word
   of God had become extremely rare, for no other copy was known to exist.
   If anyone had known where there was a copy of the Pentateuch, the
   priest would have known, or the pious king's secretary would have been
   informed of it. These appear to have been gracious men, learned
   men--and men to whom the people came--surely if such a thing was
   procurable, they would have possessed a copy of the Law of the Lord.
   Perhaps the faithful scattered up and down through Israel and Judah had
   copies of the Book, but they had grown so accustomed to conceal them
   from their persecutors that they kept the secret to themselves. If
   there were other copies, they were not known to those who had the best
   means of discovering them.

   When Hilkiah discovered this copy of the Word of God, he was greatly
   surprised and overjoyed. What a singular Providence it was that the
   Book was not quite destroyed! How fortunate that the one copy should
   have been left! It is believed by many--and I think that their belief
   is correct--that this was a standard copy If it was not the original,
   yet it was an authorized transcript which was to be regarded as the
   correct text--and it had been laid up in the Ark of the Lord for that
   purpose. Perhaps in some dark hour, for fear that it would be
   discovered even in the secret shrine of the

   tabernacle, a priest had hidden it away. The tradition is that it was
   buried beneath a heap of stones when Ahaz was seeking out copies of the
   Word to destroy them. By the Divine Providence of God this one standard
   copy had been preserved and now came to light! It may have been hidden
   carefully and then Providence had provided the caretaker. It may have
   been thrown away carelessly--then Providence had made even that
   carelessness to be the means of preserving the treasure. In any case,
   the Law was still among men and it had now fallen into careful and
   reverent hands. The God who gave it had preserved it!

   Now look along through all the ages and if you are a reverent Believer
   in the Word, you will be filled with grateful wonder that the Sacred
   Roll has been preserved to us! Through what perils it has passed and
   yet, as I believe, there is not a Chapter of it lost--no, nor a verse
   of any Chapter! The misreading of the copies are really so
   inconsiderable and are so happily corrected by other manuscripts, that
   our Bible is a marvel in literature for the comparative ease with which
   the correct text is discoverable! It seems to me that God's Divine Care
   has extended itself to the whole text, so that, with far less care than
   would be needed by any classic author, the very words of the Holy
   Spirit may be known! As the wings of cherubim overshadowed the Mercy
   Seat, so do the wings of Providence protect the Book of the Lord! As
   Michael guarded the body of Moses, so does a Divine Care secure the
   Books of Moses! I invite lovers of history and of famous books to look
   into the interesting story of the immortality of Scripture. Let us
   think of that special preservation with reverent gratitude.

   The God of Israel had given rules for the preservation of the
   Scriptures, but they had evidently fallen into disuse. It is expressly
   laid down in the Book of Deuteronomy that each king was to copy out the
   Book of the Law for himself. We have no evidence that anyof them did
   so! Most of the ordinances of the Lord to His chosen people were
   neglected almost as soon as they were given. Even in the wilderness,
   during 40 years, the rite of circumcision, which lay at the base of
   everything, was unobserved! The feast of tabernacles was not kept for
   many and many a year. And the Passover, the most solemn of all rites,
   was not carefully celebrated--indeed, it had never been properly
   observed from the days of Samuel to the days of Josiah! It had been
   altered and debased from its original form. Alas, Christian ordinances
   have suffered from the some tendency to change! This proves the
   depraved nature of man, and his unwillingness to walk in the path of
   obedience. The plan of preserving the Sacred Book by the kings' copying
   it had fallen into disuse and, therefore, the extreme scarcity of
   manuscripts around the court--yet even then, the Word did not fail!

   Nor was the Scripture alone in danger from the neglect to preserve it,
   but furious persecutions had been raised against the Holy Volume. The
   haters of it slew the Prophets, broke down the memorials of God's
   goodness to His people and polluted the Holy Place of the Most
   High--and their rage did not spare His statutes. The Law must be
   destroyed, or they would still be rebuked. You know, Brothers and
   Sisters, how from century to century that church which has no
   foundation in the Word of God has, with desperate determination, hunted
   after every copy of the Inspired Volume to destroy it! It is not very
   long ago since that unchangeable church called the Scriptures
   "dangerous pastures." Who and what must the shepherds be who use such
   language concerning the Law of the Lord? But with all their burnings,
   they have not destroyed the Book! With all their inquisitions and
   torture chambers, faith in Scripture has survived! Still the Book
   teaches and preaches with a Divine Unction and Authority. What Popery
   could not do, infidelity shall not do! Infidelity, some years ago, was
   going to blot out the name of Jesus from under Heaven! Its boastful
   champion said that he was but one man, but in a few years he would undo
   all that was accomplished by the 12 Apostles! His name is left to
   curse--the work of God goes on better than ever it did and the grand
   old Book is scattered everywhere, falling fast and thick as snowflakes
   in the time of winter! I might almost say that the copies of the Bible
   are in number comparable to the sands of the sea! Think of nearly a
   million penny Testaments being scattered in a single year in this one
   land! These are leaves of the Tree of Life for the healing of the
   nations! There is a blessing in every line of the Sacred Record both
   for the present age and for years to come. This Word will abide among
   men till time shall be no more. God be thanked for it!

   The passage before us is a very beautiful instance of how under every
   difficulty, when every regulation has been neglected, and the utmost
   fury goes forth against the Word, yet the Word lives and abides
   forever! The fact is that Providence is the ally of Revelation. From
   the Word of the Lord, Creation began--by the Word of the Lord Creation
   is sustained and everything seems to know the source from which it
   came--and every creature lends itself to the preservation of that grand
   Word by which it exists! Depend upon it, Brothers and Sisters, the Book
   is not alone--God is always with it! God has put a wall of fire around
   the Revelation of His will and with Omnipotence He guards it against
   all who would harm it! God is always with those who tremble at His
   Word. And when there shall come times of darkness and of sorrow, and
   you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, never question what the end
   will be, for "the Word of the Lord endures forever." He that sits on
   the floods as King forever and ever, will so order all things that His
   Word shall have yet greater sway and His Gospel shall conquer the
   hearts of men!

   But, oh, how should we love the Book, and how should we stand up for
   it, and guard it jealously, since God has guarded it so well! Let every
   man of God be like Solomon's valiant men of Israel who watched about
   the bed of the king, each man with his sword upon his thigh because of
   fear in the night--for there is much fear just now for the Truth of
   God. I mean, of course, to us poor puny beings there is danger--there
   is no fear in the great heart of the Eternal! There is no fear as to
   the accomplishment of His purposes, for He is strong in power and not
   one fails. What our fathers preserved with their blood, we will
   preserve with our lives. That which bore them to a martyr's death,
   singing as they went, we will not consent to throw away! If any man has
   another gospel, let him keep it--I am satisfied with mine. If any man
   has found another bible, let him read it--I am satisfied with my
   mother's old Bible and the Bible of my ancestors. If discoveries are to
   be made concerning a new way of the salvation of men, let them make
   them who care to do so--the old way has saved me and the old way has
   saved multitudes of others--and therein shall I abide, God helping me,
   come what may! And so will you, my Brothers and Sisters--and together
   we will rejoice that God preserves His Book and continues to give His
   Holy Spirit with it! God will uphold His Truth that is in this Book and
   the men that hold that Truth shall be upheld. "Forever, O Lord, your
   Word is settled in Heaven!" And similar eternal settlements are made
   for all whose hope is fixed upon that Word!

   II. Having glanced at this, I ask you to think for a little upon
   another point--THE COMMENDABLE COMMUNICATION CONCERNING THIS BOOK.
   Hilkiah finds it. Hilkiah hands it to the royal secretary, whose name
   was Shaphan. Shaphan reads a bit of it and makes quite sure that it is
   what it professes to be--and then immediately he goes with it to the
   king. The king holds a Bible-reading with him and when the king has
   read the Scared Roll, himself, he summons all the people and reads the
   Book to them. The point is this--if you have found the Word of God,
   make it known to others! Keep not this honey to yourself!

   Hilkiah handed to Shaphan the Book without note or comment. It was the
   Book with no apocryphal matter rolled up with it. It was the Book of
   the Law of God in its purest state. He who found the Book delighted in
   it, but he passed it on--and the next passed it on and the next passed
   it on--and the next circulated it still further. All the nation soon
   heard of what was written in the Book. The handlers of the Volume do
   not appear to have tarried long. Hilkiah rejoiced and said to secretary
   Shaphan, "I have found the Book of the Law!" And Shaphan did not delay
   a month, but went straight away to let the king know. And the king,
   after he had tore his clothes, expressed his sorrow for national sin
   and enquired at the hand of the Lord's Prophetess, published the Divine
   message to the people and read the Law to them. The moral
   is--continually make known God's Holy Word! If you have obtained light,
   let your brother light his candle at your candle. If you have seen
   anything of God, tell your brother what you have seen. Let not God's
   Book grow moldy in your own hand, but pass it on and let another read
   what you have read to your salvation and to your comfort, that he also
   may be saved and comforted! Let your light shine! Scatter the bread of
   Heaven! Distribute the balm of Gilead!

   How can we do this? Well, I believe that it is the duty of every
   Christian man not only to preach the Gospel, and to tell to others of
   his own experience of it, but also literally to pass on the Book,
   itself. You may possibly make a mistake as to your explanation of it,
   but you will make no mistake if you give away the Book, itself, and
   pray the Spirit of God, Himself, to explain it to the reader. Money
   should be spent by each one of us in scattering Bibles. With Testaments
   at a penny, who would not give Testaments away? With Bibles so cheap as
   they are, and withal so beautiful to look upon, many of them, who would
   not think it a good investment frequently to give to the young, to your
   relatives, to your friends, a copy of the Book? Suit the size of the
   copy to the person and so give that your present will be valued. What
   better marriage gift than a family Bible? What better present for an
   aged person than one of the large-print Bibles? Oh, what gladness you
   might give to many a humble cottager by the present of such a Book! I
   have seen them with their old thumbed Bibles, trying to read them when
   they have strained their eyes and I have pitied them. We who are
   getting old know the luxury of a fine large print! You who have the
   means should take care that there is not an elderly person who, for
   lack of large type, is unable to read the Word of God! I hope that few
   houses are without a copy of the Word of

   God--but while I hope so, I have often had my hopes very rudely dashed
   to the ground by discoveries of people who possess no Bible at all!

   I also fear that millions who possess copies of the Word of God, never
   think of reading them! I have been at night, not far from here, in the
   houses of persons thought to be respectable--and there has been death
   very near and I have said, "Bring me the Bible, that I may read a
   passage of Scripture." And they have hunted high and low and none has
   been found! This was not for lack of means to buy, but for lack of care
   to have! It is for us, at any rate, to endeavor liberally to scatter
   copies of the Word of God.

   You are doing this when you help the man who spends his life in the
   work of translation. How can there be Bibles to give away in foreign
   languages until the Book has been translated into them? The scholar
   must live while he has the work of translation to do. Subscriptions
   given to the Bible Society are a handing over of the Scriptures to
   tribes that sit in darkness--who by this means shall see a great light.

   If you cannot give away Bibles, I believe you do a good work when you
   sell them, or give money to help to produce them cheaply. If you cannot
   afford a whole Bible, something is done when a portion is given away,
   or a Gospel is left in a cottage. You can never tell what may come of a
   single portion of the Word of Gold--yes, of a leaf of it! Instead of
   regretting, as I have heard some do, that Bibles are sometimes sold for
   waste paper, and goods are done up in them, I am glad that it should be
   so! I admire the enterprise of Andrew Fuller, and some others long ago,
   who printed hymns upon papers which were to be used in the sale of
   cottons and other small wares. They gave those papers to tradesmen that
   they might do their goods up in them. So long as the Truth of God does
   but travel, it does not matter how. If you can place the Bible where
   men may read it, who knows what may result? I knew a friend who, in
   purchasing his tobacco, found it done up in a passage of the Word of
   God--and by the perusal of that portion became a converted man! Let us
   not be afraid of what will become of the Book, for it is quite able to
   take care of itself--only let us imitate Hilkiah and Shaphan and
   Josiah, and make it known wherever we have the opportunity! Have you
   bread to eat while the multitudes are dying of hunger in the streets,
   and will you eat your morsel alone? Then shame on you! Is the plague
   mowing down its thousands, and have you medicine that can stop the
   disease, and do you conceal the recipe and hide the remedy in your own
   chest? Then shame on you! Do you see millions going down to Hell and
   have you the good news of how they may escape that place of misery and
   enter into Glory? And will you not tell it, or will you not hand it on
   in the form of the Book? Then shame upon you! How is he a Christian who
   has no sympathy with the Bible Society? How is he a Christian who, in
   some shape or other, does not spread this matchless Word?

   III. And now, lastly, I want to call your attention to the best thing
   of the whole and that is, notice THE IMPORTANT INFLUENCE OF THIS BOOK
   WHEN IT WAS READ.

   We find that as soon as the king heard the words of the Law, he tore
   his clothes. First of all, he read it. The Book has no value if it is
   not read. Nowadays, we do not so much need Bibles as Bible-readers. Are
   any of you in that condition-- that you would not be without a Bible in
   your house--and yet you never read it? Do you treat this Book as a
   fetish? Do you reverence words which you do not care to read? Is there
   some kind of witchcraft about paper and binding in a certain form? Do
   you think it a very pious thing to put a big Bible under your arm and
   march to a place of worship with it, and yet never read it? Oh, fall
   not into such folly! It is the reader and the one who understands the
   Word who gets the blessing from it! This Book is like a nut--you must
   crack the nut by reading and meditation--and so get the kernel, or it
   will not feed your soul!

   Now, the first result of this Book upon the king was that he tore his
   clothes. How many here present, if they would but read the Word and if
   the Holy Spirit would bless it to them, would have to tear their
   hearts, if not their garments? You, my Friend, if you are not
   born-again, if you are not a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, are in
   such a condition that if you knew your danger, the joints of your loins
   would be loosened and for fearful astonishment you would be ready to
   fall to the ground! You are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds
   of iniquity, but do not know it! You lie under the wrath of God! The
   curse of the Law is upon you and you do not know it--and all for lack
   of reading and believing what this Book would tell you--would tell you
   most assuredly and Infallibly! I fear there is never a congregation
   without a considerable number who have need to read this Book, if for
   nothing else, in order that they might know their real state. There is
   a prayer which I often pray and I venture to commend it to many here. I
   pray, "Lord, let me always know the worst of my case." I cannot bear
   the idea of being self-deceived, of fancying that I am rich and
   increased in goods and have need of nothing when, in God's sight, I am
   naked, poor and miserable! Read your Bibles, that you may be honest
   with yourselves--that you may not deceive by thinking that you are
   something when you are nothing! That is the first effect of the Word.
   "Oh," you say, "it would make me miserable even to read it." Very
   likely it would, but by such misery you would come to sure and
   healthful happiness. By such a disturbance you would come to a lasting
   and acceptable peace.

   After the king had tore his garments, he then began to enquire after
   the God who had sent this Book. Now, notice this. If any of you have
   never done this, pray that you may read the Book--yes, read the more
   terrible parts of it as well as the more cheering portions--in such a
   way that, having read it, you may seek this God who thus speaks to you
   in loving faithfulness. Endeavor to learn of Him how you may be saved.
   Labor to know Him personally, for it is written, "Acquaint now yourself
   with God and be at peace." It is of no use to be acquainted with the
   Scriptures if you are not acquainted with God! You may read the
   Scriptures till you perish unless you see God in the glass of
   Scripture, for it is to Him that you must come! A personal Christ must
   have personal dealings with a personal sinner, or else there will be no
   personal salvation. And the value of the Book lies mainly in this--that
   it does not let you stop at itself, but it points as with a finger of
   light to the Cross, and with a still small voice it whispers, "There
   your hope lies. Look there!" The Lord Jesus takes up the cry of the
   Book and utters that gracious command, "Look unto Me, and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth." O that you would look and live! Scatter the
   Bible, Christian people, in order that it may be like a sharp two-edged
   sword to kill self-righteousness and that it may also be a finger of
   love to point sinners to the Cross of Christ!

   After this happened and Josiah began to understand the Book, he entered
   upon a reformation. I will not say how many things in England need
   reformation, but certainly we need it in a great many
   forms--ecclesiastical, doctrinal, social, moral and political. The
   Bible is the greatest of reformers. You thought, perhaps, I should have
   applied that term to Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli--but this is the
   reformer that reformed Luther! This is the teacher that instructed
   Calvin! This is the Prophet that fired the heart of Zwingli! While this
   Book is extant, error will always be in danger of overthrow. An open
   Bible, and men may quibble and criticize, and invent new doctrines if
   they please--but this is the Rock on which they will split. As God
   lives, His Truth must live! And all that is of man's imagining and
   scheming, and that comes not out of this Book shall be broken to
   pieces! The grass withers, but the Word abides. "Whoever shall fall
   upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomever it shall fall, it will
   grind him to powder." If you seek to have the social fabric purged of
   the leprosy which now eats into its very walls, scatter this Book! If
   you want to uplift the fallen and to purify the defiled, scatter this
   Book that men may be cleansed by it! If you want to see the Church of
   God made one and her various dividing errors put away, scatter this
   Book! If you desire to see a blessed unity in the Truth, scatter this
   Book! If you would dispense a perfect blessing, scatter the Bible, for
   all good lies here! We need no novel teachings to restore the Glory of
   the Church--we only need to come back to the purity of Scripture! That
   great Reformation which broke down all the idols in Judah and Israel
   came of the discovery of this Book! And there remains for us at this
   day no better means of reform and revival! God send to England this
   choice mercy, that it may become a Bible-reading nation, a Bible-loving
   nation, a Bible-obeying nation--and that shall be the best thing that
   can happen to our native land. God grant it!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 CHRONICLES34:14-33.

   Verse 14, 15. And when they brought out the money that was brought into
   the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found a Book of the Law of
   the LORD given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the
   scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD. And
   Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. This was a very remarkable find.
   Of all the discoveries that they might have made, they could have
   discovered nothing that would work so much good to all the people as
   this "Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses."

   16-19. And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king
   word back again, saying, All that was committed to your servant, they
   do it And they have gathered together the money that was found in the
   house of the LORD, and have delivered it into the hand of the
   overseers, and to the hand of the workmen. Then Shaphan the scribe told
   the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book And Shaphan
   read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard
   the words of the Law, that he tore his clothes. Such was his horror
   upon discovering how they

   had all sinned and how many terrible judgments were to be inflicted
   upon them because of all that long time of sin, that he tore his
   clothes.

   20, 21. And the king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan,
   and Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a
   servant of the king's, saying, Go, enquire of the LORD for me, and for
   them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the
   book that is found. Oh, that all who read God's Book now would do as
   young Josiah did! If there is any difficulty in a book, the short way
   to get to understand it is to enquire of the author. And, surely, never
   is there greater wisdom than having read any of the deep mysteries or
   solemn threats in this Volume and feeling ourselves staggered by them,
   we enquire of the Lord concerning them! I believe that there is many a
   puzzling passage in the Bible on purpose that we may be driven to
   enquire of the Lord about it. If the Book were all so easy of
   understanding that at the first reading of it, we could comprehend all
   its meaning, we might, perhaps, stay away from God--but He has
   purposely given us many dark sentences and made the sense to be
   somewhat obscure in order that we may wait upon His enlightening Spirit
   and so obtain instruction, for the Spirit of God is more useful to us
   even than the Word itself is! Great as the blessing of the Book is, the
   blessing of the living Spirit is still greater and anything is good
   that drives us to Him. That which had influenced the mind of Josiah was
   the terror of the Book.

   21-28. For great is the wrath ofthe LORD that ispoured out upon us,
   because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do after al
   that is written in this book. And Hilkiah, and they that the king had
   appointed went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of
   Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe, (now she dwelt in
   Jerusalem in the college), and they spoke to her to that effect And she
   answered them, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Tell you the man that
   sent you to me, Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this
   place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are
   written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah:
   because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods,
   that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands;
   therefore My wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not
   be quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to enquire
   ofthe LORD, so shall you say unto him, Thus says the LORD God of Israel
   concerning the words which you have heard, because your heart was
   tender, and you did humble yourself before God, when you heard His
   words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and
   humbled yourself before Me, and did tear your clothes, and weep before
   Me, I have even heard you, also, says the LORD, Behold, I will gather
   you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace,
   neither shall your eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this
   place, and upon the inhabitants ofthe same. So they brought the king
   word again. When God selects an instrument for His own service, how
   well He tunes it for the use to which it is to be put! Here is a woman,
   a married woman, and she is selected to be the Lord's Prophetess to the
   king--but never has any man spoken more bravely than she did. Her
   opening words show a holy courage which is lifted above all fear of
   men--"Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Tell you the man that sent you
   to me," for before God kings are only men and though Huldah was only a
   subject of Josiah, see with what real dignity God's ordination had
   invested her. Josiah was not to succeed in the reformation of Israel.
   He was true and sincere, but the people were steeped in hypocrisy,
   formality and idolatry--and they did not go with the king in all his
   root and branch reforms. They still clung in their hearts to their
   idols and, therefore, they must be destroyed and the nation must be
   carried away captive. It was, however, a very singular promise that God
   gave to Josiah--"I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be
   gathered to your grave in peace." Yet he was mortally wounded in
   battle, so how could that promise be fulfilled? You know how it could
   be! However we may die--if sword or plague or fire consume the saints
   among the rest of mankind--their very deaths and graves are blessed!
   There was no fighting about Josiah's grave--he was buried in peace.
   Pharaoh-Necho had killed him, but he did not destroy the land--and
   Josiah was allowed to be buried amid the great lamentations of a people
   who only began fully to appreciate him when he was taken away from
   them!

   29, 30. Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of
   Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house ofthe LORD,
   and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the
   priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he
   read in their ears all the words ofthe Book ofthe Covenant that was
   found in the house of the LORD. That was a grand Bible-reading, with a
   king for reader and all his princes and all his people gathered to
   listen to the Word of God! What could he have said better, had he been
   the greatest of orators? To read out of this blessed Book must surely
   be to the edification of the hearers.

   31-33. And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the
   LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His
   testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and with all his
   soul, to perform the words of the Covenant which are written in this
   Book. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to
   stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the
   Covenant of God, the God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the
   abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of
   Israel and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve
   the LORD their God. And all his days they departed not from following
   the LORD, the God of their father
     __________________________________________________________________

Grace Abounding

   (No. 3304)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   15, 1866,

   "But where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound." Romans 5:20.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon the whole verse are #37, Volume 1
   --LAW AND GRACE and #2012, Volume 34-- GRACE ABOUNDING OVER ABOUNDING
   SIN.]

   THERE has been a long battle in this world between man's sin and God's
   Grace. If it had been a fight between man's sin and God's Justice, it
   would soon have come to an end. Picture to yourself the flames of Hell
   and see there what God's Justice can do when it comes into conflict
   with human guilt. When God goes forth to war against the ungodly, His
   might is indeed terrible. Divine Justice makes short work of sin--it
   treads it under foot and stamps it out--even as men do with sparks of
   fire, for God hates sin with a perfect hatred. And when His anger is
   aroused against it, He tears it in pieces as the lion tears his prey in
   his fury. But, happily for us, the conflict with which we are just now
   concerned is not that between Justice and sin but that between Grace
   and sin! God's milder attribute of Mercy has entered the field and in
   our text Paul tells us the result of the battle. It looked for a time
   as if sin would gain the victory, for it abounded more and more, but at
   the last the banner of Grace waved triumphantly over the battlefield,
   for "where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound."

   I. Without any further preface I am going to give you several
   illustrations of the Truth of our text, beginning with those we find in
   the Chapter itself. Paul has been writing concerning the principle of
   representation--THE FEDERAL HEADSHIP, FIRST OF ADAM AND THEN OF OUR
   LORD JESUS CHRIST. He has been telling us about our fall in the first
   man and our salvation in the second Man, the Lord from Heaven. He has
   been describing our ruin under our first federal head and our
   Redemption by our second Covenant Head, the Lord Jesus Christ--and in
   both cases, our text is clearly illustrated. It does seem at first
   sight as if the setting up of Adam as the representative man had been
   the means of making sin to abound because as soon as sin overcame Adam,
   it overcame the whole race of mankind! It appears as if it would have
   been better to have put every man on probation on his own account and
   to have let him stand or fall according to his own good or ill
   behavior. It seems as if it must have been a comparatively easy victory
   for sin to overthrow the whole race by a single blow. Certainly, sin
   did gain a great victory in the Garden of Eden and therein it abounded.
   But Paul shows that it was by this very principle of representation
   that "Grace did much more abound," for it is through the death of One,
   even Jesus Christ, our Lord, that all Believers live! It is the
   righteousness of this One that a multitude whom no man can number shall
   attain unto everlasting life!

   Now it appears to me that if the other system had been adopted, the
   plan of each one standing or falling by himself, there would have been
   no hope of salvation for any one of the whole race of mankind! We
   believe that the angels did so stand or fall, each on his own account.
   Satan was not the federal head of all the angels and consequently, when
   he fell, they did not all fall, but a considerable number of them
   did--and no hope of their restoration to the favor of God is given, but
   we are told that, "the angels which kept not their first estate, but
   left their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under
   darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day." I think it is more than
   probable that, had you and I been left to stand or fall on our own
   account, we would all have fallen--and then we would have fallen to
   rise no more. But now, as we fell in the person of one representative,
   it has become possible for us to rise through another
   Repre-sentative--and as many of us as have believed in Jesus, have
   risen from the fall of Adam--and are delivered from the death which was
   the consequence of Adam's sin and are made alive in Christ Jesus by a
   new spiritual life in virtue of our

   union with our risen Lord! By the federal headship of Adam, sin did
   indeed abound--the floodgates were pulled up and torrents of iniquity
   inundated the whole human race! But by the federal headship of Christ,
   Divine Grace does much more abound, so that all who believe in Him
   shall be eternally saved! I think this was the meaning of the Apostle
   when he wrote the words of our text. And this is one illustration of
   the general Truth of God that "where sin abounded, Grace did much more
   abound."

   II. A second illustration of this Truth of God can be found in the
   first part of the verse from which our text is taken. "The Law entered,
   that the offense might abound." Through no fault in itself, but through
   our depravity, THE LAW INCREASES THE GRAVITY OF OUR OFFENSES.

   You know that if you give your child no commands, he cannot disobey
   you. But the moment you give a command, the natural inclination of the
   child to disobedience turns the command into an occasion for sin. The
   more commands God gives, the more possible it is for man to sin. When
   water is cast upon lime there follows great heat and smoke. Yet the
   water was not hot. Put your lips to it and you will find that it is a
   sweet and cooling draught, but it produced heat when mixed with the
   lime because of the inherent heat in the lime. So, when God's
   commandment is cast upon a man and he kicks against it, the fault is
   not in the commandment, but in the man's wicked heart which rebels
   against it. Paul says, "I had not known sin, but by the Law." He would
   have been just as truly a sinner in himself, but the sinfulness would
   not have come out if it had not been for the Law's prohibitions and
   restrictions against which he rebelled. The Law of God is something
   like the medicine which a doctor gives to a patient who has some
   internal disease, but the medicine throws it out upon the skin--yet it
   is far better that it should be thus thrown out than that it should lie
   hidden in the system and lead to the patient's death. The Law acts like
   this, especially upon those who are under conviction--it throws out the
   sin that is within them and lets them see it in its true character. The
   Law comes like a policeman with a search warrant, and says, "There is a
   criminal concealed here, and I have come to discover him." Perhaps you
   say, "There is no criminal here, I never harbor thieves or other bad
   characters." But the officer produces his warrant and searches you
   through and through and at last you have to admit that he is right even
   though you did not suspect the true state of affairs.

   It seems a very dreadful thing that the effect of the Law should be to
   make the sinner worse than he was before--"the Law entered that the
   offense might abound." But that is just where our text comes in--"where
   sin abounded, Grace did much more abound." The more necessary the Law's
   exposure of sin is, the more glorious is the Grace that cleanses from
   the sin! The Law, like a candle, shows me my blackness, but that same
   Revelation, of which the Law is only a part, also shows me the precious
   blood of Jesus which takes all my blackness away and makes me whiter
   than snow! As I hear the thunders of Sinai and am full of terror as the
   lightning sets the sky ablaze, I turn to the dear, patient Lamb of God,
   and as I see Him suffering for me, I say to Him, "Oh, what wondrous
   Grace it must have been by which You did deliver me from all this
   terrible wrath! Blessed Lamb of God, how much I owe to You, for You
   have hushed the Law's loud thunder and given my soul a quiet and safe
   hiding place!" The work of the Law upon the enlightened conscience is a
   very healthy operation--it is like a sharp needle that goes through the
   soul, but it draws the golden thread of Mercy after it--or like the
   sharp plow which breaks up the ground and prepares it for the seed
   which in due time shall bring forth the harvest to God's praise and
   Glory! Whenever the entrance of the Law makes the offense to abound,
   may God grant us Grace to receive the Gospel so that Grace shall much
   more abound!

   III. Now follow me in thought while I conduct you to a spot where we
   shall find a third illustration of the Truth of our text, that is, THIS
   PLACE CALLED CALVARY. Surely that is the spot where sin did most
   abound, yet where Grace abounded even more!

   Look in at the council chamber of the Sanhedrim and hear them charge
   the Son at God with blasphemy, and say if sin did not abound there! See
   Him hurried away to Pilate's Hall and to Herod's judgment seat,
   "despised and rejected of men." Behold how they set Him at nothing and
   mocked Him--how they plucked out His hair, defiled His blessed visage
   with their accursed spit, crowned Him with thorns and assailed Him with
   insult upon insult and cruelty upon cruelty-- and then say if sin did
   not, indeed, abound there! See Him toiling painfully through the
   crowded streets, scoffed at by the ribald multitude, but mourned by the
   daughters of Jerusalem. Watch Him as at last He ascends the hill of
   doom. See Him hanging on the Cross in indescribable agony while the
   heartless spectators jeer and scoff and make a jest even of His dying
   cries, and then say if sin did not abound there! What foaming billows
   of iniquity rolled up around that accursed tree, swelling and rising
   until they completely immersed the Lord of Life and Glory in their
   horrible depths! Yes, verily sin

   abounded there--surely it was the darkest day in human history! Wicked
   men had killed kings before, but that day they killed the King of
   kings! They had been regicides before, but now they became Deicides!
   They killed the Son of God and cast Him out of the vineyard, saying,
   "This is the Heir, and now that we have killed Him, the inheritance
   shall be ours." Sin abounded so much that it put out the light of the
   sun! So heavy was it that it cracked the solid earth and tore the rocks
   asunder and caused graves to open, while the great veil of the Temple
   was torn in two from the top to the bottom!

   Yet "where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound." Oh, for an
   angel's tongue to tell out the wondrous mystery! My poor lips are quite
   unequal to this tremendous task--it is vain for me to attempt to
   describe the Grace that so gloriously abounded in our Lord upon the
   Cross--the Grace that flashed benignantly from those languid eyes! The
   Grace that fell in cleansing drops from those opened veins! The Grace
   that poured in torrents from that pierced side! The Grace that heaved,
   tossed and struggled convulsively in those tortured limbs! The Grace
   that fought and wrestled and, at last, conquered in that anguished
   spirit--the Grace that even then began interceding for the
   transgressors as Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not
   what they do"--the Grace that cried with a mighty voice, "It is
   finished," before the Savior bowed His head and gave up the ghost. The
   Grace that ascended up on high, leading captivity captive and giving
   gifts unto men. Of this Grace I will not dare to speak further than to
   say--may it be your happy lot to sail upon that sea of Grace, for
   fathom it you never can! May you drink from that fountain of Divine
   Grace, for you shall never be able to drink it dry! May God give you
   the bliss of knowing in your own experience how much Grace abounds
   through the atoning Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross!

   Oh, that I had the tears of Baxter and that my soul were all aglow as
   the soul of Whitefield used to be, while I plead my Master's cause! O
   my Hearers, nothing so clearly shows the terrible depravity of human
   nature as this--that man has become so utterly wicked and debased as to
   believe that Christ is not still "mighty to save"! What a vile wretch
   man must be and what a base thing human nature must be when any can
   deliberately doubt the power of Christ to save the lost! The Inspired
   declaration is that "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come
   unto God by Him seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them."
   Yet this wicked heart of ours finds it impossible to believe this until
   the Holy Spirit comes and with supernatural energy enlightens the
   understanding, sways the will, controls the judgment and brings the
   soul to rest in Jesus Christ! Oh, how guilty we must be that we will
   not believe that what God says it true, that we will not believe though
   millions of witnesses before the Throne of God attest the Truth of God
   that "where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound."

   IV. Thus we have had three illustrations of the Truth of our text. And
   we may find a fourth IN MAN'S NATURE, for there, also, "where sin
   abounded, Grace did much more abound."

   Look at Adam in the Garden of Eden, a noble being, supreme among all
   the creatures around him. The lion crouches at his feet, the leopard
   sports about him, the dove nestles in his bosom and all birds and
   beasts come at his call and yield obedience to his command. But do you
   see that serpent coiled around a tree? That is the brute embodiment of
   sin and it has come there to do incalculable mischief! Wait a little
   while and you may see Adam and Eve driven out of the Garden where they
   were once so happy--for the sin to which they so readily yielded has
   brought a heavy curse upon them and upon all their descendants. As you
   read the stern sentences pronounced upon each of them by the lips of
   Jehovah, Himself, you realize that in their case sin has indeed
   abounded! Then remembering what I have already said to you about the
   principle of representation, you will realize that Adam's fall involved
   the fall of everyone of us! What Mark Anthony is supposed to have said
   concerning the death of Julius Caesar might well be said with regard to
   the effect of Adam's fall upon us--

   "Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen Then I, and you, and all of
   us fell down."

   If you want to see how sin has abounded, go down the street and look
   upon some of those who have been drinking what has been truly called
   "liquid damnation." I need not describe the sight, for all of us are,
   alas, more or less familiar with it. Nor need I picture other fallen
   creatures in whom sin is to be seen in some of its most repulsive
   aspects. We will not think of them in the self-righteous spirit of the
   Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men, but we will
   sorrowfully confess that what they now are, any of us might have been
   had Providence and Grace not prevented it!

   If you want to see further what ruin sin has worked, I would take you
   to the graveyard. We will not ask the sexton to open the graves--the
   sight and smell would be more than we could endure--but he could tell
   us some strange tales of

   the remains of the noble being whom God made to have dominion over all
   the works of His hands. This is what he has come to now--an empty skull
   and a few dry bones! This is what sin has brought him down to--to be
   food for worms!

   But I will not linger over that dark part of the subject. Think how
   Grace has much more abounded even where sin did most abound. Grace
   comes in and finds man under sentence of death--hopeless and polluted
   and full of everything that is obnoxious in God's sight! What does
   Grace do in such a case at that? I answer by pointing you to that
   wondrous vision that John had in Patmos when he saw, "One like unto the
   Son of Man. . .His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as
   snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine
   brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of
   many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His
   mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and His Countenance was as the sun
   shines in his strength." Who is this for whom all Heaven rings with
   hallelujahs, while Hell trembles at His word, and millions upon earth
   own allegiance to Him? Who is this? Why, 'tis the Man, Christ Jesus,
   who once slept as a helpless Babe in His mother's arms, who afterwards
   toiled at the carpenter's bench at Nazareth and who breathed out His
   earthly life amid the untold agonies of Calvary--but who is now exalted
   at His Father's right hand, "far above all principality, and power, and
   might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this
   world, but also in that which is to come." "Ah," you say, "that is all
   true concerning Hm, but we are not up there with Him." But faith says
   that we are if we are truly trusting in Jesus, for "God, who is rich in
   mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead
   in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, (by Grace you are
   saved) and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in
   heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show
   the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through
   Christ Jesus." Now you see how gloriously true our text is! Sin did us
   untold damage, but Grace has given us more than sin ever took away! Sin
   robbed us of silver, but Grace has given us gold! Sin slew this body of
   flesh, but Grace has given us a spiritual body which shall live
   forever! Sin threw us down among the masses of this fallen race, but
   Grace has lifted us up and set us among the children of God by faith in
   Christ Jesus! Yes, Beloved, "now are we the sons of God, and it does
   not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear,
   we shall be like He, for we shall see Him as He is." Verily, "where sin
   abounded, Grace did much more abound."

   V. There is a further illustration of the Truth of our text in some WHO
   ARE NOW PRESENT WITH US.

   There are some now in this house in whom sin abounded in certain
   special ways at which I shall only just hint. They were drunks,
   swearers, unchaste. They dishonored their father and mother, they
   sinned against light and knowledge, they disregarded God's Word, they
   stifled the rebukes of conscience. In brief, "sin abounded" in them.
   But now, through Grace, a great change has come over them and they have
   been made new creatures in Christ Jesus! And among us all there are
   none who love Christ more than they do--and none who serve Him more
   zealously than they do! You know that it is very often the case that
   those who have been the greatest sinners became the greatest saints.
   Those who were the devil's corporals and sergeants, no--his captains
   and generals--when they are truly converted, become the boldest and
   bravest soldiers of the Cross! It is hardly necessary to remind you of
   John Bunyan, once a very notable sinner, who became a very prince in
   our Israel and who felt that, in his case, Grace had indeed abounded to
   the chief of sinners! Many of us ought, indeed, to love much, as I
   trust we do, because we have been forgiven much. Divine Mercy has
   covered and blotted out a vast mass of sin that we had committed and
   now, remembering with humility and shame all our past offenses, we pray
   that we may prove in all our future lives what holy and useful men and
   women God's Grace can make of us. Surely, dear Friends, you will not
   serve God worse than you served the devil! When you had a bad master,
   you were a good servant to him--but now that you have a good Master,
   the best Master you can ever have--do not be a bad servant to Him! May
   the Lord grant that great Grace may abound in all who have been great
   sinners!

   But as there are exceptional cases, I will come to something that will
   include us all. Kindly turn to the little book that records your life
   history written out upon the pages of memory. As you look over those
   pages, you who have known the Lord for some years, what do you think of
   yourselves? The men who think much of themselves must surely be those
   who do not think at all! But those who really do think must see very
   much in their past lives which causes them to blush. Looking back upon
   the years since we first came to Christ, what a multitude of sins we
   have committed! If our own children had treated us as badly as we have
   treated our heavenly Father, what would we have done with them? What a
   marvel of patience our heavenly Father has been in His dealings with
   us! I look at my pulpit work and I have to confess that sin has
   abounded there. I look at my private life and I have to acknowledge
   that sin has abounded there. As you look at your

   Sunday school class, my Brothers and Sisters, I think that you, too,
   must admit that sin has abounded there. As a husband, as a wife, as a
   child, as a master, as a servant, as a tradesman, as a
   statesman--whatever may be your position in society, do you not have to
   say with sorrow that sin has abounded there? But, dear Friends, has not
   Grace also abounded? Yes, that it has, for "where sin abounded, Grace
   did much more abound." Do not ever got into such a state of heart as to
   groan over yourselves so that you cannot praise the Lord for His
   abounding Grace! Oh, do praise Him, do bless Him, for He well deserves
   to be praised! Sin abounds, so be humble. But Grace much more abounds,
   therefore be thankful! Sin abounds, so be watchful. But Grace does much
   more abound, therefore be confident that God will give you the victory
   through Him who has loved you!

   VI. Now lastly, IN THIS WORLD SIN ABOUNDS ON A VERY LARGE SCALE.

   Stand on your watchtower, Christian, and look over the world as far as
   you can. A great proportion of it is still shrouded in the dense
   darkness of heathenism and uncounted millions are bowing down before
   blocks of wood and stone. Think, too, of the vast multitudes who put
   their trust in the false Prophet, Mohammed, and are quite content with
   the parody of Christianity that they find in the Koran. Then remember
   with sorrow how large a proportion of those who are called Christians
   are simply worshippers of Mary instead of Believers in Jesus, or who
   bow down before images, icons, relics, crosses, and I know not what! If
   we turn to Protestant Christianity, what a vast mass of hypocrisy,
   formality, inconsistency and everything else that is evil is mixed with
   that which is genuine and true! All over the world sin abounds. See how
   many lands are still cursed by war. What infamies are perpetuated in
   all our great cities! Yes, and in many of our little country villages,
   too! God must have been amazingly patient to have borne so long with
   our wicked race. As the flood in Noah's day was universal, so does sin
   cover the earth today--it prevails over the tops of the mountains, it
   abounds in all the valleys and plains.

   This prospect is very alarming and for missionaries it would be very
   depressing if they did not believe that where sin abounds, Grace shall
   much more abound. But the day is coming oh, hasten, you wheels of time,
   and bring the happy hour!--when suddenly the pedestal upon which any
   false god is seated shall shake and totter to its fall! When the
   crescent of Mohammed shall wane forever! When the harlot of the seven
   hills shall cease to corrupt the earth with her fornication and when
   the beast, and the false prophet, and the devil and all his hosts shall
   be cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone to be tormented day and
   night forever and ever. Yes, the day is coming--God speed it!--when the
   people on every island and of every continent shall hear the joyful
   sound of the Gospel of God's Grace! The day is coming when Ethiopia
   shall stretch out her hands unto God, when India's many millions and
   the far-off Chinamen and Japanese and other children of the East shall
   no longer sound the praises of any false god, but shall delight in
   confessing that Jesus Christ, the Son of David, is also the Son of God,
   King of kings, and Lord of lords, and their own and only Savior! The
   little spring that burst up like a rippling rivulet from the foot of
   Calvary's Cross has swollen into a mighty river even now--its tides are
   increasing, its floods are swelling, its depth is growing and the day
   is coming when, like a mighty ocean, it shall cover the whole earth as
   the waters cover the deep! And floating across that Sea of Glory shall
   be heard the millennial anthem, "The kingdoms of this world have become
   the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever
   and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

   Then, at the last, so many of us as have believed in Jesus shall be
   gathered with Him in that great city, the New Jerusalem, whose twelve
   gates are twelve pearls, whose walls are jasper, and whose street is of
   "pure gold, as it were transparent glass"--that city of which John
   says, "I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb
   are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of
   the moon, to shine in it: for the Glory of God did lighten it, and the
   Lamb is the light thereof." Well may we sing--

   "Jerusalem! My happy home! Name ever dear to me-- When shall my labors
   have an end, In joy, and peace, and thee? Oh when, you city of my God,
   Shall I your courts ascend, Where congregations ne'er break up, And
   Sabbaths have no end?''

   Ah, well, in due time we shall get there and then, when looking down
   from our serene abode, we shall be able to read the whole drama of
   human history, from the Creation to the Fall of Adam, from the Fall to
   the Cross of Christ, and then to the final consummation of all
   things--this will be the summary of it all, at least as far as we are
   concerned--"Where sin abounded, Grace did much more abound!" If it
   should be my happy privilege up there, upon some sunny mount, to
   descant upon this theme in more flaming words than I can use tonight,
   and of you who are of a kindred spirit with me will help to tell the
   story to the principalities and power in heavenly places, and the
   harpers standing on the sea of glass will strike their harps afresh and
   sing again the Song of Moses the servant of God, and the Song of the
   Lamb--their songs will be in harmony with our theme tonight--"Where sin
   abounded, Grace did much more abound." So let us go forth to our
   various occupations on the morrow believing that, though sin abounds,
   Grace shall yet more abound! Let us live so that all may see how Grace
   abounds in us and let us help to spread the wondrous story of what this
   Grace has done for us, that others may seek that Grace for
   themselves--that Grace which abounds to the chief of sinners, that
   Grace which is the portion of all who believe in Jesus, that Grace
   which shall in God's good time be crowned with Glory, that "Grace
   wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved!" Oh, that all here
   might share in that Grace! God grant it for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 5:1-11.

   Verse 1. Therefore being justified by faith--But why, "therefore"?
   Because of the verse preceding it--"Who was delivered for our offenses,
   and was raised again for our justification." Christ died to atone for
   our sins, Christ rose again to secure our justification, "Therefore
   being justified by faith"-- We have peace with God through our lord
   Jesus Christ

   [See Sermon #1456, Volume 25--PEACE--A FACT AND A FEELING.] We have

   peace, we know that we have. We enjoy it. It is not a thing of the
   future. We have peace, a deep calm like that which came to the
   disciples when Christ hushed the winds and waves to sleep. "We have
   peace with God." His peace has entered into us, we possess it now, but
   it is all "through our Lord Jesus Christ." It is all war apart from
   Him, but all peace through Him. We poor sinners, being justified by
   faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

   2. By whom also we have access by faith--That is to say, we come near
   to God. We have the entry of the King's pa-lace--"we have access by
   faith"--

   2. Into this Grace wherein we stand. With firm foot and confident
   heart, we stand in God's Presence. Happy people!

   2. And rejoice in hope of the Glory of God. What a window hope is! It
   looks toward Heaven--we have only to look out that way and then we can
   "rejoice in hope of the Glory of God."

   3. And not only so, but we glory--We hope for Glory--"the Glory of
   God," and we already, "glory." But in what do we glory? "We glory"--

   3. In tribulations also That is the blackest thing a Christian has--his
   tribulations. So if we can glory in them, surely we can glory in
   anything! "We glory in tribulations also"--

   3. Knowing that tribulation works patience. A man cannot prove that he
   has patience if he has never been tried. Christian patience is not a
   weed--it is a cultivated plant. We only get patience through our
   trials.

   4. And patience, experience; and experience, hope. You cannot make an
   experienced Christian without trouble. You cannot make an old sailor on
   shore, nor make a good soldier without fighting. Here is that window of
   hope, again. Sanding at the back of our experience, we look out the
   window and what God has done for us is a token of what God will do for
   us!

   5. And hope makes us not ashamed.Peace gives us courage, hope takes the
   blush out of the cheek when we confess Christ, for we remember the
   Glory that is to be revealed in Him and in us, so how can shame come
   in?

   5. Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
   Spirit which is given unto us. [See Sermons #829, Volume 14--THE
   PERFUMING OF THE HEART and #1904, Volume 32--THE PERSONAL PENTECOST AND
   THE GLORIOUS HOPE.] God's love is like sweet per: me in an alabaster
   box--the Holy Spirit breaks that box,

   pours out the love of God into our souls and the perfume fills our
   entire nature!

   6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for
   the ungodly. [See Sermons #1191, Volume 20--for whom

   DID CHRIST DIE? and #1345, Volume 23--FOR WHOM IS THE GOSPEL MEANT?.]

   When we had no power to do anything that was good, when we were weak
   and hopeless, then Christ died for us! This is a wonderful Gospel
   expression which ought to bring comfort to those here who have no
   pretense of godliness, "Christ died for the ungodly."

   7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. However upright and
   just a man may be, nobody thinks of dying for

   him.

   7. Yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die.That is to
   say, for a generous, kind, noble-hearted man, some might dare to die.

   8. But God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet
   sinners, Christ died for us. [See Sermon #104, Volume

   2--LOVE'S COMMENDATION--Read/download the entire sermon, free of
   charge, at http://www.spurgeongems.org.] We were neither righteous nor
   yet

   good, yet Christ died for us. "Oh," said a little boy once to his
   mother, "I do not think so much of Christ dying for men. I think I
   would be willing to die if I could save a hundred men by dying." But
   his mother said," Suppose it was a hundred mosquitoes--would you die
   for them?" "Oh, no!" he said, "I would let the whole lot of them die."
   Well, we were much less in comparison with Christ than mosquitoes are
   in relation to men, yet He died for us--good-for-nothing creatures that
   we are! Well does one say, "God shows part of His love to us in many
   different ways, but He shows the whole of His love in giving Christ to
   die for us." Here you see His heart laid bare, the very heart of God
   laid open for the inspection of every believing soul! To die for saints
   would be great love, but to die for sinners, while they are yet
   sinners, and regarding them as sinners--this is love with emphasis--the
   very highest commendation that even Divine Love can have!

   9. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
   from wrath through Him. See, it is a less thing for God to preserve us
   when we are justified than it is for Him to justify us while we are yet
   sinners! The final perseverance of the saints may well be argued from
   their conversion--their entrance into Glory is guaranteed by the ransom
   price that Christ has paid for their Redemption. He died to save
   sinners, so how is it possible that He should let saints perish? Oh no,
   that can never be! "Much more then, being now justified by His blood,
   we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

   10. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
   of His Son, much more, being reconciled,

   Notice that while we were His enemies, He blessed us. So now that we
   are reconciled to Him, will He not still bless us? If He reconciled us
   to Him by the death of His son, will He not save us by His life, now
   that we are reconciled to Him? Does He make us His Friends, intending
   afterwards to destroy us? Perish such a thought! This verse is like a
   trident, it is a three-pronged argument for our eternal safety! I will
   read it again. "For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
   by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved
   by His life."

   11. And not only so--Surely we have got high enough when we have
   reached an absolute certainty of our eternal salvation! Yet we are to
   go still higher! "And not only so"--

   11. But we also joy in God---Even now we joy in God, "although the fig
   tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor
   of the olives shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat; the flock
   shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the
   stalls," yet do "we joy in God"--

   11. Through our Lord Jesus Christ--Every blessing comes to us through
   Him! How Paul delights to harp upon that string! He says continually,
   "through our Lord Jesus Christ"--

   JOY IN GOD--Read/download both sermons, free of charge, at
   http://www.spurgeongems.org.] Through our Lord Jesus Christ we are at
   one with

   God! We are reconciled to Him by the death of His Son. All our sin is
   forever put away. We have received the Atonement and we rejoice in the
   God of our salvation. Glory be to His holy name forever and ever!

   we shall be saved by His life. [See Sermon #2587, Volume --"MUCH
   MORE".]
     __________________________________________________________________

A Clear Understanding

   (No. 3305)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jesus said unto them, Have you understood all these things?" Matthew
   13:51.

   THIS is a question which might often be asked of us when we have been
   reading the Scriptures, when we have been attending upon the public
   means of Grace, or when we have been partaking of the Lord's
   Supper--"Have you understood all these things?" It were well for
   someone to run up to us, as Philip did to the eunuch, who on his return
   from Jerusalem was reading in his chariot, and say to us as Philip did
   to him, "Do you understand what you are reading?" Or the question might
   be put to us, "Do you understand what you hear? Do you understand even
   what you say?" I fear there are hundreds of religionists in this
   country who never think of understanding that which they attend to
   under the name of religion. They pass through the habitual forms,
   listening to and it may be, joining in the liturgy, till at length the
   service is finished, the day is over and the thing is done! The
   language of devotion has thus slipped through the lips without having
   leaped from the heart. Among ourselves, I fear there may be many who
   are content with listening to the sound of gracious words, who never
   pierce through the shell of the words into the kernel of the
   meaning--satisfied with the external, which is nothing--they miss the
   internal, which is everything!

   "Do you understand these things?" then, is a question which may be
   asked and should be asked often of every worshipper, for it is only so
   far as we enter into religious worship, understanding what we are
   doing, and casting our hearts into it, that it can be at all acceptable
   to God. The Lord's Prayer is quite as good said backwards as forwards
   if you do not say it from the heart. There is quite as much likelihood
   of a benediction in a number of words thrown out pell-mell, without any
   kind of connection, as there would be in the best-arranged sermon, if
   there is not an attentive ear and an understanding heart. Words that
   touch not the understanding glide over us as oil over a slab of marble,
   without effect. Men may perish with the Gospel in their houses! They
   often do perish with the Gospel ringing in their ears, for until they
   understand its importance, it cannot became a soul-saving word to them!

   Nor can it become a sanctifying word to any except as far as they
   receive it into the understanding. If we were to hear the Gospel in
   Latin, after a fashion never so orthodox, one might be no more edified
   by it than by listening to so much blasphemy, because it is not the
   thing heard, but the thing understood and received into the heart which
   blesses the soul. Do let me exhort all of you who are in the habit of
   going up to the House of God, never to be content unless you feel that
   you have got a hold upon the Truth of God that is being taught. O you
   Christian people, I beseech you not to be satisfied with merely the
   terms of theology without getting into the pith and marrow of them! To
   realize in your own soul, by experience, the meaning of a Doctrine is
   the only way of knowing it! Those men never forget a Truth who have had
   it burned into them as with a hot iron, by feeling the bitterness of
   their soul for need of it and the preciousness of that Truth to their
   soul when they receive it. He who does not receive the Truth of God in
   the very power and force of it has but a name to live while he is dead.

   I think these observations are warranted from the fact that though our
   Lord preached the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven in the plainest
   parables to the listening crowd, the very plainness of His speech, in
   using familiar metaphors to make spiritual Truths common, became,
   through the hardness of their hearts, embarrassing to them--they
   stumbled at the mere outward figure, but never learned the inward
   meaning! It was to His own chosen twelve, His favored and elect ones,
   He expanded the riddles when He took them aside and then afterwards
   enquired of them lest they should have missed the meaning of His
   exposition, "Have you understood all these things?" The outward
   testimony of the Gospel may be addressed to the multitude, but the
   understanding of it is conveyed with transparent clearness to His own
   people.

   To hear it is a privilege, but such a privilege as may end without the
   salvation of your soul and with the aggravation of your doom! But to
   understand it is the privilege which leads to eternal life--and happy
   are they who thus find the way to God's right hand.

   I. Let us first consider this searching question--"Have you understood
   all these things?"--as spoken to those who can humbly, but yet
   confidently, say, "YES, WE HAVE UNDERSTOOD THESE THINGS."

   I believe there are many of us here who, although we would not like to
   boast of what we know and could but confess our ignorance before God,
   yet dare not be so false to our own experience as to deny that we do
   know the things which make for our eternal peace. We can say with the
   man whose eyes were opened, "One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now
   I see." We understand at least as much as this--that we are sinners,
   lost and ruined in ourselves, and that in Jesus all our help is found.
   We understand that we were cast away in the first Adam, and that our
   rescue is found in the Second Adam, to whom we look and to whom we are
   now united by a union that can never be broken. We understand this,
   also, that upon His Advent into this world, upon His holy life, His
   blessed death, His Resurrection, His Ascension and the power which He
   now possesses at the right hand of the Father--upon Him in all these
   respects we rest, and rest entirely! If we have not learned enough to
   understand all mysteries and open up all prophesies, yet we do know
   that Christ is precious to our soul, that He is the appointed Savior,
   that He is our Savior and that we are saved through Him. Yes, blessed
   be His name, we can say that we have understood, in our measure, all
   these things--not as we shall understand them, not as we shall know
   them, by-and-by, when clouds and darkness shall all have disappeared
   and we shall be in the clear light of the Throne of God--but we have
   understood these things sufficiently to be led to cast ourselves on
   Jesus and to be affected in our daily life and conversation by the
   Truths which Jesus Christ has taught us!

   If we have thus understood all these things, what then? Let us be
   thankful to God with all our hearts that we can say as much as this,
   for this understanding of Divine Truth is not due to any natural
   intelligence that we possess! We were by nature blind as bats to the
   things of Divine Truth. Neither is it by searching that we have found
   out God, for it was by His searching after us rather than by our
   searching after Him. If we have received an understanding to know Him
   and the height and depth of His precious love, truly we have received
   it as a Free Grace gift from the hand of our Lord! Had He withheld it,
   we would never had found the Savior! But it is because He, out of His
   own good pleasure, irrespective of anything in us, was pleased to touch
   our eyes with eye-salve that we should see, and to bring us out of
   darkness into His marvelous light! It was because of His rich, free,
   Sovereign, distinguishing Grace that we have been made what we are!
   Come, then, let us bless the name of God! Do we feel distressed with
   remaining sin? Yet let each one of us remember, "by the Grace of God I
   am what am." If I have but little Grace, let me be thankful for that
   little--I might have had none at all. And if I am struggling with
   corruption, let me be thankful that I have Grace to struggle with it,
   for time was when I would have enjoyed my corruptions instead of
   lamenting and deploring them! Whatever trial may depress my spirit, let
   me not rob my God of a song, but if, indeed, He has made me to
   understand the things which save my soul, let me praise Him and extol
   Him for His amazing Grace towards such an undeserving one--the least
   deserving of all His family!

   Further, Brothers and Sisters, if you have been led to understand these
   things, ought not this to encourage you to seek to understand more? The
   young beginner in Grace should feel that it will not be impossible for
   him to grow to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus because
   Grace has quickened him and made him a babe. That is the greatest
   thing--to be made alive at all! When Grace has gone so far as to give
   me life and put me in the family of God, I need not fear but what Grace
   will nurture that life and ultimately bring me to perfection! If I find
   myself growing in God's garden, though I am the tiniest plant in all
   the bed, yet it is such a mercy to be in the garden at all--I who was a
   wild rank weed out in the wilderness before--that I will not doubt but
   what He will water me when I need it and that He will tend and care for
   me till I shall come to perfection. Never think, dear Christian Friend,
   that you cannot master the Gospel Doctrine! Why, you have learned that
   Christ is yours--that is the secret of the Lord! All other Doctrines
   after this are learnable and comparatively easy. Give yourself up to
   the teaching of the Divine Spirit. Wait upon Him in believing prayer
   and He that has led you through the veil will not keep back the keys of
   any of the chambers of the Temple that shall be profitable for you to
   enter! Having understood so much, it behooves you to hope to understand
   more--and as an intelligent Believer in Christ, it becomes you to seek
   to understand more!

   And surely if you have understood all these things, my dear Christian
   Friend, you should not be backward to tell them to others! We are not
   sent in the Divine School to be scholars merely for ourselves. We are
   to be in this world as

   pupil-teachers--pupils always, but teachers, too! Pupils learning
   constantly at the Master's feet and, at the same time, teachers
   instructing others in the Truths of God we know. Let it never be
   supposed that the office of teaching in the Christian Church can
   exclusively belong to one man, or to one class of men! It belongs to
   every Christian man, and to every Christian woman, too! You cannot
   teach beyond what you have been taught of God, and it is in proportion
   as you are taught of God that your teaching takes a wider sphere. But
   you must teach what you know! You will seldom learn much to your own
   profit unless you are diligent in imparting knowledge and edifying one
   another, for it is in the distribution to the rest of the brotherhood
   of the good things which God has given you that you shall enjoy the
   blessing of the Lord which makes rich! If you will not communicate to
   the backsliding, to the desponding and to the feeble, the comforts
   which God gives you, you have cause to fear that in your time of
   trouble you may have those comforts withheld which you once stifled in
   your own breast, not knowing how to use them for the Church's benefit!
   Never keep a Truth of God to yourself, my Brother! Have you found
   honey? There are other mouths that would gladly know its flavor and
   there is enough in that Jonathan's forest of the Scripture for all the
   hosts of Israel to eat! They cannot exhaust it! Thus would I have you
   tell others what a dear Savior you have found. Let other candles be lit
   from your candle and your candle shall burn none the less brightly! But
   rather in this it may be said that to enrich yourselves in all
   knowledge, you must enrich others with the knowledge that you have!

   "Have you understood all these things?" There I will leave you, dear
   people of God. May your hearts glow and your thoughts be stirred in
   pondering this question of the text when you are alone!

   II. But SOME WHO THINK THEY UNDERSTAND ALL THESE THINGS DO NOT
   UNDERSTAND THEM.

   In all our congregations we have many who would say, as quickly as the
   question was heard, "Do you understand all these things?" "Indeed I do!
   I have been a hearer these 30 years. I tell you, Sir, I know the
   difference between Calvinism and Arminianism! A man is not going to
   deceive me--as soon as I hear a sermon, I can tell at once whether it
   is sound or unsound." Well then, dear Friend, I am glad to hear that
   you have so much knowledge. But I want to ask you--Is your life in
   accordance with what you know? Knowing the right from the wrong so
   well, is your life conformed to the image of Christ Jesus, or are you
   living for all the world as if you did not know anything about these
   things? Because, let me say to you, dear Friends, it is a very, very
   solemn thing to have a sort of understanding of Divine Truth, but not
   to be affected by it so as to repent of sin, so as to live unto God, so
   as to seek after holiness! All this religion of yours will be a painted
   pageantry for you to go to Hell in--it will be nothing better than a
   millstone tied about your neck to sink you deeper and deeper! It were
   better, very likely, for you that you never had known the way of
   salvation at all than that having known it, you should have done
   despite to it and have lived in opposition to its spirit and its
   precepts! You had better have been born in the interior of Africa and
   never have listened to the missionary telling of the Crucified One,
   than to have been born in London and fostered under an orthodox
   ministry, if you befool your soul with a name to live while you are
   dead, boasting about your knowledge, but never proving your holiness!
   Talking about faith, but having a faith that is lifeless, producing no
   fruits, resulting in no works answerable to your profession! I charge
   you, knowing professor, to remember your solemn responsibility! I
   beseech you, as you love your own soul, not to make a downy bed out of
   your knowledge, for it shall be a thorn in your dying pillow! I charge
   you not to make Hell hotter to yourself than it need be by taking all
   this knowledge in and panting after more, while you forget that "to
   obey is better than sacrifice," to trust is better than to boast, to
   love is better than to rival and to serve out of simple affection is
   better than to chatter, to discuss, to criticize and to censure!

   It were well if everyone who understands the things of the Gospel, or
   who think he does, would constantly examine himself about this
   business, especially those of us who are ministers. It is a very easy
   thing for us to be self-deceived-- probably more easy for us than for
   any other people because, having a sacred office for a secular
   vocation, we handle these things every day. Assuming it to be our duty
   to admonish others, we are prone to resent admonition ourselves. If we
   have not been converted, it is the least likely thing in all the world
   that we ever will be. I have made the remark myself, and I have heard
   it verified by others, that for pew-openers to be converted is a thing
   probably unheard of. They are busy here and there, till they are known
   to forget their own obligation to worship! Unless they are converted
   before they take that office--concerning which I think we should make
   strict enquiry--in all likelihood they never will be because they are
   so concerned about the pews, and about putting people in them, and I
   know not what besides, that it seems impossible for them to give their
   ears to hear, or their conscience to feel, or that the voice of Truth
   should ever reach them. Next to them comes the preacher who is always
   dealing with the shell of Truth. When he sits down to read the Bible,
   he cannot help thinking whether this or that text would make a sermon.
   When he is praying, often the temptation is to glide into a kind of
   ministerial prayer--not the prayer of a poor sinner coming near to God!

   Perhaps, after all, the least likely person to get a blessing is the
   knowing professor! I tell you that the drunk and the harlot are often
   rescued when such professors are not even reached with the thrilling
   message! The sermon which is made useful to a man who never heard the
   Gospel before is of no use to the hard-headed critic, because he knows
   too much to get any good out of it! Oh, there are some people you
   cannot preach to aright. If the Holy Spirit Himself were to speak, they
   would accuse Him of being heterodox! If an angel from Heaven were to
   deliver the Truth of God fresh from the mouth of God, he would not
   satisfy them. They are always on the look-out for a word amiss. They
   are always seeking, if they can, to pick holes, detect flaws and find
   fault--this is their trade, their craft, the thing at which they are
   expert--to make the message of mercy a kind of target into which they
   may shoot their arrows! These men seldom, I might almost say, never,
   get a blessing. I do not see how they can. The infinite mercy of God
   can do what it will, but seldom does God's Sovereignty light on these
   shallow professors who are eaten up with conceit. Oh, for a solemn
   searching, a sincere self-examination of our hearts! Perhaps we may
   find that our heads are growing and our hearts are shriveling. Some
   children die early because they get the rickets. Their heads are too
   big, poor things, and there are many professors with big heads and
   small hearts. Alas, they have not got the life of God in them at all!
   God save us from this temptation!

   III. Are there not in every congregation SOME WHO WOULD HARDLY KNOW HOW
   TO ANSWER THIS

   QUESTION--"Have you understood all these things?"

   They do understand them, yet they do not. They do up to a point
   theoretically comprehend them, but spiritually and experimentally, they
   discern them not. Fearing lest there might be in the present assembly
   such as really do not understand the very first principles of the Truth
   of God, I would pointedly and earnestly address myself to their
   particular case. My dear Friend, it would be a very dreadful thing for
   your soul to be lost for lack of knowledge and to perish for lack of
   understanding! Solomon says that for the soul to be without knowledge
   is not good. You tell me that you understand the Gospel. I reply to
   you, Then why do you not accept it? You know you are lost, you tell me.
   You know that Jesus Christ is set forth as the only Savior and you know
   that a simple trust in Him will save you. How is it you can continue
   peaceful and happy while you are not a partaker of the Grace of God?
   How is it you can remain satisfied when knowing there is but one way of
   salvation, you have not yet entered upon it, when, acknowledging Christ
   to be the Son of God, and to be the only way of salvation, you have
   lived up till now a despiser or a neglecter of Him? I would gladly
   hope--for it would be the only excuse I could offer for you--that
   perhaps, after all, you really do notunderstand these things which you
   think you do. Let me remind you now--you are an unsaved sinner, you are
   lost, your sin has condemned you, you fell in Adam, you have sinned
   personally and actually and you are condemned to die! It is not that
   one day you will be condemned--you are already condemned! At this
   present moment you are spared and allowed to go about this world, but
   you are like a criminal in a condemned cell! The sentence has gone out
   against you and only God's long-suffering keeps that gleaming axe from
   falling and utterly destroying you! Do you understand that? Have you
   really got that thought into your mind? There you are, just like a man
   about to be beheaded, with your neck on the block, and the axe lifted
   up--and it may fall--while I am yet speaking, the axe of death may fall
   and you, soul and body, may be lost forever before that clock ticks
   again! You know this, but do you really understand it? Will you try to
   understand it? Will you try to make it real to your thoughts tonight?
   For I think if you would, there might be some hope that now you would
   escape from your present ruin and lift up your heart to the great
   Father of Mercies, and say, "Lord, save me, or I perish."

   You know another Truth of God and you say you understand it. Let me put
   it to you. Jesus Christ came into this world. He was God's
   only-begotten Son, but He became Man and as Man, for man He suffered.
   God most punish sin, but He punished Jesus Christ for the sins of His
   people. And those who trust Him are secure because Jesus Christ was
   their Substitute--and they go free. Now, there is no other hope of
   redemption from the fiery wrath of God but by having a part and lot in
   the substitutionary work of Christ! You know that, but you have not got
   a part and lot in it and you must be lost if you continue without that
   part or lot. How is it that you can be quiet? You sleep soundly at
   night. You eat and drink cheerfully and you sometimes enjoy a merry
   ringing laugh. How can you revel in the pleasures of sense? How can you
   give sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids until you get the
   one thing necessary, the one thing which alone can

   make eternity happy--that infinite future upon which you are so soon to
   enter? If Jesus Christ, standing in Heaven, is preached to you tonight
   and you are bid to believe in Him, and you do not believe in Him, then
   you do, as far as you can, crucify Him afresh and open His wounds again
   and make them bleed! Do you mean to do that? Do you understand that
   this is what you are doing every day? Would you, dear Friend, would you
   call God a liar? And yet the Apostle John says that, "He that believes
   not God, has made Him a liar because he believes not the record that
   God gave of His Son." Do you understand what this unbelief of yours
   really is? You doubt Christ! That is to say, you do not think Christ to
   be truthful, or good, or able, or strong! Oh, but you say, you know
   better than that! Then, if you know better why do you act as if you did
   not know better? If He is able to save, and willing to save, O my dear
   Hearer, why not come to Him as you are and cast yourself at His
   feet--and rest in Him in whom your only rest can be found? "Have you
   understood all these things?" then, is a question which you cannot,
   after all, answer in the right way! I beseech you never to rest until
   you can!

   Should there be, my dear Hearers, something which keeps you back from
   Christ, arising not so much from your need of will as from your need of
   knowledge, may God the Holy Spirit stir up your desire and never let
   you rest till you know Christ, till you so hear that your soul shall
   live! How shall you know? He is the great Teacher, but in the use of
   means He will teach you. Be content in attending the House of God where
   Christ is most preached. Search the Scriptures, for in them you think
   you have eternal life, and these are they that testify of Him. Go to
   the Father of Mercy and plead with Him ere you sleep. Pray to Him thus,
   "Father, if there is some sin that I do not know to be a sin, that I am
   indulging in, and that keeps me from Christ, show it to me and enable
   me to give it up. Or if it is a sin which I do know, but seem to have
   struggled with in vain, my Father, strengthen me that I may cut off the
   right arm and pluck out the right eye sooner than cherish those vain
   delights which bode my everlasting destruction." Plead with Him
   thus--"O my God, I want to know Your Son; reveal Your Son in me, for so
   I read You do to Your people. Reveal your Son in me by the Holy Spirit!
   I am a poor, blind, ignorant sinner, but teach me, for have You not
   given the Spirit of God on purpose to be the Teacher of the ignorant
   and the Instructor of the babes?" Plead with the Lord, and plead always
   with the recollection that you cannot ask because you deserve, but you
   must ask because Christ deserves! Plead His wounds, His blood, His
   death, His infinite merit and you shall, before long--I am certain of
   it--you shall before long, in answer to your cries, receive light from
   the Word, and in that light you shall see light and you shall
   understand the things which make for your peace!

   I am deeply concerned for some of you, especially for such of you as
   often listen to my voice, that I may not forever keep on talking into
   your ears and never reach your hearts. What? Am I to rock your cradle
   and send you to sleep that you may sleep yourselves into Hell? Is mine
   to be the voice that is really to increase your responsibility and not
   to be the means of bringing you to Jesus? I pray God to avert so
   dreadful a result to all our ministry, but may you be led this very
   night--for God's people have been praying for you--may you be led this
   very night to confess that you do not understand what you ought to
   understand and go to the great and wise God to teach and instruct you!
   And as surely as His Word is the Truth of God, He will instruct you and
   teach you in the way that you should go and bring you to Himself. He
   that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved! Thus says His
   own Word, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."
   Trust--that is the main matter. To believe is to trust, to rely on, to
   depend upon--he that depends upon Jesus, trusts Him, believes in Him,
   is saved! May we be of that blessed number and His shall be the Glory.
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 13:1-23.

   Verses 1, 2. The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the
   seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto Him, so that
   He went into a boat, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the
   shore. I think I can see the little ship at a convenient distance from
   the shore so as to keep off the multitudes of people, in order that the
   Savior might speak more freely. There He sits with a boat for a pulpit.
   There were no conventionalities about the Lord Jesus when He was upon
   the earth--He was willing to speak to the people anywhere from any
   pulpit whatever!

   3. And He spoke many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a
   sower went forth to sow. [See Sermon #2842, Volume

   49--THE SOWER.] It was probably at that season of the year when

   the sowers were going forth to sow their seed, so Jesus pointed to them
   as to a living text. He was always wide-awake to

   make use of everything that occurred round about Him. "A sower went
   forth to sow." For what else should he go forth? Yet some sowers that I
   know of do not go forth to sow, but to exhibit themselves and to show
   how well they can do their work. This man aimed at sowing and nothing
   else. Oh, that all preachers did the same!

   4. And when he sowed, some seeds feel by the wayside.He could not help
   that. He was not sent to pick the soil, that would be too much
   responsibility for him. If we had to preach only to certain characters,
   we should be taking up all our time in picking out those characters!
   And probably we would make many mistakes while trying to do it. Our
   business is to scatter the Good Seed broadcast. We are not to dibble in
   the Word of God--we are to throw it as far as we can, and to let it
   fall wherever God pleases. "Some seeds fell by the wayside"--on ground
   trodden hard by the passers-by.

   4. And the fowls came and devoured them up. Those fowls are always
   ready to devour the Good Seed. Wherever there is a congregation met to
   hear the Word, there are always plenty of devils ready to do their evil
   work! "The fowls came," they had not far to fly. The birds know a sower
   by the very look of him, so they hurry up and come wherever the seed
   may be cast that they may devour it. O Lord, keep the fowls away or,
   better still, break up the soil so that the seed may enter and not lie
   upon the surface!

   5. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth. There
   was a pan of unbroken limestone an inch or two below the soil, but
   there was no depth of earth where the seeds could grow.

   5. And forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.
   They seemed to be converts, but they proved to be worthless. They were
   enthusiastic, carried away with excitement, but all was soon over with
   them "because they had no deepness of earth." Everything was
   superficial, there was no depth of character, or feeling, or emotion.

   6. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no
   root, they withered away. [See Sermon #2844,

   Volume 49--THE SEED UPON A ROCK.] They seemed to be alive at the

   top, but they were really dead below. How many there still are of that
   sort--they make a bold profession, but it is only for a while--and then
   they wither away.

   7. 8. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked
   them: but other fell into good ground-- Thank God we do not lose all
   our efforts! If one in four succeeds, it is great deal for which we
   ought to praise the Lord. So, Brother, Sister--

   "Sow in the morn your seed, At eve hold not your hand. To doubt and
   fear give you no heed, Broadcast it over the land."

   8. And brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some
   thirtyfold. There are degrees even in fruit-fulness--Christians are not
   all alike. Oh, that we had a hundredfold return for our sowing
   everywhere! We do not get it, and can scarcely expect it, but let us
   thank God if we have "some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some
   thirtyfold."

   9-12. Who has ears to hear, let him hear And the disciple came and said
   unto Him, Why do You speak to them in parables? He answered and said
   unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
   Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not given. For whoever has, to him
   shall be given, andhe shall have more abundance: but whoever

   has not, from him shall be taken away even that he has. [See Sermon
   #1488, Volume 25--MORE AND MORE, OR LESS AND LESS.] It is so even in
   common things--the man of intelligence who has a good groundwork of
   education, picks up something everywhere--but the ignorant man learns
   nothing anywhere. He only finds out more and more of his own ignorance
   till there is taken away from him even that which he had. Oh, that the
   Lord would give us a good groundwork of saving knowledge so that we
   might go on learning more and more under the Holy Spirit's teaching!

   13-16. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing, see
   not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them
   is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing you shall
   hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not
   perceive: for this people's heart is grown gross, and their ears are
   dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they
   should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should
   understand with their heart, andshould be converted, and I should heal
   them. But blessedare your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they
   hear.It is awful thing when God gives men up to spiritual blindness and
   dullness and hardness, but it does happen. If you hear the Word and
   refuse to receive it, you do, to that extent, harden your heart. And if
   you continue to do so, you will by degrees lose the capacity for
   understanding the Word. Take heed what you hear! O my

   dear Hearers, I am afraid that many of you are not aware of the solemn
   responsibility of hearing the Gospel and of the terrible peril of
   having your ears made dull and your heart made hard! I am responsible
   for preaching faithfully to you, but you are equally responsible for
   hearing what is preached. Let us not waste any opportunity that we have
   of hearing the Word, but use it wisely and well that we may be able to
   give a good account of it before God in our fruitfulness.

   Now, if the Savior's main design, in the use of parables, had been that
   men should not understand Him, He could have answered that end better
   by not speaking at all. But see how mercy blends with justice, and
   gives them another opportunity of hearing the Word. They might have
   come to Jesus even as His disciples did, and asked Him questions, and
   He would have explained the truth to them. If any of you today hear
   anything which you do not understand, go to the Lord about it in
   private prayer and He will explain it to you. I tremble lest any of you
   should hear the Word and not receive it and yet be content! That is the
   worst state of all for anyone to be in! May God save you from it! But
   as for you who know the lord, "blessed are your eyes, for they see."
   Those are blessed eyes that can really see. Eyes that cannot see are a
   trial, but "blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for
   they hear." It is nothing but the Grace of God that can make our ears
   spiritually hear. He that made the ear can alone make an open passage
   from the ear to the heart. If you have received this blessing, be very
   grateful for it, and bless the God of Grace for giving it to you!

   17. For verily I say unto you, That many Prophets and righteous men
   have desired to see those things which you see, and have not seen them;
   and to hear those things which you hear, and have not heard them. To
   you Christian people, there is given a very full revelation of the
   Truth of God. You live in the mid-day Glory of the Gospel, but the
   "Prophets and righteous men" of old lived in the morning twilight. Be
   the more grateful and bless the Lord with all your hearts.

   18, 19. Hear you, therefore, the parable of the sower When anyone hears
   the word of the kingdom, and understands it not, then comes the Wicked
   One and catches away that which was sown in his heart This is he which
   received the seed by the wayside.There are many such Hearers! They just
   hear the Word and that is all. They are very much like the countryman
   who said that he liked Sunday, for it was such an easy day--he had
   nothing to do but go to church, put up his legs and think of nothing.
   There are far too many hearers of that sort who think of nothing and,
   therefore, they get no good out of what they hear.

   20, 21. But he that received the seed in the stony places, the same is
   he that hears the word, and with joy receives it, yet has he not root
   in himself, but endures for a while: but when tribulation or
   persecution arises because of the word, by-and-by he is offended.He
   soon ceases even to profess to be a Christian! He jumped into religion
   and he jumps out again. Revival always produce a large quantity of such
   people, and yet, if there is one soul truly saved, the revival is a
   success as far as that one is concerned.

   22, 23. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears
   the word, and the care of this world, and the de-ceitfulness of riches,
   choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful But he that received seed in
   the good ground is he that hears the word, and understands it Knows
   what it means, thinks it over, takes it in as the good ground takes in
   the seed and keeps it--

   23. Which also bears fruit, and brings forth, some an hundredfold, some
   sixty, some thirty. I say again--Oh, that we had a hundredfold return
   for our sowing! Yet let us not forget to give God thanks if we have
   sixtyfold or even thirty-

   fold.
     __________________________________________________________________

Satan, Self, Sin and the Savior

   (No. 3306)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
   19, 1866.

   "And He asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name
   is Legion: for we are many." Mark 5:9.

   I THINK the text suggests to us something about Satan, something about
   self and also something about sin and the Savior

   I. Without any preface, let us at once seek to find in the text
   SOMETHING ABOUT SATAN.

   Although an unclean spirit, Legion, like his master, Satan, is very apt
   to lie. There is no doubt that here, in the Presence of Christ, he
   spoke the truth when he said, "My name is Legion: for we are many." So
   the first thought suggested by the name, "Legion," is that there are
   many demons against whom we have to be on the watch in this world.
   There is one great master power of evil who is called, "your adversary
   the devil," but there are also multitudes of demons under his control
   who are all, like himself, full of hatred to God and to goodness and
   bent upon doing as much harm as they can to the Kingdom of Christ among
   men. We do not know how numerous these evil spirits are, but there is
   reason to believe that there are very many of them, so that it will be
   no easy task to overcome them--and it is no wonder that there is so
   much evil in the world when there are so many evil spirits constantly
   seeking to lead men astray.

   The next idea connected with the name, "Legion," is that of
   organization, for a Roman legion was not merely a large band of
   soldiers, but it was a thoroughly organized band of several thousands
   of men who had taken the oath of allegiance to the Roman emperor and
   who yielded implicit obedience to the centurions and other officers who
   were placed in authority over them. In like manner we have reason to
   believe that the vast multitudes of evil spirits are not an
   undisciplined mob, but that they are organized and controlled even as
   they were when the devil and his angels fought against Michael and his
   angels. No doubt they are able to consult and conspire together, and to
   work unitedly for the attainment of some common end. Satan is called
   the Prince of the power of the air, and the name, Prince, implies
   followers who come and go at his command and do his bidding. We who
   have most to do with fighting against this demoniacal legion know that
   we have no easy task, and we can say, as Paul did, "We wrestle not
   against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
   against the ruler of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
   wickedness in high places." It would be impossible for us to be victors
   in this dread conflict had we not on our side One who is more mighty
   than all who can be against us!

   But the name, "Legion," not only suggests the idea of many who are
   thoroughly organized for fighting, it also conveys the idea ofunity.
   The unclean spirit said, "My name is Legion," as if the legion were
   himself and he were the legion. It is a great art in war when a whole
   battalion can be made to move as one man. The Roman phalanx was so
   often victorious because the men composing it were compacted into one
   solid body--and that seems to be one of the characteristics of the
   powers of darkness. It is a sickening thought that while Christians
   frequently quarrel, we never hear of devils doing so. The Church of God
   is divided but the kingdom of darkness appears to be one. Whatever
   internal strife there may be between evil spirits, we have no hint of
   it here--they all seemed to act in complete unison. Whether hate is a
   more compacting principle than love, I will not venture to say, but
   certainly these haters of God and of His Truth appear to be knit
   together as though they were one devil rather than a multitude of evil
   spirits! Yet the lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ are not knit together
   as one man under His blessed rule. Herein lies the force of the Evil
   One--that his host is so united as to be called a legion, moving
   forward in absolute union as one great evil power! As you, Beloved,
   think of this great host all banded together for one purpose--and that
   purpose your destruction--flying like vast hordes of locusts bent on

   devastating every place they visit, you must realize that you can never
   overcome the numerous, organized, united forces of evil by your own
   unaided strength!

   The name, "Legion," also suggest a great band of soldiers marshaled for
   war--not a company of people engaged in peaceful avocations, but an
   armed host marching to battle at their commander's orders! The Roman
   legionnaires were protected with heavy armor and they carried short
   sharp swords with which they did terrible execution. When they went
   forth to war, it was as when a tornado sweeps away the stubble or a
   fire sets a forest ablaze until it is utterly consumed. They were
   mighty men, trained and disciplined for war from their youth up! And
   Satan and his myrmidons have been for these six thousand years familiar
   with the art of injuring and ruining men! They are expert in the use of
   their deadly weapons--they know what arrows in their quiver will find
   the joints in your harness, my Brother, and what fiery darts will be
   most effective against you, my Sister. While reading the 18th Psalm
   today, I especially noticed what David says in the 5th verse, "The
   sorrows (the marginal reading is "the cords") of Hell compassed me
   about," as though some infernal powers had cast ropes all around him
   and were drawing them ever more tightly hoping to enclose the Psalmist
   in bonds from which he could not escape! Then he adds, "The snares of
   death confronted me," as though his enemies, whether men or devils, had
   laid deadly traps in which they hoped to ensnare him. This is what the
   evil spirits are constantly doing with regard to you, Beloved, and you
   wild be wise if you do what David tells us that he did--"In my distress
   I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of
   His Temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears"-- and then
   you, too, will before long be able to say with David, "He delivered me
   from my strong enemy, and from them who hated me: for they were too
   strong for me."

   Further, the name, "Legion," is of historical interest. I have not time
   to relate the brave deeds of some of the most noted of the Roman
   legions. The record of them was cherished by their successors just as
   the heroic exploits of famous British regiments are kept in memory in
   our own land today. As you think of the legions of evil spirits that
   are still doing their wicked master's will, you will see that they have
   some things in their past history wherein they can glory, though their
   glory will be turned to shame. The banners of our soldiers tell of
   victories won on many a hard-fought field. The first inscription on the
   black flag of Diabolus is the one word, "Eden." If Satan can be capable
   of any enjoyment, it must be a very sweet morsel for him to roll under
   his tongue when he thinks of the victory that he gained in Paradise,
   when the whole human race, in the person of its representative, Adam,
   was so ignominiously overthrown! It is true that since then he has had
   more defeats than victories and that, by this time, he must have had at
   least many a foretaste of that final bruising of his head which was
   foretold in the Garden, yet he still perseveres in his hopeless task of
   leading on his condemned legions against the followers of that great
   King against whom he revolted so long ago. The indomitable pluck of
   Satan is a thing which deserves to be imitated by Christians. The only
   point in which I can hold him up for your admiration is this--desperate
   as his cause is, he still presses on with it! Foiled as he has been ten
   thousand times, he is still ready for the fray. Oh, that we had half as
   much holy courage as he has of unholy impudence, that we might face our
   foes as boldly as he faces his! With such a blessed cause as our
   Master's is, oh, that we had valor worthy of it!

   So, Christian, I bid you again to look at your great adversary, that
   you may realize how stern is the conflict in which you are engaged. You
   are often afraid of Satan, but he is never afraid of you. If you turn
   your back in the day of battle, it is not likely that he will turn his.
   If you are to come off more than conqueror in this lifelong fight, you
   must be no mere feather-bed soldier. If you have only the name of a
   Christian, and not the nature of a Christian, defeat must certainly
   await you. Count the cost of this campaign before you commence it--see
   whether your force of one thousand is likely to prevail against your
   adversary's hundred thousand--and then, as you realize your own
   insufficiency, cry to the Strong for strength! Rely upon your Almighty
   Ally, and in His might go forth to this holy war rejoicing in the
   assurance that "the God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet
   shortly."

   II. Now, turning from that part of the subject, let us next find here
   SOMETHING ABOUT SELF. I believe there are some persons in this
   congregation who are, in a measure, desirous of salvation, yet they
   despair of ever being able to attain to it. We generally have some in
   these seats who are anxious about their eternal safety, but who fear
   that they never can be saved--their sins are too many, their
   infirmities too great, their temptations too strong and the
   circumstances in which they are placed too unfavorable. They conclude
   that while other sinners may be saved, there is no hope for them. Let
   us see how the case of this poor demoniac resembles theirs! Someone has
   said that his answer to Christ's question was, first, the proud
   opposition of a heart that wanted an argument for resistance to Christ
   and, se-

   condly, the mournful complaint of a being conscious of its miserable
   condition! In each case it may be instructive to some here.

   First, there was much pride in the answer, "Legion, for we are many."
   And there is also much pride in those sinners who despair of being
   saved because of the greatness of their sin. When men are resolved not
   to part with their sins, they generally use one of these two arguments.
   They either say, "Our sins are so great that we know we shall never get
   to Heaven, so we may as well keep on sinning." Or else, "We can turn
   from sin whenever we please. Repentance is such a simple matter that we
   can attend to it at any time, so we will put it off as long as we can."
   These are quite opposite extremes, but the exchange from the one to the
   other can be made very rapidly. If a man needs an excuse for clinging
   to his sin, he can always find one, and any lie will satisfy the soul
   that is resolved not to be saved! Suppose, my Friend, you were
   suffering from some deadly disease which a noted physician offered to
   cure, but you were unwilling to take his medicine? Your foolish heart
   might suggest to you two reasons for not taking it. The first would be,
   "My case is so desperate that no medicine can do me any good." And the
   other would be, "The medicine is so potent that if I take it in a
   year's time, when I am much worse than I am now, it will still cure
   me." Neither of these would be a valid reason for not taking the
   medicine at once! And if a man died through refusing to take it, a
   verdict of felo de se would be perfectly justifiable! There are
   multitudes of souls who are lost because they do not believe that
   Christ can save them and, on the other hand, probably there are quite
   as many lost because they think it is such an easy thing to be saved
   that it can be settled any time that they please! I implore you, dear
   Friends, not to use any argument for refusing Christ! Why should you
   argue yourselves into eternal ruin? Have you not some better use to
   which to put your wits than to reason on Satan's side to your own
   destruction? Rather, account the testimony of God's Word that your
   sins, even though they may be a legion, or more than that, are not too
   many to be forgiven! Believe that there is efficacy in the precious
   blood of Jesus to make you whiter than snow and that He is "mighty to
   save" even you, for, "He is able to save them to the uttermost that
   come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for
   them." If you are possessed by a legion of demons, trust in Him whose
   almighty arm can overthrow the whole lot of them!

   This name, "Legion," also suggests to us the mournful utterance of
   self-consciousness sorrowing over its sin. Surely in this congregation
   there are some who are saying, "Alas, our sins are many and they have
   brought us into a most pitiful plight! We have not only withered hands,
   but we have lame feet, we have blind eyes, we have deaf ears and, worst
   of all, a heart that is dead as the stones of the street! From the
   soles of our feet to the crown of our head there is no soundness in
   us--just wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." My dear Friends,
   if you truthfully utter that sorrowful lament, I am glad to hear it!
   And whether you know it or not, that state of things is really a reason
   why God is likely to save you! Let me remind you of some of the
   arguments that we find in the Word of God. There is one in the 18th
   Psalm to which I referred you just now. David says of the Lord, "He
   delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for
   they were too strong for me." He was unable to cope with his
   adversaries, so he trusted the Lord to deliver him--and He did! There
   is a similar argument concerning the stone that covered the Savior's
   sepulcher. The women said, "Who shall roll us away the stone from the
   door of the sepulcher? And when they looked, they saw that the stone
   was rolled away, "for"--for what?--"for it was very great." If it had
   not been very great, they might have rolled it away themselves! But as
   it was too heavy for them to move, the angel rolled it away for them.
   David is a great master of this kind of argument. In Psalm 25:11, he
   prays, "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity; for it is
   great." That seems a strange plea to urge, yet it is one that prevails
   with God. If I plead to be pardoned because I am not a great sinner, I
   am legal and carnal. But if I plead to be pardoned because I am such a
   great sinner, I am moved by an evangelical motive and there is room for
   the display of Divine Grace to one who confesses his need of it! This
   is like the poor sufferer who cries out to the doctor, "O Sir, do
   attend to me, for mine is a desperate case!" Or like the beggar in the
   street who pleads, "Give me help, for I am starving." You must use your
   need and the greatness of your need as an argument with the Lord! There
   are some whom I know here who would almost give their eyes if they
   could only feel their sin as much as you do. They want to be troubled
   more about it, they want to despair more over it. Well, they are
   foolish, and so are you! They are foolish in desiring to despair more,
   and you are foolish in wishing that you did not despair as much. You
   should, all of you, give up looking to yourselves, and go to Jesus just
   as you are and trust to Him to save you!

   III. Now I come to the last point, SOMETHING ABOUT OUR SINS AND OUR
   SAVIOR. Our sins are very much

   like Satan--they are his children and they are very much like their
   father.

   Our sins may rightly be called legion. Oh, how many they are! I cannot
   count them, they are more in number than the sands of the sea or the
   stars of the sky! Yet while they are so many, I may also say of them
   that they are one, for there is a dreadful unity about our sin. One sin
   very seldom checks another, it sometimes does, but more frequently one
   sin incites another. I have heard it said that some men would be mean
   if they were not proud, but I have seen people who have been very proud
   and also very mean. I have known some who have been very bad-tempered,
   but it was said that they would not display their temper in certain
   places because they feared they would be losers by doing so, only it
   was added that they indulged themselves all the more freely in other
   directions and so made up for their selfish self-restraint. Except in
   such ways as these, I do not think that one sin is a check upon
   another, but on the other hand, one sin very often leads to others. If
   you turn one devil out at the front door, he often comes in again at
   the back--and brings with him 10 other devils worse than himself! You
   must have proved how easy it is to get rid of one vice only to fall
   into another. Did you ever pray with all your heart against sloth, and
   then feel proud to think how busy you were getting? Then, when you got
   rid of your pride, you found that despondency was following close
   behind! And when you had fought against despondency and overcome it,
   there was presumption pressing to the front! So will you find it till
   your dying day, but I trust that you will also find that though your
   sins are many, and though there is a terrible unity about them by which
   they work together to ruin you, your experience will be, like David's,
   so that you will be able to say, "They were too strong for me, but the
   Lord delivered me."

   That brings me to my last point, which is this, the Lord Jesus Christ
   can as easily cast out a legion of sins as He can cast out one. If I
   had only committed one sin in the whole of my life, I should have
   needed an Omnipotent Savior to put away that one sin by the Sacrifice
   of Himself. And if I could have committed all the sins that have ever
   been committed by all the sinners in the whole world, I should not have
   needed any greater Savior than I have now! If I had only one
   disposition towards evil, one vice that needed to be overcome, or one
   evil tendency that had to be counteracted, I should need the Almighty
   Power of the ever-blessed Spirit to accomplish the task. And if my
   heart is a cage full of unclean birds, that same Holy Spirit can drive
   them all out! When the Lord comes into the field of battle, we need not
   trouble about counting the numbers of the enemy, for He is the Lord of
   Hosts, and He is, in Himself, mightier than all who can be gathered
   against Him--He can overthrow all the forces of evil as easily as He
   cast the legion of devils out of that poor demoniac!

   Perhaps some of you are just now in great trouble because of your
   inward corruptions. It may be that you have lately had such a sight of
   them as you have never before had in all your lives. Well, dear
   Friends, this may humble you, but I pray that you will not let it cause
   you to dishonor the Lord Jesus Christ. Never forget that the King of
   kings is still reigning supreme over all the powers of darkness! Satan
   may rage and rave in his great wrath, but there is a bit in his mouth
   and a bridle on his jaws--and he can be controlled and restrained just
   as the Lord pleases. He who rules the roaring billows and rides upon
   the wings of the wind can make all the forces of evil subservient to
   His will. Even when the devil is permitted to attack the children of
   God, there is always a limit set beyond which he cannot go, as there
   was in the case of Job. To my mind, the poor Patriarch sitting down
   among the ashes, smitten with sore boils from the sole of his feet to
   the crown of his head, and yet resignedly saying to his wife, "Shall we
   receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" is a
   much nobler being than Satan reigning among the fiends of the Pit! Job
   might have laughed Satan to scorn as messenger after messenger came to
   tell him that his oxen and asses were stolen and his servants slain by
   the Sabeans, that his sheep had been burned up by lightning, that his
   camels had been carried away by the Chaldeans and last and worst of
   all, that his children had been killed by the great wind from the
   wilderness that smote the four corners of the house where they were
   eating and drinking. And I think that was what Job practically did
   when, with sublime resignation, he said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord
   has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." How glorious was the
   Patriarch's victory when he had been still further tried, yet was able
   to utter that grand declaration of his faith in God, "Though He slays
   me, yet will I trust in Him"!

   But how much more glorious was the victory of the Man, Christ Jesus,
   over His great adversary and ours! When "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
   the Jews," was nailed to the Cross, Satan thought that he had won the
   day. The old serpent had stung Him to death, vainly imagining that all
   was over with Him. I think I see the arch-fiend gloating over the awful
   agonies of the dying Savior and maliciously taunting Him as He hung
   there apparently forsaken by God and man. "Ah," he said, "Seed of the
   woman, I have indeed bruised Your heel. I have made men reject You and
   put You to death! I have vexed and tormented You, I have scorned and
   scouted You and You have not a word to say for Yourself. And now Your

   soul must soon depart out of Your body." Yet as the devil was still
   pouring out his vainglorious boasts and taunts, with a mighty voice,
   the expiring Savior cried, "It is finished," and in that moment His
   soul sprang upon the enemy and utterly routed him forever! "You have
   conquered, O Galilean!" is said to have been the dying cry of Julian
   the apostate, and Satan might have said the same, for when Jesus nailed
   to His Cross the handwriting that was against us, "having spoiled
   principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing
   over them in Himself," for that is the marginal reading of Colossians
   2:15 and, therefore, with Dr. Watts--

   "I sing my Savior's wondrous death;

   He conquered when He fell!

   'Tis finished! 'said His dying breath,

   And shook the gates of Hell!

   His Cross a sure foundation laid

   For Glory and renown,

   When through the regions of the dead

   He passed to reach the crown " Yes, Jesus triumphed in the very hour
   that looked like the time of His defeat! So praise Him, you bright
   spirits before the Throne of God, and imitate Him, you saints still
   here below, for--

   "As surely as He overcame,

   And triumphed once for you,

   So surely you that love His name

   Shall triumph in Him too"-- even though your foes are named Legion, for
   they are many. God bless you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK5.

   Verses 1-6. And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the
   country of the Gadarenes. And when He was come out of the boat,
   immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean
   spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind
   him, no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with
   fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and
   the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And
   always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs,
   crying, and cutting himself with stones. What a pitiful object this
   poor creature must have been--a terror to the whole region! So far as
   man was concerned, he was in an utterly hopeless condition, yet there
   was hope for him, for Jesus had crossed the sea apparently with the
   special purpose of healing him! Our Savior had proved His power over
   the winds and waves and He was about to show that demons were equally
   subject to His control.

   6, 7. But when he saw Jesus afar off he ran and worshipped him, and
   cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with You, Jesus,
   You Son of the Most High God? I adjure You by God, that You torment me
   not [See Sermon #2966,

   Volume 51--RESISTANCE TO SALVATION.] The voice was the voice of the

   man, but the devil so completely dominated the whole of his being that
   he could only speak as the unclean spirit directed him.

   8. For He said unto him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit So
   that the demon's adjuration was an answer to the Lord's command, "Come
   out of the man, you unclean spirit."

   9-13. And He asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My
   name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought Him much that He would
   not send them away out of the country. Now there was there near unto
   the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils
   besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into
   them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went
   out and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep
   place into the sea, (they were about two thousand) and were drowned in
   the sea.It is clear from this narrative that the demons knew that Jesus
   was the Son of the Most High God, and that He had absolute power to do
   with them whatever He pleased. It is also clear that they believed in
   prayer, and that they were all agreed in their supplication to Him--and
   it is significant that Jesus granted their request. "Send us into the
   swine, that we may enter into them." There was a certain congruity in
   the unclean spirits entering into the unclean animals, so, "forthwith
   Jesus gave them leave."

   14, 16. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and
   in the country. And they went out to see what it

   was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and saw him that was
   possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and
   in his right mind: and they were afraid. What a wonderful sight that
   was for them to see! Yet they need not have been afraid--they ought
   rather to have rejoiced to see the poor demoniac "sitting, and clothed,
   and in his right mind."

   16, 17. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was
   possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began
   to pray him to depart out of their coasts.Here is a second prayer in
   which many united--a very foolish and wicked prayer--yet the Savior did
   as these people wished. He would not force His company upon those who
   wanted Him to go, so He at once turned His face to the boat that He
   might "depart out of their coasts."

   18, 19. And when He was come into the boat, he that had been possessed
   with the devil prayed Him that he might be with Him. Howbeit Jesus
   allowed him not, but said to him, go home to your friends, and tell
   them how great things the

   Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you [See Sermon #2262,
   Volume 38--CHRIST'S CURATE IN DECAPOLIS.] This is the third prayer in
   this chapter. Not like the two previous ones--the petition of many who
   were not Christ's followers. It was the earnest supplication of one who
   was so grateful for what Jesus had done for him that he longed to be
   always with Him. Yet it was not granted, because Jesus saw that the man
   could serve Him better by bearing testimony among those who knew him to
   the great things the Lord had done for him.

   20. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things
   Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel. His testimony not only
   made men marvel, but it helped to prepare the people to welcome the
   Savior when He returned to that region.

   21. And when Jesus had passed over again by boat unto the other side,
   many people gathered unto Him: and He was near unto the sea. How many
   missionary voyages Jesus made, sometimes to one side of the sea,
   sometimes to the other side! What an example of holy diligence He is to
   us! So long as He lived here below, He never ceased to labor for He
   never ceased to love.

   22. And, behold, there came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus
   by name; and when he saw Him, he fell at His feet.It was an unusual
   thing for a ruler of the synagogue to be at the feet of Jesus, yet that
   is the best place for us all! If God has placed any of you in an
   eminent position, it will well become you to fall at the feet of Jesus
   as Jairus did. There is no place more suitable, no place more
   honorable, no place more profitable than at the feet of Jesus! What
   brought Jairus there? It was his great need--and that is what will
   bring us there--a sense of our great need.

   23. And sought Him greatly, saying, My little daughter lies at the
   point of death: I pray You, come and lay Your hands on her, that she
   may be healed; and she shall live. This was great faith, yet it was
   also little faith, for he limits Christ's power to His bodily Presence
   and he stipulates about the way in which the cure is to be worked! "I
   pray You, come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed." Yet
   we never like to criticize faith, there is so little of it, and it is
   so precious a thing that we are glad to see it anywhere--and especially
   in a ruler of the synagogue! Oh, that we all prayed thus for our little
   daughters and our little sons--"Lord, come and lay Your hands on them!
   There is sin in them and sin means spiritual death--come and lay Your
   hands on them, that they may be healed and live forever."

   24. And Jesus went with him.He will always regard true prayer! If we
   can believe, Jesus will come.

   24, 25. And much people followed Him, and thronged Him. And a certain
   woman--There were many in the throng around Jesus who did not touch
   Him, and there were many who touched Him, but not as she did! So she is
   singled out from the crowd. "A certain woman,"--

   25-28. Which hadan issue ofblood twelve years, and had suffered many
   things of many physicians, andhad spent all

   that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. When she
   had heard of Jesus, came in the pres behind,

   and touched His garment. For she said, If I may touch but His clothes,
   I shall be whole. [See Sermons #827, Volume 14--the faculTY
   BAFFLED--THE GREAT PHYSICIAN SUCCESSFUL and #1382, Volume 23--THE
   TOUCH.] Was this woman sent, do you think, to encourage the faith of
   Jarius? It has been well said that the

   child of Jairus had been twelve years living, but this woman had been
   twelve years dying, so, if Christ could heal the

   woman who had been twelve years dying, He could raise the child who had
   been twelve years living! It is significant that

   there should have been this equalization of the number of years in the
   two cases. Although Jairus seemed strong in faith,

   he was not really so. He put the best side of his faith forward, while
   this woman, who was strong in faith, yet coming behind Christ and
   touching Him, as it were, by stealth, put the worst side of her faith
   forward. We have known this to be the case in others--some who seem to
   be strong in faith are none too strong. And some who seem to be very
   weak in faith are much stronger than they seem.

   29-31. And immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she
   felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus,
   immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out ofHim, turned
   Him about in thepress, and said, Who touched My clothes? And His
   disciple said unto Him, You see the multitude thronging You, and say
   You, Who touched Me? They spoke too fast, as we also sometimes do. It
   would have been well if they had said nothing which looked like
   questioning their Master's word.

   32, 33. And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing.
   But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came
   and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truthi. [See Sermon
   #514, Volume 9--tell it

   ALL.] The miracle had been worked in her, yet she was fearing

   and trembling because she perceived the imperfection of her way of
   approaching the Savior! Probably, after we are saved, we see more of
   our mistakes than we did before. And when the blessing really comes to
   us, we begin to be anxious lest we should lose Christ because of some
   misapprehension in our way of finding Him. The woman "fell down before
   Him, and told Him all the truth."

   34. And He said unto her, Daughter This was a very unusual way for
   Christ to speak to a woman, so careful was He in His speech, but then
   she was a very exceptional woman! "Daughter"--

   34, 35. Your faith has made you whole, go in peace, and be whole of
   your plague. While He yet spoke, there came from the ruler of the
   synagogue's house a certain man who said, Your daughter is dead: why
   trouble you the Master any further? This ruler of the synagogue was on
   the brink of getting the blessing he sought and then the very worst
   news comes to him! It may be that just now some of you have seemed to
   receive the sentence of death to all your hopes, yet you are on the
   very verge of getting the blessing. It is often so--just when the devil
   knows that the blessing is near, he struggles the hardest with the soul
   that is seeking it. Do not be cast down if that sentence of death comes
   to you, but still believe.

   36-39. As soon as Jesus heard the words that was spoken, he said unto
   the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe. And He
   suffered no man to follow Him, save Peter and James, and John the
   brother of James. And He came to the house of the ruler of the
   synagogue, and saw the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.
   And when He was come in, He said unto them, Why make you this ado, and
   weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleeps.Jesus knew what He was about
   to do and, speaking with the knowledge of the miracle He was about to
   perform, He said, "The damsel is not dead but sleeps." A charlatan, who
   wanted to make himself famous, and in order to increase the effect of
   the miracle, would have said, "The damsel is really dead," but the
   Savior, in His infinite modesty of heart, puts it thus, "The damsel is
   not dead, but sleeps."

   40. And they laughed Him to scorn. Can you picture the scene? These
   people who had been hired to weep and wail, had not much of the spirit
   of mourning in them, for they laughed directly and derisively--they
   turned upon the mighty Master of life and death and "laughed Him to
   scorn."

   40. But when He had put them all out That was the best way to answer
   the scorners. It is no good arguing with people who can cry or laugh to
   order! "When He had put them all out"--

   40-42. He took the father and the mother of the damsel, and they that
   were with Him, and entered in where the damsel was lying. And He took
   the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is,
   being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto you, arise. And immediately
   Notice how this word, "immediately," comes in again! It is the
   characteristic word in reference to Christ's miracles--they are usually
   worked at once. We read in the 29th verse, "Immediately the fountain of
   her blood was dried up." Now we read, "Immediately"--

   42. The damsel arose, and walked.Oh, that the Lord Jesus Christ would
   work some "immediately" miracles in our midst just now! He can do it if
   He pleases! Before this service ends, there may be some who shall have
   passed from death unto life, out of the darkness of sin into the
   marvelous light of Grace! Blessed be God for this--who will it be?

   42, 43. For she was of thee age of twelve years. And theey were
   astonished with a great astonishment. And He charged them immediately
   that no man should know it. He did not want to blaze abroad the story
   of these wondrous deeds of His. The crowd was already inconveniently
   large, so that "He charged them immediately that no man should know
   it."

   43. And commanded that something should be given her to eat. She might
   have continued to live by a miracle as she had been miraculously raised
   from the dead, but it was needless, and Christ never worked an
   unnecessary miracle. Do not look for miracles when ordinary means will
   suffice. "He commanded that something should be given her to eat." When
   life is given or restored, the next thing needed is nourishment! When
   you are made spiritually to live, be sure to attend a soul-feeding
   ministry--and diligently read the Word--that you may get all necessary
   nourishment for your soul out of it.
     __________________________________________________________________

Over the Mountains

   (No. 3307)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My beloved is mine, and I am His: He feeds among the lilies. Until the
   day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like
   a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." Solomon's Song
   2:16,17.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same verses are #1190, Volume
   20--A SONG AMONG THE LILIES; #2442, Volume 41--"MY BELOVED IS MINE" and
   #2477, Volume 42--DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN.]

   IT may be that there are saints who are always at their best and are
   happy enough never to lose the light of their Father's Countenance. I
   am not sure that there are such persons, for those Believers with whom
   I have been most intimate have had varied experiences and those whom I
   have known who have boasted of their constant perfectness, have not
   been the most reliable of individuals. I hope there is a spiritual
   region attainable where there are no clouds to hide the Sun of our
   soul, but I cannot speak positively, for I have not traversed that
   happy land. Every year of my life has had a winter as well as a summer,
   and every day its night. I have hitherto seen bright days and heavy
   rains, and felt warm breezes and fierce winds. Speaking for the many of
   my Brothers and Sisters, I confess that though the substance is in us,
   as in the olive tree and the oak, yet we do lose our leaves and the sap
   within us does not flow with equal vigor at all seasons. We have our
   downs as well as our ups, our valleys as well as our hills! We are not
   always rejoicing--we are sometimes in heaviness through manifold
   trials. Alas, we are grieved to confess that our fellowship with the
   Well-Beloved is not always that of rapturous delight, but we have at
   times to seek Him and cry, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!"
   This appears to me to have been in a measure the condition of the
   spouse when she cried, "Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away,
   turn, my Beloved."

   I. These words teach us, first, that COMMUNION MAY BE BROKEN.

   The spouse had lost the company of her Bridegroom. Conscious communion
   with Him was gone, though she loved her Lord and sighed for Him. In her
   loneliness she was sorrowful, but she had by no means ceased to love
   Him, for she calls Him her Beloved and speaks as one who felt no doubt
   upon that point. Love to the Lord Jesus may be quite as true, and
   perhaps quite as strong when we sit in darkness as when we walk in the
   light. No, she had not lost her assurance of His love to herand of
   their mutual interest in one another, for she says, "My Beloved is
   mine, and I am His." And yet she adds, "Turn, my Beloved." The
   condition of our Grace does not always coincide with the state of our
   joys. We may be rich in faith and love, and yet have so low an esteem
   of ourselves as to be much depressed. It is plain, from this sacred
   Canticle, that the spouse may love and be loved, may be confident in
   her Lord and be fully assured of her possession of Him, and yet there
   may, for the present, be mountains between her and Him. Yes, we may
   even be far advanced in the Divine Life, and yet be exiled for a while
   from conscious fellowship. There are nights for men as well as babes,
   and the strong know that the sun is hidden quite as well as do the sick
   and the feeble. Do not, therefore, condemn yourself, my Brothers and
   Sisters because a cloud is over you--cast not away your confidence--but
   rather let faith burn up the gloom and let your love resolve to come at
   your Lord again whatever barriers which divide you from Him may be!

   When Jesus is absent from a true heir of Heaven, sorrow will ensue. The
   healthier our condition, the sooner will that absence be perceived and
   the more deeply will it be lamented. This sorrow is described in the
   text as darkness--this is implied in the expression, "until the day
   breaks." Till Christ appears, no day has dawned for us. We dwell in
   midnight darkness! The stars of the promises and the moon of experience
   yield no light of comfort till our Lord, like the sun, arises and ends
   the night! We must have Christ with us or we are benighted--we grope
   like blind men for the wall and wander in dismay.

   The spouse also speaks of shadows. "Until the day breaks and the
   shadows flee away." Shadows are multiplied by the departure of the sun,
   and these are apt to distress the timid. We are not afraid of real
   enemies when Jesus is with us, but when we miss Him, we tremble at the
   shade. How sweet is that song, "Yes, though I walk through the Valley
   of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me; Your
   rod and Your staff they comfort me"! But we change our note when
   midnight is come and Jesus is not with us! Then we people the night
   with terrors--specters, demons, hobgoblins and things that never
   existed save in fancy, are apt to swarm about us--and we are in fear
   where there is no fear!

   The spouse's worst trouble was that the back of her Beloved was turned
   to her and so she cried, "Turn, my Beloved." When His face is towards
   her, she suns herself in His love, but if the light of His Countenance
   is withdrawn, she is sorely troubled. Our Lord turns His face from His
   people though He never turns His heart from His people. He may even
   close His eyes in sleep when the vessel is tossed by the tempest, but
   His heart is awake all the while. Still, it is pain enough to have
   grieved Him in any degree--it cuts us to the quick to think that we
   have wounded His tender heart. He is jealous, but never without cause.
   If He turns His back upon us for a while, there is doubtless a more
   than sufficient reason. He would not walk contrary to us if we had not
   walked contrary to Him. Ah, it is sad work this! The Presence of the
   Lord makes this life the preface to the celestial life! But His absence
   leaves us pining and fainting, neither does any comfort remain in the
   land of our banishment. The Scriptures and the ordinances, private
   devotion and public worship are all as sundials--most excellent when
   the sun shines, but of small use in the dark. O, Lord Jesus, nothing
   can compensate us for Your loss! Draw near to Your beloved yet again,
   for without You, our night will never end--

   "See! I repent and vex my soul, That I should leave You so! Where will
   those vile affections roll That let my Savior go?"

   When communion with Christ is broken, in all true hearts there is a
   strong desire to win it back again. The man who has known the joy of
   communion with Christ, if he loses it, will never be content until it
   is restored. Have you ever entertained the Prince Emmanuel? Is He gone
   elsewhere? Your chamber will be dreary till He comes back again. "Give
   me Christ, or else I die," is the cry of every spirit that has lost the
   dear Companionship of Jesus! We do not part with such heavenly delights
   without many a pang. It is not with us a matter of "maybe He will
   return, and we hope He will," but it must be, or we faint and die! We
   cannot live without Him--and this is a cheering sign, for the soul that
   cannot live without Him shall not live without Him! He comes speedily
   where life and death hang on His coming. If you must have Christ, you
   shall have Him! This is just how the matter stands--we must drink of
   this well or die of thirst. We must feed upon Jesus or our spirit will
   famish!

   II. We will now advance a step and say that when communion with Christ
   is broken, THERE ARE GREAT DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF ITS RENEWAL.

   It is much easier to go downhill than to climb to the same height
   again. It is far easier to lose joy in God than to find the lost jewel.
   The spouse speaks of "mountains" dividing her from her Beloved--she
   means that the difficulties were great. They were not little hills, but
   mountains that closed up her way! Mountains of remembered sin, Alps of
   backsliding, dread range of forgetfulness, ingratitude, worldliness,
   coldness in prayer, frivolity, pride, unbelief! Ah me, I cannot teach
   you all the dark geography of this sad experience! Giant walls arose
   before her like the towering steeps of Lebanon. How could she get to
   her Beloved?

   The dividing difficulties were many as well as great. She does not
   speak of "a mountain," but of "mountains." Alps rose on Alps, wall
   after wall. She was distressed to think that in so short a time, so
   much could come between her and Him of whom she sang just now, "His
   left hand is under my head, and His right hand does embrace me." Alas,
   we multiply those mountains of Bether with a sad rapidity! Our Lord is
   jealous and we give Him far too much reason for hiding His face. A
   fault which seemed so small at the time we committed it, is seen in the
   light of its own consequences, and then it grows and swells till it
   towers aloft and hides the face of the Beloved! Then has our sun gone
   down and Fear whispers, "Will His light ever return? Will it ever be
   daybreak? Will the shadows ever flee away?" It is easy to grieve away
   the heavenly sunlight, but ah, how hard to clear the skies and regain
   the unclouded brightness!

   Perhaps the worst thought of all to the spouse was the dread that the
   dividing barrier might be permanent. It was high, but it might
   dissolve. The walls were many, but they might fall. But, alas, they
   were mountains, and these stand fast for ages! She felt like the
   Psalmist when he cried, "My sin is always before me." The pain of our
   Lord's absence be-

   comes intolerable when we fear that we are hopelessly shut out from
   Him. A night one can bear, hoping for the morning, but what if the day
   should never break? And you and I, if we have wandered away from Christ
   and feel that there are ranges of immovable mountains between Him and
   us, will feel sick at heart. We try to pray, but devotion dies on our
   lips. We attempt to approach the Lord at the Communion Table, but we
   feel more like Judas than John. At such times we have felt that we
   would give our eyes to behold once more the Bridegroom's face and to
   know that He delights in us as in happier days. Still, there stand the
   awful mountains--black, threatening, impassable--and in the far-off
   land the Life of our life is away and grieved.

   So the spouse seems to have come to the conclusion that the
   difficulties in her way were insurmountable by her own power She does
   not even think of herself going over the mountains to her Beloved, but
   she cries, "Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, My
   Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of
   Bether." She will not try to climb the mountains, she knows she cannot.
   If they had not been so high, she might have attempted it, but their
   summits reach to Heaven! If they had been less craggy or difficult, she
   might have tried to scale them, but these mountains are terrible, and
   no foot may stand upon their long crags! Oh, the mercy of utter
   self-despair! I love to see a soul driven into that close corner and
   forced, therefore, to look to God alone! The end of the creature is the
   beginning of the Creator! Where the sinner ends, the Savior begins! If
   the mountains can be climbed, we shall have to climb them, but if they
   are quite impassable, then the soul cries out with the Prophet, "Oh
   that You would rend the heavens, that You would come down, that the
   mountains might flow down at Your Presence, as when the melting fire
   burns, the fire causes the waters to boil to make Your name known to
   Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your Presence! When
   You did terrible things which we looked not for, You came down, the
   mountains flowed down at Your Presence." Our souls are lame, they
   cannot move to Christ and lo, we turn our strong desires to Him and fix
   our hopes alone upon Him! Will He not remember us in love and fly to us
   as He did to His servant of old when He rode upon a cherub and did fly,
   yes, He did fly upon the wings of the wind?

   III. Here arises that PRAYER OF THE TEXT WHICH FULLY MEETS THE
   CASE--"Turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the
   mountains of Bether."

   Jesus can come to us when we cannot go to Him. The roe and the young
   hart, or, as you may read it, the gazelle and the ibex, live among the
   crags of the mountains and leap across the abyss with amazing agility.
   For swiftness and sure-footedness they are unrivalled. The sacred poet
   said, "He makes my feet like hinds' feet, and sets me upon my high
   places," alluding to the feet of those creatures which are so fitted to
   stand surely on the mountains' sides. Our blessed Lord is called in the
   title of the 22nd Psalm, "the Hind of the Morning"--and the spouse in
   this golden Canticle sings, "My Beloved is like a roe or a young hart;
   behold, He comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills."

   Here I would remind you that this prayer is one that we may fairly
   offer, because it is the way of Christ to come to us when our coming to
   Him is out of the question. "How?" you ask. I answer that of old He did
   this, for we remember "His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
   we were dead in sin." His first coming into the world in human
   form--was it not because man could never come to God until God had come
   to him? I hear of no tears, or prayers, or entreaties after God on the
   part of our first parents--but the offended Lord spontaneously gave the
   promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.
   Our Lord's coming into the world was untaught, unsought, unthought
   of--He came altogether of His own free will, delighting to redeem--

   "Withpitying eyes the Prince of Grace Beheld our helpless grief! He
   saw, and oh, amazing love-- He ran to our relief."

   His Incarnation was a type of the way in which He comes to us by His
   Spirit. He saw us cast out, polluted, shameful, perishing--and as He
   passed by, His tender lips said, "Live!" In us is fulfilled that
   ancient word, "I am found of them that sought Me not." We were too
   averse to holiness, too much in bondage to sin to ever have returned to
   Him if He had not turned to us. What do you think? Did He come to us
   when we were enemies and will He not visit us, now that we are friends?
   Did He come to us when we were dead sinners and will He not hear us,
   now that we are weeping saints? If Christ's coming to the earth was
   after this manner and if His coming to each one of us was after this
   style, we may well hope

   that now He will come to us in like fashion, like the dew which
   refreshes the grass and waits not for man, neither tarries for the sons
   of men.

   Besides, He is coming again in Person, in the latter days, and
   mountains of sin, error, idolatry, superstition and oppression stand in
   the way of His Kingdom--but He will surely come and overturn, and
   overturn till He shall reign over all! He will come in the latter days,
   I say, though He shall leap the hills to do it--and because of that I
   am sure we may comfortably conclude that He will draw near to us who
   mourn His absence so bitterly. Then let us bow our heads a moment, and
   silently present to His most excellent Majesty the petition of our
   text, "Turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the
   mountains of Bether."

   Our text gives us sweet assurance that our Lord is at home with those
   difficulties which are quite insurmountable by us. Just as the roe or
   the young hart knows the passes of the mountains and the
   stepping-places among the rugged rocks, and is void of all fear among
   the ravines and the precipices, so does our Lord know the heights and
   depths, the torrents and the caverns of our sin and sorrow. He carried
   the whole of our transgression and so became aware of the tremendous
   load of our guilt. He is quite at home with the infirmities of our
   nature. He knew temptation in the wilderness, heartbreak in the garden,
   desertion on the Cross. He is quite at home with pain and weakness,
   for, "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sickness." He is at
   home with despondency, for He was "a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted
   with grief." He is at home even with death, for He gave up the ghost
   and passed through the sepulcher to Resurrection. O yawning gulfs and
   frowning steeps of woe, our Beloved, like hind or hart, has traversed
   your glooms! O my Lord, You know all that divides me from You and You
   also know that I am far too feeble to climb these dividing mountains so
   that I may come to You. Therefore, I pray You, come over the mountains
   to meet my longing spirit! You know each yawning gulf and slippery
   steep, but none of these can stop You. Hasten You to me, Your servant,
   Your beloved, and let me again live by Your Presence.

   It is easy, too, for Christ to come over the mountains for our relief.
   It is easy for the gazelle to cross the mountains-- it is made for that
   end. So is it easy for Jesus, for to this purpose was He ordained from
   of old that He might come to man in his worst estate, and bring with
   Him the Father's love. What is it that separates us from Christ? Is it
   a sense of sin? You have been pardoned once and Jesus can renew most
   vividly a sense of full forgiveness! But you say, "Alas, I have sinned
   again! Fresh guilt alarms me." He can remove it in an instant, for the
   fountain appointed for that purpose is opened and is still full! It is
   easy for the dear lips of redeeming love to put away the child's
   offenses since He has already obtained pardon for the criminal's
   iniquities. If with His heart's blood He won our pardon from our Judge,
   He can easily enough bring us the forgiveness of our Father. Oh, yes,
   it is easy enough for Christ to say again, "Your sins are forgiven!"
   "But I feel so unfit, so unable to enjoy communion." He that healed all
   manner of bodily diseases can heal with a word your spiritual
   infirmities! Remember the man whose ankle bones received strength so
   that he ran and leaped? And she who was sick of a fever and was healed
   at once, and arose and ministered unto her Lord? "My Grace is
   sufficient for you; for My strength is made perfect in weakness."

   "But I have such affliction, such troubles, such sorrows that I am
   weighted down and cannot rise into joyful fellowship." Yes, but Jesus
   can make every burden light and cause each yoke to be easy! Your trials
   can be made to aid your heavenward course instead of hindering it. I
   know all about those heavy weights and I perceive that you cannot lift
   them. But skilful engineers can adapt ropes and pulleys in such a way
   that heavy weights lift other weights. The Lord Jesus is great at
   gracious machinery and He has the art of causing a weight of
   tribulation to lift from us a load of spiritual dead-ness, so that we
   ascend by that which, like a millstone, threatened to sink us down!
   What else hinders you? I am sure that if it were a sheer impossibility,
   the Lord Jesus could remove it, for things impossible with men are
   possible with God!

   But someone objects, "I am so unworthy of Christ. I can understand
   eminent saints and beloved disciples being greatly indulged, but I am a
   worm and not a man, utterly below such condescension!" Say you so? Know
   you not that the worthiness of Christ covers your unworthiness and He
   is made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and
   redemption? In Christ, the Father thinks not so meanly of you as you
   think of yourself! You are not worthy to be called His child, but He
   does call you so and reckons you to be among His jewels! Listen, and
   you shall hear Him say, "Since you were precious in My sight, you have
   been honorable, and I have loved you. I gave Egypt for your ransom;
   Ethiopia and Seba for you." Thus, there remains nothing which Jesus
   cannot leap over if He resolves to come to you and reestablish your
   broken fellowship!

   To conclude, our Lord can do all this IMMEDIATELY. As in the twinkling
   of an eye the dead shall be raised incorruptible, so in a moment can
   our dead affections rise to fullness of delight! He can stay to this
   mountain, "Be you removed and be you cast into the midst of the sea,"
   and it shall be done. In the sacred emblems now upon this Supper Table
   Jesus is already among us. Faith cries, "He has come!" Like John the
   Baptist she gazes intently on Him and cries, "Behold the Lamb of God!"
   At this Table Jesus feeds us with His body and blood. His corporeal
   Presence we have not, but His real spiritual'Presence we perceive. We
   are like the disciples when none of them dared ask Him, "Who are You?"
   knowing that it was the Lord. He is come! He looks forth at these
   windows--I mean this bread and wine--showing Himself through the
   lattices of this instructive and endearing ordinance. He speaks. He
   says, "The winter is past, the rain is over and gone." And so it is. We
   feel it to be so--a heavenly spring-tide warms our frozen hearts. Like
   the spouse, we wonderingly cry, "Or ever I was aware, my soul made me
   like the chariots of Amminadib." Now in happy fellowship we see the
   Beloved and hear His voice! Our heart burns! Our affections glow! We
   are happy, restful, brimming over with delight! The King has brought us
   into His banqueting house and His banner over us is love. It is good to
   be here!

   Friends, we must now go our ways. A voice says, "Arise, let us go
   hence." O Lord of our hearts, go with us! Some will not be home without
   You. Life will not be life without You. Heaven itself would not be
   Heaven if You were absent. Abide with us! The world grows dark, the
   glooming of time draws on. Abide with us, for it is toward evening. Our
   years increase and we near the night when dews fall cold and chill. A
   great future is all about us! The splendors of the last age are coming
   down and while we wait in solemn, awe-struck expectation, our heart
   continually cries within herself, "Until the day breaks and the shadows
   flee away, turn, my Beloved!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 14.

   Let us read that well-known and most blessed Chapter, John 14, which so
   clearly shows our Savior's tender consideration for the comfort of His
   people, lest the great grief excited in them by His impending death
   should altogether break their hearts.

   Verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe
   also in Me. [See Sermon #1741, Volume 29--"let not your

   HEART BE TROUBLED.] I think our Savior meant to say and really

   did say, "If you believe in God, you are believing in Me; and if you
   believe in Me, you are believing in God; for there is such a perfect
   unity between us that you need not, when I die, make any distinction
   between Me and God, but still believe in Me as you believe in the
   Father."

   2. In My Father's house are many mansions: ifit were not so, I would
   have told you. "Wicked men will shut you out of My Father's house
   below: the Temple at Jerusalem, through being still used for Jewish
   worship after all its ritual and ceremonialism have been abolished,
   will cease to be My Father's house to you; but there is a building of
   God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and there is
   room for all of you there. When this country gets to be a desert to
   you, remember that there is the Home Country, the blessed Glory Land,
   on the other side of the river, and the Father's house there with its
   many mansions."

   2, 3. I go to prepare a place for you [See Sermon #2751, Volume 47--"A
   PREPARED PLACE FOR A PREPARED PEOPLE."] And if I go and prepare a place
   for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I
   am, there you may be also. Jesus often keeps this promise in many
   senses. By His gracious Spirit, He has come again. By His Divine
   Presence in the means of Grace, He full often comes again. By-and-by,
   if we die, He will come again to meet us. And if we do not die, then
   will the promise be fulfilled to the greatest possible extent, for
   Jesus will come again and receive in His own proper Person those who
   are alive and remain unto His coming.

   Anyhow, "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself," remains one
   of the sweetest promises that was ever given to Believers by the Lord
   Jesus Christ! He did not say, "I will receive you to Heaven." He
   promised something far better than that--"I will receive you unto
   Myself." Oh, what bliss it will be to get to Christ, to be with Him
   forever and ever!

   4. And where I go you know, and the way you know. "At least, I have
   taught it to you. I have explained it to you. I have told you that I am
   the goal of your way, and the way to your goal. That I am the end, and
   also the way to that end."

   5. Thomas said unto Him, Lord, we know not where You go and how can we
   know the way?Oh, how much ignorance there may be where there ought to
   be much knowledge! It is not always the man who lives in the sunlight
   who sees the most. Thomas had been one of the 12 Apostles for years. He
   had, during all that time, had Christ for his Teacher, yet he had
   learned very little. With such poor teachers as we are, it is no wonder
   if our hearers and scholars learn but little from us, yet they ought to
   learn much from Christ--although I think that we learn nothing even
   from Jesus Christ, Himself, except under the teaching of the Holy
   Spirit!

   6. Jesus said unto him, Iam the way the truth, and the life: no man
   comes unto the Father, but byMe. [See Sermons #245,

   Volume 5--THE WAY TO GOD; #942, Volume 16--THE WAY and #2938, Volume
   51--JESUS THE WAY.] "I am going to the Father--that is where I am
   going, Thomas, and you can only come to the Father by Me--don't you
   know that?"

   7. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. For Christ
   is the express Image of His Father, so that you always see the Father
   when you see the Son!

   7. And from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him. Thomas had made
   an advance in heavenly knowledge. He had taken a higher degree in
   Divinity now that the Master had taught Him so much upon this most
   important point--"from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him."

   8. Philip said unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us.
   It was not merely one of Christ's scholars, you see, who was so dull of
   comprehension--here is another of the dunces--Philip.

   9. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have
   you not known Me, Philip? He that has seen Me has seen the Father; and
   how say you, then, Show us the Father?He who really knows Christ and
   understands Christ's Character, understands, as far as it can be
   understood by man, the Character of God. We know more of God from the
   life of Christ than we can learn from any other source.

   10-12. Believe you not that Iam in the Father, and the Father in Me?
   The words that Ispeak unto you Ispeak not of Myself: but the Father
   that dwells in Me, He does the works. Believe Me that Iam in the Father
   and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very work's sake.
   Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on Me, the works that
   I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do because
   I go unto My Father The Lord Jesus Christ, after He had gone back to
   Heaven, gave to His servants the power to do these "greater works"--the
   Holy spirit resting upon them--in the gathering in of the nations unto
   their Lord. Whereas Christ kept to one little country, He sent His
   first disciples and He sends us still to preach the Gospel to every
   creature in the whole world, and He clothes His servants with all
   necessary authority and power to do the work He has committed to their
   charge.

   13-14. And whatever you shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the
   Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in My
   name, I will do it There is the only limit to true believing prayer!
   There are some things which we could not ask in Christ's name--that is,
   using His authority in asking for them. There are some wishes and whims
   that we may cherish, and that we think we may pray about, but we have
   not Christ's name or authority to warrant us in expecting that we shall
   realize them and, therefore, we cannot ask for them in His name. To
   say, "For Christ's sake," is one thing, but to say, "I ask this in
   Christ's name," is quite another matter! He never authorized you to
   make use of His name about everything. There are only certain things
   about which you can pray in His name, such as are the express subject
   of a Divine promise--and when you pray for one of those things, you
   shall prove Christ's words to be true, "If you shall ask anything in My
   name, I will do it."

   15-16. Ifyou love Me, keep My commandments. AndI willpray the Father,
   andHe shall give you another Comforter, [See Sermons #1074, Volume
   18--THE PARACLETE and #1932, Volume 32--LOVE'S LAW AND LIFE.] The
   Paraclete, the Succorer, the Helper. The word, "Comforter," has lost
   its old meaning. You get

   it in certain old writings, when you read of such-and-such a man that
   he gave to someone else succor and comfort. There

   is more here than merely giving us consolation. It means Helper--"He
   shall give you another Helper." Advocatus is the

   Latin, and that, too, is the correct word. "He shall give you another
   Advocate"--

   16, 17. That He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth
   whom the world cannot receive because it sees

   Him not, neither knows Him, but you know Him; for He dwells with you,
   andshall be in you [See Sermons #4, Volume 1--the PERSONALITY OF THE
   HOLY SPIRIT; #754, Volume 13--THE SAINT AND THE SPIRIT and #2074,
   Volume 35--INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT--.] Worldly men are
   not cognizant of the existence of the Holy Spirit. They do not believe
   in Him--they say that there may or may not be such a Divine Being in
   the world as the Holy Spi-

   rit, but they have never come across His path. This, then, is one of
   the tests of true Believers, the twice-born--they have received a new
   nature which enables them to recognize the existence of the Spirit of
   God and to feel the influence of His work--"You know Him; for He dwells
   with you, and shall be in you."

   18, 19. I willnot leave you orphans: I will come to you. Yet a little
   while, and the worldsees Me no more; butyou

   see Me. [See Sermon #2990, Volume 52--THE BELIEVER NOT AN ORPHAN.]

   "Your spiritual sight, which discerns the Presence with you of the Holy
   Spirit, will also discern My continued Existence when I have gone away
   from you."

   19, 20. Because Ilive, you shalllive also. At that day you shall know
   that Iam in My father, and you in Me, and Iin

   you [See Sermon 968, Volume 17--LIFE IN CHRIST.] This is something more

   for us to know. To know that Christ is in the Father is one thing, but
   it is still more for us to understand the next mystic unity, "you in
   Me, and I in you." Oh, wondrous combination of the Father and the Son,
   and of Immanuel, God with us, and ourselves!

   21, 22. He that has My commandment, andkeeps them, He it is that loves
   Me; andHe that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love
   him, and will manifest Myself to him. Judas said unto Him, not
   Iscariot, Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us, and
   not unto the world?'[See Sermon #29, Volume 1--christ manifesting
   himself to his

   PEOPLE.] Large-hearted Judas, very different from Judas Isca-

   riot! He wants Christ to manifest Himself to all the world! He seems to
   have been a man of very broad views. He does not comprehend
   discriminating love and electing Grace--He wants all the privileges of
   the children of God to be the privileges of the King's enemies--but
   that cannot be.

   23. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves Me, he will keep
   My words: and My Father will love him, and

   We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. [See Sermon #2895,
   Volume 50--A BLESSED GOSPEL CHAIN.] Christ is sure to manifest Himself
   to those who love Him, but how can He manifest Himself to those who
   love Him not? They cannot see Him! They would not appreciate Him if
   they couldsee Him-- they have no spiritual taste with which to enjoy
   Him.

   24-26. He that loves Me not keeps not My saying: and the word which you
   hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me. These things have I
   spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which
   is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall
   teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever
   I have said unto you.Do we sufficiently look to the Holy Spirit for
   Divine teaching? We read our Bibles, I trust, with diligence--and also
   any explanatory books by which we may better understand our Bibles--but
   do we look up to the Holy Spirit and ask Him distinctly and immediately
   to teach us what is the meaning of Christ's words, and to bring them to
   our remembrance? I wish we did this more than we do.

   27. Peace I leave with you. "That is My legacy to you."

   27. My peace I give unto you--[See Sermons #247, Volume 5--THE BEST OF
   MASTERS and #300, Volume 6--SPIRITUAL PEACE.] My own deep calm of
   spirit, which is not ruffled or broken though the contradiction of
   sinners continually annoys Me--"My peace I give unto you." Christ puts
   His hand into His heart and takes out of that priceless casket the
   choicest jewel it contains--His own peace! And He says, "Wear that on
   your finger, the seal and token of My love." "My peace I give unto
   you"--

   27. Not as the world gives, give I unto you."With an expectation of
   getting a reward for it. Neither do I give it to take it back again.
   Nor do I give it in mere pretence--I give it in reality, sincerely,
   disinterestedly, as your freehold possession forever."

   27-28. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You
   have heardhow I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If
   you loved Me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:
   for My Father is greater than I.Christ as Man had condescended to
   become less than the Father--He had taken upon Himself the form of a
   Servant, but now He was going back to take His own natural dignity
   again. We ought to rejoice in His gain! Though you may think it a loss
   not to have His corporeal Presence, yet would you like to call Him away
   from yonder harps that ring out His praises and the perfect love of the
   Father with whom He reigns supreme? Oh, no, blessed Master, stay where
   You are!

   29-31. AndnowIhave told you before it comes to pass, that when it is
   comes to pass, you might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with
   you; for the Prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. But
   that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father gave
   Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go from here.

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

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

Gathering in the Chosen

   (No. 3308)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORDS-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   29, 1866.

   "Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from
   the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the
   woman with child and her that travails with child together; a great
   company shall return there. They shall come with weeping, and with
   supplications I will lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers
   of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a
   Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My first-born." Jeremiah 31:8,9.

   THERE IS a wonderful variety in the acts of God and yet there is a most
   singular uniformity. So complete is this uniformity that any one
   deliverance which God works for His people will be found to be, in its
   main features, just like any other of His deliverances.

   Starting--for it is a convenient starting-point--with the deliverance
   of God's people out of Egypt, there are many points of similarity
   between that marvel of mercy and the bringing back of the banished
   tribes from Babylon to their own land. There was a manifestation of the
   same gracious consideration, of the same Omnipotent power, of the some
   efficient purpose worked out in all points according to God's Eternal
   Covenant. Then, taking another great leap, that return from Babylon is,
   no doubt, a very fair picture and a very excellent type of the
   gathering together in their own land of the Jews in the days that are
   yet to come when they shall say to one another, "Let us go up to the
   house of our God." Everybody will admit that it will be as great a
   wonder to see the Jews, who are now a nation scattered abroad
   throughout the whole world, once more dwelling together in Palestine,
   as it was for them to have been brought out of Egypt or delivered out
   of Babylon in days long past! But taking a still greater leap, this
   again is a type of the greatest of all deliverances--the deliverance
   neither of the Jews alone nor of the Gentiles alone, but of the whole
   chosen company who shall be brought out from all the lands of sin and
   error into which they have been driven by their first parents' fall and
   their own actual transgressions! They shall be brought out by the same
   almighty power, only on a far greater scale, and they shall meet, as in
   a common focus, in that Jerusalem above which is the home of all the
   chosen! I want to turn your thoughts toward that glorious future when
   the vast assembly of the redeemed will "sing the Song of Moses, the
   servant of God, and the Song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous
   are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, You
   King of saints."

   I. And, first, I am going to show you that we have, in the text, DEITY
   MANIFESTED.

   There is a Divine ring about the text as there was in that ancient fiat
   which startled the darkness and caused it to flee away. "Let there be
   light, and there was light." So here the Lord says, "I will bring them
   and gather them.. .and they shall come.. .I will lead them. I will
   cause them to walk; they shall not stumble." It is, "I will," and,
   "they shall" all the way through! There is no admission of doubt or of
   the possibility of failure. Jehovah speaks in the Sovereignty of His
   power and says, "I will do this, and I will do that," and there is not
   an, "if," or a, "perhaps," or a "maybe" to mar the certainty of the
   Divine Declarations--"I will" and "they shall."

   Remember, Beloved, that it was so in Egypt. " Moses and Aaron went in
   and told Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Let My people go,
   that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said,
   Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know
   not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go." Yet, when the Lord smote
   his first-born with all the first-born throughout the land of Egypt,
   "he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up and get you
   forth from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and
   go, serve the Lord as you

   have said." And when the time came for captive Israel to return from
   Babylon, God had but to speak and the iron bars snapped in sunder and
   the gates of brass flew open! So also shall it be in the latter days
   when the Jews are restored to their own land. By some mysterious
   influence which probably many of them will not be able to understand,
   they will be irresistibly drawn from all parts of the earth to
   Emmanuel's land and, meanwhile, that same Divine Energy is gathering
   together the chosen unto the great Shiloh, for "unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be." Invisible bands of love are continually
   drawing to Christ those for whom He died. The mighty magnet of His
   atoning Sacrifice is constantly attracting to Him the members of His
   redeemed family--more in one age than in another, yet always according
   to the eternal purpose and decree of God--for although He acts
   mysteriously and silently, yet He always "works all things after the
   counsel of His own will."

   I do not know any theme upon which one might dilate with greater joy
   than that of the Omnipotent energy of God as displayed in the salvation
   of sinners, yet it must always be understood that we proclaim this
   Truth in complete harmony with the responsibility of man and his
   absolute free agency. I have always taught you that the Omnipotence of
   God over the human heart is never exercised in such a way as to violate
   the free will of man. It would be a clumsy kind of Omnipotence that
   would do as it pleased with men whether they were willing or not! But
   it is Divine Omnipotence that molds the will, enlightens the judgment
   and fashions the heart and mind and character of man according to the
   Lord's eternal purpose. Yet, on the other hand, let me beseech you
   never to let your ideas of the free agency of man prevent you from
   adoring the Omnipotent Sovereignty of God. We are not to have man's
   free will sitting on the throne! Its place is that of a humble servant
   waiting at Jehovah's feet. Let the glorious Truth of God that "the Lord
   reigns" be proclaimed in its fullest sense and let the man who dares to
   limit the Sovereignty of God answer for it before Him who, with a rod
   of iron, would dash in pieces the potter's vessel that presumed to say,
   "Why have you made me thus?" We believe that when the great drama of
   human history is complete, it will conform in every jot and tittle to
   the eternal plan that was in the mind of God long before He spoke the
   great creative word which called the Heaven and the earth into
   existence!

   In the bringing up of Israel out of Babylon there were a great many
   questions to be considered. Would the king be willing to let them go?
   Would they themselves be willing to go? By what process could they be
   ranged under one leader? How could they be provided for and provisioned
   for such a long journey? By what means could they be safely conducted
   through the perils of the wilderness? How could they again be settled
   in a land which had become barren through the curse of God resting upon
   it? Yet, when the set time came, all these difficulties vanished! As
   God was in that plan of bringing His people back from Babylon, the
   king's heart was turned as the husbandman turns the channel of
   irrigation in the midst of the garden! As God was in it, the Jews
   sighed and longed to return to Jerusalem! As God was in it, they went
   back, not like trembling doves flying from a pursuing hawks but like a
   bannered host returning from the conquest loaded with spoil!

   Just so is it with the sinner and the salvation of his soul--there are
   many questions that he may want to ask. How can prejudice be subdued?
   How can ignorance be overcome? How can the stubborn will be controlled?
   How is it possible for the Ethiopian to change his skin and the leopard
   his spots? But, when God comes forth to save, it is as though a man
   walked through cobwebs and brushed them away from him on either side,
   or as though a giant stalked through a host of pigmies and made them
   fly to right or left--

   "When He makes bare His arm,

   What shall His work withstand?" When He puts forth the fullness of His
   strength to effect His Divine Purpose, who shall say to Him, "What are
   You doing?" Therefore, you ministers of God, be bold, for you serve the
   Lord God Omnipotent! You servants of Christ in every sphere, be brave,
   for you have not espoused a losing cause! Everyone of you, though you
   may be but little in the army of the Lord, yet are--

   "Strong in the Lord of Hosts, And in His mighty power"--

   for His Kingdom cannot be overthrown, it must spread until it fills the
   whole earth! And God, even our own God, must be exalted and the praises
   of His holy name and of His glorious work must go on ringing down the
   ages forever and ever! II. Now turning to the second point, we see in
   the text DIFFICULTIES REMOVED.

   Difficulties would naturally be suggested by unbelieving minds. It
   would be said, in the first place, that the people had gone too far
   away ever to be gathered. Yet the Lord says, "I will bring them from
   the north country, and gather

   them from the coasts of the earth." There may be at the present time,
   some of the Lord's chosen far away in Greenland, Labrador, and other
   lands of snow and ice. There were some, in the olden times, when the
   Moravian Brethren went forth at God's command to bring to Christ those
   who belonged to Him in "the north country." There were also others in
   the far-away islands of the south--cannibals given up to the wildest
   passions--but Christ had bought them with His precious blood and a
   sacred instinct compelled John Williams and many other martyrs and
   missionaries to go forth to the Apostolic task of turning savages into
   saints! It may be that God has many of His chosen ones at the present
   moment in the center of Africa--and if it is so, they shall not die
   before the Gospel has been made known to them and they have been
   brought to trust in Him who loved them and gave Himself for them!
   Distance is no distance in the sight of God! He sees all the
   inhabitants of the globe at a single glance and His gaze is fixed upon
   the blood-bought sons and daughters of men wherever these may be
   dwelling! And He will gather them from all the coasts of the earth
   where their lot has been cast.

   And as distance of space is no obstacle to the bestowed of God's mercy,
   so neither is the distance that is caused by the greatness of sin. "Now
   in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made near by the
   blood of Christ." There may be one among those whom I am now addressing
   who has gone to the cold "north country" of infidelity, where he stands
   shivering in the biting winds of doubt and skepticism. Ah, but my
   Friend, God is able to bring you to Himself even from that dreary
   region! There may be some who have gone to the uttermost coasts of sin
   until they have become masters in iniquity, trafficking upon the broad
   sea of transgression and doing business in the deep waters of infamy
   and perhaps of blasphemy. Ah, but if you are among these who were given
   to Christ, God will gather you sooner or later--even if you have sold
   yourself to the devil, "your covenant with death shall be disannulled,
   and your agreement with Hell shall not stand." If you are, indeed,
   "bought with a price," Christ will surely gather you with the rest of
   His redeemed! By might and main He will make a conquest of you, for,
   when the Lord determines to bring His people to Himself, neither
   material distance nor moral distance can prevent Him from doing so!

   There was also another difficulty--not only were these people in
   Babylon far away from Jerusalem, but some of them were blind. What did
   it matter to them where they lived? No landscape, even though it was as
   grand as that which Moses saw from the top of Pisgah, could have any
   attraction for them. Even if others go back, shall not the blind be
   left behind? Of what service are the blind? How shall they behold the
   beauty of the Lord? But the Lord said that He would bring back the
   blind with the others from the north country, and from the outcasts of
   the earth, and we may apply this promise to those who are spiritually
   blind. How can you get at a man who will not see his own sin and who
   will not or cannot see the beauty of God's plan of salvation? How are
   you to get at those whose eyes are covered with the scales of
   prejudice? How can you reach the Romanist whose eyes are plastered up
   with ceremonies and superstitions? How can you convince the work-monger
   that his own good deeds, of which he thinks so much, are blinding him
   to the beauties of Christ? How can these blind ones be saved? Ah,
   Beloved, no eye is too blind for God to pour light into it! And some of
   us can bear our personal testimony upon this matter. We would never
   have known the Grace of God in truth if that Grace had not come to us
   in our blind ignorance and enlightened us! May it be so with some who
   are here tonight! Is there a very ignorant person here? Well, my dear
   Friend, do you know that you are a sinner, that you are guilty in the
   sight of God? Then do you know that Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save such guilty sinners as you are? If so, and you put your trust in
   Him, you are already wise unto salvation however little you may know
   about other matters! Learn the great Truth that Christ died in the
   place of all who believe in Him and you will no longer be numbered
   among the spiritually blind!

   With those blind people in Babylon there seem to have been some lame
   folk and an objector might have said, "Surely, if the caravan is to
   pass through the desert, it would be better to leave these poor limping
   ones at home! How can they ever be brought to Jerusalem?" But the Lord
   said, "The blind shall be led, and the lame shall be carried, but they
   must not be left behind." Now, there are some who are morally lame. If
   ever they enter into life, it will be among the crippled and the
   maimed. They seem as if they could not walk uprightly, there is a limp
   in their gait. Their knees are weak, they cannot pray as they would.
   Lame Sinners--are you here tonight? Do you feel as if you cannot get to
   Christ, and cannot pray, and cannot do anything right? Well, do but cry
   to Him, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Turn your eyes to Christ,
   think of Him as He hung upon the Cross and trust Him to save you, and
   you shall find that, lame as you are, you shall be brought safely Home!
   Mr. Ready-to-Halt shall get to Heaven as surely as Mr. Great-Heart
   himself!

   Then there were some others of whom it was said that they could not
   possibly join the caravan--"the woman with child and her that travails
   with child.''" These were certainly unfit to go--they were in such a
   weak state that they could not take that long journey from Babylon to
   Jerusalem, yet the Lord said, "I will gather them and bring them," and
   so He did! Well, there are some like them in our midst tonight,
   burdened ones who have a load of sin pressing upon them, fainting ones
   whose souls are in a sacred travail. They would gladly run, but they
   cannot even stand! And they are all too apt to fall. But, O you who are
   thus soul-distressed, the blessing is that Jesus Christ will not leave
   you behind! You shall be brought with the rest of the chosen seed to
   the heavenly Jerusalem to praise and magnify your great Deliverer
   forever and ever!

   III. Now in the third place, we have in the text not only Deity
   manifested, and difficulties removed, but we also have

   DESCRIPTIONS GIVEN.

   How shall this great company be brought to the Jerusalem which is
   above? Listen! There is a mighty host on the march, but I hear no sound
   of trumpet, no voice of mirth, no song of joy! What do I hear? Weeping,
   mourning, lamentation--"They shall come with weeping." That is the
   music to which sinners usually set out for the heavenly Canaan-- seldom
   if ever is that start made without tears! It is not the shriek of
   despair. It is not the groan of disappointment. It is not the yell of
   rage, and hate. It is the plaintive wail of a soul that says to God, "I
   have sinned against Heaven and before You, and are no more worthy to be
   called Your son." From those who compose that throng you may, every now
   and then, catch such sorrowful sentences as these, "I acknowledge my
   transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." "My sorrow is
   continually before me. For I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry
   for my sins." This is the kind of music that we hear from those who are
   setting out for Heaven! Have you, my Friend, ever practiced it? You
   will never sing in Glory if you have never wept over your sin! I do not
   merely mean such tears as men and women shed, though these will
   probably not be absent, but I mean that you will experience that
   spiritual sorrow which is often too deep for tears. May God the Holy
   Spirit teach us to weep at the remembrance of our sin, to weep at the
   foot of the Cross as we look upon Him whom our sins have pierced, and
   mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son and be in bitterness for
   Him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born!

   Listen again! Now I hear another note rising from the great caravan,
   the note of supplication. It is the hour of prayer. They have got
   beyond weeping into anxiety, desire, petition, request--and I hear many
   voices crying, "Save Your people who trust in You. Be merciful unto us,
   and bless us, and cause Your face to shine upon us." In our day, the
   supplication takes some such form as this, "Reveal Yourself unto us, O
   Christ, for in You do we put our trust! In Your name have we set up our
   banners. Come forth, O Lord, as our Helper and Deliverer!" The march is
   with weeping and supplication--and I believe these two things will
   attend that caravan right up to the brink of Jordan! The last tear will
   be dropped in Jordan's flowing stream, for we shall sorrow no more and
   repent no more when we stand before the Eternal Throne of God! And the
   last prayer--at any rate, the last prayer that has any sense of sin in
   it--shall be breathed on the bank of the river which we cross to enter
   into Glory!

   I must next direct your attention to something in our text about the
   road the caravan has to traverse--"I will cause them to walk by the
   rivers of waters." They had to pass through a wilderness in going from
   Egypt to Canaan, and also in returning from Babylon. And we, also, have
   to traverse the wilderness of this world in journeying to the better
   Promised Land above. But as they had water in abundance on their long
   marches, we, also, have "the rivers of waters" of Divine Grace and
   Almighty Love. When we first began to seek the Lord, we found that one
   of the channels in which the precious rivers were flowing was this
   precious Bible at which we still quench our spiritual thirst. Then,
   when we trusted in Jesus, and confessed our faith in Him, we found the
   two ordinances that He instituted--Believers' Baptism and the Lord's
   Supper--to be as refreshing to our spirit as cold water is to the
   thirsty. I trust that you, Beloved, while sitting under the sound of
   the Word of God, have often been able to drink of the brook by the way.
   And certainly private prayer and intimate fellowship with God, and,
   above all, the secret and mysterious indwelling of the Holy Spirit have
   caused you "to walk by the rivers of waters," so that although the
   earth is in itself arid, "a dry and thirsty land where no water is,"
   you have found that from the foot of the Cross there flows a living
   stream from which all the chosen may continue to drink until they come
   to that "pure river of Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out
   of the Throne of God and of the

   Lamb."

   In the description of the caravan route we are next told that it is "a
   straight way." The path to Heaven is not at all difficult to find. It
   would be very difficult to find the way to Heaven by the rites and
   ceremonies about which some are so particular, but to those who trust
   in Jesus, the way of salvation is a very simple one, so simple that the
   wayfaring man, though a fool in other things, need not err therein! If
   any of you are trying to find your way to Heaven by the road of your
   own good works, you may well be puzzled, for you are off the right
   track altogether! But the Believer's path is straight and plain. He
   trusts and he is saved! He looks and he lives! He believes God's Word
   and he proves that it is true! You know that the way of policy, such as
   ungodly men often follow in this world, is a very crooked way, and
   Christians are sometimes tempted to tread that treacherous path. But
   that is the slimy way into which the devil led our first parents, and
   nothing but evil can come to those who walk in it! The giving up of the
   whole heart and soul to Christ is the simple way of being saved--and
   then yielding complete obedience to Christ is the simple way of living.
   The Lord's promise is, "I will cause them to walk by the rivers of
   waters in a straight way"--not in a crooked, twisting, winding,
   in-and-out way, but in a straight way--the way of faith in Christ and
   of unquestioning obedience to His commands.

   The description of this straight way concludes thus, "Wherein they
   shall not stumble." It is a good thing to have a straight road, but it
   is a better thing to have also a sure foot! And God, who teaches His
   people to do right, also gives them Grace to do it. These blind ones
   and lame ones and weak ones of whom I have been speaking, are upheld by
   Sovereign Grace in the narrow way in which the Lord is leading them. My
   eye seems to catch the glorious vision! I see the blind finding their
   way to the great center of eternal blessedness. I see the lame come
   running as though they had wings on their feet to speed them onward to
   the pearly gates above! I see the vast blood-bought throng, from the
   North, and the South, and the East, and the West, casting away, by
   Divine Grace, all their burden and their cares! And with the fetters of
   their sins snapped forever, streaming in crowds to the one blessed
   center--

   "Jerusalem the golden, With milk and honey blest"--

   where we ourselves expect, by-and-by, to be! Angels and the redeemed
   from among men must be continually witnessing the arrival of those who,
   first chosen by the Father, then redeemed by the Son, then regenerated
   by the Holy Spirit, have repented of sin and trusted in the Lord Jesus
   Christ and by Grace have been preserved in their march through the
   wilderness and brought Home to that blessed city from which they shall
   go no more out forever! Well may we sing--

   "O Paradise eternal!

   What bliss to enter you,

   And once within your portals,

   Secure forever be!

   In you no sin nor sorrow,

   No pain nor death is known--

   But pure glad life, enduring

   As Heaven's benignant throne!

   There all around shall love us,

   And we return their love

   One band of happy spirits,

   One family above."

   IV. Now I must close when I have spoken but for a minute upon the last
   point, which is DIGNITY BESTOWED. "For I am a Father to Israel, and
   Ephraim is My first-born."

   Those who are brought out of the bondage of sin, as Israel was brought
   out of Egypt and Babylon, by the almighty power and Grace of God, are
   acknowledged by Him as His children. John writes concerning Jesus, "He
   came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as
   received Him, to them gave Him power (the right, or privilege) to
   become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." This
   relationship cannot be disputed and cannot be disturbed--and this is
   the relationship which exists between God and every pardoned sinner!
   Happy soul! Though once in the family of Satan and an heir of wrath,
   you are now a child and an heir of God and a joint-heir with Jesus
   Christ!

   I think there are some here whose mouths are set a-watering for this
   same blessing and who are longing to be found among the innumerable
   multitude who shall be gathered in the heavenly Jerusalem at the last!
   Well, if you truly desire to

   be the Lord's, that is a sign and token that the Lord also desires to
   have you as His child! That is a true declaration in one of our hymns--

   "No sinner can be beforehand with You."

   If you really desire to have God as your God, and Christ as your
   Savior, God desires it, too, and Christ desires it. If you are willing
   to be saved, do not imagine that Christ is unwilling to save you! If
   you are coming to Christ, Christ is coming to you. No, He HAS come to
   you, or you would never want to come to Him! "Only believe." These are
   Christ's words to you now--believe that He is able to save you through
   the merit of His atoning Sacrifice and through the prevalence of His
   intercession before His Father's Throne above. Trust Him! Trust Him to
   save you now, and then you also shall be among the redeemed of the Lord
   who shall return and come with singing unto Zion! Everlasting joy shall
   be upon your head! You shall obtain gladness and joy--and sorrow and
   mourning shall flee away from you forever!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH31:1-28.

   Verse 1. At the same time, says the LORD, willIbe the God ofall the
   families ofIsrael, and theyshall be Mypeople. How divinely He talks--as
   only God can talk! These people had rejected Him, yet He says, "They
   shall be My people," not only some of them, but all of them! "I will be
   the God of all the families of Israel." Behold the wonderful power of
   Divine Grace upon the hearts of rebellious sinners. There are no "ifs,"
   and no, "buts," here! It is, "I will" and, "they shall." God knows how
   to work out His own purposes of love and mercy!

   2. Thus says the Lord, The people which were left of the sword found
   Grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest
   If we ever do get true rest of soul, God must cause us to rest. As
   David said, "He makes me to lie down in green pastures." The rest of
   the heart is a miracle of Divine Power!

   3. The LORD has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you
   with an everlasting love: therefore with

   loving kindness have I drawn you. [See Sermons #1914, Volume 32--SECRET
   DRAWINGS GRACIOUSLY EXPLAINED; #2149, Volume 36-- EVERLASTING LOVE
   REVEALED and #2880, Volume 50--NEW TOKENS OF ANCIENT LOVE.] There is
   the source of everything that is good and gracious-- "everlasting
   love." When God has once set that love upon His people, anything and
   everything that is for their good may come out of it! All temporal good
   and all eternal blessings will come out of everlasting love. Oh, that
   we might, each one of us, have Grace to appropriate these blessed words
   to himself--"I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with
   loving kindness have I drawn you." They were given to Israel of old,
   but the spiritual Israel possess all the privileges of the natural
   Israel, and much more.

   4. Again I will build you, and you shall be built Whatever God does is
   done effectually--there is never any failure in His work.

   4. O virgin ofIsrael: you shall again be adorned with your tabrets, and
   shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry. They had wept and
   mourned, but they were to dance! They had been very sad and
   disconsolate, but they were to take down their harps from the willows,
   and even to have their tabrets or timbrels again.

   5. You shall yet plant vines upon the mountain of Samaria: the planters
   shall plant, and shall eat them as common things. God makes the
   luxuries of Grace to be common things to His people. Fare that once
   seemed so rare as to be enjoyed only on high days and holidays shall
   become everyday meat to His people when their Lord reveals Himself to
   them!

   6. For there shall be a day that the watchmen upon the MountEphraim
   shall cry, Arise you, andlet usgo up to Zion unto the LORD our God. For
   many a year Israel had gone to Bethel to worship the calves, or stayed
   at home to adore the shrine of Ashtaroth. Now they were to go to Zion
   to serve Jehovah! See what the Grace of God can do even for idolaters?
   If any of us have been bowing down to our idols, may we this day turn
   to the living God! May the power of His Grace lead us to go heartily
   and unanimously to worship the Lord our God.

   7. 8. For thus says the LORD; Sing with gladness, for Jacob, andshout
   among the chief ofthe nations: publish you, praise you, and say, O
   LORD, save Your people, the remnant ofIsrael. Behold, I will bring them
   from the north country, and gather them from the coasts ofthe earth,
   and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that
   travails with child together: a great company shall return there.
   Whatever God does, He does thoroughly. When He shall restore His
   ancient people, He will not leave the weak ones behind and if, today,
   we are enjoying His Presence, the most

   afflicted and the most infirm among us shall know what the joy of the
   Lord means! The Lord grant it, and we will praise His holy name.

   9. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead
   them.Weeping and prayer go well together. There is no prayer like a wet
   prayer saturated with the tears of repentance.

   9. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of water in a straight
   way---Hear this, you mourners! God will supply your need with rivers of
   waters, and He will make you walk in a straight way. Sometimes we are
   perplexed because the road seems to wind in and out like a labyrinth,
   but God can lead us in a straight way! "I will cause them to walk by
   the rivers of waters in a straight way"--

   9. Wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a Father to Israel and
   Ephraim is My first-born. They had forgotten their relationship to
   Jehovah, but He still remembered that they were His children.

   10, 11. Hear the word of the LORD, O you nations, and declare it in the
   isles afar off and say He that scattered Israel will gather him and
   keep him as a shepherd does his flock. For the LORD has redeemed Jacob
   and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. They
   were the Lord's chosen people even when they were in captivity in
   Babylon! He had scattered them because of their sin, but He would
   gather them in His mercy.

   12-14. Therefore they shall come and bring in the height of Zion and
   shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat and for wine
   and for oil, and for the young ofthe flock and ofthe herd: and their
   soul shall be as a wa-teredgarden; and they shallnot sorrow any more at
   all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance both young men and old
   together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort
   them and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the
   soul ofthe priests with fatness, and Mypeople shall be satisfied with
   My goodness says the LORD. What a blessed change this was for those who
   had sorrowfully cried, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
   land?" And we rejoice in a still greater change when the Lord brings us
   into spiritual liberty!

   15-17. Thus says the LORD, A voice was heardin Ramah, lamentation and
   bitter weeping; Rachel weeping, for her children refused to be
   comforted, for her children, because they were not. Thus says the LORD;
   Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your
   work shall be rewarded says the LORD; and they shall come again from
   the land ofthe enemy. And there is hope in your end, says the LORD,
   that your children shall come again to their own border A mother's
   sorrow over her lost babies is very great and long-enduring, but if she
   is a Christian, she shall meet them again in the land of the blessed,
   and shall be parted from them no more forever.

   18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus. [See Sermons
   #743, Volume 13--ephraim bemoaning himself and #2104,

   Volume 35--THE INNER SIDE OF CONVERSION.] What a wonderfully expressive
   word that word, "bemoaning," is!

   18, 19. You have chastised me and I was chastised as a bullock
   unaccustomed to the yoke: turn You me, and I shall be turned; for You
   are the LORD my God. Surely after that I was turned I repented; and
   after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes,
   even confounded because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Hear what
   the Lord says about these bemoaning ones, these sin-loathing ones--

   20. Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? Or we may render
   it, "Is this Ephraim, My dear son? Is this My pleasant child?" He is
   all that now that he begins to hate his sin!

   20. For since Ispoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still
   Think of this, you who forget your God, you backsliders, wanderers from
   your Father's house!

   20, 21. Therefore My heart is troubled for him; I will surely have
   mercy upon him, says the LORD. Set you up way marks, make you high
   heaps. Raise signs along the road at various points to let other
   travelers know the way in which they should go.

   21, 22. Setyour heart toward the highway, even the way which you went:
   turn again, O virgin ofIsrael, turn again to these your cities. 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. Whereas
   the enemy had compassed Jerusalem round about, now Jerusalem was to be
   the besieger, and to compass her enemies and defeat them. Some
   interpreters think this is an allusion to the birth of the Savior, that
   "new thing in the earth"--the Incarnation of the Son of God.

   23-25. Thus says the LORD ofHosts, the God ofIsrael; Asyet theyshall
   use this speech in the land of Judah andin the cities thereof, when I
   shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless you, O habitation of
   justice, and mountain of holiness. And there shall dwell in Judah
   itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they
   that go forth with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I
   have replenished every sorrowful soul. This prophecy is to be fulfilled
   in the restoration of Israel to Palestine. Until that happens, the
   promise bears a spiritual meaning to all the children of God. O weary
   Soul, you shall be satiated--that is more than being satisfied! You
   shall have as much of holiness and joy as you can hold! Plead His
   promise now, O sorrowful Soul, and may God fulfill it to you!

   26. Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.
   Well might it be. Poor Jeremiah, who so often wept over the woes of
   Israel, was the very man to be refreshed when he heard from God that He
   would visit His people in mercy, and bring them back to their own land!
   Happy dreamer, who dreams such a blessed dream as this, a dream that
   came true in due time!

   27-28. Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will sow the house
   of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the
   seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched
   over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to
   destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to
   plant, says the LORD. What a black list of words we first have here!
   God's way of dealing with His people when they wander away from Him is
   very stern. They must be brought back, but it will be over a very rough
   road. The Lord says that He "watched over them, to pluck up, and to
   break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict." And in
   the same measure He now declares that He will watch over them to do
   them good. As our tribulations abound, so also shall our consolations
   abound by Christ Jesus! If you have been bitterly convicted of sin, you
   shall be sweetly convicted of pardon. The deeper God digs the
   foundation, the higher He means to build the house. Those who are
   brought to Him in great affliction very often afterwards know more of
   Christ and more of the love of God than any others!
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ the Seeker and Savior of the Lost

   (No. 3309)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
   Luke 19:10.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon the same text are Sermons #204,
   Volume 4--THE MISSION OF THE SON OF MAN; #1100, Volume 19-- GOOD NEWS
   FOR THE LOST; #2756 Volume 47--SAVING THE LOST and #3050, Volume
   53--THE ERRAND OF MERCY.]

   We have now considered six of the glorious achievements of our Divine
   Lord and Savior and it is time to conclude

   the series. [The other Sermons in the series are #1325, Volume
   22--CHRIST THE END OF THE LAW; #1326, Volume 22--CHRIST THE CONQUEROR
   OF SATAN; #1327, Volume 22--CHRIST THE OVERCOMER OF THE WORLD; #1328,
   Volume 22--CHRIST THE MAKER OF ALL THINGS NEW; #1329, Volume 22--CHRIST
   THE DESTROYER OF DEATH and #273, Volume 5--CHRIST TRIUMPHANT.] How

   shall we crown the edifice? The best wine should be kept for the last,
   but where shall we find it? The choice is wide, but amid so many
   wonders, which shall we select? What shall be the seventh great work
   concerning which we shall extol Him? Many marvels suggested themselves
   to me and each one was, assuredly, worthy to occupy the place, but as I
   could not take all, I resolved to close with one of the simplest and
   most practical. His saving sinners seemed to me to be practically the
   chief of all His works, for it was for this purpose that the rest of
   His achievements were attempted and performed. Had it not been for the
   salvation of men, I know not that we had ever known our Lord as the
   Destroyer of Death or the Overcomer of Satan and, certainty, if He had
   not saved the lost, I am unable to perceive what Glory there would have
   been in the overcoming of the world, or in the creation of all things
   new. The salvation of men was the prize of His life's race--for this He
   girded up His loins and distanced every adversary! The salvation of the
   lost was "the joy which was set before Him," for the sake of which He
   "endured the Cross, despising the shame."

   Although it seems, at first sight, that in selecting our present topic
   we have descended from the transcendent glories of our Champion to more
   common things, it is, indeed, notso. The victories of our Lord which
   are written in the Book of the wars of the Lord, when He led captivity
   captive and robbed death of his sting, may strike us as more
   astounding, but yet in very truth this is the summing-up of His great
   works--this is the issue, the flower, and crown of all! "The Son of Man
   is come to seek and to save that which was lost," is a sentence as
   majestic as Prophet ever penned when in fullest Inspiration he extolled
   the Prince of Peace!

   I. Notice, first, OUR LORD'S GRACIOUS MISSION--" The Son of Man is
   come."

   When He was here among men, He could use the present tense and say, "is
   come." That was an improvement upon what Prophets had to say, for they
   only spoke of Him as The Coming One--as One who, in the fullness of
   time, would be manifested. The promise was amazing, but what shall I
   say of the actual performance when the Word made flesh could say, "The
   Son of Man is come"? To us, today, the coming of Christ to seek and to
   save the lost is an accomplished fact, a matter of history, most sure
   and certain. And what a fact it is! You have often thought of it, but
   have you ever worked your mind into the very heart of it--that God has
   actually visited this world in human form--that He before whom angels
   bow has actually been here, in fashion like ourselves, feeding the
   hungry crowds of Palestine, healing their sick and raising their dead?
   I know not what may be the peculiar boast of other planets, but this
   poor star cannot be excelled, for on this world the Creator has stood!
   This earth has been trodden by the feet of God and yet it was not
   crushed beneath the mighty burden because He designed to link His Deity
   with our humanity! The Incarnation is a wonder of wonders, but it does
   not belong to the realm of imagination or even of expectation, for it
   has actually been beheld by mortal eyes! We claim your faith for a fact
   which has really taken place. If we asked you by faith to expect a
   marvel yet to come, we

   trust the Spirit of God would enable you to do so, that, like Abraham,
   you might foresee the blessing and be glad. But the miracle of miracles
   has been worked! The Son of the Highest has been here. From Bethlehem
   to Calvary, He has traversed life's pilgrimage. Thirty years or more
   yonder canopy of sky hung above the head of Deity in human form. O
   wondrous joy! Say rather, O matchless hive of perfect sweets, for a
   thousand joys lie close compacted in the word, "Im-manuel"--God With
   Us!--

   "Welcome to our wondering sigh.

   Eternity within a span!

   Summer in winter! Day in night!

   Heaven in earth! And God in man!

   Great Little One, whose glorious birth

   Lifts the earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to earth." Our Lord had come
   upon His sacred mission as soon as He was really the Son of Man, for
   before He was known only as the Son of God. Others had borne the name
   of "son of man," but none deserved it so well as He. Ezekiel, for
   reasons which we need not now stay to consider, is called, "son of
   man," a very large number of times. Perhaps, like John in Christ's own
   day, Ezekiel had much of the spirit and character which were manifest
   in our Lord--and so the name was the more suitable to him. Certainly he
   had Christ's eagle eyes, Christ's spiritual Nature and was filled with
   light and know-ledge--and so, as if to remind him that he who is like
   his Lord in excellence must also have fellowship with Him in lowliness,
   he is again and again reminded that he is still "the son of man."

   When our Lord came into this world, He seemed to select that title of
   "Son of Man" for Himself and make it His own special name--and worthily
   so, for other men are the sons of this man or that, but His is no
   restricted humanity--it is manhood of the universal type. Jesus is not
   born into the race of the Jews so much as into the human family. He is
   not to be claimed for any age, place, or nationality--He is "the Son of
   Man"--and this, I say, is how He comes to man. So that as long as
   Christ is the Son of Man, we may still say of Him that He comes to seek
   and to save the lost! I know that, in Person, He has gone back to
   Heaven. I know that the cloud has received Him out of our sight. But
   the very taking upon Himself of our humanity was a coming down to seek
   and save the lost--and as He has not laid that Humanity aside, He is
   still with men, continuing to seek and to save even to this day! "He is
   able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He
   ever lives to make intercession for them." So that, if I treat the text
   as if Jesus were still among us, I would not err, for He is here in the
   sense of seeking the same end, though it is by His Spirit and by His
   servants rather than by His own bodily Presence! He has said, "Lo, I am
   with you always, even unto the end of the world," and that saying is
   found in connection with the agency which He has established for
   seeking and saving lost men, by making men disciples and teaching them
   the way of life! As long as this dispensation lasts, it will still be
   true that the great Savior and Friend of man has come among us and is
   seeking and saving the lost!

   II. Now, secondly, let us see HIS MAIN INTENT IN COMING HERE
   BELOW--"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was
   lost." The intent breaks itself up into two points, the persons--the
   lost. And the purpose-- the seeking and the saving of them.

   Christ's main intent in coming here bore upon the lost. Proud men do
   not like us to preach this Truth of God. It was but yesterday that I
   saw it alleged against Christianity that it discourages virtue and
   patronizes the guilty. They say that we ministers lift the sinful into
   the most prominent place and give them the preference above the moral
   and excellent in our preaching. This is a soft impeachment to which, in
   a better sense than is intended by those who bring it, we are glad to
   plead guilty! We may well be excused if our preaching seeks the lost,
   for these are the persons whom our Lord has come to seek and to save.
   The main stress and intent of the Incarnation of God in the Person of
   Christ lies with the guilty, the fallen, the unworthy, the lost. His
   errand of mercy has nothing to do with those who are good and righteous
   in themselves, if such there is, but it has to do with sinners--real
   sinners, guilty not of nominal but of actual sins--and who have gone so
   far therein as to be lost! Why do you quibble at this? Why should He
   come to seek and to save that which is not lost? Should the Shepherd
   seek the sheep which has not gone astray? Answer me. Why should He come
   to be the Physician of those who are not lost? Should He light a candle
   and sweep the house to look for pieces of silver which are not lost,
   but lie bright and untarnished in His hand? To what purpose would this
   be? Would you have Him paint the lily and gild it with refined gold?
   Would you make Him a mere busybody offering superfluous aid? With those
   who think them-

   selves pure, what has the cleaning blood of Jesus to do? Is the Savior
   a needless Person and was His work a needless business? It must be so
   if it is intended for those who do not need it!

   Who needs a Savior most? Answer this. Should not mercy exercise itself
   where there is most need for it? This world is like a battlefield over
   which the fierce hurricanes of conflict have swept and the surgeons
   have come to deal with those who lie upon its plains. To whom shall
   they go first? Shall they not turn first to those who are most terribly
   wounded and who are bleeding almost to the death? Will you quarrel with
   us if we declare that the first to be taken to the hospital should be
   those who are in direst need? Will you be angry if we say that the
   liniment is for the wounded, that the bandages are for the broken limbs
   and that the medicine is for the sick? A strange quarrel this would be!
   If ever it should begin, a fool must begin it, for no wise man would
   ever raise the question! Blessed Christ of God, we will not quibble
   because You also come in Your mercy to those who need You most, even to
   the lost!

   And who do you think will love Him best and so reward Him best if He
   comes to them? The proud Pharisee in his perfection of imaginary
   holiness--will he value the Christ who tells him that He comes to wash
   away his sin? He turns upon his heels with scorn! What sin has he to
   wash away? The self-satisfied moralist who dares to say, "All these
   commands I have kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?"--is he likely
   to become a disciple of the Great Teacher whose first lessons are, "Yet
   must be born-again," and, "Except you are converted and become as
   little children you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven"? The
   fact is that Jesus has no form nor comeliness to those who have a
   beauty of their own! Christ gets most love where He pardons most sin.
   And the sweetest obedience to His command is rendered by those who once
   were most disobedient, but who are gently led beneath His sway by the
   force of grateful love. Yon sterile hills of fancied holiness yield Him
   no harvest and, therefore, He leaves them to their own boastfulness.
   But meanwhile, He scatters plenteous grain among the lowlands where the
   ground is broken and lies ready for the seed. He preaches pardon to
   those who know that they have sinned and confess the same--but those
   who have no sin, have no Savior.

   But after all, dear Friends, if Jesus did not direct His mission of
   salvation to the lost, to whom else could He have come? For truth to
   say, there are none but the lost on the face of this whole earth! The
   proudest Pharisee is but a sinner and all the more a sinner for his
   pride. And the moralist who thinks himself so clean is filthy in the
   sight of God! Though he labors to conceal the spots, the self-righteous
   man is a leper and will forever remain so unless Jesus cleanses Him. It
   is a thrice-blessed fact that Christ came to save the lost, for such
   are we all--and had He not made lost ones the object of His searching
   and saving, there would have been no hope for us!

   What is meant by "the lost"? Well, "lost" is a dreadful word. I would
   need much time to explain it, but if the Spirit of God, like a flash of
   light, shall enter into your heart and show you what you are by nature,
   you will accept that word, "lost," as descriptive of your condition and
   understand it better than a thousand words of mine could enable you to
   do! Lost by the Fall! Lost by inheriting a depraved nature! Lost by
   your own acts and deeds! Lost by a thousand omissions of duty and lost
   by countless deeds of overt transgressions! Lost by habits of sin! Lost
   by tendencies and inclinations which have gathered strength and dragged
   you downward into deeper and yet deeper darkness and iniquity! Lost by
   inclinations which never turn of themselves to that which is right, but
   which resolutely refuse Divine Mercy and Infinite Love! We are lost
   willfully and willingly--lost perversely and utterly! But still lost of
   our own accord which is the worst kind of being lost that can possibly
   be! We are lost to God, who has lost our heart's love, lost our
   confidence and lost our obedience! We are lost to the Church, which we
   cannot serve. Lost to the Truth of God which we will not see. Lost to
   right, whose cause we do not uphold. Lost to Heaven, into whose sacred
   precincts we can never come! Lost--so lost that unless Almighty Mercy
   shall intervene, we shall be cast into the Pit that is bottomless to
   sink forever! "LOST! LOST! LOST!" The very word seems to me to be the
   knell of an impenitent soul. "Lost! Lost! Lost!" I hear the dismal
   tolling! A soul's funeral is being celebrated! Endless death has
   befallen an immortal being! It comes up as a dreadful wail from far
   beyond the boundaries of life and hope, forth from those dreary regions
   of death and darkness where spirits dwell who would not have Christ to
   reign over them. "Lost! Lost! Lost!" Ah me, that ever these ears should
   hear that doleful sound! Better a whole world on fire than a lost soul!
   Better every star quenched and yon skies a wreck than a single soul to
   be lost!

   Now, it is for souls that soon will be in that worst of all conditions
   and are already preparing for it, that Jesus came here seeking and
   saving. What joy is this! In proportion as the grief was heavy, the joy
   is great. If souls can be delivered from going down into such a state,
   it is a feat worthy of God, Himself. Glory be to His holy name!

   Now note the purpose--He "came to seek and to save that which was
   lost." Ah, this is a Truth of God worth preach-ing--this Doctrine that
   Jesus Christ came to seek and to save sinners. Some people tell me that
   He comes "to make men salvable"--to put all men into such a condition
   that it is possible that they may be saved. I believe that men may be
   saved, but I see no very great wonder in the fact. It does not stir my
   blood, or incite me to dance for joy. I do not know that it makes even
   the slightest impression upon me! I can go to sleep and I am sure I
   shall not wake up in the night and long to get up at once to preach
   such poor news as that Jesus came to make men salvable! I would not
   have become a minister to preach so meager a Gospel! But that our Lord
   came to savemen--that is substantial and satisfying news, far exceeding
   the other! To make men salvable is a skeleton, bones and skin--but to
   save them is a living blessing! To make men salvable is a farthing
   blessing, but to save them is untold wealth!

   They say also that Jesus came into the world to let men be saved if
   they will. I am glad of that. It is true and good. I believe that every
   truly willing soul may be saved, yes, such an one is, in a measure,
   saved already! If there is a sincere will towards
   salvation--understand, towards true salvation--that very will indicates
   that a great change has commenced within the man and I rejoice that it
   is written, "Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." But
   now just read our text as if it ran thus--"The Son of Man is come that
   whoever wills to be saved may be saved." The sense is good, but very
   feeble! How the wine is mixed with water! But, oh, what flavor, what
   essence, what marrow, what fatness there is in this, "The Son of Man is
   come to seek and to save that which was lost"! This is the Gospel! And
   the other is but a part of the Good News. Again, read the text another
   way, "The Son of Man is come to help men to save themselves." This will
   not do at all. It is something like helping men to march who have no
   legs, or helping blind men to judge colors, or helping dead men to make
   themselves alive. Help to those who can do nothing at all is a
   miserable mockery. No, we cannot have our Bibles altered that way! We
   will let the text stand as it is--in all its fullness of Divine Grace!

   Nor is it even possible for us to cut down our text to this, "The Son
   of Man is come to save those who seek Him." If it ran so, I would bless
   God forever for it, for it would be a glorious Gospel text even then.
   There are Scriptures which teach that Doctrine and it is a blessed
   Truth for which to be supremely grateful. But my text goes very much
   further, for it says, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that
   which was lost." I met with a question and answer the other day, "Where
   did the Samaritan woman find the Savior? She found Him at the well." I
   do not quibble at that mode of expression, but mark you, that is not
   how I would ask the question! I should rather enquire, "Where did the
   Savior find the woman?" For, surely, she was not seeking Him--I see no
   indication that she had any such idea in her mind! She was looking
   after water from the well--and if she had found that--she would have
   gone home satisfied. No, those are the finders, surely, who are the
   seekers! And so it must be that Christ found the woman, for He was
   looking after her. While I bless my Lord that He will save you if you
   seek Him, I am still more thankful that there are men and women whom He
   will seek as well as save! No, that there never was a soul saved yet
   but Christ sought it first! He is the Author as well as the Finisher of
   faith. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Ending of
   the work of Grace! Let His name be praised for it! The text must stand
   as it is and we will adore the length and breadth, the height and depth
   of the love which has made it true! Successful seeking and complete
   saving belong to the Son of Man--some of us have experienced both. Oh,
   that all of us might yet do so!

   III. Now we pass on, thirdly, to notice A DOUBLE DIFFICULTY. We see
   Christ's errand and we at once perceive that He has come to deal with
   people who are lost in two senses and in each sense a miracle of Grace
   is needed for their deliverance. They are so lost that they need
   saving, but they are also so lost that they need seeking. Persons may
   be so lost on land or on sea as to need saving and not seeking--but we
   were spiritually lost so as to need both saving and seeking too.

   I heard, a little while ago, of a party of Friends who went to the
   lakes of Cumberland and endeavored to climb the Langdale Pikes. One of
   the many found the labor of the ascent too wearisome and so resolved
   that he would go back to the little inn from which they started. Being
   a wiser man than some, in his own esteem, he did not take the winding
   path by which they had ascended. He thought he would go straight down,
   for he could see the house just below, and fancied he should pitch upon
   it all of a sudden and show the mountaineers that a straight line is
   the nearest road! Well, after descending and descending, leaping many a
   rugged place, he found himself, at last, on a ledge from which he could
   go neither up nor down. After many vain attempts, he saw that he was a
   prisoner. In a state of wild terror, he took off his garments and tore
   them into shreds to make a line and, tying the pieces together, he let
   them down, but he found that they

   reached nowhere at all in the great and apparently unfathomable abyss
   which yawned below him. So he began to call aloud, but no answer came
   from the surrounding hills except the echo of his own voice! He shouted
   by the half-hour together, but there was no answer, neither was there
   anyone within sight. His horror nearly drove him out of his wits. At
   last, to his intense joy, he saw a figure move in the plain below and
   he began to shout again. Happily it was a woman, who, hearing his
   voice, stopped. And as he called again, she came nearer and called out,
   "Stay where you are. Do not stir an inch. Stay where you are!" He was
   lost, but he no longer needed seeking, for some friendly shepherds soon
   saw where he was. All he needed was saving--and so the mountaineers
   descended with a rope, as they were known to do when rescuing lost
   sheep--and soon brought him out of danger. He was lost, but he did not
   need seeking--they could see where he was.

   A month or two ago, you must have noticed in the papers a notice about
   a gentleman who had left Wastwater some days before to go over the
   hills and had not been heard of since. His friends had to seek him so
   that, if still alive, he might be saved. And there were those who
   traversed hill and moor to find him, but they were unable to save him
   because they could not find him. If they could have found out where he
   was, I do not doubt that had he been in the most imminent peril, the
   bold hill-men would have risked their lives to rescue him. But, alas,
   he was never found or saved--his lifeless corpse was the only discovery
   which was ultimately made. This last is the true image of our
   deplorable condition--we are by nature, lost--so that nothing but
   seeking and saving together will be of a service to us.

   Let us see how our Lord accomplished the saving. That has been done,
   completely done. My dear Friends, you and I were lost in the sense of
   having broken the Law of God and having incurred His anger. But Jesus
   came and took the sin of men upon Himself and, as their Surety and
   their Substitute, He bore the wrath of God so that God can henceforth
   be just and yet the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus. I would
   like to die talking of this blessed Doctrine of Substitution and I
   intend, by Divine Grace, to live proclaiming it, for it is the keystone
   of the Gospel! Jesus Christ did literally take upon Himself the
   transgression and iniquity of His people and was made a curse for them,
   seeing that they had fallen under the wrath of God! And now every soul
   that believes in Jesus is saved because Jesus has taken away the
   penalty and the curse due to sin. In this let us rejoice!

   Christ has also saved us from the power of Satan. The Seed of the woman
   has bruised the serpent's head so that Satan's power is broken. Jesus
   has, by His Almighty Power, set us free from Hell's horrible yoke by
   vanquishing the Prince of Darkness and has, moreover, saved us from the
   power of death, so that to Believers it shall not be death to die!
   Christ has saved us from sin and all its consequence by His most
   precious death and Resurrection--

   "See God descending in the Human frame, The Offended suffering in the
   offender's name! All your deeds to Him imputed see, And all His
   righteousness devolved on thee."

   Our Lord's saving work is, in this sense, finished, but there is always
   going on in the world His seekingwork--and I want you to think of it.

   He can save us, blessed be His name! He has nothing more to do in order
   to save any soul that trusts Him. But we have wandered very far away,
   and are hidden in the wilds of the far country. We are very hungry and
   though there is bread enough and to spare, what is the use of it while
   we are lost to the home in which it is so freely distributed? We are
   very ragged--there is the best robe and it is ready to be put on
   us--but what is the good of it while we are so far away? There are the
   music and the dancing to make us glad and to cheer us, but what is the
   use of them while we still tarry among the swine? Here, then, is the
   great difficulty. Our Lord must find us, follow our wanderings and,
   treating us like lost sheep, He must bear us back upon His shoulders
   rejoicing!

   Many need seeking because they are lost in bad company. Evil companions
   gather around men and keep them away from hearing the Gospel by which
   men are saved. There is no place to be lost in like a great city. When
   a man wants to escape the police, he does not run to a little
   village--he hides away in a thickly populated town. So this London has
   many hiding places where sinners get out of the Gospel's way! They lose
   themselves in the great crowd and are held captives by the slavish
   customs of the evil society into which they are absorbed. If they do
   but relent for a moment, some worldling plucks them by the sleeve and
   says, "Let us be merry while we may! Why are you so melancholy?" Satan
   carefully sets a watch upon his younger servants to prevent their
   escaping from his hands. These pickets labor earnestly to

   prevent the man from hearing the good news of salvation lest he should
   be converted. Sinners therefore need seeking out from among the society
   in which they are imbedded--they need as much seeking after as the
   pearls of the Arabian Gulf!

   The Lord Jesus Christ, in seeking men, has to deal with deep-seated
   prejudices. Many refuse to hear the Gospel-- they would travel many
   miles to escape its warning message! Some are too wise, or too rich to
   have the Gospel preached to them. Pity the poor rich! The poor man has
   many missionaries and evangelists seeking him out, but who goes after
   the great ones? Some come from the East to worship, but who comes from
   the West? Many more will find their way to Heaven out of the back slums
   than ever will come out of the great mansions and palaces! Jesus must
   seek His elect among the rich under great disadvantages, but blessed be
   His name, He does seek them!

   See how vices and depraved habits hold the mass of the poor classes!
   What a seeking out is needed among working men, for many of them are
   besotted with drunkenness! Look at the large part of London on the
   Lord's-Day--what have the working population been doing? They have been
   reading the Sunday newspaper and loafing about the house in their
   shirtsleeves and waiting at the posts of the doors--not of wisdom, but
   of the drink shop! These have been thirsting, but not after
   righteousness. Baachus still remains the god of this city and
   multitudes are lost among the beer barrels and the spirit casks! In
   such pursuits men waste the blessed Sabbath hours. How shall they be
   sought out? The Lord Jesus is doing it by His Holy Spirit!

   Alas, through their ill ways, men's ears are stopped, their eyes are
   blinded and their hearts hardened so that the messengers of mercy have
   need of great patience! It would be easy work to save men if they could
   but be made willing to receive the Gospel, but they will not even
   hearit. When you do get them for a Sabbath-Day beneath the sound of a
   faithful ministry, how they struggle against it! They need seeking out
   50 times over! You bring them right up to the Light of God and flash it
   upon their eyes, but they willfully and deliberately close their
   eyelids to it! You set before them life and death, and plead with them
   even unto tears that they would lay hold on eternal life--but they
   choose their own delusions. So long and so patiently must they be
   sought that this seeking work as much reveals the gracious heart of
   Jesus as did the saving work which He fulfilled upon the bloody tree!

   Notice how He is daily accomplishing His search of love. Every day,
   Beloved, Jesus Christ is seeking men's ears. Would you believe it? He
   has to go about with wondrous wisdom even to get a hearing. They do not
   want to know the love message of their God. "God so loved the
   world"--they know all about that and do not want to hear any more.
   There is an Infinite Sacrifice for sin--they turn on their heels at
   such stale news. They would rather read an article in an infidel Review
   or a paragraph in the Police News. They want to know no more of
   spiritual matters! The Lord Jesus, in order to get at their ears, cries
   aloud by many earnest voices. Thank God He has ministers yet alive who
   mean to be heard and will not be put off with denials! Even the din of
   this noisy world cannot drown their testimony. Cry aloud, my Brother!
   Cry aloud and spare not, for cry as you may, you will not cry too
   loudly, for man will not hear if he can help it. Our Lord, to win men's
   ears, must use a variety of voices--musical or rough--as His wisdom
   judges best. Sometimes He gains an audience by an odd voice whose
   quaintness wins attention--He will reach men when He means to save
   them!

   That was an odd voice--surely the oddest I ever heard of--which came a
   little time ago in an Italian town to one of God's elect ones there. He
   was so depraved that he actually fell to worshipping the devil rather
   than God! It chanced, one day, that a rumor went through the city that
   a Protestant was coming there to preach. The priest, alarmed for his
   religion, told the people from the altar that Protestants worshipped
   the devil and he charged them not to go near the meeting room. The
   news, as you may judge, excited no horror in the devil-worshipper's
   mind. "Yes," he thought, "then I shall meet with brethren!" And so he
   went to hear our beloved missionary who is now laboring in Rome.
   Nothing else would have drawn the poor wretch to hear the Good
   Word--but this lie of the priest's was overruled to that end! He went
   and heard, not of the devil, but of the devil's Conqueror--and before
   long was found at Jesus' feet--a sinner saved!

   I have known my Lord, when His ministers have failed, take out an arrow
   from His quiver and fix upon it a message, put it to His bow and shoot
   it right into a man's bosom till it wounded him. And as it wounded him
   and he lay moaning upon his bed, the message has been and accepted. I
   mean, that many a man in sickness has been brought to hear the message
   of salvation. Often, losses and crosses have brought men to Jesus'
   feet. Jesus seeks them so. When Absalom could not get an interview with
   Joab, he said, "Go and set his barley field on fire." Then Joab came
   down to Absalom and said, "Why have your servants set my field on
   fire?" The Lord sometimes sends losses of property to men who will not
   otherwise hear Him--and at last their ears are gained! Whom He seeks,
   He in due time finds!

   Well, after my Lord has sought men's ears, He next seeks their desires.
   He will have them long for a Savior--and this is not an easy thing to
   accomplish! But He has a way of showing men their sins--and then they
   wish for mercy. He shows them at other times the great joy of the
   Christian life--and then they wish to enter into the same delight. I
   pray that at this hour He may lead some of you to consider the danger
   you are in while you are yet unconverted, that so you may begin to
   desire Christ and in this way may be sought and found by Him!

   Then He seeks their faith He seeks that they may come and trust
   Him--and He has ways of bringing them to this, for He shows them the
   suitability of His salvation and the fullness and the freeness of it!
   And when He has exhibited Himself as the sinners' Savior, and such a
   Savior as they need, then do they come and put their trust in Him. Then
   has He found them and saved them!

   He seeks their hearts, for it is their hearts that He has lost. And oh,
   how sweetly does Christ, by the Holy Spirit, win men's affection and
   hold them fast! I shall never forget how He won mine--how first He
   gained my ear and then my desires, so that I wished to have Him for my
   Lord! And then He taught me to trust Him. And when I had trusted Him
   and found that I was saved, then I loved Him and I love Him still! So,
   dear Hearer, if Jesus Christ finds you, you will become His loving
   follower forever! I have been praying that He would bring this message
   under the notice of those whom He means to bless. I have asked Him to
   let me sow in good soil. I hope that among those who read these pages,
   there will be many whom the Lord Jesus has specially redeemed with His
   most precious blood--and I trust that He will appear at once to them
   and say to each one of them, "I have loved you with an everlasting
   love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you." May the eternal
   Spirit open your ears to hear the still small voice of love! By
   Omnipotent Grace may you be made to yield to the Lord with the cheerful
   consent of your conquered will and accept that glorious Grace which
   will bring you to praise the seeking and saving Savior in Heaven! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH31:29-37.

   (Concluded from Sermon #3308).

   29, 30. In these days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a
   sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But everyone
   shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eats the sour grape, his
   teeth shall be set on edge. God was going to deal with the Israelites
   individually, personally--and that is how He will deal with us. 31.
   Behold.Here is something worth beholding--read this great promise with
   tears in your eyes-- 31-33. The days come, says the LORD, that I
   willmake a new Covenant with the house ofIsrael, and with the house of
   Judah: not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in
   the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of
   Egypt; which My Covenant they broke, although I was an husband unto
   you, says the LORD: but this shall be the Covenant that I will make
   with the house ofIsrael After those days, says the LORD, I will put My
   Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be
   their God, and they shall be My people. [See Sermons #1687,

   Volume 28--THE LAW WRITTEN IN THE HEART and #2992, Volume 52--GOD'S
   WRITING UPON MAN'S HEART.] It is all wills and shalls--it is all
   Covenant life! No longer the Law engraved upon the tablets of stone,
   but the Law written on the heart--no more the Lord's command without
   man's power and will to obey it, but God will renew our nature and
   change our disposition so that we shall love to do what once we
   loathed--and shall loathe the sins that we once loved! What a wonderful
   mass of mercies is included in the Covenant of Grace!

   34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man
   his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know Me--"All
   your children shall be taught of the Lord." All Believers, whatever
   else they may not know, do know their Lord--"they shall all know Me"--

   34. From the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD.
   How will they learn to know the Lord? Well, it will be in a very
   wonderful way--

   34. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no
   more. [See Sermon #2006, Volume 34--knowing the lord

   THROUGH PARDONED SIN.] Let me read that again, and may some

   poor wandering children of God hear the promise and be glad that it
   applies to them--"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
   their sin no more."

   35-37. Thus says the LORD, which gives the sun for a light by day, and
   the ordinances ofthe moon and ofthe stars for a light by night, which
   divides the sea when the waves thereof roar The LORD of Hosts is His
   name: if these ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then
   the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me
   forever Thus says the LORD; If Heaven above can be measured, and the
   foundation ofthe earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all
   the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.
     __________________________________________________________________

Prompt Obedience

   (No. 3310)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 11H, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 17,
   1866.

   "As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall
   submit themselves unto me." Psalm 18:44.

   THERE is no doubt that we have David speaking to us in this Psalm, but
   it is equally certain that we must not limit it to David. Paul quoted
   verses 2 and 49 as applying to David's Lord, and we shall not be wrong
   in following his example with regard to our text.

   I. I am going to make several observations upon the text, and the first
   is that IT TELLS US THE SAVIOR'S CLAIMS UPON THE HEARTS OF MEN. He
   claims that they should obey Him and submit themselves unto Him. The
   great practical end of the Gospel is to bring the human heart into
   obedience to Christ and to make the stubborn will acknowledge
   allegiance to His sway.

   Now, in this matter many great mistakes are made by men. Some think it
   is sufficient to go to a place of worship and to hear or repeat solemn
   words. This is a good thing to do, of course, but if all ends there,
   the purpose of the Gospel is not served. Such people will find, to
   their cost, that it is not the mere hearers of the Word, but the doers
   of it who are blessed. We still need the message that the Apostle James
   wrote long ago, "If any is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is
   like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: for he beholds
   himself and goes his way, and immediately forgets what manner of man he
   was." It is the wayside hearers who simply hear the Word, but neither
   understanding nor receiving it, they derive no benefit from it. Let
   none of us be numbered among them, nor among those who merely repeat
   certain forms of words without feeling the force and power of them in
   their hearts.

   Others think it is enough if they carefully attend to the Gospel. If
   they do that, they seem to imagine that this is all that can be
   expected of them. This also is good as far as it goes--we have not a
   word to say against it, but much to say in its favor. But, my dear
   Hearer, if you pay ever so much outward attention to the Word of God,
   unless you submit your soul and spirit to its dominion, you cannot
   possibly expect to receive benefit from it. You are in the position of
   one who pays much attention to his physician's prescription who spells
   out the Latin words, notes the quantities of the various drugs that are
   to be compounded, but who never gets a chemist to make up the
   prescription, or if he does go as far as that--never tastes the
   medicine! Such a man will never be cured of his malady in that way, nor
   will you be cured of your soul-sickness unless you actually take the
   remedy which the Great Physician has so graciously prescribed. You may
   carefully note all the bakers' shops that you pass on your way home
   tonight. You may correctly calculate the quantity of bread that would
   be required for your family--and you may accurately estimate what it
   would cost--yet your household will not be fed unless you actually
   purchase the bread and give to each one a portion in due season. And
   your soul will not be fed unless you really partake of the Bread of
   Life.

   What Christ requires of you who hear His Word is that you should obey
   Him and submit yourselves unto Him. How are you to do this? The Apostle
   John writes, "This is His commandment, That we should believe on the
   name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us
   commandment." This is Christ's claim upon us, that we should trust
   Him--trust Him as our Savior, trust Him as our Lord and Master--trust
   Him so as to obey Him in all that He has commanded us. If we do this,
   we shall find that His commandments are not grievous and that obedience
   to them will yield to us the peaceable fruits of righteousness. He says
   to you, Sinner, "Give up all other confidences and come and trust in
   Me. If you would be saved, do not merely hear Me say to you, 'Look unto
   Me,' but really look unto Me, believe in Me, trust Me, forsake all your
   false refuges, leave those Babel buildings of your own devices and come
   to the sure Rock

   whereon a soul may safely build for time and for eternity." When you
   hear this command of Christ, give heed to it--obey Him and submit
   yourself to Him!

   Then, if obedience to that command is truly rendered, there will follow
   obedience to all the Savior's commands. No man is really saved unless
   he is, in his heart, obedient to Christ. I do not say that you will be
   perfect, but you will desire to be so. I do not say that you will not
   be tempted to sin until you die, but there will be no sin that you will
   love, there will be no sin from which you will not long to be
   delivered. Your spirit will cheerfully bend down its neck to wear the
   collar of sacred service and as far as your inner and spiritual man is
   concerned, you will cry mightily unto God against the very thought of
   sin--and pray that you may walk in holiness and in the fear of the Lord
   all the days of your life.

   If any of you have thought that trusting Christ does not involve
   obeying Him, you have made a great mistake. They do very wrong who cry
   up believing in Christ and yet depreciate obedience to Him, for obeying
   is believing in another form and springs out of believing. Neither may
   anyone say, "I will obey one command of Christ, but I will not obey
   another." The very principle of trustful obedience lies in your not
   making any choice as to which commands you will obey. A soldier asks no
   question and makes no objection when he receives his orders--his
   captain bids him go and he goes--or he bids him come and he comes. He
   never says, "I will go thus far in obedience, but no further." So must
   it be with you if you enlist under the banner of the Captain of our
   salvation--your obedience must be wholehearted and complete. If tonight
   you are the Lord's, you must say to Him out of the very depths of your
   soul, "Show me, my Master, what You would have me do. You have bidden
   me trust You, and I do trust You. And out of that trust springs a
   reverent desire to submit absolutely to Your holy will. Help me, by
   Your gracious Spirit, to obey You in everything. And from this time
   forth, O blessed Savior, reign as the undisputed Lord of my whole
   life!"

   We see, then, what the claim on Christ upon the hearts of men really
   is. And we who preach the Gospel must never rest satisfied until our
   hearers really submit themselves unto Him. It brings tears to our eyes
   as we recall how earnestly they often listen to our message--and how
   they even compliment us upon our faithfulness in delivering it--yet how
   they will be obedient to a part of it and yet be disobedient to the
   rest, for they will not obey Christ and submit themselves unto Him. Oh,
   that they had more submissive hearts, but neither you nor I can give
   them such hearts. We can proclaim the Truth of God in their hearing and
   we can weep before the Lord if they do not receive it--but the power to
   save them lies not in human hands--we must look up to the Almighty
   Savior and trust that He will bless the message which we have delivered
   in His name!

   II. The second inference which we draw from the text is that IN ORDER
   TO RENDER OBEDIENCE TO CHRIST, THERE IS NO NEED OF A LONG
   PROBATION--"As soon as they hear of Me, they shall obey Me: the
   strangers shall submit themselves unto Me."

   It seems that some, as soon as they heard of Christ, yielded themselves
   up to Him. It used to be a very common notion, and the idea still
   prevails in some churches, that in order to have faith in Christ there
   must be long preparatory exercises. Many of the Puritans, excellent as
   they were, made a mistake in this matter. They felt afraid to say to a
   sinner, when they found him just as a sinner, "Believe on Christ"--they
   thought it was necessary that he should first undergo a certain amount
   of Law-working and conviction-plowing--and then they might come in with
   the preaching of the Gospel. I owe much to Doddridge's Rise and
   Progress of Religion in the Soul, and I used to recommend it to others,
   but I do not do so now. That book does show the way of salvation, but
   it is done in a roundabout fashion--very different from the simple
   Gospel plan, "Believe and live," "Look and be saved." It is true that
   many do have the experiences which Doddridge describes, but that is no
   proof that they needhave them! It is probable that most Christians do
   go through that Slough of Despond which Bunyan so graphically
   describes, but it is not absolutely necessary that any one of them
   should go through it! "He that believes on the Son has everlasting
   life," whether he has been in the Slough of Despond or not!

   If it were necessary, I could pick out scores of members of this Church
   whose conversion is beyond question, and who have been faithful
   followers of Christ for years, yet their faith in Christ came all of a
   sudden. The Gospel just knocked at the door of their hearts and entered
   at once--no, in many cases, it seemed to enter without knocking! Think
   of Saul of Tarsus, "breathing out threats and slaughter against the
   disciples of the Lord," yet suddenly arrested near Damascus, and crying
   out to that very Jesus whom he was persecuting, "Lord, what will You
   have me to do?" Think of the jailer at Philippi--a rough heathen who
   was about to commit suicide, almost immediately crying out, "What must
   I do to be

   saved?" And very soon afterwards baptized, "believing in God with all
   his house." Think of the thief on the cross, joining with his fellow
   malefactor in reviling at Christ, yet presently praying, "Lord,
   remember me when You come into Your Kingdom," and receiving the
   cheering answer from Christ, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise"!
   These were sudden conversions which were worked without that long and
   painful preparation which has been so cried up in some of our churches
   that it has become a great hindrance to many! We must put nothing
   before the Cross of Christ--His great atoning Sacrifice is the one
   object to which we must direct the sinner's gaze! Genuine evangelical
   repentanceruns in double harness with faithand they should never be
   separated. To suppose that we are to go through a sort of quarantine
   before we can be admitted into the harbor of salvation is a very
   serious mistake. Our text flatly contradicts this idea, for it says,
   "As soon as they hear of Me, they shall obey Me."--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One." There is life for a
   look--even though the heart should be as hard as the nether millstone!
   There is life for a look-- even though as yet the character has
   undergone no change! There is life for a look--even though you cannot
   see any signs of Grace--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One."

   Jesus Christ does not look for anything in you except sin and need, but
   finds in Himself both the source of mercy and the means by which that
   mercy may come to the very chief of sinners. May the Holy Spirit make
   it very clear to you that there is no necessity for you to wait a long
   while before the blessing of salvation may be given to you, but that
   you may have it this very moment! The pool at Bethesda was only
   efficacious for the healing of the first one who stepped into the water
   after it had been troubled by the angel, so that the afflicted might
   wait there for years and still remain unhealed. But the pool which
   Christ filled with His precious blood always has efficacy in it, so
   that whoever steps in, though he may not have been waiting by the pool
   for even a minute, though it may be the first time he ever heard of the
   precious blood of Christ--if he trusts in the finished work of God's
   dear Son, he shall be immediately saved!

   III. A third remark which I think may be fairly based upon the text is
   this--IN SOME CASES, THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION WINS A VERY SPEEDY
   VICTORY.

   It was very remarkable that three thousand persons should have believed
   on Christ after Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. We scarcely
   seem to expect, nowadays, to see three thousand souls converted,
   baptized and added to the Church in a single day, but when the Gospel
   was first proclaimed, converts were gathered very rapidly. It seemed as
   though a great pile of dry wood had been accumulated and it only needed
   a torch to set it aflame at once! In the time of the Reformation, so
   rapidly was the Gospel spread that men said that the writings of Luther
   were borne on the wings of angels--and so many of all classes believed
   the Truth of God that hallelujahs arose from the plowman in the field
   and the servants in the kitchen as well as from the lords and ladies of
   the land! "The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that
   published it," and still greater the multitude of those that received
   it! When Whitefield preached to great crowds of people who had never
   heard the Gospel before, it was like plowing virgin soil--the Truth
   appealed to them with all the force of novelty--and also with the
   conviction that it was exactly suited to their case so that they
   received it with sudden joy and thousands were converted!

   Many persons come to this Tabernacle who have never previously listened
   to the Gospel--and it often happens that the very first sermon they
   hear is blessed to them! Last Tuesday, when I saw some 33 candidates
   for Baptism, one or two of them said that they had never been to any
   place of worship until they came here. Curiosity had prompted them to
   come and they were surprised to find that the preacher seemed to know
   all about them, for his message exactly suited their case. They
   received the Word suddenly, but so mightily did it affect them that
   they would not give it up, for it had come to them "in demonstration of
   the Spirit and of power." There is no place where I feel so happy or so
   much at home in preaching as on this familiar spot--with your eyes
   fixed upon me and your heart drinking in the Truth of God--but for the
   winning of souls in great numbers, give me a congregation that has
   never heard the Gospel! If I were a fisherman and were asked where I
   would prefer to fish, I would answer, "Where nobody else has ever
   fished." So, if a preacher of the Gospel might pick his place, he might
   well say, "Let me preach where the people have never yet heard the
   Gospel." If we can get among certain classes of society, high or low,
   to whom the Gospel is a novelty, I feel persuaded that the grand
   prophecy of the text shall be gloriously fulfilled in their midst--"As
   soon as they hear of Me, they shall obey Me: the strangers shall submit
   themselves unto Me." Let us expect this blessed result of our labors
   and be constantly in earnest

   breaking up fresh soil and casting the Gospel net into waters that have
   never yet been fished. Oh, that some who are here for the first time
   tonight may obey Christ as soon as they hear of Him! He came into the
   world to save sinners! He took upon Himself our flesh and took upon
   Himself our sins--and suffered in our place for our sins--"the Just for
   the unjust, that He might bring us to God." If we trust in Him who bore
   our sins in His own body on the Cross, that trust brings us salvation!
   And it works in us peace and joy, gratitude and love--and helps us to
   serve the Lord with reverence and holy fear!

   IV. Now we advance to a fourth point which is that STRANGERS WILL ALSO
   YIELD THEMSELVES TO CHRIST.

   The point to which I want now to call your very special attention is
   not so much the suddenness of the conversion as the condition of the
   people who, according to our text, shall submit themselves to Christ.
   There are some who, in the fullest sense of the term, are "aliens from
   the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of praise,
   having no hope, and without God in the world." Some of you who
   regularly attend a place of worship, are "aliens" in the sense in which
   Paul used the word--you are like the mixed multitude that came up with
   the children of Israel out of Egypt. Though you are not part of "the
   commonwealth of Israel" spiritually, you are at present eternally
   mingled with the true Israelites, the believing children of Abraham.
   But there are many others who are in a very definite way, "strangers."
   The Sabbath bell brings no Sabbath music to them. They may rest on
   Sunday, but their rest consists in simply lolling about in their
   shirtsleeves and reading the Sunday newspaper. They never think of
   going into a place of worship unless it is for a wedding, or a funeral,
   or what they call "a christening." There are thousands in this
   so-called Christian land who have never looked inside a Bible and know
   absolutely nothing of its contents! I have no doubt that there are to
   be found in London thousands of persons who, if they were asked what is
   meant by the Atonement, would reply that they had never heard of such a
   thing! And as to the simple Doctrine of trusting for salvation to the
   merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, there could not be a greater piece of
   news to many of our fellow citizens than this!

   Well now, these people whom I have been describing are, indeed,
   strangers to Christ, yet He says in our text, "the strangers shall
   submit themselves unto Me." They do not know Him. But "the Lord knows
   them that are His" and I trust that among the strangers there are many
   whom the Lord has foreknown from all eternity who shall, in due time,
   hear His voice and follow Him, rejoicing in that eternal life which is
   the portion of His sheep! In the very heart of the apostate Church of
   Rome, God may have some of His elect--and I have no doubt that He has!
   I pray that His Spirit may soon bring them forth into the light. Among
   those who are besotted with superstition and among those who have given
   themselves up to work with both hands in the way of carnal confidence,
   God may have His chosen ones. And if He has, He will surely fetch them
   out. Never despair concerning the Church of God! The greatest
   blasphemer may yet become the boldest preacher of the Gospel! He who
   hates Christ most today may love Him most tomorrow--and he will do so
   if the Spirit of God takes possession of him! It is not merely in the
   House of Prayer that God has His elect--they may be tonight in the
   alehouse, or in the theatre, or in still worse places--but the Spirit
   of God can find them wherever they are! Jesus Christ, the Good
   Shepherd, not only takes care of the 99 that are safely sheltered in
   the fold, but He goes out to seek and to find the one sheep that is
   lost! Even though all Hell's hosts may have surrounded the poor
   wanderer, the prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the lawful
   captive shall to delivered.

   Are you a stranger, dear Friend? Are you a stranger to the Gospel, a
   stranger to Grace, a stranger to your God? Are you a stranger to the
   bended knee and the Throne of Grace? Are you a stranger to this blessed
   Bible and to the hope of Heaven which it clearly reveals? "Oh, yes!"
   you say, "I am indeed a stranger and there is no hope for me!" But
   listen to the text, Friend--"the strangers shall submit themselves unto
   Me." Give good heed to other gracious messages in this most precious
   Book. "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." The heart of Everlasting Love
   is moved with pity towards you and God, Himself, speaks through a man's
   voice as He cries to you from Heaven, "Look unto Me, and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." "As I
   live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked;
   but that the wicked should turn from his way and live: turn you, turn
   you from your evil ways, for why will you die?" Surely, if there are
   any of these strangers here tonight, they ought to be compelled to
   yield to Christ by the prophecy of the text, "the strangers shall
   submit themselves unto Me."

   V. Now I come to my fifth remark which is that OUR TEXT BEING TRUE, IT
   SHOULD GREATLY ENCOURAGE THOSE OF US WHO ARE WORKING FOR CHRIST.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am devoutly thankful to God that so many
   of you are watching for souls, and not only so, but that you are
   winners of souls! It was but little that you could do, dear Friend, but
   you saw a stranger here and you spoke kindly to him. Perhaps you gave
   him a tract, certainly you prayed for him! And God blessed your efforts
   and the stranger yielded himself to Christ. You have sometimes visited
   a neighbor in time of sickness and have dropped a word in season for
   Christ, and you did well, for that kindly action was the means of
   winning a soul for the Savior! So let the past cheer you and let the
   text encourage you to persevere in such holy service. Possibly you know
   some persons who never go to a place of worship and who are quite
   ignorant of the Gospel. Do not think of them as unlikely to be blessed!
   On the contrary, believe that they are the very persons who are the
   most likely to be influenced for good when once they are brought under
   the sound of the Gospel! There are, alas, many who have so long heard
   the Word preached that they have become Gospel-hardened--the Truth of
   God has become to them a savor of death unto death instead of a savor
   of life unto life. But it is not so with these people of whom I am
   speaking--they are not Gospel-hardened, so be hopeful about them--go
   and seek them out, bring them to hear the Gospel and then pray that
   they may be among the strangers who shall submit themselves to Christ!

   If I had bread to give away, I should not be in a hurry to take it to
   those who had refused it again and again. But if I knew where there was
   a colony of hungry folk who had not tasted food for days, I think it
   would be among them that I should be made welcome! The place to take
   the Gospel is not where the Light of God has long been shining and men
   have closed their eyes to it--but down the dark court and alley where
   they have not before had the Light and, consequently, have not had the
   opportunity of rejecting it. Take the Gospel there and it may be that
   the very first time you do so, souls will be converted! If not, go
   again and again! Keep on sowing the Good Seed of the Kingdom, believing
   that ancient promise, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He
   that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come
   again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

   If one should spend one's whole life for God and win only one soul by
   the most earnest and devoted effort, it would be a rich reward to see
   that one star shining forever in the firmament of Heaven, to see that
   one gem glistening forever in the diadem of Christ, to see that one
   sheep feeding forever in the pastures of Eternal Life! It strikes me
   that it will help to make Heaven even more heavenly to us when God has
   blessed us to the bringing of other souls to share our bliss in Glory.
   Some of us will not be among strangers when we have passed through the
   gates of pearl! We have spiritual children already there for whom we
   have travailed in birth until Christ was formed in them! And whatever
   may be the fate of all earthly relationships, our spiritual
   relationships will abide forever. How blessed it will be to be welcomed
   there by those whom we have begotten through the Gospel and with what
   joy we shall present them to our God as we humbly yet gratefully say,
   "Here am I, Father, and the children whom You have given me"!

   VI. My last remark is a sad one. It has been uppermost in my mind all
   the while I have been speaking upon the other points. It is this, that
   albeit there are some who obey as soon as they hear the Gospel and
   others who once were strangers

   who willingly yield themselves unto Christ, yet it is painfully evident
   that THERE ARE SOME WHO DO JUST THE OPPOSITE.

   As for hearing the Word, there are some of you who are always hearing
   it! You scarcely ever miss an opportunity of hearing it! Thickly as the
   leaves in autumn fall from the trees will the remembrances of Gospel
   ministrations come back to you, but they are all as faded and as
   worthless to you, now, as are those dead leaves themselves! Some of you
   will never be lost for lack of hearing the Gospel--what would others
   give if they could only hear what you have heard? Some of you have
   heard the story of the Cross from your early childhood. The softest and
   sweetest of all lips, your mother's, told it to you as long ago as you
   can remember. Then you heard it again and again from the lips of the
   earnest Sunday school teacher in whose class you sat so long. Some of
   you heard it from a loving wife or from a fond husband. You heard the
   Gospel preached by a godly minister now in Glory. And last of all, you
   have heard it from me, also, and I can add that you have heard it
   preached very plainly, for whatever my faults may be, clouding the
   Gospel or hiding its meaning is not one of them. Yes, you have heard
   the Gospel all these years--and while others have believed it and have
   been saved-- you appear to be no nearer doing so than when first you
   heard it! And I tremble lest those solemn words of the Lord Jesus
   Christ should be true concerning you, "Verily I say unto you, that the
   publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you."
   Remember how the Savior upbraided the cities wherein most of His mighty
   works were done because "they repented not"--and beware lest their doom
   should also be yours!

   Our text says, "The strangers shall submit themselves unto Me," but you
   have not submitted yourselves to Christ. The great sinners, the very
   chief of sinners, have yielded themselves up to the sway of Christ, but
   you have not done so. This is not because you do not understand the way
   of salvation, for you know clearly what the Gospel is and what it
   requires. With some of you it is not because of lack of feeling, for
   you have felt a great deal--you have been the subjects of all sorts of
   impressions. Your thoughts have often been like a case of knives
   cutting into your inmost spirit, or like a nest of adders stinging your
   soul. Friend, it has come to this pass with you--mere hearing of the
   Word is of no service to you, even the bare remembrance of it is of no
   use--you must either yield to Christ or you must perish! There must be
   no more tarrying, delaying, dilly-dallying. You are lingering on the
   very brink of the precipice and you must either fall over or be saved
   by clutching at the garments of the Savior who stands close beside you.
   O Soul, is it not a mercy that you are pushed to this extremity? Is it
   not a blessing that you are brought to this emergency--that you must
   either yield yourself to Christ or die as His enemy? Oh, submit
   yourself to Him! Your hand trembles, but stretch it out and touch the
   hem of His garment. You cannot save yourself, but He can save you! Look
   unto Him, for again I remind you that--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One." When the bronze
   serpent was lifted up in the wilderness there was no need for the
   serpent-bitten Israelites to come up close to the pole on which it was
   suspended--all they had to do was to look--and as many as looked,
   lived! That is what you have to do! Look to Jesus! Look and live! Give
   the faith-look at Him who died upon the Cross as the sinner's
   Substitute and Surety--and as soon as you look, you shall live--and
   live forever! There is no need for you to uncover your wounds to show
   where the serpent has bitten you. There is no need for you to wait
   until the venom of the serpent reveals its deadly character more than
   it has already done. But look at once, lest you should tarry until you
   are unable to look!

   Let me ask you a most solemn question--Does the Son of God, Himself,
   bleed and die for sinners and is not that all that is required to put
   away your guilt? Is Jehovah, Himself, satisfied with the sufferings of
   His well-beloved Son? And are you notsatisfied? Has Christ woven the
   spotless and perfect robe of righteousness in which sinners may stand
   forgiven before the Great White Throne, and are you seeking to add to
   it some of the filthy rags of your own righteousness? O Soul, think not
   that you can share the work and the Glory of salvation with the
   almighty Savior! Yoke a gnat with an archangel if you will, but never
   think of linking yourself with Christ in order to complete the great
   work of salvation. Oh, no! In that matter it must be none but Jesus,
   for--

   "None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good."

   I wish I could put the Truth of God so plainly that you could not help
   seeing it, yet I know that the Holy Spirit must open your eyes or you
   will never see it, however clearly it is set before you. I pray Him to
   do it and to do it now--and so to fulfill those two glorious "shalls"
   in my text--"As soon as they hear of Me, they shall obey Me: the
   strangers shall submit themselves unto Me." This is my comfort--He who
   gave this promise and prophecy in its fullest and deepest meaning will
   certainly fulfill it! Blessed Master, make these potent "shalls" true
   in our midst tonight! Many have heard of You--give them the Grace to
   obey You! There are strangers here--may they submit themselves unto You
   and so be no longer strangers, "but fellow citizens with the saints;
   and of the household of God"! So may it be, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 9:1-17.

   Verses 1, 2. AndHe enteredinto a boat, andpassed over, and came into
   His own city. And, behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy,
   lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of
   the palsy; Son, be of good

   cheer; your sins are forgiven you. [See Sermons #2337, Volume 39--THE
   PHYSICIAN PARDONS HIS PALSIED PATIENT and #3016, Volume 52--GOOD CHEER
   FROM FORGIVEN SIN.] Our Lord dealt first with the greater evil,

   for sin is worse than even such a dreadful disease as the palsy.
   Forgiveness of sin is an even greater mercy than the healing of
   sickness.

   3-7. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This
   Man blasphemes. And Jesus knowing their thoughts, said, why thinkyou
   evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, Your sins are
   forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that you may know that
   the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins (then said He to the
   sick of the palsy), Arise, take up your bed, and go unto your house.
   And he arose, and departed to his house. Jesus first proved His
   Divinity by reading the secret thoughts of the caviling scribes--and
   then gave a further evidence of it by working this very notable
   miracle!

   8-9. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled, and glorified God,
   which had given such power unto men. And as Jesus passed forth from
   there, He saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of customs:
   and He said to him,

   charge, at http://www.spurgeongems.org .] This was another notable
   miracle, and equally set forth the power of Divine Grace.

   10-11. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold,
   many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His
   disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples,
   Why eats your Master with publicans and sinners?He was more at home
   with publicans and sinners than with scribes and Pharisees! And they
   were more likely to welcome Him as their Lord and Savior.

   2-13. But when Jesus heard that, He said unto them, They that are whole
   need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go you and learn what
   that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to
   call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.If He had come to call
   the righteous, where would He have found them? His call was not likely
   to be heeded by the self-righteous, but sinners heard it with joy--and
   so were made righteous by Him.

   14. Then came to Him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the
   Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples fast not? We must not suppose
   that because a thing is proper for ourselves, it must, therefore, be
   binding upon everybody else. It might be fit and right that the
   disciples of John should often fast--their circumstances might require
   it--but it might be quite wrong for the disciples of Christ to fast, as
   they might be in very different circumstances.

   15. And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bride chamber
   mourn, so long as the bridegroom is with them?Could Christ's disciples
   fast while Christ fed them with heavenly foods? While His Presence was
   to them like Heaven begun below, it would have been inconsistent for
   them to be mourning and fasting.

   15. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them
   and then shall they fast.And nobody would say that they were turncoats
   if, when their circumstances had so greatly altered, they acted in
   harmony with their changed circumstances. The disciples could not mourn
   while Christ was with them! Can you, Believer, fast while Christ is
   with you? It cannot be. But when He has gone from you, then you will
   sorrow fast enough. So we must neither judge others by ourselves, nor
   judge ourselves at one time by what we were at some other time.

   16. No man puts a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that
   which is put in to fill it up takes from the garment-- When it
   shrinks--

   16. And the tear is made worse. There must be a fitness about things.
   Do not impose fasting upon a joyful heart, or the singing ofjoyful
   hymns upon a sad spirit.

   17. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles
   break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new
   wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.Do not expect from a
   young beginner that which would be unsuitable to him, even though it
   should be most comely and seemly in an aged Christian. And do not
   expect to see in an aged Christian all the vigor and alertness of
   spirit that you look for in ardent souls in all the fervor of their
   first love to Christ. Let us mind the relations of things.

   arose, and followed Him. [See Sermon #2493, Volume 42--"A MAN NAMED
   MATTHEW"]
     __________________________________________________________________

The Water and the Blood

   (No. 3311)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 18, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith
   came there out blood and water." John 19:34.

   IT is with much fear and trembling that I usually stand upon this
   platform--not that I shrink before the face of the multitude however
   large, but the weight of the subject which I have continually to bring
   before your minds fills my own soul with awe. And yet it is with more
   than usual anxiety I approach my subject this evening, because although
   it is full of tender interest and touching pathos, I feel that without
   the unction of the Holy Spirit, it would be insipid and unprofitable.
   And yet, on the other hand, with that Divine anointing, it is one of
   the richest topics that can possibly engage our meditation!

   Readers of old theology will have remarked how constantly the fathers
   were accustomed to dwell upon the wounds of Jesus slain. And this fifth
   wound which penetrated His heart was peculiarly attractive to them.
   They said a great many things about it. Some, indeed that were
   fanciful, but other remarks that were truly excellent and well deserve
   to be treasured up. I would it were more the practice of Believers
   nowadays than it is to study the very Person of Christ, as well as the
   Doctrines of the Gospel, and to learn the Divine lessons which are
   discoverable in the wounds of Jesus as well as the sacred admonitions
   bequeathed to us by the words of His mouth.

   One of these old Divines says that Jesus Christ was typified by our
   first father, Adam. As Adam fell asleep, and out of his side Eve was
   taken, so Jesus slept upon the Cross, the sleep of death, and from His
   side, where the spear was thrust, His Church was taken. He who redeemed
   us unto God by His blood, formed us as a peculiar people for Himself.
   The Church is one with Him--she came out of His side, and as He looks
   upon her, He can say--"You are bone of My bone, and flesh of My flesh.
   With My blood have I redeemed you." Others have been pleased to compare
   Christ to the Rock in the wilderness, which was smitten, and this
   spear-thrust is the great cleft in the Rock. You may remember how
   Toplady puts it--

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

   And he clearly has this in view, for the next lines are--

   "Let the water and the blood

   From Your riven side which flowed,

   Be of sin the double cure,

   Cleanse me from its guilt andpower " I do not consider this allusion
   fanciful, nor can I think it distorts the type. Moses hidden in the
   cleft of the rock, that he might see God's Glory, had not a standing
   place one-half so glorious as you and I have when, sheltered in the
   wounds of the Savior slain, we see the glorious Justice and the
   Infinite Love of God reconciled in the Person of the dying Lamb.

   In the course of reading, I have met with some remarkable expressions
   in regard to this great wound of Christ. Some have called it, "a gate
   of Heaven." Why should I object to the title? Do we not enter into
   Heaven through the wounds of Jesus? It is, of course, a metaphorical
   expression, yet quite allowable. If the teaching is that there is no
   other way of access to God except through the torn veil of Christ's
   body--and that veil was torn in two, indeed, when the soldier with the
   spear pierced His side--we may, without straining the thought, call
   that wound one of the gates of Heaven. Another calls it "a celestial
   window, a window of Paradise," and we have versified that idea in one
   of our own familiar sonnets--

   "Look through Jesus' wounds on me;

   Him, and then the sinner see."

   Another writer, carried away by the consideration of this spear-thrust,
   calls it "a palace of refuge." A palace! Surely, never kings had such
   an one! Solomon's palace of ivory was nothing like it! And what a
   refuge it is! When the poor heart, like the dove hunted by the hawk,
   needs a shelter, if it can fly to Jesus' wounds, it is sheltered from
   all its sins. Well does our song put it--

   "Come, guilty souls, and flee away Like doves to Jesus' wounds! This is
   the welcome Gospel Day, Wherein free Grace abounds."

   1 forget the name of the writer, who, in speaking upon his Master's
   wounds, seems to get so exalted and carried away by the subject that He
   calls this wound "the sacred wellhead of the rivers of golden sand
   which cover all the earth"--two rivers, one of water and the other of
   blood. Two quickening rivers that carry life through the realms of
   death. Two purifying rivers cleansing the Augean stable of this filthy
   world. Two mighty rivers which bear the elect vessels onwards towards
   the sea of everlasting bliss, not one of them suffering shipwreck on
   the voyage, for this mighty river is too deep to have quicksands, too
   broad for the mariner to be cast away upon a rock-bound shore! I like
   the thought, and so let it be--the sacred wellhead of that river of
   more than golden sand--the streams whereof make glad the multitudes of
   God's chosen throughout the earth!

   In this wound of Christ, caused by the soldier, I discern four obvious
   meanings. It has many more, but these four will be enough to occupy our
   attention this evening.

   I. It was THE MARK OF PROPHECY. In order that it might be fully known
   that Jesus Christ was the Messiah that was to come, the Prophets had
   given many marks, all of which must be found in the Person of the Man
   who should be the Great Deliverer. Among the rest was this one that
   John quotes, "A bone of Him shall not be broken." This description
   concerned the paschal lamb, of which it was expressly said by the Lord,
   through Moses, that they were never to break a single bone of it. Its
   joints were to be separated after it had been roasted with fire, but
   not a bone was to be snapped. Now, if Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God's
   Passover, it is necessary that He should never have a broken bone. And
   yet it looked as if His bones would be broken. The rough soldier
   brought up a great iron crowbar and, with an awful blow, smashed the
   legs of the poor thief who hung on one side of our Lord, but half-dead,
   in order to hasten his dissolution. It was a strange thing that he
   passed by Christ, who was in the middle. I know not what it was that
   made him do so-- whether some flash of majesty beamed from that dead
   face, or whether some singular instinct checked his arm. But he went
   and administered the dreadful blow to the thief on the other side. And
   now he came to Christ and perhaps raised the iron rod--when he saw that
   He was already dead! His head was hanging down upon His bosom and the
   man saw clearly that there was no need to administer the deathblow to
   Him. It was a strange thing that his hands should be so restrained. The
   soldiers of that day were wanton enough. They were just as likely as
   not to have broken the bones even though the man were dead--but Divine
   Prophecy must have it so and, therefore, not a bone of Jesus can be
   broken!

   And then the Prophet Zechariah had said concerning the Messiah, "They
   shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for
   Him as one mourns for his only son." Now up till that moment our Lord
   had not been pierced, except as to His hands and feet, and this would
   scarcely have been a carrying out of the word, "pierced." Somebody
   would have said, "Well, but He never was pierced so as to cause His
   death--there was no such piercing as the text indicates." But now that
   the soldier, moved by the mysterious impulse, lifts his lance and
   thrusts it deep into the side of Christ--now did Prophecy set its mark
   upon Christ--now did history identify Him--the Man without broken bones
   yet the Man whose side was pierced! Him for whom Israel should one day
   mourn! Him whom His enemies should one day confess to be their King!

   My dear Brothers and Sisters, has it ever struck you with admiring
   wonder that Jesus Christ should answer to Prophecies so complicated and
   types so manifold--should answer even with coincidences the most minute
   to them all? It would be almost impossible to count the types of Christ
   which are given in the Old Testament. It would, perhaps, be easy to
   count the prophecies, but very difficult for anybody to form a
   character in which all these should be blended and fulfilled! It has
   been said that if you were to give all these types and all these
   prophecies to the wisest of men of all ages, and say to them, "You are
   required to compile a biography of a man who shall answer to all
   these," they must certainly give up in despair! You can find men who
   will make a key to fit any lock--by diligence of labor, no matter how
   complicated the mechanism may be, the thing may at last be done. But I
   will defy all the wisdom that ever was in humanity to form a

   key that will fit the exceedingly complex words of all the types of the
   Old Testament and all its prophecies! How palpable then the evidence
   is. Our Lord Jesus Christ answers to them all. Just as the stamp in the
   wax answers to the seal that stamped it, the Providence that transpired
   corresponds with the predictions that forestalled His course! He went
   as it was written of Him! There He is and He fulfils types that look
   the most opposite and prophecies which seem to run counter to one
   another!

   If anybody thinks that the stories told by the four Evangelists are
   spurious, I would suggest to him to go and write a fifth--to try to
   write another that would as much correspond with the Old Testament--and
   with the other four, as those four do with the Old Testament and with
   each other! And when that task was done, I would then give him another
   problem to solve before he could have reasonable ground for suspicion
   that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah. Account for the incredulity
   of the Jews in the presence of those evidences that have produced
   conviction among the Gentiles upon any other hypotheses than that which
   ratifies their own Scripture! If the Old Testament is the Word of God,
   it seems marvelous to us that men do not receive Jesus as being the
   Shiloh that was to come, the promised Messiah, the Prince of the kings
   of the earth! Jewish unbelief amazes us! Yet I suppose if we judged
   aright, our own lack of faith in Jesus, notwithstanding the rational
   credit we give to His mission as a popular creed, is still more
   amazing! If that is gross unbelief which rejects Christ, while
   acknowledging the Old Testament, what shall I say of you who refuse
   allegiance to Him and yet profess to believe both the Old and the New?
   If they that receive the first yet stumble at the second, what shall I
   say of those who receive both and yet, over the head of this double
   belief professed, give not their hearts to the Crucified Son of God,
   and put not their trust in the merit of His precious blood, but still
   continue afar off from Him by wicked works?

   Some time ago, when in Italy, at a town on the Italian side of the
   Alps, I saw one Sunday afternoon, in a quiet walk alone, a sight which
   struck me very much and which remains fixed upon my memory. There was
   outside the town a mountain and the way up the sides of which were
   different representations of the progress of our Lord, from the Garden
   where Judas betrayed Him to the place of His Resurrection. The figures
   were as large as life, carved in either stone or wood, and painted to
   imitate nature. When I got to the very summit of the hill, there was a
   church. There was no one in it and I pushed open the door and went in.
   All was still. It was a large building and all around it were images of
   the Prophets and the Apostles. There stood Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel
   and all the rest--one knew the usual portraits of them. And up in the
   dome, at the very top of the church, was a large and striking image of
   the Savior. Now, what struck me about the church was this--that the
   images of those Prophets and Apostles who stood there had their fingers
   all pointed upwards, so that, when I went in, I could not help looking
   up to the top to see what they were pointing at! All round the church
   there were the words, in Latin, "Moses and the Prophets spoke
   concerning Him." And there stood Moses and the Prophets, carved in
   stone, and all pointing to Him! Isaiah had a little scroll in his hand
   on which was written, "The Lord has made to meet on Him the iniquity of
   us all." Jeremiah had a scroll in his hand, on which was written,
   "Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is
   done unto Me." I think the church just represented the Truth in that
   case. It is even so. All the Prophets stand as a complete circle of
   distinct testifiers and, with uplifted fingers, they all concur with
   John the Baptist when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which takes
   away the sin of the world." They all point to Christ. If you read the
   life of Christ and then read what they said of Him, you will be
   persuaded that this is He which was to come!

   II. But to pass on, we may look upon the spear-thrust in the side of
   Christ as THE ESCUTCHEON OF SHAME.

   While our Lord lived, He was the subject of every form of scorn. He was
   scourged as none but a felon might be according to the Roman Law. He
   was spat upon and mocked, as even a felon ought not to have been. That
   crown of thorns, that reed scepter and that old scarlet cloak--who
   could have invented a more shameful insignia for One who was greater
   than all the kings on the earth but who was brought exceedingly low?
   And our Lord's death, itself, was a great portion of His shame. It was
   a shame for Him to die--and ignominy for Him to die the death of
   hanging on the Cross. Heraldry has so emblazoned the symbol that we do
   not ordinarily apprehend the real shame to which Christ was exposed.
   Were I to preach to you tonight that a certain man who was hanged was
   very God, people would begin to say, "Why do you preach of one who died
   on the gallows as a felon?" Literally and truly, that is just how Jesus
   Christ died, according to the customs of His times. Crucifixion was to
   the Romans what hanging is to us, only it was worse. It was more
   shameful, for crucifixion was reserved for the very worst of crimes.
   Not all murderers were so punished, but only the worst and vilest
   crimes with murder to aggravate them received this opprobrious doom.
   People hang crosses round their necks and wear them as ornaments--I
   wonder whether they would make ornaments of gallows? Yet it means that.
   It is just the same thing and this is the shame of Christ. This is the
   very shame in which Paul rejoiced and gloried, that Jesus Christ was
   not ashamed to be ashamed! That He was willing to be made ashamed and a
   curse for us! That He was content to be treated with all the scorn that
   human malignity and inhuman cruelty could heap upon Him!

   But, Beloved, when Christ was dead, they might certainly have ceased
   from their scorn. But no, the brutal Roman soldiers were not very nice
   as to what they did with living bodies. They would not, therefore, be
   particular as to what they did with dead bodies! Therefore this
   soldier, in a mere freak of wanton brutality, thrust his lance into the
   Savior's heart. It was the last kick of the old enemy. It was, as it
   were, the last of the spit from the foul mouth of human slander and
   hatred. It was the last thrust that human malice could give to the Lord
   of Life and Glory! I see in this the mark, the crowning emblem of the
   shame which He endured.

   Well, and what then? Why, it should teach us, dear Friends, what a
   shameful thing sin must be! For, though Christ was no sinner, yet when
   our sins were laid upon Him, look how God treated Him and permitted Him
   to be treated as an outcast--to be covered with the utmost shame! Ah
   Sin, what a shameful thing you must be! Blush, Christian, that you
   should be guilty of it. Blush again, that you do not blush more often!
   Be ashamed that you are not ashamed of sin, and be offended that your
   heart should be so stolid over a thing so detestable.

   Another thought springs up, namely, that if Christ was put to so much
   shame for us, how glad we ought to be if we are sometimes allowed to be
   put to shame for Him! Oh, there are some people who cannot bear
   shame--they can endure anything else but ridicule and laughter! As John
   Bunyan says, "of all villains, Shame is the most shameless for he will
   go and make sport and fun of the Christian's virtues and mock at that
   which he ought to admire." Well, child of God, supposing today you have
   your face spat upon for Christ? 'Twere scarcely worthwhile to wipe it
   off! Ah, if you had to live a dying life, to be thrown in a dungeon, or
   to live upon the rack--as long as it was done for Him who bore all this
   for you--the thought might sweeten the wormwood and turn the gall into
   honey, that you were thus honored to have fellowship with Him in His
   sufferings! I leave that view of this wound of Christ with you, praying
   that it may nerve your hearts with a glorious courage as you see Jesus
   thus shamefully wounded for you.

   III. This lance wound was THE SEAL OF DEATH UPON OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
   His enemies were so determined to put Him to death that they dragged
   His life out of its principal organ and then they pierced it, namely,
   the heart. It was not possible that Jesus Christ could have lived
   another moment longer, even had He been alive at that time--but when
   the heart was touched, death must come. Those who understand anatomy
   tell us that the pericardium around the heart was pierced and they say
   that from that there flowed the blood and the water. But I am extremely
   doubtful whether the pericardium in any state whatever could have
   yielded a sufficient quantity of lymph, for though there is water
   there, there is only a small quantity. In the state in which our Savior
   was, blood and water might have been found naturally in His heart, but
   only in a very small and infinitesimal quantity. The fountain that
   flowed from there was miraculous, not natural but supernatural--or if
   natural, yet so exalted and so increased in quantity as to become in
   itself supernatural.

   Certainly, however, the piercing of His heart was the indication to all
   mankind that "He was dead already." Now, little as that may seem in the
   eyes of those of you who do not love Him, it is a most important thing
   to those who trust Him, for remember, if Jesus Christ had not died, you
   and I would have perished! It was of no use for our expiation that He
   sweat great drops of blood unless He had perfected the Sacrifice. The
   Law required if-- if Christ had not laid down His life, the Law would
   have required ours. In due time, our souls would have been cast into
   the Second Death on account of sin if Jesus had not died, actually and
   truly died. But we are quite sure about it now, for His heart was
   pierced. Indeed, I may say that this is the one keystone of the whole
   Gospel system, for if Jesus did not die then, we have no Resurrection.
   If He died not then, He did not rise--and if we have no evidence of
   Resurrection, the whole of our religion becomes a lie! But, Brothers
   and Sisters, He did die. His soul left His body. That corpse that was
   taken by Joseph of Arima-thaea was as lifeless as any that was ever
   committed to the sepulcher! And He did rise again, in proof to us that
   we who die and those we have parted with on the confines of this mortal
   life who are, alas, all truly dead, shall certainly rise again and in
   their flesh shall see God! This is a simple Truth of God for you to
   hear, perhaps, but never did angel have such weighty news to tell as I
   have told you tonight--that God was made flesh--the very God that made
   Heaven and earth took upon Himself our nature and as such He died,
   literally died for us! The God-Man, the Mediator, Jesus of Na-

   zareth, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, died, was crucified and had
   His heart pierced for us! And if we depend upon this, we may rest
   secure. If He died, then we need not die! If He died for us, then we
   cannot die the Second Death. If Jesus was punished in our place, the
   sting of death is taken away, the Law is satisfied and every soul that
   believes in Him shall have eternal life!

   IV. But I cannot tarry longer upon that and, therefore, I come to the
   fourth point. This heart wound of Christ is also to be called THE
   SOURCE OF PURITY. The text tells us that there issued from it a double
   flood of blood and water. We are not at a loss to explain this because
   the Apostle John, in his Epistle, has told us that our Lord "came by
   water and blood; not by water only, but by water and blood," and he
   explains it by the connection that Christ came into the world by blood
   to take away the guilt of sin, and by water to take away the power of
   sin--by blood to remove the punishment,

   by water to remove the filth. [See Sermon #3252, Volume 57--"BY WATER
   AND BLOOD."]

   Now, dear Friends, let us say that there is no blood and no water that
   can wash away sin anywhere but in Christ. All the blood of bulls could
   not take away sin, though offered by Aaron, himself, the father of the
   Levitical priesthood! And all the water in the world, though
   consecrated by bishops, cardinals and popes, cannot take away a single
   spot of iniquity! The only blood that can cleanse us from God's wrath
   is the blood of Jesus Christ, Himself, and the only water that can wash
   out of us the damning stain of sin is the water which came from Jesus
   Christ's heart! If you want to be thus doubly washed, go to the Son of
   God for the washing! Go nowhere else, I pray you, for every other trust
   is but a delusion and a lie. Jesus Christ can put away the guilt of
   every sin. Though you have been a drunk, an adulterer, a whoremonger, a
   thief, a murderer, yet the blood of Jesus Christ can wash you from the
   accumulated filth of years--and the water from Christ's side can take
   away your propensities to sin, change your nature and make you holy
   instead of filthy--can make you pure in heart instead of polluted in
   spirit! Nothing else can do it. No lie was ever more extraordinary than
   the lie that baptismal water can regenerate the soul! I marvel more and
   more that I should find myself living in an age of such idiots and have
   almost come to think that Carlyle was right when he spoke of our nation
   as "Consisting of twenty million people, mostly fools." So it seems to
   be, or else such a dogma as this would have been kicked out of the
   universe years since--and banished once and forever to the limbo of
   lunacy as an outrage on common sense! Is God the Holy Spirit confined
   to water, as that the priest's dropping it on the child's brow can work
   regeneration in the child's soul? Believe it not, it is a foul lie! But
   hold you to this--that which alone can work regeneration is the water
   from the side of Christ--and when faith can get that, and trust that,
   the matter is done! Faith relies upon the sacred double flood! Then the
   heart is renewed, the man is changed, the soul is saved by Jesus
   Christ!

   Remember, too, that the water and the blood flowed from the same place
   and flowed together And, therefore, if a man would be saved, He must
   have the two. Tens of thousands would like to escape from Hell, but
   they have no wish to escape from sin. Are there not multitudes who are
   very anxious to get rid of the punishment, but are not at all concerned
   to be delivered from the habit of iniquity? Oh, yes, the drunk would
   gladly be forgiven, but he would like to keep to his tippling. Yes, the
   lecherous man would gladly have his constitution restored and his
   iniquity blotted out, but he must go to his dens of infamy again! Such
   is not the religion of Christ The religion of Christ demands of us that
   if we take Christ, we should take Him for the double purpose--pardon
   for past sins and to deliver from sins to come. I think it was Celsus,
   the ancient philosopher, who jeered at the great Christian advocates,
   saying, "Your Master, Christ, receives all the filth of the universe
   into His Church! He tells you to go about to find out thieves, drunks,
   harlots and such like, and to tell them to come to Him! Your religion
   is nothing better than a hospital into which you thrust lepers." "Yes,"
   said he who argued with him, "you have spoken well. We do receive them
   as into a hospital, but we heal them, Sir, we heal them! And while into
   the one door the spiritually and morally blind, cripples, and maimed
   come in as they are, the Great Physician touches them with His Grace
   and cleanses them with the water and the blood--and they are not what
   they were any longer."

   Now, am I addressing one man who feels that he is saved by faith, and
   yet he is sinning as he used to do? Give up that belief, Sir, or it
   will ruin you! I pray you do not indulge in it, for it is a delusion of
   Satan! Do I address one man who has a hope that perhaps he can so trust
   Christ as to be saved, and yet continue to live in his own wicked way?
   If anyone has told you that, he has told you a lie! Rest assured that
   you are mistaken! Christ never came to be the minister of sin. He came
   to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins. He will forgive us all
   manner of iniquities, but not if we love the iniq-

   uity and continue in it! If you hug sin to your bosom, the viper will
   sting you--and no power, either human or Divine-- can extract the
   poison unless the viper, itself, is taken away. You must have both the
   water and the blood--and I pray that you may have both.

   Now, Christians, I have done when I have put to you one question.
   Answer it and answer it truthfully. It is this-- Beloved Friends, have
   you got such a hold of Christ as you should have in His double capacity
   as your Pardoner and your Sanctifier? I know you plead the blood for
   your remission. I know that is all your hope. I know that the blood of
   Christ is your comfort and your hope, but have you got the water quite
   as fully? You have a bad temper, perhaps. Well, it is a pitiable
   circumstance, but surely, if Christ can forgive a bad temper, He can
   remove a bad temper, too! Did you ever bring your bad temper to Christ
   to have it washed away with the water? You should have done so, for He
   can do it. Perhaps you have got an envious spirit--a murmuring spirit?
   Naturally so, you are generally depressed and downhearted. Did you ever
   believe in the power of Christ to kill envy and to lift you up above
   murmuring? You should do so. You believe that Christ can forgive this
   sin. Well, that is through the power of the blood--but do you think
   that the water is less potent than the blood--that Christ can forgive
   what He cannot subdue? Oh, think not so! Think as well of the Spirit
   and His sanctifying power as of Christ and His justifying
   righteousness!

   "Well," says one, "I have a besetting sin which I do not think I shall
   ever quite overcome," My dear Brother, why not? It strikes me that the
   Christian ought to get his greatest victories from his weakest
   points--and if you have a besetting sin, I think you ought to be
   distinguished by its opposite virtue! I do not know that it was so, but
   I always have a notion that Moses was, by his natural constitution, a
   thoroughly quick-tempered man. I think so from the fact that when he
   saw the Egyptian smiting the Israelite, he did not stop a minute, but
   he slew him at once and hid him in the sand. That looks to me to be the
   breaking out of the real Moses. But what did he become by the Grace of
   God? Why, after his spirit was subdued, he became the meekest of men
   and often was quiet where you and I would have spoken! Now, why should
   it not be so with us? It strikes me that the worst-tempered man who
   becomes a Christian ought to make this a strong point and to strive to
   become the best-tempered. There are some Christians who naturally have
   a little weakness in their hand and cannot open it well. If they get a
   little money in it, they are very apt to get their joints tied together
   very tightly! But, when Divine Grace comes in, I think they should try
   to defeat the devil by being more than ordinarily generous--so that,
   whereas other Christians might be content to give less, they say to
   Satan--"O my enemy, you have held me in bondage in this way, but in
   wherever else you may get the upper hand of me, you never shall in
   this, for I will take care that whenever you tell me not to give a
   shilling, I will give two in order to let you see that you are no
   master of mine and that I have got rid of the foul sin of stinginess!"
   Do let us, each one, act upon this great Truth of God, that as Christ
   has the power to forgive us our sin, so He also has the power to
   cleanse it away!

   And, my dear Brothers and Sisters, let us get closer to Christ! Let us
   be bedewed more often than we have been before with the water and with
   the blood! Let us live in the spirit of this double purification and be
   it ours to find this blessed stream lead us right up to the heart of
   Christ, from which it flowed, that we may understand the everlasting
   love which dwells there deep in its eternal fountains--and may rejoice
   and be glad in it all our days!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN19:23-37.

   Verse 23. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His
   garments. They had already stripped Him, no element of shame was
   lacking in His substitution for us. He stooped as low as our sins could
   have thrust us that He might bring us up from the very depths of
   degradation and shame!

   23, 24. Andmade four parts, to every soldier a part, andalso His coat:
   now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout They said
   therefore among themselves, Let us not ear it, but cast lots for it,
   whose it shall be: that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says,
   They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast
   lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. Quite unaware of the
   ancient prophecy, yet in complete accord with Divine Predestination,
   these soldiers did exactly according to the eternal purposes of God! It
   is very amazing how, in practice, the free agency of man tallies
   exactly with the Predestination of God. We need not enquire how it is,
   but we may admire that it is so. "These things therefore the soldiers
   did," yet the motive which swayed them was not the fulfillment of the
   Divine

   Will, but simply the common sense thought that it would be a pity to
   spoil such a garment by tearing it and partly, also, by that innate
   love of gambling which is found everywhere, in every age, so that often
   men would sooner run the hazard of winning all than take the safe one
   fourth which might fall to their lot! Let us reverently adore the whole
   scheme of Providence by which God's determinate purpose is carried out
   in every jot and tittle, while the free agency of man is left
   unfettered.

   25. Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus, His mother, and His mother's
   sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. These gracious
   women stood by the Cross. We call them the feebler sex, but we must
   grant that they are the stronger of the two in anything which has to do
   with pure disinterested love. Yield the first place to them.

   26. When Jesus therefore saw His mother.Here was another pang for
   Him--He could not be spared anywhere. He must recollect in His death
   everything that would cause Him grief--"When Jesus therefore saw His
   mother"--

   26, 27. And the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He said unto His
   mother. Woman, behold your son! Then said He to the disciple, Behold
   your mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own
   home. There was no specific direction given to John to entertain Mary.
   It was quite enough for the Lord to call his attention to her by saying
   "Behold your mother." How I wish we were always in such a state of
   heart that we did not need specific precepts, but a hint would suffice.
   Dear Friends, do not need pressing or driving to holy duty! Be not as
   bulls that must be goaded, but rather have within you such a spring of
   love that it shall be a delight to do anything that may give joy to the
   heart of the Well-Beloved! When you see Him on the Cross, is there
   anything you can deny Him? Will you not think spontaneously of what you
   can do to please Him?

   28. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished,
   that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst.There was yet a
   little more to be done--all the great things were accomplished, but He
   would keep even the least particles of prophecy, so He cried, "I
   thirst."

   29. 30. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a
   sponge with vinegar, andput it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth.
   When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar--He did receive that. He
   had refused the drugged draught which they had first offered to Him to
   lull His pain, but He accepted this, which was simply weak wine, no
   doubt a little sour, possibly bitter. When He "had received the
   vinegar"--

   30. He said, It is finished: andHe bowedHis head, and gave up the ghost
   [See Sermon #421, Volume 7--it is finished and #2344,

   Volume 40--CHRIST'S DYING WORD FOR HIS CHURCH.] Incarnate Love has

   fulfilled its self-imposed task! Jesus, as the Substitute for sinners,
   was condemned to die and He died that He might finish the work of our
   Redemption--

   "'It is Finished.'

   Hear the dying Savior cry."

   31. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies
   should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath
   day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken,
   and that they might be taken away.To prevent a ceremonial error, they
   are willing to commit brutal cruelty! Indeed, they had already
   committed the more brutal cruelty of putting Christ to death. How
   particular some men are about some merely human rubric--yet the Divine
   precepts of the Law they violate with impunity! God save us from a
   conscience which will stick at some minute point which is of no
   consequence, but will allow us to commit great sin! We have heard of a
   Spanish bandit who confessed to his priest, after having murdered a
   great many persons, not his robberies and his murders, but the fact
   that a drop of blood had spurted on his lips on a Friday, and thus he
   had defiled the feast day by taking animal food! Ah me, conscience is a
   strange thing, yet some call it "the vicegerent of God." I believe it
   is no such thing, but that it very soon becomes as depraved as any
   other power of the human mind! We have need of far more than conscience
   to keep us right.

   32. Then came the soldiers, and broke the legs of the first, and of the
   other which was crucified with Him.With a huge iron bar smashing the
   great bones of their legs.

   33. 34. But when they came to Jesus, andsaw that He was deadalready,
   they broke not His legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
   His side and forthwith there came out blood and water. See how, even
   after death, His heart its tribute poured out for us. We have not only
   the love of Christ's heart blessing us while He lives, but after He
   died there was the stream of blood and water to cleanse us from sin's
   guilt and power!

   35-37. And hie that saw it bares record, and his record is true: and he
   knows that he is telling the truth, that you might believe. For these
   things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, a bone of Him
   shall not be broken. And again another Scripture says, They shall look
   on Him whom they pierced. [See Sermon #1956, Volume 33--on the cross
   after

   DEATH.]
     __________________________________________________________________

The Carpenter's Son and His Relations

   (No. 3312)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY
   20, 1866.

   "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And
   His brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters,
   are they not all with us? Where, then, has this Man all these things?"
   Matthew 13:55,56.

   WHEN our Savior was upon this earth, there were some persons who,
   having had their eyes Divinely opened, could see His true beauty and
   who admired His every action and said, "He has done all things well."
   But there were others whose eyes were blinded by sin, malice and
   prejudice who could see nothing good in Him at all. Because He ate and
   drank as other men did, they said, "Behold a gluttonous Man and a
   winebibber." They said that His zeal was only pretence or else
   madness--and when He cast out evil spirits by His Almighty Power, they
   said, "He casts out devils through the chief of the devils." There were
   some who wondered at His wisdom and His mighty works and who did not
   know whether to consider Him a Prophet of God or a Divine Being. But
   there were others who could only see the carpenter's human son, whose
   mother's name was Mary and whose brothers and sisters were all
   well-known, ordinary people. The language of the text is the language
   of many who are living today--for while others see in Christ everything
   to admire--these quib-blers see no beauty in Him and put Him on a level
   with others with whom they are acquainted.

   It seems to me that we have here two views of Christ's Person--the
   estimation of Prejudice and the estimation of Piety. And two views of
   Christ's relations, in which we also have the estimation of Prejudice
   and the estimation of Piety.

   I. First, we will consider THE TWO VIEWS OF CHRIST'S PERSON--the view
   of Prejudice and the view of Piety.

   Prejudice could not dispute the fact of Christ's wisdom and mighty
   works, so it sought to disparage Him by saying, "After all, He is only
   a carpenter's son, just the son of an ordinary artisan. Shall a Prophet
   rise up from among the chips in the carpenter's shop? Shall we sit at
   the feet of the Man who is simply a toiler at the carpenter's bench?"
   Prejudice may seem very wise in its own esteem, but it is really very
   foolish. To be prejudiced against a truth because of the lowly origin
   of Him who proclaims it is most manifest folly! Is a pearl to be
   rejected because it was found in a shell that is itself of no value?
   Would not a wise man pick up a diamond from a dunghill if he saw one
   flashing there? Even if the occupation of a carpenter had been a
   degrading one, which it certainly was not, yet, if his son has
   something to say that is worth hearing, is he not a fool who will not
   listen to it because it is uttered by the carpenter's son? If from the
   lips of Jesus of Nazareth a stream of Divine Wisdom was poured forth,
   is it not most flagrant folly to refuse to receive it because He was
   reputed to be the son of Joseph the carpenter? If He speaks as no other
   man ever spoke. If His Doctrine is more sublime than that of any other
   teacher. If the morality which He inculcates is more pure and more
   heavenly than that of any other leader of men, what matters it that He
   is the carpenter's son?--

   "He whom man with scorn refuses, Whom the favored nation hates, He it
   is Jehovah chooses, Him the highest place awaits! Kings and princes
   Shall do homage at His gates."

   But while Prejudice is thus very foolish, it is also very frequent.
   There are many persons who put an extinguisher on the candle and then
   try to light it. For instance, in listening to a certain preacher, they
   make up their mind that he cannot say anything that can be beneficial
   to them--and then they wonder that they are not edified! It would be a
   wonder if

   they were! Those who hear the Word only to cavil at it will probably be
   left to cavil to their life's end, for while the Spirit of God explains
   difficulties to the sincere seeker after the Truth of God, those
   difficulties which men, themselves, make often lead them to make more
   and more so that they continually plunge deeper and yet deeper in the
   mire. But what a dreadful thing it is that prejudice makes men even
   object to the Gospel of Christ! They say that it is so simple, so
   commonplace that it will not do for them. I have heard some who ought
   to know better say, when they have heard the simple Gospel preached,
   "Oh, yes! 'Believe and live' is a very proper message to the multitude,
   but something more profound than that is needed for thinking men!"
   Meaning themselves, as if they were the only thoughtful people in the
   world. Well, Sirs, if you are prejudiced against the Gospel because of
   its simplicity, may God disarm that prejudice and bring you to see that
   it is its simplicity which is its Glory and which makes it that means
   of rescuing sinners from the ruin into which their guilt has sunk them!

   Prejudice against Christ is also exceedingly sinful. If it really is
   true that He is the Son of God, it is very shameful that He should not
   have a hearing because He stooped as low as to become "the carpenter's
   son." If the magnificence of His benevolence led Him to empty Himself
   and to be despised and rejected of men, shall the splendor of His love
   close my ears to the message of salvation that He sends to me? That He
   who was One with His Father in Glory should condescend to lie as a Baby
   in Bethlehem's manger and to go about among men as the reputed son of
   the carpenter of Nazareth is cause for reverence, for admiration, for
   love, for gratitude! Yet some for this very reason are prejudiced
   against Him! If the Gospel had been suitable only to philosophers and
   men of learning, what a vast majority of mankind would have been left
   without any hope of salvation! Shall that Almighty Grace which has made
   it a Gospel suitable to all classes and conditions of men become a
   reason why prejudice shall turn its back upon it? Surely it is better
   to be saved by "the carpenter's Son" than to be lost--better to enter
   Heaven through Him who was "despised and rejected of men" than to be
   shut up in Hell through not believing in Him! Better to receive a crown
   of life from the hand of Him who was crucified on Calvary than to
   receive the sentence of condemnation from the mouth of the Judge when
   He sits upon the Great White Throne in all the Glory of His Father and
   of His holy angels!

   If any of you, dear Friends, have a prejudice against any form of
   Scriptural Truth, I pray you to shake it off. We are all apt to be
   prejudiced in one way or another, and it needs great Grace to keep us
   clear of the evil, so let us be on our guard against it. Give the
   Gospel a fair consideration and very especially and impartially weigh
   in the scales of sound judgment the Doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice
   of Christ. Sit down at the foot of the Cross and study the wounds of
   Je-sus--and do not pour contempt and scorn upon Him until you have
   found good reason to do so--and that I am sure you never will do. Shake
   off all prejudice, again I entreat you, for it is a deadly disease
   which may prove eternally fatal to you.

   Now let us turn away from Prejudice and see what Piety thinks
   concerning Christ. As Piety asks, "Is not this the carpenter's son?"
   she admires His condescension. Piety is not ashamed of Jesus of
   Nazareth even though she supposes that He worked in the carpenter's
   shop. On the contrary, she is full of admiration for the Son of God who
   stooped so low as to be known as the son of Joseph and who, in that
   capacity, was obedient to His earthly parents and assisted in the
   manual labor in which the carpenter engaged. Piety does not think any
   the less of the Savior because He wore the garb of a wor-kingman, but
   she considers it to be to His honor that He laid aside His honor! And
   she regards Him as having more Glory when He laid aside His Glory than
   when He wore it! I long to see my Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven, but I
   think I would almost as gladly have seen Him in the carpenter's shop. I
   delight in the thought that I shall see Him on the Throne of God, but I
   sometimes wish that I could have seen Him on the Cross, for it was
   there that His love reached its climax as He bore our sins in His own
   body on the tree!

   Piety is all the more pleased with Christ because when He condescended
   to be a Man, He joined the working classes. There are and always will
   be, and very properly so, different social grades among men, but the
   difference between a carpenter and a gentleman is, to my mind, so
   slight that I cannot perceive it. We are all very much alike when we
   are sitting in the House of God, and when we are lying upon the bed of
   sickness--and especially when we are sleeping in the silent tomb. Yet,
   if our Savior had come to this earth as one of the upper classes of
   society, I can fancy my lords and ladies saying, "Oh, yes! We have much
   fellowship with the King of the Jews as we think how He rode through
   Jerusalem in His gorgeous chariot of State attended by such a brilliant
   retinue!" But I can imagine how working men might then have said, "He
   has little or nothing in common with us. He does not know what it is to
   earn His daily bread by hard manual

   labor." But "the carpenter's son" says, "Oh, yes! I do know that and I
   understand your ways, and I am more familiar with poverty than many of
   you are! Most, if not all of you, have a home to go to when your day's
   work is done, but I had not where to lay My head, so you are better off
   than I was." Jesus of Nazareth can fully sympathize with the poorest of
   the poor, yet at the same time He is higher than the highest in the
   land, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords! Those who have the
   greatest intellectual power may well sit at His feet, for He is
   Incarnate Wisdom! And the feeblest and poorest may draw near to Him
   even as they did when He was upon the earth. We who toil mentally and
   you who toil physically may rejoice that Christ also was a toiler. When
   I see a notice about sermons to working men, I think to myself, "Well,
   whoever else is or is not a workingman, I know that I am one and that I
   work very hard." It is quite a mistake to suppose that those of us who
   do not carry burdens on our backs, or follow the plow, or wield an axe
   do not, therefore, work! The most wearing kind of work is that which
   has to do with the brain and the mind, so I claim the Savior as having
   fellowship with me! And you workers who have His name, have Him all the
   better because He also was a worker! He was no lazy lie-abed, He was
   not one who slept and dawdled away His time. He toiled at the
   carpenter's bench and afterwards He said of His life's service, "I must
   work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day." "My meat is to do
   the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work."

   Piety is grateful to Christ for being "the carpenter's son" because she
   recollects that He is the type of the Kingdom which He governs. When
   the carnal eye looks at Christ, it sees only a carpenter--but the
   spiritual eye can see "the King in His beauty" in the garb of a
   workingman. He who saws the wood and guides the plane and drives the
   nails is the Great Creator, without whom was not anything made that was
   made! What was true of Christ is in a measure true of His Church and of
   His Gospel, too. The Church of Christ often appears to be merely a
   company of obscure and insignificant folk, yet that Church is "the
   bride, the Lamb's wife," and that Gospel which is often despised
   because of its simplicity is "the power of God unto salvation to
   everyone that believes." The outward show of the spiritual Kingdom is
   very little even as it was when Christ was known as the son of a
   carpenter, yet all the while He was the Son of God from Heaven. I do
   not know if I can get this Truth of God into the mind of every
   Christian here, but I should like to do so. The outward form of the
   Christian Church and the mere letter of Gospel Doctrine may appear to
   be poor and mean--just so--it is the Carpenter's Church and the
   Carpenter's Gospel, but "the carpenter's son" was the Son of God, and
   as He is in His Church we may say of it, "Jehovah-Shammah," "The Lord
   Is There," and the preaching of the Gospel is no mere repetition of the
   dull, dead letter, but it is God marching forth in Majesty proclaiming
   mercy to every sinner who believes in His Son, Jesus Christ! Be you
   content to remain unknown Christian--this is the Carpenter's
   Kingdom--the Kingdom of the King in His Glory is yet to be revealed--

   "It does not yet appear

   How great we must be made!

   But when we see our Savior here,

   We shall be like our Head."

   "Is not this the carpenter's son?" Yes, it is, but there is a Divine
   splendor concealed beneath that lowly form! Some of the early fathers
   and old writers used to delight in expressing strange ideas concerning
   "the carpenter's son." Julian the apostate, as he is called, once asked
   a certain Christian, "What do you think the carpenter's son is doing
   now?" "Making coffins for you and for all His enemies," was the prompt
   reply. If that is not literally what He is doing, we may depend upon it
   that it will go ill with those who say of Him, "We will not have this
   Man to reign over us," for we remember the solemn conclusion of the
   parable of the pounds, "Those Mine enemies, which would not that I
   should reign over them, bring here and slay them before Me." One old
   writer says, "Christ was a Carpenter and a rare Carpenter, too, for He
   made a ladder that reaches all the way from earth to Heaven--and up
   that ladder souls are continually ascending to the palace which He has
   gone to prepare for them!" That is a quaint way of describing how
   Christ has bridged the gulf between guilty sinners and their offended
   God by His atoning Sacrifice! Happy are they who not only admire the
   ladder, but who trust themselves upon it and so are brought safely home
   to God in Glory!

   II. Now, in the second place, we are to consider THE TWO VIEWS OF
   CHRIST'S RELATIONS. And again we

   shall speak of the view of Prejudice and the view of Piety.

   These men were not content with asking questions about Christ, Himself,
   but they also made enquiries concerning His relations. They said, "Is
   not His mother called Mary?" She was a very excellent woman who was
   highly honored in

   being the mother of Jesus, but there seems to be something of disdain
   or contempt in the question, "Is not His mother called Mary?" Then
   there were His brothers--very commonplace sort of folk, the questioner
   seemed to imply. "Why!" said one, "I know all of them! James, and
   Joses, and Simon, and Judas, but who are they?" "Well," said another,
   "I know His sisters, and there is nothing remarkable about them, so
   there probably is nothing special about Him. Look at His relations,
   what are they but just a carpenter's wife and family? It is true that
   they belong to the tribe of Judah and that they are of the house and
   lineage of David, but they are not the kind of people to be invited
   into the upper circles of society! So there is no reason why we should
   take any notice of the carpenter's son."

   Now, that type of prejudice still exists in the world. We do not hear
   much said nowadays against Christ's natural relations, but it is His
   spiritual relations who now come under the ban of Prejudice. "Yes,"
   men, say, "this evangelical Doctrine certainly has a very singular
   power to attract the multitude. In the hands of Luther it worked a very
   remarkable Reformation. It is true that the preaching and writings of
   Calvin carried this Gospel into the hearts of vast numbers of hearers
   and readers--and we see the power it had over great masses of men as it
   was presented to them by Bunyan, Wesley, Whitefield and other popular
   preachers--yet, after all, what is the type of people that is attracted
   by such preaching as this?" Prejudice does not stop to answer its own
   question--it hardly likes to say what it thinks, but what it thinks is
   something like this.

   It thinks, in the first place, that they are a set of very poor people
   and Prejudice considers that to be one of the worst things you can say
   of them. In the estimation of those who are prejudiced in this fashion,
   poverty is regarded as almost worse than crime! A man may be guilty of
   nearly every form of iniquity, but as long as he is rich, nothing is
   said against him. Yet, if another possesses every virtue, but in
   addition to that is poor, Prejudice has not a word to say in his favor!
   We need not be greatly concerned at this, for we remember that our
   blessed Master said concerning His own ministry, "the poor have the
   Gospel preached to them." If He was glad to have them in His
   congregation, we also may rejoice if the poor are found among our
   hearers and among those who are children of God by faith in Christ
   Jesus!

   Prejudice further says, "Well, if these relations of Christ are not all
   poor, some of them have had very little education." This is a remark
   which I often hear or read, but I certainly have failed to discover any
   wonderfully superior education in many of the gentlemen who seem to
   take delight in denying many of the Truths of the faith. I often think
   that if they had been better educated, they would not talk so foolishly
   as they sometimes do when they sneeringly ask, "What do those
   uneducated preachers know?" Well, we might seem to be fools in glorying
   if we replied that if we did not know more than they do of the vital
   Truths of Christianity, we would go to school again and begin to learn
   the A B C of theology! As for the great thinkers of whom they so
   continually prate, we remember that Paul wrote, "Not many wise men
   after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God
   has chosen the foolish, things of the world to confound the wise. .
   .that no flesh should glory in His Presence."

   When these prejudiced people have had our answer upon this point, they
   say that these relations of Christ, meaning thereby those who profess
   to be His followers, are very much like other people who make no
   profession of religion. One says, "I know a member of a certain Church
   who has a very bad temper." Someone else adds, "I know another who does
   not pay his bills." Well, even if this is true, is it surprising that
   there are hypocrites in the Church when there was a Judas even among
   the Apostles? "But," says another, "they are all alike, they are all a
   set of hypocrites." Yet the most prejudiced slanderer knows that he is
   telling a lie when he talks thus. If he would but speak the truth, he
   would be compelled to admit that the Gospel we preach has made harlots
   chaste, drunks sober and thieves honest--and that it is our great aim
   to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." He knows all this, but
   it suits his purpose to shut his eyes to it and only to see, here and
   there, the imperfection that is incidental to manhood, or the hypocrisy
   which no foresight can prevent and which only shows that hypocrites
   will thrust themselves into any place, however holy, except Heaven,
   itself-- and they would enter even there if they could!

   This will suffice as to the view of Prejudice concerning Christ's
   relations. So now let us turn to the view of Piety concerning them.
   Piety says, in the first place, "Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus
   Christ that He should have a mother, and brothers, and sisters here
   below." That ever the Son of God should have condescended to have
   brothers and sisters among the sons of men--and that there now sits
   upon the Throne of God one of a human mother, born, is a subject for
   unceasing joy! My soul seems to expand as I think of it! How wondrously
   our poor humanity is exalted! Angels were never so closely linked with
   Deity as manhood is now. Christ has no mother among the seraphim, no
   brother among the se-

   raphim, and no sister in all the shining ranks of holy angels! But
   looking round upon those whom He has redeemed with His precious blood,
   He says, "Behold, My mother and My brothers and sisters! For whomever
   shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My
   brother and sister and mother."

   In the next place, instead of finding fault with Christ because of the
   imperfections of His relations, Piety sees in their imperfections a
   further reason for blessing Christ. She says, "What? O gracious Savior,
   are Your relations sinners. Have they imperfections and do they make
   mistakes? Then all hail, blessed Savior, that You are not only related
   to humanity, but to sinfulhumanity! And though You are Yourself
   sinless, yet You call sinners Your friends and You are called the
   Friend of Sinners because you receive them and eat with them!" Yes, in
   the sense in which Christ Himself spoke of them, His mother and
   brothers and sisters are still with us--and though they are not all
   that they ought to be, we love Him all the more because He condescends
   to permit such people to be in close relationship to Himself!

   Piety also says that she wishes she was quite sure that her own
   relationship to Christ was as close as this. "Oh," says the humble and
   sincere soul, "if I might be but the meanest among those whom Christ
   calls His brothers and sisters, I would sooner have that honor than be
   the wearer of an earthly coronet or crown or possess the greatest
   wealth of gold or diamonds!" When Piety is assured of her own personal
   relationship to Christ, instead of being ashamed of Him because of His
   poor brothers and sisters, she counts it a priceless privilege to be
   numbered among them! Have you ever read the inscriptions that have been
   found in the catacombs of Rome? If you have done so, you must have
   noticed that many of them were evidently the productions of persons who
   were quite illiterate. Probably many of them were not able to write at
   all, so they obtained the services of others who were little more
   educated than they were, themselves, to write their epitaphs. Many of
   these first followers of Christ were certainly very ignorant so far as
   human learning was concerned, but do you now feel ashamed to belong to
   the same sect to which they belonged? Oh, no! If you really love the
   Lord whom they loved, you feel that it is an honor to be a member of
   that blessed Christian brotherhood in which many of the members
   cheerfully laid down their lives rather than give up their connection
   with Christ their Savior!

   Some people seem never to tire of railing at our particular
   denomination. "Oh, Baptists," they say, "who are they?" But shall I be
   ashamed to be called a Baptist because some who ought to know better
   try to pour contempt and scorn upon the name? Oh, no! But the more they
   are despised, the more closely will I cling to them! When our Lord
   Jesus Christ asked John the Baptist to baptize Him, He said, "Thus it
   becomes us to fulfill all righteousness." And with such an eminent
   example before me, I cannot be wrong if I seek very literally to
   "follow His steps" whatever disgrace that may involve. A man is not
   worthy to be connected with a Christian denomination if he is not
   prepared to take upon himself the reproach of the body to which he
   belongs--so let none of us be ashamed of being Baptists! And let none
   of us be ashamed of Jesus, and though His brothers and sisters may be
   poor and ignorant, let us love and esteem them because of their
   relationship to Him!

   Piety also rejoices that Christ's brothers and sisters are here on
   earth and that they are poor, for she says, "Ican minister to Christ by
   helping them." Piety feels, concerning the brothers and sisters of
   Christ, as David felt when he said, "Is there yet any that is left of
   the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"
   He was kind to Me-phibosheth for Jonathan's sake--let us be kind to
   Christ's brothers and sisters for His sake. Let us ask, "Where can we
   find any of the household of Jesus that we may show them kindness for
   His sake!" Christian charity delights to find the poor Believer and to
   minister to him for Christ's sake. If our names are found enrolled
   among the brothers and sisters of Christ, we shall surely count it an
   honor and privilege to do all that we can for the rest of the family,
   especially for those who are in the greatest need!

   Now I close with just two questions. First, dear Friends, what is your
   view of Christ Is it the view of Prejudice or the view of Piety? Do you
   say that however lightly Christ may be esteemed by the world, He is
   precious to you? Then I trust that you also are among the brothers and
   sisters of "the carpenter's son" whom He will acknowledge when He comes
   in His Glory. Those who follow the despised Christ will not be rejected
   by the reigning Christ!

   The other question is, what is your view of Christ's people?Is it the
   view of Prejudice or the view of Piety? Are you willing to cast in your
   lot with them? Will you join the sect that is everywhere spoken
   against? Are you ready to be hooted and jeered at for Christ's sake? If
   you are, I trust that you are among His brothers and sisters who suffer
   with Him here and who shall reign with Him, by-and-by. "Who is on the
   Lord's side?" Let that question ring in your ears as you go your way,
   "Who is on the Lord's side?" If God is your God, serve Him. If Christ
   is your King, follow Him. Unite yourself with His people and let all
   men see that you are not ashamed to acknowledge your Lord or those who
   are His brothers and sisters today. Let not your view of Christ and His
   relations be the view of Prejudice, but let it be the view of Piety!
   And may God bless you, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW13:24-58.

   Verse 24. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom
   of Heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.
   Jesus never sowed any other kind of seed. The truth which He taught is
   pure and unadulterated. It is good seed--good and only good, the very
   best of seed!

   25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
   wheat, and went his way. Wherever Christ is active, the enemy is sure
   to be active, too. If you have a sleeping church, you may have a
   sleeping devil--but as soon as ever Christ is in the congregation,
   sowing the good seed, the devil wakes up and by night, when men are off
   their guard, the bad seed--the mock wheat--here translated, "tares"--is
   sown among the true wheat.

   26. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then
   appeared the tares also. The false wheat came up with the true. Perhaps
   the seed in the one case may have looked like the other even as there
   is "another gospel which is not another" with which some still trouble
   us. The only true test is, "By their fruits you shall know them." So,
   when the seeds had sprung up, there was the blade of true wheat, and
   "then appeared the tares also."

   27. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, did
   not you sow good seed in your field?From where, then, has it tares?How
   often we have asked that question! We have seen children trained by the
   most godly parents, yet they have developed a sad propensity to sin,
   and we have said, "From where, then, have these tares come?" We have
   seen a ministry which has been sound and faithful--and yet in the
   congregation there have sprung up divers errors which have done a world
   of mischief--and we have had to sorrowfully ask, "From where, then,
   have these tares come?"

   28. 29. He said unto them, An enemy has done this. The servants said
   unto him, Will you, then, that we go and gather them up? But he said,
   No; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with
   them. We are so fallible, we make so many mistakes, that we cannot be
   trusted to do this uprooting, for we might pull up wheat as well as
   tares. If there had been briars or thorns growing in that field, those
   servants might have pulled them up without damage to the corn, just as
   an openly evil person who breaks the Laws of God openly, may be cut off
   from the Church without damage. But these tares must be left for the
   present.

   30. Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time ofharvest
   I will say to the reapers, Gather you together first the tares, and
   bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
   There will be an end of this mixture in due time! The hypocrite shall
   not always stand in the congregation of the righteous. The wheat and
   the tares shall be separated "in the time of harvest."

   31, 32. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom of
   Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in
   his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is
   grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the
   birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof The Kingdom of
   Heaven is just like that in this world! Wherever it comes, it comes to
   grow. And it is just like that in our hearts. Oh, how small is the
   first sign of Grace in the soul! Perhaps it is only a single thought.
   The Divine Life may begin with but a wish, or with one painful
   conviction of error--but if it is the true and living Seed of God, it
   will grow. And there is no telling how great will be its growth till,
   in that soul where all was darkness, many Graces, like sweet songbirds,
   shall come and sing and make joy and gladness there! Oh, that you and I
   might experimentally know the meaning of the parable of the mustard
   seed!

   33. Another parable spoke He unto them. The Kingdom of Heaven is like
   unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal,
   till the whole was leavened. And although leaven is usually the symbol
   of evil, yet it may be here a fair representation of the Kingdom of
   Heaven, itself, for it operates mysteriously and secretly, yet
   powerfully, till it permeates the whole of man's nature. And the Gospel
   will keep on winning its way till the whole world shall yet be leavened
   by it--

   "More and more it spreads and grows,

   Ever mighty to prevail."

   34-36. All these things spoke Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and
   without a parable spoke He not unto them: that it might be fulfilled
   which was spoken by the Prophet, saying, I will open My mouth in
   parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the
   foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went
   into the house: and His disciples came unto Him, saying, Declare unto
   us the parable of the tares of the field. I again remind you that
   wherever there is anything that you do not understand, the best way is
   to consult the Master concerning it. If I read a book in which there is
   an obscure passage--and I can write to the author and ask him what he
   means by it--I shall most probably get to understand it. So, the best
   Expositor of the Word of God is the Spirit of God--therefore appeal to
   Him whenever you are puzzled with anything that is taught in the
   Scriptures and say to Him, "Blessed Spirit, will You graciously expound
   to me this parable, this Doctrine, this experience?" And He will do it
   and so you shall become wise unto salvation.

   37-43. He answered and said unto them, He that sows the good seed is
   the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seeds are the children
   of the Kingdom; but the tares are the children of the Wicked One; the
   enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the
   world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are
   gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this
   world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall
   gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do
   iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be
   wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as
   the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Who has ears to hear, let him
   hear May God give us such ears as can hear His voice, and may we take
   to heart the solemn teachings of our Lord!

   44-46. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a
   field; which when a man has found, he hides it and for joy thereof goes
   and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Again, the Kingdom of
   Heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he
   had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and
   bought it It would be a good bargain for anyone to part with all he has
   in exchange for the Kingdom of Heaven! Yet that great "treasure" is to
   be had for nothing by everyone who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ!

   47-50. Again, the Kingdom ofHeaven is like unto a net that was cast
   into the sea and gathered fish of every kind: which, when it was full,
   they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels,
   but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the
   angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and
   shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and
   gnashing of teeth. We are to cast the great net of the Gospel into the
   sea of humanity, but we must not expect that all we catch will prove to
   be good. There is time of separation coming when "the angels shall come
   forth and sever the wicked from among the just."

   51. Jesus said unto them, Have you understood all these things? [See
   Sermon #3305, Volume 58--a clear understanding.] This is a question
   which constantly needs to be put to all hearers and readers of the
   Word. "Have you understood all these things?" To be hearers, only, or
   readers, only, will avail nothing--the Word must be understood,
   accepted, assimilated--and so shall it make us wise unto salvation.

   51. They said unto Him, Yes, Lord. They answered very glibly, yet
   probably not one of them fully understood the seven parables in this
   chapter. If anyone did so, he would be like the instructed scribe
   described in the next verse--

   52. Then said He unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed
   unto the Kingdom ofHeaven is like unto a man that is an householder
   which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. He who has
   learned anything concerning the Kingdom of Heaven should teach it to
   others, bringing forth the Truths of God in pleasing variety, "new and
   old," to edify all his Hearers.

   53. 54. And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these
   parables, He departed from there. And when He was come into His own
   country, He taught them in their synagogue insomuch that they were
   astonished, and said, How has this Man this wisdom and these mighty
   works? They were highly privileged in having Jesus back in their midst,
   yet they failed to appreciate His teaching! They were astonished at His
   wisdom, but were unable to perceive the Divine source from which it
   sprang.

   55-58. Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary?
   And His brothers , James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And His
   sisters, are they not all with us? How, then, has this Man all these
   things? And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said unto them, A
   Prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own
   house. And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief
   This was a notable illustration of John's words concerning Christ, "He
   came unto His own, but His own received Him not." Let us beware of
   unbelief lest it should tie the hands of Christ as it did there in His
   own country!
     __________________________________________________________________

A Practical Discourse

   (No. 3313)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY AUGUST 1, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 9, 1883.

   "A month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home." 1 Kings 5:14.

   IT was right that when a Te a levy was made and a certain number of men
   were chosen to work in Lebanon. It was, however, most fitting that work
   for a gracious God should be joyful work--not the bondage of slaves,
   but the delight of sons. Solomon did not demand that any Israelite
   should toil in the mountains and queries for years together and leave
   his own fields to lie waste, but he decreed that the workers should
   have one month in Lebanon at work on the Temple and two months at home
   for their own affairs. Our God is not a taskmaster--and sacred service
   should not sour into forced labor! Self-sacrifice is the soul of true
   religion, but we must not demand of others that which would turn
   religion into slavery. Solomon knew that the common people would grow
   weary of working even for Jehovah, Himself, if they were taken away
   from their own families and inheritance altogether and, therefore, in
   his wisdom he put it so--"One month in Lebanon, and two months at
   home."

   I am about to draw from this text two lessons. They are these--first,
   that you and I ought to be rendering service to the Lord our God and
   assisting to build up His spiritual Temple. But secondly, that while we
   labor abroad, we must be doubly careful to watch over our own
   households and our own souls. Marthas must also be Marys. We are bound
   to serve, but we must not be cumbered with much serving. We must work
   with Martha and yet sit with Mary at the Master's feet--there must be
   one month in Lebanon and two months at home!

   I. First, then, WE ARE BOUND TO DO SERVICE FOR OUR KING--service for
   the living Temple of our God.

   It is not enough for us to say, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
   and, therefore, I am saved." That is notthe end of it all, otherwise
   religion were a grand piece of selfishness! Our souls may not be hooped
   in within our own ribs. Absorption in our own safety and neglect of
   others would betray a spirit directly opposite to that of Jesus and His
   true disciples. No, Brothers and Sisters, as the Father sent His Son
   into the world, even so has He sent usinto the world--that we may be
   made a blessing to our fellows! Our lifework is to prepare living
   stones which may be built upon the one Foundation to be a habitation of
   God through the Spirit. We are to be hewers of timber and squarers of
   stones for the House of our

   God!

   Lay home to your hearts your obligations to the Lord Jesus Christ. "You
   are not your own, for you are bought with a price." Therefore no man
   lives unto himself. Your own salvation is of the utmost importance to
   you, but an essential part of it is salvation from selfishness. If you
   begin and end with your own interests, you are the servants of selfand
   not of the Lord Jesus! We owe our all to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ
   and, therefore, His business is our business--and what is His business
   but to seek and to save that which was lost? We are now the lifelong
   servants of Him "who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became
   poor." Shall we grudge our month in Lebanon? No, rather we will now see
   to it that the whole 12 months of the year are dedicated to Temple
   service since He has called us to be priests and, therefore, we always
   dwell in His House!

   Remember also our obligations to others. How were we converted? Was it
   not through the instrumentality of some Christian man or women?
   Directly or indirectly, it was so in every case, for those who have
   gone to Glory long ago have left us debtors for the knowledge of the
   Gospel which they handed down to us. Most of us were blessed by direct
   agen-cy--a good book was quietly placed in our way, a kind word was
   gently spoken, an earnest sermon was aimed at us--a holy example was
   set before us. By such things as these we were drawn to Christ. By the
   tears and prayers of others we

   were brought to the Savior's feet. Some owe their conversion to their
   parents, others to Sabbath school teachers, others to preachers of the
   Word. The bulk of us were brought to Jesus by some one instrumentality
   or another. Pay your debt, then. You also are to bring another to Jesus
   as a recompense to His servants. A certain generous man used to give
   liberally to the poor, but he did it in this fashion--he said to each
   one, "I only lend this money to you, and you are to pay it back to me
   when you are able to do so, by giving as much as this to another poor
   person." That is the method of our Lord Jesus Christ--He grants us a
   knowledge of His Gospel under bond that we tell it to others. Brothers
   and Sisters, we are debtors! If we are built up a spiritual house, let
   us gladly give our month in Lebanon that other stones may be built into
   the heavenly Temple!

   Besides, there is a life within every Christian which is the best
   prompter to holy service. My Brother, if you are born-again, you cannot
   be idle, for the life of God is never sluggish! Did not Jesus say, "My
   Father works hitherto, and I work"? If you are not diligent in sacred
   service, you will soon be afflicted with doubts and fears, for this
   disease attends on spiritual sloth! The month on breezy Lebanon is for
   your soul's health. To be idle is to sicken, but to serve God is health
   and delight! It is like swimming to a strong swimmer--he delights to
   breast the waves. It is like flight to the condor of the Andes who
   joyfully spreads his wings towards the sun! Tell the eagle that it is a
   toil to mount into the ether, and his joyful flight replies, "Toil to
   me to fly? I was made on purpose to dart among lightning and to be at
   home amid tempests! My eyes can even dare to gaze upon the sun." O
   Brothers and Sisters, it is not slavery to serve Christ! Even when it
   involves stern effort, the labor brings its own refreshment. The more
   we can do for Christ, the more are we indulging those sacred instincts
   which Regeneration has implanted within us! Let us shoulder the axe and
   spend our month in Lebanon! Felling trees is fit work even for
   premiers, and preparing stones for the spiritual Temple would be an
   honorable occupation for angels!

   This work is most beneficial to ourselves. Those Christians people who
   do nothing are usually troublesome, for they are at leisure to find
   fault with those who are doing their best. Many can see exactly how it
   ought to be done, and yet do nothing! They discover where the worker
   fails. They detect the little crotchets and peculiarities which reveal
   themselves in his service. The minister would preach so much better if
   he did it in the patent way which his critics have invented. Why do not
   these fellows attempt the work themselves? No, they are too fine for
   that--their high vocation is to review the defects of their brothers! I
   am sick of them! Is not their Lord weary of them, too?

   Working for the Lord necessitates prayer and this is a great blessing
   to us. If a man gives himself wholly to soul-winning, he must be much
   in prayer, for he will be all at sea without help from Heaven! If he
   tries to comfort the downcast penitent, how readily will he be baffled!
   How soon will he cry to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to do the work
   effectually! Every Grace which a Christian possesses is bettered by its
   use in heavenly service. The practical value of the Gospel will soon
   strike you if you labor among the fallen, the ignorant, the infidel.
   Does anybody know how precious the Gospel is till he has seen it light
   up the eyes that were dim with despondency? Does any man know how the
   joyful sound of the name of Jesus can charm a heart till he has seen
   the smile of newborn faith? I do not see how our coming memories can
   minister to our eternal happiness unless we earnestly labor to bring
   sinners to the Savior! Let us be up in earnest and win jewels for Jesus
   and happy memories for ourselves! Will it not enlarge our Heaven to see
   those in Glory who were saved by our word? Was Rutherford wrong when he
   said, "Oh, to see the people of Anwoth in Heaven shall be seven heavens
   to me"? I can truly say of my Hearers that the Heaven of each one shall
   be another Heaven to me! For this joy let us each one gladly take his
   month in Lebanon! Let those who have begun to loiter awaken themselves.
   It ill becomes any of us to be hearers of the Word for ourselves and
   never publishers of it to others!.

   II. It remains that I now remind you that if we take our month in
   Lebanon in active service for the Lord's House, WE MUST TAKE SPECIAL
   CARE TO SPEND OUR TWO MONTHS AT HOME.

   Our own households must have special attention. The first duty of a
   Christian man is within his own heart. The second is within his own
   house. Teach children? Yes, by all means, but begin with your own!
   Convert sinners? Yes, but labor first to win those who are round about
   you. Religion must begin at home! The Apostles were to begin at
   Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was their home. If we care not for our own
   households, we shall be worse than heathen men and publicans. I am
   afraid that many professing Christians will have the doom of Eli
   pronounced upon them. Eli's sons made themselves vile and he restrained
   them not. He said a gentle word to them, "Do not do so, my sons," but
   he did not put his foot down and tell them plainly, "This shall not be
   done in my house. You shall not profane the sanctuary of God by

   open sin if I can prevent it. I am resolved upon that." The end of his
   indulgence was their destructions and you know how sorrowfully the old
   man ended his days and what a curse fell upon his household in later
   generations. God grant that it may never be so with one of us! If
   anybody should ask me whether I know an Eli, I fear I could put my
   finger on several. I do not say that I can see one here--I will not
   look that way, but let each one ask, "Lord, is it I?"

   Rest assured that all our talk about religion and all our public labors
   will go for very little if our own families run wild. It is a horrible
   thing in Israel when the children of godly men are the sons of Belial!
   Such cases do occur and then some say to me, "It is written, 'Train up
   a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart
   from it.' How do you make that out when So-and-So's son is such an open
   rebel?" I answer, "Whenever I have been able to lift the veil, I have
   invariably found a reason for the children's non-conversion in the
   mismanagement of the household, or in the inconsistent conduct of the
   parents." I suspect that we may generally say, "Is there not a cause?"
   I will not say "always," because singular things do happen, but yet if
   God gives His people Grace to walk uprightly before Him and they pray
   for their children, and instruct them, and set them a godly example,
   the children usually follow in their father's footsteps.

   Take heed, then, that you spend your two months at home! Do not offer
   to God the sacrifice of public service smeared with the blood of your
   home duties. Do not diminish your care in your own house, for the
   neglect of domestic piety will prevent the acceptance of your public
   service. God forbid that when you talk to outsiders, they should reply,
   "Look at your own children." Our own offspring must be prayed for and
   we must do more than that--we must correct them for sin, instruct them
   in the Scriptures and pray with them personally till we weep over them!
   Family prayer must be maintained in a devout and interesting
   manner--and our young people must go with us to the sanctuary and be
   trained to treasure up what they hear. I know the Spirit of God alone
   can renew their hearts, but He is not backward to bless the means.

   If the Lord helps us to be earnest with our children, what a blessed
   reward awaits us! "I have no greater joy than this, that my children
   walk in the Truth of God." Every Christian parent may say this of his
   offspring. Oh, the delight it is to look upon sons and daughters all in
   Christ!--to hear and know that they are as earnest for the Redeemer's
   Kingdom as we are! All the honor must be given to the Sovereign Grace
   of God--but the comfort is ours. I am sure that when my mother pleaded
   with me, she was doing better than if she had addressed large
   assemblies. I am equally sure that when my father knelt down with me,
   alone, and pleaded with God for me, and besought me to pray for myself,
   he was doing a better day's work then when he was preaching, though in
   that he has had great blessing! Who knows what your son may be? Who
   knows what usefulness God may give to your daughter? Surely, if Dr.
   Busby used to take off his hat when he went into the schoolroom because
   he did not know who the boys might be, for they might turn out to be
   great statesmen or judges, you might take off your hat to your
   children--for you cannot tell what God may make of them! Pray for Grace
   to look well to the ways of your household, that they may bring no
   discredit upon the cause of Christ. Use well those two months at home.

   Lastly, I change the run of thought to reach another point. There is a
   home that is nearer home than our own homes--and that is the state of
   things within our own breasts. If we give a certain care to the service
   of God, publicly, there must be double attention to the work of Grace
   within. We must not neglect the cultivation of our own heart! We must
   watch our own growth in Grace, our own communion with Christ, our own
   faith, our own hope, our own love-- for if we do not, we shall be in
   great danger! I fear that many Christians are busy here and there and
   their own spiritual life is withering. They accomplish little because
   their spiritual money is put into a bag which is full of holes! They
   work hard, but take no fish because they never mend their nets. If we
   neglect our private prayers, we shall not "so run that we may obtain."
   In some cases the neglect will prove to be fatal. I do not mean in the
   case of the genuine child of God, but I do mean in the case of many
   whom we take to be such. They keep the vineyards of others, but their
   own vineyard they have not kept. They urge repentance, but they have
   not themselves repented! They teach faith, but they have not themselves
   believed. They forget the work of the Holy Spirit within them in their
   zeal for their own fussy endeavors to outdo others. If you neglect your
   own souls and hope that you will get right by performing Christian
   duties, you are grievously mistaken! If you try to shine and have no
   oil in your vessels with your lamps, your lamps will go out and you
   will die in the dark. If you try to tell others what you do not know
   and speak to them of a Savior in whom you have never trusted, your life
   will be a dreadful failure! You will preach and teach your own
   condemnation! What else can come of it? Do see to it that if you go up
   to Lebanon, the axe is first laid to the root of your own sins.

   Supposing the professor to be a real and true Christian, yet, if he is
   always active and never contemplative. If he spends much time in
   working and none in prayer and Bible reading, it will be very weakening
   to himself and damaging to his work. A weak hand may wield a good tool,
   but it cannot do much with it. When you are sickly, ailing, out of
   sorts as to body, you cannot do your work well. It would be a foolish
   thing to put a poor consumptive man to labor like a strong laborer on
   the railway--he would weary himself and do little with great pain.
   Fussy work that is done for Christ without communion with Christ comes
   to nothing because it is not worked in the strength of God. O my
   Brothers and Sisters, nothing can come out of us if it is not first
   worked in us by the Holy Spirit! It is essential that a Christian
   worker should himself be the workmanship of God. If we would heal, we
   must be healthy. If we get out of fellowship with Jesus, it will lead
   to innumerable evils! And the more we try to do, the more those evils
   will show themselves. We shall grow proud of our doings and we shall
   censure others till we grow unbearable. We shall become
   self-confident--and the more we attempt, the more self-confident we
   shall become! Or else we shall take to murmuring and grow displeased
   because God does not prosper our work--and we will feel like Cain when
   the Lord had no respect to his offering. You must walk in the light as
   God is in the light if you are to enlighten a dark world and glorify
   your Lord!

   Finally let me say to you, dear Friends, there must be the two months
   at home as to prayer. Do not forsake the Mercy Seat. Be in the frequent
   practice of prayer and--what is better--be always in the spirit of
   prayer! May the Holy Spirit lead you to baptize every duty into the
   pure stream of Grace and to do the same in every lesson in the school,
   every sermon you deliver, and every tract you give away! Pray over the
   whole business! Prepare for the one month in Lebanon by the two months
   at home spent in pleading with God for a blessing!

   Be much in Bible reading. We do not read the Bible half as much as we
   should. Look how the Puritans searched it from end to end. How familiar
   they were with every book! What blessed family prayer there must have
   been in the household of Philip Henry since it led Matthew Henry to
   write that famous Commentary! Oh, that we had more Bible searching and
   Bible preaching! Talking about the Bible is well enough, but searching
   the Scriptures is better! Feed on the Word yourselves, or else your
   teaching will be thin and watery.

   So, too, as to self-examination--a duty much neglected! Let us not fail
   in it. How few there are who look over the actions of the day before
   they fall asleep at night! But how well it would be to revive the
   practice!

   Repentance, too, that sweet Grace with the diamonds in her eyes--sweet
   tears of holy grief for all that has been amiss--is not this pushed
   aside? This must not be!

   And faith, also, the constant trusting the Savior, should we not
   exercise it more continuously? Oh, to have times of quiet for the
   exercise of faith and the growth of love!

   As for communion with God, oh, that we lived in it always! But we do
   not get time enough. We do not taketime enough to get near our God. We
   are like men who eat their meals in a hurry, for business calls them
   away. If a man has no regular meals, but gets a snack here and a snack
   there, he soon gets out of sorts. He needs time for regular food and
   its mastication and digestion. We need the same for our holy feasts
   upon the heavenly food! And to this end I would urge Solomon's
   rule--one month in Lebanon, but two months at home. A word to the wise
   is enough and, therefore, I say no more.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 KINGS 5; PSALMS 48; 95.

   1 Kings 5:1-5. And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon;
   for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the place of his
   father: for Hiram had always loved David. And Solomon sent to Hiram
   saying, You know how that Davidmy father couldnot buildan house unto
   the name ofthe LORD his God for the wars which were about him on every
   side, until the LORD put them under the soles of his feet But now the
   LORD my God has given me rest on every side, so that there is neither
   adversary nor evil occurrence. And, behold, I purpose to buildan house
   unto the name ofthe LORD my God, as the LORD spoke unto David my
   father, saying, Your son, whom I willset upon your throne in your
   place, he shall build an house unto My name. When God intends a man to
   do any special work for Him, He will find him all the helpers he needs.
   Sometimes those helpers may seem to be very unlikely persons, but--

   "Remember that Omnipotence

   Has servants everywhere."

   See, dear Friends, when the Lord had given rest to Solomon, he
   proceeded with the building of the Temple which David had planned.
   Whenever God blesses you, show your gratitude to Him by undertaking
   some special service for Him. Now that you are out of your recent
   trouble, bring your sacrifice of thanksgiving and do all that you can
   for your Lord-- your time of rest may not last as long as you could
   wish, therefore use it while you have it to God's Glory.

   6. Now therefore command you that they hew me cedar trees out of
   Lebanon; and my servants shall be with your servants: and unto you will
   I give him for your servants according to all that you shall appoint:
   for you know that there is not among us any that can skill to hew
   timber like the Sidonians. It is not every man who has every gift.
   Hiram and his Sidonians could hew timber more skillfully than Solomon
   and his Israelites. God can always find the right sort of men to do His
   work. Do not be dispirited because you cannot do everything--why should
   you? Should not somebody else have a share and be also permitted to
   have the honor of serving his God? It is well that you cannot do all
   that has to be done, and that somebody else can do something better
   than you can!

   7, 8. Andit came topass, when Hiram heard the words ofSolomon, that he
   rejoiced greatly, andsaid, Blessed be the LORD this day, which has
   given unto David a wise son over this great people. And Hiram sent to
   Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which you sent to me for
   It is always a good thing, before you agree to do anything, to consider
   it, to look at it from all points of view. I wish that in giving money
   to the service of God, there was more consideration as to the objective
   for which it is given. Some give simply because others do. Some because
   they are asked. But he gives best who considers the matter and looks
   all round, and then says, "Yes, this is a just claim upon me as a
   servant of God and, therefore I will respond to it." So, "Hiram sent to
   Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which you sent to me
   for"--

   8-11. And I will do all your desire concerning timber of cedar, and
   concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them down from
   Lebanon unto the sea: and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the
   place that you shall appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged
   there, and you shall receive them: and you shall accomplish my desire,
   in giving food for my household. So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and
   fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty
   thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty
   measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year.Is it not
   a very pleasing thought that both Jews and Gentiles built the Temple of
   Solomon? They put the big stones together and cut the cedar and fir
   trees into the proper shape, yet they were Hiram's fir trees and
   Hiram's cedar trees, and he floated them by sea to the place where they
   were landed, and then they were dragged to Jerusalem. And God will let
   His people of every race and nation have a share in the building of His
   great spiritualhouse!

   12-14. And the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, as He promised him: and there
   waspeace between Hiram andSolo-mon, and they two made a league together
   And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was
   thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month
   by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and
   Adoniram was over the levy.That was a capital rule--"a month they were
   in Lebanon, and two months at home." You who work for God must have
   your month at work, but you also need two months at home to attend to
   your own business. There are some people who always stay at Lebanon,
   always at work, but there is spiritual work to be done at home as well!
   Getting your heart ready for service, sharpening your tools, looking
   after your own flocks and herds and so on There was hard work to be
   done, and if it was to be done well, the workers needed to have their
   sinews and muscles in good order, so "a month they were in Lebanon, and
   two months at home." One prayer in the class and two prayers at home!
   One hour of teaching the lesson, twice as much time taken in getting it
   up and preparing it.

   15. And Solomon had threescore and ten thousand that bore burdens, and
   fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains. What were their names? I
   cannot tell you, but probably there was a book in which they were all
   recorded. And Christ has many humble workers, hewers of wood and
   bearers of burdens whose names are not known among men. Well, what is
   in a name? Let us be content to serve under our greater Solomon and let
   the whole Glory of building His spiritual Temple go to Him! Never mind
   who bears the burdens or who hews the stones--the Temple is for God, so
   let God be glorified, and not man!

   16. Beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work,
   three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people that
   worked in the work There must be various degrees among the workers in
   the service of God. He is a

   Sovereign and He divides unto every man according as He wills. How this
   ought to hush all envy and rebellion against the officers in the work
   of God whom He has called to be overseers of others!

   17. And the king commanded. That is at the bottom of all service for
   our King--let us but get a command from the King, and we obey at once.

   17, 18. And they brought great stones, costly stones and hewed stones,
   to lay the foundation ofthe house. And Solomon's builders and Hiram's
   builders did hew them, and the stone squares I am glad they are
   mentioned here, for there are still some Brothers and Sisters who are
   not hewers, but they are stone squarers. Perhaps they do not see many
   conversions through their efforts, but they do a great deal of the work
   of instructing the converts. They polish what other people have
   excavated--they are stone squarers--and just as the Temple at Jerusalem
   needed the work of the stone squarers, so does God's great
   spiritualTemple need those who square as well as those who hew the
   stones that are to be built into it.

   18. So they prepared timber and stones to build the house. Nothing is
   too good or too costly to be given to God, and let us reckon no labor
   too hard or too heavy that will bring Glory to His holy name!

   Psalm 48: A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. It is not every Psalm
   that is a song, for some Psalms are full of sorrow and it is not every
   song that is a Psalm, for, alas, there are many songs that are mere
   foolish rhymes or something worse, but here is a happy combination, "A
   Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah."

   Verse 1. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised---Surely a great
   God should have great praise--"greatly to be praised"--

   1. In the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. If there is
   any place where He ought to be praised, surely it is there! Even if all
   the rest of the world is silent, let God be praised "in the mountain of
   His holiness." Holy people must praise the holy God. It is natural that
   they should do so. It needs holy people to see God and when they do see
   Him, their eyes will glisten with delight and their voices will ring
   with His praise!

   2. Beautiful for situation, the joy ofthe whole earth, is Mount Zion,
   on the sides ofthe north, the city ofthe great King. Thus the Jew
   praises Jerusalem and thus the Christian praises the Church. The Church
   of Christ is, to His eyes, the most precious thing in the whole
   world--there is nothing upon the face of the earth that is so lovely in
   the sight of God as His own chosen Church!

   3. God is known in her palace for a refuge. Are not all her people
   kings? Therefore they live in palaces and they, none of them, trust in
   themselves--God is known to them as a refuge.

   4. 5. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They
   saw it, and so they marveled. They came up with their confederate bands
   of kings to attack Jerusalem! And they looked at it and wondered at its
   strength and beauty.

   5. They were troubled, and hastened away. If they came quickly, they
   went away still more quickly, hurrying off like a band of frightened
   children.

   6. 7. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in
   travail You break the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.God broke up
   the confederacies of kings that were leagued against His people. Even
   the great galleons of Tar-shish were dashed to pieces when the Lord
   blew with His wind and scattered them as, many centuries later, He did
   with the "Invincible" Armada on our own coasts!

   8. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city ofthe LORD ofHosts, in
   the city of our God: God will establish it

   forever. Selah. [See Sermon #2014, Volume 34--AS WE HAVE HEARD, SO WE
   HAVE SEEN.] Well might there be a pause here for solemn consideration,
   for putting the harp strings right and lifting up the heart to the Lord
   in praise.

   9. We have thought of Your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of Your
   Temple. [See Sermon #2783, Volume 48--a worthy

   THEME FOR THOUGHT.] Here is a blessed subject, "Your loving

   kindness, O God"--a blessed people, we who have enjoyed it--a blessed
   occupation, "we have thought of Your loving kindness"--and a blessed
   place in which to do it, "in the midst of Your Temple." When we are in
   the midst of the Lord's people, in the midst of His Church, then is the
   time for sweet and blessed thoughts concerning our gracious God!

   10. According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise unto the ends of
   the earth. As is God's name, so is His fame--unto the very ends of the
   earth shall men hear the praises of the Lord, especially when He
   delivers His people.

   10. Your right hand is full of righteousness. God's right hand is never
   empty--"Your right hand is full." And when He comes to sinners, He
   deals with them in righteousness. And when He comes to His saints in
   mercy, it is still in righteousness. "Mercy and truth are met together;
   righteousness and peace have kissed each other." "If we confess our
   sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins"

   11. Let Mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because
   of Your judgment. That is, the smaller cities of Judah, let them sing,
   as well as Jerusalem, the high praises of their delivering God. Perhaps
   it refers to the women who, in times of war, have to suffer most and
   worst of all--let them be loudest in their joyous music--as Miriam took
   her timbrel and led the song of the women on the shore of the Red Sea,
   so let the daughters of Judah be glad because of the Lord's righteous
   judgments upon the enemies of His people.

   12. 13. Walk about Zion, and go round about her: count the towers
   thereof. Mark you well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that you may
   teel it to the generations following. Sunday school teachers, note the
   security of the Church of God! Mark the eternal Truth on which she is
   founded, the everlasting promises by which she is guarded, the forts
   and bastions of Omnipotence that preserve her from the assaults of her
   enemies! And then tell all this "to the generation following."

   14. For this God is our God forever and ever: He will be our guide even
   unto death. But the Hebrew is better still-- "He will be our guide even
   over death." We shall trample down death, or, as one puts it, we shall
   stand by the grave of death! What a glorious place for us to stand in
   when death, itself, is dead through the ever-living Christ, and the
   Resurrection power that comes through His death! "He will be our guide
   even over death."

   Psalm 95:1. O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful
   noise to the Rock of our salvation. The worship of God should always be
   joyful, hence there is to be much singing in it. God is not like Baal
   who can be worshipped with crying and lamentation, and the cutting of
   the flesh with knives. We who believe in Him regard Him not as the
   destroyer or the avenger, but as "the Rock of our salvation." You who
   have hidden in that Rock can truly praise Him!

   2. Let us come before His Presence with thanksgiving. Let us not be
   afraid to stand in the immediate Presence of God. On the other hand,
   let us not worship Him with lightness and frivolity, but let us come
   before His Presence with due reverence and solemnity. And when we come,
   let it be "with thanksgiving." I need not remind you what innumerable
   reasons we have for thanksgiving. Let us render to God thanks according
   to what we have received from Him.

   2, 3. And make a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms. For the LORD is a
   great God, and a great King above all gods. There are no other gods
   that are worthy to bear that name, but Jehovah is the great King above
   all that are called gods.

   4. In His hand are the deep places ofthe earth. The innermost caverns,
   the deepest mines of earth, and the far-down places in the depths of
   the ocean--these are all in God's hand.

   4. The strength ofthe hills is His also. He is the God of the hills as
   well as the God of the valleys. Let us read this verse again. "In His
   hand are the deep places of the earth." Are any of you there today?
   Then praise Him out of the deep places. "The strength of the hills is
   His also." Are you on the tops of the mountains today? Then give Him
   the praise who placed you there lest through pride your feet should
   slip.

   5. The sea is His, for He made it. Men cannot parcel it out into
   estates, or cut it up into allotments as they do with the solid earth.
   But "the sea is His." There God reigns alone and surveys the broad
   acres of the wild waste of waters as His own.

   6. And his hands formed the dry land. As though it were so much plastic
   clay out of which He had molded this great globe and fashioned the
   various countries in which the nations of mankind dwell.

   6, 7. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD
   our Maker. For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and
   the sheep of His hands. Blessed are we if we can say this in very
   truth! We are highly privileged to have this God to be our God, and to
   be, ourselves, His purchased inheritance, the objects of His daily
   care-- "the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hands."

   7, 8. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart. It is a
   tender heart that hears God's voice--and the heart that hears His voice
   is sure to be made tender. These two things act and re-act the one upon
   the other.

   8-11. As in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the
   wilderness: when your father tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My work.
   Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a
   people that do err in their heart, and they have not known My ways:
   unto whom I swore in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.
   They had seen God's work, but they did not know His eyes. They had not
   the sense to perceive the hand of God even in His miracles, or when
   they did perceive it, they oft rebelled against Him. Oh, that we may
   not be like that unbelieving generation that grieved the Lord for forty
   years in the wilderness!
     __________________________________________________________________

God in Nature and in Revelation

   (No. 3314)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
   11, 1866.

   "The Law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of
   the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are
   right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure,
   enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever:
   the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether." Psalm
   19:7-9.

   [Another Sermon by C. H. Spurgeon upon the first clause of verse 7 is
   #2870, Volume 50--REVELATION AND CONVERSION.]

   WHAT I have to say this evening will really be an exposition of the
   whole Psalm. I have only selected these three verses for the
   convenience of having a short text. The Psalm begins upon a high
   note--"The heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament shows
   His handiwork." Only let the film of unbelief be taken from our eyes
   and we shall see that everything in the great temple of Nature
   proclaims the greatness and the Glory of God. Only let the naturally
   deaf ear be unstopped and there will be heard voices--mysterious yet
   clearly intelligible--revealing that God is still here working in
   Providence, as of old He worked in Creation. It seems to me that those
   persons who think that Christians are not to be delighted with the
   wonders and beauties of the natural world, differ very widely from the
   Psalmist whose words we are considering. One truly excellent man, whom
   we all very highly esteem, declared that when travelling up the Rhine,
   he did not look at the landscape because he desired to have his
   thoughts completely taken up with spiritual things. I cannot condemn
   the good man, yet I think that as I am dwelling in my Father's House, I
   ought to take delight in my Father's works--and I must be a strange
   sort of child if I think it is a token of my affection for my Father
   not to care to look at the garden which He has laid out or the House
   which He has built! While earnestly exhorting you to be
   spiritually-minded, I would remind you that it is just as easy to be
   spiritually-minded with your eyes open as with your eyes shut to all
   the beauties of Nature by which you are surrounded!

   There are two things in the Psalm about which I am going to speak. The
   first is a parallel intended. And the second, praise expressed.

   I. First, there is A PARALLEL INTENDED.

   This parallel was suggested to my mind while reading Bishop Horne's
   Commentary upon this Psalm. He confesses his acknowledgment to some
   older author for the idea. The parallel is this--David first extols the
   Revelation of God in Nature, and then extols the Revelation of God in
   His Word. And he seems to imply that there is a likeness between the
   two Revelations--that they are, in fact, two books of the same
   Revelation or two parts of one great poem!

   In reading David's remarks concerning the heavens, we may truthfully
   apply them to the Scriptures. Like the heavens, the Scriptures declare
   the Glory of God, and like the firmament, they show His handiwork Only
   that while the firmament shows God's handiwork in Creation, the Word of
   God shows that same handiwork in Redemption, in that newcreation by Him
   who says, "Behold, I make all things new." Consider first the vast
   expanse of the heavens. Who can measure the great curtain which God has
   stretched out as a tent to dwell in? Who knows the height thereof or
   the breadth thereof? Where are the compasses that can describe this
   wondrous circle? And the Scriptures are just as expansive as are the
   heavens--no man has yet compassed all the Truth of Divine Revelation.
   As we look up to the great doctrines that tower above us like the high
   mountains, we may well say, "They are high, we cannot attain unto
   them." The length and breadth and depth and height of Scripture all
   surpass the comprehension of mortal men! And though we do unfeig-

   nedly believe and devoutly rejoice in them, it is not within the range
   of our powers to fully comprehend them. There are some persons who talk
   as if they know the whole circle of Divine Truth. They think they have
   put the great ocean of Revelation into the small measure of their
   mortal capacity, but you know, dear Friends, that it is not so. No man
   will ever be able to hold the heavens in his hand or to compass the
   firmament with a span. But even if he could do this, he would still
   find that the Word of God in all its wondrous immensity was too vast
   for him to grasp! We must hold firmly whatever we have learned of the
   Truth of God, but we must always be prepared to learn more. To say of
   my Bible that I have attained to every height that it reveals, is as
   foolish as to say that I have reached the highest degree of spiritual
   life that is possible. Paul said, "Not as though I had already
   attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I
   may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."
   And when I have strived my utmost to know the Word of God, I still feel
   that I have need to pray, "Teach me Your statutes, O Lord, and enlarge
   my understanding that I may know more and more of Your Truth!" For
   expanse, for loftiness, for brightness, for glory, the Scriptures are
   comparable to the heavens which declare the Glory of God--and to the
   firmament which shows His handiwork.

   Then the Psalmist goes on to say, "Day unto day utters speech, and
   night unto night shows knowledge," and so, the Revelation of God in the
   Scriptures is always speaking to men. Let them turn to it whenever they
   may--it has a message for them at all seasons. When we are happy and
   rejoicing, it has a voice for our brightest day! And when we are
   mourning and sorrowing, it is the comfort of our darkest night. During
   this long night of the Church's history--the long night of her Lord's
   absence--His true ministers are enabled to shine as stars in His right
   hand and many a sorrowful spirit is cheered, and many a mariner upon
   the sea of life is guided by their light. By-and-by, the blessed Sun of
   Righteousness shall again arise with healing in His wings--and then
   throughout the long and bright millennia day, and afterwards throughout
   that everlasting day to which there shall be no night--we shall
   continue to learn more and more of the wonders of that Revelation which
   He has given us in His Word.

   One great glory of the heavens is that they have a voice to all
   lands--"There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
   Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the
   end of the world." In a language understood by all the sons of men--not
   in the language of only the Jew or of the Gentile, not in the language
   of the barbarian or the Greek, alone, but in the language of all
   alike--ancient and modern, bond and free--the voice of the heavens has
   gone forth the wide world over declaring the Glory of God! So is it
   with the Gospel! No matter where you introduce it, its message is
   adapted to all the sons of men. Paul proved the power of the Gospel
   among the idolaters of Ly-caonia and among the sages of Greece. It has
   a voice for men of all temperaments. It speaks with equal authority to
   the sturdy Anglo-Saxon and to the more volatile Frenchman. It has a
   peculiar facility for adapting itself to all nationalities--it is
   neither the Gospel of the Englishman, alone, nor of the American, nor
   of the African, but it speaks to--

   "All people that on earth do dwell!" Wherever the Bible goes, it
   appears not as an exotic, but as a homegrown flower! And whenever the
   Gospel is preached, it comes, not as a Revelation from the East, or the
   West, or the North, or the South, but as God's message to all mankind
   in the whole world!

   The glory of the Scriptures is like the glory of the heavens--"in them
   has He set a tabernacle for the sun"--and in the Word of God there is a
   tabernacle for the Sun of Righteousness. It is within the Truths of
   Divine Revelation that Jesus Christ abides as the sun does in its
   proper sphere. What would the heavens be without the sun? And what
   would the Scriptures be without the Sun of Righteousness? I may truly
   say of the Bible--

   "Here I behold my Savior's face Almost on every page."

   The glory of the Gospel is that in it, God is revealed as manifest in
   human flesh--all the Divine attributes are displayed in the Person of
   Emmanuel, God With Us. Take Jesus Christ away from the Gospel and its
   power is gone--and take Jesus Christ away from the Christian ministry
   and it becomes utterly powerless. I am grieved to have to say it, but I
   believe that it is because there has been so little preaching of Christ
   in many of our pulpits that the hearers have been driven off to
   Romanism and to all sorts of errors. The human heart needs some supreme
   object of affection--and it can never be satisfied with philosophical
   essays, or discussions about morality, or similar themes which have
   wasted hundreds of Sundays and made the services of the sanctuary a
   weariness to God's people. Oh, that there were more preaching of Jesus

   Christ and Him Crucified! If He is lifted up, He will draw all men unto
   Him--and He must be lifted up, or else the preaching is a mere sham, a
   joy to devils, but to no one else!

   David next very expressively says of the sun, "which is as a bridegroom
   coming out of his chamber," and is not this a true picture of Christ as
   He is revealed in the Scriptures? He compared Himself to a bridegroom
   during His earthly ministry and this is His relationship to His Church,
   which is "the bride, the Lamb's wife." He is here said to be "coming
   out of His chamber," as He came out of the council chamber of the
   Divine decree, saying, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is
   written of Me. I delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is
   within My heart"--coming out of the chamber of the Divine and
   invisible, and dressing Himself in the humble robes of our humanity!
   Coming to a life of sorrow and suffering, yet coming to it with joyous
   steps because He delighted to do the will of God and was charmed to
   redeem His spouse from death and Hell! Then later, coming out of the
   chamber in which He had concealed the glories of His Deity during the
   33 years of His sojourn among men. And now, coming out of His chamber
   continually as His Gospel is faithfully proclaimed in the power of the
   Holy Spirit! Verily, this is a true picture of Christ as He is revealed
   in the Scriptures, "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber."

   It is also a picture of Him as a Champion--"and rejoices as a strong
   man to rule a race"--"as a strong man"--not as a weakling, panting and
   struggling to stay on the track, but as a strong man rejoicing because
   he knows that he shall victoriously reach the goal! Coming forth in the
   Gospel, Sunday by Sunday, and week by week, our Lord Jesus Christ does
   not come forth to be defeated! He does not come forth, as some of my
   Brothers seen to imagine, needing their proofs of His existence and
   Deity! Or their apologies for His Gospel, but He comes forth to achieve
   His everlasting purposes, that He may be able to say to His Father at
   the last even as He said when here upon the earth, "I have finished the
   work which You gave Me to do." "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
   in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be
   satisfied." Like a strong man rejoicing to run a race, He is confident
   that He shall reach the goal and win the prize. It is a long race, a
   toilsome race, a race in which there are many competitors--but as Jesus
   looks at them, He knows that He will beat them all--and that the crown
   of victory shall surely be His!

   I hope some poor troubled soul will be comforted by the next verse of
   the Psalm--"His goings forth is from the end of the Heaven, and His
   circuit unto the end of it." The light of the sun reaches even the
   ice-caves of the frozen North and it pours down it shining rays most
   lavishly upon--

   "India's coral strand"--

   and--

   "Where Africa's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand."

   So is it in the going forth of Christ in His Gospel--"His going forth
   is from the end of Heaven, and His circuit unto the ends of it." The
   light of His Gospel shines upon all ranks, all classes and all
   characters--the rich and the poor, the learned and the illiterate! And
   the time shall come when it will shine over the whole world, for--

   "Jesus shall reign wherever the sun

   Does his successive journeys run--

   His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

   Till moons shall grow and wane no more." Then the Psalmist adds, "and
   there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The heat of the sun finds
   out the little flower in the darkest glade of the forest and no doubt
   it exerts a mysterious influence even in the depths of the sea and at
   the bottom of the deepest mines! "There is nothing hid from the heat
   thereof," even though much is hid from the light thereof. So is it with
   the Gospel and with the love of Christ. Where some of you are tonight,
   you may imagine that you are hidden from the heat of the Savior's love,
   but is it so? You hear the Gospel, do you not? That is something, but
   you say that you want to find the Christ who has His tabernacle in the
   Gospel. But that very desire of yours proves that you are not hidden
   from the heat of the Savior's love, for that desire is one of the gifts
   of His Grace! If you have any broken-ness of heart, any consciousness
   of guilt, any inclination towards repentance, this is the work of
   Christ! Trust His Ever-Blessed Spirit! The flower does not know that it
   could not bloom without the sun, but it is true. Perhaps it thinks that
   the sun has too much to do in watching over the wide expanse of sea and
   land, and in seeing its beams reflected from the glittering palace roof
   to notice one poor little poppy in a glen or one primrose hidden away
   in a mossy bank! But it is not

   so. The sun sheds its beams upon all and is none the poorer for doing
   so! And so is it with the love of Christ. If you feel even a
   longingafter Him, that is a proof that you are not hidden from the heat
   of His love! Breathe this prayer again and again, "Jesus, You glorious
   Sun of Righteousness, shine on me and fill me with Your Divine Grace!"
   As the sunflower is said to turn its face to the sun, so turn your face
   to Christ! I have noticed that flowers which grow in that part of the
   garden which is much in the shade always try to twist themselves into
   the sunlight if they can--and you have probably noticed that when you
   have flowers at your windows at home, they always try to grow towards
   the glass. Do seek, especially if you are a Believer, to grow towards
   the light, and most of all to grow towards Christ who is the Light, the
   Light of the World, the Sun of Righteousness! Try to catch as many of
   His heavenly beams as you can. Remember that the sun is none the less
   glorious because he gives so many of his beams to the flowers--and
   Jesus Christ will be no loser by the gift of His Grace to you! The Sun
   of Righteousness will be just as bright and just as glorious as before!
   No, He will be all the more glorious as His Glory is displayed in you!

   I want you, then, to look upon the Word of God with great reverence and
   affection because therein is set a tabernacle for Jesus Christ. If you
   would learn all that you can concerning Jesus Christ, you must
   diligently study the Word which reveals Him to us.

   II. Having spoken upon the parallel intended, I now turn to our second
   subject which is PRAISE EXPRESSED. I remind you again that I am giving
   an exposition rather than preaching a sermon--and I very much question
   whether it would not be better if we more often expounded Scripture
   rather than gave utterance to so many of our own words and thoughts.

   In speaking in this Psalm concerning the Word of God, David uses six
   different expression to describe it. And to each one he attaches a
   special tribute to commend it to us. As a rule, the ungodly know the
   Bible only by one name or, perhaps, two. They call it the Bible or the
   Scriptures--and that is about all that most of those know concerning
   it. But a man who is well acquainted with its contents has many names
   for it. The most notable instance of this is the 119th Psalm, which
   contains 176 verses, almost everyone of which has a mention of the Word
   of the Lord. It would be a profitable exercise to read that long Psalm
   through carefully--and to note all the variations of expression that
   the Psalmist uses concerning the Scriptures as far as they were known
   to him. But for our present purpose it will suffice if we confine our
   thoughts to the six descriptions and tributes that we find in this 19th
   Psalm.

   First, David says, "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the
   soul." In the margin, we have the word, "Doctrine," as another
   rendering of the word, Law, and we know that the term, "the Law of the
   Lord" is not restricted to the Decalogue, so we shall not do wrong if
   we apply this expression to the Gospel which is God's special means of
   converting souls--and to the whole Revelation of God's plan and method
   of salvation which we find in the Scriptures. If I want to know how I
   am to be saved, I come to this blessed Book and I read here, "the Law
   of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which Paul said had made him
   free from the Law of sin and death. I read here Christ's own words, "He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved." I read here the
   matchless story of Him on who I am to believe. I read about His Person,
   His Character, His Doctrine, His mission--and this "Law of the Lord"
   begins to operate upon my heart as I read it! It not only changes my
   outward actions, but it renews my mind, it alters the whole bent and
   purpose of my life--in David's phrase--it converts my soul! The springs
   of my being, which once were poisoned by sin, become purified by Grace.
   I know that you have found this to be true, Beloved, and that,
   therefore, you love this "Law of the Lord." McCheyne says that it is
   God's Word, and not our comments upon it, that saves souls. And I have
   frequently noticed, in conversions, that it has not been so much the
   word of the preacher that has been blessed as the Word of God,
   itself--though this, of course, is a rule to which there are
   exceptions, for our Lord Jesus, Himself, said in His great intercessory
   prayer, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them, also, which
   shall believe on Me through their word"--not only through Christ's own
   word, but through the truthful and faithful testimony off His
   servants--and still is the word of earnest, believing preachers and
   teachers blessed to their hearers and scholars! Yet the great
   converting agency is the Word of God, for this "Law of the Lord is
   perfect"--there is nothing in it in excess and there is nothing omitted
   from it. It is perfect in all its operations upon my nature, perfect to
   inspire my whole life and to kindle enthusiasm in my soul, perfect to
   enlighten my understanding and to subdue my will, perfect for
   everything which is needed for the conversion of my soul!

   David next says, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the
   simple." I take this word, "testimony," to mean the Revelation of
   Himself which God has given us in His Word. He gives testimony to His
   own Fatherhood and to

   His adoption into His family of all who believe in His Son, Jesus
   Christ. He gives testimony to all His attributes as they are revealed
   in the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. He gives testimony to
   His own everlasting love and to His faithfulness to every promise which
   He has made to His elect. He gives testimony to many things which we
   could never have discovered from Nature and all His testimony makes the
   simple wise. Over the porch of one of the academies in Athens was
   written, "He that is ignorant of arithmetic may not enter here." But
   over the porch of God's Word is inscribed, "He that is ignorant is
   welcome here." "The testimony of the Lord" is full of Divine Wisdom,
   yet it is put into such plain language that even children can
   understand it--so the simple come to it that they may be made wise and,
   often that which is hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed unto
   babes--for so it seems good in God's sight!

   I take the Word of God, then, as first of all teaching me how my soul
   may be converted. And then, being converted, I come to this blessed
   Book with quite another objective--not to find out how I am to be
   saved, but that I may learn more concerning the God who has saved me!
   And as I read His testimony with regard to Himself, it makes my simple
   soul wise.

   When I have got as far as that, I need something more, and David next
   says, "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." By
   this word, "statutes," I understand the Lord's ordinances of decree,
   the King's royal edicts and mandates--and also His promises which are a
   transcript of His decrees. David says that these "statutes of the Lord
   are right." Of course they are, because they are His statutes--and that
   they cause the heart to rejoice--a statement we can confirm from our
   own experience! I have often confessed that when my spirit gets
   depressed, nothing will sustain it but the good, old-fashioned,
   Calvinistic Doctrine. You may be content with the fare set before you
   by the modern school of preachers when you are not hungry. You may
   enjoy it when there is fine weather. But when storms of tribulation are
   howling around you, when you are conscious of a great need of
   soul-satisfying food, then I believe that the old Augusti-nian
   Doctrine--which is the Doctrine of the Apostle Paul and of His Lord and
   Master, Jesus Christ--is the only fare upon which your heart can feast
   with rejoicing! How sweet it is, at such a time, to fall back upon the
   eternal purposes of God in Christ Jesus! To know one's calling and
   election sure, to know that "all things work together for good to them
   that love God, to them who are the called according to His
   purpose"--this is, indeed, "a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on
   the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well
   refined." King Lemuel's mother said, "Give strong drink unto him that
   is ready to perish, and wine unto those that are of heavy hearts." And
   in a Spiritual sense, it is the strong drink and the nourishing wine of
   the Doctrines of Grace that can alone sustain those who are spiritually
   ready to perish and heavy of heart!

   There are some who would agree with David as far as we have gone, but
   they are not so eager to listen to his next sentence--" The commandment
   of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." Being converted, a man
   learns all he can of the testimony of the Lord, then his heart rejoices
   in the statutes of the Lord and he goes on to get further enlightenment
   from the commandment of the Lord. Some persons never seem to have their
   eyes enlightened because they neglect to obey the Lord's precepts.
   Disobedience is sure to bring its own punishment and there are some who
   cannot clearly read their own interest in Christ because their neglect
   to keep His commandments has closed their eyes just as a cloud of dust
   might have done. There is a great reward for those who obey His
   precepts and although we are saved by Grace, and not by our works, yet
   in the economy of Grace there are certain rewards which are only given
   to them who diligently keep the King's commandments! Happy are they
   who, like Caleb, follow the Lord fully. Surely they shall be among the
   virgin souls that, in the heavenly Mount Zion, "follow the Lamb
   wherever He goes."

   David next mentions a very practical matter--"The fear of the Lord is
   clean, enduring forever." Some kinds of fear are anything but clean!
   "The fear of man" has been a foul snare in which many have been
   captured for the devil. Compromise is very popular, today, but the
   Bible is a most uncompromising Book--and "the fear of the Lord" is a
   most uncompromising principle! Once let this gracious fear thoroughly
   permeate our soul and we shall never lose it, for David truly says that
   it endures forever. If ever a man is really dead, buried and risen with
   Christ, there is no fear of his ever undergoing such a backward process
   as being dead with Christ and then alive again to the world! There are
   some principles which are only powerful for a time, but the principle
   of Grace, which produces the fear of the Lord, exerts a permanent
   influence upon everyone in whom the Holy Spirit works it--and there is
   no possibility of the love of the world or the fear of man casting it
   out! May that gracious Spirit work this holy fear in each one of us!

   Then, lastly, David says, " The judgments of the Lord are true and
   righteous altogether." Whenever I think of the judgments of the Lord in
   the olden times, I always regard them as righteous judgments. Just were
   You, O Lord, when You did pour down the fiery hail upon Sodom and
   Gomorrah! When You did smite Pharaoh and overthrow his hosts in the Red
   Sea, and when Your angel slew the army of Sennacherib! Just have You
   been, O God, in overturning ancient mo-narchs which had become hoary in
   iniquity! And these are "the judgments of the Lord" which are yet to be
   executed, concerning which we have the repeated declarations of
   Revelation that they will all be "true and righteous." These are the
   very words that are used concerning the Lord's judgments upon that
   great harlot which has corrupted the earth with her fornications! With
   this blessed Book in our hands--and especially if its Truths are
   enshrined in our hearts--we may confidently face the future and not be
   alarmed by any of the errors and heresies that may spring up around us!
   The teachers of falsehood are only imitating the folly of the builders
   of Babel--and all their inventions will but end in their own confusion.

   The sun has gone down and in an hour or two the world will appear in a
   more somber dress than it now wears. If you come out at midnight, you
   will see nothing but the twinkling stars and a few glimmering lamps.
   Yet the sun is not put out--his light is not quenched. Wait till the
   appointed time and the great light of day shall again be "as a
   bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to
   run a race." Darkness may be covering your mind tonight. Darkness may
   cover your circumstances. Darkness may, for a while, cover even the
   Church of God on earth--but that old promise is still true--"Unto you
   that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteous arise with healing in His
   wings." Only be sure that you are on the Lord's side! Put your trust in
   the precious blood of Jesus and wait for Him more than they that watch
   for the morning. And then, when He comes, it will be to you a day of
   light and not of darkness, and the days of your mourning will have
   ended forever! So may the Lord comfort your hearts, sustain you under
   every trial, keep you in His love and enable you patiently to wait for
   His coming, for His dear name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:9-32.

   Verse 9. How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto
   according to Your Word. "How shall a young man cleanse his way?" A
   vital and solemn question. His way is full of temptations and he,
   himself, has strong passions. How shall he make his way clean and keep
   it so? "By taking heed thereto according to Your Word." Without heed he
   will soon be in the mire, but carefully walking with God's Word as his
   rule, by the blessing of God's Grace it will keep him out of sin.

   10. With my whole heart have I sought You: O let me not wander from
   Your commandments. There might be thought in this confession to be some
   commendation of himself and, therefore, he salts it with this
   prayer--"I have sought You, Lord, sincerely, but still, notwithstanding
   that, I am very apt to stray away. And I shall sadly wander unless You
   keep me. O let me not wander from Your commandments."

   11. Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against You.
   The best thing put into the best place for the best of all purposes!
   There is no antidote against sin like the possession of the Word of God
   in the soul.

   12. Blessed are You, O LORD: teach me Your statutes. You are blessed,
   make me blessed. You are the happy God, instruct me in the way of
   happiness.

   13. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of Your mouth. I am
   a learner, but I have tried to be a teacher, too. I have not kept the
   Word of God to myself as though it were only a personal treasure for
   me, but what I have heard in the secret chamber of fellowship, that
   have I spoken on the housetops. Have you published abroad what you
   know? Then you are the person to learn more. When men drop their money
   into a money box, they have to break it to get it out again, and if
   they have not need of it they will not do so. God does not care to drop
   His treasure into a heart that never uses it and imparts it. Let your
   lips speak what your heart learns!

   14. I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all
   riches. If all sorts of riches were put together, I have found them
   all, and more than them all in Your testimonies! I am rich in all
   respects when I have You.

   15. I will meditate on Your precepts, and have respect unto Your way.
   Meditation treads the wine press and gets the juice out of the grapes.
   A man may read too much if he reads without meditation. "I will
   meditate." It is the harvesting by reaping of what we have sown by
   reading.

   16. I will delight myself in Your statutes: I will not forget Your
   Word. I will take a deep pleasure in them and I will find an intense
   joy in every pondering of them. "I will not forget Your Word." I will
   never let it go out of the precincts of my memory. I will recall again
   and again. I will always have a text of Your precious Book ready to my
   tongue.

   17. Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live, and keep Your
   Word. Give me much of Your comfort, royally of Yourself! Deal
   bountifully with me. I have great necessities. I am a mass of needs,
   therefore, "Deal bountifully with me that I may live." And I have great
   tendencies to wander. Great risks and perils. Give me abundance of
   Grace that I may keep Your Word.

   18. Open You my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your
   Law. The wonders are there--cause me to behold them! A man may have a
   fair landscape before him, rich in all beauties of form and color, but
   if his eyes are closed, is he better for it?

   19. I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Your commandments from me.
   "I am a stranger in the earth." I do not now belong to it. I am born
   and bound for Heaven. I am a pilgrim here--men do not understand me,
   neither have I any settled business here. "I am a stranger in the
   earth: hide not Your commandments from me." Oh, remember that I am Your
   alien, Your banished one! Send me love messages from the old home and
   loved country.

   20. My soul breaks for the longing that it has unto Your judgments at
   all times. Broken souls are many. But not on this account! Oh, how few
   are in danger of breaking through such a longing as this! Would God
   there were many more that did sigh and cry after the Word of God--for
   longings such as these are sure to lead to an earnest search--and the
   earnest search will increase knowledge and increase Grace.

   21. You have rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from Your
   commandments. A proud man is surely a sinful man. He may think himself
   a righteous man, but he cannot be so. He has gone far astray from the
   very essence of God's Law, which is that he should walk humbly with his
   God.

   22. Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept Your
   testimonies. A man that does that is pretty sure to be reproached and
   to be condemned by man, for they think that one who follows God
   faithfully "is very old-fashioned, he has not much spirit, he has not
   drunk in the philosophy of the age, he is a fossilized Christian," and
   so on. Well, we can bear all such reproach--still we are truly glad
   when we escape it.

   23. Princes also did sit and speak against me: but Your servant did
   meditate on Your statutes. And a great man's word goes a long way with
   some people. They think a prince a great authority. "But Your servant
   did meditate on Your statutes." He did not burst out in angry reply. He
   did not give fierce railing for railing, but he sat himself down as
   quietly as he could--the more abundantly to meditate on God's statutes.
   What calmness there is here and what wisdom! For if princes should
   speak against us, and the great ones of the earth should rail, what
   does it matter? If they drive us away from our faith, it would
   matter--but if they drive us to our Bibles, it is a benefit!

   24. 25. Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors. My soul
   cleaves unto the dust: quicken You me according to Your Word. Here He
   prays for quickening. He felt the spiritual death that was so natural
   to him, the heaviness of his heart, the tendency to sink, the
   attractions of the world.

   26. I have declared my ways, and You heard me: teach me Your statutes.
   Open confession is good for the soul and I have made this confession.
   You have heard me. Now "teach me Your statutes."

   27. Make me to understand the way of Your precepts, so shall I talk of
   Your wondrous works. Lord ground me and found me in Your knowledge.
   Give me to know fully, firmly, what I do know. I would not be as a man
   that eats, but thinks not from where the bread came, but I would wish
   to understand the way of Your precepts. "So shall I talk of Your
   wondrous works."

   28. My soul melts for heaviness. Strengthen You me according unto Your
   Word. Will not this prayer suit some that are in this house this
   evening who are very dull and depressed? Oh, if your soul sinks, still
   pray and say, "Strengthen You me." You need strength, dear Friends. If
   you had more strength, your troubles would not crush you. Your soul
   would not melt if you had more strength and confidence.

   29. 30. Remove from me the way oflying: and graciously grant me Your
   Law. Ihave chosen the way of truth: Your judgments have I laid before
   me. As a captain lays out his chart so as to keep his course correctly
   and safely, so I try to sail by it. I have chosen Your Law and precepts
   and commands as my course, and I would gladly keep to them.

   31. I have stuck unto Your testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame. I
   am glued to them--there is no separating me, no tearing me apart from
   them! "O Lord, put me not to shame."

   32. I will run the way of Your commandments when You shall enlarge my
   heart. I will go quicker and faster, I will have more energy, more
   flaming zeal in Your service--"When You shall enlarge my heart." O
   Lord, it is very narrow and very contracted. I cannot think great
   thoughts, nor do great things, nor believe great promises unless You
   shall enlarge my heart! Lord, give me a larger heart, stronger to obey,
   more tender to love for Your name's sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

Joy in Harvest

   (No. 3315)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "They joy before You according to the joy in harvest." Isaiah 9:3.

   [Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon harvest subjects are as
   follows--#2896, Volume 50--HARVEST TIME (the first of his Sermons that
   was ever published); #2265, Volume 39--HARVEST JOY (a Sermon upon the
   whole of Isaiah 9:3); #1127, Volume 19--HARVEST MEN NEEDED; #1562,
   Volume 26-- HARVEST PAST, SUMMER ENDED AND MEN UNSAVED; #706, Volume
   12--FIELDS WHITE FOR HARVEST; #880, Volume 15-- THE FORMER AND THE
   LATTER RAIN and #3058, Volume 53--THE JOY OF HARVEST.]

   THE other day I was one of a glad company who kept the feast with great
   rejoicing, and together we shouted, "Harvest Home." It was a deep
   delight to see the rich and poor rejoicing together--and when the
   cheerful meal was ended, I was greatly glad to turn one of the tables
   into a temporary pulpit--and in the fine large barn be privileged to
   preach to an earnest, eager audience, the glorious Gospel of the
   ever-blessed God!

   My heart was truly merry, in harmony with the happy occasion, and I
   shall now try to keep in the same key and talk to you a little upon the
   joy in harvest.

   Londoners, and other city dwellers are apt to forget that it is harvest
   time, or to forget to render special praise to God for it. Living in
   these great deserts of dingy bricks we scarcely know what an ear of
   corn is like, except as we see it dried and white in the window of a
   corn-dealer's shop. Yet let us all remember that there is such a season
   as harvest when, by God's goodness, the fruits of the earth are
   gathered in for the food of man.

   We begin to study our theme by seeing--I. WHAT THE JOY OF HARVEST IS
   which is here taken as the simile of the joy of the saints before God.
   I am afraid that to the more selfish order of spirits, the joy of
   harvest is simply, or chiefly, that of personal gratification at the
   increase of wealth. Sometimes the farmer only rejoices because he sees
   the reward of his toils and is so much the richer man. I hope that with
   many there mingles the second cause of joy, namely, sincere gratitude
   to God that an abundant harvest will give bread to the poor and remove
   complaining from our streets. There is a lawful joy in harvest, no
   doubt, to the man who is enriched by it, for any man who works hard has
   a right to rejoice when, at last, he gains his desire and reward. It
   would be well, too, if men would always recollect that their last and
   greatest harvest will be to them according to their labor. He that sows
   to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption--and only the man that
   sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Many a
   young man commences life by sowing what he calls his wild oats, which
   he had better never have sown, for they will bring him a terrible
   harvest! He expects that from these wild oats he will gather a harvest
   of true pleasure, but it cannot be--the truest pleasures of life spring
   from the good seed of righteousness--not from the hemlock of sin! As a
   man who sows thistles in his furrows must not expect to reap the golden
   sheaves of wheat, so he who follows the ways of vice must not expect
   happiness. On the contrary, if he sows the wind of evil-doing, he will
   reap the whirlwind of remorse and everlasting despair! When a sinner
   feels the pangs of conscience, he may well say, "This is what I sowed."
   When at last he shall receive the full retribution for his sin, he will
   be able to blame no one but himself! Seeing he sowed tares, there was
   nothing to be reaped but tares. But, on the other hand, the Christian,
   though his salvation is not of works, but of Grace, will have a
   gracious and glorious reward given to him by his Master. Even though
   sowing in tears, he shall reap in joy. Having put his talents entrusted
   to him to use, out to good trading, or at least to interest, he shall
   share his Master's joy and hear with delight his Master welcome and
   repay with His, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The joy in
   harvest rightly consists in part in the reward of earnest labor--may
   such be the joy we find in serving our Lord!

   The joy in harvest has another element in it, namely, that of gratitude
   to God for favors bestowed.

   We are singularly dependent on God--far more so than most of us imagine
   or remember. When the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they
   went forth every morning and gathered the manna. This taught them that
   God gave them their daily bread. Now, our manna does not come to us
   every morning, but it comes once a year and is preparing all the time.
   Behind the baker's cart with its daily call is the miller. Behind the
   miller is the farmer and behind the farmer is God who makes the earth
   to yield her fruits and to multiply them for the sustaining of the
   whole race of men! Our supply is as much a Divine gift as if it lay
   like a hoar-frost around the camp. If we went out into the field and
   gathered food which dropped down directly from the skies, we would
   think it a great miracle to admire and wonder at--but is it not quite
   as great a marvel that our bread should come up from the earth as that
   it should come down from the sky? The one God who bade the heavens let
   fall the angels' food in the wilderness bids the dull earth, in its due
   season, yield the corn for the millions of mankind! Therefore, whenever
   that harvest comes, let us be grateful to God and let us not allow the
   season to pass without Psalms and songs of thanksgiving! I believe it
   is correct to say that there is never in the world, as a rule, more
   than sixteen months' supply of food--that is to say, when the harvest
   has been gathered in, there may be sixteen months' future supply--but
   at the time of harvest beginning there is not usually enough wheat in
   the whole world to last the population more than four or five months.
   So that if the harvest did not come, we would be on the verge of
   famine. We still live from hand to mouth. Let us pause and bless our
   God and let the joy of harvest be the joy of gratitude!

   To the Christian it should be great joy, by means of the harvest, to
   receive an assurance of God's faithfulness. The Lord has promised that
   seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, shall never cease. And when
   you see the loaded wagon carrying in the crop you may say to yourself,
   "God is true to His promise. Despite the dreary winter and the damp
   spring, autumn has come with its golden grain." What a strong comfort
   is this! Depend upon it, that as the Lord keeps this promise, He will
   keep all the rest! All His promises are, "yes and amen in Christ
   Jesus." If He keeps His Covenant with the earth, much more will He keep
   His Covenant with His own people whom He has loved with an everlasting
   love! Go, Christian, to the Mercy Seat with the promise on your lips
   and plead it! Be assured it is not--it cannot be--a dead letter! Let
   not unbelief cause you to stammer when you mention the praise before
   the Throne of God, but say it boldly-- "Fulfill this Word unto Your
   servant on which You have caused me to hope." Shame upon us that we so
   little believe our God! The world is full of proofs of His goodness.
   Every rising sun, every falling shower, every revolving season
   certifies His faithfulness. Why do we doubt Him? If we never doubt Him
   till we have cause for it, we shall never know distrust again!
   Encouraged by the return of harvest, let us resolve in the strength of
   the Spirit of God that we will not waver, but will believe in the
   Divine Word and rejoice in it!

   Once more. To the Christian, in the joy in harvest there must always be
   the joy of expectation.

   As to the farmer there is an assured harvest for which he waits
   patiently and persistently, so there is a glorious spiritual harvest
   for all who wait and faithfully long and look for the coming and the
   appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus

   Christ!

   The mature Christian, like the ripe ear of corn, hangs down his head
   with holy humility. When he was but green and immature in the things of
   God, he stood boldly erect and was somewhat boastful. But now that he
   has mellowed and ripened and become full of the blessing of the Lord,
   he is humbled, thereby, and bows himself down. He is waiting for the
   sickle and he dreads it not, for no common reaper shall come to gather
   Christ's people to Him but He, Himself, shall reap the harvest of the
   world! The Lord leaves the destroying angel to reap the vintage and
   cast it into the wine-vat to be trodden with vengeance! But as for the
   grain which He, Himself, has sown, He will gather it Himself with His
   own golden sickle! We are looking for this. We are growing among the
   tares and sometimes we are half-afraid lest the tares should be
   stronger than ourselves and choke the wheat--but the separation will
   come, by-and-by, and when the corn is well winnowed and stored in the
   garner, we shall be gathered there. It is this expectation which even
   now makes our hearts throb with joy! We have in the past, too, gone to
   the grave with precious sheaves that belonged to our Master and when we
   were there, we thought we could almost say, "Lord, if they sleep they
   shall do well. Let us die with them." Our joy in harvest is the hope of
   being at rest with all the saints and forever with the Lord! A view
   even of the shadowy harvests upon earth should make us exceedingly glad
   because they are the image and foreshadowing of the eternal harvest
   above! So much about the joy in harvest. I hasten onward.

   II. Let us continue our theme by looking now at WHAT JOYS THEY ARE
   WHICH TO THE BELIEVER ARE AS THE JOY IN HARVEST. It is the joy in
   harvest. It is a common notion, a popular delusion, that Christians are
   an un-

   happy people. It is true that we are tried, but it is false that we are
   miserable! With all their trials, Believers have such a compensation in
   the love of Christ that they are still a blessed generation and it may
   be said of them, "Happy are you, O

   Israel."

   One of the first seasons. One of the blessed occasions in which we knew
   a joy equal to the joy in harvest--a season which has continued with us
   ever since it commenced--was when we found the Saviorand so obtained
   salvation. Brothers and Sisters, each of you can recollect for
   yourselves the time of the plowing of your souls. I give my witness. My
   heart was fallow and covered with weeds, but on a certain day the great
   Farmer came and began to plow my soul. Ten black horses were His team
   and it was a sharp plow that He used--and the plow made deep furrows.
   The Ten Commandments were these black horses and the Justice of God,
   like a plow, tore my spirit. I was condemned, undone, destroyed, lost,
   helpless, hopeless--I thought Hell was before me! Then there came a
   cross-plowing which added to my distress, for when I went to hear the
   Gospel, it did not comfort me--it made me wish I had a part in it--but
   I feared that such a gift was out of the question! The choicest promise
   of God seemed to frown at me and His threats seemed to thunder at me! I
   prayed, but found no answer of peace. It was long with me thus. But
   after the plowing, came the sowing. God who plowed the heart in mercy,
   made it conscious that it needed the Gospel--and then the Gospel seed
   was joyfully received! Do you not remember that auspicious day when at
   last you began to have some hope? It was very little--like a green
   blade that peeps up from the soil--you scarcely knew whether it was
   grass or corn, whether it was presumption or true faith. It was a
   little hope, but it grew very pleasantly. Alas, a frost of doubt
   came--some snow of fears fell! Cold winds of despondency blew on you
   and you said, "There can be no hope for me." But what a glorious day
   was that when at last the wheat which God had sown ripened and you
   could say, "I have looked unto Him and have been lightened! I have laid
   my sins on Jesus, where God laid them of old, and they are taken away
   and I am saved!" I remember well that day, and so, no doubt, do many of
   you. O Sirs, no farmer ever shouted for joy as our hearts shouted when
   a precious Christ was ours and we could grasp Him with full assurance
   of salvation in Him! Many days have passed since then, but the joy of
   it is still fresh with us. And, blessed be God, it is not only the joy
   of the first day that we look back upon--it is the joy of every day
   since then, more or less, for our joy no man takes from us--we are
   still walking in Christ even as we received Him!

   Even now all our hope on Him is stayed, all our help from Him we bring
   and our joy and peace continue with us because they are based upon an
   immovable Foundation! We rejoice in the Lord! Yes, and we will rejoice!
   The joy in harvest generally shows itself by the farmer giving a feast
   for his friends and neighbors. And usually those who find Christ
   express their joy by telling their friends and their neighbors what
   great things the Lord has done for them. The Grace of God is
   communicative! A man cannot be saved and always hold His tongue about
   it--as well look for dumb choirs in Heaven, as for a silent Church on
   earth! If a man has been thirsty and has come to the Living Water, the
   river of this Water of Life--his first, best impulse will be to cry,
   "Ho! Everyone that thirsts!" Have you felt that joy in harvest? The joy
   that makes you wish that others could share it with you? If so, I
   entreat you, do not repress the gracious impulse to proclaim your
   happiness! Speak of Christ to brothers and sisters, to friends and
   kinsfolk! And if the language is stammering, the message in itself is
   so important that the words in which you utter it will be quite a
   secondary matter. Tell it, tell it out far and wide that there is a
   Savior! That you have found Him and that His blood can wash away
   transgression! Tell it everywhere and so the joy in harvest shall
   spread over land and sea and the name of our God shall be glorified!

   We have yet another joy which is like the joy in harvest. It is the joy
   of answered prayer.

   I hope we all know what it is to pray in faith. Some prayers are not
   worth the words used in offering them because there is no faith mixed
   with them. "With all your sacrifice you shall offer salt," and the salt
   of faith is necessary if we would have any of our sacrifices accepted.
   Those who are familiar with the Mercy Seat know that prayer is a
   reality and that the Doctrine of Divine Answers to Prayer is no
   fiction! Sometimes God will delay to answer for wise reasons--then His
   children must cry and cry, and cry again. They are in the condition of
   the farmers who must wait for the precious fruits of the earth--and
   when at last the answer to prayer comes, they are then in the farmer's
   position when he receives the harvest. Remember Hannah's wail and
   Hannah's prayer? In the bitterness of her soul she cried to God, and
   when her child was given to her she called it, "Samuel," meaning,
   "Asked of God" for, she said, "For this child I prayed." He was a very
   dear child to her because he was a child of prayer. Any mercy that
   comes to you in answer to prayer will be your Samuel mercy, your
   darling mercy! You will say of it, "For this mercy I prayed," and it
   will bring the joy of harvest to your spirit. If the Lord desires to
   surprise some of His children, He has only to answer their prayers, for
   they would be astonished if an answer came to their petitions! I know
   how they speak about answer to prayer. They say, "How remarkable! How
   wonderful!" as if it were remarkable that God should be honest and that
   the Most High should keep His promise! May we not so dishonor Him by
   our doubt! Oh, for more faith to rest upon His Word and we would have
   more of these harvest joys!

   We have another joy in harvest in ourselves when we conquer a
   temptation. We know what it is, sometimes, to get under a cloud--sin
   within us rises with a darkening force, or an external adversity
   beclouds us--and we miss the plain path in which we were accustomed to
   walk. A child of God at such times will cry mightily for help, for he
   is fearful of himself and of his surroundings. Some of God's people
   have been by the week and month together exposed to the double
   temptation, from outside and from within, and have cried to God in
   bitter anguish.

   It has been a very hard struggle. The sinful action has been painted in
   very fascinating colors and the siren voice of temptation has almost
   enchanted them. But when at last, to change the figure, they have come
   through the Valley of the Shadow of Death without having slipped--when,
   after all, they have not been destroyed by Apollyon, but have come
   forth again into the clear morning light--they know an unspeakable joy
   compared with which the joy in harvest is mere childish merriment!
   Those know deep joy who have felt bitter sorrows. As the man feels that
   he is the stronger for the conflict. As he feels that he has gathered
   experience and stronger faith from having passed through the trial, he
   lifts up his heart and rejoices, not in himself, but before his God
   with the joy in harvest! Brothers and Sisters, Beloved, you know what
   that means!

   Again, there is such a thing as the joy in harvest when we have been
   made useful in God's service. The master-passion of every Christian
   should be to be useful in the Master's Kingdom. There should be a
   burning zeal within us for the Glory of God. When this is so and the
   Christian desiring to be used has laid his plans and set about his
   work, he begins to look for the results--but it may be weeks, or years,
   before he is privileged to see them.

   The true worker is not to be blamed that as yet there are no fruits,
   but he is to be blamed if he is content to always be without fruits. A
   preacher may preach without seeing conversions flow and who shall blame
   him? But if he is happy, or even content, notwithstanding this, who
   will justify him? It is ours to break our own hearts if we cannot, by
   God's Grace, break other men's hearts! If others will not weep for
   their sins, it should be our constant habit to weep for them. When the
   heart becomes earnest, warm, zealous--God usually gives a measure of
   success--some fifty-fold, some a hundred-fold. When the success comes,
   it is the joy in harvest, indeed! I cannot help being egotistical
   enough to mention the joy I felt when first I heard that a soul had
   found peace through my youthful ministry. I had been preaching in a
   village some few Sabbaths with an increasing congregation, but I had
   not heard of a conversion. And I thought, "Perhaps I am not called of
   God. He does not mean me to preach, for if He did, He would give me
   spiritual children." One Sabbath my good deacon said, "Don't be
   discouraged. A poor woman was savingly impressed last Sabbath." How
   long do you suppose it was before I saw that woman? It was just as long
   as it took me to reach her cottage! I was eager to hear from her own
   lips whether it was a work of God's Grace or not. I always looked upon
   her with interest, though only a poor laborer's wife, till she was
   taken away to Heaven, after having lived a holy life. Many since then
   have I rejoiced over in the Lord, but that first seal to my ministry
   was peculiarly dear to me. It gave me a sip of the joy of harvest! If
   somebody had left me a fortune, it would not have caused me one
   hundredth part of the delight I had in discovering that a soul had been
   led to the Savior! I am sure Christian people who have not known this
   joy have missed one of the choicest delights that a Believer can know
   this side of Heaven. In fact, when I see souls saved, I do not envy
   Gabriel his throne, nor the angels their harps. It will be our Heaven
   here to be out of Heaven for a season if we can but thereby bring
   others to know the Savior and so add fresh jewels to our Redeemer's
   crown!

   I will mention yet another delight which is to us as the joy in
   harvest, and that is, feelowship width our Lord Jesus Christ. This is
   not so much a subject for speech as for musing--for deep experience and
   real enjoyment. If we attempt to speak of what communion with Christ
   is, we cannot but fall short of declaring it. Solomon, the wisest of
   men, when inspired to write of the fellowship of the Church with her
   Lord, was compelled to write in allegories and emblems. And though to
   the spiritual mind the Song of Songs is always a source of holy
   delight, yet to the carnal mind and to the formal Christian, it seems a
   mere love song. The natural man discerns not the things that are of
   God, for they are spiritual and can only be spiritually seen and known.
   But oh, the bliss of knowing that Christ is yours and of entering into
   nearness of communion with Him! To thrust your hands into His side and
   your finger into the print of the nails--these are

   not everyday joys! But when such near and dear communing come to us on
   our high days and holy days, they make our souls like the chariots of
   Amminadib, or, if you will, they cause us to tread the world beneath
   our feet--and all that the world calls good or great! Our condition
   matters little or nothing to us if Christ is with us! He is our God,
   our Comfort, and our All--and we rejoice before Him as with "the joy in
   harvest." I have no time to enlarge further, for I want to close with
   one other intensely practical word. It is this--

   III. SHALL WE NOT DESIRE MORE AND MORE THIS "JOY IN HARVEST?" Many of
   God's people are just now anxiously desiring a harvest which would
   bring to us an intense delight. Of late, divers persons have
   communicated to me in many ways the strong emotion they feel of deep
   pity for the souls of men. Others of us have felt a mysterious impulse
   to pray more than we ever have and to be more anxious than we ever
   were, that Christ would save poor perishing sinners. We shall not be
   satisfied until there is a thorough awakening in this land! We did not
   raise the feeling in our own minds, but we do not desire to repress it!
   We do not believe it can be repressed! And others will feel, too, the
   same heavenly affection and will sigh and cry to God day and night
   until the blessing comes! This is the sowing, this is the plowing, this
   is the harrowing--may it go on to harvesting! I long to hear my
   Brothers and Sisters universally saying, "We are full of anguish! We
   are in agony till souls are saved." The cry of Rachel, "Give me
   children, or I die," is the cry of your minister this day--and the
   longing of thousands more besides! As that desire grows in intensity, a
   revival is surely approaching! We must have spiritual children born to
   Christ, or our hearts will break for the longing that we have for their
   salvation! Oh, for more of these longings, yearnings, cravings,
   travailing! If we plead till the harvest of revival comes, we shall
   partake in the joy of it!

   Who will have the most joy? Those who have been the most concerned
   about it! You who do not pray in private, nor come out to Prayer
   Meetings will not have the joy when the blessing comes and the Church
   is increased. You had no share in the sowing, therefore you will have
   little share in the reaping. You who never speak to others about their
   souls, who take no share in Sunday school or mission work, but simply
   eat the fat and drink the sweet shall have none of the joy in harvest,
   for you do not put your hands to the work of the Lord! And who would
   wish that idlers should be happy? Rather in our zeal and jealousy we
   feel inclined to say "Curse you, Meroz! Curse you bitterly, the
   inhabitants thereof, because they came not up to the help of the Lord,
   to the help of the Lord against the mighty."

   If you come to the help of the Lord by His own Divine Spirit, you shall
   share in the joy in harvest. Perhaps none will have more of that joy
   than those who shall have the privilege of seeing their own dear ones
   brought to God. Some of you have children who are a trial to you
   whenever you think of them--let them be such a trial to you that they
   drive you to incessant prayer for them! And if the blessing comes, why
   would it not drop on them?

   If a revival comes, why should not your daughter be converted? And that
   wild boy of yours be brought in? Or even your gray-headed father who
   has been unbelieving and skeptical--why should not the Grace of God
   come to him? And oh, what a joy in harvest you will have then! What
   bliss will thrill through your spirit when you see those who are yours
   by ties of blood united to Christ your Lord!

   Pray much for them with earnest faith and you shall yet have the joy in
   harvest in your own house--a shout of "harvest home" in your own
   family!

   But possibly you, my Hearer, have not much to do with such joy, for you
   are, yourself, unsaved. Yet it is a grand thing for an unconverted
   person to be under a ministry that God blesses and with a people that
   constantly pray for conversions.

   It is a happy thing for you, young man, to have a Christian mother! It
   is a great gift for you, O unconverted woman, that you have a godly
   sister! These make us hopeful for you. While your relations are
   prayerful, we are hopeful for you. May the Lord Jesus be yet yours.
   But, ah, if you remain unbelieving, however rich a blessing comes to
   others, it will leave you none the better for it! "If you are willing
   and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." But there are some
   who may cry in piteous accents, "The harvest is past, the summer is
   ended, and we are not saved!" It has been remarked that those who pass
   through a season of revival and remain unconverted are more hardened
   and unimpressed than before. I believe it to be so and I therefore pray
   the Divine Spirit to come with such energy that none of you may escape
   His power! May you be led to pray--

   "Pass me not, O mighty Spirit! You can make the blind to see.

   Witness of Jesus'merit, Speak the word of power to me. Even me!

   Have I long in an been sleeping, Long been slighting, grieving Thee?
   Has the world my heart been keeping? Oh forgive and rescue me! Even
   me."

   Oh, for earnest, importunate prayer from all Believers throughout the
   world! If our Churches could be stirred up to incessant vehement crying
   to God, so as to give Him no rest till He makes Zion a praise in the
   earth, we might expect to see God's Kingdom come and the power of Satan
   fall! As many of you as love Christ, I charge you by His dear name to
   be much in prayer! As many of you as love the Church of God and desire
   her prosperity, I beseech you to keep not back in this time of
   supplication! The Lord grant that you may be led to plead till the
   harvest joy is granted!

   Do you remember my saying one Sabbath, "The Lord deal so with you as
   you deal with His work this month"? I feel as if it will be so with
   many of you--that the Lord will deal so with you as you shall deal with
   His Church. If you scatter little, you shall have little! If you pray
   little, you shall have little favor. But if you have zeal and faith and
   plead much and work much for the Lord--good measure shaken together,
   pressed down and running over--shall the Lord return into your own
   hearts and lives! If you water others with trickling drops, you shall
   receive only drops in return. But if the Spirit helps you to pour out
   rivers of Living Water, then floods of heavenly Grace shall flood in
   your spirit!

   God bring in the unconverted and lead them to a simple trust in
   Jesus--then shall they,also, know the joy in harvest! We ask it for His
   name's sake. Amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH9:1-7.

   The last verses of the 8th Chapter picture a horrible state of
   wretchedness and despair--"And they shall pass through it, hard-pressed
   and hungry: and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry,
   they shall fret themselves and curse their king and their God, and look
   upward. And they shall look unto the earth and behold trouble and
   darkness, gloom of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness." But
   see what a change awaits them!

   Verse 1. Nevertheless the gloom shall not be such as was in her
   vexation when at the first He lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and
   the land of Naphtali. And afterward did more grievously afflict her by
   the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nation. Read the
   fine translation of the Revised Version--"But there shall be no gloom
   to her that was in anguish." What a marvelous light from the midst of a
   dreadful darkness! It is an astounding change, such as only God with us
   could work. Many of you know nothing about the miseries described in
   those verses, but there are some who have traversed that terrible
   wilderness--and I am going to speak to them. I know where you are. You
   are being driven as captives into the land of despair. And for the last
   few months you have been tramping along a painful road, "hard-pressed
   and hungry." You are sorely put to it and your soul finds no food of
   comfort, but is ready to faint and die. You fret yourself. Your heart
   is wearing away with care, grief and hopelessness. In the bitterness of
   your soul you are ready to curse the day of your birth! The captive
   Israelites cursed their king who had led them into their defeat and
   bondage. In the fury of their agony, they even cursed God and longed to
   die! It may be that your heart is in such a ferment of grief that you
   know not what you think, but are like a man at his wit's end.

   For such as you there shines this star of the first magnitude--Jesus
   has appeared to save and He is God and Man in one Person--Man that He
   may feel our woes, God that He may help us out of them! No minister can
   save you, no priest can save you--you know this right well. But here is
   One who is able to save to the uttermost, for He is God as well as Man!
   The great God is good at a dead lift! When everything else has failed,
   the lever of Omnipotence can lift a world of sin! Jesus is almighty to
   save! That which in itself is impossibility, is possible with God. Sin
   which nothing else can remove is blotted out by the blood of Immanuel!
   Immanuel, our Savior, is God With Us--and God With Us means difficulty
   removed and a perfect work accomplished!

   2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they
   that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light
   shined. Jesus came to Galilee of the Gentiles and made that country
   glorious, which had been brought into contempt. That corner of
   Palestine had very often borne the brunt of invasion and had felt more
   than any other region the edge of the keen Assyrian sword. They were at
   first troubled when the Assyrian was bought off with a thousand talents
   of silver, but they were more heavily afflicted when Tilgath-Pilneser
   carried them all away to Assyria, for which see the 15th Chapter of the
   Second Book of the Kings. It was a wretched land, with a mixed
   population, despised by the purer race of Jews--but that very country
   became glorious with the Presence of the Incarnate God! Even so, at
   this day His gracious Presence is the dawn of our joy!

   3. You have multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy
   before You according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when
   they divide the spoil.The Revised Version reads, "You have increased
   their joy." If Christ comes to you, my dear Hearer, as God With Us,
   then shall your joy be great, for you shall joy as with the joy of
   harvest, and as those rejoice that divide the spoil! Is it not so? Many
   of us can bear our witness that there is no joy like that which Jesus
   brings!

   4. For You ha ve broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his
   shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. Your enemy
   shall be defeated, "as in the day of Midian." Gideon was, in his dream,
   likened to a barley cake which struck the tent of Midian, so that it
   lay along. He and his few heroes, with their pitchers and their
   trumpets, stood and shouted, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" and
   Midian melted away before them. So shall it be with our sins, doubts
   and fears if we believe in Jesus, the Incarnate God--they shall vanish
   like the mists of the morning! The Lord Jesus will break the yoke of
   our burden and the rod of our oppressor, as in the day of Midian! Be of
   good courage, you that are in bondage to fierce sad cruel
   adversaries--for in the name of Jesus, who is God With Us--you shall
   destroy them!

   5. For every warrior's sandal from the noisy battle, and garments
   rolled in blood will be used for burning and fuel of fire.When Jesus
   comes, you shall have eternal peace, for His battle is the end of
   battles. "All the armor of the armed man in the tumult, and the
   garments rolled in blood, shall even be for burning, for fuel of fire."
   This is the rendering of the Revision and it is good. The Prince of
   Peace wars against war and destroys it. What a glorious day is that in
   which the Lord breaks the bow and cuts the spear in sunder, and burns
   the chariot in the fire! I think I see it now. My sins, which were the
   weapons of my foes, the Lord pile in heaps. What mountains of prey! But
   look! He brings the fire-brand of His love from the altar of His
   Sacrifice and He sets fire to the gigantic pile! Look how they blaze!
   They are utterly consumed forever!

   6. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the
   government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called
   Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The
   Prince of Peace. Now is it that the Lord Jesus becomes glorious in our
   eyes! And He whose name is Immanuel is now crowned in our heart with
   many crowns and honored with many titles. What a list of glories we
   have here! What a burst of song it makes when we sing of the
   Messiah--"His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty
   God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace!" Each work sounds
   like a salvo of artillery. It is all very well to hear players on
   instruments and sweet singers rehearse these words--but to believethem
   and realize them in your own soul is far better! When every fear, every
   hope and every power and every passion of our nature fills the
   orchestra of our heart--and all unite in one inward song unto the
   glorious Immanuel--what music it is!

   7. Ofthe increase of His government andpeace there shall be no end,
   upon the throne ofDavid, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to
   establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even
   forever. The zeal ofthe LORD of Hosts will perform this. If Christ is
   your Savior He must be your King--

   "But know, nor ofthe terms complain,

   Where Jesus comes He comes to reign!

   To reign, and with no partial sway--

   Lusts must be slain that disobey." The moment we really believe in
   Jesus as our Salvation, we fall before Him and call Him Master and
   Lord. We serve when He saves. He has redeemed us unto Himself and we
   acknowledge that we are His. A generous man once bought a slave girl.
   She was put upon the brook for auction and he pitied her and purchased
   her. But when he had bought her, he said to her, "I have bought you to
   set you free. Here are your papers, you are a free woman." The grateful
   creature fell at his

   feet and cried, "I will never leave you! If you have made me free, I
   will be your servant as long as you live and serve you better than any
   slave could do." This is how we feel towards Jesus. He sets us free
   from the dominion of Satan and then, as we need a Ruler, we say, "And
   the government shall be upon His shoulder." We are glad to be ruled by
   "Immanuel, God With Us." This also is a door of hope to us! That Jesus
   shall be the monarch of our hearts is our exceeding joy. To us He shall
   always be "Wonderful." When we think of Him, or speak about Him, it
   shall be with reverent awe. When we need advice and comfort, we will
   fly to Him, for He shall be our Counselor. When we need strength, we
   will look to Him as our Mighty God. Born-again by His Spirit, we will
   be His children and He shall be The Everlasting Father! Full of joy and
   rest, we will call Him Prince of Peace!

   Are you willing to have Christ to govern you? Will you spend your lives
   in praising Him? You are willing to have Christ to pardon you, but we
   cannot divide Him and, therefore, you must also have Him to sanctify
   you! You must not take the crown from His head, but accept Him as the
   Monarch of your soul! If you would have His hand to help you, you must
   obey the scepter which it grasps. Blessed Immanuel, we are right glad
   to obey You! In You our darkness ends, and from the shadow of death we
   rise to the Light of Life! It is salvation to be obedient to You. It is
   the end of gloom to her who was in anguish to bow herself before You!

   May God the Holy Spirit take of the things of Christ and show them unto
   us, and then we shall all cry--

   "Go worship at Immnanuel's feet!

   See in His face what wonders meet!

   Earth is too narrow to express

   His worth, His Grace, His righteousness!"
     __________________________________________________________________

Their Desired Haven

   (No. 3316)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON SUNDAY EVENING, JUNE 17,
   1866.

   "So He brings them to their desired haven." Psalm 107:30.

   TAKEN strictly, according to its original context, the text plainly and
   powerfully reminds us that our Providential mercies ought never be
   forgotten--and more especially those remarkable mercies which concern
   the safety of our life in times of great peril.

   If there are any of you who have been exposed to storms at sea, or who
   have in any other way been brought near death's door, and have then
   been strikingly rescued, should you not devote your life to Him who has
   spared and prolonged it? Do you think it was without a design that God
   brought you into the peril? And is it without a purpose that He has
   lengthened out your span of life? Oh, I pray you, if you have hitherto
   been ungrateful, let this tenderness of His in sparing your useless
   life--(for remember it has been useless to Him)--excite in you a
   hundredfold tenderness! A tenderness of repentance for the past, and of
   holy desire for the future. In such an assembly as this I have surely
   some who have either been restored from a bed of sickness when they
   were almost given over, or who have been preserved from accidents on
   land, or have had hairbreadth escapes at sea. Oh, praise the Lord for
   His goodness and for His wonderful works toward you! And at the foot of
   the Cross of Calvary dedicate your few remaining days to the service of
   the Preserver of men!

   But this evening, while remembering these important Truths of God, we
   intend to use the text with yet another objective. This natural voyage
   on the sea may be a very excellent type and picture of the spiritual
   voyage which all men undertake in their soul's life. And we should
   first interpret the text as it concerns the seeking sinner on the sea
   of soul-trouble, brought at length by the gracious Pilot to his desired
   haven of peace through believing. And then we shall very briefly
   construe the text with reference to the saint brought through all the
   troubles of life to the desired haven of the New Jerusalem, where he
   shall rest forever free from all future storms and perils.

   First, then, let us look at I. THE SEEKING SINNER AS A SOUL-VOYAGER.

   Our first thought suggested here is that with regard to the sinner,
   there is a haven. The soul of the man or woman is far out at sea,
   liable to be wrecked and in such a storm he or she willbe wrecked, for
   no craft can live it out unless it makes all speed for the haven. And
   there is a haven for storm-tossed, ship-wrecked souls! There is a
   harbor of refuge for tempest-driven sinners! That haven is Christ
   Jesus, received by faith into the soul. I compare Him to a haven
   because of the peace which those enjoy who once shelter in Him. It is
   wild, and black, and fierce out there, Sinner, where you are! But there
   is peace--"the peace of God that passes all understanding"--where the
   true Believer is. It is not because his ship is different from yours.
   If he were where you are, as once he was, he would still be in the same
   peril and suffer the same damage as you. But he is now "in Christ" and
   you are not. He has changed the hurricane for the haven, the danger for
   the calm confidence of safety! Oh, if you only knew the peace which
   faith brings, it would not be long before you cried to God in your
   trouble and He would bring you to His dear Son and Savior, Jesus
   Christ!

   I also call Jesus a haven because of the safety that there is to every
   soul that is in Him. Ships are wrecked and broken to pieces out there,
   on the shoals, on the quicksand, or on the iron-bound coasts--but they
   escape wreck in the haven. There let the storm-king rage his worst and
   angriest abroad--they are in perfect peace! Sometimes, not a ripple
   disturbs the vessel that is in the harbor. My Hearer, you are in great
   danger tonight! You may soon be in Hell and even now the wrath of God
   abides on you, for you are "without God" and, consequently, "without
   hope in the world." But the Christian is in no such danger! Sin, which
   is the source of all soul-danger, has been fully forgiven him. He will
   not need even to

   fear death, for to him death is but the gate of life! He need have no
   fears of temporal trouble, for he has left his burdens with the great
   Burden-Bearer and may cast all his care on Him who cares for him. He
   has a peace which is founded upon the Immutable Truth of God! It is not
   a false peace which expects that there will never come a storm, but a
   true solid peace which knows that though the though the storm will
   come, he needs not dread it because his vessel is safe in the haven!

   I call Christ a haven, again, because when we get into Him, we do very
   much what ships do in the haven--we begin unloading. Oh, what a cargo
   of black sins we had! Oh, what a store of grief, fears, follies and
   doubts! But when we come to Jesus Christ we unload them all. We cast
   overboard even what we once thought precious, counting it but dross and
   dung that we may win Christ and be found in Him. What a blessed
   riddance to be free of such foul rubbish as once threatened to founder
   our souls! Says the hymn--

   "I lay my sins on Jesus, The spotless Lamb of God! He bears them all
   and frees us, From the accursed load."

   That is what faith is helped to do. It casts all its sins, doubts,
   fears and cares upon Jesus Christ, the great Sin-Bearer, and so is made
   free!

   I call Him a haven, too, because when a ship gets to the haven, it
   begins to load again. The haven is as frequently the starting place for
   a new voyage, as the goal to the previous one. And emphatically is that
   so in our soul's experience.

   What fine store does the trustful soul take on board when it comes to
   Jesus Christ! Of joy, of love, privilege, holiness, delight and
   fellowship, for we have inexhaustible riches of Grace and blessing in
   Him. When we come to Him, these unbounded treasures are all ours! God
   All-Sufficient is revealed to us in the Person of the Man, Christ
   Jesus. Like the haven of Araby, where the ships take on board their
   gold and their perfume, so the soul receives its most precious and
   priceless gifts from the All-Bountiful Redeemer Lord! Oh, you who are
   still out on the restless, wild sea of sin and dissatisfaction of storm
   and dread, will you not long to reach the haven that you may be
   peaceful and safe, happy and secure because you lose your sins and in
   their place may receive of His fullness, Grace for Grace?

   Mariner! I think I hear you say, "I would gladly came to the port, but
   what about it, Sir? What are the dues there?" Sinner, it is a free
   port--there is nothing to pay! Of all the keels that ever floated into
   that haven there was never one that had anything to bring that was
   worth receiving. There has been much taken out, but nothing has been
   brought in that was worth the acceptance. Christ will charge you no
   custom's dues, so run to this port, for it is freely open to every
   sinner that desires to cast anchor there! There is room for you, too.
   There are many vessels--there is a great fleet, a blessedly peaceful
   fleet, within, but there is room for you. Do you tell me that there was
   once a bar before the harbor? Yes, but it has been blasted clean away
   and is now altogether removed! There is sea-room for the heaviest
   craft! Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as wool! Though
   they are red like crimson they shall be whiter than snow! You say that
   your heavy-laden boat will draw many a foot of Mercy's water? Ah, but
   there's many a foot here! There is room even though your ship is
   burdened up to the bulwarks. There is no fear of your touching the
   bottom of God's bottomless Grace, wisdom and love! There is always room
   for you to come. Some ports are only open at certain states of the
   tide, and so when the tide is out and low, the boat that makes for the
   haven may run upon the rocks, or the Black Middens somewhere--but of
   this there is no fear for you--

   "The blessed gates of Gospel Grace Stand open night and day!"

   Some souls have run for the haven at the very last and, by His mercy,
   they have got in--while others have run for it, blessed be God, while
   yet quite young! Oh, may it be your happy lot at the very commencement
   of life's voyage, young men and women, to run for this blessed haven
   and find yourselves strong and secure and serene!

   At any rate, let me say to you, however despairing you may be, if God
   gives you the will to run for this harbor, you may do so and find
   without doubt that it will be found open to receive you! Christ Jesus,
   then, is a true haven for the soul--and they who trust in Him are made
   perfectly secure!

   We must not stay longer on this point, however, fair and attractive as
   it is, but note that the text speaks of "a desired haven." Now I wonder
   whether to all of us, Christ Jesus is a desired haven. He is a haven,
   but is He a desiredhaven to you? Put your hand now upon your heart and
   see if you can find a deep desire after Christ there. Oh, I would have
   hope

   in preaching to such a congregation, even though none of you knew
   Christ, if you did but truly desire Him! You would then be like tinder
   to my spark and be like prepared ground. I should only have to sow the
   Seed and you would be that fruitful soil which receive it--and yield a
   harvest a hundred-fold! Christ is not desired by some of you and why
   not? But I think I can easily find out those who desire the haven. They
   are just these. The sailor desires the haven when he has an unfavorable
   breeze. Do you feel as if Providence were blowing in your teeth? And
   are temptations setting in very strong? And does the recollection of
   your past sin come blowing a hard gale against you? But a little while
   ago you sailed and were very comfortable, for 'twas all smooth water
   with you! The sea was like a millpond! But now the waves roll and break
   mountains high and the wind is in your teeth. I hope you will come to
   desire the Savior now. Sick of the world and all its turbulence, may
   you now be anxious after Him and His peace. The sailor desires to get
   into harbor, too, when he finds he is in weather which he is not likely
   to ride out. "Would God," says the boatswain, "that we could see the
   light." "Oh, that we were now in the haven," says the master, "for
   there are threatening, angry breakers ahead." Do you not see the
   breakers ahead, Sinner? Are you not afraid of dying and more afraid of
   living? Do not the storms and trials of life drive you to desire
   something better than the vain world can give you? And does not the
   prospect of the afterlife alarm you? Then I hope that to your belabored
   soul Christ is the desired haven!

   But even more, the haven is desired by the sailor whose ship is leaky.
   "She will soon go down," he says, "we have kept the pump going, but the
   water gains upon us." Do you feel your spirit to be such an unseaworthy
   craft that you are afraid to go out into or stay out in the depths of
   the sea with her? Do you begin to feel, or fear, she is sinking? If so,
   then my Lord Jesus Christ will be to you a "desired haven," indeed! Ah,
   no sinner prizes salvation like the sinner who knows he is lost! May
   our God give you to know that you are!--

   "The sinner is a sacred thing, The Holy Spirit has made him so." That
   is, a really awakened sinner, for his ship he will not take to harbor
   unless he feels that she must sink unless he does! I pray God that you
   may get into such a sinking state that you may be compelled to go to
   Him. And when the sailor himself is sick, it is then he needs the
   haven. When he feels as if he must die, then he says, "I wish I were
   safe on shore!" Do you feel sick at heart? Does your very soul turn
   within you till you reel and stagger like a drunken man? Then you will
   desire the haven and I bless God you will have it! There is many a
   sailor who has desired the haven who has yet never reached it but gone
   down into the depths--but there has never been one upon the sea of life
   who has desiredChrist with a really intense longing and a loving and
   anxious heart, but he has found Him before long! Oh, Sinner, I have
   hope for you, for if you desire Christ, Christ even more desires you!

   We cannot stop, however, even here, for next we have to talk about the
   Pilot. How do they get into the haven? He brings them there. The text
   is speaking of God. "So He brings them to their desired haven." We know
   nothing of the navigator of the sea of salvation. To get into the
   harbor is never effected by human skill nor wisdom. "I am a Christian"
   said a young woman once. Said the minister, "When did you become a
   Christian?" "I am sure I don't know, Sir," was the reply, "but I
   supposed it was when I was christened." A great many people have the
   same notion. Ah, but "so" He does not bring any to the desired haven,
   but in quite an altogether different way! It is by the personally
   coming on board of the soul, of the Great Pilot, the Holy Spirit, that
   the heart is steered into the safe haven. But she will rot or wreck
   outside, or founder to the bottom unless God, Himself, shall bring her
   into the quiet harbor of His glorious Redemption. "So He brings them."
   Dear Hearer, do you say, "There is a haven, and I desire to make for
   the land, but the wind is contrary. I would tack and tack about, but
   the more I try, the farther off from the haven do I seem to be"? Yes,
   but He who is the Haven is also the Pilot to bring you to the haven!
   You have no repentance, you say. He gives it! Ask Him for it. You have
   no faith. He gives it--seek it at His hands. Oh, that you had Grace to
   trust Him as much as to bring you to Himself, as to bring you to
   Heaven! You may not get at Him, you toiling boat. You cannot reach
   Christ who is on the land, but He comes walking on the water to meet
   you. "It is I," He says, "be not afraid."

   Despair not, doubt not, you who desire! Put up the signals of
   distress--fire the guns of prayer again and again-- and He will come!
   The Pilot who has weathered and rescued you from many a storm, before,
   will bring you safely to harbor. He is a Pilot who knows the sea well--

   "He knows what strong temptations mean, For He has felt the same."

   He has steered many a vessel into port that was in quite as bad a
   condition as you are now. He is well-skilled! He has got a Divine
   Certificate from the Trinity House. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me;
   He has anointed Me to do this very work of bringing poor shipwrecked
   mariners to the Port of Peace." Commit yourself to His hands! Let Him
   board your vessel and He will make your ship tack about and bring you
   soon into the still and quiet waters of the desired haven!

   But I come now to the point I want specially to drive at, and that is
   the passage to the haven. They are brought to the haven they desire and
   they are brought there by the Pilot, but how are they brought? The text
   says, "So He brings them to their desired haven." The way into the
   haven is not always a smooth one. Some are brought to Christ as if they
   had never known a storm. Do not, of course, desire and seek a
   storm--but as long as you get safely into the haven it matters not how
   you get there. If you trust Christ, do not trouble yourselves because
   you never went through the Slough of Despond. Read the life of John
   Bunyan and you will find him much troubled and tumbled up and down for
   years. You may have felt little of this, perhaps, yet if your trust in
   Christ is sincere and real, it matters not! If the ship reaches the
   haven and is safely sheltered there, whether she had a stormy passage
   or a smooth one is of little importance. The great thing is to be "Safe
   home, safe home in port." Still, it often happens that we come into the
   port of Christ's salvation through a storm. Read the passage and you
   will see how frequently this occurs. "They mount up to Heaven, they go
   down again into the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.
   They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man. They cry unto the
   Lord in their trouble and He brings them out of their distresses. He
   makes the storm to be a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then
   are they glad because they are quite. So He brings them to their
   desired haven." They are greatly troubled, but it drives them to
   prayer--prayer gets its answer and so they get Christ! I thank God that
   I was brought into peace by believing. It was many and many a day
   before I found Christ. It is a strange thing, but as I was talking this
   afternoon with a dear friend in Christ about spiritual things, we
   remarked to one another that the most of the men who had been made
   useful in winning souls had a hard time of it, when they first came to
   Christ. For the most part a deep and painful experience seems to be
   absolutely necessary to enable a minister to get a hold and a grip upon
   the Doctrines of Grace. Still, let us never forget that the tossing is
   not the haven and the storm is not the port. A sense of sin does not
   save--and terrors of conscience do not justify. "Believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." That is the great message to us
   all! Trust in Jesus--this it is that brings you into port. May God
   bring you there! And we will then sing together, and "praise the Lord
   for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men."

   I hope to meet full many of you in that other port above. Meanwhile,
   what a blessing and privilege it is that there are so many of us in the
   port of Christ here and now, on this sin-afflicted earth! Let us hand
   out the flags tonight, everyone of them as we try to bless and magnify
   the King who is, Himself, the Pilot, who made the haven, who Himself
   bears the storm upon His own bosom, that we may be saved from it and be
   hidden from all the rolling billows, and find a secure resting place in
   Him!

   And now for only a few minutes let us apply the text to Believers and
   see--II. THE SINCERE SAINT AS A SOUL-VOYAGER. We are accustomed to
   speak of Heaven as our home and I think we would not strain the point,
   tonight, if we speak of it as our haven. The Church in the olden times
   was often pictured in symbols by a ship and, perhaps, no better type of
   the Church could be found. The ship is out at sea. We are on our
   journey home. The prow is towards the Promised Land. We hope to reach
   the Isles of the Happy in the land of the hereafter where the waters
   are eternally still and the billows roll no more. In yonder haven of
   our soul there is a peace transcending even the peace which we have
   learned upon earth though it passes all understanding--a peace that no
   storm can by any possibility even break--no storm within, no tempest
   without. There shall be no panics there, no losses of money there, no
   sickening wife, no dying child, no tortured brain, no anguish in the
   heart--there we shall be free from all the storms that tossed us on the
   sea of life.

   That port is one from which the ship shall never make another
   voyage--she is home for good--not to be broken up, but to be re-filled
   after a better fashion! No longer mortal, for this mortal shall put on
   immortality and this corruption must put on incorruption. She shall
   make voyages, but still be in the haven, for the eternal haven is wide
   as infinity and we may sail on and on forever--and it shall always be
   upon a sea where not a wave of trouble, a breaker of sin or sorrow
   shall beat on our serene soul! There shall be no more leakage there, no
   more complaint that the vessel is out of trim. The sin that has pierced
   us through and through like some of these sea-worms which eat through
   the staunchest timbers shall be forever done with! Yes, forever and
   ever!

   I love to think often and deeply of that haven, dear Friends! If not to
   you, I am sure it is to me, a "desired haven." If you ask me why it is
   desired, I can only answer that when I see the perils of the way--the
   storms we have had to face and outride and how little our poor vessel
   is able to overcome them--we may well long to be forever where such
   trials and, indeed, alltrials, shall never come! I desire to be in that
   haven, I think, as much as anything--that I may meet there my many
   comrades who have gone before.

   It has been my lot to serve under the Great Captain now for some few
   years. There are names that are on the roll of my Master in Heaven
   which I venerate and men whom I long to see. Rowland Hill once took a
   journey, we are told, from Cambridge, some ten or twelve miles, to see
   an old dying saint, and he said to her, "Now, you will be in Heaven
   before me, but do tell them that poor old Rowland is on the road. And
   when you get there give my love to the three Johns-- John who leaned on
   the Savior's bosom, John Calvin and John Bunyan." Well, we may well
   wish to see them and the many who shall be there, for we shall have
   near and intimate communion with them! Let us drink tonight the cup of
   fellowship and toast the friends that are ahead! We have been long
   enough out from shore, I think, almost to forget those behind and begin
   to remember those who are ahead. We are homeward bound and we long to
   be at home for the sake of the friends who have gone before. Some dear
   to us in ties of flesh are there--those who were to us as father,
   mother, wife or child. Your little ones are beckoning some of you to
   the celestial shore! How much a desired haven it should be to you! I
   have many spiritual children on the other side of life's Jordan.
   Multitudes are now there who learned the Savior's name from my
   stammering words--and came to see His transcendent beauties as He was
   being set forth, lifted up and exhibited here in the midst of this
   great congregation! I know they will welcome me, their spiritual
   father, and I long to be with them!

   But best of all it is a desired haven, because He is there, who though
   He was of a human mother born, is yet truly Divine! He, whom though--

   "We have not seen His face, Unceasing we adore! The Man of Sorrows at
   the Father's side, The Man of Love, the Crucified."

   Blow, blow you winds! Let the sails go to ribbons if they must! Let the
   vessel rush and fly before the gale, if only she does but get safely
   into "the desired haven!" We may even think the storm is blest that
   drives her the more quickly there, for it is, indeed, a desired haven!

   Are you now desiring it, my dear Brothers and Sisters? It is not always
   that we do. We get a trick of loitering along the road or merely
   cruising on the ocean. What a strange thing that anything here should
   beguile us!--

   "What is there that I should wait, My hope's alone in Thee! When will
   You open Glory's gate, And take me up to Thee?"

   Is there anything here that ought to make us stop a moment if there is
   that prospect beyond of the Savior's face and the vision of His Glory?
   I think we can say, some of us, that at times--

   "Our thirsty spirit faints To reach the land we love-- The bright
   inheritance of saints, Jerusalem above!"

   You see I am running over the same heads as we had in the first part--a
   haven, a desired haven, and then the Pilot. Shall I ever get to the
   desired haven? I would despair of it in going through so tortuous a
   channel so thickly set with difficulties and perils, but my Pilot knows
   the course! My Pilot found the way to Heaven, Himself, and if I trust
   Him absolutely, giving the vessel entirely to His charge, He will find
   the way for me, too! Besides this, He has this advantage--He is the
   Master of the winds and waves! And so I may confidently--

   "Leave to His sovereign will To choose and to command." For He will
   certainly bring me safely home.

   But the passage to the haven needs, too, your thought. My Christian
   Brothers and Sisters, you are now being tossed on the sea. You came
   here tonight wondering what God was doing with you. You old sailors
   ought not to be astonished or alarmed at a storm. Did you imagine the
   sea had turned to dry land? Did you expect to reach yonder distant
   shore without feeling the heave of the waves? Why the youngsters and
   novices may expect such things if they will! But you who are seasoned
   mariners and are getting gray ought to know better! Has it been smooth
   all the way until now? Why expect it to be sunny and serene now? Master
   John Bunyan's ditty has it--

   "A Christian is seldom long at ease,

   When one trouble's gone, another does him seize." Do you not expect it?
   If you do not, I would alter my reckoning if I were you! Just turn to
   the log-book of your memory--how many days together have you generally
   been in smooth water? Not many, I will guarantee you. You ancient
   mariners who have lived at sea these many years and have got your
   sea-legs now, and can stand where others fall, I ask you whether you
   have not been more accustomed to rolling billows than you have been to
   the ocean smooth as a mill-pond? And do you expect to see it alter for
   you now? Between you and Canaan there are a few more storms. Between
   here and the everlasting rest there are turmoils yet to encounter, but,
   "so He brings them to their desired haven." Perhaps if it were always
   smooth, they would never get there--the treacherous stream of earthly
   ease would bear them out to the cataract of everlasting destruction!
   Perhaps without the wind and without the storm, yes, and without the
   clouds and the tempest, and the thunder and the lightning, the boat
   might never reach the haven! The boats upon earth's seas may reach
   their haven without the aid of storms, but not so with us, for, to
   again repeat the words of Cowper, here if not in the other case--

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

   And now my last word that I would venture to say is this--"So he brings
   them to their desired haven." That does not mean you, young man, for
   Christ is not on board your heart and life--you do not desire the haven
   and you will never be brought there against your will! Who are they,
   then, that are brought there? The text and its context tells us. They
   are those who "cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saves them
   out of their distress." Are you a crying soul? Pleading, entreating His
   rescue and deliverance? That word, "cry," is a very appropriate and
   suggestive one. That is the true way to pray. As God inspires, cry to
   Him! A girl who had been converted was asked what was the difference
   between her prayers now and before she was converted. She answered,
   "Sir, first I prayed as my mother taught me, but now I pray as God
   prompts and teaches me." That is a blessed and vital difference! You
   have seen and heard your children cry. Well, how is it done? Some of
   them seem to cry all over. When they want something very badly, they
   not only cry with their throats, but they cry also with their legs and
   hands and eyes! And, indeed, they cry with all their nature. And that,
   too, is the right way to pray. You cannot get it out, perhaps--well
   then, feel it within, for God can see the inward feeling. "He hears the
   desires of the humble."

   A man once in great trouble, a poor Hottentot, went to his Dutch master
   and said he felt a great weight and he needed to pray--would he tell
   him how? The Dutchman did not know and could not tell him. But when the
   Hottentot went to the place at Cape Town where he heard the Bible read,
   he listened to the story of the Pharisee. And as he heard it he said,
   "Dat man a good man. I can't pray like him. Dat prayer not suit me. I
   can't pray dat." Presently the preacher went on reading the publican's
   prayer, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." The man said, "Dat man a bad
   man. God not hear dat prayer." But when he came to, "That man went down
   to his house justified rather than the other," he said, "Den I'll pray
   dat bad man's prayer. God hear him, God hear me," and not long after he
   was heard to say, "Rocks, hills, rivers, trees, tell God my soul so
   happy, for He has heard my prayer and put my sins away!"

   Now, you who want to cry to God but do not know how, I recommend to you
   the publican's prayer, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Breathe that
   out before the Throne of God and you shall one day be among the company
   of whom it is said, "So He brings them to their desired haven," and you
   shall rest in Jesus--

   "Forever with the Lord."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM119:81-96.

   Verse 81. My soul faints for Your salvation: but I hope in Your Word.
   The ship rocks, but the anchor holds. The singer is ready to faint, but
   he is not ready to despair. He knows where his restoring will come.

   82. My eyes fail for Your Word, saying, When will You comfort me? What
   a mercy it is to have our eyes on God's Word, full as it is of
   blessing--to be waiting till the blessing comes out of it! My eyes
   watch Your Word that is so full of the rain of comfort--and I say to
   myself, "When will it descend and refresh me? When will the clouds let
   fall their silver drops upon my thirsty soul?"

   83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget
   Your statues. I feel dried up, smeared and smirched as with soot--my
   very beauty is gone from me and my usefulness, too. I am not fit to
   hold anything, for I have become like a skin bottle that is parched up.
   Yet for all that, I have a memory of Your Word--the smoke and the heat
   have not dried out of me the flavor of that good old "wine on the lees
   well refined" that once filled my heart.

   84. How many are the days of Your servant? When will You execute
   judgment on them that persecute me?"How many are the days of Your
   servant?" Or rather, how few they are--be not long in coming to me,
   lest I die while You are still on the road.

   85. The proud have dug pits for me, which are not after Your Law. They
   might make pits for lions and tigers, but not for sheep. These pits
   were not after God's Law. There are still cruel enemies who would, if
   they could, entrap the people of God--shall not this make us feel what
   a great mercy it is we have one to be our Guardian and Defender who
   knows where the pitfalls are?

   86. All Your commandments are faithful: they persecute me
   wrongfully--help me. There is a fine prayer for us every day in the
   week--"Help me." Lord, I am helpless if You do not help me. You are the
   helper of Israel--He that keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep.
   "Help me."

   87. They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not Your
   precepts. "They had almost consumed me upon earth." They seemed as if
   they would swallow me up entirely, "but I forsook not Your precepts"
   and, therefore, they could not consume me. I was invulnerable and
   invincible because I stuck to rectitude and kept to Your precepts.

   88. 89. Quicken me after Your loving kindness; so shall I keep the
   testimony of Your mouth Forever, O LORD, Your Word is settled in
   Heaven.There is not a new Divine Word, or a new Gospel, or a new
   Law--but it is a settled Gospel, a settled Law, a settled
   Revelation--"settled in Heaven," stereotyped, fixed, made permanent! If
   perfect, then unalterable--if alterable, then would it be imperfect.

   90. Your faithfulness is unto all generations: You have established the
   earth, and it abides. "Your faithfulness is unto all generations." You
   who were true to Abraham will be true to David. You who were true to
   David will be true to me. You are always faithful to Your own Nature
   and Godhead. "You have established the earth, and it abides." It would
   rot out of its place. It would rush into space like a truant planet if
   You did not hold it where it is. You, therefore, will hold Your Gospel
   where it is and Your servants where they are.

   91. They continue this day according to Your ordinances: for all are
   Your servants. The fixed laws of the universe have their analogy in the
   fixed rules of Revelation. Are not all material things Your servants?
   And they are kept--You will therefore keep us.

   92. 93. Unless Your Lawhad been my delights, I should then have
   perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts: for with
   them You have quickened me. We may well keep to that which is our life!
   If God's precepts breed life in us and then quicken us, and so renew
   that life, let us stand to them, be obedient to them and that at all
   times!

   94. I am Yours, save me; for I have sought Your precepts. "I am Yours,
   save me." Oh, what a sweet assertion. "I am Yours"--Your creature, Your
   redeemed one, Your chosen, Your espoused. "I am Yours, save me; for I
   have sought Your precepts."

   95. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me. Let them wait.

   95. But I will consider Your testimonies.I will not consider the
   wicked--they are not worth it--they would only distract or distress me.
   I will keep my thoughts fixed upon Your Word, and so shall I be at
   peace and escape from their malice.

   96. I have seen an end of all perfection: but Your commandment is
   exceedingly broad. Yes, all perfection in the creature! In very deed it
   is an attribute of the Creator, and whether it is true or false,
   whether men have the excellence they boast of, or have it not, there
   must be an end to it all--either as to its extent or its duration--but
   Your commandment

   has no limit, it covers everything! And it has no termination, it
   endures forever! "Your commandment is exceedingly

   broad."
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sweet Bow

   (No. 3317)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He delights in mercy." Micah 7:18.

   Sons of men, rejoice that such a God has revealed Himself to you! This
   should cause a universal Hallelujah, the whole world over, as soon as
   ever it is heard! "He delights in mercy." Clap your hands and rejoice
   before Him! Yes, exceedingly rejoice! The heathen did not find this
   out. Although they had many gods, differing one from another in
   character, none of them were ever gods of mercy! They were usually
   fierce demons--some of them only rejoicing in the exaction of human
   blood. Go this very day to Hindustan and see what gods man makes unto
   himself--gods more beastly, more cruel, more devilish than himself!
   Such is not the living and true God! Far from taking pleasure in the
   sufferings of creatures, He tells us plainly that He delights in mercy.
   It is not enough that He is merciful, but He delightsin this high
   prerogative! While we may well suppose that every attribute of God
   gives Him pleasure in the exercise, mercy is supremely singled out as
   being especially His favorite! Mercy is the last attribute openly
   manifested--He exercised His power in making men before they sinned or
   needed mercy--and He displayed His wisdom in balancing the clouds and
   piling the hills before He needed to show mercy, for sin as yet had not
   come into the world. If I may say so, mercy is God's Benjamin and He
   delights most of all in it. It is the son of His right hand, though,
   alas, in bringing it forth, it might well have been called the son of
   sorrow, too, for mercy came into this world through the sorrows of the
   Only-Begotten Son of God! He delights in mercy, just as some men
   delight in trade, some in the arts, some in professions--and each man,
   according to his delight, becomes proficient in pursuing a work for the
   very love thereof. So God is proficient in mercy. He addicts Himself to
   it. He is most Godlike, most happy if such a thing may be said of Him!
   When He is stretching out His right hand with His golden scepter in it,
   and saying to the guilty, "Come to Me. Touch this scepter and you shall
   live!" He delights in mercy!

   Now, surely it would suffice were I to sound this trumpet again and
   again with its celestial monotone. If you heard nothing but the same
   unvarying notes and did but remember them, believe them and come to God
   in consequence of them--there would be enough of a sermon in the text
   without further exposition or comment. "He delights in mercy."
   Nevertheless, as you are willing to listen, it will not be grievous to
   me to speak on such a lovely theme. Let me, therefore, mention some
   facts which prove it, answer some objections that are raised against it
   and warn you against some perversions of it and then endeavor to push
   home the great lessons which spring from it.

   I. FACTS WHICH PROVE THAT GOD DELIGHTS IN MERCY.

   This is clear from the first dawn of promise. When our first parents
   sinned, He might, if He had pleased, without straining the words which
   He had spoken, have destroyed them both and so at once have put an end
   to the race of rebels. He had said, "In the day that you eat thereof
   you shall surely die." If He had chosen to give to that a literal as
   well as a spiritual meaning, He might surely have put on the black cap
   and condemned our parents to perish on the spot! But why did He permit
   them to live and to become the parents of an innumerable race? Why,
   from that single pair, has He allowed the millions of the race to
   spring? Because every man that is born becomes a sinner and in everyone
   of these millions there is space for God's mercy--these all furnish so
   many platforms, I might say, on which God might display His mercy--so
   many millions of black foils against which God shall put the sparkling
   sapphire of His mercy that its brightness may be more clearly seen!
   Surely, it is only because He delights in mercy that He spares this
   earth to swarm with sinners and to be covered over with multitudes of
   transgressors!

   That He delights in mercy is clear from the fact that oftentimes after
   His anger has grown hot, He has spared the offender when he has
   repented. God determined to destroy the race of Israel in the
   wilderness. "Let Me alone that I may

   destroy them." But the prayer of Moses touched the tender part of God,
   namely, His mercy--and He said that He would spare the people for His
   Covenant and for His Prophet's sake. Even Ahab, that most cruel of
   kings, when he had been threatened, humbled himself and God said to
   Elijah, "Go and say unto Ahab, Because he has humbled himself, this
   thing shall not be in his day." And that great city of Nineveh, which
   had been given up to all manner of evil, God had said to Jonah, "Go and
   cry, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" But when they
   put themselves in sackcloth and repented at the Prophet's warning, the
   Lord would not destroy the city, but spared the multitude for a season.
   Oh, I tell you, the tears and cries of men move the heart of the Most
   High! Not a prayer that ever comes from the most guilty breast, if it
   is but sincere, fails to enter into the ear of the God of Mercy! The
   tears of penitents force their way into His soul. He has a bottle for
   those precious drops! He has a ready record for all their groans and
   sighs. He has proved this in innumerable cases. He has drawn the sword
   from its scabbard and put it back again when the man has repented. He
   has lifted the axe, yet laid it down again when the farmer has pleaded
   and said, "Let it alone this year, also." His sparing, even when His
   anger has grown hot, proves that He delights in mercy!

   Brothers and Sisters, I appeal to all of you in this present assembly!
   The fact that we are here tonight after all the provocations which we
   have given to God proves that He delights in mercy! Ah, I need not
   begin with the worst, the openly worst. Let me mention some of you who
   have been trained from your childhood in the paths of piety and yet you
   forgot God. You lived without Him--prayer was neglected, His day was a
   weariness--to go up to His house was a toil. And yet you have been
   spared though you were useless and unprofitable servants! He might have
   chased you out of the house and given you your portion among the
   tormenters, but He has borne with your ill manners and spared you to
   this hour! Ah, but there are some who have gone farther. They have
   broken His Laws! They have trampled on His statutes. Some have cursed
   His name--some here have done it! They have dared to imprecate
   damnation on themselves and have done it often. They have spoken
   against God, perhaps with impious and infidel lips. They have done
   worse than that--if worse can be! They have persecuted God's children
   and that is to touch the apple of His eye, and to hurt Him in the most
   tender place! We seemed, some of us, in the days of our sin, as if we
   would ride steeplechase to perdition--as if nothing could stop the
   insanity of our suicidal resolve! We would sin even if sin were bitter
   to us. We would pursue our ruin at all risks and hazards and yet He
   cried, "How can I give you up?" He turned to plead with us! A mother's
   voice pleaded-- from the grave she pleaded! The fever came and preached
   to us on the sickbed and we heard it. The cholera came and preached--we
   heard its voice in the street--we saw its power in the frequent
   funerals that passed along through the city. The preacher came and
   spoke as best he could and besought you, as a brother, that you would
   turn--that you would not perish, but would turn to God! And all theses
   entreaties--these stretching out of the hand, this wooing and these
   tears which God has used upon you have all been in vain to now--and you
   have sinned and revolted yet more and more! Does He not delight in
   mercy to continue still to invite, still to mourn and not to cut it
   short by destroying you altogether?

   And the very best proof that God delights in mercy, I think, is to be
   found in the great number of persons who are saved. I say the great
   number of those who are saved, for he who says they are but few,
   contorts some passages of God's Word and understands it not as a whole.
   Look yonder, if your eyes can see as mine can, by faith--you can no
   more count the spirits that rejoice before the Throne of God than you
   can count the stars in the sky, or the sand upon the seashore! Their
   music yonder is like great thunders, or like the mighty waves of the
   sea, for they are ten thousand times ten thousand, a company that no
   man can number, all having washed their robes and made them white in
   the blood of Jesus, all saved by the mercy of our God! And here below,
   how many there are of us who are making our way to the Celestial City,
   led by the precious Christ who is our Captain--and in all of our cases
   the mercy of God is seen!

   Nor is the mercy of God to be discovered only in the numbers, but it is
   seen also in the character of those who are saved, for God does not
   select the most virtuous, the most chaste, the most honest, the most
   talented. He often takes--to make them monuments of His mercy--the
   vilest, the most abased and blasphemous! He lays hold upon the polluted
   publican instead of the proud Pharisee. He singles out the wandering
   prodigal before many who thought themselves far better! He lifts the
   poor off the dunghill and sets him among princes! Glory be to the
   Infinite Majesty of Eternal Grace that has snatched brands out of the
   burning, who has lifted men from the very gates of Hell and passed them
   through the gates of Heaven! The guilt of one soul might sink a
   world--the accumulated guilt of all the millions whom Christ redeemed
   will stand forever as a proof that God delights in mercy!

   Reflect a moment upon the conduct of those saved after they have tasted
   that the Lord is gracious, for albeit they are renewed, yet they are
   not perfect. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, we ought to be ashamed to have
   to confess it tonight! Blushes should scarlet our cheeks, that we have
   been ungrateful, unbelieving, unfaithful! We have sinned against the
   gracious Father who has taken us into His family! We have sinned
   against the love of God, against the blood of Christ, against the sweet
   comforts of the Holy Spirit--and yet no child of His was ever cast
   away--no Believer in Christ was ever disowned of God! The mercy which
   once flowed to them, flows on forever, never pausing for an
   instant--because He delights in mercy!

   But think, and here is the main point, think with regard to these
   guilty ones who have been saved, at what an expense it was all done. He
   spared not His own Son! A son is most dear to a father, yet God so
   loved mercy that He gave the Only-Begotten to the smart and to the
   death-pang--to the Cross and the sepulcher--that Mercy might ride on
   the milk-white steed, a queen among the sons of men! Behold the Savior
   bleeding! I pray you let me portray Him to you with hands and feet
   pierced with nails. Mark His sufferings! View His agonies and let me
   tell you that this was all for the sons of men--that the mercy of the
   Everlasting Father, without bound and limit--might come to those who
   seek His face through Jesus Christ! Further proof, surely, is not
   needed. This is proof, overwhelming proof, that should confound
   despair, proof that should make unbelief impossible! He who gave His
   son to die mustbe a God that delights in mercy!

   II. SOME OBJECTIONS ARE OFTEN RAISED, which I shall very briefly meet.

   "If He delights in mercy," says one, "why are some men lost?" Surely,
   Sir, God does not so delight in mercy as to tarnish His justice! If He
   did, there would be a slur upon His mercy, for sometimes it is not
   mercy to the many to forgive the few. It were no mercy for London to
   set free all the burglars and murderers. It were no mercy to England if
   every man who had committed murder were allowed to go red-handed
   without punishment! Punishment for the guilty is required even by
   mercy, itself. Remember, of all the lost, there is not one but has
   simply and barely the due reward of his sins. And if that had been
   roughly and evenly given to him, he would have known no reprieve that
   allowed him to live here, after his first offense! To full many of
   them, certainly to all of you, if finally lost, you will have had mercy
   presented to you. You have had Christ preached to you! You have been
   bid to come to Him! You have been assured, on God's own authority, that
   if you trust Jesus, you shall be saved! Then if you do it not, lay not
   your ruin at the door of God's mercy, but at the door of your own
   folly! If a man dies of fever because he will not take his medicine,
   who but he is at fault? If a man leaps over a precipice willfully, let
   him blame no one if he dashes himself to pieces! On the head of every
   lost one, his own condemnation lies, as yours will unless you turn to
   God and repent!

   "Ah," says another, "but God is not always merciful, look at His
   severity sometimes--Korah, Dathan and Abiram are swallowed up--Sodom is
   destroyed by fire from Heaven." Yes, Sir, and even Mercy saw this done
   without a tear in her eyes. What? Should Sodom go unpunished? Shall the
   bestial vice of which Sodom was guilty never be checked? Why, if this
   should spread among the sons of men, it would bring in its infernal
   train ten thousand times more damage than the destruction of Sodom and
   Gomorrah! The sin itself is infinitely worse than the fire which burned
   it up! There is mercy in the physician if he sees poison in the hand
   when he cuts it out and cauterizes the wound. And this is what God did
   with Sodom. He did, as it were, cut out the plague-spot and cauterize
   it, lest that filthy sin should spread over all mankind! As for Korah,
   Dathan, and Abiram, their death was the life of others--they were
   pestilent traitors against the dominion of God and unless they had
   died, others would have revolted and have perished, too. Many of those
   things which we call severe judgments are only mercies in disguise. The
   great fire of London--how the preachers preached about that! I suppose
   there are hundreds of sermons extant to prove that the great fire of
   London was a punishment upon London for its gluttony and covetousness!
   Why, what greater blessing ever befell the city than that fire, burning
   up as it did all those fever and pest dens where all kinds of malaria
   and disease constantly lay festering? Nothing could have been better!
   The deaths of some in the plague before the fire had called attention
   to the evil--and then the fire came and swept the evil away! I do not
   doubt that even cholera in our own times has been simply God's great
   sanitary commissioner, sent to London to warn us to cleanse this and
   sweep away that, that so, on the whole, life may last longer and mercy
   may prevail. Judge not God, then, by your feeble sense! Wait awhile
   till you see His judgments in the long run and then you shall discern
   how they are always seasoned with mercy and love holds the sword!

   Should anyone say, with blank surprise, "If God delights in mercy, why
   is there such a thing as the unpardonable sin?" I think I would reply,
   with a burst of gratitude, "Is it not a great mercy that there is only
   one sin that is unpardonable?" There might have been a catalog of
   crimes for which forgiveness was impossible! There is but one--that one
   is only unpardonable because the person who commits it has so seared
   his conscience that he never asks for pardon. Any of you, man or woman,
   that sincerely asks for mercy, shall have it, whatever sin you may have
   committed! But that one sin strikes a cold chill about the heart and,
   henceforth, the man never desires mercy, but perishes an impenitent and
   a careless sinner!

   Should another say, "How is God merciful, when I feel in my own self
   that He cannot have mercy upon me?" I should reply, Your feelings are
   not to be trusted! Whatever despair may whisper, or doubts may suggest,
   one text of Scripture is worth 50 fears and doubts, or fifty thousand
   of either. You may be a black sinner, but He delights to wash you. You
   may have offended Him, year after year, and done despite to His Grace,
   but His arm is still not shortened that He cannot save. I care not how
   far you may have gone, I am sure He can come after you. Lost sheep,
   bleating on the mountains, the Shepherd can hear you and the Shepherd
   can reach you! You may fall into a pit but it shall not be so deep that
   He cannot bring you out! While life remains there is hope! Sin as you
   may have sinned, there is abundance of pardon with a gracious God. Oh,
   put not your thought so in opposition to the declaration of Heaven, but
   believe tonight that God is able and willing to forgive you--and come
   with a penitent prayer and find forgiveness now! All objections to the
   delight of God in mercy are but illusions of your brain--or delusions
   of your heart.

   III. THERE IS PERIL OF MISUSING THIS MERCY OF GOD, lest instead of
   leading us to repentance, it should

   plunge us deeper into sin. Though God delights in mercy, sin is no
   trifle in His estimation. Sin is an enormous evil, an evil so great
   that it never could have been prevented from destroying us all except
   by God, Himself, coming into this world, taking upon Himself our Nature
   and suffering to the very death in our place! Calvary tells us that sin
   is not a thing to be laughed at. It cost our Savior unutterable groans
   and griefs that can never be measured to deliver us from our guilt! And
   if the sinner comes not to Christ, it shall cost him endless tears! It
   shall cost him everlasting misery! His sins shall sink him to Hell
   forever! Oh, trifle not with sin because God is merciful! This is a
   cruel, brutal thing to do--to sin because Grace abounds. If you do so,
   you shall find that there is no Grace for you!

   Say not that because God is merciful a prayer or two on your dying bed
   will suffice. How do you know you may ever have a dying bed? Men fall
   dead in the streets! There was one who always said, "I shall set it all
   right at last. I shall say, 'Lord, have mercy upon me,' and it will be
   all right." Returning home drunk one night, he spurred his horse over
   the parapet of a bridge into a deep river--and the last words he was
   heard to say was a sentence too blasphemous for me to repeat. And why
   may not you die so? You cannot tell. Put no trust in deathbed
   repentances--they are, of all things, the most deceitful! Every thief
   repents when he comes to the prison--and every murderer will leave a
   word of repentance on his pathway to the gallows! It is a sign of the
   heart being set right to cry and groan when you are coming near to your
   punishment. God is merciful to these who seek Him early, but
   procrastinators will find that He is just. "Today, if you will hear His
   voice, harden not your hearts, lest He swear in His wrath that you
   shall not enter into His rest."

   Though God is merciful you are not, therefore, at liberty to despise
   the Lord Jesus and His salvation, for all His mercy flows to us through
   the silver pipe of Jesus Christ the Mediator. I speak advisedly--there
   is no mercy in Heaven or earth in the shape of saving mercyexcept
   through Jesus Christ! Unless you come to the Cross for it, you shall
   not have it. God has nailed up every other door but this. This one,
   alone, is left open--the door sprinkled with blood on the lintel and
   the two side posts, and on which is written, "Whoever believes in the
   Lord Jesus Christ shall never perish, but have everlasting life." There
   is an alternative. It is, "He that believes not, shall be condemned."
   What? If he does this and that, or if he humbles himself, if he is
   virtuous? Yes, yes, God makes no exception! The sentence comes to kings
   and queens and emperors, as well as to crossing sweepers, paupers, or
   even to convicts, "He that believes notshall be condemned." They shall
   take which they will. If they will have Christ and God's mercy, so be
   it--God's Grace has compelled them to take that. But if they will not
   have Christ, there is no mercy--no, not a drop of mercy--but wrath,
   righteous wrath against those that despise the Son of God!

   Nor must you think that the Doctrine of God's Free Mercy at all comes
   into conflict with the Doctrine of God's Electing Love. No, rather, by
   His election it is seen that God delights in mercy--thinking mercy,
   planning mercy before men needed mercy, in the Eternal
   Covenant--determining the persons upon whom mercy should
   come--selecting them, not because of any good in themselves, but
   entirely out of His own good pleasure, and thus proving His mercy! If
   God had sent into the world a Gospel full of conditions and of human
   doings, it would have been no Gospel to anybody, for

   no man could fulfill the conditions except by Divine Grace. But He has
   sent an unconditional Gospel! He will have mercy upon whom He will have
   mercy, and He will have compassion upon whom He will have
   compassion--and in this great Free-Grace Gospel, the mercy of God is
   magnified to the fullest.

   IV. WHAT IS THE LESSON FROM ALL THIS? IIGodis so merciful let His
   ministers preach of His mercy.

   If God delights in mercy and not in sacrifice, do not let His ministers
   be dressing themselves up and performing genuflections, bowing to the
   east, winking with their eyes, making signs with their fingers,
   offering incense and I know not what besides! God is not a child to be
   amused with toys that are beneath the notice of babies. God delights in
   mercy. Let the pulpit, therefore, ring with mercy! Let the preacher be
   continually telling of mercy through the blood of Jesus! Mercy through
   faith in His name! Mercy for crimes of deepest dye, mercy that comes to
   us through the atoning Savior! This ought to be our daily message when
   we preach. We ought to remember that God delights in mercy. As God's
   ambassadors let us proclaim most freely that which He has the most
   pleasure in, His mercy--His mercy--oh, His mercy, it endures forever!

   Christian people, here is a noble example for you. If God delights in
   mercy, and you are His children, be like He is-- let mercy be your
   delight! Be merciful to the poor. Be merciful to the ignorant. Be
   merciful to the guilty. Never be the man to cast the first stone at the
   fallen woman, for your Master did not condemn her. Never be the man to
   pass by the naked and the poverty-stricken. Your Lord's eyes were quick
   to detect the leper. Mercy well becomes the heir of the God of Mercy!
   And if you are not merciful, how can you expect to obtain mercy, or
   think to be numbered among the children of the Great Merciful One? To
   all of you I would say--take care, as you expect the mercy of God, to
   deal it out to others. Never say, "I won't forgive," for you seal your
   own condemnation when you do! And if you forgive not your brother his
   trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you. You have
   chosen your own destruction when you shut the door against your child,
   or against your neighbor and say, "I will treasure up that enmity as
   long as I live." I tell you, Sirs, your offerings at God's altar are an
   abomination to Him until you have forgiven all of your fellows their
   trespasses! Your prayers cannot come up before God--they are most
   effectually hindered. How can you pray when one of the petitions which
   God puts into your mouth is this--"Forgive us our debts as we forgive
   them that are indebted unto us"? How can you, with one hand on your
   brother's throat, lift your other hand and say, "God be merciful to me,
   a sinner"? Go your way, tonight, and if possible, before you close your
   eyes in sleep make your peace with any whom you have offended or who
   have offended you! As God delights in mercy, let the children of God
   likewise delight in mercy!

   Still, the great lesson I want to bring out is this--if God delights in
   mercy, then why should those who have offended Him be afraid to seek
   Him? He will hear your prayers be they ever so feeble or broken! He is
   ready to forgive you, however grossly you may have offended. Think of
   that! If He is so kind, why do you stay away from Him?

   Oh, come to Him, come now! 'Tis all mercy today. You are not bidden to
   come to a judge, nor to advance to the bar where the sentence shall go
   against you--'tis a sweeter note you hear--"Come unto Me, all you that
   labor and are heavy laden, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you
   shall find rest unto your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is
   light." Oh, I wish I could lead you to the Lord! It is not in my power.
   His Spirit, alone, can do it, but ah, do come, and welcome! There is
   not a hard word in the whole of the Bible for a coming sinner! There is
   nothing to keep back a soul that desires to be at peace with God. God's
   House is open! God's heart is open! God's table is spread! God waits to
   be gracious--no, He comes to meet the sinner that comes to Him! Are you
   willing to have Him and to have His mercy? If so, you may have it!
   Come, then--come and welcome, Sinner, come!--

   "Lord You have won, at length I yield!

   My heart, by mighty Grace compelled

   Surrenders all to Thee!

   Against Your terrors long I strove,

   But who can stand against Your love?

   Love conquers even me!

   If You had bid Your thunders roll,

   And lighting's flash to blast my soul,

   I still had stubborn been--

   But mercy has my heart subdued,

   A bleeding Savior I have viewed, And now I hate my sin."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 136; EPHESIANS1

   Let us make this occasion a time of praise and thanksgiving! Let our
   hearts dance at the name of our God! Let our lips give expression
   thereto in joyful music!

   Verse 1. Ogive thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy
   endures forever That is the beginning of our praise--the essential
   goodness of God from which all the streams of mercy flow. Oh, deep
   abyss of Infinite Love!

   2, 3. Ogive thanks unto the God of gods: for His mercy endures forever
   Ogive thanks to the Lord of lords: for His mercy endures forever His
   greatness, which is beyond that of all potentates on earth or
   principalities in Heaven--this, also, is to be our joyous theme song!
   His greatness and His goodness together make us magnify His name.

   4. To Him who alone does great wonders: for His mercy endures forever
   Nothing is absolutely wonderful except God--all other things are
   dwarfed and diminished in wondrousness as compared with Him. The Seven
   Wonders of the World are trifles compared with the seven-million
   wonders of God!

   5. To Him that by wisdom made the heavens: for His mercy endures
   forever They boasted of the Colossus that strode across the sea, but
   what shall we say to the heavens that span not only the earth but all
   the universe? And in those heavens there is mercy to be seen as well as
   wisdom--the adaptation of the physical world to the circumstances of
   man--so that there is a relation between the weight of every dewdrop
   and the structure of the human body!

   6-9. To Him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for His
   mercy endures forever To Him that made great light, for His mercy
   endures forever The sun to rule by day: for His mercy endures forever
   The moon andstars to rule by night: for His mercy endures forever.See
   how these ancient godly ones loved to dwell upon a thing! When the note
   was "light" they did not just sing it through and have done with it,
   but there were many repetitions in their music. But the music of today
   is "rattle through it as fast as you can, and quickly have done with
   it." Our forefathers liked to linger a bit on these sweet praises of
   God. So did the Hebrews." "Great lights!" Yes, but there must be the
   sun and the moon and the stars. They could never have enough of
   it--they rolled these sweet morsels under their tongue and then out
   upon their lips as they praised God!

   10. To Him that smote Egypt in their first-born: for His mercy endures
   forever Yet it was an awful judgment and it needs a reverent, lowly,
   saintly spirit to sing over even the judgments of God. Had certain
   theologians of the present time been present at the Red Sea, they would
   have cried in sentimental sympathy over the Egyptians! But instead of
   that, Miriam took a timbrel and said, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has
   triumphed gloriously." The fates of sinful men are of small moment as
   compared with the Glory of God! Jehovah fills all things and when the
   heart is fully taken up with the Glory of God, it learns to sing even
   this stern refrain--"To Him that smote Egypt in their first-born: for
   His mercy endures forever."

   11-15. And brought out Israel from among them: for His mercy endures
   forever: with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for His
   mercy endures forever To Him which divided the Red Sea into parts: for
   His mercy endures forever: and made Israel to pass through the midst of
   it: for His mercy endures forever: but overthrew Pharaoh and his host
   in the Red Sea: for His mercy endures forever See how they prolonged
   the strain--and what blessed exercise this is, to take mercies to
   pieces and examine all the details--and have a fresh verse for each
   particular of God's goodness to us! Glory be unto His blessed name
   forever and ever!

   16. To Him which led His people through the wilderness; for His mercy
   endures forever Therefore He will lead you through the wilderness and
   bring you through great droughts--and your manna shall drop from
   Heaven, and your waters flow from the Rock. Sing, then, to His name,
   you that are in the wilderness!

   17. To Him which smote great kings: for His mercy endures forever That
   is a terrible and tragic matter, that smiting of kings. Yes, but these
   singers did not groan over it! There are no less than four notes over
   this.

   18-23. 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 gave their land for an
   heritage: for His mercy endures forever: even an heritage unto Israel,
   His servant: for His mercy endures forever Who remembered us in our low

   estate: for His mercy endures forever The note descends a little from
   the martial strain of trumpet, from smitten kings and the drowned
   chivalry of Egypt. But though it sinks, how it sweetens! What a soft,
   clear sound there is about it.

   24-26. And has redeemed us from our enemies: for His mercy endures
   forever. Who gives food to all flesh: for His mercy endures forever. O
   give thanks unto the God of Heaven: for His mercy endures forever
   Glorious Redemption! That is always the choicest note of all. Ring that
   silver bell again! This is the Christian's true promised land of great
   spiritual blessings. May we have faith enough to enter into the full
   possession of it. It is a very wonderful chapter!

   Ephesians 1:1-2. Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
   to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ
   Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the
   Lord Jesus Christ That is a sort of crossing of the Jordan to go into
   the land and get Grace and peace. Grace changes us, peace quiets us,
   and then we are over Jordan.

   3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
   blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in
   Christ.They are all yours! He has not blessed you with a part of the
   blessings, but with all of them! They are all yours. Have you the
   courage and the faith to take possession of them? That is the point. If
   you have Grace and peace you are in the land. Now let your foot rest
   first on one blessing and then on another and appropriate them all to
   yourself.

   4. According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
   world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
   What an inheritance! To be made holy! Oh, that we might be perfected as
   our Father which is in Heaven is perfect, sanctified through and
   through! We are elected to this end--it is the very objective of the
   Divine choice that we may be without blame before Him in love.

   5-6. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
   Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will To the
   praise of the Glory of His Grace, wherein He has made us accepted in
   the Beloved. See how Paul goes on taking one city after another of this
   heavenly Canaan? It was election. Now it is adoption. Now it is
   acceptance in the Beloved. He is a good Joshua for us if we will but
   really and truly follow Him and take possession of the promised land.

   7-10. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
   sins, according to the riches of His Grace; wherein He has abounded
   toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the
   mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has
   purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of time
   He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
   Heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him. Oh, what a wonderful
   gathering that will be when all the things in Christ shall be gathered
   together! No division among the people of God! When the whole redeemed
   inheritance shall be one and we shall as one body possess it forever.
   "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." Got it! God has given
   it to us! We have a right to it--we are the heirs of it in

   Christ!

   11. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
   according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel
   of His own will He not only wills it, but He works it! When He wills to
   give His people a broad inheritance--of that large inheritance they
   shall certainly have for He "works all things after the counsel of His
   own will."

   12-14. That we should be to the praise of His Glory, who first trusted
   in Christ. In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the Word of
   Truth, the Gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you
   believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is
   the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased
   possession, unto the praise of His Glory. You have got the Holy Spirit.
   He is God's seal upon you that you are, indeed, saved men and women! In
   getting that, you have already received the earnest, that is, a part of
   the inheritance never to be taken back. A pledge has to be restored,
   but an earnest is kept forever! The Spirit of God is ours and in having
   Him we have all things!

   15, 16. Therefore I, also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord
   Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you,
   making mention of you in my prayers. Having got so much, you might get
   a great deal more.

   17, 18. 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: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may
   know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the Glory
   of His inheritance in the saints. That is a wonderful passage! We are
   not only to know our inheritance in God, but God's inheritance in us!
   Wonderful thing, and yet it is so! The Lord's portion is His people,
   Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. Joshua gave each one of the people
   his own portion, but all the people were God's portion! And today God
   delights in His people. He finds a solace in those whom He chose, in
   those whom He redeemed by blood, in those whom He brought near into
   daily fellowship with Himself!

   19-23. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who
   believe, 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,
   andpower, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not
   only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and has put all
   things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to
   the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in
   all
     __________________________________________________________________

How to Read the Bible

   (No. 3318)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING JUNE 21,
   1866.

   "Till I come, give attendance to reading." 1 Timothy 4:13.

   OF course this counsel and exhortation is intended primarily as a
   direction to Christian ministers and especially to young Christian
   ministers. They must read much if they are to be profitable to others
   as preachers. There used to be a very stupid conceit in some sections
   of the Church, that if a minister read extensively, he would only give
   forth stale truth, or what some simpletons called, "dead men's brains."
   Men have now learned, however, that he will be most fresh and original
   in his own thoughts who most diligently cultivates his mind by studying
   and pondering the thoughts of other minds. He who never quotes, will
   never be quoted, and he who does not read is not very likely to be
   read. Of course the first thing the minister needs is to be taught of
   the Spirit, but then the question is--How does the Spirit teach? He
   teaches, no doubt, mainly through the Word and through our own
   experimental acquaintance with that Word. But if He pleases to reveal a
   Truth of God to another man, and I will not read that Truth as it has
   been recorded by that other man, I have neglected the teaching of the
   Spirit of God. You know, with regard to the Savior's miracles, that
   there was not one of them that was unnecessary. He never did a thing by
   miracle which could have been performed by the ordinary laws of Nature.
   So it is with the teaching of the Spirit--I have no right to expect
   that the Spirit will reveal Truth to me without the use of a book when
   I can find it out for myself with the book. "The Holy Spirit helps our
   infirmities," but not our idleness! He is given to us on purpose that
   He may help us when we are weak, but not that we may be indulged where
   we are slothful. I have sometimes had the unutterable misery of
   listening to a sermon which has been professedly dictated by the Spirit
   of God, but in which it was clear that the preacher had never thought
   upon the subject before he spoke--and I can only say that I was quite
   at a loss to perceive any peculiar beauty in the sermon, nor did I see
   anything at all which made it a source of edification superior to a
   sermon which had been prepared by someone else. I thought I detected a
   good many traits of human ignorance--and but very few traces of the
   working of the Holy Spirit.

   There are many young fellows here tonight who are preparing for the
   ministry. I shall not, however, enlarge on this point, but shall only
   press on their earnest consideration and their most devout meditation.
   This Inspired exhortation, which is not mine, nor even an Apostle's
   only, but the exhortation of the Holy Spirit of God through the
   Apostle-- "Give attendance to reading." If, Brothers, you would bless
   God's Church and train up a band of really intelligent Christians, do
   not be always appealing only to the emotions, but also give out good,
   sound, strong Gospel Doctrine-- and illustrate the Doctrine, so as to
   expound and comment to others. Do this especially by reading the words
   of the greatest masters in Scripture theology--and these will prove
   your delightful and dear companions and your splendid helpers in making
   your ministry richly profitable to your hearers.

   This, however, is not our special subject for tonight. This same
   exhortation so peculiarly suitable to the minister, will suit all his
   hearers, too, because the ministry is not a religious caste peculiar to
   some few, but we are, all of us, to teach others according as God shall
   teach us! And in order that we may be useful in our sphere, as the
   minister is in his, we must adopt the same means to fit ourselves for
   our high privilege and to prepare us to be used by God. As the minister
   without reading will have but little power, so will it be with
   Christians in general. "Give attendance to reading" is an exhortation
   which I would press upon most of you, especially those of you who have
   leisure and who are not called to exhausting labors which take up all
   your time.

   I am not, however, going to keep so closely to my text as merely to
   exhort you to read. I want to ask you to read God's Word! That seems to
   me to be the Christian's book. You may read other books and your mind
   may thereby be well-furnished with spiritual things, but if you keep to
   the Word of God, though you may be deficient in many points of a
   liberal education, you will not be deficient in the education that will
   fit you for blessed service here, for the service of skies, for
   communion with God on earth and communion with Christ in Glory!

   My objective this evening is to say a few things about how to read the
   Bible. Last Thursday night we spoke at length upon God's Word as to its
   excellencies. TonightI think it fitting that we should speak a little
   about how to read that Word with greatest profit to our souls. In doing
   so we shall hope to consider seven precepts all bearing powerfully upon
   this important matter. Our first precept shall be--

   I. READ AND DEPEND on the Spirit of God. How often do we open the
   sacred Book and read a Chapter through, perhaps at family prayer, or
   perhaps in our own private devotions and, having read from the first
   verse to the last, we shut up the book thinking we have done something
   very right and very proper--and in a vague way somehow profitable to
   us? Very right and very proper, indeed, and yet, right and proper as
   the thing is, we may really have gained nothing thereby! We may, in
   fact, have only drilled ourselves in the merely external part of
   religion and may not have enjoyed anything spiritual, or anything that
   can be beneficial to our souls if we have forgotten the Divine Spirit
   through whom the Word has come to us!

   Ought we not even to remember that in order to properly understand the
   Holy Word we need to have the Holy Spirit to be His own ExpositorTThe
   hymn says concerning Providence--

   "God is His own interpreter And He will make it plain"

   and certainly it is so with regard to the Scriptures! Commentators and
   expositors are very useful, indeed, but the best expositor is always
   the author of a book, himself. If I had a book which I did not quite
   understand, it would be a very great convenience to me to live next
   door to the author, for then I could run in and ask him what he meant.
   This is just your position, Christian! The Book will sometimes puzzle
   you, but the Divine Author, who must know His own meaning, is always
   ready to lead you into its meaning! He dwells in you, and shall be with
   you, and Christ Jesus said, "When He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He
   shall lead you into all Truth."

   But to understand the Word is not enough. We also need that He makes us
   to feel its power. How can we do this except through the Holy Spirit?
   "Your Word has quickened me," O God, but it is only as You did quicken
   me through it. The Word of God is to be read literally, but, "it is the
   letter that kills." Only "the Spirit gives life" and, excellent as are
   its statements, yet even they have no spiritual force in themselves!
   Unless the Holy Spirit shall fill them, even they shall become as wells
   without water and as clouds without rain. Have you not often found it
   so yourselves? I appeal now to your own experience. You have sometimes
   read a portion of Scripture and the page has seemed to glow, your heart
   has burned within you and you have said that the Word came home to you
   with power.

   Just so, but it was the Holy Spirit who was bringing it home to your
   spirit in its true power and making it a sweet savor of life unto life
   to you! At other times, you may have read the very same page and
   painfully missed the sweetness which once you had tasted--and lost the
   lovely light that once flashed from it upon your mind's eye!

   Everything must depend upon the Spirit speaking through it, for even
   the light of the Word of God is, to a great extent, but moonlight. That
   is to say, it is a reflection of the light which streams from God,
   Himself, who is the one true source of light. If God shines not upon
   the Word when we read it, then the Word shines not back upon us, but
   becomes a dark Word to us, or as one says, "rather an obscuration than
   a Revelation, rather concealing God from us, than revealing Him to us."
   Look up, reader! The next time the Book is in your hands, look up
   before you open it--and while your eyes are running down the page, look
   up and pray that God would shine upon it! And when the Chapter is
   finished and you put the Book away, take a minute, again, to look up
   and ask His blessing. If by reading the Scriptures we were only always
   reminded of the Holy Spirit. If we got no other good from the
   Scripture, itself, except the turning of our souls to think upon that
   Divine and blessed One, that would be, in itself, an inestimable
   blessing! Do read, then, thoughtfully remembering the great Author.

   Our second precept is--

   II. READ AND MEDITATE.

   There is no exercise more out of fashion, nowadays, than meditation!
   And yet, to use Brookes' expression, "it is a soul-fattening duty." The
   cattle crop the grass, but the nutrition comes from the chewing of the
   cud! Reading is the gathering together of our food, but meditation is
   the chewing of the cud, the digesting, the assimilating of the Truth of
   God! I quarry out the Truth when I read, but I smelt the ore and get
   the pure gold out of it when I meditate! Ruth gleaned, but afterwards
   she threshed. The reader is the gleaner, but he who meditates is the
   thresher, too. For lack of meditation the Truth of God runs by us and
   we miss and lose it. Our treacherous memory is like a sieve--and what
   we hear and what we read runs through it and leaves but little
   behind--and that little is often unprofitable to us by reason of our
   lack of diligence to get thoroughly at it. I often find it very
   profitable to get a text as a sweet morsel under my tongue in the
   morning and to keep the flavor of it, if I can, in my mouth all day!

   I like to turn it over and over again in my mind, for any one text of
   the Scriptures you will find to be like the kaleidoscope. Turn it one
   way and you say, "What a fair Truth of God is this!" Turn it another
   way and you see the same Truth, but under how different an aspect! Turn
   it yet once more--and keep doing it all day--and you will be amazed and
   delighted to find in how many lights the same Truth will appear and
   what wonderful permutations and combinations you can find in it! When
   you have been doing this all day, you will be compelled to feel that
   there is an infinity about even one text, so that you can never
   completely comprehend it but find it still is beyond you! If you get a
   passage of Scripture given you, do not quickly give it up because you
   do not immediately seize its force and fullness. The manna which fell
   in the wilderness would not keep sweet beyond one day--if kept over
   unto the second, it bred worms and stank. But there was one portion of
   manna which was put into a golden pot and laid up in the Ark of the
   Covenant which never lost its sweetness and heavenly nutriment! And
   there is a way of keeping the precious portions of God's Word that are
   given you today, in such a manner that you may go in the strength of it
   for forty days and continue to find fresh food in the same text day
   after day, and even month after month! But this is only to be done by
   meditatingupon it. Our hymn has a fable in it when it says that the--

   "Spicy breezes

   Blow soft over Ceylon's isle."

   Voyagers who have been there, tell us that they have never smelt "the
   spicy breezes," for the cinnamon yields no perfume till it is bruised
   and broken! And certainly God's Word is exceedingly full of perfume,
   but not till it has been graciously bruised by reverent and loving
   meditation. You cannot get the sweetness and fragrance from it till you
   have smitten it again and again in the mortar of thought with the
   pestle of recollection. Meditate, then, upon these things!

   "But how can we meditate," asks one, "when we have so many things to
   think of?" But "one thing is necessary," and it is necessary that the
   Christian should mediate upon the things of God! I know you must give
   your minds to many things and I cannot ask you not to do so, but
   whenever you have time to rest, then let your minds come back to the
   old home. The birds of the air are all day long picking up their food,
   but they go straight away to their roost at night, and so when the
   day's business is over and the daily bread has been gained, fly to your
   nest and rest your soul in some precious portion of God's Word. During
   the day, too, whenever you are freed from anxiety, let your mind dart
   upwards--and it will help you to do so if you take a text and make it
   as wings that enable you to fly to ponder heavenly things. Read and
   meditate!

   The third rule for our guide should be--

   III. READ AND APPLY. What I mean is just this. Do not read the Bible as
   a Book for other people. Do not read it merely to say, "Yes, it is
   true. Very true. I believe its Doctrines to be the Revelation of the
   Infallible Mind of God, Himself." But also endeavor in reading a page
   of the Scriptures, always to see how much it belongs to you. For some
   of you there is very little in the Word of God except threats. Pray God
   to help you to feel the solemnity even of the threats, for if you feel
   deeply the threats, now, you may be delivered from the tragic
   fulfillment of them by-and-by! If you are made to tremble under God's
   Word, you may never be made to tremble under God's hand. If you feel
   the wrath to come, now, you may never have to feel it in the next
   world. Ask God that His threats may drive you out of your sins and
   drive you to seek pardon in Christ. Then when you read descriptions of
   the human heart and the Fall, the corruption and the depravity of our
   nature, look and see yourselves as in a mirror and say of each man as
   you hear of his sin, "I am such a man as this was, and if I do not fall
   into precisely the same sin, yet the possibility and peril of it is in
   my heart and I could do so, but for God's restraining Grace." Take the
   very histories home to your heart and find a point in them, either of
   encourage-

   ment or of warning for yourselves. As for the Doctrines, remember that
   a Doctrine kills except as it is personally grasped and as you feel
   your interest in it. I have known some rejoice greatly in the Doctrine
   of Election who were never elected, and some who were very pleased with
   the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, but who had no faith by which
   to be justified! I have known of some, too, who gloried in Final
   Perseverance, but who, if they had finally persevered would certainly
   have been in Hell, for they were on the road there! It is one thing to
   know these Truths of God, and even to fight for them with the zeal and
   bitterness of a controversialist, but it is quite another thing to
   enjoy them as our own heritage and our portion forever! Ask the Lord to
   show you your interest in every Truth and do not be satisfied until you
   have an assured personal interest in them! Especially let this be so
   with the promises. "I will never leave you, nor forsake you!" Well, it
   is a very fine promise, but if it is read to me thus--"I will never
   leave you, nor forsake you," what a transformed and glorified promise
   it then becomes! Stout old Martin Luther used to say, "All vital
   religion is in the personal and possessive pronouns." Is it not so?
   "When you pass through the river I will be with you, the floods shall
   not overflow you!" Oh, truly, such a promise is as a cluster of Eshcol,
   but it is in Eshcol's valley and I cannot reach it there! The promise
   applied is the cluster brought to me just where I amand I can receive
   it and delight myself in its luscious sweetness!

   Take care, none the less, to seek for the application of precepts. Some
   are always looking out for other people's duty and are great judges and
   critics for what others ought to do. "Who are you that judges another
   man?" To his own master he stands or falls. See what precepts are
   binding upon yourselfand then, as a child of God, be your feet swift to
   run in the way of His commandments. Read the Bible as a man reads his
   relation's will--to find what legacy there is in it for himself. Do
   with the Bible as the sick man does with the doctor's
   prescription--follow it by personally doing what it bids you. Ask God
   not to let your Bible be another man's Bible, but your own Bible--God's
   own mouth speaking to your soul of the things which make for your
   peace.

   Fourthly--and this is very hard work--IV. READ AND PRACTICE. If you do
   not do this, you are reading to your own condemnation! If you read, "He
   that believes on Him is not condemned," if you believe not, then you
   are "condemned already," because you have not believed on the Son of
   God! The Gospel is a very solemn thing to every man because if it is
   not a savor of life unto life, since it must always be a savor of some
   sort--it therefore becomes a savor of death unto death! Some seem as if
   they read the Bible in order to know how not to do--the more God
   commands, the more they will not obey! Though He draws them, they will
   not come to Him. And when He calls them, they will give Him no answer.
   A sorry, sorry heart is that which so uses God's Word as to make it an
   aggravation of its sin! Our life ought to be--and if God's Grace is
   much in it, it will be--a new translation of the Bible. Speak of
   bringing the Bible down into the vernacular! Well, this is it! The
   worldling's Bible is the Christian. He never reads the Book, but he
   reads the disciple of Christ and he judges the Christian religion by
   the lives of its professors! The world will learn better and will more
   likely be brought to know Christ when the lives of Christians are
   better, and when the Bible of the Christian Life shall be more in
   accordance with the Bible of Christian Doctrine! God make us holy!
   Sanctify us, spirit, soul and body, and then we shall be made finely
   serviceable both to the Church and to the world! Read and practice! But
   we shall only be able to do this as God the Holy Spirit shall help us.
   Then let us--

   V. READ AND PRAY. This is, perhaps, coming back almost to the first
   point, that is, read with dependence on the Holy Spirit. But I desire
   to impress a rather different thought upon your souls. Martin Luther
   says he learned more by prayer than he ever learned in any other way. A
   stone-breaker was one day on his knees breaking flints when a minister
   came by and said, "I see you are doing what I often do, breaking up
   hard things." "Yes, Sir," was the answer, "and I am doing it in the way
   in which you must do it, on my knees."

   A passage in Scripture will often open up when you pray over it, which
   will defy mere criticism or looking to expositors. You put the text
   into action and then you comprehend it. I suppose if a man were
   studying anatomy and had never seen the body in life, he might not be
   able to know what a certain ligature was for, or such a bone--but if he
   could set that body moving, then he might understand the use of all the
   different parts, supposing he were able to see them. So when a text of
   Scripture lies, as it were, dead before us, we may not be able to
   understand it--but when by prayer the text grows into life and we set
   it in motion--we comprehend it at once! We may hammer away at a text
   sometimes in meditation and strike it again and again, and yet it may
   not yield to us, but we cry to God, and immediately the text opens and
   we see concealed in it wondrous treasures of Divine Wisdom and of
   Grace!

   But the prayer should not be merely that we may understand the text. I
   think we should pray over every passage in order that we may be enabled
   to get out of it what God would impart to us. A text is like a treasure
   chest which is locked--and prayer is the key to open it--and then we
   get God's treasure! The text is God's letter, full of loving words, but
   prayer must break the seal. When reading goes with praying and praying
   goes with reading, then a man goes on both his feet, the bird flies
   with both his wings! To only read is unprofitable--to pray without
   reading is not so soul-enriching, but when the two run together, they
   are like the horses pulling the chariot and they speed along right
   merrily!

   Read and pray Christian! But take care you do not read without watering
   your reading with your prayer. Paul may plant and Apollos may water,
   but God gives the increase! And even in this blessed Book, Moses may
   plant and David may water, but prayer must cry to God or else the
   increase will not come! Now in the sixth place--

   VI. READ AND TRY. Try what you hear. Try what you profess. Try what you
   read. Goldsmiths keep bottles of acid by which they test everything
   that is offered them for sale, to see whether it is gold or merely
   tinsel. And the Christian should keep God's Word near at hand and
   treasured in the soul, to test thereby all that he hears. "Prove all
   things; hold fast that which is good." Many hearers believe all that is
   said because of the person who declares it to them. This is not
   according to Christ's mind! We ought to receive nothing as vital
   religious truth except it is sent us from above! And however much we
   may respect the pastor or the teacher, we must not so give up our
   judgment to any man as to receive his teaching merely because he
   chooses to utter it. Bring every form of the Truth of God that is
   delivered to you, though it may glitter with oratory and seem
   reasonable and proper, to the test of Scripture! It is very difficult,
   however, to get men to do this. They seem to fancy that you have
   sinister motives the moment you tell them so. There is a conservatism
   in the nature of us all with regard to our religious faith which is
   right enough if it were balanced by another principle. To hold fast
   what I know is right, but to be willing to receive or to do anything
   that God would teach me to receive or do is more right still. I must
   know what it is to which I hold fast, or else I may be injuring myself
   by the fixedness by which I stand to what I have learned. The woman of
   Samaria said, "Our fathers worshipped God in this mountain." That is
   the argument of numbers of persons. "Our fathers did so-and-so." This
   would be a capital argument supposing that our fathers were always
   right, but a very absurd argument supposing that they were wrong! I
   hope we are not like that early Saxon who asked where his father and
   all his ancestors had gone--and when he was told they were no doubt
   lost--he replied to the missionary that he would rather go where they
   were than become a Christian and be separated from them!

   There are some who seem to be of this blood and boast in it. Their
   ancestors believed this or that, and they desire to follow them. Many
   there are who profess doctrines they have never learned and which they
   do not really know and grasp. They have the shell but they never reach
   the kernel. Is not this the case with many of us here tonight? If you
   even have a Doctrine of God in your mind, find out the text or texts
   which prove it! If there should happen to be other texts which seem to
   point the other way, do not cut and pare any of them down, but accept
   all and wait until the Spirit reveals wherein they really agree!
   Scripture is not to fit your opinions, but your opinions to conform to
   the blessed Word! There is a fable of a foolish gardener who had a tree
   that would persist in growing oddly. He did not like to restrain it
   and, therefore, had a wall built for it to grow upon. I think the man
   was far wiser who let the wall alone and changed the tree! There are
   people who are very apt to alter Scripture to suit their views, pulling
   out one word until it is never so long, dropping another, or completely
   changing the meaning of it, though everybody knows that it is the
   forced and unnatural one, or else tinkering up a text till it will fit
   some crank or peculiarity of theirs. This is not reverence! It is not
   treating God's Word as it ought to be treated. God's Word is no nose of
   wax to be shaped according to our fancies--or anybody else's. Though
   nobody else should say what he means, God always does. He would not
   have us talk in language that is capable of half-a-dozen meanings--and
   He does not talk so Himself. He speaks so plainly that if we are candid
   and desire to know what He means, it is not difficult to do so,
   especially if we go to Him for it. Let us, then, take this advice and
   try the spirits whether they are of God and, like the noble Bereans,
   search the Scriptures whether these things are so--and so read the
   Scriptures and try what we read.

   And, lastly, the text is significantly followed by, "Give attendance to
   reading, to exhortation." I will, therefore, say in the seventh place--

   VII. READ AND TELL OUT what you read.

   This will be an effectual way of imprinting it upon your own memory.
   When you read a passage of Scripture and have any enjoyment therein, go
   to your sick neighbor and tell what God has said to you. If you meet an
   ignorant one

   when you know somewhat of the things of God, tell them to him. Nations
   are enriched by the interchanges of commerce and so are Christians! We
   each have something that another has not and he has something that we
   need. Let us trade together. "Then they that feared the Lord spoke
   often, one to another," and it is very good that they should do so. Our
   talk is, alas, too often very frivolous--there is much chaff but little
   wheat. If we would but talk more of Scripture and establish it as a
   fashion among Christians, we would grow much faster and stronger, and
   be wiser in the things the Kingdom.

   I know one who, when he was a young man, read all day until evening
   came and then went every evening and preached. The preaching in the
   evening of what he had read during the day stamped and fastened the
   Truths of God upon his own mind and made them unspeakably profitable to
   him! When you have read for an hour or so, spend another half-hour in
   communicating to a child, or a servant, or a seeker, or to some
   bed-ridden saint the thing that has enriched and helped you.

   How I would press this upon you, everyone, my dear Brothers and
   Sisters, who are members of this Church. We owe very many of the
   conversions that have been worked here to the personal exertions of our
   Church members. God owns our ministry, but He also owns yours. It is to
   our delight at Church Meetings that when converts come, they often have
   to say that the Word preached from the pulpit was blessed to them, and
   yet I think that almost as often they say it was the Word of God spoken
   in some of the classes, or in the pews--for not a few of you have been
   spiritual parents to strangers who have dropped in! Continue doing
   this! Let our congregation be full of these spiritual sharpshooters who
   shall pick out, each man his man, and who shall fire with the gun of
   the Gospel directly at each individual!

   Of course, if you know nothing, you can tell nothing. If you have never
   read anything which by the blessing of God has been brought powerfully
   home to your own soul, do not attempt to speak to others. There must be
   something begun in your own soul, first, but if you have been brought
   into personal contact with Divine Truth, let it be the first impulse of
   your soul to--

   "Tell to the sinners round

   What a dear Savior you have found."

   The woman of Samaria left her water pot and went into the city, and
   said, "Come, see a Man that told me all things that ever I did; is not
   this the Christ?" My Beloved, let us do the same! I do not know a
   living thing, even a wild flower in the hedge, but seeks to prolong the
   existence of its species. The foxglove sheds its seeds all down the
   banks--no matter how tiny the flower may be, it seeks to produce its
   like. So you, Christian, who are the noblest work of God, should not be
   satisfied unless your life is a continually spreading around of the
   Truth of God which has been made vital to you and will be new life to
   others!

   What a grand crown and close to this night's service it would be could
   we be used of God to bring a soul from darkness to light, and from
   slavery to liberty! We cannot do it of ourselves, but God may help us.
   Would you not walk a mile, yes, many miles to do it? Well, you need not
   walk miles! It is quite possible that the very person who, as it were
   by chance, is sitting next to you tonight, is the person whom God has
   predestinated to be blessed and to be blessed by you! At any rate, try
   it. There shall be nothing lost, there may be much gained. Why has God
   taught the Truth to you? For your own good? Yes, but you are not to be
   selfish! Be you, at least, as unselfish as the three lepers who, when
   they found the Syrian camp deserted and an abundance of gold and
   silver, said, "We do not well to stay here. This is a day of good
   tidings; let us go in the city and tell." Dear Friend, you do not well
   if you read only for yourself! Having read, go out and tell what you
   have read, and the blessing shall come into your own bosom, even if it
   goes not out to others! And you shall be blessed and God shall be
   glorified!

   I would press this, in conclusion, upon some of you who are not
   converted. Often men have come to Christ by reading the Scriptures.
   Attend upon a preached ministry, but do also read and search the
   Scriptures. I recollect when I was seeking Christ. I read Doddridge's
   Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, but the book muddled me
   much, though it is a very admirable book in some respects. Then I read
   Alleine's Alarm, and then Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, and all
   these only plowed my heart more and more. But the comfort which I got
   came out of God's Word. It was from that precious text, "Look unto Me
   and be you saved, all you ends of the earth." Then I got light! Turn
   you away from all human books to the Divine Book, and from all human
   helpers to Him upon whom help is laid and who is mighty to save!

   Read God's love in the Book of Atonement upon the Cross, written in the
   crimson lines of the Savior's flowing blood and streaming veins! Look
   to Christ and trust in Him, and you shall live! May God bless you for
   Jesus' sake.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 119:105-115.

   Verse 105. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path
   We are walkers through the city of this world and we are often called
   to go out into its darkness--let us never venture there without the
   light-giving Word of God, lest we slip. Each man should use the Word of
   God personally, practically and habitually, that he may see his way and
   see what lies in it. When darkness settles down upon all around me, the
   Word of the Lord, like a flaming torch, reveals my way. We would not
   know the way, or how to walk in it, if Scripture, like a blazing
   flambeau, did not reveal it. It is a lamp by night, a light by day and
   a delight at all times! David guided his own steps by it and also saw
   the difficulties of his road by its beams.

   106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Your
   righteous judgments. Under the influence of the clear light of
   knowledge he had firmly made up his mind and solemnly declared his
   resolve in the sight of God. Perhaps mistrusting his own fickle mind,
   he had pledged himself in sacred form to abide faithful to the
   determinations and decisions of his God. Whatever path might open
   before him, he was sworn to follow that only upon which the lamp of the
   Word of God was shining.

   107. I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according unto Your
   Word. According to the last verse he had been sworn in as a soldier of
   the Lord, and in this next verse he is called to suffer hardness in
   that capacity. Our service of the Lord does not screen us from trial,
   but rather secures it for us! The Psalmist was a consecrated man and
   yet a chastened man. Quickening is the best remedy for tribulation--the
   soul is raised above the thought of present distress and is filled with
   that holy joy which attends all vigorous spiritual life--and so the
   affliction grows light.

   108. Accept, I beseech You, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD,
   and teach me Your judgments. He offers prayer, praise, confession and
   testimony--these, presented with his voice in the presence of an
   audience--were the tribute of his mouth unto Jehovah. He trembles lest
   these should be so ill-uttered as to displease the Lord and, therefore,
   he implores acceptance. When we render unto the Lord our best, we
   become all the more concerned to do better. If, indeed, the Lord shall
   accept us, we then desire to be further instructed that we may be still
   more acceptable.

   109. My soul is continually in my hand: yet do I not forget Your Law.
   He lived in the midst of danger. He had to be always fighting for
   existence--hiding in caves, or contending in battles. This is a very
   uncomfortable and trying state of affairs, and men are apt to think any
   expedient justifiable by which they can end such a condition. But David
   did not turn aside to find safety in sin. They say that all things are
   fair in love and war--but the holy man thought not so--while he carried
   his life in his hand, he also carried the Law of God in his heart!

   110. The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from Your
   precepts. Spiritual life is the scene of constant danger--the Believer
   lives with his life in his hand, and meanwhile all seem plotting to
   take it from him--by cunning if they cannot by violence. We shall not
   find it an easy thing to live the life of the faithful. Wicked spirits
   and wicked men will leave no stone unturned for our destruction. David
   was not snared, for he kept his eyes open and kept near his God.

   111. Your testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever: for they are
   the rejoicing of my heart. He chose them as his lot, his portion, his
   estate. And what is more, he laid hold upon them and made them
   so--taking them into possession and enjoyment. David's choice is our
   choice. If we might have our desire, we would desire to keep the
   commands of God perfectly. To know the Doctrines, to enjoy the
   promises, to practice the commands--be this a kingdom large enough for
   me!

   112. I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes always, even
   unto the end. He was not half inclined to virtue, but heartily inclined
   to it. His whole heart was bent on practical, persevering godliness. He
   was resolved to keep the statutes of the Lord with all his heart,
   throughout all his time, without erring or ending! He made it his end
   to keep the Law unto the end and that without end.

   113. I hate vain thoughts: but Your Law do I love. The opposite of the
   fixed and Infallible Law of God is the wavering, changing opinion of
   men! David had an utter contempt and abhorrence for this--all his
   reverence and regard went to the sure Word of Testimony. In proportion
   to his love to the Law was his hate of man's inventions. The thoughts
   of men are vanity, but the thoughts of God are Truth.

   114. You are my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Your Word. To his
   God he ran for shelter from vain thoughts! There he hid himself away
   from their tormenting intrusions and in solemn silence of the soul he
   found God to be his hiding place. When called into the world, if he
   could not be alone with God as his hiding place, he could have the Lord
   with him as his shield--and by this means he could ward off the attacks
   of wicked suggestions.

   115. Depart from me, you evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of
   my God. If we fly to God from vain thoughts, much more shall we avoid
   vain men. Evildoers make evil counselors. Those who say unto God,
   "Depart from us," ought to hear the immediate echo of their words from
   the mouths of God's children, "Depart from us. We cannot eat bread with
   traitors."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Well-beloved's Vineyard

   (No. 3319)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   TO A COMPANY OF BELIEVERS AT MENTONE.

   "My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill." Isaiah 5:1.

   WE recognize at once that Jesus is here. Who but He can be meant by,
   "My Well-Beloved"? Here is a word of possession and a word of
   affection--He is mine, and my Well-Beloved. He is loveliness, itself,
   the most loving and lovable of beings--and we personally love Him with
   all our heart, mind, soul and strength--He is ours, our Beloved, our
   Well-Beloved! We can say no less.

   The delightful relationship of our Lord to us is accompanied by words
   which remind us of our relationship to Him, "My Well-Beloved has a
   vineyard," and what vineyard is that but our heart, our nature, our
   life? We are His and we are His for the same reason that any other
   vineyard belongs to its owner. He made us a vineyard. Thorns and briars
   were all our growth, naturally, but He bought us with a price, He
   hedged us about and set us apart for Him--and then He planted and
   cultivated us. All within us that can bring forth good fruit is of His
   creating, His tending and His preserving, so that if we are vineyards
   at all, we must be His vineyards! We gladly agree that it shall be so.
   I pray that I may not have a hair on my head that does not belong to
   Christ--and you all pray that your every pulse and breath may be the
   Lord's.

   This happy afternoon I want you to note that this vineyard is said to
   be upon "a very fruitful hill." I have been thinking of the advantages
   of my own position towards the Lord and lamenting with great shame that
   I am not bringing forth such fruit to Him as my position demands.
   Considering our privileges, advantages and opportunities, I fear that
   many of us have need to feel great searching of heart. Perhaps to such,
   the text may be helpful. And it will not be without profit to any one
   of us if the Lord will bless our meditation upon it.

   I. Our first thought, in considering these words, is that OUR POSITION
   AS THE LORD'S VINEYARD IS A VERY FAVORABLE ONE--"My Well-Beloved has a
   vineyard on a very fruitful hill." No people could be better placed for
   serving Christ than we are. I hardly think that any man is better
   situated for glorifying God than I am. I do not think that any women
   could be in better positions for serving Christ than some of you dear
   Sisters now occupy. Our heavenly Father has placed us just where He can
   do the most for us and where we can do the most for Him. Infinite
   Wisdom has occupied itself with carefully selecting the soil, site and
   every tree in the vineyard. We differ greatly and need differing
   situations in order to fruitfulness--the place which would suit one
   might be too trying for another. Friend, the Lord has planted you in
   the right spot--your station may not be the best in itself, but it is
   the best for you! We are in the best possible position for some present
   service at this moment--the Providence of God has put us on a vantage
   ground for our immediate duty! "My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a
   very fruitful hill."

   Let us think of the times in which we live as calling upon us to be
   very fruitful when we compare them with the years gone by. Time was
   when we could not have met thus happily in our own place-- if we had
   been taken in the act of breaking bread, or reading God's Word, we
   would have been hauled off to prison and perhaps put to death! Our
   forefathers scarcely dared to lift up their voices in a Psalm of
   praise, lest the enemy should be upon them. Truly, the lines have
   fallen unto us in pleasant places--yes, we have a goodly heritage on a
   very fruitful hill.

   We do not even live in times when error is so rampant as to be
   paramount. There is too much of it abroad, but taking a broad view of
   things, I venture to say that there never was a time when the Truth of
   God had a wider sway that it has now, or when the Gospel was more fully
   preached, or when there was more spiritual activity! Black clouds of
   error hover over us, but at the same time we rejoice that, from John
   o'Groat's House to the Land's End, Christ is preached by ten

   thousand voices! And even in the dark parts of the earth the name of
   Jesus is shining like a candle in the house! If we had the pick of the
   ages in which to live, we could not have selected a better time for
   fruit-bearing than that which is now current--this age is "a very
   fruitful hill."

   That this is the case some of us know positively, because we have been
   fruitful. Look back, Brothers and Sisters, upon times when your hearts
   were warm, your zeal was fervent and you served the Lord with gladness.
   I join with you in those happy memories. Then we could run with the
   swiftest, we could fight with the bravest, we could work with the
   strongest, we could suffer with the most patient! The Grace of God has
   been upon certain of us in such an unmistakable manner that we have
   brought forth all the fruits of the Spirit. Perhaps today we look back
   with deep regret because we are not so fruitful as we once were. If it
   is so, it is well that our regrets should multiply, but we must change
   each one of them into a hopeful prayer! Remember, the vine may have
   changed, but the soil is the same. We still have the same motives for
   being fruitful and even more than we used to have. Why are we not more
   useful? Has some spiritual insect taken possession of the vines, or
   have we become frostbitten, or sunburned? What is it that withholds the
   vintage? Certainly, if we were fruitful once, we ought to be more
   fruitful now! The fruitful hill is not exhausted--what ails us that our
   grapes are so few?

   We are planted on a fruitful hill, for we are called to work which of
   all others is the most fruitful. Blessed and happy is the man who is
   called to the Christian ministry, for this service has brought more
   Glory to Christ than any other! You, beloved Friends, are not called to
   be rulers of nations, nor inventors of engines, nor teachers of
   sciences, nor slayers of men--but we are soul-winners--our work is to
   lead men to Jesus! Ours is, of all the employment in the world, the
   most fruitful in benefits to men and Glory to God! If we are not
   serving God in the Gospel of His Son with all our might and ability,
   then we have a heavy responsibility resting upon us. "Our Well-Beloved
   has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill." There is not a richer bit of
   soil outside Immanuel's land than the holy ministry for souls! Certain
   of us are teachers and gather the young about us while we speak of
   Jesus. This also is choice soil. Many teachers have gathered a grand
   vintage from among the little ones and have not been a whit behind
   pastors and evangelists in the Glory of soul-winning. Dear teachers,
   your vines are planted on a very fruitful hill! But I do not confine
   myself to preachers and teachers--for all of us, as we have
   opportunities of speaking for the Lord Jesus Christ, and privately
   talking to individuals--also have a fertile soil in which to grow! If
   we do not glorify God by soul-winning, we shall be greatly blamable,
   since of all forms of service it is most prolific in praise of God.

   And what is more, the very circumstances with which we are surrounded
   all tend to make our position exceedingly favorable for fruit-bearing.
   In this little company we have not one friend who is extremely
   poor--but if such were among us, I should say the same thing. Christ
   has gathered some of His choicest clusters from the valley of poverty.
   Many eminent saints have never owned a foot of land, but lived upon
   their weekly wage and found scant fare at that. Yes, by the Grace of
   God, the vale of poverty has blossomed as the rose. It so happens,
   however, that the most of us here have a com-petence--we have all that
   we need and something over to give to the poor and to the cause of God.
   Surely we ought to be fruitful in almsgiving, in caring for the sick
   and in all manner of sweet and fragrant influences. "Give me neither
   poverty nor riches," is a prayer that has been answered for most of
   us--and if we do not now give honor unto God, what excuse can we make
   for our barrenness? I am speaking to some who are singularly healthy,
   who are never hindered by aches and pains and to others who have been
   prospered in business for 20 years at a stretch--yours is great
   indebtedness to your Lord! In your case, "My Well-Beloved has a
   vineyard on a very fruitful hill." Give God your health and your
   wealth, my Brother, while they last! See that all His care of you is
   not thrown away. Others of us seldom know many months together of
   health, but have often had to suffer sorely in body--this ought to make
   us fruitful, for there is much increase from the tillage of affliction!
   Has not the Master obtained the richest of all fruit from bleeding
   vines? Do not His heaviest bunches come from those which have been
   sharply cut and pruned down to the ground? Choice flavors, dainty
   juices and delicious aromas come mostly from the use of the keen-edged
   knife of trial! Some of us are at our best for fruit-bearing when in
   other respects we are at our worst. Thus I might truly say that
   whatever our circumstances may be--whether we are poor or rich, in
   health or in affliction--each one of our cases has its advantages and
   we are planted "on a very fruitful hill."

   Furthermore, when I look at our spiritual condition, I must say for
   myself, and I think for you, also, "My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a
   very fruitful hill." For what has God done for us? To change the
   question--what has God not done for us? What more could He say to us
   than what He has said? What more could He do for us than what He has

   done? He has dealt with us like a God! He has loved us up from the pit
   of corruption, He has loved us up to the Cross and up to the gates of
   Heaven! He has quickened us, forgiven us and renewed us! He dwells in
   us, comforts us, instructs us, upholds us, preserves us, guides us,
   leads us and He will surely perfect us! If we are not fruitful to His
   praise, how shall we excuse ourselves? Where shall we hide our guilty
   heads? Shall yonder sea suffice to lend us briny tears wherewith to
   weep over our ingratitude?

   II. I go a step further, by your leave, and say that OUR POSITION, as
   the Lord's vineyard, IS FAVORABLE TO THE PRODUCTION OF THE FRUIT WHICH
   HE LOVES BEST. I believe that my own position is the most favorable

   for the production of the fruit that the Lord loves best in me, and
   that your position is the same. What is this fruit?

   First, it is faith. Our Lord is very delighted to see faith in His
   people. The trust which clings to Him with childlike confidence is
   pleasant to His loving heart. Our position is such that faith ought to
   be the easiest thing in the world to us. Look at the promises He has
   given us in His Word--can we not believe them? Look at what the Father
   has done for us in the gift of His dear Son--can we not trust Him after
   that? Our daily experience all goes to strengthen our confidence in
   God. Every mercy asks, "Will you not trust Him?" Every need that is
   supplied cries, "Can you not trust Him?" Every sorrow sent by the great
   Father tests our faith and drives us to Him on whom we repose--and so
   strengthens and confirms our confidence in God! Mercies and miseries
   alike operate for the growth of faith! Some of us have been called upon
   to trust God on a large scale and that necessity has been a great help
   towards fruit-bearing. The more troubles we have, the more is our vine
   dug about--and the more nourishment is laid to its roots. If faith does
   not ripen under trial, when will it ripen? Our afflictions fertilize
   the soil wherein faith may grow!

   Another choice fruit is love. Jesus delights in love. His tender heart
   delights to see its love returned. Am I not of all men most bound to
   love the Lord? I speak for each Brother and Sister here--is not that
   your language? Do you not all say, "Lives there a person beneath yon
   blue sky who ought to love Jesus more than I should?" Each Sister
   soliloquizes, "Sat there ever a woman in her chamber who had more
   reason for loving God than I have?" No, the sin which has been forgiven
   us should make us love our Savior exceedingly much! The sin which has
   been prevented in other cases should make us love our Preserver much.
   The help which God has sent us in hours of need, the guidance which He
   has given in times of difficulty, the joy which He has poured into us
   in days of fellowship and the quiet He has breathed upon us in seasons
   of trial--all ought to make us love Him! Along our life-road, reasons
   for loving God are more numerous than the leaves upon the olive trees.
   He has hedged us about with His goodness, even as the mountains and the
   sea are round our present resting place. Look backward as far as time
   endures--and then look far beyond that into the eternity which has
   been--and you will see the Lord's great love set upon us! All through
   time and eternity reasons have been accumulating which compel us to
   love our Lord! Now turn sharply around and gaze before you, and all
   along the future, faith can see reasons for loving God, golden
   milestones on the way that are yet to be traversed, all calling for our
   loving delight in

   God!

   Christ is also very pleased with the fruit of hope, and we are so
   circumstanced that we ought to produce much of it. The aged ought to
   look forward, for they cannot expect to see much more on earth. Time is
   short and eternity is near-- how precious is a good hope through Divine
   Grace! We who are not yet old ought to be exceedingly hopeful. And the
   younger folk, who are just beginning the spiritual life, should abound
   in hope most fresh and bright! If any man has expectations greater than
   I have, I should like to see him. We have the greatest of expectations.
   Have you never felt like Mercy in her dream, when she laughed and when
   Christiana asked her what made her laugh? She said that she had had a
   vision of things yet to be revealed!

   Select any fruit of the Spirit you choose and I maintain that we are
   favorably circumstanced for producing it! We are planted upon a very
   fruitful hill. What a fruitful hill we are living in as regards labor
   for Christ! Each one of us may find work for the Master--there are
   capital opportunities around us. There never was an age in which a man,
   consecrated to God, might do as much as he can at this time! There is
   nothing to restrain the most ardent zeal! We live in such happy times
   that if we plunge into a sea of work, we may swim and none can hinder
   us. Then, too, our labor is made, by God's Grace, to be so pleasant to
   us. No true servant of Christ is weary of the work, though he may be
   weary in the work. It is not the work that he ever wearies of, for he
   wishes that he could do 10 times more. Then our Lord makes our work to
   be successful. We bring one soul to Jesus and that one brings a
   hundred! Sometimes, when we are fishing for Jesus, there may be few
   fish, but blessed be His name, most of them enter the net and we have
   to live praising and blessing God for all the favor with which He
   regards our labor of love! I think I am right in saying that for the
   bearing of the fruit which Jesus loves best, our position is
   exceedingly favorable.

   III. And now, this afternoon, at this Table, OUR POSITION HERE IS
   FAVORABLE EVEN NOW TO OUR PRODUCING IMMEDIATELY and upon the spot, the
   richest, ripest, rarest fruit for our Well-Beloved! Here, at the
   Communion Table, we are at the center of the Truth of God and at the
   wellhead of consolation! Now we enter the Holy of Holies and come to
   the most sacred meeting place between our souls and God!

   Viewed from this Table, the vineyard slopes to the south, for
   everything looks towards Christ, our Sun. This bread, this wine, all
   set our souls towards Jesus Christ and He shines full upon our hearts,
   minds and souls to make us bring forth much fruit! Are we not planted
   on a very fruitful hill?

   As we think of His passion for our sake, we feel that a wall is set
   about us to the north, to keep back every sharp blast that might
   destroy the tender grape. No wrath is dreaded now, for Jesus has borne
   it for us--behold the tokens of His all-sufficient Sacrifice! No anger
   of the Lord shall come to our restful spirits, for the Lord says, "I
   have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you." Here, on
   this Table, are the pledges of His unspeakable love and these, like a
   high wall, keep out the rough winds. Surely, we are planted on a very
   fruitful hill!

   Moreover, the Well-Beloved Himself is among us. He has not let us out
   to farmers, but He Himself does undertake to care for us! And that He
   is here we are sure, for here is His flesh and here is His blood. You
   see the outward tokens, may you feel the unseen reality! For we believe
   in His real Presence, though not in the gross corporeal sense with
   which worldly spirits blind themselves. The King has come into a
   garden--let us entertain Him with our fruits. He who for this vineyard
   poured out a bloody sweat is now surveying the vines--shall they not at
   this instant give forth a goodly smell? The Presence of our Lord makes
   this assembly a very fruitful hill--where He sets His feet, all good
   things flourish!

   Around this Table we are in a place where others have fruited well. Our
   literature contains no words more precious than those which have been
   spoken at the time of communion. Perhaps you know and appreciate the
   discourses of Willi-son, delivered on sacramental occasions.
   Rutherford's Communion Sermons have a sacred unction upon them. The
   poems of George Herbert, I should think, were most of them inspired by
   the sight of Christ in this ordinance! Think of the canticles of holy
   Bernard, how they flame with devotion. Saints and martyrs have been
   nourished at this Table of blessing! This hallowed ordinance, I am
   sure, is a spot where hopes grow bright and hearts grow warm, resolves
   become firm and lives become fruitful--and all the clusters of our
   soul's fruit ripen for the Lord!

   Blessed be God, we are where we have ourselves often grown. We have
   enjoyed our best times when celebrating this sacred Eucharist. God
   grant it may be so again! Let us, in calm meditation and inward
   thought, now produce from our hearts sweet fruits of love, zeal, hope
   and patience--let us yield great clusters like those of Eshcol, all for
   Jesus, and for Jesus only! Even now, let us give ourselves up to
   meditation, gratitude, adoration, communion, rapture--and let us spend
   the rest of our lives in glorifying and magnifying the ever-blessed
   name of our Well-Beloved whose vineyard we are--

   "While such a scene of sacred joys Our raptured eyes and souls employ,
   Here we could sit and gaze away A long, an everlasting day! Well, we
   shall quickly pass the night To the fair coasts of perfect light-- Then
   shall ourjoyful senses rove O'er the dear Object of our love! There
   shall we drink full draughts of bliss, And pluck new life from heavenly
   trees---- Yet now and then, dear Lord, bestow A drop of Heaven on us
   below."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH 5:1-19; PSALM 121:1-7.

   Verse 1. Now will I sing to my Well-Beloved a song of my Beloved
   touching His vineyard. My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very
   fruitful hill The Song of the Vineyard it by no means a joyful soul. It
   is, indeed, quite the reverse. It is pitched in the minor key and has a
   painful theme. This suffices to prove that all our hymns need not
   consist, as some affirm, of direct praise to God. Such a notion is not
   according to Scripture, for many of the Psalms are not of that
   character. There are songs that can be sung to the edification of one
   another and that is, in part, the design of sacred song. We speak to
   ourselves as well as to God in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
   "My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill." The members
   of the Church of God are placed in a position where they have very
   choice opportunities of glorifying God--they are like a vineyard on a
   very fruitful hill--most favorably placed for fruitfulness.

   2. And He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, andplanted it
   with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also
   made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth
   grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.The vineyard was well chosen
   as to situation. The vine was carefully selected. Everything was done
   by walling it, to protect it from intruders. Every preparation was made
   for the gathering in of the fruits. The winepress was there, yet when
   the time came for grapes sweet and luscious, it brought forth wild
   grapes! You know what that means. Has it been so with us? Have we
   rewarded the Well-Beloved thus ungratefully for all His pains? Have we
   given Him hardness of heart instead of repentance? Unbelief instead of
   faith? Indifference instead of love? Idleness instead of holy industry?
   Impurity instead of holiness? Is that my case? Is it your case, dear
   Friends? Has even our religion been a false thing? Has it been like
   wild grapes or poisonous berries? Have we been at times right only by
   accident, and have we never carefully and sedulously sought to serve
   our Lord, or to bring forth fruit to His praise? O Lord, You know! Let
   us judge ourselves in this matter that we be not judged.

   3, 4. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I
   pray you, between Me and My vineyard. What could have been done more to
   My vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked that it
   should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? O you that
   profess to be His people, what more could Christ have done for you?
   What more could the Holy Spirit have done? What richer promises, what
   wiser precepts, what kinder Providences, what more gracious patience?
   "Why, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth
   wild grapes?" From where came this? The stock was good, the vine-grower
   was wise. From where came these wild grapes?

   5, 6. Andnow I will tellyou what I will do to My vineyard: I will take
   away the hedge thereof, andit shall be eaten up; and break down the
   wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste: it
   shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there shall come up brier and thorns:
   I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it "I will
   tell you what I will do." He does not wait till the men of Judah have
   given their verdict. There was no need of any. The case was all too
   sadly clear. "I will take away the hedge thereof. . .and break down the
   wall thereof." Those Providences which guard men from sin shall be
   removed. You shall be allowed to sin if you like--and as you like. Your
   will shall have its freedom to the fullest. "And it shall be trodden
   down: and I will lay it waste." There is no destruction like that which
   comes when God destroys the fruitless vineyard! When a human enemy or
   the wild boar out of the woods lays it waste, it may be restored again,
   but if in righteous wrath, the Divine Owner of the vineyard, Himself,
   lays it waste, what hope remains for it? What fearful words--"It shall
   be trodden down: and I will lay it waste." "It shall not be pruned, nor
   dug; but there shall come up briars and thorns." Nothing happens worse
   to a church or to a man than to be altogether without affliction--no
   pruning, no digging, no restraints, no pricks of conscience, no smiting
   with the rod. "I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
   upon it." That is the worst of all!

   7. For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and
   the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for judgment, but
   beheld oppression; for righteousness, but beheld a cry. Oh, when those
   who profess to be God's people live ungodly, dishonest, unchaste,
   ungracious lives, God is greatly grieved! His anger burns against such
   a Church and against such a people. And well it may. "He looked for
   judgment," for they professed to be taught of God. "But beheld
   oppression." He looked "for righteousness," for they said they were
   righteous. "But beheld a cry." The passage has a special reference to
   God's ancient people and one cannot read it without noting how
   literally this terrible threat has been fulfilled.

   8-10. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field,
   till there is no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of
   the earth! In My ears, said the LORD ofHosts, Of a truth many houses
   shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitants. Yes, ten
   acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall
   yield an ephah. When men are covetous after the things of this world,
   God has a way of making them to be filled with disappointment and with
   bitterness! Woe unto any man who has any god but the living God, or who
   lives for any objective but to glorify the Creator. Upon such a man
   innumerable woes shall come!

   11-12. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may
   follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflames
   them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are
   in their feasts: but they regard not the Word of the LORD, neither
   consider the operation of His hands. The covetous man was intoxicated
   with greed. Here is a man intoxicated with strong drink. It is never
   too early, it is never too late for men to drink who once are carried
   away with this passion. They rise up early. They continue until night
   and then, when they are inflamed with lust, all sorts of evil pleasures
   are sought after and Satan leads them captive at his will. Woe unto
   such! Now, it was because there were covetous men who were idolaters,
   because there were luxuriously living men who were drunkards, who had
   crept into Jerusalem and lived there, and spread evils among the
   people--it was for this that God declared that He would lay His
   vineyard waste. Are there none such in the Church of God today? Ah, me!
   I fear there are professors who do not let it be known openly, but who
   in secret follow after these things!

   13-14. Therefore My people are gone into captivity, because they have
   no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude
   dried up with thirst Therefore Hell has enlarged herself, and opened
   her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and
   their pomp, and he that rejoices, shall descend into it What a perfect
   description that is of the Church of God when it goes wrong--when there
   is evil in it. Then evil multiplies itself greatly in the earth and
   Hell has to be made bigger, as it were. As one old preacher said, "They
   go to Hell in droves." There is none to stop them. When the Church,
   itself, goes wrong, then the world is like that herd of swine that ran
   violently down a steep place to perish in the waters. Down, down they
   go! Oh, dreadful sight! Oh, terrible doom that falls upon the ungodly!
   Would God the Church were well awake to see the danger of mankind and
   that she so lived that God could bless her to the salvation of men!

   15-16. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall
   be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: but the LORD of
   Host shall be exalted in judgment, and God, who is holy, shall be
   sanctified in righteousness. For whoever may stain himself with sin,
   God will not. We may think lightly of sin, but He never does. We may be
   so foolish as to tolerate iniquity in ourselves and wink at it in
   others, but God will not do so. Even when sin was laid on Christ, He
   smote Him to the death! Though He was not guilty of any sin, yet when
   our sin lay there, God turned away His face from His Son and He died!
   And if He spared not sin in His Son, do you think He will spare it in
   us? Ah, no! He is a just God and He will clear His hands of any
   complicity with iniquity. The 16th verse is the song of Hannah, that
   greatest of ancient poetesses. It is the Song of Mary, who copied it
   from Hannah, "He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted
   them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the
   rich He has sent away empty."

   17. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places
   of the fat ones shall strangers eat It is always so. There is always
   room for the tender, the gentle and the weak when God smites the
   haughty and the strong.

   18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin, as
   it were, with a cart rope!"Woe unto them." When we get a woe in this
   Book of Blessings, it is sent as a warning, that we may escape from
   woe! God's woes are better than the devil's welcomes! God always means
   man's good and only sets ill before him that he may turn from the
   dangers of a mistaken way, and so may escape the ill which lies at the
   end of it. "Woe, woe, woe," though it should sound with a dreadful din
   in our ears, may be the means of leading us to seek and find our
   Savior--and then throughout eternity no woe shall ever come near to us!
   "That draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin, as it were, with a
   cart rope." This is a very singular passage. It is not very easy to
   understand it at first sight. Here are some who are said to draw sin
   "with cords of vanity," which are slender enough. And yet they also
   draw it "as with a cart rope," which is thick enough. They are
   harnessed to sin and the traces appear to be fragile, insignificant and
   soon broken. You can hardly touch them, for they are a mere sham, a
   fiction--vanity! What can be thinner and weaker than cobweb-cords of
   vanity? Yet when you attempt to break or remove them, they turn out to
   be cart ropes or wagon traces, fitted to bear the pull of horse or
   bulls! Motives which have no logical force and would not bind a
   reasonable man for a moment, are, nevertheless, quite sufficient to
   hold the most of men in bondage. Such a slave is man to iniquity, that
   unworthy motives and indefensible reasons which appear no stronger than
   little cords nevertheless hold him as with bonds of steel--and he is
   fastened to the loaded wagon of his iniquity as a horse is fastened by
   a cart rope!

   19. That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see
   it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come,
   that we may know it! Blaspheming God and rushing on the bosses of His
   buckler! Defying Him to smite them. And all this came from dallying
   with sin, from drawing iniquity with cords of vanity! Beware of the
   eggs of the cockatrice! Remember how drops wear stones and little
   strokes fell great oaks. Do not play with a cobra, even if it is but a
   foot long. Keep from the edge of the precipice. Fly from the lion ere
   he springs upon you! Do not forge for yourself a net of iron, nor
   become the builder of your own prison. May the Holy Spirit deliver you.
   May you touch the Cross and find in it the power which will loosen you
   and let you go!

   Psalm 121:1. I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes
   my help. It is wise to look to the strong for strength. Dwellers in
   valleys are subject to many disorders for which there is no cure but a
   sojourn in the uplands. And it is well when they shake off their
   lethargy and resolve upon a climb. The holy man who here sings a choice
   sonnet looked away from the slanderers by whom he was tormented to the
   Lord who saw all from His high places and was ready to pour down succor
   for His injured servant. Help comes to saints only from above! They
   look elsewhere in vain. Let us lift up our eyes with hope, expectancy,
   desire and confidence! Satan will endeavor to keep our eyes upon our
   sorrows that we may be disquieted and discouraged. Be it ours to firmly
   resolve that we will look out and look up, for there is good cheer for
   the eyes--and they that lift up their eyes to the eternal hills shall
   soon have their hearts lifted up also! The purposes of God--the Divine
   attributes, the Immutable promises, the Covenant ordered in all things
   and sure--the Providence, predestination and proved faithfulness of the
   Lord--these are the things to which we must lift up our eyes, for from
   these our help must come!

   2. My help comes from the LORD, which made Heaven and earth. What we
   need is help--help powerful, efficient, constant. We need a very
   present help in trouble. What a mercy that we have it in our God! Our
   hope is in Jehovah, for our help comes from Him. Help is on the road
   and will not fail to reach us in due time, for He who sends it to us
   was never known to be too late. Jehovah who created all things is equal
   to every emergency! Heaven and earth are at the disposal of Him who
   made them, therefore let us be very joyful in our Infinite Helper! He
   will sooner destroy Heaven and earth than permit His people to be
   destroyed--the perpetual hills, themselves, shall bow rather than He
   shall fail whose ways are everlasting! We are bound to look beyond
   Heaven and earth to Him who made them both--it is vain to trust the
   creatures--it is wise to trust the Creator.

   3. He will not allow your foot to be moved: He that keeps you will not
   slumber Though the paths of life are dangerous and difficult, yet we
   shall stand fast, for Jehovah will not permit our feet to slide. And if
   He will not allow it, we shall not suffer it. If our feet will be thus
   kept, we may be sure that our head and heart will also be preserved. In
   the original, the words express a wish or prayer--"May He not allow
   your foot to be moved." Promised preservation should be the subject of
   perpetual prayer. And we may pray believingly, for those who have God
   for their Keeper shall be safe from all the perils of the way. Among
   the hills and ravines of Palestine, the literal keeping of the feet is
   a great mercy, but in the slippery ways of a tried and afflicted life,
   the blessing of upholding is of priceless value, for a single false
   step might cause us a fall fraught with awful danger. We would not
   stand a moment if our Keeper were to sleep. We need Him by day and by
   night--not a single step can be safely taken except under His guardian
   eye. God is the convoy and bodyguard of His saints. No fatigue or
   exhaustion can cast our God into sleep--His watchful eyes are never
   closed.

   4. Behold, He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The
   consoling Truth must be repeated--it is too rich to be dismissed in a
   single line. It were well if we always imitated the sweet singer and
   would dwell a little upon a choice Doctrine, sucking the honey from it.
   What a glorious title is in the Hebrew--"The Keeper of Israel," and how
   delightful to think that no form of unconsciousness ever steals over
   Him, neither the deep slumber nor the lighter sleep. This is a subject
   of wonder, a theme for attentive consideration, therefore the word,
   "Behold," is set up as a way mark. Israel fell asleep, but his God was
   awake. Jacob had neither walls, nor curtains, nor bodyguard around him,
   but the Lord was in that place though Jacob knew it not and, therefore,
   the defenseless man was safe as in a castle! He keeps us as a rich man
   keeps his treasure, as a captain keeps a city with a garrison, as a
   royal guard protects his monarch's head. If the former verse is in
   strict accuracy a prayer, this is the answer to it--it affirms the
   matter thus, "Lo He shall not slumber nor sleep--the Keeper of Israel."
   Happy are the pilgrims to whom this Psalm is a safe conduct! They may
   journey all the way to the Celestial City without fear!

   5. The LORD is your Keeper: the LORD is your shade upon your right
   hand. Here the Preserving One who had been spoken of by pronouns in the
   two previous verses, is distinctly named--Jehovah is your Keeper. What
   a mint of meaning lies here! The sentence is a mass of bullion and when
   coined and stamped with the King's name, it will bear all our expenses
   between our birthplace on earth and our rest in Heaven! Here is a
   glorious Person--"Jehovah," assuming a gracious office and fulfilling
   it in Person--Jehovah is your "Keeper," in behalf of a favored
   individual--you, and a firm assurance of Revelation that it is even so
   at this hour--Jehovah is your Keeper. A shade gives protection from
   burning heat and glaring light. We cannot bear too much blessing. Even
   Divine goodness, which is a right-hand dispensation must be toned down
   and shaded to suit our infirmity, and this the Lord will do for us.
   When a blazing sun pours down its burning beams upon our heads, the
   Lord Jehovah, Himself, will interpose to shade us and that in the most
   honorable manner, acting as our right-hand attendant and placing us in
   comfort and safety.

   6. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night None but
   the Lord could shelter us from these tremendous forces. There are
   dangers of the light and of the dark, but in both and from both we
   shall be preserved-- literally from excessive heat and from baneful
   chills--mystically from any injurious effects which might follow from
   Doctrine, bright or dim--spiritually from the evils of prosperity and
   adversity--eternally from the strain of overpowering Glory and from the
   pressure of terrible events, such as judgment and the burning of the
   world. Day and night make up all time--thus the ever-present protection
   never ceases.

   7. The LORD shall preserve you from all evil: He shall preserve your
   soul It is a great pity that our admirable translation did not keep to
   the word, "keep," all through the Psalm, for all along it is one. God
   not only keeps His own in all evil times but from all evil influences
   and operations, yes, from evils, themselves! This is a far-reaching
   word of covering--it includes everything and excludes nothing--the
   wings of Jehovah amply guard His own from evils great and small,
   temporary and eternal. Soul-keeping is the soul of keeping. If the soul
   is kept, all is kept. The preservation of the greater includes that of
   the lesser so far as it is essential to the main design. The kernel
   shall be preserved and in order thereto, the shell shall be also
   preserved. Our soul is kept from the dominion of sin, the infection of
   error, the crush of despondency, the puffing up of pride--kept from the
   world, the flesh, and the devil--kept for holier and greater things!
   Kept in the love of God, kept unto the eternal Kingdom and Glory! What
   can harm a soul that is kept of the Lord?
     __________________________________________________________________

A Bad King's Good Son

   (No. 3320)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING, JUNE
   24, 1866.

   "And all Israel shall mourn for him, and bury him: for he only of
   Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found some
   good thing toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam." 1
   Kings 14:13.

   WE must take the text, of course, with definite and full reference to
   its historical context. It seems that in the wicked house and family of
   Jeroboam, there was one godly child--and death, which very often
   mysteriously cuts down the green wheat, while it leaves the hemlock to
   ripen--seized upon this one and laid him low. Yet though he must die,
   there was this consolatory thought about his death, that it was the
   only one of the family that would ever have an honored burial, for all
   the others were to be slain by a death so sudden and violent that they
   were to be eaten by the fowls of the air or devoured by the dogs! This
   child was to be the only one who should have a funeral attended by
   mourners because he was the only child of the whole family in whose
   heart there was "found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel."

   We shall make several remarks upon this text, perhaps too numerous to
   call them divisions as a discourse, but they will be illustrations
   drawn from the narrative before us. The first remark we shall make is
   this--

   I. GOD'S ELECTING LOVE SOMETIMES HAS THE OBJECTS OF ITS CHOICE IN
   STRANGE PLACES.

   Of all the houses of Israel, the palace of Tirzah was, surely, the last
   place one would think in which to look for a worshiper of the true God!
   The father of the family was a great sinner. He had set up gods of gold
   and said, "These are your gods, O Israel." Though much distinguished by
   God's Providential goodness and lifted up from the rank of an officer
   to that of a monarch, he forgot the God in whose sunshine he had
   flourished and must make the men of Israel bow down before an ox that
   eats grass! There could be in his palace no toleration for anything
   like true religion. There must have been a total neglect of all the
   hallowed engagements of the Sabbath and of everything else that looked
   like reverence to the unseen, but almighty God of Israel! And yet God's
   Sovereign, electing Love was bestowed upon a child of this wicked and
   rebellious Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin! God's
   everlasting mercy had designed that there should be a break in the line
   of sin and that there should be at least one who should be found among
   the choristers of Glory who had been nursed and nurtured among the
   degraded worship of calves!

   What was the case in Jeroboam's family is often seen in many others.
   Remember how Paul seems to dwell upon it? "Chiefly they that are of
   Caesar's household." Of all the human animals that ever disgraced the
   race, the Caesars, as a whole, were the worst. I suppose that three out
   of four of them ought to have been kept in the worst ward of a lunatic
   asylum, and yet they were lifted up to preside over the vast Roman
   empire! Their lives were not only tainted with iniquity, but they
   reeked with every form of infamy. And yet, in households of such
   wretches as Tiberius and Nero, there were found true and eminent saints
   of God! Grace sometime finds its choicest jewels on the worst of refuse
   heaps. Sometimes it is impossible to account for it, as it is in this
   case. How should the child know anything about God? Was it, do you
   think, through his nurse? It certainly was not through his mother, but
   might it not have been through his nurse? Does not God sometimes send
   to little children in godless families good governesses? If some of you
   are in such positions, may you not, instead of running out of the house
   because it is too godless, hope that God has sent you there to be an
   instrument of good to some tender little heart, to pluck right out of
   the fire some brand, to take right away from between the lion's jaws
   some precious blood-bought lamb for whom the Savior died? It might have
   been so here. I cannot see how else this child could have known about
   the God of Israel, but this is certain--electing love had one of its
   objects in this strange household and it knew how to find that one out!
   I know there are some of you who belong to very strange families, where

   the name of God is scarcely ever mentioned, except in profanity, where
   Christ is not loved and where His Cross is not reverenced, and yet you
   are saved. Perhaps it was curiosity that brought you here to hear that
   odd man who says such strange things against the world's popish
   church--or for some other reason you dropped in here and God blessed
   you. Or else you took up some stray book, or you happened to light on a
   torn-out leaf of the Bible and there, Sovereign Grace met with you. Oh,
   how should we praise electing love and lift up heart and soul and voice
   to say--

   "It was not that I chose Thee,

   For, Lord, it could not be!

   This heart would still refuse Thee

   But you have chosen me." Give the Glory, all the Glory, to the
   Sovereign, distinguishing, discriminating Grace of God!

   My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there seems much comfort in
   this little incident to the Christian minister and to all Believers.
   You think, sometimes, that the Church is getting to a low ebb and that
   there is a lack of bold, brave men. But we do not know where God may
   yet find such men. Years ago we said, and you believed, that God would
   find some of the best preachers of the Gospel among the very humblest
   classes of society--and did not that come true? Have there not been
   found some men with whose names the ears of England have been made to
   tingle, who were taken from the coalpit and other similar places to
   preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, He can do the same again and
   what will be stranger, still--it may be that before many years or even
   months are over, He will find courtiers and men of noble blood and
   rank, after the world's way of talking, who will be down, or rather up
   to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus! My Brothers and Sisters, we
   need never despair! The mighty arm of God can get into courts and
   houses of lords and reach the mightiest, the proudest, the most
   priest-ridden of men and lay them down at the foot of the Cross,
   saying, "I intended from before the foundation of the world to make you
   a vessel of mercy to bear My name to the Gentiles, and you shall do
   it--arise and go your way." Never despair for the Church! Out of the
   house of Jeroboam, God will bring His Ahijahs, and out of the worst and
   most unpromising of places, where God is most forgotten, and His Truth
   least known and despised, the Lord will bring testifiers to the Truth
   of God as it is in Jesus! Have hope, then! Have hope in God and look up
   and expect His blessing!

   We shall now turn to a second remark, namely, that according to the
   text--

   II. IT IS NOT ALWAYS, OR EVEN COMMONLY, THAT SOME GOOD THING TOWARDS
   THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL IS FOUND IN THE MINDS AND HEARTS OF CHILDREN.

   It is mentioned, you observe, that in this child alone of all the race
   there was found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel. It has
   grown to be a common notion that there is a very great deal that is
   good in children--and this by unaided nature. Well, there are many
   traits in the character of childhood, as childhood, which are very
   beautiful and naturally and, according to the judgment of the natural
   man there is much about a child to be admired and imitated. But indulge
   no idea, parents, that your child is born with a perfectly balanced
   mind! Do not fall into the delusion that your infant will naturally
   choose the right and abhor the wrong, for before many days are past it
   is probable, if you are at all a watchful parent, that the delusion
   will be dispelled! You will discover, either in stubbornness, or in
   temper, or as soon as speech comes in, a constant tendency to
   untruthfulness and disobedience, or other forms of little childish sins
   that will prove the heart of the child to be far other than the sheet
   of white, unsoiled paper which some like to represent it to be! Alas,
   long before we can write upon it, the pen of evil tendency has traced
   lines on it which only the Grace of God will ever be able to erase!
   Cowper sings--

   "True, you are young, but there's a stone, Within the youngest breast"

   A child soon finds this out for himself, if God enlightens him. Though
   reared in a godly home, and brought up by godly parents and carefully
   shielded from everything like evil society or influence, I was very
   conscious of early feeling myself to be inclined to all sorts of evil,
   to have found it difficult to be and do that which was right, and easy
   to be and do that which was wrong. And so far as your memories will
   serve you, if you have any spiritual enlightenment, you will have found
   the same thing in relation to yourselves. How could it be otherwise?
   "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one!" "Behold,"
   said David, and we cannot expect that we are better than he was,
   "Behold, I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my
   mother conceive me." To find good, then, in a child should be to us a
   subject for

   deep thankfulness to God! And we should always look upon it as being
   His work. We should not wonder to see it, for God often puts it there,
   but we should never look upon true goodness in a child as something
   from human nature--

   "Grace is a plant, wherever it blooms,

   Of a celestial birth"

   and if there is a desire towards Jesus Christ. If there is a tenderness
   of heart concerning sin. If there is simple prayer for pardon and
   childlike trust in the Savior, it is as much a work of Grace in the
   youngest child as in the oldest convert--let us always remember that it
   is so!

   "Well," says one, "one does not like to think of one's children as
   being fallen." My dear Friend! One does not like to think of one's self
   as being fallen! But it is not because the Doctrine is unpleasant that
   it is therefore untrue, for, unhappily, the most of true things about
   our spiritual state when unregenerate are unpleasant. That we are
   fallen by sin is a sad fact, but none the less a fact because sad! We
   know we are fallen short of the Glory of God. It is apparent and
   undeniable to ourselves and, therefore, we discover that "the whole
   head is sick, and the whole heart faint." It is as much a matter
   confirmed by human experience when it is honest with itself, as it is a
   Divine Revelation!

   And the same thing rest assured, is true of those who spring from our
   loins and inherit our nature! We cannot expect to be the parents of
   perfect children, being ourselves imperfect--but when we find in the
   heart of a child some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel, we see
   great cause for devout thankfulness to God. We observe now--

   III. SOME GOOD THING TOWARDS THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL, THOUGH IT COMES
   NOT FROM NATURE, IS OFTEN SEEN IN VERY YOUNG PEOPLE. You will say I am
   preaching a "sermon to the young" without giving notice of it, but it
   is also a sermon to parents. There is a supposition abroad that there
   cannot be anything really good in people who are not adults. There is,
   at any rate, a difficulty among some people as to child-like piety. And
   with some, if a lad or a girl is under 12 years of age or thereabouts,
   it really is a matter of grave suspicion as to whether piety can be
   genuine. I have not a shadow of sympathy with such people! I cannot see
   any more reason for suspecting the sincerity of children than for
   suspecting the sincerity of those who are far better acquainted with
   the arts of deception than little children are likely to be! It is not
   difficult to acquire the pretence of religion so as to impose upon some
   church officers. It is not difficult to adopt the religious jargon
   which most people use, and to get it off by rote. But children do not
   find this to be so easy--besides, they have not been long enough in
   association with Christian people to have caught the thing up--and when
   a child says, tearfully and carefully, "I have repented of my sins, and
   I do trust in the Lord Jesus Christ"--I believe that that child is as
   much entitled to be believed as I am, or as you are! That you have a
   small quantity of gray sprinkled in your hair is, no doubt, an index of
   older years and, perhaps, maturer judgment, but I am not certain that
   it is an indication of a more sincere nature! The child has, I think,
   at any rate, as much reason to be believed as an older person. And,
   after all, why not? Do years help the Holy Spirit? Do we grow better as
   we grow older?

   Is it easier to convert an old sinner than it is a child fresh from its
   mother's knee? Omnipotence is needed in the one case--and cannot
   Omnipotence suffice for the other? If there are difficulties in either
   case, I believe there is none when Omnipotence puts itself to work.
   Certainly there are no difficulties in the case of a child which are
   not aggravated in the case of an older person. Some of the most
   excellent Christians are those who were converted when they were very
   young. You shall find your ablest preachers, with few exceptions, to
   have been young converts. You shall look for your Timothies among those
   who have learned the Scriptures from their youth up!

   If I might venture to do it, I would say to our elder Brothers and
   Sisters--Do let us get rid of the idea that we ought to suspect the
   young folk. Let us be jealous with a holy jealousy, lest they make a
   profession of what they do not understand. Let us be earnest with them
   to see that they really receive spiritual things and do not fall into
   hypocritical or deceiving habits--but do not let us be constantly
   suspecting children and be looking upon them as if they could not be of
   the right kind. "Nothing but a parcel of boys and girls!" says
   somebody. And what would you have them, Sir? A company of boys and
   girls may glorify God in every way as well as a company of even the
   oldest people you could find! They have their faults, but people of
   other ages have theirs, too, and, at any rate, it is written, "out of
   the mouths of babes and sucklings has God ordained strength because of
   His enemies."

   We will now go a step further and remark--

   IV. THAT A TRULY GOOD THING, IN THE DIVINE SENSE, IS ALWAYS TOWARDS THE
   LORD.

   This is the tendency and the strong direction of the current. You
   observe it says not merely that "there is found some good thing," but,
   "some good things toward the Lord God of Israel" Here, then, is a test
   by which we may try religion, both in the old and in the young! There
   are many men who have some good thing in them politically. I can admire
   the man who stands up for the Constitution and who, although he may be
   called one of the stupid party, yet really believing that it is
   necessary that things should stand forever where they now are, can
   readily encounter disgrace for the matter. I can admire even more and
   with greater intensity the man who goes ahead and who desires to change
   everything that is wrong, even though it is venerable with years! I can
   admire him standing in the midst of storm and quietly enduring it,
   bearing all manner of rebuke for the sake of reform. Yet I can quite
   imagine all this existing without any "good thing toward the Lord God
   of Israel." Though one appreciates all this, yet he is compelled to
   lament if there is not something more. In daily life it is a noble
   thing to see some good thing in business. There are some of you who
   would as soon bleed to death as cheat others--to whom it would be the
   most tremendous misfortune to know deep poverty--but who would sooner
   be beggars than bankrupt, if bankruptcy meant in your case what it
   often means today! Now, I can admire this fine noble honesty.

   Admire it! Ah, and wish that it were as common as daisies in the field!
   Admire it! Would God it might spread all over the land! But all this
   can exist without any good thing toward the Lord God of Israel, for the
   Lord God of Israel may be forgotten with it all! I can admire in the
   family the earnest mother bringing up her children with sedulous care,
   and the excellent daughter, amiable and kind, making everyone happy
   wherever she goes. And the hardworking father denying himself much that
   he may bring up his children properly. I can admire all these domestic
   virtues, but I fear that they often exist where there is no good thing
   toward the Lord God of Israel! This is the great point--goodness
   towards God. Perhaps I may have in this congregation some who have in
   them everything that is good except anything good towards God, Himself.
   How is it, now, that you can live as God's creatures and think of
   everybody else but not of the God who made you? The God who preserves
   you in life you forget! You would be dishonest to no one except to
   God--and you would be ungenerous to none except to Him who has the
   greatest claims upon you. Oh, the inconsistency of our evil nature,
   that the best Being in all the world is the least thought of! You would
   not keep a dog if it did not fawn upon you, or acknowledge you as
   master, and yet you never acknowledge God to whom you belong! You would
   not keep a horse if it rendered you no service, and yet you have been
   kept by God's goodness for 40 years and have persistently not thought
   ofHim!

   You expect when you have been kind to the poor that they will
   acknowledge your kindness and feel some gratitude for it. And yet you
   would have been naked, and poor, and miserable, and sick, and
   dying--no, you would be in Hell at this very moment if it had not been
   for the goodness of God! And have you no gratitude towards Him, no good
   thing towards the Lord God of Israel? Now let me tell you, with deepest
   affection, what it is you need, and what you must have, my dear Hearer,
   or else you will never reach Heaven. You must have a sense of the
   sinfulness of all this! You must begin to feel that all this is wrong!
   That you have turned things upside down, that you have lived for
   trifles and forgotten realities! That you have remembered father, and
   mother, and country, and trade, and much else, but you have forgotten
   the God to whom you owe everything! I pray God to help you to repent,
   for that is one of the best and first good things towards the Lord God
   of Israel! But better still is this--God, the Gracious One, has
   provided a way of pardon. He tells you that if you trust His dear Son,
   who for eternal love of man became a Man, and for love of souls did die
   upon the tree, He will save you--that "there is life for a look at the
   Crucified One"--that if you want to please Him, faith in Jesus is the
   way to please Him! That if you must do works, the greatest work you can
   do is to believe in Jesus Christ whom He has sent! He tells you that
   there is nothing needed on your part, but that all is found in
   Christ--and He says to you in wooing terms, "Come unto Me! Come, now,
   and let us reason together. Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall
   be as wool; though they are red like crimson, they shall be whiter than
   snow." Before you can get to Heaven you must have something in your
   heart which says, "Lord, I come, I come. I trust Your Son. I believe in
   Your mercy and rely upon His blood. I trust myself in those dear
   pierced hands." If you can say this, you have a good thing towards the
   Lord God of Israel and God sees it and accepts you!

   We must not tarry, but advance a step farther and say--

   V. THAT WHERE THERE IS THIS GOOD THING TOWARD THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL,
   GOD ALWAYS SEES IT.

   You will notice the text says, "There is found some good thing." The
   original Hebrew word used here means sometimes--a thing found without
   looking for it. But it sometimes means a thing found after long and
   loving search. And again, it also signifies a thing found after
   thorough enquiry to be more efficient and adequate--a thing which has
   been tested and found to endure. Now, wherever there is anything like a
   good thing toward the Lord God of Israel, God sees it, finds it out,
   tests it, finds it sufficient and accepts it because of the Savior!

   You have not told anybody you are afraid. Mary, you have not even told
   your mother and you dare not! Many young people do not speak to their
   parents about their soul's deepest feelings and desires. They can
   sooner speak to strangers. But you do pray--you cannot help praying,
   and when you got home tonight you will not venture to go to sleep
   without earnestly crying to God, "Lord, save me, or I perish!" Your
   mother knows it not, but your heavenly Father does. You, John, have not
   got so far as praying yet, but a Sunday or two ago the sermon pricked
   your conscience and you have not been easy since. You could find no
   peace in yourself. You are not quite so far awakened as to be able to
   pray, but still there is a wish in your heart towards the right. You
   sometimes think it will come to that pass, that you must say with the
   prodigal, "I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, Father, I
   have sinned." Well, John, you are a great way off, it is true, but your
   Father's eyes can see you! And while you are coming to Him, creeping,
   He is coming to you running! And I do not doubt that before long you
   will be in His arms, receiving the kiss of His pardon.

   Some of you live in strange places, perhaps. The Gospel light does not
   shine down that court and does not get into the neighborhood where you
   are generally found. Ah, but God can see you! And He has noticed with
   delight the good thing that is in you towards Himself. Yes, my young
   Sister, it is indeed a strange place where you live, where your father
   curses God and your mother laughs at and ridicules religion--and your
   sisters, since they know you go to a place of worship, have begun to
   hate you! Ah, but my dear Friend, your Shepherd shall be with you even
   then! And though your path is a solitary one, and you have no friend
   into whose bosom to pour your griefs, yet go upstairs into the little
   room, or even in the crowded street as you walk along--make a
   prayer-chamber for your heart and get in there with Christ, and tell
   Him you are alone--and you shall not be alone any longer, for He shall
   be with you! "Blessed are you, when they shall persecute you, and say
   all manner of evil against you falsely for His name's sake: for so
   persecuted they the Prophets which were before you." You shall be
   blessed in this particular that He will be with you--your Salvation,
   your Strength, and your Stay! The fish are in the salt sea, and yet
   their flesh is as fresh as if there were no salt, and so you may live
   in an ungodly family and yet be as gracious as though you never came
   into contact with even one unpardoned sinner!

   It is beautiful to sometimes see a fair flower growing in the hedge, or
   among range herbage or wild plants. In one's boyish days one has
   sometimes been out in the woods hunting nuts and all on a sudden one
   has come upon a fruit tree. How did it get there? A tree with fruit
   among the oaks, elms and underbrush! How did it get there? And truly
   when a Christian is found in ungodly places he does not escape God's
   attention, for He who looks for fruit is delighted to find an apple
   tree among the trees of the forest! That being your portion, my dear
   Friend, God will see you and see you none the less because of your
   surroundings. Be you, then, of good courage!

   And now, to close.

   VI. WHEN GOD SEES THIS GENUINE PIETY IN SUCH PLACES, HE WILL BE SURE TO
   REWARD IT. He may not reward it by giving long life, for these young
   people sometimes die early.

   But even the death of young people who have some good thing toward the
   Lord God of Israel, has a voice to us--

   "When blooming youth is snatched away By Death's resistless hand,"

   there is a voice from God speaking to each of us, especially if the
   youth is converted. What a comfort, what a blessing, to the son of
   Jeroboam to be taken away! You will say, perhaps, it was a pity, for he
   might have come to the throne. He was the heir-apparent and might have
   been king, so why was he taken away? You do not know what he might have
   been had he been spared. God knew it was best for that child not to be
   subjected to the contamination of such a wicked court-- and so He took
   him Home, as the gardener towards the end of the flowering season gets
   his flowers out of the open borders because he knows the frosty nights
   are coming. So does the Master often take some of the young people Home
   while they are yet young, lest the frosts of the world should nip them.
   But it is a very solemn thing when young people are taken out of the
   family by death.

   It is something like clearing a ship because she is going down.
   Jeroboam's boat was now to go down to total destruction--and God brings
   the heavenly lifeboat and takes the last living soul out--and then He
   lets the whole house of the son of Nebat come to ruin!

   Yes, my good woman, you came here tonight because your child is dead.
   You could not bear to stay at home. The poor dear thing is just buried.

   Take heed my good woman, lest a worse thing happen to you! It is a
   dreadful thing to have lost so dear a child whose little beaming eyes
   were like stars in the house, and whose little voice had learned to
   sing--

   "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child."

   You will sorely miss the patter of those little feet and the sound of
   those sweet revival hymns that she learned at school. You will not
   forget what she said when she was going, "Mother, follow me to Heaven!"
   But I warn you, even as Ahijah did the wife of Jeroboam, I warn
   you--take heed lest that child of yours has been taken away because the
   father and the mother and the household are to be swept away! It is the
   omen of a blessing when Lord sends a godly servant or a child into a
   family--it looks as if God had a purpose of love towards that house.
   But it is a token of mischief and of evil when a godly child, having
   been sent in such a household, is speedily taken away! That child of
   yours was God's little Prophet to you. It is true it was not, like
   little Samuel, clothed with an ephod, but when you go upstairs and look
   at the little pinafore or the little frock, you may almost fancy that
   those were priestly garments, for the child was God's messenger to your
   heart! Have you listened to this message from the skies? If not,
   perhaps I may refresh your memory. Perhaps you think I speak harshly. I
   mean not to do so--I mean in all tenderness to your soul to say, once
   again to put it plainly, that perhaps God sent that young Ahijah to
   your house to tell you to make your escape from the wrath to come. And
   that the message being neglected, He took back the child. But I would
   gladly hope that His judgment still lingers and that His mercy still
   waits! Let me speak to you mothers, especially for your hearts are most
   tender. God gave up His only Son for your sakes--He will understand
   your sorrow. Come to the Cross and look up and trust. Trust! Trust!
   Trust! That word, "trust," is the grandest word in the language of
   mankind! Trust! Trust Jesus! Trust only Him and you are saved! There is
   life in trusting, but there is death in everything else.

   I saw an illustration somewhere the other day--I do not know now from
   where it came. It is not mine, but I must give it to you and then
   conclude.

   A gentleman wishing to illustrate faith and to show what it really
   is--that it is trusting--says that he attended a lecture upon chemistry
   and the lecturer was trying to prove the spheroidal properties of
   liquids.

   I do not mean to try to prove it, myself, but he showed that water put
   upon a bar of iron at a certain heat scattered itself over the iron or
   turned to steam. But the drops of water poured upon intensely hot iron
   would turn into spheroids and nothing else, and then roll off the hot
   iron. In order to prove the various qualities of the spheroids, a man
   who assisted the lecturer dipped his hand in some water which was
   standing by--and then plunged it into a vessel of molted lead and took
   up some of the lead without being hurt--the spheroidal property of the
   water being such that a man might do that without injury! The person
   listening to the lecture said, "Now, I quite believe what the lecturer
   said. He convinced me. He put it so plainly that I could not but see
   that it was so. Then he invited the audience to come and put their
   hands into the molten lead! I went up to the lead. I believed that it
   would not hurt me. I saw the man sitting there who had just put his
   hand in, but I did not dare to do it--and I found there is a good deal
   of difference between believing and trusting! But I thought--now either
   it is true, or it is not, and I am sure it is true. Very well, then,
   why don't I believe it? I dipped my hand in the water and having hardly
   courage enough to venture my whole hand, I put one finger in the lead
   and found that that one finger, after, was colder than it had been
   before, so then I put in my whole hand--and there were a number of
   others who were willing to follow my example."

   Now, that is a very good illustration of what believing in Jesus Christ
   is, only there is something repulsive about putting one's hand into
   molten lead, and there should not be anything like that in believing in
   Jesus Christ! You believe that Jesus Christ can save. You believe that
   He has saved a great many and that the only way in which they were
   saved was by trusting in Him. But it is quite possible for you to
   believe this and yet not to be saved. If you trust Him, you will try
   Him, and that will be the true proof. You will come to the foot of His
   Cross and cast yourself entirely, wholly and simply upon the merits of
   His atoning Sacrifice. Then there will be some good thing in you toward
   the Lord God of

   Israel--and then I think the mention of the little dead Ahijah, though
   it may have been painful, will have been made a blessing! God grant
   that it may be so!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 KINGS20:1-7.

   Verse 1. In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the Prophet
   Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came to him and said unto him, Thus says the
   LORD, Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live. That is
   to say, in the common course of Providence, without a miracle, Hezekiah
   must die. God did by no means change when afterwards He permitted him
   to live. This time He spoke after the order of Nature--the next time He
   spoke according to the extraordinary work of His marvelous power.

   2. Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,
   saying. What did he do that for? Well, as he could not rise from his
   bed through weakness, he gets the greatest privacy he can, and the God
   who accepted Carmel as Elijah's prayer shrine, would accept Hezekiah's
   prayer when he turned his face to the wall.

   3. I beseech You, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before You in
   truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in
   Your sight And Hezekiah wept sorely. I do not think this was intended
   to be a self-righteous prayer, though it reads like one, or else the
   Lord would not have heard it. He meant to say, "Lord, You have been
   good enough to make me what I am, be pleased to spare me." In fact, the
   probability is that at this time Sennacherib had not been routed and
   Hezekiah could not bear to die while the nation was in danger.
   Certainly there was no son born to Heze-kiah at this time, for Manasseh
   was only twelve years old when he began to reign at his father's
   death--and Hezekiah thought it would be a sad thing to leave a troubled
   kingdom without a prince to be his successor. It may be, too, that
   seeing he had just commenced the reformation and the casting down of
   the false gods, he trembled for the cause of God, and could not bear to
   be so soon taken away. "Hezekiah wept sorely." Ah, these are the things
   that prevail with God, these tears of His people--

   "Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The falling of a tear! The upward
   glancing of an eye, When none but God is near!"

   4-7. And it came to pass, before Isaiah was gone out into the middle
   court, that the Word of the LORD came to him, saying, Turn again, and
   tell Hezekiah, the captain of My people, Thus says the LORD, the God of
   David, your father, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears:
   behold, I will heal you: on the third day you shall go up unto the
   house of the LORD. And I will add unto your days fifteen years, and I
   will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria;
   and I will defend this city for My own sake, and for My servant David's
   sake. And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it
   on the boil, and he recovered. This, of course, was not a sufficient
   means to cure the boil, but God made the means efficacious. Why were
   the means used? Why, to teach us that we are to expect God's blessing,
   not in neglecting means, but in using them! See how simple was the
   remedy--just a thick poultice of figs laid on the wound! Perhaps the
   physicians had tried expensive medicines without avail. What a mercy it
   is for us that the good medicine of the Gospel is as cheap as it is
   good, that it is to be had for nothing! While some ransack the world
   for expensive ceremonies and for gaudy shows, we have Christ, like the
   lump of figs, ready to heal the wound and make us strong again!

   Again I say Hezekiah was a man of like passions with us--and he prayed
   earnestly that his life might be spared and God delivered him from the
   jaws of death. Let us, therefore, not be afraid to pray!
     __________________________________________________________________

God in Heaven, and Men on the Sea

   (No. 3321)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
   SAILORS' SOCIETY,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "By terrible things in righteousness will You answer us, O God of our
   salvation; who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of
   them that are afar off upon the sea." Psalm 65:5.

   PLEASE read the 65th Psalm through. May it do you good, whether as
   landsmen you read of the Lord's settling the furrows, or as sailors you
   hear of His stilling the noise of the seas. Notice the first two
   verses--"Praise waits for You," "O You that hear prayer." Holy men of
   old were accustomed to mix praise and prayer together--this is a happy
   mixture! We are not tied to one thing. We spread the sails of prayer
   and fly the flag of praise. To praise God without praying to Him would
   be impossible. To pray to God without praising Him would be ungrateful.
   Praise takes in a cargo of gold for the King of kings--and prayer
   stokes the fires to make the good ship steam towards the royal city!
   Brothers, keep to this throughout all the watches--pray and praise--and
   when you need a change, praise and pray/Keep the boat of the soul going
   with these two oars--praise and prayer.

   Notice, also, in this Psalm, that when the saints of the olden time
   offered prayer and praise, they addressed themselves at once to
   God--not to saints and angels. David is not satisfied with talking
   about God, but he talks to Him, as in our text--"You will answer us, O
   God of our salvation." There's nothing like straight sailing--let us go
   directly to God. We ought not to think of what our fellow men will say
   of our praises. If they are not musical in the ears of men, it matters
   little, so long as they are sweet to the Lord our God! When we engage
   in publicprayer, it is a pity to be thinking about how our words will
   sound in the opinion of our Brothers--let us only think of the Lord to
   whom we are speaking. We can't steer two ways at once. If we make for
   the Mercy Seat, we need not consider the pews. Let us fix our eyes on
   the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor and leave the church on the
   hill, and the windmill over yonder, for other people to look at.
   Brothers, look to your Captain and let your mates think what they like!
   Let us know our port and steer for it-- and let the twin-ship of prayer
   and praise never take any course but that which carries our whole heart
   straight to Heaven!

   I. First, then, dear Friends, let us consider WHAT THE LORD IS TO US.
   He is the "God of our salvation."

   It is clear from this that we all need salvation. If it were not clear
   in this text, we could not doubt it, for the evidence surrounds us on
   every side. We have, sadly, sufficient proof of our lost estate. Human
   nature is waterlogged and ready to sink--and in God, alone, is our
   hope.

   The text tells us where salvation is, namely, in God. God is the God of
   our salvation. You have neither right ideas of yourself, nor right
   ideas of God unless you see that by nature you have need of being saved
   from sin--saved by nothing less than a Divine hand! The greatest saint
   on earth is still a sinner. Let him have safely sailed on the sea of
   life for 60 years, he will be on the rocks before the morning watch
   unless the Lord saves him. The most intelligent man and the man of
   longest experience, still needs saving. The oldness of a ship does not
   increase its seaworthiness. Ask at Lloyd's if a ship is any safer
   because it has been afloat more than 60 years. No man that lives is
   safe from rocks, quicksands and tempests, or even from foundering at
   sea unless the Lord God shall be always the God of his salvation! We
   have all need to ask for salvation from the guilt of sin, the power of
   sin and the curse of sin. And it should be our great joy that the Lord
   graciously condescends to provide all this for us in the Person of the
   Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior!

   It is this salvation which brings God to us and us to God. I do not
   think that very many find God by what they see in Nature. Men see the
   works of God, but they do not see God in His works. There is such a
   thing, I suppose, as going

   "from Nature up to Nature's God," but it is a hard climb for cripples,
   like the most of us! To lift your foot even from the top of the highest
   mountain to the lowest step of the Throne of God is a tremendous
   effort. Human nature does not care for such an upward climb. The ready
   way to God, by which tens of thousands have come to Him, is by Jesus
   Christ our Savior. No man ever comes to God except by Jesus, who is the
   way of salvation. There may be other channels, but this is the only
   navigable one. Our boats draw too much water to get to God along the
   shallow straits of human learning. We shall be wise to keep to the deep
   waters of redeeming love, for by this channel God came to us. The
   glorious God came here to earth in the Person of His Son, that He might
   reconcile us to Himself and so save us. Where there is depth enough for
   God to come to man, there is a fair sea-way for man to come to God!
   Remember that the Lord Jesus came for our salvation. "God sent not His
   Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him
   might be saved." Salvation brought God to us and salvation must bring
   us to God, or else we shall be castaways. Blessed forever be our
   gracious and glorious God, for in every man that is saved, He is the
   God of his salvation in Christ Jesus!

   The salvation that we get is entirely from God. If you ever hear of
   salvation that does not come from God, depend upon it, it is not
   seaworthy, but will turn out to be one of those worm-eaten coffin
   ships! I would not trust a dog on board of it. If I were to preach a
   merely human salvation to you, it would not be worth your while to
   listen to me. "Salvation is of the Lord" is the saying of Jonah, from
   the depths of the sea! This salvation began in God's everlasting
   purpose, in His sacred Covenant, in His Divine choice of His people. It
   is carried out by the life and death of our Savior. It is worked in us
   by the Holy Spirit, by whom we are quickened, illuminated, converted
   and brought to faith in Jesus. Salvation is of the Lord, from stem to
   stern, from truck to keel. There is not a bit of rope on board, nor
   even a spar up aloft which is of man's merit or working. Christ is the
   A, and He is the Z of the salvation alphabet! He is not only the helper
   of our salvation, but the God of it, the Maker of it, the All-in-All of
   it! Have any of you a salvation which you have manufactured for
   yourselves? Then drop it overboard and row away from it, as fast as you
   can, lest it should be a torpedo to work your ruin. The only salvation
   that can redeem from Hell is a salvation which comes from Heaven!
   Eternal salvation must come from an eternal God. Salvation that makes
   you a new creature must be the work of Him who sits upon the Throne of
   God and makes all things new!

   It is a remarkable thing that in this salvation there is a strange
   mixture of the terrible and the gracious. ' 'By terrible things in
   righteousness will You answer us, O God of our salvation." In the death
   of our Lord Jesus we see the salvation of God--in this the Lord is
   terrible against sin, but most tender to the sinner. God did not put up
   the sword of His Justice, for He was bound to use it. "Shall not the
   Judge of all the earth do right?" To do right He must punish sin. And,
   oh, how terrible it is to view our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, bowing
   His head to death in the sinner's place and bearing in His own innocent
   Person the wrath of God an account of sin! Our children's hymn puts the
   Truth of God exactly--

   "He saw how wicked men had been, And knew that God must punish sin So,
   out of pity, Jesus said He'd bear the punishment instead." In that
   verse, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the Lord has perfected
   praise! It was indeed a display of terrible things in righteousness
   when the perfect Son of God was made to sweat great drops of blood and
   to be in an agony in Gethsemane. Terrible things in righteousness were
   manifest when He was scourged, spit upon and nailed to a tree and made
   to die without the comfort of His Father's Presence, crying in anguish,
   "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Ah, Friends, when the
   Father's best Beloved bore those unknown sufferings by which the honor
   of the Divine Government was maintained, it was a very terrible day!
   Not even the pains of the lost are more terrible for a tender and
   devout mind to think upon, than our Lord's being made a curse for us
   when He was hanged upon the tree. We seek salvation--the Lord Jehovah
   answers us and bids us behold it in the blood of His Only-Begotten
   Son--"By terrible things in righteousness will You answer us, O God."

   So, also, when God came to deal with us by His Spirit, He mixed the
   terror with the Grace. If you have been praying to God to save you,
   then if He has answered you, you have had a vision of terrible things.
   To see your guilt, your present ruin and your future doom, is to be
   made to tremble terribly. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to our
   vessel, walking on the sea, He finds us in an awful storm. The sails
   are torn to ribbons, and every timber groans. We see ourselves wrecked
   by Nature before we see ourselves saved by Grace! Conviction of sin
   does not come to every sinner with the same degree of force, but to
   some of us, when we were under the bondage of the Law, neither sun nor
   moon appeared, the sea

   worked and was tempestuous and all hope that we should be saved was
   taken away from us! We reeled to and fro and staggered like drunken
   men. We were at our wits' ends--we did not know then that the God of
   our salvation has His way in the whirlwind! The Lord comes to us with a
   drawn sword before He comes with a silver scepter! He designs to make
   us give up self-righteousness and self-confidence--and come and lay
   hold on Christ, to be our All-in-All. Men won't take to the lifeboat of
   salvation while they think their own craft can be kept afloat. But when
   their vessel is settling down at the head, they are glad to see the
   lifeboat near!

   The God of our salvation has revealed Himself to many of us, not as One
   who winks at sin, but as a consuming fire. In these days a God is
   preached who is not in the Bible, nor yet on the sea. Our God is not
   the new god of proud philosophers, but the God of the olden times! We
   know that the true God is just, as well as gracious, and will by no
   means allow His Laws to be despised. You that go down to the sea in
   ships, you know that the God of the Sea is terrible upon the roaring
   billows, when the sea runs mountains high! He is tender, kind and
   loving, but oh, how terrible when He puts on His dark robes of tempest!

   He sets the heavens on a blaze and His terrible voice is heard above
   the roaring of the sea. The elements are in confusion. Deep calls unto
   deep, the heavens clasp hands with the ocean and the largest vessel
   seems like a cockle-shell, soon to sink and no more to be seen! He is a
   dreadful God, this God of ours! There is none like He in power and
   justice. Well may the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
   Almighty!" This makes us feel that He can smite with iron hands when
   once He comes forth to deal with sin. Behold the Red Sea! See how the
   adversaries of Jehovah sank to the bottom as a stone! He is terrible
   out of His holy places. He is the God of Heaven, but a pit is dug for
   the wicked. The Lord makes His saved ones to know Him as He is--not as
   He is made out to be by those who would seem to be wiser than the
   Scriptures!

   I trust that many of you can say of the Lord, "He is the God of my
   salvation. Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. The God
   and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is my hope and my joy."
   He is glorious in holiness and terrible in righteousness--and I love
   Him all the more because He hates iniquity and will not endure evil!

   The difficulty with most men is that they will not have God to be their
   Savior--they want to save themselves. Every man thinks he can be his
   own pilot to the port of Glory. But what can we do? What merit, what
   wisdom? What strength have we? We are proud fools and deceive
   ourselves! I have heard a story of a main on board a vessel which was
   coming home from the other side of the world. He was very conceited and
   interfered with everything. Every now and then a captain does get such
   a man on board. He was always grumbling and making trouble. The ship
   met with rough weather and this meddlesome gentleman picked up the
   notion that things were in a very bad way and the ship might go down.
   He was getting into everybody's way and so the captain, calling him to
   one side, told him that it was highly important that he should keep
   very quiet for the next hour or two and that he should hold fast a
   certain rope to which he pointed out to him. Nobody could tell what
   might depend on his holding on to that rope and saying nothing to
   anybody! Our noisy friend felt himself to be a person of consequence,
   put his feet down, set his teeth together and in a very determined
   manner stuck to his rope! If anybody came along, instead of talking, as
   he was used to do, he held his tongue. Just as you must not speak to
   the man at the wheel, so he felt that no one was allowed to speak to
   him. Did not the safety of the ship depend upon his being quiet and
   holding tightly to that rope? He kept his post with due gravity till
   the wind dropped-- and then he did not say much--for his sense of merit
   made him modest. He waited patiently for the passengers to present him
   with a piece of plate for having saved the ship. He felt, at any rate,
   that deep gratitude was due to him for his wonderful exertions. It was
   about the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life, for he had
   held his tongue for hours and thus made a martyr of himself to save
   them all! As nobody thanked him, he began to hint at the importance of
   the service he had rendered. But they did not seem to see it, for, you
   know, people will not always see a thing that is very plain. At last he
   stated his case more fully and became so exacting that the captain had
   to tell him that he had only given him that bit of rope to hold just to
   keep him quiet and that, really, he had not contributed, in the least
   degree, to the safety of the vessel! That is just what I feel inclined
   by do with certain vastly important persons who think they can do
   wonders in the things of God! If you will keep from boasting and stand
   out of the Lord's way, that is as much as I hope for from you. And if
   the Lord leads you to trust yourself in Jesus' hands, then all will be
   safe enough! With God to save us, what is there for us to do but to
   trust and not to be afraid?

   II. I have set forth what God is to us. Now let us see WHAT GOD WILL DO
   FOR US. Don't doubt it, the Lord has an open ear to hear His people's
   prayers.

   He will answer us. This shows that we must all pray. Every believing
   man in the world must pray! And we shall never get into such a state of
   Grace that we have no need to pray.

   But what do we pray for? Well, according to the text, one of the most
   important things is to pray against sin.' 'Iniquities prevail against
   me: as for our transgressions, You shall purge them away." Do we not
   need to pray daily for cleansing? This must be the prayer of the man
   who is seeking the Lord for the first time. Does the leak of sin gain
   upon you? Are the pirates of temptation all around you so that you
   cannot get away from them? Are you compelled to say, "Iniquities
   prevail against me"? Cry to the Lord Jesus to come to the rescue! A
   word from Him will stop the leak and drive the demons back when they
   are boarding you. Pray to Him at once!

   Do I address a backslider? Did you once acknowledge the name of Christ?
   Have you taken down the old flag? Are you now trading under other
   colors? Are you sorry it is so? Do iniquities prevail against you? Ah,
   then come to the Lord again! Ask Him to come and take possession of
   you. The pirates are coming board, now, and you cannot get rid of them,
   but as for your iniquities, He can purge them away." He can sweep the
   deck of them!

   If you have long been a Christian and have not backslidden, you will
   have, as you grow in Grace, more and more a sense of the sin that
   dwells in you. You will be crying out every day, "Lord, keep me, for I
   shall perish utterly, even now, after all my experience, unless You
   preserve me from my inbred sin and the temptations of the world, the
   flesh, and the devil." Cry to God tonight in that fashion. Ask to be
   steered clear of all evil and to be presented faultless. When we are
   close in shore we need a pilot more than ever. We shall be wrecked in
   the river's mouth unless the Lord preserves us! Iniquities will prevail
   unless Omnipotent Grace prevails. In this direction we shall always
   need to cry mightily unto the Preserver of men.

   We also pray for nearer fellowship with God. Just let me read you the
   next words. "Blessed is the man whom You choose and cause to approach
   unto You." Lord, help me to approach You, so as to know Your love and
   love You in return. Let us go on reading the record--"That He may dwell
   in your courts." Lord, help me to be one of Your court and always to
   live in Your Presence.

   "We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, even of Your
   holy Temple." Do you not long for that satisfaction? Is there not in
   your hearts, my beloved Brothers, a great desire to get nearer to God
   and to abide in His house?

   Oh, to have a continual enjoyment of the favor of God! May the love of
   God be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Blessed be the
   name of the Lord our God! He will hear and answer that prayer! As He
   will help you to conquer sin, so will He also help you to grow in
   Divine Grace. There is no reason why we should not be far happier and
   far holier than we are. If we are straitened at all, we are not
   straitened in God, but in ourselves. It is not that there is no wind,
   but we do not spread enough sail. If you do not enter into the deep
   things of God with understanding, and if you do not enjoy them with
   delight, you must blame yourselves. You have not, because you ask not,
   or because you ask amiss. If a man will not take the tide while it
   flows, it will be his own fault if the ebb bears him away from the
   harbor. If we pray, God will answer.

   But, remember, if we pray to be delivered from sin, and to be brought
   nearer to the Lord, He may answer us by terrible things in
   righteousness. I would like to whisper these words in the ears of all
   praying men. Often you know not what you ask and, perhaps, if you
   really knew how God would answer you, you would not pray as you now do!
   You were praying the other day that God would sanctify you--and now you
   see more of the workings of evil in your nature than ever before!
   Crosses and losses have come upon you thick and threefold! Temptations
   and evil thoughts have beset you more fiercely than ever and you are
   saying, "Lord, is this the answer to my prayer?" Yes, by terrible
   things in righteousness He is answering you! The sheep desires to be
   brought near to the shepherd and the shepherd sends his black dog to
   fetch it home. Our trials and troubles, afflictions and adversities,
   are among the best medicines of our Great Physician. A trial has been
   love's reply to earnest desire. God's wisdom often chooses to give us a
   head wind to prevent our rushing upon sunken rocks.

   Dear Friends, God will answer you surely, though He answers you
   strangely.' He answers roughly, but rightly. The help of no other can
   suffice you, but if you cry to God you shall find His strength to be
   all-sufficient, both for crushing sin and for growth in Grace. See what
   the Lord has been doing for the earth during the last few weeks of
   spring! Only a few weeks ago we went out of doors and saw nothing but
   the earth wrapped in a winding-sheet of snow, or, perhaps, the dull,
   black ground soaking in rain. Where were the myriads of leaves that now
   clothe the trees? And where the kingcups

   and daisies which bedeck the meadows and make them bright as cloth of
   gold? Where was all this wealth of flowers? Where all this music of
   song birds? God came! He breathed in pity on the frozen brooks and
   loosed the waters from their icy chains. He unbound the iron bonds of
   winter. He made the world look up and laugh with flowers. Brothers, He
   will do the same with us! Though this may be the winter of our soul's
   grief and it may be necessary that we should endure it for a little
   while longer, yet He will answer us-- and after an interval of terrible
   storm He will bless us with rest and joy!

   III. The third point is this--WHAT THE LORD IS TO "THE ENDS OF THE
   EARTH." He is "the confidence of the ends of the earth." All men have a
   confidence and they are wise who place all their confidence in God!

   Who are "the ends of the earth"? They may be those who live in the
   extremes of climate--the dwellers at the poles and at the equator.
   These are so tried by cold and by heat that one would think they would
   hardly live in such regions if they did not confide in God. Those who
   live at the ends of the earth are farthest off God is worthy to be the
   confidence of those who are farthest off from His Church, from His
   Gospel, from hope, from anything that is good and from God, Himself.
   This sermon may, one of these days, reach somebody who will say to
   himself, "I think that I am the farthest off from God of anybody that
   ever lived. I have been guilty of cursing and swearing and I have
   committed all manner of vice and so I have gone as far away from God
   and the very name of religion as it is possible for a man to go."
   Friend, our God is worthy to be your confidence, even yours! You are
   permitted to put your trust in Him and find salvation in Him, even in
   His Son, Jesus Christ, who cries "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
   the ends of the earth."

   The ends of the earth may mean, also, those that are least known. Are
   there not men scattered abroad of whom nobody knows anything? They do
   not, themselves, know who their father and mother were and nobody cares
   to acknowledge them. Nobody calls them brother, or knows where they
   came from. They wish to be forgotten. They would not like to have their
   stories told. Their character is such that they can get on better
   without it than with it. Well but, Jesus Christ is worthy to be the
   confidence of those who are least known. They are known to Him! He
   knows their past and their present! Oh, that sinners who are far off in
   that way, and least known, would come and put their trust in Him!

   The ends of the earth are the parts that are least thought of We dart a
   thought towards France with its Exhibition. We think of Germany and its
   vast army. We think of the United States and the many there of our kith
   and kin. These lie within the pale of our thought and consideration,
   but who cares for Dahomey or Nova, Zembla? Of the ends of the earth no
   one thinks! Do I speak to one who has been saying, "No man cares for my
   soul"? Do they quite pass you by? Are you like a man on a raft who has
   seen many a vessel go by, but cannot manage to make anyone see him and
   come to his rescue? Put your trust in the Lord, you who are derelict
   and drifting fast to destruction, for, "He is the confidence of all the
   ends of the earth." Looking to God when you have no one else to look
   to, you will find in Him a true helper!

   The ends of the earth may also mean the most tried. Where the cold is
   most severe, or where the dog-star burns most furiously, there we have
   the ends of the earth. And you who are most poor or most sick, or who
   have least of ability and talent--you are those who should make God
   your confidence, for He delights to be the strength of the weak, the
   fullness of the empty! God's Grace is the hospital for sick souls--come
   and enter it! He lifts the poor from the dunghill to set him among
   princes. Driven to your wits' end, brought down to life's dregs, take
   the Lord for your confidence and it shall be well with you!

   "The ends of the earth." Well, they are the hardest to reach. We have
   around us men and women who are as hard to get at as the North Pole. We
   do not know how to speak to them so that they will understand us, for
   they are so ignorant. We would, if we could, do them good, but they are
   so depraved that we are half afraid that they will do us harm! It may
   be they are so proud and conceited that we can hardly get a good word
   in edge ways with them. Sailors, you must have met with fellows to whom
   you give a wide berth. You never felt inclined to take them on board.
   These ships are too far gone to be towed into harbor and you clear out,
   lest when they sink you should be sucked down with them! Yet the Lord
   is ready to help even these! Those whom no man can pity and no man can
   help, God can love and save! A mortal arm is too short to reach these
   shipwrecked souls. Cast away on an iron-bound coast, there is no hope
   for them but in the Lord of Salvation--but in Him they may trust, for,
   "He is the confidence of the ends of the earth." Ho, my comrades, when
   you are at your worst, God is still at His best! When you are all
   misery, He is all mercy! When you are at "the ends of the earth," you
   may be at the beginnings of Heaven!

   IV. I shall not weary you, I trust, for I have come to the last point,
   which is this--WHAT IS GOD TO SEAFARING MEN? What should He be to
   sailors? He is the confidence of all them that are "afar off upon the
   sea."

   In the life of a seafaring man we have a picture of thee voyage of
   faith. Hundreds of years ago, when men went to sea at all, their boats
   kept always within sight of shore. Your Greek or Roman mariner might be
   quite a master of his galley, but he could not bear to lose sight of a
   headland which he knew, for he had no compass and knew little or
   nothing of astronomical observations. Here and there a lighthouse might
   be placed, but it would be regarded as a wonder. But at this day a ship
   may not sight land for a month and yet its position on the chart will
   be as certain as your position in the pew! The vessel will be steered
   entirely by observations of the heavenly bodies and by chart and
   compass--and yet at the end of thirty days it will reach a point which
   was never within sight and reach it as accurately as if it had been
   running on a tram rail instead of sailing over the pathless ocean! Its
   way is as certain as if it had traversed a railway from port to port!
   Such is the life of a Christian--the life of faith. We see not
   spiritual things, but yet we steer for them with absolute certainty! We
   ought not to wish to see, for, "We walk by faith, not by sight." We
   take our bearings by the things in the heavens. We are guided by the
   Word of God, which is our chart, and by the witness of the blessed
   Spirit within, which is our compass! We see Him who is invisible and we
   seek a Heaven full of "things not seen as yet." Glory be to God, we
   shall reach the harbor as sure as a bullet goes to the mark! We are
   making direct tracks for the Kingdom of God! We fly to Heaven by a bee
   line even when we cannot see our way! Don't shift a point, Brothers. As
   the Captain of your salvation has set the helm, so let it remain.
   Trusting in God, we shall come to our desired haven in due time and
   shall not miss our way! We need not fear shipwreck, for He that taught
   us to sail the spiritual sea will guide us safely till we come to the
   Glory Land!

   Those that are "afar off upon the sea" are on an unstable element, but
   God is their confidence. They are never quiet, the boat is always
   rocking or rolling from side to side. On the sea they have no
   continuing city. Is it not so with us? We also dwell upon an unstable
   element. We talk of the solid earth, but it is only so in contrast with
   the waves. All things beneath the moon are changing. When I went to my
   annual resting place in Mentone, after the earthquake, I felt a delight
   in realizing that everything around me was unsubstantial. I looked at
   the churches and the houses which had tumbled down, and I said to
   myself, "Now I feel how unstable the earth is." I went up and down
   stairs, wondering that the house did not move--regarding it all as
   likely to give way. Some such impression would be good for us all to
   carry daily about with us. We live in a world which passes away! This
   life is made up of shadows--substance lies elsewhere! The things which
   are seen are temporal. You have dreamed yourselves into the belief that
   you live in a solid, substantial world, but it is only a dream, for the
   world passes away! The elements which make up our life are no more to
   be depended upon than the waters of the sea! What is our life but a
   vapor? What does it depend upon, but air?--the breath of our nostrils!
   Remember, you may die at any moment. Death may board you before the
   next watch. Oh, to live like a man at sea! He has loosed his hold from
   all things and feels himself committed to an unstable element upon
   whose calm condition he cannot depend, for at any moment a storm may
   bear him away. The godly sailor's confidence is in God. In God he has a
   foundation that cannot be moved! God is the mariner's terra firma and
   He is ours! All else is fickle, but God is Immutable!

   Next, they that are upon the sea are liable to great dangers. They
   cannot tell at any time that there may not come up from the North a
   howling blast, or from the South a tremendous cyclone. When above them
   all is clear blue, save "a cloud the size of a man's hand," they know
   that within an hour the Heaven may gather blackness and the sea, which
   now sleeps in calm, may rage in fury. A sailor's life makes him see the
   dangers which surround him, but you and I know that we also live in a
   world where tempests of trial may be upon us in a moment. When I go
   home after a time of spiritual enjoyment and feel supremely happy, I
   say to myself, "I may expect trying news. I cannot be long at ease." In
   fact, one gets in this world to be afraid of too profound a calm, lest
   at the back of it should lurk a terrible tempest. Our sign is "The
   Checkers," and close to the white square lies the black. At sea we may
   reckon upon all sorts of weathers--we must, therefore, keep the boat
   trim and never neglect to set the helm and keep the watch wide awake.
   The sailor must keep his eyes open, for rocks and quicksands lies
   below, and hurricanes and cyclones lurk above. If he is a Christian,
   his confidence is in his God and his watchfulness is towards the world.
   O true Believer, let your confidence be in God, whether on sea, or
   shore! Say, "O God, my heart is fixed; my heart is fixed. I will sing
   and give praise." What if there should be the devil, himself, let loose
   upon us, as upon Job of old? Let us still trust in the Lord! When God
   gives the devil rope enough, he will soon be down upon us, but
   Brothers, we need not fear him, for Christ is the Master of the devil
   and He can pull him

   up short when he comes rushing out to attack us! Let us not be afraid.
   He that is the Confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea shall
   be our Confidence in a world of storms!

   But the men on the sea also are familiar with trouble. It is not only
   liability to storm, but the storm does break over them. I speak to many
   who have weathered no end of tempests. In your voyages across the
   mighty deep, you have found it no child's play to be tossed up and down
   like a ball in the hand of the storm. You have even been floating on
   the angry waves, clinging to a hen-coop, or lashed to the rigging. I do
   not envy you your trying experience but, spiritually, we drink from the
   same cup, for we, too, have had our rough passages and have been
   well-near cast away!

   You do not want to see any more of such nights as you can remember,
   when sea and sky were blended in dread confusion--neither do I wish to
   see those months in which to me, also, the winds were contrary--what a
   mercy in such seasons to have confidence in God! What is to be done if
   this fails us? But while God is with us it does not matter whether we
   live or die. We shall be with the Lord if we die, and if we live, the
   Lord will be with us!

   Beloved Friends, those that go down to the sea in ships soon find out
   their own weakness. A man looks like a man when he is on shore, or in
   command of a fine boat sailing along merrily before the wind, but in a
   great storm what a poor creature a man is! There he goes--yonder wave
   has swept him from the deck as if he were a spar. You hear one
   plaintive cry and it is all over with him. The hungry deep thinks
   nothing of so small a mouthful! The wind still howls and the waves
   dance with a horrid glee. If not thus drowned, the strong man is often
   rendered useless as to helping others. He cannot stir, for he could not
   keep his footing. He needs to be lashed to the rigging or he will be
   washed away. The bravest, the wisest, the strongest man is just nothing
   at all in the day of storm. Then the man almost envies the seabird that
   is tossed "up and down, up and down, from the base of the wave to the
   billow's crown" because it is always safe and comes up from the spray
   as fresh as ever! Dear Friends, you and I are often brought into
   conditions in which we fear that we are not worth half as much as the
   sea-swallows. We have no strength left at all--we are less than nothing
   and vanity. Oh, then, let God be our Confidence!

   I exhort all Believers here to have more confidence in God than in all
   besides. Believe in the Lord a thousand fathoms deep. You will never
   believe too much nor too well of God. If friends forsake, if all means
   of comfort fail, let your confidence be so thoroughly in God that such
   things make no difference to you! It is a grand thing to get off the
   stocks and really float on the main sea. It is glorious to have an
   anchor in the skies and to hold to that, alone, when everything else is
   dragging and the earth itself is dissolved! A sailor is often brought
   to where, if God does not help him, he will be swallowed up--and you
   and I are always in the same condition. God is our All and we rest in
   Him, but apart from Him we are eternally wrecked!

   God bless you, my shipmates! We are not yet come to the Pacific
   Seas--we are still rounding the Cape of Storms, but another name for it
   is the Cape of Good Hope! With God for our confidence we are not
   afraid. We shall all meet around the flagship of our Great Captain in
   the Fair Havens above. We are lying in these roads tonight very near
   each other, but may never cross each other's track again on this life's
   voyage. Meet me in the Islands of the Blessed, in the Land of the
   Hereafter, where the sun shall go no more down forever! The Lord Jesus
   steer you there! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Hiding Among the Stuff

   (No. 3322)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY
   19, 1866.

   "Therefore they enquired of the LORRD further, if the man should yet
   come there. And the LORRD answered, Behold, he has hid himself among
   the stuff. And they ran and fetched him from there." 1 Samuel 10:22-23.

   SAUL seems to have known that he was the elect person, having already
   been secretly anointed by Samuel and, therefore, while the voting was
   going on and while the lots were being cast, he hid himself. The Lord
   answered, "Behold, he has hid himself among the stuff. And they ran and
   fetched him from there."

   We hardly know why Saul did this. It would be wrong to impute to him an
   ill motive, otherwise one would be inclined to say that he did it out
   of mock modesty, so that he might appear to have forced on him an honor
   which he did not really covet. But this would not fit with the first
   part of Saul's life, for in his early days and when he was first chosen
   king, he did seem to be one of the most hopeful persons who could
   possibly have been called to the office. At the end of the chapter from
   which our text is taken, you see an instance of his great wisdom. The
   men of Belial, we are told, "despised him and brought him no presents.
   But he held his peace," a piece of wisdom which it were well if some
   ministers and others, too, among us knew well how to imitate--if they,
   too, would sometimes be silent when the men of Belial speak concerning
   them. It, indeed, were well for all Christians to often imitate the
   example of their Lord who, when He was reviled, gave no answer but that
   of patient, enduring silence.

   We are inclined the rather, therefore, to give Saul the credit for
   being really so modest that he concealed himself from honor and must
   have greatness forced upon him. He had been born great in stature, but
   now to be made great in office seemed a burden which he did not
   covet--and so he hid himself among the stuff.

   From this, if it really is so, we may learn that without the Grace of
   God the fairest life may yet become foul'and, however beautifully a
   young man may commence his career, he may stumble and fall and never
   reach the goal. Oh, how many amiable daughters, the joy of their
   mother's heart, have been enough, after all, to bring gray hairs with
   sorrow to the grave! How many goodly lads, of whom we might have said,
   "Surely the Lord's anointed is before us," have, notwithstanding,
   proved very sons of Belial, bringing sorrow and bitterness into their
   fathers' soul! There is only one form of moral life insurance and it is
   spirituality--the coming to Christ, being regenerated, receiving the
   indwelling Spirit into the heart--and setting the affections upon the
   eternal and the heavenly!

   This done, we may look forward to a life of holiness, believing that
   "the course of the just will be as the shining light that shines more
   and more unto the perfect day." Apart from this, however, there can be
   no complete dependence upon the best outward signs of promise, nor upon
   the noblest and strongest resolutions. Many a young Hazael has said,
   "Is your servant a dog that he should do this thing?" And yet he has
   lived to do the very thing of which he would hardly dare to think! The
   horrible to his youthful heart became the actual deed of his later
   days!

   I thought that this little incident of Saul's hiding himself among the
   stuff when he was already destined and chosen to be king was much like
   what sinners do for whom eternal mercy has provided a crown and a
   throne. They are hiding themselves away among the stuff. And then,
   again, I thought that it was very much like what many Christians do for
   whom the Covenant of Grace has provided a crown of rejoicing in
   feasting with Christ and living according to His example--but alas,
   alas, they are very worldly and seek to escape from the high honors
   their Lord has in store for them-- they, too, hide among the stuff!

   First, then, let us have--

   I. A FEW WORDS WITH THE SINNER WHO IS HIDING HIMSELF AWAY AMONG THE
   STUFF. I dare say he thinks tonight that if he had been Saul, he would
   not have been hiding himself. If it were to have his head taken off, a
   man might very wisely hide himself, but to have a crown put upon his
   head does not seem to be a reason

   for hiding oneself, but a reason for coming out into the open and
   saying, "Here I am! Do unto me as seems good to you!" But this conduct,
   which seems so strange in Saul, is an exact image of the behavior of
   many of you who are here tonight. There may be some of you here present
   who may be doing precisely what Saul did, only you are doing it more
   foolishly than he did. He did but hide away from an earthly crown, but
   you hide from a heavenly one! He did but shun a crown that fades--you
   seem as though you would avoid a crown that is undefiled and that fades
   not away! The crown which Saul sought to hide from no doubt brought
   many cares with it, for it is only too often true that--

   "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." But the crown which you are
   avoiding brings no care with it, but much of holy ease and joy--and
   that head lies easily enough which is crowned with God's crown of
   loving kindness and tender mercy! But you hide yourselves away from
   it--from the crown which Prophets and Apostles counted on, for which
   they were willing to sacrifice all things and counted their best
   prospects but as dross and dung," that they might win it! This crown,
   which glittered in the martyr's eyes and made him sing as he swam
   through a sea of blood to reach it--this crown is lightly valued by
   you--and you hide yourself away among the stuff, that you may escape
   from this gift of God's bountiful mercy and love!

   My Brothers and Sisters, we believe there are many of God's spiritual
   kings who will yet be openly crowned and for whom our daily prayer
   ascends, but who are hiding among the stuff of worldliness! Is not
   worldliness the greatest sin of London? Of England? Of the world?

   How we started with alarm, some of us, I mean when we heard the other
   day that the cholera was actually in this country and of cases reported
   very near to us. For my part, I thought that terrible as such an
   affliction would be, perhaps God might overrule it to the waking up of
   the slumbering multitudes of this great city. I think everyone must
   have observed that during the time of such visitations there is a large
   measure of tenderness in the public mind. Men dare not play with
   eternal matters when they feel them to be so near--and when death comes
   in the next street, or the next house, or the next room--they cannot
   trifle life away as formerly they did!

   Something, certainly, is needed in this vast city to move the masses of
   our people away from downright stolid worldliness. It is not among any
   one class--it is common to shopkeepers, artisans and the poorest of the
   poor--yes, even the wealthiest of the land are perhaps the greatest
   worldlings of all and the most absurd with vanity and frivolity and a
   silly round of visits, wasting their time in giddy formalities! The day
   was when England attached some importance to religion. During the age
   of the Puritans, men talked of religion and felt ready to fight and die
   for the things which they held dear. But now religion is very much
   trifled with and the tone of the whole public press is just of this
   kind--that it is very much a matter of mere opinion, a matter of
   indifference! We seem to have gotten into an age of slumbering. Those
   fearful wars that are now raging abroad must wake up the public mind
   there to some sense of need more than this poor earth can supply, but
   we are so prosperous and so peaceful--and have been so long without any
   particular visitation-- that it seems to me as if the whole of England
   were given up to slumber and to hiding among the stuff of worldliness!
   We are getting on in the world! We are prospering on the whole--though,
   of course, there are a few exceptions--but on the whole, things go
   pretty well and if there is a panic here and there, yet still it is
   soon over, for the heart of the nation is sound in its business
   prosperity--and so the mass of men hide themselves among the stuff. How
   are we to get at the public mind? Where, O God, shall Jonahs be found
   that shall move this Nineveh? Oh, when shall it ever be that a voice
   shall startle the slumbering millions? When, great Lord, when, from the
   highest to the lowest, shall Your Gospel have some respect and get an
   attentive hearing from the sons of men? Well, we have this reflection,
   that God has some even in this mass of worldliness, some whom He will
   surely bring in--and it is our business by earnest, indefatigable
   effort, to seek to bring out these uncrowned kings who are thus hiding
   themselves among the stuff! We must be peering here and there, turning
   over this and that bale of worldliness, trying to get at some of those
   who shall yet enter into eternal life!

   Then, in addition to worldliness, how many there are now buried among
   the stuff of ignorance. They scarcely know the meaning of the word,
   "sin." Missionaries tell us that in teaching the Hindus, they find it
   difficult to make them understand what sin is because if you say, sin,
   they suppose they know what it means. They imagine it means eating
   meat, or touching animal food. If you speak of righteousness, they will
   give as their meaning for it the paying respect to a Brahmin!

   But this is our difficulty in England, too, and our people, as a common
   rule, uninstructed and untaught, do not attach the true meaning to the
   word, sin, nor understand what salvation means. How glibly will they
   confess "we are sinners." If they knew what it meant, they would never
   say it because they would be very unwilling to believe it true of them!
   They talk about salvation, but if they really grasped its meaning, they
   would eagerly seek it and press forward to obtain it--but they know not
   what they are to be saved from, nor into what state they are to be
   brought. They use the words,

   but the ideas are not brought home to their minds. The multitudes still
   believe in saving themselves by good deeds. "By the works of the Law
   shall no flesh living be justified," needs as much to be thundered out
   in London as once it did in Wurtemburg! We need it today as much as
   they needed it in the days of Luther--and the simple declaration of the
   plain Gospel is still as much required by the sons of men as in the
   days when Wycliffe sent out his evangelists from Lutterworth--or
   Whitfield, or Wesley went through the land preaching Christ Crucified!
   Truly, my Brothers and Sisters, we have this comfort, that dense as
   this stuff of ignorance is, God will bring out His people from it and
   we may go on working, hoping and believing that Christ shall see of the
   travail of His soul! We have seen many such instances. In fact, are we
   not such instances ourselves? From what blackness of darkness did not
   God bring some of us? From what utter ignorance of everything like
   spiritual truth did He redeem us? We hid away among the stuff and did
   not even understand the ruin of the Fall, much less the salvation which
   He brings us and yet, blessed be His name, today He has made us kings
   and priests unto our God and we know Him and are known of Him! Put
   worldliness and ignorance together and they make a terrible heap of
   baggage, among which sinners may easily hide--and this will render it
   more imperative upon the Christian laborer to be in earnest to seek out
   God's uncrowned kings!

   But, dear Friends, there are some men who, not content with mere
   worldliness and ignorance, go into the haunts of sin. Oh, how many
   there are for whom the Savior died who are still in the gall of
   bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity--slaves of lust, serving Satan
   with the members of their body and with all the powers of their soul!
   "Such were some of you," says the Apostle, "but you are washed; but you
   are sanctified"--and it must be an astounding sight to the angels if
   they know the blood-bought ones, if they have any idea of who those are
   who shall one day wear the crown and stand and sing among them--to see
   such persons wallowing in the mire of sin! My Brothers and Sisters! If
   you look back on your past state without grief and astonishment, I
   cannot understand you! Do you not sometimes say, "How is it that I, who
   am God's child, should ever have been an enemy to Him who loved me with
   an everlasting love and, therefore, drew me with the bands of loving
   kindness?"

   And perhaps there is some special sin which regretful memory will bring
   up before your mind tonight. You are now blood washed, now sanctified,
   now made an heir of Christ and you can scarcely bear to picture
   yourselves as having been what once you were! How Mr. John Newton,
   whenever he entered the pulpit to preach the Gospel of the Grace of
   God, must have felt astounded to find himself preaching it after having
   been such a blasphemer and everything else that was vile! And how John
   Bunyan, honest John Bunyan, when talking to the chief of sinners, must
   have felt as he would say, "the water standing in his eyes," as he
   thought how he, too, had been a Jerusalem sinner, and yet "Grace
   abounding" had met with him! Oh, Brothers and Sisters, we hid ourselves
   among the stuff, we tried to conceal ourselves from the mercy of God,
   yet--

   "Determined to save He watched o'er our path, When Satan's blind slaves
   We sported with death"--

   and He brought us out to make and crown us kings!

   There are some who have hidden themselves more successfully than this
   if it were possible, for in addition to going great lengths in sin
   there are some who abstain from any opportunities which might lead them
   to be saved. We know some who never give the minister an opportunity,
   who take a vow that they will never enter a place of worship at all.
   There seems to be no likelihood of their ever being saved, for they do
   not lie by Bethesda's pool, and when the water is stirred they are
   thoughtless and do not think of stepping in. How many we have round
   about us of this sort, who, if they have any thought at all about
   religion, it is against it! They scarcely mention the name of Jesus
   except to blaspheme and only think of God impiously! Their case might
   be hopeless were it not that we have an Almighty God to deal with. We
   might give up in despair the multitudes around us were it not that
   Christ must see of the travail of His soul and must be satisfied and,
   therefore, let us, in good hope, hunt among the very darkest part of
   the stuff, for perhaps we may find some uncrowned member of the royal
   family of God!

   Possibly I may be speaking to one here who is hiding himself among the
   stuff tonight from God's mercy, not by neglecting the means of Grace,
   not by going into outward sin, but by raising difficulties in the way
   of his own salvation. "Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, 'tis
   amazing," but it is true, that the worst enemies to a man are those
   within his own heart! Men will resist hope, clamor for despair, urge
   difficulties and seem as if they were rather intent to make their own
   condemnation sure than to find out anything like hope! Have I not
   hunted some sinners--hunted them as men hunt fox-

   es--sought to get hold of them by some means to unearth them? Have I
   not dug them out of one hole and ferreted them out of another and
   thought that surely I had them? At one time they could not be saved
   because they were such great sinners. When that error was dissipated,
   then they thought they could not be saved because they were not great
   enough sinners! When that was dealt with, they found their hearts too
   hard. And when they were informed that Christ could soften their hard
   hearts, then they had not sufficient sense of need--and if they were
   taught that a sufficient sense of need was not a meritorious
   recommendation, but they were to go to the Cross to get that--then they
   turned to some other subterfuge and so, though a thousand refuges of
   lies were swept away, yet they built up more and more and more and
   seemed intent on making an unending task for us and to bring an
   unending loss upon themselves! You are hiding yourselves thus among the
   stuff, but may God's mercy find you! What advantage can it be to you to
   doubt God's mercy and readiness to save? Suppose it could be proved to
   a demonstration that mercy could not reach you? Why, Man, let somebody
   else prove it! Do not try to prove it yourself! Why should you be your
   own accuser? Why should you be the devil's advocate and stand up and
   plead against yourself? Soul, I tell you there is still hope! There is
   hope for you! There is hope till the jaws of death are shut! There is
   hope till Christ has pronounced the final sentence! So what can be your
   motive, you foolish one? What can be your motive for wanting to hide
   yourself away from the promises, to shut out the light of God's Word,
   to get away from the kindness of Jehovah's love?

   And yet that was the way with most of us--the way with all of us, I
   suppose, more or less! But we were found out among the stuff. I
   recollect what a simpleton I thought myself for having hidden away so
   long. When I heard the message, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you
   ends of the earth," I seemed to say to myself, "Why, whatever have I
   been doing, that I could not understand that before?" You know how
   Bunyan puts it with regard to Christian when he put his hand into his
   pocket and found the key of promise--the first thing he said to
   Hopeful, his fellow-prisoner, was--"What a fool I am to be rotting in
   this stinking dungeon when I have a key in my breast that will open
   every lock in Doubting Castle!" And, truly, what a simpleton are you to
   hide yourself away from a crown, to be afraid to be made a king, to be
   afraid to be a child of God, to strive against receiving a gift which
   shall blot out your sins and cleanse you from all iniquity and bring
   you safe to Heaven! And yet, such folly is committed by many of us!

   Now before I leave this point I should like to say to Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ here, "Do you not think it is the business of each
   one of us here to go and hunt among the stuff to find out some of these
   kings who are hiding? Some of us are very likely to find them because
   we were once hidden there, ourselves, and we know a little bit about
   the place. You experienced Christians, you once were in this muddle,
   but have now got through it--do you not think that you should lay
   yourselves out to seek such perplexed souls? You who were once so
   worldly, may you not often speak to these worldly ones? And you who
   once were the chief of sinners, who more fitted than you to get at
   people who are now like what you were then? There are many of our
   villages in England where the Gospel does not prosper and I have
   frequently thought that the reason is this--there is no adequate
   ministry. Very likely in the pulpit is a very proper ministry, indeed,
   very admirable, but such as the people cannot easily understand. He is
   altogether apart from their life, their tastes and habits, and ways of
   thinking--and he feels it might be bringing himself down to talk as
   they talk--and yet they cannot bring themselves up to comprehend him!
   Now, if the Lord ever will bless His Churches, it seems to me that He
   will raise up a set of men suitable for each class--men who know the
   temptations of those to whom they preach! Men who have been where their
   hearers have been--having suffered their trials--and so can speak with
   both knowledge and sympathy! Let me ask you, then, you people of God,
   to set to work and hunt among the stuff and, who knows, but you may
   find a sinner there who will be well worth having because this Saul,
   though he did hide himself, was yet a fine fellow when they found him!
   He was head and shoulders taller than any off the rest in the camp--and
   sometimes I think that some of these big sinners that we find out among
   the stuff make the very best of saints! Oh, it was a grand day for the
   Church when Richard Weaver, the collier, was found out among the stuff,
   for he has been head and shoulders taller than a great many of the
   ministers of Christ in his line of things! And there have been many
   others of his kind! The Church does not often fish, but when she does,
   she catches her best fish. If we could but launch out a little more
   into the deep and the working population-- and the openly sinning
   population could be more fully touched with the Gospel, who knows but
   we might find leaders for Israel's hosts and men of valor--men who love
   much because they have had much forgiven!

   I shall now leave that point and for a short time only--

   II. SPEAK TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD WHO HIDE AMONG THE STUFF.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, we can make a great many excuses for the
   unconverted arising from their ignorance and their lack of taste for
   Divine things. We can understand all that. According to their nature,
   their carnal minds will act. But we can make no excuses for ourselves.
   I think an apology is the last thing which a Christian should wish to
   make for

   himself. You and I have avoided many a crown which we might have worn
   and have hidden ourselves among the stuff to escape from many a
   privilege which might have been both our enrichment and honor!

   Let me mention one or two of these. I think among the crowns which
   every Christian should covet, one should be the crown of the victorious
   suppliant Jacob won it at Jabbok. He knelt down as Jacob, but he
   wrestled so well that God knighted him on the spot and made him Israel!
   No, He did more than knight him, He placed him in the royal family, for
   He called him "a prevailing prince." I seem to see Jacob coming over
   the brook Jabbok in the morning, limping on his thigh, but with a crown
   on his head which angels might have been proud to wear! He had
   conquered! This was the crown which Luther wore. He sometimes came down
   from his prayer chamber crying, "Vice! Vice!" "I have conquered! I have
   conquered!" He would go there and agonize with God for such-and-such a
   mercy till he was sure he had obtained it-- and then he came down with
   his mouth filled with song because of it! To be a successful pleader
   with God is a very high attainment. God does hear the cries of His
   people--in a measure, of all of them--but there are some of them who
   understand this verse, "If you keep My commandment, you shall ask what
   you will and it shall be done unto you." An obedient life has given
   them great power in prayer! They mind God's will and He graciously
   grants them their will. They delight themselves in the Lord and He
   gives them the desire of their hearts.

   You all know some praying men and women who can do wonders that we
   cannot. We are in a pinch--God hears and delivers us in our
   necessities--He is a prayer-hearing Lord to us! But we have not got the
   carte blanche they have to go and ask what they will and it shall be
   done unto them. It is possible to have it and yet not use it--we have
   not the power upon our knees that they have. Now, why is this? Is it
   not the case with all of us that it is because we have been hiding
   ourselves among the stuff? Why, how many Christians there are whose
   time for prayer is almost swallowed up through the pressure of
   business? God forbid that you neglect your business, but those who do
   most business with God are generally those who do their business best
   with man--and there is a great saving of time in having time with God
   in prayer! At any rate, prayer and provender hinder no man's journey,
   but I am afraid there are some who give more time and care to worldly
   matters than should be given--and at the expense of their souls. What
   would you think of a mother who had two children and who gave to one of
   these children all her nutriment and all her care and left the other
   poor little thing to pine, to grow weakly, to be crying, to be very
   sick and near to death? You would say, "What an unnatural mother! Why
   does she fatten one child and not care for the other when they are both
   her children?" Now, that is your case. You have got a body and a soul.
   You are all day long emptying out your carefulness for your bodily
   gain, but what about that other dear child--let me say, that far better
   child, for the body only links you with the beast, but your soul, if it
   is a saved one, leads you into fellowship with God--your poor soul,
   alas, is left starving, faint and ready to die, while the body is cared
   for and, perhaps, pampered! Oh, unnatural parent! And yet most of us
   may take this matter home and confess that we have been hiding among
   the stuff.

   Again, do not let me be misunderstood. I am not finding fault with
   those who are diligent in business. I do not think there is any text in
   the Bible against this. Those who are slothful in business are also
   slothful about their soul--and there is no disease in the world worse
   than laziness! But to be so absorbed with business as to be always
   thinking of it is to give up the soul with all its noblest
   faculties--we are not citizens of earth--but only strangers and
   sojourners as all our fathers were.

   It is this that so often prevents us wearing the crown of the
   successful pleader. We have hidden ourselves among the stuff.

   There is another crown which it strikes me every Christian ought to
   seek to wear, and that is the crown that Christ gives to all who come
   to His feast and hold fellowship with Him. The great delight beneath
   the skies, next door, in fact, to Heaven, itself, is communion with the
   Lord Jesus Christ! And when He brings us into His banqueting house and
   His banner over us is love, He crowns us with the crown wherewith He
   was crowned in the day of His espousals--the crown of His Church's love
   and His love for her!

   Well, you and I have worn it, but we do not always wear it, and why
   not? Is it not because we are too much hiding among the stuff? There is
   too much thinking about the family, perhaps not for God's sake, but
   merely for our own! Too much planning, even when we are worshipping,
   with a view to the eye of our fellow creatures. Why, even into this
   House of Prayer there may be a deal of stuff brought! A farmer may have
   brought his whole farm here! And in these pews, I have no doubt, many a
   weaver has thrown his shuttle, many a blacksmith has wielded his hammer
   and many a carpenter has driven his plane! You can bring your stuff
   here well enough without bringing it on your backs, for you can bring
   it in your souls--and it is just this distraction, this taking off of
   the mind from Divine things--which prevents our entering

   into spiritual fellowship. The preacher, too, knows what this is. He
   knows what it is to think so much about the management of the service,
   the ruling of the Church, the arranging this point, the setting of this
   Brother to work and the calling to account of this other one, that he
   gets to be like Martha--cumbered with much serving! And he loses the
   sweetness of sitting at his Master's feet. It should not be so, for it
   is all hiding among the stuff and, after all, is doing us real
   mischief. If we had more Grace, we would come out and wear the crown at
   all times and be kings and priests unto our God!

   And, dear Friends, again. There is another crown which every Christian
   ought to try to win and that is the crown of the successful laborer. I
   hope we do not mean to go to Heaven without our crown, or with crowns
   without any stars in them. Some of you have had many spiritual
   children. God has blessed many of you to the conversion of two and
   three and some of you, of scores! God be thanked for that! You are not
   an unfruitful people. You have sought to bring souls to Christ. But,
   alas, there are some of you who do nothing of the kind. You come here
   to the House of Prayer and listen to the service and are pretty well
   content. Your children, your families, your neighbors and the outlying
   world you do not try to win to Christ, nor do you seem to care much
   about them! God forgive you, my dear Friends, and grant that you may
   not hide among the stuff any longer. When you come to die, it will be a
   sore matter of regret to you that you did not serve your Master more! I
   never heard of a Christian who died lamenting he had done too much for
   Christ, been too earnest, too indefatigable and so had shorted his
   life! There have been men who have shortened their lives for Christ,
   but even when chided by their friends, they have only gone on, still
   working--and have rejoiced to die for His dear sake!

   When the physician told Master John Calvin that he must cease from
   working so much or he would die because he had a complication of
   painful diseases, he replied, "Would you have my Master come and find
   me loitering?" Oh, it was well said, Master Calvin! It were well said,
   too, if we could all say it! What have you done for Christ, my Brothers
   and Sisters? Have you spoken a word for Him? Have you written a word
   for Him? Have you done anythingfor Him? If not, though you have a crown
   within your reach, yet you are hiding among the stuff! May you be
   brought out from that stuff and made to wear the crown of the
   successful worker!

   Once more, the Master is soon coming. He will either come in the clouds
   in visible personal Presence, or else He will come in death. One of the
   two things will certainly occur before long. When He comes He comes to
   crown His people-- will He find us, then, among the stuff?There are
   crowns and palms for all the faithful when the pierced feet shall stand
   on Olivet, and the multitudes shall be gathered in the Valley of
   Decision. He shall come gloriously upon Mount Zion with His
   ancients--and in that day when--

   "He shall reign from pole to pole, With illimitable sway"

   and when His Kingdom shall be universal, we who have been with Him in
   His humiliation, shall also be with Him in His Glory! But if He were to
   come tonight would He not find a great many of His people hiding away
   from their royalty, dishonoring their privileges and unworthy of their
   crown? "When the Son of Man comes shall He find faith upon the earth?"
   If He came now, how many of us would be found in places and positions
   far different from those in which we should wish to be found? When I
   called to see a friend not many months ago, I found her cleaning a
   doorstep, and she hardly liked me to call upon her when she was so
   employed. She blushed and said if she had known I had been coming she

   would_. "There," I said, "I know what you would have done--you would
   have put on your best things and

   wasted an hour or two of your time--but I like to come and catch you
   just as you are." Then she smiled, and I said, "My good woman, that is
   exactly how I should like the Lord to come and find me--at my work.
   Working for His family in some way or other--scrubbing the doorstep or
   doing something else--it matters not as long as He finds His people
   busy

   for Him."

   Some of my Brothers seem to be inclined to get their people to stand up
   with their mouths wide open gaping for the Second Advent. The true way
   of waiting for His blessed appearing is to work unceasingly for Him!
   Christ will come, will come Personally and visibly! Let this be your
   great joyous hope, but still believe that the best way to meet Him is
   with trimmed lamps and burning lights as men watching and waiting for
   their Lord, and not as idle star-gazers who go out and read the
   prophesies and stand puzzling their minds about disputed facts while
   souls are perishing! Oh, Brothers, we have something else to do, I
   hope, with the intellect of the Christian Church, than to have it
   forever spending itself to no profit!

   I might almost say of this what Paul did of certain other matters, that
   it was wasting precious time and thought on "endless genealogies and
   old wives fables," for in my heart of hearts I do believe them to be
   but very little better. Oh, if the Christian wants to be ready for his
   Master, as he should be, let him be contending with Christ's foes who
   are many

   and strong! Let him be caring for Christ's sheep, many of whom are very
   weak and sorely wounded. Let him work with his fellow servants and eat
   and drink, and bring out of the storehouse things new and old, for
   blessed is that servant who, when his Master comes, He shall find so
   doing!

   Now, Christians, let me say to you in closing, do seek, as God shall
   help you, to get away from that baggage and that stuff of yours. Get
   up! Get up from those valleys where the reeking fog of earth is always
   lingering--get up to those healthful mountains where the breezes of
   Heaven fan the cheeks! Get above the mists and clouds into a clearer
   and serener atmosphere!. Ask the Holy Spirit to assist you in your
   spiritual mounting. Do not let it be said any longer that when a crown
   is ready for you, you are hiding away from it. May you be ready to be
   crowned and, being crowned, live as a king and a priest to the Glory of
   your Lord! May God add His blessing to these words for Jesus' sake.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM120:1-3.

   Verse 1. In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and He heard me. Slander
   occasions distress of the most grievous kind. Those who have felt the
   edge of a cruel tongue know assuredly that it is sharper than the
   sword. Calumny awakens our indignation by a sense of injustice and yet
   we find ourselves helpless to fight with the evil, or to act in our own
   defense. We could ward off the strokes of a cutlass, but we have no
   shield against a liar's tongue! Silence to man and prayer to God are
   the best cures for the evil of slander. It is of little use to appeal
   to our fellows on the matter of slander, for the more we stir it, the
   more it spreads. It is of no use to appeal to the honor of the
   slanderer, for they have none, and the most piteous demands for justice
   will only increase their malignity and encourage them to fresh insult!
   However, when cries to man would be our weakness, cries to God will be
   our strength! The ear of our God is not deaf, nor even heavy. He
   listens attentively, He catches the first accent of supplication. He
   makes each of His children confess--"He heard me."

   2. Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful
   tongue. Lips are soft, but when they are "lying lips" they suck away
   the life of character and are as murderous as razors. Lips should never
   be red with the blood of honest men's reputations, nor salved with
   malicious lies. The faculty of speech becomes a curse when it is
   degraded into a mean weapon for smiting men behind their backs. Those
   who fawn and flatter, too, and all the while have enmity in their
   hearts, are horrible beings! They are the seed of the devil and he
   works in them after his own deceptive nature. Better to meet wild
   beasts and serpents than deceivers! These are a kind of monster whose
   birth is from beneath and whose end lies far below.

   3. What shall be given unto you? Or what shall be done unto you, you
   false tongue?The Psalmist seems lost to suggest a fitting punishment!
   It is the worst of offenses--this detraction, calumny and slander.
   Judgment sharp and crushing would be measured out to it if men were
   visited for their transgressions. But what punishment could be heavy
   enough? What will God do with lying tongues? He has uttered His most
   terrible threats against them--and He will terribly execute them in due
   time.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Believer's Glad Prospects

   (No. 3323)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and
   be You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of BBether."
   Solomon's Song 2:17.

   WITHOUT a sentence of introduction, I invite you, Beloved, to see
   herein,

   I. A BLESSED SEASON HERE ANTICIPATED!--A time when the day shall break
   and the shadows shall flee away.

   It is not every man who can count upon such a time as that, for to some
   there is no prospect of the day breaking. They are now in the shade and
   that shade will grow darker and darker with them till, in the hour of
   death, their sun will go down forever in a tenfold night--a night not
   gladdened by a solitary star--a night that shall never have an
   ending--a night of glooms more terrible than imagination itself could
   picture! I fear there are some in this place for whom we might utter
   such forebodings! The world is dark enough to them, now, but they have
   no hope of the Lord as though it would be brightness to them.
   Conscience tells them--and if conscience is not enlightened enough to
   do so--the Word of God tells them that the day of the Lord shall be
   darkness and not light to them. But, to every soul in this house that
   believes in Jesus, there is the delightful anticipation of the hour
   spoken of in the text--when the day shall break and the shadows shall
   flee away!

   Let us take each expression and muse on it. " Until the day breaks." In
   a certain sense the Christian is now in the light, for he is a child of
   light and he walks in the light. And he may walk in the light as God is
   in the light, and so have fellowship with the Father and feel that the
   blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses him from all sin. But Paul, in
   some pages, calls this present estate darkness. "For," he says, "the
   night is far spent, the day is at hand," meaning thereby this present
   state of life to the Believer, which is far spent, and the daylight,
   the glorious daylight of eternity, is near at hand!

   "The daybreak." Why, this represents to the most of us, probably, the
   moment of death. To as many as shall be alive and remain at the coming
   of the Lord, it represents the coming of the Lord and the Glory of His
   people. "The daybreak!" It is the hour of joy. During the night the
   earth seems sad. She has covered herself with sackcloth, her eyes are
   full of the drops of the night. There is silence over the plains. The
   woods send not forth their grateful music. There is only heard the
   hooting of the owl, with, perhaps, now and then a stray note from the
   nightingale as though she remembered the day. Night is the time of the
   world's gloom, but daybreak is the time of her festival! Then is her
   splendor abroad. Then--

   "Morn, her rosy step in the eastern clime Advancing, sows the earth
   with orient pearl." Ten thousand winged songsters of the grove waking
   up from their slumber begin to pour forth incessant streams of music!
   Every creature, beholding the light of the sun, wakes itself up and is
   full ofjoy! Such will the daybreak be to us. This is not our time of
   fullest joy. We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.
   We have trials without. We have conflicts within. The daybreak is
   coming when we who are not of the night, nor of darkness, though
   compelled to pass through it, shall emerge into our proper element--the
   Light of God--and our spirits shall bathe themselves in all that they
   can desire, being satisfied with favor and full of the blessing of the
   Lord! "I shall be satisfied," says David, "when I awake in Your
   likeness." We are looking for a time of ineffable delight! All the
   attempts that have ever been made to describe the joy and glory of
   Heaven have necessarily been failures--and if we were to attempt again,
   we should fall far below that which God has revealed to us by His
   Spirit--for eye has not seen, nor ear heard that which He has prepared
   for them that love Him! Thank God, our joy is coming nearer every time
   the tick of the clock is heard. Behold, on flying

   wings it comes! Every day of winter's sorrow or of summer's joy brings
   it nearer. We said last Sunday evening, "Now is our salvation nearer
   than when we believed," and we often sing--

   "We nightly pitch our moving tent

   A day's march nearer home."

   This is one of the choicest consolations of the present--that we are
   getting nearer to the daybreak!

   "The daybreak!" It is a summons to activity. The creatures waking up
   prepare themselves for their day's work. All Nature is astir. She was
   lethargic before, as it were, frostbitten under the raven wing of
   night, but now that the bright beams of the sun have brought the light,
   they have also brought restoration to vitality! Now the workman girds
   up his loins and goes forth to his labor. Ah, Brothers and Sisters,
   those of us who are helped to do most for God on earth are not
   satisfied with what we can do. This seems to be a world of trying
   rather than of accomplishing. We are straining to be able to serve God.
   I feel myself constantly, if I can imagine such an experience, like the
   chick within the shell-- chipping it, wanting to get out of it, doing
   all it can--no, not do all it can--but doing something and desiring to
   do more, feeling its circle to be circumscribed and itself to be
   cribbed, cabined and confined! But what a glorious thing it will be
   when the young eaglets hatch themselves, leave the nest and try their
   wings! Such is the happiness we are looking forward to at the
   daybreak--that we shall serve God day and night in His Temple without
   any weariness--that we shall serve Him without any sin! That we shall
   adore Him without any wandering thoughts! That we shall be dedicated to
   Him without anything that can stir the jealousy of His holy mind! We
   shall then move forward in the path of duty with as straight a
   persistency and as Divine a perseverance as the thunderbolt when it is
   launched from the hand of the Almighty! We shall neither turn to the
   right hand nor to the left. We shall be swift as seraphs and strong as
   cherubs in the course of service--and that service shall be to us the
   Heaven of our delight! Oh, we may well long for the daybreak, because
   it will help His servants to serve Him!

   "The daybreak!" Is it not, likewise, the time of clear discovery?At
   night we peep about. We spy out the forms of the mountains. We can
   trace, by the moonbeams, the course of the rivers, and we may know
   something, more or less according to the measure of our discernment, or
   the inferences we may draw of what there is round about us. Still, the
   night is the time of gloom. Nor can all the tapers and lamps that men
   kindle turn night into day! So here--this is the time of our ignorance.
   We know something of the Truth as God has taught us and, blessed be His
   name, it is such dear knowledge that we would not give it up for all
   the world! But still, we only see as in a glass darkly--we have not yet
   come to the face-to-face vision. We read like children spell at
   school--syllable by syllable--and we do not quite understand what we
   read. We are like a boy when he first begins to spell out his
   Horace--he does not comprehend the elegance of the style or the poetry
   of the language--but just spells it out and sees something of the
   literal meaning, but that is all that he can get. Ah, I suppose that
   the greatest Divine that ever lived did not know as much, before he
   died, as a child knows when he has been in Heaven five minutes! All
   that we are able to discover here seems to be little, indeed. We know
   in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come,
   then that which is in part shall be done away with! The daybreak no
   sooner comes to the world than you discern everything in its natural
   hue and its just proportion! You see color where before everything was
   black! You perceive the beauty of the landscape, the mountain rises
   before you, the river rolls on mightily towards the sea--even the tiny
   flowers challenge your notice! You mark all on earth, for by the sun
   God has painted all the world with the colors of the rainbow! And oh,
   what a glorious discovery our admission into the next world will bring
   to us!--

   "Then shall we see, and hear, and know All we desired or wished below!
   And every power find sweet employ In that eternal world ofjoy!"

   I often get confused over doctrines that puzzle me. I see this to be
   true, and that to be true, but how to reconcile the two, I know not.
   Then the thought of the daybreak comes in so comfortably. "What you
   know not now, you shall know hereafter." Here it is not good for us to
   know all things. In some respects, it is the Glory of God to conceal
   Himself and He may well say to us--"I have many things to say to you,
   but you cannot bear them now." But there it will be the Glory of God to
   reveal Himself and it will also be to our benefit, our minds being then
   fortified and strengthened to receive what we could not comprehend here
   below! Perhaps the glare of the Divine Light, if it comes to us here,
   even though tempered by the Mediator, Himself, might be too much for
   these poor eyes of ours. All the Prophets, or nearly all of them, when
   they had visions from God, fell flat on their faces! John, himself,
   though he had leaned on Jesus' bosom--

   when he saw the Master in Patmos, writes these very instructive
   words--"When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Now, the Lord has
   work for us to do, but He does not want us to be always lying at His
   feet as dead! Consequently, He withholds from us the full radiance of
   His Glory. But there we shall be able to endure much! And there we
   shall be privileged to enjoymuch--

   "These eyes shall see Him in that day-- The Christ who died for me! And
   all my rising bones shall say, 'Lord, who is like unto Thee?'"

   So, you see, we look forward to a time of perfect joy, of wonderful
   activity and of full discovery.

   What a blessing that we are able to look forward to this and to talk
   about it as a matter of certainty. "Until the day breaks." Why, there
   are dear aged Brothers and Sisters here who, in the Providence of God,
   cannot be with us very long--and how are they accustomed to speak of
   their departure? I hear them speak constantly with holy confidence and
   not at all with any reluctance. There have been some people so foolish
   as not to like to be thought old! Some who have seemed to altogether
   regret that the gray hairs were apparent on their heads. But I do not
   find it so among the Lord's people with whom I associate! I find them
   thankful that this life is not all their portion, blessing God that
   they do not expect to be here forever--and longing for evening to
   undress that they may rest with God, with holy expectation anticipating
   the blissful moment when the day shall break! And we who are younger
   need not think that because we still have strength in our loins, that
   we shall therefore live long. Oh, how many younger than ourselves have
   we seen taken away during the past year! Some of our fathers will
   outlive us--our grandparents will follow us to the tomb, for youth
   preserves not man! Well, we, too, will join with the reverend seigneurs
   and we will anticipate the daybreak and talk with them of it tonight!

   The other expression of the text is also instructive--"Until the day
   breaks and the shadows flee away." What are these shadows? They are of
   many sorts. They abound. This is the valley of shadows. Surely every
   man walks in a vain shadow and disquiets himself in vain! Some shadows
   we have that are precious. There are the shadows of the ordinances--
   Baptism and of the Lord's Supper. I speak of them with the highest
   reverence, yet they are but shadows in themselves. But we need them
   because we are in the shadow land. He that is immersed in water is not,
   therefore, buried with Chr-ist--the burial with Christ is the reality,
   the burial in water is but the shadow! He that eats and drinks at the
   Table of the Master does not, therefore, eat His flesh and drink His
   blood--the bread and the wine, though they look substantial, are but
   the shadows. The real flesh and blood of Jesus--these are the inner
   substance--and only to faith is it given to feed upon these celestial
   viands! These things are only intended to last until the day breaks,
   for note, "As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do
   show forth the Lord's death until He comes." Then when He comes, the
   day breaks and the shadow, even that blessed shadow, must flee away!

   Other shadows we have that we shall be more glad to lose--shadows of
   frightful things which haunt us--especially the timid, nervous and
   faint-hearted people of God. Some of the Lord's people spend their
   lives in fighting shadows! They make troubles. They sit down and
   imagine disasters which cannot occur. They bind heavy burdens and put
   them upon their own shoulders--burdens which God never intended them to
   bear--and burdens which, in fact, do not exist! And some of them even
   create actual trouble by foolish anxiety to escape from an imaginary
   trouble! Well, poor trembler, poor Mr. Fearing, and you, Miss
   Much-afraid and Miss Despondency, the shadows will soon flee away!
   Though you generally go limping to Heaven with weak hands and feeble
   knees, and as many sighs as breaths, and as many tears as seconds,
   there is an end coming to all these and you shall be as merry as any of
   them by-and-by! You shall be as near the eternal Throne of God as the
   Apostles, themselves, and have as much of the Divine Love and enjoyment
   as the strongest Believers in Christ ever had! Be of good courage.
   Strive against those fears! They weaken you. They dishonor our Master!
   Repent of ever having indulged them, for they are wicked! Still, let
   this encourage you--they shall all flee away at the daybreak! Do not,
   therefore, dread dying when with that comes the daybreak! Expect it,
   even long for it, since then the shadows which oppress you from morn
   till night shall flee away!

   So, too, those doubts and fears which are made of sterner stuff, the
   deeper shadows and heavier glooms, shall all flee away! There may be
   some men who never have a doubt about their acceptance in Christ, but I
   am afraid I cannot count myself as one of them. For the most part 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. But sometimes when it
   comes to close heart-work and self-examination, I cannot give up
   Cowper's hymn--

   "'Tis a point I long to know,

   Oft it causes anxious thought!

   Do Ilove the Lord or no?

   Am I His, or am I not?

   IfIlove, why am I thus?

   Why this cold and lifeless frame?

   Hardly, sure, could they be worse

   Who have never known His name?" Not that it is of any use having such a
   hymn as that in the hymnbook, for you never ought to sing it! It is not
   a thing to sing, but to groan out all alone before our God. I think the
   most of us are compelled to do that sometimes. Well, blessed be God, at
   the daybreak, all these fears will be gone! We shall never be able,
   then, to doubt our interest in Christ because we shall be with Him
   where He is--and shall behold His Glory! Then we shall never have any
   fear lest after having preached to others we, ourselves, should be cast
   away. We shall not be afraid lest we should be shipwrecked, for though
   it may be but on boards and broken pieces, yet we shall then have come
   safely to land--all these fears will have vanished forever!

   May not these shadows represent to some of us that daily sense of sin
   which comes upon us and drives us to the Cross? Oh, the somber shade
   which a tender conscience feels under a sense of sin! Some men have not
   any such tenderness. They can make a profession and be easy in living
   inconsistent lives. Not so a heart that lives near to Christ--the more
   pure it is, the more it mourns over its spots! If you are in the dark,
   you will not see the filth upon your garments, but the brighter the
   light the more you will see every spot--and the more you will mourn
   over it. I believe that the more sanctified a man becomes by the work
   of the Holy Spirit within, the more heavy the burden of sin becomes to
   him. It is not that he has more sin, but that he feels that he has
   more. And in the light of the love of Christ, which he enjoys in the
   secret places of communion, he sees more of the abomination of sin and,
   therefore, is more humbled under it. Oh, but it shall all flee away
   presently! They are without fault before the Throne of God! He shall
   present us, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing! Oh, what a
   blessed presentation! At the daybreak, truly, the shadows will flee
   away!

   Do you not think that the text might have a still more extensive
   meaning and take in everything here below? Things terrestrial, after
   all, are but shadows. The things which are seen are temporal--only the
   things which are not seen are eternal. The things which are seen, all
   these things which are round about us, are but shadowy things--they are
   passing before us and they will soon be gone like the dissolving view
   upon the sheet. But the eternal things that men think so shadowy and
   dreamy--these are the only realities, since they will last forever!
   Well, the shadows will flee away! That means this poor flesh-and-blood
   body full of sickness which declines as the shadow. That house, those
   lands. Oh, you rich men! your shadows will all flee away! If you are
   Believers you will not be sorry for that. And, oh, you poor people!
   Your one room, cold and cheerless, the toil of every day, the needle,
   the stitching long for little pay--all shadows and very dark shadows!
   And they seem very real to you now--well, they will soon be over--so
   soon! They will flee away and all be gone and--

   "Leaving all you loved below, Up to your Father you will go!"

   We will not tarry longer on these two causes, "Until the day
   breaks"--we expect a daybreak--"and the shadows flee away"--we expect
   that shadows will flee away. We know they will! We rejoice that they
   will! Here we sit, looking out into the future, not knowing what may
   befall us, but singing to our souls this song--"Until the day breaks
   and the shadows flee away."

   But while the season of joyful release is anticipated, there is also,

   II. A PRAYER PRESENTED. "Until the day breaks and the shadows flee
   away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon the
   mountains of Bether."

   Till Heaven shall come to us and we to Heaven, sweet Lord Jesus be with
   us! Let us have Your company. But a difficulty arises. There is so much
   between us and Christ to keep Him away. Hence the prayer, "Come, Lord,
   be like some hart or roe--like the chamois of the Alps that leaps from
   crag to crag--come over all these mountains of Bether and come to us
   when we cannot come to You."

   Remember, Beloved, that our sins were once like these mountain of
   Bether. Christ has come over them. Our daily sins sometimes seem to our
   unbelief to be mountains of separation. Christ will come over these. He
   will bring us again unto the cleansing fountain! He will give us the
   kiss of reconciliation! He will imprint the seal of peace upon our
   foreheads. He will kiss us with the kisses of His lips and He will send
   us away rejoicing that He has come over the mountains.

   One great mountain that separates us from our Lord is our need of sight
   of Him. You know it is not easy to love one you never saw--to love one
   you have heard of, but have not seen at all. But faith gets over this
   difficulty with regard to Christ, for faith has a pictorial power--and
   it pictures Christ! Faith has a realizing power--and it grasps Christ.
   Faith has an appropriating power and it claims Christ! Faith has a
   power of wing that takes the spirit right away to Christ in holy
   imagination, sacred fancy and blessed meditation--and so it overcomes
   the difficulty! But still it is a difficulty and hence the delightful
   power and force of expression of the Apostle--"Whom, having not seen,
   we love; in whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice
   with unspeakable joy and full of glory." The prayer is, then, "Oh,
   Savior, not only come over my sin, but come over this great difficulty
   that I never saw You, never heard Your voice and never touched Your
   hands! Yet come to me over these separating mountains and make Yourself
   real to my spirit every day I

   live."

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, there are many mountains. I shall not mention
   them all, but I will name one more--the mountain of our natural
   coldness, lethargy and indifference--and piled on the top of these are
   our cares and our worldliness! I wish I could keep my heart red hot for
   Christ, but everything seems chilled. You cannot even live in God's
   service as I do, but in serving Christ, Himself, you get as Martha
   did--cumbered with much serving. Oh, that the heart were always on the
   mountain with Christ--no, I won't say that--were it even in the garden,
   as long as it were but with Him--in Gethsemane, or on Tabor--it would
   matter little as long as we could stay with Him! But we have many
   things to do and many beings to think of more oftentimes than we need,
   and then we get away from Christ and we cannot get back as quickly as
   we want and so we have to sing with Dr. Watts--

   "Our souls can neither fly, nor go To reach eternal joys."

   Well, then, He comes to us! He kindles a flame of sacred love and that
   kindles ours. Oh, great Lord, until the day breaks often come in this
   way to us! Until the shadows flee away, oh, come to our hearts again
   and again, leaping over the mountains and revealing Yourself to us!

   Here is a blessed thing to think of all the year round. Do not ask the
   Lord to take away the shadows. Do not ask that you may feel this world
   to be a bright place to your hearts, but turn your thoughts to
   this--"Lord, whether it is bright or not to my soul, come to me! Oh,
   come to me! Be near to me! Let me walk in the conscious enjoyment of
   Your daily Presence. To your will I leave everything else, only stay
   near to me!" Do you ask when may this prayer be used? I think it is a
   very delightful prayer every night when we go to bed. "Lord, until the
   day breaks and the shadows flee away literally in the morning, come and
   be with me."--

   "If in the night I wakeful lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts supply."
   If I toss to and fro on my bed, may I have to say, as Your Spouse did,
   "By night, upon my bed, I sought Him whom my soul loves"? May I cry
   with the Psalmist, "When I awake I am still with You"? I think you may
   put your head upon the pillow each night very delightfully with that as
   your prayer!

   Then you may pray this prayer whenever any trouble has come upon you.
   Now you may say, "Lord, I see the day has not broke with me yet. The
   shadows have not fled away. There is this heavy loss in business. There
   is that dear child ill. There is the wife sickening. There is this
   disease in my own body. But, Lord, until this trouble is removed, come
   near, come near and still nearer!" If there is one child in the family
   the mother cares most about, it is the one that is the most sickly. You
   are sitting here tonight and you are thinking about one of your
   children, but it is not about the one that is 21 and grown up--it is
   the little one you left in the cradle. The more helpless it is, the
   more thought you give it. And so does God consider you, poor helpless,
   troubled ones! Pray, then, as you are entering into the cloud, "Lord
   Jesus, abide with me in the thick and dark night, till the day breaks
   and the shadows flee away."

   This prayer will do whenever the affairs of the Church of God or of the
   nation seem to be in a bad state. There are times with every Church
   when it does not prosper as we would desire. There are times in this
   nation when we see error very rife and true religion at a discount.
   Well, then, Christian, instead of your fretting yourself about the Ark
   of the

   Lord which you can no more keep right than Uzza could, say, "Lord, I
   would walk with You! I will say as Joshua did, 'As for me and my house,
   we will serve the Lord.' Only come, be near to my heart, and keep my
   heart near to You."

   And what a blessed petition this would be when we are coming to die! We
   feel within ourselves that the machinery of life must come to a stop.
   There are certain indications which mark that the last mortal strife is
   drawing near. Oh, now to bend the knee at the bedside, or if unable
   through weakness or faintness to do that, to stay one's self upon the
   bed and say, "Until the day breaks, so now near to these poor failing
   eyes, till the shadows flee away and this poor, crumbling body is
   changed for Glory and Immortality, come, my Beloved, be You like a roe
   or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." It were blessed to fall
   asleep in Jesus with that prayer upon one's lips! Well, you are sure to
   die with it on your lips if you always live with it on your lips! If it
   is always in your heart, it will be in your heart at the last. So I
   commend it to you for daily use and for every special crisis. The Lord
   make it to be a blessing to your souls!

   Only, again I say, I wish with all my heart--it is my heart's desire
   and prayer--that all of you may have a daybreak to look forward to! It
   is so sad a thing that so many live as if they were to always live
   here. They live as if they were to die like dogs and that would be as
   much an end of them as of the bull that is struck with the pole-axe in
   the shambles. But, as you will live forever, I must again remind you
   that there remains for you nothing but a fearful looking for judgment
   and fiery indignation! Would you have a daybreak? Jesus Christ is the
   Sun! Trust Him! He has told us that he that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved. To believe is to trust. Now, leaving all your sins--it
   is time you left them! Now, abhorring all those things in which you
   once took delight--and you may well abhor them, for they are damnable!
   They are serpents--fair are their scales but deadly are their fangs!
   Leaving all these, come to Jesus! He died for sinners, for the very
   worst of sinners--and whoever trusts Him shall have everlasting life!

   Oh, that you just now might end your service of the devil and forthwith
   commence your service of the Lord Jesus! The Master grant it by the
   power of His Holy Spirit and His shall be the praise!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: REVELATION 7.

   Verse 1. Andafter these things I saw four angels standing on the four
   corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the
   wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
   Observe that God has servants always ready for His work. There were
   winds to be restrained. "And I saw four angels"--mighty spiritual
   beings--who had power over the air. These winds were to be restrained
   until all God's people were safely sealed and you may depend upon it
   that no calamity shall happen to destroy the people of God--they must
   first be saved. There shall be no deluge till there is the ark--there
   shall be no Romans to destroy Jerusalem till there is a little city in
   the mountains to which the disciples may flee. God will protect His
   own. The dead calm, the perfect quietude which prevailed while the
   angels restrained the winds is set forth in these words. The wind did
   not appear to blow on land, or sea, or tree--not a ripple broke the
   surface of the waters, not a leaf stirred on the bough--everything is
   quiet until God's people are secured.

   2, 3. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal
   of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels,
   to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not
   the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the
   servants of our God on their foreheads. See how other things are
   protected for the sake of God's people? The earth and the sea and even
   the trees have a cordon of safety round about them while God's people
   are being secured! When the Lord Jesus put to sea on the Galilean Lake,
   we read that there were with Him many other little boats--and when the
   calm came for His ship, they were in the calm, too. And so it is a good
   thing if you are not in the Church, yet to have some sort of connection
   with it--a great thing for the age to have the Church of God in it, for
   God will take care of a nation often for the sake of His people. As He
   would have spared Sodom had there been righteous men found in it, so
   does He spare nations for the sake of His saints.

   4. And Iheard the number of them which were sealed: and there were
   sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the
   children of Israel Now we are going to read their names. I hope you
   won't say it is tiresome to read them. Remember He that wrote this Book
   is the Father of them, and children's names are not wearisome to their
   own father! Remember, He that fills this Book bought them with His
   blood, and wore them upon His breastplate as the great High Priest of
   Israel bearing all these names upon His heart, engraved upon the palms
   of His hands. We need not be weary of hearing names which Christ has
   worn on His breast!

   5-8. Of thee tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe
   of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed
   twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of
   the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of
   Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were
   sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve
   thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the
   tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph
   were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed
   twelve thousand. Judah stands first and Benjamin stands last--they were
   joined together, but here they are as widely divided as they can be,
   yet they stand in an equal position--and the day shall come when first
   and last shall rejoin together in the equal blessing of the Most High.
   Where is Dan? Not mentioned here. See, there is nothing without
   mystery. We shall never understand all the things of God. It seemed
   simple enough to bless the 12 tribes, but yet there is one lacking.

   9. After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could
   number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues stood
   before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and
   palms in their hands. This is the great gathering of the Gentile
   multitude redeemed by blood, numbered by God, never to be numbered by
   men, being like the sand on the seashore, innumerable! Of all colors
   they shall be and they will look to us on earth if we could see them,
   to be a motley group. And if we heard them speak, it would seem a
   strange jargon. Many are the languages of earth, but one is the speech
   of Heaven! All hearts are alike in the Kingdom of the Most High,
   whatever the color of the skin. That entrance of our Lord into
   Jerusalem seems to me to be the pattern we have here before us, only
   this is the fulfillment of it. Here are the crowds that gathered about
   Him--the 12 disciples lead the way and here are the multitudes with the
   palms in their hands scattering them in the pathway of their King!

   10. And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which
   sits upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb. In Jerusalem they cried
   Hosanna, which was, "Save, Lord," but now they have risen a little
   higher, and they sing, "Salvation to our God." It is the same melody
   but it is pitched to a loftier key and there are more to sing it. And
   they are not now conducting a prince to his throne but they are looking
   up to the King upon His throne, reigning there!

   11. And all the angels stood round about the Throne, and about the
   elders and the four beasts, and fell before the Throne on their faces,
   and worshipped God. Not some of the angels, nor many angels, nor even
   an innumerable company of angels, but ALL the angels--they shall all
   gather on that august occasion around the Throne of God and the Lamb!

   12. Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving,
   and honor, and power, and might be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.
   What a deep, sonorous, Amen, that will be! What a mighty volume of
   sound! How full and rich, how hearty! Oh, that our ears may be there to
   hear it and our tongues to swell it!

   13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, Who are these which
   are arrayed in white robes and from where did they come?"And I said
   unto him, Sir, you know." You see the question was put by an angel. As
   an answer, one of the elders answered. Whom did he answer? Why, John!
   And what John's heart was inquiring. He was saying to himself, "Who are
   these?" And one of the elders was responsive to his heart's inquiry and
   put the same inquiry into words on his

   behalf.

   14-15. And I said unto him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are
   they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,
   and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
   the Throne of God, andserve Him day and night in His Temple: and He
   that sits on the Throne shall dwellamong them. Shall "tabernacle over
   them," that is the exact word, as though He were a pavilion, a canopy
   over them.

   16-17. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither
   shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the
   midst of the Throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living
   fountains of water: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
   It looks almost as if they might have a tear in their eye when they
   first come there--certainly they shall never be sure of being without a
   tear till they have crossed the pearly threshold--but then He shall
   wipe away the very tear--there shall be no possibility of weeping
   there! May our eyes behold that sinless and sor-rowless land and its
   Eternal Lord!
     __________________________________________________________________

Turning From Death

   (No. 3324)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING, JULY,
   22, 1866.

   "Turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house
   of Israel?" Ezekiel 33:11.

   IT is a token of the great mercy of God that He is very earnest in His
   pleading with men to turn from their sins that He may not be compelled
   to punish them, as He must do if they go on in their iniquities. A
   cruel governor is glad of an opportunity to show his severity and,
   therefore, not especially anxious to prevent offenses. But a kind,
   tender-hearted monarch He must be who leaves His Throne and comes down
   among the rebels and, with tears in His eyes, cries to them, "Oh, do
   not this wicked thing that I hate! Offend not against Me! Do not compel
   Me to take the sword out of its scabbard! Do not force Me to say that I
   will have no mercy upon you, but turn you, turn you from those evil
   courses which will certainly bring you mischief!" Sinner, God speaks to
   you tonight out of His Infinite Mercy. He has no pleasure in your
   death! It will give Him no satisfaction to cast you into Hell! He has
   taken an oath concerning it. "As I live," says the Lord God, "I have no
   pleasure in the death of him that dies," and to prove the sincerity of
   the oath, He cries, "Turn you, turn you from your evil ways: for why
   will you die, O house of Israel?" If you are not spared, but perish, it
   will not be because God is not merciful to you but because you are not
   merciful to yourselves!

   The text as it stands is a very earnest exhortation from God. It is
   directed, I doubt not, to all sorts of sinful men. And it is directed
   to such in all sincerity and honesty, for albeit we believe without
   reserve in the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace, we do not for a moment
   desire to lessen the force or explain away the reality of so earnest an
   appeal as this! We can preach from such a text with all sincerity and
   intensity--indeed, as much as if we did not believe in any Election of
   Grace!

   We would seek to give to all and every Scripture, the genuine meaning
   which it contains. But, dear Friends, solemnly penetrating and
   heart-searching as His exhortation is, and given as it is by God,
   Himself, if a man rejects it, he thereby adds to his sin. God calls to
   the sinner to turn, but turn he never will unless there is something
   more than the call! By the public ministry, by sickness, by the Bible,
   by conscience--yes, and by the common and universal operations of the
   Holy Spirit, God calls to men--"Turn you, turn you, why will you die?"
   But they seem determined to die and, therefore, they go over hedge and
   ditch to destruction--and this against all the warnings and rebukes of
   the Most High!

   So they will continue in their sins and aggravate them by the rejection
   of the very exhortation which was meant to deliver them from them--and
   so make themselves yet more guilty before God by turning against His
   Word which was meant to have a blessing in it for them. I do not
   intend, therefore, being the means of adding to your guilt tonight.
   When I took the text, I felt as if I dared not preach from it. It shook
   me, though it may not shake you. As I read it, and read it, and read it
   again, I thought, if I deliver it as I find it there, I shall very
   likely only have to come back and say, "Who has believed our report?"
   And the most of my Hearers who are unconverted will only go away and
   say, "What care we for those alarming words?" So I remembered that when
   the Holy Spirit comes effectually to work upon the souls of men He uses
   the very same means and instruments which in our hands seem powerless.
   If I say to you, "Turn you, turn you, for why will you die?" you will
   take no notice of it. But if the Holy Spirit shall come and say this to
   you, then you shall certainly be obedient to it, for He has the key of
   the heart and He knows how, without violating the free agency of man,
   to make man willing in the day of His power! So that when He says,
   "Turn you, turn you," they do turn, and when He says, "Why will you
   die?" they begin to reason with themselves and they see it is an ill
   thing that they should perish and, therefore, they turn to God!

   Now, I will earnestly hope and pray that God the Holy Spirit will use
   these words upon some heart. And I intend to preach upon them, not as
   they stand in the Book, but as they will then stand in your hearts! Let
   me try, if I can, to picture what will take place in the man's heart in
   whom God the Holy Spirit shall say by His effectual Grace, "Turn you,
   turn you, for why will you die, O house of Israel?" I shall try,
   therefore, to give an outline sketch of the spiritual experience which
   will be known in the human breast in which the Holy Spirit is now
   pressing home this solemn question.

   There will be three things there--first the fears will be awakened.
   That word, "die," will come like the point of a dagger to slay the
   soul's false peace. In the second place, the heart will be affected. '
   'Turn you, turn you," will cause the heart to turn away from its former
   lusts and turn towards God. And then, in the third place, the
   understanding will be set vigorously working, for the question, "For
   why will you die?" if pressed home by Divine Power, will turn reason
   into right reasoning--the man will begin to consider his ways and to
   ask himself seriously, why he should throw away his soul--why he should
   lose his most precious possession for which nothing can ever be given
   in exchange, or at its purchase price.

   Solemnly then, as before the Lord, let us deal in turn with these three
   things. If, my dear Hearer, it should be your happy lot to have this
   question brought home to your inmost soul by the power of God's Holy
   Spirit you will tonight-- I. HAVE YOUR FEARS AWAKENED.

   This is how it will operate. You will begin to say within yourself,
   "This text tells me that I must either turn or die. I must change my
   present state, habits and ways--and I must turn with full purpose of
   heart in another direction or else I shall die--a deserved sentence, a
   capital sentence is passed against me. Not that I shall be imprisoned,
   not that I shall be transported for such-and-such a time, but that I
   shall die! The most terrible sentence of the Law of God, it seems, will
   come upon me unless I turn." Oh, heart, look that in the face! Oh, you
   fears, endeavor to awaken yourselves and on those dull and leaden eyes
   to see what it is to die!

   First, my Hearer, if this test should come home to you, you will say, "
   Why, I am not ready to die in the common sense of that term." If you
   were called to die tonight, my Hearer, your house is not in order. You
   could not go home to your bed with anything like joy if you knew that
   you were about to lie down upon it, never to rise from it again! I
   recollect when the cholera was here the last time that I was going to a
   house on Blackfriars-road where a man had just put up a bedstead. He
   had moved only that very morning from another district which was
   unhealthy. He had only just put up the bed, and he lay there, fast
   dying, and I knelt by his bedside. Now, suppose that were to be your
   case?--

   "Shouldswift death this night overtake you, And your bed become your
   tomb-- Would the morn in Heaven awake you Clad in light and deathless
   bloom?" Can you hope so? Ah, there are many of you who have no such
   hope! The thought of death is very unpleasant to you just now! That hot
   blood does not like to think of the chill cold hand--and those happy
   eyes do not welcome the thought of the bleak pall, the cold vault and
   the sad refrain--"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes." So then, my Soul, if
   you are afraid even to die, which is but the beginning of sorrows, do
   let yourself be affected with that awful fact that there is another
   death far more terrible than this first death, and a doom more fearful
   by far! Do let these thoughts come home to you, my Hearer--you must
   either turn or die--and in that death of the soul, there is an emphasis
   of unutterable woe!

   Then, again, if I am not prepared to die and this text is brought home
   to me with power by the Holy Spirit, I shall see that I am still less
   prepared to take my last trial before the great Judge.

   It is certain that when my soul leaves my body, it will not die, but
   will be summoned into the august Presence of the Great King and then,
   during the time that will elapse between death and resurrection, your
   soul and mine, if they are guilty, will begin to suffer under an
   apprehension of the wrath which is yet to come! Am I prepared to face
   God as a disembodied spirit? May we not well start at the thought? May
   not even the true Christian feel it to be no child's play to think of
   his spirit coming before the bar of God? But much more the man who is
   without God and without hope!

   Oh, Soul, what will you do when this poor flesh is left behind and you
   must pass that solemn test? But before long, how soon we cannot tell,
   the body which has been moldering in this grave shall rise again! The
   trumpet of the archangel, shrill and loud, shall be heard over hill and
   dale. Ten thousand times ten thousand angels shall descend and in the
   midst of them shall come the cloud, the Great White Cloud, and on the
   cloud shall be the Throne, and on the Throne, the Son

   of Man who once was crucified--no longer with His hands pierced with
   nails, but grasping the scepter of all worlds! No longer "despised and
   rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief," but now--

   "With rainbow wreath and robes of storm, On cherub wings and wings of
   wind, Appointed Judge of all mankind!" If the heart is properly
   affected by this text it, will say, "I am not ready to meet Him! I am
   not ready to be in that great assembly! I am not ready to hear the
   cry--'Come to judgment! Come to judgment! Come away!' I am not ready be
   to put into the scales! I am not prepared to be brought up before those
   eyes of fire! I am not ready to have my secrets read before assembled
   men and angels! I am not ready to hear the Judge say, 'Depart you
   cursed!'" Well, but if the mere dying, which is only the leaving of
   this world. If the mere coming before the bar of God, if ultimate
   coming before Him at the Last Great Day is terrible. Oh, if the text
   should come home with power, my dear Hearer, and I pray God it
   may!--you will recollect that all this is not dying--it is only being
   tried and sentenced, but it is not the execution! Oh, if judgment is so
   terrible, what must executionbe? If merely to be brought up and
   committed for trial is terrible, what will it be to be taken out to the
   Mount of Doom? If we are afraid of the Judge, how much more of His
   sentence being carried out! Why, before condemned souls hear their
   retribution fixed, you hear them crying, "Rocks, hide us, mountains
   fall upon us!" Christ has not smitten them--He has only looked at
   them--but its condemnation of them for the rejection of His saving
   mercy makes them appeal to the flinty rocks to yield them a shelter,
   for they cannot find a place of refuge! I say again, if the Judgment is
   so awe-inspiring, what will the execution of that judgment be? Guilty
   Soul! Where will you fly or hide, then? Shall my soul ever be there? If
   God the Holy Spirit applies this text of mine with power, we shall ask
   ourselves, "How can I bear to die the second death?" What is that
   second death? Surely it means this--that just as the first death takes
   away man from all earthlysources of life and joy, so the second death
   separates from all sources of spiritual peace and pardon, Grace and
   salvation!

   No more your feasts, the dance, and the sound of the violin! No more
   the jest or song of ribaldry. You die and all these are over! But the
   greater death means no more the house of God, the opportunity to pray,
   to repent, to believe, to receive God's free and full salvation! It
   means--that second death--the anguish more than these lips could dare
   to speak even if this mind knew! Oh, the anguish of a soul that is
   withered beneath the curse of God! Oh, the anguish of a spirit that is
   banished forever from the Presence of the Mast High!--

   "To linger in eternal death, Yet death forever fly!"

   Here comes the worst of it, that this death is forever! What says the
   Scripture? "Eternal destruction from the Presence of the Lord"--not a
   moment, and then it is all over--but eternal destruction. The Scripture
   has put the two side by side, "These shall go away into everlasting
   punishment, but the righteous unto life eternal." The same word applies
   to both. As long as Heaven shall shine so long Hell shall burn! As long
   as saints are happy, so long shall those whose impenitence has made
   them castaways be wretched!

   How I recall the time when this Truth of God came home to my heart with
   power! And I can only say of it, that I bless God I ever felt it! I
   think I would never have hated sin. I would never have fled to Christ
   if I had not been shown the flower that springs out of the seed of sin.
   Sinner, do not turn your head away and be angry! If you love sin, look
   at the child of this ill mother! Sinner, you love sin, that is but the
   seed--come and see the flower that springs out of it! No, Man, look at
   your own work! Sin is the spark and this is the flame. If you would
   escape Hell, escape sin! If you are afraid of Hell, O Sinner, be as
   afraid of sin! May the Lord drive this home! I know I cannot. It is a
   topic so distasteful that it is not likely that the mind will linger on
   it. I know you will try to shake it off and dismiss it. "Die," you say,
   "what is there in that? Or what care we about it?" But I tell you in
   deepest love, that if the Holy Spirit presses home the question of my
   text, there will be no sleep for you until you have found the Savior!
   There will be no rest in you until you find it in Jesus Christ! You
   will then begin to cry out, "God be merciful to me, a sinner. Help me
   to flee from the wrath to come, enable me to hide in the Rock of Ages
   cleft for me."

   Thus I have strived to make plain to you the first point. The soul's
   fears are awakened when it sees that it must either turn or die, must
   look these two things in the face, "I must give up my sin, or I must be
   cast away eternally." The second truth of the text is this--that where
   this solemn question is pressed home by the Holy Spirit--

   II. YOUR HEART WILL BE MOVED.

   "Turn you, turn you," says the text, twice over. It is earnest,
   emphatic, importunate. "Turn you, turn you." It looks as if it had been
   wetted with tears, or as if a sigh and a groan were in the very sound
   of it. "Turn you, turn you." It seems to have the plaintive love of a
   mother about it and yet the majesty and authority of a Divine command,
   "Turn you, turn you." Now, if this shall be brought home to you by God
   the Holy Spirit, you will begin to say, "Then I must turn from all my
   evil practices. I must be done forever with my drinking and my cursing
   if I have been guilty of these. I must now be done with
   Sabbath-breaking, with coarse and evil talk. I must be done with all
   these sins and lusts of the flesh!" "Turn you, turn you." But, more
   than this, you will say, "I must have done with my evil thoughts--'let
   the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.' I
   must have done with proud thoughts. Lying thoughts. Vain thoughts.
   Murmuring thoughts. God calls me to turn from them all! I must have
   done with skeptical notions. I must have done with boastful utterances.
   I must have done with everything that is contrary to the pure mind of
   God. But that is not all. The text says, 'Turn you, turn you.' It means
   that I must turn altogether from my natural enmity to God. I must love
   Him whom I hated! The very things at which I have laughed, I must now
   reverence. It must by such a complete turning round that the things I
   despised I must love, and the things I loved I must hate. I hear God
   saying concerning all my darling pleasures, 'Turn you, turn you!' It
   will make me change my companions. It will change my way of talking. It
   will make a new man of me altogether if this text comes with force to
   me, 'Turn you, turn you.'"

   But I think I hear you say, "Oh, but this is too hard a task, if to
   turn is to be so thorough as this! If it were merely a turning from
   drunkenness to abstinence, or a turning from open vice to morality, I
   could manage it." Ah, that you might, and a very good thing it might
   be, my Hearer, but it would not save you! The turning that is needed is
   more than this. "Except you are converted and be as little children you
   shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." "You must be
   born-again." "Well," says one, "then I am bid do a task that is
   impossible!" Yes, that is true--most true. The exhortation that comes
   to you is meant to teach you something of your powerlessness. "Turn
   you, turn you." You can turn from your outward sins, from many evil
   ways, but if ever you are to be turned from wicked thoughts and evil
   nature, it will be by something more than your own strength--you will
   need to look to a stronger arm and a mightier power than a merely
   mortal one! Listen to me, then, for I think this word will drop like
   the balm of Gilead, or the honey from the honeycomb. "Turn you, turn
   you" to Christ, for He can do for you what you could never do for
   yourself! You cannot resist your sins in your own power. And you cannot
   change your sinful nature and renew it in purity and holiness! But
   there is One who can do it for you!

   I think I see your history. You are like the vessel that is in the
   stream. It is a mighty stream--so strong, so swift, that no vessel ever
   came within its tremendous force and escaped there from. The vessel is
   floating on and the passengers on board are frivolous and happy. They
   are wondering where the wind came from that makes them sail softly and
   so swiftly. They dance upon the deck, they drink, they laugh, they
   sport the happy hours away. They know not that the maelstrom is but a
   little way ahead--that there is an awful whirlpool that will suck in
   the vessel and all its passengers and crew-- and take them down to sure
   destruction! As the vessel sails gaily along there is heard a Voice
   above the wind, "Turn you, turn you," and the captain looks about and
   wonders from where it came. "Turn you, turn you," comes the cry again,
   and the passengers go to the helm. A mysterious impulse comes over them
   all and then, as they look beyond they can see the gulf, they can see
   the maelstrom, they can see the danger--and now they are all ready to
   obey the Voice that sounds mysteriously in the air! They rush to the
   helm, but--O God! O God--it is gone! There is no power to turn it and
   the vessel is drifting on! She goes more swiftly than ever! She flies
   upon the stream. "Turn you, turn you!" the Voice still sounds, but
   every passenger is crying, "We are mocked! It must be a demon voice
   that mocks us, for how can we turn? The helm is gone! In same unguarded
   hour of ribaldry we unshipped the helm and lost it, and now we cannot
   turn!"

   Just then there is seen descending from the skies a bright Spirit. They
   know Him by the pierced hands and feet, and He comes upon the deck.
   They cast themselves down before Him, and cry, "Help us! Help us!" and
   with a touch he refits the helm and turns the vessel around and,
   against the stream, with many a struggle, she begins to make her way,
   while a heavenly breeze comes and fans the sail and the vessel is safe!
   Thank God, she is safe, with all on board! Now, that is your case
   tonight, my dear Hearer! You have got into the stream of sin and your
   habits have got too strong for you. If it were for you, and for you
   only, to turn the vessel around, I would despair, but while the Voice
   sounds, "Turn you, turn you!" oh, lift up your eyes to Heaven and say,
   "Master, Jesus, turn us and we shall be turned! Come into our hearts!
   We trust

   You, You bleeding One! Your hand was once outstretched to be wounded
   and made to bleed for sin--stretch it out now to save us from sin, and
   turn our boat, and make her sail by Your good Spirit in the way of
   righteousness."

   Now this cry, "Turn you, turn you," will be of no use, then, it seems,
   unless it is attended with the Divine Power, but when it is, what a
   great blessing it is! Alas, there are many who hear us who will not
   turn for all that, but they that are wise will obey the command. My
   friend, Sir John Burgoyne, once told me that in the Peninsular War he
   and some other officers were entering--I think it was the town of
   Salamanca, which stood upon the side of a hill in such a way that a
   church which was built on the slope would have its roof level with the
   earth higher up the hill. He went, not knowing anything of danger, in
   at the door of the church--and there were Frenchmen with guns on the
   roof to defend the place. He said he could not forget how the
   courtesies of those brave men, anxious not to shoot officers who were
   more civil than military, made them to call out "Retire, retire," and
   how he did retire fast enough and was not anxious to tempt a gun when
   entreated to retire! Now something like that appears to me to be the
   position of the ungodly man. He goes where he should not be. He
   trespasses, but a Voice from above which might have been silent--and
   there might have been a deadly cannonade of Divine Resentment--calls
   out, "Retire, retire," tempt Me no longer, Sinner! Provoke Me no more!
   My anger has long been held in! I have restrained Myself! I have sent
   My Son to you! I have bid you trust Him and love Him! I have called
   unto you by My servants. I have bid you, repent, but you have not
   repented--are you still My enemy? You are going on in your sins, but I
   charge you once again, by My eternal mercy, turn, turn, turn, for why
   will you die?" This, then, seems to me to be what the text will do in
   the heart if God the Holy Spirit sends it home.

   And so we shall close with the third point. Should the text be made by
   God the Holy Spirit to be as an arrow fixed in the heart--

   III. IT WILL MAKE AN APPEAL TO THE UNDERSTANDING.

   The understanding, being thus appealed to, will begin to ask questions
   like this--"Why should I die? I know that this death is terrible,
   indeed. Why should I have to suffer it? What reason is there why I
   should be subject to it?" And, my dear Hearer, if God the Holy Spirit
   awakens you, you will not be able to give a good answer to that! On the
   contrary, you will begin, one by one, driving out as foolish all the
   answers you used to give. You will say, "Oh, I used to say, Let well
   enough alone. What is to be will be. I used to be quite indifferent to
   it, but I cannot be indifferent now. Indifferent when I am in danger of
   death? Indifferent when I may, within the next few minutes, know all
   that is to be known of eternal things? Careless where eternity is
   concerned? No, my God, my madness is now over! Behold, I turn to You! I
   cannot thus answer the question."

   Once, too, the sinner could say, "I hated to be troubled. I said do not
   bother me with any of your religion! Keep it away." But now, "I wish to
   be troubled--the more troubled I can be, the better, so that I may not
   be troubled at the last. Once I liked a fashionable preacher who spoke
   in fine and gaudy words, but who never seemed to insinuate that he had
   a sinner in his congregation or that there was perdition for the
   ungodly--but now let me know the worst of my state. Let me be dealt
   with honestly and faithfully, and if I am in great danger, God grant
   that I may know it, so that I may escape from it. The more a man can
   cut open my heart and send the arrow direct into my conscience, the
   better! I am only afraid lest mortification should set in and that I
   may die before I can be awakened and healed and saved."

   Moreover, if God the Holy spirit has awakened you, you will have given
   up all your other excuses. Once you said, "I cannot give up my
   pleasures." Now you say, "I cannot afford to sell my soul for an hour
   or two of merry effervescence! I cannot give reality for shams. I have
   tried the world's pleasures and all I can say is, there is nothing in
   them that is real and satisfying! I am sick and weary of them"--

   'I cannot sell my soul so cheap, Nor part with Heaven for you.'" Once
   you used to say, "I cannot turn. I could not face my old companions. I
   could not bear to hear that man that I shall meet tomorrow say, 'Ah, so
   you have become religious, have you?'" "Now," says the conscience, "I
   could meet the very devil! I feel as if I would be afraid of no man if
   I might but be saved." They may laugh who will, but they will not laugh
   you to destruction if the Holy Spirit should really send home the text!
   Mark you, I am only speaking on that supposition, and then the soul
   will say, "Afraid of man? No, I am too much afraid of God! Afraid of
   being laughed at? No, I am too much afraid of hearing the Voice,
   'Depart you cursed.' I may well bear the laughter of men so that I may
   escape the wrath

   of God!"

   You used to say, "Time enough yet," but if this text comes home, you
   will not say that. You will feel as if every moment were important and
   as if every tick of the clock might be your last. You will be asking
   that you may hide in Jesus, and that you may hide there at once! You
   used to say, "Pshaw! Religious people are all hypocrites!" But you will
   not say that now, or if you do, you will say, "That is no reason why I
   should not be sincere. If every minister should be a canting pretender
   and every professor should be a hypocrite, what will that matter to me?
   Must not I escape personallyfrom the wrath to come? Their being
   condemned, as they justly must be if they are hypocrites, will not make
   my doom any more light and, therefore, I will not hide behind an
   accusing of others, but I will accuse myself."

   I do not know how it is, dear Friends. I did want to bring home this
   text to the heart, but I am conscious now, more than ever, that it is
   not for meto bring it home, but for the Master to do it. I can say,
   "Turn you, turn you," but He can turn you! I can tell you of this
   death, but He can enable you to feel its terrible power. I can tell you
   of the love and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, but He can make you to
   pant and thirst after them! And remember, if you want them, you may
   have them! If you desire Christ, you may have Him! If there is a sinner
   here that would to saved, let him flee to Jesus! Let him, sitting where
   he is, look to Christ with his soul's eyes as He hangs upon the Cross.
   Rest your soul upon Him, Sinner! Black as it is, trust Him to cleanse
   it. Though you are altogether ruined and undone, if you can believe,
   all things are possible to him that believes! Never did a soul rest on
   Christ and find Him fail him. Come to Him! Come to Him! The doors of
   His heart are opened! He is waiting to receive you! You need not wait
   until you are prepared--come as you are! Come in your loathsomeness if
   such is your state. Come in spiritual ruin and depravity if such is
   your condition. Come now! Come now! "Why will you die?" Mercy provides
   the means of life. Christ died. Why will you die? Christ lives, why
   should not you live?

   I remember a powerful preacher once finishing a sermon which God had
   helped him to deliver with extraordinary force, by turning to his
   congregation and asking, "Why will you die?" Then he paused and
   continued, "What reason have you? What motive, what argument, what
   apologies, what excuses? Why will you die?" Then he stopped a moment,
   and said, "Why will you die? Why will you? Why this desperate resolve?
   Why this firmness? You vacillate elsewhere-- why be so obstinate here?
   Why will you? Why is your heart set fast like iron? You can bend like a
   willow towards the wrong--why are you firm as granite against the
   right? Why will you die?" Then looking round his congregation, and
   picking out certain members of it, he said, "Why will you die? You
   gray-heads who have had such an experience of the vanity of the world,
   why will you die? You young people to whom there is such happiness
   offered, why will you die? You chief of sinners, whose doom will be so
   terrible, why will you die? You moralists, you amiable ones, you who
   seem to have some desire towards God, why will you die? So he put it to
   each one. And then he came to the last, "Why will you die? Why will you
   be driven from God's Presence? Why will you receive His curse? Why will
   you make your bed in Hell? Why will you dwell with the devouring fire?
   Why will you abide in everlasting banishment from God? Why will you
   die? Do you see anything so tempting in the face of doom? Is there
   anything so sweet in that grim Lake of Fire? Why will you

   die?"

   Oh, may the force of this exhortation come home to you--"Turn you, turn
   you from your evil ways, for why will you die, house of Israel?" May
   the Lord put His arm to this work and then great good shall be
   done--and His shall be the Glory! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH3:12-25'

   Verse 12-14. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say,
   Return, backsliding Israel, says the LORD; and I will not cause My
   anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the LORD, and I will
   not stay angry forever Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have
   transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to
   the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice,
   says the LORD. Turn, O backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am
   married unto you. There is a mixed figure here, but there is no mixed
   sense--children and yet married unto Him. The bond was a double
   one--they were begotten and betrothed. God cares little about the rules
   of human oratory and formal eloquence. If His meaning can only be made
   perfectly plain, He freely breaks through all such rules and
   regulations as we properly make for our talk. "O backsliding children I
   am married unto you."

   14. And I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will
   bring you to Zion. That is, "two of a tribe," for the word, "family,"
   was used in a very large sense in those times and comprehended perhaps
   the whole of one of the twelve tribes.

   15. AndI will give you pastors according to My heart, which shall
   feedyou with knowledge and understanding. The backsliders, when they
   come back, shall not be left outside the fold, but they shall have
   shepherds to watch over them. And they shall not be left to a lean
   pasture, but they shall be fed with knowledge and understanding. This
   is fine fare for the hungry soul! Knowledge is good, but understanding
   is better. To know may be of little service unless we have the inner
   and deeper knowledge with it and understand what we know. These pastors
   shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. They shall not only
   teach, but teach so that you cannot fail to learn!

   16. And it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in
   the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall say no more. The Ark
   of the Covenant of the LORD; neither shall it come to mind: neither
   shall they remember it neither shall they visit it; neither shall that
   be done any more.Ceremonial retreats into the dim background when the
   spiritual is in full vigor! They have come to God for themselves and
   they now need not that sacred Ark of gopher wood lined within and
   without with gold. In the present day those that walk near to God think
   but little of the eternal. That which God commands they obey, but their
   confidence lies in Him. True religion is not a form, but a life--and
   the soul living near to God is the main, the really essential thing.

   17. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of the LORD; and
   all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to
   Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of
   their evilheart. This is, I believe, yet to be literally fulfilled in
   Jerusalem, itself, and also spiritually to be fulfilled in the Church,
   when she shall not be behind the nations but become their head and take
   the lead in all of blessing for mankind!

   18. 19. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of
   Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to
   the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your father. But I
   said, How shall I put you among the children?As if God, Himself, were
   at a pass and brought to a nonplus! These people had sinned so much and
   had been driven, consequently, to the ends of the earth. "I said, How
   shall I put you among the children?"

   19. Andgive you apleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts
   ofnations andIsaid, You shall callMe, My Father. When God gives us the
   spirit of children, then it becomes easy for Him to put us among the
   children! Where the nature of children is given by Divine Regeneration,
   the rights of children may well be given by adoption! "I said, You
   shall call

   Me, My Father."

   19. And shall not turn away from Me. I always look upon that second
   part of the blessing as being perhaps the richer of the two! The final
   perseverance of the saints forms the cluster of crown jewels that is
   found in the casket of the Covenant. "You shall not depart from Me. You
   shall not turn away from Me." Oh--

   "If ever it should come to pass

   That sheep of Christ could fall away

   My fickle, feeble soul, alas,

   Would fall ten thousand times a day!" But He that has begun the good
   work has promised to carry it on. There is our safety and our rest!
   "You shall call Me, My Father, and shall not turn away from Me."

   20-21. Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have
   you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, says the LORD. A
   voice was heard upon the high place, weeping and supplications of the
   children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have
   forgotten the LORD their God. The worst of crimes--that a wife should
   be false to her marriage vows and turn aside from her husband whom she
   is bound to love! And very seldom is it that a husband calls a
   treacherous wife back again--but God, in infinite mercy, hates putting
   away. He cannot bear divorce. He still holds to the object of His love
   and, therefore, complains with a sweet fidelity of affection, of the
   treachery of Israel. And while He is doing it, a voice is heard upon
   the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel,
   for they have perverted their way and have forgotten Jehovah their
   God--and, therefore, what was there for them but sorrow? They were on
   their high places offering sacrifice and incense to their new gods! And
   instead of joy and holy Psalms and hymns of delight, they were crying
   like the priests of Baal and cutting themselves and torturing
   themselves! God heard it--weeping and supplications--but not to Him,
   for they had perverted their way. Their sorrow did not come

   from Him, for they had forgotten the Lord their God. But that sorrow
   had something hopeful about it. They found no joy in their new gods and
   derived no comfort from their backslidings.

   22. Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your
   backslidings. Oh, the wonderful mercy of God! He treats sin as a
   disease. It was a grand thought, that, on God's part, that He would not
   so much look upon sin as being a willful deed and crime, but would look
   upon it as a malady of the mind and soul. "I will heal your
   backslidings." And see the sweet answer that Israel gives to this--

   22. Behold, we come unto You, for You are the LORD our God. Oh, that
   that answer might come from every backsliding heart that is here
   tonight--that there might be a restoration of the wanderer to his God!

   23. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the
   multitude of mountains. See, they were trying to get it from their high
   places! They lifted up their voices to their gods, but they only
   learned to mourn and weep. "In vain is salvation hoped for from the
   hills and from the multitude of mountains."

   23-25. Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel For shame
   has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and
   their herds, their sons and their daughters. We lie down in our shame,
   and our confusion covers us: for we have sinned against the LORD our
   God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have
   not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God. May such repentance as that
   fall to the lot of any wanderers who listen now to my words!
     __________________________________________________________________

Solace for Sad Hearts

   (No. 3325)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "To console them that mourn in Zion." Isaiah 61:3.

   IT is no small advantage to know beyond mistake of whom this is
   declared. Our gracious Master has appropriated this as His very own and
   we can be under no possible delusion now when we see in this Servant of
   the Lord, the Son of God, Himself. When in the synagogue at Nazareth on
   the Sabbath, He read before the astonished congregation this marvelous
   passage from the Scripture roll and then handed it back to the leader
   of the synagogue. He began to interpret it by saying, "This day is this
   Scripture fulfilled in your ears." It is no surprise for us to find
   that His hearers fastened their eyes upon Him in admiring wonder
   because of "the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth."

   Think what was the burden of this unique discourse! It was concerning
   Himself as the preacher of good tidings--as the binder up of the
   brokenhearted and the liberator of the enslaved!

   No doubt there was an allusion here to the ancient Jewish Jubilee. When
   the silver trumpet sounded in the morning because the 50th year had
   come, that moment every captive throughout Judaea's land was free and
   none could hold him in bondage--

   "The year of Jubilee is come,

   Return, you ransomed captives, home."

   That is the song I want my hearers to sing now. Jesus Christ proclaims
   it--proclaims i t. Do you notice that! A proclamation is a message
   which all loyal subjects are sure to attend to. It is not headed V.
   R.-- Vivat Rex! But Vivat Rex Jehovah! Long live Jehovah the King! He
   issues the proclamation from His Throne and bids His Son tell captive
   souls that Christ Jesus sets them free! Let them but believe Him and
   they shall rise to instant liberty! The Lord grant that many may accept
   this good news! We may expect it, for the Spirit of God rests upon the
   preaching of Christ.

   But there is yet another proclamation, and that of a double kind. There
   is a necessary connection between the two, "the acceptable year of the
   Lord and the day of vengeance of our God." It is because God has
   visited and executed vengeance upon our sins when laid on His dear Son
   as our Savior, that now it is possible for us to find acceptance
   through Him. Out of this there springs, therefore, the reasonable
   ground of comfort for them that mourn. The Savior's Sacrifice is a full
   fountain of hope for hearts that sorrow for sin. No mourner need
   despond, much less despair, since God has executed the sentence of His
   wrath upon the Great Substitute, that He might freely accept every
   sinner that believes! We are now going a step farther and instead of
   reminding you that those who mourn may be comforted, we shall proclaim
   the loving kindness of the Lord and make it clear that God has a
   peculiar regard to mourners--and that he has appointed, provided and
   reserved special blessings for them. "Blessed are they that mourn, for
   they shall be comforted." So runs the Eternal Purpose and so did our
   Lord declare in the opening of His Sermon on the Mount.

   The anointed Savior came "to console them that mourn in Zion." Consider
   carefully four things. What are they doing?They mourn. Where are they
   doing it?\n Zion. Who thinks of them?The Great God who here speaks
   about them. And what is He doing for them?His purposes are "to console
   them that mourn in Zion." First, then--

   I. WHAT ARE THEY DOING--these people of whom the text speaks? They are
   mourning. Not a very cheerful occupation. Nobody will be very much
   attracted towards them by that fact. Most men choose lively, happy
   company--and mourners are generally left alone. Are they not to be
   greatly pitied? Reason thinks not! But Faith has heard Jesus say,
   "Blessed are they that mourn" and, therefore, she believes it to be
   better to be a mourning saint than a merry sinner-- and she is willing
   to take her place on the stool of penitence and weep, rather than sit
   in the seat of the scorner and laugh!

   Because these people mourn, they differ from other people. If they are
   mourning in Zion, their case is peculiar. There is evidently a
   distinction between them and the great majority of mankind, for men of
   the world are often lighthearted and frivolous, never thinking or
   looking to the future. So unreal is their happiness that it would not
   bear the weight of an hour's quiet consideration! And so they make
   mirth in order to drown all thought of their true state. They are all
   for pastimes, amusements, gaieties--these are your lighthearted, jolly
   fellows who drink wine in bowls and "drive dull care away." It is
   greatly wise for a man to commune with his own heart upon his bed and
   be still, but these foolish ones never do this and, therefore, they
   flash with the effervescence of mirth and sparkle with false joy! Those
   who mourn in Zion are very different from these giddy, superficial
   people. In fact, they cannot bear them, but are grieved with their
   foolish con-versation--as any man of sense may well be! Who wants to
   have these blowflies forever buzzing about him? The gracious ones who
   mourn in Zion are as different from them as the lily from the hemlock,
   or as the dove from the hawk. He who allows reason to take its proper
   place and to be taught right reason by the Word of God, from that time
   separates himself from the giddy throng and takes the cool sequestered
   path which leads to God.

   Equally does this mourning separate the Gospel mourner from the
   obstinate and the daring, for alas, many are so wicked as to wear a
   bronze brow and exhibit a heart of steel in the Presence of the Lord.
   They defy the Divine Wrath and impudently scorn the punishment due to
   sin! Like Pharaoh, they ask, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His
   voice?" They despise death, judgment, eternity and set themselves in
   battle array against the Almighty! Those who mourn in Zion are not of
   this company, for they tremble at the Word of the Lord. Their hearts
   are sensitive to the faintest sign of God's displeasure and when they
   know that they have done that which is grievous in His sight,
   immediately their sorrow overflows! They deeply lament their
   provocations and humbly pray that they may be kept from further
   offenses.

   Zion's mourners are also very different from the self-conceited who are
   puffed up with high notions of their own excellence. They are never
   known to assert that from their youth up they have kept all the
   commandments, nor do they even dream of thanking God that they are
   better than others! Room for boasting they find not, for they rather
   abhor themselves in dust and ashes! Their sins, follies and failings
   are a daily burden to them and they loathe the very idea of
   self-satisfaction!

   Those who mourn in Zion are not among those loud professors who glory
   in the abundance of their Grace and reckon that they are out of the
   reach of temptation. You will never hear them cry, "My mountain stands
   firm! I shall never be moved!" No, their prayer is, "Hold You me up and
   I shall be safe." Holy anxiety to be found sincere and acceptable with
   God prevents all self-confidence. I would not encourage doubts and
   fears, but I will go the length of the poet and say--

   "He that never doubted of his state, He may, perhaps he may, too late."
   I fear that not a few who dream that they possess strong faith are
   under a strong delusion to believe a lie. And instead of having the
   confidence which is worked of the Spirit of Lord, which is quite
   consistent with holy mourning, they feel a false confidence based upon
   themselves and, therefore, founded upon the sand! This puffs them up
   with a false peace and makes them talk exceedingly proud, to the sorrow
   of the Lord's wounded ones. The Lord's people should prudently get out
   of the way of these lofty spirits who grieve the humble in heart! They
   are the strong cattle of whom Ezekiel speaks, which thrust with horn
   and shoulder, and despise the weak ones whom God has chosen! Lord, let
   my portion be with the mourners, and not with the boasters! Let me take
   my share with those who weep for sin and weep after You! And as for
   those who are careless, or those who are rebellious, or those who are
   self-righteous--let them take their frothy joy and drain the cup--for
   true saints desire not its intoxicating draught!

   The mourners in Zion are not only different from other people, but they
   are also much changed from their former selves. They are scarcely aware
   of the great change which they have undergone, but even their mourning
   is an evidence of their being new creatures. The things wherein they
   formerly rejoiced are now their horror, while other things which they
   once despised, they now eagerly desire. They have put away their
   ornaments--their finery of pride they have exchanged for the sackcloth
   of repentance! Their noisy merriment for humble confession! They now
   wonder how they could have thought the ways of sin to be pleasurable
   and feel as if they could weep their eyes out because of their extreme
   folly! You would not think that they were the same people! In fact, to
   tell you the truth, they are notthe same, for they have been born-again
   and have undergone a new creation of which their humiliation before God
   is no mean sign. Their hearts of stone have been taken away and the
   Lord has given them hearts of flesh--to feel, to tremble, to lament and
   to seek the

   Lord!

   God's mourners also find themselves different from what they are at
   times even now, for they see themselves wander and immediately they
   quarrel with themselves and smite upon their offending breasts! Such
   occasions of self-abhorrence they find daily. The man who is satisfied
   with himself had better search his heart, for there are signs of
   rottenness about him. The man who is deeply discontented with himself
   is probably growing fast into the full likeness of Christ. Do you, dear
   Friend, feel that you could justify yourself as to all that you have
   done, or thought, or felt today from morning to evening--at home or
   abroad, in the shop or in the street? Oh, no! I am sure you will
   confess that in many things you have fallen short and you will
   penitently grieve before the living God. You would not on any account
   do or say again all that you have done and said! You bless God who has
   sanctified you and delivered you from the dominion of sin, but still
   you have to complain that sin has a fearful power to lead you into
   captivity and, therefore, you are not pleased with yourself--and are
   more ready to join in a confession, than in a hymn of self-glorifying.
   The text says of mourners of that kind that God has appointed great
   things for them, and therefore let us pray the Holy Spirit to work this
   mourning in us.

   Now, this mourning, of which we are speaking, is part and parcel of
   these people's lives. When they began to live to Christ, they began to
   mourn. Every child of God is born-again with a tear in his or her eyes.
   Dry-eyed faith is not the faith of God's elect. He who rejoices in
   Christ, at the same time mourns for sin! Repentance is joined to faith
   by loving bonds, as the Siamese twins were united in one. The new birth
   always takes place in the chamber of sorrow of sin--it cannot be
   otherwise! The true Christian was a mourner at conversion and since
   then he has been a mourner, even in the happiest day he has known. When
   was that? The happiest day I ever knew was when I found Jesus to be my
   Savior and when I felt the burden of my sins roll from off me. "Oh,
   happy day, when Jesus washed my sins away," but I mourned that day to
   think that I had been so greatly polluted and had needed that my Lord
   should die to put away my sin! I mourned to think that I had not loved
   and trusted the Savior before--and before the sun went down I was
   mourning to think that I did not--even then--love my Lord as I desired!
   I had not gone many paces on the road to Heaven before I began to mourn
   that I limped so badly, that I traveled so slowly and was so little
   like my Lord. So that I know by experience that on the very brightest
   day of his spiritual experience, a true Believer still feels a soft,
   sweet mourning in his heart, falling like one of those gentle showers
   which cool the heat of our summer days and yield a pleasurable
   refreshment. Holy mourning is the blessed pillar of cloud which
   accompanies the redeemed of the Lord in their glad march to Heaven!
   Dear Brothers and Sisters, to some extent we live by mourning! Do not
   imagine we do not rejoice, for in truth, "we rejoice with joy
   unspeakable and full of Glory," but this is quite consistent with holy
   mourning. We sorrow every day that there should be any remains of sin
   in us, that we should still be open to temptation and should have the
   slightest inclination to evil. We mourn that our eyes should look so
   longingly on vanity and that our tongue should be so apt to speak
   unadvisedly. We mourn that our right hand should be so unskillful in
   holy service and that we should be so apt to let it be seen of men when
   we are giving to the Lord! We mourn especially that our heart should
   still be unbelieving, unfeeling and fickle. Yet, we are very happy, but
   we mourn to think that being so happy, we are not more holy--that,
   being so favored, we are not more consecrated! We "rejoice with
   trembling."

   To the Lord's mourners godly sorrow is so essentially a part of
   themselves that they grow while they mourn and even grow by mourning. A
   man never becomes better till he is weary of being imperfect. He who is
   satisfied with his attainments will stay where he is. But he who mourns
   that he is not yet up to the standard will press forward till he
   reaches it. He that says, "My faith is weak," is the man who will
   become stronger in faith. He who confesses that his love is not so
   intense as it ought to be, will have more love before long. He who
   mourns daily that he has not obtained that which he desires is by that
   very agony of spirit approaching the goal! It will be well that
   mourning should be our companion till we come to the gates of
   Paradise--and there we shall mourn no longer! I was going to say, so
   precious is the mourning which the Spirit works in us that we might
   almost regret parting with it! Rowland Hill used to say he felt half
   sorry to think that he must part with the tears of repentance at the
   gates of Heaven. And he was right, for holy mourning is blessed, sweet,
   safe and satisfying. The bitterness is so completely evaporated that we
   can truly say--

   "Lord, let me weep for nothing but sin, And after none but Thee! And
   then I would--oh that I might-- A constant weeper be."

   Dear Friends, holy mourning is no mere melancholy or sickly fancy--it
   has abundant reasons whereby to justify it. We do not mourn because we
   give way to needless dependency, but we lament because it would be
   utter madness to do otherwise! We cannot help mourning. A Christian
   grieves over himself and his shortcomings. And this not from mock
   modesty, but because he sees so much to sigh over. He will tell you
   that he never thinks worse of himself than he ought to do--that the
   very worst condemnation he has ever pronounced upon himself was most
   richly deserved. If you praise him, you pain him. If you commend him,
   he disowns your approbation and tells you that if you knew him better,
   you would think less of him and you would see so much infirmity and
   imperfection within him that you would not again expose him to danger
   by uttering flatteries!

   A child of God also mourns because he is in sympathy with others. It is
   one part of the work of Grace in the soul to give us considerateness
   for our afflicted Brothers and Sisters. Is a child of God, himself,
   prosperous? He recollects others who are poor and in adversity and he
   feels bound with them. He is a member of the body and, therefore, he
   suffers with the other members. If each Believer were distinct and
   separate and kept his own joy to himself and his sorrow to himself, he
   might more often rejoice. But, being a member of a body which is always
   more or less afflicted, he weeps because others weep and mourns because
   others mourn. The more sympathy you have in your nature, the more
   sorrow you will experience. It is the unsympathetic man who laughs
   every day--but the friendly, tender, brotherly, Christlike spirit must
   mourn--it is inevitable!

   And chiefly do Believers mourn because of the sins of others. This
   great city furnishes us with abundant occasion for deep concern. You
   can hardly go down a street but you hear such filthy language that it
   makes your blood chill in your veins! The sharpest blow could not cause
   us more pain than the hearing of profanity. And then the Sabbath--how
   little is it regarded! And the things of God--how little are they cared
   for! Everywhere a child of God with his eyes open must have them filled
   with tears. And if his heart is as it ought to be, it must be ready to
   break! Alas, the cause is frequently in the Christian's own family! He
   has an ungodly child or an unconverted wife. A Christian woman may have
   a drunken husband, or a godly daughter may have a dissipated father.
   These things make life gloomy beyond expression. Woe is me, cries the
   saint, that I dwell as among lions, with those who are set on the fire
   of Hell. Ill society makes a child of God sick at heart. As Lot was
   vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, and as David cried
   for the wings of a dove that he might fly away and be at rest, so do
   the saints pine in this world! Let such mourners take heart while they
   perceive in the text that Jesus has come to comfort all that mourn.
   Now, secondly, let us note--

   II. WHERE THESE PEOPLE ARE MOURNING. They are mourning in Zion. They
   could not carry their griefs to a better place. Sorrow is so common
   that we find mourners in Babylon and Tyre, and even in Sodom and
   Gomorrah! But these are of a different order from the mourners in Zion.

   If we are wearing our sackcloth in the House of the Lord, let us thank
   God, in the first place, that we are not mourning in Hell! We might
   have been there. We shouldhave been there if we had received our due!
   But we are mourning where mourning meets with acceptance from God. We
   are lamenting where a dirge can be changed into a song. I thank God,
   also, that we are not mourning as those do who fiendishly regret that
   accidentally they have done a good thing. You remember how angry
   Pharaoh was with himself because he had let Israel go--I have known men
   who have never been penitent till they have, by mistake, done something
   good, or given too much away! They could gnaw their own hearts out for
   having done a good turn to another! God save us from such diabolical
   mourning as that! And yet it is not uncommon.

   We have known some mourn, too, because they could not do others a
   mischief--because their hands were tied and they could not hurt God's
   people. Like Haman, they have fretted because of Mordecai. They cannot
   endure the prosperity of the godly, but would gladly take them for a
   prey and make them as the mire of the streets. That is a horrible
   mourning which makes a man have fellowship with Satan!

   Some even mourn because they cannot take their fling of sin. They would
   like to indulge every vile passion, have a mint of money at their
   command and none to check them in any way--and they mourn because they
   are hedged up and hindered from destroying themselves! Such foolish
   ones mourn on the ale bench. They mourn in the synagogue of Satan. But
   as for God's people, they mourn in Zion!

   Now let us indulge ourselves with a visit to the courts of Zion to see
   in what parts thereof the mourners may be found, for from her outer
   walls even to her innermost courts, you will find her inhabited by
   them! Some of them mourn just hard by the walls of the holy city. Like
   the Jews of the present day, they have their wailing place under the
   walls of Jerusalem. Poor souls! They dare not enter into the Holy
   Place, and yet they will not, cannot go away! They wait at the

   gates of wisdom's house and they delight in the posts of her doors.
   They never like to be away when the saints assemble, yet they feel as
   if they had no right to be there. They are satisfied with any corner
   and are content to stand all the service through. They take the lowest
   seats and reverence the meanest child of God!

   They sometimes fear that the good Word is not for them and yet like the
   dogs, they come under the table hoping for a morsel. If it is a sermon
   full of thunder, "Yes," they say, "the minister means me!" But if it is
   very sweet and full of comfort they say, "Alas, I dare not think thatit
   is for me." They would not stay away from the holy congregation, for
   they feel that their only hope must lie in hearing the Gospel--and they
   half hope that a word of comfort may be dropped for them--but yet they
   come trembling. They are like the robin redbreast in the winter
   time--they venture near the house and tap upon the window pane--and yet
   are half afraid to come in. When the cold is very severe and they are
   very hungry, they are daring and pick up a crumb or two. Still, for the
   most part, they stand at the temple door and mourn. They are in Zion
   and they sigh and cry because they feel unworthy so much as to lift
   their eyes towards Heaven! Ah, well, the Lord appoints great blessings
   for you--He is good to those who seek Him. He has regard to the cry of
   the humble. He will not despise their prayer. Now, if the archenemy
   should ever suggest to you that it is of no use for you to be found
   hearing the Word of God, for you have heard the preacher so many times
   and even for years have remained unblessed and, therefore, it is all
   hopeless--tell him he is a liar! Be all the more diligent in your
   attendance and strive to lay hold of what is preached. He will persuade
   you not to come when you are most likely to get a blessing! Whenever
   you feel as if, "Really, I cannot go again, for I am so often condemned
   and find no comfort," say to yourself, "Now, I will go this time with
   all the more hope! Satan is laboring to prevent my going because he
   fears that Christ will meet with me." Oh, seeking mourner, forsake not
   the courts of Zion, though you flood them with your tears. Be found
   where the Gospel note tells of Jesus! Be found at the Prayer Meetings.
   Be found on your knees. Be found with your Bible open before you,
   searching for the promise and, above all, believe that Jesus came to
   save such as you are--and cast yourself upon Him!

   Many ransomed ones have been enabled to enter the Temple a little way.
   At the entrance of the Holy Place stood the laver full of water, where
   the priests were known to wash themselves. He who frequents the courts
   of Zion will often mourn at that laver, for he will say, "Alas, that I
   should need such washing! Alas, that I should so frequently spot my
   garments and defile my feet! Cleanse You me, O God. Wash me day by day.
   Dear Savior, cleanse You me from secret faults." These mourners are
   deeply grieved at what others consider little spots, for sin hurts
   their tender consciences and in the Light of God sin is seen to be
   exceedingly sinful in those whom God so highly favors. Hard by the
   laver stood the altar, where they offered the victims. Now, he who sees
   the one great Sacrifice by which sin was put away, while he rejoices in
   the finished Atonement, also laments the sin which slew the Substitute!
   Many a time may you hear the plaintive sing--

   "Alas, and did my Savior bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He
   devote that sacred head For such a worm as I?"

   The more sure we are of our pardon the more we mourn over our sin. We
   look on Him whom we have pierced and a mourning takes hold upon us like
   the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddo when Judah
   lamented the best of kings and saw her sun go down in blood. Awakened
   souls mourn for Jesus as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
   You can never stand at the altar and see Jesus bleed without your own
   heart bleeding if, indeed, the life of God is in you! Can any but a
   heart of stone be unmoved at the sight of Calvary? Blessed are they who
   amidst their joy for pardoned guilt wash the pierced feet of Jesus with
   tears of love and grief!

   Further on in the Holy Place, as you will recollect, there stood the
   altar of incense. It was placed before the veil which hid the Holy of
   Holies, but that veil is torn. Now, they whom mourn in Zion often stand
   and weep as they think of Him whose prayers are the incense which God
   accepts--even Jesus, by whose intercession we live! They think, "Alas,
   that I should be so cold in prayer when Jesus pleads so earnestly!"
   They look over their own intercessions and they see such faultiness,
   such wandering of thought, such coldness of heart, such forgetfulness,
   such pride, such lack of faith, such utter unworthiness that they
   cannot help deeply mourning! Besides, they remember when Satan desired
   to have them and sift them as wheat--and would have destroyed them if
   Jesus had not prayed for them--and they mourn the state of heart which
   placed them in such jeopardy. As by faith they perceive how sweet the
   merits of Jesus are, they remember their own ill savor and begin anew
   to loathe themselves. Their very sense of acceptance in the Beloved
   fills them with humiliation! It

   seems too wonderful that Jesus should do so much for them and make them
   so sweet to the Lord. Great love is a melting flame. When we nestle
   like doves in the bosom of our Lord, we mourn like the loving
   turtledove--we mourn because of the great love which makes us almost
   too happy. We rejoice with trembling and feel both fear and exceedingly
   great joy!

   And then, those who entered the Holy Place would see a table covered
   with loaves of bread. It was called the table of the showbread. Our
   blessed Lord Jesus Christ is that Bread and we feed on Him as the
   priests of old did on the show-bread. But I confess I never stand
   there, myself, and think of how He feeds my soul with His own Self,
   without mourning that I have not a larger appetite for Him and that I
   do not more continually feed upon Him. I lament that I ever hoped to
   find bread elsewhere, or tried to feed on the swine husks of the world.
   Oh, to hunger and thirst after Christ, for this is to be blessed! Oh,
   to feed upon a whole Christ, even to the fullest, for this is to be
   satisfied with royal dainties! We cannot feed on Jesus without mourning
   that others are starving and that we are not more eager to bring them
   to the banquet! We cannot feed on Jesus without mourning that we are
   not, ourselves, more familiar with Heaven's Bread, so as to know how to
   hand it out that the dying multitudes of our great cities may be fed! O
   Lord, cause Your people more and more to lay to heart the sad fact that
   millions are famishing for want of the Bread of Heaven!

   Within the Holy Place also stood the seven-branched candlestick, which
   was always burning and giving forth its pearly light. Before it we also
   mourn. When we rejoice in the Light of God's Holy Spirit we cannot help
   mourning over our natural darkness and our former hatred of the Light
   of God. We also mourn to think that we, ourselves, shine with so feeble
   a ray that our light does not so shine before men as to glorify God to
   the fullest extent. We cannot enjoy the Light of the Divine Spirit
   without praying that we may have more of it. We acknowledge that if we
   have but little of it, it is our own fault, for He is ready to light us
   up with a splendor which shall make the sons of men to wonder from
   where such a luster came! We also mourn because the nations sit in
   darkness and death shade and refuses the heavenly Light of God. And
   thus, you see, we mourn in Zion, from the entrance even to the
   innermost court.

   Even when we pass through the torn veil and stand at the Mercy Seat,
   and enjoy the Believer's true place and privilege, we still mourn. We
   think of the Law, covered by the Propitiatory and we mourn our breaches
   of it. We think of the pot of manna and mourn the days when we called
   the heavenly food, "light bread." We remember Aaron's rod that budded
   and say to ourselves, "Alas, it is a memorial of my own rebellion as
   well as of my Lord's power!" We ask ourselves, "Where is my pot of
   manna of remembered mercy? Alas, my rod does not bud and blossom as it
   should, but often it is dry and fruitless! Alas, that Law which my Lord
   hid in His heart--how little respect have I had for it or remembrance
   of it." And then, looking at the golden Mercy Seat, we wet it with our
   tears because here the blood drops fell, by which we are brought near.
   The Glory of Jehovah between the cherubim bows us down and we cry, "Woe
   is me, for I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!" Our impurity
   prostrates us when, like Isaiah, we behold the Glory of the Lord! Is it
   not meet that it should be so?

   Thus, you see, from the outer courts of Zion, right into the Holy of
   Holies, every spot suggests mourning! And true children of God yield to
   the influence thereof. In every place of mercy and privilege which they
   occupy they look down upon themselves with shame and confusion of face.
   Old Master Dyer used to say, "When the peacock shows his fine feathers,
   he ought to recollect that he has black feet and a horrible voice." And
   so, truly, whenever we are full of Divine Graces and blessings it
   becomes us to recollect what we are by nature--and what there is of
   impurity still lurking within us-- that we may be humble and with our
   confidence in Jesus may mingle repentance of sin! Thus much upon where
   they mourn. And now, thirdly--

   III. WHO THINKS OF THESE MOURNERS? Who consoles those that mourn in
   Zion? Who looks upon poor and

   needy souls? Very often their friends shun them--if they mourn much and
   long, their friends shun their society and their familiar acquaintances
   know them no more. There are places of worship where mourners in Zion
   might come and go by the year together and no one would utter a
   sympathetic word! A broken heart might bleed to death before any hand
   would offer to bind it up! I love to see Christian people anxious after
   poor mourners and eager to meet with penitent and desponding ones. It
   ought not to be possible, dear Friends, in an assembly of Believers,
   for a mourning soul to come and go many times without some
   Barnabas--some son of consolation, seeking him out and offering a word
   of good cheer in the name of the Lord! But mark this--whoever forgets
   the mourner, the Lord does not! There are three Divine Persons who
   remember the mourner! The first is the Eternal Father. Read the first
   part of the Chapter. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me because the
   Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hassent
   Me to bind up the brokenhearted." God, the ever blessed Father, pities
   His sorrowing children and has respect unto their prayers! Poor

   Soul, you are deeply wounded because of your sin and no one on earth
   knows it, yet your heavenly Father knows the thoughts of your heart and
   He tenderly sympathizes with your anguish of mind! Where are you
   standing, poor fretting Hannah? You woman of a sorrowful spirit, I come
   not, like Eli, to judge you harshly and censure you unjustly. Where are
   you? Do you mourn and sigh after your Lord? Then go in peace! The Lord
   grant you your petition. It shall surely be done unto you according to
   your faith. God, the eternal Father, first of all, remembers those who
   mourn. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me."

   Moreover, God the Son has the same kind thoughts towards His mourners.
   What does the first verse say? "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me."
   And you know that it is Christ who speaks. "The Lord has anointed Me to
   bind up the brokenhearted." Jesus, then, undertakes the cause of the
   troubled! He was a mourner all His days and, therefore, He is very
   tender towards mourners--

   "He knows what fierce temptations mean, For He has felt the same."

   "I know their sorrows," He says. "In all their afflictions, He was
   afflicted." He was made perfect through sufferings. Rejoice, O mourner,
   for the Man of Sorrows thinks upon you!

   And then the Holy Spirit--the third Person of the blessed
   Trinity--according to the text remembers mourners. "The Spirit of the
   Lord God is upon Me," He says, "because the Lord has anointed Me." Yes,
   You blessed Spirit, You are the Comforter and who can You comfort but
   mourners? It were useless to comfort those who never knew a sorrow! It
   were a superfluity to attempt to offer consolation to those who were
   never depressed! The Holy Spirit hovers like a dove over the assemblies
   of the Sabbath and whenever He finds a heart which is broken with a
   sense of sin, He alights there and brings light and peace and hope! Be
   of good courage, then, you mourners, for the three Divine Persons unite
   on your behalf! The One God thinks upon you and the gentleness and
   tenderness of His almighty heart are moved towards you! Is not this
   good cheer? Our fourth and last point is this--

   IV. WHAT DOES THE LORD DO FOR THEM?--" To console them that mourn in
   Zion."

   Let us take first the ordinary rendering of the text--" To appoint
   them." God makes appointments to bless mourners. It is His decree, His
   ordinance, His purpose to bless those who mourn in Zion. Some mourners
   are greatly frightened at predestination--they are afraid of the Divine
   decrees. Be of good comfort, there is no decree in God's great Book
   against a mourner! "I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the
   earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you Me in vain." God's
   terrible decrees are against the proud, whom His soul hates, and He
   will break them in pieces. But as for the humble and the meek, His
   purposes concerning them are full of Grace. Read the following verses
   and see--"To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
   mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It is
   registered in the record office above and stands in His Eternal Book
   and so must it be, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be
   comforted." When you think of the decrees, remember this decree and be
   of good comfort.

   But an equally accurate rendering of the text is, " To provide for
   those that mourn in Zion." "To provide." God not only purposes to
   bless, but He does bless His mourners. Our heavenly Father prepares
   good gifts for His mourning family. For whom did Jesus die but for
   mourners? For whom does He live but for mourners? For whom are the
   blessings of His coming but for mourners? O you that are troubled
   because of sin, and hate it--all God's heart goes out towards you and
   all the riches of the Everlasting Covenant are yours! Make bold to take
   them, since for mourners they are provided. For whom are clothes but
   for the naked? For whom are alms provided but for the needy? For whom
   the bath but for the filthy? For whom the medicine but for the sick?
   For whom God's Grace but for you that need it and mourn because of your
   need? Come and welcome! The Lord bring you to Himself at this very
   hour! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Wondrous Covenant

   (No. 3326)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
   after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into their mind,
   and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they
   shall be to Me a people." Hebrews 8:10.

   THE Doctrine of the Divine Covenant lies at the root of all true
   theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction
   between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is a master of
   divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make
   concerning the Doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors
   with regard to the Covenants of Law and of Grace. May God grant us now
   the power to instruct--and you the Grace to receive instruction on this
   vital subject.

   The human race in the order of history, as far as this world is
   concerned, first stood in subjection to God under the Covenant of
   Works. Adam was the representative man. A certain Law was given him. If
   he kept it, he and all his posterity would be blessed as the result of
   obedience. If he broke it, he would incur the curse, himself, and
   entail it on all represented by him. That Covenant our first father
   broke. He fell--he failed to fulfill his obligations--and in his fall
   he involved us all, for we were all in his loins and he represented us
   before God. Our ruin, then, was complete before we were born! We were
   ruined by him who stood as our first representative. To be saved by the
   works of the Law is impossible, for under that Covenant we are already
   lost. If saved at all, it must be all quite a different plan, not on
   the plan of doing and being rewarded for it, for that has been
   tried--and the representative man upon whom it was tried has failed for
   us all. We have all failed in his failure! It is hopeless, therefore,
   to expect to win Divine favor by anything that we can do, or merit
   Divine blessing by way of reward!

   But Divine Mercy has interposed and provided a plan of salvation from
   the Fall. That plan is another Covenant, a Covenant made with Christ
   Jesus, the Son of God, who is fitly called by the Apostle, "the Second
   Adam," because He stood again as the Representative of man. Now, the
   Second Covenant, as far as Christ was concerned, was a Covenant of
   Works quite as much as the other! It was on this wise. Christ shall
   come into the world and perfectly obey the Divine Law. He shall also,
   inasmuch as the first Adam has broken the Law, suffer the penalty of
   sin. If He shall do both of these, then all whom He represents shall be
   blessed in His blessedness and saved because of His merit. You see,
   then, that until our Lord came into this world, it was a Covenant of
   Works towards Him. He had certain works to perform, upon condition of
   which certain blessings would be given to us. Our Lord has kept that
   Covenant! His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter! There
   is no commandment which He has not honored. There is no penalty of the
   broken Law which He has not endured! He became a Servant and obedient,
   yes, obedient to death, even the death of the Cross. He has thus done
   what the first Adam could not accomplish and He has retrieved what the
   first Adam forfeited by his transgression. He has establishedthe
   Covenant, and now it ceases to be a Covenant of Works, for the works
   are all done!--

   "Jesus did them, did them all, Long, long ago."

   And now what remains of the Covenant? God on His part has solemnly
   pledged Himself to give undeserved favor to as many as were represented
   in Christ Jesus. For as many as the Savior died for, there is stored up
   a boundless mass of blessing which shall be given to them--not through
   their works, but as the Sovereign gift of the Grace of God, according
   to His Covenant promise by which they shall be saved!

   Behold, my Brothers and Sisters, the hope of the sons of man! The hope
   of their saving themselves is crushed, for they are already lost! The
   hope of their being saved by works is a fallacious one, for they cannot
   keep the Law--they have

   already broken it! But there is a way of salvation opened on this
   wise--whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ-- receives and partakes
   of the bliss which Christ has bought! All the blessings which belong to
   the Covenant of Grace through the work of Christ shall belong to every
   soul that believes in Jesus! Whoever works not, but believes on Him who
   justifies the ungodly, unto him shall the blessing of the new Covenant
   of Grace be undoubtedly given!

   I hope that this explanation is plain enough. If Adam had kept the Law,
   we would have been blessed by his keeping it. He broke it and we have
   been cursed through him. Now the Second Adam, Christ Jesus, has kept
   the Law--we are, therefore, if Believers, represented in Christ and
   blessed with the results of the obedience of Jesus Christ to His
   Father's will. He said of old, "Lo, I come to do Your will, O God! Your
   Law is My delight." He has done that will and the blessings of Grace
   are now freely given to the sons of men!

   I shall ask your attention then, first, to the privileges of the
   Covenant of Grace. Secondly, to the parties concerned in it This will
   be quite enough, I am sure, for consideration this evening during the
   brief period allotted to our sermon.

   I. As to THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE.

   The first privilege is that to as many as are interested in it there
   shall be given an illumination of their minds. "I will put My Law in
   their minds." By nature we are dark towards God's will. Conscience
   keeps up in us a sort of broken recollection of what God's will was. It
   is a monument of God's will, but it is often hardly legible. A man does
   not care to read it--he is averse to what he reads there. "Their
   foolish heart was dark," is the expression of Scripture with regard to
   the mind of man. But the Holy Spirit is promised to those interested in
   the Covenant. He shall come upon their minds and shed light instead of
   darkness, illuminating them as to what the will of God is. The ungodly
   man has some degree of light, but it is merely intellectual. It is a
   light that he does not love. He loves darkness rather than light
   because his deeds are evil. But where the Holy Spirit comes, He floods
   the soul with a Divine luster in which the soul delights and desires to
   participate to the fullest degree! Brothers and Sisters, the renewed
   man, the man under the Covenant of Grace, does not need constantly to
   resort to his Bible to learn what he ought to do, nor to go to some
   fellow Christian to ask instructions. He has not got the Law of God now
   written on a tablet of stone, or upon parchment, or upon paper--he has
   got the Law written upon his own mind! There is now a Divine,
   Infallible Spirit dwelling within him which tells him the right and the
   wrong--and by this he speedily discerns between the good and the evil.
   He no longer puts darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for
   sweet, and sweet for bitter! His mind is enlightened as to the true
   holiness and the true purity which God requires!

   Just mark the men to whom this Light of God comes. By nature some of
   them are deeply depraved. All of them are depraved, but by practice
   some of them become yet further dark. Is it not marvelous that a poor
   heathen who scarcely seemed to recognize the distinction between right
   and wrong before the Spirit of God entered his mind, has afterwards,
   without needing to be taught all the precepts, individually, received
   at once the quick Light of a tender conscience which has led him to
   know the right and love it, and to see the evil and eschew it? If you
   want to civilize the world, it must be by preaching the Gospel! If you
   want to have men well instructed as to the right and the wrong, it must
   be by this Divine Instruction which only God, Himself, can impart. "I
   will do it," and oh, how blessedly He does it when He takes the man
   that loved evil and called it good, and so sheds a Divine beam into his
   soul that henceforth he cannot be perverse, cannot be obstinate, but
   submits himself to the Divine Will! That is one of the first blessings
   of the Covenant--the illumination of the understanding.

   The next blessing is, "And I will write My Law in their hearts.." This
   is more than knowing the Law--infinitely more. "I will write the Law,
   not merely on their understandings, where it may guide them, but in
   their hearts where it shall lead them." Brothers and Sisters, the Holy
   Spirit makes men love the will of God, makes them delight in all in
   which God delights and abhor that which the Lord abhors! It is well
   said in the text that God will do this, for certainly it is not what a
   man can do for himself. The Ethiopian might sooner change his skin or
   the leopard his spots! It is not what the minister can do, for though
   he may preach to the ears, he cannot write God's Law on the affections.
   I have marveled at the expression used in the text, "I will write My
   Law in their hearts." To write on a heartmust be difficult work, but to
   write in a heart, in the very center of the heart--who can do this but
   God? A man cuts his name upon a tree in the bark and there it stands.
   And the letters grow with the tree--but to cut his name in the heart of
   the tree--how shall he accomplish this? And yet God does Divinely
   engrave His Will and His Law in the very heart and nature of man!

   I know what the notion is about Christian people--that they do not
   conform to this and that custom because they are afraid--they would
   like to revel in the vanities of the world, but they do not care to
   encounter the penalties. Ah, you sons of men, you comprehend not the
   mysterious work of the Spirit! He does nothing of this sort! He makes
   not the child of God to be a serf, a slave, in fear of bondage, but He
   so changes the nature of men that they do not love what they once
   loved! They turn away with loathing from the things they once delighted
   in and can no more indulge in the sins which were once sweet to them
   than an angel could plunge himself down and wallow in the mire with the
   swine! Oh, this is a gracious work! And this is a blessed Covenant in
   which it is promised that we shall be taught the right, to know and
   love the right, and to do the right with a willing mind!

   Am I addressing some tonight who have been saying, "I wish I could be
   saved." What do you mean by that? Do you mean you wish you might escape
   from Hell? Ah, well, I would to God you had another wish--namely, "Oh,
   that I could escape from sin! Oh, that I could be made pure, that my
   passions could be bridled! Oh, that my longings and my likings could be
   changed!" If that is your wish, see what a Gospel I have to preach to
   you! I have not come to tell you--do this, and do not do that. Moses
   tells you that--and the preacher of the Law speaks to you after that
   fashion--but I, the preacher of the Gospel, unveiling the Covenant of
   Grace tonight, tell you that Jesus Christ has done such a work for
   sinners that God, now, for Christ's sake, comes to them, makes them see
   the right and by a Divine work upon them and in them, makes them love
   holiness and follow after righteousness!

   I count this one of the greatest blessings of which ever tongue could
   speak! I would sooner be holy than happy if the two things could be
   divorced. Were it possible for a man to always sorrow and yet to be
   pure, I would choose the sorrow if I might win the purity, for,
   Beloved, to be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness
   though I have spoken after the manner of men to you, is true happiness!
   A man that is holy is in order with the Creation--he is in harmony with
   God! It is impossible for that man to suffer long. He may for awhile
   endure for his lasting good, but as sure as God is happy, the holy must
   be happy! This world is not so constituted that in the long run
   holiness shall go with sorrow, for in eternity God shall show that to
   be pure is to be blessed, to be obedient to the Divine Will is to be
   eternally glorified! In preaching to you, then, these two blessings of
   the Covenant--I have virtually preached to you the open Kingdom of
   Heaven--open to all such whom God's Grace shall look upon with an eye
   of mercy!

   The next blessing of the Covenant is--"I will be to them a God." If any
   ask me what this means, I must reply, Give me a month to consider it.
   And when I had considered the text for a month, I should ask another
   month! And when I had waited a year, I should ask another year--and
   when I had waited till I grew gray, I would still ask the postponement
   of any attempt to fully open it up until eternity! "I will be to them a
   God." Now, mark you, where the Spirit of God has come to teach you the
   Divine Will and make you love the Divine Will, God becomes to
   you--what? A Father? Yes, a loving, tender Father. A Shepherd? Yes, a
   watchful Guardian of His flock. A Friend? Yes, a Friend that sticks
   closer than a brother. A Rock? A Refuge? A Fortress? A high Tower? A
   Castle of defense? A Home? A Heaven? Yes, all that, but when He said "I
   will be their God," He said more than all these put together, for, "I
   will be to them a God," comprehends all gracious titles, all blessed
   promises and all Divine privileges! It comprehends--yes, now I stop,
   for this is Infinite, and the Infinite comprehends all blessings. "I
   will be to them a God." Do you need provision? The cattle on a thousand
   hills are His--it is nothing to Him to give! It will not impoverish
   Him! He will give to you like a God! Do you need comfort? He is the God
   of all consolation--He will comfort you like a Lord. Do you need
   guidance? There is infinite wisdom waiting at your beck and call! Do
   you need support? There is eternal power, the same which guards the
   everlasting hills waiting to be your stay! Do you need Grace? He
   delights in mercy and all that mercy is yours! Every attribute of God
   belongs to His people in covenant with Him. All that God is or can
   be--and what is there not in that?--all that you can conceive and more!
   All the angels have and more! All that Heaven is and more! All that is
   in Christ, even the boundless fullness of Godhead--all this belongs to
   you, if you are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ! How rich,
   how blessed, how august, how noble are those in covenant with God,
   confederate with Heaven! Infinity belongs to you! Lift up your head, O
   child of God, and rejoice in a promise that I cannot expound, and you
   cannot explore! There I must leave it--it is a deep which we strive in
   vain to fathom!

   Notice the next blessing, "And they shall be to Me a people." All flesh
   belongs to God in a certain sense. All men are His by rights of
   Creation and He has an Infinite Sovereignty over them. But He looks
   down upon the sons of men and He

   selects some, and He says, "These shall be My people, not the rest.
   These shall be My peculiar people." When the King of Navarre was
   fighting for his throne, the writer who hymns the battle, says--

   "He looked upon the foemen, and his glance was stern and high.

   He looked upon his people, and the tear was in his eye."

   And when he saw some of the French in arms against him--

   "Then out spoke gentle Henry, No Frenchman is my foe Down, down, with
   every foreigner, but let your brethren go."

   The king looked for his people even if they were in rebellion against
   him! He had a different thought towards them from what he had towards
   others. "Let them go," he seemed to say, "they are my people." So, mark
   you, in the great battles and strifes of this world, when Lord lets
   loose the dread artillery of Heaven, His glance is stern upon His
   enemies, but the tear is in His eyes towards His people. He is always
   tender towards them. "Spare My people," He says, and the angels
   interpose lest these chosen ones should dash their feet against a
   stone!

   People have their treasures, their pearls, their jewels, their rubies,
   their diamonds--and these are their peculiar stones. Now, all in the
   Covenant of Grace are the peculiar stones of God. He values them above
   all things else! In fact, He keeps the world spinning for them! The
   world is but a scaffold for the Church. He will send Creation packing
   when once it has done with His saints. Yes, sun, moon and stars shall
   pass away like worn-out rags when once He has gathered together His own
   elect and enfolded them forever within the safety of the walls of
   Heaven! For them time moves! For them the world exists! He measures the
   nation according to their number and He makes the very stars of Heaven
   to fight against their enemies and to defend them against their foes!
   "They shall be to Me a people." The favor which is contained in such
   love it is not for tongue to express. Perhaps on some of those quiet
   resting places prepared for the saints in Heaven, it shall be a part of
   our eternal enjoyment to contemplate the heights and depths of these
   golden lines!

   II. And now, Brothers and Sisters, I wish I had time to go over the
   other parts contained in the 11th and 12th verses of the Chapter, but I
   have not, for I have a practical business to do, and it is to
   enquire--FOR WHOM HAS GOD MADE

   THIS COVENANT?

   I said He made it with Christ, but He made it with Christ as the
   Representative of His people. The question tonight for you, and for me,
   and for each one is, "Am I interested in Christ? Did Christ Jesus stand
   for me?" Now, if I were to say that Christ was the Representative of
   the whole world, you would not find any substantial advantage in that
   because the great proportion of mankind being lost, whatever interest
   they may have in Christ, it is certainly of no beneficial value to them
   as to their eternal salvation! The question I ask is--have I such a
   special interest in Christ that this Covenant holds good towards me so
   that I shall have, or so that I now have the enlightened mind, the
   sanctified affections and the possession of God to be my God? Be not
   deceived, my Brothers and Sisters--I cannot and you cannot turn over
   the leaves of the book of destiny! It is impossible for us to force our
   way into the cabinet chamber of the Eternal! I hope you are not deluded
   by superstitious ideas that you have had a Revelation made to you, or
   that there has been some special sound or dream which makes any one of
   you think you are a Christian!

   Yet on sounder premises I will try to help you a little. Have you
   already obtained any of these Covenant blessings? Have you got an
   enlightened mind? Do you now find that your spirit tells you which is
   the right and which is the wrong? Better still, have you got a love for
   that which is good? Have you got a hatred for that which is evil? If
   so, as you have got one Covenant blessing, all the rest go with it!
   Now, men and women, have you passed through a great change? Have you
   come to hate that which you once loved? If you have, the Covenant lies
   before you like Canaan before the ravished eyes of Moses on top of the
   mountain! Look now, for it is yours! It flows with milk and honey and
   it belongs to you-- and you shall inherit it! But if there has been no
   such change worked in you, I cannot hold you out any congratulations,
   but I thank God I can do what may serve your turn! I can hold you out
   Divine Direction--the direction for the obtaining an interest in this
   Covenant and for clearing up your interest in it is simple. It is
   contained in few words. Mark well those three words--"Believe and
   live," for whoever believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life--which
   is the blessing of the Covenant. The argument is obvious. Having the
   blessing of the Covenant you must be in the Covenant! And being in the
   Covenant, Christ evidently must have representatively stood Sponsor for
   you. But says one, "What is it to believein Christ?" Another word is a
   synonym to it. It is--trust Christ. "How do I know whether He died for
   me in particular?" Trust Him whether you know that or not. Jesus Christ
   is lifted up upon the Cross of Calvary as the Atonement for sin and the
   proclamation is given out, "Look, look, look and live!" And whoever
   will cast away his self-righteousness, cast away

   everything upon which he now depends--and will come and trust in the
   finished work of our exalted Savior, has, in that very faith, the token
   that he is one of those who were in Christ when He went up to the Cross
   and worked out eternal redemption for His elect! I do not believe that
   Christ died on the tree to render men salvable, but to save them! Not
   that some men might be saved "if," but to really redeem them! And He
   did then and there give Himself a ransom. He paid their debts there.
   There cast their sins into the Red Sea and there made a clean sweep of
   everything that could be laid to the charge of God's elect. You are one
   of His elect if you believe! Christ died for you if you believe in Him
   and your sins are forgiven you. "Well but," says one, "how about that
   change of nature?" It always comes with faith! It is the next akin to
   faith. Wherever there is genuine faith in Christ, faith works love. A
   sense of mercy breeds affection. Affection to Christ breeds hatred to
   sin. Hatred to sin purges the soul--the soul being purged, the life is
   changed!

   You must not begin with mending yourselves externally--you must begin
   with the new internal life and it is thus to be had--the gift of God
   through simply believing in Jesus! A slave who had been for some time
   attending a place of worship, had imbibed the idea and a very natural
   one, too, that he was saved because he had been baptized. He had been
   to one of those places where they teach little children to say after
   this fashion, "In my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a
   child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." "Now," said
   he, very simply and very plainly, for so the catechism teaches--and a
   gross delusion it is--"I am saved because I have been baptized! That
   has made me a child of God." Now the good man who sought to instruct
   him better could find no metaphor to suit his intellect better than
   taking him into the kitchen and showing him a bottle of black ink.
   "Now," he said, "I will wash it," and he washed the outside of the
   bottle and invited the man to drink out of it because it was clean.
   "No," said the man, It is all black! It is all black--it is not clean
   because you have washed the outside." "Ah," said he, "and so it is with
   you! All that these drops of water could do for you--all that baptism
   could do for you is to wash the outside--but that does not make you
   clean, for the filth is all within!" Now, the work of the Covenant of
   Grace is not to wash the outside, not to clean the flesh, not to pass
   you through rites and ceremonies and Episcopal hands, but to wash the
   inside--to purge the heart, to cleanse the vitals, to renew the
   soul--and this is the only salvation that will ever bring a man to
   enter Heaven! You may go tonight and renounce all your outward vices--I
   hope you will. You may go and practice all church ceremonies. And if
   they are Scriptural, I wish you would. But they will do nothing for
   you, nothing whatever as to your entering Heaven if you miss one thing
   else--that is, getting the Covenant blessing of the renewed nature
   which can only be had as a gift of God through Jesus Christ--and as the
   result of a simple faith in Him who did die upon the tree!

   I press the work of self-examination upon you all. I press it earnestly
   upon you Church members. It is of no avail that you have been baptized!
   It is of no avail that you take the sacrament. Avail? Indeed it shall
   bring a greater responsibility and a curse upon you unless your hearts
   have been by the Holy Spirit made anew according to the Covenant of
   Promise! If you have not a new heart, oh, go to your chambers, fall
   upon your knees and cry to God for it! May the Holy Spirit compel you
   to do so! And while you are pleading, remember the new heart comes from
   the bleeding heart, the changed nature comes from the suffering nature.
   You must look to Jesus, and looking to Jesus, know that--

   "There is life in a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
   moment for you!"

   These blessings I have spoken of seem to me to be a great consolation
   and inspiration. They are a great consolation to Believers. You are in
   the Covenant, my dear Brother, but you tell me you are very poor. But
   God has said, "I will be your God." Why, you are very rich! A man may
   not have a penny in the world, but if he has a diamond, he is rich. So
   if a man has neither penny nor diamond, if he has his God, he is rich!
   Ah, but your coat is threadbare and you do not see where means are to
   come from to renew your apparel. "Consider the lilies how they grow;
   they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that
   Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." You have
   the same God that the lilies have--shall He so clothe the grass of the
   field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, and shall He
   not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? I also said it was an
   inspiration and I think it is. It is an inspiration for us all to work
   for Christ because we are sure to have some results. I would, indeed I
   would, that the nations were converted to Christ. I would that all this
   London belonged to my Lord and Master and that every street were
   inhabited by those who loved His name! But when I see sin abounding and
   the Gospel often put to the rout, I fall back upon this-- "Nevertheless
   the foundation of God stands sure. The Lord knows them that are His."
   He shall have His own! The infernal powers shall not rob Christ! He
   shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied! Calvary
   does not mean defeat!

   Gethsemane a defeat? Impossible! The Mighty Man who went up to the
   Cross to bleed and die for us, being also the Son of God, did not there
   achieve a defeat but a victory! He shall see His seed, He shall prolong
   His day, and the pleasure in the Lord shall prosper in His hands! If
   some will not be saved, others shall. If, being invited, some count
   themselves not worthy to come to the feast, others will be brought in,
   even the blind, the crippled and the lame--and the supper shall be
   furnished with guests! If they come not from England, they shall come
   from the east, and from the west, from the north and from the south. If
   it should come to pass that Israel is not gathered, lo, the heathen
   shall be gathered unto Christ! Ethiopia shall stretch out her arms!
   Sinim shall yield herself to the Redeemer! The desert ranger shall bow
   the knee and the far-off stranger enquire for Christ! Oh, no, Beloved,
   the purposes of God are not frustrated! The eternal Will of God is not
   defeated! Christ has died a glorious death and He shall have a full
   reward for all His pain. "Therefore, be you steadfast, immovable,
   always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that
   your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 5:1-11; PSALM 81:1-14.

   Romans 5:1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
   through our Lord Jesus Christ The Gospel is full of "therefores," it is
   above reason, but it is never against reason--it is the most reasonable
   thing under Heaven! "Therefore"--it is a matter of argument. You will
   have to read the previous Chapters to see how this conclusion flows
   naturally from what he had before taught by the Holy Spirit.

   Let us linger over these sentences while we read them. "Being justified
   by faith." Is it so? Are you, indeed made just by faith in Jesus Christ
   your Righteousness? Then you have peace this day and hour--peace within
   your own conscience and with your fellow men--but what is much better,
   you have peace with God! As soon as we are justified by reliance on
   Jesus, we cease to have any quarrel with God and He has no quarrel with
   us! We are allies, we are in happy union, we have peace with God! Not
   shall have it by-and-by, but we have it nowas our present glad
   possession because we are justified by faith. We are now in the
   enjoyment of perfect peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. "By
   whom also we have access by faith into this Grace wherein we stand."
   Since we are at peace with God, we may enter His house. His door is
   open to us--we have Divine welcome unto His Grace and we abide in
   it--abide in it with certainty and full assurance!

   2. By whom also we have access by faith into this Grace wherein we
   stand, and rejoice in hope of the Glory of God. Oh, what a comfort this
   is to be rejoicing, especially to be rejoicing in hope! It is better
   ahead--there may be clouds and darkness, here, but we can see the
   sunlight breaking yonder--"until the day breaks and the shadows flee
   away," we will make hope to be our bright candle of the Lord! We
   "rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God, and not only so." When we
   once get into God's house, we rise higher in it--we go up another pair
   of stairs. "Not only so," though that seems to be enough--to be
   rejoicing in the hope of the Glory of God, and to have access into His
   Grace and to have peace with Him because we are justified! But it is
   not only so--"we Glory in tribulations also." We transform our troubles
   into gladness and glorying! We get spiritually enriched by tribulation!

   3, 4. And not only so, but we Glory in tribulations, also, knowing that
   tribulation works patience andpatience, experience and experience,
   hope. Another hope, or rather the same hope rising up into another
   form. We begin with rejoicing in the hope of the Glory of God by faith.
   Now we get a further hope which is born of experience--the things we
   have tasted and handled of the love of God create in us a more radiant
   hope inferred from what we have enjoyed.

   5, 6. And hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
   abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. For
   when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
   ungodly. What is the connection here? Is it not this--that the Holy
   Spirit makes us feel what a wonderful love the love of God is to us
   because when we were without strength, in due time, Christ died for the
   ungodly? Wonderful love! When we were Godless and Christless, in due
   time Christ died for us!

   7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a
   good man some would even dare to die. Nobody would feel impelled to die
   for a man who is severely and strictly just. He may command our
   admiration, but not our affection. Aristides the Just is, indeed, at
   last banished--men cannot bear a man whose whole character is bare
   justice, for they are themselves usually so unjust. But "a good
   man"--he commands our love. A man of that character who is gra-

   tuitously kind, gracious and benevolent, perhaps--and it is a bare
   perhaps--somebody might be found to die for such as he. It is not,
   however, very probable.

   8. But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet
   sinners, Christ died for us. He did the utmost for us when we were the
   least deserving of it! Oh, what a love is this! Let it be shed abroad
   in our poor stony hearts and commended by us to others.

   9. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
   from wrath through Him. This is a resistless argument and should be the
   deathblow to all misgiving. If He died for us when we were unjust, will
   He let us perish, now that He has made us just and completely justified
   us? Impossible!

   10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
   death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His
   life. There are three points which strengthen the argument here, which
   you will readily see by reading it at your leisure. The Lord our God
   who justified us when we were enemies, by the death of His Son, will
   save us now that we are friends through the life of His Son. "And not
   only so." Here we ascend again--it is ever higher and higher, something
   yet more--so that we are never at the end of this blessed record of
   mercy and Grace!

   11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement.We are at one with
   God. We are perfectly reconciled to Him and we have at present, at this
   very moment, a great joy and delight in God!

   Now we shall read together the 71st Psalm, just in order that we may
   see how good men in all ages have been assisted by their experience and
   their hope--and how their hope has grown out of their tribulation,
   their patience and their experience. The Old Man's Psalm. You can
   remember it, dear Friends, who are aged, by its being 71--it is just
   past the threescore years and ten!

   Psalm 71:1. In You, OLORD, do Iput my trust: let me never beput to
   confusion. There is his trust and there is his fear. His trust he dares
   to avow, his fear he turns into a prayer.

   2, 3. Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline
   Your ear unto me, and save me. Be You my strong habitation, whereunto I
   may continually resort: You have given commandment to save me; for You
   are my rock and my fortress. "Be you my strong habitation whereunto I
   may continually resort." Not merely now and then a hiding place in
   emergencies, but my constant abode, my home--so that from morning to
   night I may come to You and feel myself secure. "You have given
   commandment to save me; for You are my rock and my fortress." You see
   he knows that God has commanded Nature, Providence and His Grace to
   protect him! He has commanded His angels--indeed, He has commanded all
   His forces to protect David for this reason--that David feels an inward
   rest and peace in God. That calm, that Divine repose expressed in the
   words "You are my rock and my refuge," are the tokens that God has
   given commandment to save us.

   4. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hands of the wicked, out of the
   hands of the unrighteous and cruel man. Two iron hands are trying to
   pull him down, but he cries to God, whose one almighty hand can set him
   free!

   5. For You are my hope, O Lord God: You are my trust from my youth.
   Happy man that can look back upon a youth spent in God's fear, for if
   we have trusted God in our youth, depend upon it, He will never cast us
   away!

   6. By You have I been held up from the womb: You are He that took me
   out of my mother's womb: my praise shall be continually of You.When we
   could not help ourselves, in the very moment of our birth, God took
   care of us! And He will take care of us even to the end. Men and women
   who are old should remember how carefully the Lord nursed them when
   they were infants--and if you come to a second childhood, you shall
   still have the same God!

   7. I am as a wonder unto many.They cannot make me out! I am a blessed
   problem and puzzle to them--it seems so strange that being so much
   afflicted I am yet so much upheld!

   7. But You are my strong refuge. Yes! There is the answer to the
   riddle. If God is with us, men may well wonder, but He will always help
   us.

   8-9. Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your honor all
   the day. Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my
   strength fails. A prayer which both young and old may offer, for if we
   live long enough, that time of weakness will surely come. There are
   many men who cast off their old servants--but God does not. When we are
   worn out, He will still bless us.

   10-14. For my enemies speak against me and they that lay wait for my
   soul take counsel together, saying, God has forsaken him: persecute and
   take him; for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me:
   O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed
   that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and
   dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and will yet
   praise You more and more. In the 8th verse he had said, "Let my mouth
   be filled with Your praise." That is a mouthful! Now he says, "I will
   praise You more and more." As if he needed more mouths wherewith to
   praise! More room for his heart's grateful thanksgiving to God! "I will
   praise You more and more."
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Lord's Heroic Endurance

   (No. 3327)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   29, 1866.

   "For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against
   Himself lest you be weary and faint in your minds." Hebrews 12:3.

   IF we regard the Christian as a racer contending for the great race, we
   see that he is subject to several dangers. He may give up the race and
   turn back unless everlasting mercy shall prevent so dreadful a
   calamity. He may leap out of the track and leave for a time the only
   path that leads to victory and reward. Or he may be so clogged and
   hampered with weights that though he may run, he may run altogether in
   vain. Or he may be tripped up and fall--and so others may pass him and
   take the prize of his high calling. But even if he shall fully have
   avoided all those dangers, if he shall keep to the course, if he shall
   be kept upon his feet, and if his racing should be of the best kind,
   yet there is still the possibility-- for the best Christian is still
   flesh and blood--that he may faint.

   A man when running for a prize exerts every nerve and sinew and muscle.
   He throws his whole being into the effort. If he may not pass his rival
   by several lengths, he will at least seek to pass him by a neck and to
   this end he strains and strives even to the point of agony, if by any
   means he may attain unto the first place and so win the reward. Now,
   while the body is in such a state of tension as that, it is possible
   that it may suddenly give way--that the overworked frame may not be
   able to endure the toil and stress, and the man, with the best of
   intentions, may yet lack the power to carry them out. He may grow weary
   and though just now he almost grasped the prize in the fond
   anticipation of hope, he may fall dead upon the ground like a stone
   through faintness. The Apostle knew this, for I do not doubt that even
   he, in his great fight with afflictions, when he had fought with beasts
   at Ephesus and when he had passed through trials of every shape and
   form, even he sometimes felt as if he might faint and might, after all,
   be unsuccessful. Hence it is that instead of merely exhorting us not to
   faint and bidding us not be weary, he does what is far better and more
   helpful--he supplies us with a double restorative whereby our strength
   may be recruited. Just as Antaeus is said to have revered his strength
   when he touched mother earth and, therefore, he could not be killed
   until Hercules held him in the air and strangled him there, so is the
   Christian strengthened by the act which the Apostle Paul here speaks
   of--by touching Christ, by looking again to Jesus, by considering
   Him--and the only possibility for the destruction of the Christian
   would be so to separate him from Christ that he would not be able to
   derive any strength from considering the great Apostle and High Priest
   of his profession! The Apostle does as good as say to us, "You are very
   likely to faint in your minds, and to grow weary in your spirit, so if
   you would prevent this, I recommend you to consider the Lord Jesus
   Christ, to think much of Him, to have Him constantly before your mind's
   eye." And he is very precise about this, for he not only bids us
   consider Christ, but he exhorts us to consider Him under a very special
   aspect, that is, as a Sufferer, and from one particular form of trial,
   namely, "suffering the contradiction of sinners against Himself."

   It seem to me as if the Apostle felt that one of the most likely things
   to make Christians faint would be the contradiction which they meet
   with from sinners. The persecution, the slander, ill-usage, bad return
   and recompense which they get from an ungodly world--all this would be
   likely to make them weary at heart in well-doing.

   So he bids them look away to the Savior, bravely enduring the same
   trials. "Consider Him," he says, "who endured such contradiction of
   sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds."

   I am not able to speak to you this evening as I would gladly speak. I
   scarcely feel in the condition either of body or of mind suitable to
   the study and proclamation of so gracious a topic as the one before us,
   but in my weakness I desire also

   to consider Him who was wearied and sat upon the well. And in speaking
   to you, I would ask His help that my weakness may not rob you of the
   blessing.

   I shall introduce the theme to your attention in this way--first, let
   us consider the contradiction of sinners which Christ endured.
   Secondly, let us for a minute or two consider His endurance of it And
   then, thirdly, coming to the fullness of the text, let us consider Him
   who endured such contradiction. The particular form of trial of which
   we are invited to think is-- I. THE CONTRADICTION OF UNGODLY MEN WHICH
   THE SAVIOR ENDURED.

   Even early in His ministry He had to endure this. At the very first
   sermon which He preached in the synagogue of His own town, was he
   received with joy? No acclamations awaited Him who spoke as never man
   spoke, but the whole congregation gnashed upon Him with their teeth!
   And had it not been for His supernatural escape, they would have taken
   Him to the brow of the hill whereon the city was built and have cast
   Him down headlong! And yet it was not that He had said anything bitter
   against the town. It was not that He had inveighed against their
   favorite vices. It was only that He had committed that most
   unpardonable of all sins, namely, that He had preached the Doctrine of
   Divine Predestination! They listened to Him well enough until He said,
   "Yes, and many widows there were in Israel, but unto none of them was
   the Prophet sent except to the widow of Zarepta," and when He thus
   declared the Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty-- when He spoke of the
   giving of the blessing to the Gentiles who were the most unlikely
   individuals--then it was that they gnashed their teeth and would have
   cast Him down headlong from the brow of the hill! Nothing, it seems,
   excites some men's envy like the Doctrines of Grace. Throughout the
   whole of our Savior's life, this which was at the commencement followed
   Him! His speech teems with wisdom. He preeminently carried out His own
   teaching, "Be you wise as serpents and harmless as doves." It is true
   His teaching was very bold, but at the same time it need not have
   irritated anyone. Those who thus took His teaching to themselves and
   perceived that He spoke of them, might be irritated apart from that. I
   suppose that never did man put the Truth of God in a better form, or
   after a fashion less likely to provoke prejudice, but the Pharisees
   were always contradicting Him. They endeavored to catch Him in His
   speech. Sometimes it is puzzling questions about the Law with some
   woman in the midst. At another time it is something about the
   government of the country. The Herodians joined with the Pharisees in
   the endeavor to embarrass, to perplex Him, to catch Him in His talk, to
   make Him an offender for a word. They plotted to draw Him out in
   speech, somehow or other, that they might get some sentence they could
   use against Him. Never did they listen with candor, never regarded Him
   with any honesty, but dogging His footsteps like bloodhounds, waiting
   for the first opportunity when they might tear Him in pieces! So,
   during His lifetime, He endured such contradiction of sinners against
   Himself.

   And you know, besides this, how men of the baser sort offered
   contradiction against Christ's life. They said He was a drunk and a
   wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. They that sat in the
   gates spoke against Him and He became the song of the drunk! Reproaches
   fell upon Him--the reproaches of them who reproached without a cause.
   Our Lord Jesus Christ was thus perpetually, constantly and wholly the
   butt of slander and of scorn! He was permanently standing in the
   pillory to be ill-treated by the hands of them whom His power had
   created, and whom His own love had spared! What a "contradiction of
   sinners against Himself!"

   But I think what was especially in the Apostle 's mind was that which
   came at the time when He was betrayed by Judas. Then, Brothers and
   Sisters, the old serpent vented his worst venom. They could not find
   witnesses that agreed together, though they found many false witnesses,
   yet even none of them agreed together till they had at last induced
   two, their evidence being words which the Savior had used in a certain
   sense, twisted to another sense in order to try to get it to be strong
   enough to stain the charge which they brought against Him--which was
   neither more nor less than this-- in Pilate's court, the civilcourt,
   treason! In the court of Annas and Caiaphas, the ecclesiasticalcourt,
   blasphemy! What a contradiction of sinners against Himself was this!
   Being Almighty God to be accused of blasphemy! And being truly the King
   of the Jews to be accused of treason! I wonder not that the Apostle
   should have said, "Such contradiction of sinners!"

   Just let us look, then, at this contradiction of sinners which came
   upon Him at the last, and I think you will see the grievousness of it
   when you observe, first, the grossness of the charges alleged against
   Him. Before Pilate's court it was no minor offense with which He was
   charged. It was treason--the highest offense in the category of the
   Roman Law. He had made Himself to be another king in opposition to
   Caesar, who was the world's monarch! This was a very gross

   charge to bring against the Savior and more especially because He, of
   all men, must be acquitted of anything like sedition! How often did He
   hide Himself when multitudes who had been fed by His bounty would have
   made Him a king? And how often when His own disciples were anticipating
   the coming of a great earthly kingdom, did He set Himself directly in
   opposition to all their ideas and taught them that He came to suffer
   rather than to reign--and that His Kingdom was not of this world--not a
   Kingdom that would touch Caesar's kingdom, nor an empire that would
   interfere with the kings on the earth! He was not only free from
   treason, but was throughout His life such an opponent of it, such an
   abstainer from interfering with the politics of men at all, that to
   charge Him with this was a gross and wantonly wicked charge!

   As for blasphemy, His reverence of God was supreme! He had laid aside
   His own Glory as Deity in order to honor His Father in man's redemption
   and was even now, when so vilely slandered, ready to be obedient even
   unto death! "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," is
   God's witness to Him, and yet His enemies say that He blasphemed the
   Infinite Jehovah!

   Now, dear Friends, I can conceive that some of you have been pure and
   unblemished in your lives and yet suddenly you might find yourselves
   accused, not of a minor and trivial offense, and you say, "Oh, what a
   trial to be accused of this!" Well, consider Him who endured just such
   contradiction, who was accused of a capital crime and of blasphemy in
   the same breath! Who are we that we should not be called Beelzebub when
   the Master of the house has been so named? Consider the contradiction
   of Christ in this respect and it may give you comfort.

   Let me say further, while speaking of this contradiction of sinners,
   that it was not only a very gross charge, but we are sometimes apt to
   think that a charge which is unfounded is very cruel to us. I have
   heard people say, sometimes, and I have laughed when I have heard them
   say it, "Sir, Mr. So-and-So has charged me with such-and-such a thing,
   but I am quite innocent. I should not have minded if I had been
   guilty." Then I have thought, Ah, then you ought to have minded it, but
   being innocent you have no cause to mind it at all! But is it not so
   that the more unfounded a charge is, the more deeply does it seem to
   cut us from the very wantonness of its cruelty? Well, then, you know
   how innocent the Savior was--the next time you feel innocent when you
   are thus accused--"consider Him who endured such contradiction of
   sinners against Himself," and who had to suffer both gross charges and
   unfounded ones!

   Moreover, these charges were sustained by words which had been
   deliberately twisted. And sometimes a man has to say to himself, "Now,
   I never said anything of the kind, and my enemies know I did not! They
   have let a word out here, and put another word in there, and have
   cruelly misrepresent me--they have made me say what I did not even
   think-- and what I didthink, and what I didsay, they have so utterly
   altered that it is no longer mine." Now you are apt to grow very faint
   in your mind after such a thing as this occurs, but you will recollect
   that just such contradiction of sinners the Savior endured. The only
   grounds or pretence upon which they brought these charges against Him
   was that He had uttered certain words concerning His body which were
   construed to relate to the Temple. So, dear Friends, do not be greatly
   troubled, as though it were a strange thing what has happened to you.
   If your good words are taken out of your mouth and mischief is made of
   them, bear it without bitterness or retaliation, for so He also
   suffered the "contradiction of sinners against Himself."

   There certainly was, too, a sting about these contradictions arising
   from the place where they were brought They were brought before the
   court of judicature. It is not likely that any of us have had to smart
   in this direction, but we may have had to feel this--"I should not have
   minded if this contradiction had come against me at home in the family,
   but it has come in my business where it will injure me." Or it may have
   been the reverse. Perhaps you have had to say, "I would not care if
   this man had said such-and-such in the outward world, but he has
   poisoned the very home of my joy and my peace." Well, dear Friends, the
   Savior had His contradiction brought against Him in a worse place, it
   seems to me, than home, or any of the resorts of commerce, for He was
   actually brought before the courts of His own native land as well as
   before the courts of the foreign invader who was then dominating the
   country!

   It is not likely that this will come to you in these times as God's
   people, but in the olden times the saints had often to stand before
   kings and princes for Christ's sake. But if ever this should be your
   lot, you will then fall back upon this as your invigoration and
   consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself!

   Above and beyond all this, however, in the contradiction which Christ
   endured was the malice which suggested it They did not falsely accuse
   Him out of mere error, but it was out of malice that had determined on
   the destruction of this innocent Man. "Whether we can accuse Him
   rightly or not," they said, "it is not fit that such a Fellow should
   live." It was malice against One who had never done them a wrong!
   Against One who had healed their sick and raised their dead! Against
   One who had scattered bounties with both His hands along their streets
   and who had made their wilderness like Eden and their desert like the
   garden of the Lord! Against One who had gathered together the sheep
   without a shepherd that were scattered on every hill! Against One who
   had fed the hungry, had comforted the mourner, had proclaimed liberty
   to the captive! Against One who had shone upon the Holy Land and made
   it truly whole--had shone upon Palestine like a newly-risen sun, the
   Sun of Righteousness with healing beneath His wings! He might well say,
   "For which of these works do you stone Me? You have hated Me without a
   cause." Well, now, suppose that to be your case? Suppose you have to
   say, "I should not mind this charge, but I can see deliberate malice in
   it. My enemies seek to destroy me and to pervert my way out of a
   diabolical hatred to my soul. They come upon me to eat up my flesh.
   They compass me like dogs to devour me. Oh, how hard is my lot!" Come,
   Christian, come, consider Him! Consider Him! You are in the same plight
   as your Master! It always gives comfort to a common soldier to see the
   officers in the same position and enduring the same hardships as
   himself--with the shots flying everywhere round about them. And when I
   see the darts of wicked contradiction flying around our blessed Lord
   and King, I feel it would be a shame for me to have an easier or safer
   position than He knew!

   I might thus dwell, for it is a very tempting subject, upon the
   contradiction of sinners which the Savior endured. And I think a
   consideration of this would save us from being weary and faint in our
   minds. But we must pass on to the second point. We have now to
   consider--

   II. THE SAVIOR'S ENDURANCE of the contradiction of sin against Himself.
   How did He endure this sore trouble? Brothers and Sisters, He endured
   it with singular courage and holy equanimity. It is wonderful to see
   Him in the first contradictions with which He met during His
   ministry--how calm He is. If we are made warm in temper, we are off our
   guard and are but half men. The Savior was never so taken. You observe
   Him. They spin their webs like spiders and they think to entangle Him.
   So they would such poor flies as we are--but He looks on and sees it
   all--and then sweeps every cobweb away before Him! And yet no angry
   word He answers.

   Sometimes He makes them answer themselves, but then He turns it against
   themselves. Sometimes He makes them confess themselves defeated and
   then, with a solemn emphasis, as on the occasion when He said, "He that
   is without fault among you, let him cast the first stone." And they,
   being condemned by their own consciences, went out, beginning at the
   eldest even to the youngest. All left and went their way! At the last,
   however, you perceive that the contradiction of sinners is borne by the
   Savior after this fashion--with entire silence!Never was there such
   silence as that--the grandest silence ever known! It is an amazing
   silence! It seems to have in it something of contempt, but yet more of
   Omnipotent patience. He will not answer. Why should He answer such as
   they are? He will not answer! If He answered, it might be their doom!
   And therefore He spares them! "He is led as lamb to the slaughter, and
   as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth!"
   Brothers and Sisters, we are generally too fast with our tongues when
   anybody accuses us! I am afraid we are not always so quick to defend
   our Master as we are to defend ourselves. If there is a false
   accusation in the newspapers, one's finger wants to be at the pen to
   answer it, which of all things is the most foolish. Let them write! Let
   them write who will, till they have used up their ink, but the wise man
   answers them not a word! But we are always so ready if anybody brings a
   false accusation against us to say, "It is not so! You lie!" Or to make
   some sharp reply like that. Oh, that we could consider Him who endured
   such contradiction of sinners against Himself, and endured it with the
   holy patience of silence! There was a crest and motto which some of the
   old Reformers used to use, and which I commend to any of you who are
   under this trial of slander. It was an anvil with a number of hammers,
   all broken, lying around. And this was the motto when translated, "The
   anvil breaks many hammers." And how does it do this? Not by striking
   again! Oh, no! The anvil simply endures the blows--just keeps its place
   and lets the hammers fall, fall, fall until they are broken upon their
   handles! And this is exactly what the Savior did. They, the accusers,
   were the hammers, He was the anvil. And who shall say that the anvil
   did not break the hammers in pieces, that the silence of the Savior was
   not far more eloquent than all the clamor of the evil multitude? "He
   held His peace," it is said of Him. May it also be said of you and of
   me, and when we have to suffer similar trials, may we bear them, like
   the Savior, in silence.

   Yet the silence of the Savior is not all. We ought to admire the
   patient serenity with which He so beautifully held His peace, but ought
   we not also to admire the way in which He unswervingly kept His course?
   Many a man would have

   turned either to the right hand or to the left, but the heroic Savior
   keeps right on. Ah, Beloved, how many of us would have given up the
   work altogether! We might have said, "I came to bless these men, but
   they reject me. They despise me. They ill-treat me. Let them go, then,
   unblessed! These graceless people shall receive no blessing at my
   hands." But not so, our brave Lord! He came into the world to save
   sinners and He kept on just at that one thing--and let no rebuffs turn
   Him aside. The zeal of God's House had eaten Him up and He kept
   straight on in the saving of sinners! He never turned back, let sinners
   do what they would in the way of contradicting Him! He never wavered
   for one moment from His one life-objective--the saving of their souls!

   Now, let it be so with you so that you may be kept from growing weary.
   If in the Sunday school a class seems unmanageable. If the boys cannot
   be taught. If the girls seem so giddy. If in the little village station
   the hearers seem so dull, so inattentive, so careless and so
   forgetful--if in any other sphere of labor you do not seem to be
   appreciated, but to meet with very serious rebuffs, never mind! These
   are nothing compared with the contradictions which the Savior endured
   and yet He never swerved! And therefore swerve you not. Let the Divine
   Life that is in you urge you constantly onwards. Make no provision for
   the flesh nor for the ease thereof. If, indeed, it is your
   life-work--go and complete it! If you feel that God has called you to
   be the stern advocate of the right, go onward and vow to go onward by
   the love of Christ-- and let nothing stop you! If hunger can break
   through stone walls, much more shall a hunger to do the Master's will!
   To a man who can dare and do because he feels that he is consecrated
   and destined to work, nothing is impossible! You, too, shall break
   through a wall. You, too, shall dash through a host. A man who believes
   that God has called him to work would tunnel through the globe, itself,
   before he would be turned from his purpose! He would thread the stars
   on strings before he would be disappointed of his great life-work! Do
   you but feel this, and never turn aside, but remember how Christ
   endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself!

   And, once more, I think it is worthwhile to notice that while the
   Savior did not swerve, He did not even seem to pause. He did not stop
   to take a breath. All these persons came rushing round Him and tried to
   push Him out of His course, but He did not even stop, I say, to take a
   breath! All that they did, did but rather quicken His pace, if
   possible, and made Him still more set upon His great purpose. So let it
   be with us. We take far too much notice, I think, of some of our
   troubles and oppositions. I sometimes quote in your hearing those brave
   lines of Anne Askew. Poor soul! After having been racked to torture
   many times, you still hear her singing--

   "I am not she to lie,

   My anchor to let fall:

   For every drizzling mist

   My ship's substantial."

   Such a substantial vessel did she seem to ride in that she was not
   going to let her anchor out! The being racked, as she cruelly was, was
   no "drizzling mist," I think, but a very horrible tempest which might
   well make some of us afraid, even unto death, but then, we make so much
   of little things! Our fathers plucked up sycamore trees by the roots,
   but we are afraid if only one or two sere leaves blow wildly across our
   path! They spoke unto mountains and said, "Be you moved hence, and cast
   into the midst of the sea." But we sit down and murmur over molehills
   as though they were Alps, the summits of which we should never to able
   to reach! We are a puny race, I fear, but may the Lord feed us and we
   shall then grow stronger--and though it adds not a cubit to our
   stature, yet we shall grow spiritually! And we shall grow in this way
   if we consider how Christ bore the mighty trials which came upon Him.
   He was bowed down. He did stagger and did sweat great drops of blood
   when He was under the deep depression of His own spirit--caused by our
   sins being laid upon Him. Even a strong man may quail there, but before
   Herod or Pilate, or His Jewish accusers, or ribald and mocking men, He
   never showed a sign of faltering! No, not He! But He "endureds uch
   contradiction of sinners against Himself."

   Consider Christ thus, then, and you need not be and never will be,
   weary! But now, lastly, the great thing is--

   III. TO CONSIDER HIM.

   There is the point of the text. We are not only to consider the
   contradiction and His endurance of it, but to consider Him. To consider
   His endurance is well, but the striking point should be to consider the
   dignity of Him who did thus endure. We are told by the historians of
   Alexander the Great that it very much cheered and assisted the troops
   in their long and weary marches from Persia, sometimes without water
   and without food for many hours under a burning sun, that they always
   saw Alexander walking on foot, too. The Persian monarch would have been
   riding in some dainty cha-

   riot, or in the royal palanquin, reclining upon beds of down, fanned by
   unknown hands and attended by his many fair damsels. But there was
   Alexander, covered with dust and splashed with mire, going through the
   ditches, climbing the hills with his face all bronzed and browned. He
   would suffer hunger and thirst like the rest of them--and when the bowl
   of water is brought to the mighty monarch, he passes it on to some
   common soldier who is even yet more thirsty than himself. It was said
   that one Macedonian was worth ten thousand Persians because the king
   was with them and they would dash to battle and to death for such a
   monarch as that! Now consider Christ--your King--the King of the earth,
   before whom all other kings should renounce their diadems! Consider
   Him, the King of Heaven, whom to serve is the seraph's highest glory!
   The King of Hell, before whom the fiends and dragons of the pit gnash
   their teeth in fear! He, even He, "endured such contradiction of
   sinners against Himself!"--

   "Christ leads us through no darker rooms Than He went through before."
   The dignity of the Savior has invested suffering and especially brave
   endurance with great honor and glory. There is a halo round about our
   griefs since Jesus Christ endured them first!

   It is not only in His greatness that I think He should impress us, but
   also in the perfection of His Nature. He endured, and yet He was
   perfect. How, then, ought I to endure, who am so imperfect? He without
   a fault, smarts! A Son without sin, but not without the scourge!
   Consider Him, then, you imperfect one. When the coals are hot, you mass
   of ore with so much of alloy about you, consider that the pure gold
   felt the fire and how much more should you? Consider, you vessel
   defiled and filthy, the alabaster vase was washed in a sea of trouble,
   and how much more shall such one as you are be washed? If He who was
   all gold must go through the flame, how much more shall you?

   Now, there is yet a further point out of which the Apostle , I think,
   would have us dig some delight, namely, that we are to consider Him not
   only in His character, but now, in His present position. I t is true He
   endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself. It is true He
   was delivered to be Crucified. It is true, sorrowfully true, that He
   was despised and rejected of men. But what of it now? What of it now?
   Oh, see Him yonder! But your poor eyes cannot bear this dazzling sight!
   Brighter than the sun is His Glory! Grander than Heaven, itself, is His
   splendor! There He sits, King of kings and Lord of lords! Where is the
   mockery now? The shame and the spittle--where are they now? The crown
   of thorns, the vinegar, the sponge, the nails--where are they now? Our
   Lord is all over glorious! Now crowns become the Victor's brow and on
   His head are many crowns. Christian, as He was, so are you also in this
   world! And as He is, so shall you also be. Christ's triumph is the
   triumph of every true and right principle. It is the triumph of every
   true and right heart. You will have to suffer for it. There is no
   victory to be achieved nowadays except in the same way as the Savior
   achieved it, namely, by suffering. Is not Christ's greatest triumph
   which He achieved on Golgotha? The triumphal chariot in which He
   subdued sin and death, and Hell, was none other than His own Cross! So,
   Beloved, we must expect to conquer, but it must be by shame. You must
   expect to triumph, but it must be by being made to suffer and by being
   despised. But you shall triumph after all. In the day when the trumpet
   sounds, when--

   "From beds of dust and silent clay, To realms of everlasting day,"

   every obscure and despised child of God shall awaken--then shall it be
   seen whom God delights to honor! You are in the minority now. You stand
   alone. You are mocked by cruel enemies, and the ribald world asks you,
   "Where is your God?"

   You are by yourself, now, a solitary protester in the midst of a
   multitude who are going astray. But the tables shall be turned soon.
   You shall not then be in a minority, but in a great majority--in the
   day when shouts of triumph shall be heard for the truth and for the
   right, and when shame and confusion of face shall be the portion of
   those who are now the despisers! They shall then wonder and perish and
   ask the rocks to hide them and the hills to cover their confusion. He
   endured, and yet He mounted to His Throne amidst the shouts of angels
   and acclamations of Heaven! So also shall you! Therefore consider Him
   in this light lest you be weary and faint in your minds.

   And then, last of all, you must consider that He who went through this
   to get to His crown is very Man akin to us all. He loves us tenderly.
   He considers us now. He knows all the sorrows that tempt men, for He
   has felt the same. You are not alone--He is with you. Three of you in
   the furnace? No, there is a fourth, and that fourth is the Son of God!
   Into your griefs He enters, for His own griefs have put into His hand a
   master-key to fit the locks of every human grief that ever can be
   known. He can comfort us with all consolation seeing that He, Himself,
   has passed through all tribulation. He is never forgetful of you. He is
   with you now. If you smart, He smarts. If you are despised, He suffers.
   "Paul, Paul,

   why do you persecute Me?" He cried. Why, it was but a few poor men and
   women being hauled away to prison or to be scourged in the synagogue,
   but Christ takes it as being done to Himself! "Why do you persecute
   Me?" Oh Christian, with such nearness to Christ, and such sympathy
   flowing from Him, be of good courage! Then hear Him say, "In all their
   affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His Presence saved them."
   So may you lift up the hands that hang down and confirm the feeble
   knees and go on your way rejoicing in Him!

   I would to God you could all take home this text, but some of you
   cannot, and here is the sorrow of it, that you should live and die with
   such rare comforts at your door, but you cannot take them! Oh, Sinners,
   flee to Christ! Put your trust in Him and you shall soon be able to
   find consolation in every part of His life and in every trait of His
   death-pangs. God bless you very graciously, for His name's sake. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HEBREWS 12:1-17.

   Verses 1, 2. Therefore seeing we are also compassed about with so great
   a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which
   does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is
   set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith;
   who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising
   the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.We
   can have no doubt about the great Truths of God which we believe, for
   we are compassed about with a cloud of witnesses. The former Chapter
   gives us the names of many of these glorious bearers of testimony, who
   all by faith achieved great wonders and so bore witness to the Truth of
   God. Having, therefore, no room for doubt, let us throw our whole
   strength into our high calling and run with patience having our eyes
   always fixed upon Him, the Beginner and Finisher of our faith, who has
   run the race, Himself, and won the prize--and now sits down at the
   right hand on the Throne of God.

   3, 4. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners
   against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. You have
   not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. It has never come to
   a bloody sweat with you as with Him, nor to death upon a Cross as in
   His case. Shall the disciple be above his Master or the servant above
   his Lord?

   5, 6. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as
   unto children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor
   faint when you are rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loves, He
   chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. With doting parents
   it is not so--often he whom his mother loves is allowed to do as he
   pleases and to escape chastening, but this is folly! The love of God is
   higher and wiser than the partialities of parents. "Whom the Lord
   loves, He chastens." It is a token of His favor to us that He takes the
   trouble to remove our love of sin by sharp and bitter pain.

   7-10. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for
   what son is he whom the father chastens not? But ifyou are without
   chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you illegitimate,
   andnot sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which
   corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be
   in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for
   a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our
   profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. What a bright light
   this sheds upon all affliction--that it is for our profit--that it is,
   thereby, we are made partakers of the holiness of God! Oh, blessed
   result from a little smart and bitter.

   11-13. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but
   grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
   righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Therefore lift up
   the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight
   paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way;
   but let it rather be healed. Look at chastisement, then, in the Divine
   Light of God and be comforted, be strengthened, be healed of the
   infirmity of your weakness! Be strong in the Lord and in the power of
   His might!

   14. Followpeace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall
   see the Lord. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." A
   man's god is like himself and until he become like God we cannot see
   God! We misunderstand God until we have been trained to imitate Him.

   15-17. Looking diligently lest any man fall short of the Grace of God;
   lest any root of bitterness springing up troubles you and, thereby,
   many are defiled; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as
   Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright For you know how
   that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was
   rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it
   carefully with tears. It was done and could not be undone. Does it not
   seem strange that after speaking to us about being God's sons and
   favored with His love, yet even then, in that clear blaze of light,
   there comes in this caution against fornication and profanity? Ah me,
   how near a foul spot may be to lily-like whiteness! How Judas may sit
   side by side with favored and true-hearted Apostles, yes, and may be
   near the Master, too! "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he
   fall." And, oh, Friends, if at any time the pottage should seem very
   sweet and we should be very hungry--if the world's gain should be
   almost necessary to our livelihood and we are tempted to do an
   unrighteous thing to get it--let us take care, for Esau could not undo
   the terrible act of selling his birthright and neither could we if we
   were permitted to do so! God grant we may be spared from such a
   dreadful crime!
     __________________________________________________________________

Guests for the Royal Feast

   (No. 3328)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then said He to His servants, The wedding is ready, but they which
   were invited were not worthy Go you therefore into the highways, and as
   many as you shall find, invite to the marriage. So those servants went
   out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found,
   both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests." Matthew
   22:8-10.

   IN the previous verses of this striking parable, we see that the Great
   King had been ungraciously treated by his subjects, and had in his
   wrath swept the rebels away. But there was the feast still waiting for
   guests and the time had arrived to celebrate the nuptials of his son.
   The terror of the royal power had been proven, but it still remained to
   display the splendor of the imperial hospitality. Therefore, while yet
   the clash of arms is in our ears, we hear the voice of royal clemency!
   The din of war and the tramp of warriors have not caused the wedding or
   its feast to be forgotten, neither has wrath obliterated mercy! We read
   that "he sent forth his armies, and slew those murderers, and burned up
   their city," but in the next line we find the record, "then said he to
   his servants, go you into the highways, and as many as you shall find,
   invite to the marriage." In wrath he remembers mercy. On the heels of
   his men at arms he dispatches the ambassadors of peace. His power went
   forth to destroy his enemies, but it also went with his messengers to
   gather the needy from the streets. Judgment is the Lord's strange work,
   but He delights in mercy! Once He smites, but not till He has thrice
   invited the rebels come to Him. And when at last He overthrows the
   incorrigible, He takes occasion from it to extend His bounty to many
   others. Truly, God is Love!

   In the present portion of the parable, we are allowed to behold the
   king engaged with his servants in--

   I. A CONTEMPLATION OF THE REFUSAL given to his bounty. The royal host
   appears, as it were, to be in consultation with his servants. What a
   conception! The Eternal Father considers the position of affairs
   occasioned by the infamous conduct of those who rejected the Gospel of
   His Son! It is clearly no small matter to Him. The Glory of the
   Only-Begotten lies near His heart. He is set forth as a King surveying
   the preparations made and considering the lack of guests. "The wedding
   is ready, but they which were invited were not worthy." The Divine Mind
   is pictured after the manner of men, as greatly moved and agitated with
   the dilemma before it. There could be no banquet without guests, and
   yet guests there were none--and in such a case there would be waste,
   disappointment, dishonor and the lack of that joyous element so
   befitting the celebration of a marriage! In vain the fatted kine, the
   choice flour, the wine and the oil if none came to partake thereof. For
   lack of a better word, we described the condition as one of
   embarrassment to the host! And so, indeed, it would have been had not
   the Host been God, Himself, of whose understanding there is no
   searching! Nothing is dark to Him, but from the human point of view it
   did seem to be a dilemma, indeed, when Jesus came to His own and His
   own received Him not--when the hands of Mercy were stretched out in
   vain all the daylong to a disobedient and gainsaying generation!
   Perhaps you may yourself have been at much cost to prepare a feast,
   have exercised much thought to please your company and have counted
   upon the fellowship of the entertainment--and then through some
   untoward circumstances no one has come at the expected time! It was a
   great trouble to you and dampened your joy. Had it been a marriage it
   would have been far worse.

   Now it was not possible in this parable to teach the Doctrines of
   Foreknowledge and Omniscience, or else the figure would have broken
   down. No one metaphor can teach all the Truths of God, or all the sides
   of Truth. We have here the human aspect of the matter, and should
   carefully note it. The parable is meant to let us see what the thoughts
   of God are when He sees sinners refuse to come to Him and partake in
   the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. With wonder, behold

   the Divine Mind as it contemplates the scene. All things are ready,
   there is nothing more for God to do in the work of our salvation. In
   order to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing remains but that men
   believe on Him and receive His Grace! The Lord has fulfilled His
   promises! His Son has been Incarnate. The active life of holiness,
   Christ has lived. The passive obedience to the Law, Christ has
   rendered. If the soul needs spiritual meat, Christ is that meat. If the
   soul needs spiritual drink, Christ is that drink--and of both meat and
   drink there is good store in Him. If men, before they can come and
   honor Christ at the marriage feast, need washing, there is a fountain
   filled with blood! If they require clothing, there is a robe of
   matchless righteousness! If they desire adornment, there are jewels of
   great price. "All things are ready," nothing is lacking--nothing but
   hearts to receive the blessing!

   As the case stood in the parable, a certain number of men had been
   invited. It seems to be the theory of some theologians that none ought
   to have been invited but those who were sure to come. They hold, as we
   rejoice to hold, that there is an Election of Grace. In holding the
   Doctrines of Grace with a firm grasp, they do well, but they err when
   they teach that the invitation is to be restricted to the chosen, for
   here it is as clear as daylight that the first invitation was given to
   those who never were in the Election of Grace at all! They which were
   invited proved to be "not worthy," and yet they were invited, over and
   over again, honestly and in good faith. The King said they were
   invited, and this means that God Himself willed that the rejecters of
   His Grace should be invited! His servants did not do wrong in inviting
   them, for the king bade them do so. It has been said, "It is useless to
   bid sinners come to Christ who are dead and will not come." It is
   useless as far as we can see--useless as to the bringing of them
   in--but we do not know all God's ends and designs and some things, in
   which we see no use, may, nevertheless, be necessary to His purpose! We
   imagine that flowers "waste their sweetness on the desert air," but
   there is no wastefulness in the Great Householder's arrangements--and
   the Divine Economy will one day be justified! There are parts of God's
   plan in which we see the evident utility, and it remains for our faith
   to believe that all the rest will turn out to be equally filled with
   wisdom. The preacher of the Gospel is "a sweet savor of Christ in them
   that are saved, and in them that perish--to the one he is a savor of
   death unto death--and to the other the savor of life unto life." But he
   is still a sweet savor! We are still to preach the Gospel to sinners
   and to invite them come--invite them come even though they will not
   come! We are to continue to invite those who go their way to their farm
   and to their merchandise. Nor must we fail to call even those who
   despitefully use us. Far wider than the acceptance is the invitation,
   for, "many are called, but few are chosen." The Divine arrangement
   foreknew it would be so!

   All things are ready, then, and men are invited, but it is said that
   they were not worthy. What is meant by that? Surely the Gospel is not a
   matter of worthiness, for "in due time Christ died for the ungodly,"
   and He has "come to seek and to save that which was lost." So far as
   any worthiness of personal righteousness is concerned, there certainly
   is no worthiness in any son of Adam--and the expression must not be so
   understood. We need no worthiness of merit in order to come to the
   Gospel feast--but this is a mode of expression used to denote the
   fitness of things. It was not fit that men who preferred their paltry
   possessions to the king's favor, and were traitors at heart, should
   unite in the festivities of the princely marriage. They thought
   themselves too good and this was their unworthiness! They were too
   proud, too self-sufficient, too high-minded to be a worthy recipient of
   bounty and favor. He is the worthy receiver under the Gospel who comes
   feeling his unworthiness and accepts the Gospel provision as a gift of
   Divine Grace--but he who will not come because he thinks the Gospel
   unworthy of him, shows himself to be unworthy of it!

   When we determine to forgive an offender, we do not count him unworthy
   to be restored to our favor until he denies his fault and in defiance
   of our love insults us again and again. Even then mercy feels that he
   must be left to himself. He who continues to reject the pardon which
   the Gospel proclaims and hardens his neck after many reproofs, dying as
   he now is, will have proved his utter unworthiness of Grace. If a royal
   alms were to be given away to the poor without regard to their
   character. If a poor person came and gratefully received it, his
   previous life would not disqualify him. But if another should mock at
   the almoners and ridicule the gift, he would prove that he was not
   worthy. Not his poverty, but his proud behavior would disqualify him!
   Dear Friend, are you willing to be saved in God's way, through faith in
   Christ Jesus? Then rest assured you have all the worthiness that is
   needed! Stand not back, therefore, because you are sinful! Say not, "I
   am unworthy," because you have no good works, for self-righteousness
   would not prove you to be a fit object for Grace, but the reverse,
   since Grace is for sinners--for the undeserving and the lost!

   See you, then, in what position the royal Host was placed? There was
   the good cheer for the wedding. The dainties were not only at hand, but
   actually ready. The oxen were not fattening in the stalls, but already
   killed, cooked and ready

   for serving. In the East the heat is such that animal food must be
   eaten at once--and in this case it was already upon the table. More
   than this, the wedding was ready, the appointed day had dawned. What
   was to be done? There was one alternative and that was to annul the
   wedding and let the matter drop. This neither the king nor his son
   could think of. An invitation had been sent and those who were invited
   would not come! Wrath in hot haste might have said, "Close the door
   forever!" But no, God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, neither are
   His ways as our ways. The Lord might have said when the Gospel was
   rejected by the Jews, "These are like unto others of the sons of men,
   they are all reprobate. I will not have mercy upon them, but will ease
   me of My adversaries." When Jesus came to His own and met so unhandsome
   a reception, He might have said, "I will return to My place from where
   I came. If I come here to die for men and men yield Me no better
   reception in My Infancy than a manger. If they give Me no better
   occupation than a carpenter. If they call Me by no better name than
   that of a Galilean. If they afford Me no better entertainment than to
   be homeless, without a place to lay My head--then will I go back and
   let them see what will come of it. Let the Covenant be annulled, let
   the Gospel be revoked, let mercy end and let the ungrateful race go
   down to eternal misery!"

   But Jehovah is God and changes not and, therefore, we are not consumed!
   It was not in the heart of the king to go back from his purpose, or
   cease from his bounty. His son's wedding must go on. The feast must be
   eaten and the banquet must be such as to display his magnificence. To
   honor his son was the motive which swayed the king in the parable, and
   such a master motive reigns in the heart of God. "No," said the king,
   "the wedding shall be furnished with guests. There shall be no
   disappointment for my son on this happy day. I will yet make my kingdom
   ring with the fame of his marriage festival! Behold the plan which I
   had kept back, but which this day I reveal to my servants. My first
   invitation, as I knew of old, has revealed the insincerity and
   treachery of those who were invited. I now unveil another method which
   shall assuredly display my grace and sovereign favor. I will bring in
   whomever I will to eat bread at this wedding! I will take the base
   things of the earth to confound the mighty, and things that are not, to
   bring to nothing things that are." Now, observe this, you who have
   heard the Gospel so long, but have rejected it--God will not,
   therefore, recall the Gospel or disannul His Covenant of Love, or call
   back the provisions of His Grace because not for your sake, but for His
   Son's sake and for His own honor's sake, He has resolved to go through
   with this matter! Jesus shall not be Incarnate in vain! The oxen and
   the fatlings of the Covenant shall not be slain for nothing--good shall
   conquer evil, mercy shall rejoice over judgment--Jesus shall see of the
   travail of His soul and shall be satisfied! The Redeemer's union with
   His Church shall not be unattended by those rich displays of Divine
   Grace which shall make it the wonder of all the ages!

   Though those who were first invited, refused. Though they thought to
   dishonor the Lord by so doing, His purpose shall stand and His chosen
   shall be saved. Has the Lord been foiled yet in anything that He has
   attempted? Who has ever restrained the Everlasting One? Or who has said
   unto Him, "what are you doing?" Did chaos by its wild confusion prevent
   the ordering of the world? Did not the Spirit move upon the water and
   bring forth life and order there? When darkness was on the face of the
   deep, could that resist Him? Did not the words, "light be," scatter the
   darkness at once? And it shall be so now, in the world of mind as well
   as in the world of matter, for Jehovah is Lord of spirits and does as
   He wills among the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of this
   lower world! Though some think not so, yet full surely is it a sort of
   atheism to deny the almightiness of God in the realm of mind! In both
   He rules supremely without violating the nature of either, except it is
   for His Glory to work unusual miracles. Many cannot understand how this
   can be unless we reduce mind to the bondage of matter--and conceive of
   men as machines, destitute of free agency--but in this they lose the
   Glory of the Truth of God! The Omnipotence of God is glorified in the
   fact that while man has a will, yet God governs him as a free agent. He
   does not violate the will, and yet knows how, by spiritual forces, to
   work His own purposes, so that man does as He wills. That God rules man
   as a builder rules his stones and timber is the idea of idiots, but
   that He leaves them men, in full possession of their freedom, and yet
   achieves the purposes of His Grace is the Truth of God! He has
   mysterious cords of love and bands of a man with which to draw
   men--they are compelled to come in, but yet "the people willingly offer
   themselves." It is a paradox, and so is every Truth of God, if we are
   willing to see it all. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is
   high, I cannot attain unto it and, therefore, I accept it as all the
   more clearly in harmony with the attributes of Him whose ways are past
   finding out. You see, then, that God's great determination is to go on
   with His Gospel festival. He condescendingly seems to His servants, to
   turn it over in His mind, but it had all been in His plan from old
   eternity and He now unveils it. The words of the parable lay bare to
   spiritual minds the mysteries of God's dealings with Israel and the
   Gentiles--and bring us down to the period when the great Gospel
   mystery, which had been hidden from kings and Prophets, was brought to
   light, and the nations were made to see the salvation of God in Christ
   Jesus, His Son!

   Let us pass on to another consideration and observe--

   II. THE COMMISSION ENLARGED. "They that were invited were not worthy.
   Go you therefore" (for that very reason) "into the highways, and as
   many as you shall find invite to the marriage."

   It was a disappointment to the servants that the often invited guests
   would not come, but they were to have an abundant recompense in seeing
   a far more grateful company assembled--and a far more remarkable
   assembly than could have gathered at the palace had the invited ones
   come at their call. To the servants it must have appeared little short
   of a catastrophe that guests should be lacking. No feast, especially a
   royal one, would be complete without willing guests! To force men by
   violence would not answer the purpose--they must be cheerful, joyful,
   delighted feasters, or they would turn the wedding into slavery! The
   problem was how to get these willing and joyful guests--where could
   they be found? The king knew well where they were and pointed out the
   method of wisdom when he said, "Go out into the highways where the poor
   are wandering and where the hungry faint by the way; go out where the
   many are and invite them come and feast to the full; as many as you
   find invite to the marriage." Ah, how did these vagrants of the
   highways, these tramps, these hawkers, tinkers and beggars who so
   little expected ever to be invited--who, according to all human
   calculations were quite uninvitable and unpresentable at court--how did
   they rejoice to be invited to the marriage? The Gospel which is
   despised by the proud is sweet to those who are in spiritual
   destitution! Know, then, that in order to bring in welcome guests to
   the feast of mercy, the old commission of the Prophets was enlarged in
   the delivery to the Apostles--they were not restrained to the Jews who
   were invited, but to every creature! They were sent out into all the
   world as itinerant commissioners with unlimited power to bid men
   believe in Jesus! Ministers of Christ, yes, and all Christians are now
   sent on the same errand--and to all of you is the word of this
   salvation sent!

   Who were to go? "Then said he unto his servants." You see, then, that
   those went who had gone before and had been rejected, or even
   despitefully used. And we gather from this that disappointments in our
   former labors are not reasons for retirement, but arguments for
   increased activity and that the servants whose messages have been
   refused should, nevertheless, spring forward and say, "Here are we,
   send us!" I hear these neglected messengers pleading after this
   fashion, "Gracious king, permit us to go again. We stood astonished and
   we wept bitterly as we heard the refusal of Your enemies, but now grant
   us the joy of conducting others of our fellow subjects into Your royal
   halls." If any among us have hitherto spent our strength for nothing,
   let us beg leave to proclaim the Gospel again in hope of better
   success! Those who have had large success are the very last to dream of
   being excused from further service--they are wedded to the work
   forever! I would to God that you who have been unsuccessful may be
   equally so.

   To whom were the messengers to go? Their path lay straight before them.
   Out of doors was their road and the common thoroughfare their
   field--they were to invite all that they found! I do not understand
   these words if they do not mean just this--that we are to tell the
   Gospel to everybody with whom we meet. "As many as you shall find,
   invite to the marriage." That is, everybody you see, pass, live with,
   deal with, know or hear of--everybody that Providence and effort will
   enable you to reach! Perhaps one of the servants, as he went out, ran
   into his own brother. "Brother," said he, "I pray you come to the
   prince's wedding! There is a lack of guests and you will be welcome."
   Perhaps he went a little farther and met with his sister, or his
   mother, or his father and at once he cried, "Come, dear ones! Come to
   the wedding! the king has bid me invite all I meet with, and I have met
   you--come at once." Then as he went farther out he saw a beggar in his
   rags, limping on crutches. He knew him to be a strange character, and
   not at all in his face, or his limbs, or his garments, fitted to adorn
   a royal feast--but he said to him, "There is a great feast ready and it
   is open to you. The king told me to invite all I found." "Shouldn't I
   like it!" said the beggar, "but may I go?" "Yes, beyond all doubt, for
   he who bade me invite all will not refuse any who come." The messenger
   ran on and joined himself to a chariot in which there rode a great
   nobleman--having invited his lordship, he hastened on to call a thief
   and a woman that was a sinner, nor did he pause until the time was come
   to return to him that sent him. Those servants, I should imagine, had
   an odd experience of many singular characters, outcasts, eccentrics and
   good-for-nothings! But they did as they were told and it was a great
   pleasure to them to do so. The singular benevolence of their errand
   gave it a great charm. They gathered, before long, a motley group--bad
   and good, rich and poor, high and low, lame, blind, sick and sorry! It
   was Noah's Ark over again, for clean and unclean were fetched in, and
   there were guests enough, though there was quite room for all. They

   had no fear of calling too many or of inviting the wrong people--their
   commission from their master gave them ample room and space enough, and
   they were not slow in carrying it out to the letter. O for Grace to
   follow their blessed example! Let all Believers try to do so!

   It is not ours alone to instruct these who come to us, but to go after
   men to press instruction upon them. Granted that in this climate we
   need the shelter of a roof as a rule, yet let it be accepted as a
   necessary evil and never regarded as a religious requirement, much less
   as a jail wherein the preaching of the Gospel must be confined! Leave
   church, chapel, tabernacle, meetinghouse at once, if the masses are not
   reached by you, and go out into the public hall, the market, or the
   field if there an audience can be secured. The Gospel message is not,
   "Wait within," but, "Go you out!" What says that grand old missionary
   text? "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature." Out of your pulpit, Sir! Do not believe in the virtue of
   that cushion and tassel. Out, I say, into the public places! No, it is
   not I, but your Lord that bids you! Make the Gospel to be known in the
   highways, in the public places--invite as many as you find. This is the
   ordained way of furnishing the wedding with guests. The old way of only
   inviting those to come who have been invited many times before has
   become a failure--henceforth use the generous Gospel way--seek out the
   strangers, the hitherto uninvited, the unevangelized, the ignorant, the
   irreligious! And to them proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord! Some
   of us must prophesy in public places to the crowds who need a trumpet
   voice. And others of us must run along the byways and invite men come
   in little groups or one by one. Away there at the street corners, where
   the idlers lounge whom no man has hired, go and find guests for your
   Master! Yonder where a giddy company dance to a defiling song, or where
   others listen to an idle tale--there bear your Message of Life! Press
   the Good News upon the hungry at the workhouse door and the felon in
   his cell! And pass not by the fallen woman, or even her seducer, whose
   filthy eyes are searching for fresh objects for his lust! Tell the
   drunk, when you find him sober, of Heaven's wines on the lees
   well-refined, and the beggar, of an alms most rich and free!

   All sorts of persons, bad and good, as many as you find, without
   exception, you must invite! You need not fear that you will invite an
   unwelcome guest, nor that too large a company will come. You will never
   exhaust your Master's provision or His patience. Go and do as He tells
   you and find as many as you can, for those you bring, He will receive.
   If there is one whom you, in your unbelief, would pass over, the
   probabilities are that he is one whom God decrees to bless, for He sees
   not as man sees and chooses not after man's preferences. You would
   forget, perhaps, the poor, but, "God has chosen the poor of this
   world." You might, perhaps, overlook the abject, but, "the Son of Man
   is come to seek and to save that which was lost." The discrimination
   lies with God--not with you! Who are elect He knows, but you know not,
   nor should you wish to know till He reveals them--it is enough for you
   that He has much people in this city. Other sheep the Savior has who
   are not yet of His visible fold, whom also He must bring in. Go you and
   be His instruments in the matter! No, pause not, wish not to make a
   difference. God reveals His discriminating Grace by an universal
   indiscriminate preaching of the Gospel! He often works by seeking
   contraries and achieves His purpose by that which man counts
   foolishness. He is the best judge of fitness and consistency--it is not
   yours to judge His methods, but to obey His commands.

   Thus we have contemplated the enlargement of the Gospel commission. Now
   let us see--

   III. THE COMMISSION FULFILLED. The servants were commanded to go and
   they went. O for the same ready obedience on our parts. No servant
   said, "I am not fit to go," or, "I dare not," but it is written, "So
   those servants went out." Will that be the case in this Church? The
   pastor must lead the way--will you go, you deacons and elders, one and
   all? Who among you will be so base as to withhold? You members of the
   Church, will you go? Dare you refuse the Divine Call? Sister, will you
   go? You need not travel far with your feet--your household duties are
   your highway. Speak to those in it tonight! You, my Friend, yonder, are
   employed in a workroom where many hands are busy--use, I pray you, your
   opportunities. Perhaps they find opportunities of ridiculing your
   religion--make a courageous return by telling them what religion has
   done for you. Whenever the day of God's power is come, His people are
   made willing for His service! Before the 3,000 were called at
   Pentecost, the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. There are
   two sorts of enquirers and the one always comes before the
   other--enquiring saints lead on enquiring sinners--"For this will I be
   enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." When God's
   servants go after sinners, sinners come after Christ! That is God's
   usual rule. "By the foolishness of preaching," which there includes all
   sorts of Christian teaching, the Lord ordains to save them that
   believe.

   No doubt every servant went his own way, for if you observe, the word,
   "highways," is in the plural. If they had all gone together they would
   have wasted their strength, but when one went one road and one another,
   many more would be met with. I think I see them outside the door as
   they rush out at their master's command! One of the elder servants
   cries, "Brethren, stop a minute! Let us arrange ourselves and agree to
   scour the city. You run along the north road, and you traverse the
   south. You take the east, and I will go the west." No doubt same
   irregular Brother would say, "I cannot be fettered with rules, I shall
   go where I can." "Very well," they would say, "go, Brother, but mind
   you do not loiter." Probably those would be the better sort who
   accepted the brotherly agreement and so carried it out that the whole
   city was canvassed and the entire district traversed. See how pleased
   they all are, how earnest and how swift! How I could wish to have been
   one of them! Have you such a wish? Well, we can be! We may go at once.
   It fills my soul with pleasure to think that I am sent to preach the
   unsearchable riches of Christ to poor lost souls! There is no joy like
   it, except that of seeing them actually saved! These good servants,
   when they found that the king was so surprisingly generous, that since
   the nobility and aristocracy would not come, he intended to bring in
   the beggars and the highwaymen, and those that slept under the
   hedges--must have felt such joy in spirit that they leaped along and
   cried aloud, "Whoever will, let him come to the royal wedding, for the
   king has bid us to invite as many as we find, both good and bad."

   So all those servants went forth, but though they went different ways
   they all found guests, for they gathered together all as many as they
   found, and there was enough to completely furnish the chamber with
   guests! When God sends His servants, they go on no fruitless errand!
   When He makes them willing to go here and there, declaring His mercy,
   there are sure to be chosen ones in their road! The Lord puts sinners
   in our way on purpose that we may do them good--and if we are awake to
   seize all opportunities--God will bless our endeavors.

   Though the servants went different ways you will observe they all
   pointed those they found to one central place. They "gathered together
   all as many as they found." They all said as they were told, "Come to
   the wedding," and to each one as he enquired the way, they said,
   "Behold the feast." Wherever the servants were, their fingers pointed
   to the royal palace. What a mercy it is when an earnest Christian
   Church has no theme but Christ. When the pastor is set upon bringing
   sinners to Jesus and all the brotherhood are filled with the same
   longing! Happy is it when all the testimonies are one! If you step into
   the Sunday school, the teachers are not preaching up salvation by good
   works to the little ones, but Jesus only! And if you go into the Bible
   class, they are not teaching ceremonialism, but cleansing by the
   precious blood! There are many agents, but they are all working with
   one design-- their spheres vary but not their doctrines--their talents
   differ but not their messages!

   As a result of this agency all kinds of individuals came to the
   banquet, "both bad and good." In any genuine work of Grace the converts
   will never be of one class--there will be the rich, Glory be to God
   when they are brought! There will be the poor and the Lord's name be
   praised for it! We may expect to see the children of godly parents
   converted, but we may also hope to welcome those who never heard the
   name of God! We have been rejoiced to hear during the last few days of
   the infidel being converted! It has been a great joy to mark the tears
   of a woman that was a sinner, and to hear the cries of those who had
   been accustomed to the drunkard's settle, while many have come who were
   aforetime excellent in character and outwardly religious. When the
   Gospel is preached to every creature, it gathers together those who in
   the judgment of men are both good and bad!

   But how was it that so many people who were in the highways when the
   servants rushed out and told them so hurriedly to come, were found
   willing to accept the invitation? They had received no previous
   invitation, yet they came-- while those who had timely notice would not
   come. How strange are the ways of men! How stranger, still, the ways of
   God! We have seen it--seen it to our joy and our grief--to our joy that
   some who never heard the Gospel before have come to Jesus the very
   first time they have heard about Him! To our grief because those who
   have known the Gospel from their youth up have still refused to obey
   its glorious message! Why was it that they came? They came because the
   King who sent the servants, sent a secret power with them. He had
   prepared the people in the streets to come!

   Our exposition and exhortation shall close with the sweetest word of
   all. Notwithstanding the first failure, the commission being enlarged
   and fulfilled, we now see--

   IV. THE KING'S DESIGN ACCOMPLISHED-- "The wedding was furnished with
   guests." It had before, everything else but guests. Now it has guests
   also. So, when the Gospel is preached to all nations, the power of God
   works

   with it and His eternal purposes are fulfilled! Jesus sees of the
   travail of His soul. His union with manhood is graced with a joyful
   festival!

   Observe this, that the king's bounty was, after all, illustrated. Those
   who were first invited would not come, they did not care to be
   receivers of his royal bounty. But now he shines in liberality more
   than if they hadcome, for everyone tells it--"This king made a feast
   for beggars, for streetwalkers, for highwaymen and for all sorts of
   people." His name was sounded abroad among the many through his
   condescending goodness! If moralists refuse the Savior, then when He
   converts the grossly guilty, He shall have a greater name for Grace
   than ever! The refusal of Pharisees shall redound to His Glory,
   inasmuch as He invites the publicans. He intended when he killed his
   oxen and his fatlings that all should be eaten, and he could not have
   secured this more certainly than by bringing in the famishing poor, for
   these brought with them ravenous appetites! All the mercy of God is
   meant to be used and when He converted such as we are, He chose the
   right way to have His mercy magnified, for we have been receiving of
   His fullness, Grace for Grace, and are still hungering for more! No
   part of the banquet of mercy shall go untouched! We need all that is
   stored in the Covenant. There will be enough for us, but we shall have
   need of all.

   The king intended his feast to promote happiness and there was ten
   times more happiness produced by bringing in thepoor and needy from the
   streets, than if the great ones, who were first invited, had come. What
   happiness to the hungry to feed on the Bread of Heaven! Never had such
   a meal been set before them in all their lives! They had not even in
   their dreamsthought of sitting at an imperial table! How they looked at
   each other as they enjoyed the fat things full of marrow! How one
   smiled at the other and said, "what a feast is this for a hungry soul!
   I was never filled like this before!" And, oh, since God has brought in
   some of us, such great sinners, I am sure there are none so happy as we
   are! None can rejoice so much in pardoning love and adopting Grace and
   all the riches of the Covenant. Instead of the Lord being defeated in
   His design of making men happy, He has won a glorious victory through
   the refusal of His enemies. The Jews refused, but the Gentiles glorify
   Him more! The regular religionists reject Christ, but the sinners
   accept Him and are glad.

   He intended also that his son should have honor, and surely, if he
   desired shouts of praise for his son, he found the right men to do it
   heartily and lustily. If the very respectable people had come, they
   would have taken everything very quietly after a mild lukewarm fashion,
   but the rough men of the streets were all enthusiasm and fervor, and
   when they had well eaten, how they shouted for joy! What cheers they
   gave for the king and for his son. Even thus, when Grace brings in the
   outcasts, they feel that none shall sing more loudly in Heaven than
   they! None shall love more or praise more. How rapturously ought we to
   praise the Lord, that passing by the great and noble, He has chosen the
   base things of this world, and the things that are not, to bring to
   nothing the things that are!

   If the king desired love for his son, he went the sure way to
   accomplish it when he raked the highways for guests, for they would be
   sure to love the condescending prince now that they had feasted with
   him. They would prize so much that day's festival that they would
   henceforth look at themselves as the prince's own--and be his loyal
   subjects, his devout admirers forever! They would reverently and
   joyfully say, "What a king is ours! What a royal word it was to say,
   'Go into the highways and bring in as many as you find!'" O how they
   would love him! If he destroyed a seditious city, he made up for the
   loss by creating a new band of loyal citizens! Here were men who would
   serve him with their lives, or die for him in his battles. Such hearts
   has Jesus won! Now that we have been brought to receive salvation, we
   would live for Jesus, we would die for Him--

   "All that I am, and allI have, Shall be forever Yours."

   You who have done so much for me, help me to do all I can for You. God
   bless every such a lover of the Prince Immanuel!
     __________________________________________________________________

Goodness Going Before

   (No. 3329)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   9, 1866.

   "You prevent Him with the blessings of goodness." Psalm 21:3.

   OUR text is one of many instances of the way in which words change
   their meanings. The word, "prevent," as we now use it, has a very
   different meaning from that which it had when our translators used it.
   It now signifies to get before one, to stop up his path, to prevent his
   going a certain way, just as the angel "prevented" Balaam, standing
   with his sword drawn in his hand that he might not pass that way. This
   is only the modern use of the word, but the real and ancient use of it
   was simply, "to go before." "You go before Him with the blessings of
   goodness." That is the real meaning of the word--and when we speak of,
   "preventing Grace," we do not intend to describe the Grace that keeps
   us from sin, but the Grace which goes before our actually believing in
   Christ--"prevenient Grace," as we are accustomed to call it
   theologically--Grace which comes to us while as yet we are not
   conscious of its power, or have no desire towards it.

   The meaning of the text, then, is not that Christ was prevented, or
   hindered from doing anything that He wished to do, by God's goodness,
   but that God's goodness went before, preceded, heralded Him. That word,
   "preceded," has taken in our language in the present age the force and
   meaning which the word, "prevent," had at the time of the translation
   of our authorized version of the Bible, so that now we should say,
   instead, "You precede Him, got before Him with the blessings of Your
   goodness."

   I shall take the text on this occasion, then, in two ways. First,
   noticing its application to our Lord Jesus Christ, personally, and then
   its application to Him mystically--that is to say, to every believing
   soul that is truly in Him. First, then--

   I. ITS APPLICATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST PERSONALLY. It is quite
   certain that God did precede Him with the blessings of goodness. That
   is to say, before our Lord Jesus Christ actually came into the world
   and bowed His head in death, multitudes of spirits were given to Him as
   His reward--that tens of thousands entered into God's Redemption by
   virtue of an Atonement that was not as yet offered--and washed away
   their sins in a fountain filled with blood which had not been literally
   opened, but which was opened in the purpose of God and in its Divine
   Operation from before the foundation of the world, for is He not
   called, "the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world"?
   Brothers and Sisters, see the wondrous power of the death of our
   Savior! His blood not only cries from the ground when it is spilt, but
   it cried all down the ages which preceded the actual blood-shedding! It
   opened the gates of Heaven to sinners, it was sprinkled on the
   consciences of Believers and made sinful men to be "accepted in the
   Beloved" even before it had dropped in bloody sweat in Gethsemane, or
   had been made to flow in streams under the lash in Gabbatha, or had
   been poured forth from the five sacred wounds upon the Cross of
   Calvary! "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."

   Just as some mighty conquerors, when they entered in triumph into Rome
   not only had behind them the trophies of their victory, but before them
   the streets were strewn with flowers and made sweet with the perfumes
   rained upon them before they came, so was it with the Savior. Before He
   came, the world was blessed by His coming! Before He, Himself,
   appeared, I may say that death and Hell were defeated in anticipation.
   Just as in our own land there is a brightness that covers the sky
   before the sun has actually risen above the horizon, so was it with the
   world--there was the Light of God in it before Christ came. It was
   Light, however, which came from Him, for He is the Light of the World,
   the Light that

   lights every man that comes into the world--but it came before He,
   Himself, appeared! In this verse, then, it must be said of King Jesus,
   "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."

   And to ponder another phase of this same thought, our Lord Jesus Christ
   was honored among the sons of men before He had performed His great
   work.

   We honor our Lord because He has redeemed us, and it is this that makes
   them sing before the eternal Throne of God, "He has loved us, and
   redeemed us unto God by His blood." But long before the Redemption
   price had been paid, I doubt not that Christ was honored by the saints
   in Heaven, for they knew that their coming there was on the same ground
   and footing as the saints do now! I believe, therefore, that long
   before He lived and died on earth, they cast their crowns at His feet
   and said, "You are worthy." I have frequently heard it said that there
   was no faith in Heaven, but I have never been able to receive that
   idea. At any rate, there must have been faith in Heaven before Christ
   died! The celestial spirits must have had a firm conviction that Christ
   would come upon the earth and must have felt that their security
   depended upon the Infallible oath and promise that in the fullness of
   time He would offer Himself as a Sacrifice. Indeed, it seems to me that
   there is still faith in Heaven as to that matter, for they have to
   believe as we do in the Second Advent, in the resurrection of the dead
   and in many wondrous promises which as yet have not been fulfilled.
   Certainly, Beloved, we may say of the Master that His head was crowned
   with the Glory of the crown of thorns before it was crowned with the
   shame! And in this sense He was preceded with the blessings of
   goodness. Abraham saw His day. He saw it and was glad--and in that
   gladness of Abraham, Jesus Christ rejoiced! David sang of Him and
   rested upon Him with such faith that in that faith the Savior found a
   solace. All those who were able to look through that smoke of the types
   and ceremonies--and to see the substance of the true Redemption--all
   gave honor and Glory to Him, and this I say was before He had actually
   won that Glory by His death--"You precede Him with the blessings of
   goodness."

   It seems to me, however, that the text need not be read literally, or
   interpreted exactly according to its words, but the spirit of it is
   more to be observed. That spirit appears to be this--that Christ does
   not tardily obtain from His father the blessings of goodness, but they
   come from God with freeness and Divine liberality, so that it may truly
   be said, "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness." Take an
   instance. Our Savior says, "I will not pray the Father for you, for the
   Father Himself loves you, for you have loved Me." It was as if He put
   it in these words and had said, "I should not have to wait pleading at
   the Throne, for the Father, Himself, is so willing to give, that He
   will precede me with the blessings of goodness." Ah, my dear Friends,
   if it is a promise which belongs to us poor pleaders that before we
   call, He will answer, and while we are speaking He will hear, do you
   not think that this blessing emphatically belongs to the Great
   Intercessor--the Lord Jesus--so that the Father precedes Him with "the
   blessings of goodness"? We are accustomed to sing to Him as pleading
   before the Eternal Throne, but we must forever banish from our minds
   all idea of His needing to plead because God is unwilling to hear! No,
   what the Son desires, the Father desires--that which He seeks at the
   Divine Throne is flowing from that Throne--but His intercession it not
   the causeof it, but the channelthrough which it comes to us! We know
   that God's goodness was not caused by the death of Christ--

   "'Twas not to make the Father's love Towards His people known That
   Jesus, from the realms above, On His kind errand came! 'Twas not the
   pangs that He endured, Nor all the woes He bore That God's eternal love
   procured, For God was Love before!"

   God loved His people with a love that surpassed all thought before the
   Savior came. And now that that Savior pleads for us, His plea is not
   the cause of the blessing, but the channel'through which the blessing
   comes down to us "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness."

   But then, Beloved, what a sweet thought this is, that wherever the
   Savior comes, God's blessings come with Him, come behind Him, no, even
   come before Him! Sometimes when a man walks, his shadow goes before
   him. The shadow of Peter healed the sick, and so the shadow of the
   Savior, when He is coming to a soul, begins to heal it. Why, I have
   known some who have been blessed by the very shadow of Christ--I mean
   that before they were actually converted, before the new heart and the
   right spirit were given to them, the very shadow of Christ, at least
   more or less, made them desire to

   change their ways. The very shadow of Christ, I say, falling before
   them had somewhat of a healing effect upon their souls even before they
   had put their fingers into the print of the nails or thrust their hands
   into His side! You, Brothers and Sisters, who have had communion with
   Christ, will know that before you are actually conscious of the love of
   Christ being shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you will
   often have some notion of it, for a calm suddenly comes upon you before
   He, Himself, comes.

   He makes all things ready just as He did at the Passover, when He sent
   His disciples to prepare the upper room. His Holy Spirit often comes to
   make ready your heart to receive Him so that when He comes you may be
   ready to open the door because He has been preceded by the "blessings
   of goodness." Even before He comes, comes a blessing from Him! Beloved,
   what must be the treasures that are in Him? What the troops of angelic
   mercies that surround Him? What the heavenly blessings, what the waves
   upon waves of celestial benedictions that must be in Himself, in His
   own Person! If His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,
   where did they get the sweet odor from but from Himself? They smell of
   the cassia, but He is the cassia! "A bundle of myrrh is my Well-Beloved
   unto me." As a cluster of camphor in the vineyards of Engedi, is He to
   those who know His fragrance and delight in His sweetness! We may say
   of Him, "You precede Him with the blessings of goodness," but as for
   Himself, He is goodness itself! Do you not think that Bernard of
   Clairvaux had the right idea when he penned that ancient hymn which has
   been so sweetly translated--

   "Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast! But
   sweeter far Your face to see, And in Your Presence rest."

   Then he goes on--

   "To those who fall how kind You are! How good to those that seek! But
   what to those who find? Ah, this, Nor tongue, nor pen can show! The
   love of Jesus--what it is, None but His loved ones know." So, then, we
   leave this point as it refers to our Lord, personally, reminding
   ourselves that all the blessings of God's goodness are, "Yes, and Amen,
   in Christ Jesus to the Glory of God," to us, and they all come to us
   through Him. We now turn to our second point--

   II. ITS APPLICATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST MYSTICALLY, that is, TO
   EVERY BELIEVING SOUL IN HIM. We too, can say to God, "You have preceded
   us with the blessings of goodness."

   I want you to go back a little in your own histories. Just take out
   your diaries and turn back to the book of His mercies. I want you to
   think of prevenientProvidences. You may open your children's hymnbook
   if you like, and you may sing--

   "I thank the goodness and the Grace, Which on my birth have smiled That
   in this land I passed my days, A happy English child. I was not born a
   little slave, To labor in the sun, Wishing I were put in my grave, And
   all my labor done. I was not born as thousands are, Where God was never
   known And taught to pray a senseless prayer To blocks of wood and
   stone. My God, I thank You who have planned, A better lot for me! And
   placed me in this happy land, Where I can hear of Thee."

   I remember hearing it once said that this was a hymn for little
   Pharisees, but the man who said that did not know any better and was,
   therefore, to be pitied. It is a hymn which a child may very gratefully
   sing and which we may all join in when we thank God for the Providence
   which caused us to be born where the Gospel is preached!

   Let us be thankful, too, many of us, that we were born in households
   where the name of Jesus was among the earliest sounds that caught our
   ears! We were rocked in our cradles to the hymns of Zion and the name
   of the Savior mingled with the very hush of the lullaby. With some
   here, alas, it was oaths and curses and the first sounds they heard
   were drunken brawls and profanity and blasphemy! If, dear Friends--as
   many of you have been--you were born into Christian families, I want
   you to think of it and then say, "You precede me with the blessings of
   goodness." Then after your birth, but long before your conversion, what
   wonderful Providences fell to our lot! Our conversion may even have
   been brought about by the most trifling circumstances. When you were a
   bound apprentice, young man, perhaps you were from an ungodly family
   and it was a remarkable Providence which put you under a Christian
   master! And you, my young Friend, when you first went out to service,
   or as nursery-governess, it was a great mercy that you had a Christian
   fellow servant, or met with someone to speak with you concerning the
   things of God! How many chances, as we say, there were that you would
   notgo to such a place and make them into strong helpers to your highest
   good! And since then, just think over the preserving Providences that
   you had even before you were converted. If you had died before
   conversion, where would you have been? Think, too, of the Providences
   which tended to bring you to the place where you live and where you
   first heard the Word of God, and the Providences which prepared your
   soul to be saved.

   I have no doubt that sometimes a man who has been afflicted is more
   likely to be blessed by a sermon than he would be if he had not been so
   afflicted. And so, the loss of a child, or having a sick wife, or a
   serious injury to property are all plows which God uses in Providence
   to make a man ready to receive the Gospel. "I would never have seen,"
   said one man, "if I had not lost my eyes." "Ah," said another, "I would
   never have been able to run if I had not broken my legs." Our so-called
   misfortunes are sometimes our greatest benedictions and are often
   overruled by the Lord to be the means by which we are brought into the
   way of being blessed--and where He may afterwards meet with us with the
   blessings of goodness! You have been praying for prosperity, my Friend,
   but God has not heard you. And you now say that God does not hear
   prayer. You have asked for a certain position and He has not given it
   to you, for it is a position, perhaps, in which you would be ruined.
   Perhaps you are of such a spirit that if you were not afflicted in
   Providence you would be running into all manner of mischief, but God
   loves you well and, therefore, He will not let you rush blindly down to
   destruction, but puts a clog upon you to keep you back! Let us think,
   then, Brothers and Sisters, of the Providence which came to us before
   our quickening.

   But a wider field opens up to us when we come to think not merely of
   preventing Providence, but of preventing Grace, the Grace that came to
   us before we knew Christ at all. First, Brothers and Sisters, there was
   the Grace of restraint which kept some of us back from committing sins
   which might have placed us out of the world, out of society, or out of
   the reach of the ordinary means of Grace. It is something to have been
   kept from drunkenness--it will be a theme for perpetual gratitude if we
   have been kept from the grosser vices by which the body, as well as the
   soul, may become defiled and polluted! It is no small blessing to have
   preserved in social life an untarnished reputation among men. Had such
   a woman fallen, she might never have dared to go where the Gospel was
   preached and was blessed to her. Had such a young man really put his
   hand into the till when he was severely tempted to do it, he might have
   lost his standing and never have been at Sunday school or in the Bible
   class where God met with him. Perhaps you have been strongly tempted to
   do a certain thing, but something came upon you--you did not know what
   it was--which told you, you must not do it. Preventing Grace has come
   and prevented you from knowing the depths of your carnal nature,
   because Providence has put you into a position where you cannot do as
   you would!

   I do not doubt, Brothers and Sisters, that there is a Grace which
   precedes quickening, a Grace for which theology has no name, which
   prepares the soul for the reception of the Divine Word, which makes the
   soul ready before the Living Seed comes. It is a kind of Grace, at any
   rate, which educates the man, which makes him candid, casts out his
   prejudice, makes him live honestly and keeps him from falling into
   conceit. We know some who are unconverted whom we are very thankful to
   know, for we have great hopes for them. If they have not received the
   Truth of God in the love of it, yet they have a great love for the
   Truth and do not, by their outward actions, lead others into sin. I
   trust, in some cases at least,

   that these are not mere Pharisees, but that of many of them we may
   truly say, "You precede him with the blessings of goodness."

   Now I shall leave this point and go on to remark that the text is true
   of us who are Believers in the following senses--God has preceded us in
   the order of merit If He had stopped until we deservedHis Grace, He
   would never have come! We had never known salvation if He had waited
   until we were worthy to receive it, for we are not worthy now! For
   years some of us have been serving Him, either by preaching the Gospel
   or in some other way, but we have no merit even now! Our poor merits
   have broken their legs and cannot travel. No, our merit has been
   waterlogged. It has gone down and foundered at sea. We have done with
   all thought of our own merit! And yet let us recollect that when we
   come to God, if we are never so guilty, He precedes us with the
   blessings of goodness! Though our vileness would seem to be upon our
   forehead, like the leprosy of old, yet we have access with boldness
   unto this Grace whereby we stand and rejoice in hope of the Glory to be
   revealed. Truly, "His ways are not as our ways, neither are His
   thoughts as our thoughts, for so high as the heavens are above the
   earth even so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our
   thoughts." I have not run an inch in the road of merit! But He has run
   ten thousand leagues, for in the road of merit, He precedes us with the
   blessings of His goodness!

   And it is not only true in the sense of merit, but it is equally true
   in the sense of desire. God did not wait to save us until we desired to
   be saved. Let me not be misunderstood, however, in the assertion. Did
   not Christ die to save us before we were born? Was not the Gospel sent
   to us before we desired to hear it? Although we sat in the House of God
   indifferent and did not care about it, yet it was ringing in our ears
   all the while! And even if we had desires, yet where did those desires
   come from? Were they our own desires, or were they given to us by
   Christ?

   Those of my Brothers who choose to take the alternative, may do so, but
   as far as I am concerned, I must say--

   "'Twas not that I did choose You, For, Lord, that could not be! This
   heart would still refuse You, But You have chosen me!"

   I cannot take any credit to myself for coming to Christ! I did come,
   but I am persuaded it was a secret whisper of His love that attracted
   my soul. And because of that text which Jeremiah gives us so blessedly,
   "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving
   kindness have I drawn you." Or as the poet sings--

   "He drew me, and I followed on,

   Charmed to obey the voice Divine." God, in this, preceded us with the
   blessings of goodness! He taught us to desire when we neither willed
   nor ran, and so fulfilled the text, "it is not of him that wills, nor
   of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy."

   Then, besides this, God also precedes us in endeavor. Brothers and
   Sisters, you and I have been endeavoring to grow in Grace and,
   notwithstanding the little progress we have made, yet, on the whole,
   God has given us a great deal more than our exertions might have led us
   to expect. When I look on the little zeal which some of us exhibit in
   private prayer and upon the little diligence which some of us have in
   studying the Word of God, it is amazing that we should have been
   enabled to have so much joy and to have so much knowledge of Divine
   things as we have! We have sown but little and reaped but little
   compared with what we might have done, but our harvest has been of
   infinitely greater value than the sowing might have led us to expect.
   Christian, you are now more advanced in the Divine Life than you might
   have been, or would have been on the mere ground of your own exertions!
   You have not advanced far because you have strived with but little
   earnestness, but you have had a far greater result than you might have
   expected. Sometimes I have found in my own soul that I have longed to
   have communion with Christ. I have thought that if I could but get a
   whisper from Him, I would be content--and before I was aware, my soul
   made me like the chariots of Amminadib! I heard no whisper fall on my
   outward ears, but His voice to my soul was clear and sweet! I had no
   vision of Christ granted to my bodily eyes, but before my faith, there
   stood my Beloved near to me and my heart was charmed by His Presence
   long before I thought I could ever reach such a state! Christ came and
   seconded my endeavors, no, carried me far beyond all my endeavors!
   When, on the other hand, I lay like a dull, dead log, and my spirit
   seemed unable to move, suddenly the wheels of my soul began to whirl
   until the axles grew hot with speed!

   Certainly, too, the Lord has preceded us in the order of our experience
   as to time. Mark tells us that when Christ fed the multitudes, they sat
   down on the green grass and that there was much grass in that place.
   God knew that Christ would need a banqueting hall and, therefore, He
   made a carpet for Him long before He came there! The pasture must come
   before the sheep, or else while the grass grows the flock will starve.
   Always notice the forestalling of God's Providence and the forestalling
   of God's Grace! He prepares before our actual necessity comes. Have you
   not observed this in your trials? You had a great trouble a little
   while ago. You had a death in the house--but a month or two before the
   death came, you had an unusual season of joy and you did not know why.
   Now you know it was sent to prepare you for your unexpected trouble! Or
   perhaps it was another way--this last trouble of yours did not oppress
   you as you thought it would because you had had another trouble before,
   and another before that--so that you had, as it were, grown used to
   troubles. You had been in the fire till you had become like a sword
   blade that gets annealed in the heat! I am told that before army horses
   are taken into battle, they are trained to bear the noise of guns
   firing. Certainly God trains His own chargers and makes them bear all
   the din and tumult of battle. He prepares us by small trials to bear
   larger ones! He goes before us and leaves, thus, the blessings of
   goodness to our souls. He is our great sympathetic Pioneer, going
   before us through the thick forest and jungle of trial and trouble,
   clearing a way for us through the brambles and thorns, and making
   straight in the wilderness a highway for His people, being to us as He
   was to Israel a cloudy fiery pillar and so, preceding us with the
   blessings of goodness!

   Yet again He sometimes precedes us in our labors. Before our
   missionaries went to the South Seas, there was a peculiar preparation
   of the minds of the people. They had a tradition or legend that white
   men would come in ships and tell them of the true God. Their minds were
   ready! They were looking for the vessels, and when they arrived, the
   people were not only waiting, but willing to receive them! You, too,
   will perhaps find--some of you who may be going to sail to Australia,
   or change your position in life--that the people among whom you are
   going are prepared for you and you are especially prepared as God's
   witness for them! Believe that wherever you are going, that God who
   knows all about you and who orders your footsteps, will prepare your
   way before you! He will not let you go an unknown path, but one that
   should be trodden by the foot of His love before it shall be trodden by
   you. He will precede you with the blessings of goodness.

   And, lastly, my text has a very sweet meaning when we think that God
   will precede even our expectations. Some of us never expected the
   Christian life to be as happy as it has been. We have had--oh, how
   often!--some expectations about Heaven. I do not care to read many
   books about Heaven. If most of the books that have ever been written
   about Heaven were destroyed, I think we should know nearly as much as
   we do now, with them! We know more about Heaven, I believe, from our
   hymns than we do from our books. The hymn--

   "Jerusalem, my happy home,

   Name ever dear to me!

   When shall my labors have an end

   In joy, and peace, and thee!" has more of Heaven in it than half the
   books that have been written upon the subject, or that other hymn--

   "Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,

   Beneath your contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed!

   We know not, oh we know not, what joys await us there--

   What radiance of Glory, what bliss beyond compare." Now these hymns
   take us up even into the pearly-gated city itself, and sometimes when
   we have been singing--

   "On Jordan's stormy bank I stand,

   And cast a wistful eye

   To Canaan's fair and happy land,

   Where my possessions lie."

   We have almost seen the--

   "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Arrayed in living green,"

   and we have been ready to ask to go to be with our Savior, with whom we
   shall dwell forever! We expect to meet a blessed company of the saints
   there. We expect to have wondrous nearness to the Lord Jesus Christ. We
   are expecting, everyone

   of us, to have a bright crown. We are expecting to have perfect freedom
   from every ill, from pain, from sin and from sorrow! And to have what
   the Apostle calls "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

   We are expecting to see such a place as imagination never pictured! To
   hear such music as has never ravished mortal ear! We are expecting to
   drink from such pure streams as never flowed from Lebanon's untrodden
   snows! We expect something beyond what eye, or ear, or heart can teach
   us! Well, Brothers and Sisters, when we get there we shall find, any of
   us who have had great thoughts about Heaven, that our minds were too
   narrow and our thoughts too contracted! We shall be like the Queen of
   Sheba when she said, "I heard a good report in my own land, but the
   half has not been told me." We shall not be able to turn to the old
   Book and say, "Ah, God, You have not fulfilled Your promise! I do not
   find this state of Glory so wondrous as I had been led to think it
   was." No, Beloved, but we shall have to say even there, "You precede my
   imagination, my expectancy with the blessings of goodness," and we
   shall have to add--

   "Imagination's utmost stretch

   In wonder dies away!" I like that verse which our Friends sometimes
   sing which says that we shall--

   "Sing with rapture and surprise

   His loving kindness in the skies," for so I doubt not, for a long time,
   at any rate, in Heaven, surprise will be one of the most blessed of our
   emotions-- surprise to think that Heaven should be such as it is, that
   Christ should be so glorious and that we should be permitted to partake
   of His Glory! We shall feel that God has exceeded His own word and
   outrun His own promise, and that it was not in human speech, even with
   God, Himself, using it, to convey to the human mind any adequate idea
   of this which surpasses all comprehension and imagination--the joys
   which God has for those who love Him!

   My only regret in thinking on such a text as this is that some of you
   have no part in it. Oh, Friends, may God give you Grace to look to Him!
   How can you live on the brink of a stream and never think of the
   fountain? How can you receive daily mercies and yet so cruelly treat
   your God who gives you everything? Worse than the ox treats its owner,
   for the ox knows his owner and the donkey its master's crib, but you do
   not know, you do not consider!

   Ah, He has indeed preceded you with the blessings of His goodness in
   keeping you alive, in permitting you to hear the Gospel and, above all,
   in this one respect, that this very night He invites you to turn to
   Him! The Father's heart beats towards you and He says to you, "My
   erring one, come to Me, come to Me! He that comes to Me I will in no
   wise cast out. Turn you, turn you, why will you die?"--

   "Return, O wanderer, to your home!

   Your Father calls for you.

   No longer now an exile roam

   In guilt and misery.

   Return, return!"

   If you come to Him, there shall be no rejection, but a warm reception,
   and you shall be blessed forever in Jesus Christ!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 138:1-6.

   A Psalm of David.

   Verse 1.1 will praise You with my whole heart before the gods will I
   sing praise unto You. Before the heathen gods, however highly
   exalted--I will sing Your praises as in their very teeth! And the
   magistrates and princes and kings who think themselves gods on earth--I
   will not fear them or be silenced by them!

   2. I will worship toward YourHoly Temple, andpraise Yourname for Your
   loving kindness and for Your truth: for You have magnified Your Word
   above all Your name. For You were far more glorious in Revelation than
   in Creation-- Your promise did greatly transcend every other display of
   Yourself above all we have ever known or conceived of You! You have
   magnified Yourself by Your Covenant of Grace and Your works of Grace
   toward Your people. For this worship and praise are forever due!

   3. In the day when I cried, You answered me, and strengthened me with
   strength in my soul. That is a thing to make a man sing--when in the
   day of trouble God comes to him, hears his prayer and works his
   deliverance when none else can help! God's rescues demand our grateful
   songs--His deliverances our new anthems of exultant praise!

   4. All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD, when they hear
   the words of Your mouth. When Your Gospel is preached and they know it,
   they shall count it their honor to honor You. It is ignorance of its
   Glory and Grace that makes silence possible, but to hear it as God's
   Word of caring love is to be compelled to extol!

   5. Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the Glory
   of the LORD. David was a king and he danced before the Ark. And he
   anticipated the time when other kings should not be ashamed of
   exuberant rejoicing in the King of kings. Oh, that it were come! May
   the Lord hasten it in His own time, and the choral hosts of Heaven be
   swelled by the presence of the crowned monarchs of earth!

   6. Though the LORD is high, yet has He respect unto the lowly. That is
   a sweet text! One who was a scoffer met a humble child of God one
   morning and he said to him, "Tell me, is Your God a great God or a
   little God," and the poor man said, "Sir, He is both, for, though He is
   so great that the Heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, yet He makes
   Himself so little that He condescends to dwell in my poor heart." Ah,
   it was sweetly said. He who fills the heavens, no, fills all things,
   will be our abiding Guest and Friend if we will but welcome Him.

   6. But the proud He knows afar off. He has enough of them. He does not
   want them to come near Him. When they are miles away He knows all about
   them. They make a fair show, but He sees that it is all a fable and
   pretence. He knows them--afar off!
     __________________________________________________________________

Two Choice Assurances

   (No. 3330)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward."
   Genesis 15:1.

   "And He said, 'My Presence shall go with you, and I will give you
   rest.'"

   Exodus 33:14.

   IN the splendid Psalm that sets forth the Divine Glory of the matchless
   Word of God as compared even with the greatest wonders of God's visible
   Creation--that is in the 19th Psalm--we read in the 10th verse,
   "Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb." This is applied to "the
   judgments of the Lord" which are "true and righteous altogether." Of
   course, this expression sets forth David's esteem of the Law of God as
   he knew it--a very small volume compared with our complete Bible--and
   yet we may surely apply it to the whole of the Scriptures, both Old and
   New Testaments! The Hebrew original has it, "Sweeter than the dropping
   of honeycombs." Whereupon gracious Thomas Brookes, the Puritan Divine,
   observes, "it is sweeter than those drops which fall naturally and
   instantly from the comb without any force or act, and which are counted
   as being the purest, choicest and richest honey." How true is this!
   There are some texts of Scripture that may yield their treasures of
   instruction, comfort, or direction after deep study and holy
   meditation--but there are others which are marvelously free in the
   giving forth of their sweetness, calling for little else than a heart
   that loves and longs to hear God speak!

   As little children have their own confections that need no vigorous
   chewing, but will melt in the mouth, so some passages of Scriptures are
   prepared as choice morsels for the Lord's children--they have only to
   receive them by transparent faith and unaffected love--and their
   enjoyment is great.

   I know that some of the words of the Lord are as nuts that need
   breaking open to secure their nourishment, or as grapes that must be
   trod in the winepress, for their richest meaning lies not upon the
   surface and plain to all. But these others of which we speak--as the
   droppings of the honeycomb--are simple sweetnesses, prepared pleasures.
   Plain, unmistakable, choice delicacies for God's loved ones!

   To enjoy these, one needs not to be a deep theologian, a learned
   grammarian, or even much less, a profound philosopher or baffling
   mystic! The honey of the meaning flows easily and sweetly out of the
   comb of the words as liquid love, pure joy, choice consolation and
   perfect Truths of God! The student does not require to pore over his
   books, or the preacher to search his library, or the hearer to gather
   up all his knowledge to receive and enjoy these. The dainty comfort
   offers itself at once to the soul's receiving and, without effort, the
   sweetness and savor pervade the whole inner being.

   So as the Holy Spirit shall open up the word to me, I hope to be able
   to give you, Beloved, some honey out of the Rock by dwelling on one or
   two choice, plain texts that speak their sweetness direct to the heart.
   Not so much for intellectual gratifying--though that is included--as
   for spiritual satisfying and stimulating. Some preachers seem to make
   their main business to be the leading of people among the thorns, to be
   torn with perplexities, or into the fog to tantalize with
   uncertainties. Be it ours on this occasion to run as did Ahimahaz by
   way of the plain--along the level road of gracious and comforting
   teaching! We do well, sometimes, to let the heart have undivided play
   and gain, thereby, the solace and joy that we so much need!

   The droppings of the honeycomb are not so much for labor and toil as
   for renewal and delight--that the mere student and man of affairs may
   for a while come and sit and indulge in holy pleasures!

   Let this suffice for introduction to our first word of sacred assurance
   as given to Abram.

   "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and your exceedingly great reward.
   "

   "Fear not, Abram." No more necessary or practical word could be spoken
   to the great Father of the Faithful than this. Fear, alas, is a malaria
   which haunts all the marshlands of earth! It can beset the king on his
   throne, the peasant in his cottage, the statesman in his lofty office
   and the poor old mother who dreads the pauper's lot and fare. It is the
   shadow that follows us when the sun is shining brightly before--how to
   escape it is the problem that perplexes thousands of the saints of God.
   We might be sure that it was so, when so mighty a Believer as Abram was
   in great peril of it! Does he need a, "fear not," from Jehovah's lips?
   Then we may be sure that we shall require it, too. I am afraid that
   wherever there is faith there will also be a measure of fear, though
   the less of it, the better. How tenderly the Lord quiets the fears of
   His children and lulls their forebodings to rest! "Fear not, Abram." As
   much as if He had said "You are all alone, but fear not, for I am with
   you. You are in much labor, needing great strength, but fear not, I
   will help you. You have no portion, but are a stranger and sojourner in
   this land, but fear not, for I am your God. Do not fear concerning the
   past, nor the present, nor the future. Fear neither the fury of foes,
   nor the worse trial--the failure of friends. Be brave, calm, trustful,
   hopeful, joyful. Fear not, Abram." "You have just been fighting the
   kings--you desired to be a man of peace and were not, indeed,
   accustomed to the deadly strife. But I have given the marauders and
   plunderers like driven stubble to your bow--and you have brought back
   Lot and all his train of servants that were taken prisoners. You need
   not fear even for your relatives! I will bless and keep them for your
   sake. Besides, since you have borne yourself in a right royal fashion
   and not touched a thread or a shoe lace of the king of Sodom's goods,
   do not fear to enjoy your success, for you shall be safe from all
   attacks and shall command the respect of the great ones around you."
   This blessed "fear not" was a quietus to every form of alarm and
   misgiving which might come near and threaten this man of God!

   Is not this our Lord's own message to His children everywhere today? He
   has scattered His, "fear nots," all over His blessed Word as some
   riverbanks are all spread with sweet forget-me-nots! And these "fear
   nots," cover every emergency of our life and answer to them with the
   assurance that His love will never forget or fail us! And if we will
   but remember this, we shall have no cause whatever to fear.

   But the Lord appears to teach Abram that after his conflict and signal
   victory he might begin to sink. Such is often the case with the bravest
   men. The natural reaction, unless special Divine Grace is given, is
   very great. It was so with Elijah, the Prophet of Fire. Men have little
   time or space to dread while the fierce conflict is raging--their
   spirit of dash and enterprise is awakened and equal to the struggle and
   the danger! But when all is over and strained body and brain and nerves
   begin to assert themselves, then they greatly need the Lord's reviving
   and fortifying, "fear not."

   Beloved, have you never felt yourself strangely supported under the
   direst afflictions, so that they seemed not afflictions at all? And yet
   when pressure has been removed you have been ready to faint like Samson
   after he had slain the Philistines! Fear is a strange contradiction, a
   grim inconsistency, for it is apt to be greatest when the reason for it
   is least and smallest.

   We are often quiet in a storm and distracted in a calm. We are
   mysteries to ourselves and riddles to our neighbors. Our constitutions
   and dispositions sometimes appear to be made up of odds and ends and
   gatherings from all manner of beasts, and birds, and fishes-- and none
   can understand us but the Lord who made us! But, blessed be His name,
   He knows us altogether and therefore He can and does bring forth at the
   right moment the exact consolation and the precise heartening that we
   need, saying, "Fear not," in the instant wherein we are most likely to
   fear!

   "Fear not, Abram." Were there not mainly two things about which the
   Patriarch might have feared? First, about his own safety. This was met
   by the assurance, "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield." When he had no
   other guard, Abram was garrisoned in God. He was like a sheep in the
   midst of wolves, a lone stranger surrounded by hostile nations! But a
   strange Divine spell had fallen upon the Canaanites, for the Lord had
   made them hear Him saying, "Touch not My anointed and do My Prophet no
   harm." The protected of the Lord needed not to wear armor, nor bear a
   sword, nor have any human panoply, for Jehovah had said, "I am your
   shield." Abram possessed no fortress, commanded no army but his few
   servants. He had not even a permanent house in which to dwell. His
   tents were frail and undefended and yet so guarded by Heaven, that no
   one ever broke into them or dared molest or threaten those who dwelt
   within! No assassin waylaid him, no marauder attacked him--he dwelt at
   ease, for was he not under the broad shield of the Almighty? He was as
   safe as if he had been enclosed within walls that reached to the skies!
   The armor of God covered him from head to

   foot!

   So, dear Friends, when we seem to have nothing, certainly nothing
   visible, to protect us, what a blessing it is to know that we are
   nevertheless completely guarded by the Omnipotent though invisible God!

   The visible is necessarily the limited and finite, but the invisible
   God is Infinite and there is no searching of His understanding, or
   resistance to His power. You are infinitely safe if you really trust
   the living God--your beginning and ending, your waking and sleeping,
   your resting and journeying, your work and suffering, your honor or
   your reproach, your poverty or wealth, your success or failure, your
   life or death--your all forever and ever is most secure when the Lord
   is your Keeper and your Shield upon your right hand. Be it ours in
   truest wisdom and sincerest trust to give up our hearts to the repose
   of simple faith in Him!

   Come, sing with me that verse of the beloved singer Toplady--

   "Inquirer and Hearer of prayer,

   You Shepherd and Guardian of Thine,

   My all to Your Covenant care,

   I sleeping and waking resign!

   If You are my shield and my sun,

   The night is no darkness to me--

   And fast as the moments roll on,

   They bring me but nearer to Thee!" We are invulnerable and invincible
   if God is with us! We may be in the very midst of cruel adversaries,
   but no weapon that is formed against us can prosper if God is our
   Shield. Our Lord did not say to Abram, and does not say to us, "I will
   shield you," but that I, that am the Almighty, I am your Shield: it is
   not alone My power, My wisdom, My love which will protect you, but I,
   Myself, will be your Shield!

   Then Abram may have thought, "I shall be protected, but shall I not
   spend my life in vain?" He might have feared for his success. He led
   the life of a gypsy, roaming through a land in which he owned no foot
   of ground. Therefore the Lord added, "I am your Reward." Do you see? He
   does not say, "I will reward you," but "I am your Reward." If we who
   work for Christ see souls saved, how we rejoice, for they are a kind of
   reward to us--but nevertheless we will not rejoice so much but rather
   rejoice that our names are written in Heaven! I have in these words
   quoted an old text, first spoken to chosen men who had healed the sick
   and cast out devils in Christ's name. And if many receive our word it
   is a joy to us, but still we may be disappointed even in professed
   conversions and, at best, our success will not equal our desires. The
   only reward that a Christian can fully rejoice in--and without any
   reservation--is this assurance of his Master and Lord, "I am your
   Reward." Did not the father in the parable say to the elder son, when
   he growled and grumbled at the reception given to his brother, "Son,
   you are always with me, and all that I have is yours"? That was reward
   enough, was it not? It is wealth enough to a Believer to possess his
   God, honor enough to please his God, happiness enough to enjoy his God.
   My heart's best treasure lies here--"This God is our God forever and
   ever: He will be our guide even unto death."

   "Oh, but," you say, "people have been so ungrateful to me." True, but
   God is not unfaithful to forget your work of faith and labor of love.
   "Ah, Sir, but I am dreadfully poor." Yet you have God All-Sufficient,
   and all things are yours! "Alas! I am so ill." But Jehovah-Rophi is the
   Lord that heals you! "Alas! I have no friends left." Yet this best of
   friends changes not and dies not. Is He not better to you than a host
   of other friends?

   How great is your God? Does He not fill all things? Then what more can
   you seek? Would you have two persons occupying the same place? If God
   fills all, what room is there left for another? Is not God's Grace
   sufficient for you? Do you bemoan a cup of water that has been spilled
   at your feet? A well is near! Did I hear you cry, "I have not a drop in
   my bucket?" A river flows hard by--the river of God which is full of
   water! Oh, mournful Soul, why are you disquieted? What ails you that
   you should fret your life into rags?

   Very fitly does the Lord say to Abram, "I am your exceedingly great
   reward." He is infinitely more as a reward than we could ever have
   desired, expected, or deserved! There is no measuring such a reward as
   God Himself. If we were to pine away into poverty or sickness, it would
   still be joy enough to know that God gives Himself to be our portion.
   The tried people of God will always confess that in their sharpest time
   of sorrow, their joys have reached their floodtide when they

   knew and felt that the Lord is their Covenant God, their Father, their
   All! Our cup runs over when faith receives Jehovah, Himself, as the
   crown of the race, the wages of the service! What more can even God
   bestow, than Himself?

   Now you see what I meant at the beginning by droppings from the
   honeycomb. I have not strained after novel thoughts or choice words,
   but have persuaded you to taste the natural sweetness of this fine
   Scripture promise. Receive it as God gives it and go your way--and let
   the flavor of it fill your souls all the week! Fear not, Mary! Fear
   not, William! Fear not, Sarah! Fear not, John! The Lord says to you,
   even as to Abram, "I am your shield and exceedingly great reward." No
   Scripture is of private interpretation--you may take out the name of
   Abram and put your own name into the promise if you are of Abram's
   spiritual seed--and do not stagger at the promise by reason of
   unbelief. "If children, then heirs" applies to all the spiritual family
   and to the pledging of all the promises to them!

   The ground whereon you lie, the Lord your God has given you. If you can
   rest on this Word of God, it is truly yours to rest upon. The Lord is
   your Defender and Rewarder and by the double title He designs to shut
   out all fear and so make your rest and safety to be doubly sure!
   Therefore, cease you from all anxiety! Rest in the Lord and wait
   patiently for Him! This day He bids you dwell at ease and delight
   yourself in Him!

   But we turn from Abram to Moses and we find this sweetly solacing
   assurance given also to him in time of special need and strain.

   "And He said, 'My Presence shall go with you, and I will give you
   rest'"

   It was not a pleasure trip that Moses was taking--it was a journey
   through the wilderness on most important business--and with a great
   pressure of burden on his heart. He took his case to his God and
   earnestly appealed to Him, "See, You say unto me, Bring up this people,
   and You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have
   said, I know you by name, and you have also found Grace in My sight.
   Now, therefore, I pray You, if I have found Grace in your sight, show
   me now Your way, that I may know You, that I may find Grace in Your
   sight: and consider that this nation is Your people."

   It is very beautiful to notice the argument that Moses uses. He says,
   "Lord, You have set me to take care of this people. How can I do it?
   But they are Your people." Therefore he appeals to Jehovah, Himself,
   for assistance. "You have not let me know whom You will send with me"
   is his complaint, but he seems to always have before him the fact that
   He, whose people they were, who had put him into commission to guide
   them, and to bear all their provocations, must intend to give him some
   very superior help! The answer to that is, "My Presence shall go with
   you, and I will give you rest." What more could Moses need, and what
   more can we need? We are so foolish that we look about for strength
   away from God--but there is none except in Him! For all preachers and
   evangelists, how precious is this promise! They need Divine help in
   journeying from place to place--and that help lies in the constant
   fellowship of heart with their Lord--the continual Presence of God
   consciously enjoyed! They have a great burden of souls lying upon
   them--their only strength to bear it bravely and triumphantly is that
   each hears for himself the promise from God's own lips, "My Presence
   shall go with you." It may not appear to some that the quarter of an
   hour in the morning spent in looking into the face of God with ecstatic
   joy can fill us with strength, but we know from blessed experience that
   there is no strength like it! If the Eternal overshadows us, then
   Omnipotence comes streaming into us! Jehovah in Infinite, condescending
   liberality gives forth His might to us!

   Notice, Beloved, that Moses was not informed that God would send Hobab,
   his father-in-law, to go with him. Nor that Joshua, his successor,
   should accompany him. Nothing either was said about the 70 elders who
   were, by-and-by, to share the burden of responsibility with him. Moses
   was, indeed, to have their presence and help, but his true power was to
   lie in this--"My Presence shall go with you." The journey upon which he
   was to start was one of great importance foreseen by God to be a
   journey of great trial and great provocation--a journey that was to
   last for 40 years--but this is all the provision that he needs and God,
   Himself, could give him no more.

   And then He adds, "And I will give you rest." Little as we sometimes
   imagine it, yet it is still true, that the most important possession of
   any Christian worker is rest--deep rest of soul in God--"A heart at
   leisure from itself." "I do not expect any rest," says one, "while I am
   here." Do you not? Then you will not do much mighty and effective work
   for the Lord! Those who work most must learn the holy art of resting in
   the Lord. Indeed, it cannot be done well at all unless they have plenty
   of rest. You will notice how people that get greatly excited often talk
   sad nonsense--and people who are very fretful or fearful do not speak
   or act as they should. If we are to move others, we must have both feet
   firmly

   fixed--there is nothing like having a good grip of the ground if you
   are to wrestle with and throw your antagonist! My restfulness in God
   enables me to wrestle and conquer all sorts of difficulty and hard toil
   that is to be overcome.

   "Do you think Moses had this rest?" someone will ask. Yes, I am sure he
   had because of the meekness of his spirit. You remember how the Lord
   Jesus said, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and
   lowly in heart; and you shall find rest to your souls." It is true that
   meekness of heart produces rest. And yet it is a still deeper Truth of
   God that rest produces meekness of heart! You can very well afford to
   be quiet with your fellows when you, yourself, are perfectly restful in
   the living God. I remember a man being run over in the street one day.
   Somebody rushed off, post haste, for the nearest doctor. And when the
   medical man heard of the accident, he went calmly into his surgery,
   turned over his case of instruments, selected those he thought he might
   need and then walked quietly to the spot where the injured man lay. The
   messenger tried to hurry him, but it was of no use. "Be quick, Doctor,"
   he cried, "the man's leg is broken, every moment is precious." Now the
   surgeon knew that he was doing the very best thing that he could do,
   and he was far wiser than he would have been if he had rushed off in
   wild haste, perhaps forgetting the very instrument he most needed, and
   arriving out of breath and quite unfit for the delicate duty required
   of him! The doctor's composure was not the result of coldness of heart,
   but of the resolve to do the best possible thing in the best possible
   fashion.

   If you are conscious of the Lord's Presence, you will do the best thing
   possible by being very calm, deliberate and quiet in His service. "He
   that believes," in that sense, "shall not make haste," but he shall go
   about the business in a restful spirit.

   Mark, too, the kind of rest that is here mentioned. "I will give you
   rest." All the rest that God gives we may safely take! No man ever
   rested too long on the bosom of Jesus. I believe many Christian workers
   would be better if they enjoyed more. I was speaking to a large
   gathering of preachers the other day upon this very matter, my subject
   being the Savior asleep during the storm on the Sea of Galilee. He knew
   there was a storm coming on, but He felt so happy and restful in His
   Father's love and care that He went into the back part of the boat--the
   best place for sleep--and taking the steersman's cushion for a pillow,
   lay down and went to sleep! It was the very best thing He could do. He
   had been busy all day, teaching and feeding the multitudes, and He felt
   that it was His duty to go to sleep that He might be ready and fit for
   the next day's toil. When you get very weary and perhaps worried as
   well, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep. Go to bed, Brother,
   and go to sleep!

   It is astonishing what a difference a night's rest makes with our
   troubles. I would say this literally to fidgeting, worrying people like
   myself, "Go to bed, Brother, go to bed!" But I would also say it
   spiritually to all sorts of people! When you are feeling weak and
   disturbed, and you do not know what to do for the best, "Go into the
   Presence of Lord and there get rest." "My Presence shall go with you,
   and I will give you rest." I will give you a little bit of worldly
   wisdom, which is also of Divine inspiring. Whenever you do not know
   what to do, do not do it! But some people, when they do not know what
   to do, go and do it, directly, and get themselves into all sorts of
   trouble. Many of us, like Moses, need to be taught to rest. Moses has
   to bear two millions of people on his heart--he needs rest. He has to
   put up with them for 40 years--he needs rest. Never had another man
   such a family as that! Never was another so likely to be fluttered and
   worried! And he was a meek-spirited man, too, who could not make a dash
   as others might have done. This is his strength--that he dwells in the
   Divine Presence and is, therefore, restful, calm and strong! It is only
   now and then that he let the human meekness be for a moment clouded.
   Thus was he enabled to march along, like a king in Jeshurun, as he
   was--and his soul dwelt in the eternity of God, ever singing amidst ten
   thousand graves, for he had 40 of his people dying every day!

   Shall not we who love the Savior hear this same gracious promise
   sounding clear and sweet in our souls and trusting in the abiding
   Presence of God find that He gives the unparalleled rest, the rest that
   endures? And if, on the other hand, we are strangers to that brave,
   strong peace, shall we not listen as He calls, "Come unto Me, and I
   will give you rest"? And answering to it, enter into that rest that
   always follows true believing! The Lord grant it may be so, with each
   one, for His name's sake!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 10:1-30; HEBREWS 1:1-14.

   Verse 1. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Now we may be absolutely
   certain that there is something of the utmost importance wherever
   Christ uses the solemn phrase, "Verily, verily"--the same word is,
   "Amen, amen" and it has been well observed that if it were not for
   Christ's, "Amens," our "Amens" would be of little value. It is because
   He who is the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, pleads in Heaven
   that our, "Amens," are accepted there. If, dear Friends, Christ pays an
   earnest attention to our, "Amens," how much more ought we to attend to
   His, especially when He doubles them--"Amen, amen, I say unto you."

   1-3. He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up
   some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that enters in
   by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter opens; and
   the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads
   them out. Here the people of God are compared to sheep. Their
   harmless-ness and gentle character, their feebleness and quiet in the
   fold, their profitable uses, their defenseless state--requiring someone
   to always watch over them--the patience with which they are led to the
   shearer or to the slaughter and the constancy with which they are
   associated with sacrifice--render sheep a most excellent symbol of the
   people of God! Doubtless the fold is the Church and within this fold
   all the saints of God are gathered, not always in the visible, but
   always in the invisible and indivisible Church of Christ. None may set
   up to be shepherds of this fold except those who come in a proper and
   fitting way--and that is not by a pretended Apostolic descent, that is,
   not by a commission which they have received from their own assumption,
   but by a commission direct from Christ--coming in through Him as by the
   Door. The great true Shepherd, the antitype of all shepherds, is
   Christ, Himself. To Him the porter opens. All the prophecies, which,
   like porters, kept the gates, opened at once to Christ! All godly
   hearts, which, like the porters of the gate, were watching for the
   coming of the true Shepherd, opened at once to Jesus! Whether it were
   Anna or Simeon, they at once confessed Him. The sheep hear His voice
   and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.

   We are told by Eastern travelers that in the large district folds into
   which the sheep herders put their different flocks, while they are all
   assembled in one common flock, the shepherd of any one flock has but to
   make his appearance and begin to speak and his sheep at once recognize
   him. Though another person should dress up in his garments, they would
   take no notice of him--they know their shepherd by his voice.

   4. And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the
   sheep follow him: for they know his voice. The genius of the Law is
   driving--the spirit of the Gospel is leading! And the joyful imitation
   follows.

   5. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for
   they know not the voice of strangers. Heretics attract their companies,
   but the faithful followers of Christ never go after them. They cleave
   to the Truth of God, which is the voice of Christ--and they will not be
   persuaded by the most marvelous lying wonders, nor by the greatest
   arrogance, to depart from Him who is their All!

   6-8. This parable spoke Jesus unto them: but they understood not what
   things they were which He spoke unto them. Then said Jesus unto them
   again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All
   that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not
   hear them. They made loud professions of being the true Messiah, and
   some of them gathered great multitudes and rebelled against the Roman
   power, but the true sheep who waited for the true Shepherd did not hear
   them!

   9-14. I am the door: by Me if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and
   shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief comes not but to
   steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have
   life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good
   shepherd: the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But he that
   is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees
   the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf catches
   them, and scatters the sheep. The hireling flees, because he is an
   hireling, and cares not for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and know
   My sheep, and am known by My own. This Good Shepherd proves Himself to
   be so by His actions. Remember, Brothers and Sisters, how carefully He
   watches His sheep from the tower of the flock, not one of them ever
   being absent from His eyes for a single moment! How graciously He
   guides those sheep, leading them always by a right way that He may
   bring them to safety at the last. How plentifully does He pasture His
   flock, making them to lie down in green pastures beside the still
   waters. And oh, how gloriously does He defend His flock, dashing into
   the thickest of their foes, snatching the lamb out of the jaws of the
   lion and out of the paws of the bear! And we must not conclude this
   list of His deeds without remembering how readily He has bought that
   flock, and how well He has washed that flock in blood flowing from His
   own veins, that He might present them all at the last, not one of them
   being lacking, nor one of them

   impure, but each of them like sheep that come up fresh from the
   washing! "I know My sheep." It is not as if salvation was left to
   haphazard. He knew them before they were created! Having foreordained,
   He did foreknow. He knew them when they did not know themselves--when
   they were wallowing in the mire like swine, He still knew them! He
   knows them now--unknown to fame, unregistered, perhaps, in the books of
   the visible Church--"I know My sheep wherever they may be." Then notice
   the next sentence, for this is the practical way by which you may judge
   whether you are His or not--"I am known of My own." They know Him as
   their only hope and trust. They know the sweetness of fellowship with
   Him. They know the power of His arm, the efficacy of His blood, the
   faithfulness of His heart. They know the pre-ciousness of His Cross and
   the glory of His crown.

   15-16. As the Father knows Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay
   down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of
   this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and
   there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. No recognition of free-will
   here. Christ speaks as one who has the hearts of men in His control. He
   knows who are His that as yet are not called. He does not say He hopes
   they will yield to hear His voice, but they shall. Oh, Irresistible
   Grace, what can stand against you? The blood-bought shall all be
   blood-washed; the foreordained and foreknown shall yet know Him who has
   saved them by His blood. In this we ought constantly to rejoice. The
   feebleness of the minister is no barrier to the carrying out of God's
   purpose, nor is the hardness of the human heart any impediment to the
   completion of the Divine Decree. "Them also must I bring." There is a
   heavenly necessity that all the chosen should be saved.

   17, 26. Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life,
   that I might take it again. No man takes it from Me, but Ilay it down
   ofMyself Ihave power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
   This commandment have Ireceived ofMy Father There was a division,
   therefore, again among the Jews for these sayings. Andmany of them
   said, He has a devil andis mad, why hearyou Him? Others said, These are
   not the words ofhim that has a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the
   blind? And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of the Dedication, and it was
   winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple on Solomon's porch. Then came
   the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long do You make us to
   doubt?Ifyou are the Christ, tell usplainly. Jesus answered them, I
   toldyou, andyou believednot: the work that Ido in My Father's name,
   they bear witness ofMe. But you believe not, because you are not ofMy
   sheep, as I said unto you. Believing does not make them sheep, but
   being sheep by Divine Election proves them to be such.

   27-30. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And
   Igive unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any man pluck them out ofMy hand. My Father, which gave them to
   Me, is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out ofMy
   Father's hand. I and my Father are One. Happy are they, then, who have
   received the character of sheep, for thus they prove themselves to be
   the chosen of God! And in the hand of Christ, and in His Father's
   grasp, they are eternally secure--

   "If in my Father's love

   I share a filial part,

   Send down your Spirit like a dove

   To rest upon my heart."

   Hebrews 1. In this Chapter our Savior's glorious Person is very plainly
   set before us. And it is made the ground of our faith and a reason why
   we should give the more earnest heed to His words, lest at any time we
   should let them slip.

   Verses 1:1, 2. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in
   time past unto the fathers by the Prophets, has in these last days
   spoken unto us by His Son. The best last is always God's rule. "You
   have kept the best wine until now." Prophets are a very blessed means
   of communication, but how much more sure, how much more condescending
   is it for God to speak to us by His Son!

   2, 3. Whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made
   the worlds; who being the brightness of His Glory, and the express
   Image of His Person, and upholding all things by the word of His power,
   when He Had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of
   the Majesty on high. You see, dear Friends, how glorious was His
   original--the "express Image" of His Father's Person. How lowly did He
   become to purge away our sins and that by Himself, too, using His own
   body to be the means, by His sufferings, of taking away our guilt! Not
   by proxy did He serve us, but by Himself. Oh, this is wondrous love!
   And then see the Glory which followed after the shame. He has now
   ascended up on high and sits down at the right hand of God's great
   Majesty. Follow Him, Believer, follow Him with the eyes of your

   faith! Let your soul lovingly track Him in His upward march, and as you
   see Him, say--"He is my Lord and my God," and know that all that He did
   and all that He is, He is--and He did for you!

   4, 5. Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by
   inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of
   the angels said He at any time, You are My Son, this day have I
   begotten You? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to
   Me a Son? They are servants, but they are not sons! They are created,
   but they are not begotten! You see what He says to the Son--"I will be
   to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son.

   6-8. And again, when He brings in the Only-Begotten into the world, He
   says, And let all the angels of God worship Him. And of the angels He
   says, Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire?
   But unto the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: a
   scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. So you
   perceive that Christ is no created angel! He is sometimes compared to
   an angel. He is sometimes called the Angel of the Covenant, but He is
   not a created angel. He is higher in nature, higher in rank, higher in
   intellect and higher in power than they. He is nothing less than very
   God of very God! The very Man who suffered on Calvary--

   "This is the Man, the exalted Man, Whom we unseen adore."

   9. You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God,
   even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness, above Your
   fellows. As Man, Christ claims all men as His fellows, but as God, He
   counts it no robbery to be thought equal to God. As Man, He is most
   truly Man, and only superior to man by reason of the purity of His
   birth and the perfection of His Nature, and the exaltation of His
   Manhood by God. As God, He is nothing less than God, though He took
   upon Himself the nature of men.

   10-12. And, You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the
   earth; and the heavens are the works of Your hands: they shall perish;
   but You remain, and they all shall grow old as does a garment; and as a
   vesture shall You fold them up, and they shall be changed: but You are
   the same, and Your years shall not fail Jesus Christ the same
   yesterday, today, and forever!

   13, 14. But to which of the angels saidHe at any time, Sit at My right
   hand, untilImake Your enemies Your footstool? Are they not all
   ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs
   of salvation?
     __________________________________________________________________

Knowing and Believing

   (No. 3331)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 30, 1866.

   "I know whom I have believed." 2 Timothy 1:12.

   THE text is wholly taken up with three things--with knowing, with
   believing and with the Person who is known and believed. And upon both
   the knowing and the believing, Paul is very decided. He puts in no,
   "if," no word of change. He does not say, "I hope so," or, "I trust
   so," but, "I know I have believed and I know whom I have believed." It
   is all assurance and not a shadow of doubt! Let us imitate the Apostle,
   or ask for Grace to be able to imitate him, that we may shake off the
   dubious phraseology which is so common among Christians, nowadays, and
   may be able to speak with Apostolic confidence upon a matter upon which
   we ought to be confident if anywhere at all, namely--our own salvation!

   As the text is thus taken up with knowing and believing, these two
   matters will be the subject of our meditation at this time. My first
   remark drawn from the text shall be--

   I. THE ONLY RELIGIOUS KNOWING AND BELIEVING WHICH ARE OF A SAVING
   CHARACTER CONCERN THE PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. "I know," says
   the Apostle--not, "what"--but, " whomI have believed." He does not say,
   "I know the Catechism which I have believed," nor, "I know the
   Institutes of Calvin," nor, "I know the body and system of theology,"
   but, "I know whom I have believed." Both the knowing and the believing
   center around the wondrous Person who for our sakes left His starry
   Throne and became a Man. Knowing whom is a saving knowledge and
   trusting whom is a saving trust--of which all other knowing and
   believing fall short!

   Observe, then, that all other knowledge may be useful enough in itself,
   but if it does not concern Christ, it cannot be called saving
   knowledge. Some persons know a great deal about Doctrine. Perhaps they
   have taken up with the Calvinis-tic theology, or even with the
   hyper-Calvinistic and they really understand the system thoroughly
   well--and they certainly hold it with quite enough tenacity, if not too
   much. We know some who we believe would very cheerfully go to the stake
   in defense of some points of Doctrine so convinced are they of the
   orthodoxy of what they have received! Others take up another theory and
   go upon the Arminian principle--and they, too, know their set of
   doctrines and know them well. But, dear Friends, I may know all the
   Doctrines in the Bible, but unless I know Christ, there is not one of
   them that can save me! I may know Election, but if I cannot see myself
   as chosen in Christ Jesus, election will do me no good. I may know the
   Doctrine of the Final Perseverance of the Saints, but if I am not in
   Christ, I would only persevere in my sins-- and such a final
   perseverance will be dreadful, indeed! It is one thing to know the
   Doctrine of Justification by Faith, but it is quite another thing to be
   justified by faith and to have peace with God! You may stand up for
   Imputed Righteousness and fight for it, and yet the righteousness of
   Christ may never be imputed to you! It is not knowingthe creed, though
   that is well, that can save the soul--the knowledge that is needed is
   to know Him whom Paul believed!

   And, again, a man may know something more than Doctrine. He may know a
   great deal about experience. There is a class of persons who sneer at
   Doctrine. They call the doctrinal preacher a mere "letterman." As for
   themselves, they talk about deep experience. They have a consciousness
   of having a corrupt heart. They have discovered that they have evil
   tempers (by the way, other people, too, have discovered it)! They have
   discovered that they have defiled natures and everybody can see that
   they are not perfectly free from sin. But, strange delusion, because
   they know the disease, they fancy they have been healed! Because they
   have perception enough to see they are spiritually bankrupt, they,
   therefore, imagine that their debts are paid! Because they
   feelthemselves to be in the Slough of Despond, they dream they are on
   the Rock!

   But there is a vast difference between the two things. A man may think
   he has an experience of his own emptiness-- no, he may truly possess
   it--but if it does not drive him to Christ, if he does not come and
   rest on the Lord Jesus, all his experiences are of no saving value! The
   foundation of the soul's salvation is not experience of any or every
   kind, but the finished work, the meritorious blood and righteousness of
   our Lord and Savior!

   There are some, too, who not only know experience and Doctrine, but who
   also know how to talk of them. They have mingled with Christian people
   until they can get up their phraseology and, as some Christians have
   cant expressions, these people can "cant" in any quantity and to any
   extent. They can talk about their "poor souls" and about, "the dear
   Lord," and use all those other precious phrases of hypocrisy which lard
   some religious publications and which are to be found in the
   conversation of some people who ought to know better. They use these
   expressions and then, when they get in among the people of God, they
   are received with open arms! And they fancy that because they can talk
   as Christians talk, it is all well with them! But, oh, remember that if
   a parrot could call you, "father," it would not, for all that, have
   become a child of yours! A foreigner may learn the language of an
   Englishman but never be an Englishman, but still remain a foreigner.
   So, too, you may take up the language of a Christian, but may never
   have within you the Spirit of God and, therefore, be none of His. You
   must know Him. "Know yourself," said the heathen philosopher. That is
   well, but that knowledge may only lead a man to Hell. "Know Christ,"
   says the Christian philosopher, "know Him and then you shall know
   yourself"--and this shall certainly lead you to Heaven, for the
   knowledge of Christ Jesus is savingknow-ledge--"whom to know is life
   eternal."

   In addition to these valuable pieces of information, there are some who
   know a great deal ABOUT Christ, but here I must remind you that the
   text does not say, "I know about Christ," but, "I know Him." Ah, dear
   Hearer, you may have heard the Gospel from your youth up, so that the
   whole history of Christ is at your fingertips! But you may not know
   Him, for there is a deal of difference between knowing about Him, and
   knowing Him. You may know about a medicine, but still die of the
   disease which the medicine might have cured. The prisoner may know
   about liberty and yet lie and pine in his dungeon until, as John Bunyan
   put it, "the moss grows on his eyelids." The traveler may know about
   the home which he hopes to reach and yet may be left out at nightfall
   in the midst of the forest. Many a man of business knows about wealth,
   or even concerning the millions of the Bank of England, and yet is a
   bankrupt or on the verge of poverty. Many a sailor knows about the
   port, but his ship drifts upon the rocks and all hands go down. It is
   not enough to know aboutChrist, it is knowing Christ, Himself,that
   alone saves the soul!

   And, over and above, and in addition to all this, you may know the
   Scriptures from youth up. I suppose I have some--perhaps many--before
   me who are well acquainted with almost every Chapter in the. Bible. You
   could not be questioned upon any part of it so as to be really
   nonplussed. You have read the Book and you continue to read it--and I
   approve of your wise choice in so doing--and beg you to always continue
   in so excellent a practice! But remember, if you have not the Word of
   God in your heartit is of small use to have it merely in your head. Oh,
   to know Christ is our supreme and tragic need! Not to merely know texts
   and Scripture, for--"the letter kills, it is only the Spirit that
   quick-ens"--and unless you know Christ you do not know the vital Spirit
   of the Word of God! The only saving knowledge, then, is knowing Christ.

   Well, now, so is it with the exercise of faith. You may know a great
   deal about faith, but the only saving faith is belief concerning
   Christ. "I know whom I have believed." To believe Doctrine will not
   save a man. You may hold all the creed and be orthodox--and then be no
   better than the devil, for I suppose that the devil is a very sound
   theologian. He surely knows the Truth. He believes and trembles! But
   you may know it and nottremble--and so you may fall short of one virtue
   which even the devil possesses! A firm belief in what is preached to
   you is well enough in its way, but to believe a Doctrine as such cannot
   save you. Some have a belief in their minister--and I suppose that is
   so flattering to us that you will hardly expect us to speak against
   it--but of all vices, it is one most surely to be dreaded because it is
   so very dangerous! We charge you in the sight of God, always weigh what
   we have to say to you--and if it is not according to Scripture, cast it
   away as you cast away refuse! Take nothing merely because we say it!
   Let nothing that we preach be received upon our ipse dixit, but let it
   be tried and tested by the Word of God, for otherwise you may be led by
   the blind. And "if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into
   the ditch." Ah, what multitudes of persons there are in England who are
   beginning to get their fellow man to perform their religion for them!
   They are too lazy to think! They are too idle to use whatever brains
   they have and so they get some mere simpleton who thinks that God is
   pleased with his

   putting on a white gown or a blue dress, or a black gown or green
   dress, a scarlet gown or mauve dress, is pleased with burning candles
   in the daylight and pleased with making a pungent odor in the
   church--they get such a creature as this to do their religion for them
   and then they lie down at night to rest, feeling perfectly satisfied
   that God is satisfied and they are all right! Oh, I charge you, believe
   not this delusion! It is not believing in a priest that will save you!
   Believing in the priest may be your ruin, but believing in Christ is
   the really vital point--the one thing that truly matters. He that
   believes in Christ is saved! But he that believes even the Pope of Rome
   shall find that he believes to his own eternal ruin!

   Then again, it is not believing in ourselves. Many persons believe
   thoroughly in themselves. The doctrine of self-reliance is preached in
   many quarters now-a-days. I suppose that what is meant by the term is a
   good mercantile possession, a business virtue, but it is a Christian
   vice as towards spiritual things and emphatically towards the soul's
   salvation! Self-reliance in this matter always ruins those who practice
   it. Rely on self? Let night rely on her darkness to find a light! Let
   emptiness rely on its insufficiency to find its fullness! Let death
   rely on the worms to give it immortality! Let Hell rely upon its fire
   to make it into Heaven--such trusts as these would be equally strong
   with those of the sinner who relies upon himself for salvation! Your
   belief must not be that you can force your way to Heaven, but you must
   believe Him, for anything else is an unsaving faith.

   You see, then, that the knowledge which saves, and the belief which
   saves, both hang upon the Cross. They both look to the wounds of that
   dear Man, that blessed God who was there the Propitiation for our sins
   and who suffered in our place. My Hearer, are you trusting Christ? Are
   you hanging upon Him as the vessel hangs upon the nail? Do you know Him
   as a man knows his friend? Do you seek to know more of Him? Is He all
   your salvation and all your desire? If not, take home this solemn
   warning--whatever else you know, you are still ignorant, and whatever
   else you believe, you are still an unbeliever--unless you know and
   believe in Him who is the Savior of men!

   I pass on now to a second point, which is this--

   II. THAT KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT FAITH IS VAIN.

   This is to try to balance with but one scale--to run a chariot on one
   wheel. You have the double matter here. "I know whom I have believed."
   It is good to know, but knowledge must be crowned with faith! It has
   been remarked that Paul does not say, "I know of whom I have heard." He
   does not say, "I know of whom I have read." He does not say, "I know of
   whom I have preached," but, "I know whom I have believed." Here he hits
   the nail on the head. Knowledge is useful in the bud. Mere reading,
   preaching, too, are well as an exercise--but believingis the fruit
   which must grow upon the Tree of Knowledge or else the knowledge will
   be of little use to us!

   Now, my dear Friends, I know that I am addressing many of your class,
   many who know Christ in a certain sense. Know much about Him. You know
   of His Nature, you believe Him to be true Deity. You know Him to be
   Human like yourselves and for man's sake made Man. You know His life.
   You have often read it. You often like to dwell upon the incidents of
   it. It is a genuine and great pleasure to sing of Bethlehem and its
   manger, of Cana and its marriage. You have turned over the pages of
   that Life of lives and felt enraptured with this matchless masterpiece
   of biography. You are well acquainted, too, with His death--it has
   often drawn tears to your eyes when you have thought of the shame and
   the spitting and the crown of thorns. You know something concerning His
   expiring cries. Your imagination has often pictured to you the wounded
   body of that dread Sufferer. You have thought that if you had been
   there, you would have wet His feet with your tears, you did so
   sympathize with Him. You know of His burial and of His Resurrection,
   too, and you have sweetly joined with us when we have been singing--

   "Angels, roll the rock away, Jesus Christ is risen today"

   and you have not been lacking when we have been singing of His
   Ascension! Your eyes have flushed with fire when you have heard the
   words--

   "They brought His chariot from on high, To bear Him to His Throne,
   Clapped their triumphant wings and cried, 'The glorious work is done.'"

   You know that He reigns in Heaven! You know that He has prepared
   mansions for His people. You know that He intercedes for sinners. You
   expect that He will come. You believe in His Second Advent and when the
   Te Deum has been sung

   in your hearing--"We believe that You shall come to be our Judge," you
   have said, "Yes! I do--I do--I believe it." Now, if you know all this,
   you know that which it is very important to be known, but if you stop
   short here, where are you? Why, I have no doubt there have been
   hundreds who knew this, but who have given their bodies and souls to
   the devil and have lived in open sin, day by day! If you could go to
   the condemned cell tonight, I would not wonder if the wretch confined
   there knows all this. If you were to go into the flaunting gin palaces
   which are scattered to our shame and curse all over London--where men
   and women are drinking liquid fire at this very moment--you would find
   that half of them know all this, but they do not drink any the less for
   it! If you were to go into the lairs of vice, you would find that the
   most abandoned know all this, but it does them no good! And I will add
   also this--that the lost spirits in Hell went there knowing all this!
   And the devil, himself, knows it all, but he still remains a devil! Ah,
   my Hearer, I charge you before God, do not sit down and say, "I know, I
   know, I know." Do you believe? Do you BELIEVE?

   The common answer given very frequently to the city missionary is just
   this--men say to them, "There is no need for you to come here and tell
   me anything. I know all about it." Ah, but do you believe in Jesus What
   is the good of your knowing unless you believe? I do not think that the
   most of you who go to places of worship need so much instruction in
   Divine Truth as you need an earnest appeal to your hearts not to stop
   short at instruction! You do know, and that, indeed, shall be, indeed,
   part of your damnation--that you had the light but you would not see!
   That Jesus came into your street and came near to you, but you would
   not have Him! The medicine was there, but you died because you would
   not take it! The food was on the table, but you would sooner perish
   with hunger than receive it as the free gift of Heaven! Ah, my Hearer,
   your knowing will not benefit you, but will be a plague to you! The
   poor savage in his kraal in Central Africa who never heard the name of
   Jesus shall die with at least this mitigating circumstance--that he
   never rejected the Savior's love! The million a month who die in China,
   for a million do die every month in China--the million who die every
   month in China die with this one solace, at any rate, that they never
   sinned against the light of Christianity, nor rejected the Truth as it
   is in Jesus! This is more than you can say! This will never help to
   make a dainty couch for you, when you make your bed in Hell! The
   responsibility of having known shall add remorse to the whips of
   accusing conscience and make Hell still more terrible! Oh, may God
   grant that we may not stop short with knowledge, alone, but may know
   Christ as Him whom we have believed! But still we have in the next
   place--

   III. FAITH WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE IS BUT A BIRD WITH ONE WING. The old faith
   of the fuller is coming back in some places today. You remember what
   the fuller said, "Yes, he believed" He believed--what did he believe?
   He believed, "What the Church believed." And what did the Church
   believe? "Well, the Church believed--well, what he believed." And, pray
   tell, what did he and the Church, together, believe? "Why, they both
   believed the same thing." Ah, how many there are of that sort today!
   They say, "We think he ought to be sincere, you know, and if he is
   sincere, it does not matter much whether it is absolutely true. He need
   not trouble greatly to enquire whether what he believes is Scriptural
   or not, or whether it is according to God's Revelation--that will take
   up too much of his time and thought--and look too much like being
   obedient to God's will. Just be sincere, you know, and then, hit or
   miss, whatever your mother or father happened to be in religious
   character, go at it with all your might and it will be all right."

   Now, unfortunately, that does not happen to be the Truth of God--and we
   do not find people in this world getting on in proportion to their
   sincerity. I suppose our friends who bought Overend and Gurney's shares
   were sincere enough in their belief that they were buying a good thing,
   but I should fancy that their opinions have undergone a change of late!
   No doubt there have been persons who have taken prussic acid, sincerely
   believing that it would benefit them, but I suppose it has killed them,
   notwithstanding their sincerity. If a man should travel due south in
   order to get to the Orkney Islands, however sincere he might be, he
   would probably discover himself in the Bay of Biscay before long. The
   fact is, it is not sincerity, alone--it is the studious endeavor to
   find out what the right is and what the Truth is--that is the only safe
   way for us! We do not, therefore, ask you to believe without knowing
   what you are to believe. It is impossible. Do not think a man can hold
   in his hands four or five doctrines and say to you, "Do you believe
   them?" "Well, but what are they?" "Never mind! You are a true Believer
   and you must believe then without knowing them." A man who has no power
   of belief at all says, "Oh, yes, I believe. I will kiss your feet if
   necessary, or do anything you like to tell me." But the thoughtful man,
   the man who is likely to be saved, says at once, "I find it impossible
   to believe until I first know what I am to believe."

   I have sometimes thought when I have heard addresses from some revival
   Brothers who had kept on saying time after time, "Believe, believe,
   believe," that I would like to have known for myself what it was we
   were to believe in order to our salvation. There is, I fear, a great
   deal of vagueness and crudeness about this matter. I have heard it
   often asserted that if you believe that Jesus Christ died for you, you
   will be saved. My dear Hearer, do not be deluded by such an idea! You
   may believe that Jesus Christ died for you and may believe what is not
   true! You may believe that which will bring you no sort of good
   whatever. That is not saving faith! The man who has saving faith
   attains to the conviction that Christ died for him afterwards, but it
   is not of the essence of saving faith. Do not get that into your head
   or it will ruin you! Do not say, "I believe that Jesus Christ died for
   me," and because of that feel that you are saved! I pray you to
   remember that the genuine faith that saves the soul has for its main
   element--trust--absolute rest of the whole soul--on the Lord Jesus
   Christ to save me, whether He died in particular or in special to save
   me or not and, relying as I am, wholly and alone on Him, I am saved!
   Afterwards I come to perceive that I have a special interest in the
   Savior's blood, but if I think I have perceived that before I have
   believed in Christ, then I have inverted the Scriptural order of things
   and I have taken as a fruit of my faith that which is only to be
   obtained by rights--by the man who absolutely trusts in Christ, and
   Christ alone, to save!

   The matter, then, which saves is this--a man trustsChrist, but he
   trusts Christ because he knowsHim. See! He knows Christ and, therefore,
   he trusts Him. How does he come to know Him? Well, he has heard of Him,
   he has read of Him, he seeks Him in prayer and when he has learned His
   Character, he trusts Him. Occasionally young converts will say to us,
   "Sir, I cannot trust Christ." I never try to argue with them about it,
   but say, "Then you do not know Him, because to truly know Christ is
   sure to bring trust." I believe there are some men in the world whom
   you have only to know to trust because they are so transparently
   honest, so clearly truthful that you must trust them! The Savior is
   such a Person as that. Let me tell you, Sinner, God was made flesh and
   dwelt among us--do you believe that? "Yes." He lived a holy life. He
   died a painful death. The merit of His life and death is set to the
   account of everyone who trusts in Him and He declares that if you trust
   in Him, He will save you. Now surely you can trust Him! You say, "No, I
   cannot." Why not? Is He not able? He is Divine--therefore you cannot
   raise the question. Is He not willing? He died--that argues willingness
   surely to do a lesser thing, since He has done the greater! Surely you
   cannot doubt that! The life of the Lord Jesus Christ is an answer to
   every form of doubt. Do you know, I feel with regard to Christ, myself,
   that instead of its being any difficulty to trust Him, I find it very
   difficult not to trust Him if I cannot find any reason why I should
   distrust Him. I was turning over the other day some odds and ends of my
   own brain to see if I could find any reason why Christ should not
   receive my soul. Well, I could not find half a one, but I could think
   of 20,000 reasons why I should believe in Him to save me, even if I had
   a million souls! I feel as if His way of saving is so magnificent and
   the working of it out so Divinely generous, that His offerings were so
   great, His Person is so glorious, that I could not only cast my one
   soul on Him, but 50,000 souls if I had them! Why, I cannot find any
   reasonable ground for doubting Him! Soul, I would to God that you would
   think of Him in the same light!--

   "He is able, He is willing-- Doubt no more!"

   You know something of Him. Oh, may God give the Grace to add to your
   knowledge, trust, and then shall you have true saving faith!

   Let it be remarked here that in proportion as our genuine knowledge of
   Christ increases, so we shall find that our trust in Him will increase,
   too. The more we know Christ, the more we shall trust Him because every
   new piece of knowledge will give new arguments for immovable confidence
   in Him! Oh, if you have not seen Christ, I can understand your doubting
   Him, but if you have leaned your head upon His bosom, if He has ever
   kissed you with the kisses of His lips, if He has ever taken you into
   His banqueting house and waved His banner of love over you, I know you
   will feel, "Doubt You, Jesus, doubt You? Why, how can I? I know the
   power of Your arm. I know the love of Your heart. I know the efficacy
   of Your blood. I know the Glory of Your Person. I know the faithfulness
   of Your Word. I know the Immutability of Your oath and I can trust You
   and, either sink or swim, my soul casts herself upon You, You blessed
   Savior!"

   But now there may be some present who are saying, "I cannot say I know
   whom I have believed."

   IV. "HOW CAN I KNOW THAT I MAY BELIEVE IN HIM?" The answer is, search
   the Word of God with a desire to find Him. Seek out the most
   Christ-exalting ministry in your neighborhood, in whatever denomination
   you can find

   it, and listen to it with all your ears and with all your heart. Get to
   your chamber and there seek the Lord to illuminate you in the matter of
   the Lord Jesus Christ! Ask Him to reveal His Son in you. I tell you
   this--faith comes by hearing and by hearing the Word of God--and when
   to these is added earnest seeking, you shall not be long without
   finding Him! They who seek Christ are already being sought of Him. You
   who desire Him shall have Him! You who want Him shall not be long
   without Him. It is to have Christ to some degree, to hunger and to
   thirst after Him--and when you feel that you cannot be content without
   Him, He will not let you be, but will soon come to you! I believe there
   are some who will get peace with Christ tonight! Do you understand it,
   dear Friend? You have nothing to do. You have nothing to be. You have
   not even anything to learn, except that Jesus Christ came into the
   world to save sinners and that He is able to save unto the uttermost
   them that come unto God by Him! You know that. Now, trust Him, and if
   you do, it is all done and you are saved! If you have trusted in Him
   whom God has revealed as your Savior, it is not a matter of twenty
   minutes nor much less a matter of months, but you are saved at once!--

   "The moment a sinner believes,

   And trusts in his crucified God,

   His pardon at once he receives,

   Salvation in full through Christ's blood." When a man once gets into
   the lifeboat, if it were certain that the lifeboat would never sink, he
   is saved as soon as he gets in. Now, the act of faith does, as it were,
   put us into the lifeboat of Christ Jesus and we are saved immediately!
   You may have many a tossing, but you will get safely to land at last.
   If you want faith you must get it, as I have told you, by knowing Him,
   studying the Word of God, listening to it and seeking His face. But
   make use of what you know, or else what you know will be like the stale
   manna and will be of no use to you. Believe it as you know it. Use it
   up as you get it. And if you already know Christ to be a sinner's
   Savior, and know that you are a sinner, then come tonight and put your
   trust in Him! And be of good cheer because He will never, never, never
   cast you away! And now, lastly, I should like to ask a question, and it
   is this--

   V. HOW MANY ARE THERE WHO DO KNOW CHRIST?

   We all know something of which we are a little proud, but, "I know, I
   know, I know," is a very poor thing to say when you do not know Christ!
   "I know," says my young friend over there who has been to Oxford or
   Cambridge University, "I know So-and-So." "I know," says another,
   "such-and-such a special line of distinguished thinking." But do you
   know Christ, my dear Friend? "Ah, thank God," says one upstairs, and
   another good soul below, "we can hardly read, Sir, but we do know Him."
   I would change places with you, Friends, much sooner than I would with
   the most learned of men who do not know Christ, because when they come
   to the gates of death, you know, he who keeps the gate will not say,
   "Do you know the classics? Have you read Horace? Have you studied
   Homer? Do you know mathematics? Do you understand logarithms or conic
   sections?" No, but he will say, "Do you know Christ?" And if you
   scarcely even know your own native tongue, yet if you know Christ, the
   gates of Heaven shall fly open to let you in!

   Now, do you know Christ? Do let the question go round to each one, "Do
   I know Christ?" Well, then, do you believe Christ? Do you trust Christ?
   "Yes, thank God!" says one, "with all my imperfections I can sing the
   hymn--

   "On Christ the solid Rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand."
   Oh, then, Brothers and Sisters, let us be of good cheer, for, trusting
   Him, He will never fail us! Believing Him, He will never leave us! We
   shall see His face in Glory. Oh, that the day were come! But when it
   does, to His name shall be all the praise! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 TIMOTHY 4:1-11.

   Verses 1, 2. I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus
   Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His
   Kingdom, preach the Word of God. We are not to use such strong language
   as this unless there is some sufficient reason for it. We must not be
   too hot upon cold matters, but even this is better than to be cold upon
   matters that require heat. When John Calvin wished to leave Geneva to
   complete his studies elsewhere, that man of God, Farrell, knowing how
   necessary it was for the Church that Calvin should remain at Geneva,
   charged him before God that

   he dared not go--and hoped that a curse might light upon all his
   studies, if for the sake of them he should forsake what he held to be
   his duty. So sometimes, like the Apostle, we may before the Judge of
   the quick and dead, charge men not to forsake their work and calling.

   2. Be instant in season and out of season. The Greek word means, "Stand
   up to it," as when a man is determined to finish his work, he stands
   right up to it. Stand over your work, putting your whole strength into
   it--standing up over it. "In season and out of season," because the
   Gospel is a fruit which is in season all the year round! Sometimes
   these "out of season" sermons, preached at night or at some unusual
   time, have been of more service than the regular ordinances of God's
   House. Mr. Grimshaw used to ride on horseback from village to village
   throughout the more desolate parts of Yorkshire and wherever he met
   with ten or a dozen people, he would preach on horseback to them,
   preaching sometimes as many as 24 sermons in a week! That was being
   instant "out of season" as well as "in season." So should God's
   Timothys be and, indeed, all of us!

   2. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and Doctrine. That
   is, do not exhort with mere declamation, but put some argument into
   your exhortation! Some men think it quite enough to appear to be in
   earnest, though they have nothing to say. Let such exhorters remember
   that they are to exhort with Doctrine--with solid teaching!

   2. For the time will come when they will not endure sound Doctrine; but
   after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having
   itching ears. When men have not good preachers, they are sure to have a
   great many of them! Those nations which have the worst priests always
   have them in swarms. So let us be thankful if God sends us a glowing
   and zealous minister, for even those who count it an affliction to have
   a minister, would be more afflicted if they had not a good one! But how
   evil it is when men get itching ears, when they need someone to be
   perpetually tickling them, giving them some pretty things, some fine
   pretentious intellectualism! In all congregations there is good to be
   done, except in a congregation having itching ears. From this may God
   deliver us!

   4. And they shall turn away their ears from the Truth, and shall be
   turned unto fables. When a man will not believe the Truth of God, he is
   sure, before long, to be a greedy believer of lies! No persons are so
   credulous as skeptics. There is no absurdity so gross but what an
   unbeliever will very soon be brought to receive it, though he
   rejectsthe Truth of God!

   5, 6. But watch you in all things, endure affliction, do the work of an
   evangelist, make full proof of your ministry For I am now ready to be
   offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. How complacently he
   talks about it! It is only a departure, though Caesar's sword might
   smite his head from his body! And truly death to the Believer is no
   frightful thing. "Go up," said God to Moses, and the Prophet went up,
   and God took away his soul to Him--and Moses was blessed! And so, "Come
   up," says God to the Christian, and the Christian goes up, first to his
   chamber and then from his chamber to Paradise!

   7, 8. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
   kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
   righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give Me at
   that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His
   appearing. This seems, then, to be a distinguishing mark of a true
   child of God--he loves the appearing of Christ! Now there are some
   professors who never think of the Second Advent at all. It never gives
   them the slightest joy to believe that--

   "Jesus the King will come, To take His people up To their eternal
   home."

   Truly they are mistaken and are surely wrong, for was not this the very
   comfort that Christ gave to His disciples? "If I go away, I will come
   again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may be
   also." I trust, dear Friends, we are among those "who love His
   appearing," and if we are, it is a sure prophecy that we shall have a
   crown of righteousness!

   9, 10. Do your diligence to come shortly unto me: for Demas has
   forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto
   Thessalonica.Demas was once almost a martyr! He was upon the very edge
   of suffering, but now you see he goes back to the world--he is not
   content to lie in the dungeon and rot with Paul, but will rather seek
   his own ease. Alas, Demas, how have you dishonored yourself forever,
   for every man who reads this passage, as he passes by flings another
   stone at the heap which is the memorial of one cowardly spirit who fled
   from Paul in danger!

   10. Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. It is likely that Paul
   had sent Crescens and Titus away upon a mission, but now, from certain
   intimations, the Apostle is sure that his time of death is coming on
   and so, indeed, it was, for his head was struck off by Nero's orders a
   few weeks after the writing of this Epistle--and now he somewhat
   laments that he had sent them away. And would not you and I want the
   consolation of kind faces round about us, and the sweet music of loving
   voices in our ears if we were about to be offered up?

   11. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with you for he is
   profitable to me for the ministry. That is one of the prettiest verses
   in the Bible! You remember that the Apostle Paul quarreled with
   Barnabas about this very Mark, because John Mark would not go into
   Bythinia to preach the Word, but left Paul and Barnabas. Therefore Paul
   would not have Mark with him anymore because he had turned in the day
   of trouble. But now Paul is about to die and he wishes to be perfectly
   at peace with everyone. He has quite forgiven poor John Mark for his
   former weakness. He sees Divine Grace in him and so he is afraid lest
   John Mark should be under some apprehensions of the Apostle's anger.
   And so he puts in this very kind passage, without seeming to have any
   reference at all to the past, but he gives him this great praise--"for
   he is profitable to me for the ministry."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Dumb Become Singers

   (No. 3332)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb
   sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the
   desert." Isaiah 35:6.

   WHAT a difference Divine Grace makes whenever it enters the heart! We
   find here the blind, but they are not blind in one sense--Grace has
   touched their eyes and the eyes of the blind are opened! Men are said
   to be deaf--but they are not deaf after Grace has operated upon
   them--the ears of the deaf are unstopped! They have been lame before,
   but when once the Omnipotent influence has come upon them, they leap
   like a hart! And the dumb, so far from being dumb, have a change that
   must be radical, for its effects are surprising--the tongue of the dumb
   not simply speaks, but it sings! Grace makes a great difference in man
   when it enters into him. How vain, then, are the boasts and professions
   of some persons who assert themselves to be the children of God and yet
   live in sin! There is no perceivable difference in their conduct-- they
   are just what they used to be before their pretended conversion. They
   are not changed in their actions, even in the least degree, and yet
   they do most positively affirm that they are the called and living
   children of God! Let such know that their professions are lies, that
   falsehood is the only groundwork that they have for their hopes, for
   wherever the Grace of God is, it makes a difference! A graceless man is
   not like a gracious man and a gracious man is not like a graceless
   one--we are "new creatures in Christ Jesus." When God looks upon us
   with the eyes of love in Conversion and Regeneration, He makes us as
   opposite from what we were before as light is from darkness--as Heaven,
   itself, is from Hell! God works in man a change so great that no
   reformation can even so much as thoroughly imitate it. It is an entire
   change--a change of the will, of the being, of the desires, of the
   hates, of the dislikes and of the likes. In every respect the man
   becomes new when Divine Grace enters into his heart. And yet you say of
   yourself, "I am converted," and remain what you were! I tell you once
   again to your face--you say an empty thing--you have no grounds for
   saying it! If Grace permits you to sin as you were known to do, then
   that grace is no Grace at all! That grace were not worth the having
   which permits a man to be, after he receives it, what he was before!
   No, we must always hold fast to the great Doctrine of Sanctification.
   Where God really justifies, He really sanctifies, too! And where there
   is a remission of sin, there is also the forsaking of it. Where God has
   blotted out transgression, He also removes the love of it, and makes us
   seek after holiness and walk in the ways of the Lord. We think we might
   fairly infer this from the text as a prelude to the observations we
   have to make concerning it.

   And now we shall want you, first of all, to notice the sort of people
   God has chosen to sing His praises and to sing them eternally. Then, in
   the second place, I shall enter into a more full description of the
   dumb people here described. Then I shall try to notice certain special
   times and seasons when those dumb people sing more sweetly than at
   others. First, then--I. THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL SING. We make this
   the first point. Note the persons whom God has chosen to sing His songs
   forever. There is no difference, by nature, between the elect and
   others--those who are now glorified in Heaven and who walk the golden
   streets clad with robes of purity were by nature as unholy and
   defiled--and as far from original righteousness as those who by their
   own rejection of Christ and by their love of sin, have brought
   themselves into the Pit of eternal torment as a punishment for their
   sins. The only reason why there is a difference between those who are
   in Heaven and those who are in Hell rests with Divine Grace and with
   Divine Grace alone! Those in Heaven would inevitably have been cast
   away had not Everlasting Mercy stretched out its hand and redeemed
   them. They were by nature not one whit superior to others. They would
   as certainly have rejected Christ and have trodden underfoot the blood
   of Jesus as did those who were cast away, if Grace, Free Grace, had not
   prevented them from committing this sin! The reason why they are
   Christians is not because they did naturally will to be so, nor because
   they did by nature desire to know Christ, or to be found of Him--but
   they are now saints simply because Christ made them so! He gave them
   the desire to be saved! He put into them the will to seek after God! He
   helped them in

   their seeking and afterwards brought them to feel the peace of God
   which is the fruit of Justification. But, by nature, they were just the
   same as others--and if there is any difference, we are obliged to say
   that the difference lies on the wrong side of the question. In very
   many cases, we who now "rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God," were
   the worst of men!

   There are some here that now bless God for their Redemption who once
   cursed Him. Who implored, as frequently as they dared to do, with oaths
   and swearing, that the curse of God might rest upon their fellows and
   upon themselves. Many of the Lord's anointed were once the very
   castaways of Satan, the sweepings of society, the refuse of the earth--
   those whom no man cared for, called outcasts, whom God has now called
   desired ones, seeing He has loved them! I am led to these thoughts from
   the fact that we are told, here, that those who sing were dumb. Their
   singing does not come naturally from themselves--they were not born
   songsters. No, they were dumb ones, those whom God would have to sing
   His praises. It does not say the tongue of the stammerer, or the tongue
   of him that blasphemed, or the tongue of him that misused his tongue,
   but the tongue of the dumb--of those who have gone farthest from any
   thought of singing--of those who have no power of will to sing. The
   tongue of such as these shall yet be made to sing God's praises!
   Strange choice that God has made. Strange for its graciousness.
   Strangely manifesting the Sovereignty of His will! God would build for
   Himself a palace in Heaven of living stones. Where did He get them? Did
   He go to the quarries of Paros? Has He brought forth the richest and
   the purest marble from the quarries of perfection? No, you saints, look
   to "the hole of the pit from where you were dug," and to the quarry
   from which you were hewn! You were full of sin--so far from being
   stones that were white with purity, you were black with defilement,
   seemingly utterly unfit to be made stones in the spiritual Temple which
   should be the dwelling place of the Most High! And yet He chose you to
   be trophies of His Grace and of His power to save!

   When Solomon built for himself a palace, he built it of cedar. But when
   God would build for Himself a dwelling forever, He cut not down the
   goodly cedars, but He dwelt in a bush and has preserved it as His
   memorial forever, "The God that dwelt in the bush." Goldsmiths make
   exquisite forms from precious material. They fashion the bracelet and
   the ring from gold. God makes His precious things out of base
   material--from the black pebbles of the defiling brooks He has taken up
   stones which He has set in the golden ring of His Immutable Love, to
   make them gems to sparkle on His finger forever! He has not selected
   the best, but, apparently, the worst of men to be the monuments of His
   Grace! And when He would have a choir in Heaven that should with
   tongues harmoniously sing His praise. When He would have a chorus that
   should forever chant the hallelujahs louder than the sound of many
   waters and like great thunders, He did not send Mercy down to seek
   earth's songsters and cull from us those who have the sweetest voices.
   He said, "Go, Mercy, and find the dumb and touch their lips and make
   them sing! The virgin tongues that never sang My praise before, that
   have been silent up till now, shall break forth in sublime rhapsodies
   and they shall lead the song--even angels shall but attend behind and
   catch the notes from the lips of those who once were dumb!" "The tongue
   of the dumb shall sing" His praises hereafter!

   Oh, what a fountain of consolation this opens for you and for me! Yes,
   Beloved, if God did not choose the base things of this world, He would
   never have chosen us! If He had respect unto the countenance of men. If
   God were a respecter of persons, where had you and I been this day? We
   had never been instances of His love and mercy! No, as we look upon
   ourselves, now, and remember what we once were, we are often obliged to
   say--

   "Depths of mercy can there be, Mercy still reserved for me?" How many
   times we have sung at the Lord's Table--the sacramental supper of our
   Master--

   "Why was I made to hear Your voice, And enter while there's room, While
   others make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?" And we
   have joined in singing--

   "'Twas the same love that spread the feast, That gently forced us in!
   Else we had still refused to take, And perished in our sin."

   Grace is always Grace, but it never seems so gracious as when we see it
   brought to our unworthy selves. You are obliged to confess that it is
   of Grace, then, and cast away the thoughts that it was of your foreseen
   faith, or of your foreseen good works, that the Lord chose you. We are
   obliged to come to this, to feel and know that it must have been of
   mercy,

   free mercy and of that alone--that we were not capable of doing good
   works without His Grace preventing us before good works, and without
   His Grace, also, in good works--enabling us to do them and, therefore,
   they never could have been the motive to Divine Love nor the reason why
   it flowed towards us! Oh, you unworthy ones, you saints that feel your
   deep natural depravity and mourn over your ruin by the Fall of Adam,
   lift up your hearts to God! He has delivered you from all impediments
   which Adam cast upon you! Your tongue is loosed! It is loose now! Adam
   made it dumb, but God has loosened it! Your eyes that were blinded by
   Adam's Fall are now opened. He has lifted you from the miry clay! What
   Adam lost for us, Christ has regained for us--He has plucked us out of
   the Pit and "set us upon a rock, and established our goings, and has
   put a new song in our mouth, even praise forevermore." Yes, "the tongue
   of the dumb shall sing."

   Just another hint here before I leave this point. How this ought to
   give you encouragement in seeking to do good to others! Why, my
   Brothers and Sisters, I can never think any man too far gone for Divine
   Mercy to save since I know that God saved me! Whenever I have felt
   desponding about any of my hearers who have for a long time persevered
   in guilt, I have only had to reach down my own biography from the
   shelves of my memory and just think what I, too, was till Grace
   redeemed me and brought me to my Savior's feet! And then I have said,
   "It will be no wonder if that man is saved--after what He has done for
   me, I can believe anything of my Master! If He has blotted out my
   transgressions. If He has clean melted away mysin, then I can never
   despair of any of my fellow creatures! I may for myself, but I cannot
   for them." Remember, they may be dumb, now, but He can make them sing!
   Your son John is a sad reprobate--keep on praying for him, mother! God
   can change his heart. Your daughter's heart is hard as adamant--He who
   makes the dumb sing can make rocks melt! Believe in God for your
   children as well as for yourselves. Trust Him! Take their cases before
   the Throne--rely upon Him that He can do it--and believe that in answer
   to earnest prayer He also will do it. And if you have neighbors that
   are full of the pestilence of sin, whose vices come up before you as a
   stench in your nostrils, yet fear not to carry the Gospel to them!
   Though they are harlots, drunkards, swearers, be not afraid to tell
   them of the Savior's dying love. He makes the dumb sing! He does not
   ask even a voice of them to begin with--they are dumb--and He does not
   ask of them even the power of speech, but He gives them the power! Oh
   if you have neighbors who are haters of the Sabbath, haters of God,
   unwilling to come to the House of God, despising Christ--if you find
   them as far gone as you can find them, remember He makes the dumb sing
   and, therefore, He can make them live! He needs no goodness in them to
   begin with--all He needs is just the rough, raw material--unhewn,
   uncut, unpolished. And He does not need even good material--bad as the
   material may be, He can make it into something inestimably precious,
   something that is worthy of the Savior's blood! Go on--fear not! If the
   dumb can sing, then surely you can never say that any man need be a
   castaway! Now I am to enter into some rather more clear description of
   these dumb people.

   II. WHO ARE THESE DUMB ONES?

   Well, sometimes I get a good thought out of old Master Cruden's
   Concordance. I believe that is the best commentary to the Bible and I
   like to study it. I opened it at this passage and I found Master Cruden
   describing different kinds of dumb people. He says there are four or
   five different sorts, but I shall name only four of them. The first
   sort of dumb people he mentions are those that cannotspeak. The second
   sort are those that won'tspeak. The third sort are those that dare not
   speak and the fourth sort are those that have got nothing to sayand,
   therefore, are dumb.

   The first sort of people who shall sing are those who cannot
   speak--that is the usual acceptation of the word, dumb--the others are,
   of course, only figurative applications of the term. We call a man dumb
   when he cannot speak. Now, spiritually, the man who is still in his
   trespasses and sins is dumb and I will prove that. He is dead and there
   is none as dumb as a dead man! "Shall the dead arise and praise You?
   Shall Your loving kindness be declared in the grave, or Your
   faithfulness in destruction?" The Word of God assures us that men are
   spiritually dead. It follows, then, that they must be spiritually dumb.
   They cannot sing God's praises. They know Him not and, therefore, they
   cannot exalt His glorious name. They cannot confess their sins. They
   can utter the mere words of confession, but they cannot really confess,
   for they do not know the evil of sin, nor have they been taught to feel
   what a bitter thing it is and to know themselves as sinners. But "no
   man can call Jesus, Lord, except by the Holy Spirit," and these people
   truly cannot do so. Perhaps it may be they can talk well of the
   Doctrines, but they cannot speak them out of the fullness of their
   hearts, as living and vital principles which they know in themselves.
   They cannot join in the songs, nor can they take part in the
   conversation of a Christian. If they sit down with the saints, perhaps
   they have culled a few phrases from the garden of the Lord which they
   use and apply to certain things of which they do not know anything.
   They talk a language, the meaning of which they do not comprehend--like
   Milton's daughters reading a language to their father which they did
   not understand--

   still, so far as the essence of the matter is concerned, they are dumb.
   But, hail to Sovereign Grace! "The tongue of the dumb shall sing!" God
   will have His darlings made what they should be! They are dumb by
   nature, but He will not leave them so. They cannot now sing His
   praises, but they shall yet do it. They will not now confess their
   sins, but He will yet bring them to their knees and make them pour out
   their hearts before Him! They cannot now talk the speech of Canaan and
   utter the language of Zion, but they shall do it soon. Grace,
   Omnipotent Grace, will have its way with them! They shall be taught to
   pray! Their eyes shall be made to flow with tears of penitence and
   then, after that, their lips shall be made to sing to the praise of
   Sovereign Grace!

   I need not dwell upon that point because I have many here who once were
   dumb ones, who can bless God that they can now sing. And does it not
   sometimes seem to you, Beloved, a very strange thing that you are what
   you are? I should think it must be the strangest thing in the world for
   a dumb man to speak, because he has no idea how a man feels when he is
   speaking--he has no notion of the thing at all. Like a man blind from
   birth, he has no idea what kind of a thing sight can be. We have heard
   of a blind man who supposed that the color scarlet must be very much
   like the sound of a trumpet--he had no other way of comparing it. So
   the dumb man has no notion of the way to talk. Do you not think that it
   is a strange thing that you are what you are? You said once, "I will
   never be one of those canting Methodists. Do you think I shall ever
   make a profession of religion? What? I attend a Prayer Meeting? No."
   And you went along the streets in all your gaiety of mirth and said,
   "What? I become a little child and give up my mind to simple faith and
   not reason at all? What? Am I to give up all argument about things? And
   simply take them for granted because God has said them? No, that can
   never, be!" I will be bound to say it will be a wonder to you as long
   as you are here, that you are the children of God! And even in Heaven,
   itself, the greatest wonder you will know will be that you were brought
   to know the Savior!

   But there is a sort of dumb people that will not speak They are
   mentioned by Isaiah. He said of preachers in his day, they were "dumb
   dogs that would not bark." I bless God we are not now quite so much
   inundated by this kind of dumb people as we used to be. We have had to
   mourn, especially in years gone by, that we could look from parish to
   parish and find nobody but a dumb dog in the Church--and in the pulpits
   of Dissenters, too! And some men who might have spoken with a little
   earnestness if they liked, let the people slumber under them instead of
   preaching the Word of God with true fidelity, as they would if they
   remembered that they would have to give an account to God at the last.
   My grandfather used to tell a story of a person who once resided near
   him and called himself a preacher of the Gospel. He was visited by a
   poor woman who asked him what was the meaning of the "new birth." To
   which he replied, "My good Woman, what do you come to me about that
   for? Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, did not know! He was a wise man
   and how do you think I should know?" So she had to go away with only
   that answer. Time was when such an answer might have been given by a
   great many who were reckoned to be the authorized teachers of religion,
   but knew nothing at all about the matter. They understood a great deal
   more about fox-hunting than about preaching--and more about farming
   their land than about the spiritual farming of God's Church! But we
   bless God that there are not so many of that sort, now, and we pray
   that the race may become thoroughly extinct--that every pulpit and
   every place of worship may be filled with a man who has a tongue of
   fire and a heart of flame, and shuns not to declare the whole counsel
   of God, neither seeking the smile of men, nor dreading their frown! We
   have a promise that it shall be so--"The tongue of the dumb shall
   sing." And, ah, they do sing well, too, when God makes them sing!

   You remember Rowland Hill's story in TheVillage Dialogsabout Mr.
   Merriman? Mr. Merriman was a sad scapegrace of a preacher. He was to be
   seen at every fair and revel but used to be seldom found in his pulpit
   when he should have been. But when he was converted, he began to preach
   with tears running down his face--and how the Church began to be
   crowded! The squire would not go and hear any of that stuff and locked
   up his pew--so Mr. Merriman had a little ladder made outside the door,
   as he did not wish to break the door open, and the people used to sit
   on the steps, up one side and down the other--and that made twice as
   much room as there was before! No people make such good preachers as
   those who were once dumb! If the Lord opens their mouths, they will
   think they cannot preach often enough and earnestly enough to make up
   for the mischief they did before! Chalmers, himself, might never have
   been so eloquent a preacher had he not been for a long time a dumb dog!
   He preached morality--he said till he made all his parish immoral! He
   kept on urging the people to keep God's Law till he made them break it!
   But when he turned round and began to preach God's Gospel, then the
   dumb began to sing! Oh, may God bring this about in everyone of us! If
   we are dumb as professed ministers, may he open our mouths and force us
   to speak forth His Word lest at the Last Day the blood of our hearers'
   souls should be found upon our skirt--and we should be cast away as
   unfaithful stewards of the Gospel of Christ!

   I will now introduce you to a third sort of dumb people. They are dumb
   because they dare not speak--and they are good people, blessed souls.
   Here is one of them--"I was dumb with silence. I opened not my mouth
   because You did it." And it is so blessed to be dumb in that fashion.
   The Lord's servant will often have to be dumb under trial and troubles.
   When Satan tempts him to repine, he will put his finger to his lips and
   say, "Hush murmuring, be still! Shall a living man complain of the
   punishment of his sins?" Even the child of God will do like Job did,
   who sat down for seven days and nights and said not a word, for he felt
   that his trouble was heavy and he could say nothing. It would have been
   as well if Job had kept his mouth shut for the next few days--he would
   not have said so much amiss as he did in many things that he uttered.
   Oh, there are times when you and I, Beloved, are obliged to keep the
   bridle on our tongue, lest we should murmur against God! We are in evil
   company, perhaps. Our spirits are hot within us and we want to take
   vengeance for the Lord! We are like the friends of David who wanted to
   take away the head of Shimei. "Let us take this dead dog's head," we
   say--and then our Jesus tells us to put our sword into its
   scabbard--"the servant of the Lord must not strive." How often have we
   been dumb! And sometimes when there have been slanders against our
   character and men have slandered us, oh how our fingers have itched to
   be at them! We have wanted to see who was the stronger of the two. But
   we have said, "No, our Master did not answer, and He left us an example
   that we should follow in His steps." The chief priests accused Him of
   many things, but He "answered them not a word." Well, we have sometimes
   found it hard to be dumb like the sheep when it is brought to the
   shearer, or the lamb when it is in the slaughterhouse--we could not
   keep quiet. And when we have been upon our beds in sickness, we have
   tried to quench every murmuring word. We have not let a sentence escape
   our lips when we could possibly avoid it, but notwithstanding all that,
   we have found it hard work to keep dumb--though it is blessed work when
   we are enabled to do it!

   Now, you who have been dumb under great weights of sorrow. You whose
   songs have been suspended because you dare not open your lips lest
   sighs should usurp the place of praise--come, listen to this
   promise--"the tongue of the dumb shall sing." Yes, though you are in
   the deepest trouble, now, and are obliged to be silent, you shall yet
   sing! Though like Jonah you are in the whale's belly, carried down, as
   he called it, to the lowest Hell--though the earth with her bars is
   about you forever, and the weeds are wrapped about your head--yet you
   "shall look again towards His holy Temple." Though you have laid your
   harp upon the willows--bless God you have not broken it--you will have
   use for it, by-and-by--you shall take it from its resting place and--

   "Loud to the praise of Sovereign Grace Bid every string awake."

   If you have no "songs in the night," yet He shall "compass you about
   with songs of deliverance." If you cannot sing His praises now, yet you
   shall do so, by-and-by, when greater Grace shall have come into your
   heart, or when delivering Mercy shall be the subject of your song in
   better days that are yet to come! But, blessed be God, we are not
   always to be silent with affliction--we are bound to sing. And I think
   we ought to sing even when we ought to be dumb! Though we are dumb as
   to murmuring, we ought to sing God's praises. An old Puritan said,
   "God's people are like birds--they sing best in cages." He said, "God's
   people sing best when in the deepest trouble." Said old Master Brooks,
   "The deeper the flood was, the higher the ark went up to Heaven." So it
   is with the child of God--the deeper his troubles, the nearer to Heaven
   he goes, if he lives close to his Master. Troubles are called weights
   and a weight, you know, generally clogs and keeps down to the earth.
   But there are ways, by the use of the laws of mechanics, by which you
   can make a weight lift you! And so it is possible to make your troubles
   lift you nearer Heaven instead of making them sink you! Ah, we thank
   our God He has sometimes opened our mouth when we were dumb, when we
   were ungrateful and did not praise Him. He has opened our mouth by a
   trial and though when we had a thousand mercies we did not bless Him,
   when He sent a sharp affliction, then we began to bless Him! He has
   thus made the tongue of the dumb to sing.

   We have one more kind of dumb people. There are those who have nothing
   to say, therefore they are dumb. I will give you an instance. Solomon
   says in the Proverbs, "Open your mouth for the dumb," and he shows by
   the context that he means those who in the court of judgment have
   nothing to plead for themselves and have to stand dumb before the bar.
   Like that man of old, who, when the king came in to see the guests, had
   not on a wedding garment. And when the king said, "Friend, how came you
   in here?" he stood speechless--speechless not because he could not
   speak--but because he had nothing to say! Have not you and I been dumb
   and are we not now, when we stand on Law terms with God, when we forget
   that Jesus Christ and His blood and righteousness were our full
   acquittal? Are we not obliged to be dumb when the Commandments are made
   bare before us and when the Law of God is brought home to the
   conscience? There was a time with each of us--and not long ago with
   some here present--when we stood before Moses' seat and heard the

   Commandments read and we were asked, "Sinner can you claim to have kept
   those Commandments?" And we were dumb. Then we were asked, Sinner, can
   you give any atonement for the breach of these Commandments?" And we
   were dumb. We were asked, "Sinner, can you, by a future obedience, wipe
   out your past sin?" We knew it was impossible and we were dumb. Then we
   were asked, Can you endure the penalty? Can you dwell with everlasting
   burnings and abide with eternal fires?" And we were dumb. And then we
   were asked the question, "Prisoner at the bar, have you any reason to
   plead why you should not be condemned?" And we were dumb. And we were
   asked, "Prisoner, have you any helper? Have you anyone that can deliver
   you?" And we were dumb, for we had nothing to say. Yes, but, blessed be
   God, "the tongue of the dumb shall now sing." And shall I tell you what
   we can sing? Why, we can sing this--"Who shall lay anything to the
   charge of the Lord's elect?" "Not God, for He has justified." "Who is
   he that condemns?" "Not Christ, He has died, yes, rather has risen
   again, who is also at the right hand of God, and makes intercession for
   us." We who had not a word to say for ourselves, can now say
   everything!

   If God has made you dumb. If He has taken away all your
   self-righteousness, as truly as ever He has shut your mouth, He will
   open it! If God has killed your self-righteousness, He will give you a
   better righteousness. If He has knocked down all your refuges of lies,
   He will build you up a good refuge. He has not come to destroy you, He
   has shut your mouth to fill it with His praise! Be of good cheer! Look
   to Jesus! Cast your eyes on the Cross! Put your confidence in Him and
   then you who think yourself a castaway, even you, poor weeping Mary,
   shall yet sing of redeeming, undying love! And now I have to conclude,
   by noticing--

   III. THE OCCASIONS WHEN THE TONGUES OF THESE DUMB PEOPLE SING THE BEST.
   When does the tongue of the dumb sing? Why, I think it sings always,
   little or much. If it is once set at liberty, it will never leave off
   singing. There are some of you people who say this world is a howling
   wilderness--well, you are the howlers who make all the howling! If you
   choose to howl, I cannot help it. I shall prefer the matter of my text,
   "Then shall the tongue of the dumb," not howl, but, "sing!" Yes, they
   sing always, little or much. Sometimes it is in a low note. Sometimes
   they have to go rather deep in the bass, but there are other times when
   they can mount to the highest notes of all. They have special times of
   singing. They first begin to sing when they lose their burden at the
   foot of the Cross--that is a time of singing! You know how John Bunyan
   describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross,
   he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing! We have not
   forgotten those three great leaps--we have leaped many times since then
   with joy and gratitude--but we think we never leaped so high as we did
   at the time when we saw our sins all gone and our transgressions
   covered up in the tomb of the Savior!

   By the way, let me tell you a little story about John Bunyan. I am a
   great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him infallible, for I
   met with a story the other day which I think is very good one. There
   was a young man in Edinburgh who wished to be a missionary. He was a
   wise young man. He thought, "Well, if I am to be a missionary, there is
   no need for me to transport myself far away from home--I may as well be
   a missionary in Edinburgh." (That's a hint to some of you ladies who
   give away tracts in your district and never give your servant, Mary,
   one)!

   Well, this young man began determined to speak to the first person he
   met. He met one of those old fishwives. Those of us who have seen them,
   can never forget them--they are extraordinary women, indeed! So,
   stepping up to her, he said, "Here you are, coming with your burden on
   your back. Let me ask you if you have got another burden--a spiritual
   burden?" "What?" she said, "Do you mean that burden in John Bunyan's
   Pilgrim's Progress Because if you do, young man, I have got rid of that
   many years ago, before you were born! But I went a better way to work
   than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was
   one of your parsons that do not preach the Gospel, for he said, Keep
   that light in your eye and run to the wicket gate. Why, man alive, that
   was not the place for him to run to! He should have said, 'Do you see
   that Cross? Run there at once!' But instead of that, he sent the poor
   pilgrim to the wicket gate first. And much good he got by going there!
   He got tumbling into the slough, and was like to have been killed by
   it." "But did you," the young man asked, "go through any slough of
   despond?" "Yes, young man, I did. But I found it a great deal easier
   going through with my burden off, than with it on my back."

   The old woman was quite right. We must not say to the sinner, "Now,
   Sinner, if you will be saved, go to the baptismal pool--go to the
   wicket gate--go to the church--do this or that." No, the Cross should
   be right in front of the wicket gate and we should say to the sinner,
   "Throw yourself there and you are safe! But you are not safe till you
   can cast off your burden and lie at the foot of the Cross and find
   peace in Jesus." Well, that is a singing time with God's children!

   And after that, do God's people sing? Yes, they have sweet singing
   times in their hours of communion. Oh, the music of that word,
   "communion," when it is heard in the soul--communion with Jesus,
   fellowship with Jesus, whether in His

   sufferings or in His glories! Those are singing times, when the heart
   is lifted up to feel its oneness to Christ and its vital union with
   Him--and is enabled to "rejoice in hope of the Glory of God."

   Have you not had some precious singing times, too, at the Lord's
   Table?Ah, when the bread has been broken and the wine poured out, how
   often have I had a song when the people have all joined in singing--

   "Gethsemane, can I forget,

   Or there the conflict see,

   Your agony and bloody sweet,

   And not remember Thee?

   When to the Cross

   I turn my eyes,

   And rest on Calvary,

   Oh, Lamb of God, my Sacrifice,

   I must remember Thee."

   But lastly, my dear Friends, the best singing time we shall have will
   be when you and I come to die. Ah, there are some of you that are like
   what is fabled of the swan. The ancients said the swan never sang in
   his lifetime, but always sang just when he died. Now, there are many of
   God's desponding children who seem to go all their life under a cloud,
   but they get a swan's song before they die. The river of your life
   comes running down, perhaps black and miry with troubles, and when it
   begins to touch the white foam of the sea, there comes a little
   glistening in its waters. So, Beloved, though we may have been very
   much dispirited by reason of the burden of the way, when we get to the
   last, we shall find swan songs! Are you afraid of dying? Oh, never be
   afraid of that--be afraid of living! Living is the only thing that can
   do any mischief! Dying never can hurt a Christian! Afraid of the grave?
   It is like the bath of Esther in which she lay for a time, to purify
   herself with spices that she might be fit for her lord. You are afraid
   of dying, you say, because of the pains of death. No, they are the
   pains of life--of life struggling to continue! Death has no pain--death
   itself is but one gentle sigh--the fetter is broken and the spirit
   fled. The best moment of a Christian's life is his last one, because it
   is the one that is nearest Heaven! And then it is that he begins to
   strike the keynote of the song which he shall sing to all eternity. Oh,
   what a song will that be! It is a poor song we make now. When we join
   the song--perhaps we are almost ashamed to sing--but up there our
   voices shall be clear and good! And there--

   "Loudest of the crowd we'll sing

   While Heaven's resounding mansions ring

   With shouts of Sovereign Grace!" The thought struck me the other day
   that the Lord will have in Heaven some of those very big sinners that
   have gone further astray than anybody that ever lived--the most
   extraordinary extravaganzas of vice--just to make the melody complete
   by singing some of those soprano notes which you and I, because we have
   not gone so far astray, will never be able to utter. I wonder whether
   one has stepped in here who God has selected to take some of those alto
   notes in the scale of praise? Perhaps there is one such here! Oh, how
   will such a one sing, if Grace--Free Grace--shall have mercy upon him!
   May there be many such. Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

God's King Magnified

   (No. 3333)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   2, 1866.

   "His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon Himself shall His crown
   flourish." Psalm 132:18.

   THE Lord Jesus Christ communicates much to men with whom He comes in
   contact and has a mighty influence upon them. He is blessed and He is
   made a blessing. To those who love Him, Jesus Christ becomes a savor of
   life unto life. To those who are rebellious and continue to despise
   Him, He becomes a savor of death unto death. Our Savior, then, has an
   influence upon all those with whom He comes in contact and association.
   If I compare His Human Nature with clay, I must compare it with the
   scented clay which yields a perfume on all sides. You cannot hear of
   Jesus Christ without either getting a blessing or involving the
   responsibility of rejecting a blessing. I repeat it--He becomes a
   blessing to all those who are round about Him, or else, if that
   blessing is not received, it brings guilt upon the souls of those who
   reject Him. He is either the stone on which we build our hope and our
   trust, or else He becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to
   those who stumble at His Word, being disobedient.

   You see the text teaches very definitely this Truth of God, for it not
   only speaks of Christ, Himself, but of what will become of those who
   are His enemies. No doubt we may also very properly draw from the text
   what shall become of His friends, for that same hand which is sure to
   clothe His enemies with confusion, will be certain yet to clothe His
   friends with honor and with glory. He who uses the left hand so
   powerfully to smite His foes, uses His right hand with equal force to
   bless His friends.

   The text, therefore, divides itself very easily and naturally into the
   two great declarations. We see the clothing of the enemies of the Lord
   Jesus Christ with shame, but then, again, the crowning of the Lord with
   a flourishing diadem of eternal Glory. Let us look, then, at--

   I. THE ENEMIES OF CHRIST WHOM GOD SAYS HE WILL CLOTHE WITH SHAME.

   Who are these enemies of Christ? In the days of His flesh, you could
   very easily have discovered them. Some slandered Him, calling Him
   friend of sinners, gluttonous and a wine-bibber, having a devil and
   even being a blasphemer. Some took up stones to kill Him. Some cried,
   "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" And others bribed the multitude that they
   might thus hound Him to His shameful and cruel death. Enemies He had on
   all sides! But there are many who think today that had they lived in
   that age they would have been numbered with His friends. If it is so,
   is it not strange that they are not among His friends now? If they
   would have behaved so well 1800 years ago, it is amazing they should
   behave so badly now. Our belief is--and the common actions of mankind
   justify it--that had the sinners of this present day who pretend to
   have so much affection for the Person of Christ, lived in that age,
   they, too, alas, would have helped to crucify the Lord of Life and
   Glory, for they do, in effect, crucify Him now!

   Who are His enemies, then, today? We will not think about those Scribes
   and Pharisees, and so on, who are all dead and gone, but let us ask who
   are His enemies NOW? Of course, everybody says that open sinners are
   the enemies of Christ Do they not, by their actions, say, "we will not
   have this Man to reign over us?" His Book they will not read. His day
   of rest they do not care to keep. To the messages of His ministers they
   will not listen. His word, "Believe and live," they cast behind their
   backs--and having done this, they destroy their own souls and do
   everything that must grieve His Holy Spirit. Are there any such here,
   now--lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God--some who would even
   use the word of blasphemy and indulge in the sins of the flesh? We are
   not harsh if we put you down among the enemies of Christ! You are
   evidently not with Him and He, Himself, has said, "He that is not with
   Me is against Me." You are not on the Lord's side--there can be no
   "betweenites"--you are on the side of His enemies! He Himself declares
   that it must be so. "If God is God," said Elijah, "serve Him, but if
   Baal is God, serve him." You do in effect say, "The world is my
   god--myself, my

   own soul, my own pleasures, my own opinions--these are my gods! As for
   Jehovah and His Christ, I know nothing concerning Them." Well, you must
   be put among His enemies and I would ask you, then, just to take this
   text and taste the bitterness of it. And I pray that may save you from
   knowing its bitterness in another world! "His enemies will I clothe
   with shame."

   But Christ has other enemies, namely, those who are outwardly moral and
   excellent in conversation and conduct, but who deny the Lord Jesus
   Christ. There are some very excellent people in all other respects who
   doubt His Deity, or say they do--who will even say hard things of Him
   as the Son of God. They say they much revere His Character as a Man,
   and conceive Him to be, in fact, a very model of what manhood should
   be, but they will not accept Him in His true Character as the anointed
   Son of God and the Savior of the world! Now, the Lord Jesus Christ will
   most certainly consider such to be His enemies. It is no use for a man
   to say concerning a monarch, "I have a great respect for the monarch in
   his private character. I would not do anything to injure him--I would
   even hold him up to respect in his private character--but as a king I
   will never yield him loyal homage, I will never obey him. Indeed, I
   will do all I can to pluck the crown from off his head." Could the king
   do otherwise than reckon such a person to be his enemy? It would be in
   vain for the man to say, "I am privately your friend." The king would
   say, "Oh, but I esteem my crown to be as precious as my life." So the
   Lord Jesus Christ cannot have the crown-rights of His true Deity
   touched. He "counts it not robbery to be equal with God," and He is
   called, "God Over All, Blessed Forevermore." He who trod the waves of
   Galilee's Lake, whose voice Death heard and gave up its prey--He who
   opened the gates of Paradise to the dying robber--claims to be none
   other than equal with the Eternal Father, and like He, "God Over All."
   And it is in vain for you to say you respect His Character as a Man, if
   you do not accept Him in His Deity and accept Him in His official
   Character as the Savior of sinners! You cannot be otherwise than
   numbered among His enemies! Well, now, if this should seem to be
   uncharitable, let me say that I cannot help telling you what I solemnly
   believe to be the truth and I must, therefore, my Friend, leave with
   you this text, "His enemies will I clothe with shame."

   But again, there are other persons who are sound enough in their
   doctrinal views concerning Christ and who are excellent in their moral
   character, too, but who are trusting in themselves that they are
   righteous. You will, perhaps, be startled when I class you among the
   enemies of Christ! My dear Friend, Christ is the King of Grace. He is
   in this world to vindicate the plan of salvation by Grace. You, you
   see, instead of accepting this plan of salvation by Grace, set up the
   opposite principle of salvation by merit. Merit is anti-Christ! The
   very essence of Popery, that which is so hateful in it to us and, we
   believe, so obnoxious to the Lord, is not so much its outward rites and
   ceremonies as its inward spirit of setting up human merit! There are
   two merits--your own merit and the merit of Christ. If you trust your
   own merit, you do in fact proclaim that you are opposed to Christ's way
   of saving by His merits! Christ claims to be the Author and Finisher of
   our faith, the Alpha and the Omega, but if you come in and say, "No, I
   will do this myself--my moral character, my private devotions, my
   outward attendance at the House of God will serve me in good place as a
   righteousness," you touch Christ in His most tender point, for He
   claims among all His Glories this first and chief, that He is the
   Savior of sinners--and if you say that you can do without Him and if
   you profess to be your own savior--you shall most certainly, however
   excellent your life may be, be numbered with His enemies! Oh, it will
   be a sad case for you respectable people, you good, excellent people,
   when this text shall be fulfilled in you, "His enemies will I clothe
   with shame."

   There is one other class I would gladly speak to--and I think they are
   the worst of all--those who acknowledge that salvation is by Grace and
   profess to be saved by the blood and righteousness of Christ, who unite
   themselves with Christ's Church, but whose lives are so unhallowed as
   to dishonor Him. You know how the Apostle, half-choked with his sobs as
   he speaks, says as he gazes upon such, "There are some of whom I have
   told you often, and now tell you even with weeping, that they are the
   enemies of the Cross of Christ." What a terribly sad reflection! A
   member of a Christian Church and yet an enemy of the Cross of Christ? I
   can suggest no better question for each and all of us than this, "Lord
   is it, I? Lord, is it I?" Why may it not be you? The preacher may ask
   himself why may it not be he? But whoever it may be among us, this is
   certain--our Church standing will, so far from excusing us, only
   increase our guilt--and so it shall be tragically and sadly true, "His
   enemies will I clothe with shame." They may clothe themselves with the
   garments of an outward profession and make broad their phylacteries,
   but they shall one day be stripped and their hypocrisy shall be
   discovered! "His enemies will I clothe with shame."

   Having thus given you, then, a brief list of who are Christ's enemies
   and being anxious that you should ask yourselves, my dear Hearers,
   whether you are among them, I want now to call your attention to the
   particular phraseology of the text in order to make out what is meant
   by this being clothed with shame. Do you see it? Shame! Nothing makes a

   man feel so cowardly and so mean as shame. There have been persons who
   would sooner die than be put to shame. Many a man would have been able
   to burn at the stake who has not been able to face public shame. It is
   a thing which cuts man's nature to the very quick! Now, if you and I
   have done anything that makes us ashamed, do you know what we do? Why,
   we put our shame into the hollow of our hand and we keep it there. We
   do not tell our wife, our children, our neighbors--and if we can, we go
   and hide our shame and put it away! Now God seems to say to you and to
   me, "You have been hiding that shame of yours. You have been wearing
   the garb of an outward righteousness. Come here! You must put this
   shame on." "No, Lord," you say, "but I want to hide it." "No," He says,
   "you shall put it where it must be seen-- where nobody shall be able to
   see you without seeing it! I will clothe you with it--it shall be all
   over you. You shall put it on as your outward array. You shall be
   wrapped in it--you shall sleep in it, awake in it and walk abroad in
   it--you shall be clothed with shame!" And it strikes me that the text
   may also bear this meaning--that when God comes to fulfill this threat,
   shame will be the sinner's only garment. He had the garment of a
   profession once--that is to be torn sharply from him and he is to be
   arrayed only with his scarlet, blushing shame! Once his filthy rags,
   bad as they were in the sight of God, gave him a sort of covering, but
   now they shall all be stripped from him and he will have nothing
   remaining but his shame. Shame shall be his garb from head to foot,
   nothing but shame in which to wrap himself! When shame only comes into
   the cheek, it turns it crimson, but here the man or woman shall be
   shame all over and this shame shall be conspicuous to all onlookers,
   for he or she shall be clothed with it as with a robe, from head to
   foot! This seems to be the unmistakable meaning of the text. Now, when
   does this come true? And how is it true that God's enemies are clothed
   with shame?

   Well, in the first place, this threat is sometimes very graciously
   turned into a promise. I cannot wish for some of you a better wish than
   that you may, in the first sense in which I am going to explain it, be
   clothed with shame, for when the Lord comes to a soul and says to it
   with a voice of love, "You have been My enemy, but I have loved you
   with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
   you," then the soul is covered with shame. It cries out, "How could I
   be an enemy to so dear and true a Friend?" I recollect one being
   converted to God by reading the hymn--

   "Jesus, lover of my soul."

   "Oh," said the man, "is He the lover of mysoul? Then how is it that I
   have been an enemy to Him? Did He love mewhen on the tree of shame and
   death? Did He love me so as to pour out His heart's blood to redeem me?
   How can I have lived without honoring Him?" And the man was clothed
   with shame! Some of us have felt what it is to be thus clothed, so that
   when we went into the House of God we felt almost ashamed to sit with
   God's people. They did not know anything about what we were feeling,
   but we thought they did. And when we went to pray, we felt ashamed to
   pray, as though our sins would hide God from us and we could not expect
   to obtain a blessing. We were so clothed with shame that we could not
   get it away from our eyes! Our whole soul seemed covered with it. No
   pride, no self-righteousness was left. We could not say, "Lord, I thank
   You I am not as other men," but we began to cry, "God be merciful to
   me, a sinner!" Oh, it is a mercy when, in a gracious sense, the soul is
   thus covered with shame--a hallowed shame on account of its many sins!
   I would pray that this terrible text may be fulfilled in the sweetest
   possible manner by your being covered with shame for sin!

   But alas, dear Friends, it bears on its front a very much more terrible
   meaning than this. There aresomepersons who are clothed with shame in
   this world through disappointment. There are some who think they should
   put an end to Christianity. They get a notion into their heads, for
   instance, that if the wife is converted, they will break her of it, or
   if a child shows some signs of Divine Grace, the man says, "I will
   laugh it out of him." Or perhaps they do it on a large scale. Like
   Voltaire, they boast that within another 20 years there will not be a
   Christian to be found anywhere. They say that the thing is absurd and
   is dying out. It is very strange that the very press with which
   Voltaire printed his works is now used in Geneva to print the
   Bible--and that while Voltaire, himself, is only remembered to be
   despised, Christianity seems never to have been so strong as it is at
   the present day! If all those men who have risen up, one after the
   other, to injure Christ's Kingdom, could just now be called back to
   life and see what has happened, they would look at their predictions
   and be clothed with shame to see how mistaken they have all been! Their
   theories have been exploded. They had their little day and have died
   out and are generally utterly forgotten. And so will all theories that
   oppose Christ today die out--and their systems of denial will be all
   clothed with shame!

   In the case of those persecutors who have tried to drive religion out
   of individuals, they have always been disappointed. They have not
   succeeded, for the poor, trampled down one has borne it all with
   supernatural patience and triumphed by endurance--for the Grace of God
   is not to be expelled from the heart! You know what stout old Martin
   Luther said. He declared that Grace was like leaven--you put it into
   the meal and then you may boil it or bake it, fry it

   or freeze it--but you can never get out the leaven! Once the meal is
   leavened, nothing can unleaven it. And so is it with the Grace of God!
   You may do what you will with the man who possesses it. Put him into a
   mortar and pound him with a pestle until there are not two atoms of him
   left together--and yet the immortal spirit leaving the anatomy and all
   its weaknesses behind it, would but the more clearly lay hold on Christ
   and more fully rejoice in Him! And so, when the disappointment which
   this brings, comes upon them, then Christ's enemies are clothed with
   shame!

   Sometimes, again, in this world the enemies of Christ are clothed with
   the shame of remorse. Look at Judas Iscariot when he took the pieces of
   money and threw them down in the treasury and went out and hanged
   himself. There was the covering of shame. And there have been such men
   since, who, in life and in death, have been clothed with shame because
   they have apostatized from the faith and, after making a profession,
   have, Demas-like, turned back again to the world! It is a blessed thing
   if that shame leads them to true repentance, but in many cases it is
   only a repentance that comes from a fear of punishment and is not the
   work of the Grace of God! Oh, how many have gone down to Hell with its
   fire burning in their hearts before they got there, feeling the guilt
   of sin upon them even before God began to handle them, having a
   foretaste of the flames, a foretaste of that eternal flame-shower which
   must descend upon their heads! God grant, dear Hearers, that not one of
   you may know what it is to be clothed with the shame of remorse!

   But the most terrible fulfillment of my text is left for another world.
   Then shall Christ's enemies be clothed with shame! Servants of Satan,
   here is your livery! Do you say you will not put it on? Listen--"His
   enemies will I clothe with shame." Godwill put it on you! You would not
   wear the robe of righteousness--you shall not be able to decline to
   wear the robe of shame! God, Himself, stands here, as it were, and
   declares that He will dress His creature in the proper garment for him
   to wear. You must put it on, there is no escape! You must wear it. Here
   is your eternal convict's dress and, convicted of being an enemy of
   God, you must wear it--of all dresses the most terrible! To be clothed
   with pain would be far less dreadful than to be clothed with shame. I
   would sooner at any time feel the acute pain that is possible in the
   body than feel shame, for a prick of the conscience is worse than the
   thrust of the surgeon's knife! To go crawling about God's world not
   able to look one's fellow creatures in the face? Why, I would sooner
   die! And then, in the next world, to be so ashamed that you will not be
   able to look even the devil in the face, because he never had a day of
   grace as you have had--never a Savior preached to him, never made any
   pretence of being converted to God and, therefore, though an enemy of
   Christ, has no such cause of shame as you will have! Clothed with
   shame! Why, they shall cry to the rocks to hide them and to the hills
   to cover them, for when a man is ashamed, he wants to get out of
   everybody's way and, most of all, out of his own! And you will be so
   ashamed that you, yourselves, will be ashamed of yourselves! You will
   be like the man of whom we read that when the king said to him, "How
   came you in here, not having a wedding garment?" He was speechless. Why
   speechless? Shame made his tongue refuse to do its office--and so will
   shame do with you. You will be ashamed.

   Shall I tell you why, when you hear of the Cross of Christ and yet
   reject it, you will be ashamed? You will be ashamed then of your sins.
   You are not able, perhaps, to boast of them, now, but you will be
   ashamed to think, then, that they shall be published. Men are afraid,
   now, to have some things put in the newspaper, but what will it be when
   God will gazette your private sins, when He shall publish to the whole
   assembled world of every age, to Heaven, earth and Hell, the sins which
   you have committed--when they shall be read out so that all shall hear
   and all your filth be discovered? What shame will this revelation of
   secret things produce! And what will be your shame when the
   hypocritical profession which you have made shall also be laid bare?
   Then shall those who were open sinners laugh you to scorn and say of
   you, as the Prophet pictures the kings saying of the great monarch of
   Babylon, "Have you become like one of us? Have you also become weak as
   we, and covered with shame?" Most of all, perhaps, will you be ashamed
   when you see the very people you despised reigning in triumph--when you
   see the saints whom you laughed at sitting at the right hand of the
   Judge--those fools who disdain this world's pleasures now entering into
   everlasting pleasure! And you, the wise man, who took the bird in the
   hand and would not wait for the bird in the bush--now rewarded for it
   all by receiving the very worst things, inasmuch as you had your best
   things, first, and must now have your worst things, last!

   It is a sad, sad text I have to preach upon. I would to God it would go
   into your souls that you may turn to the King and be no more His
   enemies! God, Himself, has said it--it is no word of mine, "His enemies
   will I clothe with shame." He Himself, who can do it, who can make you
   ashamed, however proud you are--who knows how to put His hand inside
   your heart and touch the strings, thereof, and loosen them, so that
   your pride can no longer help you to bronze it out with Him--He has
   said it, "His enemies will I cloth with shame." I pray you, "Kiss the
   Son lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is
   kindled but a little: blessed are all they that put their trust in
   Him."

   Now, we shall need a little time to take the second part of our
   subject--"Upon Himself shall His crown flourish." We are here very
   clearly taught that--

   II. THE SAVIOR WILL WEAR A CROWN, THAT THE CROWN WILL FLOURISH, THAT IT
   WILL FLOURISH UPON HIM!

   Brothers and Sisters, I need not detain you long by mentioning to you
   the crowns which Jesus wears. He has the royal crown of the kingdoms of
   Heaven, earth and Hell, for "the government is upon His shoulder, and
   His name shall be called Wonderful, The Counselor, The Mighty God, The
   Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

   He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords! But He has a crown which
   He especially now wears as Head of the Church and in this He takes
   great delight--the crown which is called in the matchless song, "The
   crown wherewith His mother crowned Him in the day of His espousals."
   That is the crown which the Church has put upon Him and which she still
   delights to put upon His head! Do you not all delight to crown the
   Savior, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ? What song wakes up your
   heart more completely than the one--

   "All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall! Bring
   forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of All!" Have we not
   sometimes seemed to make these walls echo again and again as we sang--

   "Crown Him, crown Him Crowns become the Victor's brow"? I hope He has a
   crown from each of our hearts and we wait for the day when we shall be
   taken up to cast our crowns at His feet, and to ascribe unto Him honor
   and Glory, and dominion and power forever and ever! Crowned once with
   thorns for us, He ought now to be crowned with the royal diadem!
   Everyone of us must seek to spend and to be spent that we may add to
   the luster of that tiara, that He may be exalted above all
   principalities and powers in the estimation of men--and that He may
   have a Kingdom in all men's hearts!

   Christ is thus said to have a crown and it is added that His crown
   shall flourish. There are some crowns that are gradually diminishing in
   luster. The monarchy is growing weaker and weaker and still more
   effeteand, by-and-by, shall be extinct, "but upon Himself shall His
   crown flourish." When does a crown flourish? You understand that the
   very term is metaphorical. Some think that to speak of a crown
   flourishing is to liken the king to an antlered stag whose horns
   flourish. Others suppose it to be an allusion to the primitive form of
   crowns, as Doddridge sings--

   "Fair garments of immortal joy Shall bloom on every head."

   It is a metaphor expressive ofjoy, comfort, tranquility in a kingdom.
   Now, when does a crown flourish? Does it not flourish when the
   sovereign is beloved by his subjects?The foundations of a throne are
   always to be found in the love of the people. Christ's crown, then,
   indeed, flourishes, for the upright love Him! His name is as ointment
   poured forth! Therefore the virgins love Him. We can truly sing--

   "Jesus, the very thought of You With sweetness fills my breast." We are
   not slaves who scarcely even talk of ourselves as being His subjects,
   for He has called us friends and not servants, seeing that His secret
   is with us. He is dear to our souls and His crown thus flourishes.

   A crown flourishes when the power of the monarch is victorious in war
   and acknowledged in peace. It is so with Christ. Oh, that it were more
   publicly so! We are praying for revivals and may God send them! May
   this time of God's visitation of London in judgment be attended with a
   visitation in mercy! And oh, that Jesus Christ's crown may flourish in
   the conquest of innumerable hearts who shall add fresh territories to
   the dominion of the Savior--for a crown flourishes when a king's
   subjects increase and His numbers are multiplied.

   It shall be so with Christ. Until the sun has gone down with age and
   the moon has quenched her nightly lamp and every star has, like a
   withered fig leaf, fallen from the sky, Christ's Kingdom shall go on
   and on! First as a brook, it seemed to leap down Calvary's side. It has
   swollen to a river now. Still it deepens and widens. It becomes an
   ocean which shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea! Christ
   rose and it was twilight. Now He begins to climb the steep. And the day
   is coming and the full noontide draws near when He shall flood the
   whole earth with the splendor of His Light and His Glory--and when it
   shall be found that its going forth is from one end of the heavens to
   the other! May the

   long-expected day fully come! May the realms of woe, of sin and death
   be filled with this great Light of God! His crown shall flourish!

   It is remarkable that while all sorts of dynasties have come and gone,
   the dynasty of Christ still exists! How many mighty monarchs have
   climbed, with great slaughter, to their thrones--but where are they
   now? Rome has gone, but the Man of Nazareth is still King! And, besides
   Rome, how many empires have arisen? Earth has been shaken with the
   tramping of their legions, but where are their thrones and the men who
   filled them? They are gone, gone to the dust from which they came! But
   the name of Jesus shall endure forever--men shall always be blessed in
   Him and all generations shall call Him blessed! The day shall come,
   unless the Lord, Himself, appears, when the moss shall grow in the
   halls of the greatest kings, when the markets of commerce shall have
   shifted from their places. Perhaps the day may come when this modern
   Babylon, this emporium of all the riches of the earth, shall cease from
   her glory. Perhaps to western climes--for everything moves
   westward--the greatness may yet go. We do not know. We must not expect
   that our island shall abide forever Mistress of the Sea any more than
   any other. Venice wedded the Adriatic in her golden days, but now her
   canals have heard for many a day the clanking of the prisoner's chains
   and long must it be before her glory can ever return. It may be so with
   England in days to come. But Zion shall never cease to be the city of
   the great King! "Those eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation."
   There is a river that shall not cease to flow, whereon shall go no
   galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby, but there
   the glorious Lord shall be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.
   Your Throne, O God, is forever and ever! A scepter of righteousness is
   Your scepter. You love righteousness and hate wickedness and,
   therefore, God, even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of
   gladness above Your fellows." This, then, is the crown that flourishes!

   But do notice, once more, and then we have done, it is said, "But upon
   Hmselfshall His crown flourish." Does it mean that the crown shall
   always be seen to have reference to Himself? Does it also mean that it
   shall be by His own power and His own Person that He shall sustain the
   dignity of His crown? Sometimes the crowns of monarchs seem to flourish
   upon the heads of their prime ministers or privy councilors. It seems
   as if the empire flourishes because of some admirable person at its
   back. But it is not so with Christ. " Upon Himself,shall His crown
   flourish." He won it! He wears it. He sustains it. He throws down the
   gauntlet to every foe who would rob Him of it! Now, this seems to say
   to us when we preach His Gospel, we must preach Christ, because it is
   upon Truths of God concerning Him that His crown shall flourish! If we
   do not, therefore, preach up Christ, Himself. If He is not the great
   Subject of our discourse. If He is not held up manifestly crucified
   among the people, we have kept back the mightiest theme! It is upon
   Himself that His crown must flourish! Brothers, suppose we give
   ourselves up to the preaching of Doctrine, only? What comes of it?
   Well, those persons who always delight in Doctrines may be, and some of
   them are, the very best of people, but, as a rule, there is bitterness
   of spirit engendered by it from which may the Lord deliver us. Even the
   constant preaching up of experience is pretty sure to bring such people
   into spiritual bondage and to make them rather care to grovel in the
   dust than to mount up towards the sun. But preach Christ! Make Him
   first and make Him last and there will be souls won and saints
   comforted, for, "upon Himself shall His crown flourish."

   What is needed in the midst of His Church, then, is that the King
   Himself should appear in His Glory! That He should once again make bare
   His arm and use that mighty sword of His which cuts through coats of
   mail and pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and
   marrow! And when He comes, oh, when He comes, His crown, indeed,
   flourishes! We must pray for Him to be constantly with us by His
   Spirit. We must watch, also, for His personal Advent, for He whom the
   disciples saw go up to Heaven shall in like manner appear again. Then
   the Glory! Then the manifestation of the hidden ones! Then the
   declaration of the love of God towards those who have been under
   reproach and under adversity! Be of good courage, Brothers and Sisters,
   for He comes, He comes and then, "upon Himself shall His crown

   flourish!"

   I have thus tried to preach both to saint and sinner. Oh, that He would
   bring the sinner to Himself tonight! Oh, dear Hearer, I cannot bear the
   thought that you should have to wear shame as your everlasting
   covering! Tomorrow morning, when you are putting on your clothes, just
   consider how you would like to be clothed with shame. Ah, fine lady,
   when you are decking yourself out in all your pretty things, remember
   that you shall have no waiting maid to dress you in that day, but
   another--even God, Himself, shall come into your robing room and clothe
   you with a dress you would gladly never wear!

   "His enemies will I clothe with shame." See what your livery is to be
   forever and ever? See what your everlasting garment is to be? God grant
   that you may, instead of being clothed with shame, breathe the prayer,
   "Lord, clothe me

   with Your righteousness. Wash me in Your precious blood. Make me Your
   friend and allow me no longer to be among those of whom it is written,
   'Shame shall be the promotion of fools.'" God bless you for Jesus'
   sake, Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM95.

   Verses 1, 2. O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful
   noise to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His Presence
   with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms. There
   must be, there should be joy in our worship--it is the very juice, the
   wine that flows from the trodden grape. It is the cream of the soul
   when the heart takes delight in God and joys in Him. To worship as if
   it were mere duty would be but the reverence of slaves before one who
   is dreaded, but to worship with delight--this is the adoration of
   children who come to One whom they love! God grant us that joy while we
   adore the Lord. Let us, however, mingle great reverence with joy.

   3. For the LORD is a great God, anda great King above allgods. "For the
   Lord is a great God." Jehovah is a great God, "and a great King above
   all gods," above all that are ever called gods, whether they are kings
   or magistrates, or whatever they may be.

   4. In His hands are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the
   hills is His also. Low and high, mysterious, sublime, the dominion of
   God encompasses all Nature!

   5. The sea is His, for He made it: and His hands formed the dry land.
   Creation is the best ground for possession-- what He made is His own,
   the great Freeholder, the Sovereign Lord of all!

   6. 7. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD
   our Maker For He is our God. "For He is our God." Oh, that is the
   sweetest of it all--"He is our God." Let lords and lands have what
   masters they will--let us obey and worship our own God!

   7. And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. He
   is the Shepherd leading, feeding, protecting, guarding us every day.

   7-10. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in
   the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
   when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My work. Forty years
   long was I grieved with this generation. Was not that enough? Is there
   any need to grieve Him again? Think with sympathy of what God endured
   from one generation and let not another generation follow in their evil
   footsteps!

   10. And said, It is a people that do err in their heart Not merely
   through ignorance, but "in their heart." They were not alone with their
   feet and their tongue, but in their hearts.

   10. And they have not known My way. They have seen them but not
   understood them. He says, "They saw My work," but you may see and yet
   not know, for what is merely seen with the eyes but not understood by
   the heart is not known--they were a willful, erring people--and an
   ignorant people.

   11. Unto whom Iswore in My wrath that they should not enterinto Myrest.
   Ah me!
     __________________________________________________________________

Lovely, But Lacking

   (No. 3334)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1912.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "One thing you lack." Mark 10:21.

   THOUGH the Gospel of Jesus Christ most certainly addresses itself to
   the vilest of the vile, it is not exclusively to such that the message
   of salvation is sent. There are, indeed, no characters so far gone in
   vice that the Gospel does not speak to them. However abandoned they may
   be, still is this inviting voice sent to the very chief of sinners,
   "Come to Christ and live." But the Gospel, with equal affection,
   addresses itself to those who are not upon any common estimation to be
   numbered with the chief of sinners--to those whose moral integrity has
   been unimpeachable, whose outward propriety has been scrupulous--whose
   lives in all their domestic and social relations have been commendable.
   There are always some such individuals in our congregation. We are very
   thankful that there are. We have an invitation for them as frank, as
   honest and as earnest as for wanton sinners, heinous transgressors and
   hardened criminals--and our sincere desire is that such may be saved,
   for we believe that they, also, will make illustrious trophies of
   Divine Grace when Grace decides them to decide for Christ.

   Among us we have a large number of most hopeful people, to whom it may
   be said, "One thing you lack." A word of congratulation to you, thatyou
   only lack one thing/Then I propose, therefore, to utter a warning
   because you do lack one thing. And after that a few words of
   instruction to show how this one lack may be supplied. May God grant
   that His power may rest upon His Word, so that you may no longer lack
   the one thing.

   I. First, then, this is A WORD OF CONGRATULATION.

   Let us take this young man's case as descriptive of that of many here
   present. He did not lack morality. He could say, "All these things have
   I kept from my youth up." Nor did the Savior tell him that he was
   uttering a lie--He looked upon him and lovedhim--which He would not
   have done if he had been a willful liar. No, he had been neither
   unchaste, nor dishonest, nor profane. He had been all that could be
   desired in these respects. I congratulate you if such is your case. It
   will save you from a thousand sorrows to have been kept from those
   grosser sins! You have not formed habits which will lead you in later
   years into temptation. You have not formed associations which it will
   be difficult to break. You have not learned words, phrases and
   sentiments which will defile your memory in later days, even though you
   should live to hate them. I thank God that you have this
   privilege--that it cannot be said of you that you lack in morality!

   Nor was this young man's lack that of outward religion. We are told--I
   think it is by Luke or Matthew--that he was a ruler. That is to say, as
   we read it, a ruler in the synagogue. He was one who had taken office
   among his coreligionists and had even presided in their religious
   assemblies. He was a young man, remember, and it is not often that
   young men attain to such a position, so that he must have been not only
   scrupulously excellent in his conduct, but he must have been regarded
   by all who knew him as remarkably religious at heart. Indeed, when he
   knelt down before the Savior, when he addressed Him as, "Good Master,"
   he showed that his outward habits were of a religious cast. And so I
   congratulate some of you that you love the place where Christians meet,
   that in their sacred songs you take an interest, that their Holy Book
   is a book not altogether unread by you, that you would be grieved if
   you could not go up to the assembly of God's people. I am glad that as
   touching these things in your outward regularity, some of you might
   even put others to shame who are further advanced than you in spiritual
   things. You do not lack for morality--you do not lack for the outward
   part of religion!

   Nor can I suppose that this young man lacked a becoming respect for
   whatever was pure and lovely and of good report. In addressing our Lord
   by that remarkable title which was not used by Jews even to their
   Rabbis, he showed how he

   looked upon the Holy Christ with a profound awe. He did not perceive
   His Deity, but what he did perceive of His matchless goodness he
   deferred to. And it is so with you, my Friend. You never utter an
   opprobrious word against God's people. You would be very grieved to
   hear them evilly spoken of. You love the ministers of Christ. There is
   no company that pleases you better than the company of the people of
   God. You have religion--you have a respect for that part of religion
   which as yet you do not possess. You wish you had it. You envy those
   who have it and would wish to be the meanest of them all if you might
   but have a part among them. I congratulate you upon this! I thank God
   concerning you. Looking upon you, I feel as Jesus did, that my heart
   loves you and I gladly would that you had the necessary supply of that
   thing which you still lack.

   This young man did not lack orthodoxy. He was no doubter, skeptic, or
   professed infidel. He said, "What must I do that I may inherit eternal
   life?" He believed in eternal life. He was not one of those Sadducees
   who say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit. He
   venerated the grand old Truths of his father's religion--he was a firm
   believer in the orthodox faith. And so with you. You have never yet
   dared to doubt the Word of God and as far as you have learned its
   meaning, you hold that meaning in the most solemn respect. You would
   not for the world be found a heretic! You would not willfully call in
   the existence of God, the deity of Christ, the Atonement by blood, or
   any other of the essentials of our most holy faith. As far as your head
   is concerned, you are clear enough about these things. I thank God for
   this, for it is a grand escape from a pestilent evil. It is hard to get
   a man's conscience sound who has gone through the great dismal swamps
   of infidelity. After once listening to the vile suggestions of
   ungodliness, or reading such infamies as come from the pen of a Tom
   Paine, the soul seems as if it never could get clean of the corruption!
   It is such pitch--it sticks to one's hands--and though one takes to
   himself nitre and much soap, yet shall he scarcely cleanse himself from
   the defilement! You have not acquired that taint of your moral
   constitution. Thank God for it! I bless God that in His abundant mercy,
   you do not lack for a knowledge of the faith and a degree of belief in
   it!

   Nor yet, my dear Friends, did this young man lack sincerity. I have
   noticed same expositors speaking of him as a hypocrite, but he was as
   far away from being a hypocrite as the North Pole is from the South! He
   was transparent in all he said. Even that little bit that looks like
   boasting--"All these have I kept from my youth up," shows how ingenuous
   the man was. A man who was not sincere would have minced a little and
   kept back an expression so complimentary to himself. He was the very
   mirror of candor and so are some of you. You have not learned the ways
   of craft. You do not assume to be what you are not. Though you mix with
   God's people, yet you have not ventured to proceed to Baptism without
   faith, nor do you dare to come to the Communion Table because you fear
   you have not fellowship with Christ. You prove your sincerity in many
   ways and upon this, I again congratulate you and thank the God of
   Mercy!

   This young ruler, moreover, did not lack for zeal The way in which he
   came to Christ showed his ardor. He came to Him runningand fell down
   before Him, saying, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" You, too,
   have a zeal for God, though not according to knowledge. If the Holy
   Spirit shall but teach you what the one thing is that you are lacking,
   I believe you will seek after it. I trust you will. At any rate, up to
   the measure of your light you have been, up till now, quick, zealous
   and desirous to do what you could.

   This young man also was exceedingly thoughtful. Half the battle with
   many men is to make them think, even if they think wrongly. It is
   almost better for them to think in the most crooked manner than not to
   think at all. The men least likely to be saved are they who go about
   their business or their pleasures and will not imagine that they have
   time for thought. But here was a thoughtful man. He had studied the Law
   and had tried to keep it. He was now something more than thoughtful--he
   was anxious. "What lack I yet?" as if he felt there was something he
   did not know and he would gladly know what it was. He was not so
   self-righteous as some have fancied he was. He had a self-righteous
   head, but he had a seeking heart. His head made him think that he had
   kept the Law, but his heart told him that he had not, for he said,
   "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" which he would not have said
   if he had believed that he had religion enough to inherit it. He said,
   "What lack I yet?" which I think he would not have said if he had not
   known that he did lack something, though he knew not what. I am
   thankful--I am again thankful to God and I congratulate you, my dear
   Hearers, if you are somewhat in the same position, if you can honestly
   say, "I have tried to do what I can, I have sought to do as far as my
   light guides me. I do not believe I am saved, but I wish I were. What
   is it? What is that secret something which can fill the aching void
   within my heart? What is that which can give me rest? For rest as yet I
   do not possess."

   Once more, this young man did not lack for willingness--at least he
   thought he did not He believed himself willing to do anything, to give
   anything, to suffer anything if he might but be saved. So also do some
   of you. You would stand up in the congregation tonight and say, "The
   Lord knows there is nothing within my reach that I would not do. There
   is nothing under Heaven that I would not bear if I might but inherit
   eternal life." But, perhaps like this young man, you do not know your
   own heart--and if Christ were to try you with some searching
   precept--you might, like he, go away sorrowing. But, at any rate, as
   far as you know, you are willing. And I am glad of this and thankful
   that all these points are in you. Though you do lack, yet you do not
   lack any of these, but lack something else.

   The fact is, this young man lacked knowledge. He did not know the
   spiritualityof the Law. He had never been taught that the Law concerns
   our glances, our thoughts and our imagination. He supposed he had kept
   the Law because he had not committed any act of adultery, or of
   theft--nor had he spoken the thing that was not true. He did not know
   that an unchaste glance, or a causeless hatred, or a covetous desire
   breaks the Law of God and betrays the sin that lurks in the breast. He
   did not know that and, perhaps, some of you do not know it. Oh, that
   you may be led to know it! May God not only make you know it as a
   matter of knowledge, but understand it as a matter of conviction deeply
   written in the conscience! And he did not know the plan of salvation.
   The question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" showed that he
   did not know that salvation is not by doing, but by believing--not by
   our works, but by a simple trust in Jesus. This was a great deficiency!
   Though he was a model of uprightness in a hundred interesting points
   which we cannot now stay to discuss, he was lacking in a matter of
   vital interest to his immortal welfare! In that he was just like many
   of you. With looks of love and pity, with feelings of tender regard,
   but deep anxiety, we turn to you, therefore, with this reflection, "One
   thing you lack."

   II. And now we shall change the note. THIS TEXT HAS A WORD OF WARNING.

   "One thing you lack." What was the one thing that this young man
   lacked? It was the full surrender of his heart to God in Christ. He had
   not done that. Our Savior gave him, therefore, a command which tested
   him. He bade him go, sell all that he had and distribute it to the
   poor. This is not a command which He gives to all men, but He gave that
   particular command to that particular young man according to his
   particular circumstances--He saw that he was not the man that could
   endure to be poor. He saw, too, that he had made his riches his idol.
   He was a gentleman. He was a man of great possessions. He does not seem
   to have been a cheapskate. He could hardly have been a ruler of a
   synagogue, one would think, if he had been, but still, he had a great
   liking for position. He was a gentleman and there are a great many
   people who would sooner be gentlemen than they would be saints--and
   sooner be thought to belong to the upper and respectable circles of
   society than they would be thought to be devout and holy! This young
   man would have liked to have been both, but the Savior, seeing that his
   wealth was in his heart and that he had loved it better than he did his
   God, said to him, "Part with your wealth, for if you are decided for
   God and your heart is wholly His, you will prove it by the readiness of
   your obedience." Here, then, was the thing he lacked--he lacked the
   full surrender of his heart to God's will. And so he went away
   sorrowing, for he had great possessions.

   This lack of the full surrender of his heart to God's will made him
   shun the reproach of being a follower of Christ. Hence, though he would
   call Christ, "Good Master," he would not turn and follow Him and learn
   of Him. So the Master said, after He had bid him sell his goods, "Take
   up the cross." That is to say, "Come out and confess Me. Having done as
   I bid you, then come and say I am a disciple of that Man who is
   despised and rejected. I will follow Him to prison and to death, and I
   will preach His Word though I be put to death for it. I will take up
   the cross. "

   Christ knew that the one thing he lacked was the full giving up of his
   heart to God and, therefore, He said, "Follow Me, for if you really do
   love God, you will follow His Son. If your heart is fully given to God,
   you will be willing to be obedient to Christ, to take Him for your
   Leader, Master, Savior, Guide, Friend and Counselor." Now, in this the
   young man failed. He could not so give himself up wholly to God. He
   could not at that time, at any rate, so give himself up as to be
   completely Christ's servant. Now, no man who fails in this respect can
   enter Heaven! Christ will save you, but a part of the agreement on your
   part must be this, "You are not your own, but are bought with a price."
   If you would have Christ's blood to redeem you, you must give yourself
   up to Christ--your body, your soul, your spirit, your substance, your
   talents, your time, your all! You must from this day be Christ's
   servant, come what may. If persecution should arise, you must be
   willing to part with all that you possess--with your liberty, with your
   life, itself, for Christ--or you cannot be His disciple. He may never
   call you literally to sell your goods and distribute all, but He does
   call you to acknowledge that your goods are not your own, but His. That
   you are only a steward and must be willing, therefore, to give to the
   poor and to dedicate to the honor of His Kingdom, such part as shall be
   meet and right of all that you have, not as though you were bestowing
   anything of your own, but only as yielding up to God what belongs to
   Him! He claims that you now turn over, if you would be saved, yourself
   and everything you have by an indefeasible title deed to the Great Lord
   of All whose you must be. If you would be saved by the blood of Jesus,
   you are not from this day to choose your own pleasures, nor your own
   ways, nor your own thoughts, nor to serve yourselves, nor live for
   yourselves or your own aggrandizement. If you would be saved, you must
   believe what He tells you, do what He bids you and live only to serve
   and honor Him. I am ashamed to have to say that a great many Christian
   professors seem to be false to this, their agreement, but, as my Lord
   will take no less, I dare ask no less of you. It seems to me all too
   little. He has bought us, not with silver and gold, but with His own
   precious blood! Surely, then, we should be quite willing to say--

   "'Tis done, the great transaction's done, I am my Lord's, and He is
   mine." What you keep to yourselves you shall lose, but what you give to
   Him you save and gain! Your treasure on earth the moth shall eat and
   the rust corrupt, but your treasure in His keeping no moth shall ever
   fret, nor canker ever devour. All is safe which is given up to Christ!
   That which is kept back from Him, whatever it may be, shall prove a
   curse to you. Say, then, my dear young Friend, with all your
   excellences, do you lack the giving up of your heart, the full giving
   up of yourself to Christ? Oh, I am grieved that you should lack it! I
   am, indeed, grieved that you should lack it! I would like my Lord to
   have such a bright gem as you to glitter in His crown! I would like the
   Good Shepherd to have so dear a lamb to carry in His bosom! What? Shall
   so fair a flower shed its fragrance for His enemies? Let the Savior
   take it and wear it in His bosom--He is willing--may His Grace take it
   tonight! One cannot bear that you, that you having so much, should lack
   but one thing. If you lacked all, that were grievous, but lacking but
   one thing, oh, why should not that lack be made up? God grant it at
   once! To miss Heaven! I cannot bear to think that you should, when you
   really are so sincerely anxious about it. To have such desires and to
   be so fervent, too, and yet not to give your whole heart to my Lord?
   Poor things are desires if they get no farther! Desire will not quench
   thirst, neither will it stay hunger. You must take Christ and live on
   Him or you shall die! To think, dear Friends, that some of you should
   miss Heaven through your wealth! Why need it be? And yet it is often
   so. The rich will not go to hear the Gospel as the poor will--and when
   they hear it, there is often so much care about their extensive
   business, or, on the other hand, there is so much attraction in that
   circle of gay and thoughtless friends, that it is hard for them to be
   saved. Oh, what a pity that the mercies of God should lead you to
   Hell--and that riches hereshould all but involve you, or altogether
   involve you, in eternal poverty hereafter! God in His mercy prevent it,
   that you may yet be saved!

   The sad thing to remember is that you who lack one thing, in lacking
   that one thing, lack all, for though I congratulated you that you had
   morality, that is poor stuff when it has no foundation in love to God.
   Your sincerity, I think I must suspect that it is exhausted if, after
   having been told the way, which is simply to believe in Christ and give
   yourselves up to Him, you now refuse! Yes, and all the good things
   which I have strung together with words of congratulation are but as
   the colors of a bubble that shall pass away unless you have this one
   thing. The one thing is like the unit set before many ciphers which
   will make them into a great amount, but without the one figure, first,
   all those ciphers will stand for nothing, many as they are! If by the
   Grace of God in your heart and the exercise of a living faith in the
   dying Savior, you give yourself wholly up to God, then every good
   thing, lovely thing and thing of good repute shall be embalmed and
   preserved, but, without this, they shall be like faded flowers--fit
   only to be cast behind the wall or to perish on the dunghill!

   III. Lastly, we shall give you A WORD OF DIRECTION.

   If you would inherit eternal life, Christ's direction is, "Sell all
   that you have and give to the poor." Now, what did He mean by that? We
   shall read it three ways and very quickly. First, He meant in the young
   man's case, "Give up your idol.." His was wealth. He means the same
   kind of trial for you. Give up your idol. What is it? I pause. You may
   look, but I am sure that if you are not loving God you are loving
   something else--and whatever it is that you love better than God is
   your idol--and you are an idolater--and your idol must fall to the
   ground if Jesus is to be All in All. You cannot serve two masters--and
   whatever your present master is, it must be thrown out--that Christ may
   come in.

   "Sell all that you have." Well, that means another thing as I read it,
   that is, consecrate your all to God. How can you expect, if you
   withhold and keep back part of the price from God, that He should
   accept you and save you by Jesus Christ. No, come, poor guilty Sinner,
   and wash in the purple stream that flows from Jesus' heart and then say
   in return, "My Lord, since, You have thus redeemed me--

   "All that I am, and all I have

   Shall be forever Thine.

   Whatever my duty bids me give,

   My cheerful hands resign.

   And ifI could make some reserve,

   And duty did not call

   I'd love my God with zeal so great

   That I must give Him all."

   The third reading of this passage will be--give up your hindrances.
   This young man's hindrance was his possessions, and it was better that
   he should relinquish his possessions and be saved, than be hindered by
   his wealth. What, my dear Friend, is your hindrance? Give it up! Give
   it up! Give it up! Oh, I know some of you that are hindered by bad
   company. You are often imposed, but it is all blown away by those merry
   men whose merriment is tinged with lasciviousness. Give them up! Will
   you give them up, or give up Christ? Which shall it be? You remember in
   John Bunyan's Lifehe says that one Sunday when he was playing on the
   village green at a game of cat, he was just about to strike the cat
   when a voice came to him from Heaven, and said, "Will you have your
   sins and go to Hell, or leave your sins and go to Heaven?" And he stood
   there in the midst of his companions and paused, and they could not
   think what ailed the tinker while he was disputing in his mind which it
   should be--Christ and Heaven--or his sins and Hell! Now, whatever your
   hindrance is-- if it is money, if it is anything--whatever it is, give
   it up! If it is your right hand, you had better cut it off and cast it
   from you, than having it enter into Hell. If it is your right eye, it
   were better for you to pluck it out than having two eyes to be cast
   into Hell's fire! That is the cry of the text tonight--down with your
   idols! Give them all up! Cast away your hindrances and come to Christ
   and trust Him! That is the first word of instruction.

   But the second instructive word is, " Take up the cross." That means,
   profess Christ You have a notion, perhaps, some of you, that you will
   sneak into Heaven as secret Christians. Take care that if you try that
   you do not find yourselves at another gate than the gate of pearl!
   Christ came not to save those cowardly souls who will not acknowledge
   Him. His own words are, "He that denies Me before men, him will I deny
   before My Father who is in Heaven." Ashamed of Jesus? Ah, then,
   remember those words, "The fearful and unbelieving"--the fearful--that
   is those who are afraid to acknowledge Christ as their Master--"shall
   have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone,
   which is the second death." I pray you, then, if you are Christ's,
   confess Him! Acknowledge Him! Confess that you are His--take up the
   cross, take up your cross--that is, endure His reproach. You would not
   like to be called a canting Methodist, or Presbyterian, or some other
   ugly name. Ah, but, my dear Friend, if you would have Christ's crown,
   you must have Christ's Cross--and he that is not willing to be sneered
   at with Christ cannot reign with Christ! And what if they do sneer at
   you? If that is your cross, take it up! What higher honor can a man
   need on this side of Heaven than to be called a fool for Christ? I know
   the day shall come when angels shall envy the men that were permitted
   to have the privilege of suffering for Christ. You know the old story
   of Henry the Fifth, when, in view of a battle, it was said he needed
   more men, but he replied that he did not wish for more men, for--

   "The fewer men, the greater share of honor,"

   and he pictured the day when

   "Gentlemen of England, now a-bed

   Shall think themselves accursed they were not here!"

   Truly, if you could escape rebuke and persecution, you might well be
   grieved to think that you went to Heaven by so mean a way! Be willing,
   then, like a brave spirit, to take up the cross and carry it, counting
   the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.
   Take up your cross--that is, trust in the Cross--grasp it as your only
   hope! Let the Atonement which Jesus made by His death be the delight of
   your soul and from this day always boast therein.

   The last word of direction was--"Follow Me." Christ said, "Follow Me."
   He meant, did He not, confide in Me? As a confiding sheep follows its
   shepherd, so follow Me. He meant "Obey me, as the servant follows where
   the Master leads, so trace My footsteps and let My example be your
   rule." So Jesus says to you, also, "Persevere in following Me. Never
   cease so doing. Follow me right up to My Throne and there rest with
   Me."

   Listen, then, each of you here present, who have only one thing that
   you lack. Will you now--may His Holy Spirit make you--give up the world
   and all it offers you? Will you give up sin and all its fascinations
   and close in with God in Christ and give your whole heart to Him?
   Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision. There is a Valley of
   Decision to us all, when we are either left to our own wills to decide
   for evil, or the Grace of God makes us decide for Christ! The cry is
   heard in this house tonight, "Divide, divide." Those who shall say
   "yes" within their hearts take their place with Christ! But those who
   say, "no"--those who give the negative to the command of Christ--let
   them at least know what they are doing! And if they will go the
   downward road, let it be with their eyes open that they may know where
   they go. But, oh, say not, "No!" Oh, Spirit of God, let them not say,
   "No!" Yield, Man, yield Woman, to the gentle impulse which now bids you
   say, "I will take His yoke upon me, for it is easy. I will follow Him."
   Yield to His love who round you now the bands of a man would cast--the
   cords of His love who was given for you--to His altar binding you fast.
   Pray this prayer--"Lord, bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords
   to the horns of the altar! Let me be Yours now, and Yours hereafter
   when You come in Your Glory!"

   There is a question that has often been asked, with feelings of
   curiosity, which I cannot answer. It is this--did the young man inherit
   eternal life after all? I think he did. I think he did because Jesus
   loved him. I like his character throughout, as the Savior evidently
   did, and He did not love because of outward appearances--He looked at
   the heart. I am not altogether displeased at his going away. It was a
   deal better than staying if he did not follow honestly the Good Master
   who had eternal life at His disposal. I even look hopefully at his
   pausing awhile before complying, if such was the case, for the man that
   flings all away in a moment may want it back again tomorrow. It was a
   great deal he had to part from and he went away--but he did not go away
   careless. I know I would be glad if my Hearers went away sorrowing when
   they are not converted. I would think it was a hopeful sign. He went
   away sorrowing and though the Savior drew from that the moral that it
   was hard for a rich man to be saved, yet He said it was possible with
   God, and why, then, was it not possible with that young man? I do not
   know. There are some things to be said on either side, but where
   Scripture is silent, we must not decide.

   But there is another question that I think is vastly more
   important--and to me, more interesting and to each one of you a deal
   more so--and that is will that young man that I have been talking to
   tonight, be saved? And the young woman that I tried to describe just
   now--will she ultimately inherit eternal life? Oh, may God grant that
   the answer may be in each case, "Yes, Lord, You know all things, You
   know that I trust You, that I love You and whatever You tell me to give
   up, or to be, or to do for Your name's sake, even all things, I will do
   it." Then the Lord bless you, for you are saved and you shall be His in
   the day of His appearing!

   God give His blessing for Jesus' sake.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK9:2-21.

   Verses 2-7. And after six days Jesus took with Him, Peter, and James,
   and John, and led them up into a high mountain apart by themselves. And
   He was transfigured before them and His raiment became shining,
   exceedingly white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can whiten them.
   And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they were talking
   with Jesus. AndPeter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for
   us to be here andlet us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one
   for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he knew not what to say; for they
   were sorely afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: anda
   Voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My belovedSon: hear Him.
   You and I have sometimes wished that we could see Christ in His earthly
   Glory. We need not, however, wish it, for if such a sight were
   permitted to us, in all probability we would be more full of fear than
   of joy. These three men, the elect out of the elect, the very choicest
   of the Apostles--had little delight in what they saw at the time, for
   the Glory was too bright for their overwhelmed natures--

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

   We had better wait awhile until these eyes shall have been cleansed and
   our whole fabric shall be fit for such a weight of Glory as the sight
   of our exalted Lord will be!

   8. And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man
   anymore, save Jesus only with themselves. Unhappy, indeed, would they
   have been if they had looked about and seen none but Moses, for poor
   comfort could Moses bring! Or if, looking around, they had seen none
   but Elijah, for the stern Prophet of Fire would have been but a poor
   consolation to them in their life struggles. But Moses may go and
   Elijah may go. Lawgiver and Prophet may vanish! As long as Jesus Christ
   remains, it is enough! Jesus only is enough for all our needs--for all
   our desires.

   9, 10. And as they came down from the mountain, He charged them that
   they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of Man
   were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves,
   questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.
   For they did not understand the Master's words--not even these
   Apostles, for the Spirit of God was not yet fully given. Happy, indeed,
   is he upon whom the spirit of God rests--and in whom He dwells--for as
   John says, "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and know all
   things," and these men without that measure of anointing did not know
   at that time even such a simple word as this--that the Son of Man
   should rise again from the dead! Brothers, we must be taught of the
   Holy Spirit, or we shall never know anything profoundly. We might go to
   school to Christ, Himself--now, mark this word--we might go to school
   to Christ Himself and yet learn nothing until the Holy Spirit should
   come upon us to write the Truth of God upon our heart which Christ has
   spoken to the ear. Oh, if you lack wisdom, ask of God, and He will give
   you of His Spirit!

   11-13. And they asked Him, saying, Why do the scribes say that Elijah
   must first come? And He answered and told them, Elijah verily comes
   first, and restores all things, and how it is written of the Son of
   Man, that He must suffer many things, and be set at naught. But I say
   unto you, That Elijah is indeed come--he was John the Baptist.

   13. And they have done unto him whatever they wished, as it is written
   of him. It is rather singular that the disciples should begin to ask
   about the scribes, for this was, as it were, a sort of warning note for
   a battle into which they were about to plunge. They talked about the
   scribes, but the scribes were down below in conflict with the rest of
   the Apostolic brotherhood, and now, while they are talking about them,
   they find themselves immediately in their presence.

   14, 15. And when He came to His disciples, He saw a great multitude
   about them, and the scribes questioning them. And immediately all the
   people, when they beheld Him, were greatly amazed, and running to Him
   saluted Him. The probability is that the face of Jesus Christ was
   shining like the face of Moses when he came down from the mount, and
   the people were amazed though not with that same amazement which seized
   upon Israel when they saw the face of Moses, for Moses had to cover his
   face with a veil. But they ran to Him and saluted Him. The Glory of
   Christ attracts, whereas the Glory of Moses repels. The Glory of the
   Law is terrible, but the Glory of the Gospel is cheering and
   attractive.

   16, And He asked the scribes, What are you discussing with them?Like
   some great commander stepping into the field when his under followers
   are being beaten, he comes right to the front and charges the foe
   boldly. Christ said, "What are you discussing with them?"--as much as
   to say, "Why did you not wait a bit and ask me? I could have answered
   you if they cannot."

   17, 18. And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have
   brought unto You my son, which has a dumb spirit, and wherever it
   seizes him, it throws him down: and he foams at the mouth and gnashes
   his teeth, and becomes rigid. A case of dreadful epilepsy accompanied
   with satanic possession.

   18, 19. And I spoke to Your disciples that they should cast him out;
   and they could not. He answered him and said, O faithless generation,
   how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear you? Bring him to
   Me. That is a grand piece of advice, and a blessed word of
   permit--"Bring him to Me." There is no case so bad but if you bring it
   to Jesus, He can meet it. "Bring him to Me." Now, good Woman, bring
   your daughter's case to Christ tonight in prayer while you are sitting
   in the pew. Now, come, Brother, bring the case of your son who seems
   utterly to be abandoned to vice. Bring the case before Christ tonight!
   "Bring him to Me." Oh, who would not bring his friend--his wife? Who
   would not bring her husband or her child unto Jesus Christ? "Bring him
   to Me."

   20. And they brought him unto Him. Some came to help the father,
   probably the bringing of the young man was too much an effort for one
   alone. "They brought him unto Him." Two or three of you with united
   prayer can do what, perhaps, one man's prayer would not. Come, help one
   another! "Bear you one another's burdens" in prayer. I would suggest
   that if one of you should have an ungodly son or daughter who causes
   you trouble, you should commune with some of Lovely, but Lacking Sermon
   #3334

   your Brothers and Sisters in Christ and say, "Let us together make this
   case a matter of prayer till God hears us." And then you must take up a
   case of theirs, you know, turn and turn about, and see whether God does
   not in answer to prayer bless one after another that you thus bring to
   Christ! I know what the result will be--if it is honestly tried in
   simple confidence in the power of Jesus!

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

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [1]15:1   [2]49:8

   1 Samuel

   [3]10:22-23

   1 Kings

   [4]5:14   [5]14:13

   1 Chronicles

   [6]12:8-15

   2 Chronicles

   [7]34:15   [8]34:18   [9]34:19

   Job

   [10]32:7   [11]37:7

   Psalms

   [12]18:44   [13]19:7-9   [14]21:3   [15]45:3-5   [16]65:5   [17]95:5
   [18]99:1   [19]107:30   [20]132:14   [21]132:18

   Isaiah

   [22]5:1   [23]9:3   [24]35:6   [25]55:1   [26]61:3

   Jeremiah

   [27]31:8-9

   Ezekiel

   [28]33:11   [29]33:22

   Micah

   [30]7:18

   Matthew

   [31]3:16-17   [32]9:28   [33]13:51   [34]13:55-56   [35]22:8-10
   [36]24:12

   Mark

   [37]5:9   [38]10:21

   Luke

   [39]19:10

   John

   [40]10:9   [41]16:33   [42]19:34

   Romans

   [43]5:20

   1 Corinthians

   [44]10:16-17

   2 Corinthians

   [45]4:3

   2 Thessalonians

   [46]2:13

   1 Timothy

   [47]4:13

   2 Timothy

   [48]1:12

   Hebrews

   [49]2:14-15   [50]8:10   [51]9:19-20   [52]12:3
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

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